'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

[stickdog99]

"Russia's invasion is not justified, but...".

There it is again, the excuses for war.

Feel free to point out where I made "excuses for war" (and good luck, because you won't find it). Pointing out the culpability of the US empire — especially when that subject has largely evaded coverage in the mainstream — in escalating the situation to this point does not mean I think it was acceptable for Russia to respond with an invasion.

You're critical of seeking a negotiated end to the war, but if that's off the table for you, I'm curious what the alternative is in your mind. Are the continuing casualties to combatants on both sides as well as civilians worth it? And if Ukraine should just keep fighting, do you believe the US should also continue supplying them with financial and military aid? Supposing Ukraine wins in the end, will your response be "Great, now Ukraine is truly sovereign and free", or will you continue being just as vocal against Ukraine's CIA-installed neo-Nazi government as you are against Russia's invasion?

It's easy to say what should have been the case in this conflict, but that would require changing history so that the US/NATO and Russia both respected Ukraine's sovereignty from the beginning. Neither of them did, and now we live in the world as it is, not as we wish it was. So what is the best way to get out of this without making the global situation more dangerous and without perpetuating war any longer?

Was Ukraine threatening to invade Russia? War is what you do as an absolute last resort in self defense, not something you do because you don't like their political landscape or their future potential as a threat or how someone else is meddling in their politics. By your logic the US was justified in their meddling and general fuckery with South American countries that got too friendly with the Soviet Union. The Bay of Pigs was totally okay, just poorly executed. They just had a very bloody coup with Soviet support, and it's right on America's doorstep.

It may shock you to know that I have made arguments along these lines against alt media types who do support Russia's invasion, because, guess what, I don't support it.

Fixed that for you. I must have missed the part where the US annexed parts of Ukraine.

My bad, they only ousted the president (in violation of Ukraine's constitution), used paramilitaries (largely from the far-right/neo-Nazi contingent) to suppress dissent, and installed handpicked (by the State Department's current fourth-in-command Victoria Nuland) members of the new government. "Obviously" that is so much different.

I agree 100% with you on all of this. It's nice to find an oasis of sanity in the midst of all the "leftist" "anti-imperialistic" war lovers I have encountered online.

[DrEvil]

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Never hinted it was an 'excuse'..

And where is your indignation at the myriad U.S. invasions and coups over the years?

Empires will empire. To scoff at one and not the other is dishonest to yourself. Saying 'war is bad' is hacking at branches rather than assessing (let alone attempting to extract) the roots.

Do you seriously expect me to spend half my posts listing every other war and coup I'm mad about every time I mention Russia? That's ridiculous. I've made my opinion on empires pretty clear over the years. Short version: fuck all of them. I'm against war, regardless of who starts it.

[DrEvil]

"Russia's invasion is not justified, but...".

There it is again, the excuses for war.

Feel free to point out where I made "excuses for war" (and good luck, because you won't find it). Pointing out the culpability of the US empire — especially when that subject has largely evaded coverage in the mainstream — in escalating the situation to this point does not mean I think it was acceptable for Russia to respond with an invasion.

You're critical of seeking a negotiated end to the war, but if that's off the table for you, I'm curious what the alternative is in your mind. Are the continuing casualties to combatants on both sides as well as civilians worth it? And if Ukraine should just keep fighting, do you believe the US should also continue supplying them with financial and military aid? Supposing Ukraine wins in the end, will your response be "Great, now Ukraine is truly sovereign and free", or will you continue being just as vocal against Ukraine's CIA-installed neo-Nazi government as you are against Russia's invasion?

Russia can fuck off out of Ukraine. They decided to invade, they can decide to leave. What goes on in a different country is none of their business unless it's a direct and immediate threat to them. Having a US friendly government, however it was installed (pretty sure Zelenskyy was elected, unless there's proof the election was rigged?) is not a reason to invade, neither is them having Nazi militias.

It's easy to say what should have been the case in this conflict, but that would require changing history so that the US/NATO and Russia both respected Ukraine's sovereignty from the beginning. Neither of them did, and now we live in the world as it is, not as we wish it was. So what is the best way to get out of this without making the global situation more dangerous and without perpetuating war any longer?

