The IMF, Rubles and the Russian Economy

[Verbose]

Okay, take it up with Akka, who brought up NATO as if it is an equivalent to Russia. The point is the US and its allies (maybe not all of them) have absolutely done most of what Russia has done in Ukraine. The US has committed mass murders of civilians as a matter of deliberate policy as well, though that is more commonly done through open or covert puppets to maintain plausible deniability.

If anyone is interested in correcting their misconceptions on this there is plenty of material out there about what forces trained and sponsored by the US have gotten up to in Latin America in the last 50 years or so.

Saying "that isn't the US" is about as valid as something like "oh those are the Chechen militias, it's not Russia"

In Europe, the US involvement through NATO is currently working-as-designed.

Do you want to drop support for Ukraine on the basis that the US elsewhere in the world perverts its own ideals from time to time, and has a record for that?

You are going to have to keep the contradictory points in your head simultaneously – that within NATO in Europe the IS a guarantor for the high ideals it elsewhere in the world tends to piss on out of expediency and super-power-lazyness.

The ones among the major European power that tends to strike out on its own and do questionable stuff of its own accord – is France in particular. But then again, the French shenanigans are not those of the US, and the US ones the French consistently stay out of.

This is the US left's problem with the US – and because it is the US, it comes with these demands all the world – beginning with the Europeans – MUST see things the US way...

 

[Lexicus]

NATO didn’t invade Iraq

No, the US did. This only highlights that the argument "NATO hasn't done the things Russia has done" is a false equivalence, because NATO isn't a state. In this sense "NATO" is referring to its constituent states, of which the US is the most important.

Do you want to drop support for Ukraine on the basis that the US elsewhere in the world perverts its own ideals from time to time, and has a record for that?

No, because I'm not a black-and-white thinker.

 

[Verbose]

No, the US did. This only highlights that the argument "NATO hasn't done the things Russia has done" is a false equivalence, because NATO isn't a state. In this sense "NATO" is referring to its constituent states, of which the US is the most important.



No, because I'm not a black-and-white thinker.

Well, let's all hope Trump comes back and kills off NATO. The Russian long-term plans for the war kind of hinges on that.

 

[Hygro]

No, the US did. This only highlights that the argument "NATO hasn't done the things Russia has done" is a false equivalence, because NATO isn't a state. In this sense "NATO" is referring to its constituent states, of which the US is the most important.

It's false equivalence on many levels.

I understand the similarities, Russia's invasion of Ukraine indeed felt in many sickening ways like America's invasion of Iraq. But they are also incredibly different. I was vocally against the Iraq War, and I am against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Iraq War needed to end once it started, which meant us voting out the invading party and bringing the troops home. Can't do that with Russia, so instead, basically for free, we have to support Ukraine in defending itself with the weapons we built for this very reason, fighting against a Russian invasion of its neighbors.

Any American hypocrisy doesn't change the fact that defending Ukraine against a literal patriarch of a rightwing dictatorship whose aim is explicitly to return Russia to its "historical (imperial) borders" is a moral necessity. Why is America the "bad guy" often? Because we do, sometimes, the kind of thing Russia is doing right now. Except that Russia is doing it a) right now and b) on a much crazier scale. The USA killed a lot of civilians invading Iraq, but it is a policy of Russia to attack civilians for its own sake. These guys are comically cartoon villain levels the bad guys and must be stopped. And stopping them isn't stopping us from looking in the mirror, nor is it costing us the ability to address our own problems.

To defeat Russia is to defeat one of the big players in a 20+ year piece by piece rise of global fascism. They fund our fascists and give them moral leadership. This is the opportunity for any honest leftist to recognize a common enemy, stop them, and ride that victory forward.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, let's all hope Trump comes back and kills off NATO. The Russian long-term plans for the war kind of hinges on that.

It's false equivalence on many levels.

I understand the similarities, Russia's invasion of Ukraine indeed felt in many sickening ways like America's invasion of Iraq. But they are also incredibly different. I was vocally against the Iraq War, and I am against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Iraq War needed to end once it started, which meant us voting out the invading party and bringing the troops home. Can't do that with Russia, so instead, basically for free, we have to support Ukraine in defending itself with the weapons we built for this very reason, fighting against a Russian invasion of its neighbors.

