this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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Communism

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Funding Ukraine is inherently a genocidal endeavour. If you want war to end and for Ukrainians to stop being killed, there's only one solution, and it's not telling Putin he's a meanie. (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml to c/communism@lemmygrad.ml
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This is the only reasonable argument, but I know rabid liberals frothing at the mouth over more dead Russians don't want to see it.

Still, for those who are still reasonable in their goals and ends, and the outcome they actually want to see, there's only one solution.

The argument on the pro-UA side is that Putin has the "choice" to just up and leave Ukraine at any time. I've written before about why he doesn't -- not after all the sanctions, not after all the resources and troops committed. NATO/Europe will not say "alright you're a good sport mate, we'll drop the sanctions and pretend this whole thing never happened, deal?". There's a "warrant" out for Putin at the ICC, what makes anyone sincerely believe things can go back to where they were before for Russia?

It should hopefully be clear that the people calling for Putin to just "leave Ukraine" know they're not being reasonable. These are some of the same people who also cheer when Ukraine gets new weapons to kill more Russians with. The goal for this segment is not peace, it's actually to prolong the war.

I'm addressing the reasonable side, however, who might have been inadvertently taken in by this psyop. I mean, isn't it weird how NAFO suddenly popped up everywhere and got media coverage? After they're doing the exact same thing as the Lithuanian elves (because elves fight against orcs) did back in 2014, and it turned out the "elves" were NATO?

Saying Putin can just leave Ukraine is impotent rage. Yeah, sure, I'm just gonna give him a quick call. He really cares what some westerners think about his war, especially now that he has to contend against NATO intervention. I'm sure we can totally convince him he's being a total nerd if we just yell about it on Twitter.

So if you actually want peace, what's the reasonable solution?

Organise locally, petition your government to stop sending money and weapons to Ukraine. Organise and protest for a peace deal. I know it's probably not what you want to hear.

But these weapons prolong the war. Just earlier today I saw a video of an APC full of 8+ Ukrainians get obliterated by a missile strike. Where did they get that APC do you think?

Do you want Ukrainians to stop dying? Me too. The most pragmatic way, the only one towards which we can actually do something, is to protest against our governments sending equipment that prolong this war.

Otherwise you have to realise this war is going to be fought to the last Ukrainian. Do you really think it's weakening Russia in any lasting capacity? The fighting is happening in Ukraine. Ukraine has been losing population consistently since 1990 (a whole fifth of it lost, mostly, to emigration). What exactly is weakening in Russia? It's Ukraine that's being destroyed and will need to be rebuilt. It's Ukraine that's losing their population by the thousands. It's Ukraine that's shooting depleted uranium bullets on their own soil.

What you're advocating for, when you advocate to prolong this war, is to kill every last Ukrainian and turn their country into a wasteland. The UA army is even using depleted uranium bullets now (courtesy of US and UK), which have polluted the land when they were used in Iraq. This is backed up by data, right? Depleted uranium has data behind it, it's not speculation.

The reason the war is being prolonged is because it makes a lot of money to the military-industrial complex. It makes a lot of money to corporations due to the inflation. A blackrock affiliate said on hidden camera recently that when Russia blows up a grain silo, the price of wheat goes up. War is a great business opportunity, always has been. And then when Ukraine will need to be rebuilt, it'll make Blackrock a lot more money.

But I'm not sure who they will rebuild the country for if there's no one else left to live in Ukraine.

My solution is the only one that makes sense. Any other is purely impotent and just venting frustrations, not effecting any actual change.

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[–] CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml 31 points 1 year ago

Pinning for a bit to see if federation has anything to say about this.

[–] AlbigensianGhoul@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly, thanks for this. Seeing people around the world prodding more and more Ukrainians to go die and kill in the meat-grinder because of some misguided sense of nationalism for country whose language they can't even type is truly a weird sight. And whenever some politician even advocates for pragmatic peace talk necessities like temporary ceasefires, they're derided as pro-Russia. I think another solution you didn't mention is also to petition governments to pressure Ukraine into letting more Ukrainians to migrate and welcoming those who come, specially the poorest ones (as well as migrants from other countries). There is no sane reason that men aged 18 to 60 who do not want to participate in the war should be forced to remain there against their will, and if Germany can spare the tanks it can also spare housing, food and language courses.

[–] CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

When Ukraine loses, these people will move on to the next thing in the media cycle and a year down the line will pretend they always knew Ukraine was always going to lose.

Edit: you're correct, peace deal is the ultimate goal but there's also other stuff one can do before then. All in all it begins at home.

[–] luchuan@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 year ago

I don't think they will move on that cleanly. The duopoly false opposition parties in liberal democracies backing this genocidal proxy war have made it a counter cultural thing to not support sending more arms. When they stop printing "UA is killing 100k Russian per cubic diamond second squared" articles it'll be the big bad conservative party's fault they didn't have enough defunct wunderwaffen to kill 1M Russians per cubic diamond second squared to ethnically cleanse Crimea for that nafo beach party there this summer.

