Karmadhi

Why is Russia being held to a higher standard than the US

167 posts in this topic

7 hours ago, BlueOak said:

@Twentyfirst

Maybe some understanding can come from this.

If you punch Europeans in the face repeatedly, they just fight back harder. Its always been that way. 

I've been thinking about why. It's because we like to be detached and sit comfortably away from it all. So we do anything necessary to protect that way of life. If that means giving someone guns so the fight stays away from our borders we do that, if that means giving America military control we do that; if that means going to war with Russia because it disrupts that enough, we will. If it it means crashing the Russian economy so much the entire country shatters, we will do that, whatever it takes (as little as it takes preferably, is the European way of viewing the world).

In the same way Europe didn't understand how Russians can tolerate such poverty and conditions they find themselves in, Russia doesn't understand what lengths Europeans will go to, to avoid that. Its true there is high reluctance to war, but its also true there is equally high reluctance to lose that comfort and luxury. - Which turns things nationalist, which turns things violent and causes Europeans to start attacking rather than sitting idle.

It seems like Europeans are always the instigator and then they claim they got punched first. If Europeans really wanted to just be left alone then why is it so hard to be left alone. Think of a country like Bhutan. That's a real peaceful country, no weapons, doesn't meddle or have drama. How far is Europe from that? Very far. Don't ignore European history either which is half a century of whites killing other whites because their shade of white was 1% off. Nobody else in the world had two world wars. And such brutal violent wars too

I don't know it all just sounds too perfect. No way Europeans are just angels and Russians are evil. Ya'll are messed up more than you admit. Europe is the original colonial powers. British, Spanish, French, Belgium, Netherlands. So much destruction was caused and the world is still feeling the effects today. Russia never did that

Europeans just really believe their own bullshit. That you are the superman and batman of human rights and women's rights and whatever other bullshit they taught you in school. Your society lied so much that it started to believe it

When you say Russians can tolerate the conditions they are in what do you even mean? Like they still use fires instead of stoves? European society is extremely degraded and dysfunctional. You have the cultural break down of everything that makes humans human and happy. You can't even trust your own parents so you estrange them from yourself. Your spouse cheats on you. Your business partner cheats you. Your priest scams you. Just stop focusing on others and first fix your own crap THEN talk to the world about how to be moral 

Edited by Twentyfirst

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37 minutes ago, Twentyfirst said:

I was being sarcastic but don't Europeans do the same thing? 

"Russian citizens should take this opportunity to defeat their oppressive governments and join NATO where they rightly belong and where they can evolve past savagery" 

"Now that Israel is bombing Iran it is the perfect chance for their citizens to finally stand up to the bully leaders to hold them in chains, so they can join the civilized world and finally make progress in their miserable lives"

Maybe you haven't thought this. But honestly, how prevalent and common is this way of thinking from Westerners? "Let's dominate and bomb you into submission which will give you the evolution you didn't ask for"

It's not all sarcasm though. If you don't think that you can benefit from learning the good things about Russia then you don't understand cultures in an open minded way at all 

Europeans rarely do anything but sit back and let everyone else fight. There was a culture in the 80's and 90's of America thinking it can liberate cultures thousands of years old than it from themselves, this sense of superiority in America (and Russia) persists somewhat today but is toned down. Its getting a hard reset in Russia.

Russian's splitting off into countries better representing their minorities and cultures would benefit those cultures yes. They would no longer live off table scraps thrown to them by their Muscovite masters, they'd make outside alliances and enrich themselves. Sibera should be Russia's richest provinces by far.

I'll be happy to learn much from those cultures.

I've had my fill of the Muscovites for a few decades. Those guys go on about themselves more than the Americans did in the 80s.
 

Edited by BlueOak

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30 minutes ago, Twentyfirst said:

It seems like Europeans are always the instigator and then they claim they got punched first. If Europeans really wanted to just be left alone then why is it so hard to be left alone. Think of a country like Bhutan. That's a real peaceful country, no weapons, doesn't meddle or have drama. How far is Europe from that? Very far. Don't ignore European history either which is half a century of whites killing other whites because their shade of white was 1% off. Nobody else in the world had two world wars. And such brutal violent wars too

I don't know it all just sounds too perfect. No way Europeans are just angels and Russians are evil. Ya'll are messed up more than you admit. Europe is the original colonial powers. British, Spanish, French, Belgium, Netherlands. So much destruction was caused and the world is still feeling the effects today. Russia never did that

Europeans just really believe their own bullshit. That you are the superman and batman of human rights and women's rights and whatever other bullshit they taught you in school. Your society lied so much that it started to believe it

When you say Russians can tolerate the conditions they are in what do you even mean? Like they still use fires instead of stoves? European society is extremely degraded and dysfunctional. You have the cultural break down of everything that makes humans human and happy. You can't even trust your own parents so you estrange them from yourself. Your spouse cheats on you. Your business partner cheats you. Your priest scams you. Just stop focusing on others and first fix your own crap THEN talk to the world about how to be moral 

Ah yes, Bhutan, a lovely place. Where China is trying to steal its territory. Sorry, even they don't get left alone by large authoritarian blobs unless its resisted. Thankfully for them, India stepped up. Much like Europe did for Ukraine.
https://banotes.org/south-asia/bhutan-china-territorial-dispute-boundaries/

Its not like you to resort to moralism, Twentyfirst. Its like you barely read my posts. Where I have to tell people every single time.
People are people the world over. There are no angels. Morally superior absolutes or imperatives. Only the interests of the country or people involved.

