Comments

  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Revenge attacks are not justifiedRogueAI

    Right. So we do agree that one is allowed to select an effective means to meet an attack, even if that means heavy casualties, but that intention matters. So your goal needs to be justifiable as well. And from this follows also that you must have a reasonable plan for how your selected end leads to your goal. E.g. noone in the 21st century can reasonably claim that terror bombing civilians will lead to the collapse of your opponent's morale, because this assumption has been pretty conclusively disproven in the 20th century.

    Now in the real world intentions are never as pure nor as easily discernible as in the thought experiment. So usually we need to look at what people do and try to figure out what the goal might be, as well as how reasonable an approach to that goal it is.

    To get back to the topic, the criticism of Israel's military action is not simply that it is prima facie inadmissible. It's also that it seems to be calculated not for defense, but for displacement, and that it seems unreasonable to assume it will be succesful unless the goal is actually to (mostly) depopulate the Gaza strip, in which case we are no longer talking about defense, are we?
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank


    OK, so anything is on the table.

    Let's spin this further: Shmoland knew about the plans and has anticipated the plans for years. They easily turn back the attacker, suffering limited casualties. The leadership now believes there is no actual threat to their country. However, motivated purely by revenge, they now nuke Shmermany's main cities into oblivion.

    Justified?
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank


    So, do we research who each of the dead voted for to determine our level of concern?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    Right. I thought you were arguing that releasing someone's (actual) tax return was a danger to democracy. Which would be weird because whatever else it is, it is truthful information.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    They are trapped in a moral panic, like Pizzagate, but far more prevalent, far-reaching, and consequential. They are the existential threat. They are threatening democracy.NOS4A2

    How are they threatening democracy exactly?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    This appears to be an unsympathetic source trying to be balanced.AmadeusD

    How is this an unsympathetic source?

    The Author is Marc Thiessen, a conservative pundit and, among other things, apologist for torture.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    For example, what is the most costly naval vessel that the German navy has? What has been the most expensive in the long run? It might surprise you, but it has been the Gorch Fock. Which is the ship below:ssu

    Well, let's not be unfair, the Gorch Fock is not dependent on oil or gas and thus provides an important asset in case Germany's access to these resources is cut.

    What makes this whole affair so weird is that the ship is pretty ordinary in technical terms. It's not some wooden ship of the line of ancient heritage. It's a steel-hulled sailing ship from 1958, you could have probably build a new ship to the same specifications for a fraction of the cost.
  • Ukraine Crisis


    Unfortunately Germany currently seems to be slipping into a deep domestic political crisis, with record high dissatisfaction with the ruling coalition, a serious far-right threat and a long-honed aversion against pursuing an active foreign policy.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    The British empire has always consisted of several countries, kingdoms to be exact. See also the treaty of westphalia which speaks of "Princes and States of the Empire" from 1848, which describes how empires were understood.Benkei

    I didn't expect someone to bring up the treaty of Westphalia as an argument... Anyways this is just undermining your own argument, as your explanation for why Britain didn't simply establish a Jewish state was "because they wanted to retain Palestine". Yet now you're arguing they could have done this with a Jewish state in Palestine. So which is it?

    This just underlines you're illiterate when it comes to writings of that time. Marx wrote extensively about nationalism decades before these idiots drafted this document. It's right there in the "internationale". Bentham requested to a Committee for the Reform of Criminal Law, "I will be the gaoler. You will see ... that the gaoler will have no salary—will cost nothing to the nation." - who died in - checks notes - 1832. It's in Theodore D. Woolsey's Introduction to the Study of International Law from 1864.

    But don't let history get in the way of actually interpreting a text in light of the times. What a "national home" meant was crystal clear nationalism, nations, etc. were established words used by everybody with an education at the time.
    Benkei

    Well, if I'm so illiterate it should be no problem for you to make a convincing argument against me. Obviously I don't claim people in 1917 didn't know what a nation or nationalism is. What I'm claiming is that the phrase "national home" was chosen intentionally to allude to the concept of a nation state without actually committing Britain to one.

    Hence why your own source (the only actual part of "everybody" you have so far relied on for your argument) doesn't know what it means and has to assume.

