You can definitely pick it apart if you want to highlight specific differences in the military actions, but it doesn't change the reality that hundreds of thousands of people were killed. It also doesn't change the fact that in both cases (and US in Vietnam, and Soviet Union in Afghanistan), the military actions were wars of imperialist aggression. Saying that the regimes that were toppled were bad is not relevant to the discussion.
I don't think it's at all "picking it apart", the reasons why those military forces were present matter a whole lot. The nature of the regimes that were being removed are not irrelevant just because you say so, that's a completely insane position. There is an entire spectrum of degrees of justification for invading a country.
And no, neither the 2nd Iraq war nor the war in Afghanistan by coalition forces were "wars of imperialist aggression", notwithstanding the lies that led to the former and the catastrophic errors in its execution. Frankly, characterizing the latter that way in particular is insulting.
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I don't think it's at all "picking it apart", the reasons why those military forces were present matter a whole lot. The nature of the regimes that were being removed are not irrelevant just because you say so, that's a completely insane position. There is an entire spectrum of degrees of justification for invading a country.
And no, neither the 2nd Iraq war nor the war in Afghanistan by coalition forces were "wars of imperialist aggression", notwithstanding the lies that led to the former and the catastrophic errors in its execution. Frankly, characterizing the latter that way in particular is insulting.
Well since we are being frank, I'll insult you further and say that if you believe that the Iraq war was anything but an imperialist war of aggression, you need to upgrade your education on the topic.
Jesus, I just looked up the estimates of the casualties of the Iraq invasion after this discussion. Like, wtf.
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Estimating war-related deaths poses many challenges.[1][2] Experts distinguish between population-based studies, which extrapolate from random samples of the population, and body counts, which tally reported deaths and likely significantly underestimate casualties.[3] Population-based studies produce estimates of the number of Iraq War casualties ranging from 151,000 violent deaths as of June 2006 (per the Iraq Family Health Survey) to 1,033,000 excess deaths (per the 2007 Opinion Research Business (ORB) survey). Other survey-based studies covering different time-spans find 461,000 total deaths (over 60% of them violent) as of June 2011 (per PLOS Medicine 2013), and 655,000 total deaths (over 90% of them violent) as of June 2006 (per the 2006 Lancet study).
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My wife knows a husband and wife who are both politicians in Russia. They have two daughters, one in Switzerland and one in Australia, because if you are a successful politician in Russia, you’ve stolen enough money to send your family abroad while still convincing the plebes that Russia is the greatest country in the world.
Anyway, it turns out these politicians got permanent residency in… Canada! Of course, they knew the right people to expedite the process and they’ve apparently indicated they have work in Saskatoon. It makes me sick to think they jumped the queue ahead of Ukrainians.
I know when I worked on my wife’s PR, I needed to indicate sources of income. I doubt this couple stated “$20 million generously donated by the people of Russia” so they probably have accounts in various places and under different names. There’s no way they will stay in Saskatoon and will likely move to Toronto as soon as possible.
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I sure know nothing about this particular couple, but. If you have $20M you just buy investor's visa, you don't need to fake a job in Saskatoon. There's also nothing particularly dishonest about sending your children to Switzerland and Australia. It's like a director of some second-tier university telling aspiring students that his university is awesome while sending his own kids to a different, better university.
The guy is a sci fi author with zero military experience who also calls Canadian oil tar sands with outright false statements about refined products...
The guy is a sci fi author with zero military experience who also calls Canadian oil tar sands with outright false statements about refined products...
Take his thread with a grain of salt, he's far from an expert. Be careful on social media sources.
Never suggested he was an expert, but he certainly spelled out what a hypersonic missile was clearly and concisely. Im assuming our experts here could weigh in if something is out of place.
It seems like something stinks in Russia. This obviously isn't every Russian, but there's enough evidence of widespread xenophobia there.
Xenophobia is common in Eastern Europe. There’s no reason to believe Russians are any worse in this respect than Hungary or Poland, which are currently governed by far right ethno-nationlist parties. Both countries are welcoming Ukrainian refugees today, but before the war were using barbed wire and machine guns to keep Central Asian refugees out, and being praised in far right circles as ‘defenders of Europe’ for doing so. I expect the attitudes of the average Pole, Hungarian, or Ukrainian around race and ethnicity would be pretty shocking to Canadians. They’re very conservative countries (see my earlier post on high levels of support for Trump in the region).
