Russia invades Ukraine

[hwhatting]

Indeed. To be clear, if ti wasn't already, my own point was similar to your own: things can not be boiled down to economic aspects.

Yes, I read your post that way; my remarks were meant in addition to yours and as a comment on rotting bones's position.

[Raphael]

So now there's a a fire at a nuclear power station in the combat zone. This keeps getting better.

[Raphael]

I remember reading a piece (I forget the link) in al-Jazeera about how the whole opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a load of hypocrisy and white supremacism on the part of Western countries vis-a-vis other conflicts in the Third World in which the West had not responded nearly as robustly to or had actively been involved in,

Yeah, it's totally evil when the West doesn't respond robustly to a conflict! And it's also totally evil when the West does respond robustly to a conflict by being actively involved in it!

[Raphael]

Another impression of mine: I think it was pretty premature for people a few days ago to declare that Putin was running into trouble because Kiev hadn't fallen in the first 72 or even 48 hours of the war. If I remember correctly, back in 2003, during the initial phase of the Iraq War, it took the USA and their allies several weeks to reach Baghdad, and that didn't change the fact that they eventually occupied the whole country (though that, of course, wasn't the end of that war by far).

[MacAnDàil]

Another impression of mine: I think it was pretty premature for people a few days ago to declare that Putin was running into trouble because Kiev hadn't fallen in the first 72 or even 48 hours of the war. If I remember correctly, back in 2003, during the initial phase of the Iraq War, it took the USA and their allies several weeks to reach Baghdad, and that didn't change the fact that they eventually occupied the whole country (though that, of course, wasn't the end of that war by far).

That's true. And the lightning occuptation of Poland in 1939 took a month.

[Travis B.]

I remember reading a piece (I forget the link) in al-Jazeera about how the whole opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a load of hypocrisy and white supremacism on the part of Western countries vis-a-vis other conflicts in the Third World in which the West had not responded nearly as robustly to or had actively been involved in,

Yeah, it's totally evil when the West doesn't respond robustly to a conflict! And it's also totally evil when the West does respond robustly to a conflict by being actively involved in it!

Well, it's a load of whataboutism when you attempt to justify Putin's invasion of Ukraine on the grounds that it would be hypocritical for the West to oppose it when the West hasn't opposed things like the war in Yemen.

[Moose-tache]

I agree that Putin taking a few days to take Kyiv isn't unusual. But there are plenty of war aims that could have been achieved in the first couple of days of the war but weren't. Destroying Ukraine's airport on the ground, for example. What's odd about the fighting in Ukraine is that there is so much back-and-forth. I would expect a smaller military force to be able to slow the advance of a larger force, but we're seeing "Russia takes Gradopol" one day, and "Ukraine retakes Gradopol" the next day. That never happened in the examples above like Iraq or Poland (until after the conventional war ended and insurgencies took over, anyway).

[zompist]

I wish I'd kept links to interesting discussions. But the gist of a lot of expert threads seems to be

a) the Russians have been astonishingly incompetent
b) they can still cause enormous suffering, especially if they just bomb the hell out of the cities
c) the Ukrainians are ready for protracted war, the sort that makes occupations incredibly painful for the occupier

They've chosen to invade precisely during the spring thaw when the fields turn into mud. Their vehicles can't go off the paved roads for the next month.

I see a lot of claims that Russia seems to be low on supplies, and may run out of key armaments soonish. I can't quite believe some of the estimates, but we'll see.

Comparisons to Iraq are probably not too accurate, as taking your time because you have all the equipment you need and there's no hurry is a completely different situation from a slapdash invasion that the dictator thinks will be a cakewalk and isn't. If Russia prevails, it will probably look a lot more like its ultra-violent campaign against Chechnya.

[zompist]

Here's a typical one. tl,dr: Tanks and heavy vehicles destroy the roads. Russians should be bringing road-building materials, aren't.

https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status ... 0863817728

[keenir]

I remember reading a piece (I forget the link) in al-Jazeera about how the whole opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a load of hypocrisy and white supremacism on the part of Western countries vis-a-vis other conflicts in the Third World in which the West had not responded nearly as robustly to or had actively been involved in,

Yeah, it's totally evil when the West doesn't respond robustly to a conflict! And it's also totally evil when the West does respond robustly to a conflict by being actively involved in it!

