sycasey said:
Big C said:
Unit2Sucks said:
Big C said:
Unit2Sucks said:
Big C said:
Unit2Sucks said:
Big C said:
Unit2Sucks said:
Excited to hear Cal88's breathless appreciation for Russia's war crimes.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you mischaracterizing Cal88's stance on this situation? I mean, I get it, exaggerating for effect, but c'mon.
Am I? He's been a staunch proponent for Russia and Putin for over a decade on BI. He's been frontrunning this war from his first post about it and has yet to criticize Russia for the "special military operation", let alone its war crimes.
Hint: if he wanted to criticize Russia or Putin, he's had plenty of opportunity to do so and has declined every time.
If that's true (and I'm not sure that it is), let me take this time to differentiate my own position: I believe it was a mistake to talk about Ukraine joining NATO -- where has it gotten us all? -- but the current Russia-Ukraine thing is all on Putin.
Putin is a b******.
This is a version of "she had it coming." Ukraine is a sovereign with the right to self-determination. Russia is a ****hole petro-state that doesn't have the right to choose who its neighbors associate with and doesn't need us to excuse its violation of international law. Russia's economy is smaller than Texas and smaller than Italy. At this point its economy is smaller than Brazil and Australia.
It doesn't get to dictate terms and we shouldn't pretend like protecting its "interests" is reasonable. The only reason it matters on the world stage at this point is because Putin is a terrorist with state power, like Kim Jong Un and the ayatollah. He's closer to a Taliban leader than he is a world leader.
And let's be real, this NATO non-sense isn't the reason Putin decided to invade Ukraine. Cal88 has been amplifying all of the propaganda including pretending that it was about Nazis, pretending it was to protect Russian speaking people in Ukraine, and pretending that it was in order to free Russian people in Ukraine who really wanted to be part of Russia. The NATO stuff is a sideshow which should surprise no one. If Putin is telling you his reason for something, you can be pretty damn sure it's not the real reason. Don't fall for Putin's BS.
Just speaking for myself, don't fall for people who have told you that I have fallen for Putin's BS and base my opinions on international relations on what Putin says.
NATO drawing the line before Ukraine might have worked. Admittedly, it also might not have worked. But what we have done to date has certainly not worked. We're sitting here in the Bay Area with our Cal diplomas, easily weathering the $6,69/gallon gas (just filled up this afternoon). Meanwhile, Ukraine has become a hell hole. This is not working for them.
I'm not sure to what extent Call88 and I agree here, but please do not paint me as Putin's pawn. I am as anti-Putin as the next guy, but it's a question of what foreign policy produces the best long-term results, for us and for the world. The question is surely up for debate, especially looking at where we are now.
I'm not disputing that it's theoretically possible that appeasement would have reduced the short or long-term death toll for both Russians and Ukrainians.
The issue I have is that when people characterize the decision not to appease Putin's every whim without acknowledging explicitly that he is unilaterally the bad actor here, it serves to shift blame to the victim. The same thing has happened numerous times throughout history whether we are talking about victims of domestic abuse, sexual assault or armed conflict.
It doesn't make sense to say that Ukraine could have avoided war by allowing Russia to annex the country without any resistance any more than we could have avoided WWII after pearl harbor by simply turning the other cheek. This war isn't happening because of Ukraine's choices, it's happening because of Putin's. We should never lose sight of that or shift blame. Doing so turns this a unilateral violation of sovereignty into an apportionment of blame or he said she said.
Putin is unquestionably the bad actor here. When he attacked Ukraine, we had no other reasonable choice other than to support the Ukrainians militarily. Just speaking for myself, I have never said otherwise; I am all for what we have done in 2022 to stop Putin.. Questioning some of our policy decisions in the 20-30 year lead-up to this does not constitute "blaming the victim".
Seems to me that if you want to blame the US or "The West" for anything in the past, it was in not doing some kind of Marshall Plan for Russia after the USSR collapsed. Instead we just kind of let predatory capitalists take them over while democracy failed.
Any NATO expansion afterward is just in response to Russia's continued imperialist threats.
I like your "Marshall-type Plan" idea, although the trillions of dollars might've been a tough sell.
Just off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure the NATO expansion thing started when Russia was pretty far down in the dumps. I believe at one time, Gorbachev said maybe even Russia should join NATO. I get, say, a Poland in NATO, but when the talk moved on to Ukraine, it just seemed like gloating, like rubbing their nose in it.
I fully understand that mine is a minority opinion here, on this. Just recognize that I do not hold this opinion because I think there is anything good about Putin. Au contraire, he is reprehensible and I applaud our 2022 efforts to stop him. I just thought my strategy
might have led to a better outcome (we will never know). Many will disagree, sure, and my reply to them is, how do you like where we are at now?
