Same reason you don’t see tankies in this thread.
Translation: He wants Russia to win the War and for America to be signed over to the Kremlin, but he knows he can’t say that aloud
…i don’t think he wants anything other than to keep uncle vlad at bay…
Forgot the context of what you were responding to when I saw it in my list of replies I’ve recieved, so I thought for a second that someone was trying to fight Dracula… and I’m like “Them Belmonts are at it again aren’t they? Didn’t think Drac was gonna be back for another 11 years”
That’s why he’s nothing more than vatnik kompromat.
Removed by mod
It’s a bit of a stretch to say I’m pro-Russian, and why would I care what Trump says or thinks? He’s a clown who bullshits and contradicts himself all the time.
support for Russia (not Putin, as historical materialists don’t subscribe to great man theory) is only a partial, temporary, tactical one, in the context of imperialist liberation.
So you’re pro-Russian in the temporary, tactical sense, in the context of imperialist liberation. And you would be pro-Putin too, but for not believing in great man theory.
So you’re NOT pro-Russian? Yes or no?
How is it that you seem to be having a lot of trouble answering anything even vaguely criticizing Russia?
Do you think Russia broke international law with an illegal invasion of Ukraine, which is prohibited, as it’s a war of aggression? Yes or no?
(First off, a gentle reminder that you chose to answer, when you could’ve simply ignored my comment on this post. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
You can’t answer, because you support Russia.
Remember when you said there’s “zero chance of Russian propaganda” on Lemmy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_propaganda_in_the_Russian_Federation
The propaganda of the Russian Federation promotes views, perceptions or agendas of the government. The media include state-run outlets and online technologies,[1][2] and may involve using “Soviet-style ‘active measures’ as an element of modern Russian ‘political warfare’”.[3] Notably, contemporary Russian propaganda promotes the cult of personality of Vladimir Putin and positive views of Soviet history.[4] Russia has established a number of organizations, such as the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia’s Interests, the Russian web brigades, and others that engage in political propaganda to promote the views of the Russian government.
Remember — like we’ve discussed previously — that to perpetuate a state’s propaganda, you don’t actually have to be on their payroll, or even cognisant of perpetuating it. However, you very much seem to be. Because you’re making the conscious choice to do everything in your power to avoid the question “are you pro-Russian?”
You simply can not answer a simple yes or no question. Just like Trump, when asked about Ukraine.
This tells everyone all they need to know about you. That you don’t think Russia broke international law by invading Ukraine. You can’t even deny it, because you delude yourself like Trump, that as long as you don’t straight up say “no”, people can’t infer your answer from the context.
You’re on the Russian side of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. You do not think Russia broke international law by invading Ukraine. If you did, you’d be able to say so.
Remember when you kept threatening me that you’re gonna ban me off of a whole instance because I downvoted a comment of yours?
That’s not it works. Vegetarians aren’t following in Hitler’s footsteps. If two people were to have similar stances on something, they didn’t necessarily come to it in the same way, or one from the other. In fact, they don’t even necessarily hold similar stances for similar reasons.
That you don’t think Russia broke international law by invading Ukraine.
Remember when you kept threatening me that you’re gonna ban me off of a whole instance because I downvoted a comment of yours?
How “it” works? What? You mean… comparisons? Yes, they do.
I’ve compared your rhetoric to that of Trump. Nothing in that makes the assertion you believe in any of the same things he does. You’re avoiding a question like him, and like him, you’re deluding yourself that people can’t infer what your stance is from your avoidance. Which is… silly, to say the least.
Here are the only things you post and say “no, that’s not been said”, “you shouldn’t believe this publication”, “that’s not how it works”, “no that’s not what I said”, “no that’s not exactly how I would put it”, etc etc. Yet you absolutely refuse to elaborate on how you would “put” something when ASKED DIRECTLY.
