This passage alone is why the OP shouldn't be taken seriously.
For example four US State Department employees killed in Benghazi Libya got wayyyyy more coverage than the millions of Libyans living in a violent failed state, including the thousands who were just killed in a Kakhovka-like dam disaster directly attributable to NATO’s invasion in 2011.
Or for example one Kashoggi got wayyyy more coverage than the millions facing starvation in Yemen. YCombinator even mused aloud whether they can take Saudi money BECAUSE OF KASHOGGI. This is obscene! What about the other people, do they count? Did millions of dead Afghans count? Bengalis?
As for Bucha — yes of course there were war crimes which should be fully investigated and prosecuted, and dozens of people were killed in gruesome ways. But FAR MORE people in Bucha were killed in the way I said — shrapnel during a firefight - fleschettes indiscriminately hitting civilians including with neutral white armbands:
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/24/dozens-bucha-c...
That should not be surprising. You should look past media’s hunger for sensationalism… I spoke to ACTUAL PEOPLE who went through Bucha afternath, I heard eyewitness accounts from people from Kyiv who were there and saw the holes in top floors ripped by tanks, firing at fighters that have RPGs. And even the Azov battallion had people in Bucha, deployed to fight agains the tanks…
https://mronline.org/2022/04/06/questions-abound-about-bucha...
…and ALL of it could have been avoided, including while the tanks were going to Kyiv in a comically slow plodding way, with stops along the way “running out of fuel”. Here is the Israeli PM in his own words saying he negotiated a truce in principle between the two presidents, but was blocked by USA and UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs
There are real solutions, starting with a push for greater transparency that our public can do. Transparency in governments would have prevented all of these wars: https://community.qbix.com/t/transparency-in-government/234
Depending on if you were Sunni or Shiite, Jewish or Arab, you’d often be so biased that any hint of additional context or nuance would sound preposterous. But as rational people we should avoid one-sided narratives, whether it is in Niger, Armenia, etc. Usually the same patterns repeat and sectarian violence happens in the aftermath of the fall of an empire (Ottoman, British, Russian, etc.) It happens in much the same way, and each side blames the other (eg Pakistani Muslims vs Indian Hindus). We as imperial countries simply take sides and our public is told what to think (“we were always at war eith eastasia”.)
Conflicts always have multiple sides. When you live inside one empire or another (Russia, China, USA), the mainstream media’s rhetoric is always one-sided. But the rest of the world outside the bubble (billions of people) see both sides.
As usual, most of these conflicts could have been avoided, in dozens of ways, if cooler heads prevailed at any point for decades.
I collected all context you are probably missing in one place, so you can better understand the conflict from other sides: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=397
Here are more links showing leaders of billions of people, and the polls of the people themselves, seeing more than one side and putting blame on USA and NATO for instance, for backing Russia into a corner like a cornered animal, arming Ukraine, blocking all peace agreements and efforts and goading it to lash out with this horrific pre-emptive invasion, which has been systematically called in the US “unprovoked and unjustified” as a concerted effort to make you not look at the man behind the curtain:
India (most populous nation, 1.5 billion people) https://m.thewire.in/article/world/more-indians-hold-us-nato...
China (second most populous nation, another 1.5 billion people) https://uscnpm.org/2022/04/19/chinese-public-opinion-war-in-...
The Pope (1 billion Catholics): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-14/pope-repe...
Imran Khan (400 million Pakistanis - ousted with US support recently for failing to fall in line) https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cyph...
Brazil (both presidents refuse to condemn Russia alone, call for negotiations) https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/18/russia-ukraine-war-braz...
Even in the centers of the most hawkish anti-Russian sentiment we have leaders warning about all this before it even started. For example Nigel Farage in UK 2014:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9uNsXEu8ljM
Here in the US, dire warnings about NATO expansion were given by every single ambassador to Russia, and every foreign policy expert concurred (including the architect of the USSR containment policy), but were systematically ignored by the Clinton and Bush administrations:
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-w...
And even last year, US politicians slightly outside the establishment got together and tried to call for peace talks. They were swiftly rebuked by the Biden administration:
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/25/democrats-jo...
Today, most Republicans running for president, and many in Congress, are skeptical of the narrative, and would take steps to usher in peace if they got more power.
So no — ignoring BILLIONS of people, EXPERTS in our own countries whose job it is to study these things, and even political leaders in OUR country, is not reasonable. There is a war hawk “establishment” in imperial countries (USA, Russia, China) that always pushes for more conflict, if it is allowed, and intelligence agencies work behind the topple democracies and make it happen, until the more civilian-level policians (eg State department) get involved once the ground is set: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JoW75J5bnnE
Educate yourself to see why there is more than one side to this.
I gave you a master link to everything, but here are great documentaries also from 2014 when it all went down:
PBS: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/battle-for-uk...
But what do you mean by mental hoops? Let me reiterate, the view is held by:
Billions of people, and their leaders outside the NATO bubble
EVERY SINGLE ONE of our own ambassadors to Russia and experts have signed group letters warning every administration since the 90s: https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/arms-control-today/o...
Heck even the Ukrainian PEOPLE, the Ukrainian public itself was against it:
Pew: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n...
Gallup: https://news.gallup.com/poll/104356/ukrainians-see-more-valu...
