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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31624 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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But to transfer these emotions from the army, from politicians, from specific criminals to gigantic groups of people consisting of millions of individuals is stupidity.

No it isn't, if the gigantic group of people is either willfully blind to the atrocities being committed by the army and the politicians, or are willingly supporting and encouraging them.

But you can't expect much from the majority of people, they are easily mislead and believe all sorts of stuff. Are Americans as a group to blame for war in Iraq and should be hated for it because majority of them once supported it? I don`t think so. And I don't think that majority of Russians will support SMO in the next 10 years.

Are Americans as a group to blame for war in Iraq and should be hated for it because majority of them once supported it?

Hated by whom? By Saddam Hussein? Probably. But why would I care what Saddam Hussein would think, if he wasn't hanged and dead?

And I don't think that majority of Russians will support SMO in the next 10 years.

So all we need is to wait 10 more years or terror, murders, war crimes and atrocities, and then it all be ok. Or at least some guy on the internet says so. That really makes one confident, thanks.

Hated by whom?

I assume by the rest of the world. This was said in the context of the effects of war propaganda, most people "hating" Russia over the invasion aren't Ukrainian and aren't directly affected by the war in any way.

Even people not being Ukrainians can condemn war crimes and atrocities committed by Russians. Just as you don't have to be a Jew to condemn the Holocaust, or Armenian to condemn the Armenian genocide, or a Tutsi to condemn Rwandan genocide. Recoiling before the sights of inumane atrocity is not "war propaganda", it is a natural effect of learning about the atrocity and being horrified by it.

Yes, that was precisely my point. Even people not being Iraqis can condemn war crimes and atrocities committed by Americans. Not only Saddam.

Edit: the propaganda side of this is that you learn about certain atrocities and not about others. Effective war propaganda is indeed based in natural effects and natural human compassion. Propaganda doesn't necessarily mean lies. For example, it seems that you couldn't conceive that anyone but Saddam (and I charitably assume you mean Iraqis in general) could have aversion against the US invasion of Iraq, the lies it was based in and the war crimes committed (plus the many we likely don't know about). Saddam being a tyrant doesn't change that.

The war crimes that were committed by Americans - like Abu Ghraib incident - were also condemned, including by Americans.

the propaganda side of this is that you learn about certain atrocities and not about others.

We know about American atrocities and we call them that. But when it comes to Russian atrocities, somehow there's always somebody explaining that it's still America's fault because if only we gave them more people to enslave they'd finally stop. Somehow there's always justification for any foreign atrocity, as if America being imperfect justifies that.

Saddam being a tyrant doesn't change that.

It kinda does. Not about the atrocities, but about the war. War against a brutal dictator, ruthlessly oppressing local population, openly supporting international terrorists, developing and deploying weapons of mass destruction (even though not exactly in a way the ironically named "intelligence" services presented) and invading foreign countries - yes, it is morally different from a war against a democratic country which poses no threat to anybody but just looks too inviting not to invade. I'm not saying US should intervene into any case of brutal dictatorship - I am saying the moral calculus does differ, and Saddam being a tyrant does change it.

But when it comes to Russian atrocities, somehow there's always somebody explaining that it's still America's fault

Not me.

it is morally different

Disagree. They were already suffering under Saddam, they didn't need what the US brought to them: death and more wars, way beyond the war with the US lasted. Him being a tyrant has zero to do with the reasons for the war, the US has toppled democracies and supported (and still supports, daily) all kinds of brutal dictatorships. Which brings us back to propaganda in the form of selected truths.

Him being a tyrant has zero to do with the reasons for the war,

This is false, it has a lot to do with the reason for the war (unless of course you subscribe to the idiotic notion that US just wanted to steal Iraqi's precious bodily fluids oil). It wasn't the only reason for the war - being a tyrant merely kept Saddam in the running for the top villain, his numerous other actions brought him over the top. It's not a single traits that defines it. But it's a big factor. That's what you keep missing - you can not isolate single factor and claim that since other had this factor too, it has zero influence on the reasons for war. It does not work as a single factor, but as a combination and strength of multiple ones, and the opportunity factors too (some dictators are evil enough and their actions are evil enough, but the US does not have the power to do much about it - e.g. see Putin).