Refusing to answer one question once, because you object to it’s framing, would be understandable, and you could elaborate on why easily within a comment. Systematically avoiding saying whether you’re pro-Russian, whether Russia broke international law by invading Ukraine, whether Russia has indeed ever done anything that has broken international laws (which we could sit here weeks listing, with confirmed sources) is a very clear indicator to your beliefs.
Like I’ve said several times, I’ve asked you for your beliefs. I’ve not stated that I know them. I’ve stated that I know what it means when I’m alone with someone in a lift, there’s a loud “PRRRRRTTT” sound, their white pants go brown and a nasty smelling muck starts coming from their pant leg, even when they loudly say “I didn’t just shit myself”, because I know what shitting one’s self looks like and just saying the words “b-b-but no no that’s not what happened” doesn’t change what ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
You’re pretending that you’re not pro-Russian, because you know people are disgusted by people who support Putler’s insane regime. How does it feel being the world’s most massive losers as a nation? If I’m wrong and you’re actually against Putin and the international warcrimes he and Russia are responsible for, you’re very welcome to say so and I’ll apologize for my assumptions.
I’m starting to think you’re hoping that, by being rude & annoying enough, someone will ban you, so you can then blame Russian trolls! Russian trolls! Russian trolls! Or maybe you’re just like this.
$ curl -s 'https://lemmy.ml/api/v3/modlog?limit=50&other_person_id=8274625' \ > | jq 'pick(.removed_comments, .banned_from_community, .banned, .removed_posts) | keys[] as $k | .[$k] | length' \ > | paste -s -d+ - | bc 43 $oh and here’s a direct quote from him, from his link from our earlier chat:
There are approximately zero Russian trolls
He’d give up on Ukraine. And call it a win.
“Winning the battle is worth losing the war”
(Trump, The Art of the Deal, pp. 179-181)
“I could make a deal with Hitler to stop this war tomorrow!”
Yeah pretty much.
Aka appeasement. We tried it Donny. Though this time it’s Trump who wants to be dictator.
He didn’t answer a single fucking question about anything, just ranted about illegals eating pets the whole time.
This is why I don’t watch the debate. I know it’ll just piss me off because he won’t say anything but crazy shit.
It was great seeing Kamala get under his skin. The reaction cams were really fun seeing Kamala react like a normal human to his insane rantings and him just smoldering and getting angrier and angrier when she hit back
My favorite was when she clearly (very clearly IMO) seemed about to say “…but this motherfucker…” and restrained herself.
Omg I forgot about that moment!
But it was so crazy that it was incredibly funny. I was doing paraphrases of a lot of his responses in the pinned debate thread in c/news if you’re curious.
The thing is, it isn’t actually funny. we can laugh at the old racist piece of shit criminal but it is actually quite sad and makes me angry that this is where we are.
Yeah I’ll look back and laugh if he loses
He is outing gop for eating pets. He just needs to do it under the radar.
Remember every blame the throw around is admission on their part.
Suddenly ol’ brainworrm endorsing Trump makes sense!
Let’s not forget: it appears that JD Vance may be the originator of that whole farce.
In which case, Trump touted it because either a) they honestly think it is good propaganda which will sway the campaign, or b) Trump is quite literally eating his own dog food, because there are too many lies to keep track of.
He also still refused to admit he lost four years ago, and admit any fault or regret for Jan 6th. And he showed zero remorse or awareness about the Central Park Five. Pure deflection for every single question.
His boss sure as shit doesn’t want Ukraine to win.
His boss wants to stay in power, Ukraine is just convenient way of doing it.
Ukraine was a massive fuck up for Putin. He believes in the bullshit known as color revolution.
So he thought he’d pull one in Ukraine. A few years of some soldiers fucking around in the East, then he’d walk in and be welcomed.
Which is fucking stupid.
But Putin has long since killed anyone who would tell him that an idea is stupid, or that people don’t work the way a paranoid, backstabbing KGB trained psychopath thinks they do.
No, Putin fucked up hard due to the dictator trap.
