Here's one for you Putin fans, . .

you are more concerned with your definition of hypocrisy than you are with children being bombed?

I’m concerned with any and all Children being bombed, equally not selectively.

You have said nothing about the Yemeni fighters

Are you suggesting that there is some justification for Saudi bombing whereas there is none for Russia bombing? Are you even aware that in each case the UN has condemned both conflicts as illegal? a violation of international law as defined by the UN charter?

I suggest you download and study the UN charter, far too few people do this.

This is nothing more than what I said, hypocrisy, the West can do no wrong nor do our “friends” whereas Russia and China are evil incarnate and nothing justifies Russian aggression.

Saudi Arabia execute people for being homosexuals, Saudi Arabia butchered Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey and dismembered him, Saudi Arabia is more of a dictatorship that Russia.

Saudi Arabia started bombin Yemen after there was a government overthrown due to a civil war. The US and UK have fully supported this onslaught and it is condemned by the UN.

It’s embedded within your attitude and tone.

My “attitude” (and your own perception of it) is none of your business, please confine your remarks to my arguments, facts, etc, attacking me the person because you dislike my “attitude” is called and ad-hominem fallacy.

Disliking an opponents attitude does not serve to invalidate their argument, just FYI.

No

Yeah, you keep saying that

You don’t use facts very much

Here’s a question. Why did Trump stop the refueling of Saudi jet fighters?

You don’t use facts very much

How did you reach that conclusion? That is nothing more than an opinion, a dismissal, of no merit in a debate.

Here’s a question. Why did Trump stop the refueling of Saudi jet fighters?

Because the Saudi dictatorship didn’t need them anymore.

Much like most of your posts.

Maybe. There was also pressure from activists. Your hyperbolic statements of no one knowing or caring ring hollow.

Well if you truly believe the US war machine and Trump actually cares about “pressure” from “activists” I’ll leave you to daydream in peace!

Regardless of why Trump made his decision, the activists still exist. You speak as if they don’t.

You’re referring to my use of quotation marks I suspect. The point being made there was that it is unlikely genuine activists influenced the decision, genuine activists acting out of humanitarian concerns are rarely if ever paid any heed by either Democrat or Republican administrations.

Here’s what you said:

Yes, and the people I was referring to were:

Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn and all the rest of the glitterati fretting…

If they were critical they’d not buy the mind numbing Kafakaesque propaganda about Russia being Hitler and evil incarnate while the West and NATO are the epitome of well intentioned benevolence.

Except you have been referring to an entire country. That’s what i mean by hyperbolic. It’s not dialog or debate or much of a point. What you are saying is people who say hypocritical things are hypocrits. Logical. Technically.

Please quote me, do not paraphrase me.

I’ve said rather more than that Lausten, you are not the only person participating in this discussion.

Incessant complaining about me and trolling is certainly not a discussion or a debate, I totally agree with you there.

It would be easier if we agreed on the definition of hyperbole, then you could look for examples of “no difference” or “Nobody familiar with this is even slightly surprised” , " frankly laughable", “the West can do no wrong”. “Russia has the exact same voting rights”, “nothing but contempt”, “swallowed the lies lock stock and barrel”, “countless informed people”, “airbrushed over whenever”, “rank hypocrisy and the sickening infatuation”

How? Because Ukraine want to be defensively stronger?
Please what other country every displayed any interest in invading Russia, can you share any examples. I asking for real examples because your suggest sound ludicrous based on my understanding.

Well, okay. Though at this point, you could be more accurate and point that the general western/Abrahamic mindset having infused the entire developed world, build up on the colonial world that preceded it. It’s not just America.

The mindset of business, maximizing profits, minimizing responsibility and exposure, and externalities and such.

Believing that too much is never enough, and always wanting more and bigger, no matter how well you have.

