Comments by "LancesArmorStriking" (@LancesArmorStriking) on "Pre-War Chronicles" video.

@danielbenner7583 ...Well, yes. A Latin American country could theoretically stop doing trade with the US, but because it heads all of the international trade organizations, and controls European foreign policy, it's like asking a goldfish if it is forced to swim in freshwater. The US threatens sanctions or embargo on anyone that does trade with Cuba, and since they dominate world trade... what option do countries really have? Just because you have a choice in theory doesn't mean the United States isn't coercing countries to fall in line.
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@danielbenner7583 "Both sides" Guess who deployed the missiles first. Kennedy got pissy when the USSR did exactly what the US had just done, and told Khrushchev that he would lie to the press if Krushchev told the world that they had reached an agreement (you take them out of Turkey, we take them out of Cuba). He knew that he was a hypocrite, and it stands true to this day.
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@richhagenchicago No, you shouldn't have, and I am very glad you didn't, and never will. "No country, not us" Well there is the problem. You are more than happy to protest the US destabilizing and messing up the world... but action is never truly taken. However, when a rival to the US is doing the same, they need to be stopped! So you fail to realize that, in the current system, your "upholding of values" just leads to a one-sided outcome: the US gets a scolding, and China/Russia/Iran get military action. This is unacceptable. I do, but I do not believe it. NATO is an extension of American military power. Show me the instance where a coalition of European NATO members called the shots-- they are equal members of an alliance, no? Europe has no political or military autonomy, it is all directed by the US. They can formally protest, but no country will ever act against their master. I referred to Israel and Tibet because NATO's justification for bombing Libya and Afghanistan were human rights abuses. I see a selective application of force-- only bomb if they are rival nations or connected to rival nations. Saudi Arabia beheads people for adultery, yet I see no NATO warplanes flying over Medina. And your last statement is exactly why Russians hate the US- it pompously sees itself as a "father figure", despite being the youngest nation in the world. It thinks that its way is best, and that other nations need to be treated like children- hence the language of "we need to put [head of state] in his place!" "Putin needs to be punished for its aggression" Then so to, do you. Americans need to suffer for supporting presidents that have wreaked havoc on the developing world. Let's see if you survive a period like we had to, in the 1990s. Imagine, gangs on every street. Social services, gone. Bribery everywhere. This is what you get when you trust the US to intervene in your affairs.
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@myosotis4507 Then let's at least sanction Saudi Arabia for genocide in yemen, or Europe sanction the US for illegally holding Cuban soil. After all, everyone is held to the same standard as Russia, right?
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@spencerkitchin2985 Rules for thee, not for me? the problem is that you're more than willing to say "that's bad!" but you are unwilling to suggest anything that could change the US' behaviors. Frankly, I see no world where the US is actually humanitarian and peaceful. So, by saying "what the US did was bad, but WE HAVE TO STOP THIS OTHER COUNTRY", you are creating a scenario where the US gets a finger wag, but other places like Russia, China, Iran, etc. get real action taken against them. You expect the US to magically change its way, but it has shown that with or without a rival power, it will abuse its own, and wreak havoc on smaller nations if they don't open up to trade and Americanization. Absent any evidence that other countries being peaceful would motivate the US to do the same, you are basically one-sidedly condemning any country that threatens America's power, while tacitly allowing America to continue. If America gets to abuse its power, what exactly is the moral problem with allowing others to do the same?
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@richhagenchicago Even if we grant that as true, it still shows a double-standard. Why intervene there, but not in Georgia, where the minority Abkhaz population was also being erased? Or in China, with Tibet? The answer is simple: because NATO is not a force to uphold values, but a force to enforce power. Wherever they can get away with dividing and destabilizing an unfriendly region to the West's business interests, they will. Could never understand why they don't bomb Israel or Saudi Arabia as they did Serbia/Bosnia, and I hope it gives you some thought as to what NATO's actions, rather than its statements, communicate what it really is.
