Ukraine ships 'hit by Russian fire' near Crimean Peninsula

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Ukraine ships 'hit by Russian fire' near Crimean Peninsula

Ukraine's president has convened an emergency military meeting after two of its ships were allegedly hit by fire from Russia near the Crimea.

Petro Poroshenko is to gather the country's top military brass after the two navy vessels were damaged and two crew members were injured on Sunday evening.

Ukraine said that the ships were then seized by Russia, as tensions around the annexed region continue to rise.

The incident came after Russia supposedly blocked passage through the Kerch Strait, a narrow body of water nestled between Crimea and the Russian mainland.

This followed what the Russian coast guard called an unauthorised crossing through "Russian territorial waters" by three Ukrainian ships.

The European Union called on both sides to "act with utmost restraint to de-escalate" the situation in the Black Sea.

It follows months of growing tensions between Ukraine and Russia, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has steadily worked to increase its zone of control around the peninsula.

The Kerch Strait is the only passage into the Sea of Azov beyond it. The strait is crossed by the recently completed Kerch Bridge, connecting Crimea to Russia.

Transit under the bridge has been blocked by a tanker ship and dozens of cargo ships awaiting passage are stuck.

[The Romulan Republic]

Putin will keep pushing further and further, because he has learned that he can do anything up to and including stealing a US election or using chemical weapons to murder civilians on the soil of a nuclear power and get away with it. He will go further and further until the world's choices are nuclear war or total capitulation.

And I'm honestly not sure how we get out of that situation, because he has nuclear weapons, and that makes him immune to any really permanent consequences for his actions. Sanctions will weaken him, but not remove him. The only solution I can ultimately see is for the Russian people to rise up against him from within, but that doesn't seem likely in the immediate future. I don't even think that his dropping dead would solve the problem, because I don't doubt that he has underlings who would continue in the same vein.

And before anyone jumps in with the Whataboutism defense yet again, I'm not saying that the Ukrainian government are innocent angels. They pretty obviously aren't. But we all know who holds the power in this situation, and it ain't the Ukraine. Putin does. And right now, I would regard him as the single most dangerous person on this planet. In some respects, a more dangerous enemy than Hitler, precisely because we can't deal with him the way we dealt with Hitler, not unless we want the whole world to burn.

[Vympel]

Putin will keep pushing further and further, because he has learned that he can do anything up to and including stealing a US election or using chemical weapons to murder civilians on the soil of a nuclear power and get away with it. He will go further and further until the world's choices are nuclear war or total capitulation.

And I'm honestly not sure how we get out of that situation, because he has nuclear weapons, and that makes him immune to any really permanent consequences for his actions. Sanctions will weaken him, but not remove him. The only solution I can ultimately see is for the Russian people to rise up against him from within, but that doesn't seem likely in the immediate future. I don't even think that his dropping dead would solve the problem, because I don't doubt that he has underlings who would continue in the same vein.

And before anyone jumps in with the Whataboutism defense yet again, I'm not saying that the Ukrainian government are innocent angels. They pretty obviously aren't. But we all know who holds the power in this situation, and it ain't the Ukraine. Putin does. And right now, I would regard him as the single most dangerous person on this planet. In some respects, a more dangerous enemy than Hitler, precisely because we can't deal with him the way we dealt with Hitler, not unless we want the whole world to burn.

Poroshenko's approval rating is sitting at the single digits and the election is only four months away. He's running an expressly nationalist campaign ("Army. Language [as in, the Ukrainian language, not the Russian language most of them actually speak]. Blood") to pander to all the Nazis and anti-semites the country is lousy with. And he just used this minor naval incident in the Azov Sea to ... declare martial law in all Ukraine. For two months.

I wonder if martial law has any election implications? That's a rhetorical question btw.

If there's anything that indicates that the ongoing Russiagate hysteria of the past two years has broken people's reasoning skills, its placing a border skirmish between Russia and Ukraine totally outside of its obvious political / regional context and catastrophisizing it into an expression of GLOBAL PUSH FOR PUTIN-HITLER DOMINATION. It's absurd and dangerous and anyone who thinks this needs to be kept farrrrrrr away from levers of power.

As to 'whataboutism' - I love how this bullshit useless word from right-wing Cold War propaganda has been resurrected. What's more likely to be a sinister propaganda technique, the Soviets pointing out that the US had Jim Crow laws and lynched blacks (i.e. a pretty obvious appeal to hypocrisy), or the US media calling this an evil communist trick?

As to 'who holds the power', if we employed this logic in relation to the Russo-Georgian War, then we would have to conclude that the Russians must've started it. Except that was Georgia. In reality, Ukraine has been seizing Russian civilian vessels in the area for months. Again, context matters.

[The Romulan Republic]

Putin will keep pushing further and further, because he has learned that he can do anything up to and including stealing a US election or using chemical weapons to murder civilians on the soil of a nuclear power and get away with it. He will go further and further until the world's choices are nuclear war or total capitulation.

And I'm honestly not sure how we get out of that situation, because he has nuclear weapons, and that makes him immune to any really permanent consequences for his actions. Sanctions will weaken him, but not remove him. The only solution I can ultimately see is for the Russian people to rise up against him from within, but that doesn't seem likely in the immediate future. I don't even think that his dropping dead would solve the problem, because I don't doubt that he has underlings who would continue in the same vein.

And before anyone jumps in with the Whataboutism defense yet again, I'm not saying that the Ukrainian government are innocent angels. They pretty obviously aren't. But we all know who holds the power in this situation, and it ain't the Ukraine. Putin does. And right now, I would regard him as the single most dangerous person on this planet. In some respects, a more dangerous enemy than Hitler, precisely because we can't deal with him the way we dealt with Hitler, not unless we want the whole world to burn.

