AP fires reporter behind retracted ‘Russian missiles’ story
thedailybeast.comSeems wild how it seems lately there's no room for gray, only black and white.
I got torn apart for saying the "ghost of Kyiv" wasn't real, followed by the "most level headed take" of a reply that went something like "hey, even if its fake, people need something to believe in right now so saying this stuff only helps Russia."
I am of course 100% against what Russia is doing. I just feel like we should all be very aware of what is real and what is fake. Otherwise we can't make good judgments.
I saw people calling for WWIII because of the missile incident. Just blows my mind. I truly think that some people feel so insulated from the effects they view it as some "event" that just takes place in a distant land where if you cheer loud enough and show enough support the "good guys will win" after a few months. The world doesn't need more destabilization. Of course, Russia can't keep killing people either... but at the end of the day, this isn't and shouldn't be solved by online commentators.
I really wish Putin would throw in the towel at this point... its barbaric, depressing and embarrassing.
It's not really about missing black and white. I'm inclined to say it's the opposite. Too many people have gotten used to bending or ignoring the truth in favor of their ideology (whoever you're thinking of: not just them). In their minds this seems to be a matter of defending some "higher truth", or rather keeping people from pesky details that might prevent them from coming to the "right" conclusion, but they forget reality is made of pesky details. Any ideology that drifts from reality is doomed to not only fail, but probably cause a lot of suffering on the way. Truth matters, all of it.
Anyway, in a war these pesky details usually blur the nice black/white, us/them narrative that gets people motivated to fight. I mostly agree with your post, just wanted to say my piece on that.
What I find interesting is among a few sites where you see amateurs talking about combat footage and news of that war, everyone is well aware how little they know.
It’s everyone else who seems to draw grand conclusions.
It's amazing how quickly fake news is able to spread through "credible" news sources, all without even the slightest bit of real verification. I don't know if its scary or comforting to consider that if the political establishment wanted WW3, they could have it had it right there. The same intelligence agencies that convinced the world Iraq had WMD could have simply agreed with the story/Zelensky/et al, declare anybody debating it to be a "conspiracy theorist promoting Russian misinformation/propaganda", invoke article 5, and away we go.
Personally I think of incorrect news without someone trying to lie or distort the news as just a mistake.
As far as I know that was the case here, and bound to happen a great deal.
I think of fake news as something else.
Shitty reporting that supports your intelligence agency's agenda is pretty straight-forward fake news.
Have you read anything that the DoD says about this conflict? They very clearly do not want to get involved in this war first-hand. Nor would it make any sense for them to do so, the most selfish action here is to simply send weapons and let Ukraine do all the dirty work.
That is literally their only choice. Ukrainians and Russians are dying by the tens of thousands. American soldiers would be better trained and better equipped than both sides, but they would also be dying in large numbers. We lost nearly 5000 thousand soldiers in Iraq, with complete and unchallenged air superiority, to disorganized religious radicals running around with 1950s era rifles and low-grade improvised explosives. We're all just vulnerable sacks of flesh and bone in the end.
And Americans would tolerate this for approximately 0 seconds. Consider how we feel about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that died or were killed during our invasion of Iraq (high end figures putting it in the millions), contrasted against the 5000 Americans who died. It's an entirely different sort of care when speaking of people you have no connection to as opposed to your neighbor or even your own son dying. When its other people, the real cost isn't truly felt.
I agree. It is absolutely in the interest of the American government to have Ukrainians and Russians die, preferably through the use of American weapons. The fact that America and NATO have been supporting the war rather than pursuing peace seals the argument.
Any news story that keeps the good versus evil narrative going is desirable.
> It is absolutely in the interest of the American government to have Ukrainians and Russians die
It is in the US's interest for Russia to deplete their military capability, and for Ukraine to not become part of Russia.
> The fact that America and NATO have been supporting the war rather than pursuing peace seals the argument.
How does NATO "pursue peace" in a conflict they aren't a party to? What exactly do you think they should do? One side of this war has the unilateral power to end it, and it ain't NATO, the US, or Ukraine.
If the US stops sending endless weapons and money to Ukraine, the war ends. If Ukraine agrees to concede the predominately ethnic Russian areas that Russia has occupied, the war ends. If Russia surrenders said territories to Ukraine, the war ends.
But nobody wants to concede anything. So the war will continue, undoubtedly with plentiful more opportunities to find ourselves in WW3.
