How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[lpetrich]

Here is an example of that sort of left-wing commentary:

War is the greatest evil: Russia was baited into this crime — but that's no excuse | Salon.com - by Chris Hedges - I was a war correspondent for 20 years. I carry the ghosts with me. War brings only chaos, terror and death

Preemptive war, whether in Iraq or Ukraine, is a war crime. It does not matter if the war is launched on the basis of lies and fabrications, as was the case in Iraq, or because of the breaking of a series of agreements with Russia, including the promise by Washington not to extend NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, not to deploy thousands of NATO troops in Eastern Europe and not to meddle in the internal affairs of nations on the Russia's border, as well as the refusal to implement the Minsk II peace agreement. The invasion of Ukraine would, I expect, never have happened if these promises had been kept. Russia has every right to feel threatened, betrayed and angry. But to understand is not to condone. The invasion of Ukraine, under post-Nuremberg laws, is a criminal war of aggression.

He concedes that much. He then talked about all the horrible things that he saw over the years as a war correspondent, but he failed to accept that the blame here is not in the US but in Vladimir Putin.

It seems to me that he wanted an easy victory, and also to build a Greater Russia, to make Russia great again according to his conception of Russian national greatness.

In effect, to unify Great Russia (Russia proper), White Russia (Belarus), and Little Russia (Ukraine).

As to expanding NATO eastward, in the early 1990's, some officials talked informally about not doing so, but that was never made official policy. I think that they talked about that because they didn't anticipate doing so at the time.

What is NATO?
Join dates:

• 1949: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, The United Kingdom, The United States
• 1952: Greece, Turkey
• 1955: Germany
• 1982: Spain
• 1999: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland
• 2004: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
• 2009: Albania, Croatia
• 2017: Montenegro
• 2020: North Macedonia

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, so there was a sizable gap between then and when ex-Soviet-Bloc and ex-Soviet nations started to join NATO.

The remaining non-NATO European nations are Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Serbia, Kosovo, Sweden, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.

Finnish lawmakers to discuss potential NATO membership – POLITICO - "Prime Minister Sanna Marin also announced that Finland would provide Ukraine with lethal aid."

The mood in Helsinki is tense: Finland has Europe’s longest border with Russia at over 1,300 kilometers, but is not a part of the military alliance. The country is a close ally of NATO, but there has been little appetite to join the club — until now.

“It is very understandable that many Finns have changed or are changing their minds after Russia started waging war on Ukraine,” Marin said.

Finns are evaluating “what is the line that Russia has crossed, and what is the line that Russia will not cross … And if Russia does cross some line, do we face it alone or together with others,” Marin said. She did not comment on her personal position on NATO.

 

[lpetrich]

Narrative versus reality.

Attachment: Reality-narrative.png

A big load of bych'ye gavno.

 

[barbos]

No, that's reality.

 

[Hermit]

Kharkiv City Hall Bombing

Yep! That's what I was talking about earlier, I am glad you posted it.
now find 10 things which are not right with that video

I'll start the list.

10 things which are not right with that video

1. Russia blows things up in Ukraine
2. Russian military shouldn't even be in Ukraine

 

[barbos]

Kharkiv City Hall Bombing

Yep! That's what I was talking about earlier, I am glad you posted it.
now find 10 things which are not right with that video

I'll start the list.

10 things which are not right with that video

1. Russia blows things up in Ukraine
2. Russian military shouldn't even be in Ukraine

Try again.

 

[TV and credit cards]

I'm seeing reports of Russian soldiers knocking on doors of Ukrainian homes asking for food.

Keep sending them to the house down the road.

Sometime later, at barbos house, a knock at the door.

 

[Hermit]

Kharkiv City Hall Bombing

Yep! That's what I was talking about earlier, I am glad you posted it.
now find 10 things which are not right with that video

I'll start the list.

10 things which are not right with that video

1. Russia blows things up in Ukraine
2. Russian military shouldn't even be in Ukraine

Try again.

That's unnecessary. I got the first two items exactly right. Others can add the other eight.

