Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "Caller Debate Over Ukraine Goes Off The Rails" video.

  1.  @mx338  No, as a matter of fact Russia hasn't offered better conditions in the past.
    16
  2. If anything, this war shows how necessary so-called "NATO expansion" was. If those nations hadn't been allowed to join NATO, Russia likely would've invaded several of them by now. After all, the Baltic states are a lot smaller than Ukraine and would've been quite easy for Russia to conquer without NATO protection. What this shows is that it was foolish of Ukraine to not join NATO back in 2008.
    16
  3.  @sonjakozman1699  No, it's very much "so-called". The rhetorical framing of "NATO expansion" makes it out as if NATO marched into countries and annexed them. (You know, like what Russia did against Ukraine.) When what actually happened is that nations had to convince NATO to allow them to join.
    10
  4.  @steven2183  Exactly none of that is true. The violence during the Maidan protests was sparked by Russian mercenary "snipers" working for Yanukovych. And he was "ousted" by the democratically elected legislature.
    10
  5. 1:22 That so-called "deal on the table in 2022 that they didn't take" was basically just Russian annexation of Ukraine with extra steps. The "deal" would've required the disbanding of the Ukrainian military, and Ukraine having to cede control of all their foreign policy decisions to Russia. Thus, Ukraine would be a complete Russian vassal state. And when Russia at a later date decided that they wanted to go all the way with annexing Ukraine, the demilitarization required in that "deal" would've made Ukraine completely unable to fight back. That's why Ukraine walked away from the table and effectively told Russia to fuck off with that "deal". The narrative that this was some reasonable deal to end the war peacefully is pure Kremlin propaganda.
    6
  6. Sam "missed out" on that because it never happened. Russia never applied to join NATO. There is no such "missile system". And there were never any "verbal promises made about NATO expansion". You're the one spouting "that propagandistic pup", but apparently you think propaganda is completely cool when it's Russian propaganda. Just like you think imperialism is good when Russia does it.
    6
  7.  @stanleyz6330  "Orchestrating a revolution in Libya" isn't remotely what happened.
    6
  8.  @goopydudest  The fact that they were able to get away with calling their school of international relations "Realism" despite it not actually being realistic was quite the propaganda coup.
    5
  9. The caller is completley and utterly worng about everything, and so are you. There was no coup in 2014. Yanukovych was not "neutral", he was an autocrat who sought to become the Lukashenko of Ukraine and fully aligned himself with Russia in pursuit of that goal. Despite the fact that seeking EU membership was overwhelmingly popular in Ukraine and Yanukovych had made a campaign promise to seek EU intergation, he instead refused to sign the assoociation agreement and instead pivoted to Russia. The elected government of Ukraine never was overthrown. What actually happened was that Yanukovych was was impeached by the elected parliament. No "puppet leader" was ever installed. An acting president took office, as Ukraine's constitution requires, pending an election 3 months later in which a new president was elected. Russia doesn't get to have "red lines" in other countries. It's quite literally none of their business whether Ukraine joins NATO or not. And the "promise to Gorbachev" you refer to never existed. The notion that a promise was made not to accept Eastern European nations into NATO is a lie that Russia has been telling with increasing frequency for the last 20 years, but repetition of that lie doesn't transform it into truth. The only actual "existential threat to survival here" is that Russian aggression is an existential threat to Ukraine's survival. As for your disingenuous lament that "the West will use this to justify the existence of NATO in the first place"? Russia's aggression does prove that the continued existence of NATO is justified, and even necessary. Dissolving NATO when the Warsaw Pact dissolved would've been hopelessly naive. NATO is not like the Warsaw Pact. NATO is a willing alliance of democracies. The Warsaw Pact was an "alliance" imposed at gunpoint by a conqueror. And your phony analogy about a completely imaginary "Chinese NATO equivalent being placed in Mexico or Canada" is just nonsense. Nobody was putting missiles in Ukraine pointed at Russia. It's you who's not just wrong but arrogant about being wrong. Jeffrey Sachs is not a scholar of any kind. He's a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. And Mearsheimer's "analysis" is simply a declaration that might makes right, and thus Europe is supposed to bow down to Russia. Nobody "sabotaged the Istanbul talks", not Boris Johnson and not anyone else. The talks failed because the "peace deal" Putin offered to Ukraine was that Ukraine would have to agree to almost complete demilitarization, with an army of less than 100,000 and not be allowed to have any tanks or missiles. In other words, he was demanding that Ukraine must render itself completely defenseless in the fact of the next Russian invasion. Given that Russia had just invaded Ukraine three times in the previous eight years it was obvious that Ukraine would never agree to such a "deal". Declaring that it's impossible for Ukraine to defeat Russia is quite a lot like insisting that it was impossible for North Vietnam to defeat America. An invaded nation doesn't just roll over and die without a fight just because the invader is a larger nation. BTW, Donbas is not an ethnically Russian area. Ethnic Russians are just under 1/3 of the population in Donbas. And the claim that the people of Donbas wanted to join Russia is completely baseless. Nor were the people of Donbas being bombed by Ukraine. The Russian invaders in Donbas were being bombed by Ukraine. And a deal in which Ukraine agrees to "stay out of NATO", again, is a deal under which Russia gets to invade them again with complete impunity. Putin is an imperialist warmonger who's made it very clear that he does want to conquer Ukraine. He's given (completely unhinged) speeches in which he openly stated that he considers it an aberration for an independent Ukraine to exist outside of Russia. This isn't about "US benevolence", it's about Russian imperialism. If the US government's motivations for opposing Russian imperialism are not actually benevolent, frankly who cares. Actions matter more than intentions, and it's Russia that's making the imperialist actions here.
