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Zelensky: Ukraine draft age lowered because younger generation fit, tech-savvy
(kyivindependent.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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The current draft age in the USA is 18-25.
Can't wait to hear ill-informed critics explain how evil Zelenskyy is for sending children to war
He's evil for sending people to war who don't want to go.
No no, only Putin can be evil for that! /s
Meanwhile isn’t the US drafting at 18+ also?
Yes, it's 18 here.
I was a bit worried when I saw the headline for that reason. I forgot the US is an outlier with being perfectly OK with sending kids to war before they can legally drink alcohol
It used to be that the draft age was lower than the voting age in many states. There was a constitutional amendment during the US-Vietnam War to drop the voting age to 18 because if you're old enough to be forced to fight in a war, you're old enough to have a say in the war.
Used to be if you could go to war you could drink on base, but they took that away years ago.
They can but haven’t since the Vietnam war.
Ah so our active age is what, like 20, 21?
What makes you think the people criticizing Ukraine's draft approve of the US draft?
I, personally, don't approve of any draft and never see myself fighting a war where rich people conveniently never see combat.
Lol, It's crazy that people have been misusing terms like Zionist and Nazi so frequently that they've lost their inherent meaning.
How exactly does one become both a Zionist and a Nazi?
You're so propagandized that you are conflating two opposing ideologies.
Can't wait to hear your amazing logic about how nazism and zionism are incompatible.
Well.... The former is fascist state that expanded its holdings by specifically targeting the latter.
Aspects of Zionism (especially modern) can empower a fascist government, however Zionism as a whole started as a response to European racism.
You can only equate the two as the same if you ignore everything up until the 20th century.
What if I look at the theocratic ethno state that exists right now and listen to their leaders openly discuss how they must secure the existence of their people and a future for their jewish children by committing genocide? Cause the seems pretty nazi-like to me.
Again, highly reductive.
You can claim that modern Israel is a fascist state, and that fascist states behave in similar ways. However, just calling it Nazism ignores the working history of both political ideologies.
The whole point is that for one to equate Zionism to Nazism requires you to ignore decades of historical context. Furthermore, equating Ukraine to a Nazi state ignores the fact that the vast majority (up to 7 million) Ukrainians fought for the Soviet Union in WW2 against the Nazi.
Using historical factoids to shield modern Nazi states from criticism is probably the most intellectually bankrupt thing you can do. Fuck off Nazi.
How and who exactly am I defending?
Just because you are engaged with colonialism or genocide, as Israel is currently doing, does not mean they are "modern Nazi states".
The Nazi did not invent these things, and generalizing every form of colonialism to equate to Nazism does nothing but excuse the hundreds of years of European imperialism that came before them, and the decades of imperialism that came after.
Zionism is about Jews having land. I wonder, who wanted to give Jews Madagascar? 😲
Again, highly reductive. This is minimalizing the hundreds of years of pogroms across Europe and Asia the Jews endured, resulting in the inception of Zionism in the 1800s.
Did you not read? I told you it was one of the Nazi schemes to answer "the Jewish problem" while stealing their wealth to redistribute among party members.
I'm not saying you can't correctly compare aspects of Zionism to Nazi Fascism. I'm saying that you can't equate the two to be the same thing.
Zionism's popularity among Jewish communities in Europe didn't become popular until the rise of Nazism in Germany. It didn't become popular in Asia until the Soviets began forced deportations after the doctor's plot.
Ignoring the actual historical context, just logically it's full of internal contradictions. If Zionism predates Nazism by a hundred years, wouldn't they be the ones who invented fascism?
You are accidentally supporting actual Nazi propaganda about the Zionist intentions for turning Germany into their new homeland.
Again, I'm not saying that I support Zionism, I don't even support fucking borders. It's just that if we continue utilizing Nazism for every argument, it loses it inherent meaning, thus giving cover to actual practicing Nazis.
I do however think it's important to discus how fascist governments create fascist governments. It's actually something Hitler and mousseline talked about, that to fight against fascism a governments only response is to become more militaristic, and thus more fascist.
I guess I made a mistake here. I've tried to provoke a guy who claimed that Zionism and Nazism are incompatible. Probably I've made this guy up myself.
