teapowered-- I think this is a really great point. Do you really think that if I lived in Russia I would be complaining about America’s behavior? Only an immoral, illogical war-mongerer would spend their time complaining about what the other side is doing rather than what your side is doing. Very very good, excellent, completely 100% right on the money, 1000% true and irrefutable point. Thank you so much for pointing this out.
Wait a minute . . . that’s the point I’ve been making all along isn’t it! Well I’ll be damned.
You call for peace but you do not explain how this peace looks like in reality. It’s not as easy as “no killing”. If Ukrainian soldiers would only care about being alive, they wouldn’t risk their lives.
I’m asking about how your peace looks like, because it makes a difference. In my opinion the peace to go for includes putting Putin in a worse position than he was before the war, otherwise he would gain something and will come back in a few months or years to gain even more.
So, we agree that this killing has to end. Your answer on how to do that is to demand peace from leaders and change the OGS logo. My answer (not my original answer, but I agree with it) is to increase the support (heavy weapons) for Ukrainians so they can push back and make Putin lose this war. Give them enough weapons to force Putin into negotiations, not just support them to hold Putin off from taking the whole country. If Putin doesn’t lose, he’ll want more and come back. To him peace doesn’t matter.
Do you want Ukrainians to give up their country in order to save their lives?
As they don’t seem willing to give up, you want to force them to give up, by stopping the support from other countries?
I’m not claiming you really mean that, but from what you said about Ukraine (between all the stuff about America), it sure comes across like that to me.
I’m not sure Putin can lose this war. It won’t expand on Russian territory, so he can keep up going infinitely. I fear any peace means Putin gained something he wanted. As you said: “To him peace doesn’t matter”.
This (“proxy-”)war is fought mainly by 2 countries. Either can end this war at will, simply by stopping to fight.
Demanding a peace negotiated between Russia and the USA sends the following messages:
The USA and Russia should rule over the world. It’s on them to decide over the living circumstances of other peoples.
It’s ok if Russia gains what they want if they stop fighting for now.
If the peace treaty contains any promises by the USA: Russia hit a weak spot of the USA. Russia can start over again, to gain more - if they want.
Don’t understand me wrong, war means people are dying for no good reason (¶). Sadly " don’t fight wars at any cost" is a policy a bully can exploit to gain anything he wants.
Don’t putting “to live” over everything else to the extent of being willing to sacrifice everything else is dangerous on its own. People were willing to sacrifice their lives for all the wrong reasons you can think of, but having nothing to die for doesn’t seem to be the way to go either.
¶ Does “for no good reason” imply, there are good reasons? I don’t mean that.
Flovo—thank you for this excellent and thoughtful response. If you read what I said carefully, I don’t think I’ve ever said anything about whose “side” we should be on. My whole point is that you cannot trust America’s motives about anything, you cannot trust any western news source about anything, and we must be very careful not to imply we ever blindly support America’s actions just because they say so. Your message here is exactly the point. The one thing we know for sure is that America is lying about its motives, and America does not care about humanitarian crises. What do we do with that information? That’s not an easy question to answer. But don’t cheer America sending $40 billion in weapons is a good start.
For people who don’t immediately recognise it, this notion that “America is prolonging the war” is a Kremlin talking point. Either greg556 is taking orders from them or he is a “useful idiot”
Flovo–do you not know what the word “side” means? I am making the unequivocal and irrefutable statement that you cannot trust anything America says.
For you to interpret that as meaning that I have chosen a “side” in the war is __________ (it’s impossible to complete this sentence without cursing).
As I said elsewhere, it’s amazing and lamentable that people’s dispassionate thinking/logic skills in Go do not translate to real life. WOW would that make the world a better place!
What I am SAYING is: in CHOOSING sides, make sure you incorporate into your thinking that you can trust nothing America or Western media says: NOW let’s talk about our position. Utterly uncontroversial.
Discussed repeatedly elsewhere. The blue and yellow logo expresses the OGS team’s support for Ukraine and opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Attributing anything more to this expression is both unfounded and unnecessary.
I don’t mean that.
