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arymandias

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arymandias , (edited )

They are just edging this bill till nobody pays attention. Democracy at work!

arymandias ,

These kinds of articles make sure that the sides of the canals where I used to live, will never be rust free.

arymandias ,

The only substantive aid it delivered, was aid Israel in the massacre of Palestinians. Team America at it again.

Israel says Hamas weaponised rape. Does the evidence add up? (www.thetimes.com)

The Israeli government insists that Hamas formally sanctioned sexual assault on October 7, 2023. But investigators say the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny. Catherine Philp and Gabrielle Weiniger report on eight months of claim and counter-claim...

arymandias ,

They should have asked Annalena Baerbock she has seen the videos.

Out of curiosity, if this is ever legally recognized as a genocide, is there anything human-rights law or international law says about people knowingly spreading lies in support of it?

Edit: And will she be just as vigilant about Israel systematically raping prisoners as a form of torture (something for which there actually exists multiple sources).

arymandias ,

I only read the article before, but Christ that video is shocking. He just intensionally twists the question three times, and then accuses the journalist of not doing his job for only citing two sources (the fucking Israeli government and the UN). Plus the moderator constantly interrupting the journalists while the government is just obviously lying. Staatsräson in action.

arymandias , (edited )

How does this argument work, the military spending of the Nazis was insane in the build up to the war, up to 40% in 1939, no such numbers in Russia. Even now it’s just estimated at 10% and they clearly need all of it just to fight the war in Ukraine. How are they ever gonna steamroll Nato with those numbers, there is no tangible proof that they are planning for this.

The Putin is Hitler mantra also doesn’t make any sense, he has been a moderate (all be it an authoritarian) politician for decades, and now he suddenly is the rebirth of Hitler. Just looking at his politics he’s clearly not a fascist.

We’ve been sold that Ukraine can win this war militarily, and the collective west can cripple the Russian economy with sanctions alone. Now that this turns out to be complete BS, they (a subset of western politicians) are looking for a way out, and clearly their preferred way is further escalations. So now they are selling us even more BS to justify this.

arymandias ,

If Russia succeeds in occupying Ukraine completely it will take an immense amount of resources to subdue the population, I don’t see why this will be any different than Iraq. Given the current resistance it might even be impossible for Russia to simply occupy Ukraine and extract its resources, this is also probably the reason why they have tried to sue for peace multiple times.

Putin is a moderate in Russian politics, and it is relevant because it means there are ways to negotiate with him.

arymandias ,

A leaked draft of the UNRWA report detailed an interview that gave a similar account. It cited a 41-year-old detainee whe said that interrogators “made me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire,” and also said that another detainee “died after they put the electric stick up” his anus.

So they are raping people to death…

arymandias , (edited )

If this is a honest question I will try to give some honest context, I do not represent a Hexbear, so these are just some views that I have that make me sceptical of the narrative that currently exists.

After the cold war there were calls to establish a common security structure including Russia to try to ensure peace in Europe. Instead the US (with pressure from past satellite states of Moscow, Poland, Czechia, etc) chose to maintain NATO and on top of that invite everybody except Russia, many foreign policy experts already warned that this was a recipe for war, but wether it was malice or incompetence they were ignored.

Fast forward to 2008 the US suggests inviting Ukraine (and Georgia) to NATO, and Russia makes extremely clear that this would not happen, that this was a red line for them. Now you can disagree with Russias right to say anything about the military alliances of its neighbours, but the fact that Russia is a military regional power with nukes is something you need to deal with. Again wether it was incompetence or malice is hard to say but the next 14 years are basically a chain of escalatory actions by the US combined with a series of stronger and stronger warnings from Russia that this would lead to war.

During the events themselves it is hard to judge as a civilian what exactly is happening in geopolitics, the US has a very clear trackrecord of treat inflation or simply lying about its true intentions or the truth on the ground. It could of course be that this is one of those rare cases where the US are truly the Good Guys™️ or it could be that this is a ploy to weaken a rival with the only price being the destruction of a country they don’t care about and the death of hundreds of thousands of military age males they don’t care about.

arymandias ,

This is such destructive rhetoric, everything you disagree with is Russian propaganda. Yes of course Russia is trying to influence western opinion with war propaganda, because that is what countries at war do. But the US has shown so clearly in the past that they can not be trusted to be the single source of truth, because spoiler alert: they are also a country (de facto) at war.

arymandias ,

John Mearsheimer among others, were do you get your views from?

arymandias ,

And about the NATO thing, what do you think would happen if Mexico and Canada tried to join a military alliance with China?

