Fuck. Russian bomb has hit Poland.

I honestly can't stand this 'it's not our war - we didn't start it' rhetoric
So if a kid is getting their head kicked in by another kid at school nobody should stand up to the bully as ' it's not my fight'
Ukraine have done NOTHING to deserve this war. Countless other countries have suffered the same fate. Obviously we have to be measured about taking military action and be aware of the consequences proportionally but honestly if we had this 'not our war ' attitude for every conflict that's ever taken place try and imagine what sort of world we would be living in

I didn't ask for any censorship.

MN didn't do a neutral act. They literally stuck a trigger warning.

I didn't ask for content to be altered.

I suggested that MN would have achieved what they were aiming to do in a better way, by reminding people to take a deep breathe, calm down and wait.

Thats all. Because that's culturally a better way to help free speech on all sides.

But you clearly DID NOT READ WHAT I SAID, because I explicitly said not to delete anything!

But hey ho. I can't cure failure to pay attention to details.

So if a kid is getting their head kicked in by another kid at school nobody should stand up to the bully as ' it's not my fight'

IME, the majority of people would think it's not my fight.

You might take a little more interest if your sister was next in line, or god forbid you were on the hit list.

You might also wonder what would happen to the order of the 'school' if a kid can kick someone's head in and no one bats an eyelid.

You might rightly assume that the bully will go on to ravage the whole school and declare himself as a leader of said school. By then everyone is too scared, he has become too powerful to challenge, he has acquired all kinds of hangers on that are too fearful to not do his bidding. Maybe the bully changes the culture of the school, allows knives, rape, murder and the school becomes bigger and harder control and can not be shut down. By then so many kids are hurt and terrified one might even consider the school to be entirely out of control. All order is lost. There is no order, no food, no chain of command and no way out.

Then you might wish you had stepped in sooner, when you could...

Difference is by it being our war it could lead to mass destruction. You don't get that with a school bully

I'm a little concerned by those who accuse people who don't bang to their drum of being bots and I'm also most concerned about certain people demanding greater moderation aka censorship.

There have been a lot of posts calling people warmongers, hysterical and bots. It is at worst an attempt a censorship and at best troll-hunting (by proxy 😉).

I've never been one for reporting posts, nor do I intend to become one. I far prefer the policy of giving people a rope long enough and they'll hang themselves. I don't like tell-tale-tittle-tattles and bullying people off the board as you happen to disagree with their point of view or opinion.

I would vehemently oppose any strict censorship of opinions here. It has always been a selling point of MN that everyone and anyone was allowed their tuppence worth.

I'm pretty sure that most of us are in fact, as the name suggests, Mums first, and warmongers second.

One of the basic freedoms of the West which put us largely above other nations in my opinion, is freedom of speech. It's unfortunate though that we tend to seek only a few sources of information. It's interesting to read foreign sources, as well as watching how various news agencies within the UK and within the wider 'West' report on things.

Propaganda has always been used as a war tactic. I'm almost afraid to question the consensus here as I'll be labelled a warmongering, hysterical lunatic, be told to have a little lie down and then reported for some obscure reason.

Thanks to all the posters on this thread for continuing to question.

Update: Russia-Ukraine war live: missile strike that killed two in Poland likely an accident from Ukrainian air defence, says Warsaw.

www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/nov/16/russia-ukraine-war-live-news-emergency-g20-meeting-after-russian-made-missiles-land-in-poland

Looks like you jumped the gun with your statement. 😂

Here here!

It is an extension of the nanny state mindset that people can not be trusted to post what they think, and other people consider that view carefully and decide if they agree or not.
Even if the content is inaccurate, people are allowed a view and not be 'modified' There are usually no rights or wrongs anyway, just shades of grey. Different POV, cultural norms, angles that were not previously considered etc.

Done nothing except very convenient deals with Russia to buy cheap gas for years. It's all good until it doesn't.

Get it wrong, according to whatever source is deemed credible, and you'll be sneered at. That's not debate. That's bullying. I'd far prefer to see that element removed from MN, than to see censorship of opinions, even when those opinions are stretching the boundaries lol. It's healthy to hear different points of view even if you privately discard them as the rantings of lunatics. 💁

Tbf Zelensky did as well in the heat of the moment. He as you can well understand would like deeper and further engagement from NATO but sadly for Ukraine will not get it.

That risk doesn't diminish by staying out of the war either.

Ultimately you have a problem with a leader who doesn't recognise the integrity of sovereign status. You have a leader who wants to reclaim the glory of the Soviet Empire and is on record as saying this and has acted by invading another country.

This country had agreements in place which had been fostered by the involvement of other nations. The 2014 Minsk Agreement had been brokered by France and Germany. Breaking such an agreement - and let's stress that there were loud calls for diplomatic solutions steps before a tank went over the border from the US, UK, France and others - represented a disregard for international law.

The involvement of NATO countries and NATO itself having helped train Ukrainian troops since 2014 was well known about. The irony here is that since the fail of the wall there have been efforts to involve Russians with NATO training (something of a legacy from Bosnia and cooperation there)

Now whatever your views on how the US has behaved with international law (and there are question marks), anyone who breaks that is going to be seen as a potential threat and all nations understand this (going back to the US, that does still hold true and its why anti-US imperial sentiments do exist throughout the world).

Given that Russia has nukes, that can't be taken lightly by anyone close to Russia. Especially due to historical contexts and in some cases the fact that freedom had to be fought for in the first place (Eastern Europeans).

The idea that Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuaniawho joined NATO precisely because of these type of fears would be just fine with it, is one that's nuts. Equally the idea that the US were just going to appease is hard to shift too.

Yet Putin gambled on it because he thought he had the military power to do so. And indeed the West largely thought he had the ability to pull it off and posed a threat and will continue to pose a threat for years.

The point is, is its not about 'not getting involved'. The issue is the moment Russia took sections of Ukraine in 2014 we were already involved and had vested defensive concerns.

No one 'made' Russia do this, no matter what they say. They just didn't. It was a free choice made by Russia.

The war could end tomorrow. All Russia has to do is declare its withdrawal. And thats where it begins and ends in terms of threat of WWIII. In Moscow. Not anywhere else.

Poland also has skin in the game as they're quite vulnerable and have been begging NATO for years for better support on their borders.

I agree with this, MN if anything could become more proactive in encouraging the sharing of opinion. No view is 'bad' it is just different, and it is how we all learn.

Yes. There's no such thing as a stupid question and even when I read posts I disagree with, it makes me question myself and my opinions further.

Mumsnet should absolutely delete the posts calling for a war / stating facts when not established. That’s not silencing.

It is absolutely whipping up anxiety with no need to.

As Trump never said Proud Girls stand down and stand by..

Polish missile ‘probably an unfortunate accident’ used by Ukrainian air defence, says president
Poland’s president Andrzej Duda has said the missile that landed in his country and killed two people appears to be an “unfortunate accident”.
It was highly probable that the rocket, which was Russian-made, was used by the Ukrainian air defence, he added.
There were no grounds to believe that the missile incident was an intentional attack, Duda said, or that the rocket was launched by the Russian side.
He said:
From the information that we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side. It is highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense.

NATO press conf being held now.

I disagree entirely. Should we babysit who can access information, lest they suffer from anxiety?

So one of the options I gave right near my first post yet I’ve been accused of being a bot…

I don’t care if you disagree that deliberately sharing misinformation is bad. More fool you.

I'm pretty sure that nobody on this thread has declared themselves to be weapons inspections experts on the ground in Poland. Surmising and speculation is how people do in fact calm their anxieties.

Don't call me a fool.