Scott Horton: U.S. meddling contributed to the Russia-Ukraine war, it’s time we stop meddling around the world

submitted by Drewski from (ocregister.com)

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[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Maybe Russia should take responsibility...

[–]StillLessons 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The trouble with Ukraine is that because it is the posterchild for political corruption and has been for many decades, we have essentially no idea what ground-level Ukrainians actually want. For centuries, Russia called the shots there, and for the past many decades (until 2014), Ukrainian politics was a subsidiary of Russian (from 1917 to 1990, USSR) politics. Then in 2014, the CIA and Davos played a sleight-of-hand switcheroo and replaced the Russian corrupt puppets with CIA/Davos corrupt puppets. It is those puppets, aligned with the neo-Nazi movement native to the west of the country, now at war with Russia. Just because Russia is bad most certainly does not make this new crowd good. It's the perfect recipe for the obliteration of a culture with the vultures of profit feeding on the corpse. Hunter Biden was there literally from day one in 2014. There are no good guys active in this war, on either side. Indeed the two sides mirror each other perfectly, being far more similar the one to the other than they are different.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Well, we do have some data to look at, here is just one set, by the Brookings institute. And if that doesn't appeal to you there are other sources. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/10/18/how-ukraine-views-russia-and-the-west/

[–]StillLessons 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The problem I see isn't lack of data; it's lack of unbiased data. A few clips from the brookings article suffice:

"Until Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014..."

"Following the Maidan Revolution..."

"following a wholly sham referendum..."

"Most observers lay the bulk of the blame on the Russians and the separatist fighters."

Every one of those statements demonstrates a highly partisan perspective, and there are many - even among western observers - who disagree. This article purports to give poll data on Ukrainian attitudes. As anyone who follows polling knows, polls are at least as much a reflection on the people collecting it as on those being asked their opinion. Different wording on questions, for example, can give diametrically opposed results. Looking at the words with which these results are presented, the data presented tells me what brookings thinks and what they want us to think. Ukrainians? I'm not convinced. There can be many polls and much data, but the old phrase "garbage in -> garbage out" is universal.

Meanwhile, we have the multiple Russian referendums (in both Crimea and the Donbass). The Russians have their numbers too. Those numbers, just like brookings' numbers, represent what the Russian government thinks and what they want us to think.

We're back at square one.

Our modern era has become so partisan that I trust nobody's single set of numbers to tell an accurate story. Along with this problem, we are looking at an active warzone. How a person responds to a poll like this is going to be overwhelmingly influenced by the answer they believe themselves safe giving in the context of who is asking the question. The people on the street are going to tell the pollster the answer they feel will keep them out of trouble with the authorities. If you think the Ukrainian authorities are cuddly kittens, you're being naive.

So I'm still stuck, and I will stand by my statement. I have my bias and what I think people there believe (knowing just one Ukrainian here in the US), but I don't trust my view any more than anyone else's.

I'll speak for myself. No matter how much "data" I have seen, I remain with no confidence in any given perspective - from either side - about what Ukrainians on the ground truly believe.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We're back at square one.

Not sure I agree with that. The facts seem to point to a compromised Russia that won't be able to wage another conventional war for years to come.

In terms of the rest of your comments, I feel you laid out in a compelling way that we are not all going to think the same way about such a complicated, tragic situation.

cheers