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About the Russian aggression of Ukraine

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AlexL

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11 hours ago, AlexL said:

 

What "pipelines and coastlines in and around the Black Sea" was US/NATO threatening to destroy, respectively to invading? With evidence, of course.

Apparently just the ones in the Baltic, lol.

Russia has been saying for decades that they would not accept Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. I don’t think the West was threatening to destroy any infrastructure, but NATO control in that region would remove control from Russia, no ?

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On 12/21/2022 at 4:34 AM, RationalEgoist said:

@whYNOT, what are you arguing for exactly? What is your concrete goal in participating here? I'm ... The idea that the Ukrainian government has been shelling its own citizens for 8 years is laughable Kremlin propaganda. I don't know if you've yet to refer to that mythical figure of 14,000 pro-Russians dead which is floating around the internet but I'd just love to see a single credible reference to back that one up. What the Ukrainian government actually has been doing is combatting Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region along with the few Ukrainians out of a total population of 41 million people who treasonously support their actions. 

 

"The idea...is laughable Kremlin propaganda".

Whew. You are uninformed! I fully see now the total grip of propaganda.

You heard nothing in the msm, no 'civil war' in Ukraine, so it never happened...

Unreal - a regional war in Europe was hidden for 8 years. Confirming my suspicions, a true conspiracy by the West to invite Russian retaliation - naturally, for no justification or provocation (that the public heard of and still haven't, going by your protest). 

Edited by whYNOT
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12 hours ago, RationalEgoist said:

 

Anyway, I disagree that regime change in Russia constitutes the (primary) goal of the US and its strategic allies. Russia's territory isn't being bombed, the war is happening in Ukraine. Ukraine is acting within the bounds of its own territory, it's not imposing anything on Russia. 

But aren’t western leaders including Biden saying that very thing , in public?

Putin knows that’s just hyperbole, just the PR ?

 

Edited by tadmjones
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13 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

"The idea...is laughable Kremlin propaganda".

Whew. You are uninformed! I fully see now the total grip of propaganda.

You heard nothing in the msm, no 'civil war' in Ukraine, so it never happened...

Unreal - a regional war in Europe was hidden for 8 years. Confirming my suspicions, a true conspiracy by the West to invite Russian retaliation - and for no justification or provocation (that the public heard of and still haven't). 

Obviously I'm not denying that there have been battles in Ukraine since 2014. 

But, unlike you, I am not prepared to swallow the Russian narrative surrounding them. 

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9 minutes ago, RationalEgoist said:

Obviously I'm not denying that there have been battles in Ukraine since 2014. 

But, unlike you, I am not prepared to swallow the Russian narrative surrounding them. 

Please read up from independent sources. Like the author interviewed above.  It's not possible for me to rectify all your mistakes. i.e. Regime change - the well-known bombings recently by Ukraine deep inside Russia. Etc.

Edited by whYNOT
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16 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

But aren’t western leaders including Biden saying that very thing , in public?

I don't know. I'm not American, so I don't follow your news cycle day-to-day. But, anyway, the US can do what it wants to Russia as long as their long-term goal is freedom. I'm not saying the US should pursue regime change but I recognize their right to do so if they wish. Do you agree that I am arguing in line with Ayn Rand's views on foreign policy here? Conveniently, you chose not to answer this part of my reply before. 

Ukraine joining the EU or NATO doesn't equal regime change in Russia, by the way. It's a bizarre leap, and it really does echo the paranoid world-view of the Kremlin. Ukraine, as a sovereign nation, has the right to handle its own affairs without Russian interference. Once again, it's not Russia being bombed right now, although you and @whYNOT really do make it sound that way. 

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8 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

the well-known bombings recently by Ukraine deep inside Russia. Etc.

Morally speaking, Ukraine can nuke Russia for all I care. Russia is an outlaw nation and can claim no sovereignty for itself so long as it remains a dictatorship. This is the Objectivist view. 

