https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-set-double-its-ukraine-military-aid-under-scholz-plan-bloomberg-news-2023-11-12/
German chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the country's military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said on Sunday.
“Suddenly the Fuhrer is fascist just because he supports the Vichy government’s right to sovereignty over France?”
Believe it or not, history didn't actually start in 2021, and Nazi collaborators didn't all suddenly disappear in 1945 after enthusiastically carrying out the holocaust. Many German Nazis went right back to work at NATO, the West German government, and various US intelligence and military projects. The Ukrainian fascist organizations, Stepan Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists among them, that directly participated in the murder of over a million Jews, Poles, and communists operated continuously through the 2014 coup where they overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government with the backing of the United States. The coup government had been waging continuous open war on Russians living in Luhansk and Donetsk for 8 years before Russia came to their defense at the explicit request of their democratically elected governments.
Of course, you either already know this and don't care, or you're going to choose to ignore it to substitute with some cartoon fantasy about how there was peace in the world until Putin and his orcs arbitrarily decided to blacken the land with their unclean hordes and wipe out the good, clean, pure Men of the West for absolutely no reason and with no strategic objective beyond embodying the metaphysical concept of evil.
Many German Nazis went right back to work at NATO, the West German government, and various US intelligence and military projects.
Fun fact, they went to the Soviet Union too. Paperclip was very much mirrored by Osoaviakhim. So whatever point you're trying to make by bringing this up, I'm afraid it's very much a both sides thing. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make though. None of what you said makes the comparison I was responding to any less ridiculous. Hitler and his party, funnily enough, were not defined as fascists by protecting the sovereignty of Vichy France, not least because they didn't actually do it.
some cartoon fantasy about how there was peace in the world until Putin and his orcs arbitrarily decided to blacken the land with their unclean hordes and wipe out the good, clean, pure Men of the West for absolutely no reason and with no strategic objective beyond embodying the metaphysical concept of evil.
Thanks for at least confirming you're not operating in good faith. No, I think Putin has a variety of goals here that include securing a more defensible land route to the peninsula that Russia previously stole in 2014 and attempting to place a puppet (or at least friendly) regime in charge. That you're uncritically buying the justifications of a warmongering dictator is proof positive to me that you based your entire opinion here on "whatever the opposite of America is" as if it's a playground football game. I don't need to like how America acts to also not like how Russia acts.
you based your entire opinion here on “whatever the opposite of America is”
Pure projection. I treat Russia as an ordinary liberal democratic state led by ordinary human people with rational self-interested motives rather than a cartoon villain with an army of mindless robots. My refusal to treat them as fundamentally evil, irrational, or inhuman doesn't suggest that I think they're "good", selfless, or beyond criticism. It means I judge them by the same standards I'd use to judge any similar state with a similar political and economic system in similar circumstances.
I don’t need to like how America acts to also not like how Russia acts.
If you're an American as I am, then your taxes funded the 2014 coup of Ukraine, the ongoing war on Donetsk and Luhansk, sabotaging the Minsk agreements, and prohibiting a negotiated end to the ongoing conflict. You're not some unbiased neutral observer if you're pretending to claim "both sides bad" while actively funding and voting to maintain the war and block every local attempt at peace. Absent continuous US intervention for over a decade, this war never happens.
I don't care where Russia and Ukraine decide to put lines on a map between them. That's exclusively up to the people that actually live there, and Euro-Americans like me aren't entitled to an opinion about it. I care that my government stop using money generated by my community's labor to murder the people that live there.
I only agree that we shouldn't view Russia or Russians as fundamentally evil of dehumanize them with language like "orcs". But really... do you view Russia as a liberal democratic state? I'm sorry but are you out of your mind? And surely they are not led by ordinary people but by a class of oligarchs under the lead of the godfather of this mafia state.
Also you say you don't care about border disputes between countries. You're wrong that this is up to the people sharing this border. Legally that's a very ignorant statement as there are very good reasons that the UN member countries are extremely reluctant to accept any changing of borders, especially not by force. International law puts emphasis on stability of borders. Also it makes border conflicts every countries' business. So yes: Even as a Euro-American you're very much entitled to have an opinion about it and legally it's your countries' duty to have a stance on it. No one is on the sidelines here.
do you view Russia as a liberal democratic state? I’m sorry but are you out of your mind? And surely they are not led by ordinary people but by a class of oligarchs
All liberal "democratic" states are ruled by a class of oligarchs/capitalists, and not by ordinary people. Why are you citing evidence that's perfectly compatible with a liberal "democracy" as if it was somehow at odds with it?
That might be the case in the US where capitalists have much more influence over election outcomes and politicians themselves are often part of dynasties that accumulated enormous wealth. This is however not comparable to many European countries. Sure, you have capitalists in all capitalist societies. But their direct influence on election results is much smaller and politicians are very often ordinary people and not obscenely rich or privileged by their ancestry.
A whole different aspect is that these ordinary people, once they came into power, lend their ears way too much to capitalist interests and the likes of lobbyists, often ignoring the problems and needs of ordinary people and focussing instead on catering to the industry.
