Breaking Points - Dave Smith VS Vaush HEATED DEBATE On Ukraine, NATO, Nuclear War
Opening statements
- Vaush
- Thinks we should either fully fund Ukraine or not at all, seems to be in favor of defending Ukraine because allowing Russia to invade a neighbor would be destabilizing. Believes that allowing Ukraine to defend itself is a good move for long term peace.
- Dave
- Says we should have never been funding this war to begin with.
- Opposes the US doing anything in the Cold War..???
- Greatest priority in human history is for the US and Russia to not go to war.
- Says no one in the United States has any respect for going to war with Russia.
- America’s only engagement with this war should be to negotiate peace.
- Claims that everyone else provoked Russia into invading Ukraine. “You can’t reward countries for invading other countries, what’s the response to that?”
- Dave
- Begins the answer with strange Iraq-PTSD “whataboutism,” vaguely notions towards America’s wars, implying that the US has absolutely no role to play in world affairs.
- “Over the last 20 years there has been no greater purveyor of violence than the United States of America.”
- Conflicts that the US has been involved in since 2000, all deaths taken directly from Wiki pages
- Conflicts
- Afghanistan War (2001-2021)
- Total deaths on US side 76.591
- Total deaths on Taliban side 55,293
- Civilians killed 46,319
- US Intervention in Yemen (2009-present)
- Total deaths on Yemen side - ~1,400 militants, and ~150 civilians
- Iraq War (2003-2011)
- Total deaths on US side - 27,.163
- Total deaths on Iraqi side - ~50,000
- Total civilian Iraqi deaths - ~105,000
- US Intervention in Pakistan (2004-2018)
- Total Pakistan militant deaths - ~2,750
- Total Pakistan civilian deaths ~600
- US Intervention in Libya
- total deaths on Libyan civilians - ~250
- US Intervention in Iraq (2014-2021)
- Total deaths of ISIS - 70,000 killed
- Total civilian deaths in Iraq - 6,000 civilians
- US Intervention in the Syrian civil war
- Total civilian deaths ~3,850 by airstrikes
- Afghanistan War (2001-2021)
- Total deaths if all are attributed solely to the United States
- Enemy military
- ~220,000 or more dead enemy militants
- Enemy civilians
- ~162,000 or more civilian deaths.
- Enemy military
- Conflicts
- Other conflicts since the year 2000 and their fatality counts
- Russia
- The Second Checen War
- Total deaths on Russia side ~10,000
- Total deaths on Chechen side - ~10,000
- Total civilian deaths - ~50,000
- Russo-Ukranian War
- Total deaths on Russian side 100,000+
- Total deaths on Ukranian side 100,000-
- Total civilian deaths - 10,000
- The Second Checen War
- Syrian Civil War (2011-present)
- Total deaths ~600,000 people
- Yemeni civil war (2014-present)
- 377,000+ people killed (85,000 Yemeni children dead from starvation)
- Russia
- Genocides in 21st Century
- Sri Lanken Conflict - through 2009, ~170,000 civilian deaths
- Boko Haram insurgency (2009-PRESENT) - 350,000 deaths total
- Congo civil war (1998-2003) - ~350,000 deaths
- Darfur (2003-2005) - over 200,000 deaths
- Rohingya (2016-2017) - 25,000 deaths
- South Sudanese Civil War (2018) - 190,000 deaths (193,000 non-violent deaths)
- ISIS - ~33,000 deaths
- Tigray War (2020-2022) - ~300,000 civilian deaths
- “Do you stand by the claim that the United States has been the greatest purveyor of violence in the 21st century? Greater than Russia in all of its wars, plus the involvement of the Wagner group across the Middle East and Africa? Greater than the multiple genocides/conflicts that have occurred in Africa over the past 25 years? Would you say that America is a greater purveyor of violence than Boko Haram, ISIS, or the Sudanese government?”
- Conflicts that the US has been involved in since 2000, all deaths taken directly from Wiki pages
- The United States has “imposed its will on tiny nations across the world.”
- How is that any different than what Russia has done with Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova?
- America and the West had many off-ramps to stopping this conflict, but chose not to, leading to the invasion in 2022.
- What offramps? “Vaush, how can the US tell other countries to behave?”
- Vaush
- Russia is to blame, but the west has some responsibility to well.
- Russia shouldn’t be rewarded for invading Ukraine.
- Dave
- “The first round of NATO expansion was unjust. and was unnecessarily provocative of the Russians.”
- Why was this unjust? Does Dave think that Russia should be able to indefinitely dictate the security arrangements of all of her neighbors?
- “Russia’s demand that Ukraine not join NATO is a fairly reasonable one. We could have avoided this whole war by just committing to that.”
- “The first round of NATO expansion was unjust. and was unnecessarily provocative of the Russians.”
Is there ever a justifiable reason for US intervention?
How should the US respond to growing influence from oppositional countries?
Why do put-lickers constantly make “realist” excuses for Russian imperialism, but never allow for any reasonable motivations to be discussed for worried countries (Ukraine, Georgia) or other “expansionist” bodies, like NATO?
Wasn’t the United States justified in trying to overthrow Fidel Castro since the Soviets were so invested in establishing nuclear capabilities from that island?
Why is Russia so threatened by NATO?