The years before the russian attack on Ukraine

@LordSupremeChess said in #31:
> America is a democracy!! A free country!! For all people!!
It is nice to see that there are still young people in the country who believes in these ideals.

Time to call the Norsk Cavalry, is it?
Hurrah!

@PTX187 said in #41:
> It is nice to see that there are still young people in the country who believes in these ideals.
Why not??

@LordSupremeChess

Afghanistan was only invaded because of 9/11. They refused to hand over the al Qaeda terrorists that planned the attack, so we invaded them. Iraq was because of a misunderstanding. Vietnam was an attempt to stop the spread of communism.

none of these statements are true. Afghanistan did not refuse to hand over Bin Ladin, it requested the evidence that he was behind the attack. and you don't get to wage an aggressive war even if that had been true. the remedy is to take it to the criminal courts, except, whoops. the US doesn't recognize that it is subject to the jurisdiction of these courts, including the UN court. geez I wonder why. Iraq was because of a sustained campaign of propaganda based on proven lies about Iraq having wmd's. that was the biggest propaganda campaign I have ever seen until the latest propaganda in favor of the US role in the Ukraine War. Vietnam was an attempt to enforce US rules and US preferred rulers on another country, which failed, was also based on a lie, and obviously had nothing to do in reality with stopping communism, since the US failed yet communism did not spread.

@kanYE24 said in #4:
> I don't think anyone that researches the Russia / Nato war ends up thinking that Russia is incorrect or bad.
>
> So everyone who supports ukraine is extremely low information, and that won't change.
>
> For me the reasonableness of Russia's foreign policy compared to the bloodthirsty warmongering terrorist policies of Nato doesn't even factor into my support of Russia.
>
> Russia is a Christian country and Nato is a godless gay country. All christians should support Russia.

Lmao you would be a kanye fan wouldn't you

@chessprimus said in #1:
> He demanded ever since a new security structure for the whole of Europe and a solution of existing problems in the Ukraine concerning the russian minorities in the eastern parts of the country.

Such alleged problems are just a means for Putin and Russian propaganda to justify their illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. These made up stories of Russian no longer being taught in Ukrainian schools (contrary to Russian propaganda it was at least until February 2022) and the like clearly fail to give a sufficient casus belli. But that doesn't stop Putin from making a lame attempt anyways.

Furthermore it's not in "the Ukraine". It's simply in Ukraine. I'm not your English teacher, but this is point about politics, not about grammar. Well, about both actually:

The use of an article indicates that you're talking about a region with amorphous (or ambiguous) borders inside a larger sovereign nation, not an independent country (with inviolable, clearly defined borders) itself.
You are thus echoing Putin's imperialistic, irredentist rhetoric.

Sovereign states like Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc. are simply called by their respective name without the use of a definite article. When something happens in Prague, it happened in Czechia, not "in the Czechia". When something happens in Samarqand, it happened in Uzbekistan, not "in the Uzbekistan". And when something happens in Vladivostok, it happened in Russia, not "in the Russia".

The only exceptions to this rule are country names which are either plural (e.g. "The Netherlands", Dutch: "Nederland", without definite article) or contain nouns that require a definite article (like "republic", "Kingdom", "states", "union") that usually refer to the fact that the sovereign nation came about by a union of several nations or states.
For example "The Czech republic" (Czechia), "The United Kingdom of Great-Britain and Northern Ireland" (Britain), "The United States of America" (U.S.A.), "The Soviet Union" (CCCP) or "The United Arab Emirates" (UAE)

When the people of Ukraine were still governed (or starved to death in Holodomor) by the Soviet Union (1922-1991) the Soviets (and international English speaking news outlets) referred to the Ukrainian SSR simply as "the Ukraine". You can verify this by watching old, English language TV programs about the Chernobyl disaster (1986). You can hear them refer to "the Ukraine" and the nuclear power plant "in the Ukraine", because Ukraine wasn't an independent nation at the time but rather a region inside the CCCP. At least in the eyes of Stalin.

Examples for the use of the definite article for regions that are part of a sovereign nation include:

"Marseille, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, has an average of 59 days of rain a year."
"In the Deep South the climate is typically a lot warmer than in the Pacific Northwest."
"The development of wind farms in the High Plains (subregion of the Great Plains, mainly in the Western United States) is one of the newest areas of economic development."
"Before World War II, the cities in the Rust Belt region were among the largest in the United States."
"Last week I was in the Bluegrass region."
"The abundance of southern facing slopes in the Vallée de la Marne produces the ripest wines with full aroma."
"Some vineyards in the Champagne wine region have a very long tradition."
"Some of the world's finest beaches can be found in the Caribbean."
"According to a 2009 proposition of the Regional Committee for local government reform the Oise would have been incorporated in the Île-de-France, the Somme would have been incorporated in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Aisne would have been incorporated in the Champagne-Ardenne in order to reduce the number of French regions."

There is a very similar construction going on in the Russian language, so continuing to use the article "the" further cements your view that Ukraine should not be an independent country (even though it had its sovereignty guaranteed by the Russian Federation in 1994: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum). Or even worse, that Ukraine has no right to exist in the first place, as Putin would have it:
theconversation.com/its-ukraine-not-the-ukraine-heres-why-178748

I for one condemn irredentism. It disgusts me.

"Such alleged problems are just a means for Putin and Russian propaganda to justify their illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. These made up stories of Russian no longer being taught in Ukrainian schools (contrary to Russian propaganda it was at least until February 2022) and the like clearly fail to give a sufficient casus belli. But that doesn't stop Putin from making a lame attempt anyways."

yeah this is not true either. they aren't "made up stories". and it is less of a war of aggression than any number of US wars, including the war against Cuba and the USSR when the USSR responded to US aggression in placing missiles in Turkey by placing missiles in Cuba. Ukrainian students have been heavily propagandized by the current Ukraine government, installed by the US in 2014, just like in the US students are propagandized by textbooks claiming creationism is based on science, or global warming is a fraud, or bowdlerizing US history to airbrush out the numerous war crimes and wars of aggression the US has committed over its history, particularly during the heyday of its "empire" since world war 2.

@LordSupremeChess said in #20:
> Afghanistan was only invaded because of 9/11. They refused to hand over the al Qaeda terrorists that planned the attack, so we invaded them. Iraq was because of a misunderstanding.

Yeah. and what was the prelude to that? The US funded Afghan mujahideens only 10 years prior in an attempt to combat the revolution in Afghanistan.

> Vietnam was an attempt to stop the spread of communism.

Ah yeah, a country experiences a revolution, therefore we must send 100 of thousands of troops to destroy the local infrastructure, population and life in general.

@kanYE24 said in #7:
> I disagree with your basis for morality if you even have one, all truly moral people (christians) will support Russia without a seconds thought.

I support the Christians in Ukraine that are dying for your fault.

@kanYE24 said in #4:
> I don't think anyone that researches the Russia / Nato war ends up thinking that Russia is incorrect or bad.
>
> So everyone who supports ukraine is extremely low information, and that won't change.
>
> For me the reasonableness of Russia's foreign policy compared to the bloodthirsty warmongering terrorist policies of Nato doesn't even factor into my support of Russia.
>
> Russia is a Christian country and Nato is a godless gay country. All christians should support Russia.
Wow this is the stupidest thing I've read on the internet in a long time and that's really saying something!