Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[N35t0r]

Yes. Behavior of the US had ceased being that of a good guy. This was extremely disappointing and describing the US has no longer one of the good guys in Ukraine is accurate.

It was wrong to characterize the US as one of the "bad guys" in the Ukraine war. It had not inflicted any harm on Ukraine.

Your definition of 'not inflict any harm' must be dumbed down to the point of uselessness then.

Russian shahed drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets used to have a 95%+ intercept rate until Trump came into power. Ever since then, and the marked decrease in US intel sharing and support, it's been a lucky day when Ukraine manages to shoot down 90%, with the 80-85% range being more likely. This has led to hundreds of extra deaths that weren't happening thanks to the US, but now aren't. The US is purposefully abstaining from saving civilian lives, and you claim that that isn't what a bad guy would do.

Also you keep ignoring that I clearly said if every country in the world apart from Russia had mirrored US policy then Ukraine would have won. You are now arguing instead against a strawman of me asserting that if only the contributing allies to Ukraine (*not* almost every country in the world) had mirrored US policy that Ukraine would have won. You are certainly free to win that argument against that strawman but kindly leave me out of it.

So the US isn't the bad guy because North Korea and the Solomon Islands didn't send military aid to Ukraine. Gotcha.

My point in raising the hypothetical was to show that as a bad guy in an ongoing conflict the US should be demonstrated to be directly responsible for the bad outcome of the conflict and not merely another country failing to continue to help avert the bad outcome (let alone never helped at all and one of the bad guys who is responsible for the conflict).

And I disagree with your premise. A father who walks away on his family just because he doesn't want the responsibility is a bad guy in that situation, regardless of how good a father he was before, how much money he provided in the past, or how there are much worse fathers that even abuse their families.

[Geronimo]

If you took your 3 year old kid to the beach, and coaxed them into the surf with the assurance you would keep them safe ... then just let them drown. You are not just not a good parent. You are a bad parent.

That while they are drowning in a mess we helped get them into we are screaming at the kid for being so dumb to go in the water and demanding they pay us to maybe help them ... makes it so much worse.

Patronizing much? I don't think we want Trump or anybody else really viewing other countries as like the US's dependent children that it is parenting and keeping safe.

If you as a strong swimmer took your coworker to the beach and encouraged them to go out into the surf with assurance from you and a coworker who was a weaker swimmer and also assurances from the Lifeguard at the beach that you'd all keep them safe and then while the coworker was out there the Life guard leaped into the surf and started trying to drown your coworker while also threatening to drown you and the weaker swimmer if you interfered and the both of you tried for several minutes to keep them safe but abruptly you give up and go back to shore suddenly angry and shout back that your coworker must've provoked the Lifeguard somehow and the coworker had better make it worth their while if they wanted more help then we can all agree that your later behavior would be incredibly weak and contemptible but the bad guys clearly would be the Lifeguard who was trying to drown your coworker and threatening everybody, not really you. If you acted at all to assist the Lifeguard in trying to drown your coworker or to independently try to drown your coworker, then sure you've become one of the bad guys not just a fickle and insulting former friend.

[Aeson]

Yes. Behavior of the US had ceased being that of a good guy. This was extremely disappointing and describing the US has no longer one of the good guys in Ukraine is accurate.

It was wrong to characterize the US as one of the "bad guys" in the Ukraine war. It had not inflicted any harm on Ukraine.

Also you keep ignoring that I clearly said if every country in the world apart from Russia had mirrored US policy then Ukraine would have won. You are now arguing instead against a strawman of me asserting that if only the contributing allies to Ukraine (*not* almost every country in the world) had mirrored US policy that Ukraine would have won. You are certainly free to win that argument against that strawman but kindly leave me out of it.

My point in raising the hypothetical was to show that as a bad guy in an ongoing conflict the US should be demonstrated to be directly responsible for the bad outcome of the conflict and not merely another country failing to continue to help avert the bad outcome (let alone never helped at all and one of the bad guys who is responsible for the conflict).

If you took your 3 year old kid to the beach, and coaxed them into the surf with the assurance you would keep them safe ... then just let them drown. You are not just not a good parent. You are a bad parent.

That while they are drowning in a mess we helped get them into we are screaming at the kid for being so dumb to go in the water and demanding they pay us to maybe help them ... makes it so much worse.

[Geronimo]

We agreed to assure Ukraine's safety. There was no "one time" or "only for X years". We broke that agreement.

You keep showing you are an honorless person by trying to pretend breaking the agreement was justified. Doing so to protect Trump from criticism.

Then why did Ukraine need or even want to be in NATO? If the US and the UK guarantee your safety forever you don't stand to gain much by it and will definitely incur some steep costs.