> But nobody wants to concede anything. So the war will continue, undoubtedly with plentiful more opportunities to find ourselves in WW3.
Giving in to the nuclear and other blackmail that Russia uses will never get lasting peace.
All it will do is get Russia to invade again in the future. You only need to see, Moldova, Georgia, Crimea, and Donbas to see this.
The only real peace for this war is a peace where Russia retreats entirely from Ukraine, militarily defeated and it becomes clear to Russia that any future invasion will be met with an even stronger force.
Otherwise the little green men will keep appearing and the Russians will keep invading countries.
Why should the Ukrainians want to concede?
Nobody has any reason to. Ukraine has made their biggest gains since the beginning of the war. Russia controls vast regions of land under no real threat, while Ukraine is facing a crippling energy crisis going into winter. And the US is weakening a geopolitical adversary and has been granted a defacto right to give the military industrial complex a blank check - something the political establishment has been longing for, for decades.
So I don't think anybody is anywhere near ready to concede. It's certainly going much worse for Russia than they expected, but being where we're at today is also far from what the US had in mind 9 months ago when this all started. It seems the most likely outcome for this war is a long, bloody, and expensive affair. The real issue is the specter of WW3 in the backdrop. There's an argument to be made that Zelensky sees that as a win condition (as per the topic of this thread), but fortunately it seems that neither the US nor Russia do. And they are the ones that get to decide if/when that happens.
What agenda? The state department and white house straight up denied this story when it ran!
I don’t see anyone getting anything out of that story…
Who would push that story and then just let the news come out that it was actually Ukrainian?
I also haven’t seen anything to indicate it was anything but just bad reporting.
Okay, but consider the fact that they didn't as evidence that NATO doesn't actually want to escalate this war. It's going pretty well for NATO, at relatively low cost (to NATO at least).
> The same intelligence agencies that convinced the world Iraq had WMD could have simply agreed with the story/Zelensky/et al, declare anybody debating it to be a "conspiracy theorist promoting Russian misinformation/propaganda", invoke article 5, and away we go.
But... they didn't. The people with the power put on their big boy pants and said "No, I don't think this is right", refused to engage with the outrage machine, and shared what intelligence they could to refute the story. And the new media retracted the piece within 24 hours and has now fired the author after an investigation.
Isn't that evidence that the system is working? Shouldn't you be celebrating it as a victory instead of complaining about things that didn't happen?
In wartime the cost for reporting false information can be catastrophic. And wartime is also when everybody has a very strong motivation to lie, and even some moral rationalizations for such. This news article put the US in a situation where the US had to say "our media is lying, our military ally is lying, our anonymous senior intelligence source is lying, and our enemy is telling the truth" or start WW3.
The one and only reason they did so is because the cost of this lie would have been too high. If the cost had simply been "Russia will be even more demonized" do you think, even for a second, that they would have "corrected the record"? And beyond this, also consider that the news sources running these stories had to realize the potentially massive implications of this. Yet they seemingly themselves did effectively 0 fact checking before running with it.
No, the system is most assuredly not working. The only system that is working is the desire to avoid Mutually Assured Destruction.
I'm always confused by arguments like that. The only way it works is if you assume bad faith (c.f. your six uses of the word "lie") on the part of everyone involved.
Isn't the much (!) simpler answer that the journalist had what he thought was a juicy scoop, the editors wanted to run it for clicks and eyeballs, and the system of checking and verification broke down. But that's just a mistake, and it happens everywhere in journalism. And it was corrected rapidly, by everyone involved.
You want this to be somehow morally different because of the "ZOMG WW3" situation, I guess? But I don't see how that works logically. People are going to make mistakes even in wartime, the question is if we trust folks in power to handle those mistakes correctly.
And, to repeat: people in power absolutely handled this responsibly. That's a good thing, not a bad thing, and I think we're much better off by rewarding that responsible use of power vs. screaming hyperbole.
> The same intelligence agencies that convinced the world Iraq had WMD
To be more accurate about something that matters, no intelligence agency in the US, the UK, AU, or other major intell nation claimed that Iraq had WMD's.
That was completely and utterly a senior US political position that demanded non existeant evidence to support a bizarro "known unknowns" claim .. backed by then UK politicians and tacitly agreed with by the then AU Prime Minister.
US Colin Powell did the worst dog and pony show at the UN talking up cartoons as "evidence" and agencies did what they do and made no public comment but . . .
