CNN: Russia plotting false flag event in Ukraine

[Big Abraham]

CNN is basically an mouthpiece for the national security deep state and desperately wants a war with Russia.  Maybe they'll finally get one.

That’s right, down with Western imperialism! Russia should have to right to invade and subjugate her neighbors 😤

Totally, because if I think war with Russia would be a bad idea, that means I support Russia invading and annexing its neighbors..

You would fit in well with the Bush administration circa 2002-2003!

You are aware that there are more options than 'war with Russia' and 'do nothing', right?

Aggressively arming Ukraine and trying to force it into NATO would get you war with Russia, so what else do you propose? A symbolic congressional resolution saying "We Stand With Ukraine"?

[Big Abraham]

CNN is basically an mouthpiece for the national security deep state and desperately wants a war with Russia.  Maybe they'll finally get one.

That’s right, down with Western imperialism! Russia should have to right to invade and subjugate her neighbors 😤

Totally, because if I think war with Russia would be a bad idea, that means I support Russia invading and annexing its neighbors..

You would fit in well with the Bush administration circa 2002-2003!

You are aware that there are more options than 'war with Russia' and 'do nothing', right?

Aggressively arming Ukraine and trying to force it into NATO would get you war with Russia, so what else do you propose? A symbolic congressional resolution saying "We Stand With Ukraine"?

"Force it into NATO"

Well this has already been causing conflict with Russia for decades. Of course, keeping Ukraine totally neutral would be the best option, rather than assuming Ukraine is part of America's sphere of influence. Which means not forcing it into NATO, which you and CNN seem to support and which would fan the flames of war. Tell me more about how CNN isn't part of the national security deep state that has been trying to forge a war with Russia for decades?

[Big Abraham]

Well this has already been causing conflict with Russia for decades. Of course, keeping Ukraine totally neutral would be the best option, rather than assuming Ukraine is part of America's sphere of influence.

How is Ukraine supposed to stay "neutral" between Russia and the West when Russia is occupying parts of it and constantly threatening to occupy the rest of it?

(1) When has Russia legitimately threatened to occupy the whole of Ukraine? They've already backed down from invasion, and if you think a military deployment along the border counts as a provocation, then why would that not apply to the NATO deployment along the Baltics' border with Russia, which has continued for years now?
(2) If Ukraine maintained neutrality as was the plan under Yanukovich the current extent of the unrest in the Donbass would be unrealized. Prior to 2014 Ukraine did not have hostile relations with either Russia or NATO because any talks of joining NATO were off the table.

[Big Abraham]

1) How have they backed down from invasion? Russia continues to have more than 100,000 troops on the border. That is not anywhere near comparable to the token force of NATO troops in the Baltics (around three battalions).

There's currently over 22k NATO troops in the Baltics and that number is increasing. Meanwhile just recently Russia withdrew 10k of their troops.

2) Yanukovich did not practice neutrality; he was a puppet of Moscow. The people of Ukraine did not like that, so they overthrew him. Nato is in Eastern Europe because the Eastern European countries, as sovereign nations, have wanted that, not because of NATO "forcing itself" upon them.

Yanukovich was the popularly elected President of Ukraine and was overthrown in a coup with significant Western initiatives there. The Eastern European countries were drawn into NATO by a program of rapid expansion and drawing red lines on Russian borders after the Cold War and by betraying their promise to Secretary Gorbachev that NATO would not move "one inch to the east" of Berlin. That was in exchange for the astonishing concession to allow a united Germany to join a hostile military alliance in the first place.

[Big Abraham]

The "one inch" thing has been taken out of context. It referred only to NATO troops in Germany moving from old West Germany to the former East Germany following unification.

No, it didn't. "would you prefer a united Germany with ties to NATO and assurances that there would be no extension of NATO’s current jurisdiction eastward?” The declassifiers of this memcon actually redacted Gorbachev’s response that indeed such an expansion would be “unacceptable” – but Baker’s letter to Kohl the next day, published in 1998 by the Germans, gives the quote.

But even if it had referred to wider NATO expansion, it was not a treaty, but merely spoken banter by the secretary of state of one NATO country. In the absense of a formal treaty, one secretary of state has no authority to bind future administrations, nor can he bind other NATO countries.

It was not "spoken banter," it was a verbal agreement. Such verbal agreements are legally binding in international relations and in a court of law. Just because a treaty wasn't signed does not mean the agreement as confirmed by written transcripts and then-precedent of non-expansion should still not be adhered to. It is generally considered a good thing when you uphold your end of the bargain, especially if unprovoked (as they were when NATO enlargement began).