For Russia to fuck off.

Was Ukraine threatening to invade Russia? War is what you do as an absolute last resort in self defense, not something you do because you don't like their political landscape or their future potential as a threat or how someone else is meddling in their politics. By your logic the US was justified in their meddling and general fuckery with South American countries that got too friendly with the Soviet Union. The Bay of Pigs was totally okay, just poorly executed. They just had a very bloody coup with Soviet support, and it's right on America's doorstep.

It may shock you to know that I have made arguments along these lines against alt media types who do support Russia's invasion, because, guess what, I don't support it.

Fixed that for you. I must have missed the part where the US annexed parts of Ukraine.

My bad, they only ousted the president (in violation of Ukraine's constitution), used paramilitaries (largely from the far-right/neo-Nazi contingent) to suppress dissent, and installed handpicked (by the State Department's current fourth-in-command Victoria Nuland) members of the new government. "Obviously" that is so much different.

Uh, yes. The American fuckery didn't leave large chunks of Ukraine as literal US soil. Last I checked the only ones grabbing territory, Nazi style, are the Russians. I don't know where you live, but I live in a small country that shares a border with Russia, so this kind of shit makes me just a tad nervous.

[DrEvil]

It's on my side of the world, just FYI. We share a border with Russia. We're also a NATO country with military bases right next to Russia's main fleet base where they keep all their nuclear subs, but strangely enough they haven't invaded us, or even threatened to.

And since when did being against war suddenly make me virtuous (you say it like it's an insult?). That's just common fucking sense. Putin belongs in a cell next to Bush, Blair and Obama, and every other head of state from the coalition of the willing, both in Iraq and Libya. I honestly don't care what excuses you want to make - Putin decided to invade another country, so fuck him, same as everyone else who does the same.

The "problem" with negotiations is that Russia isn't going to accept anything that doesn't leave them with at least parts of Ukraine not Ukrainian any more. Do you think they'll just up and leave all of Ukraine without some serious concessions from the Ukrainians? Asking for negotiations is effectively asking for Ukraine to bend over, because they will have to give the Russians something.

So who the fuck cares if Russia gets the parts of Ukraine that are largely Russian? How does that hurt you or me?

Really? You don't see how this sets an incredibly dangerous precedent? If large powers can just decide to grab chunks of another country and get away with it?

[stickdog99]

It's on my side of the world, just FYI. We share a border with Russia. We're also a NATO country with military bases right next to Russia's main fleet base where they keep all their nuclear subs, but strangely enough they haven't invaded us, or even threatened to.

And since when did being against war suddenly make me virtuous (you say it like it's an insult?). That's just common fucking sense. Putin belongs in a cell next to Bush, Blair and Obama, and every other head of state from the coalition of the willing, both in Iraq and Libya. I honestly don't care what excuses you want to make - Putin decided to invade another country, so fuck him, same as everyone else who does the same.

The "problem" with negotiations is that Russia isn't going to accept anything that doesn't leave them with at least parts of Ukraine not Ukrainian any more. Do you think they'll just up and leave all of Ukraine without some serious concessions from the Ukrainians? Asking for negotiations is effectively asking for Ukraine to bend over, because they will have to give the Russians something.

So who the fuck cares if Russia gets the parts of Ukraine that are largely Russian? How does that hurt you or me?

Really? You don't see how this sets an incredibly dangerous precedent? If large powers can just decide to grab chunks of another country and get away with it?

LOL. Yeah, that's EXACTLY what I expected you to say. It sets a dangerous PRECEDENT!

Not Iraq. Not Afghanistan. Not Libya. Not Syria. Not Haiti. Not Macedonia. Not Yugoslavia. Not Sudan. Not Liberia. Not Zaire. Not Croatia. Not Panama. Not the Philippines. Not Bolivia. Not El Salvador. Not Lebanon. Not Grenada. Not Honduras. Not Iran. Not Cambodia. Not Guatemala. Not Laos. Not Angola. Not Chile. Not Ghana. Not the Dominican Republic. Not Indonesia. Not Vietnam. Not Cuba. Not Ecuador. Not Greece. Not Korea. Not Hawaii.

