> Tell that to the 30k+ iranian protestors that were killed.
> Are you actually using "in good faith" and the current horrendous iranian regime in the same sentence?
If US needs to intervene, why are they are not intervening in Ukraine? Far worse things has been happening there for 4 years.
Is the argument that the U.S. should only militarily intervene when conflicts are internal within another country, as opposed to when it’s one country invading another? As that’s the opposite of the established international laws around prohibiting one state from attacking another vs the principle of non-intervention.
1. The Russian position in 2014 was that the Ukrainian people in Donbas were being oppressed by the new Ukrainian central government.
2. There's a lot of domestic political/information suppression in Ukraine but I consider this somewhat normal for a nation in a pretty existential conflict.
3. The Ukrainian military is 70-80% conscripts, increasingly of the "forcibly mobilized" variety (look up "TCC busification" for examples), with almost all military-age males banned from leaving the country. Dudes are getting beaten up, stuffed into vans, and sent to trenches to eat Russian artillery and FABs (air-to-ground bombs)....against their will. I think that definitely counts as suppression.
Lose. Evacuate the government. Then mount a guerrilla, and wait for an opportunity. It'll come, most likely sooner rather than later.
Why is that unthinkable? I can understand people in the US being unable to process such a scenario, but here in Europe, there's not a single nation that wasn't off the map for some time.
I know why Ukrainians don't want that, but the demographic costs of tens to hundreds of thousands of "military age men" dying are so huge that any plausible alternative should be considered, even if it's very unpleasant.
> I know why Ukrainians don't want that, but the demographic costs of tens to hundreds of thousands of "military age men" dying are so huge that any plausible alternative should be considered, even if it's very unpleasant.
And you imagine they won’t die in your guerrilla war? Or the next invasion after an emboldened Russia regroups?
You're suggesting a decades long guerrilla movement under occupation will be better for the Ukrainian people than conscription during an existential defensive war?
In terms of the number of lives lost? Yes. Guerrilla resistance is a way of trading important advantages (like control of the territory or political legitimacy) for time and human lives. Guerrillas in a favorable environment tend to suffer much lower casualties per fighter per unit of time than trench warfare along a frontline.
It's a desperate measure, but so is snatching people from the street to bus them off to trenches.
Personally, I think people can live through almost any hell (and can make a comeback later) - unless they die, in which case they can't do anything anymore. Decades of hard times, in this view, are preferable to tens of thousands of excess deaths per year over a decade.
I understand why people are reluctant to consider this - I'm just trying to show that there are alternatives to the current situation; not strictly better, but at least presenting different trade-offs. In a situation of "existential defensive war," we should discuss all plausible options, even the most controversial ones.
Not necessarily, if Ukraine surrenders then Russia will disarm them. Then when they revolt Russia will be able to bomb them with impunity because the resistance will not have the air defenses and manufacturing that the Ukrainian military now has.
Not to mention that Russia will almost certainly genocide or atleast severely oppress the Ukrainians if they win
EDIT: important to note that abandoning the trenches and the frontline does not mean surrendering, and I never said they should surrender! I suggested evacuating the govt and continuing the resistance with other means - I don't believe the actual surrender would do any good.
You're right - the risks are, of course, very significant. And we've been through that here in Poland, historically, like 3 times already. We've had quite a few failed uprisings, and we've had anti-communist guerrillas here for a while after WW2 - they were quickly (it still took 3-5 years, though!) dismantled, and most of them were killed. So the risks are real, and it is a "desperate measure".
On the other hand, it worked quite a few times: Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan all proved that it's possible to win (or at least not lose) using guerrilla tactics. In case of Ukraine, I think the circumstances would favor the resistance: Russia's already not doing well economically; the "severe oppression" of the Ukrainians (which I agree would follow) would cement the support for the resistance, and it would cost Russia a lot; Russia had air superiority since day one, and it didn't really help them much (it would be much more of a threat had Russia have US-level intelligence capabilities - but they domonstrably don't).
Yes, as long as it's possible, the conventional war should continue. At some point, though, the costs (all kinds of them) of continuing to fight in the field become so high that it's better to stop and switch to other ways of defending.
I'm not saying that moment is now - and it's not for me to dictate when it happens - I'm just trying to say that there are other ways of dealing with the aggressor that may (in favorable circumstances) lead to lower casualties without forgoing the hope of eventually winning. Which I wish Ukraine with all my heart, BTW.
The countries that got invaded by the US fought guerrilla because that is the only thing they could do. It wasn't some deliberate strategy to rope the US in.
And the only reason it worked out for them is that the US wasn't determined to create new states and had very low domestic support to begin with. That's not the case with Russia where this war is clearly a big deal to them.
> Every country with conscription will do this if you refuse to show up.
Was that MP a draft dodger? The issue isn't them picking draft dodgers, it's them picking up anybody that looks like they might be a draft dodger and the tactics they employ to do it.
