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

[Apparition of Jack]

Both the war in Iraq and Ukraine are massive geopolitical fuckups that have caused untold levels of unnecessary human misery and will continue to have negative repercussions for decades to come. 
 

Iraq was the most egregious example of a nation unable to keep its revenge-boner in its pants and unilaterally (and illegally) destroying another nation and hundreds of thousands of lives in modern history.

Ukraine was the most egregious breach of national sovereignty, the rules-based world order and basic diplomatic decency since the Second World War, all on the whims of a deluded septuagenarian who will be either dead or deposed within a few years anyway. 

Both never should’ve happened. War is goddamn awful, especially for flimsy nationalist dick-waving reasons. We should just stop killing each other.

[Daniel Balan]

4 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

Both the war in Iraq and Ukraine are massive geopolitical fuckups that have caused untold levels of unnecessary human misery and will continue to have negative repercussions for decades to come. 
 

Iraq was the most egregious example of a nation unable to keep its revenge-boner in its pants and unilaterally (and illegally) destroying another nation and hundreds of thousands of lives in modern history.

Ukraine was the most egregious breach of national sovereignty, the rules-based world order and basic diplomatic decency since the Second World War, all on the whims of a deluded septuagenarian who will be either dead or deposed within a few years anyway. 

Both never should’ve happened. War is goddamn awful, especially for flimsy nationalist dick-waving reasons. We should just stop killing each other.

Amen to that!

[Daniel Balan]

@Apparition of Jack we expect Russia to behave barbarically, since they have done so all their history, but the US? We expected much more from the US, what they have done in the middle east, especially in Iraq is preposterous and asinine. The Iraq war is the biggest and most heinous stain on the West's reputation. 

Edited Friday at 08:51 PM by Daniel Balan

[Apparition of Jack]

3 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

@Apparition of Jack we expect Russia to behave barbarically, since they have done so all their history, but the US? We expected much more from the US, what they have done in the middle east, especially in Iraq is preposterous and asinine. The Iraq war is the biggest and most heinous stain on the West's reputation. 

Yeah, agreed. I think the West - and especially America - have yet to fully atone for what they did to Iraq for basically no reason. It’s weird how it was one of the most destructive wars in modern history and yet we’ve barely talked about it since it ended barely over a decade ago. 
 

What’s done is done, but the West needs to take a good hard look at itself if it thinks it can just ruin other nations and pretend the destruction we’ caused never happened. We need to be WAY more careful with wielding the power we posses. 
 

EDIT: To add to this, look at how we treated the Afghans who helped us in our war over there as soon we turned tail and ran - people who put their homes, livelihoods and even lives at risk, only to literally be abandoned on the airport tarmac as the people who want them dead took over the country. The modern West (by which I mean mostly America) has basically zero concept of geopolitical responsibility.

Edited Friday at 08:57 PM by Apparition of Jack

[BlueOak]

9 hours ago, Karmadhi said:

International organizations. They are banned from FIFA, from Eurovision, from Olympics, most firms left Russia and they got kicked from SWIFT

Eurovision - i'm not surprised they keep threatening to kill all of Europe! They've committed acts of terror for years.  Via migration, energy/food blackmail, drones/fighter jets, political threats, cyberattacks, meddling in elections, domestic destabalisation etc.
SWIFT - Done for economic pressure to end the war.
Olympics - This is in Europe! lol. Nobody is going to host a country invading and trying to destabilize the continent.

Putin: "Russia knows no borders."

Me: "Well its learning them now!"

Edited Friday at 09:22 PM by BlueOak

[Daniel Balan]

@Apparition of Jack obviously no one is gonna sanction the west, but why isn't the west sanctioning itself? The west should give a lot of humanitarian aid to iraq for all the mayhem caused there. The west should help the Iraqi people to build roads and bridges for free as a way to say we were wrong and we want to repair our mistake.

[Apparition of Jack]

3 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

@Apparition of Jack obviously no one is gonna sanction the west, but why isn't the west sanctioning itself? The west should give a lot of humanitarian aid to iraq for all the mayhem caused there. The west should help the Iraqi people to build roads and bridges for free as a way to say we were wrong and we want to repair our mistake.

The crazy thing is, this is what empires and superpowers used to do to countries they conquered.

Rome might’ve waged war on Gaul, but when the fighting was over they built roads, cities, aqueducts etc. Britain invaded India but they left behind railways, ports, bureaucracies, etc.

