- cross-posted to:
- ukraine_war_news@lemmygrad.ml
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine_war_news@lemmygrad.ml
Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.
Exact full quote from CNN:
“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063
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russia can end this whenever they want by restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity, if they think the US is benefiting so much from it at their expense. The US is just making it much harder for russia to reach its maximalist goals: to conquer Ukraine. One of those is a war crime, the other one is supporting international law.
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International law is when russia does not annex Crimea because of the unfavourable internal affairs of its neighbour. You know, your power ends at "these" borders and from there to here you can't threaten the Ukrainian President.
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Yea, well, did you hear about how the President escaped and the Parliament voted to destitute him. And when you invade Crimea to do a mock referendum, that's awesome international law. Not even Iran and China recognize the annexation of Crimea, because you can't invade a country and referendum an annexation unilaterally.
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Most of the people living in Crimea work for the Russian Black Sea Fleet you dork. They didn't have to invade Crimea, they already had a huge military instalation there. And no one cares about international law, least of all NATO.
Also Crimea has been trying to get autonomy or leave Ukraine for thirty years.
The US isn't making it much harder, it's making it pay.
Indeed, making russia pay for trying to conquer a sovereign country by helping that country defend itself.
This is a little ahistorical.
Wouldn't happen if you didn't try to conquer countries
I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Alright but what would guarantee Russia's safety after they do that? It's obviously not in their interest. What they want is to negotiate a peace treaty, which is why they are holding their defense line so strongly until their opponents are exhausted.
What I heard were rumors that the "UN" could sort of hold Ukraine's occupied territories "in escrow" as a DMZ buffer, but it's not a final solution (we know how these handovers have turned sour in the past), because eventually you'd have to divide it, or create a new country...the essential is that russia does not get rewarded for its aggression with territory to brag about in the history books and that there is no chance that any native pro-russian Ukrainian in the buffer zone suffers reprisals...
those territories are independent republics that have been embroiled in a civil war with Kyiv for 9 years. Ukraine's fascist factions within the military have been shelling those republics in violation of multiple peace treaties that have been signed over the past 9 years. securing the independence of those regions is Russia's entire pretext for invading - in response to requests for military aid from said republics.
They aren’t independent republics anymore, they’ve been annexed by the Russian Federation
sure but forgetting the historical context just provides justification for NATO aggression
Sure, I just thought it was a difference worth noting
I could even imagine a scenario where if they had become independent republics, russia parked tanks there and said: "peace now", it could have worked, but Putin got greedy. Then to pile on the catastrophic stubbornness, russia annexed parts of them, plus parts of 2 other oblasts in mock referendums that nobody recognizes. There is no defense, it's a land grab and a clumsy one at that.
can you see how if you were living in those cities and multiple peace treaties were violated, that you might prefer joining the larger power that speaks your language to remaining at the mercy of death squads that howl for your blood?
If you speak russian and you want to move to russia and you like daddy putin's policies, you always could join Russia: they'll give you a passport and welcome you with open arms, nobody is stopping you, they have plenty of space and can use the manpower.
why is "leave the place you and yours have lived for countless generations" a preferable option to you? would you see it the same way if this were the choice offered to your city?
That's a great thought process, instead of emigrating from Ireland to the UK, ask the UK to invade Ireland so you don't have to move and can live with your English buddies. Wtf. Respect borders, move if your country allegiance changes
What are you even on, dude? There wasn't hard border between Russia and Ukraine for Ukraine's entire existence as a state until the destruction of the USSR. People should flee when their own country decides to kill them? That is actual, real, literal ethnic cleansing and/or genocide?
Are you seriously saying that all the Russian speaking Ukrainians should have fled Ukraine when the Rada started sending death squads in to the Donbass? Are you really saying that?:
lmao taking the side of the Brits over the IRA is a fucking amazing take. Tiocfaidh ár lá
it is, isn't it? That's what russian speakers are doing, this just keeps getting better and better.
it's literally the opposite. they're in the position of Northern Ireland, in this analogy.
Nah, I was talking about Ireland, the country.
it's a real conflict you knob. the actual history is exactly the opposite and it's a great fucking analogy that's going straight over your head.
Yes, but why cant some dude in Ireland call up his English friends to add bits of Ireland to Northern Ireland? The possibilities are endless without borders just the way putin likes. Or maybe Switzerland or Belgium can join France...I can just keep listing countries that speak the same language as their neighbour that could be invaded to "save the speakers". Hitler invaded Poland on that pretext too, it's super versatile.
mate, the Brits literally colonized Ireland and the actual direction people want to go is towards Ireland. there was a real reuinfication conflict. posing a ahistorical hypothetical that's precisely the opposite of the actual lived reality is fucking hilarious. what you're saying effectively amounts to "if the Irish in Northern Ireland want to join Ireland so badly, why don't they simply move there", which is fucking insane and precisely the point I've been making for a half dozen comments.
THis probably isn't worth it. Gsus is either taking the piss or not clever or knowledgeable enough to follow you.
