Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[barnhart]

Remember how we were hearing about how the North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia were going to be inexperienced "cannon fodder"?
https://www.politico.eu/article/north-k ... diers-say/

Ukrainian soldiers beg to differ.

You have to be pretty fanatical to blow yourself up rather than face capture.

This has echoes of the fanatical Japanese troops who would commit suicide rather than face capture during WW2.

I'm not sure that sort of behavior is radically different than any society that convinces healthy, young people to leave life and family to trudge around a battlefield until they are killed, injured or permanently traumatized. The Gods of Nationalism are cruel and demand blood sacrifice, often the young.

[Ken]

Remember how we were hearing about how the North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia were going to be inexperienced "cannon fodder"?
https://www.politico.eu/article/north-k ... diers-say/

Ukrainian soldiers beg to differ.

You have to be pretty fanatical to blow yourself up rather than face capture.

This has echoes of the fanatical Japanese troops who would commit suicide rather than face capture during WW2.

I'm not sure that sort of behavior is radically different than any society that convinces healthy, young people to leave life and family to trudge around a battlefield until they are killed, injured or permanently traumatized. The Gods of Nationalism are cruel and demand blood sacrifice, often the young.

If you can't see a difference between defending your country when it is under invasion by forces bent on exterminating your country and culture. Versus an ideology that commands soldiers to commit suicide rather than face capture. Then I don't know what to say.

Even in war we can make moral distinctions. What is North Korea fighting for here?

[ken_sylvania]

You have to be pretty fanatical to blow yourself up rather than face capture.

This has echoes of the fanatical Japanese troops who would commit suicide rather than face capture during WW2.

I'm not sure that sort of behavior is radically different than any society that convinces healthy, young people to leave life and family to trudge around a battlefield until they are killed, injured or permanently traumatized. The Gods of Nationalism are cruel and demand blood sacrifice, often the young.

If you can't see a difference between defending your country when it is under invasion by forces bent on exterminating your country and culture. Versus an ideology that commands soldiers to commit suicide rather than face capture. Then I don't know what to say.

Even in war we can make moral distinctions. What is North Korea fighting for here?

Do you see any similarity to the absurdity that led to the thousands of lives lost and hundreds of thousands of lives ruined in the Vietnam war?

[Ken]

I'm not sure that sort of behavior is radically different than any society that convinces healthy, young people to leave life and family to trudge around a battlefield until they are killed, injured or permanently traumatized. The Gods of Nationalism are cruel and demand blood sacrifice, often the young.

If you can't see a difference between defending your country when it is under invasion by forces bent on exterminating your country and culture. Versus an ideology that commands soldiers to commit suicide rather than face capture. Then I don't know what to say.

Even in war we can make moral distinctions. What is North Korea fighting for here?

Do you see any similarity to the absurdity that led to the thousands of lives lost and hundreds of thousands of lives ruined in the Vietnam war?

The Vietnam war was ultimately the result of the US desire to restore French imperial control over Indochina in the wake of WW2. As opposed to supporting Vietnamese independence after they had fought as US allies to expel the Japanese. Everything that happened in Vietnam in the 50s and 60s was the fruit of that poisonous decision. The Vietnamese were US allies during WW2 and we betrayed them.

So yes, the Vietnam war was a mistake. Just like Russia's attempt to restore imperial control over Ukraine is an egregious mistake. And it is essentially the same mistake.

[ken_sylvania]

If you can't see a difference between defending your country when it is under invasion by forces bent on exterminating your country and culture. Versus an ideology that commands soldiers to commit suicide rather than face capture. Then I don't know what to say.

Even in war we can make moral distinctions. What is North Korea fighting for here?

Do you see any similarity to the absurdity that led to the thousands of lives lost and hundreds of thousands of lives ruined in the Vietnam war?