Poroshenko's approval rating is sitting at the single digits and the election is only four months away. He's running an expressly nationalist campaign ("Army. Language [as in, the Ukrainian language, not the Russian language most of them actually speak]. Blood") to pander to all the Nazis the country is lousy with. And he just used this minor naval incident in the Azov Sea to ... declare martial law in all Ukraine. For two months.

I wonder if martial law has any election implications? That's a rhetorical question btw.

Well, it took all of one post for the Kremlin-apologist Whataboutism to start.

The Ukrainian government is full of scumbags. For that matter, Eastern Europe in general (and in fact pretty much the whole world) if festering with resurgent far Right nationalists these days. Hell, I might be on-board with an intervention in the Ukraine if the people doing the intervening weren't every bit as fascist.

But a disproportionate response from the Ukrainian government justifies Russian forces firing on their ships to begin with how, exactly? Are you suggesting that Poroshenko's response constitutes a retroactive casus belli for Russia? Or that it constitutes a defense for the larger pattern of Kremlin aggression? If so, then how, exactly? If you can show the causal connection between those two points, by all means, do so.

Also, I would not call any shooting incident involving the armed forces of a nuclear power in a highly-volatile region "minor", regardless of who was involved or who is at fault.

If there's anything that indicates that the ongoing Russiagate hysteria of the past two years has broken people's reasoning skills, its placing a border skirmish between Russia and Ukraine totally outside of its obvious political / regional context and catastrophisizing it into an expression of GLOBAL PUSH FOR PUTIN-HITLER DOMINATION. It's absurd and dangerous and anyone who thinks this needs to be kept farrrrrrr away from levers of power.

Yeah, its just my imagination that the Russian government under Putin deliberately sabotaged the elections of multiple nations, invaded one of its neighbours in a blatant land grab, has concentration camps for homosexuals, and used chemical weapons to murder civilians on the soil of a sovereign (and nuclear-armed) nation. Just "hysteria".

You do know that border skirmishes can escalate, right? And I am placing it in its larger context, which is that Russia will likely push the envelope on this like they do on everything else rather than de-escalating, because of course they will, because its worked well for them so far.

As to 'whataboutism' - I love how this bullshit useless word from right-wing Cold War propaganda has been resurrected. What's more likely to be a sinister propaganda technique, the Soviets pointing out that the US had Jim Crow laws and lynched blacks, or the US media calling this an evil communist trick?

So you refute the accusation of Whataboutism by... using Whataboutism, and falsely equating the current situation to one decades ago. What a surprise.

The issue with Whataboutism is not whether a given allegation against the US is true- some are and some aren't. Its that accusing the US (or a third party) of some completely unrelated act does not constitute a defense of one's actions, any more than saying "well, my neighbor is also a crook" constitutes a defense for murder. Unless your point is "everyone is evil, so evil is okay"... in which case, I've never been a fan of nihilism. But that's not actually the point, because intrinsic to the use of Whataboutism is an aspect of hypocrisy. The point is not to say "everyone is equally bad"- its to say "The US is evil because x, therefore if Russia does bad things too its okay."

But if you don't like the term, why don't we try another one- Ad hominem fallacy. Its pretty much the same damn thing. And its something that used to be frowned on on this board, as I recall.

[Vympel]

Well, it took all of one post for the Kremlin-apologist Whataboutism to start.

Hurr-de-hurr, "whataboutism" like its a useful word.

The Ukrainian government is full of scumbags. For that matter, Eastern Europe in general (and in fact pretty much the whole world) if festering with resurgent far Right nationalists these days. Hell, I might be on-board with an intervention in the Ukraine if the people doing the intervening weren't every bit as fascist.

LOL, 'every bit as fascist'. Really? I must've missed how the Russian security forces are infested with literal Nazis, but ok.

But a disproportionate response from the Ukrainian government justifies Russian forces firing on their ships to begin with how, exactly? Are you suggesting that Poroshenko's response constitutes a retroactive casus belli for Russia? Or that it constitutes a defense for the larger pattern of Kremlin aggression? If so, then how, exactly? If you can show the causal connection between those two points, by all means, do so.

Who gives a shit if the Russians were justified in firing on the Ukrainian's ships or not? That's not the issue - the issue is your ridiculous post attempting to place this minor border skirmish as part of your Unified Theory of Putin's Quest for World Conquest. It's brain worm shit mate.

Also, I would not call any shooting incident involving the armed forces of a nuclear power in a highly-volatile region "minor", regardless of who was involved or who is at fault.

Of course its minor. Its of no consequence to anyone outside of relations between Russia and Ukraine.

Yeah, its just my imagination that the Russian government under Putin deliberately sabotaged the elections of multiple nations

Yeah, it is actually. That you've bought into this ludicrous propaganda narrative where there exists not a single solitary shred of evidence that dank memes on Facebook or whatever other insane nonsense changed a single solitary vote is the very definition of 'your imagination'.

invaded one of its neighbours in a blatant land grab

You mean after the West aided, abetted and legitimised an unconstitutional anti-Russian coup against the legitimate, democratically elected government, right? Or did Russia cause that coup too? Who needs messy geopolitical context when you can just cast things as a cartoon?

has concentration camps for homosexuals

LOL what? Where? I can't wait to hear this. Oh, and when you explain, do tell me what it has to do with proving Russia is some aggressive world-dominating-ambition foe.

and used chemical weapons to murder civilians on the soil of a sovereign (and nuclear-armed) nation. Just "hysteria".

ROFL, oh because the UK is 'nuclear-armed' does that mean the UK is going to launch nukes in response to an alleged assassination? Seriously?

You do know that border skirmishes can escalate, right? And I am placing it in its larger context, which is that Russia will likely push the envelope on this like they do on everything else rather than de-escalating, because of course they will, because its worked well for them so far.