I’m not victim blaming, I’m blaming the US and Russia for playing cynical geopolitical games and destroying a country along the way.

arymandias ,

The US has done everything you (correctly) accuse Russia of in Iraq, Vietnam, and South America (either directly or via proxies). What does that make the US?

Imperialist states do imperialist things, the least we can do (coming from a European perspective) is to try to maintain peace by a combination of international law and pragmatic ad hock peace deals where international law is unattainable.

arymandias ,

I’m not asking what you want the US to do, I’m asking what do you think the US would do.

arymandias ,

This is not a whataboutism, I’m saying two imperial states are destroying a country as part of their power politics, as a counter argument to Russia are the bad guys and the US can be trusted.

arymandias ,

You are defending US foreign policy.

arymandias , (edited )

I’m not trying to represent all of Hexbear, my views differ from the norm (just as yours seems to differ from the lemmy.world norm).

Second, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m certain on everything. It just seems very clear to me that the current narrative is dangerous and risks leading to escalation beyond Ukraine and has already caused a lot of suffering, (I think in this I echo Mearsheimers views, see the recent interview on the Spectators Americano podcast). Wether it was intentional or accidental I purposely left open in my original comment because, like I said, it’s very hard to judge at this point. But given the US trackrecord it’s probably a healthy dosis of both overconfidence in their power as well as cynical intent.

To me it’s hard to imagine that after Russia put their army on the border and explicitly said, Ukraine stays neutral or war, that the US wasn’t aware of the consequences. Clearly Ukrainian lives were not on the forefront of their decision making process at that point. So then the question is what was.
But these are my personal opinions, and I’m happy to be convinced otherwise (but calling me a Russian bot is not very convincing I find).

arymandias , (edited )

You switch cause and effect, realism tries to describe the word as is and not as it should be and then bases policies on that. Of course basing your policies on realism changes the world, but US policy has mostly been based on liberalism for the last 30 years, and yet the world is still made up of poker chips and superpowers.

Of course the policies you choose based on realist principles can be used to increase your power as a country (and thus use poker chips cynically) or it can be used to build a prosperous and peaceful world (given the limitations of the natural anarchic state of international politics).

As a Dutch person I accept that the US can decide to turn the Netherlands into a nuclear testing ground whenever it wants and there is nothing we can do about that, but given this fact we should still try to create a peaceful world.

arymandias ,

What do you think started, and kept WWI going, narrative. Every party believed or was sold that they could win this thing if they just kept climbing the escalation ladder. With the result that an entire generation of boys and men was gone for basically nothing.

What if I put a couple of my friends on the border of your house, and explicitly said, hey if you try to do X Y or Z then I might have to kill you.

For a start I would not do X, Y and Z, this is the whole idea of realism, accept the world as is. Threats work, I’m sorry. If your response is to call the police, there is no police in the world of international politics, you have to play the hand you’re dealt.

And in the case of Ukraine this was sadly a very bad hand, that is why I don’t blame Ukraine for much. You could of course blame Ukraine for being lured by the power of the US, and that they could thus safely ignore dire warnings from Russia. But as they say, with great power comes great responsibility, so I choose to put the blame at the hands of Russia and the US.

arymandias ,

You seem to conflate questioning a narrative with banning a narrative, I have the intent nor the means. I value being able to have an open discussion on topics as important as war, especially based on substance rather than resorting to personal insults and such.

arymandias ,

Accepting how the world works is not the same as saying it’s moral.

If someone threatens to shoot you, you saying it’s immoral is not a practical defense, unless there is some kind of higher power like a justice system with a police to enforce it. But the entire point of international politics is that such a force does not exist, just countries with interests.

arymandias ,

NATO is still a collection of nation states with interests, being powerful does not mean you can be trusted. (As the US has shown multiple times)

The people actually fighting this war, don’t want to, they need to be forcibly conscripted by the Ukrainian government, I have met multiple people that can no longer renew their pasport because the Ukrainian government (and western governments by extension) want them to die at the front.