The people could however not vote for these politicians if they realized that their policies thwart their own interests. If they fail to do so, it's their own fault that the conditions for the majority are not improving. How can you fix the stupidity?
I treat Russia as an ordinary liberal democratic state led by ordinary human people with rational self-interested motives
It means I judge them by the same standards I’d use to judge any similar state with a similar political and economic system in similar circumstances.
Do you? So let's say the UK decided to funnel weapons in to Ireland to restart the Troubles and then sent tanks in to annex Donegal. Would you be similarly opposed to arming Ireland against a much larger and better-armed neighbour? After all it'd hugely expand the UK's exclusive economic zone at sea and significantly reduce the length of the border to defend against Ireland, it seems beneficial for Britain. I don't know about you, but I'd hope someone would back Ireland up in that situation.
If you’re an American as I am
I'm not
the 2014 coup of Ukraine
Good job Ukraine has had two elections since then huh
the ongoing war on Donetsk and Luhansk
It is interesting how so many of Russia's neighbours have pro-Russian separatist movements that always seem to have Russian backing
prohibiting a negotiated end to the ongoing conflict
What leverage do you think Ukraine's supporters actually have to prevent a peace? They'd stop supplying it weapons? Well you apparently want them to do that anyway. Presumably that's because you think Ukraine can negotiate peace without being armed enough to fight Russia. In which case these peace-blocking supporters have no leverage with which to block peace.
Of course they have even less leverage over Russia, which could end this war tomorrow by literally just fucking going home
You’re not some unbiased neutral observer
I didn't claim to be unbiased in the slightest. I am openly pro-Ukraine here. Because I'm generally against countries invading their neighbours and killing hundreds of thousands in order to annex territory, no matter how beneficial it might be to the invader.
Absent continuous US intervention for over a decade, this war never happens.
This is literally just American exceptionalism for people that don't like America. Other countries also do things. Russia has a track record of exactly this kind of thing.
The Ukrainian fascist organizations, Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists among them, that directly participated in the murder of over a million Jews, Poles, and communists operated continuously through the 2014 coup where they overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government with the backing of the United States. The coup government had been waging continuous open war on Russians living in Luhansk and Donetsk for 8 years before Russia came to their defense at the explicit request of their democratically elected governments.
Does writing fiction pays well nowadays?
Incredible how readily people like this will accept open holocaust denial. Bandera and the OUN weren't quiet about their politics, their participation in pogroms, or their collaboration with Nazi Germany. We don't need to speculate about their motives, they came out and said them quite freely:
Russian propaganda.
Anti-semitism inspired by thinkers like Dugin and Prokhanov is popular in Russia.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify
TLDR: Russian ethnic nationalists, don't see Jews as the primary victims of the holocaust, they think of Russian Christians as its true victims, and even go so far to argue that Jews orchestrated the holocaust and/or the war. That's why they don't see a contradiction in a country led by a Jew being nazi. IRC they also recently blamed Ukraine for instigating an anti-semitic riot in Dagestan. Not that it would matter, because propaganda allows people to engage in double-think.
As someone who's pretty left wing, it's very unfortunate because these fossils (and a younger generation who confuse contrarianism with critical thinking) have often infected left wing parties, ensuring they'll never have any influence on government and can be easily discredited for even their most sensible solutions. Communists supporting far right ultra-capitalists and often the exact same people who helped accelerate the catastrophic fall of the USSR.
and often the exact same people who helped accelerate the catastrophic fall of the USSR
You mean America and NATO? You know, the guys who actually did that...
No. I mean the robber baron oligarchs who got rich from corruption, stole national industries from ordinary Russians, ensured the USSR bled to death, parked vast sums of ill gotten gains in foreign accounts, and sold their country and countrymen to the highest bidder.
The 'elite' who now run Russia, claiming the fall of the USSR was a great tragedy and pretending to be its last defenders, while minimizing their role in its downfall from the safety of palaces, foreign residences and mansions which would make the Tsars blush at their vulgarity.
People like Putin, who goes on about how tragic it was that the Soviet Union fell, while wearing a million dollar watch and conveniently forgetting his ties to the oligarchs and Yeltsin.
Correct. I meant to say nazi, as was mentioned in the comment above and the article. I have corrected my comment.
Frankly, Nazism is also not an exclusively anti-Jewish construct. They were also strongly opposed to the racial identities of the Roma, Poles, and Russians (and killed millions of them during the Holocaust as well), as well as the political ideology of communists.
Nazism was anticommunist by ideology and antisemitic by policy. There was a strong (and misguided) belief at the time that Jews were responsible for the Russian communist revolution and that Jewish communists would come to spread communism. There was a strong (and misguided) belief at the time that Slavs (Russians, Poles, ...) were communists by nature and would come to spread communism. There was also (misguided) belief at the time that the Roma would benefit from communism at the detriment of everyone else. The first concentration camps were used to imprison and execute communists.
Ukraine lost its sovereignty back in 2014 when a western backed right wing coup overthrew the legitimate democratically elected government. Now, a western sponsored regime is sending hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths in a proxy war US is using to try and weaken Russia. US politicians openly admit this fact now.