The Vietnam war was ultimately the result of the US desire to restore French imperial control over Indochina in the wake of WW2. As opposed to supporting Vietnamese independence after they had fought as US allies to expel the Japanese. Everything that happened in Vietnam in the 50s and 60s was the fruit of that poisonous decision. The Vietnamese were US allies during WW2 and we betrayed them.

So yes, the Vietnam war was a mistake. Just like Russia's attempt to restore imperial control over Ukraine is an egregious mistake. And it is essentially the same mistake.

Do you see any similarity between the kind of ideology that caused tens of thousands of young men to march to their death in Vietnam, and the kind of ideology that would cause a young man to kill himself to prevent capture?

[Ken]

Do you see any similarity to the absurdity that led to the thousands of lives lost and hundreds of thousands of lives ruined in the Vietnam war?

The Vietnam war was ultimately the result of the US desire to restore French imperial control over Indochina in the wake of WW2. As opposed to supporting Vietnamese independence after they had fought as US allies to expel the Japanese. Everything that happened in Vietnam in the 50s and 60s was the fruit of that poisonous decision. The Vietnamese were US allies during WW2 and we betrayed them.

So yes, the Vietnam war was a mistake. Just like Russia's attempt to restore imperial control over Ukraine is an egregious mistake. And it is essentially the same mistake.

Do you see any similarity between the kind of ideology that caused tens of thousands of young men to march to their death in Vietnam, and the kind of ideology that would cause a young man to kill himself to prevent capture?

Which young men are you talking about? American soldiers? I'm not aware that blowing ones self up to avoid capture was any sort of military policy by US troops in Vietnam. Or anywhere else for that matter. And as the war dragged on, US troops increasingly came to question what they were actually doing there in Vietnam.

If you are talking about North Vietnamese troops then yes, there is probably a parallel between communist North Vietnamese troops in Vietnam and communist North Korean troops in Ukraine. The obvious difference though is that Vietnamese were fighting for the independence of their country. What are the North Koreans fighting for?

[barnhart]

You have to be pretty fanatical to blow yourself up rather than face capture.

This has echoes of the fanatical Japanese troops who would commit suicide rather than face capture during WW2.

I'm not sure that sort of behavior is radically different than any society that convinces healthy, young people to leave life and family to trudge around a battlefield until they are killed, injured or permanently traumatized. The Gods of Nationalism are cruel and demand blood sacrifice, often the young.

If you can't see a difference between defending your country when it is under invasion by forces bent on exterminating your country and culture. Versus an ideology that commands soldiers to commit suicide rather than face capture. Then I don't know what to say.

Even in war we can make moral distinctions. What is North Korea fighting for here?

They fight for honor.

[Ken]

I'm not sure that sort of behavior is radically different than any society that convinces healthy, young people to leave life and family to trudge around a battlefield until they are killed, injured or permanently traumatized. The Gods of Nationalism are cruel and demand blood sacrifice, often the young.

If you can't see a difference between defending your country when it is under invasion by forces bent on exterminating your country and culture. Versus an ideology that commands soldiers to commit suicide rather than face capture. Then I don't know what to say.

Even in war we can make moral distinctions. What is North Korea fighting for here?

They fight for honor.

Do they?

Is the effort they are engaged in “honorable?”

[barnhart]

If you can't see a difference between defending your country when it is under invasion by forces bent on exterminating your country and culture. Versus an ideology that commands soldiers to commit suicide rather than face capture. Then I don't know what to say.

Even in war we can make moral distinctions. What is North Korea fighting for here?

They fight for honor.

Do they?

Is the effort they are engaged in “honorable?”

In whose eyes. Not mine but in the society and culture that produced them, maybe so.

[Szdfan]

They fight for honor.

Do they?

Is the effort they are engaged in “honorable?”

In whose eyes. Not mine but in the society and culture that produced them, maybe so.

I think the presence of North Korean troops is mercenary. They're essentially mercenaries that have been sent to Russia by its ally North Korea and are being used to attempt to expel Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk Oblast.