this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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What he's saying is that Putin doesn't get to dictate which alliances sovereign nations can join.
Ahh yes, NATO, an alliance well known for respecting sovereignty. That's why they invade and bomb any third world nation with a sovereign project against US interests...
And how did these nations join NATO post cold war? Surely there was no manipulation of the sovereignty of Eastern European nations at that time right?
And do NATO countries have sovereignty themselves, or are they just US vassal states? Be honest here, because the answer is quite clear. It's gotten to the point that the US can bomb the gas pipelines of another NATO country (see nordstream) and nothing can be done about it. And every NATO country has to buy US weapons systems, engage in specific international training exercises, etc. Very sovereign.
Let's be clear, realpolitik is all there ever was, and all there ever will be in geopolitics. The "sovereignty" of every nation on the planet is subject to this. Unless you want to do the Turkey/Cuban missile crisis again. There's a reason Mexico can't join BRICS, there's a reason Cuba can't claim Guantanamo bay as theirs, etc.
Sovereign nations like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Cuba, right?
... right?
Yes.
That's the same thing
Except that OP is trying to frame the invasion as justified when the reality is that Putin thought he could bully his neighbors. NATO predictably went "fuck off" and that somehow means bombing Ukrainian children was unavoidable.
A fair number of bombings have been attributed to defective Ukrainian munitions...
And thats not even getting into all the non-defective ones
I don't see it like that - I see it like assigning any blame at all to NATO, which it does deserve, to some degree.
By deflecting blame from Russia.
Do you agree that Putin should drop dead?
Everyone who ever asked me shit like that was never interested in having a discussion, just in purity tests. What I think should happen to Putin has no bearing on what caused this. And FWIW this kind of mindless insistence on moral absolutism is why Tripoli went from the capital of the most stable country in Africa to an open-air slave market.
It's a litmus test for whether I want to engage with you at all.
Being able to state unequivocally that a murderous billionaire should drop dead is the absolute bare minimum for a socialist.
I have yet to get a straight answer from so-called socialists on Lemmy.
No it isn't, it's because you want to dictate the terms of the conversation, which, again, leaves zero room for any admittance that Putin isn't the only one who caused this situation.
USA is also responsible. Fucking obviously.
I live in Denmark. We're sending absurd amounts of military aid. The commie party supports this on the basis that Ukrainians have an indisputable right to defend themselves. I agree with that, but there's obviously room for discussing what exactly that implies in terms of support.
All billionaires should go jump off a bridge. Liberal politicians should take a trip to the Titanic, and I have a very nice wall I want to show the billionaire who bankrolled the Danish libertarian party.
I'd be more than happy to have a conversation about the conflict that isn't just parroting neoliberal talking points, but as I said, this is a litmus test. If you can't state unequivocally that Putin, a murderous billionaire, deserves to die, then you're not any kind of socialist I can recognize, and I'll have no further interest in talking with you.
"The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that."
"Don't allow others to join your defense pact or we'll demonstrate why it's necessary in the first place."
Perfectly sane logic. Nothing strange.
Cuba had the same thing happen to them in the 60's.
Oh good you already understand why it's Bad Actually™ then
You mean that it's bad that the USA threatened to nuke Russia when Russia was putting missiles in Cuba, or when Russia invaded Ukraine when USA said they would put missiles in Ukraine? Was it bad the USA threatened nuclear war because Cuba wanted to defend itself from a belligerent neighbour? Russia backed off, should the US back off from Ukraine? Or "this is different".
Was it bad that Russia threatened nuclear way because Ukraine wanted to defend itself from a belligerent neighbour?
The USA doing bad things in the past doesn't make it alright for Russia to do the same bad shit.
It isn't a team sport. We aren't children. Both can, in fact, be wrong, and neither justifies the other.
So you're alright with the way the US treats Cuba then? The USA did make it very clear that they wouldn't tolerate Warsaw Pact expansionism near their borders, and Cuba could have just surrendered after the Bay of Pigs invasion to avoid all the negative consequences that have resulted from Cuba's decision to oppose the freedom loving USA.
Russia has made it very clear they don't want NATO expansionism near its borders.
Yeah and the US made it very clear that they didn't want USSR expansionism near their borders. Doesn't make what the US has done to Cuba alright, just like it doesn't make what Russia has done in Ukraine alright.
And Ukraine was already invaded…