As title, if you have post or link any useful resource you have
Personally, I’ve come to the conclusion that anyone who has the capacity and wisdom to know why wars are waged in the first place would never voluntarily fight in one.
It’s reinforced my philosophical idea that wars are just a way for humanity to purge the worst of itself.
Eh. Overseas? Definitely not. If my home is invaded? You bet your ass I’m fighting the invaders.
Defending Your hoke is poorly the only way a human can cooe with horrors of war and not come out completely broken.
Being on the invading side is essentially signing for life time of ment issues since there is no good way to cope besides openly saying yeah I like going to other countries to kill people for money…
Just to throw my two cents in: This user isn’t a genuinely curious ponderer, rather they are a Russian troll trying to fish for arguments they could further use in bad faith to lick Putin’s boot.
Just read through their comment history and make your own mind. This is not genuine and most everyone is just feeding the troll.
The question itself is worth asking though. A lot of good points here, but they’d be better given in good faith for someone genuine.
Just to throw my two cents in: This user isn’t a genuinely curious ponderer, rather they are a Russian troll trying to fish for arguments they could further use in bad faith to lick Putin’s boot.
You sound like a victim of propaganda. Arguments to convince people that a forced draft is bad does not benefit the russian government or any other. I encourage you to read other people posts better and to think with your own brain.
Do you approve of Russias invasion of Ukraine?
No and i do not approve any other country invasion of another. What about you?
“Ukraine is wrong and they shouldn’t actually have any military at all btw, also I’m not a Russian troll”
— You
It’s like watching a middle-schooler pick a fight, lose, then go crying to an adult that he’s being bullied. You’re pathetic.
I’m Finnish and have done my conscription and it was one of the best years of my life. I wouldn’t want to go into war, but I would definitely go and fight Russia if they had invaded Finland.
Like Ukraine has done, defending their country from the Russian “#+special military operation.”
Go cry into your limited access to the global community, Ruski. Slava Ukraini.
Are you trying to say Ukraine is wrong to go into Russia?
“Are you trying to say U̶k̶r̶a̶i̶n̶e̶ the government of ukraine who is drafting against their will disabled men with heart disease, spinal injuries, epilepsy, autism, and other illnesses and disorders is wrong in ordering its soldier to invade Russia?”
This doesn’t sound good to me, nodoby should do this or have the power to do it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilization_in_Ukraine#2024
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukrainian-soldiers-thought-order-to-invade-russia-was-joke-2024-8
Going into Russia has been a huge tactical success for them, we will see if it’s a strategic success, but chances are looking good. Drafting people against their will is kinda the definition of a draft. I haven’t looked into the exceptions or lack thereof specifically though.
Do you have a problem with Ukraine invading Russia at all after Russia is trying to annihilate them as a country? Do you have a problem with their conscription policies? Or a problem with using conscripts in the attack into Russia? Or a combination of those three?
I don’t think being drafted by force and ordered to invade another country is a good thing regardless of who you are.
I’ll take bad faith posts for $1000 Alex
The issue, from what I can tell, is that the question you’ve asked here doesn’t match the argument you just had in comments of a post about about the Ukraine war. The argument you were trying to make is not “war bad”, but specifically that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is bad. You were additionally arguing that it is morally reprehensible for other countries to provide economic support to Ukraine rather than leaving them to “defend themselves”.
There’s a few important details that such an argument (intentionally) ignores.
- This invasion was not a choice between war or no war. It was simply a decision between locations that battles take place. It is entirely legitimate for Ukraine to pursue a counteroffensive strategy into russian territory if it believes it to be a more effective military strategy than defensive attritional warfare within their own borders.
- The fact that combat is taking place in Russian territory doesn’t change the fact that the war itself is a defensive war against an aggressor with overtly territorial/imperialist goals.
- As far as I am aware, the units involved in the counteroffensive are exclusively non-drafted volunteer units.
- Cessation of funding to Ukraine would lead to their imminent loss. The fact that they have been able to innovate cheaper strategies like domestic drone usage doesn’t change the fact that war is extremely expensive and technology dependent, and their economy is dwarfed by that of Russia’s.
The combination of your proposals that Ukraine should not proactively fight back, and that they should lose access to the resources that would allow them to continue to defend their territory end us meaning that Ukraine would not be able to effectively defend itself.
