[creamynebula]

They did it all over Latin America and Africa during the entire cold war as well. And, I assume, they still back coups all around, if it is deemed that the dictatorship to be instated will better foster the interests of the government of the United States and the oligarchies behind it...

[mywittyname]

Of course they do. Democratic societies vote for people who look after their own interested, and often times, the interest of these people are at direct odds to the interests of American companies. When politicians put the interest of their people over the interest of Western powers, they get labelled as "socialists" or "communists" and a dictator gets installed to stop the "contagion".

Dictators will gladly do the dirty work of repressing the population while giving American companies their cut. And if these dictators forget their place, the US government will send a little freedom their way.

It's not a foolproof strategy, but it works well enough.

[ImHereToVote]

Except the current thing. To suggest that the CIA is involved in the current thing is cuckoo.

Past things, yes. But never the current thing.

[ganeshkrishnan]

ALSO: It's ok to criticize US for the past war, for faking evidence in UN and making up excuses to invade a country.

But to critique US involvement in Ukraine which is extinguishing a whole country with their forced mobilization just for the sake of drip buying US arms? That's heresy and punishable with de-platforming.

[dang]

Please don't use HN for ideological or nationalistic battle, no matter wrong others are or you feel they are. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[starik36]

The Russian trolls never seem to take a rest.

[dang]

Please don't use HN for ideological or nationalistic battle, no matter wrong others are or you feel they are. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[ganeshkrishnan]

sure,everyone against this senseless war is a "russian troll". I am old enough to remember the rabid shrieking against Iraqi war, calling them traitors, death threats to anyone against the iraqi war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Chicks_comments_on_Georg...), boycotting france because they didnt want the war (Freedom fries?)

We are sleep walking into a global disaster by interfering in everyone else war.

Blame russia for all the problems in the country. Makes it easier to blame someone else

[swatcoder]

I agree with you that blindly attacking war critics is ugly, especially for remote wars and wars of influence.

At the same time, nobody was surprised that Russia and NATO disagreed over whose sphere of influence Ukraine resided in. The “Ukraine Problem” and how it would culminate was making it into popular foreign policy writing 50 years ago, and was part of diplomatic and intelligence strategies long before that.

Putin is getting old and sick and made a play for his legacy, hoping NATO would be too war-anxious to act. That didn’t work out.

Critics should have their voice heard because there always new questions about how to proceed, or whether past choices were well made, but that conflict was prefigured for decades and is not an “everyone else’s war”.

[ganeshkrishnan]

This is a war for the resources of East Ukraine and the Oil, Natgas in black sea; hence the Biden investment in Burisma.

This is not an ideological war (Technically no war is!) or "sphere of influence"

[redeeman]

care to attack his argument instead?

[mywittyname]

Ukraine is fighting for their continued independent existence. They know that, if they lose, they will be the victims of genocide (as those in occupied lands have encountered).

[ganeshkrishnan]

Crimea, lugansk, Donetsk, mariupol is all business as usual. Ukrainians care neither about Ukraine government nor Russian government. They just want the war to end regardless of which oligarch is ruling over then.