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I think honestly the public needs to be much more skeptical of government propaganda in general. And I think given the fact that public support can and does help the war effort, the public is responsible. We shouldn’t just blindly accept the government narrative about war, in fact the default is better off being negative.

We shouldn’t just blindly accept the government narrative about war, in fact the default is better off being negative.

Europeans should be more scepticals but at least only small minority is failing for much lower quality Russian claims. So it is not a complete failure at least.

at least only small minority is failing for much lower quality Russian claims

Yes, but IMO only because they are falling for the (better) propaganda of "the other side". So the merit is not of the European public but either a success of European and American propagandists or (more likely) a huge failure by Russian propagandists.

I think honestly the public needs to be much more skeptical of government propaganda in general. And I think given the fact that public support can and does help the war effort, the public is responsible. We shouldn’t just blindly accept the government narrative about war, in fact the default is better off being negative.

How is Western public "helping the war effort" (assuming you are talking about Western countries)?

NAFO style direct fundraising is minuscule part of whole war effort. Western support for Ukraine consists of sending old weapons and material out of storage and new freshly printed money, none of it requires public cooperation or approval.

By cheering on the war to keep going despite its side effects on their lives (i.e. inflation, energy prices). Tolerating the side effects as "necessary" and "a sacrifice for Ukraine" does require public cooperation and approval.

To go further, I doubt that to the extent Americans say that they no longer think the Iraq war was a good idea, they do it because they realise that they lied to everyone, caused upwards of 200k civilian deaths and ran torture prisons. Rather, they'll say something vague about wasting lots of money, failing to build democracy and not having clear objectives. In 10 years, any Russian non-support for the SMO will probably look like this too.

Blaming every civilian death on the US isn't really reasonable to me (nor would I blame every civilian death in Ukraine on Russia). Yes, it's true that they probably wouldn't have happened without an invasion, but that kind of logic also makes it okay to execute prisoners of war- after all, so the logic goes, they wouldn't be here if their country hadn't decided to invade, therefore it is the fault of their country when we shoot a bound, complicit prisoner in the back.

It is very unfairly shifting the entire blame upon one party, when I can assure you it was not only the US that got its hands dirty, and I reckon if you took a look at who actually directly caused those 200k deaths, it would be a lot muddier. Really look at that chart. I love it because it really does paint the American occupation in such a good light. Look at how much those deaths decreased after the US established greater control around 2008-2011 and spiked in the years following, due to the withdrawal of US forces. This paints a picture where a higher American commitment leads to fewer deaths, not more, which is just one factor that leads me to believe that America was not anywhere near the primary source of these civilian deaths.

Really look at that chart. I love it because it really does paint the American occupation in such a good light. Look at how much those deaths decreased after the US established greater control around 2008-2011 and spiked in the years following, due to the withdrawal of US forces.

All the data in that table (which I assume you are talking about, as I don't see a chart) is still after the US initially invaded and plunged the country into chaos. "We invaded and caused lots of civilians to die, then after a while for three years we briefly tried to do a better job and had somewhat fewer civilians die, and then got tired of doing a better job and had lots of civilians die again" hardly paints the occupation in a good light, any more than a domestically violent spouse being nice to their spouse for a while and taking them to Disneyland paints their marriage in a good light. In terms of a comparison to the hypothetical where the US did not invade, the 1 million excess deaths figure from the introductory paragraph seems more indicative, since those presumably would have been calculated relative to demographic trends identified before the invasion.

Blaming every civilian death on the US isn't really reasonable to me (nor would I blame every civilian death in Ukraine on Russia).

I mean, I agree, but how many do you blame on the US and Russia respectively? I'm suspicious of reasoning that amounts to "the situation is not so clear-cut, so by gut feeling and some non-quantitative reasoning, the ingroup is probably not as guilty as the outgroup is".

either willfully blind to the atrocities being committed by the army and the politicians, or are willingly supporting and encouraging them.

Which is an accusation you can make in any war.

I don't think this is the case in any war. But in those where it was the case - yes.

Which is not claiming the point is false, or invalid.