Outside of Moscow and St Petersburg. That Russia can tolerate being in a run-down state with garbage piling up (pre war), with roads that barely function, half of them not having basic appliances, and living on wages that would make a McDonald's worker laugh. That's what I meant.

What I mean now is, Russians will put up with dying in a meat grinder, going without gas, food prices going up up and up (Ukranian sanctions have only been going on two months, wait till 4 months.) The internet shut down to avoid people saying the wrong thing, and people arrested for the slightest discontent. Entire families and communities out in the east having their youth wiped out, and the rest not getting paid while people in Moscow live fat lives and panic when they go without the internet for a night. That they don't mind China playing their country like a fool and buying up whatever it wants, while Russia slides back a 100 years, or carrying a million more wounded vets and criminals in your society. - That sort of thing, that they can bear that without rising up and choking the man in charge (their local governors and police). Hell even the oligarchs don't get paid these days.

Westerners didn't appreciate how good your propaganda was, or how much the Russian population will tolerate.

Just as you don't appreciate how little we'll tolerate and what lengths we will go to, to protect our way of life. - But I think you are starting to realise.

I didn't make European's mindset, I am just telling you what it is. Karens on Crack, and people who will bomb you into the stone age if you interfere too much with their way of lives. We go to great lengths not to get involved and live comfortable lives. So Russia needs to quit while they can and stop trying to involve us more, it will not end well.

Edited by BlueOak

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10 hours ago, BlueOak said:

Europeans rarely do anything but sit back and let everyone else fight. 

For a short time period of 80 years but before that Europeans fought all the time

Now they are investing more time, energy, and resources into bringing that all back for whatever reason 

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18 hours ago, BlueOak said:

Saying that Stalin wasn’t as bad as Hitler is like comparing a serial killer to a serial killer.
It's utterly nonsensical moral relativism that, even if correct, is not a firm context to base an argument for favourable relations on.

Hitler sent to extermination camps the nazi defined racially inferior Slavs, gypsies, Jews, homosexuals and dissidents. Black pows ( French and American) were sent for summary execution .

Stalin was a Slav himself, and due to paranoia and German intelligence work showcasing competent Soviet generals and leaders as traitors, sent them to concentration camps. Most of his purges were due to paranoia and fear of traitors and spies.

Stalin's purges was mainly due to his lack of education ,which Trotsky had pointed out, and poor judgement on his part with respect to character.

Stalin was sympathetic to the anti-colonial movements in Asia, Africa and South America due to his communist conditioning. His approach to race was dictated by Marxist ideology, which framed racial issues through the lens of class conflict, identifying capitalism and Western imperialism as the source of racial exploitation. The Soviet Union under his rule officially promoted anti-racist rhetoric and provided support to international anti-colonial movements.

Obviously since Asia, Africa and latin america constitute over 80% of humanity and benefitted from communist support with respect to their independence and development, Stalin cannot be put in the same league as Hitler as a tyrant.

 


Self-awareness is yoga. - Nisargadatta

Awareness is the great non-conceptual perfection. - Dzogchen

Evil is an extreme manifestation of human unconsciousness. - Eckhart Tolle

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10 hours ago, BlueOak said:

Ah yes, Bhutan, a lovely place. Where China is trying to steal its territory. Sorry, even they don't get left alone by large authoritarian blobs unless its resisted. Thankfully for them, India stepped up. Much like Europe did for Ukraine.
https://banotes.org/south-asia/bhutan-china-territorial-dispute-boundaries/


Its not like you to resort to moralism, Twentyfirst. Its like you barely read my posts. Where I have to tell people every single time.
People are people the world over. There are no angels. Morally superior absolutes or imperatives. Only the interests of the country or people involved.

Outside of Moscow and St Petersburg. That Russia can tolerate being in a run-down state with garbage piling up (pre war), with roads that barely function, half of them not having basic appliances, and living on wages that would make a McDonald's worker laugh. That's what I meant.

What I mean now is, Russians will put up with dying in a meat grinder, going without gas, food prices going up up and up (Ukranian sanctions have only been going on two months, wait till 4 months.) The internet shut down to avoid people saying the wrong thing, and people arrested for the slightest discontent. Entire families and communities out in the east having their youth wiped out, and the rest not getting paid while people in Moscow live fat lives and panic when they go without the internet for a night. That they don't mind China playing their country like a fool and buying up whatever it wants, while Russia slides back a 100 years, or carrying a million more wounded vets and criminals in your society. - That sort of thing, that they can bear that without rising up and choking the man in charge (their local governors and police). Hell even the oligarchs don't get paid these days.

Westerners didn't appreciate how good your propaganda was, or how much the Russian population will tolerate.

Just as you don't appreciate how little we'll tolerate and what lengths we will go to, to protect our way of life. - But I think you are starting to realise.

