Don't feed the trolls.

Here is an interview with a woman who got out of the besieged Mariupol two days ago. You can listen to it if you understand Russian, or read a translation of a partial transcript.

"I thought that life couldn't get any worse. But every day I discovered that it could get worse... When I left, there wasn't a single intact building left. Not a single undamaged road without bomb craters. Not a single unbroken window in the entire city of Mariupol... People carry out the dead and bury them close to home, because you have to stay close to the bomb shelter... Early on there were volunteers who collected corpses left outside at bus stops and benches and drove them to the morgue. But there is no more room in the morgue... The last four days it seemed like not five minutes would go by without sounds of bomb blasts... "

It works well on both sides. "We're prepared for war because they are." The arms vendors win. — frank

Yet notice the subtle difference of having a military as deterrence and not using it to the option of having a military and starting wars with it.

While I agree that this is and should be what we should aspire to, the reality is sovereignty means fuck all. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, rendition etc. — Benkei

Pakistan? How Pakistan? Actually Pakistan is just a great example and the way how the US treated a country that assisted a lot the fighters that the US fought and lost to. Pakistan is the crazy example of a country being an "ally" to both sides and getting away with it.

Afghanistan? Well, the Emirate of Afghanistan is back after fighting a long war against the US, which was backed by NATO. Even South Vietnam held a bit longer than the US backed Afghanistan. So did also the Najibullah regime too.

And finally Iraq. Well, I could start just how problematic and stressed the US-Iraqi relations are, but you would be bored, I guess, and this response would be too long.

The Cuban crisis was averted because the Russians pulled back. NATO decided to play chicken with Ukrainian lives on the line. — Benkei

Historical events aren't monocausal. Yet again this continuous ignorance of any agency of either the Cubans or the Ukrainians themselves.

When it came to Cuba, the US tried everything else but a large scale invasion and it's the Cubans themselves who defended their beaches during the Bay of Pigs landing. Nicaragua has Ortega, Venezuela has Maduro and Cuba is governed by the Communists. That should tell how successful the US has been in it's own back yard after all the proxy wars, the failed coup attempts and covert actions. Just like Russia with Ukraine...only now Russia has opted for all out war. Be their policy choices good or bad, but these countries have shown quite well the limitations of even an Superpower.

Ukraine wanted to join NATO because it obviously could see the imminent danger it was in. And it was no "neo-nazis" that started the march toward NATO membership. It was Leonid Kravchuk, the last Soviet leader of Ukraine and first President of Independent Ukraine, who started the road with Ukraine joining the partnership for peace. Sure, Kravchuk obviously made a huge mistake on thinking that Russia would agree to international law and the promises it made in Budapest in 1994. Yet that was their error: to believe Russia's promises.

An Ukrainian President's "Peace at our time"-error moment in Budapest 1994. Just Like Chamberlain in 1938.


NATO enlargement is simply a side issue here, one thing that Putin extensively uses as a pretext for his imperialistic ambitions. Which, of course when it comes to Russia, are "defensive".

The real issue here is that Russia with Putin at it's helm didn't understand that the Russian Empire was over. They had lost it when the Soviet Union collapsed. Just like Austria had lost the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the British had lost their Empire. For some reason, Putin thinks that he can get it back. That Russia has some right for "a sphere of influnce". It genuinely might have that, if it wouldn't be openly so hostile against it's neighbors.

It would be as if the Netherlands simply "would have a say" in the internal politics of Indonesia and it could freely intervene in Indonesian domestic politics... because, that is the way it is. And then we would talk about Dutch, American and Chinese agenda and objectives in Indonesia and would disregard totally a country with 270 million people. Because that's how the narrative "all this happened because of NATO enlargement" seems to be like.

It's not about taking sides but about recognizing that powerful nations will pursue their interests as brutally as they can get away with, regardless of who they are. — Baden

Well, if there's a will there's a way and those powerful nations can get their hubris shoved up their ass. It really healthy for them.

What I cannot understand why some cannot both oppose wars of conquest from both Russia and the US.

