I guess it is easy to back tankies and Russia apologists (like the first comment in this post) into a corner.
It’s too bad they just come back, never learning anything.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Of course there’s also the reality that Putin himself is essentially a fascist despite his Soviet – & Tsarist – nostalgic empire building ambitions & has supported neo-nazis at home :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-22/putins-fascists-russias-home-grown-neo-nazis/100927582
And abroad. Notably his useful, if really ugly, orange American puppet and the Quanon cult that Putin’s puppet & Epstein buddy inspired.
To think the Putin fans accuse us of hypocrisy. More projection there than Godzilla’s masive home theatre set up..
Calling those who are repulsed by the CIA/neocon takeover of Ukraine in 2014 “tankies” is perhaps the most repulsive 1984-style language reengineering imaginable.
I was surprised (like many who actually follow this corner of the world) when Russia sent troops into the Donbass. Then I read about Zelenskyy asking for nuclear weapons and then it wasn’t a joke anymore.
The United States has behaved very badly. If you support arming the Ukrainian Azov troops who murdered at least 13,000 Russian-speaking Ukrainians with artillery fire since 2014, you are no different than those who voted for war with Iraq. The United States has admitted to having had biolabs in Ukraine (as well as around the world). Since the Maidan Revolution, Ukrainian troops have experienced swine flu outbreaks, and western Russia has seen inexplicable crop failures and livestock diseases. But surely that has nothing to do with our biolabs (or why staff went into overtime to shred documents while Western spokespersons claimed the bad stuff in the labs was left over from the Soviets but then why destroy the records of Soviet research to prevent them from falling into Soviet hands?).
The United States is behaving very badly. Yes war is bad but after Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria/Yemen in just this century, WE DON’T GET TO TELL OTHER PEOPLE WHAT’S BAD. We’ve lost that right because you don’t get to kill a million people then pretend to be noble. Our actions provided Russia with the legal justification for invading. If the Russian invasion is illegal, then all the US wars have also been illegal. The Russians have a stronger case since their “WMDs” (e.g., Nazis shelling the Donbass, US biolabs on Ukrainian soil) actually exist whereas we just made them up as an excuse for war.
Believe what you like but this war, like the entirely fabricated Russiagate scandal, is our doing, not Russia’s. They’re protecting civilians from being slaughtered by Nazis.
And for our trouble the world economic order has just been blown up. PZ, your younger readers will spend the rest of their lives living in the new Second World of English speaking losers using devalued dollars to buy technology and oil from the Russia-Iran-India-China bloc.
All because Victoria Nuland was obsessed with punishing Russia for formerly being the Soviet Union.
Flame away. Your tired agitprop doesn’t trump my facts even thought you’ll declare yourselves the winners. Keep clamoring for a winnable nuclear war. It really does help the rest of the world come to their senses.
Hello. The ‘Tankie’ and ‘Russia Apologist’ here.
As an aside I remember being also called a Saddam apologist for opposing the Iraq war, it seems a go-to smear.
In the cartoon you have dedicated to me, the flower is being straw-manned. Everything the flower said is true, and they also did not say the war was a good thing. Is ‘moral clarity’ to be found by ignoring the nuance and history of situations, and putting words into the mouths of others?
My actual position is this. I would like to see a demilitarised Ukraine as a neutral, peaceful state backed by guarantors. And while it was still possible, I would have liked to have seen the implementation of either or both of the Minsk peace agreements.
I’m also very much against the West arming explicitly fascist paramilitary group as part of a proxy war to damage Russia with the civilians of Ukraine (and Russia) as the collateral damage. I also keen to avoid a nuclear confrontation.
A negotiated settlement is the only reasonable way forward.
I imagine we agree on at least some of those things?
@ 2 & 3
Wow, and in absolutely no good ways.
I will not waste time debunking the mountains of utter bullshit you both posted.
I will say that even if ANY of your bullshit were all true, it STILL would NOT be a justification for Russia’s Nazi war of aggression against a free and sovereign nation.
The mere fact that it is now illegal in Russia to even call this a war highlights the utter lying and evil bullshit on the pro Hitler 2.0, I mean Putin side.
Re: mistershelden @ #3…
The Ukraine had guarantors of secure borders. One of them was Russia. Where do you place the odds that any Ukraine government that is actually chosen by Ukrainians will trust a Russian “guarantee” of anything in the foreseeable future?
Hi @5
So you don’t agree there is any possibility of a negotiated settlement?
