This is an emotional view based on the narrative we are being flooded with.

What's happening to Russia is because they are not the West and are acting against the West, not because "an actual aggression against another sovereign country using actual weapons", which something the West and allies routinely do as well (and with no less horrible consequences to populations but without any sanctions).

No, it’s happening exactly because it invaded and is killing people in Ukraine. Why invent an alternative and much more complicated reason?

Russia was a mess, weak and poor for 20 of the last 30 years. All the West did during this time was invest and assist trying to integrate a former adversary into the world economy.

> ...This is an emotional view based on the narrative we are being flooded with.

Over 2mil refugee exodus from Ukraine in a mere 2week span is the flood of lives, not the emotional narrative.

Any practical ideas to halting the still ongoing Russian effort to demolish Ukraine? Asking the Russian state to "just stop" does not seem to work for now.

You're forgetting that it's selective. Countries allied with the US get to invade neighboring countries and murder people, others don't.

So it's not used a force of good, just as a cudgel to maintain US hegemony.

I don’t in general have too much fondness for US military adventures or alliances, though I think in fairness they fall on a spectrum from pretty sketchy to at least well intentioned.

But that doesn’t make me unable to judge other events on their merits. Two wrongs don’t make a right, false equivocation and all that.

That is completely orthogonal to what I am saying. I am saying that these sanctions and restrictions are only applied to US adversaries. So they do not serve at all, whatsoever, in any shape or form, to dissuade wrongs. They solely serve to create an unequal cost to the use of force, which creates a geopolitical advantage.

It has nothing to do with the moral content of anything, really. It's clear that the main criterion for whether this happens or not isn't morality, it's just whether the US approves.

Does the us have a lot of the countries in it’s circle of allies that are guilty of actions that require similar magnitude of response?

Jumping ahead, my guess would be you are talking about Saudis? Or would it be Israel?

Yes, there are many. The Saudis, the Israelis, Turkey, the French and British (Libya), the US itself (Iraq, Vietnam), etc...

Any single of these countries in the last 20 years have engaged in wars of aggression that have done more damage than Russia has and is likely to inflict on Ukraine, and thus deserve a similar magnitude of response.

Serbia and Kosovo(good):

Ethnic minority suppressed by majority. Declares independence. Fights back. The US/NATO intervenes with military force against targets in Serbia, offers a path for accession into EU and NATO.

Ukraine and Donbass(very bad):

Ethnic minority suppressed by majority. Declares independence. Fights back. The EAEU/CSTO intervenes with military force against targets in Ukraine, offers a path for accession to EAEU/CSTO.

I struggle to find the difference. How is Kosovo different from Donbass?

Russia committed mass murder in the region (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor) and sent Russians to take the land from historically Ukrainian regions. This all happened in the last 100 years.

Slobodan Milošević was committing genocide against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, protecting them was the right thing to do. Nothing similar is happening in Donbas. In Donbas Putin funded rebellion and backed it with his soldiers to create the tension that existed prior to the invasion.

Very different situations in my opinion.

> Nothing similar is happening in Donbas.

I guess the 3000 dead civilians just bombed themselves.

The point is the Ukrainian government isn't the cause - the cause there is Putin as well, as he instigated the rebellion and is backing it. There is no movement for Donbas to join Russia beyond the one Russia itself created.

And the reason the area has many folks who identify with Russia is due to mass killing of Ukrainians in the area and sending Russian families to take their land: https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor

Keep in mind, the 3000 dead you claim are, best as we can tell, fabricated by Putin. Please look into it further before repeating it. Here's a good rundown of Donbas:

https://theconversation.com/putins-claims-that-ukraine-is-co...

> Keep in mind, the 3000 dead you claim are, best as we can tell, fabricated by Putin.

It's impossible to have a rational conversation about this topic when data about civilian casualties provided by the UN[1] is framed as fabricated by Putin without providing even the smallest piece of evidence.

Also, the second article you linked to is arguing about the semantics of the word "genocide". If you want we can argue semantics, but even that seems quite difficult when since 2014 the neo-Nazi Azov battalion has been officially integrated into the Ukranian army. Of course, the article conveniently skips mentioning both the word "Azov" and "nazi".

[1] https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/Conflict-...

The document you linked proves my point. Included in the number of civilian casualties are those killed by Russia shooting down a civilian airliner. Putin's fabricated claim is that Ukraine is responsible for these deaths - when in fact, he is, since he started the fighting - not Ukraine. Your earlier comment was "I guess the 3000 dead civilians just bombed themselves" which implied Ukraine killed them.

It isn't semantics to suggest terms should be used correctly. People dying because Putin's ruthless ambition is not the same as genocide. Attempting to eradicate a people is. That is not something Ukraine was doing in Donbas - they were protecting their own territory, and yes civilians die in combat. Again I point out, combat started by Russia.

Bringing this back to the earlier topic, this is different from Kosovo because Russia (Putin) are the ones causing the conflict and getting people killed. There was no ethnic cleansing that Putin stopped with his invasions into Ukraine.

There have been massive pro-Russia protests in the eastern part of Ukraine after the 2014 Maidan revolution, which often have been brutally suppressed by Ukrainian authorities. It's a fact that most people in that area feels closer to Russia than Europe. You are disregarding their right to self determination just because they are favorable and, of course, backed militarily and financially, by Russian.