Now he’s scrambling. He’s been killing off rivals and opponents at a breakneck pace the last few years, all because his position has never been weaker.
And he barely managed to diffuse a coup attempt.
He had to use treachery to do it, so the next time, the coup leader will not back down.
No, Putin is desperate to pull out some sort of win in Ukraine, because anything else is the end of his rule, and likely his life.
And he barely managed to diffuse a coup attempt.
Context?
Priggy’s aborted thunder run: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group_rebellion
Ohh, I forgot about that. Not sure if that coup would have made things better, but it was an interesting time.
Russian Asset. Better dead than Red.
Americans being so politically illiterate they think that the government they practically installed is somehow communist.
lol remember to vote I guess
What is Red in this context?
C. All of the above.
russia isn’t “red” and never really was to begin with
Yeah keep dreaming about the communist utopia that will definitely happen… somewhere… at some point… …maybe…?
Communism isn’t Utopian, it isn’t a “perfect model of society” that people simply need to agree with in their minds to adopt. It’s closer to a theory of historical development and analyzing what will come after Capitalism in that long chain of development.
Knowing about it can speed up the process of development, since you can better direct it, but modes of production emerge from what came before.
That’s what annoys me the most. Tankies will go defend Russia like it’s the promised land of communism, when the only remnant of communism it has is rigged elections and propaganda.
Also wrong. Rigged elections would imply there ever was a communist Russia. There never was. It was (maybe at its best, in part) socialist and most of the time after the zars a military state. That is true for all states that were left leaning btw. No communists to be found.
This is incorrect. The USSR was Socialist, and was attempting to work towards building Communism.
Yes working towards as in socialism is the first stage to communism. But they didn’t get far thus my argument was there wasn’t communism in the USSR.
They got pretty far, they were Socialist for nearly the entire 20th century. They liberalized towards the end and were dissolved, but the narrative that they weren’t Socialist or that it wasn’t a real attempt at building Communism is nonsense.
Yes arguing that Russia was never socialist (or tried hard to be) would be nonsense. I am not arguing that though. I said that there was never communism. As in, archived and not used as veil to hide the failing government and society.
No true Scotsman
Russia very much was communism in the real world.
Great argument. What do you base this on?
It’s like china calling itself communist right now.
Yes there was rhetoric in the USSR that suggested they were but it was an instrument to legitimate the horrible things that they did to their people.
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_society
A communist society is characterized by common ownership of the means of production with free access[1][2] to the articles of consumption and is classless, stateless, and moneyless,[3][4][5][6] implying the end of the exploitation of labour.[7][8]
That was not the case. It was state owned, as the transition from whatever system was there before to socialism plans. Communism is supposed to be something different.
I am not arguing that it would be good or better than anything we have today but am saying that we never saw communism in the modern world.
Change my mind with arguments and not down votes.
Okay lets use wiki as a source… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_communist_states
The following communist states were socialist states committed to communism. Some were short-lived and preceded the widespread adoption of Marxism–Leninism by most communist states.
Russia Russia Chita Republic (1905–1906) Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1991) Amur Socialist Soviet Republic (1918) Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1918–1924) Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1918–1941) Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991) Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1990) Kirghiz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (1920–1925) Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1921–1924) Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1921–1991) Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1921–1941; 1944–1945) Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1922–1991) Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1923–1990) Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1923–1940; 1956–1991) Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (1925–1936) Kirghiz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (1926–1936) Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1934–1990) Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1934–1990) Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1935–1943; 1957–1991) Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1936–1944; 1957–1991) Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1936–1944; 1957–1991) Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1936–1991) Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1936–1991) North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1936–1993) Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (1940–1956) Kabardin Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1944–1957) Tuvan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1961–1992) Gorno-Altai Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1990–1991) Soviet Republic of Soldiers and Fortress-Builders of Naissaar (1917–1918) Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic (1918) Crimean Socialist Soviet Republic (1919) Far Eastern Republic Far Eastern Republic (1920–1922) Tuvan People's Republic Tuvan People's Republic (1921–1944) Soviet Union Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)Would you look at that…
This is a semantic matter. No socialist state has ever claimed to have reached the stage of communism, including China. But some socialist states—including China—have been/are run by communist governments/parties, which claim to be working toward reaching that stage.