Not the 800+ military bases currently across the globe.



Nope. This invasion sets a dangerous PRECEDENT!

[Joe Hillshoist]

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Never hinted it was an 'excuse'..

And where is your indignation at the myriad U.S. invasions and coups over the years?

Empires will empire. To scoff at one and not the other is dishonest to yourself. Saying 'war is bad' is hacking at branches rather than assessing (let alone attempting to extract) the roots.

How is it that when someone says Putin belongs in a cell with the people responsible for myriad US invasions your reaction to that is that they are suddenly not indignant about those US invasions? Dr Evil is literally saying they are as bad and yet you comment as if they aren't.

Lets be clear here. Putin is at least as bad as any US leader of the last 20 years.

he's not a good guy, he's a cunt.

There are no good guys.

[Marionumber1]

Russia can fuck off out of Ukraine. They decided to invade, they can decide to leave. What goes on in a different country is none of their business unless it's a direct and immediate threat to them. Having a US friendly government, however it was installed (pretty sure Zelenskyy was elected, unless there's proof the election was rigged?) is not a reason to invade, neither is them having Nazi militias.

Still arguing against a point that I haven't made. Are you going to acknowledge that you mischaracterized my position, and that I have never said anything in support of Russia's invasion?

In any case, it's pretty misleading to portray Ukraine as merely "having a US friendly government". Ukraine's political situation since 2014 has flowed directly from the CIA coup. The same far-right paramilitary groups from the coup have retained covert influence in the years since, carrying out threats and acts of violence against politicians opposed to a more belligerent stance on Russia. Zelenskyy's campaign stance on deescalation with Russia quickly melted away in the face of their opposition, with these neo-Nazi groups thoroughly integrated into the military shortly thereafter on his watch.

And as difficult as it is to definitively prove that someone is a US intelligence asset, the background of Ihor Kolomoisky, the oligarch who launched Zelenskyy's political career, is pretty alarming. Kolomoisky had a history of sponsoring these very same far-right militias that were involved in the CIA coup, and owned a controlling interest in Burisma: a company almost certainly being used as a cover for US intelligence operations, with Hunter Biden's bizarre membership on the board closely followed by CIA / Blackwater veteran Cofer Black.

For Russia to fuck off.

My question was clearly framed to ask what, if anything, should be done from a foreign policy standpoint: by countries other than Russia and Ukraine. Saying "Russia should leave" is correct (though it is most assuredly not the end-all-be-all of resolving the situation in Ukraine) but also provides absolutely no insight on how to achieve that. A country that decided to go to war is not going to leave until (1) they fulfill their objective (2) they realize they're in, or end up in, a situation where continuing is a net loss or (3) they end up negotiating certain concessions in exchange for a withdrawal.

So with that in mind, and #3 being off the table in your mind, I'm curious what you think is the ideal foreign policy position on the Russia/Ukraine war. Do you believe in complete non-interventionism: doing nothing and letting the war play out? In Western powers continuing to provide military aid to Ukraine? Something else? Some combination of them? Surely you have a viewpoint here.

Uh, yes. The American fuckery didn't leave large chunks of Ukraine as literal US soil. Last I checked the only ones grabbing territory, Nazi style, are the Russians. I don't know where you live, but I live in a small country that shares a border with Russia, so this kind of shit makes me just a tad nervous.

While I understand your perspective, I think you're fixated on optics instead of outcome. The purpose of annexing a state is to place it under another's control. A coup by an intelligence service is a more covert way of achieving largely the same thing, while keeping one's hands clean on the international stage. What you label as nothing more than "fuckery" is the superficially softer kind of imperialism that the US does far more often than it does overt war. That doesn't make it less imperialistic.

[Belligerent Savant]

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Never hinted it was an 'excuse'..

And where is your indignation at the myriad U.S. invasions and coups over the years?

Empires will empire. To scoff at one and not the other is dishonest to yourself. Saying 'war is bad' is hacking at branches rather than assessing (let alone attempting to extract) the roots.

