Here is some “propaganda” for you to refute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Iran

Following the pro-Shah coup d’état that overthrew the Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, the Shah again cracked down on his opponents, and political freedom waned. He outlawed Mosaddegh’s political group the National Front, and arrested most of its leaders.[13] Over 4000 political activists of the Tudeh party were arrested,[14] (including 477 in the armed forces), forty were executed, another 14 died under torture and over 200 were sentenced to life imprisonment.[13][15][16]

During the height of its power, the shah’s secret police SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers. The agency closely collaborated with the CIA.[17]

According to Amnesty International’s Annual Report for 1974–1975 “the total number of political prisoners has been reported at times throughout the year [1975] to be anything from 25,000 to 100,000.”[18]

Wow, that is super fucked up. I hope somebody overthrows the Shah.

I was just reading about this the other day: Like Bernie wants to stop resourcing Israel, some US politicians had a condition that Azov would not be assisted. But apparently the Pentagon got that overruled

I think that was way before Israel’s current massacres. Congress banned providing direct support to Azov in 2015 and then unbanned direct support in 2016 under pressure from the Pentagon. There might have been another attempted ban after that, I don’t remember. Even when the ban was in place it’s not like it was hard to get around, they just had the Azov guys join a different battalion for the duration of the training (and wear long sleeves).

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/congress-has-removed-a-ban-on-funding-neo-nazis-from-its-year-end-spending-bill/

No, you skipped the whole thread. There’s nothing cool about nazis. They’re a plague to everyone. When invading countries and when infighting against the invaders.

That’s great, so you would you agree that the US should stop providing money, training, and weapons to Ukraine and its Nazi (and Neonazi) paramilitaries?

By the way, here’s a source of Zelensky saying it’s “normal and cool” for people to think that Stepan Bandera is a hero: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/6768

“The Waffen-SS is a bad look for Germany, even though they fight against Russia’s judo-bolshevik forces”

Did the fact that Zelensky and the entire Canadian Parliament give a standing ovation to a Waffen-SS member cause you any sort of ideological dissonance? Or do you agree with Zelensky that its “normal and cool” for people to support Nazi collaborators?

Then again, Donbas backed by fascist Russia and Ukraine having neonazi groups fighting each other, anti-fascists can’t support either. Mathematically considering, Russia’s invasion succeeding would promote more fascism to spread. What would prevent them or others in the future?

Which Donbas neonazi groups are you talking about? The only one I’m familiar with is Rusich group, which consisted of 30 or so guys. That’s less neonazis than you find in single US marine battalion. The other example I can think of is that one Senior Lieutenant who wore the R3ICH operator skull and a valknut while receiving an award. There’s been back and forth on that guy and if those patches were looted. The R3ICH skull in particular is heavily associated with the Ukrainian military’s neonazis and is sold by the same company that makes Zelensky’s famous green clothes, Zelensky himself has been photographed with his bodyguard prominently displaying the R3ICH skull. It was a bad look for the Lt. either way but he’s still just one guy.

Donbas is part of Ukraine. “Russia going home” doesn’t mean they just retreat to areas where they already removed a significant portion of the Ukrainian population and replaced them with Russian sympathizers

You know I’ve never heard about this. The line I usually hear is Russia has brainwashed the Ukrainians there into becoming “Russia-backed separatists”. How much of the population of Donbas has been forcibly removed and are there any reputable western media sources where I can read more about this?

There has always been a non-military solution… Russia can go the fuck home and stop trying to invade other countries.

Wouldn’t that just lead to the citizens of the Donbas Republics being forced to fight alone against Ukraine and its remaining far-right paramilitaries?

You seem like the kind of guy that would say we have to vote for Hindenburg over Hitler.

It’s not an election year in Ukraine, Zelensky canceled all elections.

Don’t take the people here too seriously. Your friend can be a cool dude with a shitty ideology, it’s what he does that matters.

Yup. Maintaining the status quo is easier than changing it. Even the tiny little bit Democrats try to change.

Why was Trump able to make so many changes? Was it because he was a better statesman than Biden?

Whatabout region of France

It’s actually from Northern Ireland! Everybody thinks the phrase came from the US during the cold war but it didn’t.

According to lexicographer Ben Zimmer,[13] the term originated in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Zimmer cites a 1974 letter by history teacher Sean O’Conaill which was published in The Irish Times where he complained about “the Whatabouts”, people who defended the IRA by pointing out supposed wrongdoings of their enemy:

Their enemy in this case is the Black and Tans and the British Army and their supposed wrongdoings are the reprisal killings they committed against Irish civilians.