Any American hypocrisy doesn't change the fact that defending Ukraine against a literal patriarch of a rightwing dictatorship whose aim is explicitly to return Russia to its "historical (imperial) borders" is a moral necessity. Why is America the "bad guy" often? Because we do, sometimes, the kind of thing Russia is doing right now. Except that Russia is doing it a) right now and b) on a much crazier scale. The USA killed a lot of civilians invading Iraq, but it is a policy of Russia to attack civilians for its own sake. These guys are comically cartoon villain levels the bad guys and must be stopped. And stopping them isn't stopping us from looking in the mirror, nor is it costing us the ability to address our own problems.

To defeat Russia is to defeat one of the big players in a 20+ year piece by piece rise of global fascism. They fund our fascists and give them moral leadership. This is the opportunity for any honest leftist to recognize a common enemy, stop them, and ride that victory forward.

Again, I'm in favor of Biden's policy toward Ukraine, in case that got lost here. I'm just not willing to be all "rah rah USA#1 about it" nor will I pretend the US has never done anything like the invasion of Ukraine.

 

[Joij21]

They fund our fascists

You have proof of that???

 

[Verbose]

Again, I'm in favor of Biden's policy toward Ukraine, in case that got lost here. I'm just not willing to be all "rah rah USA#1 about it" nor will I pretend the US has never done anything like the invasion of Ukraine.

Well, you are late to the party. The things you are raising here are the stuff those of us who were around had screaming matches with various Americans about 20 years ago, when the Iraq invasion went down...

 

[Lexicus]

Well, you are late to the party. The things you are raising here are the stuff those of us who were around had screaming matches with various Americans about 20 years ago, when the Iraq invasion went down...

It may shock you that I was against the Iraq War before I started posting actively on this website

 

[Hygro]

Again, I'm in favor of Biden's policy toward Ukraine, in case that got lost here. I'm just not willing to be all "rah rah USA#1 about it" nor will I pretend the US has never done anything like the invasion of Ukraine.

I know, we're not arguing.

 

[Verbose]

It may shock you that I was against the Iraq War before I started posting actively on this website

And you wave it in the face of people who were and are also against it since decades – bur now, over Ukraine... You are in favour of Ukraine, and against Putin. What are you playing at?

 

[Lexicus]

And you wave it in the face of people who were and are also against it since decades – bur now, over Ukraine... You are in favour of Ukraine, and against Putin. What are you playing at?

Just pushing back against false statements.

 

[Akka]

Okay, take it up with Akka, who brought up NATO as if it is an equivalent to Russia.

No you clown, I'm the one specifically pointing that some other clown made this false equivalency. Talk about missing the point.

And as repulsive as US (not NATO, in fact the US clashed quite a bit with some of their NATO allies about this very event) behaviour was with Iraq, Guantanamo and so on (and make no mistake, it IS repulsive), it's still in no way comparable to the scale of what Russia does, nor how its targeting of civilians (and I'm not speaking of civilian infrastructure and/or collateral civilian casualties, I'm speaking of DELIBERATE systematic targeting of civilians for terror's sake), nor how it's practicing low-key genocide.
You're just doing it again :

Maybe not malicious, but you do make a lot of comments about how people have supposedly double standard between how they treat what the pro-Russia side does compared to what the pro-Ukraine side does, which nearly always fall into the false equivalency domain.
Because even if people are biased (and they are), the fact is, what both sides do actually IS different.

 

[Lexicus]

I know, we're not arguing.

 

[Gorbles]

And as repulsive as US (not NATO, in fact the US clashed quite a bit with some of their NATO allies about this very event) behaviour was with Iraq, Guantanamo and so on (and make no mistake, it IS repulsive), it's still in no way comparable to the scale of what Russia does, nor how its targeting of civilians (and I'm not speaking of civilian infrastructure and/or collateral civilian casualties, I'm speaking of DELIBERATE systematic targeting of civilians for terror's sake), nor how it's practicing low-key genocide.

A lot of people subject to literal genocide at the hands of the US would disagree on that one buddy.

But continue calling people clowns, I'm sure it's good stress relief.

 

[REDY]

A lot of people subject to literal genocide at the hands of the US would disagree on that one buddy.

But continue calling people clowns, I'm sure it's good stress relief.

Afganis and Iraqi experienced literal genocide? What were they experiencing under Saddam and Taliban then? Megagenocide? You diminish the meaning of the word.
From wikipedia: "In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly."