You gotta start realizing the role George W Bush played in all this, at the very least — pushing for Ukraine in NATO at the very time when its own public overwhelmingly opposed it.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush/bush-vo...
The mental hoops are for those who continue to repeat the stock phrases
“open door policy”
“purely defensive”
“unprovoked and unjustified”
“weapons of mass destruction”
“hacked the election”
“axis of evil”
“they hate us for our freedoms”
These phrases are carefully tested w focus groups, and dropped if they don’t work (eg “islamofascism” and “crusade” was briefly used by Bush admin before being retired in favor of “weapons of mass destruction” and “axis of evil”.)
Historically, even violence and war does not change people's beliefs.
One side in this conflict invaded the other. That is not being 'backed into a corner'.
Yes there are endless examples of Western governments meddling or invading or assasinating etc. Yes that is bad.
No that has no relevance to Russia obliterating Ukranian cities.
You are simply wrong.
There was a diplomatic solution to be found, Russia chose violence. They used lies and deceit to justify it as they have in all conflicts since 1991. Ultimately they wage war for the sake of capitalist ambitions just as all of those other governments and institutions you listed
This? Ok. Well, I am glad the post mentioned that Russia is just one of multiple imperialist countries, who wage war for the sake of capitalist ambitions. Russia also waged this specific war, and the one in Georgia, to preserve its Black Sea fleet, and prevent its neighbors from joining an enemy alliance (NATO) whose raison d’etre even after the fall of the Soviet Union was to be a military alliance against Russia. This isn’t purely Capitalist.
When Kennedy blockaded and threatened Cuba and led to the Cuban missile crisis, the justification was well-understood: USA cannot afford to have a country on its border allied with its geopolitical rivals and pave the way for missiles to be placed pointing at US cities, ready to strike them within a few minutes. I can understand Kennedy. But back then, these statesmen (Kennedy and Khrustchev) went about it constructively, they established a direct line between the highest levels to avoid a misunderstanding, and Kennedy gave a peace speech in which he said “… Above all, nuclear powers should avoid bringing the other to a choice between a humiliating defeat or a nuclear war. To pursue that course of action in the nuclear age would show the bankruptcy of our foreign policy or a collective death-wish for the world.”
Yet today the very thing Kennedy warned about is the explicit policy of the Biden admin and establishment. No talks. No negotiations. Push to a humiliating retreat — they won’t dare start a nuclear war. All the while volunteering Ukrainians to a meat grinder that could have been avoided. And the justification for no direct line, no talks sounds like kindergarteners: “but he staaaarted it!”
Incidentally, before the Cuban missile crisis the US secretly put nuclear missiles on Turkey aimed at USSR. But when USSR did that in Cuba we freaked out. We took the missiles off Turkey. Incidentally, today we have missiles in Turkey again pointed at Russia — the very thing that was “too close” last time. Don’t you see that we are constantly inching closer and provoking / poking the bear… so to say it’s “unprovoked” is strange.
In 1954 USSR applied to NATO and was rejected, NATO said it seemed like such a joke that they wouldn’t take it seriously. In the early 2000s Putin openly said he wanted Russia to join NATO. Bush rejected Russia but forcibly pushed Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, even when their own population didn’t want it. My question is - why? When does the US choose diplomacy that it actually upholds? Native Americans? North Korea? Iran? All diplomatic treaties broken by the very next administration. We do not have a good track record of keeping our diplomatic commitments but somehow others are supposed to trust us implicitly cause it’s us.
Russia and Ukraine did choose diplomacy. Minsk agreements I and II. Normandy Format meetings. And one week into the war both Putin and Zelensky were ready to sign an agreement to resolve everything. Naftali Bennett said that the US killed the deal!
Merkel admitted the Minsk II agreements were to “buy time to arm Ukraine”. And Zelensky openly and proudly said this year he never intended to implement the Minsk accords — despite running on that very platform and being elected to make peace! And all throughout 2021 Russia warned and warned and asked NATO for guarantees that they wouldn’t place missiles in Ukraine etc. and was told that they are not open to negotiation. https://apnews.com/article/business-russia-ukraine-moscow-se...
And yet somehow it’s only Russia singled out as as “not engaging in diplomacy”? To characterize that way is, in my opinion, betraying an unmistakbd double standard / bias.
Don’t get me wrong, I very much want for there to be a diplomatic solution, along the lines of Minsk II. I would love it if the next US president would be an adult, apologize for Bush’s admin and come up with a roadmap whereby Ukraine, Georgia and Russia will all join NATO on the same day in some time in future, but to do that they must agree to a roadmap that starts with a cease fire, restoring relations, then eventually solving their border disputes (yes with Georgia too), and working together to rebuild.
But the current war hawks would NEVER accept that, because that would strengthen Russia and Ukraine and Georgia etc. And as Adam Schiff put it well in 2019: “we aid Ukraine and her people so they can fight the Russians over there — so we don’t have to fight them over here.” https://m.facebook.com/IndianMilitaryUpdate/videos/united-st...
If we stopped flipping Russia’s neighbors against it, then they might actually grow strong enough again as a military and economic bloc to compete with us on a level playing field, economically and otherwise, and we don’t want that! We don’t want China to either!
I just didn’t want to be accused of not addressing what people said.. the topic is very important and I was just trying to relate what billions of people around the world seem to be thinking.