About the Russian aggression of Ukraine

[AlexL]

1 hour ago, whYNOT said:

 I request at least an "open mind" in this reading.

https://www.rt.com/russia/568369...

You should warn people that, if they challenge your claims, you will hit them on the head with an article from Russia Today (or TASS, or RIA Novosti). If they knew beforehand, they wouldn't dare...😁

Edited December 18, 2022 by AlexL

[dream_weaver]

On 11/8/2022 at 1:54 PM, AlexL said:

It is indeed a different source of input about the events in that region, but it is exactly of the same leaning as the ones with which whYNOT bombards this Objectivism Forum. Another source, but the same point of view...

In regard to the Hillsdale College article I linked to, your assessment was of the same leaning as the sources whYNOT has been providing.

A headline from the Drudge Report written by Henry Kissinger doesn't seem to bode much better an article: How to avoid another world war

 

Edited December 18, 2022 by dream_weaver
Correct link

[Eiuol]

8 hours ago, whYNOT said:

So I asked for your reasoned, moral judgment and got a stock answer: x is better than y. End of story.

You didn't, you asked for my judgment. So I did. But every discussion I've ever had with you on any topic, after a few posts, you forget my explanations, then act as if I never gave an explanation in the first place. I decided not to explain, there would be no point. 

3 hours ago, AlexL said:

My point was that whYNOT is wrong by arguing that Russia is not a dictatorship because its Constitution says so.

It's worse than that, because he agreed that it is autocratic, while denying that autocracy is a dictatorship. Not all dictatorships are autocracies, but all autocracies are dictatorships in the modern understanding of a dictatorship. 

[AlexL]

18 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

In regard to the Hillsdale College article I linked to, your assessment was of the same leaning as the sources whYNOT has been providing.

A headline from the Drudge Report written by Henry Kissinger doesn't seem to bode much better an article: How to avoid another world war 

I don't understand what point you are trying to make.

[dream_weaver]

29 minutes ago, AlexL said:

I don't understand what point you are trying to make.

Do you take the Spectator article by Henry Kissinger to be more objective than the Hillsdale article that was towing the same line as Russia Today put forth? 

[AlexL]

17 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

Do you take the Spectator article by Henry Kissinger to be more objective than the Hillsdale article that was towing the same line as Russia Today put forth? 

About the Hillsdale article you said: "I thought it might be relevant and of interest as another source of input". 

And I replied that it doesn't really enlarge the spectrum of opinions because it was towing the same line as whYNOT (which is Russia Today's line). 

So, again: what did you bring Kissinger's article up for? Why should I care which one is "more objective"?

[dream_weaver]

1 hour ago, AlexL said:

So, again: what did you bring Kissinger's article up for? Why should I care which one is "more objective"?

I only brought up the Kissinger article because it was couched in such a way to be of interest to me. I did click on it after all. Then I chose to introduce it here. 

It is just another example of what the MSM are positing as appetizers for the clientele they are cultivating for?

Conflicts overseas, rotating shortages on local supermarket shelves, increasing federal deficits, why should anyone care about any such things?

 

[AlexL]

20 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

22 hours ago, AlexL said:

So, again: what did you bring Kissinger's article up for? Why should I care which one is "more objective"?

I only brought up the Kissinger article because it was couched in such a way to be of interest to me. I did click on it after all. Then I chose to introduce it here. 

Yes, you chose to introduce it here, but specifically in the context of your discussion with me, and I was wondering what are you trying to ague by doing it.

Quote

It is just another example of what the MSM are positing as appetizers for the clientele they are cultivating for?

What do you mean? Does it have something to do with your discussion with me?

Quote

Conflicts overseas, rotating shortages on local supermarket shelves, increasing federal deficits, why should anyone care about any such things?

I did not mean "why should I care about the subjects Kissinger discusses", but why the "comparative objectivity" (with another article) is relevant in the context of your discussion with me?

Edited December 19, 2022 by AlexL

[tadmjones]

I think Elvis left the building.

