Ukraine in turmoil

[Rinaldo]

Not really.  Russia's aggression in recent years has been limited to the Caucasus and Ukraine, territories traditionally (ie, the last several hundred years) dominated by Russia.  Since the Cold War, the US has engaged in war, or military action if war is deemed too harsh a word, in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and it has engaged in clandestine activity in more countries.  The flowery language of democracy cannot make up for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the ongoing, remote-control murder of whomever is deemed an enemy combatant.  It is the US that operates wherever it wants, that kills wherever it wants.  Putin is an autocrat, to be sure, but that doesn't automatically make his actions any worse.

Superpowers will be superpowers. And I tend to be on the side of those that are democratic. There's nothing flowery about it - I just prefer my world police to be from a land with free elections, free press and free speech. Russia has none of that nowadays.

As to those who protested in Ukraine, what proportion of the population was involved, and do they really represent the majority or even a significant minority of Ukrainian citizens?

This answer is simple: yes.

"The protesters represent every group of Ukrainian citizens: Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers (although most Ukrainians are bilingual), people from the cities and the countryside, people from all regions of the country, members of all political parties, the young and the old, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Every major Christian denomination is represented by believers and most of them by clergy. The Crimean Tatars march in impressive numbers, and Jewish leaders have made a point of supporting the movement. The diversity of the Maidan is impressive: the group that monitors hospitals so that the regime cannot kidnap the wounded is run by young feminists. An important hotline that protesters call when they need help is staffed by LGBT activists."

Timothy Snyder: Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine

[Todd]

I just prefer my world police to be from a land with free elections, free press and free speech. Russia has none of that nowadays.

Russia is not acting as the so-called world police, whatever that is; Russia is pursuing a narrow, limited, strategic action.  Do you really subscribe to the bizarre, almost perverse morality your post implies?  That is, are minor Russian actions that have so far resulted in no, or few, deaths somehow worse than, or at best morally equal to, wars that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands (or at least over one hundred thousand using conservative estimates) because those wars were undertaken by a democratic power using a variety of pretenses, some of them false?  Are Russian actions now really worse than the US continuing to murder people in a method that is increasingly viewed as illegal the world over (ie, drone strikes)?

The US does not act as the world police.  The US pursues actions that advance its interests, above all its economic and strategic interests.  If the US really were to act as some type of world police, it would have acted immediately to stop the bloodshed in Yugoslavia in the 90s; it would have sent troops into Rwanda, possibly preventing the carnage in the Congo; it would have been, and would be now, more directly involved in Congo; it would actively join the French in Mali; it would take action to oust Omar al-Bashir and set up an effective government that could prevent what remains of Sudan from collapsing; it would oust Robert Mugabe; and so on.  It does not.  The countries I mentioned were of little or no consequence to the US.  Little or nothing was or will be done.  And of course doing the things I mentioned are themselves of dubious legality. 

This answer is simple: yes.

"The protesters represent every group of Ukrainian citizens: Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers (although most Ukrainians are bilingual), people from the cities and the countryside, people from all regions of the country, members of all political parties, the young and the old, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Every major Christian denomination is represented by believers and most of them by clergy. The Crimean Tatars march in impressive numbers, and Jewish leaders have made a point of supporting the movement. The diversity of the Maidan is impressive: the group that monitors hospitals so that the regime cannot kidnap the wounded is run by young feminists. An important hotline that protesters call when they need help is staffed by LGBT activists."
sm, Russia, and Ukraine[/url]

I didn't see anything in the article that supports your answer, and your selected quote does not, either.  Because the small number of protestors happen to have a satisfying degree of (so-called) diversity to western eyes does not mean that the protestors represent a majority or significant minority of the population.  The article and response strike me as wishful thinking.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I just prefer my world police to be from a land with free elections, free press and free speech. Russia has none of that nowadays.

Having lived in Russia 2005-2012, I have to say that this is a gross oversimplification. Russian life often has a dizzying amount of freedom, sometimes bordering on anarchy. The country's problems lie elsewhere.

I didn't see anything in the article that supports your answer, and your selected quote does not, either.  Because the small number of protestors happen to have a satisfying degree of (so-called) diversity to western eyes does not mean that the protestors represent a majority or significant minority of the population.  The article and response strike me as wishful thinking.

I suspect that Snyder is trying to get on the good side of NYRoB readers - the sort of people who value "diversity" and "tolerance" above everything. Whether all these diverse groups add up to a coherent movement that resonates with the majority of the population is a different matter.

[Brian]

Having lived in Russia 2005-2012, I have to say that this is a gross oversimplification. Russian life often has a dizzying amount of freedom, sometimes bordering on anarchy. The country's problems lie elsewhere.

Russia may have economic freedoms (corruption aside), but it does not have a very free press or free political system, which is what Rinaldo said.

[Ken B]

Russia is not acting as the so-called world police, whatever that is; Russia is pursuing a narrow, limited, strategic action.  Do you really subscribe to the bizarre, almost perverse morality your post implies?  That is, are minor Russian actions that have so far resulted in no, or few, deaths somehow worse than, or at best morally equal to, wars that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands (or at least over one hundred thousand using conservative estimates) because those wars were undertaken by a democratic power using a variety of pretenses, some of them false?  Are Russian actions now really worse than the US continuing to murder people in a method that is increasingly viewed as illegal the world over (ie, drone strikes)?