From reading your comments alongside this post, it seems that the title should actually be “how do you make someone understand that rolling over and dying is good”, to which the answer is “oh fuck off mate”
The question asked in the thread title is really simple and you should try to stay on topic.
The argument you were trying to make is not “war bad”, but specifically that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is bad.
You were additionally arguing that it is morally reprehensible for other countries to provide economic support to Ukraine
You are twisting what i’ve said. I encourage you to read other people post better because i never made such claim.
From reading your comments alongside this post, it seems that the title should actually be “how do you make someone understand that rolling over and dying is good”, to which the answer is “oh fuck off mate”
If you believe that not being drafted by force and ordered to invade another country is the equivalent of rolling over and dying you are probably victim of the propaganda. As other have suggested here i advise you to watch drones videos from this war where they roll over and die
Let’s go look at your comment history and check, shall we?
Defending yourself and launching invasions or orchestrating soldiers are two different things
It’s not defending yourself if you have an army! What a great take 👍
it sounds like the government is giving out plans and commanding the army. The government of ukraine and people from ukraine are two different things. When people ask what’s the alternative to send billions to the ukrainian government what they need to understand is that people can defend themself even without an authority on top of them playing war games with soldiers and possibly forcing conscript to go on missions
Oh, why did Ukraine never consider magically winning the war by sheer willpower instead of this “having an army” nonsense, smart!
I’m not twisting anything. Context matters, and the context of your post was you throwing a tantrum after around 10 different Lemmy users calling out your bad takes.
If you believe not being drafted blah blah blah
That’s not what I said at all, mere moments after you accused me of “twisting” what you said. What I said, louder for the people in the back is BEING UNABLE TO FIGHT BACK IN THE ENEMY’S TERRITORY, BEING DISALLOWED TO RECEIVE FOREIGN AID AND BEING DISALLOWED TO FORM AN ACTUAL ARMY is the equivalent of rolling over and dying.
Let’s start with the second part of your question? How do you make someone understand that invading another country is not a good thing?
Whether it’s a good thing or not depends entirely on your philosophical views. There is no objectively correct answer, and which arguments may convince someone very much depends on the values and perspectives of the person you are trying to convince.
How do you make someone realize that their philosophical views are bad then?
How could one convince you that your philosophical views are bad?
Sorry, I’m completely immovable on the stance that war is bad. Never once has mass human slaughter made the world a better place.
I understand that, like everything, there are those who disagree. Moral relativism aside, those people are wrong, in the sense that I have zero tolerance for supporting campaigns of mass death.
Is every alternative preferable to war? For example, should Ukraine have agreed to become part of Russia to avoid war?
Quite a few nations capitulated against the Nazis within days or even without a fight to avoid war. It saved a lot of lives. Does that make it the right choice? Who is to say…
What’s for sure is that Boris shouldn’t have vetoed the peace agreement in 2022.
I didn’t think it saved lives, since it empowered the Nazis to kill more people. So I say no it wasn’t the right choice.
I’m not part of the typical group that gets drafted (presumably young men) but my argument has always been that my country doesn’t own me, I’m not its property. If I want to fight for/serve my country I will, but IMO it has no right to just use me at will like a resource.
This especially goes for times like these, when everything is unaffordable, nobody can get a house, you can barely see a doctor, the police don’t even bother solving most low-level crime and the rich are lining their pockets with our money. The system is not upholding its end of the social contract at all, so why should it expect any extraordinary measures from us?
The 13th amendment protects us from forced labor. No matter what the supreme court might bring up bullshit about how other countries do it.
Hey Dipshit’s, maybe needless wars wouldn’t start if it wasn’t fucking possible to force people to fight in them.
Unless as punishment.
Even though op’s post history clearly points to the angle they’re trying to get across, I’ll answer for ya.
You educate the Russians. They’re living in a closed room and are being force fed bullshit so Ukraine looks like the bad guys. Once they’re educated and realize what the hell is going on, there will be some uproar to them being drafted and forced to fight Ukraine who has done nothing wrong. Maybe then, they’ll stand up to Putin and take his fucking ass out and this shit can be over. At that point maybe Russia can turn it around and become a productive member of society.
perhaps should start by taking your own advice, stepping out of your echo chamber, and educating yourself on what’s going on https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/who-caused-the-ukraine-war
edit: Worth noting how despite all the screeching and downvoting, radlibs can’t actually make any counterpoints to what Mearsheimer says.
