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Ukraine Part 2: Playing chicken with Kiev


Kalbear

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37 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

When the Soviet Union fell, and Germany was reunited, Nato and the US said they weren't going to expand eastward,

No they didn't. Gorbachev himself, in plain language, says they didn't -- that expansion wasn't even a topic of the negotiations and diplomacy during the reunification. The only real thing at stake then was that no troops, new military bases, or missiles be placed in eastern Germany, and that, as he noted, has been adhered to by NATO. 

 

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16 minutes ago, Ran said:

No they didn't. Gorbachev himself, in plain language, says they didn't -- that expansion wasn't even a topic of the negotiations and diplomacy during the reunification. The only real thing at stake then was that no troops, new military bases, or missiles be placed in eastern Germany, and that, as he noted, has been adhered to by NATO. 

 

Didn't Gorbachev himself though dispute this in the late 2000s, criticizing eastward NATO expansion?  No one is going to dispute there was no treaty preventing eastward expansion, and the Baker line to Gorbachev seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting to in the argument that it was some kind of hard agreement, but there was obviously some thing there, as demonstrated by constant references to such from European leaders.  

Even a light googling of this shows a bunch of mainstream media sources coming to opposite conclusions in this.  

 

And it's not crazy to look at the no bases/troops language as having followed the letter but not the spirit of the agreement.  

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1 hour ago, Ran said:

No they didn't. Gorbachev himself, in plain language, says they didn't -- that expansion wasn't even a topic of the negotiations and diplomacy during the reunification. The only real thing at stake then was that no troops, new military bases, or missiles be placed in eastern Germany, and that, as he noted, has been adhered to by NATO. 

 

Ran, this is not true and a case of  intelligence spin-op propaganda from the Brookings institute/CIA/State Department/whatever it seems. Both, the US and Russia are masters in framing and forming the narrative as it suits themselves.

A 2014 report from ARD Weltspiegel (ARD is German equivalent to BBC).
Minute 2:50, German foreign minister Genscher and Secretary of State Baker are standing before the press and Genscher is saying in clear words:

„We agreed upon that there is no intention to increase the NATO defense area towards the East. This is by the way not only valid with regards to the GDR but in general.“

Funnily enough a spokeswoman of the Brookings institute is also part of the report. 


 

 

 

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Ukraine isn't a democracy. It's president Imprisoned the head of the opposition political party which came in 2nd place in the election, and arrested and jailed its leaders (exactly what Putin has been accused of doing)—all with the support of U.S; shut down TV channels that criticized him 

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1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

I really wish it was as simple saying US good Russia bad, but in reality it is an everyone sucks situation.

Russia has:

1. Invaded and annexed part of Ukraine's territory, after signing a treaty where it specifically promised not to do that.

2. Started a proxy separatist war which killed around 10 000 people.

3. Is currently preparing a second invasion (or third, depending how you're counting) in which it is the clear, unjustified aggressor.

I don't think it's a stretch to declare a country that does all that a clear "bad guy" in a given situation, do you?

What bad things has US done re:Ukraine that are remotely comparable to the list above, that would justify your bothsideism?

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9 minutes ago, Falcon2909 said:

Ukraine isn't a democracy. It's president Imprisoned the head of the opposition political party which came in 2nd place in the election, and arrested and jailed its leaders (exactly what Putin has been accused of doing)—all with the support of U.S; shut down TV channels that criticized him 

Just because I'm a bit bored - which president imprisoned the opposition leader? Which opposition leader? Do you actually know?

Also let's just take that for a given that you're right. So what? Is it acceptable for countries to invade others if that country isn't really super awesome at democracy? Are Ukrainian lives worthless because they live in a pretty sketchy government?

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1 minute ago, Gorn said:

Russia has:

1. Invaded and annexed part of Ukraine's territory, after signing a treaty where it specifically promised not to do that.

2. Started a proxy separatist war which killed around 10 000 people.

3. Is currently preparing a second invasion (or third, depending how you're counting) in which it is the clear, unjustified aggressor.

I don't think it's a stretch to declare a country that does all that a clear "bad guy" in a given situation, do you?

What bad things has US done re:Ukraine that are remotely comparable to the list above, that would justify your bothsideism?

This is exactly that kind of nonsense argumentation…where did the poster say what you think he said? Where? 

„bothsideism“…gimme a break. Some Posters here seem to have very short memories nowadays but for me 2002/03 is like yesterday. I remember very well how everyone who opposed the official US line re: Iraq was denounced, ridiculed, called Saddam lover and worse. I remember how even questioning supposed Saddam/Osama links got you bombarded with insults! The Iraq WMD/Al Qaida propaganda shitshow the US produced will enter the annals of history! Remember Colin Powell and his super sophisticated „analysis“ in front of the UN Security Council? 

After Iraq, every other, smaller country  would have been ostracized for at least 20/30 years but because it’s the US, it was enough to elect Obama and all was good and forgotten. Or as we say in German: Schwamm drüber :)  

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4 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

Also let's just take that for a given that you're right. So what? Is it acceptable for countries to invade others if that country isn't really super awesome at democracy? Are Ukrainian lives worthless because they live in a pretty sketchy government?