There is a reason that pro-war people for the worst of wars are often mocked and derided. That it is not Russian-specific doesn't degrade the relevance to the current Russian context.

Mocked and derided by whom, exactly? Probably not by other pro-war people. With few exceptions (usually shortly preceding that side's failure to attain its objectives for the foreseeable future), most wars are supported by most people on each warring side. If I remember correctly, you are one of the pro-war people for your side in this war, too. Something like a "but this is morally different because the others started it" also is not so compelling when the others plausibly believe the same about you, as I figure each side also does in just about any war since the "we shall gloriously seize land because its current owners are weaker" narrative has gone out of fashion centuries ago. (Claiming that this is what the other side believes hasn't, but that's a different matter.)

Mocked and derided by whom, exactly? Probably not by other pro-war people.

Probably not, no, and there's no much I can say beyond that without coming off with an unintended tone.

With few exceptions (usually shortly preceding that side's failure to attain its objectives for the foreseeable future), most wars are supported by most people on each warring side.

And yet, only one side in a war of aggression by choice can be responsible for starting the war. Hence the need to resist deliberate or inadverdant efforts to smuggle in the connotations of equivalence via a generic 'support' to equivocate non-equivalent causes and forms of support.

It really does matter if one supports a war because 'that land and its people are ours, and we're going to take it from them whether they like it or not,' and 'this land and its people are ours, and we are going to defend it.' Supporting offense and supporting defense are two substantially different dynamics, in terms of ethics and agency and the principles of Just War which are relevant to discerning the worst of wars and the best of wars, which is what distinguished when pro-war types of the worst of wars are mocked..

If I remember correctly, you are one of the pro-war people for your side in this war, too.

You mis-remember, or at least mis-understood.

I am one of the people who said that a war was a credible prospect given the Russian diplomatic plays of 2021, predicted that a war would be long, bloody, and costly for the Russians (though I did predict 'NATO-supported insurgency' rather than 'conventional match'), claimed that the Russians would offensively culminate around the summer and not overrun the Ukrainian army during the second (and third) phases when the conventional mis-match was still solidly in Russia's favor, and assessed that the dynamics involved with key actors, ranging from emotional electorates to domestic political dynamics, would see the Russian political strategy for Ukrainian/western capitulation fail. I regularly write on what I view various government perspectives to be beyond the level of claimed positions, and why I believe they are doing things they do at the time beyond government public-facing narratives. I have consistently held the position that the war is a tragedy, hoping the Russians cutting their losses and abandoning the sunk cost fallacy of a war they've engaged in, while also acknowledging my long-held belief that Putin is a strategic medicority driven more by ego than calculus who won't do that, thus driving key actors to continue opposing him as there are no viable political blocks in Ukraine or in Ukraine's key backers who could survive (or want to) make the argument in favor of concessions to Putin for reasons ranging from domestic politics to long-term strategic interest.

These were predictive, and descriptive, but not advocacy that merits the term 'pro-war' in any non-equivocation sense.

But, if you need a category, I am generally inclined to 'pro-Just-War' based on the principles of Just War Theory, both Jus ad Bellum (conditions in which using military force is justified) and Jus in Bello (conduct by warfighters in war), and generally find the Russians failing in both while the Ukrainians passing.

Something like a "but this is morally different because the others started it" also is not so compelling when the others plausibly believe the same about you, as I figure each side also does in just about any war since the "we shall gloriously seize land because its current owners are weaker" narrative has gone out of fashion centuries ago. (Claiming that this is what the other side believes hasn't, but that's a different matter.)

People believing stupid things is both plausible and still stupid, and the sincerity of someone's belief in their beliefs does not really affect the correctness of their arguments. As the fable goes, only one woman actually gave birth to the child, no matter how many claim, or sincerely believe in, their mothership.

Ultimately, I am not the sort of post-modernist who believes subjectivity trumps all, or that all things are subjective, or that even subjective things are beyond dispute.

You mis-remember, or at least mis-understood.