[whYNOT]

On 12/19/2022 at 12:30 AM, dream_weaver said:

Do you take the Spectator article by Henry Kissinger to be more objective than the Hillsdale article that was towing the same line as Russia Today put forth? 

Yes. *Placement* of an article is all-crucial to skeptics and the dogmatic authoritarians. "A savage" (e.g. a RT writer) utters a statement it's by definition, arbitrary or false--it would appear.

Edited December 20, 2022 by whYNOT

[whYNOT]

On 12/18/2022 at 10:07 PM, AlexL said:

You should warn people that, if they challenge your claims, you will hit them on the head with an article from Russia Today (or TASS, or RIA Novosti). If they knew beforehand, they wouldn't dare...😁

The above is an op-ed voicing opinions which I said I agreed with (from my findings). The vast majority of articles there are not opinion pieces, but straight factual statements mostly by outside news agencies or freelance writers that can be checked in other sources.

By your logic I suppose the Der Zeit interview republished in brief in RT (or else few - and me - would have ever found it) about Merkel's bombshell, loses all credibility ¬because¬ RT repeated it.

I am willing to bet the Merkel admission didn't get the headline exposure in western corporate/ state media it merits. As with all propaganda, critical information gets buried. They could never want Russia to be seen in a favorable light, or their politicians in a sleazy light. Such as Putin pursuing an early peaceful resolution- while the Minsk talks were a cynical pretext to gain Ukraine time to arm.

Untrustworthy partners in peace negotiations then, and they are now.

Edited December 20, 2022 by whYNOT

[William Scott Scherk]

5 hours ago, whYNOT said:

The above is an op-ed voicing opinions which I said I agreed with (from my findings). The vast majority of articles there are not opinion pieces, but straight factual statements mostly by outside news agencies or freelance writers that can be checked in other sources.

I'd like to see a deep-dive into the Minsk accords that examines arguments and fixed opinions from the (roughly) six sides. As Russian law provides prison for dissent ... this might mean looking beyond media committed to official Russian truth. 

While we await fresh findings, is it okay to post 'vantage' English-language videos from Russian citizen-reporters both in and outside the Russian Federation? 

[AlexL]

1 hour ago, William Scott Scherk said:

I'd like to see a deep-dive into the Minsk accords that examines arguments and fixed opinions from the (roughly) six sides.

1. For detailed information on these Agreements and the complex controversy surrounding them, see the entire Wiki article Minsk Agreements. This article is the desirable starting point for those interested to form an opinion (and for those who have or express opinions on the subject).

As it is usual with Wiki, the reader should consult also the Talk page (in order to be aware of disputed points and arguments) and the references. 

2. Please find below selected excerpts from an article I find interesting because they mention some of the circumstances in which the accords were signed, the consequences for Ukraine and Russia if they were implemented and an outlook for today's phase of the war (emphasis are mine):

Quote

The Minsk agreements, which managed to be put into effect on the second try, were the result of Ukraine's military defeats, meaning the task ... was therefore to stop the fighting by any means necessary... 
In some quarters at the time it was said that Merkel had actually advised Poroshenko not to sign the proposed document because she understood that the terms enshrined therein were beneficial to Moscow. The idea that the special conditions for the return of Donbass to Ukraine spelled out in Minsk would allow Russia to have a kind of “stop valve” to block further geopolitical moves by Kiev suited the Russian side...
The Minsk agreements are a thing of the past because they brought to a close one phase of the conflict, whereas now another, qualitatively different, one is raging. It is very difficult to imagine that it will end with something similar to the negotiations of 2014-2015. Indeed, so far, it is not at all clear what is even meant when there is talk about negotiations. Negotiate about what? All sides in the standoff have already declared it existential – so what compromises can there be?...

