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Comment by StefanBatory | Hacker News Reader

How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?

We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about ideals like liberal democracy or allies, but is a warmongering corporatist autocracy.

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We won't know for a while but I don't imagine there will be mass civilian graves, abducted children, or the intent to annex the country. This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.

"This is more about oil and deposing Maduro." Scary how overt these 'operations' are these days. 50 years ago governments would try hide stuff like this. Someone said 'lack of shame' is very concerning with governments of today. Wonder if this is a reflection of where we as a humanity are heading.

> 50 years ago governments would try hide stuff like this

The Cold War was openly about changing governments.

> This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.

Correct.

"This isn't about conquering Ukraine, it's about coal and removing Nazi Żeleński from power"

I wasn't paraphrasing Trump but rather speculating about his actual intentions.

I know, not disagreeing with you on that. I felt though it's important to add that too though.

Putin has always been very clear about conquering Ukraine and eliminating anything Ukrainian, including its statehood. Tons of public writing, won't shut up about his fake history of the region, etc. Putin is as clear about his intentions as Hitler was about his intentions.

Could you point to some sources please? Every time I see Putin talk on Ukraine, he clearly expresses the very opposite, so I'd like to see where he's said otherwise.

en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

A lot of reading there, thanks!

I can't honestly claim to have paid attention to the whole interview and followed all of his rambling, but he seemed to express in the Tucker interview that he views Ukraine as traditional/rightful Russian territory. Tucker was trying to lead Putin into the claim that the invasion was prompted by NATO doing NATO things (which is the talking point favored by right-aligned American commenters, who want to somehow blame Obama/Biden foreign policy for the war), but Putin just wanted to talk about shit that happened centuries ago.

Yeah that interview was accidentally pretty interesting and also boing af.

Ukraine didn’t hold an election in which the results were simply ignored by the leader in power

Yep. They just ousted the elected president without the votes their constitution mandates.

That was 2014, there have been multiple elections since then, with multiple winners and international observers.

Yes, there were elections where at most only 18M people voted, compared to the 24M people that voted when the pro-Russian candidate won, in 2010. Because there were almost no ballot station in those regions leaning more towards Russia. Yet the government didn't think that was a problem at all; in fact, it was good for them (imagine if Trump could just make that people in some blue states couldn't vote). All this in a climate with banned parties and where all the media was controlled by the "Maidan" parties.

So it doesn't look the situation in Ukraine was very democratic either.

> "ousted"

The guy literally ran away to Russia.

I.e. the closest country with some international weight that would give him refuge.

But interesting take. So, if Zelenskyy at some point is forced to flee to Poland, is that a proof that he was a Polish puppet all along?

If he would barely speak Ukrainian, communicate mostly in Polish instead of Ukrainian, sacrifice his country’s interests in favor of Poland for 15 billion instead of following EU integration path, then yes – he was a Polish puppet all along.

Well, Zelensky actually barely speaks Ukrainian. He communicates mostly in Russian. As for his country's interests, we'd better wait to see how Ukraine is after all this finishes, and who are the biggest beneficiaries, in comparison to how it was when his term began.

Seems like a thin reason to invade a country

> a thin reason to invade a country

No invasion (yet). Just bombing.

We have at the absolute very least, invaded Venezuelan airspace.

> We have at the absolute very least, invaded Venezuelan airspace

This is not a useful delineation for what constitutes a military invasion. Invasion means landing troops and controlling territory.

Why am I seeing footage of Chinooks if it's only a bombing? Those are troop-carriers.

> Why am I seeing footage of Chinooks if it's only a bombing? Those are troop-carriers

Based on what we're being told now, this was an extraction. (Slash detention. Slash kidnapping. In any case, requiring troop transport and extraction.)

And kidnapping their president in violation of every international law. No big deal /s

Seriously, I'm patiently waiting for the day America or Russia will do the same to Netanyahu, who is an actual war criminal. Not holding my breath.

That's just one of the fake reasons Russia likes to point at, with useful idiots like yourself aiding the effort.