I didn't make European's mindset, I am just telling you what it is. Karens on Crack, and people who will bomb you into the stone age if you interfere too much with their way of lives. We go to great lengths not to get involved and live comfortable lives. So Russia needs to quit while they can and stop trying to involve us more, it will not end well.

-The point I was making with Bhutan is they really live in peace and not just say they do. They can't control the actions of anyone else. But you can tell they are really about peace and not just saying words about peace. It's like how Netanyahu claims he wants peace in the middle of a genocide, you can tell that he isn't really about it. So I am making a distinction between words and actual actions. The Europeans claim they just want to be left alone but they expand NATO, they poke bears, they have dialogue of what war is necessary, they are allied with other military powers, they talk shit and hate on other cultures just because those cultures aren't exactly the same (which is funny because no cultures are the exact same and that is what is amazing about cultures). You go on the news and see some farmer in Afghanistan a thousand miles away that makes a dollar a day and suddenly the only way for you to feel safe in your apartment in Paris is to bomb him just because " the news says so", loose example but you get what I mean

-You are right that people are people but you mistake the degree of that. Just because China kills people and the USA kills people doesn't mean they are the same. China kills a fraction of the people and in less savage ways. Apply that to everything that can be considered corruption and the USA is worse than Russia so it's funny that Americans are telling Russians how to behave when it should be the other way around

-Moscow and St Petersubrg  hold a lot of the population though. What about Mississippi and places like that in America? They are 3rd world compared to NYC 

-There we go. Found that colonial activism. "Russians will suffer before doing the right thing of choking their corrupt leader and becoming liberated". I literally just told you that's how you think and you proved me right. As if you know what's best for the Russian people. Because you are from an advanced futuristic society where civility meets pure DNA and everyone else needs to be whipped into submission to even dream of one day being like you. But if I tell you to overthrow Epstien Pedos that steal from you everyday you think I am bonkers because how dare someone from a primitive society tell you how to run yours. Colonial activism is you using even one instance of corruption in Russia to persuade the Russian people to turn on their own country under the guise of you wishing they could live liberated lives but really it's you wishing for destruction and then conversion to your values 

-Ah yes, the Russians will only defend their crappy way of life due to propaganda. Because if their lives really are crap then they must be tricked into keeping it. No way that they actually love their lives and want to continue living in the exact same way

-I know how far Westerners will go to protect their way of life. It's disgusting and unnecessary. Nobody is instigating anything it's always you guys that start it. Very aggressive people. Also what the hell are you protecting? The right for women to be prostitutes because "my body my choice". The right to abort 100 million babies or whatever the number is. The right for single mothers, estranged fathers, and confused children growing up in broken homes? The list goes on and on 

-You understand half the mindset which is that savagery of bombing anyone at the slightest threat. What you don't know is that you guys are the ones starting it. Another thing you don't know is you are your own biggest threat 

 

 

Edited by Twentyfirst

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3 hours ago, Twentyfirst said:

-The point I was making with Bhutan is they really live in peace and not just say they do. They can't control the actions of anyone else. But you can tell they are really about peace and not just saying words about peace. It's like how Netanyahu claims he wants peace in the middle of a genocide, you can tell that he isn't really about it. So I am making a distinction between words and actual actions. The Europeans claim they just want to be left alone but they expand NATO, they poke bears, they have dialogue of what war is necessary, they are allied with other military powers, they talk shit and hate on other cultures just because those cultures aren't exactly the same (which is funny because no cultures are the exact same and that is what is amazing about cultures). You go on the news and see some farmer in Afghanistan a thousand miles away that makes a dollar a day and suddenly the only way for you to feel safe in your apartment in Paris is to bomb him just because " the news says so", loose example but you get what I mean

-You are right that people are people but you mistake the degree of that. Just because China kills people and the USA kills people doesn't mean they are the same. China kills a fraction of the people and in less savage ways. Apply that to everything that can be considered corruption and the USA is worse than Russia so it's funny that Americans are telling Russians how to behave when it should be the other way around

-Moscow and St Petersubrg  hold a lot of the population though. What about Mississippi and places like that in America? They are 3rd world compared to NYC 

-There we go. Found that colonial activism. "Russians will suffer before doing the right thing of choking their corrupt leader and becoming liberated". I literally just told you that's how you think and you proved me right. As if you know what's best for the Russian people. Because you are from an advanced futuristic society where civility meets pure DNA and everyone else needs to be whipped into submission to even dream of one day being like you. But if I tell you to overthrow Epstien Pedos that steal from you everyday you think I am bonkers because how dare someone from a primitive society tell you how to run yours. Colonial activism is you using even one instance of corruption in Russia to persuade the Russian people to turn on their own country under the guise of you wishing they could live liberated lives but really it's you wishing for destruction and then conversion to your values 

-Ah yes, the Russians will only defend their crappy way of life due to propaganda. Because if their lives really are crap then they must be tricked into keeping it. No way that they actually love their lives and want to continue living in the exact same way

-I know how far Westerners will go to protect their way of life. It's disgusting and unnecessary. Nobody is instigating anything it's always you guys that start it. Very aggressive people. Also what the hell are you protecting? The right for women to be prostitutes because "my body my choice". The right to abort 100 million babies or whatever the number is. The right for single mothers, estranged fathers, and confused children growing up in broken homes? The list goes on and on 

-You understand half the mindset which is that savagery of bombing anyone at the slightest threat. What you don't know is that you guys are the ones starting it. Another thing you don't know is you are your own biggest threat 

 

 

-Yet its Russia invading. 
Maybe if we attack Russia and claim you started it, that will work? No? Strange that. What if we had a really good reason in our minds? Still no? Huh.

