[kergonath]

“That guy who killed someone is not that bad, because the other guy punched someone and everybody seems happy with that”.

Bullshit. The US is an imperialist, sometimes oppressive pseudo-democracy, but nothing like that mafia-run kleptocracy.

[ajsnigrutin]

This is a very americo-centric view....

Most of the world consideres americans the "bad guys", and a lot worse than the russians. You can start with southern america and middle east. Then the balkans (where putin is doing the same as you guys did with kosovo). Even parts of africa would have a say.

Here in the balkans, people were actively rooting for trump in the last two elections, because they were afraid Hillary would start a new war here...

[kergonath]

You are way off base. First, I am not American and well aware of the imperialist and oppressive aspects. I would be quite happy to see the American hegemony disappear, but not for it to be replaced by Russian aggression or Chinese imperialism.

> Most of the world consideres americans the "bad guys", and a lot worse than the russians. You can start with southern america and middle east.

Their absurd support for tin pot dictators in South America was and is reprehensible, and the whole Iraq war was morally bankrupt and threw fuel on a fire that we’ll be trying to put out for decades. And yet, nothing the American did in the Middle East came anywhere near Aleppo or Mariupol. Or the Holodomor. Or the Prague spring.

> Then the balkans (where putin is doing the same as you guys did with kosovo).

Come on, now. You cannot possibly compare Sarajevo (with an actual genocide being carried out, surprisingly, by the side with Russian support) with the charade Putin used as a fig leaf to invade Ukraine. This is pure propaganda. The region would not be any better today had the ethnically cleansing gone all the way to the end, quite the contrary. Europe should have had grown a spine and actually done something.

> Here in the balkans, people were actively rooting for trump in the last two elections, because they were afraid Hillary would start a new war here...

Well, maybe you did, but that’s not what I heard from my greek friends. The Americans are not complicated to understand, they are going where their interests are. What the hell would they do in the Balkans? That is just stupid.

[ajsnigrutin]

> Their absurd support for tin pot dictators in South America was and is reprehensible, and the whole Iraq war was morally bankrupt and threw fuel on a fire that we’ll be trying to put out for decades. And yet, nothing the American did in the Middle East came anywhere near Aleppo or Mariupol. Or the Holodomor. Or the Prague spring.

Yeah sure... and iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and iraqi soldiers killed babies, and afghanistan had to be occupied for 20 years, because a few saudis flew a few planes into a few buildings. Plus syria, libya, lebanon etc... and considering how far back you go in history, there's also blood from vietnam on americans hand. And it's funny how it's a "beloved ruler" when it's a friend of america and "nasty dictator" when it's not... so america has to replace the ones they don't like (eg iran.)

Sarajevo is not in kosovo, quite a few years were between sarajevo and the bombing of yugoslavia/serbia. Kosovo albanians wanted to separate from the main country, and the main country (yugoslavia then) wouldn't let them... then they formed armed groups that attacked the serbs, and serbs attacked the albanians... basically the same thing that was happening with the russian minority in eg. donbas and lugansk in ukraine. Then someone (USA) had some geopolicital interests in the balkans, bombed the country for 78 days, bombed hospitals, passenger trains, busses, schools, tv stations, cluster bombed a few cities, bridges, roads, highways etc, and built a nato base in kosovo.

So, why have a base in the balkans, if they don't need it?