    It's not enough to just
    A repeat what you read about the balfour declaration on wikipedia, which seems your source as every point you make is made there.
    Benkei

    If Wikipedia agrees with my assessments, that's an argument in my favour, unless you additionally want to establish that the Wikipedia page contains false claims.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    It's clear that everyone understood what was meant by "national home".Benkei

    So the opinions of a single prominent person are indicative of "everyone"? I think not. I mean your quote literally starts with the words "I assume"...

    Edit: and actually the sentence immediately preceding your quote is "I don't know what this involves".

    Just because it wasn't previously used in international legal documents, does not mean that it had no then-current, common sense meaning.Benkei

    You can't turn absence of evidence into an argument for your preferred interpretation.

    Because it was not Britain's place to create itBenkei

    Why not? If, as you claim "everyone understood" that "national home" meant nation state and the Balfour declaration became part of the official British mandate, then it would follow that Britain was thereby obligated to create a jewish nation state.

    as an empire did not wish to relinquish what it thought it was its right to Palestine.Benkei

    And yet you're claiming that Britain nevertheless promised to do exactly that.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank


    The point is that the narrative "Britain gave Palestine to the Jews with the Balfour declaration and thus Israel was created" is simplistic and doesn't reflect the actual history of the region.

    You're simply assuming that Lord Balfour's personal opinions about Jews - as reported - were British official policy. But there's no actual evidence for this that I can see. If you're certain this was the case I'd like to hear your argument.

    It also seems odd to claim that "national home" had a clear meaning when it doesn't refer to any established concept, then or now. It's precisely the kind of phrase you would use if you wanted people to read into it what they like to hear, without actually being committed to anything.

    And the facts are that Britain did not actually ever create a Jewish state, nor did it allow unchecked jewish immigration and ultimately refused to even implement the UN plan for the mandate.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank


    The Balfour declaration probably tried to balance a lot of interests at once, in typical British imperial fashion. It played the Zionist card to gain influence with Jewish factions and position Britain as the caretaker of the region. It also pointedly did not include any actual provisions about creating a jewish state and Britain thereafter studiously avoided making any such moves so as to not antagonise the Muslims. It may also have been seen as a convenient way to get rid of Jews in Britain.

    The ongoing power struggle between France and Britain in the region makes it difficult to establish intentions accurately, since both tried to play all kinds of local interest off against each other. "A line in the Sand" by James Barr gives an interesting account of the conflict, though since I'm not a historian I cannot vouch for it's accuracy.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Why exactly did Britain give Palestinian land away is the real question.Vaskane

    Britain did not give anything away, they just ended their mandate and fucked out of there. Britain, having at that point still various muslim subjects, did not want to be associated with the jewish state so blatantly.

    Israel had to belong where its roots were and this is the problem, there was no other solution for Israel either.Vaskane

    There were other solutions. Zionism was not always the majority opinion in jewish communities, there was a lively debate. But then the debate, along with the people participating in it, died. And in the aftermath of that, Zionism suddenly seemed the only logical conclusion.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    In my opinion, that was a perfect template for long-term stability, and it's hard to see why the Russians would have wanted to break that status quo by arbitrarily warmongering.Tzeentch

    Unless the Russians were already aggreviated at being treated as merely a second-rate "regional power" by the west, and the status quo was always unacceptable to the Putin government.

    Basically your view assumes the "primacy of economics", as the western governments generally did post 1990. Under this assumption, China would have no reason to create tensions over Taiwan either.

    The membership of one Superpower would make it more easy to coordinate any actions. It's basically that the US proposes an operation and countries either commit or not. Otherwise you would have to have the "Troika" of France, UK and Germany. They should work together, have an unified objective. Otherwise it is improbable that EU will act in coordination. Germany has huge problems in creating and operating an effective armed forces in the current situation. Not only has it difficulties creating that "bang for buck" in defense spending, it has (like Japan) huge sensitivities in using military force. Only France and the UK have capabilities to project power out of the area. They also do have the "can do" spirit of a Great Power. All other nations are basically supportive.ssu

    Don't write off Poland. Poland may well be a very important player in the EU of the future.
  • Ukraine Crisis


    I suspect that it's less the actual military staffs that are worried about nuclear escalation, and more the politicians that worry about the fears of their voters.

