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Comment by Baeocystin | Hacker News Reader

Why? Can you give examples?

Honest question, not arguing. I live in California, and don't have much contact with the zeitgeist of the Balkans/Europe in general.

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> Why? Can you give examples?

Here's an example:

The EU has backed the Ukraine, a war that was mostly created by the US pushing NATO boundaries outwards and backing Russia's dictator into a completely untenable corner.

The EU did this at its own detriment, with very questionable legitimacy (the EU was never given a mandate to deal in such geopolitical issues) plunging the entire continent into an energy crisis the like of which hasn't been seen since the oil crisis in the 70s.

Ask any small to medium company in Germany how they plan to pay their gas bills in the coming 2 years other that declaring bankruptcy.

> The EU has backed the Ukraine, a war that was mostly created by the US pushing NATO boundaries outwards and backing Russia’s dictator into a completely untenable corner.

The War in Ukraine was entirely created by Russia pushing Russia’s boundaries.

In any case, the US hasn’t pushed NATO’s boundaries, Eastern European countries applying to join NATO have “pushed” it. The US has mostly slowed that process more than the applying countries want to assure readiness (which, in part, is I guess a long-picture contributor to the war, since long before Putin decided NATO expansion was an affront to Russia, he was demanding Russia be admitted to NATO without the usual readiness process.)

Cuba didn't push US boundries, they just chose to be friendly with a country that US wasn't friendly with.

and now, 60 years laters:

https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-cuba-israel-...

> UN votes overwhelmingly to condemn US embargo of Cuba

> The vote in the 193-member General Assembly was 185 countries supporting the condemnation, the United States and Israel opposing it, and Brazil and Ukraine abstaining.

(let's not forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods )

> Cuba didn’t push US boundries

What does Cuba have to do with this?

It’s whataboutism to try and excuse Russias brutal invasion and genocide of Ukraine and Ukrainians.

We've had similar conflicts and wars in the past, and we must look how we treated them to ask ourselves why are we treating this one differently... except that it was 'us' who started most of the others.

European (well, roman) law is based on a set of rules and treating everyone by those rules, and american (case) law is based on historic cases and how we treated those.

So yeah, history matters.

Cubans also overthrew a government that had very close ties to the US significantly damaging American business interests in the process. That does not make American action any more justifiable just much more understandable.

However again.. how is this relevant. Russia signed a treaty guaranteeing Ukrainian neutrality and independence in the 90s. Which they totally threw away at the first signs of Ukraine actually becoming neutral rather than an Russian puppet state.

> The EU has backed the Ukraine, a war that was mostly created by the US pushing NATO boundaries outwards and backing Russia's dictator into a completely untenable corner.

This is a curiously uninformed take that ignores the reality of Russia invading other sovereign countries.

Invading other sovereign countries is a "daily occurance" for many countries, be it middle east, africa or somethimes even within europe. So is bombing those countries, bombing across the disputed border, etc. Also drone bombing countries you're not even at war with and hitting weddings... or political leaders of those countries. Also interfering in countries internal politics, staging coups, assassinations, financing terrorists groups... oh wait, freedom fighters (they only become terrorists after they turn against usa), and targeting "digital targets", from "classic hacking" to stuff like stuxnet.

The difference now (for us, europeans) is, that because of this specific occupation, which isn't done by "us" or "our friends" (we would help with the occupation if it was), our politicians are willing to screw massively with our economies, degrade the quality of life for normal people, endanger basically everyone in the world with looming prospects of WW3, conduct possibly internal terrorism (nord steam) and kill a bunch of people who'd prefer living normal lives... and all of that for what? Because nato (mostly americans) are in a dick measuring contest with putin, or maybe as a 'revenge', because of cuba, or who knows.... in the end, politicans stay rich, military industrial complex gets a lot richer, normal people in europe get fucked, ad soldiers die.

Whataboutism does not change the facts. A comparison to other events does not change the reality of what has happened. Russia invaded Ukraine.

But you need to do a comparison... why treat this differently than any other war? ...except that we were the ones who started all those other wars?

No comparison is necessary. Many of the western-initiated wars were wrong, and should not have happened. That changes nothing about this war and its morality.

> daily occurance

more like a bi-decadal occurrence. Then again nuance seems like an entirely foreign concept to you.

When was the last time that no country was occupied by another country?

As if Russia is committing the original sin. Or as if international politics gives a damn, or has ever given. There is no other reality than sovereign countries invading themselves and separating themselves. Western world order is not different than what it always was.

gas prices are at the same level they have been before the war

> untenable

what exactly was untenable about it? Russia could have easily come to some sort of an agreement more or less acceptable to all of the sides back in 2014. They had no interest in that. Neutral Ukraine was never an acceptable option to Putin…

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