tired_fedora

Mate, can you please answer my question before starting your rant? Are you denying the independent financing as a critical distinction? What’s the King gonna do if he doesn’t like his evening program? Everyone at the BBC still gets paid the next morning.

Two can play this game.

• https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/evidence-us-orchestrated-coup-ukraine-2014-487d75
• https://www.ukrainefactcheck.org/category/context/2014-maidan-revolution/
• https://www.stopfake.org/en/ukraine-s-maidan-revolution-was-not-a-coup/
• https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-credible-evidence-that-Ukraines-2014-revolution-was-due-to-a-CIA-coup (thanks for linking that. Actually a good bit of first-hand evidence pointing towards spontaneous ‘grass root’ protests).

Edit: Sorry for only adding that now, but AFD is at 21 and polls at 28% in Germany, not 44%. https://dawum.de/Bundestag/ . I won’t deny that that’s deeply disturbing, but at least the people of Germany still get to elect a democratic government, which at least 70% make good use of. Also, AFD is pro Russia in the Ukraine war, so I don’t know whether that point of yours really hits.

Aren’t you getting tired of coming back to this point as if it mattered for the question at hand? Even if it were a coup, which it most probably was not, then that still begets the question why Russia gets to invade a neighbor when they don’t like their government anymore.

A realpolitical view of the conflict, sure, we can do that. Everyone acting in their own best interest. Peace is when you have the longer stick but don’t strike. So where to go from this political nihilism? Are we in a state of nature and just have to learn to appreciate the struggles and suffering of war to become better people? How does a citizen decide what foreign policy to support or resist under this model? A person in Poland might say: “Goshdarn, I sure as heck don’t want a Russian invasion of my town, so I better support the Ukrainian defense effort.” A person in Moscow may reply: “Goshdarn, I sure don’t want the remotest possibility of ever having NATO missiles in hammerlock range of my city (however unlikely that may be). I better support the invasion of Ukraine.” And here we are, in the middle of a stalled conflict. Utilitarianism doesn’t really help us here, either, because it’s basically impossible to weigh the total suffering of continuing the conflict against the suffering associated with making peace at the enemy’s conditions. If Ukraine surrenders and demilitarizes to become a Russian puppet state, what’s the probability of another invasion a few years down the line? How much better or worse are the people of Ukraine faring under a Russian-led regime than the current pro-EU government? If they fight on, on the other hand, do they gain anything other than prolonged suffering? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? What about Russia: If they laid down their weapons and retreated across the border, the war could end tomorrow. But then there’s this vague fear that this will lead to more suffering (of Russians in Ukraine and Russia) down the line and that this suffering will be greater than continuing the war. Impossible to calculate the odds. And as for Duty Ethics, well, the UN is basically founded on Kant’s ideas about war. So what is your response? How shall one decide what to do?

As for freedom of expression: In the West if you post an unpopular opinion you may be placed on a watchlist. You may suffer personal consequences, such as finding it harder to get employed or have some friends break contact. In some Western countries, you may even have your luggage searched at the airport. If you are not a citizen of that country, they may even deport you. In Russia, you may be assassinated. If you’re lucky, you are only placed in prison or disappear for a few weeks to return later. Great freedom of expression that.

Buddy, you’re calling anyone a fascist who doesn’t adhere to your worldview or belongs to your block. That doesn’t help anyone and is super unproductive. Are there fascists in the Ukrainian forces? Regrettably yes. Is the Ukrainian government an illegitimate fascist junta that came to power via a sponsored coup? I yet have to see any even remotely convincing evidence of that. Luckily, actual fascist tendencies are still quite fringe in Europe, though they are regrettably gaining thanks to Russian and increasingly also US psyops.

The crucial distinction is that it does not receive its budget from the current government’s budget but through a separate fee / tax (1, 2, 3). That makes it way more resistant to political woes than, say, VGTRK (4, 5). That’s why I was interested in your opinion on independent public media, such as the BBC, as compared to state-owned state-controlled media, which you had brought up, as well as compared to private independent media.