What I cannot understand why some cannot both oppose wars of conquest from both Russia and the US. — ssu

An inability to abstract out a concrete ethical position from an embedded perspective makes reality counterintuitive. This allows e.g. Boris Johnson to be taken seriously as condemning Putin in the strongest terms, while at the same time running and kissing the ass of the Saudi Arabians who are carrying out similarly barbaric acts in Yemen, financed by the U.S., who happily call Putin a war criminal only because he's not their war criminal, and so it goes on... :vomit:

What I cannot understand — ssu

I'm surprised that the American and European sympathy for Ukrainians, but not, say, Yemenis, isn't taken at face value, but counted as racist.

financed by the U.S., — Baden

Not financed by the US. Supported in other ways.

Personally, I think sympathy is controlled by narrative, exposure, and proximity rather than racism. There was plenty of sympathy in Europe for Bosnian Muslims, but that was front and centre and magnified whereas Yemen is further away and minimized.

Comes to mind my country's history: Choose you side when on one side there is Stalin and on the other Hitler. The choice doesn't mean morality doesn't exist.

Yet still I don't understand just why you can't say that on this issue I support and on that issue I deeply condemn.

Besides there is a common issue just when I would condemn the actions. When the argument or justification for a war is a hypothetical.

-We have to get into a civil war because the one side are Communists and hence if we let South Vietnam fall, then it will be next all of Southeast Asia.
- We have to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein might get nuclear weapons and then pose a threat.
- We have to invade Afghanistan because it could be otherwise a safe haven for terrorists and a springboard for further attacks.
- We have to invade Yemen because if the Houthis gain power, Iran might get a foothold in the Arabian Peninsula.
- We have to invade Ukraine because NATO might then use it as an attack on Russia.

All of the above are different to a justification: because X did attack Y, we should defend/give support to Y.

And then historically the absolute worst reason to attack: because time is running out, the war has to be fought sooner than later.

- Hence the German Empire thought it would be good to have the war before Russia gets to be too strong, so they were in a hurry.
- Hence the Project for the New American Century neocons wanted to remodel the Middle East before another Super Power would rise (after the Soviet Union), so they were in a hurry.
. Hence Putin decided to attack Ukraine now as otherwise Ukraine was getting military aid from the West and could possibly get it's economy into shape, so Putin was in a hurry.

OK, supported through arms sales and technical assistance, primarily.

Not financed by the US. Supported in other ways. — frank

Yes. The Saudis do pay hard cash for the M1 Abrams tanks, for those F-15 strike aircraft and smart bombs.

Donald Trump was happy!

OK, supported through arms sales and technical assistance, primarily. — Baden

Yea. What you said was in line with what StreetlightX said earlier. Most of his posts contain outright lies. That was one of them.

Yes. The Saudis do pay hard cash for the M1 Abrams tanks, for those F-15 strike aircraft and smart bombs. — ssu

Of course. The Houthis are Shia, so Saudi Arabia doesn't need any prodding from the US to attack them. The shame is for supporting them while they did it.

Personally, I think sympathy is controlled by narrative, exposure, and proximity rather than racism — Baden

Just to add that the fact that sympathy is (delibrately) fostered and controlled by narrative, exposure and proximity rather than more relevant stuff like degree of injustice or harm is what I'm mainly decrying here.



It's a distinction without much of a difference. Yemeni civilians are being killed with US weapons and the US is profiting from them being killed. Whether the support is direct finance or sweetheart weapons deals doesn't mitigate the ethics of the situation a whole lot, does it?

It's a distinction without much of a difference. — Baden

I disagree.

Ok, can you explain to me the huge ethical difference you see between e.g. selling someone a gun knowing they're going to murder someone with it and giving them money knowing they're going to go buy a gun and murder someone with it.

Ok, can you explain to me the huge ethical difference you see between e.g. selling someone a gun knowing they're going to murder someone with it and giving them money knowing they're going to go buy a gun and murder someone with it. — Baden

Why can't we just get the facts straight? Is that a problem?

I'm happy to be corrected on the facts. I just wonder if you agree that ethically there's no major difference. If you sell someone a weapon knowing they're going to use it to kill civilians, you are partly responsible for those deaths, right? (Would apply to China also if they sell weapons to Russia).

I'm happy to be corrected on the facts. I just wonder if you agree that ethically there's no major distinction. If you sell someone a weapon knowing they're going to use it to kill civilians, you are partly responsible for those deaths, right? — Baden

Yes. You're partly responsible.

We have two different narratives here. In one, the US finances a war crime. This suggests that the US had a particular interest doing damage to Yemen. This is not true.

