5 Reasons Why Leftists Should Defend Russia | New Eastern Outlook

[Tommy_Carcetti]

200. All I've ever done is demand that facts be presented, and not unsupported conspiracy theories.

By virtue of your ad hominem strawman ("Curtis Lemay"? Really?), you're trying to frame me as some sort of neo-con Cold Warrior demanding the US take military action in Ukraine and defending every single bit of US foreign policy and foreign intervention over the years.

I challenge you now to find one single post of mine--one single post--where I have advocated that the US take military action against Russia over Ukraine. You can spend all afternoon searching, but you will not find a thing. Because I've never seen what is happening in Ukraine as being all about the US. It is, when you boil it down, a Ukrainian-Russian conflict.

And my only goal here is to ensure that the facts are not twisted by people with whatever agenda they may have, whether it is simply an overzealous (but not totally unjustified) reaction to US foreign policy past and present, or whether it is to advocate the position of the Russian government.

The Ukrainian people, including my own relatives, deserve better than that. There was a real crisis in Ukraine in the winter of 2013 and 2014 concerning real issues that matter to a majority of the Ukrainian people. It was not drummed up in some dark room in Langley. They voiced their concerns, the then-president resisted those concerns and cracked down in bloody fashion. After the people refused to relent, he ultimately backed down and left. And at that point, the Russian government stepped in and exploited the volatile situation by violating existing treaties and expanding its territory and influence over its direct neighbor, to the bloody detriment of the Ukrainian people.

That's it. That's what the facts support. And I'm under no obligation whatsoever to entertain alternate narratives not supported by the facts. If someone comes to me and said that airplanes never flew into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9-11, I'd tell them right away they are full of shit. Because I know the observable facts do not betray my understanding.

It's no different here.