Nobody with a clue and eyes on the ground from the Intell community thought WMDs were a thing, that one was all from the political sphere.
>>That was completely and utterly a senior US political position that demanded non existeant evidence to support a bizarro "known unknowns" claim
Asking people to "Prove a negative" is such a logical stupidity that is hard to understand how often people get into this.
Imagine you ordering something online on Amazon. And not getting it delivered. And then when you complain to Amazon about this, they asking you to provide a proof that it was not delivered and you don't have it.
How does somebody prove they don't have something? How do they get punished for not showing the absence of something they don't have?
This is a declassified section from the National Intelligence Estimate 2002, which was used as one of the primary justifications for the invasion:
-------------------------- Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction
https://irp.fas.org/congress/2003_cr/h072103.html --------------------------We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade. (See INR alternative view at the end of these Key Judgments.) We judge that we are seeing only a portion of Iraq's WMD efforts, owing to Baghdad's vigorous denial and deception efforts. Revelations after the Gulf war starkly demonstrate the extensive efforts undertaken by Iraq to deny information. We lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WJMD programs. Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons; in the view of most agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.Here is reporting from WaPo and NYTimes on what you're saying you saw as Colin's "dog and pony show."
Washington Post - "Irrefutable" : https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...
NYTimes - "Irrefutable and Undeniable" : https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-u...
In the midst of war, if you dared to call such thing a "dog and pony show" you'd be called a Saddam shill. War propaganda is a hell of drug, and we often only realize what's happening long after its over. And then we rewrite history in some sort of cognitive dissonance, failing to learn from the past.
As OP said, no one with a clue believed it. Hence the demonstrations. Big demonstrations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_Wa...
> According to the French academic Dominique Reynié, between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq war.
> In the United States, even though pro-war demonstrators have been quoted as referring to anti-war protests as a "vocal minority", Gallup Polls updated September 14, 2007 state, "Since the summer of 2005, opponents of the war have tended to outnumber supporters. A majority of Americans believe the war was a mistake."
Edit:
My bad, I should have clipped from the good-sized section down the page that list numerous pre-invasion protests. Lots of your fellow citizens knew the war was bogus, the excuses invented.
Outside the US I daresay most knew it was bullshit. Hans Blix’s opinion was widely published, “because his daddy didn’t win” was the memed reason, and the coalition that supported Bush’s prosecution of Osama was not all on board with expanding TWOT to Iraq.
Whether intentionally or not, you're giving results of polls years after the invasion. Wars look very different after the fact. In the midst of the war you're surrounded by endless lies, misrepresentations, and propaganda. And most people simply follow along. After all, who wants to be called a Saddam shill?
Wiki has a series of poll results on public opinion of Iraq during after the war. [1] In May 2003, 79% of Americans thought the war was justified, regardless of whether or not WMD existed. And by the time the war had kicked off 90% of Americans believed it "at least somewhat likely" that WMD would be found.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_S...
Well, that's Central North Americans for you - still reeling after the 9-11 attacks and looking hard for revenge, however unjustified, and thus easily manipulated by politicians and the press.
In the UK and AU, the two principal partners of the "coalition of the willing", few in the public felt the situation justified and the bulk of those with exposure to global policy, military intell, travel abroad etc. definitely felt it was a bogus war.
Tony Blair was all too aware the supporting intelligence was thin and inadequate at the time - which came out in followup Royal Commissions(?) (they had a big UK inquiry into the matter), and John Howard (AU) was happy to play along despite a lack of backing from ASIO et al on the intel as it was a treaty obligation for AU and not pushing back gave leverage for other US-AU deals.
Altogether it was much less a coalition of the willing than it was a tagging along of the bribed.
The story was retracted the next day. Sure some madman could launch a bike whenever they want, I don’t think this ap story has anything to do with that.
Getting fired for almost starting WW3 due to a fake story you wrote seems like a pretty light punishment. Maybe the AP will do a better job fact checking in the future before causing a war.
If nuclear powers decided to launch missiles based only on random newspaper articles we'd all be long dead.
Even if it had been a Russian missile it would not have caused a wider war. The Soviets shot down a whole airliner in 1983 and didn't cause one.
Maybe that’s why the Russians got away with the same thing again in 2014.
I doubt anyone at the Pentagon is launching missiles after reading an AP story.
Yet Bush gets a free pass for actually starting a war on false information.
subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack
They were fired by Ukraine towards Poland in defense?
