A thought-experiment: If proper names in the conversations about this war were changed, would people on this list be so sure in their moral clarity? That is, if one substituted the name Bush for Putin and United States for Russia, would people be so keen to plea for someone to stop the assault? Or would those actions be called "humanitarian imperialism" or some such?
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I'm not sure in my 'moral clarity'. I only know that it's probably bad news indeed to find yourself under a missile barrage.
So, playing along, let's say that a region of Canada which looked to Washington for help was attacked in more or less the same way and the US -- yes, even under the Bush administration -- acted to stop the attack.
Sensible people would conclude that, under the circumstances and with all the necessary caveats stated, the counter-offensive was justified.
And see, that was and is the thing about Iraq/Afghanistan...the attacks weren't justified at all. If Washington had pursued -- in a legal way, which no doubt would've included some amount of violence -- the organization responsible for the Sept 11 attacks and kept their objectives limited to that and only that (with a re-design of imperialist foreign policy for good measure), only the most hammer-headed lefties would've complained.
But of course, as you know, that's not what was done. Washington reached out across many thousands of miles -- far, far from home -- to take a 19th century style action; a classic power grab.
But Moscow is contending with things that are happening in its neighborhood and, whatever sins are being committed in the process, is dealing with a sticky situation made somewhat thornier by Euro-American foolishness.
In other words, only a jackass objects to something solely because of the people involved. If Bush told me it was 11 am, EST, I wouldn't immediately assume it must be noon.
It's the actions -- the long term trajectory of policy -- which must be considered, analyzed, digested and, if found to be destructive, rejected.
Not the personalities involved.
Meh.
.d.