Uh huh, while Poroshenko declares martial law - which he never did during the actual war in the Donbas. Curious. But sure, 'whataboutism'. Just keep intoning that magic word.

So you refute the accusation of Whataboutism by... using Whataboutism, and falsely equating the current situation to one decades ago. What a surprise.

No, I'm pointing out 'whataboutism' isn't a real thing, you're just mindlessly repeating a propaganda catchphrase to obscure what is in fact a pretty obvious attempt to hold people to consistent standards of conduct (i.e. pointing out hypocrisy). In international relations, we say 'what about' to point out quite obvious things like "this country's stated reasons for doing a thing are obviously insincere" and other obviously valuable things.

[The Romulan Republic]

Kind of in a rush, so a fuller reply will have to wait, but... where have you ever consistently called out Russia for doing things (like imperialism and authoritarianism and bigotry) that you call out the US for?

Because I'm all for consistency. Contrary to your claims, I am no more anti-Russian because I criticize Putin than I am anti-America because I criticize Trump. I'm anti-fascist, regardless of what flag they march under.

So criticize the US, by all means (as long as those criticisms are factual and up-to-date). But don't use those criticisms to deflect criticisms of Russia. That's really the gist of my whole argument here.

[Zaune]

Either way, Vympel's post does raise a very important question: Why the hell should NATO (or at least the European parts) give a blatantly crypto-fascist regime like Poroshenko's administration the steam off its collective piss? Leaving aside the morality of it all, propping up petty tyrants and strongmen to use as pawns is invariably more trouble than it's worth; it's a constant battle keeping them on a leash at the best of times and getting rid of them when they outlive their usefulness is a colossal ball-ache.

[Vympel]

Kind of in a rush, so a fuller reply will have to wait, but... where have you ever consistently called out Russia for doing things (like imperialism and authoritarianism and bigotry) that you call out the US for?

This comment by Chomsky is applicable:

“My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.”

1. Australia is a treaty ally of the US and part of the 'West'; and
2. The West in general and the US in particular are responsible for the overwhelming majority of terror and violence on Earth. That's just an objective fact. Whether its the genocidal and racist imperialist campaign in Vietnam, its ruthless destruction of democratic left-wing regimes all over the planet (usually by right-wing military coups), its destruction of Iraq, its conversion of Libya into an open-air slave market, or the coup in Honduras, or its aiding and abetting and covering for the Saudi's ruthless campaign in Yemen (which, contrary to a whole bunch of preening going on right now, started under Obama and was continued by Trump) it is not even close in human cost to Russian perfidy.

So it is only natural for me to call out the US more. Everyone should.

That is what informs me bristling at the suggestion that it is somehow Russia which is the biggest threat to the world today. It is not. It was, is, and for the foreseeable future will be, the United States.

The only way that isn't true is if you define 'threat to the world' as 'threat to American preeminence' which no one should give more than two shits about, given the amount of blood spilled historically to maintain.

Because I'm all for consistency. Contrary to your claims, I am no more anti-Russian because I criticize Putin than I am anti-America because I criticize Trump. I'm anti-fascist, regardless of what flag they march under.

So criticize the US, by all means (as long as those criticisms are factual and up-to-date). But don't use those criticisms to deflect criticisms of Russia. That's really the gist of my whole argument here.

The point is that criticisms of other nations are directly relevant to placing the actions of whoever is being singled out for opprobrium in context. Not that I mentioned the US in my initial post, but rather Ukrainian (Poroshenko, anyway) motivations for stoking tensions.

[The Romulan Republic]

Kind of in a rush, so a fuller reply will have to wait, but... where have you ever consistently called out Russia for doing things (like imperialism and authoritarianism and bigotry) that you call out the US for?

This comment by Chomsky is applicable:

“My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.”

1. Australia is a treaty ally of the US and part of the 'West'; and

I'm genuinely uncertain what bearing Australia has on this discussion.

2. The West in general and the US in particular are responsible for the overwhelming majority of terror and violence on Earth. That's just an objective fact. Whether its the genocidal and racist imperialist campaign in Vietnam, its ruthless destruction of democratic left-wing regimes all over the planet (usually by right-wing military coups), its destruction of Iraq, its conversion of Libya into an open-air slave market, or the coup in Honduras, or its aiding and abetting and covering for the Saudi's ruthless campaign in Yemen (which, contrary to a whole bunch of preening going on right now, started under Obama and was continued by Trump) it is not even close in human cost to Russian perfidy.

So it is only natural for me to call out the US more. Everyone should.

Chomsky has a compelling point, but one could also make the argument that if you want to campaign for human rights, and against atrocities and despotism, then you have to be prepared to do so consistently, regardless of who the perpetrator is. One could even make the argument that in a globalized world, tied together by mass transit and communication, where many problems are inherently global in scope, that we all have both the ability and the obligation to concern ourselves with other countries' affairs (and no, that doesn't mean the right to interfere illegally in any country's elections- but it does arguably mean both the right and obligation to at least express a view on another nation's politics).

I would also question whether it is fair to count actions committed decades ago, under different administrations who's lead members are all retired or dead now, when evaluating which country is the most guilty or the most dangerous today. That's not to say that we should forget the past, or not try to address its ongoing consequences. But I'm not sure that it's fair to use the Vietnam war to judge the relative threat posed by America today- and if it is, I'm not sure why it's any less fair to use the Stalinist purges and famines when judging the relative guilt or threat of Russia.

That is what informs me bristling at the suggestion that it is somehow Russia which is the biggest threat to the world today. It is not. It was, is, and for the foreseeable future will be, the United States.

The only way that isn't true is if you define 'threat to the world' as 'threat to American preeminence' which no one should give more than two shits about, given the amount of blood spilled historically to maintain.

You know full-well (or you ought to, I've raised the point often enough on these forums) that I am an advocate of a global democratic socialist government formed through peaceable means, not an American empire. In a sense, my loyalty is to a state that does not exist, except as an ideal to strive towards.

