Obvious examples of Central Intelligence Agency covert action abroad are difficult to identify today, save for occasional acknowledged calamities, such as the long-running $1 billion effort to overthrow the government of Syria, via funding, training and arming barbarous jihadist groups.
Their premise is: “Because these countries become part of NATO, russia is directly threatened.
And thus russia must act in self defense.” This is the abusers credo. “Look what you forced me to do!” and it should not be acceptable. Well spoken intellectuals do not change that.
Your question: conspiracy theorists; probably. Russian apologists, absolutely.
And even if you could justify the invasion as self defense, how do you justify the way they go about it?
Try not to pivot and point at others and say “but what about…” we can agree other things might be just as wrong or even worse, that is besides the point in this conversation.
Russia is directly using the precedent NATO established in Yugoslavia when NATO recognized breakaway regions and then had them invite NATO for help. If people in NATO countries don’t like what Russia is doing then maybe they shouldn’t have been setting up the precedent for that.
Also, nobody is apologizing for anything, that’s a moral argument that has no value and isn’t constructive in any way. I’m simply pointing out that this conflict could have been averted and both sides played a role in creating the conditions for it. RAND literally published a paper titled “Extending Russia” which advocates for the exact scenario we’re currently seeing.
No, we’ll hold Russia to the same standards we hold the west to. Otherwise, we are creating two systems of morals one that applies to the west and another that applies to opponents of the west.
Yes wars are horrific, but nothing Russia has done even begins to compare to what NATO and its various members have been doing over the decades. Just a few examples for you:
Why is there so much outrage in the west over a war in Ukraine when nobody gave a shit about the wars the west conducts. Why is US not sanctioned for Iraq for example.
Why is the US occupying a larger chunk of Syria as we speak than Russia does of Ukraine. What is the difference between the two situations in your mind?
Maybe don’t lie about something so obvious? https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-interview/20230629-iaea-saw-no-evidence-moscow-planning-attack-on-zaporizhia-nuclear-plant-but-anything-can-happen
Once again you’re spreading misinformation here either out of ignorance or intentionally. Either way that’s a bad look. After the Grain Deal was struck, Western Europe became the top importer of Ukrainian grain, and a negligible amount of it ended up feeding the “Millions of hungry people around the world”. The bulk of the African, Asian, and Global South countries, rely on Russian grain and not the Ukrainian.
So you are arguing 2 wrongs make a right? Never-mind that in Yugoslavia there was ethnic cleansing going on. Add to that; I think the moral argument matters a lot actually.
RAND writes in the study that based on Russia’s actions, conflict between the US and Russia are inevitable and makes an analysis on what can be done to counter it. On the Russian side the writing of Dugin seem to lay out the rationale behind the actions of Russia: “Our sphere of influence!”, “All these soviet states need to be obedient vassals of Russia”, “Ukraine is not a country, just confused Russians”.
Absolutely horrific, and unacceptable!
There is a caveat: “During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.” The 90% number refers to ‘Operation Haymaker’ and you make it read as if this is the norm. I sure as hell hope it is not, but worry it might be.
European governments seem to be struggling with what went on in the middle-east and Afghanistan. As more information comes out about bombings of weapons factories and depots where “collateral” was deemed acceptable, but it turns out it wasn’t. There where way more civilians impacted than originally thought or communicated. And luckily these things surface and we can attempt to deal with them.
The fact NATO was dragged into a war under false pretenses is something that still has not been dealt with adequately in my opinion. Let alone the consequences of these decades of war.
Under a million, the 6 million is a guestimation that includes indirect deaths from the actual deaths. I cannot speak to the validity of the claim, but neither can the article. But even the 1 million number is mind boggling to me.
Are you referring to the territory held by the Kurds in the North east?
Lets hear from the source: IAEA “still waiting to gain the necessary access to the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 following recent reports that explosives may have been placed there”
First: The deal covers a lot more than grain alone. Second: The world food market is complex. The total food supply was diminished causing higher prices, meaning food insecurity for the worlds poorest. By alleviating the constraint, prices go down again.
No, I’m arguing that the west has no moral high ground here and has literally set the precedent for what Russia is doing. Incidentally, ethnic cleansing is precisely the pretext Russia used as well. If the west cared about morals then it would start with fixing its own behavior.
