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Comment by hericium | Hacker News Reader

> before Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Do we really need to smooth "Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24"?

I don't see it as smoothing at all. "sent its troops into" is literally the definition of invading. Also the Russo-Ukrainian war started over 8 years ago. Calling the feb. 24. date for day-0 of the invasion is actually smoothing Russians aggregation even more.

Troops could be sent for other purposes, though. Like they were sent to Kazakhstan before Ukraine, without invading. So it's kind of smoothing. I'm not sure was it intentional or not.

Except there's no need to account for that nuance because we know why Russia "sent their troops" to Ukraine. It was an invasion and they started a war.

You'd be surprised how many people think the opposite. For example in Slovakia more than half of the public blames Ukraine.

Putin's propaganda during the first hours of war was a rescue operation[1] and you can definitely send troops to help someone.

Wording chosen by the Reuters editor leaves unnecessary room for interpretation imo.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30450498

I guess it's a force of habit from reporting on US instigated wars.

Don't read too much into that. You're thinking more about that phrasing than the author probably did.

Ok. But that's worse.

You do get how that's worse, right?

Do we really need to embellish reality with trigger-words designed to be as inflammatory as possible? What do you want - even more outrage?

Since when is the truth a trigger-word? Wtf? They started a war. It's not "triggering" to state the facts.

The question is, why clamour for more dramatic language when its quite clear that the words used adequately communicate the situation, in the first place? Your outrage won't make the world a more peaceful place - those who skillfully use language to de-escalate, do however. If only that skill were more widespread, we might actually have diplomatic solutions to this problem...

It's not outrage to point out that it's a war. It's not dramatic to state what it is, that it's a war. And if you think there's a diplomatic solution here possible only through "softer" language, then you haven't been paying attention for the past 30 years, or even just in the past year. We didn't fuck this up. Putin did. He wanted to start a war and he did. It had nothing to do with language used.

Why do you want to use more violent language about this war than is necessary? Whats your intention behind tone-policing people to be more violent in their language when discussing Russia's aggression?

Nobody said it wasn't a war. The whole world knows its a war. The only ones clamouring to make it more of a war, are the ones who stand to profit from yet more, endless war. Is that your intent? If so, consider this: we've had 30 years of this kind of rhetoric, from both sides.

We, who do not profit from this war in any way, would benefit from better language being used - by everyone.

> Why do you want to use more violent language about this war than is necessary?

Both sides of this discussion seem unnecessary and loaded. It’s obviously a war. That shouldn’t need to be said. But once said, it shouldn’t be so vigorously fought.

Where is the claim being made that it isn't a war?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/2/do-not-call-ukraine-...

So, nowhere in this article or in any of the discussion so far, by any participant - in a completely unrelated article on Al Jazeera .. got it ..

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