Ok, I think now we’re getting somewhere - you’re engaging in good faith and I appreciate that. Let’s go over the money pumped into Ukraine

From independence in 1991 to 2014, the total value was not a couple million. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/

We’re talking in the range of billions. Roughly $200M a year. That’s a lot of money for a country as poor as Ukraine.

Second, there’s likely a lot of money that was sent covertly. The reason NED was founded was just to simplify the process of funding US interests in foreign countries. Before, you would have to have the CIA create a series of intermediary steps to try and obfuscate the source of funds. For example, to bring it back to Guatemala - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d’%C3%A9tat#Operation_PBSuccess

With NED, you don’t need to spend the manpower and money to set up these complex systems of obfuscation. All of the sources are deemed “legitimate” and therefore you can send openly without incriminating yourself. This is cheaper and simpler.

This goes back to the quote by the founder of NED- Allen Weinstein “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

But that’s the thing- CIA still exists and still covertly funds individuals and organizations. However, these days (post-NED) they only fund those that would be unacceptable for the US government to be attached to. For example, “Operation Cyclone” in Afghanistan or “Timber Sycamore Program” in Syria. In both these cases, as CIA was working their magic, NED was also funding US interests in those countries in parallel.

Open “legitimate” funding - NED

Covert items US doesn’t wanna be openly associated with - CIA

They work as a team, both with the mutual goal of advancing US interests

Once again, US has a history of trying to destabilize Ukraine that goes back all the way to the start of Cold War. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/11/covert-operation-ukrainian-independence-haunts-cia-00029968

So to conclude:

I’ll make some claims and please tell me if we agree on them (I believe we will, because you agree $$$ influences democracy)

1. NED is a tool to advance US interests through funds injection

2. NED (along with some other US organizations seeking similar goals) openly pumped quite a lot of money into Ukraine.

3. CIA has a history of covertly funding US interests, and also in parallel with NED funding

4. CIA has a history of involvement in Ukraine

So, those 4 statements, I believe are facts. I made no conclusions, simply stated facts. From those facts, I believe it’s enough smoke to assume there is fire. You can say there are many holes, and that is fine. Two people can look at the same series of facts and come to different conclusions.

But I think when looking at the following fact in connection with the previous

5. US officials speaking on the phone in a highly classified call in such a casual and matter-of-fact way about which politician they want in Ukraine - and that politician served two terms as Prime Minister

Starts to fill in a pattern. Remember Occam’s Razor. What’s simplest is probably what is true.

To conclude my comment- can we at least agree mutually that US attempted to influence Ukrainian democracy? Maybe they were impotent and the radical coup in 2014 was a totally independent movement totally separate from any US influence. It was just a coincidence that the coup led to a pro-US government.

But can we at least agree on the above- US uses $$$ as a tool to advance their interests and they tried this in Ukraine?

You’d use your own head and assess for yourself what that tape means.

it’s a coincidence the guy they decided on just happened to be the guy who ended up being Prime Minister for two terms, right?

like i said in my original comment. it’s an interesting phenomenon. if you were to look in the past, it’s very easy to convince people the US acted covertly in many ways that were clearly imperialist. for example in Guatemala or Cuba or Iraq. It’s hard to find someone trying to defend US actions in these cases. But as it’s happening that goes out the window because propaganda has a powerful hold on emotion

Let’s take a step back and let me ask you a question. Please answer instead of diverting or otherwise trying to deflect

Question is: Do you believe money holds influence in US elections and do you think people with money actively try and influence elections?