Russia doesn't get to dictate what other countries, or in this case moronically entire continents and alliances can do. We can't turn around and tell Belarus it can't join a Russian alliance or we'll invade it. Is that a good reason to invade Belarus? No it'd be ludicrous, just like your country.

Again for the 1,000 time if you don't want everyone to join NATO stop threatening them! All this war did to me was prove why NATO had to exist, before it, America was pulling away, the EU wasn't anywhere near unified. NATO might have been a memory within a decade. Now it'll be around for another 50 or more years.

Oh and NOBODY in NATO officially promised Russia they wouldn't expand toward its borders; that is some offhand rumor from an informal meeting spoken by a Soviet and not on record. It's a repeated lie by the Russians that this was official.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_regarding_NATO's_eastward_expansion

Europeans tend to talk **** when you are threatening to nuke them. Yeah it happens. When you are meddling in their elections. Killing their friends and families over the border. Yeah it doesn't endear them to you, its true. Strange that. When you flood them with migrants, try to destabalise their countries political spheres internally. Yeah we don't like it, I know, shocking. Maybe the Russia victimhood ego is so far advanced that it can do literally anything and still feel victimised. Quite a feat. Maybe I used the word Karen on the wrong side here?

Colonial activism? I am telling you how Europe thinks. They believed you'd kill Putin rather than suffer him. They were wrong but largely due to your propaganda, you dismiss just how good it is. All countries use it; yours is just better. I could list the 50 things Russia has instigated, but what's the point? If you haven't read it the first time, you won't read it this time. Despite what you seem to think. If it moved out of Ukraine tomorrow, that'd be that. You don't get to play the Colonialism card and the Europeans don't want to get involved card at the same time. Pick one.

I had no delusion that this would be quick. I said it'd be a decade or more, at the very start of this. That was easy to see given the size of the countries involved, their history, and readiness. I personally thought we'd already have troops in Ukraine, or not fumble around half in half out of this conflict, not giving Ukraine what it needed until 4 years on, and you'd be pushed out. I underestimated just how much Europe wants to distance itself and freeze this conflict. As i've said 50 thousand times before, i'd rather never interact with Russia for the rest of my days, the very opposite of a colonial mindset.

-Oh and if Bhutan are invaded or has their lands stolen by an aggressive state, they don't live in peace. The only reason Bhutan exists is because of the Indian military capacity. There were better examples you could pick, but there would usually be a force guaranteeing their existence also.
 

Edited by BlueOak

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One day we won't be having these circular conversations based on propaganda and lies.

We'll just have the actual conversation about why the war started:

Russia considered Ukraine Russia.

*I'll have a watch of the video and maybe comment next time. So far, its advocating the Bhutan way which I answered above.

Edited by BlueOak

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Found this interesting:

Chat GPT

''1. Russia’s campaign in Ukraine is militarily brutal, but not indiscriminately exterminatory

For the scale of ordnance dropped, the civilian-to-combatant ratio in Ukraine is unusually low by modern-war standards. The UN’s verified toll (~14k civilian deaths in 2½ years) is tragic, but tiny compared with Iraq (hundreds of thousands) or Gaza (tens of thousands in one year).

That suggests targeting discipline and geographic concentration: Russia mostly strikes power grids, transport nodes, and front-line towns, not mass city centers. There have been war crimes and cluster munitions, but not a strategy of annihilating the civilian base.

In short: strategic terror is not the doctrine—coercion through attrition is.

2. The West’s recent wars (Iraq, Libya, Gaza through its ally Israel) show a pattern of systemic civilian entanglement

The U.S. and Israel rely heavily on aerial dominance and shock-and-awe destruction meant to paralyze governance structures. These are designed to quickly degrade the enemy’s capacity by collapsing its civil infrastructure—electric grids, ministries, hospitals—on the theory that it forces surrender.

That doctrine maximizes short-term control but produces staggering collateral damage. It’s less about battlefield victory and more about “break the system to remake it.”

So in Iraq and Gaza you see industrial-scale civilian harm because the target is the entire ecosystem that sustains resistance, not just the military formations.

3. Ukraine’s war looks like industrial positional warfare, not counter-insurgency or urban pacification

It resembles World War-style fighting between organized armies with clear front lines. Civilians are mostly casualties of proximity, not deliberate policy. That’s why the toll, while horrifying, is orders of magnitude lower per month of combat.

4. What it tells us about military ethics and doctrine today

Russia fights conventionally, trying to compel through exhaustion and infrastructure pressure rather than extermination. It shows a Cold-War-era “strategic warfare” mindset.

The U.S./Israel model treats wars as social-engineering exercises—obliterate the opponent’s civil order, then reconstruct on your terms. It’s a neoliberal form of total war, fought through airstrikes, blockades, and sanctions rather than front lines.