What is the alternative to that?
Is the best plan to fight Russia ’til the very last Ukranian? Is that really supporting the Ukranian people?
There’s also no reason anyone should trust a US guarantee of anything at all, and Ukraine didn’t do a stand-up job of implementing Minsk, but no-one gets to choose who they negotiate with.
Peace, now.
Ukraine was a fully peaceful state until Russia decided it needed to take Crimea and Donbas. You can’t blame NATO for that.
@mistershelden #6
I wonder why the tankies and Moscow Bots never state the most obvious way to end this war – Putin could just take his army out of Ukraine. The only thing keeping them there is his pride and hybris.
Every single casualty of this war, Ukrainian, Russian, Syrian and Chechnyan, is his responsibility and his alone.
@7
There was a US-backed coup in 2014, and there has been a civil war ever since. So, no, it wasn’t a peaceful nation.
@8
This is exactly what I was talking about with history being memory-holed.
As long as you start the clock with the invasion, and ignore any and all historical context, it is as simple as you suggest.
I see no-one here is up for a negotiated settlement. Well, that’s how we got into this mess in the first place.
I love the story that Russia invaded the Donbas in 2014 because they knew that Zelenskyy, when he would be elected in 2019, would immediately try to get nuclear weapons.
I guess they have time travel? But they don’t have good enough time travel to learn how to fight a war.
Where do you get this WE comrade. I’m in California, not Moscow.
Sure we get to tell other people what is bad.
The USA has 333 million people and we are not all right wingnut imperialists.
Once again, the simple minded moral calculus.
Vietnam wrong,
Iraq wrong.
Russia Ukraine wrong, wrong wrong
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
And oh yeah,
markgisleson wrong
You don”t get to tell anybody what to do Russian troll.
Ugh, why do idiots parrot the most asinine ideas? Biolabs are only frightening to fools who do not understand medical research, and think the orange traitor didn’t lose bigly.
The only reason Ukraine is being bombed because Russia has yet another bloodthirsty psychopath in Putin. Fascists aren’t that complex or difficult to understand. Absolute power corrupts.
You have memory holed the history of Russia as well.
How do you join NATO? You have to ask. You fill out an application. You have to meet the requirements. All NATO countries vote on it and it has to be unaminous. It costs the member nations money to meet the defense requirements. NATO members can leave any time they want.
How do you join the Russian block?
Russia sends in their army whether you like it or not. They attack civilians, infrastructure, and reduce cities to rubble. You had no choice but to join and you are not free to leave ever. Russia is currently occupying 20% of Georgia. They stole Crimea from Ukraine. They are occupying two areas of Ukraine already and trying to take the country over.
There is a big difference. One is a voluntary association and the other is aggression and land theft by force of arms.
@10
Russia didn’t invade the Donbass in 2014. These Russian speaking areas declared independence after the elected Ukrainian government was overthrown in a (US-backed) coup, and their language was banned from their own schools and government buildings.
Now Russia probably supported the separatists secretly, either in 2014 or in the intervening years, and they did invade Crimea, which then voted to join Russia. The fact is that Eastern Ukraine has a majority of people who speak Russian and feel an affinity to Russia and so that result is not likely the result of a rigged election.
Lol, sham elections by puppet regimes are how Crimea voted to join Russia.
Should we mention Russia’s decades long efforts to ban Ukrainians speaking Ukraine by declaring Russian their official language?
mistershelden @9:
You seem to have your own little memory holes. The 2019 Ukraine presidential election? The 2020 Belarus presidential election? Any comments on those?
@14:
Most Canadians speak English. Does that mean they’d be happy being ruled by the US, or UK?
@Moscow Bot #14
I have it on good authority that Putin was abducted and killed on February 23rd by the CIA and replaced with a brainwashed clone (they didn’t quite get it right, that’s why “Putin” has been so pudgy, waxy and unstable as of late). That guy’s mission is to destroy Russia’s warmaking assets by wasting its military in a bloody war and ruin its reputation forever by having the troops commit countless atrocities. If you ask where I got this info, it’s from the same place that revealed Yanukovich’s overthrow to be a NATO plot.
@17
The most convincing single bit of evidence for US involvement in the coup is that 2014 Victoria Nuland phone call (widely available via search engines) where she selects the new prime minister in conversation with the US ambassador. At the very least, Victoria Nuland thought she was in a position to choose the prime minister. And, she got her pick.
