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I won't comment on the rest, but as a Ukrainian living in the US (and thus keenly aware of both countries' politics), I object to seeing Ukraine in this list.

I won't argue more about this point on Hacker News, of all places; however providing un-annotated links to videos (and making others figure out where in the videos any of your claims are supported) surely can't be seen as an acceptable way to reason around here.

I have checked each of these links and this does not feel like reliable information.

Why not ? Why judge by feeling ?

Anyway, thanks for the courtesy of checking each link.

Feeling is all I have in the end, sure it's backed up by what I have learned through the years but in the end the decisions I make are not only informed by my feelings but will also affect my feelings for the rest of my life.

I have a healthy distrust of my government (The US) and I know there have been travesties committed by just about all of the players. I want to be informed and am willing to do the research. I was pretty young during some of the conflicts you mentioned so I'm also brushing up on some of the history.

Which side do you align yourself with in the Kosovo war, it seems like it was a terrible ordeal for everyone involved?

I live in West-Europe. War is always the worst case involving all (non-)imaginable harm and misery.

I side with Syria/Russia in the war in Syria because the case is clear.

Protected by the Syrian army: https://www.unusualtraveler.com/damascus/

Destroyed by the opposition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_Civil... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6omfaKhZL0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0OeM0tFmFs

I side with no one in the past Kosovo war. The conflict was complicated and some conflict still remains in the region.

Some years ago, when I found out about the extent of propaganda and lies and often ignorance or lack of normal morality of the politicians and the media, I was shocked and angry.

After much time reading various sources and comment sections, one learns what to expect from the usual factions and actors and what is most likely true and what is story.

I appreciate your candor, it seems like you transitioned from indignation to resignation in the course of a few comments. I bet that happens often.

I consider myself lucky to be a citizen of the US, but I recognize the propaganda and lies. It seems like the media in the US switched sometime in the late 80s to the early 90s from, perhaps slanted, but factual news coverage to sensationalist entertainment and we started down a very devisive path. Now my country is split into two main factions along with a few outliers. It's sad.

I don't trust Russia at all, but that might be simply because I'm a child of the cold war. That being said I don't feel trust when I think of Russia. Syria is another story, I wish I could travel back in time before this crisis happened and talk with people, but they would probably be distrustful towards me rather than candid.

I don't think that there is any real solution to the worlds problems in general, and even individual conflicts seem to have too many sides for any outsider to have any meaningful opinion.

I wish I was more upbeat, but there are things happening in my country which are so concerning that I don't sleep more than a few hours per night.

Actually I was surprised that someone made the effort to check the links and write a reply instead of a down vote. I still spend some of time in forums in the hope to learn something new and to make it easy for other persons to learn something new.

Do not lose your sleep over political, military or economic decisions like e.g. the trade war. I am not sarcastic here. Is there something particular that makes you so concerned as US citizen ?

Regarding the USA in the past and meddling in the affairs of other states:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X3nmzkyoKM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Resolution

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41086.htm

IMO the political distinction between Democrats and Republicans is rather small. But Trump and his staff is different. IMO the election of Trump might be a good sign: US citizens want a different government.

Only 26% of eligible voters voted for Trump. https://mises.org/wire/26-percent-eligible-voters-voted-trum...

Unfortunately leftists try to change the Democrats from within instead of concentrating efforts to create a strong leftist 3rd party.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TYTComedy/videos

At least the USA got rid of Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator. A corrupt (IMO insane) climate change denier should have no place in politics and certainly not in the EPA. I was happy that both Democrats and Republicans wanted Pruitt out of office. Local politicians have still power in the USA. The US president might matter more for other states (war victims) than for US citizens. SolarCity, Tesla and SpaceX are famous US companies benefitting from US subsidies. This is a good thing that has already changed the world for the better. Even DARPA does very useful work regarding AI, medicin, neurotechnology, prosthetics and other domains. https://www.youtube.com/user/DARPAtv/videos

I do not know much about the Russian media but RT offers a lot of good information. E.g. information about the UK Skripal case. Maybe even Hillary Clinton would agree in secret: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6sYB5d1Bu4&t=35

cheers for all your links :)

Thanks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

So, had to re-read that article just in case there was new information, but even if all the speculation is true (probably) this does not support the claim that USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UK and France are the most aggressive cyber-combatants. Stuxnet was a targeted attack which accomplished a defensive goal. It is also unlikely that Saudi Arabia, the UK nor France had anything to do with this attack nor are there any claims of NATO support for the development of Stuxnet.

Meanwhile Russia is actively targeting political systems worldwide through social media and misinformation while also stockpiling latent backdoors and probably more.

>actively targeting political systems worldwide through X

Sounds like what every big player is doing for centuries.

>while also stockpiling latent backdoors and probably more

Sounds like what every big player is doing for at least a couple decades, except for the US which does this since early 90s while having much wider reach (a lot of the infrastructure and most software/hardware companies with irreplaceable products are within US jurisdiction).

>Stuxnet was a targeted attack which accomplished a defensive goal

Stuxnet was deployed outside the US or Israel (where it was created) to destroy the foreign infrastructure. If you're going to call that defensive or preemptive, any attack on the US or Israel infrastructure can be justified as such by the attacker as well.

> actively targeting political systems worldwide through X >> Sounds like what every big player is doing for centuries.

This is traditionally an internal matter.

> Sounds like what every big player is doing

Perhaps, but I need citations before I can argue the case

>> any attack on the US or Israel infrastructure can be justified as such by the attacker as well.

Not really, this was to stall the Iranian nuclear program, Israel and the US is already a nuclear power. Any attack on our infrastructure would be solely to cause harm to noncombatants.

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