A lightly-sourced AP story almost set off World War III

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/11/16/how-a-lightly-sourced-ap-story-almost-set-of-world-war-iii/

by rsj_hn • 4 years ago

10 7 4 years ago

rrwo• 4 years ago

"A deadly explosion in Poland kicked off hours of near-gleeful speculation about whether NATO would join the fight against Russia."

I don't think it was "gleeful" at all. It seems like NATO members were scrambling around to find any evidence that it was an accident.

Waterluvian• 4 years ago

It also didn’t come remotely close to WWIII. Such a stupidly written article. Frustrating how much noise there is.

mint2• 4 years ago

The article is beyond naive and simple in its opinions.

Not only your point, but layer on the fact that by appearing to take it so seriously yet assessing thoroughly before taking actions, it heavily heavily dissuades any actual attack which would actually risk rapid escalation.

rospaya• 4 years ago

The tragic blast killed two locals, marking the first time that the war in Ukraine bled over into NATO territory.

Except the other times it did. They should source their articles better.

Fatnino• 4 years ago

Even if the missiles did come from Russia (and I don't think they did in this incident) I wouldn't put it past the big NATO players to announce that it wasn't Russia as a way out of actually having to directly intervene.

Essentially bend the truth so crazy warmongers don't force nato into a war when obviously it was just an accidental border excursion.

SevenNation• 4 years ago

Here's a simple question: what is NATO's goal in this conflict?

If it is, as some officials have suggested, to throw the Russian army back across the pre-2014 borders, how exactly could that happen?

If militarily, that almost certainly means NATO-equipped and possibly trained Ukrainian forces attacking Russian forces located inside Russia on a regular basis.

How many ways are there to do this without triggering a nuclear escalation?

Even after this news emerged, Podolyak maintained that NATO should enact a no-fly zone in Ukraine, which would likely require Western pilots to fight their Russian counterparts directly, putting four nuclear-armed nations at war. Kyiv continues to deny that it fired the missiles.

Then there's the question of what might drive Ukraine to exaggerate or plant evidence implicating Russia in attacks on NATO territory, or to hide evidence contracting that position. Hopefully, The Tonkin Gulf Incident, and the disgraceful way it justified an unjust war after whipping the American public into a bloodthirsty frenzy, is still on the radar.

rsj_hn• 4 years ago

Update: One of the two AP reporters who broke this story was fired:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/11/21/james-laport...

A lightly-sourced AP story almost set off World War III

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