[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[Kaelik]

What an incredibly dumb person you are. I guess I should blame the media for misleading you since lord knows they've been breathlessly reporting every time the Russians travle in the direction of a nuclear power plant to hype extremely stupid hysteria about this.

There were increased radiation levels because tanks rolled over ground that has been mostly undisturbed for decades kicking up dust. The effect was extremely local, and the reason the evil Russians drove their evil tanks over the evil dust is the extremely banal evil reason that there's a road that runs directly from Belarus to Kyiv through chernobyl that is the shortest path.

The idea that a country that has nuclear weapons will use nuclear power plant detonations to out put fallout clouds that are just as likely to end up in Russia as Italy to do basically anything at all in this conflict is absurd.

Aside from pointlessly trying to hype nuclear fears there is no reason to believe the Russians will do anything with any nuclear power plant in Ukraine they wouldn't also do with a dam.

[Zaranthan]

Well, let me ask you this, Kaelik: what ARE they doing in Chernobyl?

Because I've heard that they rounded up and imprisoned the engineers working on site. I've heard that they cut off the external power supply to the containment facility.

Is any of that true? Is it all propaganda? There's a war on, it's hard to get reliable information.

[Thaluikhain]

Would not an invading force normally round up and imprison all sorts of civilians working for the local government, and cut off external power to various places as well?

There's little value in going out of your way to muck about with Chornobyl, (especially once it's essentially yours and you are moving stuff past it). Maybe getting some headlines and looking scary to random newsreaders, I guess.

[Kaelik]

Well, let me ask you this, Kaelik: what ARE they doing in Chernobyl?

Because I've heard that they rounded up and imprisoned the engineers working on site. I've heard that they cut off the external power supply to the containment facility.

Is any of that true? Is it all propaganda? There's a war on, it's hard to get reliable information.

What they are doing is the same thing they are doing in all the other red areas on this map, occupying and using as staging for further advance:

Yes that means locking up a bunch of Ukrainian engineers at a decommissioned nuclear power plant because you don't trust them and you don't know what they are going to do, and it means locking them up in shitty makeshift camps because the other alternatives are spending a lot of resources in a war you are already having a bad time with on prisoner security and comfort, or shipping them back to Russia.

Russia has twice now damaged the powerlines that connect Chernobyl to Kiev and the rest of the Ukrainian grid, but there is no evidence it is deliberate and it's a lot more likely that the copious missile bombardment and other ongoing war that has cut power to many locations many times is the cause, not a sinister goal to destroy power lines instead flipping a switch at the reactor, which is also something they could do since they control the city and the power plant!

A basic skepticism has to be applied to news reports that hype anything having to do with a nuclear power plant, because it SOUNDS scary, but is it actually? Here's what the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) says will happen if you cut ALL POWER to Chernobyl containment: Nothing. First off, they have local reserve generators, but even if you shut those down too the IAEA says nothing will happen, and that the water will continue to provide sufficient cooling without any powered cooling system.

Another question is "why would they cut power to the reactor by breaking powerlines between it an Kiev intentionally?" They have control over the site. If you cut the power lines, the generators kick in. If they wanted to cut power, seems like it would be a lot easier to just turn off the generators and cut the power to containment from inside the facility instead of breaking a power line connection miles away!

Another question you should ask is "Assuming this is part of some nefarious plot, what would they be trying to accomplish?" If Chernobyl's decommissioned power plant is some how revved up and then caused to detonate, first of all what happens?

It sure doesn't look like this is an effective way to specifically attack Ukraine, or France, or Germany, that protects Russians does it? It sure seems like you aren't accomplishing anything but just guessing.

Now imagine Russia did in fact somehow cause Chernobyl to do something. What would the response be from Poland, France, the US ect? Is there a specific part of US MAD rules that says "okay look, we all agree that if Russia SHOOTS a nuke at Ukraine we end the world with nuclear bombs, but like, c'mon. Putin invoked the LOOPHOLE where if you seize control over a nuclear power plant in Ukraine and then wire it to nuke the surrounding area and then leave we the US can't do anything at all!"

