251–260 of 309 posts
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Talking about WW2, a lot of people still think Soviets were the good guys. Forgetting how nazis and soviets split eastern europe. And later soviets forgot to leave.
And that's clear to everyone nowadays. You really see anyone disputing that?
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> Yeah, with a truckload of support and sponsorship from Victoria Nuland - the shining [Coup Lady] of the US state department - who also picked the post coup leaders. You got any evidence of this that doesn’t stink of Russian propaganda?.
This is about Nuland's interference: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/feb/07/eu-us-di...
That lady gets around.
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> Mao is looking after [..] China's interests Yes, just like during the "Great Leap Forward" and the cultural revolution. Sure...
He was a complicated person and even in China people discuss his flaws. They see him similar to how we view George Washington. Washington shaped the nation, but also massacred Native Americans and didn't free his slaves until after his death. The Chinese see Mao as someone who gave them their pride back, but most of his socioeconomic policies were failures. I'm not trying to do a "whataboutism" here, just trying to b…
But yeah I get your point, it's unfortunate that China never had its Khrushchev moment.
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And that's clear to everyone nowadays. You really see anyone disputing that?
I will dispute that. Double genocide theory is a debunked right wing nationalist myth, sorry. [1] I'm not saying they were saints but they were on the same moral plane of the Allies, wishing to set up buffer states instead of absorbing them fully into the USSR. Political repression was a real issue in the eastern bloc countries but it's no where near as bad as what the US, France, or UK did in the post war period wit…
You’re thinking about USSR of 1980s when political repression and some hair cutting was the main issue. But USSR up to mid 1950s was a tad more evil to say the least.
And „debunking double genocide theory“ is fighting a strawman. Let’s talk how USSR started WW2 along with Nazis. Let’s talk Katyn or Rainiai. Let’s talk gulags. Stalin’s purges. Early USSR social reforms and consequences.
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> Mao is looking after [..] China's interests Yes, just like during the "Great Leap Forward" and the cultural revolution. Sure...
He thought he was. I don't think Mao was a crook in the sense of "stealing money and the country be damned". I think he was motivated by a vision for his country, why else fight so fiercely against the nationalists and the Japanese? He believed in something. Whether the Great Leap Forward or any one of his policies was a disaster is orthogonal to whether he believed in doing a great good for China.
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"Like allowing Russia to take half of eastern Europe." They already had it. And they gave up on it voluntarily. But they think they made a bad deal as it was simply considered a sign of weakness by certain hawks. So now they try the hard way again. (obviously oversimplification, but the topic is full of it anyway)
> They already had it. And they gave up on it voluntarily You can't say they they gave up eastern Europe voluntarily when they didn't have a choice. They could handle a revolution in a single Warsaw pact country not in all of them at the same time and especially not at a time when the internal situation in the USSR itself was quite precarious. > made a bad deal What deal? There was a no deal involving entire Eastern…
"And they broke every single point of that treaty, except the one prohibiting the usage of nuclear weapons against any of these countries"
Second, much later.
Third, there were russian troops all over east europe. Lots of them. (I remember)
They could have smashed any uprising - but they choose not to. They choose democracy at that time. And it did not pay off for them, which is why they are back to authoritian. But there was a time when they were open for change. In my opinion, the west blew it.
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"You have a megalomaniac dictator waging an unnecessary imperialist war of aggression ." Yes, one that was raised by the KGB, and his work possible consisting of coordinating left wing terrorists in the west. "That should make it pretty straightforward, no?" Sadly no. Because his character and the general political ideas and red lines of the russian establishment were known. Ukraine was russias sphere of interest/dom…
So you believe that the Ukrainian people are fundamentally incapable of making their own decisions. Clearly it was a very divided country with multiple swings back and forth without the assistance of NATO/EU/US. How was 2014 that different from 2004? > Would the US tolerate mexico become a china military ally? US and China are global superpowers. Without the nukes Russia is a regional power at best. > But the empires…
This is what I wrote.
So I do not see, how you come to that conclusion:
"So you believe that the Ukrainian people are fundamentally incapable of making their own decisions. "
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He was a complicated person and even in China people discuss his flaws. They see him similar to how we view George Washington. Washington shaped the nation, but also massacred Native Americans and didn't free his slaves until after his death. The Chinese see Mao as someone who gave them their pride back, but most of his socioeconomic policies were failures. I'm not trying to do a "whataboutism" here, just trying to b…
I don't think equating Washington and Mao makes even the tiniest bit of sense. Washington never aspired be an absolute ruler or to fundamentally transform the American society into something else by force. But yeah I get your point, it's unfortunate that China never had its Khrushchev moment.
I'm not somebody who can say to what extent that comparison does or doesn't make sense, but your response is irrelevant because they weren't saying that Mao and Washington were comparable in terms of their aspirations or specific actions.
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I think Taiwanese are being pretty long sighted. Sentiment has been steadily shifting in favour of eventual full independence for a long time, but the consensus is still clearly to defer it, perhaps indefinitely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence_movement#O... I also reject the characterisation of Ukraine or Taiwan as chess pieces. In both cases the western policy is not to push either country towards…
> The policy is to support the self determination of Ukrainians and Taiwanese respectively. Self determination? I thought people of Crimea and Catalan enjoy the same rights. You seem to be comfortable for dual standard western policies here.
The idea that ethnic Russian means pro Russian is propaganda. It’s just not true. Azov may be unpleasant, but they are undeniably pro Ukrainian, were based in and recruited from Russian speaking areas where under 1% of the population spoke Ukrainian at home. Their web sites used to all be in Russian.
I'm not entirely sure I get what this tells us. A degree of cynicism in politics is inevitable, for the players. And, Kissinger was undoubtedly playing. As was Mao, with other people. Interesting Edgar Snow was brought up, I read his long March piece as a child, it's pretty accessible. ("Red Star over China" 1937) Zhou EnLai was a survivor and a moderating force in the bad times. The national museum in Tienanmen squa…
The fascinating thing with Kissinger is that he's still alive, still wields political influence, and has been active for eighty years and was wielding his influence in essentially all major conflicts during that time. He just published another book and just celebrated his 100th birthday. He started out as a German Jewish refugee. Fought in WW II and became an American, ended up being part of the post WW II effort to…
Famously, Lê Đức Thọ, who was jointly given the Nobel with Kissinger, refused to accept it, partially because peace had not in fact been achieved.