Why We Fight Russia | Hacker News Reader

Why We Fight Russia

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15 pointsvonnik22 comments

The United States was on perfectly good terms with Russia from the early republic through 1917. During the American Civil War, and for that matter during the period about 1800-1814, we were on better terms with Russia than with England or France. During the later part of the 19th Century various persons of liberal convictions did complain about the Russian government; they made a persuasive case in the press, but how far this affected the opinions of the governing classes is not clear.

To have an opposite to point to does seem to do the national self-esteem good. The national mind might be another matter.

I don't like this line of thought - being anti-Russian because it is a "tradition".

There a lot more specific things to oppose Putin specifically and his 21st century Kremlin for:

* the wars in the North Caucasus, Georgia, Ukraine and Syria.

* the enormous plunder of Russia's natural resources and the corruption/bribery of democratic governments.

* the sponsoring of hateful ideologies and their export across the world.

* the unscrupulous sale of weapons to warlords and dictators across the developing world

* the war on truth - the killing and intimidation of journalists, the fake news on Russian channels, the spread of FUD on western media, even the wave of Internet trolls.

the wars in the North Caucasus, Georgia, Ukraine and Syria

The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya...

the enormous plunder of Russia's natural resources

The Dakota Access Pipeline

the sponsoring of hateful ideologies and their export across the world

The cosy relationship with the exporters of Wahhabism

the unscrupulous sale of weapons to warlords and dictators across the developing world

Handing out weapons like candy to every faction in the Middle East

the war on truth

CNN

> CNN

So CNN is controlled by the us government?

I'll just leave this here:

http://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/why-were-governmen...

Please be upfront in what you are insinuating. That article indicates that there was an incident where 3 US PSYOPs agents worked as interns at CNN until it was reported upon.

That is worrying, but a far cry from showing that CNN is the mouth piece of the US, or that they are committing some sort of "war on truth", especially when the context is killing journalists and employing entire agencies of people to troll online.

Opposition to all of the offenses, when based on one's principles, extends to when they are committed by the United States. I know that propaganda outfits in the US and Russia would all love for us to become avatars of their power struggle, but we still retain individual moral autonomy and can exercise it as we see fit.

Actually there is a false equivalency even if I take your list on face value - the things you mentioned are done by multiple actors: two US administrations, Congress, Tribal and sectoral militias, Middle-Eastern governments, even private entities (CNN). On the Russian side your have Putin and his vertical of power (the popular term for his centralized, personal rule of Russia).

I also don't understand the point - is any of these things I listed OK because the "US" does them (or vice versa)? Looks like the 'Tu quoque' or 'appeal to hypocrisy' logical fallacy.

It's also tradition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

Actually there is a false equivalency

It is not false at all. The reality is that nations pursue their national interests, and the exact mechanism by which they organise themselves to do so is a mere implication detail.

How you organise yourself is a huge part of if and how you value people other than yourself. Some of us think democracy, free speech, civil liberties are important, because other people matter, and we are better off even with flawed implementations of those ideals.

So sure, cast them aside as mere "implication details" if you like. The Internet will always be full of nihilistic kids who don't think anything is worth standing up for, and it's valuable to have examples to point to.

democracy, free speech, civil liberties are important

That's funny because when any country engages in any policy it believes itself to be "the good guys".

Russia didn't export revolution "because we are evil lol" but it saw itself as liberating the oppressed every bit as America does when it launches the bombers. Again. One bombing mission on average every 20 minutes for the last 8 years. Show me some actual evidence that American values are any different than Russia's.

the wars in the North Caucasus, Georgia, Ukraine and Syria.

North Caucasus -- CIA trained terrorist "wanted" independence, been cutting Russian soldiers necks and film it. (its a typical form of report CIA uses)

Georgia -- CIA puppet Mikheil Saakashvili made a coup, attacked Ossetia with tanks, they were killing civillians. Russia saved Ossetians, and now that scumbag is considered a criminal in his own homeland.

Ukraine -- CIA controlled coup that was done in violation of the Ukraines constitution, Petro Poroshenko is a new CIA puppet. Mikheil Saakashvili is now a governor in the Ukraine city Odessa (wow, such surprise)

Syria -- US.

the enormous plunder of Russia's natural resources and the corruption/bribery of democratic governments.

Yes, exactly what happened when CIA controlled puppet Gorbatchev sellout USSR. Putin fixed it. (the best way possible in 17 years.)

the sponsoring of hateful ideologies and their export across the world.

CIA created Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. You need to learn, now figure out which country is a true sponsor.

the unscrupulous sale of weapons to warlords and dictators across the developing world

Exactly what US is doing, that's why there is still no order in Syria.

the war on truth - CNN and Co

the killing and intimidation of journalists - biased mass media propaganda sources.

the fake news on Russian channels - you starting to fall to the total bullshit here, oh well. (total == 100%, nice propaganda meme)

the spread of FUD on western media - CNN told you that RT is bad? Poor guy.

even the wave of Internet trolls. - I would call you one of them, but how is Russia related to that?

On the Russian side your have Putin and his vertical of power - every organization has a vertical of power.

I also don't understand the point - is any of these things I listed OK because the "US" does them - you listed lies, the guy mentioned US because of context.

I'm reminded of Abraham's Lincoln's quote:

Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy

The way it talks about Russia seems anachronistic but I guess our view of the country hasn't really changed much over the last 150 years.

At the time Lincoln was writing, Russia was an absolute monarchy politically and largely feudal economically when the West (even those countries that were formally monarchies) had substantial penetration of both democratic institutions and capitalist economics (to the point that detailed criticism of capitalism and proposals for post-capitalist economic systems were around; this letter, after all, was written several years after the Communist Manifesto.)

So, yeah, it's not surprising that Russia would be chosen as an example of a backward and anti-liberty regime even then.

This is some strange aspirational, manifest destiny read on American individualism vs. Russian greatness through military might, anchored and extruded around the Tocqueville quote.

I much favor the alternate view, where the justifications and rationalizations are intellectual fluff and the day-to-day drivers are geopolitics. The about-face is still a jarring contrast, but only because Russia also considers the US an adversary.

While the two occasionally cooperate, generally it's not in one's vested interest to see the other one thrive beyond a boring, uneventful stability to where they're somewhat useful as a trade partner, stable enough to ward off unrest, and not assertive enough to project its power overseas.

"Its just geopolitics" doesn't have enough explanatory power. Why doesn't the USA have the same kind of relationship with Russia as it does with Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan or any other country with a either a similar population size, land area, natural resources endowment or level economic of development? Brazil is particularly comparable to Russia in terms in terms of the above and yet its foreign relations are totally different.

I see nothing inherent about Russia's geography to cause a conflict with NATO. If anything geography should push Russia to the West and particularly the EU as the country is going lower and lower in the rankings of power by the rising populations and incomes across the former 3rd world.

Suggested title: "Anti-Russia: Liberty and servitude in the new philo-czarist age"

This concatenates the title ("Anti-Russia") and the subtitle, as the title alone seems non-specific.

OP, who is "we" referring to in your title? A very large portion of the US certainly disagrees with almost every point in this article.

The article title does not include the "we".

It's probably automatically taken from the HTML title of the page. No idea why the title's that way; they've probably changed the title at one point.

I see what you mean. The URL also reflects this: ...221507/why-we-fight-russia The bookmarklet would use this title as well.

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