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Russian invasion of Ukraine/Belief of Mainstream Media Narrative

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On 7/19/2022 at 3:04 AM, Eiuol said:

It's like you can't conceive that someone would say unequivocally that Russia is significantly worse than the Ukraine and is responsible for great moral fault. You have rationalized that by saying you have lower standards for Russia than the West morally speaking, refusing to engage many questions unless you can blame NATO or the Ukraine for irritating Putin (you don't bother answering questions about what you think), and your only source for any claim is RT. 

 

Only source is RT, shows me how much you know. I've read many other articles. While one aspect you might notice about RT if you looked into it analytically is that nearly all the stories are simple, fact-based reports - "he said, she said/this happened then, at that place" - it is not from RT that I found and linked some of the several scholars/analysts etc. like Prof John Mearsheimer who have a singularly broad and historical grasp of the Ukraine-Russia-NATO background.

Why did you not comment on their talks? Why were you silent on revealing quotes I supplied e.g. Poroshenko's boastful admission on camera that he'd signed the Minsk agreement only "to buy time" to build up the military (with NATO training and materiel) spanning several previous years? A powerful Ukrainian army was created with NATO's help, whose objective was ... what - do you think?

I have said what I think, repetitively: Kyiv in cahoots with NATO are as responsible and morally reprehensible for the war as is Moscow.

While, at least Putin I argued, was deliberately provoked - and had some legal/moral justification for defending Russia and the Russian separatists.

Edited by whYNOT
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19 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

Why were you silent on revealing quotes I supplied e.g. Poroshenko's boastful admission on camera that he'd signed the Minsk agreement only "to buy time" to build up the military (with NATO training and materiel) spanning several previous years? A powerful Ukrainian army was created with NATO's help, whose objective was ... what - do you think?

I wasn't silent about that, we actually talked about it. What am I supposed to say if you don't remember a conversation that we had?

Edited by Eiuol
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4 hours ago, tadmjones said:

Why would I voluntarily leave the freest society on the planet?

It was pretty clear that you were being sarcastic, the joke being that it's absurd to not characterize it as authoritarian (once again missing my point). But your point seemed to be that the US is authoritarian in an incidental way. Just because you ask Socratic questions so often and sometimes use sarcasm doesn't mean people can't see what you're doing. 

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43 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

I wasn't silent about that, we actually talked about it. What am I supposed to say if you don't remember a conversation that we had?

What S-G Stoltenberg recently said (on the build-up preparations of NATO troops in Poland - as early as 2014, I must add) is another key piece of the jigsaw puzzle. That demonstrated NATO's *expectation*. He knew Putin must invade eventually, given enough provocation. It must have been surprising Putin waited this long.

The last straw for Putin, probably, an imminent, fresh assault on Donbas by Kyiv's superior army.

Edited by whYNOT
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On 7/18/2022 at 7:41 AM, whYNOT said:

Man, you gotta do your own digging and putting the pieces together. 

Yes, when it was about me justifying my own claims, I did. I even accepted to reverse the onus of proof and I examined (and refuted) your claim (it was something about Minsk, see below).

Quote

If you can source facts and form conclusions conflicting with my findings so far, I will be glad to hear and debate.

No. It doesn’t work that way. I made no claims regarding facts (except the two mentioned below, which I proved). I mainly disputed your „facts”. It is up to you, but not simply to source (one can find sources for anything), but to prove.

AlexL: You ignored my points. Again. 

Yes, you did it, again! My main point was that during a war it is useless and stupid to expect objective information from sources of the warring sides. This is because one expects them to disseminate propaganda. And I noted that you (seem to) rely systematically on Russian sources belonging to government or related to it.

Now about the Minsk agreements. I would like to take them off the table once and for all.

We had in fact two distinct Minsk-related subjects. One was about Putin having signed it (or one of them). The second was about Putin having mentioned the Ukrainian non-compliance as one of the reasons of the February 24, 2022 attack.

1. Did Putin sign one of the agreements?

Your initial claim was exactly this: “Minsk deal ... which Putin co-signed, btw”.

I commented: “(BTW, Putin did NOT co-sign either of the two Minsk agreements; it took me less than 5 minutes to check...)”

You did not acknowledge your error. It was a secondary point, but now you claim „You already made one wrongful accusation, which I verified from Wiki concerning Putin's presence at Minsk”, as if the dispute was about Putin's presence at Minsk (see here).