But perhaps we can drop the name calling and look for points of agreement?
1. There should be a negotiated settlement, as soon as possible, taking into account the legitimate security concerns of all sides
2. We shouldn’t send arms to explicitly fascist paramilitary groups to foment a long proxy war which might weaken Russia, but would destroy Ukraine
Surely we can all agree on those two points.
“Ukraine bad, therefore bombing the shit out of civilians is ok.”
Assuming that Ukraine is guilty of everything it is accused of, IT STILL DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE INVASION AND THE SLAUGHTER OF CIVILIANS.
The actions of the Russian military have nothing to do with solving the alleged problems and everything to do with bringing Ukraine back under Putin’s heel.
If we apply the same logic, then NATO would be justified in invading Russia.
@Moscow Bot #18
There can be no negotiated settlement as long as Putin is in power, he’ll take what he can get and then break the treaty as soon as he recovered from this invasion to try again. He’s completely untrustworthy and only understands the language of a fist to the face.
And we should keep sending arms to Ukraine until every single one of Putin’s thugs has scampered out of the country with or without their pants on because they have no business whatsoever being there. We should also stop buying Russian blood-oil and blood-gas. I’d rather freeze and walk to work than finance Putin’s butchery.
It’s that simple and clear-cut. Your gaslighting and obfuscation in service of the Kremlin Gremlin doesn’t convince anyone here.
Luckily we are sending arms to Ukraine, so they can fight against the fascists from Russia who are bombing their cities.
Negotiations with terrorists who have a long history of invading other countries aren’t in any one’s best interests.
“a long history of invading other countries” … sounds, somehow familiar.
Ah well, negotiation’s out. Nuclear war it is, then. I tried.
Over and out.
@Moscow Bot #22
So, once the lies don’t catch on, it’s threats, eh? The hallmark of a weakling. You are just as brave as the ex-KGB toad you serve.
And if Putin looks like he might go for nukes, the chances are he’ll get taken out by his own cronies who I bet have not struck a suicide pact with him and are mostly in it for wealth and power.
Ah, the logic of bullies. You don’t get to invade other countries and then demand negotiations when the entire west lines up in support of the country you’re attempting to seize.
‘Give in to our demands or we will use more terrorist tactics and nukes.’ is not exactly a compelling argument for giving the aggressor anything more than a dusty bag to the head.
I love that Ukraine now owns half of the Russian tanks, and regularly pillages Russian supply columns for body armor and anything else they can use.
You don’t scare us.
Only weaklings and cowards make baseless threats that they can’t carry out.
In a nuclear war, Russia will fight the entire world.
And lose big time forever.
I am as well, which is why I hope Europe can get off Russian oil and gas ASAP and stop funding the fascist government in Moscow and in particular the Wagner Group (named after the Nazis’ favourite composer).
That’s who you’re talking about right?
To those of you who are making the same arguments as the mutant flower in the comic: Yes, I agree. The US meddled where they shouldn’t. There are Nazis in Ukraine (well, every country, including our own). I would like to see a negotiated settlement, too. Although it’s hard to see how honest such a settlement could be while Russia has artillery aimed at Ukraine’s head.
But I notice that you couldn’t come right out and say Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine.
I would ask two simple questions:
Do you think Russia had a legitimate reason to invade, rather than advancing their tanks before negotiating in good faith?
Do you think Russia’s execution of the war has been restrained and limited, with specific, reasonable objectives?
Just for context, if I’d been asked the same two questions about America’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, or Panama or Grenada for that matter, I’d say “NO!”, so let’s take America’s sins off the table for now.
#14 mistersheldon
Russia sent troops in the Donbas in 2014. This is a fact.
Why are you lying? Is it that you are ignorant? In which case get educated and come back.
Or are you gaslighting us, in which case get bent.
“A US-backed coup…” Get lost. Ukrainians got rid of a corrupt president.
“Donbas declared itself independent” Yeah, with the help of Russians moving in with soldiers.
“Ukraine banned the speaking of Russian” Oh, now that’s utter bullshit. Have you ever been to Kyiv? Half the people talking on the street are speaking Russian. 80% of the offerings of every bookstore are in Russian. Banning the speaking of Russian in Ukraine would be like a Canadian prime minister outlawing the speaking of American English. “You are hereby fined 50 quid for spelling the word “colour” without a U.”
So you support the rights of a people, and a territory, to declare independence from their overlords if they are not treated well?
Asking for some Chechnyan friends.