I think it’s more fruitful to look at who benefits from the Ukrainian war.
Life for the average Ukrainian will not be radically different under Russian rule. Most of them will get up, go to work the same job they always have and funnel as much money as possible to those who already have it.
It just so happens that under Russian rule, Russian rulers will be making profit instead of Ukrainian rulers. The people actually fighting the wars never benefit and the ones who benefit never fight.
It’s pretty obvious that the only country that benefits from the war is the US. Don’t take my word for it though, RAND wrote a whole study explaining how in detail https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html
It’s also absolutely phenomenal that people think Russia needs Ukraine to make profit when it’s already the largest country in the world with plenty of undeveloped resources. If you think countries benefit from having to fight a war, then you might wan to learn a bit of history.
Then why would Russia attack Ukraine? Especially since they had already agreed to let go of their nukes and not join NATO. Just let them be then.
If you bother reading the paper I linked, it explains it in great detail. But if you don’t believe RAND, then here’s the head of NATO explaining it in black and white
The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.
The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm
The sheer intellectual dishonesty of pretending that this was about anything other than NATO expanding to Russia’s border even when top NATO officials openly admit this to be the case is truly astonishing.
You seem to misunderstand your own sources. What you cited only proves how utterly insane Russia’s conditions were / are. Of course NATO won’t let Pootin blackmail them into giving up their stations etc.
Russia and brainwashed tankies like yourself always seem to reject the notion that former Soviet nations are actually sovereign and might have an interest in increasing their defensive strength in light of, wait for it, HISTORY.
I don’t think you know what the term radlib means. It’s kind of sad. But I do know that when one country advances into another country, and expands territory, that’s an aggressive fact. You can try to justify it however you want, I know you’re trying hard, but it’s just not convincing. Seizing the Crimea and then expanding more recently, those are the actions of a country that wants more power and more territory and more control. That’s not the kind of country that I respect.
And if you want to point out that the US does shady stuff too, you’re absolutely right. But that doesn’t make Russia’s actions reasonable.
This is the sort of understanding of the world young children have before their brains fully develop.
Said a clown spouting text book Russian propaganda
I hope you get paid for this lol
Is Russian propaganda in the room with your right now?
I’ve read the contents of your link and I can see how one would fall for these arguments. But I can already point to a couple flaws:
It doesn’t matter who did what before, Russia had a choice. A choice of resolving their issue in a nonviolent manner through diplomacy, espionage, subterfuge and trade. Instead they chose violence. Thus it doesn’t matter that they had no inkling of wanting to conquer Ukraine (or specifically Putin) or not.
Second, they absolutely did try to install puppets and Russia-friendly governments before. They succeeded sometimes, somewhat. And the last time those puppets had to flee to Russia of all places to escape the wrath of Ukrainian people.
Third, this didn’t start on February 22, 2022, but in 2014, when Russia decided to occupy Crimea. So they didn’t just do it once, but on two occasions. Except the West somehow glossed over the first time on the heels of the Winter Olympics.
It doesn’t matter who did what before
this didn’t start on February 22, 2022, but in 2014
History starts and stops exactly when it best suits my argument
Not that I was ever interested in being military, but I was at a lunch with two older lifelong army retirees. They kept talking about how military service broke their bodies and politicians won’t cover their medical costs. These injuries were independent of any combat: It’s just expected that you sell every part of yourself when you sign up.
Who wants to be 45 years old with a limp, be unable to hear a quiet conversation, and have horrible back problems?
I don’t know a single person who was in the military who has good things to say about it.
After training, sure, they’re all for it. After doing the job for real (combat or not) and getting out, not a single time that I can remember.
So, veteran here. I’ve tried to talk people out of joining the military or at least trying to avoid jobs with high probability of seeing combat. Usually the result is they just start prying about what combat is like and make statements about how much they want to experience it.