And finally Ukraine is losing, and probably always was, the economic and manpower difference is just too big. There was a point in the summer of 2022 where Ukraine had a position to get a deal on relatively good terms, and there actually was a peace process going on. But somehow this broke down, I’ve heard rumors that it was the UK or the US that convinced/coerced Zelensky to walk away. I really hope that isn’t true because that would mean they have a lot of blood on their hands, and mostly Ukrainian.

arymandias , (edited )

ft.com/…/d7e95021-df99-4e99-8105-5a8c3eb8d4ef

youtu.be/slkn2-N3oR0?si=d9Z_4KEvKS5kYXjp

If you read between the lines of ft articles it becomes quite clear that the manpower problem is almost insurmountable, but there are also other articles from nyt or Dutch or German mainstream media that try to package it positively but can not hide the underlying problems. And then there is John Mearsheimer who gives a higher level overview, that to me sketches quite a clear picture of Ukraines prospects.

Plus I like to listen to “war nerd radio” podcast. It’s not a news source perse, but they discuss the Ukraine war sometimes and they seem to be better at predicting what is to come than most news papers. For example they were rightfully quite skeptical about the great summer offensive of 2023 whereas other sources were promising the conquest of Crimea.

arymandias ,

Yes those are my sources and yes it is Gary Brechner aka the war nerd, he is sadly getting old but I really enjoyed his recent series on the us civil war.

I didn’t answer because I don’t know. I have heard it theorized that Russia is depleting the Ukrainian forces and building up behind the lines for a summer offensive, but also that the recent reshuffle of the Russian Security Council means that Putin expects the war to last until at least 2025. It is mostly speculation so not really a value add.

On all the details, I am just like most people dealing with limited information. And it’s hard to get a good idea what’s happening on the frontlines and on the broader strategic battle field. But there are sources I trust and sources that have shown to be at best incompetent and at worse straight up propaganda. This might be one of those rare morally uncomplicated wars, but the fact that the loudest voices in support of Israel are also oft the loudest voices in support of further escalations with Russia makes me skeptical.

arymandias ,

But surely it is possible to see which direction they are moving, or not moving.

It doesn’t matter where the frontline goes in a war of attrition, it matters what resources you have. This is why Ukraine is loosing, it has a manpower problem, the only resources the west can not help with.

Yeah just like the US depleted those Vietnamese forces so effectively for so long and that was the key to their victory.

Ukraine is not North Vietnam. I’m sorry to repeat myself but Ukraine has a man power problem, people don’t want to die for this cause. If anything, they more resemble South Vietnam, and we all know how that ended.

Dude now you’re just saying talking points.

Sure it’s a talking point, but it’s also true. Seeing Ursula von der Leyen advocate for war crimes in Gaza with the same vigor as supporting escalation in Ukraine makes me skeptical of her motives. Same goes for Blinken crying about Ukrainian civilian casualties and saying dead children are the price of war about Palestinians, kinda makes you wonder. And they make the decisions, not random guys and gals on Lemmy.

Want no escalation? Pack your shit, get back across the border.

I’m not Russian, I have no power over what they do. Peace is complicated, and requires living with injustice, but in return you spare a lot of suffering from happening.

Sorry to be rude about it again.

I mean I can rude as well. If you think this conflict is truly worth dying for, then go there, and go die.

arymandias ,

Up next: PayPal introducing new AI that purchases random shit for you.

arymandias , (edited )

It already was after Iraq, but now they dragged it upstairs to throw it out of the window again, just to make sure it’s really dead.

arymandias ,

Remember kids: Iran is the bad Middle East autocracy and Saudi Arabia is the good Middle East autocracy.

US foreign policy has always been and will always be interest based rather than value based, but they will use moral arguments and threat inflation to drum up support for their misadventures abroad.

arymandias ,

100% agree, no longer being oil dependent would make the middle east a saver place (as well as having many other advantages).

But even the green revolution needs cheap labor, recourses, and rare-earth metals. Countries that do not want to play game and want to nationalize key industries for instance, will be coerced financially or militarily by greater powers (be it the West, China, or Russia).

