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Comment by throwaway894345 | Hacker News Reader

Who are the countries which haven’t invaded other countries? As sordid as the Iraq war was, it seems strictly better to to topple an oppressive dictator than to go around annexing territories (or assassinating dissidents in EU countries, or installing dictators in foreign countries, or meddling in foreign elections, or jailing rival politicians in your own country, or so on). I think comparing countries’ sins is pretty fruitless in general, but I hope we can agree that whatever criticism you may have for the US, Putin’s Russia is on another level.

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Just read this book [0], sure the Chinese are doing it too now, they read the book, the EU as well probably.

I think it would be good to have good relations with Russia, "where goods cross borders, armies do not."

There are probably a lot of nice people living in Russia, and I bet they love their children too.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit...

We had a far better relation to Russia in the early 21st century and a lot of stability with that. Somehow that got blown up without any discernible reason from my perspective.

The reasons are quite obvious I think. Expansion of NATO to the east and western supported color revolutions/arabian springs after which those who rule Russia started to understand that it is not enough to possess nukes and be safe because you can be overthrown from inside.

As sordid as the Iraq war was, it seems strictly better to to topple an oppressive dictator

I think that 600,000 Iraqis killed in that war (lower bound) would have different opinion.

Besides, does population of Iraq live better now? I seriously doubt that.

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

Can't have that, bringing some Sheiks with a very special relationship to the U.S.A. back into to empire, tsk, tsk!

Building case for chase supported by fake

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

Slapping of hands follows:

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War

Dust settles(mostly) until:

[4] http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,9985...

Uh Oh! Grave error! Threatening the

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar

That means terror! Have to be clever here, let's see and play some curve ball out of nowhere:

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)

The rest is history, as they say.

And they have the gall to call Russia a gas station with nukes run by mafia.

Yah, sure, whatever...

YOU ASS AYE! YOU ASS AYE! YOU ASS AYE!

The Russians could make the same argument of the US meddling in Ukraine, before Crimea happened. Nato denies it, but from their perspective it can make sense. Perhaps they only perceived it that way when the US got involved in the Maidan protests. That said, wrong perception is sometimes an excuse.

What kind of meddling did the US do that is on the same level as a full-scale invasion? Moreover, while it’s flat-out ridiculous to argue that the US and Russia are in the same ballpark in terms of harm to Europe (or anyone else), we don’t need to fixate on this comparison as though there is a dichotomy.

You don't have to compare the steps they took, you have to think about what the US would do if Russia gets involved in elections in Mexico or Canada.

Why? The US doesn't get involved in European elections (so your hypothetical doesn't even make sense), but that's besides the point. What does the US have to do with whether or not Europe gets its energy from Russia? Europe doesn't have to choose to put its energy supply in the hands of Russia or US, there are other suppliers and diversification is a really good alternative.

They don't need to, because they have the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantik-Br%C3%BCcke and other similary undemocratic institutions influencing the shit out of anything via side-channel attacks.

I skimmed your link, but I didn't see anything damning or undemocratic. Where are the Lukashenko-esque dictators that the US installed in Europe? Which dissidents have the US assassinated on EU soil?

Are you dumb, or what? I've written they don't need to because they have other means, which at the end of the day amounts to 'the same shit, but different' for the influenced vasall states.

You wrote:

> They don't need to, because they have the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantik-Br%C3%BCcke and other similary undemocratic institutions influencing the shit out of anything via side-channel attacks.

Which clearly says that the US has "undemocratic institutions" influencing Europe, but the link doesn't support the idea that the A-B is antidemocratic (there's nothing inherently "antidemocratic" about fostering international partnership and cooperation).

Look...I may be naive, but if you have institutions which push policies, empower candidates beyond the scenes, via whichever circles, then this is undemocratic, or otherwise called 'framing', 'setting the goal posts' to 'game' the rules into your favour. Or cheating, or fraud, or whatever. Which means candidates prepared that way, and then presented as the only option(s) to give the deceived masses the illusion of choice is simply a lie.

edit: Of course this is not exclusive to the US, let's just say they lead the market of political BS, k?

> if you have institutions which push policies, empower candidates beyond the scenes

There's nothing in your article that suggested that the organization in question was some sort of propaganda arm of the US government, and there's nothing undemocratic about advocating for one's interests. You might not agree with the advocacy, but "democracy" doesn't demand agreement.

> Of course this is not exclusive to the US, let's just say they lead the market of political BS, k?

I don't buy this at all. There are nations with actual propaganda departments, state-run censorship, bot nets, etc who actually directly attempt to influence elections.

Like all other countries, the US does advocate for its own interests abroad--this is called "diplomacy" and it's generally the least-bad kind of advocacy. However, unlike other countries, the US does possess a lot of clout (the world depends on America in large part for security and prosperity, however loath we are to admit that America or Americans serve a useful purpose).

By the great gods of Gonzo!

I'm not here to spoon feed, mentor, or lecture you on every single point you question. Furthermore it would be disrespectful to disturb your blissful ignorance.

Dream in peace.

> There's nothing in your article that suggested that the organization in question was some sort of propaganda arm of the US government

Yeah besides the name I guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanticism

I skimmed your link as well. If there’s something particularly damning about Atlanticism, it’s not jumping out at me. People keep sharing innocuous wikipedia links and then dropping the mic dramatically.

Well.. maybe they had another version in mind, and just posted the english one for ease of use, without realising it lacks the important section from their language?

Try [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantiker#Kritik and use some translation like

[2] https://www.deepl.com/translator

[3] https://translate.google.com

[4] https://translate.yandex.com

They all suffice.

Got the gist?

Could be, but it's not my problem. If they can't be bothered to paste the right link or a relevant snippet, I'm not going to do their work for them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Same here. No spoon for you.

There is a far larger background here and it has to do with resources.

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

Take a note the date of the leaked phone conversation.

Still, if it is perceived that the US is active in a European country right on the border of Russia, you have to think about the possibility that it might be seen as a threat.

edit: Not saying the reaction is justified, just saying that it wasn't some random expansionist impulse.

Literally every single political institution in the world, from sports clubs to town councils to national governments, have back channels and organizations that promote agendas. It is the means by which those agendas get put through governments that make something legitimate or not.

But we're going down a rabbit hole. The point is that Russia now has more economic leverage over eastern Europe, and for what?

At least they didn't call it Atlantikjugend

'They' got that covered via proxy of the World Economic Forum via proxy of Swiss trust as Young Global Leaders, former The Global Leaders of Tomorrow Community (GLT) ;->

(Anything else? Would you like to have fries with that?)

Why go as far as Mexico? Russia has influenced, and continues to influence, elections in the United States.

Show me US invasion forces in Ukraine.

Democracy support is not meddling. RF has done a lot of harm to Ukraine even before 2014. Euromaidan was a response against RF puppet Yanukovych. RF has used gas prices to influence election results. Leonid Kuchma who has built oligarchy regime elected with the help of Kremlin. His opponent, Viacheslav Chornovil, was killed.

It is mafia. And in RF mafia has got its own state.

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