Speaking of NATO, unlike the Budapest memorandum NATO treaties include actual security guarantees and the US under Trump was nowhere near the first NATO country to withdraw from Afghanistan even though the conflict there never ended. If a much stronger and specific actual set of treaty obligations as exists in NATO was not adequate to keep everyone there supporting the US forever, why would the vague and weak Budapest memorandum require for US to defend Ukraine forever?

[Geronimo]

We never did the most admirable thing. That aside, bullying Ukraine to get them to give up $500 billion is not just stopping helping. Lying about who started the war to undermine Ukraines bargaining position isn't just stop helping. Breaking our word is not just stop helping.

You constantly try to reduce the whole issue to "we just stopped helping". You are ignoring reality to help justify Trump's actions.

what is bullying? bullying is using the stick and not just the carrot. What is the stick that the US is brandishing in its supposed "shakedown" of Ukraine? Is the stick just lying about who started the conflict?

Breaking our word? What if Trump signed a political declaration to defend Russia in Crimea from any attack, including from Ukraine. If Trump was replaced by a democrat president would that president be breaking our word to refuse to support Russia if its forces occupying Crimea were attacked?

Political declarations are weak and non-binding. Vague political declarations are weaker still. I'm concerned about Trump flagrantly breaking several major ratified binding treaties. I don't see why anyone should care whatsoever really about Trump failing to deliver on vague predecessor political declarations like the Budapest Memorandum.

[Geronimo]

That was not my assertion.
My assertion was that your argument that if other western countries had behaved like the US then the war would be over already is bull****, because a lot of the value in what the US sent was replacement (new) value for stuff that had been mothballed for over 20 years and actually saved the military money. Also, that it took other nations taking the initiative and then pushing the US for it to send a lot of more modern/powerful equipment, like modern MBTs, MRLS and cruise missiles, as well as in the lifting of the restrictions about hitting targets inside Russia proper.

Also, that does not change the fact that the US are bad guys wrt Ukraine nowadays. Ever since Trump took power, support for ukraine has slowed to a trickle, and he's been constantly disrespecting and trying to extort them. That's not the behaviour of the good guys in a conflict, and past behaviour doesn't change this.

Yes. Behavior of the US had ceased being that of a good guy. This was extremely disappointing and describing the US has no longer one of the good guys in Ukraine is accurate.

It was wrong to characterize the US as one of the "bad guys" in the Ukraine war. It had not inflicted any harm on Ukraine.

Also you keep ignoring that I clearly said if every country in the world apart from Russia had mirrored US policy then Ukraine would have won. You are now arguing instead against a strawman of me asserting that if only the contributing allies to Ukraine (*not* almost every country in the world) had mirrored US policy that Ukraine would have won. You are certainly free to win that argument against that strawman but kindly leave me out of it.

My point in raising the hypothetical was to show that as a bad guy in an ongoing conflict the US should be demonstrated to be directly responsible for the bad outcome of the conflict and not merely another country failing to continue to help avert the bad outcome (let alone never helped at all and one of the bad guys who is responsible for the conflict).

[Aeson]

We agreed to assure Ukraine's safety. There was no "one time" or "only for X years". We broke that agreement.

You keep showing you are an honorless person by trying to pretend breaking the agreement was justified. Doing so to protect Trump from criticism.

[Aeson]

And if a doctor saves 2 patients pro bono after earlier promising to do so if either patient were the victim of assault and then when one of them returns for more treatment and the doctor refuses unless the patient (who was assaulted again by the same mugger who threatened the doctor if the doctor didn't stop helping the victim) pays not only for the earlier procedure but for all future procedures then the doctor isn't meaningfully one of the bad guys the repeat offender mugger and his accomplices are the bad guys with it being grossly offensive to characterize anyone else as a bad guy in the scenario, let alone the now financially motivated doctor as the bad guy.

The doctor should keep helping for free and ignore the threats and will not be one of the good guys if that stops occurring. The doctor does not share any culpability for the assault regardless, however.

You seem to want to argue that anyone who stops doing the most admirable thing crosses the line to bad guy. Take note that in your example the doctor murders someone after saving 2 patients. Are you suggesting that the US is now murdering Ukraine? when? that was not the case when we started debating this.

We never did the most admirable thing. That aside, bullying Ukraine to get them to give up $500 billion is not just stopping helping. Lying about who started the war to undermine Ukraines bargaining position isn't just stop helping. Breaking our word is not just stop helping.

You constantly try to reduce the whole issue to "we just stopped helping". You are ignoring reality to help justify Trump's actions.