Of course not. Using a power plant is not different from using a bomb. If you use nukes everyone gets mad and probably Mutually Assured Destruction MAD.

What the media wants you to do is read a headline and click on it, and to do that they can't say "information confusion, looks like Russia is still invading and will probably win, but Ukraine is doing much better then expected." The truth is the same as it was yesterday and the day before and the week before. They need to provide "new" information and they need to excite your feelings by making it feel like that information is important.

Talking about a nuclear power plant or how Ukraine is the first step to Putin's Hitlerian conquest of the continent is how they can get clicks, so they will write stories that carefully imply horrible things about Chernobyl, like that Russians a deliberately cutting power to containment to blow the place up, instead of telling you that some power lines in a war zone went down and the IAEA says that if you cut power it doesn't matter because the current containment protocols were designed for the 1986 post explosion conditions and are therefore exceedingly redundant for the 40 year later containment that already started removing radioactive material like 4 years ago.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is sufficiently bad in reality that we don't need to engage with implication based sensational journalism hype about how Russia might do bad things if given access to Nuclear material, because Russia has lots of nuclear material and has for a long time, and they are pretty clearly content to use conventional armies to do their bad stuff in Ukraine.

[MGuy]

I think people do need the sensationalism so they can believe that this instance of war is different than the ongoing conflicts we've been involved in, are involved in, or are actively supporting. If this wasn't the worst war of all time people would relegate it to the back of their mind like they do all the shit we're up to. Why are we not properly funding COVID measures? Because people are dying in Ukraine.

[Dogbert]

So, in all of this shitshow, we haven't heard loudmouth North Korea even once.

Good? Bad? Discuss.

[MGuy]

Hasn't NK and SK been slowly working towards an understanding? I remember SK leader trying to get Trump 'out' of the situation. The other big concern is supposed to be China though.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

If this wasn't the worst war of all time people would relegate it to the back of their mind like they do all the shit we're up to.

This is the thing that makes me uncomfortable about this one.

Why doesn't the US want the usual this time? It would have facilitated everything they've done on this and gotten the same outcome no problem.

So what is the domestic media blitz really for? None of the usual excuses seem to fit.

They don't NEED to manufacture consent on this. They haven't bothered to manufacture consent on similar things, why go to such effort now?

No way in hell it's just for short term domestic politics and fortunes of Joe Biden's democrats. You don't get a media blitz (in the whole five nation alliance that passes for "the West" these days) like this on a US domestic partisan issue much less for the grandad you're warned to stay out of arms reach of.

I worry that it is somehow part of a needlessly dangerous harebrained scheme from the same people that are losing the battle against the totally for real Cuban cricket death ray send help and money now!

I fear something either so stupid or so vile (or both) that it's too hard to string the dots together if you don't have late stage early onset state deparmentia.

Like say, if someone convinced someone that just by golly the US needs to remind the world who's boss and that the empire isn't dead by priming up a five minute hate target to drop juuuuuust one little nuke on... (or historically two)...

[Thaluikhain]

Last few newsworthy wars have been in non-white countries, people are saying the refugees aren't from Iraq or somewhere this time. A lot of it is simple racism, not sure how much though.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I think the refugee racism angle is less about media coverage and more about politically exploiting local UK and EU nazis that are the core of the normal anti-refugee demographic politicians of a certain ilk love to pander to.

It's also a more recent development caused by events, rather than part of the preparation for/cause of events (or at least the recent public perception of the lead up to events). It also doesn't feel like preparation for, something yet to happen?

If anything it's going to fizzle with no result at all, at least in the UK they're making promises and failing to be assed to actually make the changes to their system that is now so hostile to refugees that making any meaningful exception would require a Tory minister to do their job for at least a standard working day or two. Which is of course a non starter.

And if a Tory working for a day to meet a hollow racist promise in the UK is a non-starter don't even ask about Australia, we already did the broken promise to racist fast track white refugees thing. In fact, we do it every 3 or 4 years or so. Turns out Liberal Nationals, even less likely to do a few hours work, just ask the natural disasters.

