Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[ohio jones]

Why do you not care about the shelling of Luhansk and Donetsk that has been going on for like 8 years? I'm not advocating for picking sides, but the Ukrainian government has been complicit in a lot of really nasty attacks on Russian civilians for years.

How is calling them "Russian civilians" not picking sides?

[Bootstrap]

I’ve followed the situation there since the late 1990s, and nobody claimed it was Russia before the current military operations in 2022. This is all gross revisionist history.

Nope. Please check the dates on the sources I provided. For instance, the Bellingcat report is from February, 2015:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and- ... y-attacks/

The Time magazine article was written in 2014. The International Partnership for Human Rights report was published in 2016, that's the latest date of any of them. The russi.org article was published March, 2015.

So all of these sources and many more did, in fact, claim it was Russia at the time. And it is "gross revisionist history" to claim otherwise. Beyond that, read the facts given in the Bellingcat report. I find it compelling.

[Josh]

Why do you not care about the shelling of Luhansk and Donetsk that has been going on for like 8 years? I'm not advocating for picking sides, but the Ukrainian government has been complicit in a lot of really nasty attacks on Russian civilians for years.

How is calling them "Russian civilians" not picking sides?

They’re civilians who are ethnic Russians. What else can they be called?

[Josh]

I’ve followed the situation there since the late 1990s, and nobody claimed it was Russia before the current military operations in 2022. This is all gross revisionist history.

Nope. Please check the dates on the sources I provided. For instance, the Bellingcat report is from February, 2015:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and- ... y-attacks/

The Time magazine article was written in 2014. The International Partnership for Human Rights report was published in 2016, that's the latest date of any of them. The russi.org article was published March, 2015.

So all of these sources and many more did, in fact, claim it was Russia at the time. And it is "gross revisionist history" to claim otherwise. Beyond that, read the facts given in the Bellingcat report. I find it compelling.

Sorry, Boot, but Bellingcat is hopelessly biased and has been for a long time. They basically function as an anti-Russian / Syrian propaganda wing for the West. Please use an unbiased source (Greenwald and The Intercept are a good place to start, so is Matt Taibbi’s work).

[Bootstrap]

Why do you not care about the shelling of Luhansk and Donetsk that has been going on for like 8 years? I'm not advocating for picking sides, but the Ukrainian government has been complicit in a lot of really nasty attacks on Russian civilians for years.

How is calling them "Russian civilians" not picking sides?

They’re civilians who are ethnic Russians. What else can they be called?

Well, we could ask them. And pollsters have - for instance, in 2013:

Most Russian-speaking Ukrainians feel Ukrainian

In Ukraine, the language people speak cannot be equated with ethnic identity. A large representative study from 2013 examining the identity of Ukrainians living in various regions of the country found that the vast majority consider their ethnic identity as Ukrainian — the lone exception was in Crimea. More than 90 percent of people living in western and central Ukraine call themselves Ukrainian. But strong Ukrainian identification can be found also in predominantly Russian-speaking parts such as southern, eastern Ukraine and even Donbas — where 70 percent or more identify as Ukrainian.

Zelensky is an ethnic Russian who speaks Russian as his first language. He calls himself Ukranian. What do you call him?

[ohio jones]

Why do you not care about the shelling of Luhansk and Donetsk that has been going on for like 8 years? I'm not advocating for picking sides, but the Ukrainian government has been complicit in a lot of really nasty attacks on Russian civilians for years.

How is calling them "Russian civilians" not picking sides?

They’re civilians who are ethnic Russians. What else can they be called?

If they were located in Ukraine, they would logically be called Ukrainian civilians. But if one is attempting to avoid picking sides, simply calling them civilians might be better.

[temporal1]

How is calling them "Russian civilians" not picking sides?

They’re civilians who are ethnic Russians. What else can they be called?

If they were located in Ukraine, they would logically be called Ukrainian civilians. But if one is attempting to avoid picking sides, simply calling them civilians might be better.

i’m not suggesting i have answers on this confusing matter (that all Ukrainians are likely crystal-clear about) -
but, “simply calling them civilians” has been “old math” in the U.S. for decades. there were pros+cons to it. but it’s rarely used anymore.

using current U.S. math, for instance, African-Americans, German-Americans, etc., these would be Russian-Ukrainians?