But I regard Russia (or rather the Putin regime currently controlling Russia) as the preeminent threat today for three reasons:

1. Putin has shown a repeated willingness to violate even the most basic, and normally respected, of international norms. Even the US would hesitate to use chemical weapons to murder civilians on the soil of a rival nuclear power.

2. Until recently, I could sincerely say that for all its faults, the US was not seeking to overthrow the entire existing global order by any means and replace it with fascistic autocracies and oligarchies. I could genuinely say that the US government did not make a routine practice of murdering opposition journalists and dissidents. The US now appears to be moving rapidly in that same direction, and certainly you could make an argument that Donald Trump is the greatest threat to the world today- but that brings me to my third point.

3. Trump's Presidency is in no small part a product of Putin's propaganda, and the Russian military's cyber-campaign on his behalf. So any blood that is on the current US government's hands is at least partially on the Kremlin's as well.

The point is that criticisms of other nations are directly relevant to placing the actions of whoever is being singled out for opprobrium in context. Not that I mentioned the US in my initial post, but rather Ukrainian (Poroshenko, anyway) motivations for stoking tensions.

I still fail to see how an act committed by Poroshenko after Russian troops fired on Ukrainian ships provides a clear justification or defence for Russia firing on those ships in the first place. I'm not arguing that Poroshenko is a good man, or a good leader. But there are a lot of bad men in the world- would you advocate attacking all of them?

[mr friendly guy]

Ok TRR, I am not going to get into more than a few specific aspects about your argument,to give more information.

I would also question whether it is fair to count actions committed decades ago, under different administrations who's lead members are all retired or dead now, when evaluating which country is the most guilty or the most dangerous today. That's not to say that we should forget the past, or not try to address its ongoing consequences. But I'm not sure that it's fair to use the Vietnam war to judge the relative threat posed by America today- and if it is, I'm not sure why it's any less fair to use the Stalinist purges and famines when judging the relative guilt or threat of Russia.

I use kind of two criteria. One is if the current regime supports what was done in the past or b, if one country is fine with using events from long ago as a criteria. So if the US uses criteria from long ago as way to judge threats, then yeah I think its fair to use it against the Us. Does the US do this? Hell yeah with examples even before the Vietnam war.

With the first point, Putin has stated he admires the Soviet union, although I am not aware of the specific part. Keep in mind even in Soviet times, Krushev rejected several aspects of Stalinism including the gulags.

On the second point, you might ask, what examples do the US (or at least parts of it) use that's long ago to judge a nation's threat to the US. The most egregious is the Thucydides trap. Before you go who is Thucydides, he was an Athenian soldier who recorded the war between Athens and allies against Sparta and her allies during the 5th century BCE. The Thucydides trap basically boils down his view on what started the way. Basically Athens had power and prestige, and Sparta wanted it. So the Thucydides trap is basically a rule about what happens when a rising power meets the established hegemon. BTW its not 100% accurate. The rise of the United States without the then superpower Britain interfering proves it.

If the United States is democratic Athens, you could most probably guess which country they cast as Sparta. In case its not obvious, it starts with People's republic of and ends in China. To prevent a war, we have to kind to put China down while we still can. Limit her growth and attempt to get more of her people out of poverty. Some US academics are very open about this.

We see examples of this even in Obama era policies, like the attempt to create TPP (to isolate Chinese trade) and the pivot to Asia. You might try and retort that its just academia, but no, its gone into mainstream. Chinese leaders themselves have to come out and mention the Thucydides trap by name and state they don't believe China and the US will fall into the trap. The term Thucydides trap is mentioned into mainstream news sources, so its just isolated academia. Literally type in Thucydides trap, US, China into google and see how many Western news sources (and non western ones as well) talk about this.

The US (and extension some of its allies like my own country) also use more modern examples, such as the rivalry between the German Empire and the British prior to WWI (albeit a bit simplistic interpretation) to describe the US / China relationship. Again this occurred waaay before Vietnam. My point is, if the US and Western media can use an example from >2000 years ago to justify the threat of another country, then I don't see why Vympel can't use a much more recent example of <50 years ago to assess the threat value of the US.

And before you say, ah, but I don't agree using such examples from long ago. So what? The West is using it. Are its critics supposed to just not use their arguments against them, even though thats a well recognised rhetorical tactic?

2. Until recently, I could sincerely say that for all its faults, the US was not seeking to overthrow the entire existing global order by any means and replace it with fascistic autocracies and oligarchies. I could genuinely say that the US government did not make a routine practice of murdering opposition journalists and dissidents. The US now appears to be moving rapidly in that same direction, and certainly you could make an argument that Donald Trump is the greatest threat to the world today- but that brings me to my third point.

Until recently? Like seriously. The US has helped overthrow numerous governments and replace them with fascists long before Trump came along in defiance of the "existing global order" which last time I checked, as per UN rules is supposed to respect sovereignty.

Just of the top of my head
1. Overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran in 1950s and replaced Mossadagh with the Shah.

2. Helped overthrow the democratically elected Allende of Chile in 1973 and replaced with the mass murderer Pinochet

3. Helped overthrow the Indonesian Sukarno in the 1960s and replaced with Suharto, who totally had democratic elections. Oh wait he didn't. He also presided over the invasion and genocide of East Timor with US help. No literally, the United Nations’ Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor found that "US political and military support were fundamental to the Indonesian invasion and occupation” of East Timor from 1975-1999." Thanas and others here called the US ambassador at the time Richard Holbrooke a war criminal.

viewtopic.php?style=10&f=22&t=146503&p= ... l#p3446445

You know what is really nice about the Suharto example. In the 1990s during the Bill Clinton administration, a US official told the New York Times he was "our kind of guy."
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/31/worl ... s-out.html

Your version of reality belongs into some alternate universe. The US and Russia have been playing great power politics for a while now, just like every other great power in history.