So the idea of one country being worse than the other is not really relevant and moreover a known strategy for getting war support. I am happy that I don’t live in Iran or Saudi Arabia, but escalating conflict with either of them will not improve anybody’s life. Look at Syria or Libya.

arymandias ,

I’m starting to get the feeling that “X is playing chess while Y is playing checkers” is an indicator species for a terrible take.

arymandias ,

For the EU it’s hard to find the numbers on derailment, but in 2022 20 train travelers died due to an accident in total in all of the EU.

arymandias ,

Ben-Gvir: It’s time for a true solution to Gaza.

Biden:

andrew , to oldschoolcool
@andrew@andrew.masto.host avatar

Lyndon Johnson post presidency with longer hair during an interview in August 1972

@oldschoolcool

arymandias ,

Having read the Caro books, if there ever was a president with big-dick energy it was LBJ.

arymandias ,

He said there was overwhelming support in part because they lost control of the narrative on Israel, the only addition to the headline needed is to add the word:

… ban partially intended to ….

If Romney is so afraid of people loosing track of the “realities” on the ground maybe they should consider banning cable news next.

arymandias , (edited )

What a hill to die on. They banned Russia; it would have been such an easy and consistent decision to ban Israel too, especially when they started deliberately starving Palestinian civilians. Can’t wait for the PR response the moment this Genocide becomes officially recognized, “wir haben es nicht gewusst“ 2.0

arymandias ,

Now don’t criticize Biden, don’t you know he is literally running against Hitler.

(Yes I know Trump is worse than Biden, and no I don’t advocate for not voting)

arymandias , (edited )

Without US support Israel would cease to exist within a year, so the US can do whatever it pleases. Second, the investigation does not need to be performed by a military but can also be done by neutral observers.

arymandias ,

I once had a lecture from him and he is a great orator. Sadly turned out he did some shit with female students.

arymandias , (edited )

I’m not a fan of American foreign policy at all, but following the European news lately I don’t know if our governments can be trusted without the US providing security.

I fear that the moment European nations need to be serious about their own defense they become way less trustful of their neighbors, creating all the incentives for an arms race. Especially with the current crop of nationalist politicians it’s not hard to imagine a serious cool down in the relationship between a France and a Germany lead by Le Pen and the AFD (in a coalition government or not). In such a world it’s suddenly way less pleasant to be a smaller nation that can not seriously compete with Germany or France.

I really hope I’m wrong and that we truly learned the lesson from the second word war, but I think not needing to provide our own security plays at least a role in the relative peace within the EU member states.

France urged to repay billions of dollars to Haiti for independence ‘ransom’ (www.theguardian.com)

France should repay billions of dollars to Haiti to cover a debt formerly enslaved people were forced to pay in return for recognising the island’s independence, according to a coalition of civil society groups that is launching a new push for reparations....

arymandias , (edited )

One option is to put a reverse tariff on Haiti, this way you stimulate their export economy regardless who is in charge. In general an economically stable and growing country also tends to be more politically stable.

Edit: a more realistic scenario is that France gives a bunch of money with the condition it is spend on French weapons or other French export products. So in actuality a hidden subsidy for the French economy, this is also how Germany ‘compensated’ for the holocaust to Israel.

arymandias ,

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck; it is not a duck.

arymandias ,

Biden is creating lots of blue-collar jobs at the crocodile-tear factory.

arymandias ,

I wouldn’t care if it looked like a giant cock and balls if I had a dedicated high-speed-rail station in my city. It also looks like it has serious capacity with three separate approaching rail corridors.

arymandias ,

I know there are a lot of upper-class Tories with a stick up their ars that voted Brexit, but if I think of a Brexit voter this is what I see.

arymandias ,

Hey, let’s not resort to racial slurs.

(Btw love the picture they chose in the article.)

arymandias ,

Hey America, ruin our economy further you c*nts, it’s really appreciated.

Kind regards, The Netherlands

arymandias ,

Manager: hey I know it’s something you haven’t worked with before, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out with some googling.

Me 30 minutes later:

arymandias ,

They might be extreme protesters, but the gist of the article still stands. I live in Berlin and visit the Netherlands often, the silence in Berlin on this issue (compared to the Netherlands) is honestly chilling. You hardly see any protests or statements of support for Palestine, and the only protest I saw (a remembrance for the flower massacre) was rounded up by the police within minutes.

On top of that I’ve heard way worse statements at the farmers protests a few months ago, but no articles on how they get the full police-state treatment.

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