[Kaelik]

Hasn't NK and SK been slowly working towards an understanding? I remember SK leader trying to get Trump 'out' of the situation. The other big concern is supposed to be China though.

Most recent SK election has a far right leader in charge again so that process will probably be reversed.

[Koumei]

Yeah, their new leader took cues straight from the Trump playbook, and talks about how multiculturalism and feminism go against the very foundations of the country. Not sure how long before North Korea becomes the best country called Korea simply by dint of South Korea throwing itself off a cliff, but we'll see.

[Kaelik]

Zelensky has panned opposition parties in Ukraine, so now at least I won't have to hear people telling me why Russia's invasion of Ukraine is worse then the US invasion of Iraq because Ukraine is a democracy anymore right?

https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/sh ... hi-n-73685

[spoiler][/spoiler]

The sort here appears to be "any party that opposed joining NATO" but it bans amongst other parties the second largest party, the largest party that isn't Zelensky's party.

[erik]

Does a country that is occupied and in a daily struggle for its very existence get the luxury of having an opposition government? Martial law is scary because it means a suspension of civil law and regular government. Being in martial law now does not mean that they were not a democracy before being pushed into this position. I don't get the equivalence you're trying to make or the necessity behind the desire to try to compare wars.

The Iraq war was done upon a sovereign nation under false pretenses, and was all manner of fucked up. I'm all for those responsible for that war, and all those involved with any war crimes, also being tried at the Hague.

[Kaelik]

"Marital law" and "banning opposition parties" are different things. It's a parliamentary democracy that had an election in 2019. It can just not have elections until 2023 if it wants. It could even, hypothetically, postpone those elections (though it did not do that, and currently is theoretically going to have those elections, just without people being allowed to run in them), and there's no reason to think they would have one soon. That's different from expelling every member of the second largest political party from the parliament and dismantling their party infrastructure.

You could, in theory, make a lot of arguments about the relative allocation of power to executives vs parliament at this time. None of those arguments apply to just ousting parliamentary members and then what... running the government through parliament but all the deliberation and votes happen without the largest opposition party? How does that aid in war time administration of anything?

For what it's worth, Ukraine banned the then third largest party after then 2014 coup. Ukraine's "democracy" chops have always been mostly fake.

I'm "comparing" wars because I'm tired of other people doing what amounts to Iraq war apologia by talking about how the invasions of official US enemy country is the worst thing since WWII and totally different from the various US invasions. Specifically, the thing I said is "I won't have to hear about how this is worse then the US invasion of Iraq any more?" because that's a thing I have had to hear constantly from almost exclusively people who supported the Iraq war whether on TV or in the NYT.

[Stahlseele]

Marital Law is family court.
It's Martial Law, why does nobody ever get that right?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

They say they want to try Putin for war crimes at the Hague.

Bullshit they do.

Allowing the precedent of a world leader of a nation on the security council to be tried for the same things every US president ever routinely does without consequence?

It's a transparent bluff. I don't think they have the hypocrisy balls to go ahead with it. I think if it somehow turned from non-committal propaganda to a genuine threat of actually happening the US would shit themselves in panic and do everything in their power to stop it.

If Putin is genuinely losing everything ever every day no backsies like the propaganda says, he should just turn up and the Hague and hand himself in. The united states would have an aneurysm.

[erik]

For what it's worth, Ukraine banned the then third largest party after then 2014 coup. Ukraine's "democracy" chops have always been mostly fake.

I think the situation is complicated for democracy when your neighboring country is actively interfering in elections and attempting to set up quisling governments, sometimes successfully nationally, and also is fomenting dissent and rebellion in order to annex regions in part by subverting regional politics. But I'll grant that I don't know enough to contribute to whether that action was justified in 2014 even in that context. I just feel that if Ukraine's democractic chops are weak, then Russia shares the blame.

that's a thing I have had to hear constantly from almost exclusively people who supported the Iraq war whether on TV or in the NYT.

Ah, well, fuck those guys. I don't need further stinkin justification to say that once I hear they supported the Iraq war.