 

[barbos]

Kharkiv City Hall Bombing

Yep! That's what I was talking about earlier, I am glad you posted it.
now find 10 things which are not right with that video

I'll start the list.

10 things which are not right with that video

1. Russia blows things up in Ukraine
2. Russian military shouldn't even be in Ukraine

Try again.

That's unnecessary. I got the first two items exactly right. Others can add the other eight.

You got nothing right. I will give you a hint - video is 100% fake.

 

[Hermit]

video is 100% fake.

Exactly as fake as the presence of Russian military forces on Ukrainian soil.

 

[barbos]

Speaking of the video, wow, just wow!
I've watched it yesterday. Immediately found obvious inconsistency.
Then you posted it here, the same video but different poster and shorter.
Inconsistency is gone! Fine. I go the the version I saw first, inconsistency is gone there too! Problem is, they did crappy job and introduced another.
And it does not help them at all because the rest is fake too. It just shows that these pieces of shit clearly faked it.

fucking nazi scam!

 

[barbos]

The version I saw first, looks like it's official channel of Ukrainian Nazistan or something


It's now edited to fix crappy work but as I said it introduced another inconsistency,
And the mere fact that they keep editing it means that it is 100% fake.

 

[bilby]

Here is an example of that sort of left-wing commentary:

War is the greatest evil: Russia was baited into this crime — but that's no excuse | Salon.com - by Chris Hedges - I was a war correspondent for 20 years. I carry the ghosts with me. War brings only chaos, terror and death

Preemptive war, whether in Iraq or Ukraine, is a war crime. It does not matter if the war is launched on the basis of lies and fabrications, as was the case in Iraq, or because of the breaking of a series of agreements with Russia, including the promise by Washington not to extend NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, not to deploy thousands of NATO troops in Eastern Europe and not to meddle in the internal affairs of nations on the Russia's border, as well as the refusal to implement the Minsk II peace agreement. The invasion of Ukraine would, I expect, never have happened if these promises had been kept. Russia has every right to feel threatened, betrayed and angry. But to understand is not to condone. The invasion of Ukraine, under post-Nuremberg laws, is a criminal war of aggression.

He concedes that much. He then talked about all the horrible things that he saw over the years as a war correspondent, but he failed to accept that the blame here is not in the US but in Vladimir Putin.

It seems to me that he wanted an easy victory, and also to build a Greater Russia, to make Russia great again according to his conception of Russian national greatness.

In effect, to unify Great Russia (Russia proper), White Russia (Belarus), and Little Russia (Ukraine).

As to expanding NATO eastward, in the early 1990's, some officials talked informally about not doing so, but that was never made official policy. I think that they talked about that because they didn't anticipate doing so at the time.

What is NATO?
Join dates:

• 1949: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, The United Kingdom, The United States
• 1952: Greece, Turkey
• 1955: Germany
• 1982: Spain
• 1999: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland
• 2004: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
• 2009: Albania, Croatia
• 2017: Montenegro
• 2020: North Macedonia

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, so there was a sizable gap between then and when ex-Soviet-Bloc and ex-Soviet nations started to join NATO.

The remaining non-NATO European nations are Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Serbia, Kosovo, Sweden, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.

Finnish lawmakers to discuss potential NATO membership – POLITICO - "Prime Minister Sanna Marin also announced that Finland would provide Ukraine with lethal aid."

The mood in Helsinki is tense: Finland has Europe’s longest border with Russia at over 1,300 kilometers, but is not a part of the military alliance. The country is a close ally of NATO, but there has been little appetite to join the club — until now.

“It is very understandable that many Finns have changed or are changing their minds after Russia started waging war on Ukraine,” Marin said.

Finns are evaluating “what is the line that Russia has crossed, and what is the line that Russia will not cross … And if Russia does cross some line, do we face it alone or together with others,” Marin said. She did not comment on her personal position on NATO.

There were two countries called Germany in 1955; I am pretty sure that only West Germany joined NATO.

/nitpick

 

[barbos]

My apologies to nazi and their sympathizers.
Longer (the one I saw first) version have not been edited yet. It still contains original inconsistencies. I was watching the same version, but thought it was different versions.

Shit happens.
So we have two versions one with inconsistency another without.

