Hilarious. So after I rebutted/countered all your talking points following when you said "this needs to be discussed", this is your response? Very much a *plugging ears* lalalalalala moment
If Ukraine gets fast-tracked into NATO and the EU (to which all signs point), your "US will pull support" becomes even more moot, since they and the rest of NATO and the EU will be obligated at that point. Interestingly though, if the US pulls support, the impetus seems to be coming from the far-right politicians like Boebert and Taylor Greene.... Odd allies for your narrative, no?
The true imperialist motivations are from a country that has actually actively annexed territory... *cough* russia *cough*. I lean left on the political spectrum, but your continued "all West bad, non-West good", regardless of the damage the non-West causes, is ridiculous. Glass houses/whataboutism my ass. And commentary on russian talking points isn't old if it's true. If you sound like Solovyov, Kiselyov et al, I'm going to call it out...
Here's the thing djforsberg... Not to be cocky in any way, but I'm not some fly-by-night keyboard warrior in their parents' basement getting his "research" from twitter; my interest/knowledge on this subject is not surface deep. I have not just started reading news articles and tweeting about current events over the past year, or even just since 2014 when the more overt involvement of russia really began (little green men)...
I minored in German Studies in University; I did studies abroad in both Germany and Ukraine; I took university history courses in European, Eastern European, and general history; I won academic awards in the courses I took; I became functional in both German and Ukrainian, enough so that I could get by in other Slavic countries I've been in, though both of those are now, admittedly, slipping a little; I would read encyclopaedias/World Books for hours on end since before Ukraine even really showed up other than as a footnote in the USSR entry... before the internet was a source... *gasp*... All while my main focus of study was mathematical/statistical/econonimic/analytical in nature.
All to say, you will be hard-pressed to bring up a point of Eastern, Central, or even General European history that is of a material nature to this topic that I don't already know (kudos if you do)... I usually avoid confrontation as a habit, but when something/someone hits on something I am especially passionate/actually know a fair bit about... well, here we are.
I also decided to take the tone of some of your interactions I've noticed over the years. They tend to be dismissive and less than cordial at times... I usually don't care enough anymore about other local matters to make a point of it, but you hit a nerve with this one, and as I've been here a while, I admittedly got a bit petty about it.
Upon further reflection, I also find your points about Palestinians and Yemeni incredibly interesting. You ask why we aren't doing more for them while at the same time asking why we are doing so much for Ukraine (from a neutral observer standpoint of course!...). Are those two not prime examples of what happens when too many people/countries decide to be neutral rather than oppose or check an aggressor? Should we continue to repeat the same errors, conflict after conflict, ad infinitum? Or... do we eventually decide, when a country has shown the ability and determination to fight for their freedom (and not mirror the atrocities of an aggressor, but just to push back and defend), that we give them the tools needed to do so?
This itself is an interesting distinction... Were Ukrainians, Palestinians, and Yemeni to receive a weapon of mass destruction (in Ukraine's case.... again, since they had thousands prior to 1994)...... which do you honestly think would be least likely to fire it at the largest population centre of their aggressor? Pretty sure if all 3 got one, Moscow would be the only city not to be hit.
Also, the comparison to Yemeni deaths is very early. The number in Ukraine has an extremely wide margin of error. All estimates have basically said "the total is likely to be much higher, but cannot currently be accurately assessed". Mariupol alone had a pre-war population of around 450,000. Many fled, of course, but if a significant portion weren't able to (possible given how quickly the bombs started falling), the Ukrainian deaths could be well ahead of Yemen's (if that is an important measure for you). I don't typically like comparisons of suffering since no one wins... and in Ukraine's case, they have the Holodomor to contend with as well as their Jewish population that died in the Holocaust + other non-Jewish-Ukrainians since it was one of the main battlegrounds...
Enough to say that this is a major enough event that it rightfully is pulling some focus regardless of what lens you are trying to put on it (Eurocentric, etc).
Don't deflect, just own the fact that you don't give a shit about the Ukrainian women and children that have been raped and killed in Bucha, Irpin, Izyum, etc. or the children that were bombed in the Mariupol Theatre, or the multiple apartment complexes across Ukraine that have been hit by bombs, because Capitalism/US bad, anything else, less bad. Yes, it's crass to reference children... but the victims are actually as young as 4 as far as sexual crimes go, and younger re: bombings. When propaganda dehumanizes a people, this is what happens. The ICC doesn't issue arrest warrants on a lark.
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