Russia is a terrible ally and an even worse overlord I’m not arguing against that. It has a brutal history and a brutal people whose cultural DNA goes all the way back to the Mongol hordes pillaging and raping for tribute

Right, what I was getting at was that all the other claims are bullshit, this is a war because winning it would grant Russia strategic advantages, and they thought they’d win the conflict, probably not even expecting a full war; just a three day special operation.

yes, they expected Ukraine to fold. So did US intelligence, at least ostensibly.

although at this point, anybody paying attention sees the writing on the wall. Russia has been slowly inching forward all year. They will win unless there is some sort of dramatic change in battlefield dynamics

and US has no intention of allowing Ukraine to win. this is why I see US involvement as cynical. It was never meant to actually help Ukraine. Ukraine has been under Russian orbit for centuries. Throughout the entirety of the Cold War, it was under Russian control.

It does not meaningfully alter the power balance between US and Russia. US is just taking advantage to extract as much as they can out of this war and then when the juice is squeezed out of the lemon, Ukraine will fall under Russian control.

So if Ukraine losing was the point the entire time - what “help” was our help? It wasn’t to help the people, prolonging a destructive war only kills more people, destroys more homes, hamstrings economic output for a longer period of time. it will cost over $500B to reconstruct Ukraine (and I guarantee there won’t be any lively debates in congress on approving that aid) and Ukrainian demographics are ruined for a century

This is sort of my entire point - the US interests in this war don’t line up with the Ukrainian citizen. We want

a) Russia to bleed as much as possible for every inch

b) as much public $$$ as possible to be transferred to private hands

c) battlefield intelligence, both on new technologies and capabilities and on new Russian doctrines (for example drones & EW have been game changers) in preparation for the real war on the horizon

those goals mean the best way to play it is to hurt Ukraine as much as possible. Keep the war going on as long as possible. But never invest enough for Ukraine to win - that would likewise end the war.

It’s a very cynical and misanthropic position

Nobody is forcing Ukraine to ask the US for help (except Russia).

But who is “Ukraine”?

Who gets to make the decisions? The people of Ukraine? The unconstitutionally appointed government? The one who happens to cooperate directly with the CIA? The government that stems from the series of far-right protests that led to a coup? In a country where US has been pumping money for decades?

It sounds like the logic of Guatemala.

United Fruit Company (whose CEO was brothers with director of CIA) owned large swathes of land to grow bananas. They also owned railroads, telephone lines, and other general infrastructure.

A new democratic movement sparked up in order to take some of that land and distribute it to the people of Guatemala - why should a foreign company own all the farmland? (Similar thing happened in Cuba, except they were successful)

So what happens in Guatemala? A CIA supported coup puts in a new right-wing government. Now that new government cooperated with the USA and made sure United Fruit Company (Chiquita these days) kept the spice flowing.

Now, if you were to tell me “But kava, the Guatemalan government asked the US for help. It’s their independent and sovereign decision”

But was it really? Who gets to call the shots?

That’s the fundamental question here. I am not discounting sovereignty of Ukrainian people because Euromaidan is NOT the Guatemalan coup. It’s a whole different event with a different set of factors and influences. I wouldn’t even go so far to say it was a CIA-led coup. Just a CIA-supported one.

But the question is a nuanced one and not so simple as “Ukraine asked for help”. It’s more like Ukraine had no choice but to ask for help. The power-dynamic is not an equal one - like a teacher having sex with a student. Is it possible for that relationship to be consensual?

Like Chomsky says “we will fight them to the last Ukrainian”

Or was it North Korean?

Ukraine is in the process of being destroyed. It’s the only country involved in this war that is suffering that fate.

You should be supporting Ukraine because of democracy, sovereignty, and the security guarantees you gave them by signing the Budapest memorandum, remember, when Ukraine gave up its nukes.

Stop spreading misinformation. Read the Budapest Memorandum again, please. There were no security guarantees given by the US.

I believe in democracy and sovereignty - the US state does not.

and that’s another reason why you won’t be dropping Ukraine

What happens to Ukraine does not ultimately matter to US power. Right now it’s a convenient place to test new weapons, get battlefield intel, inject some nice cash into defense contractors.

But the real focus is on the East.

