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Everyone knows Putin invaded Ukraine because he's a dumbass dictator who started to believe his own propaganda. It's the dictator trap. Putin surrounded himself with backstabbing yes men by literally killing anyone who wasn't.
As to Palestinian resistance. I don't think Hamas is a good resistance movement. For a whole host of reasons. Which is why the Israeli government has been propping them up since the 80s.
An unsympathetic resistance movement can do more to damage a cause than not having a movement at all.
From now until the ethnic cleansing is complete, Israel will call any resistance movement Hamas, regardless of their actual name or beliefs. I'm not sure how to fight that... I don't think anyone really knows beyond screaming the truth everywhere we can.
It didn't work in the 1920s in Europe. But maybe with the Internet... Likely not though.
Do you have any evidence of this? Could it be that there were economic factors at play, and rational actors, regardless of morality or immorality? This seems utterly vibe-based and lacks a materialist analysis, so I'd love evidence.
Hamas isn't the only resistance group in Palestine, there are others such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The key though is that Israel has been committing settler-colonial genocide for a century, oppressed peoples have a right to use violence against their oppressors, especially when non-violent means have tried and failed, and especially in the face of active genocide.
Equating Hamas to Israel equates resistance to genocide with genocide itself.
what about the 10s of thousands of baltics sent to siberia? wasn't that a genocide? or all the famine in Ukraine? or the invasion of Hungary and checkoslovaka after they implemented democratic reforms?
The transport of Baltic peoples, Tatars, Japanese, etc were ethnic cleansing, but not genocide because it didn't seek to destroy those people. I don't think you'll find anyone defending those actions.
The famine in Ukraine was part of a wider crop failure of the grain-producing regions of the USSR. The role Soviet policy of distribution grain, reaction to soviet policy in the form of destruction of grain and livestock, and the reaction to that resistance all played is contested, but no serious historian argues that the USSR intended to bring about the destruction of the Ukrainian people.
Life And Terror In Stalin's Russia, is a great book that is critical of the USSR, but with more nuance than the western narrative. Here's a free PDF.
While the initial uprising was sparked by democratic reformers, it was quickly co-opted by fascists, as evidenced by the destruction of communist imagery and murder of Hungarian communists.
i have my own narrative as an estonian. and stop talking about fascists, hungary and spain were never going to be fascist nuclear powers.
There was no economic or rational factors. The only thing that makes a lick of sense is the irrational.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/putin-dictator-trap-russia-ukraine/627064/
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/3/24/22982864/vladimir-putin-russia-ukraine-war-brian-klaas
Those are a warm-up, but then you have the purges since the invasion began.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-purges-in-putins-shrinking-inner-circle
Putin has sort of been the butt of jokes for years for killing anyone who looks at him funny. He's a KGB stooge, who made his career out of backstabbing and paranoia. His entire inner circle were afraid to tell him the truth, because he would kill them if they did.
He's never been "savvy", he's just been willing to kill as many people as necessary to secure his own power.
The classic authoritarian dictator who throws people out of windows for saying no. And whose vaulted military had body armor made of cardboard, because the corruption was so ingrained that every single level was accepting bribes and stealing shit.
I'm surprised that they're still going, but Russia has shown the world that they're a third rate military, at best.
As to Palestine. It doesn't matter what the resistance movements call themselves now. Israel will just say they're Hamas, and no one likes Hamas. There are good reasons not to like Hamas, they're religious extremists who want to kill all Jews.
And for decades, Israel has funded Hamas behind the scenes, while coming down extra heavy on any other resistance movement. And now it's all paid off for them because they can just claim that anyone they kill was actually Hamas.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/
This tactic of creating the perfectly detestable opposition has been used in quite a few places. For example, Greenpeace gets a lot of money from oil company heirs. Specifically the Rockefeller family.
I doubt anyone from Hamas, or Greenpeace, ever took orders from the people giving them money. They were given the money with no strings attached, because they were already jackasses. The money just extended their reach.
There are absolutely rational reasons for Russia to invade Ukraine.
