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Eventually, the whole world’s going to end up being required to die for old greedy assholes.
strictly from a legal point of view, certain administrative actions, if not made in accordance to law, can be convalidated, meaning that they can be corrected in their wrong bits and made legal (i don’t know about the specifics of ukrainian administrative law, but they probably have something like that). from a political standpoint, however, this means that the war is getting problematic for them.
If Zelensky decides that you should die then you should die. Isn’t that what democracy and western values are all about?
Then you must know of a country that doesn’t make ideological sacrifices while under attack and in a state of war, and has survived such hardship?
The US, since they make decisions on ideological sacrifices for other countries.
The US has not endured a war on anything but their own terms since the british tried to turn them back into a colony.
They let others do the fighting for them indeed
Yes.
Except when they don’t, and pointlessly send their own people to die for basically no reason (Vietnam).
I don’t know a single other modern “country” (that is considered “good” and “democratic” by westerners) that people don’t want to defend so much that the regime needs to resort to forbidding people from leaving (and then put a huge effort into patrolling the borders because people want to escape this hell anyway) and literally kidnapping people off the streets and putting them into vans by masked ““people”” on daily basis just to sustain the meatgrinder.
The only thing that comes close are British press gangs - but that was 2 centuries ago.
And if there are some recent examples like this - I would absolutely support hanging the tyrants who do this, just like I hope Zelensky would be hanged one day.
A brief scroll of Wikipedia (the sources seemed legit) shows that, for example, Cuba (which I’m assuming you admire?) has mandatory military service, no known policy of alternatives for conscientious objectors, and harsh punishments for evading it even in peacetime, to the point that people have attempted to injure themselves to get out of it. They haven’t been tried in modern war, but can’t see them suddenly relaxing the rules when actually tested. Border countries tend to take defence very seriously.
For countries and cultures bordering Russia, this really is an existential question. The forced population transfer/ethnic cleansing of Tatars, Ingrians, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars, etc. show what tends to happen. And before you say “well that was Stalin”, I’ll point to the Russification efforts of Alexander III and Nicholas II, and to… well, just about all speakers of Uralic languages still existing in Russia, facing steadily or rapidly declining numbers. Also the number of people identifying as ethnic Russians in the Baltics and Crimea, directly attributable to said forced population transfers; Transnistria, where the change happened more organically but was nonetheless used as an excuse for invasion; and to some degree in eastern Ukraine, that saw significant russification attempts and Russians moving in to man the industrial centers during SU, inflating the numbers of ethnic Russians and prevalence of the Russian language at cost of the native population.
Cuba
- I said “countries that are considered “good” and “democratic”” by the west. Does Cuba fit that definition now?
- “Conscription” - that’s not what am I talking about though. Conscription (which is also absolutely wrong of course) is indeed present in a lot of countries. Mass kidnappings of cannon fodder that is not allowed to leave is quite unique to Zelensky’s regime.
Mass kidnappings of cannon fodder that is not allowed to leave is quite unique to Zelensky’s regime.
That’s literally what conscription means in legal terms, though I imagine most military organisations would object to the term “cannon fodder” as they do try to use personnel to get something done, not just send them running into enemy lines of fire for no reason.
That’s literally what conscription means in legal terms
No. Conscription is you get summons and have to do military service (which is also totally wrong but a different thing). If you refuse you get sent to jail. You can simply leave the country if you don’t like that.
What happens in Ukraine is kidnapping random people off the streets (who are forbidden from leaving the country), putting them into vans and sensing them to die.
You’re presenting a distinction without a difference.
Both are effectively the same thing, a citizen pressed into service, against their will.
Jail-time is the best case scenario, and in no way intrinsic to the concept.
Conscription for popular wars doesn’t get to the point Ukraine is at. The U.S. drafted soldiers in WWII without the situation deteriorating to this point, for example. Then when they tried that for an unpopular war (Vietnam) it created all sorts of problems and the draft was scrapped.