All this, ultimately, just amounts to a French win

See, I view the total opposite. It’s interesting how people can see the same thing and get different conclusions

After WW2, Europe was essentially made subservient to the US. The threat of the Soviets was very real and the US was the only one that could keep the Soviets at bay. Therefore, NATO was formed. Cue the infamous quote from the first General Secretary - the reason for NATO was “to keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out”

After 1991 there was a real hope that Russia could integrate with Europe. No more USSR, no more threat, right? No more reason for NATO, no more reason for hostility. Imagine a Europe where Russia was integrated into the security blanket. Europe would become a superpower by its own right - no need to bow down to the Americans. There was decades of slow attempts at integration (for example with energy like natural gas pipelines)

But that vision never materialized and after a gradual decline in relations, Russia invading Ukraine was the best gift Russia has ever given to the Americans.

It basically started the process of a permanent decoupling of Russia from Europe and it forced the Europeans into the arms of the Americans. Now, Europe has no choice but to align with the Americans.

This is the reason you start seeing populists like Trump start using harsh rhetoric about NATO. “Freeloading Europeans now need to pay their fair share”, etc.

The reason why Americans can get away with it now, where they couldn’t before, is because Europe has no choice.

agree. the regular people are always the ones that will end up suffering. lockheed martin shareholders got to enjoy a 30% spike in their holdings after feb 2022. hundreds of thousands of ukrainians lost family members, had to flee their homes, lost limbs, many died/will die, etc

i view geopolitics almost like i do tectonic plates. every once in a while when there are shifts, earthquakes happen. I think the Ukraine war is the small earthquake that always happens right before the big one.

to make more WW2 analogies

spanish civil war & italian invasion of ethiopia ₌ ukraine proxy war & israel/gaza/lebanon/iran situation

rise of fascists across europe ₌ rise of the new pseudo-fascists in US & Europe & really all over the world (look at Argentina, India, etc)

Lot of text to say “yes it was unconstitutional”

It’s impossible to sugar coat what Euromaidan was. Just like Azov, it slowly gets whitewashed because of propaganda. But at its core, it was a series of protests sparked by the Ukrainian far-right that led to an escalating ladder of violence that resulted in a coup. The day after the new government was appointed, it immediately bent the knee to the CIA. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html

https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea

If that – those totally irrelevant right sector fucks – is the US’s influence in Ukraine then it truly is pitiful. Compare the influence of glorious Europe: Ukraine actually wants to join up!

This war, for all intents and purposes, is a proxy war between US and Russia. US decides Ukrainian policy. US is the largest funder of this war. US gets to appoint Ukrainian politicians https://www.reuters.com/article/world/leaked-audio-reveals-embarrassing-us-exchange-on-ukraine-eu-idUSBREA1601K/

US has a long history of meddling in Ukraine https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/11/covert-operation-ukrainian-independence-haunts-cia-00029968

No, you’re just parroting their BS propaganda.

just because I refuse to drink one side’s kool aid does not mean I drink the other side’s. i’m an individual with imperfect knowledge doing my best to reach the closest thing to truth i can with the information i have available. you can attack me all you want, but i don’t really see how you addressed anything in your comment except : “the unconstitutional coup was justified because of popular support and so it doesn’t matter that it was illegal & you denounce the idea that the US has influence in Ukraine”

How was Ukraine “destabilized” compared to other comparable ex-USSR states until 2014?

see below. Ukraine was in a special position. most similar to Belarus, although much more important. US pumped money in a lot of ex-soviet states, that’s true.

If a country being in US orbit is a reason for Russia to attack it, why didn’t they attack Finland? Or the US directly in Alaska? What’s the significance with Ukraine?

Ukraine was under the Russian orbit since the 1700s. It was a fifth of the economic output of the USSR. In the Russian nation-state mythology Kiev is the mother city of all Russians. They share one of the largest borders in the world of mostly plains.

