Russia and Ukraine

[Deesse23]

You're correct that there's a great deal of childish thinking. We're hearing a lot of "He started it because he hit me back." 

Another blatant lie.

Nobody had invaded Russia so it had to invade Ukraine.

[Belacqua]

The Western world, led by the US, is trying to stop the war by returning to the previous status quo

Is Latin America considered part of the "Western world"? Because they aren't on board.

https://www.ft.com/content/fc8d51c8-5202...d1603deded

[The Grand Nudger]

Shallow commitments to peace in the face of territorial ambition are underwhelming.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Is Latin America considered part of the "Western world"? Because they aren't on board.

One wonders if they would feel the same if Russia invaded them?

Also, the Justifications for war don't come from its popularity. A war can be unpopular and still be correct. So appealing to the popularity of war is a non-argument.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Shallow commitments to peace in the face of territorial ambition are underwhelming.

It's easy to talk of peace when war is half an ocean away.

[The Architect Of Fate]

The most pro-war position possible is allowing an aggressor state to benefit from an elective invasion.

Indeed how Anti War is it to reward invaders with land and concessions?

[The Architect Of Fate]

Oil, gas, money.   To hell with ukranian lives, I suppose.  How anti-war is it to say that making war unsustainable is too expensive?

Indeed how Anti War is it to put money and resources before lives?

[The Grand Nudger]

Shallow commitments to peace in the face of territorial ambition are underwhelming.

It's easy to talk of peace when war is half an ocean away.

The most pro-war position possible is allowing an aggressor state to benefit from an elective invasion.

Indeed how Anti War is it to reward invaders with land and concessions?

These two are the crux of it.  Sure, peace is great and war is bad, someone should convince the russian administration of this.  If, however, the way we choose to convince that admin that peace is great is by offering up a chunk of someone else's country - well......looks like war aint so bad after all, especially if you can use war to plead for a "peace" where you swallow your neighbors.

The people who think of the us as the great satan should really think long and hard about how the us could use such a "peace" proccess..itself. A question was asked earlier whether or not latin america was part of the western world. Not generally, but it sure as hell could be.....all we'd need to do was invade and then these people would tell latin america that they should allow us to annex their territory. For peace. Da?

I can already hear the batshit retort "but isn't that exactly what the us did in latin america and in the pacific during our imperial period!?!!!"- Sure was...and was that a bad thing...or...?. Peace for me by death to thee, I guess.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Probably also slaves to the whims of their american overlords.  Meanwhile, weeks after the start of breathless claims that russia would take bakhmut any minute now, trapping thousands of ukranian soldiers..it holds, and the russian lines have been pushed back and away from the supply lines continuing to make it a meatgrinder for russian troops.

They recently lost about 25 AFVs in an armored push near Bakhmut. They don't seem to have learnt the lesson of screening armor with infantry, which may have broader implications regarding how useful any reinforcements from the conscription may prove.

Meanwhile, Prigozhin is projecting it'll be April before Bakhmut is taken. Six weeks at 1000 KIA/day is well north of 40,000 body bags.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because wagner lost the privilege of recruiting from prisons - the russian mod will be handling that themselves from now on. Good luck to them. Not the mod, the poor fuckin convicts. They'll need it, because the expectation is that they're somehow going to overcome a bunch of newly minted professional soldiers. The whole thing is just amazing. Hurt people hurt people, so...first, russia victimizes it's own, in the hopes that they might vent their anger and frustration on ukranian people.

We hear from pows that they're threatened by their own officers. Ala "if you don't assualt that pre-k then I'll kill you"..but at some point, even if they die, refusing to participate must give way to turning your guns on your supposed betters - because even if you die in the attempt..there's no honor in taking an apartment building, but there's at least a scrap of it in trying and failing to end your criminal so's life. The us has run up against this before, when the enlisted start fragging their nutball officers.