[padjo]

I’m not downplaying, I disagree with characterising it as an armed coup but figured there’s no point in even talking to you about that.

So all you’ve got left is some whataboutery? I’m guessing from your tone you thing NATO involvement in Yugoslavia was bad? And you see Russian involvement in Ukraine as equivalent so…

[ghostwriter]

> So all you’ve got left is some whataboutery?

The thing that you call "whataboutery" is the basis of the Socratic method that every student who attended Philosophy 101 understands as an essential form of argument-building. Unfortunately to you, the whining of "whataboutery" that you've just demonstrated cannot serve as a rebuttal of anything but your aptitude for argument elaboration.

[padjo]

Nope it’s ad hominem and a propaganda technique used when your argument is flimsy. There’s nothing essential about it, you could discuss the merits of Ukraine on its own but instead you had to try to obfuscate and distract by expanding to Yugoslavia.

What Russia is doing right now in Ukraine is disgraceful, unjustified and indefensible.

[ghostwriter]

> Nope it’s ad hominem

Demonstrate exactly how it's ad hominem. I couldn't care less about you in the first place. You haven't refuted anything I said neither regarding the whataboutism, nor any other point I made regarding the conflict, so please do elaborate how exactly my points about your whining of whataboutism is ad hominem?

> you could discuss the merits of Ukraine on its own but instead you had to try to obfuscate and distract by expanding to Yugoslavia.

Why would I discuss the merits of Ukraine on its own if your argument is wholly based on the idea of morailty and ethics of actions (the ones you call disgraceful, unjustified and indefensible) that are supposed to be applied equally to everyone? I want to see how you apply it universally across the board, and until that happens I call you a person with an agenda to propagandise.

But let's entertain the idea, let's see how you cover "the merits of Ukraine on its own". What's happening on this video and who's receiving the medals? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwpBvJziSs&t=365s

[_kbh_]

> But let's entertain the idea, let's see how you cover "the merits of Ukraine on its own". What's happening on this video and who's receiving the medals? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwpBvJziSs&t=365s

Theres nazis in Ukraine just like how theres nazis in Russia and other countries what your point?.

[lisasays]

There is no point of course -- other than to make yet another attempt at intellectual obfuscation, and to push people's emotional buttons.

As to what the video shows -- it was a local ceremony, not any kind of federal recognition of these fighters. So far there has not even been a legislative attempt to grant "hero" status to members of any of the fighting unites in WW II.

And that's the important point: all of these (in my view, quite nauseating) commemorations of either the pro-fascist political leaders, or of the various collaborating fighting units have been at the local, not federal level. Precisely because it remains such a painful and divisive topic.

And because by and large, Ukrainian society has moved light years beyond the events of these dark times. It is the regime in that large country to the north (and that of its smaller puppet state next door) that is continually trying to make everyone live in the past, as if WW II basically never ended.

One could say a lot more about it -- just as there are all kinds of things to say about how collaborationist history has been processed in all the other countries in Europe; including, last but not least, in the Soviet Union and modern Russia itself (in regard to its attempts to all but banish any mention of its notorious high-level cooperation with Nazi Germany from its history books).

One could, that is - provided there was an atmosphere of civility, and of respect for in discourse. Unfortunately this does not apply to the commenter you are responding to -- who, as we have seen, seems intent on dragging the discussion ever downward, into an endless cycle of intellectual evasion and ad hominem attack.

And in any case: none of this history has any bearing on the current conflict. And the whole narrative that it does, let alone that it justifies or explains the naked, old-school barbarism that has been inflicted upon Ukraine since early 2022, as is the subject of the original article in this thread -- is just bonkers.

[padjo]

Wow this must be a parody right? You say prove how this is ad hominem before launching into an ad hominem.

Anyway you argument has essentially boiled down to “but they did it too”, which is a nice way to distract, but a really childish line of reasoning.