[–] Big_Farto@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think you hit the nail on the head, it's in the US' and NATO's best interest to keep this war going. Bringing Ukraine into NATO just creates an extra buffer between Russia and the rest of western Europe. I have no idea how this war ends, but I don't think it ends with Ukrainian Jimmy Fallon dancing on Putin's grave

[–] CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago

Ukraine will never even get into NATO, after the war started they admitted it was just bait and they told zelensky to keep the lie up. Merkel admitted Minsk I and II were only signed to gain time to train and equip Ukraine. NATO provoked Russia into this war as much as they could.

[–] HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 1 year ago

There's also the thought that if they can make Russia fail "hard enough" in the Ukraine, it will force Putin out in disgrace. This may be part of the "no negotiation, no way we can ever give him even a token win" mindset.

Even before any tangible aggression, there's been years of degrading relationships between the West and Russia, and I suspect it's because Putin wasn't anywhere near as convenient a partner as Yeltsin was. He at least knows how to try to be cut-throat.

They've definitely been harping the "will this end Putin" angle since day 1 of the operation. Last year it was "ooh, look, the sanctions are moderately inconveniencing the oligarchs and they'll surely toss him out any minute now". This week it's the Wagner guy. Probably next week it will be something even zanier-- I bet someone's putting a bow on an OceanGate sub and mailing it to Moscow as we speak.

No matter how you feel about Putin personally and his actions, he has at least kept the country somewhat stable. Russia has historically had problems with seperatist movements, and there is huge amount of both atomic and conventional weapons and associated knowledge we'd sort of rather not end up scattered to the winds. If Putin were to be forced out, especially under any terms but his own, it's doubtful there would be a smooth transfer of power. OTOH, I do await the popcorn if/when the West tries to pull another Juan Guiado and bless some convenient stooge with no local credibility.

[–] Mzuark@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The issue with the Russians turning around and going home is that there's nothing to stop the Ukrainians from going full purge and wiping out everyone they percieve to be ethnically Russian that's still living in East Ukraine. And I'd bet good money that the narrative will turn into "Leftover Putinist insurgents attacking Ukrainian forces" to cover it up.

[–] CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 1 year ago

Additionally if Russia retreated to their borders Ukraine would push into Russia at this stage. Like abandoning is not a real option for either side, you need a peace deal or at least a ceasefire to do anything.

The same NAFO trolls that say Putin should just up and leave have no argument for the opposite (that Ukraine should abandon fighting this war) because they would be forced to admit that it's not a realistic solution whatsoever if they actually engaged with it. Thus their only argument is "Ukraine is the one that's getting invaded why would they abandon the fight?" which is a deflection.

[–] Trudge@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree with your material analysis of the situation, but not of the solution.

Petitioning and protesting against western governments have been shown to be ineffective time and time again. It's a waste of time and effort. The realistic conclusion to the dragged out war comes after a decade or so when a power broker (probably China) gets them to agree to a ceasefire as it was the case in Yemen.

I'm not trying to be defeatist, but there is nothing that comrades can do to affect the outcome of the situation in my assessment.

[–] GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Petitions are useless, but widespread strikes demanding an end to the weapon shipments would surely be effective as long as they refuse to compromise. Unfortunately, long and principled strikes seem to be very rare in the imperial core (e.g. the ultimately disappointing railroad worker strike earlier this year in Amerika)

[–] absentthereaper@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unfortunately, long and principled strikes seem to be very rare in the imperial core

I imagine this has something to do with some like 60, 70% of us are in such 'paycheck-to-paycheck' straits that we can only really sustain a couple weeks of striking at any given time. Mix in right-to-work status, the corporates' ease-of-access to scabs, and mass atomization, and it's really no wonder.

[–] simply_surprise@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Also pretty much nobody grows and sells any of their own food anymore. There really aren't many "cottage industry" food providers that can be bartered with.

Every house having a couple chickens, or a little vegetable patch, or a side business in something barterable could effectively support a strike.

It's just not possible here and now, though.

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 year ago

Petitioning and protests without broader organisation will almost always fail to secure any meaningful change. The curious thing is why anyone thinks such a basic and unorganised strategy would ever work after so many decades of it failing. That's why we must stand for the organisation of the workers. Then we can petition and protest.

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago

In it's own delusional way, the 'establishment' is starting to voice the same opinion: https://web.archive.org/web/20230623064703/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/western-approach-to-ukraine-is-delusional-l2qx7q6zs (if anyone can get around the pay wall, that'e be great – the is a photo of the print version floating in Twitter but I lost the link).

[–] stewie3128@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Protesting is useless. Run up to the Iraq war saw the largest protests in history all over the world, and they did nothing.

China has to step in, and that won't happen for years.

I personally have checked out from following the Ukraine conflict.

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 1 year ago

Liberal protesting won't work. What's needed is organised action by workers of all countries standing in international solidarity. Protests might be one tactic in that movement, but not the only tactic. When it is the only tactic, like with Iraq, it creates the impression that protests are useless. The perception of that uselessness is now built into the narrative. But don't lose heart. We can create a new narrative. We have a world to win and we can win it.

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