How is it that when someone says Putin belongs in a cell with the people responsible for myriad US invasions your reaction to that is that they are suddenly not indignant about those US invasions? Dr Evil is literally saying they are as bad and yet you comment as if they aren't.

Lets be clear here. Putin is at least as bad as any US leader of the last 20 years.

he's not a good guy, he's a cunt.

There are no good guys.

I never suggested Putin was a 'good guy', and indeed conveyed essentially the same in my prior response (the one prior to the above-quoted one) when I typed 'Empires gonna empire', etc.

However -- you seem to have breezed past stickdog's reply just above yours.

Sorry, but Putin/Russia has nowhere near the war-mongering record, nor global military presence that the U.S. maintains from the period after WWII - present time.

And it's not even close.

[DrEvil]

It's on my side of the world, just FYI. We share a border with Russia. We're also a NATO country with military bases right next to Russia's main fleet base where they keep all their nuclear subs, but strangely enough they haven't invaded us, or even threatened to.

And since when did being against war suddenly make me virtuous (you say it like it's an insult?). That's just common fucking sense. Putin belongs in a cell next to Bush, Blair and Obama, and every other head of state from the coalition of the willing, both in Iraq and Libya. I honestly don't care what excuses you want to make - Putin decided to invade another country, so fuck him, same as everyone else who does the same.

The "problem" with negotiations is that Russia isn't going to accept anything that doesn't leave them with at least parts of Ukraine not Ukrainian any more. Do you think they'll just up and leave all of Ukraine without some serious concessions from the Ukrainians? Asking for negotiations is effectively asking for Ukraine to bend over, because they will have to give the Russians something.

So who the fuck cares if Russia gets the parts of Ukraine that are largely Russian? How does that hurt you or me?

Really? You don't see how this sets an incredibly dangerous precedent? If large powers can just decide to grab chunks of another country and get away with it?

LOL. Yeah, that's EXACTLY what I expected you to say. It sets a dangerous PRECEDENT!

Not Iraq. Not Afghanistan. Not Libya. Not Syria. Not Haiti. Not Macedonia. Not Yugoslavia. Not Sudan. Not Liberia. Not Zaire. Not Croatia. Not Panama. Not the Philippines. Not Bolivia. Not El Salvador. Not Lebanon. Not Grenada. Not Honduras. Not Iran. Not Cambodia. Not Guatemala. Not Laos. Not Angola. Not Chile. Not Ghana. Not the Dominican Republic. Not Indonesia. Not Vietnam. Not Cuba. Not Ecuador. Not Greece. Not Korea. Not Hawaii.

Not the 800+ military bases currently across the globe.



Nope. This invasion sets a dangerous PRECEDENT!

Except for Hawaii, which was annexed by the US 124 years ago, all of those places have something in common: they still exist.

And didn't you write this all the way back on the previous page:

So who the fuck cares if Russia gets the parts of Ukraine that are largely Russian? How does that hurt you or me?

So who the fuck cares if the US messes with some third world country? How does that hurt your or me?

Make up your mind already. Either fucking around with other countries is bad, or it isn't.

[DrEvil]

.
Never hinted it was an 'excuse'..

And where is your indignation at the myriad U.S. invasions and coups over the years?

Empires will empire. To scoff at one and not the other is dishonest to yourself. Saying 'war is bad' is hacking at branches rather than assessing (let alone attempting to extract) the roots.

How is it that when someone says Putin belongs in a cell with the people responsible for myriad US invasions your reaction to that is that they are suddenly not indignant about those US invasions? Dr Evil is literally saying they are as bad and yet you comment as if they aren't.

Lets be clear here. Putin is at least as bad as any US leader of the last 20 years.

he's not a good guy, he's a cunt.

There are no good guys.

I never suggested Putin was a 'good guy', and indeed conveyed essentially the same in my prior response (the one prior to the above-quoted one) when I typed 'Empires gonna empire', etc.

However -- you seem to have breezed past stickdog's reply just above yours.

Sorry, but Putin/Russia has nowhere near the war-mongering record, nor global military presence that the U.S. maintains from the period after WWII - present time.

And it's not even close.

