Russia's Invasion of Ukraine (Official Thread)

Professor Emeritus

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While you designate yourself to be the moral arbiter of war, I'm taking the teleological approach of enjoying seeing Russia get their shyt pushed in for thinking they can run roughshod over their neighbour


I absolutely appreciate the honesty here. It's been obvious for months that for most posters, 99% of what is driving them is the "teleological" desire to see Russia get their shyt pushed in, and both the means and the collateral damage are completely irrelevant to those ends.




This post isn't as deep a dive into moral philosophy as you think it is


If you think that was intended to be deep, I shudder to imagine what you would consider to be a casual take. I could do a deep dive but don't think anyone here gives a shyt. My statements aren't any "deeper" than what anyone else is saying, but they're certainly from a different perspective, which I think is fair to put into the thread every once in a while.




By "Ukraine", what you actually mean is "the military leaders of Ukraine". As for Russia and as in nearly all militaristic approaches, they make unilateral decisions for everyone else. Neither the Ukrainian military nor the Russian military gives a shyt what the people of Crimea or eastern Ukraine feel about the approach taken.

In the hypothetical scenario that Putin offered a peace deal tomorrow, and a significant bulk of the people living in active conflict areas right now wanted to accept it, would you argue that their voices matter? Or would you put the sole determinant of their lives in the hands of the military leaders alone?



So now you are the voice of the Ukrainian people? :russ:


Never said that, I said I was speaking up for the victims of war. Most people here just want to see Putin get his shyt pushed in and don't particularly care what happens to everyone else in the process.



Were we predicting he was going to continue his push into Ukraine after Crimea?


He already WAS pushing into Ukraine when he went into Crimea lol. The conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk was basically simultaneous with the annexation of Crimea. No one had the slightest illusions that he was "stopping with Crimea", Wagner Group was operating in both of them within days.
 

Orbital-Fetus

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By "Ukraine", what you actually mean is "the military leaders of Ukraine". As for Russia and as in nearly all militaristic approaches, they make unilateral decisions for everyone else. Neither the Ukrainian military nor the Russian military gives a shyt what the people of Crimea or eastern Ukraine feel about the approach taken.

In the hypothetical scenario that Putin offered a peace deal tomorrow, and a significant bulk of the people living in active conflict areas right now wanted to accept it, would you argue that their voices matter? Or would you put the sole determinant of their lives in the hands of the military leaders alone?





What was that you were saying about what the people want?


Never said that, I said I was speaking up for the victims of war. Most people here just want to see Putin get his shyt pushed in and don't particularly care what happens to everyone else in the process.

Where are you getting this lack of empathy towards civilians from and why are you projecting it on us? :why:

Nobody in here wants to see anyone get hurt or die, It's just that you seem to like to pretend that you have a monopoly on empathy and everyone else is cold and malicious. You need to retune your anteni because your signals are coming in scrambled.
 

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What was that you were saying about what the people want?


I see you purposely avoided the question I asked and posted links talking about a different group of people than I spoke of. I assume you know you were doing it too, which says a lot.

I'll ask again - if Putin offered a peace deal tomorrow, do you think the people who are in active conflict regions should get the say of whether that deal is accepted or not?

Let's say I was a Ukrainian, and I was posting the exact same things I'm posting now, which your own polls say that a substantial # of Ukrainians believe especially in the east and south. Would you tell me to STFU because other Ukrainians were still mad and wanted to kick Putin's teeth in, and that whether or not my wife and children might be the ones to suffer for it was irrelevant.




Where are you getting this lack of empathy towards civilians from and why are you projecting it on us?


lol - are we reading the same thread? Every mention of crimes against civilians is immediately deployed as a reason to go harder against Russia, and anyone who expresses concern about their lives independently of that is attacked. Any end to the war that would mean an immediate end to civilian casualties is mocked as not being hard enough on Putin. It's obvious that for most posters here, the negative parts of war are simply an arguing tool for getting the ends that they want. The means justify the ends and all that, like the other poster just said.
 
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Orbital-Fetus

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I'll ask again - if Putin offered a peace deal tomorrow, do you think the people who are in active conflict regions should get the say of whether that deal is accepted or not?

