> They refused to cooperate with the request to extradite Bin Laden.
Which almost sounds reasonable until compared to when the US went after Bin Laden in Pakistan they didn't bother asking. I'm no UN level diplomat, but to me maybe 2 months negotiating before launching an invasion would make sense. Maybe even 12 months. A little bit of patience before setting off on a path lined with mountains of corpses.
That really showcases how flimsy the US justification was; the fact that the Afghan government didn't completely overturn their own sovereign system in under 30 days is held up in some sort of weird way as a provocation. And I don't even exactly object to the outrageous hypocrisy on what justifies a US invasion vs a Russian one, I just think that what is happening in Russia is risky, has no upside for the West and a lot of upside for China. I'd like someone to be able to put out a cold hard case for how destabilising large nuclear powers is supposed to lead to a better world. It seems like a hard case to make.
> In hindsight it was probably unrealistic...
Yeah. Maybe in hindsight maybe they didn't think it through. Everyone move on. Broken eggs required for omelettes except we burned the omelette because it turns out we didn't know how to cook. Oops.
You know what? Maybe we should be more thoughtful before invading people. It'd give the West a lot more intellectual credibility when they complain about other armies launching invasions. I have difficulty even pretending to respect the idea that Russia is a bad actor here given the US record we're all expected to look past. The Europe is not somehow more important than the Middle East.
We need an actual case for why we are supporting what is going on in Ukraine. The moral case that people try to hide behind is farcical, we've seen exactly how the US military handles this sort of thing over the last 25 years. There is no material upside for us in this war, and lots of real and potential downsides.
The same people who didn't think that through now think destabilising Russia is a going to work out great. What does that tell us.
> We need an actual case for why we are supporting what is going on in Ukraine.
The case for me is that I live a few hundred kilometers from Russian border. If Ukraine falls, I'll be next and scenes like this will be happening on my street to people I know: https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1820831971573973385 (as they happened in the past to people I knew).
> The same people who didn't think that through now think destabilising Russia is a going to work out great.
Russia is becoming unstable because Putin launched an unwinnable war, destroyed foreign trade relations, hollowed out civilian economy and sent god knows how many to death while trying his best to keep the true scale hidden. Rest of the world is not "destabilising Russia", but doing what they can to hold the shithouse together while trying to end the war. It is not their fault that Putin is not taking any exit ramps offered to him and instead keeps doubling down on a obvious mistake.
Deserves a mention that overblown concerns about stability are nothing new. As the USSR was falling apart, George Bush Sr made a speech in Kyiv warning Eastern European independence movements about rocking the boat too much. NY Times dubbed it the Chicken Kyiv speech. The fears about nuclear war or weapons falling into terrorists' hands turned out unfounded. Instead, the lasting effect was that 100 million more people in Europe are free now than 35 years ago.
> I have difficulty even pretending to respect the idea that Russia is a bad actor here given the US record we're all expected to look past.
Hundreds of thousands of people are dead, millions of lives ruined, entire cities flattened, occupied areas littered with mass graves, ground contaminated with millions of mines that will take centuries to remove. And yet you can't even entertain the idea that the perpertrator is a "bad actor"? That shows a disturbing lack of any moral sense. Looting, torture, rape, murder and other crimes are disgusting and reprehensible and deserve a punishment, and if you insist on ranking countries, then Russia has committed these acts at scale uncomparable to the US.
> The fears about nuclear war or weapons falling into terrorists' hands turned out unfounded.
They're controlled by Putin. There is a pretty solid argument that his inner circle is a mafia with nuclear weapons. What ended up happening is only a few shades improved on terrorists; it isn't particularly encouraging to have dictators with weapons that powerful.
> Hundreds of thousands of people are dead, millions of lives ruined, entire cities flattened, occupied areas littered with mass graves...
If anyone had responded to the US invasions by escalating them to proxy wars the US would have the same blood on their hands. That is in fact one of my main points here - the decision to support the Ukrainians and try to bleed the Russians out was when most of the damage was committed to. The precedent here is the UN sends thoughts & prayers, the Ukraine government gets blatted and we all move on a la the Afghan or Iraq invasions. Ugly affairs, morally devastating but not quite the level of destruction that the US engineered in Ukraine.
But not only did the west decided this was a good one to escalate from disaster to bloodbath, but we seem to be pushing the limit to find out if we can make the Russians really angry. There is almost no way that is a good idea, there isn't a limit to how far this can escalate.
> They're controlled by Putin. There is a pretty solid argument that his inner circle is a mafia with nuclear weapons. What ended up happening is only a few shades improved on terrorists; it isn't particularly encouraging to have dictators with weapons that powerful.
Nothing changed then. The USSR was a reckless totalitarian dictatorship too, with the major difference being that the current version has managed to enslave 100 million less people than the previous iteration. Hopefully the next version will be even smaller.
> That is in fact one of my main points here - the decision to support the Ukrainians and try to bleed the Russians out was when most of the damage was committed to. The precedent here is the UN sends thoughts & prayers, the Ukraine government gets blatted and we all move on a la the Afghan or Iraq invasions.
You skipped over the destruction of Ukrainian statehood, eradication of Ukrainian language and culture, physical extermination of entire classes of people (at least several million in total) and a totalitarian dictatorship for the rest, followed by further invasions westwards into Poland, using Ukrainians as cannon fodder like Russians have already decimated the male population of occupied territories by forcing them against Ukrainian Armed Forces.
For Ukraine, the alternative to war is another genocide carried out by Russians. Loss of people and loss of culture. Afghanistan and Iraq are nothing comparable.
> Ugly affairs, morally devastating but not quite the level of destruction that the US engineered in Ukraine.
No more has the US "engineered destruction in Ukraine" than it did when it supported Britain against invaders. Germans intended to use British merchant fleet to deport all European Jews to Madagascar, but they had to abandon the plan after failing to invade Britain. For lack of better options, Jews were burned in ovens instead. If you are inclined to blame anyone but the perpertrators, then this is your opportunity to pin the Holocaust on the Americans, because their aid was vital to British victory.
Which almost sounds reasonable until compared to when the US went after Bin Laden in Pakistan they didn't bother asking. I'm no UN level diplomat, but to me maybe 2 months negotiating before launching an invasion would make sense. Maybe even 12 months. A little bit of patience before setting off on a path lined with mountains of corpses.
That really showcases how flimsy the US justification was; the fact that the Afghan government didn't completely overturn their own sovereign system in under 30 days is held up in some sort of weird way as a provocation. And I don't even exactly object to the outrageous hypocrisy on what justifies a US invasion vs a Russian one, I just think that what is happening in Russia is risky, has no upside for the West and a lot of upside for China. I'd like someone to be able to put out a cold hard case for how destabilising large nuclear powers is supposed to lead to a better world. It seems like a hard case to make.
> In hindsight it was probably unrealistic...
Yeah. Maybe in hindsight maybe they didn't think it through. Everyone move on. Broken eggs required for omelettes except we burned the omelette because it turns out we didn't know how to cook. Oops.
You know what? Maybe we should be more thoughtful before invading people. It'd give the West a lot more intellectual credibility when they complain about other armies launching invasions. I have difficulty even pretending to respect the idea that Russia is a bad actor here given the US record we're all expected to look past. The Europe is not somehow more important than the Middle East.
We need an actual case for why we are supporting what is going on in Ukraine. The moral case that people try to hide behind is farcical, we've seen exactly how the US military handles this sort of thing over the last 25 years. There is no material upside for us in this war, and lots of real and potential downsides.
The same people who didn't think that through now think destabilising Russia is a going to work out great. What does that tell us.