I don't think you fully understand their comment.

It’s not any different. I have totally lost my faith in America as an American.

Now you did ?

You should've been keeping scores on US' wars and regime changes, you'd had lost faith long time ago.

It's so much easier to keep score these days. Up until the 90s, you were tube-fed the news from your TV (pun intended). You would have to go out of your way to read anything contrary to the sanctioned narrative or to see the effects of your country's policies and actions.

These days everything is live-streamed. So, anyone with an inquiring mind can lookup different sources and make their own conclusions.

But I fear this won't be for long. It is slowly becoming clear that the AI rally is less about productivity and more about mass surveillance and controlling online dissent globally [1].

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dz0g2ykpeo

Well considering Taiwan's independence and Putin's absolute obsession over NATO, it seems like the score ought to reflect the whole story. I'm not saying it's great, but it's gotta be better than historical comparables.

I am against China attacking Taiwan, I am against Russia attacking Ukraine, but I am also against Ukraine wanting to join NATO. The war started because of NATO and the US, and it almost fucked us over here in Germany when the US helped the Ukrainians blow up Nord Stream.

I am against any offensive action which leads to the misery and impoverishment of people, for some stupid power games of power hungry idiots.

I am sorry, you are blaming the United States for Russia invading Ukraine? Because Ukraine wanted to join a defensive alliance to protect themselves from a country that invaded them in 2014 and tried to keep their puppet in power before Maidan punted him?

Hilarious.

Do you think it is realistic that a (relatively) small country next to a superpower seeks protection from the rival superpower ?

What would happen if panama wanted to join a defence pact with Russia ?

What happened during the Cuban missile crisis ?

I wish all countries could be independent and free of meddling from superpowers. But at some moment you have to be realistic.

> Do you think it is realistic that a (relatively) small country next to a superpower seeks protection from the rival superpower ?

Like the Baltics, Poland, Taiwan, South Korea, Berlin, ... Yeah seems pretty realistic.

> What would happen if panama wanted to join a defence pact with Russia ?

Russia or a defensive alliance that includes countries like Germany and France?

> What happened during the Cuban missile crisis ?

A bunch of cold war nonsense? Russia tried to station first strike weapons and the US responded poorly.

> I wish all countries could be independent and free of meddling from superpowers. But at some moment you have to be realistic.

Lmao and that is why you conclude that Ukraine should not be permitted to seek a defensive ally after being invaded (2014).

> The war started because of NATO and the US

"Bro please just look at the expansion map. I swear bro the war started because of NATO and the US. It’s not an invasion bro it’s a forced reaction to unipolar hegemony. Just one more provocation and the bear had to bite back. Please bro just admit it's a proxy war. I promise bro if the West just stayed out of the sphere of influence everything would be fine."

Do you have anything of substance to add ?

This tribalism that you display is exactly the reason that we end up in situations that we have. Do not pledge tribal allegiance to anyone. Pledge allegiance to critical thinking.

> This tribalism

> The war started because of NATO and US

Hmm…

> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?

As a Ukrainian I would assume US forces don't intend to conduct a campaign of mass murder, rape and looting, and US government overall doesn't plan genocide and erasure of national identity of Venezuela together with annexation of its territories?

See: Panama, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

OP's question was about how the current Russian invasion of Ukraine is different, not about some grand total score of infractions by major powers in 20th century. Overall I find this opinion of many western liberals that it is only fair for Russia to murder some Ukrainians, loot their homes and rape their women because US did some bad things before quite perplexing.

That wasn't my point. My specific argument is about US operational policy on the ground in similar engagements. Based on precident, we would expect them to engage in the behavior the commentor indicts.

I dream that neither of these imperial powers - Russia or the US - will be allowed to inflict imperial violence, but I wouldn't be mistaken and assume that this military action will be any different than, say, JSOC in Iraq.

Do you expect US soldiers to systematically loot homes on occupied territories? Or arbitrary murder anyone speaking language they don't like or found to be subscribed to Telegram channels they don't approve of on mass scale? Do the US plan to conduct genocide and annex Venezuela in your opinion?

