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Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

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Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#151
post #93
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serbia did commit massive attrocities and genocide against both Bosnians and Albanians in Kosovo. They also had wars with Slovenia, and Croatia. They last gesture was massive ethnic cleansing. The US intervened when things went out of hand. Putin risks to end up like Milosevic, a war criminal.

It did not, if you have any international court verdict that says that Serbia conducted a genocide, I would like to see it. Also Serbia was not at war with Slovenia. Those are the basic facts. Now, even if those things were true, they are claimed by the proponents of bombing, enemies if you will, the same way that Putin is claiming there is a genocide of million Ukrainians in Ukraine. Do you believe your enemies?

Yeah, technically it was the head of Yugoslavia that started a war with Slovenia the moment it left the federation (after Croatia left too). Luckily, war lasted 10 days. Not Serbia, I guess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Day_War

NATO bombing was not out of the blue. The head of Yugoslavia was a similar mad man (to Putin), just warring out of desperation. The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any deaths. How did this happen? Due to the mad man dying in 2000. I'm pretty sure he would have enacted order by butchering civilians again, inside "his" borders.

Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities. Even though the leadership displayed aggression that was successfully deflected, the defenders made a deal to guarantee inclusion of the Serbian minority in the parliament (Croatia, Kosovo etc.)

Still, we have a country like Germany, that self-flagellates for decades and the sentiment of the majority is quite clear. While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine. and yeah, every now and then, the most popular Serbian (Monacoan) tennis player will say things like "Kosovo is Serbia" with complete indifference and still be the Jesus like figure his father makes him out to be.

Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#152
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine has won the narrative in the West because Western countries wanted it that way, it's actually pretty easy to do when you cut out opposing propaganda.

You really think the only reason that Ukraine won the narrative is that no one listens to Russian lies?

Mostly yes. That's certainly why the Russian narrative won in Russia and Belarus.

Propaganda/media is one of the most useful ways to steer a population, it even doesn't have to be particularly good propaganda if its voluminous and exclusive.

Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#153
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. When people get hungry, they eat their leaders.... Look at what happened to Ceaușescu... Putin risks to end up like him.

Not true. Tell me, if Google banned you from all their services because you only lived somewhere and you were a "soft liberal", would you support Google in their decision or would you dig in and go the other way? Or in more simpler terms, take football fans, are they hungry at their ultras when they get fined for something or are they angry at UEFA? All Europe is doing by these discrimination measures is creating a s…

The “rally behind your leader” effect is only usually temporary.

These sanctions and moves spread an unambiguous and clear message which can’t be blocked by state news channels which is “no matter what your government says, nobody supports you”.

Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#154
post #11

As a side question, how similar is Putin's war in Ukraine to the numerous wars started by U.S. (say, in the middle East, Yugoslavia)? Are these fair to compare? I'm trying to understand the scale of Putin's decision, not to justify it or engage in whataboutism.

> I'm trying to understand the scale of Putin's decision Drastic. Catastrophic. Suicidal. World-changing. The country (Russia) in its current form has just ceased to exist. The entire parasitic elite class just got cut off from everything they stole during all these years. The entire human potential of Russia just got nullified for at lest 20 years. The push towards green energy (and I hope nuclear fusion) just got a…

>It's we Russians who are fucked for the rest of our lives.

I sincerely hope all this goes away as fast as possible and we all can resume our lives in peace. Including you Russians.

I don't see how that can happen with Putin, but fortunately he is far from being the only person who can lead Russia.

Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#155
I think its very sad normal Russian people are going to be targeted when European countries are still buying oil and gas from Russia 700million a day going straight to the war machine.

Europeans pretend to care and sanction everything except for the oil and gas that is funding that war.

There should always be a difference between government and people.

All these sanctions are harming normal people, essentially economic carpet bombing.

Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is Russian propaganda and simply not true. There is no genocide against Russians in Ukraine.