Seeing as the US has funded opposition movements for years, sent military aid and trained neo-Nazi militias which took on a promiment role during the Maidan revolution, I don't see how it can be a problem that Russia interevenes to support ethnic-Russians in the region. This kind of double standard is mind boggling.

> You are disregarding their right to self determination just because they are favorable and

No, in those regions the will to stay Ukraine outnumbers the will to become a Russian vassal or part of Russia: https://www.iri.org/resources/ukraine-poll-majority-want-don...

Keep in mind, the only reason there are large Russian populations there are due to the USSR killing ethnic Ukrainians purposefully and sending Russians there to take their homes. Read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Beyond that, even if you take Putin's propaganda that eastern Ukraine wants to be part of Russia you must reconcile his statement that Lenin made a mistake allowing Ukraine to exist and the fact that he has invaded all of Ukraine and is trying to decapitate the government. He even has kill lists of Ukrainians to exterminate: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082096026/russia-kill-list-u...

> No, in those regions the will to stay Ukraine outnumbers the will to become a Russian vassal or part of Russia:

From the IRI report:

> The sample consisted of 2,400 permanent residents of Ukraine aged 18 and older and eligible to vote, and is representative of the general population by gender, age, region and size of settlement. An additional 1,378 respondents were also surveyed in the Ukrainian-controlled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

So basically they only surveyed people from Ukraininan controlled areas and the result is they want to stay with Ukraine, what a surprise.

I understand the argument about the Holodomor, but the fact is that at the moment the majority of the population in those area are pro-Russian. If you look at history then, Crimea was historically Russian and only given to Ukraine in 1954 as part of a deal. According to your reasoning you must've been favorable to its annexation then, otherwise this is another example of applying double standards only when convenient.

Venezuela. Iran . Afghanistan.

When was Venezuela invaded?

In respect to Iran US has poor history as it relates to the Iranian Revolution, but with things as they currently are - do you believe Iran should be unopposed?

By the way, it’s not that I think people should ignore what happened 80 years ago, but at the same time I think it’s a long time, politics change and old conflicts are not as relevant as some like to argue. UK is not the colonial Britain, modern Germany and Japan are not the Axis of WW2.

Though Russia appears to be good ol’ scarecrow Russia, so I guess some things change and some stay the same…

And call me naive, but I am of the opinion that US of the last 30 years honestly tries to be on the right side of history and it’s not the hegemon real despots of the world try to paint it as.

And lastly Afghanistan - I mean you can argue with me I guess, but I think the 20 years and trillions spent can serve as an evidence that there US really tried to do something at least well intentioned.

I guess what I am trying to say that these days I hear a lot of “but look over there!” kind of argument, and they often even contain some truth to them, but I think they also contain a lot of differences that are overlooked to better serve the argument.

But even if they were exactly the same - you don’t justify an atrocity by pointing at another atrocity.

You stated that the west, in scare quotations, was only weaponizing commerce because of the exceptional circumstance being that the target was engaged in an invasion of a country. Contradicting the assertion of the parent comment that the imperial core countries will weaponize everything that they have against countries that don't align with their interests.

I brought up an example of three countries that have been similarly condemned and were not invading anybody.

Regarding The Iran comment. Why are you even thinking about a far-away country needing to be "opposed"? This is a very weird world police mindset to me. Do you think NATO shouldn't be opposed?

America spent 2 trillion on it's own military budget in Afghanistan. Half of which were interest payments. The US didn't spend trillions to sponsor Afghanistan's infrastructure.

The US occupied that country for 20 years and destroyed not only it's infrastructure but the fabric of that society as well as the mental well-being of several generations of Afganis. The toll is incalculable. How you spun 20 years to be evidence of benevolence, I'll never know. So I assume Russia occupying civilized Ukraine for the next two decades, despite violent, traumatic and desperate resistance will also be seen as benevolence?

> When was Venezuela invaded?

In ~May 2020 when US and Colombian mercenaries sponsored by the CIA attacked the country in military speed boats near the capital Caracas with the aim of killing/capturing the President and linking with dissident groups inside Venezuela and do a coup

All 20 or so of them? On speedboats tho.

I mean to say that I am sure Maduro will claim that he foiled a CIA plot there, but I haven’t seen any evidence that US government has anything to do with that action.

Sorry, 60 of them. This is what wikipedia has to say about that:

“ Commentators and observers, including Guaidó officials who initially contacted Silvercorp, described the operation as amateurish, underfunded, poorly-planned, having little or no chance of success, and a suicide mission.”

Western propaganda?

Just some randos out for a little assassination fun. Happens all the time in the world that a bunch of foreigners attempt a stupid but audacious assassination attempt right in the middle of a concerted effort by an adversary to overthrow a government. You know the CIA wasn't involved because American movies depicts them as superhuman secret agents and these guys were the opposite of that.

I am sort of running out of steam keeping this up here.

I was honestly keeping an open mind to hearing some convincing evidence or even some mainstream reporting sources that this wasn’t a poorly put together private mercenary action.

> some mainstream reporting sources that this wasn’t a poorly put together private mercenary action.

that’s an open mind. wow.

I suppose just not open enough to accept the MSM is a government distribution pipeline of pre-approved thoughts for opinion shaping purposes.