Scale of Russian mercenary mission in Libya exposed
bbc.com
bbc.com
I wonder how necessary these things are geopolitically, or how they are justified by either sides. Dealing with mercenary forces and their total lack of accountability or ethics as a local civilian can only leave one disgusted, jaded, and with nothing but hatred for the nations which cause or let these things happen. Does anyone here have experience with this topic, and can say what the advantages are, if the goal is not purely to demoralize?
Statecraft is so strange in this way, that you or I as laymen will ask just what in the fuck is the point - but it's totally legitimate and not casus belli for our solider to magically become a spy for a day to execute an operation on another nation.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/21/in-2008-mumbai-attacks-piles...
[2] https://abc7chicago.com/rare-extradition-in-works-for-chicag...
"The group was first identified in 2014 when it was backing pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine."
Same reason Russia didn't send their uniformed troops into Ukraine.
The idea here is not obvious to a person living in the free world: it is to prevent your "scary, and mighty" standing army shown as weak, and losing in case it got stomped.
Seeing the "tzar's army" being weak will inevitably invite a challenge to his power.
It is disinformation-as-policy to bolster their political might without flexing their full military. The finest example of Hypernormalization.
Embarrassed that their government represents people of my heritage. Путин просто хуйло.
The reason why Wagner exists is quite simple - primarily it vents out all the people who has not found their place in Russia(and prevents their use against those who are in power in Russia) and their main and primary reason to serve in Wagner is being killed in the name of Russia. They are not expected to get back - in Ukraine conflict Wagner people were bombed by Russian army, when they decided to go back. They are expendables from the day they signed up.
That doesn't really matter, though. The thin veneer lets them use their veto in the Security Council, and probably gets China to do so as well.
Same scenario as OJ Simpson publishing the "(if) I did it" book. Everyone knows what's going on. No one can do anything about it.
But if your views are indistinguishable from a paid troll's views, that's no one's problem but yours. Maybe you should even reconsider them? At least those guys get paid for posting their talking points.
Sure, technically true, but still something to consider a bit.
I suppose we agree about this at least, but disagree about the degree of its effectiveness on us both.
I know that I'm affected by western propaganda. Are you similarily aware?
It's like crying out loud about being persecuted before anyone actually did anything to you.
The "freedom of speech" comment is merely a vent, and such generalizations is rarely fact... just like "A foreign concept in contemporary Russia" is a vent and generalization as well.
I assume people who call you that are real bot/trolls most likely paid in Kraft dinners.
Putin has been in power for 20+ years and he'll remain in power until he dies (he's only 68). During this time, Russia has not seen great improvements as a society. For a few years in the early-to-mid naughts things were getting better as Russia was riding high on high oil prices and recovery from the dismal 90s. But this didn't last long - it all came crashing down in '08 and things have not recovered. Russian gdp per capita was the same in 2019 as in 2008. Covid killed masses of people which they've "cleverly" hidden with stats (it's not clever at all, you can just see the excess deaths). As the world shifts away from fossil fuels, their heavily oil-dependent budget is only going to get harder to manage. Politics-wise, any opposition figure will be killed if they become high-profile enough
Things are grim and there's no realistic hope of things improving. For all their many, many, many faults, the soviets actually aspired to improve the lives of people. They ultimately proved inept at it, but they did believe they should and could improve people's lives. Putinism has no such aspirations. Instead the idea is to breed cynicism, fatalism and nihilism into people such that no one should ever expect anything better. To have hope, to act morally and ethically, to dream is to be a fucking idiot.
Thus, Putin's MO is demonstrate to his people that the rest of the world is just as shitty as his Russia is. That no one is better than him, because everyone is a hypocrite, everyone is corrupt, everyone is a murderer. This worldview is very useful for many people in the West, hence the charges of "Russian bots" are not quite right. The scores of people defending Russia are not Russia bots, they're regular folk, they just find this worldview useful and want to import it. It's like the IRA and their trolls created a self-sustaining cycle.
To put it more succinctly, in most countries (especially in the west) there are clear lines of demarcation between the public, private and criminal sectors. (The lines aren't impermeable. But the lines exist.)
In Russia, those lines have been eliminated. One group controls all three sectors.
I've heard plenty of stories from Special Forces acquaintances...
It’s less contentious when someone defends their favorite sports team than a political organization, but I think it’s related in many ways. In the real world nothing is perfect, but everyone gives more slack to organizations they identify with be that religious, cultural, political, or personal reasons.
Of course people can be trolls and also genuinely feel this way.
Regarding your observation; I might be wrong, but I think it depends on the time when political topcis are dominant and when hardcore tech stuff is being posted. It seems to me that in the (German) morning hours political stories dominate, in the evening tech stuff is dominant.
https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-africa-679a6d6fc549bd...
They have covered those mercenaries, the first bit is about a different conflict but it also covers Libya later.
- https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-55238803
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya_(GNA)%E2%80%93Turkey_mar...
- https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1165307/anastasiades-point...
Alleged warcimes.
It's not journalism if it's based on "this anonymous guy said it's true so it's true". Wikileaks is journalism, not this.
I honestly do not dare to judge from the outside. I know it is a complicated mess, with lots of hypocrosy and lots of foreign powers playing geopolitics.
Not mercenaries, but a standing Turkish army unit, which by the way completely stomped them.
Turkey - Col. Okan Altınay † (Turkish military officer)[36]
That's the quality journalism I expect to see from BBC, right here.
The USA has done every kind of outrage. But it'd somehow be a bit worse if Libyans were paying the USA for American nationals to come fight.
Splitting hairs, I know. Bush 41 turned a profit on the first invasion of Iraq. And there's plenty of off-the-books operations like the Iran-Contra scandal.
Lest we forget “we came, we see, he died”