SeborrheicDermatitis [any] @ SeborrheicDermatitis @hexbear.net

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4 yr. ago

I would actually stop using Reddit if they did this. New Reddit is intolerable.

Very good point-a way of connecting communities on Reddit that seems fairly innocuous but is actually a massive means of the "transmission" of users between communities, allowing users to find communities they like quicker and thus making them more likely to stay.

Very good point that I didn't think of tbh.

Bad source for sure though there is ample evidence (you can watch videos of it) of quite large-scale execution and torture of PoWs among Russian and Wagner troops. It has happened on both sides but certainly far more on the Russian side...

I don't think volunteers in the army itself count as mercenaries. Certainly I see no reason why international law as such doesn't apply to them.

I really don't think it is good to justify arbitrary executions of PoWs.

The Taliban were willing (after a bit of threatening and cajoling) to hand Osama bin Laden over to a third party for him to go to trial. There was no need to invade based on the justification as the Taliban were genuinely afraid of the invasion and were willing to co-operate, just as they have been now. In the end, the invasion did nothing anyway and Al Qaeda's peak came AFTER the Taliban was toppled. There was never any chance of a cohesive post-Taliban government emerging from the Northern Alliance. By this point the US had decided on war and the whole MIC machinery was rolling, so it was too late to turn back (as US leaders thought, with their reliance on a captured media and lobbying from the MIC creating strategic liabilities within the US state).

The invasion was not necessary for US security aims and certainly could never have bettered Afghanistan, though.

I don't know why you are shocked and horrified when people engage with something on their own front page?

That's how federation works, is it not?

It's not brigading, it's literally right there at the top of the front page, so of course people will comment on it.

Not sure if they're targeting it that effectively, not seen articles saying so yet but might be wrong. I think they're targeting civilian infrastructure as much as strategic infrastructure (same mistakes the Nazis made in the Blitz!).

If that's their actual justification rather than just what they tell the media then it is flabbergastingly incompetent.

Maybe they just didn't want to deplete their own stocks and don't really care how the counteroffensive goes as long as they can continue selling weapons but then there are flaws in that logic, too, since it degrades the idea of invincibility and total technological superiorty that the western MIC have tried hard to portray in recent years. I don't know, maybe there are just idiots in the top brass of the US political-military institutions but you'd think they'd be more smart than thinking "gumption" can carry the day.

I agree with you in terms of the dysfunction of Ukrainian political strategy surrounding Bakhmut. Politicians w/ no military planning experience intervening in what was previously a well-run campaign to achieve a symbolic victory against the advice of their own generals and even western advisors.

Though it was a big blunder on the Ukrainian side, yes. Political leaders interfered in military strategy when they shouldn't have done. IIRC DW reported that some senior Ukrainian military leaders wanted to make a tactical withdrawal but the government vetoed it.

IIRC Ukraine still controlled part of the T0504 highway within the city at their worst point and since then they've taken back a couple of blocks.

Yeah western intelligence didn't want Ukraine to die on the hill of Bakhmut (figuratively), Ukrainian leadership chose it for symbolic/domestic reasons rather than strategic. They never did take the whole city though and have since fallen back a bit, with the Ukrainian counteroffensive managing to take a few blocks back. Not too much, though. Ofc Russia has had the gradual advantage in Bakhmut for most of the last year but it was a grinding, incredibly slow, incredibly damaging battle for both sides. It was perhaps unwise for the Ukrainian leadership to make that move, though.

Sorry, I meant Zaporizhzhia. I am pretty muddle-brained atm as I have my increased anxiety meds dose recently.

I'm very confident the parts of Ukraine that have been trying to leave since 2014 mostly want to leave. I know ethnic Russians and Russian speakers are most heavily concentrated in the east, not just in the pre-war separatist regions but surrounding them, too. I'm sure war breaking out caused a lot of people who were on the fence to pick a side, and I can imagine someone who speaks Russian at home but wasn't radical enough to be part of a pre-war separatist movement throwing in with the much stronger country, that speaks their language, that doesn't have troops running around with neo-Nazi patches and flags.

Certainly some did, especially in the Donbass regions, but AFAIK never as much in Zaporizhzhia or Kherson-there is significant data to show that, while obviously Eastern Ukrainians have had a difficult relationship w/ the central government, they still opposed the Russian invasion and supported defence efforts.

What I've seen is breakdowns of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, which are predominantly in the east. I've also seen pre-war election results that show these eastern regions disagree with western Ukraine on national politics.

Yes, you are right, but voting patterns show there is this polarisation between east and west Ukraine, but that does not ipso facto imply support for the Russian invasion, much less annexation into the Russian state. There is polling to suggest that even in Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and such, there was widespread opposition to the invasion and a 'rally-to-the-flag' effect had led to a temporary support in all regions (Donbass not included) for Zelensky and for the Ukrainian defence effort. As I say I can go digging for them if you'd like. I am not saying all Ukrainians hate Russian language and that there is no autonomist movements in the east, just that the data I have seen indicates widespread opposition to the invasion and annexations. However, there is a lack of data in the Donbass region so I simply do not know what people support or think in there as the L/DPRs were not democratic.

I know, I'm very #blessed.

Because modern China is not socialist and its leadership has no intention of moving in that direction (indeed, they are moving in the opposite direction, including under Xi).

China isn't about to invade Taiwan anyway. Not much strategic gain + the Chinese leadership is smarter than the Russian one.

I mean it's a pretty vacuous statement but what else do they expect? It's just them trying to please both sides, they cannot exactly make a precise potential peace arrangement without getting everyone together.

Then why did Russia fail to take Bakhmut, do you think?

Also thank you for the link. ISW has posted some bad content in the past and this helps to explain it, I think. I appreciate it.

Cheers, I'll give it a read. I genuinely appreciate it.

What evidence do you have for that? Asking genuinely not to be facetious. Crimea, yes, but the others I am not so sure. I am especially here referring to Kherson and Kharkhiv regions that were annexed as all data I have seen (I can dig some up if you'd like-do not have it to hand) indicates strong support for the Ukrainian govt against the invasion here even if they dislike the government itself.