kava @ kava @lemmy.world

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American goals in Ukraine are

• make Russia pay dearly for every inch of land they take in Ukraine
• use this opportunity to give a nice cash injection to our defense contractors
• gather as much intel & data on both Russia & the modern battlefield in general. Sort of like the Spanish Civil War before WW2. A playground to test out new technologies

These goals have already been accomplished. It's been a great couple years in terms of hurting Russia for cheap.

We want to prolong this war as long as possible. A Ukrainian victory would be just as bad as a Ukrainian loss. It's why we modulate our aid carefully. Like Chomsky was saying before his stroke - "we will fight them to the last Ukrainian"

I think a lot of people get blinded by propaganda in the moment. Even people who retroactively would be able to see it just fine (try and find someone who believes Iraq was a justified war) strongly believe the party lines.

Reality is American interests and Ukrainian interests are not aligned.

"keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out"

best thing for America is to prolong this war as long as possible.

Thanks for the info. If the creditors agree to take a lowered payout, than it makes sense. I wasn't aware of any such deal before making my comment.

I don't want to dox myself but I know Parkland very well. The people who live there are loaded. So it makes sense they aren't hurting for money and would just prefer the Infowars website to be neutered, which it seems is the Onion's goal.

most democratic countries cosplay as democracies. just like most communist countries cosplayed as communist.

ideology in its purest form. After the death of God, you need something to fill that unapproachable void. So you inject ideals- civil service, egalitarianism, tolerance, justice, etc -- values that are virtuous and aspirational, but ultimately are just shiny veneers over a darker truth. it functions as scaffolding for systems that serve the interests of raw power. it is theater. performance. spectacle. underneath, the mechanisms of control, inequality, and corruption remain unchanged.

don't make the mistake of believing that India is somehow unique here

Can’t have commerce happening for prosocial reasons, only greed!

i mean, if Jones is in bankruptcy the whole point is to pay his debts to who he owes, some of which i believe are the parkland families. so you want to sell it for the largest total amount in order to pay off as much debt as possible.

if a company really did offer $3.5m and was rejected meanwhile The Onion is getting accepted for $1.75m, I'd like to know why. I don't think a company should get free dibs just because they're more or less "ethical" than another. at the end of the day, they're a for-profit corporation that is going to use this as a way to make money.

i don't believe for one second this has anything to do with "prosociality"

if we're talking about consecutive time spent, ie one single uninterrupted block of time, then I'd say about 7~8 hours.

one time my ex-girlfriend's cat managed to get way. we think it was one of the roommates opened the door to the back and wasn't paying much attention. the cat was sneaky, he would try to dart out all the time

i spent the entire day, basically, walking around the fairly large apartment complex yelling out his name and shaking a bag of treats

a few hours in, my ex had a mental breakdown and gave up thinking any continued searching was hopeless. she really liked the cat and wasn't taking it well

but i just kept at it. towards the end of the day, around dusk when it was starting to get dark, i heard an exasperated meow behind me and the cat came up running to me. it looked very scared and confused.

we had just moved from one place to another a few hours away. so it was used to be an outside cat but it didn't know the area whatsoever.

anyhow it actually stopped trying to run out of the house after that, so that was nice

I'm split between this would lead to good things and this will usher in a new McCarthy red scare style period.

Ironically though I think we are inching closer to the Chinese system as the Chinese system inches closer to our own.

A- brutal capitalism with workers rights stripped down as much as possible

B- a system where a small group of elites get to make all of the political decisions

C- a state who cooperates with the largest corporations in order to stay in power and maintain high profits

The difference is China has been slowly liberalizing, giving their people slightly more political and economic freedoms. Meanwhile here in the US we are doing rhe opposite.

It's almost as if we are both converging towards the same end goal. A sort of convergent evolution headed to the government with the highest fitness. Which unfortunately for us peons isn't designed for us

Every step in the right direction is better than taking no steps at all (or worse, taking steps backwards).

voting DNC is taking no steps at all. it's neoliberal status quo. brutal no-safety rails capitalism, genocide, and war.

