tweet in which jon points out the obvious and libs get mad
excerpt from a Lib
:
Jon gives his best impression of a 14 year old tankie in this video.
The following is true simultaneously:
- It is appropriate to critique US foreign policy, it’s actually necessary in a free society.
- Some bad actions are worse than others. Iraq wasn’t annexed into the 51st state, as opposed to Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
- Not all foreign policy decisions are zero sum, it’s possible for both parties to derive a benefit from an agreement (US and Philippines for example).
what a great deal
i receive Military bases and access to your natural resources
you 
received: a US backed dictatorship
- The world does not revolve around the US, people in the Kremlin have agency.
- The Russian invasion of Ukraine and PRC threats of a Taiwan invasion are not about US foreign policy, they are a response to internal Russian and PRC pressures.
- Not every policy decision is based on trade and natural resources, those some of the variables in a long list of strategic considerations.
I hear this kind of line so often to dismiss the influence the US has globally. It completely misses the point. The US is effectively still the most powerful country on earth, meaning they’re a major part of the broader geopolitical landscape that everybody else must respond to.
Notice also that this “well people in the Kremlin have agency, we didn’t literally force them to invade smol ukraini” reasoning goes away when they want to talk about Chinese loans in Africa, or how Georgia’s foreign influence bill is some sort of Russian plot.
I usually give these
the wall (of text).
.
In the case of Ukraine in particular, I have a couple other walls I tend to copypasta.
I posted similar the other week. Zero response from anyone.
Consider yourself lucky.