Thre is no systematic murder in Ukraine. But this is how the UN defines genocide: > a. Killing members of the group; > b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; > c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; > d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; > e. Forcibly transferring childre…

This is a pure war of agression, it is an invasion. There is no justification at all for this.

Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This country should pay for every war crime they committed. There are no innocence in war. Silent complacency what brought it on. Russian IT giants did nothing to prevent the bloodshed. On the contrary, they actively propagate lies generated by their government. Is this the propaganda you're talking about? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion Or maybe the Russians have hacked the official Twitter account of…

Give it up. Azov Battalion is explicitly neo-Nazi. It's also about about 1500 people. If you're going to engage in whataboutism over the wholesale invasion of a country, you've gonna have to do better than that. That said, there's no justification for the Nazi crap.

Come up with a new word. Not everything is 'whataboutism'.

But more to the point, if it's such a small force why is part of the National Guard of Ukraine. Disband it and send the members suspected of war crimes to stand trial at The Hague. I'm sure a nation looking to join the EU would have no problems doing that.

edit: Also something that's bothering me...what do you mean they are "explicitly neo-Nazi"? Is that somehow different to being a Nazi in your mind? Weird thing to point out...

Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, intervention in Yugoslavia wasn’t a war started by the US. The Kuwait war was after an invasion by Iraq and at the invitation of the government there, and the US were restrained enough to halt at the Iraq border. The Syrian war was not started by the US, and it has played a minor part there. In fact, it is Russia that has indiscriminately bombed Syrian cities and targeted civilians and hospitals there. Afghanis…

The Iraq war was a terrible error but it still can't be compared to Ukraine. America had no plans to colonise Iraq or absorb it into its empire. Despite the enormous death and suffering the war caused, America's aim was naive altruism: getting rid of an unquestionably evil dictator who used WMDs on his own people. There are conspiracy theories that America invaded to steal Iraq's oil but they are not plausible.

WMDs? That was a lie. They invaded to preserve the dollar regime/oil.

Not plausible? I think you've been watching too many Marvel movies where good vs evil is "obvious"

Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is whataboutism and it is so tired. A good propaganda tactic though, and the Russians are using it as an attack vector. Westerners seem really vulnerable to this form of propaganda, possibly due to the success of previous information warfare led by Russia. Bringing up some other terrible thing for comparison does not change in any way whatsoever the severity of what is happening in Ukraine. Whataboutism propagan…

Using a tool to help someone see that their thoughts or words are foolish isn't a bad thing. People are getting very emotional about this entire situation, which is understandable. But then they are getting on their internet soap boxes and saying things that don't make any real sense and they don't really believe. I was simply trying to make OP realize that his extremely harsh comments are just platitudes, by remindi…

> Using a tool to help someone see that their thoughts or words are foolish isn't a bad thing.

That's not what you're doing. Whataboutism is a method of _stopping_ interrogation via deflection and redirection.

I think a lot of people that engage in whataboutism do actually think they're trying to start a discussion or analyze the situation more deeply. They just fail to see what their actually doing due to not being particularly skilled analysts (trying to be nice here...).

> he basically did nothing.

Unwarranted assumption

Re: Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm trying to understand the scale of Putin's decision Drastic. Catastrophic. Suicidal. World-changing. The country (Russia) in its current form has just ceased to exist. The entire parasitic elite class just got cut off from everything they stole during all these years. The entire human potential of Russia just got nullified for at lest 20 years. The push towards green energy (and I hope nuclear fusion) just got a…

Can I ask, how are these economic restrictions affecting you in your daily life? Are people able to access money at their banks? Do you predict any future food security issues? Also in your opinion, what is the likely end game now for Putin? Putin is unlikely to win this war, Ukraine have been given near unlimited anti-tank weapons by the EU/US, and have air superiority now with extra MiG's donated by NATO and TB2 dr…

>gorilla warfare

Sorry for being that guy but even though gorilla warfare would be genuinely horrifying, the term is actually guerrilla warfare. Which funnily enough can be translated as "warfare warfare".

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