Genocide - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Lexicus]

And as repulsive as US (not NATO, in fact the US clashed quite a bit with some of their NATO allies about this very event) behaviour was with Iraq, Guantanamo and so on (and make no mistake, it IS repulsive), it's still in no way comparable to the scale of what Russia does, nor how its targeting of civilians (and I'm not speaking of civilian infrastructure and/or collateral civilian casualties, I'm speaking of DELIBERATE systematic targeting of civilians for terror's sake), nor how it's practicing low-key genocide.
You're just doing it again :

To me this looks like a fig leaf of claiming the US behavior was "repulsive" but what actually do you think was repulsive about it? You're claiming they only killed civilians as collateral damage, something shown to be false by data leaked by Chelsea Manning, and again, Madeleine Albright said "the price is worth it" when told the sanctions had killed perhaps half a million Iraqi children.

Targeting civilian infrastructure that keeps civilians alive is little different than targeting civilians themselves, imo.

I do think there are meaningful differences here that make Russia's conduct worse, but I also think that the two situations are very much "comparable". And I honestly also think that your claims about what the US did in Iraq are based on simple ignorance of what actually went on there.

And if you want to talk about "low-key genocide" the US did that in Vietnam, and since then has armed and trained a number of state and nonstate actors which have done it since then, including but not limited to:

-the Turkish state
-the Indonesian state
-the Guatemalan state
-the Mexican state
-the El Slvadoran state
-the Contras
-(ironically) Saddam Hussein

Of course, what these things all have in common is that the victims weren't white Europeans, which I'm sure has nothing to do with how you'll inevitably dismiss them as false equivalencies.

 

[REDY]

To me this looks like a fig leaf of claiming the US behavior was "repulsive" but what actually do you think was repulsive about it? You're claiming they only killed civilians as collateral damage, something shown to be false by data leaked by Chelsea Manning, and again, Madeleine Albright said "the price is worth it" when told the sanctions had killed perhaps half a million Iraqi children.

Targeting civilian infrastructure that keeps civilians alive is little different than targeting civilians themselves, imo.

I do think there are meaningful differences here that make Russia's conduct worse, but I also think that the two situations are very much "comparable". And I honestly also think that your claims about what the US did in Iraq are based on simple ignorance of what actually went on there.

And if you want to talk about "low-key genocide" the US did that in Vietnam, and since then has armed and trained a number of state and nonstate actors which have done it since then, including but not limited to:

-the Turkish state
-the Indonesian state
-the Guatemalan state
-the Mexican state
-the El Slvadoran state
-the Contras
-(ironically) Saddam Hussein

Of course, what these things all have in common is that the victims weren't white Europeans, which I'm sure has nothing to do with how you'll inevitably dismiss them as false equivalencies.

US is a very minor economical partner for Iraq. Its very unlikely that it would be that different in Albright times. You make from UN sanctions US sanctions.
I would be interested in the source how sanctions made children die though.

 

[Gorbles]

Afganis and Iraqi experienced literal genocide?

At no point in my post did I mention Iraq.

All imperial powers are comparable to one another. History can't be measured in the last 20 or 30 years alone, it's far more complex than that. And I get, people don't like that. It's inconvenient. But US' historical imperial informs its modern-day imperialism, and while it doesn't do the same things on-paper as Russia (and I am repeatedly on-record as saying the Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal), it's still very factual to say the end results around the world are comparable. Even in the modern day (as per Lexi's post).

Like, I had a go at Crezth for daring to excuse the Chinese genocide of the Uyghurs. We can't have our cake and eat it and then say "the US hasn't done a genocide". Not only has it, it's also tried to do more.

 

[Bamspeedy]

US is very minor economical partner for Iraq. Its very unlikely that it would be that different in Albright times. You make from UN sanctions US sanctions.
I would be interested in the source how sanctions made children die though.

Sanctions in 1990 quite a bit different than sanctions today. Back then it was pretty much everything (all imports). Today, sanctions are more 'targetted'.

Sanctions against Iraq - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(article also goes into the estimates, and counter-claims against those estimates).

 

[Lexicus]

US is very minor economical partner for Iraq. Its very unlikely that it would be that different in Albright times. You make from UN sanctions US sanctions.

I think it is disingenuous to suggest that the US was not the prime mover behind those UN sanctions. It's also worth pointing out that successive UN officials administering the sanctions resigned in protest over their effects, with one referring to them as "genocidal."

I would be interested in the source how sanctions made children die though.

My understanding is primarily through malnutrition, lack of water-treatment supplies, and lack of essential medicines.

(article also goes into the estimates, and counter-claims against those estimates).

Indeed, there have been claims the figures were largely fabricated by the Iraqi government but while 500,000 may or may not be an accurate number (though I tend to think it is probably not far off), the point really is more that Albright replied that it was worth it instead of contesting the numbers. That was an uncommonly honest public statement of policy by a US official.