We don't want US and NATO hegemony to continue, it's bad for millions of people in the global south. The postwar US military industrial complex is not a force for good and the closest it ever came to that was when it aligned with communists to end the fascist threat of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese. Bombing North Korea, bombing Cambodia and Vietnam, invading Iraq, occupying the Middle East forever, none of these were good things that any actual moral person could cotton to and say "well at least they were weakening a geopolitical enemy"
Supporting Ukraine for now means supporting their brigades like Azov and hundreds of other neo nazi informal and formal militias. It means giving them cluster bombs and mines that'll turn eastern Ukraine into a child amputee generating land for centuries. However, your "support" for this cause is ultimately meaningless because America is going to do it without the consent of her citizens because the American war machine wants to generate profits by sending off munitions to be blown up and replaced at Congress expense while insisting they don't have money to feed hungry children, house the unhoused, nor have universal healthcare. For them it's not about doing their part by helping plucky Ukrainians in their struggle, they just want more stuff blown up.
The end goal for Ukraine right now is apparently to take back the Donbass region and Crimea, these will both not happen. NATO trainers don't know how to fight a war when they don't have unlimited air superiority - the tactics they've taught have costed thousands of Ukrainian lives. Instead of fighting this stupid war, Ukraine should enter into peace negotiations (which they've tried to do!!! but NATO countries keep telling them not to). That might mean losing Crimea, maybe even Donbass - but the people who lived there, near as can be told, weren't exactly happy to be under the suzerainty of Ukraine anyway. It's a process that will come much more easily with the end of NATO and US support - just like what happened in the middle east following the withdrawal of US forces.
I think every Hexbear user hopes peace comes soon instead of bloodshed and I'm pretty sure we're also in agreement that it'd be great if the Russian working class and Ukrainian working class would stop killing eachother and overthrow their section of the bourgeoisie and find a way to work together again in solidarity.
I appreciate the long response, and I understand where you are coming from on a lot of your points:
We don’t want US and NATO hegemony to continue, it’s bad for millions of people in the global south. The postwar US military industrial complex is not a force for good and the closest it ever came to that was when it aligned with communists to end the fascist threat of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese. Bombing North Korea, bombing Cambodia and Vietnam, invading Iraq, occupying the Middle East forever, none of these were good things that any actual moral person could cotton to and say “well at least they were weakening a geopolitical enemy”
So if I'm understanding this correctly, you're essentially saying NATO and the US should keep to themselves, and the US should have stayed out of Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan; I agree with this. However, The Ukraine war is a different situation in this case because there are no US or NATO troops there.
Supporting Ukraine for now means supporting their brigades like Azov and hundreds of other neo nazi informal and formal militias. It means giving them cluster bombs and mines that’ll turn eastern Ukraine into a child amputee generating land for centuries. However, your “support” for this cause is ultimately meaningless because America is going to do it without the consent of her citizens because the American war machine wants to generate profits by sending off munitions to be blown up and replaced at Congress expense while insisting they don’t have money to feed hungry children, house the unhoused, nor have universal healthcare. For them it’s not about doing their part by helping plucky Ukrainians in their struggle, they just want more stuff blown up.
I see where you're coming from on this one, I can't say I fully agree, though. We're giving them cluster bombs and mines to defend their country with, not amputate children. War is a shitty situation for all involved, but Ukraine and NATO did not start it, Russia did. And, yes, the American Military Industrial Complex does like its global conflicts where it can sell and test out its fancy weapons. In this particular situation, I support agree with doing this because those weapons are being used for defense against an invading force that I, as an American, am opposed to.
The end goal for Ukraine right now is apparently to take back the Donbass region and Crimea, these will both not happen. NATO trainers don’t know how to fight a war when they don’t have unlimited air superiority - the tactics they’ve taught have costed thousands of Ukrainian lives. Instead of fighting this stupid war, Ukraine should enter into peace negotiations (which they’ve tried to do!!! but NATO countries keep telling them not to). That might mean losing Crimea, maybe even Donbass - but the people who lived there, near as can be told, weren’t exactly happy to be under the suzerainty of Ukraine anyway. It’s a process that will come much more easily with the end of NATO and US support - just like what happened in the middle east following the withdrawal of US forces.
