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Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by ajross on Sunday February 27, 2022 @06:55PM (#30494216)
> There's hubris in the belief that one 'knows' always and every time what good and evil are.

Oh, come on. You don't need to invoke existential certainty to know that unilateral military invasion of peaceful nations is "evil" inasmuch as that word has any meaning at all.

Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by mancerayder on Sunday February 27, 2022 @08:31PM (#30495085)
You missed my point about information asymmetry.

Talk to a Russian, then come back and let's talk about what's an invasion of a peaceful nation. They're going to tell you that 14K were killed due to a fascist regime. Now, I don't believe that, but you're proving my point. Maybe it's just the naive perspective of moral certainty speaking, or maybe it's the lack of international perspective -- something one unfortunately commonly finds among Americans.

We come back to the question of evil. Maybe we grew up on too many cartoons and Hollywood movies, but good and evil are symbolic fictions.

Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by rosndo on Monday February 28, 2022 @05:49AM (#30498487)
I own real estate in Moscow and Kyiv, am married to the daughter of a Russian oligarch. My family is being hit hard by the sanctions.

I certainly have the international perspective you accuse others of lacking, and I rather suspect it might in fact be you who lacks that perspective.

Nobody in positions of power believes for a second that Putin has anything but his own legacy in mind at this point.

Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by MR4D on Monday February 28, 2022 @10:28AM (#30500838)
> Nobody in positions of power believes for a second that Putin has anything but his own legacy in mind at this point.

Perhaps now is their time to fix that situation.

Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by ajross on Sunday February 27, 2022 @09:24PM (#30495559)
Still not following. It's not "hubris" to believe in the truth. It's not "moral relatavism" to believe lies, that's just "being wrong". The fact that people lie to other people isn't a license to throw out the concept of morality! Quite the opposite in fact.
Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by mancerayder on Sunday February 27, 2022 @10:41PM (#30496136)
My point is that everyone views themselves as having the moral superiority.

What's less certain is the information, and my point is that you should always have a sliver of doubt in your mind that you're correct.

Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by Razengan on Sunday February 27, 2022 @07:00PM (#30494258)
> unilateral military invasion of peaceful nations is "evil"

America invaded Iraq and Afghanistan on flimsy pretexts and then continued to occupy the latter for what, 20 years?

Why wasn’t there similar international pushback against that?

Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by ok_dad on Sunday February 27, 2022 @07:12PM (#30494368)
I will first say I don’t agree the USA should have invaded anyone.

1) America has Europe by the balls because we provide most of the major military security guarantees.

2) Iraq wasn’t exactly a peaceful nation (see: Kuwait)

3) Both Iraq and Afghanistan were governed by non democratic governments; a dictator in one and by religious zealots in the other

4) No one other than the local middle eastern Arabic countries were threatened by this action by the USA, and they didn’t have enough power to put pressure on the USA

In Ukraine, Russia invaded a neighbor of NATO countries, Ukraine was actually a peaceful nation and has a democratically elected government, and the countries that don’t like Russia actually have the power to try to stop it and can get by without anything from Russia.

Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by krapp on Sunday February 27, 2022 @07:15PM (#30494389)
There was a great deal of international pushback against both. There was also international support for both. The United States didn't unilaterally invade either country.
Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by ajross on Sunday February 27, 2022 @07:03PM (#30494292)
Maybe that was evil too? I mean, there's complication. But "because America did it" is not a moral argument, and the contention was something about "evil".
Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by torstenvl on Sunday February 27, 2022 @07:05PM (#30494318)
> peaceful nations

Afghanistan was harboring al Qaeda and Iraq was threatening use of WMDs. They weren't peaceful nations.

The latter turned out to be bluster, supported by terrible intelligence and a U.S. administration that didn't have the wherewithal to counteract its own confirmation biases, and that deserves its own appropriate condemnation, but it's nowhere near the same thing.

Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by MichaelZuo on Sunday February 27, 2022 @07:40PM (#30494619)
Does anyone else notice that the above comment is greyed out but still showing up above two other comments ungreyed out? Maybe it’s just a glitch, first time I’ve seen it occur.
Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by Larrikin on Sunday February 27, 2022 @07:07PM (#30494324)
What's the flimsy pretext for the US going into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks?
Re:Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president by krapp on Sunday February 27, 2022 @07:17PM (#30494414)
If the US were serious about going after the parties responsible, it would have invaded Saudi Arabia. Instead it made a token stab at Afghanistan then ginned up a war in Iraq they were intent on waging anyway.