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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Zelensky said today that he might be willing to abandon hopes for NATO membership. So as much as the Russian military has underperformed, they’ve potentially done enough to strongarm Zelensky into considering a major compromise.[/quote]

This is the smart move to save his country.

It is a bitter pill to swallow -- having fought a brave fight and pushed back against Putin -- but if Ukraine fights this out to the bitter end there will be nothing left to fight for.

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Abandoning NATO membership means he ultimately lost. [/quote]

Lost what?  They aren't NATO members now - they've been strategic military partners with NATO countries for years (and have the military prowess and defensive weaponry to show for it).[/quote]

Umm … Ukraine has been desperately wanting NATO membership for over a decade. That’s kinda the entire reason this invasion happened in the first place. [/quote]

Umm... no, it kinda isn't.  The reason this invasion happened in the first place is because Putin thinks he's entitled to Ukraine, and that permits him to murder pregnant women and children.  That is why Ukraine wants to be in NATO.  If you think otherwise, then you must think those pregnant women and children deserved to die, too.[/quote]

What the hell are you talking about? Me saying Ukraine wants NATO membership in no way implies I think Russia didn’t provoke this or that Ukrainian women and children deserve to die.

Do you need me to spell it out? Fine. Ukraine wants NATO membership because Russia is a provocative piece of shit. [/quote]

And Putin wants Ukraine to remain outside of NATO because he doesn't trust the West -- and in particular, the United States -- to establish a purely "defensive" military arrangement in Ukraine. I don't think his goals in Ukraine are purely empire building. He is trying to establish a bulwark against Western encroachment. One can argue that this is motivated by pure paranoia -- [b]but would we be nervous if Russia were to begin outfitting Mexico with "defensive" weapons?[/b] Some missile systems can be used for both to defend and to attack.[/quote]

If we had lost the Cold War and Russia had placed missile systems in Mexico, we would be very nervous.

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Somewhat maybe. The world is different though than it was in the 1960s with both sides having nuclear armed submarines roaming the oceans.

Would we invade Mexico under such a scenario? I doubt it very much.[/quote]

The difference is the United States are the good guys - a capitalist democracy - and the Soviet Union/Russia are the bad guys - brutal, totalitarian dictatorships. So, no, we wouldn't let Mexico become the vassal of such a regime.

Your whataboutism is stupid. [/quote]

We are the "good guys" the USSR was the "bad guys"? Thanks for such a sophisticated analysis. You basically proved my point.

Americans are convinced of their moral superiority, despite the many ugly chapters in [b]our history[/b], some of them quite recent. [/quote]

It is probably not your history.

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I'm an American, born and raised here. I disagree with the idea that the USA is the "good guys". I think that attitude of moral superiority is very dangerous.

And no, I'm not a Russian troll pretending to be an American, nor do I support Putin's actions in Ukraine. But I think his actions in Ukraine pale in comparison to what we did to Iraq. [/quote]

They've only been in Ukraine for a couple weeks.  We've been in Iraq for a couple of decades.  [/quote]

So killing 900K civilians over 20 years is fine because the annualized rate loss rate is, in your view, relatively low? Under 50K a year! Quite reasonable, given that we are the "good guys".

BTW, if you annualize the rate of civilian deaths thus far in Ukraine, it is actually quite a bit lower than the annualized rate of civilian deaths in Iraq. But perhaps the "good guys" are subject to different laws of mathematics, in addition to a different moral code.

[/quote]

Oh, please.  You seem to think that, while it's not something to be celebrated, the unprovoked murder of pregnant Ukrainian women and children by Russia is at least acceptable because you're comparing apples to oranges withe the US's invasion of Iraq.  And you're also using the invasion of Ukraine as an oppurtunity to swipe at the US, without any condemnation of Russia.  FFS, you're even applauding the lower civilian murder rate![/quote]

I strongly condemned Russia earlier in this thread. I'm not applauding the civilian murder rate in Ukraine. I am horrified by what is happening.

My initial question was roughly this: to those of you who believe that Putin is a barbarian or "evil", do you share the same view of George W? If not, why not? And why wasn't the US treated as a pariah state when it invaded Iraq, while Russia is treated as a pariah now? I want to understand this asymmetric thinking.

[/quote]

Then you should start a new thread about George W.  It just looks like whataboutism and minimization of Russia's atrocities by asking that in a thread about Ukraine.  It's strange that you call it asymmetric thinking, or that you seem to think you're the only one who was against the Iraq war.[/quote]

Lots of people were against the Iraq war. The difference is no one was punished for it.[/quote]

Why do you think that is?[/quote]

Because in the current global order the West decides who’s guilty and who’s innocent, and it will never punish itself. It’s governing by force.[/quote]

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