The result: Ukraine’s civilian death ratio looks like a 20th-century war, while Iraq and Gaza look like 21st-century imperial policing, where civilians are the battlespace.

5. The moral inversion this exposes

It’s darkly ironic that the side most accused of barbarism (Russia) shows more restraint toward civilian populations than the powers that justify their wars as humanitarian.
It suggests that Western warfare has evolved toward maximum precision in rhetoric, maximum destruction in effect—a kind of technocratic savagery that hides behind the language of democracy and defense.

In essence:

Russia wages war against armies.

The West and Israel wage war against systems—and systems are made of people.

That difference in doctrine explains why the body counts look the way they do, and why modern moral narratives about “civilized warfare” ring increasingly hollow.''

_________

I pushed back saying that the lower civilian death toll can be attributed to the successful evacuations done early and bunker systems from the soviet era that prevented a higher number - and that it can't all be pinned on Russia showing restraint via their operations. This was the response:

''1. Evacuation and sheltering clearly saved many lives

Without evacuation corridors, bunkers, and early-warning systems, Ukraine’s civilian deaths would easily have been several times higher.
Missiles and artillery have hit apartment blocks, markets, and infrastructure — if those targets were fully populated, the toll could have reached hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands.

So yes, civil defense infrastructure and mass displacement explain much of the gap.

2. But that alone doesn’t explain the entire difference

Even accounting for evacuations, the pattern and intensity of Russian strikes are far less indiscriminate than in Iraq or Gaza.

Russia has not flattened entire cities for symbolic punishment, like the U.S. did in Fallujah or Israel did in Gaza City.

Russian bombardment typically follows front-line movement, not the total leveling of civilian centers behind enemy lines.

The ratio of civilian to military casualties remains relatively low — a hallmark of targeted, positional warfare, not total warfare.

If Russia were aiming to maximize civilian terror, it has the capacity — it simply hasn’t chosen to do so on that scale.

3. Compare the doctrinal mindset

Iraq 2003: “Shock and awe” sought psychological collapse by destroying command, power, and urban infrastructure all at once — civilians were structurally baked into the target set.

Gaza: Israel’s “mow the lawn” logic treats the entire territory as a combat zone.

Ukraine: Russia aims to degrade capacity and exhaust the state, not erase the population or seize cities through firestorming.

So even if Ukraine had been more trapped — no shelters, no evacuation — the likely death toll would have been far higher, but still below Iraq’s million-scale catastrophe, because Russia’s campaign isn’t built around mass annihilation of civilians.

4. A fair conclusion

Evacuation and bunkers dramatically reduced deaths.

Russian targeting doctrine (for all its brutality) still shows a preference for infrastructure and military nodes, not terror-level carpet bombing.

Combine the two, and you get Ukraine’s relatively low civilian toll compared to Iraq or Gaza.

So, yes — had those protective measures not existed, civilian deaths might have been closer to Iraq’s verified range (hundreds of thousands), but probably not approaching its total collapse scale.
The evidence suggests both strategic restraint and defensive preparedness played crucial, complementary roles.''

Edited by zazen

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A good way to think of it at a systems level is that the US is like a landlord of an entire town with blocks of apartments (our global system).

Most tenants are grateful for the infrastructure, institutions, laws and policing provided. But this landlord also abuses his position: raising rent on tenants he dislikes (sanctions), entering their apartments without permission (interventions), and sometimes taking their belongings (resources or regime change).

Because he’s the only landlord in town, his power becomes monopolistic - if he evicts you, you’re homeless (locked out the global system).

Meanwhile, Russia is one of the tenants. It’s frustrated by how the landlord treats certain tenants better than others and fears that the landlord’s agents (NATO) are moving closer to them - who they have a bad history with. Russia’s neighbour apartment is their cousin Ukraine who is offering to split rent and room share with NATO.

On one level - Russia feels insecure for having a hostile neighbour, but on another level feels betrayed by family - adding vodka to the wound. What was a cold calculated security issue now becomes a personalised one only heightening the tensions.

Russia decides to pre-emptively turn this familial neighbours place uninhabitable for NATO and make their cousin Ukraine think twice about hosting them. Russia even goes as far as to extend their apartment into Ukraine and claim they used to be one penthouse but only split recently with a wall partition.

Obviously this is wrong - because if every tenant started smashing walls for “security” or making historical claims over other apartments for having lived in them before - the whole bloc and town would fall into chaos.

Russia can be understood, yet not excused. The landlord’s arrogance, selective enforcement of rules and total monopoly created the very insecurity that made the tenant act out - however unjustly and brutally.

 

The lesson is:

The landlord (US) maintains order but abuses its position within it - corroding trust through hypocrisy.

The tenant (Russia) violates rules out of fear and a sense of betrayal adding insult to injury.

The rest of the tenants (Global South) - just want a building / town where security and monopoly power isn’t abused.

One of the wealthier tenants (China) starts building a town next door alongside other irritated tenants (BRICS) who’d like to attain some bargaining power and hedge against the current landlord.

The current landlord (US), his agents (NATO) and most of his loyalist tenants who had preferential rates (Western bloc) oppose and feel threatened by this new development - as if enough residents left their town for the new one, their assets would depreciate in value, and their power along with it.

