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About the Russian aggression of Ukraine

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AlexL

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7 hours ago, AlexL said:

So, in your view, if a government does what a government is supposed to do, then it is… legitimate! But you somehow forgot to quote Ayn Rand for defining a legitimate government, which is the one and only the one which „protects man's rights”.by protecting him from violence. But with this clarification Putin’s government legitimacy is OUT! Notice that you were the one who tried to use Ayn Rand’s authority, but did it very selectively. 

Ayn Rand has no authority, she is the standard for clear thinking here. 

I don't to write the full essay all at once, it gets boring to read and to write.

There is no legitimate gov't on Earth by Rand's standard.  All this breast-beating about illegitimacy by Americans is self-serving moralistic rationalizing so you don't have to feel guilty about sending hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths.  Make no mistake, that is what has happened here and America is the cause and bears responsibility.   

Edited by Grames
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10 hours ago, Grames said:

There is no legitimate gov't on Earth by Rand's standard.

Let's get more specific then.

Legitimate might not be the best word here, I don't think it is even the word she used. But if you agree with Rand, dictatorships are a class of illegitimacy that are far worse than whatever illegitimacy that the US has. Russia is an autocracy, which is equivalent to dictatorship, so it has utterly no valid moral claims (ie no valid moral claim to land in Crimea or Ukraine or any valid moral claim to say other countries are threatening them). The US is a democracy, if sometimes illegitimate, so it has some valid moral claims. 

 

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If there is a more comprehensive/objective/impartial report/analysis available, I'd like to see it. Everything you question or wanted to know, fairly up to date, cleared of the propaganda fog. (I'd only debate their war outcome prognosis). The good old Swiss neutrality has its worth:

 

https://swprs.org/the-ukraine-war-in-2023/

 

Edited by whYNOT
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18 hours ago, Grames said:

Ayn Rand has ... is the standard for clear thinking here.  

My point was that you abused the Ayn Rand’s clear thinking by selectively quoting her with the ones that (you can twist to) serve your purpose (Putin’s regime is allegedly legitimate because it does what legitimate government should, namely „defend the territorial integrity of the country”😁).

But you stopped short of quoting A. Rand for her clear thinking about the legitimacy of a government itself, although this was essential in the context of the subject. If you would have, then the idea of the legitimacy of Putin’s right to the control of Crimean Peninsula would have been OUT, because his regime itself would appear as having very little legitimacy, if at all.

But I will accept that you simply did not think / forgot about Rand’s criterion of legitimacy… Anyway, I can’t prove the contrary.

As an aside:

Quote

There is no legitimate gov't on Earth by Rand's standard.

A. Rand didn't say that legitimate are only the governments that fully respect and defend individual rights. There are degrees. She considered that specific governments were legitimate to the extent that they respected individual rights. But this was only an aside.

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1 hour ago, whYNOT said:

...The good old Swiss neutrality has its worth: <link>

The good old Swiss neutrality has nothing to do with honesty and objectivity. You are as ignorant about Swiss neutrality as about everything else.

This Swiss Policy Research site is private, probably German, not Swiss and "has been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories including claims that QAnon was a psyop of the FBI and theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Nonetheless, here is a fragment from that article:

Quote

Thus, claims that Ukraine “cannot win this war” or Russia “cannot lose this war” are premature and misguided...

If the upcoming Russian offensive fails, the Putin government will come under enormous pressure and may collapse; if the Russian offensive succeeds, NATO at some point may try to create a “safe zone” in western Ukraine, similar to the current situation in eastern Syria.

Even high-ranking Russian officials and government adivsers, such as Sergey Glazyev (“Russia doesn’t have a strategy in Ukraine”) and Sergey Markov (“the results of the year are catastrophic”), have openly acknowledged that Russia has maneuvered itself into a very difficult position.

Curiously, the article doesn't confirm your claims that until now(?) the Russians were very humane and careful not to really damage the Ukrainian army, the civilians, the infrastructure, but in the near future - August 2022, then November 2022, then maybe February 2023 - they will start really fight😁

Edited by AlexL
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11 hours ago, necrovore said:

Early on in the article, it describes conflict in Donbas as a provocation. That doesn't make sense anyway, because that isn't Russia, it isn't Russian territory, and it doesn't involve Russia. The whole notion of "goading" doesn't make sense. In fact, goading is irritation, not a threat, in the way that if you punched someone because they goaded you, that doesn't justify that you punched them.  

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15 hours ago, tadmjones said:

This framing of US foreign policy is certainly consistent with an objective view of lead up and execution of the current war in Ukraine.

<link to a "Swiss Policy Research" site>

Calling it "objective" doesn't make it so.

