“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063

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[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What I was saying is that no, 5 billion wasn't given to some shadowy group in Ukraine to do a coup, it was the standard foreign aid the US throws around to advance it's interests.

Also yes, politicians go around shaking hands all over the place. I though you meant they went to Ukraine to specifically support Euromaidan before it happened but any politician supporting that visited after.

Ultimately the laws that triggered the protests were very protestable. If Kaia Kallas tried to pass those here I would be taking up a pitchfork and torch right now. There is no evidence to suggest it was some group paid by the US but plenty to suggest people protested because their leader was screwing them over.

[–] gnuhaut@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Obviously protestors have a reason for protesting and the CIA isn't handing out cash to random schmoes. They're just giving money to various groups that organize and support the protest, or they pay for positive media coverage. Groups they've been cultivating for decades. Groups that are coordinated by the US state department and will do basically what the US embassy tells them to do.

Again, imagine you had protests in Estonia, and the groups involved were long-time funded by Russia, and Russian officials made appearances at these protests to hand out cookies and shake hands, and Russian-funded media was riling up the protestors, and some of the people involved are straight up far-right fascists that hate your ethnic group. And then you hear a leaked phone call of Lavrov discussing who's going to be the new PM of Estonia, and a couple of weeks later, shooting starts (no one knows how exactly and nobody is too interested in finding out) and your old PM gets ousted without proper procedure, and the guy the Russians said they liked is in, and the far-right fascists also gets posts, and they hate you. WHAT WOULD YOU THINK?

[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The initial protest, that were gunned down, were started by students at like midnight because the leader tried to sneakily pass the dictatorship laws... Also as I said the money was given over like 30 years. If they were discussing the new PM and it was the person who was 100% going to be PM then that would be irrelevant as I said.

At best all of this is some slightly sussy things that seem maybe related but if you look into all of them individually they are basically meaningless. But if you look at what the people were protesting it makes perfect sense to protest this.

So the 2 options boil down to:

For the last 30 years 'the west' has been working to coup Ukraine and they have control to determine who will be leader and they pick the most obvious guy that would already be in power. But they don't have the power to make the protestors take the deal they were urging them to take.
Yanakovych wants to be a dictator so he passes laws to slowly make himself into one. The students take issue and protest. He reacts the worst way and kills them triggering massive protests across the country forcing him to flee.

Option #2 seems way more believable to me.

[–] gnuhaut@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes, the US cultivates influence groups that then, at the right time, take over real protests involving actual people with actual grievances, as a cover to carry out coups. They have done this many times. They do this because they want to loot and exploit countries for cheap labor and resources, and in this case, also to put a whole army in Russia's face.

Some questions about your explanation: He just wants to be dictator? Why? Who's backing him and why? Why would he be so stupid as to shoot at the protestors?

Have you ever seen that documentary about the failed coup to overthrow Chavez, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"? Private pro-coup TV channels told everybody the pro-Chavez protestors started shooting at the opposition, which was the mainstream narrative at the time. This was used as justification to oust him (temporarily). But the documentary filmmakers (which happened to be there filming at the time) show that it was snipers shooting at both pro- and anti-Chavez demonstrators.

[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why does anyone want to be a dictator? Like Lukashenko is pretty hated but he seems to get a kick out of it. In the US that florida guy who looks like homelander looks like he would do a dictatorship. I don't get it but plenty of people seem to want to be dictators.

It's probable that Yanakovitch was backed by Putin, I think there was some crazy loan he gave the guy after he pulled away from the EU but I could be entirely wrong. He could just want to be a dictator with no one backing him like Lukashenko initially, though now he is definitely cozied up to Putin.

Dictators tend to be pretty stupid and just want to play strongman. Like why did Mao kill the sparrows and trigger a massive famine. Because he was an idiot, hell pretty much all parts of the great leap forward was insanely stupid. Or when Stalin had that science guy who said communist crops will not compete for nutrients and that triggered insane famines. Again because he was a moron. Or why did Lenin kill all his allies that wanted democracy. Because big dumb and that got Stalin into power who ran a bloody empire only outdone by Hitler who was also a fucking moron and let his dog decide military maneuvers. Seems like there's a pattern here.

Never seen that and don't know much about Chavez so can't comment on that. He always seemed like the guy people from the US talk about and people from the US generally have dogshit political takes. Americans gave the world ancaps and I won't forgive that.

[–] gnuhaut@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So they're just evil madmen? Well that explains it. A job well done. Maybe you've watched too many movies?

[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

I never said evil, pretty sure at least some dictators had good intentions. I said they were all stupid, I can't really find any exceptions to it either. Also movies tend to portray dictators like some genius madmen which is extremely wrong, like most nazies were absolute troglodytes but movies portray them as some strategic geniuses. Like their missiles were initially so shit because their scientists believed the earth was flat and didn't take the curvature of the earth into consideration.

Every dictator at some point shows what a moron they are and so far that has played out in history.

[–] Redcat@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

it was the standard foreign aid the US throws around to advance it's interests.

It's quite telling that the US has triggered so many coups around the world that you can call it 'the standard foreign aid'. How the hell do you think coups come about?