Why should I care what course of action the Ukrainian army deems necessary in its pursuit of self-defense? You can't compare the atrocities that the Russian army has been committing with isolated bombings supposedly carried out in retaliation by Ukraine. If Russia wants these supposed bombings to cease, then they only need to withdraw all their troops from Ukrainian territory. Or, you know, they can keep getting embarrassed as the world watches... 

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1 hour ago, RationalEgoist said:

Morally speaking, Ukraine can nuke Russia for all I care. Russia is an outlaw nation and can claim no sovereignty for itself so long as it remains a dictatorship. This is the Objectivist view. 

Why should I care what course of action the Ukrainian army deems necessary in its pursuit of self-defense? You can't compare the atrocities that the Russian army has been committing with isolated bombings supposedly carried out in retaliation by Ukraine. If Russia wants these supposed bombings to cease, then they only need to withdraw all their troops from Ukrainian territory. Or, you know, they can keep getting embarrassed as the world watches... 

If Russia is a dictatorship so is Ukraine. But they are both sovereign nations. Your idea of what constitutes dictatorships is at fault.

There have been many atrocities committed by Ukraine and its ultra-nationalists: I have recently viewed some. They don't receive -any- msm publicity.

I've gone on at length as to the justification(s) for the invasion. This affair doesn't resolve as simplistically as you'd like it. The conditions that Putin was facing: a NATO-assisted militaristic Ukraine, the potential of NATO membership and ICBM bases on its borders, the plight of Russian-Ukrainians--would not be tolerable to any nation. Why should Russia be different? Oh, right - it's an outlaw nation! It is innately inferior. It can't defend its own people!

I have to caution everyone to prepare for disappointment, since those unindoctrinated by 'experts' can see Russia is getting close to driving back the opposition from its four annexed regions. Ukraine has been taking heavy losses.

Everything could have been circumvented peacefully with honest participants in Kyiv and the West.

It seems that a Russian win is the only way the world will finally realize how much they have been lied to altogether from the start. It did not have to be this way.

 

Edited by whYNOT
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6 hours ago, tadmjones said:

Russia has been saying for decades [...]

Quote

Why wouldn’t a subsequent Russian regime ‘keep’ Crimea [...]

You did not comment on my two remarks/questions. You only changed the subject.

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16 hours ago, whYNOT said:
On 12/21/2022 at 3:34 AM, RationalEgoist said:

... The idea that the Ukrainian government has been shelling its own citizens for 8 years is laughable Kremlin propaganda. I don't know if you've yet to refer to that mythical figure of 14,000 pro-Russians dead which is floating around the internet but I'd just love to see a single credible reference to back that one up. What the Ukrainian government actually has been doing is combatting Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region along with the few Ukrainians out of a total population of 41 million people who treasonously support their actions. 

Expand  

"The idea...is laughable Kremlin propaganda"...

Unreal - a regional war in Europe was hidden for 8 years. Confirming my suspicions, a true conspiracy by the West to invite Russian retaliation - naturally, for no justification or provocation (that the public heard of and still haven't, going by your protest). 

Here are some - credible - numbers about "those 8 years", the Russian propaganda meme [repost from here]:

=============================
About the figure of "14,000 pro-Russians dead":

14,000 is the number of the total conflict-related deaths in Ukraine in 2014-2021, civilian and military, as reported by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (see the January 2022 Report here). UN and OSCE had about 1,000 observers in the Donbass region.

Considering the putinist propaganda about an alleged genocide perpetrated by Ukraine in Donbass, it is interesting to look at the numbers in more detail, by distinguishing between civil and military deaths.

  • total: : 14,200-14,400 (estimated)
  • military: 4,400 Ukrainian forces, 6,500 members of armed groups [incl. 4-500 Russian military] (estimated)
  • civilian: at least 3,404 civilians (including the 298 deaths on board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014)

The civilian death represent 20% from the total; this suggests, and OSCE and UN reports confirmed, that there was no identifiable pattern of targeting civilians and, therefore no genocide perpetrated by Ukraine in Donbass.