In the second narrative the US assisted Saudi Arabia, but did not directly finance anything. It was a deal with the devil.

Let's say the weight of American sin is equal in both cases and Americans will spend the same amount of time in Hell either way.

Still, one story is true and the other is a fucking lie. Can we not get the facts straight?

Lmao, "The US didn't fund the Saudis, they just provided them with weapons so they got to skip the step of converting cash to arms and made killing Yemenis easier by ensuring the aid was fit for purpose from the get-go. This is somehow more indirect. I am very intelligent".

To be fair it works out better for the US because they get to cycle tax-dollars to their weapons companies which in turn props up the US economy - which can only function so long as it builds weapons to kill people with.

It's not really that simple, frank. What counts as "financing" is debateable. It could be argued there's no difference except accounting between a discounted arms deal where some other favour, e.g. re oil, is returned and just giving the other party the money to buy weapons. The narrative concerning interest is not something I was arguing for. I don't think the US cares one way or the other, just as they don't really care about the civilian deaths in the Ukraine.

Cross posted...

Can we not get the facts straight? — frank

So that's a no. :chin:

Here's a gun; you can have it for half price (not direct financing). Here's half the price of a gun to help you buy a gun (direct financing). Distinction without a difference. Fact.

I can't find the info on the discounted arms sale. Could you point me to it?

I'll get what I can for you on that. In the meantime:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_States%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_arms_deal

"In August 2018, a laser-guided Mark 82 bomb sold by the U.S. and built by Lockheed Martin was used in the Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen, which killed 51 people, including 40 children."

The human garbage that runs your country should be at least as concerning for you as the human garbage that invaded Ukraine, seeing as you may have voted for the former.

@Baden @frank calm down pls

So what was the end game here? Could've been a couple of things in my view. Either a wish to further intensify sanctions to weaken Russia. Make it spend a lot of money on a, possibly protracted, war. I don't really know and I Wonder if they actually thought that far. I find it more likely that hubris and incompetence have led to this. — Benkei

I think it's pretty clear what the end game was - and is. The West (America and its client states Britain and France) has always hated Russia for having its own interests. First, it hated Russia for being “czarist”, then it hated it for being “communist”, and now it hates it for being “Nazi” or “Stalinist”. Or, perhaps, “Nazi” and “Stalinist”!

The reality, of course, is that the West resents Russia's resistance to being made subordinate to Western economic and financial interests and for that reason it aims to destroy Russia as an independent power.

It would have been very simple for NATO to give Russia some guarantee that it wouldn't seek further expansion in former Soviet republics. But the British and the Americans knew exactly what they were doing which is why they secretly armed and trained the Ukrainians all these years since 2014:

Exclusive: Secret CIA training program in Ukraine helped Kyiv prepare for Russian invasion

The plan is (1) to arm Ukraine, (2) impose more sanctions, and (3) if need be, military intervention, first through European proxies and eventually directly. But the ultimate objective is the same: the destruction of Russia, the incorporation of its economic and political system into America's world empire, and control over its resources. There can be no doubt about it.

The human garbage that runs your country should be at least as concerning for you as the human garbage that invaded Ukraine, seeing as you may have voted for the former. — Baden

Of course. That was never in question. Biden is a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, BTW.

We're calm as far as I know.

@frank

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/19/politics/jared-kushner-saudi-arms-deal-lockheed-martin/index.html

E.g.
"President Donald Trump signed a nearly $110 billion defense deal with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Saturday...

The deal was finalized in part thanks to the direct involvement of Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law and senior adviser. ..

...he personally called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson and asked if she would cut the price of a sophisticated missile detection system, according to a source with knowledge of the call.
...
While calling the head of a major defense company and simply asking for a lower price is widely considered an unorthodox negotiation tactic, Kushner's hands-on approach has drawn comparisons to when then-President-elect Trump criticized the stealthy F-35 fighter jet for being too expensive, and Hewson gave her "personal commitment" to cut the cost of the program in February."

I don't think the exact figures are available on whatever discounts were involved but the principle of indirect financing here stands, regardless.

Biden is a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, BTW. — frank

Being Irish doesn't make you any more moral than anyone else, frank nor does being Catholic, I'd wager. But thanks for the vote fo support, I guess.