Looking back to the dissolution and subsequent plundering of the USSR, there became a rising Bourgeoisie within the Russian Federation. Since there wasn't already Imperialist infrastructure for the Russian Federation to exploit the Third World (large, monopoly and financial Capitalists with international footholds), Putin tried to join NATO and join hands with the rest of the Imperialist western nations, and take "their share" of the super-profits. This was denied, and thus began a long few decades of growing tensions between NATO and the Russian Federation.
Ukraine on the other hand has been increasingly militarized, with anti-Russian sentiments rising. NATO increased expansion against Russian requests, leading to Russia trying to forcibly demilitarize Ukraine.
Regardless of morals, there is a material basis for this conflict.
As for Palestine, again, the oppressed have the rights to use violence to free themselves, especially if non-violence hasn't worked, and in the face of genocide.
Ukraine has been super militarized with anti-Russian sentiments rising since they illegally stole a part of their country in 2014 and started providing money, arms, vehicles, and soldiers to separatists premised on said separatists murdering their fellow citizens and providing a thin pretext for Russia ultimately taking more of Ukraine.
Given the profoundly destructive nature of any such conflict with Russia and the impossibility of winning or even surviving without a coalition of supporters there is zero chance of Ukraine ever starting a conflict with Russia itself.
Given the risk of nuclear war and the impossibility of pushing Ukraine to start such a conflict there was never any chance of NATO either starting such a conflict OR being able to start one by proxy.
It's hard to argue that Russia had security concerns when the only person in a position to light this candle is themselves.
NATO was virtually entirely a mutual defense pact vs Russia in their previous incarnation as the USSR. Inducting Russia into NATO would only serve to give them veto power and influence on an org which virtually exists to defend against THEM! It makes no coherent sense nor would it somehow provide the Russians some share of "super profits" it would solely give them an opportunity to undermine NATO which is why Putin wanted it.
The material basis for stealing the Ukrainians country from them and murdering its children is that by doing so they gain access to tax payers, resources, people, strategic resources, land, fossil fuels etc. Based on what we know about their strategic planning we have every reason to believe they thought this would be an inexpensive and quick affair that would be concluded in a matter of days with minimal loss of life.
It is purely a function of avarice, stupidity, and immorality. It is no more complicated than asking why a burglar invaded a home and took the lives of people there when he just ended up leaving bloody himself. They did it because they thought it would profit them and because they thought they could get away with it.
This "defense pact" has invaded, bombed and destroyed many countries within only my lifetime, it's a laughable statement unless your historical horizon is less than a decade.
Living in America it's incredible to me how people I run into don't even know the countries that their own government has invaded using its "defense pact", or pay attention to people whose lives they've ruined, and thus can't even understand why people see them as a threat.
That's some blatant Russian propaganda there. Blame NATO twice for Russian imperialism.
The "Russia had to invade a sovereign nation because they were talking about joining NATO to prevent Russia from invading them" logic has some holes to it.
The fact that Russia has invaded their neighbors 14 times since the end of the cold war tells you why one of their neighbors would want to join NATO.
Also, remember that time that Russia shot down a commercial airliner? The Ukrainians sure as hell do. That was the true beginning of the invasion, which is why Ukraine was in talks to join NATO.
And yes, people have the right to defend themselves. But the Israeli government has locked down the anti-terror propaganda, because Hamas is pretty vile as far as organizations go. It's why Israel let Hamas grow and become powerful, and why the Israelis paid to keep Hamas in power for the last decade or so.
As long as Israel can point at Hamas, they have just enough of an excuse to claim their ethnic cleansing is actually just an anti-terror campaign.
Hamas is a full on terrorist organization, not that all terrorist organizations are bad. Or rather, there are some causes where a terrorist organization is the appropriate response. John Brown tried it. So did Nelson Mandela. But Hamas is a religious extremist terrorist organization. One that has distasteful views, and was sort of put in place by Israel for those views.
You see what I'm getting at here? Hamas is fucking evil, and Israel has mostly succeeded in making Hamas the face of Palestinian resistance against Israel.
I doubt many of the original leaders of Hamas are still alive, but that doesn't matter either when Israel can just lie and say that whoever they kill is Hamas. It's a bit maddening, and I doubt there's an answer to it all except for the other Palestinian resistance groups to step up their social media game.