|
"Europeans" did not at all broadly support the deployment in Afghanistan. European governments honoured article 5, but it was very unpopular at home.
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2024 09:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 18:23 |
|
|
Antigravitas posted:"Europeans" did not at all broadly support the deployment in Afghanistan. European governments honoured article 5, but it was very unpopular at home. "very" unpopular is pushing it - it wasn't a big deal in any country whose politics i follow. it wasn't popular, but nobody was seriously running for election against the occupation or anything. even the fringe left weren't pushing their anti-occupation stance for the most part in the way they would've if it were a thing people actively resented
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2024 10:22
|
|
|
I also remember living through those times and it was pretty clear that the decision to go to war, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for every military adventure since, was taken first, and then afterwards it was made popular. Or just about made to garner enough support. Over here in Italy they opened the sluice gates and a flood of 24/7 bloodthirst screaming propaganda came gushing forth. You could not be a pacifist voice in public discourse. Doubts could only be publicly acknowledged after the enormity of the disaster became apparent, but that was years later, when the massacres were done, the money was already spent, the countries devastated. But the public discourse in the lead-up to both invasions was something I have not seen since, I have never seen that level of pro-war propaganda hydro-cannon again, to the point that it's hard to even convey that atmosphere or sometimes to acknowledge that it was a thing that happened and not some feverish nightmare. If the government ever decided to to something similar again, I have no doubts that the process would be exactly the same, so someone can always well ackshually me about how popular the war was
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2024 13:46
|
|
|
In many countries Iraq was completely, 100% different from Afghanistan. The biggest ever demonstration in Finland was against the idiotic invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile Afghanistan was just a background thing which we helped with, even though Finland wasn't in Nato at that time. Of course in some unfortunate countries they did both.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2024 17:15
|
|
|
mortons stork posted:I also remember living through those times and it was pretty clear that the decision to go to war, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for every military adventure since, was taken first, and then afterwards it was made popular. Or just about made to garner enough support. tbf this is basically all meaningful foreign policy - see the remarkable process of swedish NATO accession for a recent case of squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube before anyone had time to really talk about the issue. even after it became clear to anyone paying attention that we were propping up a cruel and totally illegitimate puppet regime in afghanistan it wasn't unpopular because 1) there was a sense that we owed this to the americans (this is the main benefit sketched in the norwegian parliamentary inquiry into that war, for instance) and 2) it wasn't causing any direct impact on the lives of ordinary people. the guys who went were typically professionals and/or volunteers, and you could make a plausible case that we were helping out with women's rights etc. (uplifting the natives, if you will) by the continued occupation so it was kind of a wash. the lefties were of course opposed, but the general sense was that we were opposed because this is the sort of thing to which we're always opposed rather than any particular political commitment. for an examination of typical nordic attitudes to afghanistan well into the occupation, see Borgen season 2 ep 1. it's quite watchable television and it's also extremely revealing e. if anything i'd say that iraq is the exceptional case here, since the americans made such a public attempt at bullying their allies into making a serious investment with them, which those allies weren't necessarily prepared to do without any at least plausibly compelling reason. many countries did despite the case for that war being obvious nonsense, but the degree of elite discord on the issue made a public conversation real and potentially impactful in some instances. dissent on that point was taken seriously in a way which i don't think i've seen replicated at any other time in my life when it comes to major foreign policy decisions. V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Apr 6, 2024 |
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2024 22:21
|
|
|
jaete posted:In many countries Iraq was completely, 100% different from Afghanistan. The biggest ever demonstration in Finland was against the idiotic invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile Afghanistan was just a background thing which we helped with, even though Finland wasn't in Nato at that time. ISAF operated on a mandate from UN Security Council, so had also the approval of Russia and China. This ties to Putin approaching GWB at the time, pointing out that "see, I was right in dealing with Chechens!" This relationship soured quickly when Bush and Blair started drumming up for war against Iraq, and in part cemented Putin's view that Russia must seek geopolitical independence and regional leadership, Russia has only to lose by playing by rules if USA plays Calvin Ball. I'm not sure that he wouldn't have become an underpant poisoning genocidal despot in any case, but that we'll never know. However USA and Britain lost a lot of soft power in third world by destabilising the entire region hunting for non-existent WMDs, something that Putin then claimed Ukraine had in 2022.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2024 15:02
