I don’t see why this would be true. The legitimate government doesn’t have to be in kiev to coordinate the defense of the country.

I think the psychological effect of losing Kiev would be much lower if they planned on that from the start too, but I guess that bird has flown.

Do you know the future for 100%? If not doesn't it worth a try?

(Why is it not hopeless? Russian forces suffer large losses and their morale is breaking, after all, what sane person wants to shoot their peaceful neigbours and relatives? Russians are already taking to the streets to protest the madness one day into this stupid war, who would have expected such bravery from the already suffering Russian people? Half of the European population is already looking for anything they can do to support Ukraine, ordinary Russians raising up or to make Putin and his closest people suffer. Pro Russian trolls who were previously tolerated since we wanted to hear all sides are now kept down. The list probably goes on.)

Every free human is now at war, and for now, for us it is information warfare.

So lets make sure the madmen get nothing for free. Don't run their errands.

Just because the US did it, doesn't mean that Russia is justified or less wrong, both are wrong, and neither get to call out the other for humanitarian reasons.

Please forgive those of us who where tricked into it, too young to vote etc.

I'll try to do my part to prevent more of it.

Edit: as for the phrase "the free world", read it to mean "freer to those inside it" if that helps.

Then you blame the voters of America when their government started an illegal war based on falsehoods.

As a UK citizen, of voting age for 20 years now, I'm guilty as charged. I voted for Blair before the Iraq war, but like many others protested on our streets in the build up (and I haven't voted for them since).

Doesn't make us wrong about Putin though.

But I can remember stories from my childhood about Russians tying up Afghan fighters and driving over them with tanks to make an example, so again without defending drone strikes on weddings or Abu Ghraib or anything other spectacularly bad I

1.) think it wouldn't have been much better if it was the Russians who went in

2.) think the reason why the Russian government hasn't been involved in more badness in the middle east until recently has not been its peaceful nature but the fact that they have been cash strapped.

You can certainly question whether that was worth the cost.

You could also look at some of the responses and choices made by the people/cultures native to this region over the years since then. Yes, "cultures" is plural.

The difference might be that at least it proclaims them, and good people like yourself can hold them accountable to those values.

Seems to me you can't really hold the US military to account, any more (or less) than you can the US police. Maybe a win here-and-there for political PR, but overall no.

Do we do it again?

No, but to say that the instigators of anti-russian sentiment in Ukraine are not mostly Neo-nazi's is ignorant. These articles go back years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/azov-far-right...

https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/136008/commentary_56.pdf

https://euromaidanpress.com/tags/azov-battalion/page/2/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40871070

Oh my, this is disturbing. What was the probably cause? WMD's? :^/

Not the US. Maybe they did some time unintentionally, but with Putin it was part of his plans.

> they supported [the] Kurds

Of course, the Kurds and the US and Iraq were fighting together against Daesh (the so called Islamic State).

You're giving the impression that you like Assad, Putin, Erdagon, possibly Daesh as well. What kind of person are you, I start wondering.

Agreed that the US has done lots of bad things in the middle east though. (Eg helping the Talibans climb to power, supporting Saddam Hussein for quite long etc)

No one here said they were.

You're misreading.

"Seems someone likes Assad, maybe X" does not mean "Assad and X are allies".

It's possible for someone to like both Stalin and Hitler although they weren't allies (in the end).

That's not really an argument in itself tho.

I’m all for blaming the US where it’s warranted, but I don’t think that particular instance is it.

> no sane person wants to shoot their peaceful neighbors and relatives

and this is the case for all Russians even most of the ones in the army in Ukraine, right now. People do not want war. Period. For a human being to go to war, he/she needs to be heavily indoctrinated to the point of partially losing is normal references. Even today, with heavily indoctrinated armies, only a small subset of the forces are effectively shooting bullets.

War is decided by crazy leaders (and I am polite) far away from the lines.

From listening to people who grew up with the veterans here in Norway I've learned that:

- Germans were told they came here to protect us against the British so they would - in the beginning of the war - shoot to suppress, not to kill. I guess Russian soldiers coming into Ukraine has been tricked to believe the "peace keeping" nonsense too and had a rude awakening.

- Norwegians however were already mad and shot to kill. I guess this holds true for Ukrainians too. This is natural and we've seen it in Afghanistan, Iraq etc too I think.

- German soldiers would cryingly admit to POWs already at the start of the war that they were absolutely not voluntarily there, they'd just be shot if they refused.

No shit they weren't there voluntarily, no sane people want to go to their death, but those were the rules for mandatory conscription for them back then.

Even today some European countries still have mandatory conscription, and while they won't shoot you for refusal, if you don't show up for conscription, military police will come to your house and arrest you, and if you run away, an arrest warrant will be issues on your name.