Besides, this site "has been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories including claims that QAnon was a psyop of the FBI and theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic."

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On 2/10/2023 at 10:04 AM, Eiuol said:

... The US is a democracy, if sometimes illegitimate, so it has some valid moral claims. 

The U.S. is not and never has been a democracy.  Not should it ever be.  Democracy is not a good thing.  The U.S. is a republic and the U.S. Constitution requires that every state have a republican form of government.  "Republic" means "not ruled by a monarch" but the U.S. Constitution also has provisions against the forming of an aristocracy.  To have "republican spirit" as exhibited during the French Revolution is not to be merely anti-monarchist but to be fully committed to egalitarianism.

Technically Russia is also a republic, as is China and North Korea.   A country's form of government and its practice with respect to human rights are two different issues which can be in complete contradiction. 

Any moral claims the U.S. might have due to its intermittent internal respect of human rights have no impact on what it may do in foreign policy.  Being a good boy at home does not justify a world wide war of conquest.  Everyone has rights, at home and abroad.  The CIA and the State Department and its "NGO" apparatuses such as the National Endowment for Democracy or The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has no formal requirement to respect or recognize the rights of people in other countries to self-governance, so they don't. 

Next up is an operation against Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary.  

 

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21 hours ago, tadmjones said:

This framing of US foreign policy is certainly consistent with an objective view of lead up and execution of the current war in Ukraine.

https://swprs.org/us-foreign-policy/

What makes it objective is the thorough consideration of all aspects of U.S. foreign policy and all possible explanations offered to get an integrated theory.  The U.S. is an empire because it has the attributes of an empire and acts like an empire. I'll quote the portion that impressed me with it's succinctness: 

Traditional Explanations

The Logic of US Foreign Policy by Sylvan and Majeski offers a consistent explanation for American interventions of the past several decades. In contrast, the usual explanations – by proponents as well as opponents of these wars – are mostly pretexts, rationalizations or at best partial aspects, as the following overview shows.

  1. Defending democracy and human rights: This traditional justification is not very convincing, since democratic governments have been overthrown (A, M, N), autocrats have been supported (E and I), human rights and international law have been violated or violations tolerated by the US.
  2. Combating terrorism: Paramilitary groups – including Islamist organizations – have been used for decades by the US to eliminate opposing regimes (N and R).
  3. Specific threats or aggressions against the US: In retrospect, most of these claims turned out to be incorrect or made-up (#13; e.g. Tonkin, incubator babies and WMD claims).
  4. Raw materials (especially oil and gas): Even enemy states generally want to sell their raw materials to the West, but are prevented from doing so by means of sanctions or war. This is because from an imperial point of view, their independence and influence is seen as a threat.
    1. Was the Iraq war about oil? Hardly. Already prior to 2003, Iraq had supplied its oil mainly to the West; the Iraqi oil sector was not privatized after the war, and production licences were also issued to corporations in France, Russia and China (which opposed the war).
    2. Was the Syrian war about natural gas pipelines? No (see here and here). The plans for regime change and war against geopolitically independent Syria had existed for decades and were to be implemented during the so-called “Arab Spring”. (See also a comment by the Syrian president).
    3. Was the Afghanistan war about a natural gas pipeline? No. The Taliban were and are interested in the TAPI pipeline, but didn’t accept US political and military demands.
    4. Was the Libya war about oil reserves? No. Libya was already one of Europe’s most important suppliers of oil under Gaddafi, and security of supply has declined significantly since the war. Libya, however, pursued an independent and comprehensive Africa policy – financed by its oil wealth – which collided with the plans of the US and France.
    5. Was the Iranian regime change in 1953 about the nationalization of oil? No. The US tried to mediate in the British-Iranian oil dispute and urged the British to compromise. Only when Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh cooperated with the Communist Tudeh Party and opened the country to the Soviet Union did the CIA intervene. Iranian oil, however, remained nationalized even after the coup.
    6. What was the 2019 Venezuela coup attempt about? See Venezuela: It’s Not About Oil.
    7. Could renewable energies solve the raw materials problem? Hardly, because renewable energies, storage technologies and high-tech electronics require rare-earth metals, 97% of which are currently produced by China, and conflict minerals such as coltan from the Congo.
  5. The “Petro-Dollar: The petro-dollar thesis was developed in the course of the Iraq war. However, the significance of the US dollar does not derive from oil, but from US economic power. While many states naturally prefer the stable dollar for their raw material exports, enemy states often have to switch to other currencies in order to circumvent sanctions (L, e.g. Iran).
  6. Capitalism: In 1917 Lenin described “imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism,” since capitalist states would have to conquer markets for their overproduction. However, even enemy states want to trade with the West, but are prevented from doing so by sanctions or war. Moreover, pre-capitalist states like Rome and Spain and even anti-capitalist states like the Soviet Union had already waged imperial wars.
  7. National debt: The national debt is also no reason for US wars, as the US is creating its own money by using the Fed. Moreover, wars themselves contribute immensely to national expenses.
  8. Arms industry: In 1961 US President Eisenhower warned of the increasing influence of the “military-industrial complex”. The latter is certainly one of the main profiteers of wars, but this applies as well to countries such as Russia, China, Sweden and Switzerland. Moreover, US wars are not arbitrary, but follow a certain logic; after all, even the Roman Empire did not conduct its wars merely to produce as many weapons as possible.
  9. The “Israel Lobby”: This aspect was emphasized in the book of the same name by Professors Walt and Mearsheimer. The Israeli government and pro-Israeli organizations such as AIPAC lobbied for the 2003 Iraq War and a war against Iran. As a hegemonic power, however, the US must intervene from East Asia to Central Africa and South America, and even the wars in the Middle East follow a superordinate logic. (More: The “Israel Lobby”: Facts and Myths)
  10. Neoconservatives: Another hypothesis proposes that US wars are driven by the so-called neo­con­ser­vatives. This idea is disconfirmed, for instance, by the numerous wars initiated or continued by the liberal Clinton and Obama administrations (Yugoslavia, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, etc.)