Sorry if that was the case. That being said, I don't think there's a point in relitigating the object-level justness of this war for either side yet again, since this has been done on this forum many times already and presumably hardly any opinions were shifted. (For the record, my position is still that all sides are morally in the wrong - the current Ukrainian government for seizing the country in a revolution in 2014 and prosecuting a war against the side that did not back the revolutionaries, the American government for providing material support to the winning side of the revolution since 2014, and the Russian government for entering the war on the side of the losing side in 2022; and yes, I grant that Russia's support is the greater immorality than the preceding ones by virtue of the greater degree and suffering it brought, but this is a difference of quantity, not quality).

I don't think that your predictions about how the war would go are of particular relevance to the question, though I'd be interested to hear why you thought that they are, because I've seen posts that suggest that "believing side X is in the right" and "believing side X will win" is strongly entangled in the view of many and it puzzles me. Despite my position above (and, orthogonally to questions of justice, preferring a future in which Russia has won the war to one in which it has lost, in purely geopolitical terms), I have also believed from the start that Russia's military and leadership is inadequate and their loss is overwhelmingly likely.

People believing stupid things is both plausible and still stupid, and the sincerity of someone's belief in their beliefs does not really affect the correctness of their arguments. As the fable goes, only one woman actually gave birth to the child, no matter how many claim, or sincerely believe in, their mothership.

I think the sincerity (and plausibility) of their beliefs is significant to their moral culpability, though. I know Americans dislike and have strong memetic antibodies to ("whataboutism") their own country being compared to the villain of the day that they are bringing charges against, but do you really feel that the common American has, for example, the same degree of culpability for the immeasurable amount of death and suffering brought about by the Iraq war (still much greater than what has happened in Ukraine so far, according to most estimations, and supported on the basis of arguably quite stupid beliefs about Saddam-Osama links) that you assign to the common Russian right now? When I ask whether you really feel, I do really mean the sense that they deserve to pay an appropriate price for it in suffering, which I do think the vocally pro-Ukraine posters here generally do feel towards the NPC Russians. I don't think I feel that way towards the common folk of the US, even though I have thought that maybe in the interest of cosmic justice I ought to.

the current Ukrainian government for seizing the country in a revolution in 2014

Zelensky ran and won as a blatant bothsidist who would've lost the reelection had the war not started due to his abysmal job approval rating. A more competent Russian MFA could've pulled off a "Reagan vs Iran" or even a "Nixon in China".

I'm aware, but was there actually any significant lull in combat activity on the Donbass frontline under him? Presumably, had he lost the reelection, he would have been replaced by someone more hawkish too, with the effect either way being that the pressure of war against the separatists would have continued.

Sorry if that was the case. That being said, I don't think there's a point in relitigating the object-level justness of this war for either side yet again, since this has been done on this forum many times already and presumably hardly any opinions were shifted.

That's a shame, because I find it quite relevant.

For example-

(For the record, my position is still that all sides are morally in the wrong - the current Ukrainian government for seizing the country in a revolution in 2014

This is a factually incorrect object-level claim. Not only is the current Ukrainian government not the post-Maidan government, but the post-Maidan government did not seize the country in a revolution in the sense of words where revolutions are militarily factions seizing countries.

The Yanukovych administration fell when the President pre-emptively fled the country on 22Feb following the removal of riot police from contested Kyiv and the imminent voting of the Legislature against the pro-crackdown elements of the government including Yanukovych. These, in turn, cannot be separated from the previous week of violence which changed the domestic politics of Ukraine when Yanukovych succumbed to Russian pressure to escalate a crackdown of protestors, which instead destroyed his own domestic power base among the oligarchs and security forces.

Opposition elements joining the government was already a negotiated point by mid-Feb, due to protests and negotiations for a unity government earlier in Euromaidan. That negotiation period towards a unity government was the context of the leaked US diplomat phone call that is regularly raised as proof of a US coup, where the American diplomats are discussing people who could be included for a viable government. However, while the Americans were pressing for a unity government involving the protestors, the Russians were lobbying for Yanukovych to escalate violence and crush the protests, with Russian-aligned media framings being of 'insurrection' and 'terrorism' to justify crackdowns.