This is just elevated whataboutism

I’m not sure how correcting the term that you repeatedly used is “whataboutism”. Surely you meant something when you wrote “sovereign country” multiple times? It’s just inaccurate, it would be like referring to the US as a kingdom or referring to Washington D.C. as a country.

Why doesn’t Putin just say that? Why would he insist on mislabelling this as an “SMO” instead of a war of liberation?

Modern countries don’t like to call their wars a war for some reason. The “Special Military Operation” labeling in particular is based Ukraine labeling their war against the Donbas Republics as an “Anti-Terrorist Operation”. Russia did state that one of their goals was the liberation of the Donbas Republics.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-first-phase-ukraine-operation-mostly-complete-focus-now-donbass-2022-03-25/

And why wouldn’t Russia use the same means to subvert their subversion instead of resorting to bombing civilians?

Russia is far worse at subverting countries than the US is. The US has massive experience in fomenting color revolutions in foreign countries, using NGOs to undermine foreign governments, and in supporting far-right movements within countries and using them to topple or put pressure on those hostile (to the US) governments. Russia did attempt to use diplomacy (for eight years) to stop Ukraine’s bombing of civilians in Donbas but that didn’t work out. Russia tried one last resort by diplomatically recognizing the Donbas Republics but that just caused Ukraine to start shelling the Donbas even harder.

Don’t tell me…the verified evidence of countless war crimes are just propaganda right? For which you’re going to offer no counter evidence.

All war is a crime and all wars come with war crimes. Some war crimes were committed by Russia, some were committed by Ukraine and then blamed on Russia, and some were pure atrocity propaganda that was just made up. The made up atrocity propaganda was so bad that the Ukrainian Rada (parliament) had to fire their commissioner for human rights. She was just spreading made-up atrocity propaganda and also wasn’t bothering to organize the evacuation of civilians.

https://www.newsweek.com/lyudmila-denisova-ukraine-commissioner-human-rights-removed-russian-sexual-assault-claims-1711680

As for the accuracy of your accusation - do you have some sources? I’m interested to read and learn about your viewpoint. Assuming that it’s not just your armchair intelligence briefing.

Here’s an overview. Click the links to get details about the parts you’re interested in.

https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/event/2014-coup-ukraine

The short version is that the National Endowment for Democracy (a CIA cut-out) has openly spent over $5 Billion dollars to “promote democracy” in Ukraine. Do you remember how much the US freaked out over Prigozhin (Wagner guy) spending a hundred thousand dollars in order to “promote democracy” in the US? John McCain and Victoria Nuland openly met with the protestors and announced their full support and the backing of the US. Nuland had a leaked phone call where she was hand-selecting the new leader of Ukraine. The new Ukrainian Finance Minister become a Ukrainian citizen the very same day she was sworn in as Finance Minister.

As a bonus. Here’s one of the guys that McCain met with.

Tyahnybok himself was expelled from the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction in 2004 after giving a speech demanding that Ukrainians fight against a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” (he later clarified this by saying that he actually had Jewish friends and was only against to “a group of Jewish oligarchs who control Ukraine and against Jewish-Bolsheviks [in the past]”). In 2005 he wrote open letters demanding Ukraine do more to halt “criminal activities” of “organized Jewry,” and, even now, Svoboda openly calls for Ukrainian citizens to have their ethnicity printed onto their passports.

Tyahnybok is a prominent leader in the Ukrainian protests, so perhaps it was only right that McCain met with him as he did with the others (we reached out to McCain’s office to find out how much he interacted with Tyahnybok, but have not heard back at the time of writing). You can defintely understand, however, why Jewish leaders in Ukraine and abroad are concerned about him.

https://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-meets-oleh-tyahnybok-in-ukraine-2013-12

2022 was probably too late to agree to follow the Minsk agreements. If Ukraine wanted to do that it should have done so during the preceding eight years. At that point Russia was correct to push for disarmament and and maybe a DMZ.

Is that what you call invading a sovereign country?

It’s not even like this is the first time Putin has invaded another sovereign country,

Ukraine isn’t a sovereign country and hasn’t been since the US couped their democratically elected leader. You can’t be a sovereign country if a foreign country has veto power over your elections.

The Kurds killed with chemical weapon technology supplied by the US? The killings that the US tried to frame Iran for? After which the US refused to sanction Iraq and continued to provide dual-use technology to Iraq.

Those dead Kurds?

That’s actually a poster from Pantera so he might just be a fan of them instead of anything problematic.

Hold on a second, I’m receiving a note from offstage.

“Our walls have been broken, but not our hearts” is a Nazi slogan invented by Goebbels.

This Machine Kills Fascists

I guess they didn’t wash their hands after smearing their own shit on the walls of Palestinian homes.