2. Did Putin invoke the Ukrainian non-compliance as one of the reasons of the February attack?

You correctly assumed that the Minsk Agreements were important for Putin. From this you - wrongly - assumed that he signed them himself – see #1. To stress their importance for Putin, you claim that he was “using Minsk's failure as (one) justification to invade.” You even brought some references to support this, but the proved only that maybe in his head the Minsk non-compliance may have been one of his reasons of the February attack.

Then I did what I was not legitimately expected to do: I DIS-proved your claim (see here).

Putin listed the reasons for his „Special Operation” in his speech broadcasted the early morning of the February 24 invasion. I found the very official transcript of his speech on the very official Kremlin site, both in Russian and in English. The words “Minsk”, “accords” or “agreement” are absent... You never addressed this point from that comment of mine, or any other point…

This seems to be a pattern of behavior, a telling one…

PS: Besides, about Minsk agreements you made a lot of inexact claims. One of them: “Yelensky… the Minsk treaties he signed” (see here). This is not the moment to mention more of them, but in this Ukraine thread they abound… But you write: “I can't be bothered to validate every trivial detail.” Yeah, detail, right! A flood of unverified “details”… from RT, or RIA Novosti, or from memory failures.

If you disagree, just tell me, and I will bring some more examples. But I guess you won’t… But I might do it regardless 😉 

And please address all my points.

Edited by AlexL
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12 hours ago, whYNOT said:

What S-G Stoltenberg recently said (on the build-up preparations of NATO troops in Poland - as early as 2014, I must add) is another key piece of the jigsaw puzzle. That demonstrated NATO's *expectation*. He knew Putin must invade eventually, given enough provocation. It must have been surprising Putin waited this long.

1. What did Stoltenberg exactly say?

2. You seem to imply that NATO had a plan to perpetrate provocations to induce Putin to invade. On what basis do you make that claim? 

Quote

The last straw for Putin, probably, an imminent, fresh assault on Donbas by Kyiv's superior army.

Wow, "Kyiv's superior army" !🤣🤣🤣

Besides, why do you consider that Ukraine's attempts to recover Donbass and all lost territories to the aggressor wouldn't be legitimate?

There are three questions in this comment of mine.

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11 hours ago, whYNOT said:

OK, let's take a closer look at this.

We have here two sources of information: BBC and TASS. Both are government-owned entities.

Now, for what exactly are you blaming / praising each ? What did each do correctly or wrongly, in your opinion? What should they/it have done better? As clearly and succinctly as possible.

PS: Pleas note that I repkaced your horrible URLs by much simpler ones. You could do the same... but I think I already signaled this to you.

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1 hour ago, AlexL said:

1. What did Stoltenberg exactly say?

2. You seem to imply that NATO had a plan to perpetrate provocations to induce Putin to invade. On what basis do you make that claim? 

Wow, "Kyiv's superior army" !🤣🤣🤣

Besides, why do you consider that Ukraine's attempts to recover Donbass and all lost territories to the aggressor wouldn't be legitimate?

There are three questions in this comment of mine.

 

*NATO's chief lets the cat out of the bag: US-led bloc has ‘been preparing since 2014’ for proxy conflict with Russia*

Excerpt:

"NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg may have said the quiet part out loud on Wednesday when he revealed to reporters that NATO’s push into Eastern Europe since 2014 was done specifically with Russia in mind.

“The reality is also that we have been preparing for this since 2014,” he said. “That is the reason that we have increased our presence in the eastern part of the alliance, why NATO allies have started to invest more in defense, and why we have increased [our] readiness.”

The NATO chief went on to insist that Russia has been “using force in the eastern Donbass since 2014.”

What he neglected to mention, though, was the role Western powers played in the outbreak of civil violence in Kiev on February 24, 2013 that led to the Maidan coup and, ultimately, to the current situation. The US and its influence on the ground in Ukraine, channelled through "civil society" groups it bankrolled, was largely responsibility for that mess.

Even Victoria ‘F**k the EU’ Nuland (then-US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs) admitted as much in April 2014 when she said Washington had invested $5 billion dollars into “spreading democracy” in Ukraine – apparently because such efforts worked so well before". [...]

 

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1 hour ago, AlexL said:

 

Wow, "Kyiv's superior army" !🤣🤣🤣

Besides, why do you consider that Ukraine's attempts to recover Donbass and all lost territories to the aggressor wouldn't be legitimate?

 

Superior forces... to the Donbass militias - obviously. The assault was planned to be early this year, the Russian army was not in-country yet. The Donbass would clearly have been badly beaten, prevented by the Russians' entry.

