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Freddie deBoer's avatar

Look you guys can dance and sing all you want. What's eminently clear here is that we've got a lot of people who are too sophisticated to just say "America, fuck yeah!" but who are not in a position to actually have a rational, underlying philosophy that would theoretically constrain the use of American force but would permit such force in defense of Ukraine. The underlying question remains: the United States does not permit antagonistic foreign powers to station troops in close proximity to our shores, but reserves the right to do so for itself in perpetuity. Now another country, one that has significant military capability, is taking aggressive military action to forestall the possibility of America spreading its troops even wider. Whatever else is true, that is true, that this war is taking place over the fear of even greater American influence in what Russia sees as its sphere. Does Russia have a right to invade Ukraine? Of course not. Has American action made such an invasion inevitable? Yes. Has anyone here proffered a remotely compelling argument for how America could be seen by a neutral party to have the right to invade other countries where Russia does not? No, and there's a kind of desperation to most efforts to do so.

Just say "America, fuck yeah!" Just do it. The scrambling is unbecoming. I at least understand arguments of the type, the "we're us and they're them and that's why" arguments. Otherwise I'm just not seeing coherent and consistently-applied moral philosophies of foreign policy being voiced here. If I saw a single one I would respond to it. Instead it's mostly "well Ukrainians are all good liberal democrats so we should fight for them," which is a) based on a shaky premise and b) just another way to say "they're like us, so the world should favor them."

Really poor showing all around here.

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