Columbia's Sachs Criticizes NATO's Handling of Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

Columbia's Sachs Criticizes NATO's Handling of Ukraine

jeffsachs.org

So let’s reset nato to it’s 1990 borders and leave Poland et al to defend themselves.

Does that sound right to anyone? What would Russia do if we did that? We all know: they would destroy more democratic countries.

Russia is an aggressor run by a dictator.. and like all dictators they feel threatened by democracy. Putin has wanted to rebuild the Soviet sphere since the day it collapsed. These countries just want a chance to live in peace, and they would have never sought nato protection if Russia would just let that happen.

They deserve freedom even if it hurts putins feelings.

Putin's feelings maybe connected to russian nukes' status, so hold your horses and maybe let's not push democracy down his throat and be badly surprised later.

Even if it's true that NATO gradually violated a promise not to expand from 30 years ago, saying that that means it's NATO's fault that Russia invaded Ukraine now, or that diplomacy is the solution in the middle of a war that has already started, just doesn't really make sense.

I mean sure, if Russia would agree to get out of Ukraine in exchange for NATO not enlarging I guess that would be great, but it's a little late to say that talking about that is the solution after Russia has already invaded Ukraine. You just don't get to randomly invade neighboring countries because other countries may have happened to violate various promises years ago.

What war crimes and other crimes against humanity has NATO and its member states committed, with impunity, in the last twenty years?

Russia doesn't want NATO on its borders because NATO and its principle membership is factually an aggressive, criminal operation with the blood of millions of innocent people on its hands. Iraq lost 5% of its population to the evil antics of NATO states, operating with seeming impunity, launching attacks from NATO bases across the landscape. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

We in the West might be comfortable with ignoring this fact, but Russians are not.

NATO acquires membership countries through 'soft' (CIA) means, but it also bombs non-member countries determined to be 'inferior' by its membership into utter oblivion.

>Why did Poland feel the need to join an organization to defend itself against Russia?

Decades of CIA agit-prop designed to drive a wedge between two states that, were they allies, would factually represent a major challenge to American hegemony.

NATO is a trap to keep states fighting..

If Russia and Europe were to align into an economic bloc rather than fight, even China couldn't hold a light to the resulting superpower.

I don't support what US did in Iraq or Afganisthan, but you got Russia's motives wrong. Russia doesn't want to see its neighbours protected from Russia's aggression.

Russia doesn't want NATO bases within 6 minutes missile flight time of Moscow, given NATO's actual, real track record of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes with impunity.

Americans and members of aligned Western nations may not understand this, sheltered as we are within our little comfortable media bubbles that hide the vast, heinous crimes against humanity committed in our names, but from the outside it is very clear that NATO are the aggressors of our age.

You don't get to participate in the massacre of 5% of any sovereign states' population and call yourself angels. You don't get to drop bombs every twenty minutes for twenty years and call yourself a 'peace-maker'.

It is NATO member states that have utterly demolished countless other sovereign nations considered 'inferior' by NATO members' leadership.

How many more million Muslims have to die before this clear bigotry becomes obvious to us in the West? And now the same bigot war criminals have their sights set on Russia.

I think this is pretty obvious, so you have to be somewhat cowardly to not understand this fact. Or, perhaps, extremely privileged to have lived a life, callously unaware of the 34 million refugees from very real, actual wars WE have started since the end of the Cold War ..

Soviet Union killed millions and Putin wants to restore it. He is killing thousands more and could kill millions if he wins.

Russia is aggressor, not a victim.

I know what I'm talking about, all 4 of my grandparents were lucky to survive 10 years in Siberia after WWII.

The Soviet Union is ancient history and was rightfully removed from the contemporary zeitgeist. It collapsed because of its own misdeeds, just as the West is doing. And WW2 was a LONG TIME AGO - it is time to stop using WW2 to justify further atrocities in the modern age - we have a new world now. Hitler and Stalin are gone, they can't hurt you any more.

There are other racist tyrants currently murdering innocent people across the globe, and you should be able to name them today, instead of relying on the WW2 trope to justify current atrocities.