The first two years of conflict (2014-15) account for 90% of victims, the last three (2019-2021) for 2%. Therefore, propaganda claims that the Russia's February 2022 attack on Ukraine was designed to stop an ongoing genocide is ridiculous. It is one of the excuses, beside an alleged imminent NATO-sponsored Ukrainian attack, US bioweapons laboratories, nuclear weapons program and so on.

=============================

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17 hours ago, whYNOT said:

"The idea...is laughable Kremlin propaganda".

Whew. You are uninformed! I fully see now the total grip of propaganda.

You heard nothing in the msm, no 'civil war' in Ukraine, so it never happened...

Unreal - a regional war in Europe was hidden for 8 years. Confirming my suspicions, a true conspiracy by the West to invite Russian retaliation - naturally, for no justification or provocation (that the public heard of and still haven't, going by your protest). 

image.thumb.png.f699b0954520b21720b74cccf64ccf9a.png

image.thumb.png.62b9f9a26b769c752dcef0a5566a7ae3.png

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1606631325179731968?cxt=HHwWgIDT5bGr88ssAAAA

"We should think of various explanations for any given event in terms of probabilities, not certainties.

Those who don't allow any questioning of the narrative at all are full of shit."

-Elon Musk

 

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1 hour ago, Jon Letendre said:

"We should think of various explanations for any given event in terms of probabilities, not certainties.

Those who don't allow any questioning of the narrative at all are full of shit."

-Elon Musk

Very true. But somehow, that has become "therefore, anyone who thinks Putin is the bad guy here isn't questioning anything." 

Yes, some anti-Russian government people give everyone else against the Russian government a bad name. 

Is Tucker Carlson a Russian agent? Very unlikely. Is he a grifter? Very likely. Is he guilty of treason? Not unless he is deliberately acting on behalf of the Russian (state-controlled) media. His interests do align with the Russian government, though. More specifically, about questioning narratives, that's not what Tucker Carlson does. He presents a narrative, but hides behind "just asking questions" about most issues. He doesn't allow questioning of narratives either. 

 

Edited by Eiuol
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1 hour ago, Jon Letendre said:

"We should think of various explanations for any given event in terms of probabilities, not certainties. Those who don't allow any questioning of the narrative at all are full of shit."
-Elon Musk

Elon Musk is wrong. We should evaluate various explanations considering the facts which were presented in order to justify the various explanations.

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6 hours ago, AlexL said:

Here are some - credible - numbers about "those 8 years", the Russian propaganda meme [repost from here]:

 

The civilian death represent 20% from the total; this suggests, and OSCE and UN reports confirmed, that there was no identifiable pattern of targeting civilians and, therefore no genocide perpetrated by Ukraine in Donbass.

The first two years of conflict (2014-15) account for 90% of victims, the last three (2019-2021) for 2%. Therefore, propaganda claims that the Russia's February 2022 attack on Ukraine was designed to stop an ongoing genocide is ridiculous. It is one of the excuses, beside an alleged imminent NATO-sponsored Ukrainian attack, US bioweapons laboratories, nuclear weapons program and so on.

=============================

OSCE negates this account, as reported in Reuters.

A great increase of Ukraine shelling the civilian areas -- peaking when?

19 February, days before the invasion.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi53ufswZP8AhVTiVwKHYHrBsgQFnoECAsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fosce-reports-surge-number-explosions-east-ukraine-2022-02-19%2F&usg=AOvVaw2Unx_x-BHhp80UAIwSRQbt

"No genocide perpetrated" is disingenuous by the OSCE and UN.

The numbers of dead civilians might not reflect "genocide" from '14 to '22, but the huge numbers of shells fired into towns (without any miiltary tactical rationale) indicates the ¬intention¬ of genocide.