The US does not act as the world police.  The US pursues actions that advance its interests, above all its economic and strategic interests.  If the US really were to act as some type of world police, it would have acted immediately to stop the bloodshed in Yugoslavia in the 90s; it would have sent troops into Rwanda, possibly preventing the carnage in the Congo; it would have been, and would be now, more directly involved in Congo; it would actively join the French in Mali; it would take action to oust Omar al-Bashir and set up an effective government that could prevent what remains of Sudan from collapsing; it would oust Robert Mugabe; and so on.  It does not.  The countries I mentioned were of little or no consequence to the US.  Little or nothing was or will be done.  And of course doing the things I mentioned are themselves of dubious legality. 





I didn't see anything in the article that supports your answer, and your selected quote does not, either.  Because the small number of protestors happen to have a satisfying degree of (so-called) diversity to western eyes does not mean that the protestors represent a majority or significant minority of the population.  The article and response strike me as wishful thinking.

Just a factual question. Is your 100k based on the discredited Lancet article?
I'm not here to debate, just to know what to make of your sourcing. People toss around more numbers than anyone can verify. 

[Todd]

Just a factual question. Is your 100k based on the discredited Lancet article?

No.  The (low) 100K figure comes from the Associated Press and the United States Army separately.  The Lancet report is something along the lines of 600K+.  Those figures are through 2009 only.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Russia may have economic freedoms (corruption aside), but it does not have a very free press or free political system, which is what Rinaldo said.

There are plenty of newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs etc. which are "free" in exactly the same way as their Western counterparts - i.e. they are privately owned and express a range of opinions, often critical of the government. The "Putin controls the media with an iron hand" notion that's widely believed outside of Russia only really applies to television.

A lot of these notions are based on the lazy idea that Russia is reverting to the Soviet model, which is not only untrue, but often the exact opposite of the truth.

[Ken B]

No.  The (low) 100K figure comes from the Associated Press and the United States Army separately.  The Lancet report is something along the lines of 600K+.  Those figures are through 2009 only.

Thanks. I think though you have tipped their unreliability. The war was in 2003. Ascribing deaths in the Korean War to WWII is incorrect. Ascribing influenza deaths to WWI  similarly. Counting deaths through 2009 similarly. Even worse counting hypotheticals.

[kishnevi]

Thanks. I think though you have tipped their unreliability. The war was in 2003. Ascribing deaths in the Korean War to WWII is incorrect. Ascribing influenza deaths to WWI  similarly. Counting deaths through 2009 similarly. Even worse counting hypotheticals.

Actually, in the sense that political violence has gone on ever since 2003,  varying only in the intensity, and left substantial numbers of dead,  means the war is not over.  It's simply now a civil war with lack of uniforms and with minimal US involvement. But the violence has never actually stopped. Same for Afghanistan.  So to include all those deaths is, I think, legitimate.

[Todd]

Thanks. I think though you have tipped their unreliability. The war was in 2003. Ascribing deaths in the Korean War to WWII is incorrect. Ascribing influenza deaths to WWI  similarly. Counting deaths through 2009 similarly. Even worse counting hypotheticals.

Your analogies are not apt, and your timeline is incorrect.  The Iraq war did not begin and end in 2003.  The so-called Surge did not occur until 2007, for instance.  The US did not remove combat troops until 2011 - with a sizable contingent going to Kuwait, by the way.  The US was engaged directly in hostilities in Iraq for eight years.  The low end estimates of violent deaths in Iraq between 2003 and 2009 are just over 100,000.  There were more through 2011.  (The US Army does not often go in for hypotheticals.)  While the US military did not kill all of the people, the US invasion directly led to the conditions in which the deaths occurred.  Factoring in non-violent deaths over the same time (starvation, disease, etc), the total rises.  Your response seeks to absolve the United States of responsibility for its actions; the dead died because of the US invasion and its aftermath.  You seem to want to minimize the number, and the impact.

This also excludes the deaths in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia as a result of US military action.  The figure of foreign war dead in US wars is higher than 100K this century.  How significant that is depends on whether you are one of the dead or not, I guess.

May I ask, what figure are you comfortable with?

[Ken B]

Actually, in the sense that political violence has gone on ever since 2003,  varying only in the intensity, and left substantial numbers of dead,  means the war is not over.  It's simply now a civil war with lack of uniforms and with minimal US involvement. But the violence has never actually stopped. Same for Afghanistan.  So to include all those deaths is, I think, legitimate.

Whether it is legitimate or not is a judgment. It is a moral judgment too in your case, as can be seen from your phrasing. So the number tells me more about the person making the moral judgment does about who died when. It's not a statement of fact yet it is wielded as if it were one.