    Putin's trump card in this conflict appears to ultimately be the right wing movements that Russia has sponsored in the West for years. Despite not being in a majority in most countries, everyone's so afraid of loosing votes to the new right that they end up compromising.

    Who knows if, by the time this war is over, the Europe that Ukraine wanted to join still exists. The pull of xenophobic isolationism currently seems irresistible.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    So yes, that US policy makers are hypocrites and aren't making any sort of "stand" in Ukraine is essential to understanding the conflict.boethius

    Noone in this thread has cared the argue that the US is not duplicitous or self-interested.

    Only that a) not literally anything that happens is a US plot and b) the US interest is not necessarily opposed to local interests, and the US does actually do good things.

    Their hypocrisy is immaterial in and of itself.

    As for Europe ... what's the evidence of that European change in sentiments. A lot of people like cheering on the war in Ukraine, that's for sure, but the current protests spreading over Europe: Netherlands, Germany, Poland, France and so on, are not to insist on a mad dash to rearm to fight the Russians but on subjects like wages and the cost of living and fuel and so on.boethius

    A lot of people want nothing more than to be left alone and go back to business as usual as it was 30 years ago. But this is not a new sentiment and it's not caused specifically by the war in Ukraine, the war is simply another sign of the crisis a significant portion of people wants to simply wish away.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    The West should get its own house in order before it starts lecturing and antagonizing other countries, because currently it has zero credibility.Tzeentch

    How does credibility come into this?
    There's plenty of evil in the world the West condones and profits from and there's plenty other evil any Western decision maker or policy analyst will giddily explain at some length how we don't have practical means to do anything about it and so "making a stand" would be counter productive.

    The West has created a theatrical performance in Ukraine (at a severe cost to Ukraine) of pretending to be "standing up" to something, because it serves US interest.
    boethius

    Everyone is a hypocrite, so what? Hypocrisy is an ad hominem charge.

    The US has defeated the Euro as a competitor to the dollar, with plenty of money to throw at the defence industry in the process, which is also now rebranded as intrepid peace warriors almost overnight (rather than the corrupt military industrial congressional complex that ruined Afghanistan and then fled like cowards when it turned into a liability).boethius

    The US military has always been both. The real rebranding is that of the European militaries, which suddenly have gone from necessary evil to integral part of the state again.
  • Fascism in The US: Unlikely? Possible? Probable? How soon?
    But I think it better to look at January 6th as a defeat rather than a success.Moliere

    Yes, the abortive coup itself was a defeat. But since then the anti-democratic forces have fought a seemingly successful campaign to rehabilitate themselves.

    For a few weeks after Jan 6 it looked like there'd be a bipartisan effort to curb these tendencies, but it unraveled and the GOP seems more firmly than ever on the path towards an entrenched minority rule, as @Count Timothy von Icarus has argued in detail.

    Incidentally I think one aspect of fascism that Paxton in his definition from the OP is missing is the disdain for the democratic process.

    For a few years now right wing pundits and influencers have adopted the propaganda line that "the US is a republic, not a democracy". This could certainly be taken in a direction which sees the "will of the people", as a metaphysical force, as the main determining factor.
  • Fascism in The US: Unlikely? Possible? Probable? How soon?
    Certainly possible, but not so probable, because a (too) strong fascist (or other political) movement is a threat to the ruling business movement. :cool:jkop

    I'm no longer so sure about that. The "ruling business elite" knows the risk of some kind of major crash is high and rising. For example: "two thirds of risk experts surveyed expect a multipolar or fragmented world order to emerge in the next decade"

    It seems plausible that some people opt to take the "disaster capitalist" route, that is ride the waves of catastrophes to amass and notably power that can be used to safeguard their interests.
  • Fascism in The US: Unlikely? Possible? Probable? How soon?
    It’s the psychology of a cult of personality. He can do no wrong, so he is immune.schopenhauer1

    I think though that a bunch of the personality cult is tongue-in-cheek. The Trump voter base seems far more concerned with their enemies than with their "glorious leader". Arguably Hillary Clinton as the embodiment of evil is as important to the Trump movement as Trump is.