So just give up and allow Russia to take whatever they want, I disagree with this one. I also find it hard to believe that Ukraine is ok with giving up any territory to Russia.
At the end of the day, I want Ukraine to win this war and have their country back. This outcome would also mean that Russia would come out weaker in the end. I'm ok with my tax dollars going to that.
The Donbas republics want to leave Ukraine! The people there are ethnic Russians who have voted in referendums to leave the country. The ethnic Russian population in eastern Uktain have been shelled by artilley, aimed at them by Aziv Nazis for the last 8 years.
What Russia would want them to give up is the part of the country that have democratically asserted that they want to be independent of Ukraine. Russia recognized the idpependance of the Donbas republics and entered the region in part to support their struggle (in coincides with other important geopolitical aims of the Russian Federation, chiefly Ukraine not entering NATO).
Now how does this equal "Ukraine winning and getting their country back?" The people of Donbas have been being killed and voted for their idpependance from Ukraine. Why do you want to force the people of the Donbas to be reunited to people who have been killing them?
the US actively undermines the sovereignty of countries it is intervening in by propping up native comprador groups, often right wing extremists, to act as intermediaries for its interests in order to establish plausible deniability and to insulate itself against direct retaliation, hence the term 'proxy war'. this has been the case in pretty much every single intervention in recent history and ukraine is no exception. historically, these extremist groups also have a tendency to eventually slip the leash and engage in various unsavory acts of violence in accordance with their ideology, as was the case in places like south korea, taiwan, afghanistan, iraq, and syria, with the US preferring to turn a blind eye until its core interests once again come under threat (afghanistan, iraq, syria), at which point the cycle repeats itself.
to do this, the US will typically utilize a multitude of sockpuppet NGOs and human rights groups to harness populist anger regarding legitimate grievances within the countries it is intervening in, as in the 2014/2019 hong kong protests or the 2004 ukrainian orange revolution, and allowing its pet rebels to be valorized through giving them a shitload of money and equipment, along with positive media coverage across the board. this was how the 2014 maidan coup regime was created. @SimulatedLiberalism responded with a more detailed account of what happened afterwards (looks like they left out some details regarding russian attempts at reconciliation in the form of minsks 1 & 2), but for me, the cynicism with which the US misrepresents, instrumentalizes, and ultimately aggravates the suffering of people in the countries it intervenes in is reason enough to resolutely reject the american justifications for support. the russian invasion is after the fact, the important part is that the kiev regime itself is fundamentally illegitimate as it came to power through less than democratic means and moreover does not even attempt to fairly represent the interests of all its people.
We're giving them cluster bombs and mines to defend their country with, not amputate children.
You're missing the point here though. It is an objective fact that mines and unexploded cluster munitions keep maiming and killing people long after whatever conflict they were intended for has ended, and the victims are usually disproportionally children. The stated intent of these weapons does not change that.
War is a shitty situation for all involved
Do you include your own country in the "all involved" here?
We don't want US and NATO hegemony to continue, it's bad for millions of people in the global south. The postwar US military industrial complex is not a force for good and the closest it ever came to that was when it aligned with communists to end the fascist threat of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese. Bombing North Korea, bombing Cambodia and Vietnam, invading Iraq, occupying the Middle East forever, none of these were good things that any actual moral person could cotton to and say "well at least they were weakening a geopolitical enemy"
Supporting Ukraine for now means supporting their brigades like Azov and hundreds of other neo nazi informal and formal militias. It means giving them cluster bombs and mines that'll turn eastern Ukraine into a child amputee generating land for centuries. However, your "support" for this cause is ultimately meaningless because America is going to do it without the consent of her citizens because the American war machine wants to generate profits by sending off munitions to be blown up and replaced at Congress expense while insisting they don't have money to feed hungry children, house the unhoused, nor have universal healthcare. For them it's not about doing their part by helping plucky Ukrainians in their struggle, they just want more stuff blown up.
The end goal for Ukraine right now is apparently to take back the Donbass region and Crimea, these will both not happen. NATO trainers don't know how to fight a war when they don't have unlimited air superiority - the tactics they've taught have costed thousands of Ukrainian lives. Instead of fighting this stupid war, Ukraine should enter into peace negotiations (which they've tried to do!!! but NATO countries keep telling them not to). That might mean losing Crimea, maybe even Donbass - but the people who lived there, near as can be told, weren't exactly happy to be under the suzerainty of Ukraine anyway. It's a process that will come much more easily with the end of NATO and US support - just like what happened in the middle east following the withdrawal of US forces.