So yeah, you have to do your mandatory service, even if you don't want to.

I didn't leave because of that, but I did delight I telling them I was beyond their reach. Finally picked up the phone the very day I left.

My dad and uncle both served 3-4 months in prison for refusing as a matter of principle, and my intent was to do so too until we decided to move our startup at the time to London.

Of course the main reason for that conscription was the Soviet Union/Russia. It's gotten very lenient since I left in 2000, as the size of the Norwegian military has been scaled back to the point they only need a small portion of potential recruits.

Unless you decide to go full career in the military, once you're done with the month long boot camp, if there's no war, national crisis or natural disaster that will get the grunts mobilized, the rest of the 5 months of service, are spent by the recruits dicking around on the taxpayers' money, doing useless busywork around the garrison.

And there's almost no way to avoid it unless you suffer from a severe physical or mental illness making you unsuitable for service, as even after you get out of prison for refusal, you'll be drafted back in.

PS: funny that you moved from Norway to London as many Brits I've met look up to Norway as a role model, so I'm really interest in your story

If you're a lower earner, quality of life in Norway is much better, but if you're a higher earner, London is great. And at the time funding in Norway was tricky. But, yeah, I look on British politics with great bemusement and a some sadness - so many lost opportunities.

My grandfather on ny mothers side served and helped hold the nazis back for a few days in his home country and maybe helped some people get away. He later had to surrender and spent a short time in a POW camp before being released.

I respect both very much but I decided to do as my dad and serve.

It absolutely felt like the right thing to do for me.

My main objection was not with the service in itself, but with it being compulsory under threat of prison. Of course today the "compulsory" nature of it is mostly a charade - if you want out it's trivial.

I shyed away from education / officer training because I felt the risk of being sent on peace keeping to the middle east, but 20 years later I see I could safely have done it.

Apparently ethnic Russians were being killed in Ukraine (or they have been the last 8 years, but more serious shelling started on February 17, 2022) and that is why Russia invaded.

At least according to Putler's propaganda.

> ethnic Russians were being killed in Ukraine

Far, far more ethnic Russians were not being killed in Ukraine.

Sure, some of the instigators, perpetrators, and fellow travellers of the armed insurrection in East Ukraine are (or were) ethnic Russians, but they:

A) Are being killed for being armed insurrectionists, not for being ethnic Russians.

B) Are (or were) themselves killing ethnic Ukrainians in the course of their armed insurrection.

C) Probably themselves killed quite a few ethnically Russian members of the Ukrainian armed forces.

> (or they have been the last 8 years,

Yeah, exactly: Since they started an armed insurrection.

> but more serious shelling started on February 17, 2022)

Oh, what a convenient date.

> and that is why Russia invaded.

Putler says that is why Russia invaded.

Oh: And so do you. Coincidence?

But you are right that social media networks are strong enablers of evil and helpers to enemies of freedom and democracy. Facebook and Twitter could easily stop (almost) all the misinformation and propaganda, but they don't because it makes them money.

I really doubt they could stop propaganda before the message is sent without deleting a ton of accounts that are false positives.

I also should point that any defense of the freedom of speech also defends freedom of misinformation and propaganda.

If they are actual misinformation and propaganda and you are unwilling to even admit existence of that category, then you yourself are threat to freedom - of speech or otherwise.

> I also should point that any defense of the freedom of speech also defends freedom of misinformation and propaganda.

Nah. Defenders of free speech not being willing to criticize misinformation and propaganda, calling those "valuable vantage points" and being quick to criticize and attempt to shut up criticism of those is what is dangerous for free speech.

Pointing out misinformation and propaganda as such is a good thing.

But the biggest issue in my mind is that fake news, misinformation and bot bullying makes social media money, so they are never going to stop it.

"The answer to the speech is... more speech"

And I agree that this is exactly the problem - winners are who have more energy and opportunity to speak. "Drowning the voices" as you pointed out.

But, how to determine which voice is normal?

Per your suspicion that fake news and misinformation make money, fact checking is alleged to make money to Facebook and fact-checking Facebook affiliates. The links on fact checking materials divert viewers from one arrticles to other and increase clicks and retention at Facebook.

Yes, you are right again - misinformation may bring money to FB, at the very least, when FB tries to fight it. I guess it is a nature of capitalism, to try to make money out of everything.

Yet those are classes of speech.

Let me point out that I was answering the call to stop these classes of speech nearly completely, using magic of Twitter and Facebook.

NATO's mission has always been mutual defense of members. Ukraine is not a member.

The threat of Russian nuclear weapons has been more poignant in the past than today. Neither of your conclusions was true before.

We can see this security guarantee in action right now. Same will happen with NATO's mutual defense guarantee.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-put...