NP: On the Ukraine thread

[Martin Dietze]

On 14. February 2022 at 00:33:56, Joseph Tracy (brook7 at sover.net) wrote:

The 'I lived there so I know' argument has always been iffy.

Yes, that’s certainly true. However at least as iffy is the “I’ve read
several blogs about it and care about geo politics, so I know” thing. It
takes quite a bit more to come to a well-grounded opinion. And that’s what
I am vastly missing amongst holders of views like yours.

Freedom of alliance has limits, Cuba was allied to Russia and was not
allowed to set up nuclear missiles. The issue is quite the same.

I am sure Ukrainians would not mind becoming Nato members after signing
that they will never have nuclear missiles stationed on their soil. So
things will be fine, won’t they?

You wish to call the words of Russian leaders propaganda, as though it only
applies to them, as though these you name-call as naive and gullible
leftists have not watched war after war propagated by lies from the anglo
alliance of US UK CAN AU; as though these outright lies had not cost
hundreds of thousands in lives, injury, dislocation, and trillions of
dollars all to accomplish far more harm than what little can be called
freedom or prosperity.

Russian propaganda certainly has its share as it has shown to very cleverly
exploit existing views and existing phobia in their target groups. There
are quite well-informed people not agreeing with me with who I can lead
lengthy debates. There are others simply repeating stuff that is known to
be false and from well-known origins.

I won’t comment on the rest of your post, since it’s not about Ukraine.
There’s lots of things to blame the US for, that’s for sure, but when
living in Ukraine or being closely related to people living there then you
get a slightly different sense of their magnitude.