Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-25
- Thread starter kebabking
- Start date
elbows
Well-Known Member
In practice there are limits to what autocracies can get away with too, beyond which they run the risk of being overthrown or at least suffering a palace coup replacing the person at the very top, but they may be much harder to predict. And certainly the tipping points are positioned quite differently, with a different degree of suppression of dissenters in the meantime.
The liberal democracies have to put more effort into propaganda and justification for action. But thats a reason to be cautious when talking about this topic, so we dont buy into the sort of justifications that come naturally to us via what messages we've grown up with. We've already seen what happens when war justification propaganda is done in an unconvincing manner, with Iraq as the most obvious example.The anti-war protests before the war began were very large. But that war still went ahead, even though the largest justifications were unconvincing enough that there were splits within the elites and those whose role is to sell us on that stuff. For example at one point the BBC even called some of our own stuff propaganda. And being sidelined, smeared etc is certainly a feature seen in liberal democracies too, especially if things havent gone swimmingly on the propaganda front, and again Iraq provided some examples of that, including heads rolling at the BBC and the Liberal Democrats. The failures did have later implications though, such as support for certain military acts in Syria not being forthcoming years later, the equation for the political classes and war had been slightly altered by failings over the justification for the Iraq war. There were other obvious failures to provide enough 'cover' to invade Iraq too, such as the UK preference for having the cover of a UN resolution, which was then abandoned when winning such a vote was no longer on the cards. Being able to blame France for the inability to win such a vote did not adequately compensate for the lack of political cover such a failure left Blair with, and he's been damaged goods ever since.
The deliberate targeting of civilian casualties is an area quite deliberately made murky when it comes to how 'liberal democracies' behave in war. It is probably possible to construct an argument that actions which badly affect civilians is something that is sometimes done purposefully, but care is taken to hide behind claims about how precise our weapons are, how reckless the enemy was in placing people in harms way, and how accidental and regrettable the civilian casualties were. The extent to which people buy into that cover depends on the available detail of the incident in question, and peoples understanding of propaganda, how justified the war was overall in their minds, and their own beliefs and biases. Sometimes people try to bypass that stuff and any inherent bias by looking at really simple data such as the total number of civilian deaths that actually happened in a particular conflict, regardless of how those deaths are dressed up and justified.
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Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Again, cheers for that. Like most, I'm reliant on what I read in the paper and on social media rather than authentic voices from these places. It (sadly) has to be the case that the lead would be taken by the middle class - those with skin in the game economically and socially - and I don't underestimate for a second the barriers that exist, not do I think they will be overcome in short order. I also guess that it's entirely possible something could be built that cuts out the working class areas you ae describing.
However, as the twitter thread that Steeplejack posted up thread indicates, in a social media age ideas and moods can spread even faster than the cops and the state can. In among the doom on here there has been a debate about what we can do practically. It seems to me that supporting, sharing and amplifying those ideas and moods is a decent starting point.
This is stupid. It's not whataboutism for me to disagree with what Kaka Tim posted.
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weltweit
Well-Known Member
Personal comment.
Here was I thinking living 3 hours drive from London I should be relatively safe from a nuclear attack on the capital. I mentioned this to a friend who said, see those hills, yes, well just 25 miles over there is Cheltenham, so so what? that big circular building, eh, GCHQ! That is going to be a target, at least we live in a valley eh !!
Here was I thinking living 3 hours drive from London I should be relatively safe from a nuclear attack on the capital. I mentioned this to a friend who said, see those hills, yes, well just 25 miles over there is Cheltenham, so so what? that big circular building, eh, GCHQ! That is going to be a target, at least we live in a valley eh !!
elbows
Well-Known Member
A map exists online where you can stick a pin in a location of your choice, then pick from a list of different sizes of nuclear bomb and then see what sort of effects are expected within the radius.
NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein
NUKEMAP is a website for visualizing the effects of nuclear detonations.
nuclearsecrecy.com
BCBlues
Lend us a Twenner
Reminds me of reading War Games by Duncan Campbell back in the 80s when places like Walsall (motorway links) and Oldbury (Gas production sites) were targets, before London,come a nuclear war.
Even if that's true (which I doubt) I'm sure that there were plenty of other deliberate mass killings of civilians done by the US and it's allies stretching back many decades and beyond. And at the end of the day all warmongers and occupiers do massive amounts of harm - which is my point.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
I wasn't. I don't think they were deliberate either, though I'm not 100% sure. The attacks from the Russian military are clearly deliberate.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
who was president when they dropped white phosphorous in Falluja?