|
|
|
Iraq also cost a lot of good will in Europe. There's a reason they renamed french fries into freedom fries. The war caused a massive loving rift within NATO. The German Foreign Minister stepped up to the podium and explained to the entire world that he didn't buy the WMD evidence. I was in school at the time and it was not only tolerated but encouraged by the school administration to go anti-war protests. An otherwise completely unthinkable thing. It was absolutely within the Overton window of the time to discuss whether a military alliance with the US was still appropriate, given that all they did was bomb brown people in illegal and cruel invasions. The US massively lost the public trust. Russia seemed sane and rational by comparison. The 2000s were the reasons why in the 2020s many people simply laughed off American intelligence that pointed towards a Russian invasion of Ukraine. No one wanted to believe the Americans because of how they acted in the years after 9/11.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2024 23:13
|
|
|
Lord Stimperor posted:Iraq also cost a lot of good will in Europe. note that this was purely in the realm of public discourse - elite sentiment was firmly enough pro-american that the NSA being publicly revealed to have tapped angela merkel's communications was basically brushed under the rug in 2015, and smaller allies have had our leashes shortened considerably with the establishment of american not-bases with what amounts to extraterritorial status on our soil. we love the americans and always have, except for iraq and before that vietnam
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2024 23:22
|
|
|
Lord Stimperor posted:Iraq also cost a lot of good will in Europe.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2024 05:27
|
|
|
A Buttery Pastry posted:Was that "many" people still, given that Russia had already annexed Crimea six years earlier, and parts of Georgia earlier still? Neither of those got enough news coverage to cause a significant shift in public opinion.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2024 19:34
|
|
|
VictualSquid posted:Neither of those got enough news coverage to cause a significant shift in public opinion.  Georgia does not seem to have moved the needle much, but Crimea appears to have shifted attitudes quite a lot in Europe. I suppose it's possible it didn't stick in all cases, but then we're talking about people getting convinced within a decade that the guy who just annexed a neighboring territory would definitely not invade the same country again.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2024 21:10
|
|
|
Both Israel and Palestine being fans of Russian anti-western authoritarianism is pretty funny.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2024 21:23
|
|
|
A Buttery Pastry posted:This does not seem to be true: The sentiment I remember from before the war wasn't "Putin would never invade again", it was "Putin will not invade Ukraine right now". The arguments that convinced me personally were pointing out reasons that an invasion would fail if Putin tried. Though there always was an only half joking undercurrent of "The Amis are saying he will invade, which proves that he won't".
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2024 18:23
|
|
|
So with more aggressive moves in Georgia to make it a Russian vassal state, will the EU parliament pull it's finger out? We go live to a farting donkey for the latest.
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 15:39
|
|
|
The EU and the US has similar laws. Should they also remove those laws and let foreign agents operate without transparency or disclosure?
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 00:34
|
|
|
Denmark already lets foreign agents from the US operate without transparency and disclosure.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 10:57
|
|
|
BlankSystemDaemon posted:Denmark already lets foreign agents from the US operate without transparency and disclosure. Excuse me, I'm Canadian, thanks.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 11:05
|
|
|
Rust Martialis posted:Excuse me, I'm Canadian, thanks.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 12:53
|
|
|
Jon Pod Van Damm posted:The EU and the US has similar laws. Should they also remove those laws and let foreign agents operate without transparency or disclosure? The people living there have said this is being obviously targeted only at non Russian sources.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 13:51
|
|
|
If there are NGOs funded by Russia or the United States in Georgia that should be disclosed. NGOs funded by foreign governments shouldn't be able to operate in secret.Tesseraction posted:The people living there have said this is being obviously targeted only at non Russian sources. People living in the United States have claimed that the 2020 presidential election was obviously stolen. That doesn't necessarily make it true. People in every country have political affiliations and biases. Jon Pod Van Damm fucked around with this message at 14:04 on May 15, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 13:53
|
|
|
I mean, yes you have to take the claims with a grain of salt but everything I have seen from the reporting that isn't from Western chauvinists or Kremlin apologists still notes that the law is problematic at best and overall a net negative to political discourse in Georgia. I guess that not speaking Georgian means I can't see if this is a mass gaslighting of English speakers, but given the Georgian president is out there calling this a "return to the past" (negatively) suggests to me that this isn't a benign law like the ones you've mentioned in Europe and America, which for all their faults are neither one at risk of being made a vassal state of a greater power.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 15:42
|
|
|
So someone tried to whack the Slovakian PM?
