Let’s have a war!

[Qusdahl]

first of all, let me be up front - have I mentioned, FUCK PUTIN! I once again would like to condemn the Russian invasion. It's unacceptable.

but, so far the only real solution we've been presented with to counter that Russian invasion, is just pumping more and more weapons into Ukraine?

Thus far, western media has overwhelmingly painted the Ukrainian resistance as the good guys, the heroes, the freedom fighters, yes? would anyone disagree?

but (and I know some of you can't even hear this without thinking I'm a Russophile, but bear with me here) Ukraine has its own sorts of problems! And I can only help but wonder if handing so many weapons over to a country and a people who were and are so problematic all along.

Here's what that Putin-parroting, Kremlin-endorsed, Russian propaganda machine "state.gov" has to say about the place:

https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-coun ... with%20the

Significant human rights issues included: unlawful or arbitrary killing; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees by law enforcement personnel; harsh and life-threatening conditions in prisons and detention centers; arbitrary arrest or detention; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; abuses in the Russia-led conflict in the Donbas, including physical abuse of civilians and members of armed groups held in detention facilities; serious restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet, including violence, threats of violence, or unjustified arrests or prosecutions against journalists, censorship, and blocking of websites; refoulement of refugees; serious acts of corruption; lack of investigation of and accountability for violence against women; violence or threats of violence motivated by anti-Semitism; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting persons with disabilities, members of ethnic minority groups, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex persons; and the existence of the worst forms of child labor.

The government generally failed to take adequate steps to prosecute or punish most officials who committed abuses, resulting in a climate of impunity. Human rights groups and the United Nations noted significant deficiencies in investigations into alleged human rights abuses committed by government security forces...

and these are the guys we should giving the hero treatment? And should be arming?!

Say Putin (fuck him) comes to his senses and calls off the whole invasion. If only! but then what? We have a country full of fascists now only further emboldened and empowered by US/NATO lethal aid support...but at least it's not Russia, right?

The whole thing is a cluster fuck. It's heartbreaking. It's exhausting. Forgive me if I don't want to "pick a side" here.

[KUTradition]

nobody said Ukraine doesn’t have issues

what do you propose be done? serious question.

what do you think happens if/when the US stops supplying arms to our allies? serious question.

[Qusdahl]

Putin bombed a freaking maternity ward of a hospital and we're sitting here blabbering about this nonsense for the umpteenth day in a row.

It's awful!

and I know I'll be accused of trying to both sides this thing. but, know what? yeah, I am. Let's not be hypocrites here. The US has NO moral high ground when it comes to this shit. Some of you really seem to believe the rest of the world thinks of us as some freedom fighters. But the truth is, much of the rest of the world thinks of us as even more evil than we think of Russia right now. Sorry to bring that much needed perspective to you guys.

Besides, you rectal rehydrators didn't even touch the war crimes thread.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ysis-finds

[KUTradition]

But the truth is, much of the rest of the world thinks of us as even more evil than we think of Russia right now.



your own nytimes link doesn’t even support this assertion

[KUTradition]

Putin bombed a freaking maternity ward of a hospital and we're sitting here blabbering about this nonsense for the umpteenth day in a row.

It's awful!

and I know I'll be accused of trying to both sides this thing. but, know what? yeah, I am. Let's not be hypocrites here. The US has NO moral high ground when it comes to this shit. Some of you really seem to believe the rest of the world thinks of us as some freedom fighters. But the truth is, much of the rest of the world thinks of us as even more evil than we think of Russia right now. Sorry to bring that much needed perspective to you guys.

Besides, you rectal rehydrators didn't even touch the war crimes thread.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ysis-finds

so, just because the US has done bad things we aren’t allowed to condemn the atrocities of others?

wtf, dude?

that’s illy/mich level strawman logic

[Qusdahl]

nobody said Ukraine doesn’t have issues

what do you propose be done? serious question.

what do you think happens if/when the US stops supplying arms to our allies? serious question.

Well, the issues in Ukraine aren't exactly part of the mainstream narrative right now, are they? It's all about hero-fying the "resistance fighters" and shit.

to be honest, I'm not even sure what to propose. I'm taking on long-established systems here. It's not like we can turn the entire human experience on its head with a few message bored posts.

I dunno what would happen if/when the US stops supplying arms to our allies. I guess the taliban et all rush in? and we just kinda stop worrying about that corner of the world?

I guess if I must propose something, it's that I wish some greater narrative and some greater conscience could move toward finding ways to stop solving everything with militant force, rather than finding ways to just keep justifying more of it.

[Qusdahl]

so just because the US has done bad things we aren't allowed to condemn the US doing bad things?

why clutch pearls when the Russians do it, but not us?

[KUTradition]

so, you’ve got nothing?

you can’t love and peace your way out of an armed conflict, unless you’re content just letting the putins of the world fulfill their perceived destinies

and i said this yesterday, do you not think that another European country would step in to supply arms to Ukraine if the US wasn’t?

i get the sense that you’re of this fanciful, dream-like opinion that if the US all of a sudden dismantled its MIC that the rest of the world would just magically fall in line and everyone would sing kumbaya and hold hands

[KUTradition]

so just because the US has done bad things we aren't allowed to condemn the US doing bad things?

why clutch pearls when the Russians do it, but not us?

wut?

[Qusdahl]

it's just all so fucking tragic.

[KUTradition]

your logic?

[twocoach]

nobody said Ukraine doesn’t have issues

what do you propose be done? serious question.

what do you think happens if/when the US stops supplying arms to our allies? serious question.