They were anti-air missile(s) originating from an S-300 fired at Russian aerial threats (likely cruise missiles or Iranian drones).
Could have been chasing missiles, though this is improbable given all reports on the S300's have concluded 100% effectiveness. Another potential could be someone in Ukraine being overzealous and trying to trigger a false-flag to force NATO into the action. Ukraine's president has been making continuous efforts to pull NATO into their war and may be getting desperate especially given they are going into deep winter and both sides will have to make significant strategic changes. It would not be the first time a major war started from a false flag. Thankfully either way cooler heads prevailed this time.
dude. they are anti-air missiles, pretty easy to understand they were flying west chasing a target
I’m glad cooler heads prevailed. A lesson for the rest of us to wait for facts and stop being outraged by everything the press throws at us.
That being said, Russia still is shit; and we wouldn’t be in this situation if they weren’t attacking civilian infrastructure in an attempt to freeze Ukrainians to death.
Compare and contrast Russian invasion with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.5.htm
Both bad things deserving of condemnation.
Two-decade-stale whataboutism doesn't change anything about the morality of the war in Ukraine or what our response to it should be. There are plenty of bad guys in the world for you to hate. The question should be what are you going to do about it today? Today, it's clear where the bad guys are. Tomorrow it may be different.
>>Today, it's clear where the bad guys are. Tomorrow it may be different.
Actually bad guys have been the same. It is hard for people to understand or even stand the fact that their country and their countrymen could be evil. That is pretty much all there is to this. Everybody likes to believe the war they are fighting is for a just cause and will make the world a better place, and they think every other country doing the very same is evil.
We should all agree on the fact when we say "War for X reasons is evil" the real issue there is "War", not X which could be {religion, democracy, economic order, ...}
But honestly mostly people do if for things like resources, and influence and but like to sell as X. This is why everything you do is ok, but others doing it isn't. There are only finite resources, and this is a race condition.
What Russia is doing is the result of something else. That something else is the root cause of the war in Ukraine.
I agree with you. The root cause is the complete erosion of civil society in Russia, the failure of the state to create and maintain a democracy and the failure of the West to turn Russia into a North Korea early on, when everyone figured out that the gangsters are actually running the country.
Why should the West do anything on the opposite side of the globe? Why does the West only care about democracy in the countries with a lot of natural resources? Oh yea, that must be a pure coincidence.
So you don't believe in democracy? What exactly do you believe in, can't really tell because you are a coward hiding behind a façade slinging shit.
Yes, that would be the Russian neo-imperial ambitions becoming mainstream. I watched it happening gradually back when I lived in the country - fiction books about war "against Nazis" in Ukraine started showing up in mid-00s, and one first became a hit in 2008.
The americans, germans, french and every other country in the world are all “shit” by those standards - they have all done the same and would do the same again if their “national security objectives” required it. Ukraine would do the same to Russia if it could, the reason they aren’t is logistic, not moral.
In every war, the propagandists try to promote the view that this war is a “good” or “just” war - they are all wrong, just slightly different in their degree of “wrongness”.
This war seems pretty a straightforward as far as an unnecessary war of aggression goes.
And frankly it seems just as sad to see Russian soldiers throw into the fight to die by their own government.
So what's your point? Should we join hands and welcome Russia to help themselves in Ukraine?
This whataboutism around Ukraine is emblematic of the problem with misaligned postmodern thinking. The fact of the matter is that Russia has violently invaded Ukraine and they are trying to bend Ukraine against its will. It's wrong and the world _should_ come to their side. Likewise if the tables were turned.
Funny thing is that the tables WERE turned, by NATO.
How, exactly?
Jesus Christ.
Every US president since the end of the cold war has authorized eastward expansion of NATO, an alliance whose enemy no longer exists.
The current president was brokering arms deals with Ukraine. The previous president was delivering on those deals.
After the 2014 coup, a major Ukraine energy company, which was cozy with Putin, hired the Vice President’s son in order to cozy up with the new America-friendly regime.
The previous president was impeached for asking Ukraine to investigate corruption by the former Vice President.
Putin warned that arming or granting membership to Ukraine’s belligerent new government was a red line Russia could not tolerate. NATO did it anyway.
The players in the great game fucked around. Pretending nothing happened prior to 2022 is willful ignorance.
> NATO, an alliance whose enemy no longer exists.
The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in an effort prevent war in Europe.