These days we just send in a few thousand troops, carpet bomb the countryside, leave the nation in ruins, before fucking off back home and patting ourselves the back for on a job well done. And we wonder why no one trusts us anymore, lol  

Edited Friday at 09:08 PM by Apparition of Jack

[Lyubov]

The truth is both countries act selfish and play games. Neither is really worse than the other. Did you know all the wars in the Middle East are largely because of the British, Europeans and USA? Guess who lets Israel live? Iraq war? The list of lies and hypocrisy is astounding when it comes to geopolitics. There isn’t any nation that is part of the security council that can point fingers at the other. Simultaneously form a higher perspective when discussing issues like this it is lower conscious to compare. You got to address each issue separately in how states are barbaric. What Russia is doing is wrong and barbaric. What the USA has done is wrong and barbaric. 

[Apparition of Jack]

6 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

The truth is both countries act selfish and play games. Neither is really worse than the other. Did you know all the wars in the Middle East are largely because of the British, Europeans and USA? Guess who lets Israel live? Iraq war? The list of lies and hypocrisy is astounding when it comes to geopolitics. There isn’t any nation that is part of the security council that can point fingers at the other. Simultaneously form a higher perspective when discussing issues like this it is lower conscious to compare. You got to address each issue separately in how states are barbaric. What Russia is doing is wrong and barbaric. What the USA has done is wrong and barbaric. 

True, although just to be clear I still think Russia is more of a rogue actor than Western powers are on the world stage. 

UK and France have (mostly) followed the international rules, for instance. And America, despite its disastrous invasion of Iraq, is still technically a democracy (the largest anti-war protests in history occurred before the Iraq War, for instance, something that never could’ve happened in Russia) and the Democrats are generally more responsible and sensible when it comes to foreign policy than the Republicans (see: Obama pulling out of Iraq, 2015 Iran nuclear deal, etc.)

But yes, ultimately there are no major countries free of hypocrisy, and we need to demand better of our leaders than to just wage war recklessly despite the consequences of those wars. The world isn’t our play thing to mess around with as we wish.

[Lyubov]

21 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

True, although just to be clear I still think Russia is more of a rogue actor than Western powers are on the world stage. 

UK and France have (mostly) followed the international rules, for instance. And America, despite its disastrous invasion of Iraq, is still technically a democracy (the largest anti-war protests in history occurred before the Iraq War, for instance, something that never could’ve happened in Russia) and the Democrats are generally more responsible and sensible when it comes to foreign policy than the Republicans (see: Obama pulling out of Iraq, 2015 Iran nuclear deal, etc.)

But yes, ultimately there are no major countries free of hypocrisy, and we need to demand better of our leaders than to just wage war recklessly despite the consequences of those wars. The world isn’t our play thing to mess around with as we wish.

It’s sort of superfluous though considering who makes the rules no? If you are the one able to make the rules, bomb Serbia (list goes on), claim this treaty / that treaty when you had all leverage in writing it or setting the rules up so they favor your survival, I don’t really think that counts. Rules only mean something if everyone is considered fairly when writing them. I think any comparison of the two trying to determine who is less honest or whatnot is ultimately going to fall apart because both sides are having a different conversation. I don’t think USA is any better or worse than Russia. It excels in different aspects of human rights while Russia does as well. 

Edited Friday at 09:55 PM by Lyubov

[Daniel Balan]

@Lyubov Regarding Lybia and Serbia interventions I'm totally behind the west here. It would have been preposterous to let the Serbs massacre the Kosovo and Bosnia muslims. The Nato bombing of Serbia is the most humane and right thing the west has done since WW2. Also Gadaffi, his regime killed and tortured his own people. Big thumbs up for the west for getting rid of his regime. That is something I call proper policing of the world. Unfortunately those 2 instances were the only times the west behaved with moral superiority.

[Karmadhi]

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

Eurovision - i'm not surprised they keep threatening to kill all of Europe! 

I never heard such a claim, they simply want their sphere of influence, never heard them wanting to murder Europe. If they say it now, it is irrelevant because they got banned since 2022. What did they say before 2022?

Are you British by any means? I have noticed that British are the most anti Russian people in Europe, much more than the French or German or Italian and I wonder why

Lastly, Israel has murdered Europan kitchen aid staff, has arrested and detained dozens of European citizens in their flotillas in an illegal act of piracy yet no ban for Israel. FIFA some days ago said "We wont ban Israel because we dont solve geopolitical problems". Well apparently to FIFA invading a country and taking 20% of a country is worse than a genocide.

What about Azerbajan taking land from Armenia in 2022. No bans for them. Armenia is as European as Ukraine is

It seems to me they are stuck in a cold war mindset where Russia=Bad and whatever Russia does is much worse than when other countries do similar things (like USA or Israel or Azerbajan).