No they are not. But the same goes for Yemeni lives (one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes currently in the world according to UN), so please tell your president that he should stop enabling his allies KSA and UAE to bomb the living shit out of them. 

Interestingly Yemen stopped long ago to be on the agenda of many so called American leftists and „progressive“ media (CNN/MSNBC) or the Democratic Party elite. 

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2 minutes ago, Arakan said:

so please tell your president that he should stop enabling his allies KSA and UAE to bomb the living shit out of them. 

Oh the US doing bad stuff means it’s not allowed to ever help a country in a good way—I.e giving them weapons to fight off an invasion  and threatening sanctions on their aggressors.

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1 minute ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Oh the US doing bad stuff means it’s not allowed to ever help a country in a good way—I.e giving them weapons to fight off an invasion  and threatening sanctions on their aggressors.

Yes they can. What they cannot though is justifying it with morality or democracy. 

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9 minutes ago, Arakan said:

No they are not. But the same goes for Yemeni lives (one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes currently in the world according to UN), so please tell your president that he should stop enabling his allies KSA and UAE to bomb the living shit out of them. 

Interestingly Yemen stopped long ago to be on the agenda of many so called American leftists and „progressive“ media (CNN/MSNBC) or the Democratic Party elite. 

I agree! Yemen, Myanmar, Syria are all significantly worse right now than Ukraine would be, I suspect. I would very much like us to stop selling them arms.

Same really goes for Germany giving Russia money for gas though. 

Mostly, I think this is a fairly inconsistent and random whataboutism. It sucks that the US is going to be more interested in protecting white people over brown ones, but that doesn't mean by fiat we should not do anything at all, and the argument that we should let people die because it's more morally fair to everyone seems a bit ludicrous.

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2 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Yes they can. What they cannot though is justifying it with morality or democracy. 

Again, I don't see that at all. The US has taken a fairly regular stance that countries that invade others without provocation are Not Good. The US counts itself in that, but their outward policy of dissuading other countries is pretty consistent. The US sucks ass as far as Civil wars go - Yemen, Syria, Libya. And it sucks as far as genocides.

But the idea that the US would want to stop another nation from being invaded is pretty basic. 

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Just now, Kalibuster said:

Same really goes for Germany giving Russia money for gas though. 

Mostly, I think this is a fairly inconsistent and random whataboutism.

First sentence: Jesus…nice equivalence. Buying Gas for heating in winter equaling with selling weapons to a murderous regime. And KSA is not just a business partner, it’s an US lapdog. 

It’s not about whataboutism, it’s about hypocrisy. 

Yemen, Myanmar, Syria…wow, nice deflection. Well in the case of Yemen the US could do a lot: call back your lapdog. 

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8 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

Again, I don't see that at all. The US has taken a fairly regular stance that countries that invade others without provocation are Not Good. The US counts itself in that, but their outward policy of dissuading other countries is pretty consistent. The US sucks ass as far as Civil wars go - Yemen, Syria, Libya. And it sucks as far as genocides.

But the idea that the US would want to stop another nation from being invaded is pretty basic. 

Of the Big 3 (US, China, Russia), the U.S. is the „best“, no doubt about it. Though best in this case means a C minus. 

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2 minutes ago, Arakan said:

First sentence: Jesus…nice equivalence. Buying Gas for heating in winter equaling with selling weapons to a murderous regime. And KSA is not just a business partner, it’s an US lapdog. 

If the EU stopped buying gas from Russia Russia would either collapse or go into a deep recession. 

What are you doing to stop german leaders from propping up Russia?

2 minutes ago, Arakan said:

It’s not about whataboutism, it’s about hypocrisy. 

Who cares? Seriously, what does hypocrisy actually matter? 

I mean, if you follow that to a consistent letter you're advocating that the US should never ever try and help any nation from any side no matter what. Is that the world you honestly want to live in- where the US ignores any request for aid no matter from who? That wouldn't be hypocritical, but it would also cause significantly more suffering.

2 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Yemen, Myanmar, Syria…wow, nice deflection. Well in the case of Yemen the US could do a lot: call back your lapdog. 

I don't see how this is deflection. I'm agreeing with you! In any case, the US can't call back SA in any meaningful way. The US could stop selling arms to SA (and they should!) but that isn't going to stop SA from their proxy fight with Iran. 

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2 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

For me and many other leftists, it's not about being sympathetic to Russian propaganda, it's a matter of opposing imperialism in all its forms, which I believe includes

You get that Russia threatening Ukraine with invasion is imperialism too right?

Also not all modes of imperialism is the same. The US government shipping vaccines to other countries which are poor is an example of “imperialism”. 

Do you bristle at that?

2 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

I don't like Russia, but I understand why they are acting in the manner that they are.

You would never give this degree of nuance if the US was threatening to invade and annex one of its neighbors to keep them in the US’ sphere of influence.

2 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

When the Soviet Union fell, and Germany was reunited, Nato and the US said they weren't going to expand eastward, which was a lie

No treaty actually held that condition; and besides the Soviet Union is dead and has been for decades.

2 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Russia is trying to protect their borders and Nato/the US are trying to ensure Ukraine remains a state on Russia's border that is sympathetic towards the west.

Ukraine and NATO won’t invade Russia so long as they have nukes because suicide isn’t cool.

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