Cambodia unveils statue to honour famous landmine-sniffing rat

Wow. What a load of drivel.

> To me, this reads as a banal attempt at doxxing

You extensively comment on your history on HN when it suits you, and then you balk when that history is quoted and claim this is 'doxxing'? Sorry, but that's not how this works. Either you keep your history off HN or you can expect it to be quoted back at you when inconvenient.

> I can say with positive certainty that my cosmopolitan, multi-national, multi-language lifestyle, carried on over 4 decades, has well and truly led me to what I consider to be an elevated position: that all cultures are arbitrary and choose war instead of peace overtly, and often blindly.

Having lived in a few countries and always leaving those countries with a negative attitude (as you are doing now with Europe) sketches a very shallow level of engagement. You don't have an elevated position, you just believe you do and your comments here are testimony to how far off the mark you are.

> The simple fact is, our current set of nations, equally human, is currently too incompetent to attain the wishes of the greater human entity, which exists well and truly beyond the sphere of those claiming that "mouthpieces of Russian propaganda" are something to be worrying about.

They are something to worry about: they serve in Putin's army of useful idiots, and you are currently behaving like one of those.

> And the reason for that incompetence is, in my well-travelled and -spoken opinion

You can travel a lot and speak well but still spout nonsense.

> Because, as an American

Oh, this is hilarious.

> It is my learned opinion

You are coming across as someone who knows it all but fails to see the most basic stuff, that detracts from all of your other points.

> "Russians are evil" and "Americans are evil" are lies

Obviously they are, but I wasn't making any arguments along those lines. I know some fine Russians and I have more friends in the US than in Europe. I too have traveled a bit and spent some time abroad. It doesn't make me feel like I found the stone of wisdom and it certainly did not make me feel like I was qualified to start pissing on the cultures and leadership of the places that I've lived.

> And if you think this isn't applicable, in every single human case tested so far, then you need to travel more.

Because I haven't traveled enough? Or because we disagree and you think that by putting up some arbitrary bar you can pretend that you have the moral high ground?

> And not as a tourist: as a local.

Well, you are not a tourist: you are now a local. So we get to hold you to a higher standard than some random commenter.

> It's the only way to be sure you know what you're talking about with regards to world affairs...

Unbelievable. Anyway, I've yet to see such a pompous pile of junk on HN, you are dangerously misinformed and on top of that you come across as if you have achieved some level of enlightenment that gives you the right to pontificate to the lesser folks you interact with. I would suggest a more humble stance, one where you stop assuming that you know it all and start with actually listening a bit more.

I'm a pacifist at heart, but I also understand that if your country is attacked that you will defend it, and it is very clear who the aggressor is here and that there was no diplomatic solution other than to end up with Ukraine as a sovereign nation utterly destroyed. Russia (note: Russia, not Russians) has proven to be an utterly untrustworthy party to deal with at the diplomatic level. Their betrayal of Ukraine is horrific, mass murder, rape, daily attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Many, many people dead, wounded and mentally destroyed for life. And here you are from your safe house in Vienna telling them that they should have engaged in more diplomacy? Unbelievable.

You like to travel? Good, I challenge you to go visit Ukraine and to spend some time there and befriend people, talk to them and get some actual perspective on this conflict. Then afterwards, you can go to Russia and do the same there. You will certainly come away with a slightly different point of view than what you have right now and since you feel the need to tell me to travel more (which is hilarious) I think it is fair for me to do the same to you.

Perhaps you use Wikipedia as a source for your information, but there are still a lot of people alive, like myself, from all the countries that are or have been neighbors of Russia, who know from first-hand experience how the Russians have treated all the territories that they have invaded, by killing the natives, deporting them to Siberia (where those deported were chosen for having "dangerous" professions, like school teacher or any other "intelectual"), installing Russian colonists in their former houses, stealing everything from the leftovers and then attempting to brainwash their children by teaching them that everything useful in the world has been invented by Russians and that the Russians are their "liberators", to whom they must be eternally grateful.

I would like to see which would be your opinion about Russians if you had the luck to live in a place close to them, so you would have seen your family kidnapped and sent to forced work in Siberia and everything they owned stolen from you.

This is something that the Russians have done everywhere around them, whenever they could, and it was always done unprovoked, before any of those neighbors had done anything against them. When those attacked by Russia during WWII have fought back, after Russia was among the victors, with the help of USA and UK Russia has extracted huge "war reparations" from those who have fought against the Russian aggression, besides transforming all the Eastern European countries into vassal states.

The traditional joke about Russia was: "Who are the neighbors of Russia? ... Whoever Russia wants."

So there is no wonder that anyone whose memories are intact will do anything to prevent the Russians from repeating such actions.

I had no idea.

I thought rats would make great pets but the idea that you get attached to a guy who would die in a couple years is quite discouraging. You updated my knowledge.

My grandmother had an African grey parrot she had inherited from someone.

Ah! Thanks for clarifying.

Okay, warmonger: Your nation is the #1 cause of terror and war in the world.

I shouldn't expect its citizens to be anything less than war-mongers, nor should I be surprised at the passive-aggress vitriol that gets triggered into being manifested at the moment their 'authority' is questioned. Such is life in a totalitarian-authoritarian society, such as America today.

After all, this is the nation that actively supported the worlds latest genocide and which refuses to prosecute its own war criminals, leaving the rest of the world to do it ..