Even that is beside the point. I assume that you know of the accelerated training and arming of Ukraine's forces up until 2022? As shown by Merkel and Poroshenko's remarks ("buying time to build the military")?

Can you answer this:

Build an army - for what reason?

Only one reason possible:  a greater Army was required for a major and imminent (2022) assault on the Donbas.

--during which the Ukraine Armed Forces - the largest European army after Russia - would also be planned in all likelihood be needed to fight a predictable invading Russian Army (on stand-by at the border for a year) coming in to defend the Donbas. 

If that assault by a much strengthened UAF had been allowed to go ahead, with only resistance by the separatist militias, what do you think would have been the outcome, considering Kyiv viewed all the Donbas inhabitants as "terrorists" and had long been shelling them. 

Mass killings of civilians.

One may infer that Putin pre-empted and prevented that likely 'genocide', he "stole a march" on Kyiv.

 

Edited by whYNOT
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5 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

image.thumb.png.f699b0954520b21720b74cccf64ccf9a.png

image.thumb.png.62b9f9a26b769c752dcef0a5566a7ae3.png

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1606631325179731968?cxt=HHwWgIDT5bGr88ssAAAA

"We should think of various explanations for any given event in terms of probabilities, not certainties.

Those who don't allow any questioning of the narrative at all are full of shit."

-Elon Musk

 

The Washington Post is one of the first majors to flip its previous 'narrative' ("Russia dunnit").

More will follow.

When progaganda cracks and reality begins creeping in it is great to see.

"World leaders were quick to blame..." haha, and you too, WaPo.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj3l_Liz5P8AhUXbsAKHX_HBzgQFnoECBUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fnational-security%2F2022%2F12%2F21%2Frussia-nord-stream-explosions%2F&usg=AOvVaw2YvB3ORbp4XyjluAGNdgDY

btw, Tucker is an original patriot, for me not a doubt.

Edited by whYNOT
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Continuity of the civil war, pre-2022, but worse. More civilians killed lately than ever. Despite running desperately low on munitions, Ukraine has increased its attacks on civilians, and using precision Himars.

If there could be any doubt that the Donbas would decide to return under Kyiv control, it is finally ended. The Donbas and other two oblasts are officially going to stay Russian, "sham" referendums and all.

They have seen Kyiv's punishing intent and anger against them.

https://www.rt.com/russia/568240-donbass-death-toll-report/

 

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5 hours ago, AlexL said:

Elon Musk is wrong. We should evaluate various explanations considering the facts which were presented in order to justify the various explanations.

Strictly speaking, when it comes to many actors with various intentions, motives, and values, the conclusions you will draw from the facts can only be best guesses and approximations. I'm agnostic about the Nord Pipeline, but it isn't necessarily bad if it is intended to harm Russia. The bigger issue is that Russia is a bad-faith actor and is treated in the way that autocratic regimes should be treated. When it comes down to it, people already picked their sides, and you know those who are morally okay with autocracy are going to say that Russia is unfairly mistrusted.

(All that said, I'm not sure if Musk was attempting to defend Carlson, only that questioning narratives wildly offends some people and the call to arrest Carlson for treason is absurd. I just hope he realizes that people like Carlson get just as offended when you question their narratives, or when you hold their feet to the fire.) 

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7 hours ago, Eiuol said:
12 hours ago, AlexL said:

Elon Musk is wrong. We should evaluate various explanations considering the facts which were presented in order to justify the various explanations.

Strictly speaking, when it comes to many actors with various intentions, motives, and values, the conclusions you will draw from the facts can only be best guesses and approximations.

Then one should abstain from drawing conclusions and wait for more facts to come up.

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9 hours ago, whYNOT said:

OSCE negates this account, as reported in Reuters.

A great increase of Ukraine shelling the civilian areas -- peaking when?

19 February, days before the invasion.

[...]

OK, let's take them one after the other. I suppose that, before making all your claims to me, you carefully checked them out, knowing that I will ask for evidence.