There’s a lot of reasons. Russia views Ukraine as theirs. Neither Finland or Alaska hold a fraction of the ideological, historic, and strategic importance to the Russians

The same memorandum btw granted Ukraine non-military aid from the US and France

go and re-read the 1994 agreement. it does not promise any help at all beyond promising to “seek immediate [UN] Security Council action”.

i don’t really think it’s relevant to the discussion though. international law (aka treaties) are used as justifications when convenient and ignored when not convenient.

Ukraine is getting destroyed because they happen to be a small country in between two great powers having a proxy war. Russia is the invader, the aggressor, the one who broke international law.

But US is not naive here. This was expected and planned for a long time before 2022 and a long time before 2014. Proxy war takes two sides to tango. We’re not supporting Ukraine because of democracy and sovereignty and human rights, we’re doing it for geopolitical motives. A sort of modern Spanish Civil War. Testing out new battlefield technology before the next Great War.

Unfortunately for the people of Ukraine the geopolitical motives and interests of the US don’t necessarily align with their interests. Like Chomsky says “we will fight them to the last Ukrainian”

we’ve been pumping money into regime change in Ukraine since the early 90s. NED (National Endowment for Democracy) used to show the dollar figures and specific organizations on their website but deleted that information a while back. You can still find it with Wayback Machine

Essentially we’ve been funding and supporting organizations in Ukraine under the guise of “pro-Democracy™” “pro-Liberty™” with the goal of supporting any potential chances for regime change. Some of those organizations just happen to be associated with the far-right groups that were part of the initial government that was unconstitutionally appointed In 2014 after Euromaidan- a series of violent protests that forced the pro-Russian president to flee the country.

tldr: we’ve been destabilizing Ukraine for a long time. the idea was to peel off Ukraine from Russia’s orbit and throw it into the US orbit. And it worked. Which is why Russia invaded in 2014

Note before I get the inevitable Russian shill comments - I’m not justifying any aggressive invasion by Russia. I’m saying this is a proxy war - a game of tug of war between two larger powers. Neither care in the slightest about what actually happens to the Ukrainians.

They will not recover from this war for a hundred years. But Lockheed Martin stock will perform nicely

edit: and remember this comment in 15 years. people will be talking as if what I’m saying is obvious. but right now the propaganda is strong- just like in 2003 with invasion of Iraq

At the time when we launched the aggressive and illegal invasion of a sovereign county, we were doing it for Democracy™ and Human Rights™

At the time, you would have been called a traitor, shill, or insane to suggest otherwise.

After some years, it becomes absolutely clear none of it was true. It was all for imperialist motives. It seems that the propaganda is strong, but it has a short half life. Today you’ll have trouble finding someone defending the US invasion of Iraq.

I think we are seeing the same thing with Ukraine war. In 10, 15 years people will see the war for what it is- a progressive destabilization of Eastern Europe and intentional proxy war.

But right now- it’s Sovereignty™, International Law™, and Democracy™

We destroyed Iraq. We doomed millions of people for generations. And we are participating right now in the destruction of another country.

It’s just that we do. We destroy.

Israel & the US are more or less one and the same. if i remember correctly, 98% of representatives in congress last election cycle was endorsed by the AIPAC

there’s a reason we can only vote for pro-Israeli politicians. Israel projects US power in the mideast

not saying they don’t do all of that. read the reuters article i linked before. or this one: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/03/why-russia-has-been-so-resilient-to-western-export-controls?lang=en

russia does not need israel. they have complex and sophisticated systems that these days use China a lot but they don’t even need China. it’s sometimes impossible to tell whether you’re selling your microwaves to a russian company or not. it’ll look like a legit company, and then it gets somehow routed to russia and they use the microchips or whatever.

all i’m saying is

a) it doesn’t need Israel’s help for this.

