What’s up with this straight up pro-china and pro-russia stuff on Lemmy lately?
It’s not even praising the people of China and Russia, but rather their gov directly.
Obviously the states have problems, and the EU to a lesser degree, but they at least have some human rights.
Is this some kind of organized disinformation campaign?
You mean when the largest european democratic movement in decades ousted a Russian puppet who refused to pass a bill ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament?
This never happened.
NATO is a defensive alliance. The closest it’s ever gotten to starting a war was Afghanistan and not every member participated.
And before you wind up the next “gotcha”, there are lots of dog shit imperialist countries in NATO, but we’re discussing the organization itself here.
Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, Afghanistan?
And also this is your moral foundation? It doesn’t matter what crimes Russia is committing so long as they never commit more crimes than the US?
Previously:
Right. I agree that NATO tacitly supports US imperialism but you’re also conflating the actions of the US with NATO as a whole. Turkey did not invade Afghanistan for example.
Also the idea that NATO caused the Bosnian Genocide is laughable. The bombing is the only reason it stopped. Your argument is literally “those boys, women and children were CIA assets, trust me bro”
But regardless, I think we’re not actually engaging correctly with each other’s points here. Let’s refocus with some simple facts.
Do Ukrainians have a right to defend themselves from Russian imperial aggression?
Not ‘tacitly’, and not just the US’ imperialism.
You are blatantly trying to absolve the glorified USian provinces of imperialism and colonialism by downplaying their complicity and willingness in subjecting the world to these horrors.
You are, again, trying to downplay the actions of the US’ glorified provinces that is the rest of NATO, and distance them from their own actions.
Turkey did invade Afghanistan. And other places, together with the rest of NATO.
Given that you keep being demonstrated to be wrong about everything, you should stop laughing about things that people who are consistently correct tell you.
The most prolific invader in the world that is engaging in at least one obvious and high-profile genocide doing a coup in a country that neighbours another country’s most populated areas and then attempting to bring weapons and personnel to the relevant border is, in fact, an act of aggression, and the rest of the world has every right to defend itself against NATO.
As a response to NATO’s aggression.
Notably, you are yet to explain what Russia should have done, despite you being prompted to.
Did Germans have a right to defend themselves from the Allies’ ‘imperial aggression’ in 1930-1940s?
Also, going to note that you are completely fine with terror attacks conducted by your empire, including against the Russian population which you deny any right to defend itself against you.
The rest of the world has a right to defend itself against NATO. The population of the most prolific invader in the world that is currently engaging in at least one high-profile genocide is not the priority in this situation (unless, again, you think that the rest of the world should roll over for you).
Let’s look at this from another perspective.
Russia has completely failed it’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and is bogged down in a war of attrition with a nation that is not in NATO.
NATO countries are supplying a trickle of arms to Ukraine, but without a single NATO boot on the ground, without a single aircraft carrier, Russia has been stopped in its tracks and has failed to complete the majority of it’s military objectives, having even lost actual Russian territory to Ukrainian counter offensives.
Clearly Russia would not stand a chance if NATO decided to invade them.
So that begs the question, if you believe NATO wants to invade Russia, and it’s clear Russia couldn’t stop them, why haven’t they?
Yes, Russia’s gamble to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table using a minimal amount of troops and minimal force failed, because the US & UK blocked it. So now it’s a slow, grinding war of attrition.
All signs point to Russia winning this war, yet somehow you’re framing it as them losing 🤷 Do you know what their objectives are?
No one in history has succeeded in taking Russia with an invasion force, not even before Russia had nuclear weapons, and now it has more of them than anyone else. Not Napoleon, not Hitler. It’s two-thirds larger than the next-largest country.
The NATO countries have de-industrialized themselves. They’re in no condition to invade Iran right now, never mind Russia. They don’t even have the industrial capacity to properly arm Ukraine. Russia meanwhile hasn’t de-industrialized nearly as much and isn’t running out of materiel.
I believe nothing of the sort. What the US wants is for Russia to be regime changed, Balkanized, and re-neocolonized. And they want it without needing to put any of their own boots on the ground. Ukraine is a pawn on the US’s “grand chessboard.” The US wanted this proxy war. Previously.
Edit to add: Oh, that one was already in my previous comment. Sorry for repeating myself. Here’s a talk by Parenti to summarize.
Tell me you didn’t engage with the material I provided without telling me you didn’t engage with the material I provided. Here’s another: Michael Parenti » To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
I engaged with it. It’s saying the Serbs were responding to a proxy war initiated by the CIA when they were literally just exterminating Bosnians.
