I wasn't really trying to disagree with you on this. I've seen a sentiment from some "anti-imperialist" voices that end up being primarily anti-western voices, that assume that _only_ the US and the West behave with imperialist policy.
Anyway, I wasn't trying to disagree with you or anything. Just adding my own clarification around the context from some of the other discussions I've had on this topic. See, for example, macanchex's reply to my topic, which places all of the blame for this war on Western powers.
In India, even very right wing people are ambivalent or only somewhat supportive of Putin, whereas the supposedly "anti imperialist" Communists seem to have fallen in love with him. They go to great lengths to localize and translate Russian propaganda.
This might be a case of the enemy of my enemy (capitalist USA) are my friends. Actually they are only the enemy of their enemy and also capitalists, but the hopes of a lifetime can be self delusional.
The dramatic developments we are witnessing today have causes that we knew about but refused to see:
on the strategic level, the expansion of NATO (which we have not dealt with here);
on the political level, the Western refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements;
and operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbass over the past years and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.
> on the strategic level, the expansion of NATO (which we have not dealt with here);
This is an Orwellian distortion of language.
Expansion can be interpreted in a literal sense or a metaphorical one. Organizations expand in a metaphorical sense. When we say that a company "expands" by by entering a new market or hiring new talent, we know that this is metaphorical.
NATO is a defensive pact with voluntary membership, but by calling it "expansionist," Russia plays a trick where it evokes the literal sense of expand to transform NATO into the aggressor. It seems fairly plain to me that the real expansionists would be the ones who have literally, physically expanded into a neighboring country by annexing Crimea. The expansionists would be the ones who are currently occupying territory in three foreign nations against the will of those nations' governments.
> and operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbass over the past years and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.
By third party estimates, the civillian casualties in the Russian invasion are about two to three orders of magnitude higher than the civilian casualties in Donbass prior to the invasion. This is like slaughtering an entire village because it contains a single murderer. There is absolutely zero ambiguity about where the moral high ground is here.
>By third party estimates, the civillian casualties in the Russian invasion are about two to three orders of magnitude higher than the civilian casualties in Donbass prior to the invasion. This is like slaughtering an entire village because it contains a single murderer. There is absolutely zero ambiguity about where the moral high ground is here.
This does not even include the fact that any civilian casualties in Donbass were either incidents when counterfiring to russian and separatist shelling, or russian provocations.
We can even see this right now in the war: Russia just randomly shells apartment blocks with Grads, while UA only targets real military targets on Russian soil, like Belgorod fuel depots or Taganrog airfield. Russian propaganda doesn't even try to claim that, at least yet.
> the expansion of NATO (which we have not dealt with here)
A voluntary alliance isn't an imperialist agenda (assuming that the sovereign nations have the opportunity to make a truly voluntary decision, without outside coercion).
In fact, many nations have requested voluntarily to join NATO. Ukraine was one such nation, and wasn't allowed in.
Arguing that Russia should get a veto over which defensive alliances other nations join is a pro-imperialist position. You're taking the view that Russia gets to determine the behavior of other nations, because they are "in its security umbrella". I'm sorry, but that position is inherently untenable for an "anti-imperialist".
It's a coherent position for Russian Nationalists, or for believers in Super Power Imperialism.
Wasn't expecting the author to start with their time at Nato. It certainly doesn't match the western narrative, but seems far closer to the Russian narrative (explained cohesively).
He seems to be claiming there wasn't weapons transfer to Donbass, etc when they were initially acting as break away republics. How does he explain MH17? I spent too much time looking at this.
> on the political level, the Western refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements;
and operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbass over the past years and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.
To think that Ukraine was shelling Donbass and "provoking" after what we seen in the last 50 days is truly a mental distortion.
This is, of course, the Russian take on the war. The Ukrainian version is significantly different. (And given the whole genocide thing, I know which I lean towards. I mean really, NATO, the West, and the Ukrainian government is responsible for Russian war crimes? https://www.reuters.com/resizer/i8u1Zr3pjvon_ZDTHHfs5b6IwlE=...)
Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations.
Truly horrendous link. Your appeal to authority is nonsense, it doesn't take long to find someone with even more commas to dispute it.
> Anyone who is still pushing more weapons into Ukraine or tells Kiev to prolong the war is putting more Ukrainian lives at risk for zero potential gain.
Surely life under Russia will be blissful with no Ukrainians harmed.
It's 2022. Fire up TikTok, start liking videos, and choose whatever narrative you want. Everything you don't like is crisis acting and media bias? Sure! Digital reality is becoming schizophrenic.
In some left-wing circles anti-Americanism and anti-imperialism are indistinguishable. People like Max Blumenthal are the perfect representatives of this ideology.
I don't know anything about max blumenthal so sure.
But if you are american, those things pretty much should be the same. Anti-imperialism is not an abstract struggle, and for many around the world the US and its allies are a concrete enemy they've come by honestly.
If you live in the US, solidarity with those people means using whatever power you have internally to oppose the US's imperial actions.
The US is not the only imperialist force by any means. But particularly from inside one of these machines, it is hard to understand and act against other forms of imperialism without also assisting your own country's imperial projects.