Sure. From what I've seen in formerly occupied regions the Ukrainian forces have been greeted as liberators and the civilian population wants them to keep going. If you can show me evidence to the contrary then please do so, otherwise you are asking me to consider the opinions of imaginary people in your head.

lol - are we reading the same thread? Every mention of crimes against civilians is immediately deployed as a reason to go harder against Russia, and anyone who expresses concern about their lives independently of that is attacked.

You get shyt on because you are attempting to twist empathy for civilians into complying with Putin. fukk yeah go harder on Putin.

Any end to the war that would mean an immediate end to civilian casualties is mocked as not being hard enough on Putin.

Clown talk. Occupiers can and do continue to reign terror after conflicts are resolved. Nobody wants to be occupied for the sake of "peace".

It's obvious that for most posters here, the negative parts of war are simply an arguing tool for getting the ends that they want. The means justify the ends and all that, like the other poster just said.

You are proposing appeasement (means) in exchange for peace (ends).

I think this is stupid because I history here and there.

I think that Ukraine should fukk Russia up (means) to kick them out (ends).

I think that's awesome.
 

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Sure. From what I've seen in formerly occupied regions the Ukrainian forces have been greeted as liberators and the civilian population wants them to keep going.
If you can show me evidence to the contrary then please do so, otherwise you are asking me to consider the opinions of imaginary people in your head.

Your own link (which was a single poll over two months old) suggested that only half of the East and South wanted Ukraine to keep going until they had retaken the entire region. Those #'s were higher among men and lower among women. And that's a hypothetical poll about a unrealized option - when war and suffering has continued for months and you actually have the opportunity to end the war right in front of you the considerations become a lot different. So obviously a substantial portion of those populations, likely the majority, would consider a peace deal acceptable.




You get shyt on because you are attempting to twist empathy for civilians into complying with Putin.

Notice that you constantly have to drop bullshyt claims like this in order to try to warp the conversation.

You've known me on here for five years. There is zero chance you actually believe this is what I'm doing. But you don't mind slandering someone in order to get your way in an argument.




Occupiers can and do continue to reign terror after conflicts are resolved. Nobody wants to be occupied for the sake of "peace".

They "can", but the overwhelming trend of world history is that the likelihood and intensity of atrocities (both during and after the conflict) increases the longer that war goes on. You claimed that you do history, right?

And the vast majority of world governments were originally an occupier of at least part of their territory, including your own. If the war ended tomorrow with Ukraine in control of all of Donbas and Crimea, many of those residents would view Ukraine as the occupier. Long before any of this happened there were plenty of reports of atrocities committed by Ukraine within that region. Personally, I would prefer Ukrainian occupation to Russian occupation because of how I feel about Putin and the invasion, and I'm guessing most Ukrainians (outside of Crimea) would agree. But to suggest that there's only a single way forward is ahistorical.



You are proposing appeasement (means) in exchange for peace (ends).

Once again using emotional catch phrases to argue. If you go all the way back to my very first posts in the thread after the invasion started, I have NEVER been in favor of appeasing Putin. That's not even a word real people use in discussion outside of the hope of exploiting Godwin's Law in a debate. Your society has conditioned you to believe that aggressive war is literally the only way to combat war-mongerers. Why not arm Palestine, Chiapas, Tibet, and Kashmir while we're at it? How about arming the Hmong again, since that worked out so well the first time (arming the Afghans to kick out Russia worked out for them even better by your standards, amiright?), and the Rohingya and the Catalonians too. Is wanting anything other than war in Kurdistan and Somalia mere "appeasement" as well?

In terms of means and ends, I think nonviolence should be the means and the ends. I'm very consistent on that. And I think the means (nonviolent resistance) can continue to be employed after any diplomatic negotiations if the population desires to keep pushing. I really don't expect you to consider that argument seriously at all or do the least bit of research towards its validity, with your pro-violence cultural conditioning and all.



I think that's awesome.

Of course you do.
 

Mister Terrific

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Your own link (which was a single poll over two months old) suggested that only half of the East and South wanted Ukraine to keep going until they had retaken the entire region. Those #'s were higher among men and lower among women. And that's a hypothetical poll about a unrealized option - when war and suffering has continued for months and you actually have the opportunity to end the war right in front of you the considerations become a lot different. So obviously a substantial portion of those populations, likely the majority, would consider a peace deal acceptable.