I really feel the world would be a better place if we would stop being the fuckin baddies. If we are going to depose (or, more likely, support) a dictator for our interests then let the rest of the world punish us for being meddling murderous assholes, or if a situation was so bad that we are obligated to step in then convince other nations join us in agreement. Hopefully that could lead to us only interfering in the latter situations with a large coalition and an actual plan with achievable goals and resolution.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I really feel the world would be a better place if we would stop being the fuckin baddies. If we are going to depose (or, more likely, support) a dictator for our interests then let the rest of the world punish us for being meddling murderous assholes, or if a situation was so bad that we are obligated to step in then convince other nations join us in agreement.

Unfortunately, someone else will gladly be the baddies in our place. Not that it justifies anything we do, but... someone is going to be a belligerent, power-tripping asshole. Poor people aren't going to exploit themselves, you know. Some people crave domination over others and they find themselves in politics because that's one of the traits that kind of environment selects for.

[NOTNOThyzmarca]

But the USA very much made this happen and has been working on it since it was Biden's pet project when he was vice president when they pushed a far right nazi filled government to power in a coup that disenfranchised half the Ukraine just to put a hostile nation on Russia's border for no fucking good reason.

If the US hadn't done a coup in 2014 would Russia have invaded Ukraine in 2022? Almost certainly not!

I'm uncertain how one can come to characterize the Ukrainian Parlaiment voting unanimously to remove an extremely unpopular president after he badly bungles handling of a popular protest movement as "the US did a coup." Yanukovych had protestors shot. All he needed to do to remain President was not have protestors shot. That shit does have consequences.

But much more likely the last 8 years, and the last 6 months in specific, demonstrate that there were things he wanted besides an invasion of Ukraine and that he could have done the invasion a lot sooner but really wanted something else. You can say "this has nothing to do with NATO expansion!" but the day before Putin invaded, NATO's position was still that Ukraine could join NATO. The actual cost to NATO and everyone of just promising not to expand NATO was basically nothing, but NATO wouldn't make that promise, Biden wouldn't make that promise, ect.

Would making that promise, alone, in a clear and committing way, have averted this invasion? If done in 2021? Who knows? Reason to believe so! What if it had been made 2 weeks before the invasion? Who knows? Seems less likely, but certainly possible and yet, no one made that promise.

Ukraine has a right to join NATO, the EU, or any other alliance that will have them. Russia does not have a right to invade Ukraine. If Putin was really concerned about NATO expansion, he could have asked for Russia to be let into NATO. We probably would have said yes. We like having friends.

Aside from pointlessly trying to hype nuclear fears there is no reason to believe the Russians will do anything with any nuclear power plant in Ukraine they wouldn't also do with a dam.

Russia intentionally causing a meltdown is absurdly unlikely. Russia fucking up and accidentally causing one is much more probable. Fighting near nuclear plants is not a great idea in the best of circumstances.

If this wasn't the worst war of all time people would relegate it to the back of their mind like they do all the shit we're up to.

This is the thing that makes me uncomfortable about this one.

Why doesn't the US want the usual this time? It would have facilitated everything they've done on this and gotten the same outcome no problem.

So what is the domestic media blitz really for? None of the usual excuses seem to fit.

They don't NEED to manufacture consent on this. They haven't bothered to manufacture consent on similar things, why go to such effort now?

No way in hell it's just for short term domestic politics and fortunes of Joe Biden's democrats. You don't get a media blitz (in the whole five nation alliance that passes for "the West" these days) like this on a US domestic partisan issue much less for the grandad you're warned to stay out of arms reach of.

I worry that it is somehow part of a needlessly dangerous harebrained scheme from the same people that are losing the battle against the totally for real Cuban cricket death ray send help and money now!

I fear something either so stupid or so vile (or both) that it's too hard to string the dots together if you don't have late stage early onset state deparmentia.

Like say, if someone convinced someone that just by golly the US needs to remind the world who's boss and that the empire isn't dead by priming up a five minute hate target to drop juuuuuust one little nuke on... (or historically two)...