[Ken B]

Your analogies are not apt, and your timeline is incorrect.  The Iraq war did not begin and end in 2003.  The so-called Surge did not occur until 2007, for instance.  The US did not remove combat troops until 2011 - with a sizable contingent going to Kuwait, by the way.  The US was engaged directly in hostilities in Iraq for eight years.  The low end estimates of violent deaths in Iraq between 2003 and 2009 are just over 100,000.  There were more through 2011.  (The US Army does not often go in for hypotheticals.)  While the US military did not kill all of the people, the US invasion directly led to the conditions in which the deaths occurred.  Factoring in non-violent deaths over the same time (starvation, disease, etc), the total rises.  Your response seeks to absolve the United States of responsibility for its actions; the dead died because of the US invasion and its aftermath.  You seem to want to minimize the number, and the impact.

This also excludes the deaths in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia as a result of US military action.  The figure of foreign war dead in US wars is higher than 100K this century.  How significant that is depends on whether you are one of the dead or not, I guess.

May I ask, what figure are you comfortable with?

One reason I don't want to debate is reflexive ad hominem such as your response. I explained why I discount your number: it is literally not true. You can if you want ascribe all the blame for all the fighting to one group, side, or action if you wish. But that is a judgmennt not a fact. The number tells me who you think should be blamed for what, which is not the same as telling me facts I can use to make my own judgment. Yet you elide this distinction and when it is challenged resort to insults.

[Todd]

I explained why I discount your number: it is literally not true.

Alright then, since you are supposedly interested in facts, and facts alone, please provide factual evidence as to the true number of deaths.  You have made a very clear, almost categorical statement - ie, it is literally not true - so surely you must have some type of evidence that supports such a claim.  And by the way, it is not my number, it is the number of the AP and the US Army. 

[Ken B]

Alright then, since you are supposedly interested in facts, and facts alone, please provide factual evidence as to the true number of deaths.  You have made a very clear, almost categorical statement - ie, it is literally not true - so surely you must have some type of evidence that supports such a claim.  And by the way, it is not my number, it is the number of the AP and the US Army.

Did you say the number counts, via whatever method and criteria, deaths in 2009? Then my point is proven. It is necessarily conjectural that those deaths were caused by the invasion in 2003. Those deaths involve more players making choices than George Bush in 2003.

To answer your question I do not know the number. I do know that just last year some sources counted the death of an elderly woman in Hiroshima against the 1945 bomb. And i know that is not literally true.

[Ken B]

Let me make my point another way. Let us say I accept the evidence, which is actually pretty strong, that capital punishment has a deterrent effect. Let us say I accept the  number that the deterrent effect is about eight murders deterred per execution. Then I calculate how many people have been tried for murder that have not been executed that might have been, multiplied by eight, do this back to the time when Harry Blackmun wrote his decision, and ascribe all of those deaths to Blackmun. Would you take my number is a simple statement of fact? Or would you conclude that I put a lot of assumptions behind that number?

[Todd]

Did you say the number counts, via whatever method and criteria, deaths in 2009? Then my point is proven. It is necessarily conjectural that those deaths were caused by the invasion in 2003. Those deaths involve more players making choices than George Bush in 2003.

What?  The 100K violent deaths occurred between 2003 and 2009, when the US (and its allies, to be fair) was actively engaged in war in Iraq, as they would be for another two years afterward.  Are you literally stating that violent deaths in Iraq during the period that the United States was actively engaged in war are not attributable to that war?  Sure, there may have been some good old fashioned homicides due to crimes of passion, robbery, etc, but your assertion is disconnected from reality.  Unless, of course, you are attempting to play some type of semantic game.  Allow me to be more precise: In 2003 the US invaded Iraq, which it proceeded to occupy for eight years, and it engaged in warfare in Iraq, which, when combined with with sectarian violence in Iraq during the same period, resulted in at least 100,000 violent deaths.  This is a factual statement.  The US is at least partly responsible for war related deaths, and I would argue far more than partly, due to its actions.  This is a judgment.

Your Hiroshima analogy is even less apt than your prior ones.

[EDIT: reworded some of the post.]

[Todd]

Let me make my point another way. Let us say I accept the evidence, which is actually pretty strong, that capital punishment has a deterrent effect. Let us say I accept the  number that the deterrent effect is about eight murders deterred per execution. Then I calculate how many people have been tried for murder that have not been executed that might have been, multiplied by eight, do this back to the time when Harry Blackmun wrote his decision, and ascribe all of those deaths to Blackmun. Would you take my number is a simple statement of fact? Or would you conclude that I put a lot of assumptions behind that number?

Yet another extremely poor analogy.  You seem to be ignoring the fact that the US military was engaged in warfare in Iraq for eight years.

[Ken B]

Yet another extremely poor analogy.  You seem to be ignoring the fact that the US military was engaged in warfare in Iraq for eight years.

Are those deaths all from US bullets? If not it's an excellent analogy.
Anyway Todd I think we each know all we need to here. At least I do.

[Philo]

Todd and select others might be interested in this geopolitical analysis utilizing Mackinder's pivot as its linchpin. Damn good strategic analysis:

http://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/currency-currents/2014/03/03/

[Todd]

Are those deaths all from US bullets?

No, some were from US bombs.