Elon Musk and Absolute 'Free Speech'

Yes its a crime committed by the participating NATO states, as I said international law is defined by the UN charter, that’s its bedrock and since both the US and Russia are signatories to the treaty then surely those definitions apply equitably to both parties?

Russia has the exact same voting rights as any other permanent member of the security council. It is not a crime to vote against resolutions tabled by the West, this is enshrined within the UN charter, its quite clear on the matter if you care to read it.

The US has in fact vetoed more resolutions than Russia/USSR during the course of UN History.

Indeed the US acted and was prepared to act unilaterally during the Cuban missile crisis over what was perceived as an existential threat and Russia is acting unilaterally today against what it perceives as an existential threat, is that right or wrong?

Is it right or wrong to act unilaterally and disregard international law? Seems the answer is “no” when its Western bombs being dropped and “yes” otherwise.

I never said Putin gave a hoot did I? I just explained to you that if the West can not give a hoot then so to can Russia.

Everything you’ve said so far appears to reflect a view that is the West is right and Russia is wrong, if there’s more to it than that then please explain because you’ve presented no rational reason.

It is “intent” that determines a war crime. Russia is intentionally bombing civilians. First because civilians are unarmed and cannot fight back, second is to terrorise the population into submission, and third to eradicate the population altogether through genocide.

Don’t tell me the US has ever engaged in such atrocities, except for Hiroshima. But even that was from intolerable provocation. Yet we have helped Japan achieve an important economic status in the world.

Moreover, the US has never annexed any conquered country. We have tried to install democratic governments with mixed success, but we always leave unless we are asked to stay for security reasons.

Afghanistan was a failed attempt at democratization and when the general population wanted us to leave, we left. The same with Iraq. The reality is that these people are not better off today than they were 30 years ago, whereas they could have joined the rest of the civilized world.

Not according to the UN charter. Even if “intent” were a factor who decides what the true intent is? Do you assume that when NATO says the intent is X it is being honest and when Russia says the intent is Y it is being dishonest?

Civilians will get killed when bombs are dropped, no matter who does the dropping ask an Iraqi, a Yemeni, a Vietnamese, a Libyan.

As I said, your position is that the West is somehow morally superior and on the basis of that belief then of course the West can do no wrong, I understand the view, its pretty common, watch this for example:

Yes, but that is completely different from what Putin is doing in Ukraine.
C’mon, man.
Don’t even try to rationalize what Russia is doing there. It is an abomination and no different than what Hitler did to the Jews in various occupied countries.

You wanna rationalize Hitler’s NAZI regime? Go dig yourself deeper.

Reasonable people decide, and sometimes they are wrong.

Yes. I start with the assumption that Russia is dishonest, it’s a good bet. I question US mitary operations too. I’m not sure why that is complicated for you.

Have you stopped beating your wife?

No difference, powerful nations in pursuit of self interest militarily dominate even attack weaker nations, the Romans did it, Russia is doing , Britain and France did it and the US does it.

No difference at all.

I have rationalized what Russia is doing, it is acting out of self interest just as the US or any other militarily powerful nation might do.

Russia perceives and existential threat from being surrounded more and more by states harboring US funded military bases some even with US nuclear weapons. No different to the perceived threat of having Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba.

Russia even stated openly and clearly after the fall of the Berlin wall, that if NATO begins to ever encroach on Russia’s border they’d start to mass troops and possibly nuclear weapons along that border, they stated this decades ago. Nobody familiar with this is even slightly surprised at what Russia is doing.

Russia has witnessed the brutal dismantling and destruction of Yugoslavia with NATO doing the dirty work.

As numerous informed commentators have said even if Putin were “taken out” the Kremlin would not change their position, the threat perceived from NATO is a very real thing in Russian politics.

There’s also the issue of Russian natural gas, the US has a goal to eliminate Russia from that market and make the EU dependent on the US for natural gas, Ted Kruz has been pushing hard for this. These sanctions and closing down of gas pipeline projects are for that reason, not to pressure Russia to leave Ukraine, that is a pretext to attacking Russia economically, are you really unaware of this too?

You keep saying its “completely different with Putin” but continue to be unable to show what the difference actually is.

As for Hitler who said anything about that? If any nation today approximates the Nazis it is Israel not Russia. Anyway Germany did rationalize their invasions in WW2, read any history book, Hitler and the Nazis had many reasons and justifications.

For example Hitler attacked the USSR because he feared a communist threat from them, sound familiar?