China doesn’t call itself communist. It’s Socialist with Chinese characteristics.
You are right, I mixed something up
Same argument though for socialism. They are a capitalist country that calls itself something else. You don’t seriously believe they are socialist In any other way than their name.
Communism isn’t about ideological purity. The USSR never made it to the global, total, Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society Marx describes as Upper Stage Communism, but the Soviets never argued that they had. What the Soviets did, was begin the process of working towards that.
Thanks for a proper response. More than others in this thread are capable of.
The clear distinction is hard, I accept that point. The phases at least how I learned it are clear. First state owned then truly society owned as a goal. They never got anywhere near that. Nor a classless society. It wasn’t the old classes from before 1900 but classes as in power structures were very much present.
And yes it was their expressed and I believe trat they were truthful about that to create a communist state. But there were power struggles and the clear ideas became unclear and what remained (intentionally or not) was the name of the goal justifying all the horrible things.
Again, I am not arguing against or for communism, just making the argument that there was never a communist country as in the sense they reached something resembling the idea of the word. Keeping in mind that there is not a clear line of demarcation, this much is clear to me.
This stood out to me. Do we know of anyone who Trump might be worried about upsetting if he said he wanted Ukraine to win? Anyone at all?
Do we know of anyone who Trump might be worried about upsetting if he said he wanted Ukraine to win? Anyone at all?
That question is awkwardly worded, why are you putin it that way?
Just not russian to any conclusions
Tsar right to know if he’s compromised.
What is confusing to me is why would it matter to Putin if Trump lied here? The Russian mode of government is lying and deception after all.
Does he actually think that his voters want Ukraine to lose? Oh fuck, do his voters actually want Ukraine to lose?
They’ve been listening to the Russian trolls and bots.
Their line isn’t that Ukraine should lose, it’s that America shouldn’t give them money while homeless vets, Ukraine is corrupt, biden crime family, nato expansion, etc. Which coincidentally are all Russian talking points.
Those damn russians, constantly bringing up recent history like that.
Didn’t Hunter get like millions of dollars from both Russian and Ukranian oligarchs? It’s so cool how the kids of politicans always end up with these sweet deals- and to think Trump is claiming to be the deals guy
Oh thanks, I forgot hunter Biden.
Now go and Google what the Budapest memorandum was.
Russia stated that it had never been under obligation to “force any part of Ukraine’s civilian population to stay in Ukraine against its will.” Russia suggested that the US was in violation of the Budapest Memorandum and described the Euromaidan as a US-instigated coup.
Yes, the CIA psyop’d over 70% of the country to support joining the EU, then forced yanukovitch to say “screw that we love Russia” and piss everyone off. And the totally organic resistance movement in the east that happened to have russian equipment and… Soldiers? Yeah just the people self determining or whatever.
So what about the ethnic Russians, and the rest of the non-Ukranian speakers?
There was a base of people (30% per your post) who didn’t support this and when the government cracked down on resistance, city centers ended up shelled with artillery for years.
Just a shitty situation to get caught in the middle of, frankly. Did you support NATO intervention against Serbia when it used its military on a breakaway region?
I found it interesting that Trump claims if he wins the election, he’ll have the Russia / Ukraine conflict resolved BEFORE he even takes office. I’m paraphrasing there, but that’s how I interpreted what he stated.
If that’s the case, then it seems like he could choose to end the conflict at any time. Why doesn’t he just end it now? Save countless lives. Minimize injuries. Prevent suffering. Save money. I’m sure that’d change some voters’ minds if he did it. Might even win him the election.
Yes, this is a rhetorical question. I have no doubt that he can’t actually end it without basically giving in entirely to Russia.
