That's incredibly heartening to hear man. At least your industry is doing the damn thing unlike the rat companies who benefited from the chips act which promptly announced layoffs once the money was locked in lol

mpopenker said:

       stancrist said:  I call that a fair and valid criticism. But I still think that just because the US behaves badly, it does not justify or excuse similar bad behavior by Russia or other countries.

You see, you apply modern "Christian" ethics to international politics. And actual ethics and real politics (foreign and domestic) always existed in parallel and non-crossing planes...

That's not true. Those "modern Christian ethics" and moral values have been on crossing planes with real politics for some time.

It was Russia's lack of such ethics and morals that caused so many countries to run from Moscow and join NATO at first chance.

mpopenker said:

We have a saying in Russia: "if you live with wolves, you should howl like a wolf". And the US is obviously the biggest and baddest wolf on this planet, as of yet, so it obviously sets a tone to the global howling. It is cynical and sad...

Yes, it's very sad, but it explains the Russian invasion of Ukraine (and Georgia, Crimea, etc).

Russia sees itself -- and all other nations -- as a wolf, and so it chooses to behave as a wolf.

In other words, Russian mentality has not advanced beyond what it was in the Dark Ages.

And BTW, it's a big mistake to view the US as "the biggest and baddest wolf" on the planet.

It would be more accurate to consider the US as a dog which has been bred to kill wolves...

mpopenker said:

       stancrist said:  In my view, the only justification for invading another country is in response to military attack by that country

again - personal views have nothing to do with real politics.

Don't be absurd.  Personal views of national leaders have everything to do with real politics.

mpopenker said:

       stancrist said:  Also, if Russia was so concerned about Ukrainian democracy...

First and foremost, like any other country, Russia was concerned with its own interests (as these are seen by the ruling elite).

So, when you said "this entire war would not happen at all without the direct American involvement in the coup against the democratically elected president of Ukraine in 2014", the supposed concern for democracy was actually just a BS excuse?

mpopenker said:

It's primarily the US that is constantly concerned with global democracy, equality...

Indeed.  If Russia had been similarly concerned with democracy, equality, etc, it would not now be under severe economic sanctions, nor would tens of thousands of its young men be worms' meat.

This looks interesting

https://www.eos-aus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/TITANIS-Brochure-2022-Web.pdf

VPMudde said:

Then why, would you say

The most credible explanation for Iraq I've seen is that it was the product of the crackpot neoconservative theorists who overwhelmingly populated the Bush admin, and saw 9/11 as the chance to put their theories into practice. 

One of the neoconservative 'think pieces' from a few years before the Iraq War....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm

The general idea behind the neocoservatives was that democracy is awesome, america is awesome, and the world would embrace america if it used its unrivaled power to depose despots and spread democracy.

They believed that once Iraq was democratic, it might start a 'positive domino effect' in the region, with other despots replaced by secular democracies. And these democracies would not just be cool with the US, but also forge a peace with Israel (the later a big priority for a number of jewish and evangelical neocons).

More reading on the subject (a rare good article by Vox)

https://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/11022104/iraq-war-neoconservatives

Another fine article on neoconservative ideology and how it lead to Iraq:

https://www.e-ir.info/2015/09/17/the-iraq-invasion-the-neoconservative-perspective/

....

This crackpot bullshit is why I wish we had invaded for oil. 

schnuersi said:

Nobody in his right mind ever expected any profit to come out of Afghanistan. Its propably the most forsaken place on this planet since there are humans.

Absolutely this. 

If the US wanted some neo-colonial minerals grab, there are plenty of easier to mine shitholes we could have picked.

stancrist said:

It would be more accurate to consider the US as a dog which has been bred to kill wolves...

well, that's your 'inside' point of view. I can understand and even respect that, as your personal opinion

But that does not mean that everybody else inside and especially outside of the US has the same optics. See aforementioned quote of the french president above, for starters.

stancrist said:

If Russia had been similarly concerned with democracy, equality, etc, it would not now be under severe economic sanctions

so, since Saudi Arabia is not under any serious sanctions, it is obviously all out for democracy, equality and human rights. Nice standards you have. And that's only one example of many.

But I think we're starting running in circles here.

mpopenker said:

       stancrist said:  It would be more accurate to consider the US as a dog which has been bred to kill wolves...

well, that's your 'inside' point of view. I can understand and even respect that, as your personal opinion

But that does not mean that everybody else inside and especially outside of the US has the same optics. See aforementioned quote of the french president above, for starters.

If you are referring to the quoted comments in Msg 77, where do you see any characterization of the US as being a wolf???

mpopenker said:

       stancrist said:  If Russia had been similarly concerned with democracy, equality, etc, it would not now be under severe economic sanctions

so, since Saudi Arabia is not under any serious sanctions, it is obviously all out for democracy, equality and human rights. Nice standards you have.

LOL.  Once again you attempt to deflect in order to evade addressing the point.  I said nothing of the sort about Saudi Arabia, so it's dishonest of you to say that I did.

mpopenker said:

But I think we're starting running in circles here.

I'd call it more like running into stone walls.  Every time I ask a question to which an honest answer would contradict your position, you refuse to answer and instead try to divert the discussion.

But it's fine with me to end our discussion.  The constant whining about how unfairly Russia is being treated is rather tedious.  No one in the West -- not even Macron -- thinks Russia was justified.

If Russia wishes to truly be a great power in the world, perhaps it should focus on improving the lives of the Russian people instead of trying to be "great" by threatening and invading its neighbors.

stancrist said:

If Russia wishes to truly be a great power in the world, perhaps it should focus on improving the lives of the Russian people instead of trying to be "great" by threatening and invading its neighbors.

well, as a closing note I can wish the same to your government, which, incendiary, has the biggest military budget in the world AND the biggest national debt. Just imagine how much better Americans would live with the money that were spent on the invasions to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

mpopenker said:

I can wish the same to your government, which, incendiary, has the biggest military budget in the world AND the biggest national debt. Just imagine how much better Americans would live with the money that were spent on the invasions to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Meh.  All things considered, I imagine that the lives of the vast majority of Americans would actually not have been noticeably better had said invasions never occurred.

Can the same be said of Russia, which was "literally begging for food back in early 1990s" and is now incurring a rising financial and human cost of its war of aggression?

Welfare spending in the United States exceeds the defence budget by an order of magnitude, as it does in all western democracies. Even if the entire defence expenditure was reallocated to social programs, or indeed direct payment to citizens, it would make no significant difference to average incomes.

The USA looks after its citizens better than Russia and still has the highest defence budget.