Russian soldiers appear to be dying in Ukraine at a remarkably high rate
Casualties in the early weeks far exceed the tolls in other recent conflicts — jorndoe

Oh it is expected for each side to exaggerate the other sides losses. I have no use for casualty figures except when this thing is over, and when the UN confirms them. I accept UN figures:

Date: 18 March 2022

From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 17 March 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 2,149 civilian casualties in the country: 816 killed and 1,333 injured.

This is unexpected:

In Donetsk and Luhansk regions: 903 casualties (222 killed and 681 injured)
On Government-controlled territory: 675 casualties (172 killed and 503 injured)
On territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘republics’: 228 casualties (50 killed and 178 injured) — UN

You mean it didn’t happen? It’s fake news?

He said that sending arms to Ukraine is more disgusting than bombing Ukraine. Literally. — Olivier5

And under which circumstances/assumptions would that be true?

I feel like I want to give credit to ssu for presenting the more or less pro-NATO case reasonably. I don't know if you've read everything but some of the flack directed towards him has been rather personalized and unwarranted. — Baden

:100: :clap:

Over a thousand children died from completely preventable consequences of poverty just in the time since you posted that picture.

You asked why it's propaganda. It's propaganda, not because it didn't happen, but because it focuses social attention (which means it pulls attention away from other things). Barring outright lies, that's how propaganda works, by highlighting one grain of truth without any of the context, to pull people's attention to that one matter and away from the others.

Exactly what's happening here. The atrocities of war being used to keep attention firmly fixed on one issue, so that others (with no lesser a death toll) can go unnoticed.

"The 'other' is the enemy. They're sub-human - can't be reasoned with, they have no common goals (only their own peculiar ones). All the ills are their fault."

You seriously don't recognise that rhetoric? Not sounding familiar to you in any way...?

He said that sending arms to Ukraine is more disgusting than bombing Ukraine. Literally.
— Olivier5

And under which circumstances/assumptions would that be true? — Benkei

Let @boethius answer that, since after all it's his assumption, and a disgusting one at that.

The Russians reported almost 10,000 soldiers deaths and 16,000 maimed yesterday, and then they pulled out the report. So after less than a month, this war is already costing them as much as years in Afghanistan.

Another month of this, and they won't have much of an army left.

He said that sending arms to Ukraine is more disgusting than bombing Ukraine. Literally. — Olivier5

No. He gave a 300 word answer of which you ignored 299.

Is this an example of your famous 'trying to understand' the other party's point of view?

He gave a 300 word answer of which you ignored 299. — Isaac

It is easy to write a lot of meaningless text.

Don't lie, Isaac. Just don't. You can live without it, trust me.

I'm not asking him, I'm asking you. Under what circumstances would it be true that sending arms is worse? Or do you believe those circumstances don't exist?

And has he said it's worse or has he said it would make the situation worse, e.g. it doesn't help Ukrainians to send arms or to reach a negotiated settlement? Or do you disagree that a negotiated settlement is the best way out of the war?

See, after 100+ pages all I get from you is Putin is bad, NATO is good, which you haven't shown to be true. When people point out all the bad things done by NATO or its members in the recent past, we get the popularity contest question: Who do you like better? That's not an argument though and I've called out that particular stupidity 50 pages ago. (As I'm writing this, you've just accused one poster of lying and another of writing meaningless text without any amount of argument). It seems all you're here for is insisting that there's only one way to look at the world and that's your way, everybody else is a liar or delusional. That's not how it works.

Me, Isaac and Boethius distrust NATO (or more specifically, the USA as the main policy driver) almost as much as Putin. The only reason I trust USA in the are of war is because my country is a member ofNATO but that means nothing for any party outside of NATO. So our view is that NATO is bad, Putin slightly worse in this particular instance and limited to international relations, which is what we appear to be concerned with in this thread.

You can disagree but neither is Isaac a liar nor is Boethius writing meaningless posts. You are confusing your disagreement (and personal investment in your particular view) with bad faith on the part of others.

Or do you believe those circumstances don't exist? — Benkei

That's correct.

You can disagree but neither is Isaac a liar nor is Boethius writing meaningless posts. You are confusing your disagreement (and personal investment in your particular view) with bad faith on the part of others. — Benkei

You are confusing your own bad faith with sophistication.

That's correct. — Olivier5

Why not?

You are confusing your own bad faith with sophistication. — Olivier5

I happen to think you say really stupid things at times. This is another one. You're very concerned with manners and sophistication and then turn around and accuse people of bad faith or of being liars. Very consistent of you.

Seems unexpected to me. — jorndoe

Similarly goes the civilian casualty figures. That happens when you fire rocket & artillery barrages at urban areas. And when you're out of wooden caskets, that tells something.