This  pushes Russia to become more nationalistic as well. Never forget Putin wanted to join NATO in early 2000s and was rejected. Then turned towards nationalism and started seeing Europe and the West in general as an adversary.

Now it is too late but they should have made Russia an ally in early 2000s

Edited Friday at 10:15 PM by Karmadhi

[Karmadhi]

18 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Regarding Lybia and Serbia interventions I'm totally behind the west here. It would have been preposterous to let the Serbs massacre the Kosovo and Bosnia muslims. The Nato bombing of Serbia is the most humane and right thing the west has done since WW2. Also Gadaffi, his regime killed and tortured his own people. Big thumbs up for the west for getting rid of his regime. That is something I call proper policing of the world. Unfortunately those 2 instances were the only times the west behaved with moral superiority.

I agree with Serbia but disagree with Gadaffi. You need to look at the alternative

The alternative if they had not bombed Serbia would be genocide and ethnic cleansing. The bombing stopped that.

Gadaffi was awful, sure. But taking him out was a disaster. That person held Libya together and kept order. As Leo has brilliantly said in his video about Understanding Democracy and Authoritarism, a tyrant is given power to protect the people from anarchy and chaos. Now that Gadaffi is gone, civil wars emerged and the country basically got screwed. They went from the best economy and standard of living (free oil, energy, health care etc) to a failed state. Far far more have died from this than would have died from Gadaffi if he had remained in power.

Hence by taking him out they saved dozens but killed hundreds in the result. To me that is a mistake

Sometimes a devil is better than anarchy and no government at all. 

The real reason he got taken out is because the corrupt French president Sarkozi had taken bribes from him to finance his elections and took him out to save his neck from corruption charges. France illegally attacked Syria and NATO joined in because of article 5. An example of aggression.

Additionally USA had interested in wanting him gone because not only he was very pro Palestine but also he wanted to unite Arab states with a single currency which would go against USA interests.

What did it lead to? Tens of thousnads dead and an entire country destroyed with no future

It is funny that people use the same logic about taking out Saddam was a mistake when Saddam was worse than Gadaffi and Iraq has better state building prospects than Libya has. Today Iraq is not doing bad at all. Libya is a total disaster.

 

Edited Friday at 10:24 PM by Karmadhi

[Daniel Balan]

8 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

I agree with Serbia but disagree with Gadaffi. You need to look at the alternative

The alternative if they had not bombed Serbia would be genocide and ethnic cleansing. The bombing stopped that.

Gadaffi was awful, sure. But taking him out was a disaster. That person held Libya together and kept order. As Leo has brilliantly said in his video about Understanding Democracy and Authoritarism, a tyrant is given power to protect the people from anarchy and chaos. Now that Gadaffi is gone, civil wars emerged and the country basically got screwed. They went from the best economy and standard of living (free oil, energy, health care etc) to a failed state. Far far more have died from this than would have died from Gadaffi if he had remained in power.

Hence by taking him out they saved dozens but killed hundreds in the result. To me that is a mistake

Sometimes a devil is better than anarchy and no government at all. 

The real reason he got taken out is because the corrupt French president Sarkozi had taken bribes from him to finance his elections and took him out to save his neck from corruption charges. France illegally attacked Syria and NATO joined in because of article 5. An example of aggression.

What did it lead to? Tens of thousnads dead and an entire country destroyed with no future

It is funny that people use the same logic about taking out Saddam was a mistake when Saddam was worse than Gadaffi and Iraq has better state building prospects than Libya has. Today Iraq is not doing bad at all. Libya is a total disaster.

 

Are you for real?? Article 5 has only invoked once in NATO's history and that was after 9/11. Did Sarkozi push Gadaffi to mass slaughter & torture his own people? This is hilarious. Gadaffi got what he deserved for torturing and killing his own citizens. 

The war on Iraq was worse because the US invented bullshit motives to control the oil reserves of Iraq. Because up to 500k people were killed because of the US. In Lybia the West hasn't done anything remotely as horrible as they did in Iraq.

In Lybia the killing that insued was because of the savage nature of Lybia's political landscape, it was organic, they killed eachother, but in Iraq the 500k lives lost were all because of the US troops did that killing.

Edited Friday at 10:30 PM by Daniel Balan

[Karmadhi]

10 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Are you for real?? Article 5 has only invoked once in NATO's history and that was after 9/11. Did Sarkozi push Gadaffi to mass slaughter & torture his own people? This is hilarious. Gadaffi got what he deserved for torturing and killing his own citizens. 

