I am looking at it from a more abstract, generic perspective.

When you lose the right to freely travel, work, live in your country. There is going to be a lot of animosity around this. I don’t think it is fair to purely attribute this to a discriminatory attitude.

And yet she didn’t bother to take his words seriously and maybe consider whether de facto backing russia (e.g. moving forward with Nord Stream 2 after the annextion of Crimea was a good idea).

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have condemned ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s request for warrants as disgraceful and antisemitic.

Antisemitism does manifest itself in both casual and systematic forms. The region-specific component is also important.

However, claims regarding antisemitism from the Israeli government are increasingly becoming a “reverse confirmation” of sorts. One could almost argue that if they call something antisemitic, chances are it’s actually not and may even be the correct course of action (clear cut cases notwithstanding).

There is a sizeable proportion of population not yet penetrated by the whole idea of democracy, but those would back any “current” regime.

You’re infantilizating the russian population. Political satirical TV shows in the 90s (remember this was before the internet) easily rivaled what you would see even on current US TV. Yet most russians were happy to accept a clampdown on independent TV and reelected putin in 2004 (generally considered a free and fair election). And they were OK with the comical medvedev seat warming exercise in 2008, not to mention putin’s formal return in 2012.

The russians would never back any political force that would reject imperialism or even acknowledge russian crimes. Even the alleged “opposition” in the form of Navalniy’s gang is deeply committed to imperialism.

In real life everybody is to blame, it’s just a question of proportions.

This is a non-sequitur. The ultimate responsibility for the state of russian politics lies on the russians themselves.

It’s about the choices they make. There is nothing inherent to russian society/culture that would justify such a state of affairs.

The said regime is also happens to be backed nearly universally by the russian population and is the core source of its power.

The “west is to blame” narrative is typical russian victim-hood polemics.

The Senate is due to vote later on Wednesday on a motion of disapproval of loan forgiveness for Ukraine put forward by Republican Senator Rand Paul, a frequent critic of U.S. support for Ukraine.

Rand Paul? Is this the fellow who advocated for taking horse medication against COVID?

I would not be so categorical.

Under Tsarist russia or even the USSR, sure.

But they did have independent television in the 90s (I lived there at that point, some of the satirical shows about politics and the government made US political comedy look like low effort slop). Youtube wasn’t censored until earlier this summer (still hasn’t been locked down?). Multiple major news sources (BBC, DW, russia’s own TV rain) had russian language YT channels by 2010. Every russian had access to YT in 5 second via their smartphone since the early 2010s.

We shouldn’t infantilize them. It’s the choice the make. They have responsibility for these choices and they have no right to blame history or anything like that.

Many people grossly overestimate how many “innocents” there are. If the vast majority of your country supports genocidal imperialism (with majorities still holding across all demographic segments - even ones like those aged 18-29), this is clearly a broader social issue.

Now one might say, “well people are afraid so they say what the government wants to hear”. Preference falsification is indeed a thing, but even on a purely logical basis, the mere existence of preference falsification does not imply it is has a major impact.

Turns out you can estimate preference falsification. It’s estimated at 10% leading to adjusted result of 65% for support of the full scale invasion (75% using regular polling), with the authors stating that their estimate likely underestimates the true level of support due to the specifics of their methodology.

Now you might say “well 35% is still a lot of people”. Well it’s not so simple. There is a poll by Levada about support of annexation of Crimea that is much criticized by russian “liberals”. It shows support for the annexation of Criema at 85% with consistent results between 2014 and 2021. Turns out even with list experiments to account for preference falsification, the support is still at 80%.

I would be curious to see similar research regarding russian attitudes towards the bloodbath in Chechnya in the 90s. I wouldn’t be surprised if even with preference falsification adjustment we see support higher than 80%.

My point being that people often significantly underestimate how near universal the support for genocidal imperialism is in russian society.

This is not unique to Arab Americans.

There is a decent amount of Ukrainian Americans who support independent Ukraine, but also think Trump would stop the war and be a better choice for Ukraine. Although it seems that this is somewhat less common than in the Arab American community (I could be wrong).

This is of course complete bullshit. Trump is a corrupt American oligarch with degenerate tendencies. Oligarchs protect their gangs, expand their territory and give kickbacks to partner gangs (e.g. allowing unsafe “full self driving” rules for Elmo’s organization). This is not even a Trump or American thing, this is universal.

With respect to Gaza, the Israeli oligarch gangs have far more money and influence on Trump’s crew. Then there is also kinship ties.

But this was a shrewd move by Trump’s crew. I think some proportion of the Arab American community will become life-long supporters irrespective of what happens in Gaza (I think their concern for Gaza is a bit more nuanced than what one may think at first glance).

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Agreed. I am Ukrainian. Family had to leave Donbas in 2014.

Yes, arming Ukraine in 2014 with ballistic missiles (among other things) and authorizing strikes deep into russian territory would have been not only the right thing to do, but also a key requirement of the Budapest memorandum.

My comment was more in the context of real weapon deliveries only starting since the full scale invasion.

I remember how the Germans put a big stink when Ukraine started using the Bayraktar drones in the line of contact in Donbas before the full scale invasion. What a bunch of spineless cowards.

Good news, but why did it take nearly three years?

The ATACMS, Patriots, F16, modern tanks should have been delivered in the first 12 months to strike russia when they were less organized.

Can you elaborate on this?

I am not American (although I have lived there). I am just curious.

Ukraine is the only country in the world that has the full moral authority to develop nuclear weapons. We are the only country to give up nukes and look where that got us.

That being said “moral authority” isn’t worth shit in this world.

South Korea, Poland and the Baltic nations should honestly try and develop their own nukes too.

Ukraine is the only country in the world that has the full moral authority to develop nuclear weapons. We are the only country to give up nukes and look where that got us.

That being said “moral authority” isn’t worth shit in this world.

South Korea, Poland and the Baltic nations should honestly try and develop their own nukes too.

Lack of courage and bold ideas from liberal democrats.

While I generally agree with messages in the interview. I cannot help but notice the overly positive attitude towards Gorbachev (albeit with some nuance):

At the end of the Cold War, Gorbachev played a crucial role. For me, he is truly the hero who helped bring it to an end – not alone, but it was very much a personal matter. He started in 1985, and if we imagine what might have happened if the Soviet Union had continued unchanged, it would have been catastrophic.

Gorbachev believed communism needed reform, thinking it was possible. In my view, we can all be thankful for this misconception. I believe communism couldn’t be reformed, but because he thought it could, he initiated change. Had he believed reform was impossible, he wouldn’t have started at all.

Gorbachev supported the continued occupation of independent countries via the USSR. He also approved of russia’s annexation of Crimea. There is a lot more commonality in worldview between putin and Gorbachev than the interview would lead one to believe.

Recognize the goods things that he did, but also recognize that he very much supported the russian genocidal imperialist mindset (that is still widely popular in russia today).

That’s a fair point.

Difficult to say. One possible area to look into is formerly colonized nations that have experienced very strong economic growth in the last 30 years. What do you think?

Would Brazil be a good example? I believe colonialism ended over 200 years ago and they’ve seen pretty strong growth in the last ~25 years. How would you rate their attitude towards modern colonialilsm?

What about South Africa? Or is that a bad example. Their consistency on the topic of imperialism is interesting to say the least.

Does this hold true even if these countries (often times the population at large, not just the leadership) are avid supporters of imperialism and brutal occupations?