A major escalation in the final week occurred about 17/18FEB (depending on time zone dating), when what are now believed to be Ukrainian security service snipers (but at the time were also alleged by Russian-aligned spheres as protestor or american false-flag) opened fire into mostly protestors. Initial reporting was around 20 persons, and at the time the escalation was seen as being a result of direction/pressure by Moscow due to media and Putin associate statements, as well as the Russian sanctions. Putin authorized sanctions against Ukraine when Yanukovych began to make concessions to protestors in Jan that included the dismissal of Yanukovych's cabinet as part of creating a unity government. The sanctions were reversed the day before the 17/18FEB escalation, during which Ukrainian media leaked that Yanukovych had a phone call with Putin coinciding with the start of the operation. The 17/18th escalation, which was a marked increase in state violence with lethal shootings, was accompanied by further destabilization of Yanukovych's faction, as he fired the Chief of the General Staff and had some party members flee his coalition.

This already-destabilizing escalation then escalated further on 20FEB, the Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko- the minister in charge of those police snipers from earlier- announced signing a decree authorizing the use of live ammunition against protestors. This time ~50 people were shot, mostly protestors but at the time reports also included police At this time, the presence of Interior Ministry snipers was already circulating in social media but also international media for weeks since late January when the first wave of gun deaths had happened. At the time snipers had started, Ukrainian police were reportedly not being issued guns to shoot with, with the presence of snipers being contested as Interior Ministry, but also claims of radical protestors / false flag attacks. However, the 20FEB escalation, and the Interior Ministry live ammunition decree, drew shifted significant political perception back towards 'it was the government all along' theory of who was responsible for the earlier shootings, even as the government was beginning to try and involve the military (including transferring military forces to counter-protestor interior security control).

However, again, the escalations, even if supported by pro-Russian factions in Yanukovych's administration, were fragmenting Yanukovych's own political base. Remember that Yanukovych had just fired senior military officials for unreliability in the last week. On 21Feb, the Armed Forces Deputy Chief of Staff resigned in protest, but even more importantly the mayor of Kyiv, Volodymyr Makeyenko, a Yanukovych appointment who was also a former Communist Party official and graduated from Leningrad, announced he was leaving the President's party.

To re-iterate: the Russian-educated former communist party member turned appointed mayor with influence over the city riot police didn't want to go along with his own political patron's plan of shooting the protestors.

Long story short, that same day the city riot police gave up contesting public squares, the Ukrainian legislature voted to resciend the President and Interior Ministry powers that were being used to shoot 100 people in the capital streets, and Yanukovych and the pro-crackdown politicians, generally pro-Russian, were fleeing the country and claiming it was a coup to whoever would listen.

But at no point did revolutionaries storm the government.

I am fairly sure you did not know half of this, probably will not believe it, and will otherwise dismiss because position inertia is a hell of a drug and no one likes having ignorance on a topic turned into a bad essay, but object-level justifications continue to matter because object-level things happened, and the object-level claims of these things is being used to perpetuate massive amounts of human suffering that is scaling into the tens millions in the current war.

A war which which was started by Vladimir Putin in 2023 on the pretext of protecting separatist republics.

Separatist republics which only still existed because Putin ordered conventional military interventions to to preserve them for the sake of the Minsk negotiations to codify Russian influence Ukraine.

The Minsk strategem being necessary because Russia defanged all pro-Russian political parties for electoral influence by taking the most pro-Russian regions out of the Ukrainian electorate.

The Pro-russian regions being taken out of the Ukrainian election because Putin ordered the 2014 military intervention to sustain the failed NovaRussia campaign.

The NovaRussian campaign failing because Putin thought he could spark a massive pro-Russian popular rebellion against post-Maidan Kyiv.

Putin thinking NovaRussia would work because of the Crimean success.

The success in Crimea being ordered by Putin to secure the Crimea port from a post-Maidan government hypothetically changing its mind on a then-uncontroversial presence.

The post-Maidan government existing because the Ukrainian oligarchy wasn't willing to shoot the Maidan protestors at Putin's behest.

The Maidan protesting starting because Putin made a very transparent bribe/pressure campaign to have Ukraine join the Eurasian Union.

The bribe to join the Eurasian Union coming because Putin didn't want Ukraine having the already agreed, and politically popular, Association Agreement with the European Union.