I know, I'm just amused by the
takes
You can twist my careless example of a translinguistic border in every direction to represent what you want, apparently in this case you're making Ireland to be russia here, but I can say the UK represents russia...which is still different from:
Ukraine was already independent in 1993 without DNRs+LPRs and there was a referendum which settled the matter according to russia too, only for russia to come back 20 years later for Crimea and then for the Donbas by force.
If you want to be russian after 20 years of settled internationally recognized borders and peace, you can move there, because that's not how borders or international law work.
I'm pointing out the similarities with a group that shares language and culture with the parent nation wishing to rejoin the parent nation. those borders have also been "settled". and yet the only conscionable choice is to support the separarists. the other poster is right, you are too dense to understand history and its lessons.
And, again, are you suggesting the Russian speaking population of Ukraine, who have lived their for at least decades, should have fled the country when the coup Rada declared their language illegal?
Why do you think a nation, any nation, would give up a strategic port and major naval facility to it's enemies without a fight?
Pro-ethnic cleansing apologia from feddit dot nl
The UN was absolutely useless at peacekeeping in Ukraine from 2014-2022. Why would they suddenly become competent now? Ukraine would just keep shelling those territories (now with cluster munitions) and would invade them if Russia pulled it's military back.
And if you try and say that Ukraine wouldn't dare do that because it would be against "international law" I'll remind you that Ukraine had absolutely no problem violating the Minsk Agreements. Ukraine just kept violating those agreements by shelling the Donbas for 8 years without suffering any consequences until Russia invaded.
Oh my god, nobody gives a fuck about international law. It’s a meaningless term used to sling attacks at your geopolitical enemies. Just look at Guantanamo bay, where Americans are torturing people that have never even faced a military tribunal for over two decades! In an illegal occupation of Cuban land!
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Yea, like Sevastopol
Yes, the brutal hard truth is if your country is neighbor to a much more powerful country than you will be forced to make concessions to that country. Else you will get couped, invaded, have your leaders assisted or be put under crippling economic blockades. Russia sucks but any state in the world would do the same to prevent giving their enemies an easy point of invasion
Cool, rule by the strong and powerful, acquiescence by the weak is a great take by a leftist, but whatever, I don't care, I'm done here, please stop writing.
I’m not saying any of this is good. It is reality however
Are liberals generally opposed to supporting Ukraine? What opinion are they not going to change?
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This thread is evidence of it. The quiet part gets shouted and rather than accepting that this is what MLs have been saying for two years, the libs are doubling down. Will they now accept the truth behind the quip, 'To the last Ukrainian?' Not a chance. Oblivious.
Ya that's my understanding was well. Which is why I asked the question.
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Because the reasons to support Ukraine are supposed to be noble and not completely self-interested. That's why there is popular support for it. McConnell admitting that it's about funneling money into the military industrial complex, at least in part, ought to make at least some people reconsider their assumptions
Ah I see now. It's about the motivations behind the support. Thanks for the insight!
It's actually quite interesting. Personally, I try to remain neutral on politics but I'm definitely fed a left-leaning social media diet. Within that content, the general reason to support Ukraine is still self centered. "Go beat up the Russian military because they're the bad guys and our cost is super low." The nobility of this support feels like a happy side effect. But the really interesting part is that "funneling money into the military industrial complex" simply isn't focused at all. This is the first time I've considered that aspect.
Yeah... About that. There is no neutrality in politics.
Why don't you go look up what the US and Saudi did to Yemen over the last decade and decide how you feel about sitting on that fence.
They're not beating up the Russian military. They're fertilizing the fields of Ukraine that the Rada is going to sell to Blackrock. There's nothing noble about this. NATO pushed and pushed and pushed until the RF took the bait, and now they're bleeding the RF using Ukrainians because they don't give a shit about Ukrainians. Christ this is so frustrating ISTG if people would just read Sun Tzu they'd understand everything and we wouldn't need to have these absurd conversations over and over.
You don't need to go super far left to find convincing arguments against US foreign policy. Noam Chomsky is a mainstream intellectual after all, and he coined the phrase "consent manufacturing".
The idea that the US acts in total self interest should be presumed true in all cases, but that doesn't on its own defeat the idea that its intervention in Ukraine is good. The logical next step is to ask ourselves whether this intervention ever had any chance of changing the outcome of the conflict at all. If it didn't, and most people here would agree that it didn't, then the US' involvement amounts to wartime profiteering at the cost of human lives.
edit: I should also add, there's good reason to believe that NATO expansion is what caused the conflict, and that the west did this in spite of clear and explicit warnings from Russia
Liberals are just as bloodthirsty as their fashy counterparts, they just need to have their own slightly different words for why it is okay.
It took like 6 months for mainstream liberals to feel 100% comfortable thinking of Russians as subhuman monsters deserving of any and all violence, dredging up old-school orientalist tropes, and celebrating snuff videos, making special exception for them so long as they are accompanied by a little story about how it's happening to Russians. A random Russian civilian got attacked by a shark in Egypy and liberals were rah-rahing for the shark.
Liberals will be pro-war until their corporate masters tell them not to be. Then, like with Iraq, they might pretend they werw anti-war the whole time.
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