[Spoonist]

As to 'who holds the power', if we employed this logic in relation to the Russo-Georgian War, then we would have to conclude that the Russians must've started it. Except that was Georgia.

Would you care to explain this veiwpoint?
Please note that I'm mostly curious, not that I'm looking for a smackdown or flamefest or rebuttals back and forth or anything like that.

It is just that we have a pretty decent paper trail when it comes to the Russo-Georgian conflict of Aug 2008, where both the Russian Federation peacekeepers (JPKF etc) and the 'west' (OSCE etc) both agree that the first to attack (via bomb) and the first to escalate from small scale to artillery was the South Ossetians.
So if both major sides of the conflict agree on who started it then to me it seems kinda strange for you to put forth a differing opinion and seems like something which could be interesting to hear.

Now, the difference in the reports between JPKF and OSCE at the time was whether or not the separatist actions were legitimate, and whether or not the Georgian response to those separatist actions was legitimate and whether or not the Russian Federation response to Georgia in turn was legitimate.

Unfortunately the english version of the JPKF report is gone from the public web so I can no longer find it but I'd guess that someone who knows russian could find it easily.
But this is the OSCE fact finding report:
https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/HUDO ... es_ENG.pdf

Since you made the extraordinary claim, I'm hoping for some extraordinary facts/evidence. So if you have the time then please let me know where you refute the OSCE timeline and on what grounds.
(Unless you didn't mean the Russo-Georgian war specifically but rather maybe were referring to the conflict's roots in the 90's and it's onging escalation/deascalation in the early 00's?)

Or thinking here a bit and using my prejudice of what I remember from your posts - so I could be totally off here, is it simply that your personal opinion is that separatists anywhere has a right to fight for independence from whichever state they happen to be in? Basques, Texans, Kurds, Ålanders, etc comes to mind or closer to you the Aceh or even the Murrawarri. That would also make some sense in making the state (Georgia in this case) the aggressor.

[Elfdart]

Is this the same Ukrainian government infested with OUN, Svoboda, Bandera groupies and other Nazi scum? Yes?

Well, fuck them.

If Putin seized their whole fleet, marched his troops into Kiev and threw every member of Svoboda in jail he'd deserve the goddamned Nobel Peace Prize. His employees could post semi-literate flamebait on Facebook and Twitter til the end of time and he'd still deserve a round of applause.

[The Romulan Republic]

Is this the same Ukrainian government infested with OUN, Svoboda, Bandera groupies and other Nazi scum? Yes?

Well, fuck them.

If Putin seized their whole fleet, marched his troops into Kiev and threw every member of Svoboda in jail he'd deserve the goddamned Nobel Peace Prize. His employees could post semi-literate flamebait on Facebook and Twitter til the end of time and he'd still deserve a round of applause.

You would applaud a weak fascist getting overthrown by a stronger fascist? Okay. But sure, hero-worship a man who puts gays in concentration camps, orders the murders of journalists, uses chemical weapons to assassinate civilians and backs neo-fascist leaders around the world because he beats up on one government you don't like.

The world would be a much better place if faux progressive collaborationist dupes like you could figure out that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

Edit: In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have replied to this. Suggesting that Putin should receive the Noble Peace Prize for waging an imperialist war is such a blatant attempt to troll me that I should not have taken the bait. My apologies.

[aerius]

Is this the same Ukrainian government infested with OUN, Svoboda, Bandera groupies and other Nazi scum? Yes?

Well, fuck them.

And let's not forget who helped put them in power.
We can thank to Victoria Nuland getting caught on tape for that one.

[Jub]

...puts gays in concentration camps, orders the murders of journalists, uses chemical weapons to assassinate civilians and backs neo-fascist leaders around the world because he beats up on one government you don't like.

Source for the gays in concentration camps thing? I know he's using gays as a means to appease the church but I don't think he's arresting all the gays in some kind of pogrom.

As for killing journalists, that's politics. Most nations quietly off people they don't like on a regular basis. It's only news when they mess up and you hear about it.

Same with the assassination of a fomer spy. Spies don't get to retire on a pension, especially not when they don't take extraordinary efforts to hide.

Even the tampering in elections and supporting Dicks is 'world power does world power things, news at 11'. All great powers and some middle powers do this.

The US elections meddling is the same. You think the US and China don't do it?

[The Romulan Republic]

...puts gays in concentration camps, orders the murders of journalists, uses chemical weapons to assassinate civilians and backs neo-fascist leaders around the world because he beats up on one government you don't like.

Source for the gays in concentration camps thing? I know he's using gays as a means to appease the church but I don't think he's arresting all the gays in some kind of pogrom.

Not Russia-wide, maybe, but its definitely been happening in Chechnya:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... et-justice for-gay-and-bisexual-men-murdered-in-chechnya

One year ago this week, news broke of a wave of terrifying, state-sponsored violence in Chechnya against men perceived to be gay or bisexual. In scenes that would not have been out of place in Nazi Germany, innocent men were rounded up and removed to illegal detention centres. Men like Maxim Lapunov, who spent 12 days in a blood-soaked cell just because he is gay, but who today is bravely speaking out for justice. Men like the pop singer Zelim Bakaev, who disappeared last August during the round-ups and has not been seen since.

Prisoners were held in appalling conditions: starved, humiliated, beaten and subjected to extreme torture. Some who were rounded up did not get out alive. The authorities also outed many of the men to their families, directly inciting relatives to carry out honour killings against their sons, brothers and fathers. Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, has both denied the existence of LGBT people in his country and said that gay people should move to Canada “to purify our blood”. But it is Vladimir Putin and the Russian government who have the final say on what happens in Chechnya. Russia has failed to conduct any meaningful investigations into the appalling abuses that took place. Nobody has been brought to justice. This is unacceptable.