It is a confusing statement. I understood it to be basically that once he is guaranteed to be president, Putin will know his man on the inside will be in charge, and Putin can end the war/negotiate for favorable terms with the US as enforcer.
Trump can’t end it before the election, because there’s no guarantee he’ll win.
Trump thinks that makes him a brilliant negotiator, instead of what he really is which is a stooge that can be played like a fiddle.
You should have learned by now that everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth is pure bullshit.
It’s not a mystery how he plans to do it. He’ll demand Zelenskyy cede taken territory to Russia. If Zelenskyy doesn’t accept those terms, then the funding to Ukraine will stop.
I found it interesting that Trump claims if he wins the election, he’ll have the Russia / Ukraine conflict resolved BEFORE he even takes office.
He’s invoking the Iran Hostage Crisis, I think. Reagan famously cut a deal with the Ayatollah to release the American hostages on the day of his inauguration, despite Carter having nailed down a prisoner exchange months earlier.
If that’s the case, then it seems like he could choose to end the conflict at any time.
He’s full of shit. This isn’t a hostage negotiation where Biden did 95% of the work for him already. This is an intractable siege spanning a third of the country’s land area which has been spiraling into long range bombings of the respective civilian capitals. Trump isn’t going to be able to leverage a ceasefire that’s already on the table, because Zelensky isn’t asking for a ceasefire, he’s asking for permission to use higher capacity long range missiles to force Russian troops off the southern front.
I have no doubt that he can’t actually end it without basically giving in entirely to Russia.
The siren song Trump sings is that he could have prevented the '22 invasion by playing nice with Putin before tanks crossed the border. And 100%, if there had been a detente prior to the outbreak of open conflict, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. Even at a concession of territory, this arguably would have been preferable to the holocaust committed across the territory to date.
But the reality is that he was just as happy to sell advanced weapons systems to Ukraine in 2018 as Biden has been in extending military aid today. If anything, Trump was more responsible for the Ukraine/Russia war going hot than Biden. And not even for particularly noble reasons (MIC $$$!!!)
Trump falsely promised Ukrainian leadership his full support in the event of a Russian retaliation, sold them a bunch of tacti-cool military surplus, and then turned around and tried to cut the same fucking deal with the Russians.
In this sense, it also invokes Reagan who was famous for sending Rumsfeld to cut arms deals with both Iran and Iraq shortly before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War.
Promising both countries your support, goading them into conflict, and then pulling back to let them duke it out is textbook John Bolton foreign policy. And guess who was whispering in Trump’s ear all through that first term in office?
It was obvious as hell that he wants Russia to win.
All we have to do is make him president elect! We don’t even have to inaugurate him!
You’ll get all the Logan act violations you seek if you act now!
he will allow Russia to win yes, in exchange for favours probably
Of course, he wants Russia to win, duh
What does “win” even mean? NATO starting World War 3? Well, they’re getting there.
You mean Russia starting the conflict that might turn into WW III two years ago?
The conflict started more than a decade ago. Currently it’s a proxy war mostly limited to the territory of Ukraine and Russia. Other countries are in the pipeline.
Oh we know. If Russia wins, Poland is next. Russia salami slicing started in 2014 with its first annexation of part of Ukrainian.
The next target after Russia loses against NATO will be China actually. And then Iran, North Korea. But you’ll get a total nuclear exchange well before, so it’s academical.
So likely next proxy is Moldova, Romania, Georgia, Belorus. Poland is also a possibility, but not at first. Unless Belorus, but then we’re at tactical nukes stage already.
Russia was the aggressor here. Ukraines wanted to go towards the west for a better life and protection from being further invaded by Russia. Putin is of the school of thought that Ukraine isn’t real. But it is the people of Ukraine who decide that.
This war started more than a decade ago. Russian Federation only became a party some two years ago.
This was the start : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War
Focusing in on his one singular good take to criticize as usual.