And some Georgian friends.
Yes, the Russians are on the side of democracy and justice. And baron Harkonnen was the real victim in “Dune”.
mistersheldon isn’t even an apologist, he (it I suppose – most likely a bot rather than a human) is a propagandist, repeating easily debunked falsehoods such as a free declaration of indepedence by the Donbass region – this never happened, but rather a small portion of the population, supported by the Russian military/intelligence apparatus, attempted to overthrow local governments against the will of the larger portion of the population. The majority of insurgent militia killed in this not civil war are not from the region, but are mercenaries hired by Russia. the banning of the Russian language is a myth – though the official language of government business was changed to Ukrainian, Russian was never banned, and most Ukrainians speak both languages.
The final nail is the suggestion that opposition to Russian aggression means you support nuclear war… straight up echoing Putin’s line.
Arguing with people like this is pointless – they aren’t acting in good faith in the first place.
I would ask two simple questions:
Do you think Russia had a legitimate reason to invade, rather than advancing their tanks before negotiating in good faith?
Do you think Russia’s execution of the war has been restrained and limited, with specific, reasonable objectives?
—
Yes, I do think Russia had legitimate cassus belli. 13,000-22,000 dead Russian speaking Ukrainians is one hell of a lot of cassus belli. The biolabs will yield data and records that will let Russia make its case that we were up to no good.
Russia’s execution of the war has been remarkably constrained, deliberately limited, and their objectives are specific and reasonable. But all my sources for this are pro-Russian/non-Western so I can’t convince you of this, you’ll just have to wait until it’s over. Until then it’s all false flag attacks on civilian hostages by the Azov Battalion thugs.
Reading news from other countries presents a radically different picture of what’s happening. That it coincides with what Russia is saying is might mean it’s all true and not just Tankie propaganda.
Russia is conducting this war like they expect to withdraw and leave a functioning nation in place. They could have easily done shock and awe like we do and avoided taking casualties. They’re being real mensch about this and we’re acting like insufferable royals pouting because our “empire of lies” is about to come to an end.
On PZ’s pair of questions on this thread.
The answers are both, oh hell nope.
If there was ANY truth to the outrageous Big Russian Lies, they would not have had to decree that all opposing views expressed get the expresser sent to prison.
Putin is Hitler 2.0. We need to fast forward to his last bunker scene, without anyone else being hurt.
markgisleson@33 If this is your idea of Russian operations being “remarkably constrained, deliberately limited” the alternative must be saturation bombing of Kyiv and Lviv on the first day of the invasion. Or maybe the use of a tactical nuke on Kyiv on the first day.
@33 Is today opposites day and nobody told me?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariupol
That’s only one city.
” But all my sources for this are pro-Russian/non-Western so I can’t convince you of this, you’ll just have to wait until it’s over. Until then it’s all false flag attacks on civilian hostages by the Azov Battalion thugs.”
Our pro-Russian thinks that all the bombing done in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol are being done by the Ukrainian neo-Nazis pretending to be Russians. I doubt they will ever be convinced otherwise.
Reading Russian news tells us that Russia is right. Since it agrees with what Russia is saying, that suggests that it’s true and not just Russian propaganda.
We need the Gumby here.
@18: The Ukrainian government has expressed itself open to a negotiated settlement, namely, that the Russian military pull out of Ukrainian territory and renounce all claims to the Ukraine.
@33 Do you think that Russia’s demands are reasonable? Do you think it’s reasonable for Russia to demand that Ukraine “demilitarize” (i.e., disband its armed forces) after Russia sent troops in to seize Crimea and Donbas? Do you think it makes sense for Ukraine to promise to never join NATO o0r any other alliance to help prevent invasions when Russia keeps invading Ukraine?
putinbot lies
(1) The Donbas War was started by Russia, not Ukraine. Yes there was upheaval following the flight of Yanukovych, but the provisional Ukrainian government went to great lengths to avoid conflict with pro-Russian groups in the area and tried to engage the separatists in negotiations. Those negotiations never happened because Putin sent Russian army troops to capture the Supreme Council of Crimea and simultaneously armed and mobilised pro-Russian militias.