Well, it's a load of whataboutism when you attempt to justify Putin's invasion of Ukraine on the grounds that it would be hypocritical for the West to oppose it when the West hasn't opposed things like the war in Yemen.

I didn't think it was whataboutism, but only because I thought it was a demand-and-wish for an equal footing (ie, don't oppose one, oppose both)

Then again, I thought the "its totally evil when [...] its also totally evil when [...]" was a case of "i won't be happy, no matter what you do - either way, i think you messed up" rather than whataboutism.

Clearly, I'm out of date on what whataboutism is.

[Travis B.]

Yeah, it's totally evil when the West doesn't respond robustly to a conflict! And it's also totally evil when the West does respond robustly to a conflict by being actively involved in it!

Well, it's a load of whataboutism when you attempt to justify Putin's invasion of Ukraine on the grounds that it would be hypocritical for the West to oppose it when the West hasn't opposed things like the war in Yemen.

I didn't think it was whataboutism, but only because I thought it was a demand-and-wish for an equal footing (ie, don't oppose one, oppose both)

Then again, I thought the "its totally evil when [...] its also totally evil when [...]" was a case of "i won't be happy, no matter what you do - either way, i think you messed up" rather than whataboutism.

Clearly, I'm out of date on what whataboutism is.

It's apologizing for Putin in that it effectively argues that if the West has the right to invade other countries, so does Russia, and because the West did not complain about the Iraq or Yemen wars all that much, it has no place complaining when Russia does the same.

[Moose-tache]

The backlash escapes being "whataboutism" if it remains targeted solely on the Western reaction to the invasion, not against Ukraine itself. The problem is, some of these arguments have things like #standwithPutin attached to them. If you're actively supporting the invasion because of past and present Western misconduct, it's whataboutism.

While we're on the topic, I will point out that some actions by the defenders irk me. Handing out guns to civilians isn't a good idea. They're not going to stop the Russian advance; they'll just get a bunch of civilians killed, and besides all those guns are ending up in the mafia's hands soon enough. Also, bullying 18 year old prisoners of war into making apology videos has to be against some kind of treaty. And God knows how Boris and Joe will find a way to make life for Ukraine even worse once the dust settles. But Putin is still the bad guy here.

A comment on the sanctions I've only seen once: do we want it to be this easy to push the off switch on an economy? It's definitely giving me second thoughts about using Apple Pay now that I know my government's actions could cause it to be taken away from me. I guess that's always been the case, but it's only getting easier for big corporations to control the flow of money when we allow corporations to control how our money flows.

In other news, we are very close to, if not already at, one and a half million Ukrainians having left the country. During the "refugee crisis" only about a hundred thousand Syrians reached Europe, so it's going to be interesting to see how many refugees Europe can logistically deal with when they actually want to.

[zompist]

In other news, we are very close to, if not already at, one and a half million Ukrainians having left the country. During the "refugee crisis" only about a hundred thousand Syrians reached Europe, so it's going to be interesting to see how many refugees Europe can logistically deal with when they actually want to.

That last number is wrong-- there are about 800,000 Syrians in Germany alone. There's over a million in all of the EU.

[zompist]

A thread on why Russia sucks at logistics. Apparently Russia is now shipping civilian trucks to Ukraine, which is disastrous. (Easy to destroy, even more limited to good roads, more of a maintenance nightmare.)

An analysis of why Russia sucks at air offense.

[zompist]

While we're on the topic, I will point out that some actions by the defenders irk me. Handing out guns to civilians isn't a good idea. They're not going to stop the Russian advance; they'll just get a bunch of civilians killed, and besides all those guns are ending up in the mafia's hands soon enough.

I think that was in the first few days of the invasion. At that point it did no harm to expand options. They didn't know Russia's logistics would suck; for all they knew Russian troops would be in Kyiv in days, and irregular warfare would be important. (It is never a substitute for trained forces, but it's a key part of protracted war.)

