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Speaking as an American, the United States makes mistakes. Plenty of them. But let's get a few things straight about your tortured and twisted attempts at equivalency.
Afghanistan? Yeah. A country harboring the mastermind of a terrorist attack that killed ~3000 people. Beyond that, a country ruled by a hideous fundamentalist regime that brutalized... well, pretty much everyone who wasn't completely on-board. Casus belli, and no loss.
Iraq? Yes, that was a disaster, and based on bogus intelligence. You'll find plenty of Americans who say so. And the United States doesn't throw people in jail for calling it a 'war'. Hell, even the Bush administration ultimately admitted that the claimed WMDs didn't exist. Are you delusional enough to think that Russia will ever admit that Ukraine isn't a Nazi state?
Syria? Yes, the United States intervened, because the anarchy in the country had create a vacuum into which ISIL was moving. The same reason Russia intervened. If a state cannot control its own territory, it has no cause to complain if others move in to police that territory. And Russia, true to form, took the side of the brutally oppressive Assad regime.
Now, in those instances, did the United States lie repeatedly about its intentions? No. Wrong though you (and I, in one case) may think the U.S. was, it was upfront and made its case. Putin's government spent months swearing up and down that it wasn't going to invade Ukraine. It insisted that its forces in Belarus were only there for joint exercises, and would be shortly returning to Russia. Putin unequivocally stated that Russia would not be seeking territorial acquisitions. Lies. All lies.
Tell me about the parts of Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria where the United States has held sham elections and cynically committed land grabs? That never happened. For all of America's faults, there is a clear distinction between the United States and Russia.
You see, the world and Afghans were unequivocally better off for twenty years without the Taliban. The world and Iraq are better off without the Ba'athists and Saddam Hussein in particular. Do I really need to explain to you about ISIL? Compare that to Ukraine. Are you drinking that Nazi Kool-Aid? Here's a clue - the United States supported the incumbent Poroshenko in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. Yes, a free election in which the incumbent ceded power when losing. Unlike in Russia, where every viable opponent to Putin gets arrested and thus becomes ineligible to challenge him. Is Ukraine a flawed democracy? Sure. But it is one that has spend recent years working diligently to become more democratic. So don't even compare Russia's attempted destruction of Ukraine's nascent democracy with the U.S. actions against malignant and murderous regimes.
Finally, why all the focus on the United States? Because you can't defend Russia. You desperately need a distraction. India? Indonesia? What about the Western world? You know, the cradle of liberal democracy. Where gays can actually live openly and unoppressed? Oh, that's right - you carry a torch for Russia, where LGBT feature prominently in the state propaganda. Canada. Sweden.
Germany. Finland. Australia. Japan. Norway. France. Italy. New Zealand. Oh... but you've got India and Indonesia...
Remind us again of all the American and British and Finish (etc.) critics of their heads of state of mysterious fall out of windows, or are poisoned with exotic isotopes possessed only by states.
Tell us again how appalled you are by Russia's indiscriminate lobbing of armaments into schools, hospitals, malls.
Yeah. I didn't think so.
Rarely in recent decades has the moral clarity involved in a war been as stark as it is now. And you've run full speed into the arms of the aggressive would-be conqueror for no reason other than your own pathologies.
Well said, but the deluded Russian supporters will never admit you are correct.
Speaking as an American, the United States makes mistakes. Plenty of them. But let's get a few things straight about your tortured and twisted attempts at equivalency.
Afghanistan? Yeah. A country harboring the mastermind of a terrorist attack that killed ~3000 people. Beyond that, a country ruled by a hideous fundamentalist regime that brutalized... well, pretty much everyone who wasn't completely on-board. Casus belli, and no loss.
Iraq? Yes, that was a disaster, and based on bogus intelligence. You'll find plenty of Americans who say so. And the United States doesn't throw people in jail for calling it a 'war'. Hell, even the Bush administration ultimately admitted that the claimed WMDs didn't exist. Are you delusional enough to think that Russia will ever admit that Ukraine isn't a Nazi state?
Syria? Yes, the United States intervened, because the anarchy in the country had create a vacuum into which ISIL was moving. The same reason Russia intervened. If a state cannot control its own territory, it has no cause to complain if others move in to police that territory. And Russia, true to form, took the side of the brutally oppressive Assad regime.
Now, in those instances, did the United States lie repeatedly about its intentions? No. Wrong though you (and I, in one case) may think the U.S. was, it was upfront and made its case. Putin's government spent months swearing up and down that it wasn't going to invade Ukraine. It insisted that its forces in Belarus were only there for joint exercises, and would be shortly returning to Russia. Putin unequivocally stated that Russia would not be seeking territorial acquisitions. Lies. All lies.
Tell me about the parts of Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria where the United States has held sham elections and cynically committed land grabs? That never happened. For all of America's faults, there is a clear distinction between the United States and Russia.
You see, the world and Afghans were unequivocally better off for twenty years without the Taliban. The world and Iraq are better off without the Ba'athists and Saddam Hussein in particular. Do I really need to explain to you about ISIL? Compare that to Ukraine. Are you drinking that Nazi Kool-Aid? Here's a clue - the United States supported the incumbent Poroshenko in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. Yes, a free election in which the incumbent ceded power when losing. Unlike in Russia, where every viable opponent to Putin gets arrested and thus becomes ineligible to challenge him. Is Ukraine a flawed democracy? Sure. But it is one that has spend recent years working diligently to become more democratic. So don't even compare Russia's attempted destruction of Ukraine's nascent democracy with the U.S. actions against malignant and murderous regimes.