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by AlexL

[RationalEgoist]

@whYNOT, what are you arguing for exactly? What is your concrete goal in participating here? I'm just so confused as to why any self-proclaimed Objectivist would support such an obvious mystic authoritarian like Vladimir Putin and his government. Quite frankly, I don't particularly care if you'll go on to tell me that you're not actually a supporter of Putin because all that any honest person would need to do is pay attention to whose interests are being served by your words. 

The only possible argument that I could potentially see against Western involvement in Ukraine (and I don't think I agree that this even applies to the present circumstances) is that current aid to Ukraine is self-sacrificial. Fine. But, if this was the position which you were indeed advocating in favor of, then you wouldn't need to obfuscate in regards to Ukraine for the purposes of making the country look bad as compared to Russia. It definitely seems like you have some ulterior motive here. Suspicious. 

Objectivists proudly and openly advocate for drawing moral distinctions between state actors. Do you honestly think that NATO and Russia are moral equals? If so, this is utterly nihilistic, and something to be expected from your average "anti-imperialist" leftist as opposed to someone upholding the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Remember who it is that one betrays when one avoids making clear differentiations between the good and the evil. If there are active currents within Ukraine struggling in favor of individual rights, then they ought to be supported intellectually, financially, and through armament to whatever extent is possible without self-sacrifice. Surely it is objectively better for Ukraine to develop a rights-respecting, liberal democracy for itself rather than reverting back to being a corrupt Russian satellite state primarily serving a group of oligarchs? The former is what most Ukrainians want, as far as I know. 

As I argued above (and it seems like mostly everyone here agreed with me), the Objectivist view is that Russia gets no say in the matter of Ukraine's self-determination. Russia is an outlaw nation because of what its government does to its citizens, i.e., deny them their nature-given individual rights. Russia has no right to have its opinions considered, it has no right to a sphere of influence, etc. And, face it, you trying to argue that Russia is somehow not a dictatorship because of what its constitution says was just downright embarrassing.

Now, do I think that the US government should be provoking war with Russia? Well, as I don't particularly care to die in a nuclear holocaust, my answer is no. But that's not what the US is doing. It's helping Ukraine defend itself against a blatant and clear aggressor. 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. 

Even if there are flaws with Ukraine that do need to be recognized, it doesn't particularly matter when one considers the fact that there is a bloody war happening as we speak, and when we know that the victory of the adversary would be objectively worse. 

So, yes, Objectivists should undoubtedly support Ukraine over Russia in this conflict. 

[tadmjones]

That mythical number is reported here in 2020, but not exactly RT or RT adjacent, I’m pretty sure radio free whatever orgs are US state dept entities.

https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskiys-first-year-he-promised-sweeping-changes-how-s-he-doing-/30576329.html

Notice they don’t even say who died , just that the fighting resulted in the death of 13 k people since began in 2014.

It seems according to reporting that one of the main reasons for Zelensky’s election success was his stance on ending the war the ‘Russian backed eastern separatist’s’ . So it would seem a majority of the 40 million people nation were in favor of ending military hostilities even after the annexation of Crimea.

Edited December 21, 2022 by tadmjones

[RationalEgoist]

5 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

That mythical number is reported here in 2020, but not exactly RT or RT adjacent, I’m pretty sure radio free whatever orgs are US state dept entities.

https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskiys-first-year-he-promised-sweeping-changes-how-s-he-doing-/30576329.html

No source is provided. And it doesn't say anything at all about these supposed 13,000 being pro-Russian. 

[tadmjones]

The source isn’t necessarily relevant to my inference of your point that the mythic number was Russian propaganda , so it’s either a true estimate or not but it used as a recognized quantity by both ‘sides’.

The number and referencing it is like referencing the 11 million illegal immigrant population in the US , it’s the official number for the last few decades.

[AlexL]

@RationalEgoist,  @tadmjones, @whYNOT 

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 the 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.

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by AlexL

[tadmjones]

As I've said before fuck Putin and his regime , but fuck Zelensky and his regime. Russia is obviously morally resposible for the ongoing civilian deaths and destruction in Ukraine.