They did though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum#Content: Russia, the UK, and the US agreed that they would respect the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, not attack Ukraine except in self-defense, refrain from economic coercion, and immediately seek action in case another signatory attacks Ukraine with nuclear weapons.

I find it interesting that you insist on the Budapest memorandum being meaningless as an argument to defend Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Might as well play diplomacy like up to WW1 and enter wars over coffee and scones. What’s the point of this all if one hegemon just gets to invade their neighbors willy-nilly? If international agreements don’t have any meaning, then why the heck do we even make them? Why did Russia sign the memorandum? Maybe to buy time in their hour of greatest weakness and gather strength to subdue Ukraine 20 years later?

I hear you and heed your concerns. Pretty much any discussion on this topic I’ve had in this community came down to a bunch of basic disagreements over what constituted legitimate (by the people for the people; grass root; organic) and illegitimate revolutions (sponsored; coup). Basically, I end up bringing up a few peoples with a right to self-determination that the other side doesn’t want to hear about and vice versa. I haven’t yet found a satisfying solution other than reverting back to the post WW2 international order and the UN, which is itself deeply flawed (e.g., veto powers, small security council). That said, even accounting for any information war from the West in Eastern Europe, I just can’t see how both the information war and the military war are not on a whole 'nother level from Russia and her allies. To name one basic fact, few places have as much freedom of the press by law as the West. It feels deeply disturbing to me when a government is so afraid of its own people, who should be the sovereign, that it limits what they can and cannot say and hear.

You bring up an interesting side note that I would like to expand on. I find government-sponsored media deeply suspicious because it’s pretty straightforward how a government could use the power of the purse to influence public opinion. I find it definitely more suspicious of being partial than capitalist media conglomerates, even if they are definitely not pure so to speak. However, I’d be interested in your thoughts on the third option: Independent broadcasting services, like the BBC. It doesn’t rely on government funding but it also doesn’t rely on capitalist funding.

scumbags like you

Welp, there goes the civility. Nevertheless, I wish you a genuinely good day as well as some sense. As for the actual argument in your comment: Why are you blaming the West for not following through on their security guarantees? A few comments back you had pointed out how stupid it were if they went to all out war against Russia. Why aren’t you blaming Russia for not following through on their security guarantees by, IDK, not invading Ukraine? Double-think…

Edit: Had forgotten to pull apart the quote from the paragraph beneath. Now corrected.

Comrade, I never said it was offensive, I said it was propaganda. Put real simply: “ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.” Merriam-Webster. 1) It’s the official publication by a political organization, and 2) it does misinterpret/over-interpret quotes, as I had explained further up the comment chain. That’s what I’m saying.

The devil’s in the detail. As I already pointed out in another comment, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, the Baltics, Sweden, Finland, etc., were not invaded by NATO. They joined NATO. Russia has no say in whether an independent country wants to or doesn’t want to associate with NATO. Russia, on the other hand, invaded Ukraine and is moving the front further and further West since at least 2014. One of these is an expression of the self-determination of the people, the other is a war of aggression. The difference isn’t that subtle, really. If your argument is that it was all a psyop by NATO, then that doesn’t cast a bright light on the concept of a free will and the self-determination of any people, does it? So which people are allowed to self-determine? Only the ones that are against NATO and pro-Russia?

Fam, WSWS is literally the official online publication of a political organization. That’s like citing the US house speaker on matters of the war in Iran: Of course your answer is going to be colored red, white, and blue. I agree that it’s a proxy war. We’re just disagreeing on who started it and who’s defending against aggression. In my reading, it’s far preferable for the EU to stop Russia’s advance in Ukraine than to stop it in Poland. And they should probably be a bit more serious about stopping it in Ukraine than just sending weapons. It’s ugly already, but it could become so much more ugly if Russia keeps pushing and pushing West.