»We’ve got about five or ten years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes
– Syria, Iran, Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.«

Pentagon policy chief Paul Wolfowitz to General Wesley Clark in 1991 (FORA)

 

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14 minutes ago, Grames said:

The U.S. is a republic and the U.S. Constitution requires that every state have a republican form of government.

It should have been clear that "democracy" in the modern context refers to constitutional republic, where the principles align with rights generally speaking. 

18 minutes ago, Grames said:

A country's form of government and its practice with respect to human rights are two different issues which can be in complete contradiction. 

Right, so that's why we classify governments according to what they do, that is, their form of government is their practice with respect to human rights. 

22 minutes ago, Grames said:

Being a good boy at home does not justify a world wide war of conquest.  Everyone has rights, at home and abroad.

My point of contention isn't that you say America is behaving badly. My disagreement is when you said that you support Russia in this conflict. So I'm going on to say that whatever America has done, is doing, or doing in conjunction with NATO, that doesn't justify supporting Russia - except maybe as a pragmatic issue focused on realpolitik which doesn't take into account or care about moral principles. I lean more towards saying that I don't support anyone in this conflict, but there are reasons to prefer that Russia comes out on the bottom. And if NATO or America are doing something wrong, what they are doing wrong isn't the alleged "NATO expansion" or the alleged threats at the border. 

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17 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Early on in the article, it describes conflict in Donbas as a provocation. That doesn't make sense anyway, because that isn't Russia, it isn't Russian territory, and it doesn't involve Russia. The whole notion of "goading" doesn't make sense. In fact, goading is irritation, not a threat, in the way that if you punched someone because they goaded you, that doesn't justify that you punched them.

The article itself addresses this if you read a little further. You may disagree with it, but it does at least make the case.

The situation seems to be that the borders negotiated for Ukraine were extended around some Russian areas, and then Ukraine made a concerted effort to wipe out those Russians, and now tries to claim that, since everything is within their own borders, there is no provocation.

Even to this day the Russians in the area are second-class citizens under Ukrainian law.

Suppose as part of some international treaty negotiation, Mexico managed to extend its borders around parts of Texas, and then declared that Texans in those areas were second-class citizens, and then started killing off Texans who objected, by the tens of thousands. Would that not be a provocation?

(I don't mean to drag in the history that already exists between Mexico and Texas. But if anyone can find reasons to get upset about the history between Mexico and Texas and the U.S., then it only proves my point, in that both Russia and Russian people in the Ukraine might have been upset about what happened to them, too...)

(An emotion is not justification by itself, of course, but if you look at the reasons behind that emotion, then those reasons may be justification. Unfortunately, I don't know a whole lot about the situation in Ukraine, but that's why I found this article interesting, because it at least addressed the question.)

Edited by necrovore
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1 hour ago, necrovore said:

The situation seems to be that the borders negotiated for Ukraine were extended around some Russian areas, and then Ukraine made a concerted effort to wipe out those Russians, and now tries to claim that, since everything is within their own borders, there is no provocation.

"The situation seems to be..." It seems to you, because you obviously never researched the question.

There were no border negotiations. The "Belovezh Accords" (late 1991) stipulated that each of the 15 Soviet republic separate from the USSR in exactly their 1991 borders.

This was the simplest solution. Anything else, any border changes would result in chaos and in all-against-all violence. (There still was some violence, but all in all the process was mostly peaceful and dully ratified by all parties.)