That is not what the study says. You should actually read it before commenting in it. Furthermore, Jeffery Sachs who was literally in the room when these meetings happened just confirmed today from first hand account that this was indeed the plan all along https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VMUkLlO4w4
The NATO wasn’t dragged into anything. It chose to conduct a war of aggression against a defenceless country and fucked it for two decades killing and displacing countless people in the process. Nobody was punished for this, no guilt was acknowledged, no sanctions, nothing. This is the moral standard the west presents.
It absolutely does not matter whether the deaths are direct or indirect. These people would not have died if NATO had not invaded these countries. These are crimes against humanity of the highest scale. The fact that you are trying to split hairs here really shows what your morals really are.
No, I’m referring to the agricultural land and oil producing regions that US holds, and has bases on with troops. This is land that US military directly occupies while robbing the people of Syria of their resources.
And they will and there’s going to be nothing there because it makes absolutely no sense for Russia to blow up its own power plant. Anybody who is capable of basic rational thought understands that. In fact, even Ukraine backed off those insane claims recently.
Except Russia has already confirmed that they will supply food to the Global South. This is a made up narrative without any basis in reality. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230717/russia-to-continue-food-supplies-to-global-south-despite-black-sea-grain-deal-suspension-1111949743.html
Wow, Ohkay. It seems you are just ignoring some realities and calling them pretexts (Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia is a fact. Ethnic cleansing in the Donbas is not: ICJ: Ukraine v. Russian Federation (2022)). You then refer to some questionable sources like Jeffery “Uyghur camps are not genocide” Sachs who appeared on the air with Vladimir “russia’s unhinged principal propagandist” Solovyov and other russian apologists. Then continue by ignoring the fact that the russians have denied the IAEA access to the roof etc for close to a month now. And finish off by stating that the sheer volume of food products coming from Ukraine having an impact on global food prices is a made up narrative.
I’m done with this. The only reason i replied is in he hopes that if someone ever comes across this thread they can see who you are and what you are arguing for.
I’ll concede the west is not perfect by any means, far from it. And the US with her many flaws is not some holy beacon of goodness that we should all aspire to be, far from it. But the argument that Russia, China and the likes are not as evil as they are made out to be is just delusional and dangerous.
No, seems that it’s actually you who are ignoring some realities, here’s what even CNN reported back in 2014 https://twitter.com/paulius60/status/1611148483859255296
Also, your Uyghur camps claims have been thoroughly debunked. I didn’t realize I was wasting my time talking to a conspiracy theorist here.
The fact that you think that Russia and China are worse than the country that’s been at war for 93% of its existence and massacred countless millions across the globe shows that you’re utterly morally bankrupt.
Bye.
Ah yes, I am the one morally bankrupt, says the man vehemently defending Russia invading another country.
This is what you are defending: (A random selection)
.
And Yes I prefer US hegemony over the current alternatives under China and her internment camps or the Russian Kleptocracy and so do you. And Thoroughly debunked by the Chinese government maybe.
US runs a literal torture camp on the Cuban soil it annexed and has concentration camps for migrant kids on its border right now. Then of course there’s the Abu Ghraib atrocities. The destruction of cities in Iraq, Libya, and Syria happened on a far greater scale. US killed orders of magnitude ore civilians in its wars.
Then, there are entire books are written on the atrocities US has been committing to Latin America
https://ia800309.us.archive.org/26/items/fp_Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum/Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum.pdf
The fact that you look at all this and think this is preferable to China who haven’t been at war since the 70s and have been a positive influence in the world shows just what a monster you really are. And thoroughly debunked by western media. You should find better lies to use that aren’t so obvious.
The millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”. CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, but their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that “at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.” Furthermore, it doesn’t even make sense from logistics perspective. You’d need a detention city the size of San Francisco to detain one million Uighurs.
Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he’s the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I’m talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.
Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”
Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it’s clear that the methodology of his “research” doesn’t pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
It’s also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here’s George Bush’s chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED recently admitting to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here’s an excerpt:
US has been stoking terrorism in the region while they’ve been running a propaganda campaign against China in the west.