    And I think this is ultimately why nothing "sticks" to Trump. His supporters do not care so long as he destroys the evil they are convinced is trying to rule their lifes.

    And this brings us back to fascism: the overwhelming sense of crisis and the threat by evil outsiders.

    I think what schopenhaur1 implies, rather than that Trump himself is fascist, is that many Trump supporters are fascist, and they see his actions as an opening of the door, inviting them in. In reality he's just using them for his own personal gain, what schop describes as narcissistic. And, it appears like the number of fascists is sufficient to make opening the door to fascism worthwhile for him.Metaphysician Undercover

    Yeah, Trump is the wrecking ball. The people with a real understanding of the political movement, people like Bannon, are the scary ones.
  • Thomas Ligotti's Poetic Review of Human Consciousness
    It's not necessarily that its not built on happiness, though that is certainly the case.schopenhauer1

    Well I picked that specifically because it's so central to our western societies. That if you're not successful and happy you're either doing something wrong or somethings missing. And since you don't want to be wrong you better buy something.

    And against this it's helpful to remind oneself that evolution doesn't select for happiness.

    As if this argument is about animal intelligence and not about existential differences in animal modes of life is the relevant issue.schopenhauer1

    Well I do also feel the "separation from nature" bit is the weakest part of the metaphor, largely because I see no reason to suppose other animals are somehow "in tune" with nature. They're also each separate, existing as their own little system.

    Perhaps self consciousness, as being aware of your own awareness adds an extra filter that makes our experience of the outside world especially remote.

    An interesting thought experiment, at some point some ancestor of ours, possibly not even a human, was presumably the first to be aware. But, being the first, they'd have no words to express this, nor anyone to mirror it back to them. So was awareness a group thing, that arose when a sufficient number of our ancestors, together, happend to have the brain capacity and just communally became aware of themselves and each other?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The Senate tries, the Chief Justice presides. If convicted he "shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law".NOS4A2

    It doesn't include it either. What precludes it is the double jeopardy clause of the 5th.NOS4A2

    This would be a contradiction though, since double jeopardy applies whether or not you've been convicted.
  • Thomas Ligotti's Poetic Review of Human Consciousness


    I find this take in existence interesting. It reminds me of the "blind idiot god": Humanity has found it's god, it's creator, only to discover that it's like a terrible monster, a blind idiot with neither desires nor goals that just shambles forwards mercilessly.

    In that sense we can view humans as an "excess". Humans are the product of a runaway process of increased mental capacity, which randomly gave us consciousness. Less some crowning achievement and more some weird freak.

    I think it's useful to keep such a perspective in your "arsenal", so to speak. The idea that life is not "about" anything and that there's no reason to assume your existence is built around happiness as some general state can be liberating.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    It was his personal decision to accept the text of the Istanbul communiqué. It was totally different from the initial ultimatum proposal of Russia which they put before the Ukrainian delegation in Minsk.

    So we managed to find a very real compromise.

    Putin really wanted to reach a peaceful settlement with Ukraine.

    This seems to conflict with any other source on the negotiations I have looked at so far. They all stress that a high level meeting of the two leaders was a sticking point and that without such a meeting, Ukraine was unwilling to rely on the communiqué.

    That meeting - and this Putin's possible acceptance, is what was postponed and ended up never happening.

    So I wonder where this insistence that Putin "personally accepted" the Istanbul communiqué comes from.
  • Ukraine Crisis


    Well, as I said, you won't listen to me.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    To answer your question, clearly there is evidence supporting my position. The fact that you're not even willing to look at it is your problem, not mine - your knee-jerk "CONSPIRACY!" reaction tells me all I need to know.Tzeentch

    But I did look. And came up empty. And you clearly don't have any more either or you could have simply posted it and thus exposed me as an ignorant fool.
  • Ukraine Crisis


    Look, you cannot really suppose that a mention in Hillary's emails about a gold dinar and a supposed (but unsourced) russian article constitute sufficient evidence to conclude that not only had the dictator of Lybia somehow set up a functioning scheme to set up a pan-African gold currency, but also that this currency was a threat to the US dollar, and that furthermore the US then in some unspecified way caused the Arab spring to get a SC resolution to bomb Lybia.