b) israel doesn’t have the industrial capacity (small country, gdp only $500B) the geopolitical position for it (they are a tool of US interests and would not meaningfully harm US interests) and the domestic will for it (again, russia is friends with Iran, Israel’s mortal enemy)

there absolutely are parts of the government that will support Russia. Almost half of Israelis speak Russian and have connections to that area. So yeah, of course. But from a top-down directive it’s doubtful

notice i’m not denying Israel does not supply extremists. i’m specifically referring to this russia-israel dynamic

yes, israel supports extremists. they have a very advanced intelligence system and do all sorts of crazy shit. they’re wild. i agree

if you look at my history it isn’t particularly pro-israeli

it’s just that in this specific context, I don’t think it’s as significant as it may seem on first reading. Israel has had a long relationship of cooperation with Russia. Although lately things have gotten more tense between the two, with Iran and Russia becoming closer. Iran is Israel’s mortal enemy and Russia supplying money and tech transfer over in exchange for Shaheeds is a big no-no for them

so while yes, there probably are pro-Russian elements in the Israeli state that have probably helped Russia circumvent sanctions and export controls… the brunt of their materials probably comes from China, from European sources, and maybe even American companies themselves.

russia doesn’t need Israeli help to get access to American parts

All the way back in the Cold War the Soviets had a governmental department specifically to source parts from the West that was blocked off to sanctions. They have decades of experience creating shell companies, intermediaries, etc.

if someone wants to do more research the parent organization was “First Main Directorate of the Committee for State Security under the USSR council of ministers” and the department was called “Directorate T: Scientific and Technical Intelligence” sometimes referred to as just “Line X”

so basically the Russians have had many decades of experience circumventing sanctions and export controls. The Russians, while a shell of the former USSR, still have a lot of the human capital and base of experience in this regard.

I remember reading an article on Reuters or Washington Post or something where apparently even after sanctions, the Russians are getting roughly 90% of the high-tech components they were getting before the war. So the sanctions have hurt, but by a marginal amount. I think it’s this article: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/western-industrial-components-rebuilding-russias-military-2024-08-16/ but Reuters is now paywalled for me

i’m not ready to say we’ll kill them yet. for example we stuck Japanese in camps but didn’t kill them. sure, we took all their property and whatnot.

but you’re right that it’s concerning because remember the Nazis originally did not mean to kill the Jews. Initially they meant to deport them out of the country.

They created the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in the early 1930s which was meant to facilitate the process of Jews leaving the country voluntarily (at least at first) and also by force. Sort of like our modern ICE

One big idea before the decision to exterminate was to send them all to Madagascar. They seriously explored this idea in the late 1930s but realized it was logistically impractical to transport such a large number of people.

Some enterprising Jews managed to float the idea of returning Jews to British Palestine - and they collaborated with the Nazis to get 60k Jews out of Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haavara_Agreement

But eventually they realized, around 1941, that the easiest way to deal with the Jewish Question would just be to industrially exterminate the Jews

this entire process lasted about a decade give or take a couple years.

my main concern is this: let’s say they start this process. they make the camps, they put hundreds of thousands in said camps. but then they realize they don’t have the money, will, or logistical capacity to actually continue through with it

what happens then? that’s the key question. in the beginning, exterminating is out of the question. it sounds absurd.

but over time, as the situation gets normalized, the overton window shifts. then you mix in economic crisis and war… the idea of extermination starts to look less and less absurd

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/cbsnews_20240609_1.pdf

That’s a link to a CBS / YouGov poll taken in June of this year.

If you scroll down to question number 62, you’ll see this

62. Would you favor or oppose the U.S. government starting a new national program to deport all undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. illegally

Favor . . . . . . . . 62% Oppose . . . . . . . . 38%

That’s a national poll taken of all registered voters, so not just Republicans.

Majority of the people in this country support mass deportation of all illegal immigrants. Majority of the people in this country support a policy that would

• require dozens of camps near all urban areas to house tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people
• require the federal government to dramatically increase the size of ICE, having to hire tens of thousands of additional officers
• that beefed up federal agency would have to search through all urban areas and stop individuals to inspect their paperwork
• those individuals who are caught will have to spend many months if not years in a concentration camp detention center

Consider this. There are anywhere between 10~15 million illegals in this country. Let’s call it 12,500,000. How many seats does an Airbus A321 hold? (fairly standard and common passenger aircraft) About ~200 give or take 30 or so.