I said “countries that are considered “good” and “democratic”” by the west. Does Cuba fit that definition now?
I honestly don’t know that much about Cuba, seems like country much like any other that has trouble because of a difficult neighbor and making the best of it? But if we’re talking about whether mandatory military service is sometimes justified, not whether mass media is biased (duhhhhh), perceptions held by the majority are inconsequential.
“Conscription” - that’s not what am I talking about though. Conscription (which is also absolutely wrong of course) is indeed present in a lot of countries. Mass kidnappings of cannon fodder that is not allowed to leave is quite unique to Zelensky’s regime.
Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.
Edit: Also kudos for not trying to defend ethnic Russians’ history of ethnic cleansing.
Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.
No?..
Russia has conscription but not kidnapping part and forbidding to leave the country part. So do many other countries.
Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.
No?..
…yes? Or do you think the countries with peacetime conscription do it for shits and giggles, and the massive economic benefit of half the population losing about a year of working life?
Russia has conscription but not kidnapping part and forbidding to leave the country part. So do many other countries.
Russia has a larger population than Ukraine, and thus the luxury to not need everyone, and still they have called in reservists in “partial mobilization”, exact number unknown. As Russia has conscription, every adult man who has performed their service is in reserve. As of 2023, reservists called into service are not allowed to leave and are subject to restrictions until they report to duty, which seems like high-tech enforcement/“kidnapping” to me. The conscriptions have also hit poorer regions, often with large ethnic minorities, more harshly, but I’m sure that’s just coincidence.
There are reports of some military districts closing borders, of mobilized men being ill-equipped and used as cannon fodder, being killed in large numbers, you name it. As with all war reporting, hard to get well-verified factsfacts, especially from a country hostile to neutral reporters. We do know that protests are broken (and male protestors sometimes drafted).
But yeah, probably not needing troop replacements to the same extent as Ukraine. Who, I’m saying again, are fighting for the survival of their country and culture.
ethnic Russians’ history of ethnic cleansing
Maybe because “the Russian brainpan is predisposed to genocide” is self-evidently racist and nonsensical.
Considering Ukraine is the only modern/western democracy to have been invaded for territorial conquest in about 80 years demonstrates the level of bullshit that you’re spouting.
It’s being liberated, not invaded.
Dismissing a state’s right to sovereignty is the most anti-democratic thing I can think of.
Well, I personally stopped caring about a [western definition of] democracy when I learned that closing borders and not letting people out, kidnapping people off the streets, beating them, holding in basements for days and then sending them to the meatgrinder is actually entirely democratic while elections, forming political parties, etc. apparently is not.
Dictatorships are not as scary as western “democracy”.
Literally no-one is claiming any of that shit is democratic.
Stop confusing wartime martial law with democracy. It makes you look like an idiot, when clearly you have far more developed ideas to discuss. It completely ruins any actual argument you might make for what is right and wrong.
Such as this article you commented on, demobilising someone who should never have been mobilised is a no-brainer, and it is fucked as hell that it isn’t happening.
You really haven’t looked at the legal systems around defensive service of most countries, have you?
Please. I am genuinely asking. Show me a country that doesn’t have legal systems in place to press its population into defensive service, and/or suspend elections during wartime.
I live in Finland, we have one the MOST WILLING populations IN THE WORLD when it comes to self-defense.
And you know what? The military police still regularly arrests deserters who fail to show up for their conscription. And we’re not even at war.
The alternative, is to not be prepared against threats like Putin, who will WIPE YOU OFF THE MAP given the chance.
Democracy is a peacetime luxury.
Not sacrificing thousands to save millions, is a privilege of the leaders who live in a parallel universe that doesn’t have Putin in it.
Ah yes, the Fins are sure eager to repeat their WW2 ‘fight for democracy’ against the Russians.
What?
Literally no-one here wants war. That’s why Finland maintains such efforts to be ready for it, should it happen against our best efforts to prevent it.
What?
