This is only possible because Russia is the first clear and acceptable Bad Guy since WW2 Germany.
There are very few gray areas about what they are doing in Ukraine, so everyone is firing with everything they've got. Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction someone called them.
We have had sanctions before, but at this level? It's pretty much unprecedented.
Usually sanctions are a bit of this and bit of that, just enough to put pressure on the politicians. Now we have companies left and right refusing to do business with Russia, all their foreign money is frozen and billionaires are getting their yachts taken from them. They can't even sell their oil anywhere, not even at a discount. (Although it seems Shell bought some, let's see how the fallout from that decision turns out).
Yes, in a few days Putin created a cartoonish evil villain image for himself like in B-category movies: invading a country, threatening the world with nuclear war, shooting at nuclear power plants, threatening prison for anyone of his subjects who dares criticize his actions.
Don’t appeal to emotion. This isn’t about the relative value of people, but about this conflict being more likely to escalate into a much more serious global conflict.
If we are going to talk objective politics, the US knew what they were doing when they were steering Ukraine into a collision with Russia, back when they had a serious part in that coup, then supporting the constitution change about neutrality, and finally taking steps for Ukraine to join NATO, all the while ignoring the Nazi proliferation in Ukraine (not very much important detail, but it did show their intents, and it was not democracy). What does that make the US? What was their end goal through all this? Are their goals in Ukraine that important to lead to today? They did know what would happen, with what they did with Ukraine, with what they had done with Georgia, which they also left helpless after steering it to war, and with all of the NATO's expansion towards Russian borders. They had given an example of what happens when you play dangerous games in the doorstep of a great power, with Cuba, threatening a WW3. And they DID NOT CARE. I am not taking away blame from Putin on this specific war. I am just reminding you, the US is playing the same game, and its goals are not concerned with global peace and human wellbeing.
None other than the hypocrisy of the US and the global standards it has set will be the cause of a global conflict. They just have to keep their forces in check, while an opponent does what they have been doing for decades on a non NATO country. Objectively speaking, THAT is the best decision for world peace. And it's all on the US alone. They can do it, and no one is forcing them otherwise.
If you asked me that a week ago, I might've said yes/maybe.
But now we have actual footage of Russia arresting people protesting against the war, just shooting artillery salvos at hospitals and schools. Oh, and FIRING AT A FUCKING NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. You don't get much more cartoon bad guy than that.
It's a shame that the regular Russian people have to suffer, but the only way to get tiny-P off the throne is to turn the country against him and make stuff so unbearable that even the official news can't explain it away with "russophobia".
When you realise “bubble” just means “loose group of people I tend to have a lot of overlapping views and interests with”, then you are just saying “is the reason you think this is bad is because of your views on what is bad” and… well, yeah.
I think you can assume that it does occur to most of us that we are all in a bubble to some extent, and that it’s important to be aware of that when forming your own views. It’s also totally possible for someone to come to a firm conclusion about the morality of a particular act without it having to be the effect of a bubble.
It’s easy to picture someone reasonably aware of the context of the invasion, including the restriction of water supplies to Crimea, NATO expansion, the background to the separatist conflicts, Euromaidan, the Azov Battalion, and all the other bits and pieces that we’ve all seen countless articles about over the past two weeks. It doesn’t seem invalid for that person to have a reasonably well-informed view that the actions of Russia are Very Extremely Bad Indeed and that there are “few gray areas”, does it?
Yeah I don't fault people for weighing all of the facts and coming down on one side or the other. But if someone doesn't see that there is a lot of "gray areas", then they have not weighed the facts beyond their bubble. That was my only point.
Except I can explain both sides of the conflict, and see how the pro-NATO Ukranian regime and Putin have both made moves that have led to this. I can also see how the US is knee deep in it as well. So yes, I see the gray areas.
There are very few gray areas about what they are doing in Ukraine, so everyone is firing with everything they've got. Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction someone called them.