Another tack I haven’t tried but it might be more effective, is to describe how miserable it is to have the stench of a burn pit wafting over you, always wondering if the distant gunfire will move in your direction, being stuck manning a 24/7 watch where if even one person who can do that job dies or is otherwise incapacitated you will be stuck doing 12hr shifts instead of 8. Then you get back home and have to fight tooth and nail for benefits from the country that fucked your life up in the first place.
War is hell, coming home is hell, forcing that on someone can only be justified if they are literally at home fighting off an invading force.
forcing that on someone can only be justified if they are literally at home fighting off an invading force.
I believe abolish someone rights is never a good thing. If you are fighting against someone that wants to take these away you have even more reason to respect these rights and stand for them.
I see you’d rather die kneeling than standing.
It’s amazing the shit rich old people can convince poor young people to die saying
edit: meant to say ‘rich young people on computers thousands of miles away cheering on other people’s deaths’
I invite all of you chickenhawk nazi lovers to go die charging a trench in the place of someone who doesn’t support your cause and doesn’t want to die.
I proudly went through conscription in Finland, because we know what Russia was capable of.
So who are these Nazis you speak of?
You’re from Finland and you have to ask where the nazis are?
Hey now, the Finns dropped their Nazi symbology way back in… four years ago.
Since you’re very fond of listing links and sources, I’ll show you how argumenting is actually done. (Since your link lists were nothing but "I hope you never read any of these because they’re not actually even related and I can’t come up with an actual argument.)
You misuse the word “symbology”.
Likeness in symbols representing different things aren’t two different things using the same symbology, they’re the same symbol which represents a different thing.
We’ve been using the Swastika since the Iron Age. When did they form the Nazi party again?
https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakaristi_Suomessa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_use_of_the_swastika_in_the_early_20th_century
Awkward how you pretend to be so knowledgable, yet make these cringe “arguments”, because I made you upset by asking you whether you’re pro-Russian or not. Something which you absolutely refuse to answer. Weird, huh?
Do you think the people of Ukraine want to be invaded by Russia?
You know the same Russia that is constantly killing loads of civilians and is repressing their own people.
I’m sure many eastern Ukrainians who were getting killed and repressed by their own people for a decade did. Some of them explicitly requested Russian intervention.
- BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
- Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
- The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
- The Guardian, 2017: ‘I want to bring up a warrior’: Ukraine’s far-right children’s camp – video
- WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
- Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
- The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
- Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
- Consortium News, 2022: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev
- Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?
- History of Fascism in Ukraine: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
.
The post-2014 coup annexation of Crimea want as smoothly as it did because many of the residents wanted it.So do you think Russia was in the right to invade Ukraine?
I don’t really know what Russia ought to have done, but the US knowingly put Russia between a rock and a hard place. How would the US have reacted if Russia was creeping a “defensive” alliance toward the US’ border and orchestrated a Mexican coup?
- NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
- The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
- Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU
- US Imperialism and the Ukraine Coup
- Former German Chancellor Merkel Admits that Minsk Peace Agreements Were Part of Scheme for Ukraine to Buy Time to Prepare for War With Russia
- Zelensky admits he never intended to implement Minsk agreements
- The West’s Sabotage of Peace in Ukraine In May of [2022] Ukrainian media reported that then-British prime minister Boris Johnson had flown to Kiev the previous month to pass on the message on behalf of the western empire that “Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with,” and that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”
- The Intercept, 2021: Meet NATO, the Dangerous “Defensive” Alliance Trying to Run the World
- CounterPunch, 2022: NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance
- Noam Chomsky, 2023: NATO “most violent, aggressive alliance in the world”
- Thomas Fazi, 2024: NATO: 75 years of war, unprovoked aggressions and state-sponsored terrorism
forcing that on someone can only be justified if they are literally at home fighting off an invading force.
Empire propaganda must be real good if this commenter has to say this out loud
It’s not the propaganda that’s good, SunZu.
It’s the poverty. Tens of millions of young people in this country have no other way out of debt or to move upward economically.
It IS the propaganda that makes people decide that the military is a way out of poverty and not just another trap OF poverty. If there weren’t recruiters in every poor neighbourhood’s school, people might decide that joining a mission or Greenpeace or digging wells in Africa for a charity is their “only way” out of poverty.
Disclosure: I’m Israeli, I’m anti war and anti occupation. I was drafted more than 20 years ago (it’s sort of mandatory here).