[likewise, i don’t see the word, genocide, applicable, this seems to be more of a complicated civil war? with various boundaries blurred, disrespected, and promises broken - over years, on both sides. as well, many have been allowed to leave/encouraged to leave, not exterminated.]

boot to nett:
.. But I don't believe the Russian government's claim that Ukraine was behind this.

And really, the Russian version of the story doesn't even make sense -

why would anyone use shelling on a separatist region in their own country?
That would be stupid from any military perspective or from a "hearts and minds" perspective.

Right. Neither does it make sense for Russia to bomb an area they believe wants to be with Russia, and belongs with Russia.

Using the U.S., again, the U.S. is becoming more+more comfortable with aggression toward legal citizens in the U.S. over politics;
we saw the same in Canada, with the Truck Convoy .. worldwide, it’s not uncommon. Altho in the U.S. and Canada many are quite uncomfortable with it. (shudder) recalling Kent State.

i was college age in Vermont at that time. i worked with a few military veterans, not CO, who had fought in former (wars) they were sickened by Vietnam; Kent State, they were even more horrified about Kent State. (i sensed on a level i could not imagine, never having been in the military.) one cannot presume those in the military, or pro-military, support all military actions. Vietnam taught me that.

But, again, Just War.
As long as it’s “THEIR FAULT” - fire away. (starting with sanctions - by force of the sword, of course.)

i believe it was Wayne that introduced me to the notion of “by force of the sword.”
it strikes me as important to realize, that ANY-ALL government actions/requirements, no matter how normalized/mundane, desireable they are, at the end of the day, they are, “by force of the sword.” Every country does this.

As long as there’s compliance, “the sword” is barely noticeable. However. Ultimately .. swords may be drawn.
Even against legal citizens.

[Josh]

If they were located in Ukraine, they would logically be called Ukrainian civilians. But if one is attempting to avoid picking sides, simply calling them civilians might be better.

Concealing the fact that Ukrainian nationalist-extremists are shelling ethnic Russian enclaves is intellectually dishonest, unless you have a better explanation for why the Ukraine tolerates militias shelling "Ukrainians".

[Josh]

[In Ukraine, the language people speak cannot be equated with ethnic identity. A large representative study from 2013 examining the identity of Ukrainians living in various regions of the country found that the vast majority consider their ethnic identity as Ukrainian — the lone exception was in Crimea. More than 90 percent of people living in western and central Ukraine call themselves Ukrainian. But strong Ukrainian identification can be found also in predominantly Russian-speaking parts such as southern, eastern Ukraine and even Donbas — where 70 percent or more identify as Ukrainian.

Treating entire oblasts as homogenous is not intellectually honest. If we did a survey of North Carolina, and asks people what "ethnicity" or "race" they are, what would come up as the majority?

[temporal1]

[In Ukraine, the language people speak cannot be equated with ethnic identity. A large representative study from 2013 examining the identity of Ukrainians living in various regions of the country found that the vast majority consider their ethnic identity as Ukrainian — the lone exception was in Crimea. More than 90 percent of people living in western and central Ukraine call themselves Ukrainian. But strong Ukrainian identification can be found also in predominantly Russian-speaking parts such as southern, eastern Ukraine and even Donbas — where 70 percent or more identify as Ukrainian.

Treating entire oblasts as homogenous is not intellectually honest. If we did a survey of North Carolina, and asks people what "ethnicity" or "race" they are, what would come up as the majority?

The U.S. is replete with ethnic division language, it’s heavily used for votes/politics - Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans.

i often wish the U.S. would return to 1-legal citizen/1-vote, ignore race, ethnicity, etc., but .. i believe this is a pipe dream.
politicians LOVE dividing people, for many reasons. it’s eminently useful for targeting special interests of divided groups.

of note, much language today has moved away from “legal” citizens to “residents.” - for manipulative political ends.

i loathe that, today, most people could GUESS “how people think/vote” by just looking at them, their location, no interaction necessary! this is the result of fine-tuned statistics, and it’s no accident.

the notion of “secret ballots” has been seriously compromised.