Aren’t the used LCD ones available really cheap these days? Probably best bang for your buck.

surely you can show me a shittone of examples of such a massive campaign of kidnappings happening to people forbidden from leaving the country […] that happened in […]let’s say last two centuries?

I’ll just give you a partial list of European countries that 1) had wartime conscription, and 2) executed deserters, in WW1 or 2, which would indicate an equally/more drastic “kill or be killed” choice, and is way easier to find. Or do you know better how conscription worked in the WWs off the top of your head?

• Britain and the Commonwealth
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Soviet Union (estimated around 150 000 executed in WW2, including returned POWs executed for “desertion”)

Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.

No?..

…yes? Or do you think the countries with peacetime conscription do it for shits and giggles, and the massive economic benefit of half the population losing about a year of working life?

Russia has conscription but not kidnapping part and forbidding to leave the country part. So do many other countries.

Russia has a larger population than Ukraine, and thus the luxury to not need everyone, and still they have called in reservists in “partial mobilization”, exact number unknown. As Russia has conscription, every adult man who has performed their service is in reserve. As of 2023, reservists called into service are not allowed to leave and are subject to restrictions until they report to duty, which seems like high-tech enforcement/“kidnapping” to me. The conscriptions have also hit poorer regions, often with large ethnic minorities, more harshly, but I’m sure that’s just coincidence.

There are reports of some military districts closing borders, of mobilized men being ill-equipped and used as cannon fodder, being killed in large numbers, you name it. As with all war reporting, hard to get well-verified factsfacts, especially from a country hostile to neutral reporters. We do know that protests are broken (and male protestors sometimes drafted).

But yeah, probably not needing troop replacements to the same extent as Ukraine. Who, I’m saying again, are fighting for the survival of their country and culture.

I said “countries that are considered “good” and “democratic”” by the west. Does Cuba fit that definition now?

I honestly don’t know that much about Cuba, seems like country much like any other that has trouble because of a difficult neighbor and making the best of it? But if we’re talking about whether mandatory military service is sometimes justified, not whether mass media is biased (duhhhhh), perceptions held by the majority are inconsequential.

“Conscription” - that’s not what am I talking about though. Conscription (which is also absolutely wrong of course) is indeed present in a lot of countries. Mass kidnappings of cannon fodder that is not allowed to leave is quite unique to Zelensky’s regime.

Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.

Edit: Also kudos for not trying to defend ethnic Russians’ history of ethnic cleansing.

A brief scroll of Wikipedia (the sources seemed legit) shows that, for example, Cuba (which I’m assuming you admire?) has mandatory military service, no known policy of alternatives for conscientious objectors, and harsh punishments for evading it even in peacetime, to the point that people have attempted to injure themselves to get out of it. They haven’t been tried in modern war, but can’t see them suddenly relaxing the rules when actually tested. Border countries tend to take defence very seriously.

For countries and cultures bordering Russia, this really is an existential question. The forced population transfer/ethnic cleansing of Tatars, Ingrians, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars, etc. show what tends to happen. And before you say “well that was Stalin”, I’ll point to the Russification efforts of Alexander III and Nicholas II, and to… well, just about all speakers of Uralic languages still existing in Russia, facing steadily or rapidly declining numbers. Also the number of people identifying as ethnic Russians in the Baltics and Crimea, directly attributable to said forced population transfers; Transnistria, where the change happened more organically but was nonetheless used as an excuse for invasion; and to some degree in eastern Ukraine, that saw significant russification attempts and Russians moving in to man the industrial centers during SU, inflating the numbers of ethnic Russians and prevalence of the Russian language at cost of the native population.

Just because this needs to be said.

Open borders: Closed for Ukrainian men of military age during wartime. You, I, journalists, etc. can still come and go.

Competitive political space: Banned parties supporting the country they are currently at war with. No matter how you feel about who’s at fault, that must be an understandable action to you. Also, most members of the largest banned party (Opposition Platform - For Life) are still in the parliament and just formed other parliamentary groups.

Competitive information space: Again, wartime with a country engaging in propaganda eagerly and with talent.

Elections: Would be against Ukrainian constitution to have elections under martial law, not to mention impossible to arrange or supervise. Or you think it would be possible to organise an election where everyone had easy and reliable access to vote right now? The decision was just confirmed unanimously yesterday, with all 17 previous members of the banned …For Life -party who were present also voting for it.

