aguaviva

8 ms·

1.
by aguaviva 2y ago
"Invaded" implies a hostile, or at least forceful takeover. That's not what happened. In fact its local government reached out to the US and agreed to come under its wing as a de-facto protectorate, which it saw as a prefera
2.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Khrushchev in particular had a strong southern accent. You can take the matter up with his granddaughter if you like: I remember my grandmother saying that Khrushchev spoke Ukrainian all the time and that it was so embarrassing becau
3.
by aguaviva 2y ago
You can even go back to the 90s and promises that NATO made that it would not expand to eastern Europe And I encourage you to do so, because if you look at the actual event protocol it simply doesn't support what you're saying.
4.
by aguaviva 2y ago
It's a question of balance and proportionality. Of course it's unrealistic to expect that the status gradient simply shouldn't matter. It's perfectly natural (and useful, healthy) to weigh what people say according to t
5.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Yatsenyuk ... who decided to seek NATO membership In August 2014, and only after Russia invaded both the Crimea and the Donbas. In fact even after the invasion of just the Crimea (in March) his government was still playing it safe, and
6.
by aguaviva 2y ago
The Americans knew that NATO expansion into Ukraine could provoke Russian intervention, and they did it anyway.[0] Except they didn't. The footnote you cite describes Burns's concern, but not what actually happened: NATO rejec
7.
by aguaviva 2y ago
This was going all fine until we started fucking with that Red Line. Except that's not what happened. It's just a soundbite you heard somewhere, but has no basis in reality. You can follow this thread, if of interest: https:&#x
8.
by aguaviva 2y ago
I would venture that introducing fresh ideas and technologists with first principles thinking will yield better results. It could, maybe. Provided the people you appoint have some measure of credibility and integrity. Or at least seem
9.
by aguaviva 2y ago
https://archive.md/0Vv3z
10.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Its greatest leader was Georgian, while three others were Ukrainian. That's a very odd adjective choice to apply to the Georgian one. The other 3 are usually cited as Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Chernenko, but the former two were of Rus
11.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Trump won both the electoral and popular votes and won all the swing states. That's not what "landslide victory" means. In fact Trump's electoral total was scarcely different from Biden's in 2016, and his popular
12.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Israel is a democracy desperately suing for peace with its neighbors, and at no point in history has initiated a war to expand its borders (or for any other purpose). '56, '67 and '82 were all unambiguously started by Israe
13.
by aguaviva 2y ago
And I certainly don't think anything about Israel requires Palestinian statelesness. But it is the explicit policy of its current government, and the overwhelming (probably safe to say >90 percent) sentiment of Jewish Israeli popu
14.
by aguaviva 2y ago
The answer to (1) is "None of them". In the most recent cenus before the war, the all identified as solidly (>70 percent) Ukrainian. (2) Coal + industrialization + peasants seeking a better life. The question referred to the
15.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Wars aren't started by referenda, legal or otherwise. They're started when one side chooses to initiate massive, disproportionate violence against the other.
16.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Israel's founding did not require anyone to become stateless. Only that they have no meaningful rights of self-determination within the proposed Jewish State.
17.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Leading numerous regions that are heavily ethnic Russian, including Crimea, to declare their independence. I have three questions for you: (1) Can you name one of the regions Putin is attempting to annex, aside from Crimea, that was &quot
18.
by aguaviva 2y ago
You're leaving out the part where the "skilled leader" says "We want X, Y, Z, W, and the kitchen sink. And if you don't give it to us, we're going to blow your pretty little head clean off, motherfucker."
19.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Obviously it was the Bosnian-Serb phase of the conflict, aka "The Bosnian War" I was referring to. Which is generally considered to have started with the events of April 5th-6th. If you are ukranian, pray that ... Telling people
20.
by aguaviva 2y ago
~23K civilian casualties there after 3 years of war, about half of them attributable to Ukrainian strikes. What is your basis for this belief?
21.
by aguaviva 2y ago
There's no "why" to what Trump has been saying about Greenland, Panama and Canada. At least not in terms of anything that he seriously believes the US needs to actually do. It's just another part of his shlock-and-awe c
22.
by aguaviva 2y ago
So what changed my point of view? Russiagate. And that's your cardinal error. To come to an understanding of what's been happening to Ukraine -- you need to focus on Ukraine , and its history, along with the history of the regi
23.
by aguaviva 2y ago
And the main thing they wanted is what they've said all along - Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO or host foreign military bases. Everything else was negotiable - they were even willing to compromise on the exact status of Crimea! Th
24.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Imagine if China managed to convince Mexico to join a military alliance and then moved to deploy troops, military bases, and likely nuclear weapons right on the border. You can imagine all you want, but that's not what happened in re
25.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Or to to cite a more recent example, like the Russian armed forces mudering thousands of its "own" people in the siege of Mariupol (these being the 80 percent or so of the population who were Russian speaking, across the 5k-20k ci
26.
by aguaviva 2y ago
I dont think Russia was threatened by Ukraine, but NATO and more specifically the US. How? What specific steps did the US/NATO take in your view, that were equivalent to "putting your hand in a cage with the rabid dog"? Or
27.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Killing half a million Ukrainians so that a country whose population is a third Russian doesn't vote for the Russian-friendly candidate over some Western-backed candidate who wants to exterminate and expel Russians, Nowhere near a ha
28.
by aguaviva 2y ago
They were being surrounded by military bases and missiles placed overtly within ranges that would greatly increase the chances/effect of a preemptive strike. Can you point to where these "bases" were, and where these missil
29.
by aguaviva 2y ago
I'm saying both Ukraine's surrender and the Russian pull-out are equally hard to do from their respective perspectives. Which is completely ludicrous, of course. For Ukraine, "surrender" means accepting permanent occup
30.
by aguaviva 2y ago
Your handle says it all. From the limited information given, it certainly sounds like they're circling the wagons, and are already in the process of managing you out. Or are hoping that you'll get the hint, and will spare them th

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