@strypey Yeah, I'm struggling with this question too.
The reaction against the invasion of Ukraine is correct, the problem is how much the world accepted the invasion of Afghanistan.
The legitimate differences I have to offer are:
- Ukraine is controlling its territory (except where Putin already invaded) and policing its citizens.
- There is a legitimate government (Putin claims otherwise of course) and they can be reasoned with and are part of the international community.
The second invasion of Iraq I have even less to offer in terms of differences.
I have to admit that the major difference is mostly rooted in the xenophobic argument of Ukraine feeling familiar and civilized. That also feeds the perception that drives my two "legitimate" differences.
The reaction against the invasion of Ukraine is correct, the problem is how much the world accepted the invasion of Afghanistan.
The legitimate differences I have to offer are:
- Ukraine is controlling its territory (except where Putin already invaded) and policing its citizens.
- There is a legitimate government (Putin claims otherwise of course) and they can be reasoned with and are part of the international community.
The second invasion of Iraq I have even less to offer in terms of differences.
I have to admit that the major difference is mostly rooted in the xenophobic argument of Ukraine feeling familiar and civilized. That also feeds the perception that drives my two "legitimate" differences.
In the meantime it has become clear, both about my own feelings and those of the world opinion, that part of the outrage here is that while there are "areas of unstability" in the world, and people generally accept that this is how we see the world, Europe was supposed to be "done" in this regard after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
There was fallout in Yugoslavia, there were border disputes in the ex-Soviet Union countries. It was shocking enough when Russia took Crimea, but it still fell under extreme hustling and stretching limits. Russia had their naval base there, it was majority ethnically Russian, kind of a grey area in terms of valid cause, not legally but morally.
A full invasion of Ukraine is unlike what the US did to Serbia or anything post-Soviet Russia has done to its neighbors before. It's a new chapter in what people allow themselves to do in Europe after WW2. Russia hasn't gone after someone's capital since Budapest 1956.
@strypey
There was fallout in Yugoslavia, there were border disputes in the ex-Soviet Union countries. It was shocking enough when Russia took Crimea, but it still fell under extreme hustling and stretching limits. Russia had their naval base there, it was majority ethnically Russian, kind of a grey area in terms of valid cause, not legally but morally.
A full invasion of Ukraine is unlike what the US did to Serbia or anything post-Soviet Russia has done to its neighbors before. It's a new chapter in what people allow themselves to do in Europe after WW2. Russia hasn't gone after someone's capital since Budapest 1956.
@strypey
@wim_v12e @clacke @strypey Sweden shares a "naval border" (is that a thing?) with Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, and our best friends Finland shares a land border. So it's like 3cm away.