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@timobrenn 'Intervene in conflicts' broadens the scope to basically anything. How, again, is NATO defensive? You can say that it is "allowed" to intervene, but you cannot also call it a defensive alliance. Of course, calling it what it is would kill its legitimacy, so I understand the hypocrisy, but still.
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@timobrenn Well, this makes little sense. Just because individual states can, "in theory" not join the war doesn't mean they will. Even countries that objected joined in the war. The 'free will' argument is ineffective. Pressure from other heads of state, with possible future negotiations at stake, is enough to convince them. Also, the US leads the pack, and none of the Europeans want to be seen as "trying to break the unity of NATO". And what exactly gives NATO the right to practice 'interventionalism'? Aren't they the ones always talking about the rule of international law and respecting state sovereignty? This is extreme hypocrisy, they make a value judgement in the moment that "these people need help from this dictator!" and then when they mess up, "oops sorry but we're still the good guys!"
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@richhagenchicago Lol, go fight. You won't be missed. And you seem to have implied that I am right, since you said nothing in protest. Thank you.
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@kasugaryuichi9767 Crimea, for all intents and purposes, was and is Russian. ethnically, culturally, linguistically, and even economically. And Georgia fired the first shots, upon its own minority population, in 1999. The local government simply sided with the foce that wasn;'t marching on its cities and killing civilians.
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@spencerkitchin2985 To use your analogy: To then allow the child who took the cookies to get off scot-free, while harshly punishing the second child, is also unacceptable. But in the real world, nobody can punish the first child. So you either allow the other child to have the cookies, to make things fair, or you take away the first child's cookies. I am surprised to see you accuse Russia of doing unacceptable things, but fail to see the larger picture (wherein the US can do whatever it wants) as also unacceptable.
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@kasugaryuichi9767 By that logic, Albania's hopes for joining with Kosovo should be crushed, permanently. Same with Tibet and Xinjiang, Northern Ireland, Catalonia... is this really a status quo the US is ready to uphold? To the same extent, Chechnya will never be allowed to leave, either. You ask "so what"? What else is a nation based on? Governments do not form in a vacuum, the only reason the US deluded itself into thinking this could happen is because the English colonists, ironically, formed a different nation. But in every other case, it's built on the basis of language and culture, with few exceptions. Sorry bud.
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@kasugaryuichi9767 Sorry, but the Turks come from Mongolia, not Siberia. Karelia is fully Russian (Finland evacuated its residents following the end of the Winter War). So, try again. Russia's claim is not to 'historic lands' that aren't even Russian, but to places with Russian ethnic majority.
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@kasugaryuichi9767 ...Well, what is a country based on? Similar language and culture, the only exception are the African countries because of European colonialism, and look at how many wars they have had. A country needs to be unified by something. Ethnicity and culture are a good starting point.
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@kasugaryuichi9767 No, other way around. The nation comes before the state. "France" didn't magically come into existence at medieval UN, and then French people appeared. The French nation formed first, and then the boundaries of where their state is. So the states need to conform to the nations, not the other way around. The Baltic states and Ukraine should just give up the land with majority Russian population and spare themselves the trouble.
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@Geth-vk Learn better english, you sound more like a bot than me.
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@Geth-vk Well, Chechnya invaded Russia in 1999, trying to establish Islamic jihad. So they cannot be trusted sadly. If they were a separate country, they would try again and again. And Russians are the majority in every region except for Saxa, which is surrounded by majority russian regions.
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@kasugaryuichi9767 Nope. Especially in Ukraine, the south eastern parts (which weren't even under Kievan Rus control) were settled by Russians in the 1700s. Sorry but sometimes your enemy has a genuine right to something valuable.
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@kasugaryuichi9767 If they can manage it... yes. Russians would not like it, and start complaining the same way Finns do, but that is the way of the world. This already happened with Russians in Manchuria after Japan won. Why are you acting like we'd never agree to such terms? This was the way of being for most of history. Why is English the international language? Because the British were the most successful and brutal colonizers. They are benefitting from their past violence to this very day- we are both speaking it. In a similar way, Russia benefits from its huge size. Sorry, but unless you are claiming otherwise (like 'freedom and democracy'), might is right.
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