If Biden wanted to nuke Russia, he would have put troops in Ukraine of Feb 23 and told Putin "Come at me, bro." Then Putin would maybe use a tactical nuke thinking it would force the US to back down and Biden would have justification to retaliate. And if he did that it wouldn't be just one, it would be all of them and then the whole "Russia exists" problem would be done with, because US nuclear weapons use policy has never been to do things by half measures. Massive Retaliation has always been the name of the game.

Biden very much doesn't want things to escalate to that level, which is why he's sitting back and letting the EU do most of the lifting.

The actual driver here are is the EU, which is rightfully freaking the fuck out because Putin has just proven that the EU's foundational belief that strong trade ties between European nations will prevent wars in Europe is not actually true.

And fuck, the EU completely obliterated Russia's economy practically overnight. They hit the economic nuclear option first and hard, with little prompting from the US.

Germany wants to expand its military. A country that culturally hates the fact that it has a military due to lingering former genocidal world conqueror guilt, that considers it an occupation for people who can't get real jobs, has drastically increased it's military spending and military expansion has become wildly popular amongst its people. Because they are looking at Russia right now and seeing themselves 90 years ago, whether that's true or not.

Poland is freaking out because Ukraine is right on their back door and they remember being a Soviet satellite very unfondly.

The US is smiling because we don't have to lift a finger here beyond joining the sanctions and passing some intel. In one fell swoop Putin has revitalized NATO and made it relevant again, convinced Germany to re-militarize, and there's even talk creating of a EU military now. All of these things were utterly unthinkable on Feburary 21st.

And Putin has also thoroughly demonstrated that Russia's conventional military is utter dogshit. Ukraine is holding them off by itself, with only intelligence and material support from the EU and NATO. And that was utterly unthinkable on February 21st, as well. Putin obviously didn't think it.


As for why this isn't business as usual in the American media, Well racism, obviousfuckingly. Have you not seen American media at all, ever? Ukraine is not a North African country full of brown-skinned people. Attractive white girls are being blown up. This is Missing White Woman syndrome turned up to 11. That doesn't mean that the media is wrong to give it attention. War is fucking horrible. War is horrible no matter who is being blown up and what they're skin color is. But in this case, it certainly hits closer to home. Ukraine is European, it's close to joining the EU and NATO. And while we don't give that much of a shit about it at the best of times, they're close enough to being One of Us to make people scared and angry and get the clickbait.

Zelensky has panned opposition parties in Ukraine, so now at least I won't have to hear people telling me why Russia's invasion of Ukraine is worse then the US invasion of Iraq because Ukraine is a democracy anymore right?

The sort here appears to be "any party that opposed joining NATO" but it bans amongst other parties the second largest party, the largest party that isn't Zelensky's party.

Kaelik, in order to run for reelection, Zelensky has to not lose the war with Russia. Do you think for a moment that he'll lose if he's the guy who successfully repelled a Russian invasion? Fuck no. Putin boosted Zelensky's popularity into the stratosphere and he's going to get reelected unless someone shoots him or Russia takes the entire country, the latter of which is looking less and less likely.

Russia invaded Ukraine. The Opposition Platform — For Life was very pro Russia and many of its prominent members and former members have strong ties to Russia. Viktor Medvedchuk, The Opposition Platform — For Life's leader, is a close personal friend of Putin and no one currently knows where he is or if he's in communication with anyone. And while the Opposition Platform — For Life has been kicking out members who were vocally in support of the invasion, it's not much of a stretch to think that some of its members are just quiet about it. Most governments might want to limit the ability of such people to cause damage internally. Restricting organizations that might be covertly supporting your enemies is pretty fucking standard when you're being invaded and the very existence of your state is at risk. That's not anti-democratic; it's just sane.

[Kaelik]

I'm uncertain how one can come to characterize The Ukrainian Parlaiment voting unanimously to remove an extremely unpopular president after he badly bungles handling of a popular protest movement as "the US did a coup." Yanukovych had protestors shot. All he needed to do to remain President was not have protestors shot. That shit does have consequences.