. the only time in this country's history where people managed to get meaningful concessions out of the ruling class was when the ruling class was afraid. moments like the New Deal where communists were getting serious consideration. moments like the civil rights era where blacks and anti-war advocates were protesting en mass. moments like like stonewall riots which led to rights for gays.

these are steps in the right direction. voting DNC is pissing against the wind deluding yourself that you can somehow outvote fascism in a democracy

yeah it's just constantly testing boundaries. we do the same thing. for example officially we accept the "one china" policy. our government on paper does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country, but as a part of China

but then we will do stuff like send the Secretary of State over to Taiwan, which implies a de facto independence. it's meant to provoke China and salami slice, in a similar way with the balloons. or our navy drills over in the South China Sea, etc. basically great power geopolitics is a lot of dick swinging

let your children come to their conclusions on their own. do not try to force them into believing one thing or another. share what you believe is right and let them critically think and analyze the world for themselves

it's perfectly natural for teenagers to rebel against their parent's world view- especially when they feel like they are being forced into it. it's part of growing up and crafting your own unique identity. nobody has it all figured out when they are a teenager, even though they think they do. so they may seem arrogant and ignorant.. but that's perfectly normal. if you successfully imparted them the values of empathy and compassion when they were young, they will eventually come to proper belief systems

as for present, you know your son a lot better than any of us will.

i went through a breakup a few years back and spent like 2 years just alone at my house. didn't interact with any friends, didn't seek out any romantic interests. nothing, just coding video games and work basically.

after a while, i started getting interested in social contact again. so i started going to kava bars. every night after work i'd go hang out a couple of hours at a kava bar. started meeting people, having a social life. i got on tinder, met some girls. started dating one of them

moral of the story?

sometimes in life you have phases. it's OK to be alone for a while. but when you feel like you don't want to be alone anymore, go out to a place where there are people. i don't know how the kava scene is in new zealand.. i'd imagine you get pretty good stuff because you're smack dab in the middle of the pacific island region.

but to me kava bars are great because a) i don't like alcohol or people who are drunk and b) you get an interesting scene of "alternative" people who don't necessarily mash with the standard mainstream ideals of what youre "supposed to be" or "supposed to do"

so that worked for me but may not work for you. maybe you like chess. maybe you like card games. maybe you like drinking beer and playing pool. or bonsai.

whatever the hell you like, there's something out there so just go to social events regularly and the rest will solve itself

It's two fold

1- intel and testing

they are first testing their spy balloons, seeing how it works in a real life operation. in addition, they are getting data about taiwan in addition to taiwan's response. for example if you have networks listening to everything that's happening on taiwanese defense networks, you can start seeing certain things light up when you approach from one side or the other.

this gives you clues on how it would play out in a real military scenario

2- diplomatic salami slicing

this technique basically tries to slowly over time trivialize certain actions. you make an action that seems aggressive but not aggressive enough to warrant a serious response. then you let it cool down and push the envelope a little further, cool down again, and so on. you start to shift the "overton window" of what is acceptable. you slowly shift red lines over bit by bit

for a film analogy like the type Zizek loves to make, I'd recommend the semi-recent Danish horror film: Speak No Evil. There's an American remake, which in my opinion was OK but the message falls flat because of the ending.

tldr: i don't think this is petty. i think they know exactly what they are doing and are making the strategically optimal move

I really need to figure out how to get a single work app to work on Linux reliably

what work app?

I use it for like 99% of my work, so a virtual machine is kind of useless

i mean, it depends on your computer (like if your cpu & motherboard supports virtualization) but you can in theory get a VM with pretty decent performance

on my m1 macbook i have a windows VM that runs very smoothly and i can effortlessly use a gesture on the touchpad to switch between them. it's pretty cool

on linux it's a little harder to set up (i had to pay like $100 for the software on the mac) but it's doable

Ok, I think now we're getting somewhere - you're engaging in good faith and I appreciate that. Let's go over the money pumped into Ukraine

From independence in 1991 to 2014, the total value was not a couple million. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/

We're talking in the range of billions. Roughly $200M a year. That's a lot of money for a country as poor as Ukraine.

Second, there's likely a lot of money that was sent covertly. The reason NED was founded was just to simplify the process of funding US interests in foreign countries. Before, you would have to have the CIA create a series of intermediary steps to try and obfuscate the source of funds. For example, to bring it back to Guatemala - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'%C3%A9tat#Operation_PBSuccess

With NED, you don't need to spend the manpower and money to set up these complex systems of obfuscation. All of the sources are deemed "legitimate" and therefore you can send openly without incriminating yourself. This is cheaper and simpler.

This goes back to the quote by the founder of NED- Allen Weinstein "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."

But that's the thing- CIA still exists and still covertly funds individuals and organizations. However, these days (post-NED) they only fund those that would be unacceptable for the US government to be attached to. For example, "Operation Cyclone" in Afghanistan or "Timber Sycamore Program" in Syria. In both these cases, as CIA was working their magic, NED was also funding US interests in those countries in parallel.