Borders were a mistake for humanity
You chose the word incompatible...... I said they couldn't be equated to mean the same thing.
It's just academically dishonest to claim that Zionism, (which was largely a response to Nazism) is the same as Nazism.
If we begin to accept this definitional generalization it will come back to haunt us. What do you think the liberal world will say if Palestine were to free itself from occupation from the river to the sea?
Wouldn't they in their retaliation be creating a nationalist ethnostate via ethnic based violence? Wouldn't we be asking for a little context and nuance then? Or would we just check the same boxes and say they were Nazis?
Nazism is a secular form of fascism , Zionism is a form of theocratic fascism. Biggest funders of Zionism was the third reich
Both of these claims are highly reductive.... Claiming Nazism was secular ignores the complicity of the church's role in the Nazi party and the Holocaust.
Zionism isn't a form of fascism, though it can be supported by a fascist government.
Zionism has been a thing since the 19th century and continues into the 21st century, the third Reich only lasted 20 years...... No the third reich was not the largest funder of the Zionist movement.
Not all bad geopolitical events can be defined as fascist.
Claiming Nazism was secular ignores the complicity of the church's role in the Nazi party and the Holocaust.
No it doesn't. Fascism as definition uses what suits them best and what's give them power, they are opportunists. The church was a good way for them.
Zionism isn't a form of fascism, though it can be supported by a fascist government.
Hard to be nice colonialists though.
Zionism has been a thing since the 19th century and continues into the 21st century, the third Reich only lasted 20 years...... No the third reich was not the largest funder of the Zionist movement.
Ok , if you like to split hairs, biggest funders of the state of Israel and it's colonies at its formation.
Not all bad geopolitical events can be defined as fascist.
True only the fascists ones.
Google generic fascism. And nazi support for Israel.
Lol, no true Scott's man for secularism?
Again, are all forms of colonialism fascist......?
Splitting hairs? The whole point of me saying you're being reductive is that you are ignoring large swaths of historical context.
Israel was formed in 1948, three years after the fall of the Nazi party......
The largest state contributor during the formation of Israel was Britain. They were in control of Palestine at the end of the war, not Germany.
I think you are recalling the Nazis "attempt" to relocate Jews to places outside Europe, including places like Palestine and Madagascar . The Nazi made several schemes to deport "willing" Jews prior to WW2, in reality they were just schemes to seize assets before the Jews left the country.
Perhaps read more material about Haavaar agreement than a quick Google search?
The Germans weren't funding Zionism, the Jews being forced to leave the country were, and the vast majority of property seized from the Jews never made it to Palestine.
Looks like you people found your angle to attack rhetoric you don't like.
It's kind of weak though, cause anyone with a brain knows that comparing Zionists to Nazis is based on their nationalism and commitment to oppression and genocide.
Try again!
People who don't ignore historical context?
Again, reductive. Based on your own criteria basically every powerful nation today can be accused of being a Nazis.
By that criteria the Han were Nazis when they overthrew the Manchus, the American governments were Nazi when they expanded west. When you lose definitional context, all of history and it's lessons begin to become opaque.
By just saying any act of colonialism or ethnic violence gets lumped in as Nazism, it redirects the blame from those who committed the acts to generalized ideologies that you associate with the third Reich.
My "woke mind" lmao
In fairness, the US isn't drafting people, let alone consigning draftees to certain death like Zelensky here is doing. It's probably my prejudice from the US draft age, but I'm surprised the minimum is so high still in Ukraine considering how desperate they are to field more men.
Obviously the US consigns plenty of people to certain death, but not by drafting them.
I was just kind of shocked that their conscription age was so high considering the US draft age ends at their new low end. When I first read the headline I assumed they were going to start drafting 16 year olds.
Me too, but I'd guess that it's because Ukraine is a somewhat younger country, since the US stopped using the draft in '73, about two decades before the current Ukrainian government was established, so they are operating on very different standards. Just a guess, though.
WW2 left the Soviet Union without a generation of men which led to all kinds of problems after the war. It's a lesson hard learnt. Your men need to breed before they go to war and die. Ukraine knows this and hence they keep the draft age higher.
Their demographics are fucked and the largest group of men are middle aged. Weird population age densities were caused by all the bad living in the 90’s.