On Saturday 7 April, All Out, its members and partners will come together at 2pm outside the Russian embassy in London and in cities around the world to honour our gay and bisexual brothers murdered in Chechnya. We will stand in solidarity with men like Maxim who survived the torture camps. We will make sure the world does not forget about what happened in Chechnya. We will tell the Russian government “we are watching you”. We won’t rest until we get justice for Maxim, for Zelim and for the dozens of other men who were tortured and murdered in Chechnya.

As for killing journalists, that's politics. Most nations quietly off people they don't like on a regular basis. It's only news when they mess up and you hear about it.

THIS. THIS is why I hate Putin so much. Because his propaganda, his constant use of "Both Sides" and Whataboutism, has contributed enormously to a world in which even non-fascists just accept the murder of journalists and opposition figures with a shrug, as normal. And then justify it with 'Well, we know that every country does it all the time, they just don't get caught". Which... if they don't get caught, how do we "know" it? This is pure conspiracy theorist thinking used to normalize fascism, its almost exactly the argument Trump used to defend Putin in that O'Riley interview during the election, and its just accepted.

It makes me physically ill. No, the murder of journalism is not just "politics". And when you say that, you are actively advocating authoritarianism.

Same with the assassination of a fomer spy. Spies don't get to retire on a pension, especially not when they don't take extraordinary efforts to hide.

The issue is not simply that a spy was targeted for attempted assassination. Its that he (and his daughter) were targeted in a manner which virtually guaranteed (and in fact did cause) additional civilian casualties, using a weapon which is generally considered taboo (or was, until Assad got away with using it on a much larger scale in Syria), in a manner that can only be understood as intended to terrorize Putin's opponents by showing that they and their families are not safe anywhere in the world, and that Putin can engage in the use of chemical weapons on the soil of a rival nuclear nation with impunity.

To characterize the British nerve agent attack as just the assassination of a spy is extraordinarily disingenuous. It is deliberately downplaying what happened to such an extent that it can only be called a lie, in order to excuse an act of chemical terrorism.

Even the tampering in elections and supporting Dicks is 'world power does world power things, news at 11'. All great powers and some middle powers do this.

The US elections meddling is the same. You think the US and China don't do it?

And here we go again. Whataboutism. Its the automatic, perfect defence. Any crime, no matter how appalling, can be excused with "Well, everybody does it". It doesn't even require evidence, because we all know that it its happening all the time.

This is what happens when you have a culture that makes cynicism the highest form of wisdom. People think that simply accepting that everything is equally bad and always will be is smart, and fair. Dictators fucking love that shit.

You know what would happen if I walked into a drug dealer's house, blew his head off, and then plead in court that I was innocent because "he was a criminal too"? I'd go to fucking jail, because that's not a fucking defence.

We have two choices here: We can call out all acts of tyranny, whatever country commits them, and actually fucking stand for something... or we can conclude that everything is equally bad and always will be, stop trying to make the world better for fear of being "hypocritical", and pat ourselves on the back for being smarter than the sheeple who actually believe in things like "justice" or "truth". And that would still be better and more honest than what the Kremlin's dip shit internet lemmings do, because they're not actually trying to treat anyone as equal. They're trying to say "The US/the West is evil, therefore Putin/Assad/etc. are the good guys when they do the same thing."

[The Romulan Republic]

Here's the link for the Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... n-chechnya

Edit: I will also add that, while I recognize that such a response would be unacceptable in practice due to the presence of nuclear weapons, theoretically Britain would have been entirely justified in declaring war on Russia and invoking NATO Article 5 after the nerve agent attack.

[aerius]

We have two choices here: We can call out all acts of tyranny, whatever country commits them, and actually fucking stand for something... or we can conclude that everything is equally bad and always will be, stop trying to make the world better for fear of being "hypocritical", and pat ourselves on the back for being smarter than the sheeple who actually believe in things like "justice" or "truth". And that would still be better and more honest than what the Kremlin's dip shit internet lemmings do, because they're not actually trying to treat anyone as equal. They're trying to say "The US/the West is evil, therefore Putin/Assad/etc. are the good guys when they do the same thing."

So where were you when the US helped put the fucking Nazis in power in the Ukraine? Or when the US decided that siding with and supporting "moderate ISIS" fighters in Syria and other parts of the Middle East was a good thing? Or when you were "bringing freedom" to the Middle East and turning every country you touched into a shithole?

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't wish to derail the topic further by shifting the subject from debating Russia and the Ukraine, to debating the entire history of American crimes, mistakes, or allegations. Nor am I going to let you shift the topic from debating arguments, to debating my character/integrity. If you truly care about these issues except as a tool for Whataboutism (and they are all certainly worth discussing), then I suggest (again) that we discuss them in their own thread. To that end:

https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic ... 1#p4068081

[Vympel]

Would you care to explain this veiwpoint?
Please note that I'm mostly curious, not that I'm looking for a smackdown or flamefest or rebuttals back and forth or anything like that.

It is just that we have a pretty decent paper trail when it comes to the Russo-Georgian conflict of Aug 2008, where both the Russian Federation peacekeepers (JPKF etc) and the 'west' (OSCE etc) both agree that the first to attack (via bomb) and the first to escalate from small scale to artillery was the South Ossetians.
So if both major sides of the conflict agree on who started it then to me it seems kinda strange for you to put forth a differing opinion and seems like something which could be interesting to hear.

Now, the difference in the reports between JPKF and OSCE at the time was whether or not the separatist actions were legitimate, and whether or not the Georgian response to those separatist actions was legitimate and whether or not the Russian Federation response to Georgia in turn was legitimate.