Raheem
Well-Known Member
Or depleted uranium in the Danube, for that matter.
It's a bit of a pointless exercise, though Even if we can form a reliable comparison between Iraq and Ukraine, so what?
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
Emotionally there is a big difference between someone committing mass murder of strangers and someone committing mass murder of people claimed to be your kith and kin. Logically no difference at all. Similarly, people will be more concerned about vandalism next door than vandalism on the other side of the world. No logical difference, but as humans (selfish, ignorant, limited empathy etc) we do feel the difference.
I could have said Ariel Sharon, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Barrack Obama or any other warmongering, mass murdering cunt.
ohmyliver
poppin' like a cork
To channel Mrs Merton, I'm not sure what Netenyahu, or Trump for that matter, saw in the corrupt authoritarian nationalist who uses culture wars to distract from his, and his circle's, looting of their country
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
So you'll have an amazing view of the cloud? Make sure you get a picture and stick it on the "What's your current nuke?" thread.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
You won’t be too far from Fairford
then, you are so nuked my friend. Makes for a good headline for the RIP thread, Welts melts!
elbows
Well-Known Member
Its inevitable that it comes up for the same reasons that the likes of Chomsky have felt the need to talk about the following concept and how it is used in politics and propaganda:
Moral equivalence - Wikipedia
Other aspects of these arguments have much in common with threads about a murderer or a rapists crimes, and how people want to process and talk about that stuff. Some want to create new categories of evil to categorise the horror and condemn the perpetrator, some seek other explanations including psychological ones, some arguments occur between those who seek to understand and those who treat explanations as if they were excuses.
friedaweed
Me and me girl named Jane
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Threatening people with nuclear weapons, tangentially or otherwise, is not the behaviour of a rational person.
friedaweed
Me and me girl named Jane
Add Osborne and Mandy to that list
Oleg Deripaska: Putin ‘favourite’ with strong ties to Britain
Quiet Russian oligarch who hosted former Labour minister Peter Mandelson on his yacht in Corfu
They've all been wallowing in the same mud haven't they? The only difference being that our pigs were too stupid to realise they'd been taken for a boat ride all along.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
RAF Fairford - 1hr 9 minutes by car.
After an attack, and the breakdown of services, : 4 hours 27 minutes by bicycle
I don't want to derail this thread and for me this is stating the obvious really, but the hypocrisy of many in the west, including the ruling elite and their media ofcourse, is clear. Yes what the Russian state is doing in Ukraine is appalling and wrong but why not put sanctions on the Israeli ruling class for the apartheid, genocide and use of white phospherus that they are so clearly guilty of? Where was people's disgust and outrage at the barbarism that's been going on in Yemen for years - supplied with arms by our ruling elite? Yes, what Putin is doing is disgusting, but the sanctions imposed on Afghanistan are starving millions of people in that country. Did enough people really care about what happened to the Rohingya people? And our government continues to do business with the dictatorship in Myanmar. The US (and no doubt the UK aswell) sells arms to and does business with 73% of dictatorships around the world. Ofcourse our own ruling class have always been guilty of unspeakable harm around the world, including the carnage in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya etc etc. And this isn't whataboutism at all - simply mentioning the obvious double standards on display.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
A map exists online where you can stick a pin in a location of your choice, then pick from a list of different sizes of nuclear bomb and then see what sort of effects are expected within the radius.
NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein
NUKEMAP is a website for visualizing the effects of nuclear detonations.
I was playing around with this a while ago and was surprised to find that a Hiroshima sized bomb isn't as powerful as I thought it was, and if exploded on the ground in Hyde Park, would barely break windows in Brixton.
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existentialist
Tired and unemotional
If they decided to nuke the Pendine missile testing range, I'm in the fireball range. But, TBF, I think they have many higher-priority targets. Even if they went for Swansea, I'm outside the worst of it, assuming an 800kT yield, so this is an open invitation to my Swansea friends to come and hide here if it looks like that's happening...
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
No, but it's what we've got right now
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Why would they hit a testing range? By the time the nukes start flying bombing test ranges would seem a bit moot.
I reckon you'll be ok.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
I've been wondering whether the reaction to Russia over Ukraine will actually change things for the future, that countries will start taking coordinated action over aggressive wars. Then I think "don't be silly of course they won't".
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