So in many ways I’ll admit, I can’t disagree with much of what you say - until you start justifying this thing Russia is doing - Nothing was going on that justified that sort of wanton utter vicious destruction, nothing justifies that. Or? Putin’s paranoia isn’t our fault, even if we could have handled him differently Still, he’s the one that went paranoid and hysterical

That the Ukrainian nation wanted to hang with Europe more then with Moscow - like WTF. It’s not that hard to understand. Is it? Those piss ant little region conflicts are the same as it ever was, and sure didn’t justify the horror being inflicted these past months.

What you are doing is blaming the rape victim for being raped - it comes across disgusting.

Explain to me how does your mental (humane) process operate to achieve your deep sympathy for Putin and his actions? No one else wanted any armed conflict, no one, well, okay, the merchants of death and armament factories. . . . . . Still, who’s been wanting to invade Russia, I never heard of any nation showing the least interest.

So your question should be, if Putin is acting upon a house of cards, with those cards being one hollow fabricated card after another, why should others honor his fantasies and fraud and gaslighting? He’s the one that needs to wake up or be stopped, he is the biggest menace of the moment.

Okay. Yeah, so what’s your solution, or suggestion, beyond moral outrage?

Russia can justify what it is doing just as the West justified what it did in say Iraq, Yemen, Serbia, East Timor, Laos, Syria and so on. How you evaluate the legitimacy of said “justifications” is something we all have to decide for ourselves.

That Japan wanted to “hang” with Germany and Italy forming the “Axis” powers is WW2 then like WTF. That the Solomon Islands want to “hang” with China for military protection rather than the US is like WTF.

That’s a strawman fallacy, I never advocated blaming rape victims for being raped, if you can’t be bothered to simply quote me then don’t paraphrase or make such analogies, attacking an argument that I never actually made isn’t much of a debating style.

The Russian’s warned back in 1996 that they’d likely respond to NATO encroachment on their border with massing of troops and perhaps tactical nuclear weapons, they even called out Ukraine at that time too. Saying this is not an expression of “sympathy for Putin” it is a fact, Russia perceive NATO’s ongoing expansion as an existential threat.

The solution has regrettably passed; before Russia attacked they asked NATO explicitly to exclude Ukraine from ever becoming a NATO member. This was in the news a lot back in Jan and Feb. If NATO had agreed then likely none of this would have happened. NATO has shown contempt for Russia’s concerns, many analysts in the US some of them former military commanders agree with me here, yet this is not the kind of news the press and media want to scream from their front pages.

NATO wanted war, they wanted Putin to invade because they wanted to press sanctions and weaken the Russian economy and currency so that the US can now supplant Russia as Europe’s dominant supplier of natural gas. If Europe or the US really did not want war then they would have agreed to exclude Ukraine from ever becoming a NATO member, it was that simple.

NATO are playing with fire. Russia could well resort to nuclear weapons, they have ten times as many tactical nukes as the West has. They could do such things, in fact it is conceivable that a likely target would be a base currently hosting US nuclear weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands or Turkey. Just watch a state will eventually use a nuclear weapon in the coming years, despite the threat of counter attack, if the alternative to using a single nuclear strike to emphasize seriousness is to submissively roll over and let NATO continue to place nukes right at Russia’s border and dismantle Russia then surely you can see the logic?

Name me one state that has hosted Russian nuclear weapons? Then compare that (empty) list with the list of NATO states that host US nuclear weapons.

People in those countries are at a huge risk, there’s only a limited response NATO could make too, many in the Kremlin (not simply Putin) see NATO as an existential threat, this is a fact you can check up on. The picture of Putin the madman is also therefore part of the propaganda designed to misrepresent the true magnitude of Russian opposition to NATO.

Your argument is that Putin is justified in acting out on his paranoid dictator fantasy of owning everything that is anywhere within his vicinity.

That’s what you are ignoring.

That’s what’s makes you contemptible.

You aren’t even trying to deal with evidence, you playing your own little propaganda war of cherry picking, diversions, and ignoring inconvenience facts.

In other words, you are every bit the hippocratic you accuse others of being. And Putin remains an unhinged monster.