...and here we are today with war in Europe.
NATO is more relevant now than it ever has been since it was first established, and I think their current list of applicants is a clear testament to that.
> Every US president since the end of the cold war has authorized eastward expansion of NATO, an alliance whose enemy no longer exists.
If those countries wish to join NATO why do they need to ask permission to Russia? This argument really doesn't make sense unless you take away sovereignty of states from the equation, some countries decided they wanted to join NATO, should they be blocked to join a defensive military alliance for what reasons?
> After the 2014 coup, a major Ukraine energy company, which was cozy with Putin, hired the Vice President’s son in order to cozy up with the new America-friendly regime.
> The previous president was impeached for asking Ukraine to investigate corruption by the former Vice President.
What? Trump was clearly asking for a quid pro quo from Ukraine and keeping aid hostage unless he got some dirt on a political opponent. I'm not American so I really can't grasp why you'd bend reality this way to fit your narrative...
> Putin warned that arming or granting membership to Ukraine’s belligerent new government was a red line Russia could not tolerate. NATO did it anyway.
Ukraine wanted to join NATO, again a defence alliance, with a democratically elected government that came after ousting their previous Russian-puppet president which was openly propped up by Russia/Putin. Putin tolerating it or not it's not his decision to make over the wants of a foreign government. If you support this kind of meddling then you should not have any qualms against other nation-states directly meddling into other countries policies and politics, right? Like you don't have anything against the USA constant meddling into others' affairs, am I correct?
Please, source where exactly was the new government of Ukraine belligerent, that's an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
I have far more contempt for the USA running proxy wars and meddling in border and ethnic disputes halfway across the world than I do for the principals involved in those border disputes.
When ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine decided they didn’t want to be a part of Ukraine anymore, Ukraine shelled them. There aren’t any good guys over there. But there didnt need to be a war, and NATO didnt need to instigate it.
> When ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine decided they didn’t want to be a part of Ukraine anymore, Ukraine shelled them.
Oversimplification. Ukrainian constitution says that all referenda needs to go through a vote by all people, not only the ones concerning a region. It was unlawful under Ukrainian law. On top of that there were all the little green men coming from Russia to "help" those ethnic Russians, also there are recordings of Barkashov openly stating how the votes for the referendum in Donbass should look like [1]:
> The recording was of a phone call that the security service said took place between a pro-Russian political operative named Aleksandr Barkashov, who was identified as being in Moscow, and Dmytro Boitsov, a leader of rebels in Donetsk.
> The authenticity of the recording could not be independently verified.
> In the conversation, riddled with expletives, Mr. Boitsov suggests canceling the referendum and Mr. Barkashov insists that it must go forward, but says that it is ridiculous to consider holding a real vote.
> “Are you going to walk around and collect papers?” he asks incredulously, his words punctuated by curses. “Are you insane?”
> Mr. Barkashov adds: “Let’s say that 89 percent voted for the Donetsk Republic and that’s it.”
On this point:
> But there didnt need to be a war, and NATO didnt need to instigate it.
You keep saying NATO instigated it, again, how exactly did NATO instigate it? Ukraine wasn't posed to join NATO in 2014, Ukraine had a peace agreement with Russia since the denuclearisation, a treaty that wasn't respected even after Ukraine stating it wasn't planning on joining NATO. A Russian puppet was deposed from Ukraine's leadership, the people seem to be pretty happy with his replacement since then, and are able to vote for whomever they want.
If Ukraine wanted to join NATO, how is that instigation by NATO? I seriously don't understand this repetition of Mearsheimer's realpolitik take on it, yeah, Russia doesn't like it but Russia's neighbours have pretty clear reasons and motives to want to join a defensive alliance to avoid exactly what happened to Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine. Russia's will to have lebensraum doesn't give then any validity or justification to invade a neighbour country, you are just catering to the whims of a Russian government that's been pretty clear about its objectives towards its neighbours, why do you keep trying to justify their actions?
Illegal referenda, annexation of territories (specifically productive ones with industries and natural resources) and so on are never going to be justified by the ghost of an ever-encroaching NATO. Russia just needed to stop being a fucking asshole to its neighbours, why can't they do that? Because it's an imperialist shell of a country trying to survive by sheer brute force over its vast expanse of land, something that would never be held together if the people had any say over their future, there's always an iron fist hammering down and subjugating all of its regions.
