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Comment by nickpp | Hacker News Reader

No. Mearsheimer is a Putin apologist and people like him are a large part the reason for the mess we are in right now.

The West should've stopped Putin (and other madmen like him) a long time ago instead of appeasing him.

This does not provide explanations or solutions. If you seriously think the man apologises an invasion, it is just another misjudgement.

This just shows you have bad listening skills. No one in their right mind would justify Russian aggression right now. I can’t even imagine Russians would given the possibility that they have to live in a country that will be isolated from the rest of the world. But Americans and EU ‘s incapability to analyse their own mistakes is pathological and hopeless.

That's why you can't have a reasonable conversation about this topic. If you dare bring forth an alternative view, or just a different view, which doesn't align with US/Western interests, you immediately get called a "Putin apologist" without the need to even prove wrong any evidence you provided.

So now I ask, can you provide any evidence that prof. Mearsheimer has ties with Russia/Putin that influence his opinions?

That is the joke here. People pointing fingers at Russia for not being a democratic country with free speech and for censoring the media. But here we are, nobody is censoring us. And yet we cannot tolerate somebody with an alternative view (or even just somebody who shows a mere openness for alternative views).

I have always wondered- how exactly getting rid of Putin help us? More specifically, what is the guarantee that thwart they will be replacing with will not be ISIS or Taliban? Frankly after Iraq US has lost all credibility, the track record of replacing the status quo with “western style democracy” for all intents and purposes have proven disastrous for the local people and the US.

It's not a guarantee that the new one will be better - it's the guarantee that the new one will be not the old one :) . As an example, Boris Yeltsin was a different kind of a leader.

Of course, the idea is to prevent people from the same circle - with similar or worse ideas - to have the power. Robustly that's to be solved by the people of the country - who apparently suffer from lack of learning on the previous mistakes. Also, getting best solution takes longer time... to the initial results.

> for all intents and purposes have proven disastrous for the local people and the US

Except for the generation of Afghan girls that got to attend school for the ~20-years that the US was in charge.

Except those that got droned.

More went to school than got droned, what's your point, that innocent people die in wars? People also die under Sharia Law. Pick your struggle.

Are you seriously bringing up education of girls wrt to Afghanistan? It was an excuse to appease some Europeans to stay longer ( specifically the Dutch ).

No leader or country will ever start a war because of some diversity concerns.

The bigger point is that life for everyday Afghanis was better under the American occupation than it is now. (Partly because the Taliban can't feed them.) Too bad the warlords didn't agree.

You claim this, do you have sources?

It only shows humanitarian aid is partisan.

Afghanis are starving now and Afghan girls can't go to school. (Yes, the Taliban are saying girls will be able to go to school again in March. We shall see.) Western allies spend huge amounts of money building roads and other infrastructure in Afghanistan, much of which the Taliban destroyed. Do you need links? Because you can probably google it as well as I can.

You can't, on the one hand, claim that the Western allies were a malign influence in Afghanistan and also claim that Western aid is the only thing that can keep Afghans from starvation.

> You can't, on the one hand, claim that the Western allies were a malign influence in Afghanistan

Did I? I don't think so.

> also claim that Western aid is the only thing that can keep Afghans from starvation.

I didn't claim that eiter AFAIR, but since you are bringing it up : sanctions were imposed, aid was halted and the economy collapsed.

I am not saying that, the US admin is saying that : https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/politics/us-sanctions-...

I am not sure what your beef is, but you sound like a neocolonialist.

Are you seriously saying that Afghanistan is better under the Taliban?!

20 years of war and occupation to educate some girls seems excessive to me.

> to educate some girls

Oh, now I get you.

What are you insinuating?

Russia is not some third world country.

There is at least a good chance it will have a better leader after Putin. Because Putin has become a terrible leader.

To be precise : it is a second world country.

The second world no longer exists, by definition.

It's called having an objective view. The large part of the reason for the mess is the existence of NATO is post-Soviet world. What Mearsheimer basically is saying is Putin's motivations - you don't necessarily have to be an apologist to explain that

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