This is true, but it's also irrelevant. Invading another country is fucked up, period. All you're achieving with constantly bringing up the bad things that someone else did is diminish the fucked-up-ness of what Russia is doing right now.

- Oh God, he's murdering someone!
- Oh yeah? But this other guy is a serial killer!

[DrEvil]

Russia can fuck off out of Ukraine. They decided to invade, they can decide to leave. What goes on in a different country is none of their business unless it's a direct and immediate threat to them. Having a US friendly government, however it was installed (pretty sure Zelenskyy was elected, unless there's proof the election was rigged?) is not a reason to invade, neither is them having Nazi militias.

Still arguing against a point that I haven't made. Are you going to acknowledge that you mischaracterized my position, and that I have never said anything in support of Russia's invasion?

In any case, it's pretty misleading to portray Ukraine as merely "having a US friendly government". Ukraine's political situation since 2014 has flowed directly from the CIA coup. The same far-right paramilitary groups from the coup have retained covert influence in the years since, carrying out threats and acts of violence against politicians opposed to a more belligerent stance on Russia. Zelenskyy's campaign stance on deescalation with Russia quickly melted away in the face of their opposition, with these neo-Nazi groups thoroughly integrated into the military shortly thereafter on his watch.

And as difficult as it is to definitively prove that someone is a US intelligence asset, the background of Ihor Kolomoisky, the oligarch who launched Zelenskyy's political career, is pretty alarming. Kolomoisky had a history of sponsoring these very same far-right militias that were involved in the CIA coup, and owned a controlling interest in Burisma: a company almost certainly being used as a cover for US intelligence operations, with Hunter Biden's bizarre membership on the board closely followed by CIA / Blackwater veteran Cofer Black.

And none of this is a good reason to invade and start annexing parts of the country.

But fair enough, you haven't said anything supporting Russia's invasion. What you have done, and are still doing, is listing all the bad shit that has been going on in Ukraine the last decade or so, the implication being that this somehow makes the invasion less terrible, or at least understandable. There's always a "but". The war is terrible, but... CIA/Biden/Nazis, etc. My position is: the war is terrible, period. I don't care what the US has been up to in the context of this war (and before the usual gaggle start screaming about this, the world should treat the US the same way we're treating Russia right now), none of it justifies it.

For Russia to fuck off.

My question was clearly framed to ask what, if anything, should be done from a foreign policy standpoint: by countries other than Russia and Ukraine. Saying "Russia should leave" is correct (though it is most assuredly not the end-all-be-all of resolving the situation in Ukraine) but also provides absolutely no insight on how to achieve that. A country that decided to go to war is not going to leave until (1) they fulfill their objective (2) they realize they're in, or end up in, a situation where continuing is a net loss or (3) they end up negotiating certain concessions in exchange for a withdrawal.

So with that in mind, and #3 being off the table in your mind, I'm curious what you think is the ideal foreign policy position on the Russia/Ukraine war. Do you believe in complete non-interventionism: doing nothing and letting the war play out? In Western powers continuing to provide military aid to Ukraine? Something else? Some combination of them? Surely you have a viewpoint here.

I think that as long as Ukraine wants to fight we should help them with material, intelligence and training, like we're doing right now. If Ukraine decides it's time to talk we should support that and put maximum pressure on Russia to get the best possible deal for Ukraine.

Uh, yes. The American fuckery didn't leave large chunks of Ukraine as literal US soil. Last I checked the only ones grabbing territory, Nazi style, are the Russians. I don't know where you live, but I live in a small country that shares a border with Russia, so this kind of shit makes me just a tad nervous.

While I understand your perspective, I think you're fixated on optics instead of outcome. The purpose of annexing a state is to place it under another's control. A coup by an intelligence service is a more covert way of achieving largely the same thing, while keeping one's hands clean on the international stage. What you label as nothing more than "fuckery" is the superficially softer kind of imperialism that the US does far more often than it does overt war. That doesn't make it less imperialistic.

No, but unlike grabbing pieces and saying "this is now part of our country" the "softer" kind leaves the other country still existing. Russia isn't trying to influence Ukraine, they're trying to erase large parts of it. When you have Russian officials talking about how Ukraine isn't a real country and a mistake, the Ukrainians are understandably nervous about their intentions. For them it's literally an existential crisis.