Yeah, that's definitely what happened. There's no way the US which explicitly was caught on tape planning the new government had anything to do with inciting the protests and we know that it was definitely that guy who ordered protestors to be shot because there were protests and then shots were fired by snipers at both cops and protestors from somewhere (many report buildings controlled by Maiden protestors, but that doesn't fit so let's just assume they are all wrong), and then the new government fingered a guy with ONE HAND as one of the snipers and showed a photo of him at the scene with a mysteriously regrown second hand (that I guess he chopped off again after the sniping) and that's all we need to know.

Let's not look into this any further.

Ukraine has a right to join NATO, the EU, or any other alliance that will have them. Russia does not have a right to invade Ukraine. If Putin was really concerned about NATO expansion, he could have asked for Russia to be let into NATO. We probably would have said yes. We like having friends.

LMAO. Putin asked for Russia to be let into NATO decades ago and he was turned down because the entire purpose of NATO post USSR was an anti-Russian alliance.

Ukraine also doesn't have a right to join NATO because check this out, NATO keeps telling them no! NATO's position before the invasion, as Zelensky has said a few times publicly since, is that Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO. Which is why promising that publicly in a way that commits them to that position costs nothing.

Everyone always knew that NATO wasn't going to let Ukraine in post 2014, and everyone has been operating on that in the assumption in Ukraine and the US, but no one is willing to just commit to saying that because it would be "giving in to Russia" aka negotiating to avoid a war.

Kaelik, in order to run for reelection, Zelensky has to not lose the war with Russia. Do you think for a moment that he'll lose if he's the guy who successfully repelled a Russian invasion? Fuck no. Putin boosted Zelensky's popularity into the stratosphere and he's going to get reelected unless someone shoots him or Russia takes the entire country, the latter of which is looking less and less likely.

Oh well as long as you think the guy banning opposition political parties would probably win the next election then I'm sure it's not big deal.

Russia invaded Ukraine. The Opposition Platform — For Life was very pro Russia and many of its prominent members and former members have strong ties to Russia. Viktor Medvedchuk, The Opposition Platform — For Life's leader, is a close personal friend of Putin and no one currently knows where he is or if he's in communication with anyone. And while the Opposition Platform — For Life has been kicking out members who were vocally in support of the invasion, it's not much of a stretch to think that some of its members are just quiet about it. Most governments might want to limit the ability of such people to cause damage internally. Restricting organizations that might be covertly supporting your enemies is pretty fucking standard when you're being invaded and the very existence of your state is at risk. That's not anti-democratic; it's just sane.

"Democracy is when the people vote for something, and you don't like it so you take away their ability to vote because you know better." No, that's vanguardism. There are a lot of (alleged) vanguardist governments in the world, but people usually can tell the difference between them and democracy. (Even when they can't tell the difference between democracy and oligarchic elections.)

When you ban the second largest political party in the country, the one that represents primarily ethnic Russians in the east of Ukraine because "well they say they oppose Russia's invasion, but they sure do look mighty RUSSIAN to me, and also they have connections to Russia" that's just anti democratic.

That's before going into the other parties that were banned (many of which were not pro Russian in any meaningful way) but even if the entire OPL political party was "anti Russian invasion, but PRO voting for Ukraine to merge into Russia" it would still in fact be antidemocratic to ban them. That the second largest party "looks awfully Russian" is a reflection of the fact that Ukraine looks awfully Russian, as recently as 2014 the elected government was weighing alternative options from Russia and the IMF on where it would take loans. Of course, at the time there were many more ethnically Russian voters who have in the more recent elections been in areas where they can't vote for reasons related to ongoing separatist civil war or Russian occupation/annexation, not to mention people who might be upset about said occupation or civil war.

Stripping the largest opposition party from parliament and then just sort of moving on doesn't become "just a sane democratic move." Democracy means even the people who vote for things you don't like get to have representation. The reason it's supposed to work is because if the majority oppose that thing they can just have a vote and win the vote. And this is already the case! Ukraine can just have parliament vote on anything it wants to and win the vote without any OPL votes so there is no "internal sabotage" that OPL can do by having representation.

