> 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.
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.