Ukraine, the first "aggressor", waged a lengthy conflict against its own breakaway people in Donbass. While not seeking to peacefully resolve matters - and refusing to abide by the pact they'd agreed to.

The conflict and the gvt's evasions could, by international law, be legal grounds for Ukraine to have lost sovereignty over the territories.

(If that had been China attacking and retaking the 'breakaway' Taiwanese, we all know western support and sympathies would be reversed in favor of 'the victim', Taiwan and against the CCP).

Sure, Kyiv can "attempt to recover Donbass", but the signs on the battlefield indicate they have little chance of victory, but have lost it permanently, to become separate republics. The stupidity and immorality being Kyiv will probably lose a greater chunk of territory now, and worse, could have avoided the Russian invasion and war if they'd initially stuck to the Minsk agreements. 

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1 hour ago, AlexL said:

PS: Pleas note that I repkaced your horrible URLs by much simpler ones. You could do the same... but I think I already signaled this to you.

Thanks. I need a PA. You're hired.

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1 hour ago, whYNOT said:
[...]

*NATO's chief lets the cat out of the bag: US-led bloc has ‘been preparing since 2014’ for proxy conflict with Russia*

Excerpt:

[...]

OMG, are you making fun of me?

I asked you what did Stoltenberg exactly say. And you give me an article from... Russia Today (an a priory dubious publication, as it is by a governmental agency of one of the parties in conflict) with, supposedly, a quote from him, but also with a lot of many other irrelevant claims - I didn't even read. As if RT the only place it can be found!

Couldn't you give me just the quote? Or you believe that if you refer me to RT, I would be more convinced of its authenticity?😁😁

I don't dispute the quote you gave: it happens😁 to be correct. Here it is, for reference: 

Quote

Stoltenberg: ... the reality is that we have also been preparing for this since 2014. Because that's the reason why we have increased our presence in the eastern part of the Alliance, why NATO Allies have started to invest more in defence, and why we have increased the readiness.

It is taken from where you should have quoted it, from the NATO site (see here). Instead, you took it from RT, together with the lying title "NATO's chief lets the cat out of the bag: US-led bloc has ‘been preparing since 2014’ for proxy conflict with Russia" plus other comments...

Now, you implied that NATO had a plan to perpetrate provocations to induce Putin to invade. Two questions:

a). How did you infer, from that quote, that NATO had a plan etc.?

(b). Otherwise, on what other basis do you arrive at that conclusion? 

Edited by AlexL
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16 hours ago, Eiuol said:

It was pretty clear that you were being sarcastic, the joke being that it's absurd to not characterize it as authoritarian (once again missing my point). But your point seemed to be that the US is authoritarian in an incidental way. Just because you ask Socratic questions so often and sometimes use sarcasm doesn't mean people can't see what you're doing. 

You mean bitching about the growing concentration of federal power and the incidental authoritarian acts 'it' produces ?

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1 hour ago, whYNOT said:

Superior forces... to the Donbass militias - obviously. The Russian army was not in-country yet.

Ukraine, the first "aggressor", waged a lengthy conflict against its own breakaway people in Donbass. While not seeking to resolve matters - and refusing to abide by the pact they'd agreed to. The conflict and their evasions could, by international law, be legal grounds for Ukraine to have lost sovereignty over the territories.

(If that had been China attacking and retaking the 'breakaway' Taiwan, we all know western support and sympathies would be reversed).

Sure, Kyiv can "attempt to recover Donbass", but the signs on the battlefield indicate they have little chance of victory, but have lost it permanently, to become separate republics. The stupidity and immorality being Kyiv will probably lose a greater chunk of territory, and worse, could have avoided the conflict if they'd initially stuck to the Minsk agreements. 

This was about your "Kyiv's superior army."

OK let's see the context. You wrote: "The last straw for Putin, probably, an imminent, fresh assault on Donbas by Kyiv's superior army." How does one see that this mean the year 2014? Why not 2022 ? 

Whatever year you were referring to, there are small details😁you still have to prove:

 - that Donbass militias were inferior to the Ukrainian army, and that

- the Russian army was not in-country (this is strongly disputed, that is why proof is required; note that I didn't claim the contrary, therefore I have nothing to prove).

Regarding the rest, "Ukraine, the first "aggressor", waged a lengthy etc., etc., etc.): it is not directly relevant, but we can discuss every bit of it - whenever you wish.

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1 hour ago, whYNOT said:

Thanks. I need a PA. You're hired.

For no amount of money! You don't seem fair and square to me.