[NOTNOThyzmarca]

Stripping the largest opposition party from parliament and then just sort of moving on doesn't become "just a sane democratic move." Democracy means even the people who vote for things you don't like get to have representation.

It does not, however, mean that people trying to kill you have representation.

The reason it's supposed to work is because if the majority oppose that thing they can just have a vote and win the vote. And this is already the case! Ukraine can just have parliament vote on anything it wants to and win the vote without any OPL votes so there is no "internal sabotage" that OPL can do by having representation.

Of course, being present in Parliament means having the same intel that Parliament does and being able to pass that on. Being able to organize under the auspices of a political party means being able to engage in actual organized sabotage and spying operations.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

If Biden wanted to nuke Russia, he would have put troops in Ukraine of Feb 23 and told Putin "Come at me, bro." Then Putin would maybe use a tactical nuke thinking it would force the US to back down and Biden would have justification to retaliate. And if he did that it wouldn't be just one, it would be all of them and then the whole "Russia exists" problem would be done with, because US nuclear weapons use policy has never been to do things by half measures. Massive Retaliation has always been the name of the game.

Good fucking god you are stupid aren't you?

Lets just put aside a vast swathe of response to so many things you are wrong about and narrow it down to this.

I proposed that the media frenzy is unusual and seems clearly planned and prompted by the US state for some unknown and probably alarming purpose.

Like, but not limited to, trying to manufacture an excuse to drop a nuke on an enemy hated by their domestic audience purely to demonstrate dominance (for the second time in less than a century).

So you proposed... the stupidest version of how the US might do that which did NOT include the media frenzy (the bit which is actually happening) but which DID include the USA arranging to have it's own front line forces (the presence of which is NOT actually happening) nuked by someone else first (which would remove any value of posturing for dominance) and following up only with a return nuke (or in other words WW3) as a proposal of thing Biden might more easily achieve (than the media frenzy that HAS been achieved) and reasonably would want to achieve (because you made it clear you think that the US would proceed to then WIN A NUCLEAR WAR WITH A NUCLEAR POWER you fucking numpty).

Do you realize just how much you are not interacting with my little topic there of "Media frenzy, what for?" and how you instead had a bit of an utterly irrational juvenile military power masturbation moment of "Hurr hurr MURICA hurr, make baddy nuke goody troops so do good nuke back good yay easy, media blitz too hard, better to trick pootin with open hostile attack, hurr hurr stoopid putin easy fool hurr hurr MURICA! Lets just win WW3 HUR HUR MURICA!"

[tussock]

The normal means of governing a parliamentary democracy at war time are to form a government of national unity and give ministerial and cabinet positions to the opposition, effectively running the place as a one-party state that includes members of all previous parties until the war is over. It lets everyone act in public support of the war effort together while also letting them argue about all that other shit in private.

There is also a history of using disasters as an excuse to dissolve opposition parties and arrest their leadership, but .. well, that was that other guy.

--

But I think I'm still too pissed off about Iraq to see this one clearly. It's fairly simple in that all wars are the worst things (along with to plague and famine), so starting one means you are very much in the wrong.

But also fighting a massively bigger opponent front on is just fucking stupid, all it does is get your people killed. Everyone pouring weapons into Ukraine is just getting more Ukrainian people killed, and their sole purpose in doing so is that it'll be on the news for a while that way. My government usually supports other white people governments doing these wars, but Russia is the old enemy, so here we are instead.

--

"Media Frenzy" is 3 things.
1: it's new. News is stuff that doesn't normally happen, and this doesn't normally happen.
2: US media is literally owned by the arms manufacturers who are making bank off this. Except Fox, but doubtful there because it's a D in office.
3: It lets them not talk about how everyone's dying of the plague that their governments just refuse to stop. Which is both embarrassing and not new.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

1: it's new. News is stuff that doesn't normally happen, and this doesn't normally happen.

Counter point.

Yes it fucking does normally happen.

And it isn't normally news when it does. Certainly not like this is.