I am not telling you what it is, because I think LP could be interested in finding it himself. And again, there is a lot of wrong with that video besides that.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Munich Philharmonic - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Valery Gergiev - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Famous russian (Ossetian actually, but to you all russians are russians) music director
Valery Gergiev was fired for refusing to give "correct" opinion on this Ukraine-Russia thing called War.

These idiots did not see that coming, the guy is Ossetian, that should have given them a clue what he thinks.

This is going to get ugly if you continue to demand famous russians to align with ukrainian nazis.

I don't think the Ukranian Nazi story is true. You keep repeating it. But I somehow doubt anybody else believes it. The Ukranian Nazi story seems to stem from Putin's propaganda machine. And something invented to justify snatching Crimea and this recent invasion.

On the topic of Nazism. Hitler had a vision of the world based on Darwinism, where it was natural and normal for all organisms (including humans) to try to dominate each other. If they don't, it's because they can't. The was combined with the (utter bullshit) philosophies of Fichte and Herder where cultures, ethnicities and nations can be seen as super organisms. This is a view of the world which pretty well matches the story of human history, all the way back to the stone age. Putin today seems to be thinking in the same way.

But capitalism in democratic liberal nations has changed this story. The nation has been fractured into millions of dimensions and facets interlinked in a delicate web of supply chains which, if left alone (and if prevented from forming cartells and monopolies) will enrich everybody. A capitalist democratic world has a very strong incentive to maintain peace and stability. It also aligns the needs of the powerful rich and the poor. Since they both benefit from peace and stability.

Putin just needs to go. He's dangerous for the entire world, and lives in the past.

 

[barbos]

I don't think the Ukranian Nazi story is true. You keep repeating it. But I somehow doubt anybody else believes it.

So lets see.
Ukrainian president awards Stepan Bandera with Hero of Ukraine. And then we go to wikipage on that fellow and it says he was a nazi and antisemite.
And you don't think it's true? And then we read that Poland, Israel, Russia and Europian Parliament condemns that action by pro-western president of Ukraine.

OK, you really need to see a doctor and have extensive check of everything but start with your head.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't think the Ukranian Nazi story is true. You keep repeating it. But I somehow doubt anybody else believes it.

So lets see.
Ukrainian president awards Stepan Bandera with Hero of Ukraine. And then we go to wikipage on that fellow and it says he was a nazi and antisemite.
And you don't think it's true? And then we read that Poland, Israel, Russia and Europian Parliament condemns that action by pro-western president of Ukraine.

OK, you really need to see a doctor and have extensive check of everything but start with your head.

I don't think it proves anything. Stepan Bandera was also opposed to the communist regime. His wiki page says that he's a controversial figure in the Ukraine because he on the one hand fought the communist regime, and also being a fascist. Which supports that.

He also hasn't pushed through any classic right wing policies. Based on what he's actually done Zelenskyy looks more like a classic liberal. Obviously he's a corrupt asshole. But so's any Ukrainian politician.

I think this is just something Putin is using as an excuse to attack, and is spinning it to the max

 

[barbos]

Putin just needs to go. He's dangerous for the entire world, and lives in the past

I actually agree, but for completely different reason.

 

[barbos]

I don't think it proves anything. Stepan Bandera was also opposed to the communist regime. His wiki page says that he's a controversial figure in the Ukraine

Do you know who else opposed communist regime? Hitler and his nazi.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I'm seeing reports of Russian soldiers knocking on doors of Ukrainian homes asking for food.

Hopefully the locals will provide it on condition that they desert.

Maybe it's just me but if someone is desperate enough to knock on my door to ask for food I'm going to give it to them.

Me too, but I'd not be above giving them, you know, pretty crap food.

Well, how many Russians would give a hungry Ukranian food? They'd probably just call him a nazi and shoosh him away at best.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Well, how many Russians would give a hungry Ukranian food? They'd probably just call him a nazi and shoosh him away at best.

Is that intended as sarcasm? If it isn't it needs to be examined for what it is. I certainly hope it was meant sarcastically. If not sarcasm, it is something I would expect to hear from barbos.