Minimizing loss of life by negotiating peace is a good thing. The hawks didn’t get enough from our last 20 year war that just ended so they want to indefinitely commit to another conflict, and it doesn’t matter how many die or whether there’s anything other than rubble left afterwards, all that matters is nationalist pride and defense industry profits. I wish they’d asked Harris what the timetable was, how long and exactly how much blood and treasure she’s willing to commit over a couple provinces on the other side of the world.
How quickly we forget the past. People learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan.
If only we could get someone who’s consistently anti-war, and not an absolutely horrible and disgusting person in every other aspect.
Hmmm… I’m a staunch pacifist and also 100% behind helping Ukraine. These things are not at odds because the enemy of pacifism is aggression. The person that can actually end the war is on the other side of the world.
Then you are not a pacifist. Words mean things.
You don’t get to call yourself a pacifist, let alone a staunch one, and then rally around the defense of the fatherland, even if it’s your own fatherland, which in this case I’m assuming it’s not. This is complete nonsense and hypocrisy.
I’m a Roman Legionnarie out fighting in Gaul, but I’m a “staunch pacifist,” you see, because Rome made an alliance with one of the Gallic tribes and its neighbor tried to mess with it, so now, I’m out here slaughtering foreigners hundreds of miles away from home to defend Rome’s honor. But I’m a pacifist, you see!
What the hell does “pacifism” mean to you?
Here’s how Google defines it:
the belief that any violence, including war, is unjustifiable under any circumstances, and that all disputes should be settled by peaceful means.
I’ve read works by actual pacifists such as Tolstoy, whose views reflected that definition. Can you cite any “pacifist” who thinks supporting a war, even a defensive one, is consistent with pacifism?
Don’t you have some imperialist colonialism to support with actions and deny by word?
Exactly how much Ukrainian land should Russia get to keep in this negotiation? Percentage is fine.
The exact lines would have to be negotiated. For starters, obviously Russia is going to keep Crimea which they held before the war started. At most, they’d receive the disputed provinces which had been fighting in the civil war before they got involved, which requested Russian assistance. I don’t know what percentage of Ukrainian territory those provinces are.
The exact amount of loss that’s acceptable to achieve peace is debatable, but there hasn’t been any discussion of it whatsoever. Zelensky has insisted on zero territorial concessions at all, including retaking Crimea, which is completely unrealistic.
And, I suppose, all Ukraine gets out of the deal is that Russia stops taking more of their territory. For now. This sounds like it’s all in Russia’s favor.
As opposed to what, exactly? Like, even in your wildest fantasies, how does this go exactly? Ukraine reclaims all of it’s lost territory, including Crimea somehow, and then negotiates peace. For now. Oh, I guess that’s not enough then, is it? So what, does Ukraine seize Russian territory? Does Russia get coup’ed, and the US hand picks someone to be in charge to make sure that Russia is never threatens anyone ever again, like it did in the 90’s? Hey, wait a minute…
Sometimes conflicts end without one side being completely annihilated, and no matter how the conflict ends, that’s how it’s going to end. Ukraine can negotiate for security guarantees, but what that would look like exactly would have to be worked out in the negotiations that aren’t happening.
Well you’ve decided how I fantasize it will go, so I guess I don’t have to tell you. Congratulations on your psychic powers.
I made a guess, if I’m wrong, explain it to me.
You didn’t make a guess, you told me what is not enough for me. Don’t try to weasel out of it now. You’re clearly not interested in knowing what I think.
To be unwavering anti-war including defensive wars, is appeasement, and WWII is a demonstration of exactly where that leads. Even if you ignore all the combat related deaths, millions were still just butchered by the nazis in non-combat situations, and that number would have been even more if no one stood up to counter. The reluctance to forceful resistance resulted in more deaths including innocent non-combatants. Problem is in reality, if all the ‘good’ folks are anti-war, then the one asshole who is pro-offensive war conquers all. Being highly skeptical of war, especially offensive war I can see, but to stand aside as evil just takes and takes is too far.