Check out John Mearsheimer speak on the changing order in the first 13min of this talk to make sense of it even more:

 

Edited by zazen

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4 hours ago, zazen said:

The result: Ukraine’s civilian death ratio looks like a 20th-century war, while Iraq and Gaza look like 21st-century imperial policing, where civilians are the battlespace

To say that 20th-century wars were more noble is a bit far-fetched if we look at the bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, or Tokyo (not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki) or the Japanese invasion of China and the Philippines.

With the mentality of a 20th-century war, a million people would have died in Gaza in three months.

As an interesting fact, I remember reading how phosphorus bombs were designed: with a lead head to pierce buildings and a jet of burning phosphorus that spilled onto each floor to incinerate as many people as possible.

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On 10/10/2025 at 1:59 PM, Kid A said:

I think this is a strangely absolute position to hold. Do you mean this about all invasions of sovereign states? Do you think, for example, that it was evil of the Allies to invade Nazi Germany and that they shouldn't have done it?

Uh, what the Allies did was less invading and more liberating of occupied territories (North Africa, Italy, France, Holland, Belgium). The reason they had to go into mainland Germany eventually was because the Nazis refused to surrender otherwise.

I think people overestimate the importance of the Holocaust in the actions of the Allies. The world had some knowledge of it during the war but the full extent was only discovered after the defeat of the Nazis. The primary motivation of the Allies was stopping an aggressive, hyper-expansionist power.

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On 10/10/2025 at 11:09 PM, Karmadhi said:

Well apparently to FIFA invading a country and taking 20% of a country is worse than a genocide.

I'm not a fan of comparing the 2 conflicts, but for perspective, a comparable number of Ukrainians and Palestinians have been killed. Most sources put the number of Palestinians killed at ~70,000. Some people consider this an underestimate and Caspian Report used a figure of 84,000 in his most recent video. For Ukraine the UN estimates ~15,000 civilians killed and most sources estimate 70,000-80,000 military losses. Civilian causalities are obviously more morally repugnant than military losses but let's not pretend 20% of Ukraine was taken without significant bloodshed.

A big reason for the double standards is the US support for Israel. FIFA, Eurovision, etc don't want to risk the ire of a Trump-led US. And some European politicians are bought off by Israel as well. Banning Russia carried less political risk.

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5 hours ago, zazen said:

Found this interesting:

Chat GPT

''1. Russia’s campaign in Ukraine is militarily brutal, but not indiscriminately exterminatory

For the scale of ordnance dropped, the civilian-to-combatant ratio in Ukraine is unusually low by modern-war standards. The UN’s verified toll (~14k civilian deaths in 2½ years) is tragic, but tiny compared with Iraq (hundreds of thousands) or Gaza (tens of thousands in one year).

That suggests targeting discipline and geographic concentration: Russia mostly strikes power grids, transport nodes, and front-line towns, not mass city centers. There have been war crimes and cluster munitions, but not a strategy of annihilating the civilian base.

In short: strategic terror is not the doctrine—coercion through attrition is.

2. The West’s recent wars (Iraq, Libya, Gaza through its ally Israel) show a pattern of systemic civilian entanglement

The U.S. and Israel rely heavily on aerial dominance and shock-and-awe destruction meant to paralyze governance structures. These are designed to quickly degrade the enemy’s capacity by collapsing its civil infrastructure—electric grids, ministries, hospitals—on the theory that it forces surrender.

That doctrine maximizes short-term control but produces staggering collateral damage. It’s less about battlefield victory and more about “break the system to remake it.”

So in Iraq and Gaza you see industrial-scale civilian harm because the target is the entire ecosystem that sustains resistance, not just the military formations.

3. Ukraine’s war looks like industrial positional warfare, not counter-insurgency or urban pacification

It resembles World War-style fighting between organized armies with clear front lines. Civilians are mostly casualties of proximity, not deliberate policy. That’s why the toll, while horrifying, is orders of magnitude lower per month of combat.

4. What it tells us about military ethics and doctrine today

Russia fights conventionally, trying to compel through exhaustion and infrastructure pressure rather than extermination. It shows a Cold-War-era “strategic warfare” mindset.

The U.S./Israel model treats wars as social-engineering exercises—obliterate the opponent’s civil order, then reconstruct on your terms. It’s a neoliberal form of total war, fought through airstrikes, blockades, and sanctions rather than front lines.

The result: Ukraine’s civilian death ratio looks like a 20th-century war, while Iraq and Gaza look like 21st-century imperial policing, where civilians are the battlespace.

5. The moral inversion this exposes

It’s darkly ironic that the side most accused of barbarism (Russia) shows more restraint toward civilian populations than the powers that justify their wars as humanitarian.
It suggests that Western warfare has evolved toward maximum precision in rhetoric, maximum destruction in effect—a kind of technocratic savagery that hides behind the language of democracy and defense.

In essence:

Russia wages war against armies.

The West and Israel wage war against systems—and systems are made of people.

That difference in doctrine explains why the body counts look the way they do, and why modern moral narratives about “civilized warfare” ring increasingly hollow.''