But the advice I gave you was for free, don't hesitate to use it.

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4 hours ago, AlexL said:

This was about your "Kyiv's superior army."

OK let's see the context. You wrote: "The last straw for Putin, probably, an imminent, fresh assault on Donbas by Kyiv's superior army." How does one see that this mean the year 2014? Why not 2022 ? 

Whatever year you were referring to, there are small details😁you still have to prove:

 - that Donbass militias were inferior to the Ukrainian army, and that

- the Russian army was not in-country (this is strongly disputed, that is why proof is required; note that I didn't claim the contrary, therefore I have nothing to prove).

Regarding the rest, "Ukraine, the first "aggressor", waged a lengthy etc., etc., etc.): it is not directly relevant, but we can discuss every bit of it - whenever you wish.

I note you beat around the bush and will waste my time with your concretist approach and sophistry.

The "context" in which I wrote, was a highly-trained (with NATO's assistance: fact) Ukraine Army - obviously superior to the militias - and about to launch a new assault - THIS year. But was forestalled by the invasion.

"Not directly relevant"?

You must be kidding! A civil war by Kyiv against its citizens is an act of aggression by the state!

Not honoring their agreements was egregiously fraudulent.

Therefore, Kyiv was "the first aggressor".

Get it?

 

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6 hours ago, AlexL said:

OMG, are you making fun of me?

I asked you what did Stoltenberg exactly say. And you give me an article from... Russia Today (an a priory dubious publication, as it is by a governmental agency of one of the parties in conflict) with, supposedly, a quote from him, but also with a lot of many other irrelevant claims - I didn't even read. As if RT the only place it can be found!

Couldn't you give me just the quote? Or you believe that if you refer me to RT, I would be more convinced of its authenticity?😁😁

I don't dispute the quote you gave: it happens😁 to be correct. Here it is, for reference: 

It is taken from where you should have quoted it, from the NATO site (see here). Instead, you took it from RT, together with the lying title "NATO's chief lets the cat out of the bag: US-led bloc has ‘been preparing since 2014’ for proxy conflict with Russia" plus other comments...

Now, you implied that NATO had a plan to perpetrate provocations to induce Putin to invade. Two questions:

a). How did you infer, from that quote, that NATO had a plan etc.?

(b). Otherwise, on what other basis do you arrive at that conclusion? 

That the Bridge article was published in this or that media organ makes no difference.

I happened to see it in RT; it would not be widely published anywhere else since it challenges the orthodox narrative, the innocent victim.

The quotation by Stoltenberg in it was accurate, all that matters.

Bridge recognized the implications and connections that you cannot. i.e. The "role" played by "the western powers" in "civil violence" - etc. etc.

A matter of fact: NATO and the West have involved themselves in Ukraine politics and the Ukrainian military.

For several years. And, as presently with Russia, not vigorously pursuing any peace treaty with the Eastern regions, but allowing the conflict to foment.

Although Ukraine was not a NATO member and, apart from pressing for peace negotiations to end that civil war, outsiders should not have, had no right, to interfere in.

Do your own thinking and ask yourself "why?"

Is it not obvious Ukraine was being prepared, set up, to confront Russia in a proxy war? Which they anticipated Putin would oblige with, by going in?

Edited by whYNOT
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7 hours ago, tadmjones said:

You mean bitching about the growing concentration of federal power and the incidental authoritarian acts 'it' produces ?

Yes, because you have equated incidental activities, which are bad but not essential to a system, with activities that define the essentials of a system. You ironically said that you live in the most free country, meaning that in some way you think it is not a free country, and pretty much in a morally reprehensible country.

8 hours ago, whYNOT said:

If that had been China attacking and retaking the 'breakaway' Taiwanese, we all know western support and sympathies would be reversed in favor of 'the victim', Taiwan and against the CCP

Yeah, China is completely authoritarian, Taiwan is not, so I think the parallels should make it obvious that this is morally consistent. If this happened, you would be quoting Xinhua, and would tell us that you realized that it was Western propaganda all along telling us that Taiwan was the good guy. But what you are saying doesn't make sense anyway, because the power dynamic makes it so that China is equal to Russia, and Taiwan is equal to Ukraine, so of course Taiwan would receive Western support. Your sentence construction is confusing.

2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Is it not obvious Ukraine was being prepared, set up, to confront Russia in a proxy war? Which they anticipated Putin would oblige with, by going in?

Putin didn't have to do anything, everything was fine. But it's not a good idea to trust authoritarians, you should be ready when they get into a bad mood. 

 

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