The conduct of VSRF in Ukraine could perhaps be compared to the US conduct in Vietnam but definitely not in Iraq.

In Iraq, JSOC operational doctrine was literally to target assassination campaigns based on 'nodal analysis' from contacts lifted from cellphones; if telegram had existed, they certainly would have used it too.

Famously, they didn't have enough Arabic translators, so Delta Force was often taking targets entirely based on reported association. They couldn't target based on language because they couldn't even tell what language locals were speaking most of the time.

Russia's goal is to destroy Ukraine as nation and a country, because there's no "Ukrainians", there's no "Ukrainian language", and every country that speaks Russian should be controlled by Russian tsar. That's why they don't care and demolish ("liberate") Ukraine, town after town.

Do US do/want the same for Venezuela?

For one the whole country of Ukraine is fighting like hell for almost 4 years following the orders of their elected government to defend their country.

If Russia was on the right, the people of Ukraine would have just hanged Zelenskyy and his gov, instead of sending their children to the meat grinder.

Let’s see if Venezuelans will put their lives on the line to protect the regime.

Military police are forcefully abducting people on the streets by now. Fighting the power of the state is not something that just happens.

Military (or part of) can (and historically does) initiate a coup. If civilians are also on board the gov is over in hours. Coups typically fail when people are not on the same page.

Turkey is a great example. Heck Putin also had Wagner knocking his door in Moscow.

> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?

Cynically: maybe Venezuela will get a bit less sympathy because it's a somewhat shittier (see emigration numbers) and less democratic government than Ukraine's. And I suspect we have a more positive view of US troops than Russian troops, despite everything (Abu Ghraib is seen as an aberration and not as the normal way of working).

> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?

Cynically it's different in that Trump hopefully will not going to kill 220,000+ and leave 500,000+ war invalids of US military personnel in process. Though you never know...

It does differ, in ways that many others listed below. That doesn't make it any legitimate, though.

A surgical strike that was over before the news broke out vs. a 4-year campaign of plundering with literal criminals, press-ganged foreigners, and chechen blocking detachments, featuring mass rape, executed civilians, abduction and forced reeducation of thousands of children, gross mistreatment of PoW, etc.

Hmmmm... indeed, hard to tell the difference!

Emphasizing that I’m not defending this war at all, but one key difference I’m extremely confident in is that the US will not attempt to annex its favorite regions of Venezuela.

It doesn't care about regions. There's a lot of precedent for annexing resources though.

Let's see if some american company is granted all kinds of rights to Venezuelan oil in the end.

Which, if it happens, should really be treated as blood oil like blood diamonds are and then sanctioned by the world

FWIW Russia was initially quite happy with "independent" Ukraine provided that their guy Yanukovich was in charge. It was only when he was ousted that they switched to open invasion tactics.

So from that perspective, I don't think US is really much different, just better at keeping its own puppets in power.

Russia didn’t react to his ouster by demanding a restoration of proper governance, they reacted by sending clandestine troops to seize Crimea in preparation for annexation the next month. Annexing other countries’ sovereign territory is a red line for good reason.

I'm not defending Russia here. Yanukovich was ousted for good reasons (and arguably he carried out a coup first when he reverted the country's constitution). My point is that, if we don't invade other countries only because their leadership does what we want, then we aren't really qualitatively any better.

Absolutely no reason to believe that

do you think that a pro US replacement regime in Venezuela will get US backing and support for it’s claims to eastern Guyana?

No. I suppose I’m less confident in that, but I still don’t think it’s very likely. The American oil companies with contracts in Guyana would certainly be unhappy about it and it’s not clear what political benefit anyone in the US could hope to gain.

"We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about <thing USA has never cared about>, but is a <things USA has always been>"

Another difference that has not been mentioned in other comments is that: The US is not completely delusional about its military capabilities and could actually complete this invasion in three days. In fact, it may already be over, as Maduro have been captured.

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