    4
  10.  @goopydudest  Mearsheimer's basic argument is that since Russia is a large nation, they get to whatever they please, and thus it's "provocation" for small nations like Ukraine to do anything other than submit to Russian domination.
    3
  11.  @adamhbrennan  No such promise was ever made. Why do people keep telling this ridiculous lie? And now, there was never a coup in Ukraine. Nor was Ukraine violating agreements. Russia does not have legitimate national security concerns.
    3
  12.  @hexlemorte5201  if by "CNN talking points" you mean "facts".
    3
  13. The caller is one of those buffoons who claims to be anti-imperialism, yet has zero problem with imperialism when Russia does it.
    3
  14.  @reallymakesyouthink  Galloway is wrong about the vast majority of things. He's consistently wrong about just about everything in terms of domestic policy, and he's only ever been right twice about foreign policy (on Iraq and Israel).
    3
  15.  @AlWhite-b6r  And you couldn't be more stupid for thinking he's wrong about that. He's completely correct. If Russia is allowed to conquer Ukraine, that would tell every nation on Earth that the only way to be safe from conquest is to have nuclear weapons.
    2
  16. There was nothing "neutral" about Yanukovych's stance. He was firmly pro-Russia and sought to be the Lukashenko of Ukraine.
    2
  17. Russia isn't interested in a political solution. Russia is only interested in empire. They want to conquer Ukraine, not to reach a peaceful settlement. And what you seem to be failing to see is that what Putin is doing do Ukraine is exactly the same as what Netanyahu is doing to Palestine. The only difference is that Ukraine has an army and an air force that's allowed them to defend themselves against the Russian invasion, while Palestine has neither of those things and thus is completely helpless against the Israeli invasion.
    2
  18.  @markharrison6498  What makes them "very different scenarios" is that Gaza doesn't have an army to fight back against Israeli imperialism, but Ukraine does have an army to fight back against Russain imperialism.
    2
  19.  @sonjakozman1699  You stand with the fascist regime in the Kremlin.
    2
  20. Yes, because Russia had already invaded Ukraine in 2014. NATO was training Ukrainian troops so they could defend themselves against another Russian invasion.
    2
  21.  @reallymakesyouthink  In Russia, it's illegal to be gay. Not just gay marriage, but being gay at all.
    2
  22.  @codylego  Yes, Russia.
    1
  23. That would be like in 1941 inviting Germany to join the Allies.
    1
  24. There's also the fact that in those 2022 "peace talks", the "deal" that Russia offered also would have required near-complete demilitarization of Ukraine. Ukraine wouldn't have been allowed to have tanks, missiles, or an air force, and their army would've been reduced to below 100,000 soldiers. A nation that's been invaded 3 times in 8 years isn't going to agree to such preposterous terms.
    1
  25.  @hexlemorte5201  No, that did not ever happen. There was no invasion of Libya.
    1
  26.  @Redsauce101  Literally none of that is true.
    1
  27.  @sonjakozman1699  That's very obviously not true, as proven by Russia's aggressive actions.
    1
  28.  @RhB-fan51  Complete and utter nonsense. Including Russia (an expansionist empire) in such a security treaty would be insane, and make the treaty worthless. Because Russia is the threat that the rest of Europe needs a collective security agreement to defend against. This would be like if in 1938, Britain and France invited Nazi Germany to join an alliance with them.
    1
  29.  @mx338  There is every issue with that analogy. And Cuba is already in an alliance with Russia.
    1
  30.  @brianbutler3318  Mearsheimer's arguments are literally just "might makes right" (but only when nations other than America do it). That because Russia is a larger, more powerful nation, everybody in Europe should just bow down before Russian domination. As for the premise that the US doesn't have the power to get what it wants in Eastern Europe without sending in ground troops? That might possibly be so, but there are in fact some situations where sending in ground troops would be the correct decision. And this is one of them.
    1
  31.  @brianbutler3318  Just like how Vietnam and Afghanistan didn't have the power to resist America's much larger population and weapons manufacturing, you mean?