I got this far writing a response, haven’t read the last few articles or watched the Chomsky but since it hasn’t progressed in over a week and I will continue to be happily occupied for the foreseeable future, I’ll post it now.

Okay, so we’re putting to rest the “expansionist NATO” argument, now we’re at “offensive NATO” and “the US manipulation of Ukraine”? This discussion is becoming way too unfocused, and I’d appreciate it if you could keep it tighter and, you know, not sprawling linkspam that takes this long with the time I can priorise for it. Answering the main points I thought I read in the articles.

----- NATO -----

1. NATO was established to not allow the SU and communist ideology to gain a stronger foothold in Europe.

No duh? So was the Nordic socdem model. Doesn’t make it a bad idea.

2. NATO was an US-led offensive alliance agaist SU.

NATO did not start nor was it involved in any armed conflict against the SU, or in any armed conflict with the “eastern bloc” in Europe during the cold war (unlike the SU). As an offensive alliance, it would have kind of sucked. Espionage is related to three letter agencies and embassies, with or without military alliances.

Also this claim somewhat contradicts point 1; point 1 assumes the European members to be sympathetic to the SU, point 2 hostile.

3. NATO is a violent, aggressive alliance. There is no evidence that NATO is providing “security” to Europe.

Are you confused about European history? Because if there’s one thing worthy of note, it’s that we’ve been at each others’ throats all the damn time. This “Pax Americana” has been a wonderful anomaly compared to any similar timespan in history since basically the Roman empire, all the more exceptional since it included tense hostilities and the turmoil of the end of the SU. Sure, correlation is not causation, but something has certainly worked here, and NATO doesn’t at least seem to have harmed the process.

4. NATO did not cease to be at the fall of the SU, which is evidence of it being an offensive tool of the US.

The newly formed Federation of Russia was very unstable until at least 1993, nobody knew which way it’d go, and already in 1994 it started the first Chechnyan war. Also, since when are international organizations terminated within a span of a couple of months or even a few years, without pressing need?

5. NATO has military outposts near the borders of NATO countries, which is provocative.

Borders are where military outposts tend to be. Wouldn’t really make sense in the middle? Russia has military outposts near all their neighbors, before and after they joined NATO.

6. 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia

It certainly wasn’t the ideal solution (which would have been for the violence to stop at the first diplomatic “hey, cut it out”) , but can’t say it was worse than what continuing the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians would have been. What would have been your next step at stopping it, or would you have let it continue, or do you believe it didn’t happen?

6. Afghanistan and Libya… NATO’s involvement in the Middle East

American projects with nominal NATO presence from other countries would have happened with or without NATO. Also they’re mostly not in Europe. If your point is that US foreign actions are often questionable, and that they’re probably an unreliable ally, yes to all of that.

7. Operation Gladio

That was interesting, didn’t know about it before, thank you! Again I’m doubtful of how important NATO was for it; if the US wanted to have “insurgency assistants” or even faux-terrorists (though as I read those links are questionable?) in European countries, it wouldn’t have been that difficult even without.

8. NATO expansion into Asia

Has not happened and would hopefully be veto’d by its European members. The US should form a similar military alliance under a new name there if they want to, the security interests of Europe and the Far East have little in common and it makes no sense to attempt stuff too many different things in the same organisation.

----- UKRAINE ------

I’d also like to point out that the speed at which some people go from “realistically Russia had no choice but to attack this smaller neighboring country” to “Ukraine nazis bad” truly is astounding.

1. The Nuland & Pyatt phone call

Unlike a lot of people, I don’t really see anything that queationable in the transcript. Shop talk between workmates foregoing the empty niceties and using “want” as for “would like to, our aim is”, just like I do at work.

2. Svoboda

In the 2019 parliament election they got 2.15% of the vote. It hardly represents the view of the common Ukrainian.

3. Maidan wasn’t about EU vs. Russia-led alliance trade agreements, but about the US wanting the actually popular(?) Yanukovich out.

Funny timing, and Yanukovich fleeing to Russia (not even the eastern territories, actual Russia!), and being unanimously being voted out by the parliament.

4. Maidan snipers

As many opinions as there are people. Here’s a scientific article looking at the info available in 2023 (including plausible confessions), and coming to the conclusion it was a Russian false flag (of which they have a long history).