Hitler attacked USSR for three reasons:

  • First, in Mein Kampf, he had announced that he will do it, because the German people had a right to a Lebensraum, meaning a space necessary to live and expend.
    -Second, he despised the Slaves, as an inferior race, seing them not at the level of the Jews, but not much above, but to be exterminated. In fact, they implemented in part this policy, turning against them the Ukrainian people who had welcomed them as liberators.
    -Third, after the failure of the Britain battle, at the end of 1940, Hitler and the German high command did not knew what to do.

They had caused WWII without wanting it, and without any war plan. They had not many options, 2 in fact, the Mediterranean one, with Egypt as objective, or Russia. they thought they would win as they had won against France.

Now, about Ukraine,

In other posts, i have said that West shared a part of responsibility in the present situation, some fears and demands of Putin having been wrongly ignored.

But fear of Otan is not the main reason of attack.

Putin:

  • wants to build again the Russian empire, and it is not new
  • rejects the idea that an Ukrainian people exists, and that the Ukrainian state is rightful
  • despises west and Ukrainian governments as weak and degenerate, among other things for their atheism and their tolerance toward homosexuality

Theses are some of the true reason Putin attacks.

And beyond, when he says that the Ukrainian state is a nazi state who commits crimes against humanity, he builds a tale, justifying the crimes committed theses days by the Russian army.

Does he believe that ? Does he uses double speak ?

What does the middle bullet point say below:

I accept there were other goals too, but surely the middle goal is reasonable? surely we in the US understand that goal and regard it as a rational goal? After all isn’t that the rational reason we invaded South Vietnam and bombed the life out of Laos? Losing close to 60,000 of our own troops and countless millions of peasants?

Source.

From The Costs and Dangers of NATO Expansion

and

So nothing surprising whatsoever in what Putin is doing, it was clear 25 years ago! The real surprise is that most people with opinions on this know almost nothing about this vital history, because if you don’t understand any of this history you’ll fall - hook, line and sinker - for the ridiculous simplistic “goody vs baddy” propaganda we’re seeing on TV every night and in our newspapers.

The article I quote from was written in 1996.

When, since WWII has the US caused that much destruction? Vietnam would be the closest, and the response by US citizens changed the political landscape.

Asks the guy who gets offended at being called a (disingenuous) Game Player.

How much destruction? show me the data you’re referring to and I’ll see if I can find some examples of greater destruction.

ad hominem fallacy:

So call me whatever you want to but I’m likely going to disregard your posts if you’re not really interested in debating the issues.

I’ve just been assuming that you are pay attention to the news on this issue. You’ve been saying there is a lot of attention on Ukraine, so I either you are seeing it, or someone is telling you about it. No, I’m not going to do a survey of headlines counting up babies killed, hospitals bombed, cities in ruins, or firing on citizens in caravans attempting to leave the country.

:rofl:
So,

It’s nice that you Hugo are above such cynical cheap shots.

Or should I say diversions.

So how then can we establish if the US has or has not facilitated destruction greater than that being seen in Ukraine?

If we don’t compare some kind of metrics and you resent me asking about that, then why ask me for examples in the first place?

If you are confident that the US has not caused greater destruction then by what reasoning? pure imagination?

And to what was I responding when I wrote “Have you stopped beating your wife”? It was this from Lausten:

You are familiar with the rhetorical “Have you stopped beating your wife”? I take it? He used derogatory rhetoric directed at my supposedly finding something he said “complicated” and so I responded too with juvenile rhetoric.

Its known in debating as a “loaded question” read about it here.

As it explains:

In Lausten’s case his loaded question carried a presumption my having little comprehension of the subject.

What the heck is so derogatory of pointing out Russia “is dishonest”?
To that you respond, “have you stopped beating your wife?”
Implication being that Russia is being framed that they are not a nasty secretive totalitarian society that treats its citizens way the heck worse than the western “hypocrisy” infested governments.

You are trying to say there is no moral difference to Russia’s government and Western democracies - that’s delusional as it gets.

You’ve done the same thing repeatedly, that’s CC’s point. It doesn’t excuse whatever logical fallacy was made but we’re beyond “two wrongs don’t make a right here”. Many of the 100 posts in this thread, and others on a similar topic, contain comments about the point being “simple”, or statements about how it should be obvious. To suddenly make an issue of that is not helpful. If you want to police the tone, just say so, and, it would help if you dialed it back yourself.

here are some tips