There is a certain amount of anti-Americanism about it. I’ve seen some defending Iran - as in their theocratic regime and not the Iranian people who do deserve some sympathy.
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No sorry, my mistake. I meant Iouchtchenko, who was one of these disgusting oligarch-presidents.
If you ground this in history rather than modern day discussions it is a very common response among people who have lived, or at least been subjected to the thread of one flavor of totalitarianism. Cubans in South Florida are a great example, with the majority supporting the worst excesses of Trumps’ policies because the only thing they took from their Cuban experience was “Communism bad”, and cannot see past that to identify the threat of totalitarian ideas form the other side. The irony of course is that it is laughable to call any Democrat a communist, but Trump is literally identified as a fascist by his own CoS, a Marine General.
For people who have never lived under one of these regimes, or even a credible threat of one, I think a lot of it comes from generalized anti-establishment sentiment, often poorly thought out and based in far less understanding of issues and facts than they appreciate. People talk about horseshoe theory, but while I think the phenomenon is real, I dont think the mechanism that theory describes is right. I dont think most these people start our as authentically lefty, but more adopt the leftty framing of anti establishment thought, likely the version they encounter first. If you understand this as anti establishment first, and lefty as the flavor of it, it makes it a lot easier to understand them adopting a different flavor as long as the focus of their criticism stays the same. As @RedWhippet points out you will often see this expressed as anti-American sentiment, and that makes it pretty easy to jump about from ideology to ideology as long as whereever you end up allows you to keep hating on the same target.
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Just looked it up, it was declared illegal by the courts and officially annulled in 2011.
Yeah indeed, but then the next oligarch-president started with it again as I wrote above.
Just saying that both the military superpowers have more than their share of decisions which proved disasters in the long run.
And a big section of the population of both countries would rather ignore them.
All while the two countries continue enforcing their will over countries which are under their influence.
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What’s everyone’s take on this? What happens if indeed North Korea has foot soldiers fighting in Ukraine with Russia?
Not surprised.
NK regime has plenty of citizens which it regards as expendable. And it requires a lot of support from china and Russia to survive.
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Putin chose to invade Ukraine solely for expansionist reasons. The rationales for doing so , post-invasion , gradually became more and more far fetched. That people are still willing to regurgitate his bullshit and provide him with cover all this time later is an indictment of themselves.
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Do the South Koreans join Ukraine?
I know it is unlikely but Russia is pushing at the fence that is keeping the mess confined.
Nope.
As far most Asian countries are concerned , they want as little to do with the Russia - Ukraine situation as possible.
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North Koreans are on the front lines with Russia because Putin has increasing relied on terrible NK equipment that needs NK soldiers to know how to operate when it starts malfunctioning.
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In 2016 the UN Imposed sanctions including inspection of all passing cargo to and from North Korea and prohibition of all weapons trade with the country,
Now they are sending missiles and men to , and in return for nuclear missile technology , a permanent member of the UNSC.
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While the Ukrainians are deeply unhappy about it, what happens is not much more than some North Koreans who probably did not have much choice in the matter will get killed. North Korea is already a pariah state, loaning their forces out as mercenaries doesn’t change that. South Korea isn’t going to rock the boat, particularly recognizing the chance that a hopelessly compromised GOP that can no longer separate Russian propaganda from reality has a good chance of dictating the American response. Kim Jong Un played Trump like a fiddle last time.
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With North Korea, they cannot really escape it. Japan and South Korea are both caught in a quasi conflict with China and Russia.
Again, I doubt any country will openly join Ukraine but the North joining Russia may have consequences that prove to be problematic beyond the current protagonists.
Just to take it back to before tankie-gate, if we had to score politicians between 0-10, 10 being radical “whatever” would any of the British or US politicians score particularly high?
In the uk u’d have Corbin and Braverman(similar) that may score north of 5 but could we objectively pin that down? In the end is a score of let’s say 6 of both right or that one scores above and the other below 5?
MJG and the like would likely be somewhere north of 5 but would Sanders or OAC also score north of 5???
My take would be our name calling is a bit uneven but that may just be my bias.
Here’s a pretty oblique answer, but I was listening to an interview last week with an Afghan man who has ran a tv station in Kabul for decades talking about what it has been like trying to continue to operate under Taliban rule, especially with regard to his female employees. He spoke about how today’s Taliban is very different (not a value judgement, just an observation) than the prior ruling version and has modernized quite rapidly in some ways in attempt to figure out how to rule. The take away for me was that the working relationship of these female employees with the Taliban liaisons was better and more open than they would be able to have with Mike Pence
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I think scoring politicians on a radical scale is enormously difficult when going from country to country.
As an Englishman who voted in lots of elections over there, and then moved to the States in 2008 and have voted in numerous elections here since then, it is crystal clear.
Garden-variety-slightly-left-of-centre-politicians in the UK would be off the chart and way to the left of today’s Democrat Party.
Equally, garden-variety-GOP-politicians over here would be off the chart and way to the right of even today’s Conservative Party in the UK.
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