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 20:25
|
|
|
Reports are that instead of being someone mad about his weird Russian apologia, it was actually someone mad that he isn't genociding the Roma in Slovakia.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 21:16
|
|
|
Strong Georg Elser vibes, trying to assassinate Hitler because he thought that he had a criminal skull shape like a Romani person.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 21:28
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:Strong Georg Elser vibes, trying to assassinate Hitler because he thought that he had a criminal skull shape like a Romani person. i don't necessarily think that it's entirely appropriate to liken the guy who just got shot for being insufficiently racist, to hitler
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 21:47
|
|
|
Seems there's Facebook posts tying this guy to a known Russian-linked militant group https://twitter.com/panyiszabolcs/status/1790789652078526939 (thread) We'll learn more in the coming days but certainly not the geopolitical development I was expecting today.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 21:54
|
|
|
That's a really dumb name, it means Slovakian Conscripts (no there is no conscription in Slovakia). I guess you could translate it as Slovakian Militia but then that would Slovenská Milícia so really there's no excuse. e: I get it's meant to have a volkssturm sort of vibe, but it still seems like a really dumb name. But then again being smart was never a major selling point of fash. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 22:13 on May 15, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 15, 2024 22:04
|
|
|
Tesseraction posted:I mean, yes you have to take the claims with a grain of salt but everything I have seen from the reporting that isn't from Western chauvinists or Kremlin apologists still notes that the law is problematic at best and overall a net negative to political discourse in Georgia.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2024 03:18
|
|
|
While I can, and do, plan to answer that, if you're just Socratic methoding me before providing some counter sources, could you save us both some time and point me to the very obvious information that proves me wrong?
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2024 08:09
|
|
|
Jon Pod Van Damm posted:What publications have you read the reporting in? What specifically about this law in Georgia makes it problematic at best, a net negative to political discourse, and less benign or different than the ones in other countries? Are there any specifics in the law that makes it different? You can also argue it being bad on the merit that the guy controlling the ruling party is also the richest man in the country controlling wealth equal to a third of Georgia's GDP, who just gave himself tax breaks. So with that law in place Georgia will likely be stuck with their billionaire president as only he will have the domestic financial muscles to run campaigns, control media, probably while having the ruling party clamping down on any opposition using said laws selectively. That is unless Georgians can scrounge up quite substantial domestic financial support for any opposition or civil society groups, which I and many others deem unlikely. I think this type of funding disclosure laws are a good thing in theory though, but they can definitely be misused if one party has such funding leverage and/or few expects the law to be applied evenly.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2024 11:31
|
|
|
Zudgemud posted:You can also argue it being bad on the merit that the guy controlling the ruling party is also the richest man in the country controlling wealth equal to a third of Georgia's GDP, who just gave himself tax breaks. So with that law in place Georgia will likely be stuck with their billionaire president as only he will have the domestic financial muscles to run campaigns, control media, probably while having the ruling party clamping down on any opposition using said laws selectively. That is unless Georgians can scrounge up quite substantial domestic financial support for any opposition or civil society groups, which I and many others deem unlikely. I think this type of funding disclosure laws are a good thing in theory though, but they can definitely be misused if one party has such funding leverage and/or few expects the law to be applied evenly.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2024 21:04
|
|
|
Jon Pod Van Damm posted:Would you want more American NGOs and think tanks to influence politics in your own country (Sweden)? If banning American NGOs and thinks tanks means you turn into Russia then very much yes.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2024 21:12
|
|
|
It's possible to think that America is evil without necessarily assuming everything Russia does is benign. I ask again - do you have something that neutralises my misunderstanding of the way that the Georgia law is perceived by anyone who has studied post-Soviet Russian foreign policy?