(2) Just because Donbas is majority Russian-speaking doesn’t mean that the populace necessarily wanted Russia to annex the territory. When the Supreme Council voted to secede from Ukraine, it did so with all lines of communication to the building cut, all their mobile phones confiscated, journalists and election observers refused entry, and Russian soldiers telling them how to vote at gunpoint — and this was with a Prime Minister in place whom Putin installed. None of that would have been necessary if Putin believed the people of Donbas wanted to join Russia. But Putin knew he couldn’t rely on the Supreme Council vote because the man he installed as Prime Minister had already been overwhelmingly rejected…his party won only 3 of the 100 Crimean seats in the previous election. Contrary to the lies of markgiselsen, the pro-Russian government in Donbas was emphatically not representative of the people’s wishes.
(3) Unusually for an urban war, the majority of the deaths in Donbas were amongst militia members, not civilians (of the 14,000 deaths, 3,380 were civilian…and 300 were Russian Army, just to remind everyone that the fucking Russian army had troops on the ground in Donbas).
(4) Russia invading Ukraine and causing 14,000 deaths is, according to our putinbot, a causus belli for Russia to invade the rest of Ukraine. Nothing more than a war criminal using his own past war crimes to justify further war crimes.
Some of the big names in pro-Russia (actually, apparently pro-authoritarian) propaganda; Pepe Escobar, Gilbert Doctorow, Max Blumenthal. I suspect our local angry flowers are fans.
So when Putin can force the entire world to accept his carefully curated propaganda, that means it will be true? Well, we’re one step closer.
One America News runs conspiratorial segment claiming strike on Mariupol hospital was US false flag
Some of the sources for Russian-friendly bullshit;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky#Centre_for_Research_on_Globalization
According to these folks, pretty much everything we’ve blamed on Russia has been a false flag (the downing of MH17 among many others), the Uyghurs in China aren’t being persecuted, etc.
chrislawson@42
This is worth emphasizing. Language is a complete red herring. As far as I know (and I admit I know very little), Guatemala does not want to be “annexed” by Mexico. I can state with more confidence that the English-speaking part of Canada is not eager for a US invasion. And I have no doubt that the Republic of Ireland does not want to become part of the UK. I’m sure there are many other examples.
Re: No. 2
Regarding this:
“The United States is behaving very badly. Yes war is bad but after Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria/Yemen in just this century, WE DON’T GET TO TELL OTHER PEOPLE WHAT’S BAD. We’ve lost that right because you don’t get to kill a million people then pretend to be noble. Our actions provided Russia with the legal justification for invading. If the Russian invasion is illegal, then all the US wars have also been illegal.”
Your conflating the decisions and behavior of a government with the people ruled by that government. In a free society people have the right to criticize the policies of their governments and not just their governments but other governments. The fact that the USA more or less supports Saudi Arabia’s revolting, immoral war in Yemen does not mean a US citizen cannot criticize the Saudi Arabian war in Yemen or Saudi Arabia. So yeah has individuals we do have the right to tell other people what’s bad.
As for the Nazi nonsense you do realize Zelensky is Jewish so has such your comment is a bit much. And if you think there are too many Neo-Nazis in the Ukraine go to Russia where they also exist.
Very tiresome.
“‘How to Tankie’. The Darth Putin Guide. Vers 2.0.”
#27
“To those of you who are making the same arguments as the mutant flower in the comic: Yes, I agree. The US meddled where they shouldn’t.”
And do you believe that further meddling will improve the situation? Because that’s exactly what “support Ukraine!” is. it’s a desire for the US, unilaterally or with NATO, to expand the war and get more involved than the already-endless shipments of weapons and money we’re providing. Do you understand that this “support for Ukraine!” is prolonging and expanding the conditions you are decrying and using as further justification for further involvement?
“There are Nazis in Ukraine (well, every country, including our own).”
This is a shameful and disingenuous take, PZ. It’s not “there are Nazis,” it’s “There are Nazis who command the military and are hugely influential in government and the system is so accommodating and welcoming to them that they proudly display Nazi regalia and throw salutes at portraits of pogromists to absolutely no criticism whatsoever” See the difference? When American Nazis light their torches and stomp around shouting “Jews Will Not Replace Us!” the Us government does not give them a fucking department to operate towards their own goals. The US does not have a recreated Waffen SS division that it uses to purge ethnic undesirables.
“I would like to see a negotiated settlement, too. Although it’s hard to see how honest such a settlement could be while Russia has artillery aimed at Ukraine’s head.”
What do you think every peace treaty in history has been?
And… would you? because so far as I can tell, all the “SUPPORT UKRAINE!” people are more interested in clownign Russia than seeing peace, and will happily see millions and millions more needlessly slaughtered so long as they can feel like Russia got “punked.”