What WE did to places such as Baghdad and Mosul and Raqqa and Damascus and Tripoli and Yemen in the last 10-20 years - well, those piles of burning rubble are still smouldering. What we are doing TODAY in Yemen, for example, is far more important than what happened to your grandparents.

Russia has nowhere near the amount of innocent blood on its hands that WE, civilian members of the criminal 5-eyes superstate, do. If you want to do something about peace in the world, prosecute the war criminals in your own society. They're still committing crimes, and we - the people - will have to pay for them anyway.

The real target of your ire should be the very real, currently still active war criminals in your own cabinet/parliament/congress.

Prosecute YOUR war criminals before it is too late.

Russian warship - go to hell!

Attrocities of Soviet Union ended in 1991. I saw them with my own eyes. Russia took over right away when it fought 2 wars against Chechnya and engineered separatist movements is former Soviet Union republics. Russia attacked Sakartvelo in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Russia committed war crimes in Syria and is committing them in Ukraine right now.

If you feel responsible for war crimes of USA, you should feel personal responsibility for war crimes of Russia too, because you are supporting them. My government hasn't committed any war crimes.

If your country is Ukraine, it has been committing crimes against humanity for the past 8 years with the shelling of civilians. Enough is enough.

NATO didn’t forcefully acquire these countries.. these countries used their freedom of association and self determination to make an agreement for defense.

Why did Poland feel the need to join an organization to defend itself against Russia? What made Poland think Russia wasn’t its friend?

France in a NATO member and did not participate in the Irak war.

This war has nothing to do with NATO. It just happens to be waged by countries which are also in NATO, but the two are unrelated.

And the claim that the Irak war was just (a bullshit claim that only hardcore us republican still make with a straight face) is unrelated to the claim that the ukrain war is unjust.

This war has everything to do with NATO.

France is a NATO member that participated in the destruction of Libya.

This fact is widely acknowledged in the non-Western sphere as having been a very, very bad move.

Diplomacy has not worked, it didn't work after polonium, novichok or Crimea. It's big stick time time unfortunately.

I agree with you, but am somewhat uncomfortable about it. My respect for Sachs verges on idolatry.

> Diplomacy has not worked

Inviting former parts of the Soviet Union to join NATO is not "diplomacy."[1]

The US should try this diplomacy with China: recognize Taiwan as an independent country, invite it to join NATO and see what the Chinese do.

[1] Blinken: Ukraine has all tools to move towards NATO membership (https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/blinken-ukraine-ha...)

Ukraine is a sovereign country.

It is not like the world suddenly recognised it as a new country last week.

The real test of whether the west really believes this isnt Ukraine but when hypersonic missiles are deployed in Cuba and pointed at the US.

...which is looking less theoretical by the day.

NATO already made it pretty clear with Libya that sovereignty wasnt top among its list of concerns.

So based on your 'less theoretical' incohesive point about two other nations not related to Ukraine. You expect the world to step aside and do what exactly?

I'm saying that nobody really gives a fuck about sovereignty, least of all when there's a military threat on their doorstep. Not the US. Not NATO. Not Russia.

That makes no sense. If no one gave a shit about sovereignty then War wouldn't occur because "nobody really gives a fuck".

It isn't a NATO problem that all neighbours of Russia want to join NATO.

What might be the reason..?

Indeed. I suspect that Putin thought he'd get away with this without a response because he did the previous dozen or so times. Including the previous invasion of Ukraine. Bit of a failure to indicate what was actually a red line.

Clearly you didn't even bothered to watch the video.

The West doesn't have any big sticks left.

Diplomacy didn't work after Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, or .. Yemen .. either. It didn't work to stop the murder of two million innocent people in Iraq, and it hasn't worked to stop genocide enacted by a totalitarian-authoritarian dictatorship, aligned with Al'Qaeda, and supported by the Wests' military-industrial complex. It didn't prevent the utter destruction of Mosul or Raqqa, and it hasn't stopped the funding and arming of known terrorist groups by Western NATO members, either.

Given that heinous track record, nobody wants to 'negotiate' with the West any longer, and that is quite understandable.

If you want to do something effective, get your OWN war criminals prosecuted for their crimes.

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