You can give me your summary but I’m not reading any more dubious links on the matter, especially when link bashing is being used as a rhetoric device to prevent your argument being challenged.
And again:
Do Ukrainians have a right to defend themselves from Russian imperialism?
I’m “link bashing” because I’ve already covered this territory—with sources/evidence—several times on Lemmy, though not nearly as many times as the Ukraine war.
Okay? No one is saying otherwise.
Again no one is saying otherwise. As for Russian “imperialism,” I already covered it elsewhere in this very post, and dozens of times before.
I’m very confused now. Because it seems like we actually agree with each other then and I’m not sure why we’re fighting.
I think NATO sucks, but I also think Russia does. The only thing I care about in this situation is Ukrainian autonomy.
If you believe Ukraine has a right to self defense and self determination then we’re in agreement.
I think we agree that, in the abstract, Westphalian states have a right to self-defense. That’s been the consensus for almost 300 years, and it’s baked into the UN charter.
But two things can be true at the same time: that the Ukrainian state has a right to self-defense and that the US, NATO, and Ukraine poked the bear for decades to get this reaction. Western promises to Russia were broken and red lines were crossed, over & over for decades, until the inevitable breaking point due to perceived existential threats.
Did the post-coup eastern & southern separatist states not also have a right to self defense against the Ukrainian coup government and the fascist Banderites that Ukraine and the US armed, trained, and supported? Were those separatists wrong to request aid from Russia for almost a decade before the 2022 invasion? Russia was very patient given the circumstances.
Russia does indeed suck, but less so than NATO at the moment. The primary difference is the Global North’s neocolonialism, which is modern-day imperialism.
Previously:
EDIT: People should stop claiming that the gang of states that are currently engaging in at least one genocide, keep invading everywhere, doing coups is a ‘defensive alliance’.
This is silly.
That’s quite a fantasy you have concocted there.
Firstly, just describing any pro-NATO movement, i.e. a movement that supports literal colonialism, as ‘democratic’ is extremely silly. Especially when such movements are known to be created by NATO and include literal politicians and open nazis. Going to also note that you are fine with the perpetual dictator Zelenskiy.
Secondly, everybody is familiar with things like the leaked correspondence between USian representatives in Ukraine picking who gets to be in what position in the new government weeks before the completion of the coup, as well as them bragging about how much money they spent on subjugating Ukraine.
Thirdly, you can’t even name what was supposedly so bad about Yanukovich. It’s pretty obvious that his sin - in your eyes - was that he did not sell Ukraine off to NATO.
Oh no. An elected president vetoed a bill that was being protested against by the same people that you love being in power.
Mind sharing why an elected president vetoing a bill justifies NATO completing yet another coup? Sounds like your standards are very much not applied uniformly.
This is, again, silly.
Do you want to tell us that Ukraine was not trying to join NATO in the years 2014-2022, and that no relevant claims were made by NATO?
This is also very very silly.
Nobody can seriously claim that invasions of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine (complete with a very obvious genocide), Libya, Vietnam, Laos, Korea, etc. - all done by NATO - were ‘defensive’.
The only ‘defensive’ thing about NATO is how it protects its members from facing justice for centuries of ongoing colonialism, including for settler-colonial and other genocides.
Between Iraq and Afghanistan, there is not a single de jure member of NATO that did not participate. And those were very obviously wars started by NATO, with NATO invading those countries.
There is also the fact that not every glorified USian province sending troops neither makes those non-NATO actions, nor negates other forms of complicity in the activities.
If every member of this organisation is a ‘dog-shit imperialist state’ - and they all are, - then we can conclude that there is no defense that can be levied for the organisation itself that is the most prolific invader in the world and that is currently engaging in at least one high-profile genocide.
This is also silly.
Russia did not invade Afghanistan and Syria. Russia literally helped Syria against your invasion forces and DAESH (which has since become yet another de facto part of NATO, if it ever wasn’t).
Russia fought against the separatist in Chechnya with NATO’s support. The part of the Russian government that supported the separation of Chechnya were shelled with tanks by pro-NATO forces.
Georgia was literally the one that attacked the Ossetian separatists. This is doubly silly, considering that you support Chechen separatists.
Again, the rest of the world has every right to defend itself from NATO. Look at what you did to Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Palestine. On what grounds should the rest of the world just roll over for you?