_________

I pushed back saying that the lower civilian death toll can be attributed to the successful evacuations done early and bunker systems from the soviet era that prevented a higher number - and that it can't all be pinned on Russia showing restraint via their operations. This was the response:

''1. Evacuation and sheltering clearly saved many lives

Without evacuation corridors, bunkers, and early-warning systems, Ukraine’s civilian deaths would easily have been several times higher.
Missiles and artillery have hit apartment blocks, markets, and infrastructure — if those targets were fully populated, the toll could have reached hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands.

So yes, civil defense infrastructure and mass displacement explain much of the gap.

2. But that alone doesn’t explain the entire difference

Even accounting for evacuations, the pattern and intensity of Russian strikes are far less indiscriminate than in Iraq or Gaza.

Russia has not flattened entire cities for symbolic punishment, like the U.S. did in Fallujah or Israel did in Gaza City.

Russian bombardment typically follows front-line movement, not the total leveling of civilian centers behind enemy lines.

The ratio of civilian to military casualties remains relatively low — a hallmark of targeted, positional warfare, not total warfare.

If Russia were aiming to maximize civilian terror, it has the capacity — it simply hasn’t chosen to do so on that scale.

3. Compare the doctrinal mindset

Iraq 2003: “Shock and awe” sought psychological collapse by destroying command, power, and urban infrastructure all at once — civilians were structurally baked into the target set.

Gaza: Israel’s “mow the lawn” logic treats the entire territory as a combat zone.

Ukraine: Russia aims to degrade capacity and exhaust the state, not erase the population or seize cities through firestorming.

So even if Ukraine had been more trapped — no shelters, no evacuation — the likely death toll would have been far higher, but still below Iraq’s million-scale catastrophe, because Russia’s campaign isn’t built around mass annihilation of civilians.

4. A fair conclusion

Evacuation and bunkers dramatically reduced deaths.

Russian targeting doctrine (for all its brutality) still shows a preference for infrastructure and military nodes, not terror-level carpet bombing.

Combine the two, and you get Ukraine’s relatively low civilian toll compared to Iraq or Gaza.

So, yes — had those protective measures not existed, civilian deaths might have been closer to Iraq’s verified range (hundreds of thousands), but probably not approaching its total collapse scale.
The evidence suggests both strategic restraint and defensive preparedness played crucial, complementary roles.''

Well, Russia actually wants to make use of the population in the regions it conquers (after erasing their national identity). The Israeli far-right wants to displace Gazans from their lands and colonize it. Israel kills Palestinian children, Russia kidnaps Ukrainian children and raises them as Russian.

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If one only knew the degree to which Russian imperialism has been the cause of turmoil in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, there wouldn't even be base for comparison. 


Chaos, Entropy, Order

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On 15/10/2025 at 5:13 AM, Ajay0 said:

Hitler sent to extermination camps the nazi defined racially inferior Slavs, gypsies, Jews, homosexuals and dissidents. Black pows ( French and American) were sent for summary execution .

Stalin was a Slav himself, and due to paranoia and German intelligence work showcasing competent Soviet generals and leaders as traitors, sent them to concentration camps. Most of his purges were due to paranoia and fear of traitors and spies.

Stalin's purges was mainly due to his lack of education ,which Trotsky had pointed out, and poor judgement on his part with respect to character.

Stalin was sympathetic to the anti-colonial movements in Asia, Africa and South America due to his communist conditioning. His approach to race was dictated by Marxist ideology, which framed racial issues through the lens of class conflict, identifying capitalism and Western imperialism as the source of racial exploitation. The Soviet Union under his rule officially promoted anti-racist rhetoric and provided support to international anti-colonial movements.

Obviously since Asia, Africa and latin america constitute over 80% of humanity and benefitted from communist support with respect to their independence and development, Stalin cannot be put in the same league as Hitler as a tyrant.

 

I feel like I am speaking to a tankie. Its been a while since I had to argue how bad Stalin was.
You are arguing that class extermination is better than race extermination. Why do you cling to the moral argument to defend or compare people who were responsible for the deaths of so many people? I am certain you could find reasons Hitler was who he was also, but nothing excuses the actions of either of them.

As you are doing revisionist history to support a fragile moral framework, here is a GPT response, its even mimicking my tone better, but is actually harsher than I would be:

TL;DR
Hitler annihilated by race. Stalin annihilated by class and paranoia. Both annihilated.
Anti-colonial rhetoric doesn’t absolve state terror, and moral intent doesn’t erase human consequence.

GPT 5.0:

Ajay, that’s exactly the moral relativism I’m talking about — explaining mass murder as “paranoia” and offsetting it with anti-colonial rhetoric.

1. Stalin’s purges weren’t a character flaw; they were a system.
You call them “poor judgment” or “lack of education.” They were organized state terror. Between 1937–38 alone, NKVD quotas ordered the execution of 681,692 people and the imprisonment of over a million more (based on declassified Soviet archives). That isn’t paranoia; that’s industrialized repression.

2. The motive doesn’t erase the method.
You can frame Hitler’s racism as ideological and Stalin’s terror as political, but the effect was the same: mass death, forced labor, and suppression of dissent. The Gulag population reached 2.5 million by 1953. Whole nationalities — Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Ingush, and others — were deported en masse. Tens of thousands died in transit.
Killing by class instead of race doesn’t make it morally superior.

