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fit for office
I'm saying "Russia gets to strike Ukrainian targets but Ukraine doesn't get to strike Russian targets" is not only unfair but laughable. They're at war. They were escalated against first by a state actor.
Just because it's in alignment towards the wrong side of history doesn't mean we should revoke principles of international relations that deny special privileged status to any country.
There is ethically no further line being crossed by Ukraine in firing conventional missiles at Russia, when Russia has already fired hundreds of the same at Ukraine, regardless of whether or not the latter is construed as "defense". When the missiles are flying, the people launching them have no right to say "but we're off-limits".
Okay, yeah so you're saying that it's better if Ukrainian Nazis are able to target Russian civilians more easily.
That is an absolutely bad-faith argument.
In the post-2022 stage of the war, Ukraine are not the aggressors. A blanket categorization of Ukrainians as "nazis" is no better than a blanket categorization of Russians as "orcs". Sure, the state apparatus is vaguely aligned with NATO and the EU. That doesn't mean that Ukrainians aren't defending themselves now to some degree. The imposition of "we are invading and striking your country and you are not allowed to strike us back" is contradictory to the principles of multipolarity.
Afghanistan had the right to strike back at America. Iraq had the right to strike back at America. Ukraine has a qualified right to strike Russian military targets.
I don't think all Ukrainians are Nazis, but their government and military are Nazi aligned, have deliberately targeted civilians repeatedly and will absolutely use these missiles to continue doing that.
It's not better for them to be able to do so.
They also aren't "vaguely" NATO aligned, they're a NATO proxy.
There is a categorical and practical difference between trading or dispensing military aid versus having a military alliance with nukes involved. That difference is what has kept the war from spilling over for 2 years.
The "Nazis are the ones doing the aggression" line was fully accurate up until the country was attacked as a whole, instead of just the separatist-claimed areas. Instead of the Ukrainian far-right doing ethnic cleansing, it was everyone in Ukraine at war. And Russia was well aware of that: the entire SMO and its ramifications revolve around ducking under the bar that NATO was neither being attacked nor doing the attacking.
The Kursk incursion was not surprising, nor was it different in kind, nor was it a bridge too far, nor was it really consequential. Rocket strikes are the same way on all counts.
The proxy war is still fully a proxy war (much less direct than the Korean War was), and Ukraine still has no hope of winning.
What in the world is this pointless moralization of the conflict? The Russians have warned repeatedly that American weapons striking into Russia is a red line and they will retaliate, just like they warned that Ukraine joining nato is a red line and they retaliated for that.
Moralization is all liberals and ultras know how to do
They could say anything is a red line. They could say sanctions are a red line, they could say supplying Ukrainians with tanks is a red line. Ultimately they're going to be fine.
Deploying NATO-member troops into Ukraine to fight directly, or anything else that involves a direct conflict, is an act of war, because that is what is consequential. Arms dealing has been going on since before the SMO started, it's a difference of degree rather than category. Whining about it is a fuss over no substantial change, and over a type of weapon that is not new to the conflict.
The whole Ukraine war is happening because people in charge of NATO thought that Russia's stated red lines could be crossed over without concequence. And the American empire has already been dealt a fatal blow in retaliation, with American hegemony in active collapse.
The accelerationist part of me rejoices seeing how idiot westerners will lead us to WW3 and destroy themselves. The realist part of me is terrified of WW3. How conflicting these feelings are.
American global presence is still going to take decades to fully wane, unless the process is precipitated all at once in a widely encompassing outbreak of conflict. Beyond a horizon of 2 years into the future, I'm not sure which I prefer either.