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2024 00:09
|
|
|
Jon Pod Van Damm posted:Would you want more American NGOs and think tanks to influence politics in your own country (Sweden)? If I had to choose between those lovely options I would rather have more NGO and think tanks influencing my country for the time being than getting a new entrenched Ingvar Kamprad at the helm of the country. One option can likely be changed over a foreseeable future and the other option is just waiting for a specific billionaire promoting the same general political interests to croak from old age.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2024 01:50
|
|
|
Jon Pod Van Damm posted:What publications have you read the reporting in? What specifically about this law in Georgia makes it problematic at best, a net negative to political discourse, and less benign or different than the ones in other countries? Are there any specifics in the law that makes it different? tbf this is pretty obviously being done to address a certain kind of foreign influence in georgia and only makes sense as a first step in bringing that sector to heel. governments are generally quite happy to see foreign influence so long as that foreign influence corresponds more or less with their own agenda (see the whole moral panic about chinese or russian information warfare and then compare it to the myriad institutional institutions exerting US influence on any european country). it's not unreasonable to see a couple of more steps down the line and see this as the start of a reining in of a generally atlanticist, liberal influence in georgian politics. if you like atlanticist liberalism (at least compared to whatever else is on the menu) then it's natural to think of that as bad. what it's not is formally outrageous - there's no particular reason that such a foreign agent registry would be outrageous or unreasonable per se, it's all in the context of this specific political situation. Zudgemud posted:If I had to choose between those lovely options I would rather have more NGO and think tanks influencing my country for the time being than getting a new entrenched Ingvar Kamprad at the helm of the country. One option can likely be changed over a foreseeable future and the other option is just waiting for a specific billionaire promoting the same general political interests to croak from old age. this, though, i don't think is reasonable (e. assuming i'm parsing it correctly, which i actually may not be on second read? apologies if so). foreign-funded think tanks are generally more ideologically fixed and less accountable than domestic ones, where you can in principle at least embarrass the individuals involved and try to make them stop funding whatever stuff they're funding, like what happened to bulletin. when something's funded by e.g. the NED or some nebulous foundation, it's effectively immune to that sort of pressure because what're you going to do? make bureaucrat #36 feel like the journal for translating telegraph articles is too embarassing to be associated with? it's a real issue for a polity when foreign entities start trying to exert soft power over their institutions by funding NGOs, news organisations and suchlike. the EU itself is no stranger to fairly drastic measures in the face of such efforts, as could be seen with the banning of sputnik etc. following the escalation in ukraine in 2022.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2024 18:22
|
|
|
I have friends from Georgia and I visited the country last year and it's kind of insane how pro-EU the general sentiment is in Tbilisi. The people I talked to also have something similar to the pre-2003 reverance that Europeans had for the US. Outside of Tbilisi the country is a complete mess. Everything on the black sea has been completely settled by wealthy russians now. Kadyrov thugs drive completely unchallenged across the northern border to Batumi in black SUVs filled with AKs, causing mayhem for locals until they get bored and go home. There is no amount of foreign influence that will save them from the fact that there is no hard power on their side which will sever them from Russian influence or that they could be rolled over even easier than Ukraine in 2014.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2024 08:37
|
|
|
If reporting is still accurate they're still being rolled over, just really slowly Russian expansion: 'I went to bed in Georgia – and woke up in South Ossetia' As recently as 2015 (yes, I know what's 9 years ago, but what about the past 9 years has given you the impression that Russia has chilled out on expansionist poo poo?) Russian troops keep moving the barbed wire border several metres south overnight every now and again, and Georgia's calls for aid fell on deaf ears.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2024 11:14
|
|
|
So is this the EU election thread too? Apparently German Nazis are too nazi even for the other nazis. AfD got kicked out of the Identity and Democracy EU parliamentary group: https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-identity-and-democracy-group-expels-alternative-for-germany/
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2024 19:57
|
|
|
Well, if there's one thing we know about German Nazis, it's that they take rebuke seriously, reassess their political beliefs, and become better people.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2024 20:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 18:23 |
|
|
Or do a mass suicide with cyanide in a theatre. I hear the Wintergarten has some good shows on.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2024 21:07
|
|