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points by OroPla 2 days ago | 0 comments
Without any more qualifiers, that could be any large country on Earth. Except, maybe, for China. I don't remember them going around invading other places.
[–] jwr 2 days ago
Everybody draws their line somewhere. For some, it's Russia. For others, Russia and Israel. For other, perhaps also the United States -- but we don't all have to agree about the specific line. However, we should not fall into whataboutism and just do nothing, because it's difficult to define a line. There are aggressors (like Russia), where things really are quite clear.
[–] OroPla 2 days ago
Just like any other conflict involving large nations, the bad guy is only ever clear to the local propaganda machine. And after the fact history tends to be written by the winner.

Truth is the first victim of any war.

[–] cosmicgadget 2 days ago
Okay do you want to add qualifiers or just accept my point because Russia's invasion happens to be the most bloody and pointless war currently and in the past 40 years?

You should be able to remember China invading other places historically. Recently, of course, China doesn't compare to Russia or the US in terms of direct conflict. On the other hand, they're the country that is the most vocal about an imminent occupation.

[–] OroPla 2 days ago
Do you want to discount Israel's invasion of Palestine because it has been going on for longer than 40 years?

> should be able to remember China invading other places historically

Can you help me out by clarifying the time and the country they invaded? I remember China being constantly invaded by others, hence the building of the Great Wall of China. They also had a navy at some point exploring the world, but then stopped and never really colonized any place as far as I know. Of course, I don't remember the entire history of China by heart, so which place did they invade and when?

[–] geopastr 2 days ago
I know it’s fashionable to change the topic to Israel whenever China or Russia is being criticized, but here are some numbers for perspective:

Deaths in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: ~600,000 Total deaths in Israel-Palestine conflict since 1948: ~200,000. So Ukraine is definitely bloodier.

The area occupied by Russia in Ukraine is 20x the size of Gaza + the West Bank, and is 5 times the size of Israel itself.

Russia is 775x the size of Israel, so unlike Israel-Palestine fighting over a small piece of territory to live on, Russia’s war is far more pointless.

[–] OroPla 1 day ago
The original comment was about "not wanting to contribute to the aggressor in a terrible war", which necessarily will bring up Israel, who the USA is generously spending billions of dollars on year by year.

How many billions of dollars has the USA given to Russia since starting the war?