    This is an insanely complex theory. It's also fundamentally unlikely given Lybia's resources and Gaddafi's personality and known propensity for grand fanciful schemes.

    It is what Sagan would have called an "extraordinary claim". More generally, the more complex the supposed scheme, the more evidence you need to support it.

    Ask yourself (I'm not expecting a public answer): do you really have the evidence to support that conclusion?
  • Ukraine Crisis


    You're neck-deep into conspiratorial thinking. That is unfortunate, but you'll hardly listen to me so I'm not in a position to help you get out of that swamp.

    I can only tell you to check your confirmation bias yourself and try to think clearly about why you believe what you believe.
  • Ukraine Crisis


    Right, so the story isn't even consistent. At least the gold seems to have been actually real.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    State practice, and thus R2P, is part of international law, and thus of the rules-based order.Tzeentch

    That's not how that works. You need consistend practice by the vast majority of states, which certainly was not the case with R2P. Plus there were consistend objectors, which would also prevent it from becoming custom.

    And clearly the US abused the UN to provide a casus belli for an unjust invasion and coup.Tzeentch

    Yeah? How? How do we tell a "normal" UN resolution from one gained by the US by abusing the system?

    You can stick your head in the sand all you like. There's no shortage of information about why the US invaded Libya (and they all have to do with Gaddafi's resistance to, you guessed it, the American led "rules-based" order). I could link you articles, books, but you've already made up your mind, and such would be a waste of time on my part.Tzeentch

    This is just sad now.
  • Bannings
    A good thing we no longer have to deal with the weird propaganda screeds!
  • Ukraine Crisis
    The point is that the 'rules-based order' is not an instrument for peace and stability, but an instrument the US uses to pursue its own objectives. In this case, it used R2P as a casus belli to invade.Tzeentch

    The problem is that R2P is not part of the rules based order, is not widely accepted as a principle and is not part of international law. Even the West is by now clearly recognising it as a failure.

    The fact that there was a security council resolution changes nothing about that.Tzeentch

    Literally the only clear, unequivocal justification for the use of force under international law is irrelevant according to you?

    Sometimes the US plays according to the rules of the game, but the game was rigged from the start. What nation is going to stick their neck out for poor ol' Libya and invite Washington's ire?Tzeentch

    US resolutions get vetoed in the SC all the time, before and after 2011. This is 100% bullshit.

    We can look at Gaddafi to see what happens to people who make that mistake.Tzeentch

    Plenty of examples of what happens if a major power decides it rather wants you gone. But this is supposed to be about the US abusing the international system, not just directly using it's power.

    The fact that Gaddafi sought to establish the gold dinar as a new African currency is not a 'conspiracy' - it's common knowledge.Tzeentch

    No it's not. The article has this to say on it:

    According to a Russian article titled 'Bombing of Libya – Punishment for Gaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar', Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States.

    And this quote comes from a book, which is then cited by the article.

    No source for the article is given and no information is otherwise available about the scheme, let alone any kind of statement by the countries supposedly involved.

    So the best sources are an eMail allegedly by Clinton and a supposed russian article reported by hearsay twice removed. There's more evidence that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings than for this scheme being real.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    For example, the US carried out its 2011 invasion of Libya under the banner of R2P, even though its goal was to despose Muammar Gaddafi - a person they themselves had helped to power in 1969 - for his ambitions to create a gold-backed alternative to the dollar.Tzeentch

    This seems like a really bad example because that "invasion", the no-fly-zone was backed by a resolution of the security council. One of only three (?) examples where such a sanction could actually be obtained.

    So it was in accordance with the "rules based order".

    There's plenty of examples of unilateral US military force of course. But then these are also not examples of the US abusing a system of control build through international institutions. They were pretty blatantly unilateral actions, justified by the responsibility to protect.

    This behaviour certainly had negative effects (it also deserves to be listed as an indirect contributing factor to the Ukraine war IMHO), but seems to have little to do with the dollar or international organisations.