You keep bringing up that point but I don’t think it means what you think it means. Sure, they didn’t have the launch codes but they were in the physical possession of nuclear weapons stationed on their territory by the USSR. At the very least, this meant they had weapons-grade highly enriched fissile material, even the possibility of which makes neighboring countries nervous, as we are all learning in Iran. They could’ve disassembled them, reverse engineered them, destroyed them, or whatever, but they chose to give them to the successor state of the USSR for the hollow promise of territorial integrity. They could’ve developed their own nukes, but they didn’t. Instead, they trusted the deal and the security guarantees. For that deal, and for the act of breaking it in 2014 and in 2022, it makes no difference whether Ukraine had the capacity of launching those nukes in the 90s.

This argument works both ways. As I’ve pointed out in another comment, throughout the 2010s, Russia was creeping towards Europe and NATO by military conquest. Crimea in 2014, skirmishes in Donbas and Luhansk through 2021, full-scale invasion in 2022. At some point Europe had to say: Until here and no further. They certainly don’t enjoy risking all-out war with a former superpower and major nuclear power, but it’s safer for them to stall conquest in Eastern Ukraine than to wait until Russia has crept up to the Polish border. Appeasement never works, as the Brits have learned in WW2. At some point, you just gotta say “Stop”, even if that means war.

Please do tell me when Finland, Sweden, Hungary, the Baltics, Poland, or Slovakia were invaded by NATO.

Ah, but here’s the difference: Finland, Sweden, and the other Eastern European nations weren’t invaded by NATO. They chose to associate with NATO to protect themselves against Russian aggression. Why should NATO turn them down? To appease Russia? Why does Russia get a say in what treaties or agreements their neighbors enter? What gives them the right to invade and bombard a country for choosing its allies?

Correct, under the condition that it didn’t question Ukrainian sovereignty or territorial integrity going forward… guess 20 years are a long time.

Edit: … and come on?! A link to a blatant propaganda page as credible evidence? Taking a quote completely out of context to interpret in a way that fits your narrative? The article literally says that Merkel didn’t believe the Minsk agreement was a permanent solution. At no point does she say NATO, the US, or Germany broke it or intended to break it. The quote rather implies: We didn’t really believe Russia would leave it at that, so be bought Ukraine time to prepare for the next attack. That attack, as we all know, did follow in 2022. Good thing Ukraine had some time to prepare.

You’re probably right that it would be a stupid idea. On the other hand, it does not feel so much like Europe is choosing to fight Russia head on but rather that Russia is encroaching closer and closer on the European borders every 10 years or so by annexing another part of Ukraine. That was the point I made above:

• 1994: Give up nuclear weapons, Budapest memorandum, oops, 2014 invasion of Crimea.
• 2014/15: Give up Crimea, another round of peace talks and agreements, oops, 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• Now: Should Ukraine give up Donbas and Luhansk and demilitarize to appease Russia? Give it another 10 years and Russia finds a pretense to swallow the remaining Ukraine or make it a vassal republic, which will be greatly aided by their demilitarization. What comes next? The same piecemeal tactic with the Baltics or Poland? Another piece of land every 10-odd years?

Every time Ukraine has appeased Russia, Russia came back to bite it a few years later. And please don’t give me the “NATO is encroaching on Russia” talk: At the beginning of the war, 70-odd percent of Ukrainians were in favor of closer ties with the EU. If one takes self-determination seriously, as a lot of people on this instance seem to selectively do for the self-determination of ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine, one can’t deny a country to choose its allies free from a threat of invasion by its neighbor, who also happens to be the biggest nuclear power in the world.

Tell me about it. From my reading, Minsk 1 failed because Russian-backed separatists attacked the Donezk airport and Minsk 2 failed because Russia did not retreat its unmarked soldiers before the 2020 election. But I’m willing to learn if there is any good good evidence pointing the other way.

“Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining.” Theodore Roosevelt.

Acknowledging that Ukraine is loosing this war of attrition if not supplied with more money, weapons, munitions, and probably even military personnel is a basic fact. The article doesn’t dare any suggestions on where to go from accepting that fact. Make peace on Russian terms ASAP and become a vassal state over the next decade or so, after Russia breaks security guarantees once again? Fight on and become a vassal state over the next 1-3 years, but with more death and destruction? Any silver lining for Ukraine other than hoping for more US, UK, or European arms, and possibly military personnel? Any leverage? The article sure doesn’t say…