The last thing it did was a huge failing operation in Afghanistan that had nothing to do with defending NATO members.
The thing before that was defend an authoritarian regime which has had an internal war against an ethnic minority population where 3 million people have been displaced, 4000 villages destroyed, hundreds of thousands killed - 18000 by execution.
The thing before that was bombing the shit out of Libya, which had nothing to do with defending NATO members.
I think Americans should be allowed to criticize whoever they want, and the same goes for Brits and Russians and anybody else. As long as they don’t defend the same behavior from their own nation. My point was that it was absolutely ludicrous to try to say geewhysee shouldn’t get to express an opinion. Straight up jingoism. (I know it wasn’t you. I forget who it was.)
in this particular case, Putin is justifying a land war with some made-up grudge from circa 1990. it doesn’t mean ukraine, europe, or the us have to swallow that shit sandwich laced with polonium.
Of course not. I agree. Putin is a bad man and his justification is 100 percent full of shit. It was also stupid to push the NATO path for Ukraine, because this result was 100 percent foreseeable. Sure, Ukraine should have the right to self-determination. And also nobody on earth should starve or needlessly suffer.
Putin pushed Ukraine into NATO. Ukraine saw that joining EU and NATO was extremely beneficial to the baltics, poland, and the rest of eastern europe. russian incursion into Georgia in 2008 proved to them they were likely not immune to russian expansionism. their fears were confirmed in 2014. it is now imperative for them to join NATO, or be consumed.
Well, I think they’re going to get consumed either way. I think the only real question is, how many lives is it going to cost?
not being consumed will cost just one. putin’s
I’m intrigued: How exactly is that going to work out?
I guess I just don’t see how this wasn’t inevitable. Absent NATO the same stuff happens. Russia wants to control Ukraine period. It’s not as if they’d be cool with Ukrainian self-determination in a world where NATO ignores Ukraine.
Like the west should’ve just spent the past thirty years shunning Ukraine and saying sorry you can’t have nice things, you belong to Russia?
I think Russia would let them have some self-determination. Same as the US lets Mexico and Canada and Central and South America have some.
Again, though, the Ukrainian people and government have agency.
NATO, to my knowledge, is not being forced upon them. I suspect the people and government of Ukraine are far more cognizant of what Moscow wants from them or would deem acceptable than we are, and we can see their preference.
I mean I’m as big a critic of American foreign policy as anyone on this forum, jack. That said, What has the US (or the UK for that matter) done since WWII that comes close to what Russia has done/is doing with Ukraine?
This. The NATO stuff is a weak justification, and if it didn’t exist Putin would create something else. If he was really concerned that NATO was going to add Ukraine, why did he go into and stay in Crimea?
We killed three million people in SE Asia trying to prevent Vietnam from deciding they want a communist government!
Who is doing this? If you’re saying I am, you’re lying. If you’re not saying I am, who are you accusing of doing this?
Yeah you… Thanks for reminding me it was you.
I mean, come on. You are dismissing his opinion solely because he’s British. And encouraging others to do the same.
I mean the US obviously never had any more business in SE Asia than the French, you’ll never get any arguments from me on that point, but the US didn’t exactly just show up there unannounced. The (admittedly massively corrupt) South Vietnamese government ostensibly didn’t want to fall to communism. Same goes for South Korea though the circumstances were much different.
That’s a far cry from what Russia is doing. To make your comparison work, the US would have had to forcibly annex all of southern Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh City south and west to the Cambodian border without provocation, and then amass 100k troops at its borders and threaten invasion on the grounds that we are “scared it would join forces with other countries that don’t like us all that much.”
Anyone over the age of 8 who uses the word “poo” should be incarcerated for a minimum of 15 years and fined their net worth.
I was responding to a guy dismissing the opinion of an American literally because he’s American…whose own country is the all time world heavyweight champion of imperialism. Stones/glass houses and all that. I’m not implying America’s hands are squeaky clean. Fucking read the thread god damn