I think every Hexbear user hopes peace comes soon instead of bloodshed and I'm pretty sure we're also in agreement that it'd be great if the Russian working class and Ukrainian working class would stop killing eachother and overthrow their section of the bourgeoisie and find a way to work together again in solidarity.
I appreciate the long response, and I understand where you are coming from on a lot of your points:
So if I'm understanding this correctly, you're essentially saying NATO and the US should keep to themselves, and the US should have stayed out of Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan; I agree with this. However, The Ukraine war is a different situation in this case because there are no US or NATO troops there.
I see where you're coming from on this one, I can't say I fully agree, though. We're giving them cluster bombs and mines to defend their country with, not amputate children. War is a shitty situation for all involved, but Ukraine and NATO did not start it, Russia did. And, yes, the American Military Industrial Complex does like its global conflicts where it can sell and test out its fancy weapons. In this particular situation, I
supportagree with doing this because those weapons are being used for defense against an invading force that I, as an American, am opposed to.So just give up and allow Russia to take whatever they want, I disagree with this one. I also find it hard to believe that Ukraine is ok with giving up any territory to Russia.
At the end of the day, I want Ukraine to win this war and have their country back. This outcome would also mean that Russia would come out weaker in the end. I'm ok with my tax dollars going to that.
The Donbas republics want to leave Ukraine! The people there are ethnic Russians who have voted in referendums to leave the country. The ethnic Russian population in eastern Uktain have been shelled by artilley, aimed at them by Aziv Nazis for the last 8 years.
What Russia would want them to give up is the part of the country that have democratically asserted that they want to be independent of Ukraine. Russia recognized the idpependance of the Donbas republics and entered the region in part to support their struggle (in coincides with other important geopolitical aims of the Russian Federation, chiefly Ukraine not entering NATO).
Now how does this equal "Ukraine winning and getting their country back?" The people of Donbas have been being killed and voted for their idpependance from Ukraine. Why do you want to force the people of the Donbas to be reunited to people who have been killing them?
the US actively undermines the sovereignty of countries it is intervening in by propping up native comprador groups, often right wing extremists, to act as intermediaries for its interests in order to establish plausible deniability and to insulate itself against direct retaliation, hence the term 'proxy war'. this has been the case in pretty much every single intervention in recent history and ukraine is no exception. historically, these extremist groups also have a tendency to eventually slip the leash and engage in various unsavory acts of violence in accordance with their ideology, as was the case in places like south korea, taiwan, afghanistan, iraq, and syria, with the US preferring to turn a blind eye until its core interests once again come under threat (afghanistan, iraq, syria), at which point the cycle repeats itself.
to do this, the US will typically utilize a multitude of sockpuppet NGOs and human rights groups to harness populist anger regarding legitimate grievances within the countries it is intervening in, as in the 2014/2019 hong kong protests or the 2004 ukrainian orange revolution, and allowing its pet rebels to be valorized through giving them a shitload of money and equipment, along with positive media coverage across the board. this was how the 2014 maidan coup regime was created. @SimulatedLiberalism responded with a more detailed account of what happened afterwards (looks like they left out some details regarding russian attempts at reconciliation in the form of minsks 1 & 2), but for me, the cynicism with which the US misrepresents, instrumentalizes, and ultimately aggravates the suffering of people in the countries it intervenes in is reason enough to resolutely reject the american justifications for support. the russian invasion is after the fact, the important part is that the kiev regime itself is fundamentally illegitimate as it came to power through less than democratic means and moreover does not even attempt to fairly represent the interests of all its people.
You're missing the point here though. It is an objective fact that mines and unexploded cluster munitions keep maiming and killing people long after whatever conflict they were intended for has ended, and the victims are usually disproportionally children. The stated intent of these weapons does not change that.
Do you include your own country in the "all involved" here?
You actually believe that? There's been plenty of evidence of US and NATO commanders in Ukraine doing "training" well before Russia went in there.