[Joe Hillshoist]

.
Never hinted it was an 'excuse'..

And where is your indignation at the myriad U.S. invasions and coups over the years?

Empires will empire. To scoff at one and not the other is dishonest to yourself. Saying 'war is bad' is hacking at branches rather than assessing (let alone attempting to extract) the roots.

How is it that when someone says Putin belongs in a cell with the people responsible for myriad US invasions your reaction to that is that they are suddenly not indignant about those US invasions? Dr Evil is literally saying they are as bad and yet you comment as if they aren't.

Lets be clear here. Putin is at least as bad as any US leader of the last 20 years.

he's not a good guy, he's a cunt.

There are no good guys.

I never suggested Putin was a 'good guy', and indeed conveyed essentially the same in my prior response (the one prior to the above-quoted one) when I typed 'Empires gonna empire', etc.

However -- you seem to have breezed past stickdog's reply just above yours.

Sorry, but Putin/Russia has nowhere near the war-mongering record, nor global military presence that the U.S. maintains from the period after WWII - present time.

And it's not even close.

I know.

How dare someone on the other side of the world object to their neighbours invading another country.

I mean what right have they got to not see the world the the fucken lens of dumb fuck seppo exceptionalism.

How dare they.

You know its your duty as an American to invade people like that when they don't do what you approve of.

[stickdog99]

.
Never hinted it was an 'excuse'..

And where is your indignation at the myriad U.S. invasions and coups over the years?

Empires will empire. To scoff at one and not the other is dishonest to yourself. Saying 'war is bad' is hacking at branches rather than assessing (let alone attempting to extract) the roots.

How is it that when someone says Putin belongs in a cell with the people responsible for myriad US invasions your reaction to that is that they are suddenly not indignant about those US invasions? Dr Evil is literally saying they are as bad and yet you comment as if they aren't.

Lets be clear here. Putin is at least as bad as any US leader of the last 20 years.

he's not a good guy, he's a cunt.

There are no good guys.

Let's be clear here.

This is a proxy war of a corrupt US oligarchy against a corrupt Russian oligarchy. The only people benefiting from this war are the war mongering oligarchs on both sides who fomented this conflict. The average Ukrainian is surely not benefitting from this war. Nor is the average US or European citizen. War is a racket among gangster classes. Any stance against negotiating a peaceful settlement ASAP is based solely on sort of bizarre rooting interest for one corrupt side over the other. What the fuck is wrong with people's brains?

If it takes ceding a few Ukrainian areas that were previously getting shelled by Ukrainian forces in a civil war because these areas are over 80% ethnic Russian to Russia, I'm all for it. End this war ASAP.

Otherwise, the USA will use this as yet another excuse to do its best to make sure yet another large swath of the world "still exists."

That you are siding 100% with the US military industrial complex should at least give you pause. That it does not baffles me.

[stickdog99]

I think that as long as Ukraine wants to fight we should help them with material, intelligence and training, like we're doing right now. If Ukraine decides it's time to talk we should support that and put maximum pressure on Russia to get the best possible deal for Ukraine.

LOL. Who the fuck do you think "Ukraine" is other than "we should help them with material, intelligence and training, like we're doing right now"?

What you are saying is simply that we should pull the plug just as soon as the US MIC wants to pull the plug. The green screen behind Zelensky is the US MIC. How can you not at least see this?

[Belligerent Savant]

You know its your duty as an American to invade people like that when they don't do what you approve of.

I won't even begin to unpack the delusion and absurdity in this statement.

Good christ.

Seriously: have a subset of posters here been replaced by vapid imposters or otherwise lobotomized by 50s-era Red Scare federales?

My 'duty'! To blindly subscribe to what Empire (and their myriad proxies) says!

The best any American can do right now for their own interests and the interests of all their fellow citizens (even those citizens tragically conditioned and too captured to realize it) is to broadly non-comply; to rebuke any/all programming outright, and to assume that most if not all of the dominant narratives are either partially or fully counterfeit, dishonest, and a detriment to our livelihoods.