Furthermore, a few years later, Russia did in fact accept NATO expansion to Eastern Europe, showing that they did not believe in such "one inch" principle:

In August 1993 Yeltsin, in talks with the Polish leader, Lech Wałęsa, conceded Poland’s right to join Nato, a concession that left his colleagues thunderstruck. More formally Russia did the same with the Nato Russia Founding Act in 1996.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/12/russias-belief-in-nato-betrayal-and-why-it-matters-today

Yeltsin was a Western puppet specifically propped up there because he was seen as an ally, hence why the U.S. famously and unabashedly intervened in the Russian presidential election to ensure Yeltsin's victory over his Communist adversaries. So the fact that he was pro-NATO is not surprising. Regardless, the Russian people themselves were very opposed to Poland (or any former Warsaw Pact state) joining NATO because of the promise the U.S. had made, and so this informal declaration of Yeltsin was retracted the following month from popular domestic opposition in Russia.

Calling NATO a "hostile military alliance" is just Russian propaganda. NATO has not attacked its neighbours -- Russia has (Georgia and Ukraine).

It is indeed hostile and in case you've forgotten, was specifically set up to oppose Russia. Of course they were hostile, they were hostile by its very nature. They sought to oppose Russia's influence. This is like saying the Warsaw Pact was not "hostile" to the West. Of course they were, they were opposing sides of the Cold War with hostile geopolitical interests. Even in the absence of a direct attack, it is still hostile towards Russia by the charter of its very existence. Not to mention NATO has displayed a great deal of direct military attacks and invasions (including war crimes towards the population) of Russia's allies: Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Libya, Syria, do any of these countries ring a bell?

[Big Abraham]

Welcome to international politics. USSR lost and Russia needs to accept it. Russia needs to understand that if it wants good relationships with its neighbors, it needs to treat them well, not threathen them or invade as they always did.

"The Native Americans lost and need to accept it. Never mind that our treaties with them are legally-binding, they need to understand that if they wants good relationship with the U.S. government, they needs to treat them well, not threaten white settlers encroaching on their land."

[Big Abraham]

Welcome to international politics. USSR lost and Russia needs to accept it. Russia needs to understand that if it wants good relationships with its neighbors, it needs to treat them well, not threathen them or invade as they always did.

"The Native Americans lost and need to accept it. Never mind that our treaties with them are legally-binding, they need to understand that if they wants good relationship with the U.S. government, they needs to treat them well, not threaten white settlers encroaching on their land."

Are you actually comparing the genocide of the Native Americans and the USSR losing the cold war?

I'm comparing the logic of apparently thinking it's okay to not uphold formal agreements just because the other side "lost."

[Big Abraham]

1. Native Americans are US citizens, they have rights and are electors. Russia isn't an US citizen.

Native Americans living in tribes were not U.S. citizens at the time. They were considered members of their respective independent nations and the U.S. federal government conducted treaties with them on that basis and which also involved land concessions, something that would not have been considered necessary if it was already all American land anyway. American Indians living on recognized Indian territory did not become U.S. citizens until President Coolidge in 1924; the Indian Wars were long over by then.

2. There is no treaty or written agreement with Russia on NATO. Some dude (Baker) went off his station and said something that was never officially put on paper. This is the equivalent of, in a neighboors dispute, of saying "he cannot do that, the previous owner of his land told me 30 years ago he would never do it".

It is officially put on paper, I literally linked to it earlier in this thread? There are two official versions of it (an American one and a Soviet one) and they both agree with each other in terms of substance. It was not a formal treaty but as mentioned it was a verbal agreement and such verbal agreements are considered legally binding, as it was between the two official representatives of the main powers of NATO and Warsaw Pact.

[Big Abraham]

1. We are talking about right now. Native Americans are US citizens right now. Whatever rights or wrongs happened in the past is an important and interesting debate, but not relevent at all.

It's relevant considering that many at the time justified aggression against Indian territory in contravention of agreements made with the Natives with "oh well, the Indians lost, get over it." As some in this thread seem to say about the USSR now, despite the fact that Russia is the legal successor to the USSR (why do you think the Russian Federation has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council?)

2. Was it ratified by the Senate? By the other members of NATO? The US Constitution states:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur;

Obviously the U.S. Constitution does not have jurisdiction over the verbal agreements agreed to by members of one military alliance vis-a-vis another, but it would have indeed been a good thing for NATO to uphold Baker's agreement with Gorby and prohibited further expansion by an official resolution among its member states. A lot of bloodshed in Eastern Europe would have been spared had they not done the opposite, by expanding up to Russian borders and fostering a crisis in Ukraine