I think you paint it in a too much simple colours. In the war between israel and Gaza now, both armies fight for what they believe is the safety of their home, and in both armies there are high numbers if drafted (by force people). Also, in both sides, there is a level of truth that without the auctions of their army their home will be at risk. So you end up in a situation where there is an army that you don’t fully agree with and you serve in it since the alternative is even worse.
It boils down to the fact that your political leaders are not having your well-being at the top of their priorities. I believe that your discussion with that someone should be about that. Not about do/don’t draft but how to promote a world where there will be no need for drafting.
(I believe that the same goes to Ukrain and Russia war).
without the auctions of their army their home will be at risk
Without Hamas’s recent actions, the home of the Palestinians would be at risk?
I think you gotta recheck your math on that one
And of course the same thing applies to Israel; without the IDF and settlers’ actions in Palestine, there wouldn’t have been an October 7th in the first place.
Simply reverse the picture of what you said you’ll see we are saying the same thing. From Hammas /Palestinians perspective Israel and the settlements are the same and their agenda is to drive away all Palestinians (and to be fair, some of the MKs here say that openly, even before October 7th). From Israel perspective, Hammas’s declared agenda is to kill Israel/all the Jews (I mean, it is in their charter). From both perspective, there is a good drive to join the army in order to protect their loved ones.
(I mean, it is in their charter)
pretty sure it’s no longer in their charter.
Also why do you keep calling it an army. Gaza doesn’t have an army.
This is a militant group, with actual guns and drones or explosive and uniform (that they don’t always wear), not a bunch of kids with sticks. This either an army or a terror organisation.
Hamas’s new charter (2017l is sort of accepting Israel (I don’t recall the exact wording, but something along the lines of “if all/most Palestinians accept it”). But the 1988 (in particular article 7, but also 28) charter was never cancelled and the 2017 was never officially approved
First paragraph: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/leading-hamas-official-says-no-softened-stance-toward-israel-idUSKBN1862O4/
Funny story, I was mistaken for an Israeli patriot today, just because of my accent and what I was wearing. I was reassured, if you like, that the world is not going to ostracise Israel and Israel will keep existing. That was the gist of it anyhow. Of course I have no doubt israel will keep existing, what with all the support of the world’s hegemons. What worries me is that Israel will keep existing in its current form: a fascist, genocidal ethnostate. Describing the only armed resistance against occupation permitted by Israel to take hold, as an ‘army’, creates a false sense of equivalence between Hamas’s militants and the IDF with all its powerful tech. To describe what’s been going on in Gaza for the past 10 months as a war between two armies simply defending their own people is, well stunning, when faced with all the evidence of the IDF’s targeted mass killings of Palestinian civilian lives, as well as their callous disregard for Israeli lives (eg Hannibal directive).
First, as I said before, I’m against the war, against the occupation, and in favor of two states solution (ideally, a democratic one Jewish-palestinian state should exist, but this is not going to happen).
Now, I’m sorry, if you ignore the hostages, and the fact that October 7th happened as an offensive act by Hammas, you are painting only a partial picture.
Hamas had 10m to stop the the offensive by Israel, release the hostages. It was that easy 8 months ago, even 5 month ago. Today, I’m not sure. If you ignore this card in hamas’s hands then you are again, painting a partial picture.
And as I said countless times in this thread, directing our anger at the armed forces, rather than politicians (on both sides) only aggravate the war.
I am angry at the politicians in the US etc for their continued support of the mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
I’m also angry at the Israeli head of state and political machine, who controls the IDF. When I say ‘the IDF’ I mean of course the military arm of the state of Israel. The Likud charta explicitly states the aim of one Israel ‘from the sea to the river’ - oh, the irony!
What Hamas has done on Oct 7, even if all stories are to be believed, pales in comparison to what Israel has done to innocent Palestinians - schools, universities, hospitals, aid workers, journalists, etc -before and since. And it was clearly provoked by years of being occupied in an open-air prison. So I’m sorry if I’m not interested in the ‘we’re only defending our own’ shtick.
A two-state solution is only possible if Israel withdraws, stops occupying Palestine and allows it to exercise full sovereignty of its borders, governancet, and defence.