Unfortunately the english version of the JPKF report is gone from the public web so I can no longer find it but I'd guess that someone who knows russian could find it easily.
But this is the OSCE fact finding report:
https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/HUDO ... es_ENG.pdf

Since you made the extraordinary claim, I'm hoping for some extraordinary facts/evidence. So if you have the time then please let me know where you refute the OSCE timeline and on what grounds.

(Unless you didn't mean the Russo-Georgian war specifically but rather maybe were referring to the conflict's roots in the 90's and it's onging escalation/deascalation in the early 00's?)

There's nothing 'extraordinary' about what I'm saying in the slightest, and I'm referring specifically to the Russo-Georgian War. The idea that random skirmishing supposedly instigated by South Ossetia justifies a mass Georgian attempt to conquer all South Ossetia and in the process seal off the Roki tunnel (in obvious recognition that the Russians would act to defend it - which goes to their mens rea) and killing Russian peacekeepers in the process is utterly absurd, and this disproportionality was noted by the EU's investigation into the war. No one made them launch that ill-advised attempt at conquering South Ossetia, they chose to escalate matters into a full scale military asssault. But for doing so, the Russians would never have counter-attacked. Therefore, Georgia started the war. Simple.

Or thinking here a bit and using my prejudice of what I remember from your posts - so I could be totally off here, is it simply that your personal opinion is that separatists anywhere has a right to fight for independence from whichever state they happen to be in? Basques, Texans, Kurds, Ålanders, etc comes to mind or closer to you the Aceh or even the Murrawarri. That would also make some sense in making the state (Georgia in this case) the aggressor.

I don't see what seperatism has to do with the Russo-Georgian War? Georgia never had control of South Ossetia as an independent state. It's attempts to couch South Ossetia as some sort of rebel entity were always dubious, and it had signed agreements expressly foregoing any right to use force to integrate South Ossetia with itself anyway.

I'm genuinely uncertain what bearing Australia has on this discussion.

Well, because I'm Australian.

Chomsky has a compelling point, but one could also make the argument that if you want to campaign for human rights, and against atrocities and despotism, then you have to be prepared to do so consistently, regardless of who the perpetrator is. One could even make the argument that in a globalized world, tied together by mass transit and communication, where many problems are inherently global in scope, that we all have both the ability and the obligation to concern ourselves with other countries' affairs (and no, that doesn't mean the right to interfere illegally in any country's elections- but it does arguably mean both the right and obligation to at least express a view on another nation's politics).

The situation is complicated by the fact that imperialist powers modus operandi in the modern day is to couch their warmongering and attempts to dominate the planet as efforts to promote human rights. Besides, Chomsky is not saying you shouldn't condemn XYZ bad thing, only that you should focus your efforts on what is most pressing and what you can most effect.

I would also question whether it is fair to count actions committed decades ago, under different administrations who's lead members are all retired or dead now, when evaluating which country is the most guilty or the most dangerous today. That's not to say that we should forget the past, or not try to address its ongoing consequences. But I'm not sure that it's fair to use the Vietnam war to judge the relative threat posed by America today- and if it is, I'm not sure why it's any less fair to use the Stalinist purges and famines when judging the relative guilt or threat of Russia.

Except the difference there is the United States still exists and you can draw a straight line to how the US behaved with regard to Vietnam and how it behaves today (see Iraq, Libya, Yemen). There's been no ideological change - it is still profoundly hostile to regimes which do not consent to its dictates and willing to use any measure up to and including military force to compel compliance. Russia isn't the Stalinist Soviet Union and heck - even during the Soviet times they had a process of De-stalinisation. No similar reckoning with America's Cold War crimes has ever occurred.

Even today, America's public consciousness of Vientam is that it was an unfortunate whoopsie of which its soldiers were victims, that their hearts were in the right place, rather than the reality - the population of Vietnam would be justified in remembering US troops as being little better than stormtroopers of the Waffen SS (see for example the book "Kill Anything that Moves").

This is somewhat natural - everyone has a tendency to think that their country had good motivations and deserves a mulligan for things that were actually heinous crimes for which people should have been prosecuted for war crimes. Especially in this capitalist society in which we live where an entire propaganda machine exists to engeder these sorts of bleiefs.

You know full-well (or you ought to, I've raised the point often enough on these forums) that I am an advocate of a global democratic socialist government formed through peaceable means, not an American empire. In a sense, my loyalty is to a state that does not exist, except as an ideal to strive towards.

But I regard Russia (or rather the Putin regime currently controlling Russia) as the preeminent threat today for three reasons:

1. Putin has shown a repeated willingness to violate even the most basic, and normally respected, of international norms. Even the US would hesitate to use chemical weapons to murder civilians on the soil of a rival nuclear power.

2. Until recently, I could sincerely say that for all its faults, the US was not seeking to overthrow the entire existing global order by any means and replace it with fascistic autocracies and oligarchies. I could genuinely say that the US government did not make a routine practice of murdering opposition journalists and dissidents. The US now appears to be moving rapidly in that same direction, and certainly you could make an argument that Donald Trump is the greatest threat to the world today- but that brings me to my third point.

3. Trump's Presidency is in no small part a product of Putin's propaganda, and the Russian military's cyber-campaign on his behalf. So any blood that is on the current US government's hands is at least partially on the Kremlin's as well.

Well I've already made my feelings on each of those plain. Russia has no desire to overthrow the 'existing global order'. Russia's chief motivation is to maintain its status in its immediate sphere of interest and prevent the encroachment of foreign threats (particularly NATO, which it views as a hostile, expressly anti-Russian military alliance) close to its border. Heck, the very idea of an 'existing global order' - what does that even mean? There's barely any 'global order' to be had. None of Russia's crimes (real and imagined) bear some sort of existential threat to the world.

I share the desire for global democratic socialist government, btw.