For the better part of the last decade, at nearly every stage in the Ukraine crisis, Putin has had agency on how to proceed, and keeps fucking it up, and it's object-level incompetence to confuse the series of events with some sort of Ukrainian revolutionary civil war, which Putin just so happens to be supporting the losing faction in, which is losing due to Western support for the other. Yanukovych did not lose against some sort of American-funded military force.

Yanukovych did not fleet the country because the protestors started to overwhelm the government by illegitimate violence, or any sort of violence. Yanukovych fled the country because he tried to conduct a lethal crackdown at Russian pressure without the necessary support of the Ukrainian oligarchy, and the Oligarchy refused to go along with it.

Yanukovych was firing senior military officers for unreliability, only to have others resign rather than participate in a crackdown, paralyzing the military support. His personally appointed leader of city administration, who had been willing enough to contest the squares, refused to go along with a lethal-force decree. And this was after members of his party were jumping ship, after he had already made significant concessions to protest groups to bring in opposition politicians into the government and dismantle his own core cabinet, before the 20FEB lethal force decree.

And this is all in the capital city itself, where the political strength of a national government is normally strongest. In other parts of the country, various institutions- and thus their associated oligarchs- were already sympathetic or siding with the protestors outright.

Yanukovych was not couped or ousted by revolutionaries. He was a politically weak leader in a national oligarchy who didn't have the backing of the oligarchy to conduct a purge of the citizenry at the behest of a foreign power. He tried, he failed, he fled, but it wasn't the revolution or foreigners who did him in, it was his own power base abandoning him.

Some relevant links from the time. Yes, they are English speaking media sources, and western. Feel free to dispute object-level claims central the points being made.

https://time.com/8802/ukraine-kiev-russia-yanukovych-putin/

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/unsolved-maidan-massacre-casts-shadow-over-ukraine/

https://www.theguardian.com/wo

I stand by not wanting to relitigate the issue. This is not only because I don't think any opinions will be shifted, but also because I don't have time (for very pragmatic real life reasons involving an upcoming conference deadline), especially if you are going to argue by way of walls of text full of tangential points bordering on a Gish gallop, rather than a targeted refutation of the points you claim to refute.

Not only is the current Ukrainian government not the post-Maidan government,

I didn't think it's unconventional to assign continuous identity to governments based on consensual transition between key personnel.

post-Maidan government did not seize the country in a revolution in the sense of words where revolutions are militarily factions seizing countries.

That also seems like a tortured qualification of the definition, which the first dictionary entry I can find simply gives as "an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed." As I see it, if obstructive action leads to a transition in government that was not approved within the framework of that government's own declared principles, this is a revolution. The Ukrainians themselves also call it a revolution.

The rest of your post seems to simply be telling a story trying to illustrate how crooked Yanukovych was and how virtuous the protesters were, along with apparent attempts ("That negotiation period towards a unity government was the context of the leaked US diplomat phone call that is regularly raised as proof of a US coup") to substitute my claim with a stronger and therefore easier to refute one. Virtuousness does not make a revolution less of one, and you are not addressing the part where the government that emerged from this revolution then used military force to assert its power over a set of people who never in any meaningful way consented to being ruled over by this new government and were actively resisting it, unless you want to postulate some clause in the Ukrainian constitution that said that as an alternative to elections you can also have revolutions if enough people near the capital (and perhaps in Washington) think that the elected government is sufficiently evil.

I think the Atlantic Council as a source is only distinguished from RT by having better writers.

For the record, my position is still that all sides are morally in the wrong - the current Ukrainian government for seizing the country in a revolution in 2014 and prosecuting a war against the side that did not back the revolutionaries, the American government for providing material support to the winning side of the revolution since 2014, and the Russian government for entering the war on the side of the losing side in 2022;

You forgot to mention the Krim annexation and the culpability of the bumbling European leaders who, in my opinion, have been absolutely embarassed by Putin, Zelensky, and their American "allies".

orthogonally to questions of justice, preferring a future in which Russia has won the war to one in which it has lost, in purely geopolitical terms

Fascinating, could you expand on this?

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