It's absurd and shameless to actually try to defend this, even worse by simply parroting Russia propaganda. You aren't smarter because you found and chose a contrarian position to be the hill you die on... Quite the opposite.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/world/europe/ukraine.html
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/ukraine-russia...
Similarly, Cuba, a sovereign nation, chose to ally itself with the Soviet Union, another sovereign nation. When the Soviet Union decided to put nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 103 miles from the US mainland, did the US support Cuba and the Soviet Union’s “sovereign rights”? No, they were willing to start a potentially nuclear war with the soviet union over the issue. Do you maybe see an analogy here? The key operating principle in international relations is NOT the sovereignty of nations, its that nations states will do whatever is necessary to maintain their power and protect themselves
The previous president was impeached for taking aid from ukraine lest they investigate invented allegations of corruption.
That putin warned of something is meaningless. Are we expected to roll over whenever a foreign country makes a threat? Most of these threats are empty; even when they aren't, some things they have no right to threaten us about. A country arming itself to protect from a (demonstrably) belligerent neighbour is one such thing. I'm surprised people eat this ridiculous excuse from putin so easily.
Yes. Biden also threatened to withhold arms from Ukraine to PREVENT them from investigating corruption.
And I suppose if the political establishment wants to fund a proxy war against a nuclear power, they would happily cross the red line.
Nope, false, you are literally spreading falsehoods and Russian propaganda, not sure if on purpose or just by sheer ignorance [1]:
> Joe Biden leveraged aid to remove top prosecutor as part anti-corruption efforts
> It's true that Joe Biden leveraged $1 billion in aid to persuade Ukraine to oust its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in March 2016. But it wasn't because Shokin was investigating Burisma. It was because Shokin wasn't pursuing corruption among the country's politicians.
[1] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/21/fact...
Best case scenario: I'm right. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/463307-solomon-these-on...
Worst case scenario: Biden did exactly what Trump did.
Who is John Solomon?
> John F. Solomon is an American journalist who was a contributor to Fox News until late 2020
> in recent years he has been accused of magnifying small scandals, creating fake controversy,[6][7][8] and advancing conspiracy theories.
> During the Donald Trump presidency, he advanced Trump-friendly stories including questioning reporting that women who had accused Trump of sexual harassment had also sought payments from partisan political donors[10] and questioning the legitimacy of criminal charges against Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Is that someone who you really want to listen to and agree with? If so, best of luck.
You are still spreading the words of people who peddle falsehoods, can't you really see that? Are you so ingrained in this point of view that you will die on that hill?
Butwhatabout!
When Ukraine hits Poland (even by mistake), people take step back and blame Russia, because Ukraine wouldn't have had to use an anti-missile system if there was no Russian missile in the first place. Fair enough.
Now, why don't people use the same analogy for Russia starting that war? Let's take a step back and ask a basic question - who escalated this all? Who benefits from this war? Who pours money there? Why is nobody asking these questions?
It really seems like you are part of Russian propaganda. In another comment you say that you pay taxes in the US.
> Now, why don't people use the same analogy for Russia starting that war? Let's take a step back and ask a basic question - who escalated this all? Who benefits from this war? Who pours money there? Why is nobody asking these questions?
You clearly want to make a point here, so why don’t you answer these questions yourself. Who, in your opinion, escalated the war? The way you formulate your questions, it seems like you are spreading conspiracy theories. So please enlighten us with your brilliant insights into a war that kills thousands of innocent people and kids, destroys so many lives, just because a dictator wants to boost his ego. Territorial war is unnecessary and useless. So prove that you are not a Russian troll, and explain what you want message you want to convey with your stupid questions.
> Now, why don't people use the same analogy for Russia starting that war?
Because a war of invasion and annexation is something we've learned since WW2 that won't ever be tolerated in Europe again, history has shown why.
> Let's take a step back and ask a basic question - who escalated this all?
Pretty easy: Putin and Russia. First 2008, then 2014 and a full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia chose to invade a neighbouring country in 2008 (Georgia, hope you remember it), Russia decided to escalate that and annex Crimea in 2014. Russia shadow-invaded Ukraine in 2014 (or have you forgotten all the military personnel wearing Russian gear that went "on vacation" to Donbass and Crimea?). Russia downed a civilian airplane in 2014.
Or isn't any of that escalation?
> Who benefits from this war?
Very good question, if the war ended in 3 days as it was Putin's fantasy who would have benefited from this war?
