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Comment by rdevsrex | Hacker News Reader

It's not the same, but there are similarities. It's not like the US hasn't knowingly killed civilians before.

And speaking of the war in Ukraine, I truly believe the US provoked Russia. Of course, Russia is responsible for its war crimes, but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.

There was a time when we could have made Russia an ally, but now they are an enemy and aligned with China.

Our politicians either are too stupid, too corrupt, or both.

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> [..] but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.

This is simply not correct, and even Gorbachev has confirmed this. There has never been any agreement stating that NATO is not allowed to accept new members in any particular direction. There were statements made by western politicians but never any pen to paper. The sovereign states that have joined NATO have not done so because of some US campaign or persuasion, but by their own free will. Your statement is indirectly saying that these countries are too dumb to decide for themselves, it's incredibly condescending.

> There were statements made by western politicians but never any pen to paper

Thanks, you just confirmed that you shall never trust what America says till you have that in writing.

Are you saying, you trust diplomats and politicians solely on their word? I'm happy, there are still so innocent people :)

How cute, blame the deceived for being deceived.

"Very American, very like!" - Borat

Why does it matter whether statements were made? It’s quite obvious to any objective observer that a large, powerful nation would perceive an enemy alliance expanding to its border would be perceived as a threat.

How would the US respond to an enemy alliance incorporating Mexico or Canada?

> There was a time when we could have made Russia an ally

That was at best a narrow window in the 90s. The Russians backed Serbia during the Yugoslav war.

And that’s wrong because?

Srebrenica? Siege of Sarajevo? (lifted by NATO intervention)

> but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.

Yeah, there's absolutely no desire from the local populations to join the EU and NATO at all...

> Of course, Russia is responsible for its war crimes, but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.

That so-called promise is a lie made up more than a decade later. Russia and NATO have in writing[1] that they agree to respect that third countries' are free to choose their allies, and even when asked specifically about Eastern Europe joining NATO in 2004 (which was overwhelmingly their initiative, against the hesitancy of existing members), Putin personally said that it's fine and Kremlin's official press release repeated it, without any mention of any broken promises or other grievances.[2]

[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm

[2] http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/30678

The most popular theory for the North Stream sabotage is that the US did it, so there is that.

President Biden said the US was going to stop it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8

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