Well, the issues in Ukraine aren't exactly part of the mainstream narrative right now, are they? It's all about hero-fying the "resistance fighters" and shit.

to be honest, I'm not even sure what to propose. I'm taking on long-established systems here. It's not like we can turn the entire human experience on its head with a few message bored posts.

I dunno what would happen if/when the US stops supplying arms to our allies. I guess the taliban et all rush in? and we just kinda stop worrying about that corner of the world?

I guess if I must propose something, it's that I wish some greater narrative and some greater conscience could move toward finding ways to stop solving everything with militant force, rather than finding ways to just keep justifying more of it.

No, you aren't taking on anything. You are just muddying the waters. Sure, I wish that no one died by any means other than old age. Sure, I wish that there were never any civilians killed by US military actions. But barfing up stats about people killed in US airstrikes with the old "if you weren't outraged by this then you can't be outraged by Russia" is just pointless and gets us nowhere.

If you have some great idea about how to talk Putin out of what he is doing, I am sure the State Department would love to hear it.

[KUTradition]

heck, i’d love to hear it

[twocoach]

nobody said Ukraine doesn’t have issues

what do you propose be done? serious question.

what do you think happens if/when the US stops supplying arms to our allies? serious question.

Well, the issues in Ukraine aren't exactly part of the mainstream narrative right now, are they? It's all about hero-fying the "resistance fighters" and shit.

to be honest, I'm not even sure what to propose. I'm taking on long-established systems here. It's not like we can turn the entire human experience on its head with a few message bored posts.

I dunno what would happen if/when the US stops supplying arms to our allies. I guess the taliban et all rush in? and we just kinda stop worrying about that corner of the world?

I guess if I must propose something, it's that I wish some greater narrative and some greater conscience could move toward finding ways to stop solving everything with militant force, rather than finding ways to just keep justifying more of it.

"The issues in Ukraine"?!? What freaking issues are there to be had with the Ukrainian people getting bombed in their homes, schools and hospitals?

You aren't taking on anything. You're just arguing to argue. "I guess the taliban et all rush in? and we just kinda stop worrying about that corner of the world". Yeah, super productive conversation. I am sure we'll just have to "stop worrying about that part of the world" if a bunch of terrorists take over a bunch of Middle Eastern countries. Gotcha. This is so dumb.

[PhDhawk]

I kinda like the naive optimism.

"If we just leave bad people alone, they'll stop doing bad things"

[twocoach]

heck, i’d love to hear it

I went back to college when I was 31 to get my degree. I "loved" listening to the students who took one Civ class and one Psych class and suddenly knew how to solve all the world's problems over a beer or a bowl of weed.

[PhDhawk]

heck, i’d love to hear it

I went back to college when I was 31 to get my degree. I "loved" listening to the students who took one Civ class and one Psych class and suddenly knew how to solve all the world's problems over a beer or a bowl of weed.

Even now, we're all playing a game with enormous blind spots to important information.

There's so much intelligence we're not privy to.

[twocoach]

heck, i’d love to hear it

I went back to college when I was 31 to get my degree. I "loved" listening to the students who took one Civ class and one Psych class and suddenly knew how to solve all the world's problems over a beer or a bowl of weed.

Even now, we're all playing a game with enormous blind spots to important information.

There's so much intelligence we're not privy to.

To make it worse, what entities that people interact with have the worst, most out of date computers? The government. We want the government to spend less money but this results in them spending less money to build computer systems that are well linked, well documented and well understood. There is so much intelligence out there that even other important parts of the government aren't privy to.

Gathering data is easy. It is everywhere and is captured at an overwhelming rate. Storing data is easy. Storage space for digital data is insanely cheap.
Analyzing and sharing data is what is hard. It is a challenge to know what it is and who needs to know about it and get it to them in a timely manner so that it can be used in making important decisions.

[japhy]

Putin bombed a freaking maternity ward of a hospital and we're sitting here blabbering about this nonsense for the umpteenth day in a row.

It's awful!

and I know I'll be accused of trying to both sides this thing. but, know what? yeah, I am. Let's not be hypocrites here. The US has NO moral high ground when it comes to this shit. Some of you really seem to believe the rest of the world thinks of us as some freedom fighters. But the truth is, much of the rest of the world thinks of us as even more evil than we think of Russia right now. Sorry to bring that much needed perspective to you guys.

Besides, you rectal rehydrators didn't even touch the war crimes thread.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ysis-finds

Some of us think you should take your broad brush and stick it up your ass. Many of us have demonstrated that we have as good or better an understanding of what is going on currently and in the history of Russia and Ukraine than you do with your recent enlightenment after gorging on Russian propaganda.

To assume that we don't have as good or better an understanding of US history and atrocities than you and the barstool comrades do is presumptuous, and a bit laughable.

Making the world a better place is a grand ideal. Now would be as a good a time to start doing that as any. Do it. Show us how it can be done.

No one expects you to go to Turkey and broker a peace. Buying bumper stickers to promote saving the Frasier River is good and all, but you seem like you are itching and ready to step it up and expand your sphere of care to include a bigger picture. Step back from the message board and make it happen. We can vet your plans/ideas in the Spud Lounge at Solstice. I will introduce you to Max, he is about your age and has spent several years in Africa and the Middle East working in international refugee relief operations. You can get some first hand accounts of how shit goes down over there without any media bias.

[Qusdahl]

Well gee Japhy, if this brush up my ass is really that broad, then do ya think I’ll even be able to fit thru the door of the Spud Lounge any more?

Sigh.

The saddest part is, I don’t think we’re nearly as far off as we think we are.

I think this thread needs to take a nice vacation. Maybe like a yacht cruise around the island of Cyprus or somethin.