Further, it’s not our blood to commit, it’s the Ukrainians. We are supplying but it’s their skin in the game, not our forces. It’s their choice to make and we are supporting that decision in the face of a completely unjustified invasion. This is distinct from Iraq and Afghanistan, where we went in with our own forces to unilaterally try to force our desired reality on a sovereign nation. If Ukraine decided to give in, we would not stand in the way, even if we were disappointed in the result.
Also, the only reason the goalposts moved to ‘a couple of provinces’ is that Russia was stopped when they tried to just take the whole thing. If Russia had just rolled in to easy three day victory, then the goalposts would have moved to have even more Russian expansion (as happened in WWII with Germany).
Thank you for that argument on why pacifism is wrong but it has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that that’s what pacifism means.
This was a reply to your stance, not a rejection of your definition of pacifism. Your comment didn’t claim anything about the definition of pacifism, and neither did mine.
Now maybe you meant my other comment, where you responded to someone asserting being a pacifist is actually “pro-war”. In which case I also did not speak one way or another on your definition of pacifism, but your characterization of people supporting self-defense as being “pro-war”.
My mistake.
Regarding your previous comment, the comparison to Hitler has been used by high ranking figures in the US to justify every major conflict for the past 70 years, from Korea, to Vietnam, to Iraq. In retrospect, it’s easy to see how completely nonsensical such claims were - somehow, Vietnam did not go on to conquer the world after we lost.
However, no matter how clearly wrong such comparisons and such conflicts are, they are generally accepted, and each of those conflicts was begun with overwhelming popular support.
I happen to think that one conflict from 70 years ago isn’t the only thing we should be thinking about or comparing conflicts to when we judge them in the modern day. Why is it necessary to go back so far to find a conflict where the US was justified?
Because the US is frequently not justified and has the history of being the warmonger, so they are often unjustified. That says nothing about the Ukrainian situation though, where a well established independent nation was subject to a military invasion. There isn’t significant “gray area” to find in this scenario.
There are justified US military operations in more recent history but those aren’t useful as an example either. Because the prospect of someone actually “caving” to invasion is a rare situation, and we do have to go back 70 years to cite an example of what happens when major powers try the “let the dictator win without resistance” strategy. The major powers learned something in the 1930s and have not repeated that behavior.
Here’s another example of “letting the dictator win without resistance.” The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Soviet revolutionaries had rallied the people in opposition the the meat grinder of WWI, in which the Russian people were being slaughtered en masse for no real benefit. So when Lenin came to power, he signed a treaty with Kaiser Wilhelm that was very favorable to Germany and ceded a considerable amount of territory to him. The resulting peace stopped the killing and allowed the Russians to focus on rebuilding.
If you take a broader historical view, you can see that the reality is more complex. There are numerous differences between the situation in the 30’s and the situation now, and even then it’s only one example, and one that’s vastly overused. And the reason that it’s overused is that it can be used as a pretty generic pro-war argument for any war imaginable. “If we don’t beat them now, they’ll keep coming forever.” All you have to do is paint the people you’re fighting in a negative light and you can sell people on it.
For these reasons, I reject the comparison. I think it’s intellectually lazy.
In the WWI scenario, Russia was able to have a reprieve because the central powers had other things to do. So “appeasement” worked at least in the scenario where the opposition has multiple other fronts to contend with, and also when that would-be opponent ultimately lost. WWI was a lot more “gray area” so it’s hard to say what would have happened if the central powers prevailed, whether they would have decided to expand into Russia or not care enough to press that front.
For the opposite experience for Russia, see WWII where they started off with appeasing Germany and then got invaded two years later.
But again, the WWI Russian experience of maybe fighting in a conflict where they didn’t actually have a horse in the race doesn’t apply here, where the combatants are Ukranians, who have no option offered of just being left alone for the sake of peace. We don’t have US military being ordered to go in to fight and die in that conflict.