So, how many back and forth flights would you need to send 12.5M people back to their country of origin at 200 people per flight?

That’s 62,500 flights. The largest passenger airline in the US, American Airlines, has a fleet size of 970. Let’s call it 1,000 (you can find this on their wiki page)

It would then take all of American Airlines roughly 60 days to move all illegals out of this country, assuming 100% capacity on each and every single flight.

So in a best case scenario, assuming the US federal government was somehow able to emulate the total logistical capacity of the largest passenger airline, it would take 2 months to move all of these people.

Now consider this is the federal government that could not even properly create a floating pier in Gaza: https://www.npr.org/2024/07/30/nx-s1-5050708/what-went-wrong-with-the-u-s-built-floating-pier-designed-to-get-aid-into-gaza

Just some numbers as food for thought. Majority of Americans support placing and keeping millions of people in camps for years.

Living through this, it doesn’t surprise me at all how most Germans did not care about what happened to the Jews

You’re still supporting evil, even if it’s the lesser evil.

this is rather why i like the quote from ZIzek i heard in an interview recently

“if i were an American, I would obviously vote for Kamala. No question. But before I go into the booth, I would make the Christian Catholic cross with my hands and beg God for forgiveness”

i voted for Kamala but I did it with an awful taste in my mouth. Of course, just like all humans are guilty of Eden’s original sin… I think all of us Americans are guilty of benefiting from imperialism, capitalist exploitation, and the spoils of genocide.

games like EU4 simulate it pretty well

when you first take a territory, it requires infamy. other countries look at you with sideways. you can’t extract the full value out of the land yet. but after a long period of time (upwards of 50 years) it slowly starts to become legitimized. especially as you import settlers and built population centers. after a long enough time, it’s both de facto and de jure yours and if you hold it long enough people will recognize it as yours.

so look what happened with West Bank. when Israel took control of WB in 1967, it was majority Palestinian.

what did they do? first, you import settlers. you give incentives for people to come and populate the area with Jews. you also tacitly endorse the ideology of the settlers, so they do it even without you actively supporting it (so you have some semblance plausible deniability when people call you out)

then, you take the native peoples and you herd them into smaller and smaller pieces of land. you restrict movement (like through their “jewish only roads” and the many checkpoints through the WB) (edit: sound similar to what Americans did to another native peoples by chance? almost like it was a blueprint)

fast forward to today, and now 63% of the land area of West Bank is majority Jewish. The Palestinian population is still higher, but they are forced into smaller and smaller pieces of low-value land. In about 50 years or so they’ve managed to turn a majority Arab area into a majority Jewish.

this gives them legitimacy. there’s no way some future government, even if they wanted to be more generous, would ever give up majority Jewish land.

I’d say the entire process is gonna take ~75 years or so. we’re almost to its conclusion. they’re gonna replicate their WB strategy in Gaza, but since Gaza is much smaller and they’re being much more brutal about it, it’ll go much faster

I think the best way to become more resistant to propaganda is to read and understand history. If you only pay attention to this conflict since Oct 7th and you are getting your entire media diet from certain dubious sources, you don’t stand a chance.

but if you deep dive and actually look at the history. look at the beginning of the state of Israel, look at the early leaders, what they were saying, what they believed. look at the process of occupation, what the policies have been (ethnic cleansings population transfers, restriction of movement, blockade of gaza, destruction of airports, killing of journalists, etc)

then you will have a more cynical eye when certain people try to twist and bend the truth. and you will be more accurate in predicting where the ball will land.

the last 80 years has been the slow elimination and annexation of palestine

it really doesn’t matter which pro-Israeli US presidential candidate serves for the next 4