Open "legitimate" funding - NED

Covert items US doesn't wanna be openly associated with - CIA

They work as a team, both with the mutual goal of advancing US interests

Once again, US has a history of trying to destabilize Ukraine that goes back all the way to the start of Cold War. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/11/covert-operation-ukrainian-independence-haunts-cia-00029968

So to conclude:

I'll make some claims and please tell me if we agree on them (I believe we will, because you agree $$$ influences democracy)

1. NED is a tool to advance US interests through funds injection
2. NED (along with some other US organizations seeking similar goals) openly pumped quite a lot of money into Ukraine.
3. CIA has a history of covertly funding US interests, and also in parallel with NED funding
4. CIA has a history of involvement in Ukraine

So, those 4 statements, I believe are facts. I made no conclusions, simply stated facts. From those facts, I believe it's enough smoke to assume there is fire. You can say there are many holes, and that is fine. Two people can look at the same series of facts and come to different conclusions.

But I think when looking at the following fact in connection with the previous

5. US officials speaking on the phone in a highly classified call in such a casual and matter-of-fact way about which politician they want in Ukraine - and that politician served two terms as Prime Minister

Starts to fill in a pattern. Remember Occam's Razor. What's simplest is probably what is true.

To conclude my comment- can we at least agree mutually that US attempted to influence Ukrainian democracy? Maybe they were impotent and the radical coup in 2014 was a totally independent movement totally separate from any US influence. It was just a coincidence that the coup led to a pro-US government.

But can we at least agree on the above- US uses $$$ as a tool to advance their interests and they tried this in Ukraine?

You’d use your own head and assess for yourself what that tape means.

it's a coincidence the guy they decided on just happened to be the guy who ended up being Prime Minister for two terms, right?

like i said in my original comment. it's an interesting phenomenon. if you were to look in the past, it's very easy to convince people the US acted covertly in many ways that were clearly imperialist. for example in Guatemala or Cuba or Iraq. It's hard to find someone trying to defend US actions in these cases. But as it's happening that goes out the window because propaganda has a powerful hold on emotion

Let's take a step back and let me ask you a question. Please answer instead of diverting or otherwise trying to deflect

Question is: Do you believe money holds influence in US elections and do you think people with money actively try and influence elections?

Russia is a terrible ally and an even worse overlord I'm not arguing against that. It has a brutal history and a brutal people whose cultural DNA goes all the way back to the Mongol hordes pillaging and raping for tribute

Right, what I was getting at was that all the other claims are bullshit, this is a war because winning it would grant Russia strategic advantages, and they thought they’d win the conflict, probably not even expecting a full war; just a three day special operation.

yes, they expected Ukraine to fold. So did US intelligence, at least ostensibly.

although at this point, anybody paying attention sees the writing on the wall. Russia has been slowly inching forward all year. They will win unless there is some sort of dramatic change in battlefield dynamics

and US has no intention of allowing Ukraine to win. this is why I see US involvement as cynical. It was never meant to actually help Ukraine. Ukraine has been under Russian orbit for centuries. Throughout the entirety of the Cold War, it was under Russian control.

It does not meaningfully alter the power balance between US and Russia. US is just taking advantage to extract as much as they can out of this war and then when the juice is squeezed out of the lemon, Ukraine will fall under Russian control.

So if Ukraine losing was the point the entire time - what "help" was our help? It wasn't to help the people, prolonging a destructive war only kills more people, destroys more homes, hamstrings economic output for a longer period of time. it will cost over $500B to reconstruct Ukraine (and I guarantee there won't be any lively debates in congress on approving that aid) and Ukrainian demographics are ruined for a century

This is sort of my entire point - the US interests in this war don't line up with the Ukrainian citizen. We want

a) Russia to bleed as much as possible for every inch

b) as much public $$$ as possible to be transferred to private hands

c) battlefield intelligence, both on new technologies and capabilities and on new Russian doctrines (for example drones & EW have been game changers) in preparation for the real war on the horizon

those goals mean the best way to play it is to hurt Ukraine as much as possible. Keep the war going on as long as possible. But never invest enough for Ukraine to win - that would likewise end the war.

It's a very cynical and misanthropic position

Nobody is forcing Ukraine to ask the US for help (except Russia).

But who is "Ukraine"?

Who gets to make the decisions? The people of Ukraine? The unconstitutionally appointed government? The one who happens to cooperate directly with the CIA? The government that stems from the series of far-right protests that led to a coup? In a country where US has been pumping money for decades?

It sounds like the logic of Guatemala.

United Fruit Company (whose CEO was brothers with director of CIA) owned large swathes of land to grow bananas. They also owned railroads, telephone lines, and other general infrastructure.

A new democratic movement sparked up in order to take some of that land and distribute it to the people of Guatemala - why should a foreign company own all the farmland? (Similar thing happened in Cuba, except they were successful)

So what happens in Guatemala? A CIA supported coup puts in a new right-wing government. Now that new government cooperated with the USA and made sure United Fruit Company (Chiquita these days) kept the spice flowing.