    1
  32. Russia's aggressive imperialism proves that you're wrong about that. If anything, NATO now has more reason to exist than it did during the Cold War. There is nothing remotely "legitimate" about Russia's phony "concerns" about NATO. What actually concerns Russia about NATO is that NATO membership makes it impossible for Russia to conquer the Baltic states and Poland. The entire framing of calling it "NATO expansion" is Russian propaganda in and of itself. NATO didn't "expand" into Eastern Europe. The nations of Eastern Europe begged NATO to let them become members, in order to be protected against a certain large hostile nation to their east that has a centuries-long history of oppressing them.
    1
  33.  @Redsauce101  If that were the case, Europe would be standing behind Russia.
    1
  34.  @IPUTmyBllZSonYOURdrumset  Not one inch of Ukraine is "Russian land". Ukrainians are not Russians.
    1
  35.  @codylego  No, it doesn't strengthen Russia's argument. It points out that Russia has spent centuries stealing not just Ukrainian land but also Ukrainian history. Russia falsely claims to be the successor of Rus', when if anything it's the successor of the Golden Horde.
    1
  36.  @kushclarkkent6669  The left liked Galloway back when the only thing anybody knew about him was that he opposed the invasion of Iraq. Now it's become clear that he's basically a Natbol. (Meaning a mix of Nazism and Bolshevism.)
    1
  37.  @bingbong3084  Russia's claims of "genocide of Russian minorities" were a blatant lie all along. Not to mention obvious projection, since it's actually Russia that's committed genocide against Ukrainians.
    1
  38. These smooth-brained Russia shills think they're making a brilliant point by presenting a fantasy scenario in which Russia or China sets up a hostile military alliance in Mexico, and declaring that of course the US would respond by invading Mexico. And somehowthey think that means it was justified for Russia to invade Ukraine, which had not joined in any alliance. Ukraine only sough to join NATO after Russia had already invaded them.
    1
  39. And by "talks with Russia to deescalate" you seem to mean "accede to Russia's literally insane demand to be given veto power over which nations can join NATO".
    1
  40. But since then, John Mearsheimer has consistently said that Ukraine should just submit to Russia in all things, because Russia is just too powerful for them to stand up to. It would appear that his opinion in the 1990s that Ukraine shouldn't give up their nuclear weapons was the last time that Mearsheimer has been right about anything. Mearsheimer also insisted right up to the day of the invasion that Putin would never be foolish enough to invade Ukraine. And when the invasion happened, he insisted that it was all the fault of the US for "provoking" Russia. As if every invader in history hasn't claimed their invasion was "provoked".
    1
  41.  @sonjakozman1699  It's Russia that's imposing itself on Ukraine. It's Russia that went to war in the most blatant land-grab since Israel in 1967.
    1
  42.  @brianbutler3318  And you pretend to be against genocide, but are fine with genocide when Russia does it. The fact that your position is identical to the Kremlin shill Mearsheimer says it all.
    1
  43.  @Redsauce101  Horseshit. That's the myth that the tsars used to justify conquering and suppressing the culture of Ukraine. In reality, Ukraine is not Russia, no matter how much you love supporting Russian imperialism.
    1
  44.  @ithemba  More bullshit Kremlin propaganda. It wasn't "opposition parties" that were banned, it was parties who actively collaborated with the Russian invaders.
    1
  45.  @hexlemorte5201  NATO has never attacked Yemen. NATO is not moving nukes around. Maybe you should come up with some "threats" that are actually true.
    1
  46.  @aheroictaxidriver3180  Says the jackass that's cheerleading Russian imperialism.
    1
  47.  @bingbong3084  "Yugoslavia" didn't exist post-1992. Serbia is not Yugoslavia.
    1
  48. With the "experts" he listed simply being shills for Russia.
    1
  49. There never was a "2014 coup", and Victoria Nuland never did hoose the president of Ukraine. The phone call does not in any way show her selecting him. There was not in fact a single mention of Oleksandr Turchynov (the acting president from February 23 to June 7, between Viktor Yanukovych's impeachment and the election of Petro Poroshenko) in that phone call. And the "Nazi far-right" claims are just Russian horseshit. Russia's propaganda deems anybody who opposes Russian conquest of Ukraine as "Nazis".
    1
  50.  @WangMingGe  Quite literally, the "peace deal" that Russia offered in 2022 was just annexation with extra steps.
    1
  51.  @mx338  Maybe go to hell. Russia doesn't get to impose their own "Monroe doctrine" on eastern Europe.
    1
  52.  @Khalkara  Translation: you're full of shit. You're pretending that it's "anti-war" to respond to an invasion by letting the invader conquer and slaughter as they please. That actually means that you are the one who's pro-war, because you think launching a war is something that should get rewarded.
    1
  53.  @Redsauce101  No, it's just that you have the problem of shit for brains. And tell me again about how Russia has "rebuilt" their arms industry when they have to take 1950s tanks out of storage and send them to the front lines, and have to beg North Korea to give them more ammunition.
    1
  54.  @sonjakozman1699  Oh fuck right off, you're just putting forth propaganda in support of Russian imperialism.
    1