It was also a propaganda victory. The message is that Ukraine is not afraid of its citizens. Very important when the Russian message was that Ukraine wasn't a real country and would joyfully embrace the invaders.

[keenir]

Well, it's a load of whataboutism when you attempt to justify Putin's invasion of Ukraine on the grounds that it would be hypocritical for the West to oppose it when the West hasn't opposed things like the war in Yemen.

I didn't think it was whataboutism, but only because I thought it was a demand-and-wish for an equal footing (ie, don't oppose one, oppose both)

Then again, I thought the "its totally evil when [...] its also totally evil when [...]" was a case of "i won't be happy, no matter what you do - either way, i think you messed up" rather than whataboutism.

Clearly, I'm out of date on what whataboutism is.

It's apologizing for Putin in that it effectively argues that if the West has the right to invade other countries, so does Russia,

given that some of the more recent examples thereof, were by allies of Russia (such as Assad(sp)), is that irony?

and because the West did not complain about the Iraq or Yemen wars all that much,

wasn't almost all of the West complaining about the West being in Iraq pretty much the entire time? (ditto complaining about and protesting the Saudis and others getting involved in Yemen's civil war)


...but, in sum and total, clearly the definition of whataboutism has indeed moved from what i used to know it as. thank you.

[Moose-tache]

In other news, we are very close to, if not already at, one and a half million Ukrainians having left the country. During the "refugee crisis" only about a hundred thousand Syrians reached Europe, so it's going to be interesting to see how many refugees Europe can logistically deal with when they actually want to.

That last number is wrong-- there are about 800,000 Syrians in Germany alone. There's over a million in all of the EU.

Whoops. I looked this up, and didn't notice I was reading the beginning of a timeline that started in 2014! Yes, total Syrian refugee numbers are about on the same scale as the current Ukrainian refugee numbers. But I can only assume that Ukrainian refugees will continue to increase over the next few weeks. So far we're seeing a very different response, although to be fair not everyone in Europe was against accepting Syrian refugees either.

On the topic of Russia's secretly pathetic military capability, I am reminded of the Kursk disaster (not the Battle of Kursk--the sinking of the submarine called the Kursk). It was one of the first big attempts under Putin to show off that Russia was still a world military power, and it ended with a bunch of sailors dying in just a hundred meters of water, minutes from shore.

EDIT: also, this grinds my old woman gears like crazy! Why are you taking a video of a train in vertical mode? These zoomers need to be stopped!

[Travis B.]

I didn't think it was whataboutism, but only because I thought it was a demand-and-wish for an equal footing (ie, don't oppose one, oppose both)

Then again, I thought the "its totally evil when [...] its also totally evil when [...]" was a case of "i won't be happy, no matter what you do - either way, i think you messed up" rather than whataboutism.

Clearly, I'm out of date on what whataboutism is.

It's apologizing for Putin in that it effectively argues that if the West has the right to invade other countries, so does Russia,

given that some of the more recent examples thereof, were by allies of Russia (such as Assad(sp)), is that irony?

and because the West did not complain about the Iraq or Yemen wars all that much,

wasn't almost all of the West complaining about the West being in Iraq pretty much the entire time? (ditto complaining about and protesting the Saudis and others getting involved in Yemen's civil war)


...but, in sum and total, clearly the definition of whataboutism has indeed moved from what i used to know it as. thank you.

Of course the people arguing this are ignoring that there was considerable opposition in the West to the Iraq war, even in the US itself, and the same to outside involvement in the war in Yemen. They are effectively lying to just help justify Putin's war.

[Raphael]

I'm pretty distressed right now, to a large part because Putin said that European sanctions effectively amounted to a declaration of war against his country. I don't know whether, even during the most intense periods of the Cold War, leaders on either side ever explicitly said they were at war with the other side.

[Travis B.]

This piece in The Nation contrasts the Western response to the Israeli treatment of Palestine and the Western response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine without attempting to effectively apologize for Putin.