Now, if you were to tell me "But kava, the Guatemalan government asked the US for help. It's their independent and sovereign decision"

But was it really? Who gets to call the shots?

That's the fundamental question here. I am not discounting sovereignty of Ukrainian people because Euromaidan is NOT the Guatemalan coup. It's a whole different event with a different set of factors and influences. I wouldn't even go so far to say it was a CIA-led coup. Just a CIA-supported one.

But the question is a nuanced one and not so simple as "Ukraine asked for help". It's more like Ukraine had no choice but to ask for help. The power-dynamic is not an equal one - like a teacher having sex with a student. Is it possible for that relationship to be consensual?

Like Chomsky says “we will fight them to the last Ukrainian”

Or was it North Korean?

Ukraine is in the process of being destroyed. It's the only country involved in this war that is suffering that fate.

You should be supporting Ukraine because of democracy, sovereignty, and the security guarantees you gave them by signing the Budapest memorandum, remember, when Ukraine gave up its nukes.

Stop spreading misinformation. Read the Budapest Memorandum again, please. There were no security guarantees given by the US.

I believe in democracy and sovereignty - the US state does not.

and that’s another reason why you won’t be dropping Ukraine

What happens to Ukraine does not ultimately matter to US power. Right now it's a convenient place to test new weapons, get battlefield intel, inject some nice cash into defense contractors.

But the real focus is on the East.

All this, ultimately, just amounts to a French win

See, I view the total opposite. It's interesting how people can see the same thing and get different conclusions

After WW2, Europe was essentially made subservient to the US. The threat of the Soviets was very real and the US was the only one that could keep the Soviets at bay. Therefore, NATO was formed. Cue the infamous quote from the first General Secretary - the reason for NATO was "to keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out"

After 1991 there was a real hope that Russia could integrate with Europe. No more USSR, no more threat, right? No more reason for NATO, no more reason for hostility. Imagine a Europe where Russia was integrated into the security blanket. Europe would become a superpower by its own right - no need to bow down to the Americans. There was decades of slow attempts at integration (for example with energy like natural gas pipelines)

But that vision never materialized and after a gradual decline in relations, Russia invading Ukraine was the best gift Russia has ever given to the Americans.

It basically started the process of a permanent decoupling of Russia from Europe and it forced the Europeans into the arms of the Americans. Now, Europe has no choice but to align with the Americans.

This is the reason you start seeing populists like Trump start using harsh rhetoric about NATO. "Freeloading Europeans now need to pay their fair share", etc.

The reason why Americans can get away with it now, where they couldn't before, is because Europe has no choice.

agree. the regular people are always the ones that will end up suffering. lockheed martin shareholders got to enjoy a 30% spike in their holdings after feb 2022. hundreds of thousands of ukrainians lost family members, had to flee their homes, lost limbs, many died/will die, etc

i view geopolitics almost like i do tectonic plates. every once in a while when there are shifts, earthquakes happen. I think the Ukraine war is the small earthquake that always happens right before the big one.

to make more WW2 analogies

spanish civil war & italian invasion of ethiopia ₌ ukraine proxy war & israel/gaza/lebanon/iran situation

rise of fascists across europe ₌ rise of the new pseudo-fascists in US & Europe & really all over the world (look at Argentina, India, etc)

Lot of text to say "yes it was unconstitutional"

It's impossible to sugar coat what Euromaidan was. Just like Azov, it slowly gets whitewashed because of propaganda. But at its core, it was a series of protests sparked by the Ukrainian far-right that led to an escalating ladder of violence that resulted in a coup. The day after the new government was appointed, it immediately bent the knee to the CIA. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html

https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea

If that – those totally irrelevant right sector fucks – is the US’s influence in Ukraine then it truly is pitiful. Compare the influence of glorious Europe: Ukraine actually wants to join up!

This war, for all intents and purposes, is a proxy war between US and Russia. US decides Ukrainian policy. US is the largest funder of this war. US gets to appoint Ukrainian politicians https://www.reuters.com/article/world/leaked-audio-reveals-embarrassing-us-exchange-on-ukraine-eu-idUSBREA1601K/

US has a long history of meddling in Ukraine https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/11/covert-operation-ukrainian-independence-haunts-cia-00029968

No, you’re just parroting their BS propaganda.

just because I refuse to drink one side's kool aid does not mean I drink the other side's. i'm an individual with imperfect knowledge doing my best to reach the closest thing to truth i can with the information i have available. you can attack me all you want, but i don't really see how you addressed anything in your comment except : "the unconstitutional coup was justified because of popular support and so it doesn't matter that it was illegal & you denounce the idea that the US has influence in Ukraine"