In distressing times like this people crave simplicity and stark narratives of good vs evil. But the world is complex.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
I have stayed out of this thread as a poster but read it regularly. My main reason for staying out of it is I am naive about the politics and the facts of what is going on. Thus, I observe and listen. That being said as this escalated I want to share this article, I have taught this to every student I have ever had. It is long, this version isn’t great quality but it is what I am capable of posting here. If anyone wants a good quality scan of the actual article PM me.
Never suggested he was an expert, but he certainly spelled out what a hypersonic missile was clearly and concisely. Im assuming our experts here could weigh in if something is out of place.
He really didn't. The fact that he talks of ICBM being hypersonic (duh? it's a rocket) and not once mentioning the word radar on his thread or its importance shows he has no idea what he's talking about.
Also...tracking...and destroying are two totally different actions.
You can identify a launch, you can track it to a degree, your chances of destroying it with current anti-defense systems meant to intercept are extremely low as it does not have the ballistic characteristic as an ICBM.
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The U.S. leads the world in almost every aspect of military capability and capacity, except for hypersonic weapons. Both Russia and China are well ahead of the U.S. in the development and fielding of hypersonic weapons technology, and as stated by General John Hyten, then Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, in March 2018, “we don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us.” This is still the case today.
“They launched a long-range missile,” General John Hyten, the outgoing vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told CBS News. “It went around the world, dropped off a hypersonic glide vehicle that glided all the way back to China, that impacted a target in China.”
When asked if the missile hit the target, Hyten said, “Close enough.”
General John Hyten knows a bit more then a sci fi author. I will trust the former's cause for concern.
Last edited by Firebot; 04-04-2022 at 10:30 AM.
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Another excellent video from Perun, who's so far made five videos on yhis topic and all of them are easily among the best commentary on the military side of this war.
I'm labeling them all as mandatory viewing, but this video is pretty directly related to the one above;
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I don't see where he said anything that was egregious as he tried to dumb down the topic and make it accessible for his followers. I thought he did a reasonable job in identifying what hypersonic means and what types of weapons fall into that hypersonic range, including examples of past platforms that were hypersonic. I also liked that he identified the differences between a rocket propelled weapon and an air breathing platform - the Russian being rocket propelled and not a new generation hypersonic weapon. I definitely didn't see him try and suggest there was no cause for concern, just trying to explain that these weapons are not new and something that should make us go through the anxiety we felt through the 60s-80s with the spectre of nuclear annihilation and the impetus for an arms race. Hypersonic weapons are scary just from the damage they create from their kinetic impact, but there is a time for fear mongering, and I don't think this is it. That was what I got from the author's twitter thread anyways.
Jesus, I just looked up the estimates of the casualties of the Iraq invasion after this discussion. Like, wtf.
Keep in mind that the removal of Saddam basically created a civil war between the #####es and the Sunnis, and there was a separation of the Kurds in the north as well. I don't think that there will be much (if any) fighting or killing between Ukranians in this war.
The numbers in this conflict are easier to track the perpetrator. I'm not saying that there isn't responsibility laid at the feet of the Americans in Iraq, but there were certainly a lot more actors, and it really was a huge political mess, that led to a lot of death.
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"By Grabthar's hammer ... what a savings."
Xenophobia is common in Eastern Europe. There’s no reason to believe Russians are any worse in this respect than Hungary or Poland, which are currently governed by far right ethno-nationlist parties. Both countries are welcoming Ukrainian refugees today, but before the war were using barbed wire and machine guns to keep Central Asian refugees out, and being praised in far right circles as ‘defenders of Europe’ for doing so. I expect the attitudes of the average Pole, Hungarian, or Ukrainian around race and ethnicity would be pretty shocking to Canadians. They’re very conservative countries (see my earlier post on high levels of support for Trump in the region).
In distressing times like this people crave simplicity and stark narratives of good vs evil. But the world is complex.
Xenophobia is common everywhere. According to one study posted in the Washington Post, Albania, France, Austria, Moldova, and Bulgaria are the least tolerant places in Europe, but they were still in line or better than many other places in the world. Russia, Serbia, Hungary, and Romania were the next least tolerant. Other countries considered "Eastern Europe", like Poland, Ukraine, Czechia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Estonia were right along the median.