The war on Iraq was worse because the US invented bullshit motives to control the oil reserves of Iraq. Because up to 500k people were killed because of the US. In Lybia the West hasn't done anything remotely as horrible as they did in Iraq.

I am not saying Sarkozi pushed Gadaffi to do bad things to his people, I am saying that the reason he took him out is because Gadaffi illegally financed his campaign. By article 5 i mean if NATO attacks a country like France did with Libya, the rest of NATO is forced to join in for support.

Perhaps Gadaffi was a bad person and deserved to die, I will not defend his morality. However, you need to look into what lead to it

A rump state and tend of thousnads dead from civil wars that followed

God knows how many dying from poverty or lack of good health care which was free under Gadaffi

If you add these losses it is easily over 100.000 people

Much more than Gadaffi killed

I am not saying the West did horrible things in the process of taking him out, I am saying taking him out lead to far more deaths and the destruction of Libya

Sometimes a devil is needed to keep a place together from becoming even a worse hell

Which is why dictators exist. To keep a fragmented society from falling into civil wars and total anarchy and chaos. Their brutality keeps people at bay

As horrible as dictatorships are , civil wars and chaos are worse 

Libya is a stage purple to red society, it needs a strong dictator to keep it together

Do not confuse it with orange countries where they can maintain democracy

Compare Libya today with Libya in 2010 and tell me which is better

Edited Friday at 10:35 PM by Karmadhi

[Daniel Balan]

@Karmadhi You are right brother! Cheers.

[Leo Gura]

12 hours ago, Karmadhi said:

They were banning Russia from everything before any land annexation took place, it literally happened in the first week of the invasion

This is false.

Putin annexed Crimea years before. He also passed a law annexing 4 Ukrainian provences of Luhansk, Donetsk, and others in the first week of the invasion. It is obvious he would annex all of Ukraine if only he was allowed to. He told Tucker Carslon that Ukraine was never a real sovereign state. In his mind Ukraine does not exist as anything seperate from Russia.

Stop doing Putin's dirty work for him. These are shallow excuses to violate internal borders and annex territory.

The correct analogy here is if the US invaded Mexico and declared Cancun the 51st US state.

Edited Saturday at 12:04 AM by Leo Gura

[Karmadhi]

58 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

This is false.

Putin annexed Crimea years before. He also passed a law annexing 4 Ukrainian provences of Luhansk, Donetsk, and others in the first week of the invasion. It is obvious he would annex all of Ukraine if only he was allowed to. He told Tucker Carslon that Ukraine was never a real sovereign state. In his mind Ukraine does not exist as anything seperate from Russia.

Stop doing Putin's dirty work for him. These are shallow excuses to violate internal borders and annex territory.

The correct analogy here is if the US invaded Mexico and declared Cancun the 51st US state.

 What about Azerbajan doing the same thing to Armenia in 2022? What bout Israel doing the same in West bank for decades now?

Where is the ban for Azerbajan or Israel?

Double standards much?

Edited Saturday at 01:01 AM by Karmadhi

[Hojo]

Think it has to do with NATO. USA agreed with Russia that if ukraine dosent make nukes they wont attack them. If Russia attacked libya or whatever I dont know that we would be fighting. If Russia invaded Cuba the only reason USA would care is cause its close to them. If Cuba was on the other side of the planet it would be different. But Russia is forcing a move on USA by attacking Ukraine. They have an agreement there and Russia is saying they got shafted on the deal so they want another city. But then it will be another city then another one. Ukraine is like you guys said you wouldnt attack me if we made a deal that I wouldnt get anything to defend myself with.

If Russia invaded China usa wouldnt care besides the threat of nuke.

Russia has nothing to do with iraq or USA they would obviously scream illegal and bad cause they are enemies with USA. They will say that about everything the USA does. They will slap themselves in the face and blame USA. And USA would slap themselves in the face and blame Russia.

If I was Ukraine I would instantly concede my land to USA. But leave first.

Edited Saturday at 02:34 AM by Hojo

[ExploringReality]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This is false.

Putin annexed Crimea years before. He also passed a law annexing 4 Ukrainian provences of Luhansk, Donetsk, and others in the first week of the invasion. It is obvious he would annex all of Ukraine if only he was allowed to. He told Tucker Carslon that Ukraine was never a real sovereign state. In his mind Ukraine does not exist as anything seperate from Russia.

Stop doing Putin's dirty work for him. These are shallow excuses to violate internal borders and annex territory.

The correct analogy here is if the US invaded Mexico and declared Cancun the 51st US state.

Dude, trump literally wants to call the golf if Mexico, the golf of America haha

Edited Saturday at 02:52 AM by ExploringReality