Do you deny that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Saddam was an evil dictator who needed to be deposed for the good of the world?

I dont believe they had wmds but i am in favour of tyrannicide

Are you going to answer my question?

This post was edited by duffman316 on Apr 26 2022 05:07pm

You're ignoring something very, very simple. Russia can get the EXACT same results by attacking areas near Lviv (and other corridors where weapons are coming in) as opposed to areas in actual Poland. They can attack rail stations (and have!), major highways, etc. inside Ukraine. Why are you struggling so hard with this?

So two wrongs make a right? Or WTF does the brink of all out war have to do with proving a point from 2001 ?? Just as the bomb drops please say “but America invaded Iraq” it will
Make it hurt less

Can they? We're going out of our way to make it difficult for them to intercept weapons. They don't have omniscient view of western ukraine and the border.
But again, Russia engages in tit for tat reciprocal escalation. Every. Time. Over and over again, for decades. The military impact is not the objective. Russia didn't pull Hillary Clinton's pants down during the 2016 election because they expected it to have any actual impact- hell Putin no doubt assumed she would easily win, just like everyone else did. They did it to make a point. A shot across the bow. Because that's what they do. If the Russian mainland is attacked with NATO weapons, Putin isn't going to be looking at a response measured in militarily effective neutralization of forces in Ukraine. He's not going to 'get the exact same results' by attacking parking lots and depots in Lviv.



I answered it by making the rhetorical point: Its not about reducing conflicts to some moralizing black and white view of innocent victims and aggressors.
We deposed a tyrant in Iraq, sure. And what was the result? A vastly worse outcome for everyone in Iraq and Syria than what Saddam had accomplished with his violent repression. Turns out a tyrant was a necessary evil, a positive net good, and our 'liberation' resulted in massacres in atrocities for a decade.

Russia has a valid claim to say that its responding to NATO aggression in a country seized in a coup, and both sides of the conflict are obviously committing war crimes- this is an eastern european war after all. There's no moral righteousness to narrowminded views of a conflict that will just get more people killed and displaced and cities razed. We aren't willing to invest the actual military force to confront Russia directly that would be needed to stop the war in Ukraine's favor, for all the same perils that we're still risking spiraling into with our schizophrenic foreign policy. We wouldn't save Ukraine, and we wouldn't let it pass back into Russia's control, so instead we're cutting the baby in half

Yeah well, war sucks and the winner gets to make unreasonable and unfair demands.

Russia has satellites and precision missiles so they absolutely can track and target these areas. Suppose they couldn't though. All the MORE reason not to bring another country into the war. Russia is already struggling against Ukraine and they'd have absolutely no chance against NATO.

Russia has always played to it's strengths (or perceived strengths). You're correct that they may engage in tit for tat reciprocal escalation but it won't be militarily which is what the discussion is about.

I think its safe to expect blood for blood. If Russia is being hit by NATO weapons, it wont be a sternly worded statement.

Russia has many cards they can play. They can engage in cyber attacks, play economic hardball with Germany and other equally pathetic countries in Europe, they could use diplomatic tools with China so that they play hardball with the West, they can seek to destabilize Western countries with disinformation, etc. As I said before, Russia plays to it's strengths.

Putin does it reciprocal and proportional. Thats how we knew his fingers were on the 2016 election before any evidence existed (outside of DNC's imagination). It was conspicuously tailored to mirror the Russian election grievances. And Russia is invading Ukraine now and bungling it. Its not their strength, but they clearly have the will. If Putin is avenging dead Russians I wouldn't expect diplomatic tools