As it didn't end in 3 days, no one is really benefiting from this except the military industry in multiple countries, mostly in Europe, which didn't have to arm themselves for decades of relative peace.
> Who pours money there?
All the Western countries are pouring money in there, to fend off an invasion, to keep the sovereignty of a state, a thing that wasn't really required to be taken care of since the end of WW2.
> Why is nobody asking these questions?
Because they are fucking dumb questions posed by Russian propaganda, that's why.
Ok, smarty. Why was there a conflict in Georgia? What were the events that led to it?
> Russia decided to escalate that and annex Crimea in 2014
Putin CLEARLY said that he will annex Crimea if X. What is that X?
If you want to expand on your points, please be clear and expand on them. Asking me to answer rhetorical questions as some kind of bizarre argumentation mechanism is tiresome and clearly against the kind of discussions I expect to be fostered on Hacker News.
Either do your own work and expand your argumentation so myself and others can properly reply or stop with this bullshit, it's boring to have to interact with this.
Also, by the guidelines, use emphasis like this, ALL CAPS is frowned upon on this forum. Thank you very much.
I intentionally asked you these questions so that you could answer the main question by yourself.
Russia has always been reluctant to NATO–the expansion was one of the main topics post-USSR crash.
Munich, 2007-Putin gives a massive speech on NATO. In the speech Putin blames the US on the expansion and clearly states that NATO is not welcomed next to the borders of Russia. He asks the west an important question: "since the USSR no longer exists, who is the enemy? If there is no enemy, then the NATO should be either dissolved or repurposed." Early next year, despite his comments and concerns the US welcomes Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO. What's the reaction of Putin? The US does not want to partnership and belittles his concerns. That year Putin said: "Ok, if they want Ukraine, they won't get Crimea". That was 2008. The decision to annex Crimea was a _reaction_ to the NATO's expansion.
I can keep going and going, but at the end of the day the core problem is NATO. Later, the director of FBI said that welcoming Ukraine and Georgia to NATO was the biggest mistake the US has made within the past several decades. That comment was made before the war started.
This is a proxy war started by the US. I won't be surprised if Ukraine/FTX drama is real. There is a huge chance it's all real, because Biden kept telling us that there were no deals between his son and Ukraine. Eventually, emails between Biden's son and Ukrainian oligarchs were cryptographically verified (DKIM records) and confirmed to be real. So Biden was _clearly_ lying. So, I'm sure there are more lies and FTX could be one of them.
One important note to add.
In January 2022, Putin asked the US to confirm if the expansion continues, because otherwise he'll invade Ukraine. The response of the US: "Yes". That is why everyone knew about the war-Biden, Putin, Zelenskyy. Everyone except the citizens of Ukraine. According to Ukrainian government and their public announcement - they knew about the war, but had to make a tough decision to keep it all in secret.
> I can keep going and going, but at the end of the day the core problem is NATO
Ah yes the core problem is the defensive alliance, not the country that continually attempts to annex and invade post soviet states.
> This is a proxy war started by the US.
Ah yes I keep forgetting the US forced Russia to invade and then after that they even forced Russia to rape and torture Ukrainian children.
My only question for you is how can you support this war given the countless documented and even caught on video atrocities that the Russians commit?.
> defensive alliance
against whom?
> not the country that continually attempts to annex and invade post soviet states
when? post the NATO expansion?
> Ah yes I keep forgetting the US forced Russia to invade and then after that they even forced Russia to rape and torture Ukrainian children.
This is a play of words. I can say the same about my fellow Ukrainian soldiers - it's just not in prime time.
> My only question for you is how can you support this war given the countless documented and even caught on video atrocities that the Russians commit?.
I _do not_ support the war. That is a misleading assumption. What about the countless atrocities that the Ukrainians commit? Those are f*cking public as well.
> against whom?
The Russian Federation, the country that since its existence started in 1991 has invaded.
- Chechnya - Georgia - Moldova - Ukraine
And continues upto right now, to threaten every country under the sun with nuclear annihilation merely for _helping_ Ukraine.
> when? post the NATO expansion?
NATO keeps gaining members because Russia keeps invading countries, it's the exact reason Finland and Sweden are now joining.
This in no way justifies Russias brutal war.
> I _do not_ support the war. That is a misleading assumption. What about the countless atrocities that the Ukrainians commit? Those are f*cking public as well.
Then I suppose you want Russia to leave Ukraine then, and stay out of Ukraine?.