As your "borders negotiation" premise is false, all your other claims are nonsense.

A 10 minutes research would have spared you the embarrassment.

Edited by AlexL
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1 hour ago, necrovore said:

Would that not be a provocation?

No, it wouldn't be. It would be many things with regards to Texas, but provocation is not one of them. In the hypothetical, presumably Texas in some way or another abandoned its citizens, it isn't Texas that's being provoked. What you would have is a war internal to Mexico, and Mexico's problem. The case of Russia and Ukraine still doesn't fit the comparison, because the Ukraine hasn't been part of Russia in over 30 years. The people in question might be ethnically Russian, but they aren't Russian nationals, and never were part of the Russian Federation - the Russian Federation is not historically continuous with the USSR. 

 

Edited by Eiuol
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2 hours ago, AlexL said:

There were no border negotiations. The "Belovezh Accords" (late 1991) stipulated that each of the 15 Soviet republic separate from the USSR in exactly their 1991 borders.

I don't think this changes much of anything. It would be as if the US were split up by splitting states along their existing borders as opposed to negotiating new ones.

Of course, the real situation is different from my hypothetical here; we don't have the problem of different states speaking different languages or having different cultures.

(Or maybe we do have two different cultures and maybe that's why some counties are wanting to leave Oregon and join Idaho. I think if the Federal government didn't exist, and Oregon started killing people in those counties, Idaho might have reason to intervene militarily...)

2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

 In the hypothetical, presumably Texas in some way or another abandoned its citizens

Or Texas could have lost a (cold) war...

Maybe they only "abandoned their citizens" because they didn't want to intervene militarily and hoped that some sort of peace treaty would protect their rights? ...

Edited by necrovore
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On 2/11/2023 at 4:03 PM, necrovore said:

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, AlexL said:

From the summary: "We speak to Scott Ritter..." [Russia Today's darling]

There is no need to watch further.

 

Within minutes, I predicted, up pops the western propaganda troll. To again distract, impede and obfuscate debate. Even to insist on posters' removal.

 

 

 

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On 2/11/2023 at 4:03 PM, necrovore said:

 

4 hours ago, necrovore said:

(An emotion is not justification by itself, of course, but if you look at the reasons behind that emotion, then those reasons may be justification. Unfortunately, I don't know a whole lot about the situation in Ukraine, but that's why I found this article interesting, because it at least addressed the question.)

You are right, don't allow these rationalized objections throw you off. The article showing a large increase in shelling days before the invasion is officially true, known at the time by many outside the mainstream, and your moral take is just.

The Ukr-NATO psy-ops people, in preparation for the war they wanted, realized it's critical for Russia to throw the first blow, or be SEEN to do so. The unthinking public, obviously, must only know what it's told: the war started Feb 24. Nothing was going on before that, freeze your minds right there. "Unjustified and unprovoked" was a prepared response, justifying the prepared, instant sanctions on Russia.

They knew with certainty - they understood and exploited his values - that a mounting fresh assault on the Donbass would entice and motivate Putin to enter soon. (As I've argued, Putin would know the threats to the Russia-owned Crimea, the well-being of people in Crimea and Donbass, and naturally - to the security of Russia's adjacent borders.

Legally right or wrong, one can argue all day-- Putin was morally right.

Of course with Putin/Russians already viewed with contempt by longstanding indoctrination, all this was carefully orchestrated to nullify the Russian-Ukrainians and their plight (who had heard of the civil war, Minsk, etc., in the West before '22?), in order to not attract any sympathy for them.

Especially - for 'evil' Putin never to be publicly seen as greatly motivated by humanitarian impulses!

So the propagandist shills for the neocons came up with "Empire!" and the rest.

 

Edited by whYNOT
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45 minutes ago, AlexL said:

No, not much, this only debunks your claims.

Not at all: just because I made a mistake about the facts, doesn't mean the (unmistaken) facts aren't there.

The task here is to determine the facts "out there," not the extent of my particular knowledge...

Edited by necrovore
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11 minutes ago, necrovore said:

... just because I made a mistake about the facts...

Oh, you did? Why did you? You don't don't use to check the facts before posting?

Quote

just because I made a mistake about the facts, doesn't mean the (unmistaken) facts aren't there.

What is this supposed to mean?

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48 minutes ago, AlexL said:

This is exactly what you are doing. I always justify my claims when asked (and sometimes when I am not ask), but you are rapidly taking cover and ignore the respective comments. You never really justified your claims.

Honestly, Grames and necrovore at least make coherent points even if wrong, points that you can argue with. The psych ward (tad, JL and whyNot) just throw out stream of consciousness thoughts.

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