[N35t0r]

I've already researched it. you're wrong. More importantly even if for sake of argument I accepted that the UK contributed vastly higher quality equipment than the US and the US contributed the lowest quality equipment of all it would not leave room for the US to be regarded the bad guys so why should I even waste time discussing your assertion that the US contributed only equipment of lower quality?

That was not my assertion.
My assertion was that your argument that if other western countries had behaved like the US then the war would be over already is bull****, because a lot of the value in what the US sent was replacement (new) value for stuff that had been mothballed for over 20 years and actually saved the military money. Also, that it took other nations taking the initiative and then pushing the US for it to send a lot of more modern/powerful equipment, like modern MBTs, MRLS and cruise missiles, as well as in the lifting of the restrictions about hitting targets inside Russia proper.

Also, that does not change the fact that the US are bad guys wrt Ukraine nowadays. Ever since Trump took power, support for ukraine has slowed to a trickle, and he's been constantly disrespecting and trying to extort them. That's not the behaviour of the good guys in a conflict, and past behaviour doesn't change this.

[Geronimo]

If a doctor saves 2 patients then goes and murders an innocent person for kicks, they are still a bad person. The net doesn't matter, you do evil, it drags you down to that level

"First do no harm" is important because your type of utilitarian bull**** is easily twisted to justify horrific actions. Like you are doing with Trump, the US, and Ukraine.

And if a doctor saves 2 patients pro bono after earlier promising to do so if either patient were the victim of assault and then when one of them returns for more treatment and the doctor refuses unless the patient (who was assaulted again by the same mugger who threatened the doctor if the doctor didn't stop helping the victim) pays not only for the earlier procedure but for all future procedures then the doctor isn't meaningfully one of the bad guys the repeat offender mugger and his accomplices are the bad guys with it being grossly offensive to characterize anyone else as a bad guy in the scenario, let alone the now financially motivated doctor as the bad guy.

The doctor should keep helping for free and ignore the threats and will not be one of the good guys if that stops occurring. The doctor does not share any culpability for the assault regardless, however.

You seem to want to argue that anyone who stops doing the most admirable thing crosses the line to bad guy. Take note that in your example the doctor murders someone after saving 2 patients. Are you suggesting that the US is now murdering Ukraine? when? that was not the case when we started debating this.

[Geronimo]

You're the one trying to justify breaking agreements with Ukraine because Putin did it first.

no, I'm arguing that the terms of the agreement have long since been met. Ukraine wanted NATO membership for a reason despite it coming with many commitments and onerous obligations for Ukraine. The reason is that Ukraine was acutely aware from the beginning that the Budapest Memorandum did not contain any Security Guarantees. That Russia essentially voided the agreement with its actions in no way justifies that Russia did so, but it does highlight the irrelevance of the agreement at that point and clearly leaves room for other signers to argue that the circumstances to which the agreement could reasonably be envisioned to encompass no longer existed. The most important point however is that Ukraine was never offered anything like a security guarantee and that the UK and the US at the least could argue they had long since fulfilled the extremely vague and limited political commitments of the Budapest memorandum. The US *did* violate later political statements of intent (wisely) made by the Biden administration, but Biden would clearly be unable to make such statements binding on successors who routinely revise or ignore such predecessor verbal commitments with little to no consequence or condemnation.

It is entirely absurd to claim that this reasoning constitutes any sort of justification for anything Putin has done. On the contrary it shifts some small share of any blame for limitations on the scale of the other signers implementation of the terms of the political declarations of the agreement onto Putin's shoulders.

[Aeson]

I disagree that having an evil government is sufficient to make the state governed by that evil government the bad guy in all contexts. Evil is as Evil does. The changes may well be motivated by solely by evil intent but until they materially contribute more to the wrong side of the war than to the right side in the war they are not bad guys and they won't be "the bad guys" until they form some kind of pact with the wrong side of the war or until they inflict more harm than the wrong side of the war is continuing to inflict to the correct side.

If a doctor saves 2 patients then goes and murders an innocent person for kicks, they are still a bad person. The net doesn't matter, you do evil, it drags you down to that level

"First do no harm" is important because your type of utilitarian bull**** is easily twisted to justify horrific actions. Like you are doing with Trump, the US, and Ukraine.

[Aeson]

Breaking an agreement, especially one that millions of lives depends on, is wrong.

You think it's ok because Putin did it first. You've adopted Putin as your moral and ethical guide in the matter.

[Aeson]

Just wow. I don't know what say if your take away from my poly posts is that I've sold my soul to Putin. I suppose it must be a bizarre troll.

You're the one trying to justify breaking agreements with Ukraine because Putin did it first.

[Geronimo]

Just wow. I don't know what say if your take away from my poly posts is that I've sold my soul to Putin. I suppose it must be a bizarre troll.