Finally, why all the focus on the United States? Because you can't defend Russia. You desperately need a distraction. India? Indonesia? What about the Western world? You know, the cradle of liberal democracy. Where gays can actually live openly and unoppressed? Oh, that's right - you carry a torch for Russia, where LGBT feature prominently in the state propaganda. Canada. Sweden.
Germany. Finland. Australia. Japan. Norway. France. Italy. New Zealand. Oh... but you've got India and Indonesia...
Remind us again of all the American and British and Finish (etc.) critics of their heads of state of mysterious fall out of windows, or are poisoned with exotic isotopes possessed only by states.
Tell us again how appalled you are by Russia's indiscriminate lobbing of armaments into schools, hospitals, malls.
Yeah. I didn't think so.
Rarely in recent decades has the moral clarity involved in a war been as stark as it is now. And you've run full speed into the arms of the aggressive would-be conqueror for no reason other than your own pathologies.
What a boatload of delusional nonsense and moral whitewashing sprinkled with a good amount of geopolitical ignorance.
Quote:
Rarely in recent decades has the moral clarity involved in a war been as stark as it is now.
That's right, Russia here is on the right side of history and the rest of the world minus collective West largely think so (and even within many western countries, public opinion is quite divided)
The Ukrainian nationalist Nazis are getting what they richly deserve for bringing the country down the tubes...their own compatriots should hang them for destroying the country.
Evidently they did not learn the lesson of Georgia when that imbecile US puppet Saakashvili tried to pull a fast one on South Ossetia...well too bad.
Henry Kissinger once said "To be an enemy of the US is dangerous, but to be a friend could be fatal"
Zelensky will end up like Juan Guaido...remember him?? Brought with honors at the US Congress and anointed as the "real president" of Venezuela.
The "Rules Based Order" (whatever it meant...rules for thee but not for me, I make the rules, you follow) thankfully is over.
Russia, China and the US are great powers, great powers do horrible things sometimes to preserve their interests, that is the way the world works, always been that way and always will be.
Why would they support Russia, after the Chechen-Russian wars in the 1990s? Were Chechens who wanted independence just not liked by some Chechens?
The Chechen insurrection was another externally instigated disaster, the precursor of the famous Color Revolutions of later times. Eventually the Chechens themselves got tired of the crazy bloodthirsty Wahhabists.
The purpose of that "insurrection" was to start to chew up at the Russian Caucasus.
No. But if Russians want a different point of view, they go to sites with translations of foreign media and read Western translations in Russian, or go to foreign press sites and read with a translator. It's elementary.
Now tell me, does the Western world have a different point of view in poetry and music? And so talented that you understand that this is BH, but you continue to listen and enjoy?
Different points of view in Russian information field
Quote:
Originally Posted by unit731
Does Russia have a free press?
Yes or no
I don't want to discuss newspapers. If we mean Internet then there is YouTube at least. Russians can watch almost all channels except some extremist and blocked ones. CNN, Fox News, even Ukrainian and oppositional channels and many others are available. The same is true for Yahoo!, CNN sites.
Last edited by good_deal_maker; 01-28-2023 at 03:23 PM..
I don't want to discuss newspapers. If we mean Internet then there is YouTube at least. Russians can watch almost all canals except some extremist and blocked ones. Yahoo!, CNN, Fox News, even Ukrainians canals and many others are available.
News is in the Telegram. Including Ukrainian channels.
I don't want to discuss newspapers. If we mean Internet then there is YouTube at least. Russians can watch almost all channels except some extremist and blocked ones. CNN, Fox News, even Ukrainian and oppositional channels and many others are available. The same is true for Yahoo!, CNN sites.
Only on Youtube, Telegram, whatever internet is available.
I am surprised that Youtube is still available.
There is NO DEMOCRACY in Russia. NO FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Remember they cannot call things by their names. Like WAR.
Educated Russians, who speak the English language fluently and understand it can watch CNN, FOX, on Youtube.
Of course there on Youtube is DW, Gordon, etc. in Russian.
On a Russian national tv - nothing of that sort... Those stations are considered "fake news" by Russian government that spread lies. One can be jailed simply by discussing of what they heard/saw on CNN or FOX, etc. as spreading lies, discrediting Russian army - criminal offence and a jail time up to 5 years, government politics, etc.
No. But if Russians want a different point of view, they go to sites with translations of foreign media and read Western translations in Russian, or go to foreign press sites and read with a translator. It's elementary.
Now tell me, does the Western world have a different point of view in poetry and music? And so talented that you understand that this is BH, but you continue to listen and enjoy?
Maxim, they put people in jail in Russia - for a different point of view...
"A new song by a well-known Russian comic that satirises Moscow's war in Ukraine and its supporters has been referred to prosecutors by a patriotic organisation which believes it discredits the army, now a criminal offence."
Maxim, they put people in jail in Russia - for a different point of view...
Slepakov in prison? No. Can you give a similar level of reflection from the leading poets in your country at the present time? Russians are not fools and they know perfectly well a different point of view and where to get information.
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Different points of view in Russian information field
