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What I hate about this war is that both sides are doing the same, Soviet-style propaganda of shamelessly lying while asserting that they are the clear-sighted purveyors of truth and their enemies are a cesspit of vile and false lies. "Our Great Victory In Novishitburg in Mud Province", "Our Tactical Retreat In Pigachevsky Village", and so on are trumpeted as imminent collapses of the enemy when the relative movement is what, a hundred meters?
The truth - that the line is static and depressingly high casualty - is unsexy and unnewsworthy. That both sides are corrupt shitholes who are willing to grind up their young men into a fine meat paste rather than make a peace. Leave me out of it, or, at the very least, stop telling me about it.
Not sure why Ukraine gets the ‘ both sides … grind their young men … meat paste ‘ when they are doing it so as not to be taken over via war?
What else are they supposed to do ?
By now? Surrender.
They evidently can't win this. There's no hope of a reprieve if they delay either. Hence no glory in a pointless slaughter.
The terms Putin offered to Trump were the best they are ever going to get and it got blocked because neither Euros nor Ukie radicals want any concession.
I love war far more than is generally considered reasonable. But fighting any war that isn't existential to the last man is insane, and the Russians aren't going to exterminate those they are kidnapping as their countrymen. Unless the Ukies have information we don't, like promises of NATO involvement if they collapse, this is madness.
Usually when I see a war being called existential, "your country becomes a political nonentity" is included into the definition. Certainly there have been many times the current war was described as existential for Russia.
It might be madness for citizens to fight on for the sake of the state, but the state is what's making decisions at the moment.
My contention is precisely that a State acting in service of itself rather than the security and welfare of its people is mad.
How so? Would you die to keep your finger safe?
How did the finger get put in a position of danger? It is not so much that governments should sacrifice themselves to keep each individual citizen safe, but that it should at least stop putting them in danger to advance government interests.
Well unfortunately, states are not human and at times their interests are against the collective interests of citizens. That doesn't make states mad, it makes them evil.
Por que no los dos? Governments have repeatedly acted in ways that are both contrary to their citizens and have also done so in insane ways that plainly would not accomplish the very goals they set. Not only would I say that madness and evil are not mutually exclusive, but often the same things that safeguard against one are correlated with safeguarding against the other.
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