The most tolerant places were the UK, Sweden, and Norway. Some "Eastern European" countries like Croatia, Bosnia, and Latvia actually scored pretty well for racial tolerance. I don't think you can make broad statements about Eastern Europe in general.
The issue of letting migrants enter a country is far more complicated than race. Most Eastern European countries are also the poorest in Europe and have the lowest economic means to handle a migrant crisis.
He's badly confused by things and trying to link the Knzhal to the Iskander when the only thing they share is the initial booster portion.
I mean he talks about the vehicles that they are attached to not being stealth. But who cares when the Knzhal has about I think a 2000 km range.
As well he talks about the Kizhal not being stealthy so the Patriot etc can be a defense against it. But frankly the Kizhal is travelling so fast a low level under 20 km altitude that it converts the air in front of it to plasma basically which creates a condition called plasma stealth which actually absorbs radar. plus with a speculated speed of mach 12, and its ability to smart maneuver its less then likely that an air defense system is going to be able to paint it, make the decision to fire and then fire a Sam before its completely gone.
Again him saying that the Kizhal is the same as a Iskander SRBM tells me he's a bit of a fool. Their flight characteristics aren't the same. The Kizhal has a 2 to 3000 km range as opposed to the Iskander having a 500 km and half the speed so it doesn't achieve plasma stealthing
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Xenophobia is common everywhere. According to one study posted in the Washington Post, Albania, France, Austria, Moldova, and Bulgaria are the least tolerant places in Europe, but they were still in line or better than many other places in the world. Russia, Serbia, Hungary, and Romania were the next least tolerant. Other countries considered "Eastern Europe", like Poland, Ukraine, Czechia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Estonia were right along the median.
The most tolerant places were the UK, Sweden, and Norway. Some "Eastern European" countries like Croatia, Bosnia, and Latvia actually scored pretty well for racial tolerance. I don't think you can make broad statements about Eastern Europe in general.
The issue of letting migrants enter a country is far more complicated than race. Most Eastern European countries are also the poorest in Europe and have the lowest economic means to handle a migrant crisis.
In Europe, a large part of the anti-immigration movement is about race. We are very lucky in Canada, as far as race relations go. We have massive and fundamental problems surrounding the way indigenous people are treated, but as a nation of largely immigrants, we're generally extremely tolerant of immigrants. The same attitudes simply don't exist in other places. Most countries in Europe have full on neo-nazi parties running for and even winning seats in their governments, which would be totally unheard of here. What we consider "right-wing" here, would be relatively centrist by European standards. We have zero exposure to true far right parties, which have significant support across Europe.
In Europe, a large part of the anti-immigration movement is about race. We are very lucky in Canada, as far as race relations go. We have massive and fundamental problems surrounding the way indigenous people are treated, but as a nation of largely immigrants, we're generally extremely tolerant of immigrants. The same attitudes simply don't exist in other places. Most countries in Europe have full on neo-nazi parties running for and even winning seats in their governments, which would be totally unheard of here. What we consider "right-wing" here, would be relatively centrist by European standards. We have zero exposure to true far right parties, which have significant support across Europe.
Historically speaking this is not true. Up until 1963 overt racial exclusion was the official immigration policy. Despite changes in the overt aspect, the qualifications of immigration intentionally placed barriers for folks from non European countries.
Anecdotally, there has been a massive difference in the discourse surrounding accepting Syrian refugees and Ukrainian refugees.
In Europe, a large part of the anti-immigration movement is about race. We are very lucky in Canada, as far as race relations go. We have massive and fundamental problems surrounding the way indigenous people are treated, but as a nation of largely immigrants, we're generally extremely tolerant of immigrants. The same attitudes simply don't exist in other places. Most countries in Europe have full on neo-nazi parties running for and even winning seats in their governments, which would be totally unheard of here. What we consider "right-wing" here, would be relatively centrist by European standards. We have zero exposure to true far right parties, which have significant support across Europe.
we may be tolerant but we set up barriers to ensure we take almost none, Canada is a vast rich country that could house millions more but we chose to make it way way more difficult than most to get here, frankly to our own detriment
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