But US/NATO policy pushed Putin to react militarily to defend Russia's interest in the pipelines and coastlines in and around the Black Sea.

[RationalEgoist]

On 12/21/2022 at 1:57 PM, tadmjones said:

As I've said before fuck Putin and his regime , but fuck Zelensky and his regime.

Do you not see that this kind of agnosticism only benefits Russia? It clearly serves the purpose of demoralizing support for Ukraine and its unequivocal right to self-defense. To simply shrug one's shoulders and say "both sides bad" when innocent Ukrainians are literally dying in a war for their freedom and independence strikes me as pure evasion. It's truly unbecoming of someone claiming to be an Objectivist (and I'm not even one). And so is your vulgar profanity, by the way.

On 12/21/2022 at 1:57 PM, tadmjones said:

Russia is obviously morally resposible for the ongoing civilian deaths and destruction in Ukraine.

Is it? Because in the very next sentence, you go on to write the following:

On 12/21/2022 at 1:57 PM, tadmjones said:

US/NATO policy pushed Putin to react militarily to defend Russia's interest

I think it's rather obvious that this constitutes a whitewashing of Putin's decision to invade Ukraine. You are, in fact, trying to gloss over the aggressive actions of Russia with a veneer of rationality and common sense. Russia, since it is a dictatorship, can claim no right to interfere in the political affairs of Ukraine. If Ukraine wants to break free of the yoke of Russian domination, then it is perfectly free to do so, as long as their own objective is a free society. Personally, I'm not convinced that Ukraine will achieve this in the near future, but what I am willing to do is provide my intellectual support to political currents in Ukraine which serve to bring about conditions which would at least award more freedom than what its citizenry currently enjoys (and certainly more freedom than what they would enjoy as subjects in a Russian satellite state). 

And, also, does it never occur to you why the people of Ukraine feel hostility towards the prospects of closer integration with Russia? It's not as if the hostility just comes out of a vacuum. Perhaps what needs to happen is that Russia should commit to a bottom-up re-evaluation of itself and its relationship to its neighbors to figure out why there is this tension in the air. Somehow I doubt that sending air-strikes, rockets, and Iranian drones toward Ukrainian population centers and their infrastructure will mend any fences. 

For the love of all that is good, do not fall for the degrading moral nihilism of the leftists and increasingly that of the nationalist conservatives. Such is the message that I would like to convey. 

[tadmjones]

The innocents in Ukraine are dying because the West wants regime change in Russia.

[AlexL]

31 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

The innocents in Ukraine are dying because the West wants regime change in Russia.

The innocents in Ukraine are dying because Putin attacked Ukraine. And it will continue at least as long as Putin stays in power.

[AlexL]

On 12/21/2022 at 1:57 PM, tadmjones said:

As I've said before fuck Putin and his regime , but fuck Zelensky and his regime. Russia is obviously morally resposible for the ongoing civilian deaths and destruction in Ukraine.

You explained why fuck Putin - "morally responsible etc." But you didn't explain why fuck Zelensky. Is it because he is sexy? Or for a political reason? Which political reason(s)?

Quote

US/NATO policy pushed Putin to react militarily to defend Russia's interest in the pipelines and coastlines in and around the Black Sea.

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

[RationalEgoist]

21 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

The innocents in Ukraine are dying because the West wants regime change in Russia.

Do I need to say it openly? Fine, I will. Any free nation has the right to institute regime change in Russia (or in any dictatorship). The free countries have no obligation to do so but they are morally permitted to. You can disagree with this if you'd like but I think you'll find that I am indeed arguing in line with Ayn Rand's views on foreign policy. 

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. 

[tadmjones]

11 hours ago, AlexL said:

The innocents in Ukraine are dying because Putin attacked Ukraine. And it will continue at least as long as Putin stays in power.

Why wouldn’t a subsequent Russian regime ‘keep’ Crimea , or do you mean that Ukraine would cease trying to retake possession as long as Putin isn’t the leader?