From Trump on Truth:
“Joe Biden should not be dragging us further toward World War III by sending cluster munitions to Ukraine—he should be trying to END the war and stop the horrific death and destruction being caused by an incompetent administration.…”
Stopped clock >>>>>>>>>> ad hominems
Also he’s, let’s go with… heavily influenced by Russia
He’s also heavily influenced by caring about himself and nothing else.
That’s actually hugely +EV in certain situations like unnecessary conflicts.
That is really hard to answer, I’m not going to rule out the possibility that over an 8 year long conflict that a sizable number of people in the Donetsk/Lugansk region would prefer peace under the Russian framework, but they’re not exactly at liberty to say are they? But I’m pretty sure that the thousands of people who were annihilated in Mariupol prefer to be alive and in Ukraine, but they’re not at liberty to say for a different reason.
OK but to me this…is a civil war?
Rebel leaders? Kind of civil-war-y, no? Like yeah no one disputes these guys were capitalizing on Russian designs on eastern Ukraine, but he’s describing a civil war. Catalyzed by Russia, sure. Maybe I’ll finish reading later on but my understanding of what happened was Russia tried to foment a rebellion from Odessa to eastern Ukraine, in every part of the country they were able. Using a network of Ukrainian officials and whoever else they scraped together. Didn’t go great in Odessa, culminating in the insurrectionists incinerating themselves to death in a trade union hall. Not good! Went better in eastern Ukraine. But then the army shows up and Russia has to escalate their support.
And actually if you want to call this Not a Civil War but Russia actively fighting, OK, sure, it’s an astroturfed civil war at best I guess? But what’s not clear to me is what the people of Donbas actually want. Like Crimea was just a much of an astroturfed civil war, right? And Crimea seems reasonably satisfied as a part of Russia, and Donbas voted for the pro-Russian candidates even more heavily than Crimea did. So sidestepping the question of actual popular support is probably wise, and I have no idea what the situation there is either. I’m sure you’re right that most everyone there would prefer no war though.
Literally in the paragraph where he says “rebel leaders” he says that some of them [the rebel leaders] are FSB/GRU and Russian citizens, like come on. The previous grouping of rebels was described as a mishmash of fringe weirdos and criminals. To me, a civil war has to involve a reasonably large group of people with a religious, political, or social divisions with their fellow citizens, divisions which have escalated to the level of violence.
I thought of a better example maybe. Was the Bay of Pigs a civil war? If the operation was even a little successful and the rebels held some territory for a few months, would you count that as an organic uprising, and that people evaluating whether Castro should fight them or not should take it into account that it was a civil war?
Yeah I know. Some. And many of those russian citizens were also born in Donbas according to the same article.
I mean the Washington post sure as hell would call it a civil war.
But sure fine it’s an astroturfed war. So was Crimea, right? My question above about what the Donbassians actually wanted stands.
And my point here isn’t to say the Russian intervention was justified. But to say why should the average American care who rules Donbas? Should we be outraged by Russian tyranny in crimea? I don’t know, are the Crimeans?
I don’t have an answer, but the pre 2022 invasion status quo was already that Crimea and most of Donbas were de facto Russian. The amount of lethal aid Ukraine was getting at the time was miniscule compared to now. If we’re asking how people feel, we should ask the people in territories who were invaded by Russia in 2022. Not great as it turns out.
We shouldn’t in general principal care about one nation invading another sovereign one, especially a much smaller less powerful one?
If you believe the nation state surviving intact is more important than its citizens, sure.
Sure we can care about that. Is the United States Government an imperfect messenger for this moral crusade? Perhaps.
Which is to say, should we care about that? Yes. Does the US government care about that? Are you fucken kidding me?
Napoleon’s marriage to the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria comes to mind.
Again it feels like you are stuck on the US. As I understand they are a small part of the overall aid and all the other NATO members are supporting too.
It is both true the US has little moral authority and Russia is 100% at fault.
no
But OK is the US supporting Ukraine because of the principle you mentioned? Of course not. That’s not the goal, and if you listen to US policymakers they’ll tell you what the goal is. To hurt Russia. That’s the explicit goal. Not to keep powerful countries from making war on less powerful ones. If that was actually a motivating force behind US foreign policy the world would look pretty different.
Keeed ponied me but I have a link. EU is providing slightly more financial aid but the US has a huge lead in military aid.
I stand corrected.
I think my overall point still holds. Even as the main supporters, with little to no moral authority, Russia can still be 100% at fault.
This seem like the super rare time the US is doing the right thing overseas. 🤷