“But I notice that you couldn’t come right out and say Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine.
I would ask two simple questions:
Do you think Russia had a legitimate reason to invade, rather than advancing their tanks before negotiating in good faith?”
Legally? No. The only “legal invasion” is a counter-invasion against someone who initiated hostilities. Russia is, by international law, in the wrong.
“Do you think Russia’s execution of the war has been restrained and limited, with specific, reasonable objectives?”
I have literally no way to give a usefully informed answer to this. I’m going to go out on a limb and presume not because how the fuck can you be ‘restrained” in urban warfare? I can’t think of any nation that has yet managed it.
“Just for context, if I’d been asked the same two questions about America’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, or Panama or Grenada for that matter, I’d say “NO!”, so let’s take America’s sins off the table for now.”
Sure I’ll bet. I’m sure the US-led NATO obliteration of Libya just for the crime of existing has no bearing whatsoever on Russia’s paranoia over NATO. I’m sure that the US’ funding, arming, and supporting rebels in Syria in hopes to invent a US client Kurdish ethnostate has absolutely no bearing on Russia doing the same in Donbas. And I’m sure you would have been just as supportive of China and Russia arming the Taliban and enforcing a no-fly zone against US operations in Afghanistan, as you are with the idea of the US doing that in Ukraine.
Rusty:
‘Meddling where they shouldn’t’ is not the same as ‘meddling where they should’.
(How did you not get that?)
Nah, it’s a desire to stymie a war of aggression by helping the victim.
You would, would you? Why don’t you ask those questions, then?
(Or did you mean to write “I ask two simple questions”? Perhaps)
Your certitude is misplaced.
—
Anyway, why do you cavil at the USA helping the victim in a war of aggression rather than at Russia persisting with a brutal invasion it could stop whenever it wanted?
(That’s like complaining about bystanders making a mugging worse by helping a mugging victim; perhaps consider complaining about the mugger!)
Where does this figure come from? The only figure of around 13,000 dead in the Donbas fighting I can find is attributed to the UN (I can’t find the UN report itself – maybe someone can), which apparently estimates 13,100-13,300 total deaths in the period to early 2021 – this includes soldiers on both sides as well as civilians. The UN estimates 3393 civilians (not divided between the separatist regions and the rest of Ukraine) up to September 2021.
Again, what is the source for these claims? The “Azov Battalion” of neo-Nazis has been discussed here on several threads, but the figures I’ve seen for its size (initially around 2500, now around 900) indicate that it is a tiny proportion of Ukranian armed forces. The fascists’ political party (Svoboda) received a derisory 2.15% in the 2019 Parliamentary elections. I’ve commented myself that the appalling Russian invasion and targeting of civilian infrastructure should not blind us to disturbing aspects of Ukranian political culture such as the military incorporation of the Azov Battalion and the lionisation of Nazi Collaborator and racist thug Stepan Bandera, but where and when has this “purging of ethnic undesirables” taken place? If it’s real, why is there not a dossier of names, dates, places? Why is the President a Russian-speaking Jew?
This is a shameful and disingenuous take, PZ. It’s not “there are Nazis,” it’s “There are Nazis who command the military and are hugely influential in government and the system is so accommodating and welcoming to them that they proudly display Nazi regalia and throw salutes at portraits of pogromists to absolutely no criticism whatsoever”
So you support a humanitarian intervention in the US to denazify, I presume? Because an entire major political party in the US is literally and overtly fascist. The last “president” (elected after a minority of the population voted for him because apparently rural states are more important than urban states and therefore should have more votes) tried and barely failed to overthrow the democratic election of the current president. When he failed his cronies organized an attempt to take over the government, with the stated intent to impose him as a dictator and hang the vice president. The US doesn’t have an “Azov Battalion” equivalent, but the entire military has been worryingly fascist. Yeah, okay, so you’ve made something of a case for a denazification campaign in the US, although if NATO came in and bombed hospitals I’d oppose them, regardless of their intentions.
But this is all irrelevant to the Ukraine, where the government is headed by a democratically elected Jewish man who retains popular support and, more or less single handedly, stopped the initial wave, giving NATO members time to intervene. Now, if this war ends with the Ukraine becoming part of NATO and in, say, 2024 or even 2022, the fascist party takes over again, I expect you to be welcoming them with flowers. Or perhaps you’ll be doing so from Moscow since the chances of you’re actually being USian are only moderate.