"OSCE negates this account, as reported in Reuters." Is it this account "that there was no identifiable pattern of targeting civilians and, therefore no genocide perpetrated by Ukraine in Donbass" ?

Please put here the reference to the corresponding OSCE document, or at least to the Reuters account. A direct reference, not to the Russia Today's account of it. Then we'll see.

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4 hours ago, AlexL said:

Then one should abstain from drawing conclusions and wait for more facts to come up.

Which is why when you don't have the time to collect all the facts (time sensitive conflicts, issues involving the choices of different people and everything that comes in about free will, information that will take years to collect, etc) you use likelihoods instead that take into account your lack of knowledge. 

Edited by Eiuol
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On 12/23/2022 at 10:47 PM, whYNOT said:

If Russia is a dictatorship so is Ukraine. But they are both sovereign nations.

Why the but? Dictatorships are not legitimate sovereign nations. You even agreed with that. 

On 12/23/2022 at 10:47 PM, whYNOT said:

Oh, right - it's an outlaw nation! It is innately inferior. It can't defend its own people!

I mean, yeah, that's a dictatorship for you. Not the worst one in history, but it is still an autocracy, which is a form of dictatorship.

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8 minutes ago, Eiuol said:
4 hours ago, AlexL said:

Then one should abstain from drawing conclusions and wait for more facts to come up.

Which is why when you don't have the time to collect all the facts [...] you use likelihoods instead that take into account your lack of knowledge. 

No, you abstain from having an opinion on the subject.

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On 12/25/2022 at 12:57 PM, AlexL said:

OK, let's take them one after the other. I suppose that, before making all your claims to me, you carefully checked them out, knowing that I will ask for evidence.

"OSCE negates this account, as reported in Reuters." Is it this account "that there was no identifiable pattern of targeting civilians and, therefore no genocide perpetrated by Ukraine in Donbass" ?

Please put here the reference to the corresponding OSCE document, or at least to the Reuters account. A direct reference, not to the Russia Today's account of it. Then we'll see.

Below some of the unambiguous Reuters piece again. What don't you understand? I said I'm not going to quibble about "genocide", but I specified a great loss of lives obviously arriving in future--if things remained the same. You need to extrapolate highly likely future scenarios from present situations. Not to extrapolate denies causation (man made and metaphysical given), the largely predictable events in a causal chain - and is a give-away of concretist, "range of the moment" cognition.

Two scenarios only, probable at that time (Feb 2022),

1. A full scale attack; a surge in artillery fire to soften up the enemy almost always precedes a concentrated armored/infantry assault. 2. Or, the surge indicated the start of a permanent, higher, sustained level of artillery warfare. Both ways, many Donbas residents would have lost their lives, and/or had to flee their homes and gain refuge over the border.

Both, to extrapolate further, would have gained Putin's attention and likely response (he's evidently highly rational enough to have extrapolated eventual outcomes of western policies years back, and warned of them).

It is not as if the militia (then) were camped in the urban areas, their positions were in front lines outside - so firing (with extremely accurate artillery/missiles ) into towns, which continues today, is a deliberate "pattern of targeting civilians". Distinct from the hundreds of missile and drone attacks (accurate to a few meters, I heard) on the "infrastructure" by Russia that has resulted in few civilian deaths proportionately, and clearly attempts to limit them.

The RT "account" I linked reports what you followers of MSM are blind to and refuse to face, as you show. The daily attacks on towns this year are blamed by Kyiv and its faithful western media conveniently and fantastically upon Russia shelling its own liberated cities... and you all believe it. All done to keep Ukraine propped up as the innocent victim.

 

"OSCE reports surge in number of explosions in east Ukraine"

Reuters

MOSCOW, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Two regions in eastern Ukraine where government and separatist forces have been fighting since 2014 were hit by more than 1,400 explosions on Friday, monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said, pointing to a surge in shelling. ...

Edited by whYNOT
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