Notice that you constantly have to drop bullshyt claims like this in order to try to warp the conversation.

You've known me on here for five years. There is zero chance you actually believe this is what I'm doing. But you don't mind slandering someone in order to get your way in an argument.






They "can", but the overwhelming trend of world history is that the likelihood and intensity of atrocities (both during and after the conflict) increases the longer that war goes on. You claimed that you do history, right?

And the vast majority of world governments were originally an occupier of at least part of their territory, including your own. If the war ended tomorrow with Ukraine in control of all of Donbas and Crimea, many of those residents would view Ukraine as the occupier. Long before any of this happened there were plenty of reports of atrocities committed by Ukraine within that region. Personally, I would prefer Ukrainian occupation to Russian occupation because of how I feel about Putin and the invasion, and I'm guessing most Ukrainians (outside of Crimea) would agree. But to suggest that there's only a single way forward is ahistorical.





Once again using emotional catch phrases to argue. If you go all the way back to my very first posts in the thread after the invasion started, I have NEVER been in favor of appeasing Putin. That's not even a word real people use in discussion outside of the hope of exploiting Godwin's Law in a debate. Your society has conditioned you to believe that aggressive war is literally the only way to combat war-mongerers. Why not arm Palestine, Chiapas, Tibet, and Kashmir while we're at it? How about arming the Hmong again, since that worked out so well the first time (arming the Afghans to kick out Russia worked out for them even better by your standards, amiright?), and the Rohingya and the Catalonians too. Is wanting anything other than war in Kurdistan and Somalia mere "appeasement" as well?

In terms of means and ends, I think nonviolence should be the means and the ends. I'm very consistent on that. And I think the means (nonviolent resistance) can continue to be employed after any diplomatic negotiations if the population desires to keep pushing. I really don't expect you to consider that argument seriously at all or do the least bit of research towards its validity, with your pro-violence cultural conditioning and all.





Of course you do.
What conflict historically can you name where a foreign power invaded another country and the attacked country after achieving superiority on the battlefield allowed the reeling aggressor country to keep occupied territory?


Also, the vast majority of conflicts throughout history where there is an uneasy armistice usually erupts into a greater conflict later down the line, WW1 being the greatest example. You are essentially just kicking the can down the road for another generation to deal with.


Regardless governments are typically granted special war powers during wartime to prosecute war to the best of a countries capabilities without distraction. I don’t know how direct democracy during wartime would even work.


Also how exactly would non-violence discourage the Putin regime?
 
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Orbital-Fetus

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If the war ended tomorrow with Ukraine in control of all of Donbas and Crimea, many of those residents would view Ukraine as the occupier.

:duck: Where are you pulling this opinion from?

Why not arm Palestine, Chiapas, Tibet, and Kashmir while we're at it?
Dunno about the Chiapas but yes to the rest especially Palestine.
sweedish chef birdman small


In terms of means and ends, I think nonviolence should be the means and the ends.

Bordering on being pollyannaish.

You are essentially just kicking the can down the road for another generation to deal with.

Exactly. Now is the time to nip this shyt in the bud.

Also how exactly would non-violence discourage the Putin regime?

Ghandi your way out of a Russian invasion, brehs... :rolleyes:

"did they vote on it" bruh come on lol

Can't even take him seriously at this point.
 

Orbital-Fetus

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Notice that you constantly have to drop bullshyt claims like this in order to try to warp the conversation.

You've known me on here for five years. There is zero chance you actually believe this is what I'm doing. But you don't mind slandering someone in order to get your way in an argument.

Kind sir, I'll have you know that we are in a NO BS subforum and I take that very seriously. And you speak of slander? So far as knowing you on here for five years...honestly, I don't recall interacting with you until this thread. I could be wrong but :yeshrug: and I can't divine your intent, only critique your positions and how you present them. I don't agree with your opinion so I respectfully shyt on it. If you consider that slanderous then perhaps thou art a bit too soft to be fukking around in these waters. All I'm trying to do is drop gems on your mellon. Why make it difficult? :why:

 

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What conflict historically can you name where a foreign power invaded another country and the attacked country after achieving superiority on the battlefield allowed the reeling aggressor country to keep occupied territory?

The Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan in 2000 is one obvious and recent one. Pakistan invaded the Indian-controlled region of Kashmir, Indian forces initially lost ground but then achieved battlefield dominance and beat them back to the previous line of control, but didn't keep going forward to liberate Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Pakistan continues to occupy that land until today and there is occasional bloodshed but far, far less than there would have been if war had continued.

But honestly it's not common because most leaders don't consider casualties to be a major factor in wartime, especially civilian casualties, unless they're losing. They operate on a power-based understanding, so if they have superiority they push that edge as far as they can regardless of other consequences. So one major factor that could potentially cause it to happen more often is never even considered.




Also, the vast majority of conflicts throughout history where there is an uneasy armistice usually erupts into a greater conflict later down the line, WW1 being the greatest example. You are essentially just kicking the can down the road for another generation to deal with.

lol, damn near EVERY conflict ends in an uneasy armistice. That's why wars beget wars. Your WW1 example is horrible because Germany WAS beaten back to their own territory and in fact was viewed as being very seriously punished for their role in the conflict, just like you want Russia to be. And yet it STILL erupted again later.

You can name literally dozens of countries in the last century alone who "fully expelled" the invading force and still faced horrific violence in the following years. Past experience shows that war is a ridiculously poor path to take if you don't want violence to continue down the road.

What are you even trying to argue here, that Russia needs to be responded to even more aggressively than WW1 Germany? Exactly how what are you plotting there?




Regardless governments are typically granted special war powers during wartime to prosecute war to the best of a countries capabilities without distraction. I don’t know how direct democracy during wartime would even work.

I'm not arguing for direct democracy, I was just responding to Orbital's bs assertion that the people of Ukraine get to decide what the Ukrainian military does. I think a country should be particularly considerate of the lives of its citizens, especially minorities, whether or not the majority cares.



Also how exactly would non-violence discourage the Putin regime?

Same way it discouraged Marcos, de Klerk, Churchill, and Taylor, for example. Even the USSR disintegrated in large part due to nonviolent resistance. There are numerous instances in history where tyrants have been unable to control populations who didn't want to be controlled, even if they expressed their lack of submission nonviolently, and where the tyrant's forces proved unwilling to fight against a populace that wasn't fighting back. Of course there are some casualties, as there are for every tyrant, but generally far, far fewer than if they had fought violently. For example, India suffered 7,000 lives lost during their nonviolent fight for independence against racist imperialists, but the Malagasy uprising at the same time cost 40,000 lives in a far smaller country. At least 21,000 people lost their lives during decades of political violence during South African apartheid (which was mostly, though not entirely, nonviolent), but that's about 1% of the 2,000,000 lives lost during the Indochinese wars against the French/Americans at the same time. Kwame Nkrumah was nonviolently leading his people to freedom in Ghana with hardly any bloodshed at the exact same time that the Mau Mau rebellion was costing tens of thousands of Kenyan lives without the freedom.


Look, I understand that the things I'm saying are too uncomfortable for most of the people here to read. You've spent your entire life being conditioned by the ruling world governments to accept war and violence as the ultimate solutions. The cartoons you watched, the history you were taught in school, the blockbusters that were put out, the message the news media promote, the positions of the governments in power, they ALL push the violence narrative as the solution. That doesn't mean it's objectively true, any more than racist or imperialist ideologies were objectively true in the 1800s. But it's the only message in play for most people.

Objective reality suggests not only that there are other ways, but that on average those other ways are more effective by every measure:




 

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So far as knowing you on here for five years...honestly, I don't recall interacting with you until this thread. I could be wrong but :yeshrug:


This was the exchange I was thinking of that made me say 5 years:




@Rhakim is kinda just popping up on my radar within the past 6 months or so do to seeing his posts in the russia thread.
no disrespect intended, it's just that i'm relatively new the HL.
i only started seriously posting here because of trump getting into politics.

that being said, from what i have read he is a solid poster and worth paying attention to.
i look forward to seeing what he has to say in the future.

@Rhakim

congrats, i look forward to reading more or your posts in the future and need to read your history threads....gotta catch up on your older ones and i suggest everyone does as well.
 
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