3. “Sympathetic to anti-colonial movements” is only half true.
Yes, Moscow backed anti-colonial groups — but almost always as instruments of influence, not altruism. Soviet policy was transactional: support came with ideological control, censorship, and dependency. Ask Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), or Afghanistan (1979) how “liberation” under Moscow felt once they deviated.

4. The 80% of humanity argument is demographic nonsense.
Colonial liberation was inevitable post-1945 regardless of Soviet involvement — Britain, France, and others were bankrupt and facing independence movements already decades old. The USSR didn’t create those revolts; it exploited them geopolitically. Many post-colonial states later distanced themselves precisely because Soviet “help” came with its own imperial strings attached.

5. Stalin vs. Hitler isn’t a competition in moral ranking.
The difference between racist genocide and class-based mass murder is academic when both produce tens of millions of victims. By most scholarly counts, Stalin’s regime killed 15–20 million civilians, through executions, forced labor, and engineered famines (notably Ukraine’s Holodomor, 1932–33).
Arguing that one tyrant was “less bad” because he was ideologically motivated is like saying arson is fine if you burn the “right” building.

Summary:
Hitler annihilated by race. Stalin annihilated by class and paranoia. Both annihilated.
Anti-colonial rhetoric doesn’t absolve state terror, and moral intent doesn’t erase human consequence.


 

Edited by BlueOak

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12 hours ago, Sea said:

I'm not a fan of comparing the 2 conflicts, but for perspective, a comparable number of Ukrainians and Palestinians have been killed. Most sources put the number of Palestinians killed at ~70,000. Some people consider this an underestimate and Caspian Report used a figure of 84,000 in his most recent video. For Ukraine the UN estimates ~15,000 civilians killed and most sources estimate 70,000-80,000 military losses. Civilian causalities are obviously more morally repugnant than military losses but let's not pretend 20% of Ukraine was taken without significant bloodshed.

Likewise not a fan but since we're here - we need to also take into account time scale (not just scale of destruction) and proportionality. Even if we matched the civilian death rate of Gaza (70k) to Ukraine - Gaza's population is 2 million vs Ukraine's 40 million (though a lot fled). The time scale in which those deaths occurred is in nearly half the time (3.5 yrs for Ukraine war vs 2 for Gaza).

The per capita civilian death toll is approximately:

Ukraine - 35 per 100k inhabitants

Gaza - 3'000 per 100k inhabitants

Iraq - 600 per 100k inhabitants

For the moral lens, the context of these wars matters also. Ukraine is state vs state (great power proxy) war, Gaza is a state vs stateless people ''war'' in which non-state actors have arisen from those conditions to fight the state that denies their people one. Iraq was a empire state (US) going to war against another state on the other side of the planet and based upon fabricated lies.

Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Gaza have at least some security logic, US's Iraq war has none except empire logic for empire gain - and based on lies which is especially dark and twisted - destabilising the region into a hornets nest of extremists.

Regardless of Russia's historic rhetoric about Ukraine  - the security calculus exists independent of it and would be responded too.  Which is why I say there is at least ''some'' security logic that can't be denied. Even if Ukraine was as different as Mexico and culturally-historically divorced from Russia - the security dilemma still exists of a great rival power encroaching upon you in a vulnerable geography that's been a past invasion corridor due to the lengthy border and flat lands that allows for it. This is why it's understandable for many, yet not excusable. The fact Ukraine is a civilizational kin state only makes things worse - just as Pakistan being turned into a battering ram against India would be taken personally by India, or Taiwan against China - by rival powers who wanted to contain either of them.

Israel's situation can also be traced to at least some security logic (Hamas, Hezbollah, supported via Iran etc). But it's not a existential threat in the same way great power competition is - its a threat of exhaustion from a unresolved political issue that's trying to be resolved via a military solution. The security is also self-perpetuating and exists because occupation and dispossession never ended. They equate the control of those people (fighting for their rights but being gas lighted as terrorist savages for it) with survival, when controlling (perhaps cleansing) them is what's causing the issue to begin with. It's got a element of security logic but is more supremacy logic.

US-Iraq - empire logic for gain.

Israel-Gaza - supremacy logic with some security logic that's exaggerated.

Russia-Ukraine - security logic with some historic rhetoric that's bogus and irrelevant to the modern day.

Interestingly just came across Putin speaking on Iraq compared to Ukraine:

https://x.com/RussiaIsntEnemy/status/1978500666608742545

Name of the account is so propagandic lool

 

Edited by zazen

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20 minutes ago, zazen said:

Israel-Gaza - supremacy logic with some security logic that's exaggerated.

The logic here is much more existential. Israelis literally need to kick Palestinians off the land in order to have a Jewish nation.

It is critical to understand that for understanding this conflict. It is a zero-sum game for them. Israel cannot exist without ethnic cleansing. Once you buy into the idea that Israel needs to exist, you accept the ethnic cleansing project.

Edited by Leo Gura

You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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@Leo Gura I think Israel should exist aside a Palestinian state too. And like me many more think that. Why not both? 

Edited by Nivsch

🏔 Spiral dynamics can be limited, or it can be unlimited if one's development is constantly reflected in its interpretation.

 

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