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1124 sats \ 29 replies \ @petertodd 8 Jul \ on: Lessons From the Cold War: Now Is the Time for De-Escalation - Antiwar.com history
Quite the time to complain about "escalation" when Russia intentionally blew up three Ukrainian hospitals in one day, including a children's cancer ward. I personally know someone who was in one of those hospitals.
All these claims of "escalation" are just excuses to try to let Russia get away with genocide. They're as absurd as the defund the police movement that is trying to get criminals "de-escalated" from the justice system. And not much different: Russians just want to exterminate Ukrainians and take their stuff. They're no different than common criminals.
If you actually want to stop escalation, punish evil. In the case of common criminals, throw them in jail and leave them there (or execute them). In the case of Russians, kill them and destroy their infrastructure. Ukrainians are happy to do it for us.
They're not stupid. They know they can't win a nuclear war, and all the top Russian leadership have family in the west. They know the only path to them winning is "anti-war" idiots like the OP.
BTW the Kyiv children's hospital that Russia attacked today accepts donations via Bitcoin: https://www.ohmatdytfund.org/en/donate
Most Ukrainian organizations, military and civilian, that are accepting donations are also accepting them via Bitcoin.
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@petertodd do you think the US/NATO leadership and the current person in power in Ukraine have the best interests of the Ukrainian people in mind? Or is it very possible they may also desire a prolonged war?
Why do you think that Russia invaded?
Why do you think the US is opposed to peace talks?
I think what Russia is doing is terrible btw and should stop.
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Who gives a fuck about US/NATO leadership? Obviously they don't have Ukraine's best interests at heart, because they are holding back Ukraine from being able to fight most effectively. The missiles that hit there three hospitals today all came from Russian airbases close to the border that Ukraine could easily blow up if only the US gave Ukraine permission.
Peace talks are idiotic. They've been done before. Russia just uses "peace" as a chance to rearm and try again. They have literally hundreds of years of history invading their neighbors.
How do you think Russia got so big? It's an imperialist culture that loves to invade and subjugate. The only solution is to prevent them from doing that, which is something you do with military force by killing Russians and destroying their industrial infrastructure.
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The reason I care is because it sure seems like war could be exactly what some very evil military companies want to see. A long dragging war they can profit from at the expense of the people of Ukraine and Russia.
I'm not expert but it does not seem like the US government wants a resolution. Your characterization of Russia could be made by people that have lived under British rule or people that live under the current world order. I would argue that the US government is imperialist as well. The US method is less ugly but it is an empire. We have seen how the US props up dictators across the globe when it helps US "interests". Usually business interests.
Russia and a few other powers do not bend the knee to the US. Make no mistake though, They are terrible as well. Worse in most ways. But the direction of the West isn't good and we need to look at things from not only our side but other's points of view if we truly want to understand our world.
Even if you are dealing with a mad man nothing I'm saying is a bad course of action. Maybe you come to the conclusion that there is no other option but all out war. I just don't see most people even demonstrating a desire to understand what would lead the Russian people to continuing their support of Putin. Or even Putin's motives besides the typical talking points.
I don't know the truth but I find the usual talking points very suspect.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.
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If you want the war to end sooner, give Ukraine the weapons they need, and crucially, the permission to use them against Russian targets.
You don't make the war end sooner with "peace negotiations" and "ceasefires". That just sets the stage for Russia to come back again, which is how were in this mess in the first place.
Peace will be achieved when Russia is no longer capable of fighting. That requires us to kill Russians by the hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) and destroy their infrastructure. Not a difficult goal – Ukraine has already killed or seriously wounded hundreds of thousands of Russians and has already blown up a non-trivial % of Russia's oil and gas infrastructure. We simply need to keep at it.
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Peter, do you believe the story of the civil war in Ukraine. Those ethnic Russians that wanted to leave the Ukraine and become their own nation?
That's Putin's actual pretext at the start. At least that is what I recall him saying. He's said many other ridiculous things since but I think most people forget that there was a civil war before this all started with Russian and NATO supporting Ukraine.
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The civil war narrative is nonsense. It was Russian troops fighting against Ukrainians.
If anything, Russia has done an excellent job of making "Russian speaking"¹ Ukrainians really hate Russia, as more of them have died in the past three years than any other group of Ukrainians. Mariupol for instance was slaughtered, and mostly Russian speaking.
- Most Ukrainians speak Russian; I don't actually know any that can only speak Ukrainian myself.
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how many troops does Ukraine have?
How many troops for Russia?
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Russia is short enough on troops that they've been forced to bring them in from outside Russia.
The two numbers aren't really comparable anyway as the two countries fight quite differently. Russia is happy to lose large numbers of troops in cheap "meat" attacks to make up for their shortages of decent weapons; Ukraine is not willing to do that, and (in theory) has access to much better weapons.
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Russian meat grinder
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Ukraine's challenge is manpower, the average age of their troops is 42 years
Russia has the manpower advantage.
They need to agree on a ceasefire before they run out of men.
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Ukraine is intentionally sending older soldiers to preserve their youth. The age isn't 42 years because they ran out of 18 year olds. It's 42 years so 18 year olds don't have to die.
