It's important to put the line between yourself and the people who go in assault waves at your trench to preserve your own sanity. The thing is more of a natural response then top-down motivation in Ukrainian case.
To be clear, Ukraine was invaded, children kidnapped, summary executions, and women raped by the Russian soldiers. Plus, Russia launched missile strikes against hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, playgrounds, and supermarkets. Plus, indiscriminate glide bomb attacks against cities.
I occasionally call them orcs too. It’s an apt description.
No, the U.S. has not done worse than Russia has in this war. Not even in Vietnam, I think. But, I guess we were orcs when we invaded and occupied Iraq, since we had no business being there.
With regard to Israelis, any sort of othering will be perceived as antisemitism. But, what Israel is doing in Gaza is on par with what Russia is doing in Ukraine.
> No, the U.S. has not done worse than Russia has in this war. Not even in Vietnam, I think.
Rethink[0]. It just takes some basic math to understand that the USA has done much worse, even if we just consider civilian deaths estimates. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. And for what, to stop communism? Is that a valid reason to devastate three countries?
> But, I guess we were orcs when we invaded and occupied Iraq
Orcs once, orcs forever. Isn't that how it works? If you can call an entire population "orcs", then there must be some intrinsic evil rooted in their ethnicity, culture, or whatever it is.
It's recently become mainstream knowledge that those numbers were a more like wishful thinking than fact, also pretty useless because nobody parroting them knows any control group numbers, and would be off-topic even if true.
And the numbers themselves are NATO propanda to push a NATO world order, it's not all propaganda just because you disagree, pointing out that China disagrees with the US on a very US vs China geopolitical and ideological dispute is indistinguishable from cheering on your favorite sports team at this point.
No, it's communist propaganda. Physical elimination of richer or ideologically different people is the core of communist ideology. You should know that if you call yourself "antifa".
25k people starve to death each day[0]. Those deaths all happen in capitalist economies. That's 9 million each year, for who knows how many years since we developed the necessary technology to have a surplus of food. We're talking about hundreds of millions of preventable deaths, if not more. That's just the result of a very inefficient economic system—without even counting wars, lack of healthcare, and so on.
I'll happily choose communism over such an incredibly unjust system, even if it caused "100 million" deaths worldwide, as you say. That number is complete BS, by the way.
Massive food surplus is a feature of efficient market economies. By rejecting it on ideological grounds, it should come as no surprise that countries like Afghanistan or North Korea end up with hunger.
Their development into modern countries would free others from the burden of having to provide food and other aid to their starving citizens.
Ever wondered why goods are affordable in our "modern market economies"?
It's because we exploit labor and resources in poorer countries, at a fraction of what it would cost here, to produce cheap goods.
So what do you think is going to happen the day that all poorer countries have developed into "modern market economies" and we can't exploit them like we do today? You realize that our economies would have to change completely?
Nice argument you got there; it really shows your unwillingness to see things for what they are. Keep living the dream, no worries, there is no exploitation in the world, and your lifestyle is entirely moral.
Holodomor (genocide of Ukrainians by USSR) was planned for 8 years, and then carefully executed, while nobody plans deaths of starvation because of overpopulation.
I'm not too well-informed about the operational mechanics of the Holodomor, so if you have any articles/chapters to recommend in regard to the long-term planning process that led up to it, that would be appreciated.
I cannot find detailed history of Holodomor translated to English language. However, nothing special here: physical elimination of richer people is the corner stone of communism ideology. Communists did the same in all captured countries.
In this example, one among countless others, russia killed tens of thousands of civilians, in a couple of months.
russia caused more suffering in a few months of war than the USA in a decade in Vietnam. Comparing the two is utterly dishonest.
Russia caused more suffering in a few months of war than the USA in a decade in Vietnam.
Absolutely and obviously false, as you will quickly reveal to yourself by spending a few seconds looking up the toll of civilian deaths and maimings during the US-driven conflict in Vietnam.
Comparing the two is utterly dishonest.
The comparison is in any case completely vacuous. There's no indication that you're being dishonest here, however. Most likely it's a case of simple willful ignorance.
In this example, one among countless others,
There are exactly 3 others since WW2: Chechnya, Syria, Afghanistan.
Except these other interventions / invasions didn't cause "tens of thousands" of civilian deaths, and certainly not within "a couple of months". Most saw far fewer deaths, by an order of magnitude.
Only one comes close: the multi-decade conflict in Abkhazia. But that one saw atrocities committed by both sides, and the civilian death toll was probably significantly under 10k (including the phase of overt ethnic cleansing).
Even in Mariupol it seems the figure is closer to 8k-10k per [0]. Unfortunately the Ukrainian government sometimes provides unsubstantiated figures, and then these get misquoted and copy-pasted (for example neglecting to mention the distinction between military and civilian deaths). In the current war there've been no other massacres to compare with the scale of what happened in Mariupol (horrible as these events were, the numbers just weren't that big).
Pushing grossly inflated figures (or implications of such numbers) serves no purpose, and only serves to give the apologists for the regime that is responsible (such as we have in ample supply on in this venue) ammunition with which to nitpick and distract. "Western propaganda, russophobia" they will say.
After a second look I realize I got carried away and my earlier claim about the Ukraine war being harder on civilians in one year than the Vietnam war in a decade was not fair to the Vietnamese.
My point about the other conflict is just that russia fought them after WW2. Sorry if this was unclear.
The comment you were replying to seemed to relativize, contextualize the use of a dehumanizing term (‘orc’) that is frequently used by Ukrainians and supporters of Ukraine when talking about russian invaders. Whether the Vietnamese or the Palestinians similarly use dehumanizing terms about Americans or Israelis is irrelevant, just like the nationality, US or otherwise, of the person making this comment.
Literally none of that matters. Russia (at Putin’s whim) is the 100% aggressor here, pretty much all other concerns go out the window since it is 100% preventable with a simple Russian withdrawal and it all ends in hours.
