Yup. I choose not to be, though. You, OTOH.....

Yes, yes, I was totally trying to liken Ukraine to an abusive husband. There. Are you happy? Can you please shut the fuck up and get back on topic?

Yes and?
Geopolitics is a web. Everything is interconnected, and nothing happens in a vacuum. Germany's misguided green movement left it dependent on foreign energy, which gave Russia leverage over the EU which has directly impacted the fate of Ukraine. Its a silly naive analysis to say "but Russian boogeymen are 100% responsible and nobody else bears any blame".

I'm going to dig out the Nintendo Wii era pseudo-psychology reference;



There are lot of lenses for how to look at it. As a matter of morality. As a closed dynamic system. As a matter of law.
In law, we can look to varying theories of but-for causation vs proximation causation vs acceleration vs likelihood. Criminal and civil liability can different based on rather arbitrary statutes of which applies in which jurisdiction. Some make more sense than others. In the most common and rational, only reasonably foreseeable risks can create liability, and only concurrent events of proximate cause can matter to establishing liability, and no person can be liable for the independent actions of another, only their own. In morality, we search to find a villain based on our own prejudices and pillory them as solely responsible while rationalizing any of our own shortcomings as necessary evils. And studying the dynamics of a system, what matter isn't who is liable for what, but only what we can predict about the future based on known information in the present. It isn't a question of accountability, its a question of why things happen.

The analogy should really be that Russia is the abusive husband who gets upset that his estranged wife wants to get a hand gun for self defense.

I wasn't trying to say which country is the more powerful or abusive one, or whatever. I was trying to show that when one tries to assign blame, there are usually many factors involved. It's not as simple as thundercock makes it out to be. It's not a matter of, "ok so the one who pulled the trigger is the one we blame".

When one side is massively more powerful and has many options at this disposal to deal with the perceived issue, it is that simple.

Not true.

If it were true, then every time someone sues the government, he will automatically win.

If they can prove the facts of the case and that there was undue harm caused by the government, they do automatically win. That's what a trial is.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Apr 7 2022 06:44pm

And if Russia can provide facts? And they can show that there was harm?

No, a person cannot sue their government for its policies save for limited waiver of sovereign immunity, as per methods like the FTCA and Westfall Act. Any case that implicates the federal government for liability is automatically dismissed, save for passing through narrowly defined claims permitted by the government. The side that is massively more powerful and has many options at its disposal has declared that tort only exists insofar as it voluntarily permits it.