Countries are adept at turning their own subversive and radical movements outward against their political enemies. An awareness of the mechanics of imperialism does I think lead to a "clean up your own house first" praxis and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
The US is currently helping Ukraine fight an invasion by a larger country whose soldiers have murdered and raped their way through its civilians. In this particular case, being anti-American is the exact opposite of being anti-imperialist. Either Ukraine gets weapons, or it doesn't.
Thankfully in this wonderful world you can both abhor and fight American imperialism and global stupidity AND also support America arming Ukraine to the teeth to fight off another imperial aggressor.
They are not opposing takes. Someone trying to tell you they are is trying to sell you a fiction that just so happens to benefit Russia
What you say here makes sense but it is not at all what is being practiced by some of the "anti-imperialist" left. Max Blumenthal's definition of anti-imperialism begins and ends with America. In his worldview opposing the US and its interests uncritically is the duty of every leftist. If the US supports Ukraine you must oppose it. If the US accuses China of genocide you must support China. If fascists oppose the US government you must side with them too. You must support any and every so-called enemy of the US regardless of what they do or who they are (after all it's all lies from the mainstream media). I am not saying every political commentator should be obligated to report on the abuses of every global power lest they be called "hypocritical", but some leftists will actively defend atrocities as long as they are done in opposition to the US.
Yeah I see what you're saying. Again without conceding that I share this view of this person, since I haven't read his works.
But while I don't think that position is correct, I do think it's probably valuable to have some people take that stance. It's similar to the social value in having non-political conservatism that will resist all change no matter what. We'll change anyway, but having to fight for it a little will slow down the changes, hopefully dodge some of the worst consequences, maybe prevent some changes that shouldn't actually happen.
The US should be opposed. Not because we are inherently bad, but because our interests aren't everyone's interests. An always-support, always-oppose, or case-by-case stance will each have different failure modes. I think we want a mix, as unpalatable as that can be sometimes.
If that's interpreted as can do no wrong, than always support and always oppose are just putting on blinders. I can see it as a media persona, but the intellectual dishonesty required to actually believe that is scary.
Apologists / accidents happen I can understand, but I wouldn't trust any individual pretending that they can do no wrong.
It's because kids are effed by the media. They have been fed a whole bunch of lies and propaganda one way or another in order to get them to support or denounce some cause or other so they don't know what to believe. So they throw their hands up and give up and "let them sort it out"
The media and establishment want it both ways. in the '80s imperialism was BAD. Now, rebranded as globalism, this imperialism is good, but that one over there by them is BAD! and so on it goes.
Can't blame them after the Iraq war and everyone getting on a bandwagon of lies including the left, right and center with the exception of Libertarians.
> so they don't know what to believe. So they throw their hands up and give up and "let them sort it out"
This is a result of a common propaganda attack by a party that wants to cover up the truth: seed multiple competing story lines through varying outlets to create a sense of confusion. That way, when the truth is reported, people will react to it like it's just 1 more among the many competing stories.
Russia in particular has been running this play both domestically and abroad. It's a formidable approach, and defense against it is difficult.
In some cases the above is true. But we have many examples of not just the same organ but the same author saying one things one day, and making a 180 the next time it's convenient. Why censoring blah blah is good! Why censoring blah blah is bad! Why sympathizing with blah blah is racist, Why sympathizing with blah blah is actually anti-racist.
You get enough of this and people tune out and don't give a lick any more.
> Can't blame them after the Iraq war and everyone getting on a bandwagon of lies including the left, right and center with the exception of Libertarians.
This is only true if your conception of 'the left' is just American liberals. Plenty of people and groups on the left were against the invasions from the get-go.
Sure and we also had a handful of people on the right who were against it too. I'm talking about groups that matter --those that make up more than 5% of a pop.
Main point stands though. the media want to have it multiple ways, like John Kerry, one day it's for something, then, the next, it's against the same thing, and a third day it's back on.
Ok, for groups that matter, a majority (61%) of US House Democrats formally opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2002. Even a majority of US Congress Democrats.
> Can't blame them after the Iraq war and everyone getting on a bandwagon of lies including the left, right and center with the exception of Libertarians.
The Left (including most of the center-left Democratic faction in Congress) was against the Iraq War, the more dominant Democratic center-right faction was for it (or, at least, against not giving the President the authority to wage it conditionally, which some of them will distinguish by suggesting that the required determinations made by the President under that authority were in bad faith, but that was pretty predictable...)
">Gen Z is also more diverse and broadly anti-American (or “anti-imperialist”)
An irony, considering that Russian imperialism is the one that actually performs land grabs and ethnic cleansing without even trying to cover it up."
you should learn about this thing called the 2003 invasion of Iraq, then the Vietnam war, etc.
At least Russia actually declares war when it places another country within its empire's sights. The USA just acts like it owns the entire american continent and the means to its imperialistic ends range from cultural exportation and massive economic leverage to literally teaching dictators how torture and repress dissidents. Look up School of the Americas for an example.
And the attempted assassinations of dissidents/defectors with nerve agents only available to one country seems a rather unambiguous way to declare it was a state-sanctioned hit, yet it was denied up and down.
As is this invasion portrayed as a 'special military operation', what distinction that actually is from an invasion is up to the rules lawyers, apparently.
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