> Would the citizens of a sovereign nation being forced to violate their Constitution by Putin and Trump be a “violation of human dignity” too?
If Ukraine was worth defending they would have no trouble finding men willing to die to defend it. It’s one of the most corrupt countries in the Western world, its women are being allowed to flee so that they can prostitute themselves to Arabs and Europeans, and it hasn’t had an election in 7 years. Zelensky attempted to take control of the country’s anticorruption bureau in July of 2025: “Many suggest the attempted purges are payback for NABU pursuing charges of illicit enrichment and abuse of office against former deputy prime minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, a key ally for the Office of the President.”[1] In November of 2025, Timur Mindich, a former business partner and close friend of Zelensky, fled to Israel after being accused of orchestrating a kickback operation in cooperation with ministers of Zelensky’s own government. [2][3].
You have the opportunity to go die for these people right now. An increasing number of men in Ukraine have decided they would prefer not to.
> So defeating the Nazis wasn't worth doing, because we had to draft to accomplish it?
What you are implying is that condemning conscription as a violation of human dignity would necessarily lead me to condemn the actions that led to the downfall of a regime that itself engaged in conscription. Your mistake is in thinking that one necessarily follows from the other. I could condemn the specific act of conscription while considering the acts of the Allies in general as morally desirable, I could take a utilitarian approach and say that conscription is infinitely undesirable but the Nazis were infinitely undesirable + 1, or (as is my actual position), I can simply say that both regimes engaged in acts of evil that I am unwilling to dignify by calling “necessary.”
Issues of moral judgement are pass-fail. An act is good or it isn’t. This manner of thinking does not require you to create a gradation between the stranger who tries to rape you and the stranger that tries to kill you; they are both simply behaving immorally. The Rape of Nanjing was wrong; it did not justify the civilian deaths that occurred during the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
> Wouldn't the alternative be "A violation of human dignity"? Forced confinement in a war zone?
The discussion we are having is operating from the reality that Ukrainian men are being conscripted. If a man can be compelled to serve his country (I reject this premise), it follows that a woman ought to be compelled to serve as well. The conventional justification for exempting women from conscription has been that they are necessary for the nation to reproduce itself. But the majority of these women are not likely to return to Ukraine, so what is the point of treating them any differently from the men if they are already a guaranteed loss?
This is all tangential to the point I was making; you completely ignored the corruption scandals I mentioned.
> You really should make up your mind here.
You’ve been posting here too long to think that this sort of behavior conforms to the site guidelines. I have showed great restraint in writing this reply despite your inconsiderate behavior. My next reminder will not be polite.
> Would the citizens of a sovereign nation being forced to violate their Constitution by Putin and Trump be a “violation of human dignity” too?
You've yet to answer it.
> This is all tangential to the point I was making; you completely ignored the corruption scandals I mentioned.
Yes, I ignored the blatant dodge attempt to drag things off-topic.
> You’ve been posting here too long to think that this sort of behavior conforms to the site guidelines. I have showed great restraint in writing this reply despite your inconsiderate behavior. My next reminder will not be polite.
Pick "tutting schoolmarm" or "internet tough guy". Both in one paragraph just looks silly.
What does the Iranian say? If we're all about respecting documents, we should make sure we assess them all equally. The U.S. constitution has a lot to say about many of the things that are happening right now, but those are being happily ignored. We can't even respect our own constitution, the idea that we'd respect others is laughable.
How do you even securely hold an election during a full scale war? Thousands are outside the country or on the front lines. You'd also be creating huge targets at polling stations. Luckily their constitution recognises it's a bad idea to try.
It's nothing to do with Iran being bad or good. US and Iran were negotiating. You don't attack mid negotiation when you're supposedly still trying to fix things by talking.
You might think Iran isn't owed the courtesy of fair negotiation but that's very shortsighted. Next country will not take US's negotiations seriously and will be, frankly, at some level justified in shooting first.
That is utter BS. If you stop negotiating in order to attack, then you are giving the enemy the advantage of knowing exactly when you will attack. This is one of the most incompetent takes I have ever heard - so much that I have to wonder if you are an Iranian agent
US sanctions, US/Moss instigates, makes the Iranis desparate. Irani regime (that is the result of US intervention decades ago) digs in and toughens up.
People die in the streets.
Who's to blame? The Irani regime? C'mon...
It's like crashing your car into a tree and and blaming the tree.
Also: you really think the US/Moss care about dead Iranis in the streets, other than it being a useful pretext to go to war?
It's a cuban-missle-crisis like moment for Russia. And they act accordingly.
I'm not in favor of one or the other: I just notice imperialism when I see it. And Russia+Iran have been much less aggressive than the "allied western forces" for the last 60 years, while they have a lot of reasons to dig in and toughen up not to become the next Libya/Iraq/Syria/etc.