Conscription focuses on older men; it doesn't even start until age 25. And that was only recently reduced from age 28!
I personally know someone in their early 30's whose 60 something father volunteered specifically so people his kids age wouldn't have to fight.
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That is incredibly sad. Thank you for sharing
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No sense getting sad about it. Get angry, get more weapons to Ukraine with fewer restrictions, and fix the fucking problem by killing Russians and destroying their industrial infrastructure.
This is a very easy problem to fix. It's not even expensive to fix: we've seized hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Russian government assets that can easily fund it. And lots more of Russian assets can be seized too.
Post WW2 Germany was forced to pay trillions of dollars in reparations that went on for decades. We even made German civilians to provide forced labor to clean up the damage they caused on a huge scale, and German PoWs were forced to do land mine clearance. Russians are just as guilty and it's ethical to do whatever is needed to make them pay for their crimes.
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You do realize your logic is exactly what Bin Laden used as his justification for attacking civilians?
Is it at all possible that the peoples of many nations are motivated by propaganda from their side? Half truths. Unfair characterizations made by evil men seeking at the expense of the plebs?
I for one do not approve of most of what the US government does. I do not provide my consent to their actions. I do not trust evil men that have shown they don't even know what the truth is.
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Who cares what justifications Bin Laden used? He's was a terrorist who hated the west, and we eventually killed him for it.
Russians on average know full well what their government is doing and they clearly, on average, support it. Russia is only now, after 10 years of invading Ukraine, finally getting around to trying to clamp down on VPNs and the like. The Russian governments problem is not the Russian people supporting Ukraine. The Russian people are just angry they're not winning.
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You might as well say, "Who cares about logic".
Bin Laden justified the killing of innocents because their government invaded the lands of his people, placed military bases in them, and propped up secular dictators.
Russians are just as guilty and it's ethical to do whatever is needed to make them pay for their crimes.
Of course he is evil. You just used the same logic to justify killing Russians for the actions of their dictator. Or am I misunderstanding you? In the US we supposedly have the "consent of the governed". I reject Bin Laden's justifications. I'm just surprised to hear you espouse that same logic. Its a slippery slope that leads to endless war and escalation.
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The US was never fighting total war against any of it's enemies (at least, since WW2). US citizens just aren't that responsible for the small things the US government has done, as not many tax dollars actually go to any of it.
A double digit % of the entire Russian GDP is going to invading Ukraine. Every working Russian is personally responsible in a significant way to this war. No different than WW2 Germany or Japan.
If Russians want to have a country, the onus is on them to revolt against their government. They don't, because the average Russian supports what their government is doing.
Hell, even the anti-Putin Navalny did not campaign against the invasion of Ukraine. Quite the opposite: his supporters were busy undercovering military corruption that was preventing the war from being won faster.
Russia won't stop until everyone agrees no NATO membership for Ukraine
Ukraine has to remain a neutral state
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IIRC it was exposed by Wikileaks that the Obama admin knew that Ukraine joining NATO was a red line for Russia. This was not the story we'd here in the media. The story is more of what Peter is saying.
Regardless of cultural judgments on intent NATO is a military alliance that was created to defend against the USSR. I can completely understand why Russians watching its membership expand would be concerned about being surrounded by hostile neighbors. Now, as we have seen from leaked documents the US manipulates leadership of nations all over the globe. As a Russian with the same distrust that Americans have for them one can see why NATO and the US breaking their promises about NATO expansion would see this as a threat.
Most American's do not see this. After all, we are the good guys. I'm not saying the people have ill will. Its the rulers. Evil men like Putin can use this propaganda just as the overlords in the US use it to gain support for war. The people have little to gain from war but those in power on all sides do.
It is telling how people respond when I seek to understand the "bad guys". Not referring to Peter here but in general.
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If Russia doesn't want to be surrounded by hostile neighbors all it needs to do is stop invading their neighbors... The hostility is entirely their own doing. And completely justified. Ukraine is just one of a long list of countries Russia has invaded.
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So Russia has nothing to fear from NATO and the US? Why would they believe that? I don't think you are right because we know the US/NATO start wars and pressure governments all over the place. It just seems like you are being rather one sided in your observations.
That's already been tried. It didn't work.
Russia doesn't attack NATO because that's suicidal; if Ukraine had been allowed into NATO none or this would have happened.
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From the launch of the Special Military Operation, this site has warned that Russia could win the war and lose the peace. That risk is still very much in play. The political calculus behind the Special Military Operation and Putin’s goals of demilitarization, denazification and no NATO entry for Ukraine almost succeeded, with Ukraine agreeing to a draft outline of key terms in Istanbul in March-April 2022.
Russian officials have been pointedly silent on the question of what the end game for Ukraine might look like. One big reason is that is not how they conceptualize the military campaign. As we and others have repeatedly pointed out, Russia operates on Clausewitzian principles: destroy the enemy’s ability and will to fight, rather than focus on territory.
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Mind you, it is way over both my pay grade and access to information to solve this problem. The big point remains: Russia looks to have been put in a position where it will have to bite off a lot more than it ever wanted to chew. So what will it do?
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