I still fail to see how an act committed by Poroshenko after Russian troops fired on Ukrainian ships provides a clear justification or defence for Russia firing on those ships in the first place. I'm not arguing that Poroshenko is a good man, or a good leader. But there are a lot of bad men in the world- would you advocate attacking all of them?

The point is that we don't know what circumstances led to the Russians opening fire, particularly in circumstances where there may be motivation to create an incident. The Russians are alleging that one of the Ukrainian gunboats - the one that was fired upon - aimed its cannons at their patrol boat and opened its gunsight shutters. That might be a lie. It might be some crewmember fucked up and got nervous - on either side. We don't know.

[mr friendly guy]

THIS. THIS is why I hate Putin so much. Because his propaganda, his constant use of "Both Sides" and Whataboutism, has contributed enormously to a world in which even non-fascists just accept the murder of journalists and opposition figures with a shrug, as normal. And then justify it with 'Well, we know that every country does it all the time, they just don't get caught". Which... if they don't get caught, how do we "know" it? This is pure conspiracy theorist thinking used to normalize fascism, its almost exactly the argument Trump used to defend Putin in that O'Riley interview during the election, and its just accepted.

A few points. We know because the information came out years later and its less pressing. Also the information may have "caught them" metaphorically, but not legally. American war criminals are still alive and well after all.

For example, after East Timor got its independence we found lots of shady stuff the US helped Indonesia do there once we investigated. While morally repugnant its less urgent to intervene against a threat that has since gone. Information like the CIA's funding of terrorism, er I mean freedom fighting in China or their botched attempts to kill Fidel Castro are now freely available online now, but at that time was no doubt unknown to the general public.

Now a few sheenanigans do come out during the time where it was still going on, such as the Iran contra scandal for example.

So based on all this, does one need to be a cynic to suspect great power states do shady stuff? The US however has mastered propaganda to an artform, so that even now people try and cast their rivals in a much worse light, even though objectively they do less than the US. I would suggest its only recently that Russia has upped its game in the propaganda department.

[Elfdart]

Is this the same Ukrainian government infested with OUN, Svoboda, Bandera groupies and other Nazi scum? Yes?

Well, fuck them.

If Putin seized their whole fleet, marched his troops into Kiev and threw every member of Svoboda in jail he'd deserve the goddamned Nobel Peace Prize. His employees could post semi-literate flamebait on Facebook and Twitter til the end of time and he'd still deserve a round of applause.

You would applaud a weak fascist getting overthrown by a stronger fascist? Okay. But sure, hero-worship a man who puts gays in concentration camps, orders the murders of journalists, uses chemical weapons to assassinate civilians and backs neo-fascist leaders around the world because he beats up on one government you don't like.

I realize that you are historically illiterate and have the mind of a simple child to boot, but I really hate having to explain to you in dumbed-down fashion what should be obvious. Like anyone to the left of David Duke or Pat Buchanan, I am glad the Red Army obliterated the Third Reich and their allies. It doesn't mean I'm a groupie for Stalin, that I support the gulags, the purges, the hit job on Trotsky or the godawful dogshit that passed as Soviet "art". It means that I'm an adult capable of making adult decisions. Do I only eat out once a month and use the money I save to pay the gas bill? Or do I throw a fit on the grounds that it's just so unfair that I had to choose in the first place? This is the line in the sand between grownups and mewling brats. Putin is a typical Third World kleptocratic thug, only he's in charge of a bigger an more heavily armed country than say, Mugabe was in Zimbabwe. But his regime is not chock full of avowed Nazis who want another go at a Final Solution. There's one more key difference: No one in the US, UK or elsewhere is advocating that we should join forces with Putin, but the political class is fapping itself into a lather at the thought of backing Ukraine -a country run by Nazis- with military, financial and diplomatic support.

And in case you still haven't noticed, Nazis...

...are bad.

The world would be a much better place if faux progressive collaborationist dupes like you could figure out that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

You're dumb.

[The Romulan Republic]

Ah, so condescension, personal abuse, ad hominem, and general flaming/trolling to attack me personally in lieu of refuting my points. I've never seen that before.



No shit, Nazis are bad. That's been the underlying thesis of about half my posts on this forum for the last few years. And they've been massively emboldened and empowered in the US (and elsewhere) thanks to the election of far Right candidates Putin has backed. This is not a case of "Putin is bad, but you should support him because he's the lesser evil fighting the Nazis". It's a case of "Both the Urkainian government and Russian government appear to have strong fascist elements/sympathies, but the Russian fascists have far more power to exert their influence and expand fascism globally (see the 2016 election, for example)."

[Tiriol]

I don't really give a flying fuck about a bunch of folks far removed from Russian sphere of influence aka "we can do whatever we please, little countries can hang themselves or suck our cocks like in the good old days" complaining how Ukraine is at fault, how their administration is filled with fascists, Nazis etc. That all might be true and Ukraine is thoroughly corrupt country, but so is Russia, including fascism and disturbingly effective use of religion to re-inforce their pan-slavic ideals.

Even if Ukraine is filled with fascists, it doesn't give Russia a pass to carve up that country (or any country near their border). Complaining about how the West is at fault is nothing more than playing to Russian state's victim complex and letting them get away with interfering in other countries' affairs. I'd like the US to stop that, as well, and China etc., but you know what? Those bunch of fuckers don't sit right next to our border and pull hilarious pranks like electronically interfere with GPS signals or covertly threaten if anyone so much as thinks about NATO membership (gee whiz, why anyone would like to have some military backing with a neighbor like that, I wonder).

Besides, it's rather hilarious to see Americans go "wahwah, they are fascists, they get what they deserve!" after you have elected a demented Far Right enabler to the highest position in the land and allow his supporters to do whatever they please. If same standards would be applied to the US as is now applied to Ukraine, the US would be facing its neighbors carving it up just because Canada is butthurt that the glorious Canadian Empire is no more.