There are no wars for democracy. Like I said, democracy is a peacetime luxury. Finland fought for independence, and hence the ability to choose to be democratic.
Finland fought for independence
…on the side of nazi Germany
And yes, it’s always ‘defense’ now. Not ‘war’
Like your ally ‘defended’ from a Polish attack or the US needs to defend itself from Irak, Iran, Afghanistan or wherever.
Imagine a gang arming themselves to the teeth and surrounding 1 person pointing guns at him.
“Hey, we’re only going to defend ourselves”
That would be the NATO, Russia analogy.
I could add the gang really hate this guy, which your and other US regime aligned comments make abundantly clear.The US is a travesty of a nation that sometimes does some good. I said absolutely nothing in support of their various brands of BS.
And if you think Finland worked with Germany during operation Barbarossa for any other reason except to maintain its existence in the face of an imperial soviet union, I don’t know what to tell you.
And yeah, people are gonna gang up and surround you if you keep hugging a nuke, threatening to set it off if anyone tries to stop your tantrums.
I don’t hate Russia. Its people are perfectly capable of decency and peaceful co-operation.
But it’s current leader is a madman with genuinely dangerous delusions.
You haven’t provided an example of a “country” where the regime does the same shit as Zelensky.
Show me videos of masked ““people”” with rifles grabbing, beating and forcing people into vans to send them to the meatgrinder on a daily basis.
There are other similarly developed countries under siege with which we can compare?
Organized wartime defense is a lot more complex than kidnapping a bunch of people and sending them in the general direction of the front. That isn’t how any of this works.
I know of one country that’s behind the agression… And one that probably IS using such tactics, considering their battlefield results. One which could stop at any time under no threat to its own sovereignty.
I honestly cannot comprehend your failure to realize that wartime and peacetime standards of government differ more than a little, or that your understanding of the situation is superficial at best.
That goes for all of us, unless you happen to be an actual commanding officer on either side of the conflict?
There are other similarly developed countries under siege with which we can compare?
So there are no similar cases and we can at least agree that atrocities being commited by Zelensky’s regime are unprecedented in modern times. Well that’s something already.
And one that probably IS using such tactics
Oh come on, be serious please. The west supports Ukraine almost as much as it hates Russia. And yet even western medias are writing about kidnapping in Ukraine and not in Russia. If it was happening in Russia - medias would not be able to stop writing about it.
or that your understanding of the situation is superficial at best
Yeah it is indeed hard for me to understand how people support me and everybody I know getting kidnapped, beaten and killed, despite us never doing anything bad to you (except of course not dying protecting your geopolitical interest).
When under attack, countries rescind the freedom and rights of a subset of its population, in order to maintain them for the rest.
In a democratic country, the laws to do that are created in advance, and the power to wield them assigned through election.
Everyone hopes they will never be necessary, but we can’t be surprised that when under military invasion, they are used.
“Meatgrinder” effectively illustrates the pointlessness of war, but you are using it as if to dismiss the fact that sustaining that same “meatgrinder” is the only reason the country of Ukraine still exists.
I’m Finnish. I am watching everything that happens in Ukraine as something that might happen to my country, and to me personally. In a paralell universe, Ukraine is at peace, and we’re the ones suffering a pointless “special military operation”. If Putin was smart, and looked to the future, going for our lithium reserves would have made a lot more sense than the fossil fuel resources of Ukraine. (Then again, rare earth minerals are present in Ukraine, too)
And you misunderstand me. I do not want you dead. I do not want you fighting for me. I do not “support” war.
But I understand the systems and mechanisms of a nation, which maintain its existense. The standards of a peacetime government can only be so high, because maintaining them does not risk trading in the existence of the nation that is upholding them.
Should there be a trial afterwards, investigating sacrifices that were obviously pointless? Absolutely.
And is there a point where the sacrifice is no longer worth it in comparison to surrender? To this, I have no answer.
I would probably trade in my country, to see my friends and family spared. But I am a lot less certain that would result in a better world afterwards.