Similarly goes the civilian casualty figures. That happens when you fire rocket & artillery barrages at urban areas. And when you're out of wooden caskets, that tells something. — ssu

I was personally hopeful, once the war started, that this was going to be a slam dunk for Russia, not because I want them to win or think their cause is just but because I was hoping the civilians casualties would stay low that way. History has shown how little regard Putin has for civilians.

That's correct.
— Olivier5

Why not? — Benkei

I just can't figure out any circumstances where helping a nation defend herself against aggression would be morally worse than said aggression. If you think it is possible, do explain how.

I happen to think you say really stupid things at times. — Benkei

Feel free to ignore my feeble posts. :mask:

I just can't figure out any circumstances where helping a nation defend herself against aggression would be morally worse than said aggression. If you think it is possible, do explain how. — Olivier5

@boethius has already done so, but it requires that you actually read that which you've prejudicially dismissed as 'meaningless text'

boethius has already done so, but it requires that you actually read that which you've prejudicially dismissed as 'meaningless text' — Isaac

You've read and agreed with it? Maybe you can explain to others here what the argument was? Because I cannot think of any evidence for the statement: "killing someone is morally superior to helping someone."

You've read and agreed with it? — Olivier5

Broadly, yes. I find manipulation leading to human misery to be slightly more disgusting than open aggression leading to the same misery. Something about the attempt to hide it adds to the disgust.

Okay, so Putin is morally superior -- in these circumstances in Ukraine -- to the EU and US, then, according to @boethius and you. Kindly confirm.

I just can't figure out any circumstances where helping a nation defend herself against aggression would be morally worse than said aggression. If you think it is possible, do explain how. — Olivier5

So arming Saddam Hussein in support in his war against the US in the 2003 Iraq War was morally totally the right thing to do?

Okay, so Putin is morally superior — Olivier5

If you have a fiend and a demon and the demon is worse than the fiend, should you conclude the fiend is morally superior to the demon?

It was not Saddam's war, it was Bush's war, remember? And if Iraq had been a democracy, as Ukraine is, if Saddam really embodied his nation's will, as Zelensky tries to do, then it would have been the right thing to do to help him against the aggressor. But he was in fact a worse murderer of Iraqis than Bush.

Unclear, please rephrase.

That depends on the facts on the ground. Facts we are not yet fully in posession of.

You asked a hypothetical - "circumstances where helping a nation defend herself against aggression would be morally worse than said aggression". @boethius answered with a hypothetical (someone invading his country).

Whether that hypothetical applies to Ukraine is a separate question. One we're attempting to address here. The key questions being...

To what extent is Putin deliberately targeting civilians, to what extent does he intend to occupy Ukraine?

...and...

To what extent do the US genuinely believe their arms aid will lead to a Ukrainian win, and to what extent are they just cynically benefitting from having Russia engaged.

If the answer to the former is that Putin is reckless but not inhumane, if he wants neutrality, not dominance...

...and...

If the answer to the latter is that the US know perfectly well Ukraine can't win and are indeed cynically encouraging resistance to benefit from having a global financial power tied up and a massive reconstruction loan in the offing...

...then yes. The US would, under those circumstances be morally inferior. That's exactly why we're discussing those very possibilities.

If you want my current guess, I'm leaning toward the former being "no" (Putin appears to be a monster), and the latter being "yes" (the US know full well what they're doing) making them both as bad as each other.

So you don't care about sovereignty and the crime of aggression is only aggression when you've established the victim of the crime doesn't deserve to be on the receiving end? Hey, I know, let's apply that to regular criminal law too. So if I murder a rapist, that's totally fine, because he had it coming!

That's a double standard. Either it's rule-based or it's not. If it isn't then Putin didn't commit any crime.

That depends — Isaac

Okay so you are not quite sure yet if Putin is morally superior to the EU and US in the circumstances, and lean to moral equivalence between them. Kindly confirm.

As for @boethius, he wrote clearly about his moral preference for murder over cheerleading.

Who's morally superior the fiend or the demon?

So you don't care about sovereignty and the crime of aggression is only aggression when you've established the victim of the crime deserves to be on the receiving end? — Benkei

What? Unclear, kindly rephrase. My position, so you remember what we are discussing, is:

I can't figure out any circumstances where helping a nation defend herself against aggression would be morally worse than said aggression.

Note the term 'nation' in there.

Err... The unicorn?

There's nothing unclear about it. The Iraq war was a crime of aggression. If you can't figure out any circumstances where helping a nation defende itself against aggression, then obviously it follows that supporting Saddam Hussein was the moral thing to do. Yet you just stated it wasn't. So here's already a circumstance where you think it's not the right thing to do, to support a victim of aggression.

So we have a real life example where you can think of a circumstance supporting a nation against aggression is not right. So you're not being able to figure out other circumstances just appear to a failure to think.