Some things are worth dying for. The goal shouldn’t necessarily be minimizing violence.
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Because Jingleheimershmidt says Putin’s gonna Put, so anything that happens that Putin doesn’t like automatically increases the chances of nuclear war. QED.
Hey buddy I’ll chip in for your flight to Ukraine, I hear they’re actively taking volunteers.
Says the guy who would rather see people subjugated than increase his chance of dying in a nuclear war by .0001%.
What are you advocating for? What should the US be doing that the US isn’t doing now?
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Nothing. I’m just not terrified of what happens if Putin gets deposed like you seem to be.
Since I have no idea what will happen, I’m rooting for the outcome that at least has a chance to ultimately make people’s lives better - Russia not subjugating Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, etc. anymore, and turning back to the West.
It just seems weird to me to say “I have no idea what’s going to happen, and neither do you, so let’s root for the murderous despot to stay in power”.
Hard to keep track of your stance, do you agree with what the US is doing right now?
Root for? It’s not a fucking baseball game. The question I’m thinking about is “should US policy be regime change in Russia?” I think absolutely not because of the risks involved, but I guess some in thread think that’s what the US should be trying to do.
We have about as much impact if it was. And if you assume everyone “rooting for regime change” thinks that it should be official US policy to implement it, you’re definitely putting words in their mouth.
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The US and NATO actions so far have seemed reasonable to me, including most of what preceded the invasion. I suspect NATO’s likely response to further Russian escalation would also meet my general approval.
Now that I have taken the time to honestly answer your question, I think you owe me an answer to mine. You are on record disapproving of both past NATO actions and any further response that would increase the chance of nuclear war in any way. In the real world situation currently playing out, this means you are willing to sacrifice Ukrainian sovereignty and Ukrainian lives for your own personal security. I believe you have a moral obligation to make a sacrifice of equal degree. I would like to know what you would be willing to give up, and not some abstract hypothetical either.
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As usual you’re shifting all over the map. You started this openly pontificating that worse things could happen if Putin is deposed. People responded that you have no idea what will happen, which you argued with for a while, but now you accept.
You didn’t start this by saying, “While I have no idea what will happen if Putin is deposed, I worry that US policy shouldn’t actively promote regime change, and here is specifically what I mean by that.”
There’s a big difference between wanting Putin to be deposed for the good of the world vs. advocating doing some kind of scurrilous CIA blowback-bait to make that happen. AFAIK no one here is advocating that. So feel free be clear what you’re talking about.
Is there anything the US is doing that you think shouldn’t be done, or vice versa? You say you don’t think sanctions will promote regime change. So you’re ok with sanctions? What else?
It is an awfully privileged position to argue from this point of view, and people expressing deep discomfort with the idea of letting Ukraine get destroyed are perfectly reasonable. They know that they wouldn’t accept what’s happening to Ukraine if it was their country, and likely would respond far before it was happening to their country.
I’m far more interested in what your red line would be. Would you start learning Russian if Putin put troops on the border and said he’d nuke you if you didn’t let them in?
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Sanctions have ~worked about a third of the time according to the economic historian interviewed here. He doesn’t say sanctions have ever led to regime change, so I guess the answer is no.
We already face risks of wider war and use of nuclear weapons. And Putin considers himself to be in the line of Ivan the Terrible and Stalin, so a worse replacement seems unlikely. Instability would be something to worry about.
Personally*, I want Putin gone. If I was president though, I’d roughly follow Biden’s line with the goal of limiting the damage Putin can do in the world and speeding up what I think is Russia’s inevitable exit from Ukraine. If Putin ended up being dragged out and shot in Red Square I would be losing a lot of sleep but oh well.
* A couple days ago I had a dream I killed Putin.
Summary
The scene is a university library. I’m standing guard behind the US President (who might be Hillary Clinton) and other leaders who are seated at a row of those cheap particle board cubby-hole desks, having breakfast. I really want one of those giant pancakes they’re eating.
Suddenly someone carrying a submachine gun runs into my field of view from my left. I tackle him. It’s Putin or someone wearing a mask. For some reason I find have a single rifle cartridge in my hand, and I use it to stab him in the eyes. Then I wake up.
I go back to sleep and dream I’m talking to a shrink about the previous dream. The psychiatrist is a young Ava Gabor. She gives me two interpretations. One is that Putin represents evil and everything wrong in my life so this is basically wish fulfillment. The second one was supposed to be more interesting but I don’t remember what it was. 
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Of course he would, he would absolutely love it! Not the learning Russian part, but arguing with his fellow citizens about why they are being illogical, of course learning Russian is better than being nuked, are you crazy? That split second before the nukes lands and he grins “I told you we should have just learned Russian….” would be pure ecstasy.
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Do I have a similar moral obligation to protect Yemeni lives? Because I’m afraid I’ve been quite negligent in addressing this moral obligation for the last eight years.
But unlike the war in Yemen, I can’t think of any good way for the US to actually end the war in Ukraine. Any escalation seems far more likely to result in more death and destruction than less.
Yeah like how the jingleheimers of the world have ret-conned that they TOTALLY would have been fine with the US sending troops into D-Day, because calvinball reasons. Not buying it.
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serious aidsnalysis going on itt
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This is a question that bears repeating!
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