Attacking me and my perceived motives and beliefs is a waste of time in a debate, if I’ve said something you disagree with then quote it and explain why you think I am incorrect. All too often in these kinds of forums the insults are never far away.

You cannot give an objective fact demonstrating that Nato wanted Putin to attack !

Europe is paying an heavy price, with the increase of prices of gaz and petrol. The present war means an international famine and so.

The entire world responded to that. Germans today admit it was wrong. Japan’s culture has changed radically since then. Your examples just don’t help me. I did a little review of your thread here, and I can’t find an argument that holds together, yet you keep saying that it’s “simple”. If NATO had listened to Putin, then he definitely would have moved into Ukraine, like he has said he would. That’s the cause of this war.

So, here’s where you started:

Your initial comment, creating some sort of scale with Russia on the peace loving end. Hyperbole.

Then you “explain” your point with this rhetorical question. One that has been answered, but you keep calling it hypocrisy. This is where you start with the use of “always” and “anyone”.

In that explanation, you defend the Russian narrative that they can respond with massive military to their perceived threat. The amount of firepower Russia is using on the Ukraine is not equivalent to any of your examples. That’s the issue that you are avoiding.

If it was just these people that were bothering you, I wouldn’t be arguing so much. But I don’t think you are limiting yourself to them.

This might be your central point, but it’s hard to tell. First, it’s loaded, you assume indifference to Yemen. Whether you are talking about an individual or a culture, we have to prioritize. There are a lot of tragedies in the world right now, and I put those where I can make difference first, that usually means people near me. The ethics of that is a bigger question, but I think it’s how the world works. I can’t help someone around the world if my own life is a mess.

Second, your assuming something about this “expression”. When I look to where I can help outside my local influence, I still have to make choices. I don’t know who I would contribute to, or what aid I could send to Yemen. Ukraine has a strong government, and a failure for Russia at this point would probably increase the peace in the world. Lots more details here, but no, it’s not as simple as you lay it out.

After that, you keep repeating that you have your finger on the pulse of the West and you’ll use any headline or statement to prove it.

Well perhaps, but how could one tell if NATO did or did not want war? One way is to see that they reacted like this to Russia’s position:

this was met with

So NATO’s position was simply to forget about Ukraine being denied entry to NATO, we don’t care about Russia’s concerns, they don’t care if Russia might react by invading. They could have negotiated with something like:

Tell me, what’s wrong with that? or something like it? That is how war could have been avoided, diplomacy not prior “ruling out” which is what happened.

Like I said too, there are many agreeing with this, many people who’ve worked in this arena for decades, just because the press and media play lip service to this does not mean there is a not huge body of opinion that is convinced NATO is acting provocatively, it is not just Russia, not just me, if you want examples just ask.

Your position largely mirrors that espoused by the press propaganda, Western press propaganda.

Actually he pretty much said if NATO didn’t listen then he would move in, they didn’t listen and so he moved in. In what way is the present outcome better than NATO agreeing to exclude Ukraine? You have no idea what Russia would have done if NATO had negotiated, the exclusion of Ukraine could have been made conditional, NATO could have said they needed to see certain levels of troop withdrawals within X months of signing an exclusion agreement.

But no, not NATO, they did not want to negotiate, as I said earlier read:

Advanced missiles systems (even non nuclear) based in Ukraine under NATO command are able to reach Russian cities in minutes, as I said (and many experienced voices agree) Russia has legitimate reasons to regard NATO as an existential threat, particularly when NATO acted aggressively (not honoring its claim to be defensive) by illegally bombing Serbia for two months in 1999.

The reference by NATO to membership being wholly a matter for NATO and Ukraine can be seen to be a lie, because just look at US and Australian reactions to the Solomon Islands entering into a voluntary military agreement with China, if you cannot see the hypocrisy then that’s not my fault.

and

Funny that isn’t it, Russia complains about NATO growing and expanding its influence and Russia is told to not be ridiculous, yet when the same thing happens with China growing its influence then shrieks of alarm and cries of “a threat to stability” and so on!