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2023.2269685

5. U.S. funding of the “democratic opposition” to the tune of $5 billion over the past 10 years

Over the past 35 years. I’d love to know the full story of this, and how it compares to other former SU countries. Some of it must be the support for former SU countries, some NED, but there’s a lot more to cover. Without the information, the number, while interesting, is useless.

6. Neo-nazism, fascism, and ultra-nationalism in Ukraine (what your sources actually say):

BBC 2014: “the Kremlin has characterised the new leaders in Kiev as a “fascist junta” made up of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, set on persecuting, if not eradicating, the Russian-speaking population. This is demonstrably false.”

Hill 2017: “The odious Russian media tried to paint Ukraine as a land of Nazis, though that is patently wrong. Ukraine has a thriving Jewish community, and its far-right is still on the fringe. It’s the same in America.”

I don’t see that as different from any other country?

…or maybe “hot phase of war” or “a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace is ensured in Ukraine” is not so easily timed when it happens? That one day the war is on, the next everything is fine?

From what I hear, in the US having to wait for hours in line or having to produce a government ID(?) are often seen as voter suppression. But having to vote in a recently quieted warzone with bombed roads, also possibly queue for hours due to recovering infrastructure, possibly with expired or lost forms of ANY ID, a large amount of people just settling back into civilian life and 2-4 million probably still abroad (of current 5-6M), sounds perfect timing for voters and oh so quick to organise.

But I guess we’ll see within about a year of whenever things hopefully settle down.

(Also obviously Russia, with Putin or his protege in power for the last 25 years, with a totes believable 88% support in the latest election, is a model of political freedom now?)

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I don’t see how the countries that haven’t gotten into NATO are relevant.

It is relevant to claims of NATOs “expansionist” nature. But we can drop that topic.

“unprovoked” invasion.

I’d just like to point out that the “Russia was provoked” arguments are based on the realism school of foreign affairs, which boils down to “might makes right”. Seeing fellow lefties more radical than me espouse it with such glee is always such a sad thing.

Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.

Now I don’t quite know what you want me to do with that list. Yes, they were (probably, haven’t checked but will take you at your word) members of NATO at the time. Do you want me to find sources for them aspiring to become members of NATO well before the invite? But that would be going back to the “NATOs expansionist nature” debate. Do you want to discuss the relevance of the “not one inch eastward” comments? But there are plenty of sources articulating that better than we could.

Those countries, in practice, applied to join, and many are still stuck in the application process. Just because it’s called an “invitation” doesn’t make it so.

Don’t think I can make it any more concise than that.

Err, as a Finn, we didn’t want to join for decades and neither did Sweden, and neither of us received any invites. When we did want to join, invitation was part of the process, probably the last step but I really don’t remember. Several other countries wanting to join, some for a long time, have not been invited. How is it a bullshit argument?

You do realise it’s an invitation in name only, not extended unless the aspirant country wants it?

True, refusing to accept is always possible. But NATO is not pushing itself, countries want to or don’t want to join of their own agenda. Which doesn’t really make it “expansionist”, just “accepting”.

Yes, this massive Nato expansion, almost as bad as the EU expansion, forcing one country after another to join then.

Also the verbal agreement to not situate military stuff in former DDR, in a time when the Soviet Union was alive and the situation was “slightly” different, clearly applies today. Do you want to bring the Warsaw pact back too, I’m sure there are agreements somewhere?

So, Russia gains all their prime objectives through offensive warfare, and Ukraine is forced to keep kowtowing to Russia in some semblance of neutrality (finlandization was not fun, you know).

Tell me again how this is a compromise. Also how this is not a full return to “might makes right”, the final nail in the coffin of the fragile East-European stability agreed to in the Helsinki accords.

Hysterectomy is a big, risky and expensive surgery. Just snip the men at 35 (for average couple age difference), same panic effect but way less expensive.

/s just to make sure, super bad idea probably breaching multiple human rights agreements either way

Make Verdi tshirts political again!

What doesn’t Kremlin consider an escalation of tension? Spine-removing surgery?

Under half of women orgasm from penetration alone, and for about one in ten it’s outright painful. For me it does pretty much nothing. I guess we could move to whether air and vibrations on clit count as friction, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what anyone had in mind. Nor whether kisses and general intimate closeness count as “sexual pleasure”.