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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   30131 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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Ukraine has been bombing civilians in the Eastern parts of the country, and is forcing men within its borders to join its armies, it's not exactly a model of 'consent to be governed'.

Sure it is. Ukraine has been bombing the eastern parts of the country because the Russians militarily intervened and have been occupying it for several years, a counter-intervention effort that remains extremely popular within the Ukrainian demos-politic with access to the Ukrainian electoral processes, which consists of non-Russian disrupted parts of Ukraine. Conscription is not controversial.

Russia is doing this with their invasion and allowing Russia to be reward for breaking this rule sets an unacceptable precedent.

Here is on the other hand John Bolton bragging about overtaking other countries' governments.

As John Bolton is not a Russian, and also did not lead wars of conquest, it's not really relevant to perception of Russia being rewarded.

Why do I somehow doubt the people on the side of John Bolton when they tell me that Russia has no good reason to be wary of their next-door neighbor inviting John Bolton and his buddies to build up military installations on their border?

Possibly because of your skill level at understanding the implications of Russian nukes on neighbors desire to invade Russia.

Expansionist tyrants like the ones attacking North Africa, the Middle-East, setting up puppet regimes in South America for decades...?

Since no one has been conquering nations for their territory in North Africa, the Middle-East, or South America for decades, apparently not, since those were neither expansion-wars or recent.

Kind of an own-goal on that one, not going to lie. If you're going to do false equivalence, at least drop the qualifier for what kind of war.

Since no one has been conquering nations for their territory in North Africa, the Middle-East, or South America for decades, apparently not, since those were neither expansion-wars or recent.

Kind of an own-goal on that one, not going to lie. If you're going to do false equivalence, at least drop the qualifier for what kind of war.

The US-led 'rule-based international order' defines 'bad wars' as 'wars of conquest' where one country takes some territory from another country.

Of course they do not include in that definition setting up military bases and secret prisons in foreign countries, murdering and replacing foreign countries' government with vassal governments, corporations taking control of large swaths of territories with underlying support from intelligence assets... Expanding power and control does not necessarily require expanding territory, which the US still do anyway with their military/intelligence bases.

Within that context, the US can more or less claim that they are following the rules, most of the time.

Why should we expect America's adversaries to play by the same rule-book?

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