    Just a small world on the "gold backed alternative to the USD": There's not a single source on this from any official channel, not even statements by Gaddafi himself. It seem like a conspiracy theory invented entirely from an offhand mention in an email allegedly from Hillary Clinton's server.
  • Spontaneous Creation Problems
    The problem with uncaused existence is that, if it is possible, then nothing should stop it from occuring at random.

    Further, being uncaused, there is no reason to expect any specific sort of thing to come into existence over any other. So, we shouldn't just expect lots of stuff to start existing, but different sorts of stuff.
    Count Timothy von Icarus

    Well, how do we know that things don't spontaneously spring into existence all the time? Since the laws of physics as we observe them would already account for this, we wouldn't necessarily notice. We could argue that, if different things came into being constantly, existence must be chaotic and have no observable rules at all.

    But then the anthropic principle strikes and says that bubbles of stability in chaos are possible and observers could only form in such a bubble, so really it's no surprise at all that observers would always find a reasonably stable, ordered world.

    Or perhaps once a relatively ordered "bubble" formed, the resulting interactions keep "different" entities out. If anything goes, there's no reason not to ascribe to our universe the property of "self-stabilising".
  • Ukraine Crisis
    During the unipolar moment the US used many of these systems to instate the so-called 'rules based international order', which in the case of the US usually meant: "Rules for thee, but not for me."Tzeentch

    Can you give some example for this?

    Or am I just the too ignorant for you to explain further? :wink:
  • Ukraine Crisis
    The problem isn't necessarily US imports and exports. It's the petrodollar, the dollar as world reserve currency, the various global financial institutions created by the US, etc.

    It's essentially a system of special 'privileges' the US has created for itself during the unipolar moment, which provide it with a slew of instruments to economically pressure other nations.
    Tzeentch

    But these systems largely don't originate from the "unipolar" phase (I.e. post 1990) but from the Cold war, mostly the 70s.

    They're not simply the result of the US abusing it's "unipolar power" in some unspecified way but rather of the massive preponderance of the US economy outside the Soviet block together with political factors.

    It's not like the US somehow tricked everyone into accepting their leadership role.

    This is the system much of the world is trying to subtract itself from, not in the least because the US tends to function on a "rules for thee, but not for me" basis.Tzeentch

    Which country doesn't? Everyone wants to be the leader and set the rules to their advantage. But noone is there yet. I see little reason to suspect India would grant China the privilege or vice versa. Neither Brasil nor Russia are serious contenders.

    The Arab oil states are rather cleverly positioning themselves as a kind of global mediator, but I think it's to early to tell how this will work long term.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    The economic incentive is certainly there.

    The Ukraine war signaled to a lot of non-western countries that their money is not safe with the US dollar financial system, expediating de-dollarization.
    Tzeentch

    But hasn't the war - or rather the sanctions - also shown that the importance of that depends on your economic enmeshment with the US?

    It seems to me that de-dollarization has a hen-and-egg problem. The more you export to the US, the more USD you hold and the more vulnerable you are to devaluation or straight up freezing of assets. But at the same time the less room to maneuver you have for de-dollarization.

    I do think the USD will be replaced eventually, as the relative economic importance of the US declines. Maybe not in this decade though. Of course if the US political system continues to unravel, we might see a more precipitous drop.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    What unites all BRICS countries is their effort to shake off the yoke of the US-led financial system.Tzeentch

    Efforts like that have been tried several times before though. Sure eventually something will likely replace the US dollar. For now it seems to have been simply (another) announcement at their recent summit that they're planning - in some indefinitie future - to have a dollar alternative.

    The economic incentive right now is just not there. Too much trade is still bound up with the US. And the BRICS countries seem pretty far from agreeing to a mutual standard. And the unanswered question is, given the differences between the BRICS countries, who will control the new standard?
  • Ukraine Crisis


    I'm not the one justifying an invasion.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    The Russians are not the bad guys here, they are just interested in protecting their sovereignty, it comes down to everyone having a right to protect themselves from outside aggression.boagie

    Protecting yourself from outside aggression by invading and annexing your neighbour. So the aggression is then inside?

    Don't you have some other forum to bombard with your ridiculous propaganda?