The United States(!) of A
I cannot believe how many opinionated articles are willing to throw Maidan revolution under the bus. I find it offensive honestly. The following paragraph from spykan's article:
"When Yanukovych duly reneged on the EU deal, the Obama administration helped organize street demonstrations for what became history’s most tech-savvy and PR-driven regime change operation, marketed to the global public variously as Maidan, EuroMaidan, the Revolution of Dignity, etc. In February 2014, the protests forced Yanukovych into exile in Moscow. "
Back then I followed it with a fair bit of interest and I disagree with this. Protesters were met with unbelievable police brutality and fresh laws that put restrictions on protesting. It dragged out for weeks and I will never forget the regime's brutality towards the citizens. Was there foreign influence? Maybe, I can't argue that. But neither can I confirm it. Same as this opinionated article, there is no evidence presented for any statements whatsoever.
I remember than Netflix coming out with a doco 'Winter on Fire' in 2015. It's a really good watch for those who are interested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_on_Fire:_Ukraine%27s_Fight_for_Freedom
The ultimate question is what do Ukrainian people want? Some insights have been provided by Statista the other day https://www.statista.com/chart/26933/ukrainians-survey-nato-eu/
This short Video is 8 years old but explains a lot about Ukraine's history and plight today. Also make no mistake the Vatican has a firm grip on the EU as well as the American President etc etc. There are many levels to the Matrix and most people only see the base playing field level because that's all the media see and that's all most people want to see.....ignorance is bliss it seems...Read "some context" post by Sypkan.as well.
Ah so, Biden being the first Catholic since Kennedy, what's that 60 or so years between drinks? I read Sypkan's post but cant make the link you make. No doubt the Vatican has played a role in times past but it seems a little tenuous here. However, I am open to being corrected but will need more than that utube clip.
I do recall you suggesting elsewhere that our Prime MInister's religion was an asset rather than a constraint on him running the country. Do the Catholics have the wrong god?
Historically it’s Roman Catholicism VS Russian Orthodoxy as explained in the video. The Vatican owns Europe and the Russians have their own thing going on.
If Ukraine would totally commit to being independent from the EU and from Russia and allow Russia those disputed eastern border regions that are already pretty much Russian , there would be peace but it seems they are committed to being pawns of the US and the EU and not being an independent nation at all so they are doomed by stupid leaders who can’t see the benefit of not taking sides and staying a neutral buffer zone.
I simply cant believe how many idiots on here no matter what happens blame
the USA. I did think a lot of the idiots on here might blame oil companies because
petroleum has become so expensive but please, the Americans definitely have their
bag of dirty tricks but theyre not causing this hostile war that on the face of it could
very easily develop into WW3.
gsco wrote:Could one nearly say that what is happening here is the following?
The country that will come out of this the best is the US.
The US cannot believe its luck. By Russian invading Ukraine, the US has been gifted by god, handed to it on a silver platter, the perfect pretext and justification to economically and politically crush its long-term cold war foe: Russia.
The single largest existential threat to liberal democracies and our way of life in Australia since the Cold War is the resurgence of Russia and the rise of mighty China. The US, Commonwealth nations, EU, NATO nations, etc, have all suddenly abandoned 40 to 50 years of policy towards Russia to seize this epic moment in history to once and for all crush one side of this existential threat in a single swift move.
The West is going all out on this one, leaving no stone unturned.
Ukraine and its people deserve the opportunity to choose their own destiny for themselves.
But unfortunately they are just expendable pawns to both the US and to Russia. They're just caught smack bang in the middle of a major, monumental global power battle for the ages between absolute giants. They're getting played on every side.
From the US's perspective the end goal is crushing Russia and its people with sanctions, asset freezes, political and economic isolation, etc. That's what the US is focused on here. They could care less about the people of Ukraine.
In this sense the people of Russia are also unfortunately expendable pawns to the US (and seemingly to Putin) and are caught in the middle of this epic power battle: The other objective of the US is to send the people of Russia into squalor, poverty and famine in the hope that they revolt against Putin and there is complete social breakdown and regime change in Russia.
you could say that...
but I think you would be reading too much of your own bias into it
I wouldn't say it is a gift at all, and may yet turn into a curse...
russia wasn't really much of a threat to our way of life, more a hobbled poor cousin, an angry one with a big gun, that needs respecting, but is best well left alone, which is pretty much what trump did, by fluke or by design...
biden has stirred the beast by omitting it more than anything... ignoring it...
caring only for the china threat
he's poked and prodded the russia bear over a long period, with various forms of corrupting and coruption, but the bear largely slept...
and now the bear has awoken, with a sore head, a violated orifice, and a seemingly open run to the honey pot...
as its joe that now seems rather sleepy...
but that 'seemingly' hasn't really panned out at all, because there's actually a people involved, and people are messy
yes the people of ukraine are pawns, a 'buffer zone' for both sides as stated in the article, a buffer zone left extremely vulnerable by the arrogance of the US...
but even amidst such arrogance, corruption, and general cluelessness, I'd say the shitty US still cares more for them than putin, ...ever would or even could...
china, like putin, are pure opportunists, that don't really do friends
they may or may not get their opportunity... their 'time'...
I'd say a lot of it comes down to benevolence... even if a people, a country, are half kidding themselves, and exaggerating their good intentions...
that's better than an unbridled
malevolence, that only and exclusively respects brute power...
Looks like one of the oligarchs being targeted for sanctions might lose his little boat.
Optimist wrote:Historically it’s Roman Catholicism VS Russian Orthodoxy as explained in the video. The Vatican owns Europe and the Russians have their own thing going on.
If Ukraine would totally commit to being independent from the EU and from Russia and allow Russia those disputed eastern border regions that are already pretty much Russian , there would be peace but it seems they are committed to being pawns of the US and the EU and not being an independent nation at all so they are doomed by stupid leaders who can’t see the benefit of not taking sides and staying a neutral buffer zone.
Not so simple Opto. That’s just not how the world works.
There’s no sense from Russia that Ukraine is ever going to be allowed to be a ‘neutral buffer zone’. Their choice is: reintegrate into Russia, or be forceably integrate.
What a choice! read the RIA editorial that I posted yesterday.
At least in a European system they have autonomy within community. How much choice do you think Belarus has at the moment.
Those ‘disputed border regions that are pretty much Russian’ are not actually so. Just because you speak Russian, doesn’t make you Russian…. Da? Look at the article on ethnopolitical factors at play that I posted a couple of days ago. The main driver of conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk for the past 8 years has been Russian-sponsored.
not quite the same scale...
but saw a post on a fb bali group the other day, from an indo concerned about how all the russians in bali will now be able to pay their bills?
interesting times...
seems crypto's may be an answer...
with them spiking on announcement of the sanctions
pretty pissed actually, seemed like crypto's were just starting to be exposed as the scam they largely appear to be
gsco wrote:It seems that Putin is not going to back down and is willing to go all the way with this one.
I can't help but think that there is still a very easy way to end this conflict, and that the current reaction of the US/EU/NATO (the "West") is not working.
The West is posturing up militarily, imposing sanctions and asset freezes etc to crush Russia (and its people) and ostracise it from the world, providing military to Ukraine, talking about no-fly zones, etc. Is this only dangerously escalating things and further enraging Putin? Will it only lead to an unimaginable conflict and the complete destruction of Ukraine? Also, is Zelenskyy's actions and calls to the West extremely dangerous and badly inflaming things too?
What's wrong with the idea of actually negotiating with Putin, compromising with him, and basically letting him have his way somewhat here with Ukraine by establishing a demilitarised state unaligned with the US and NATO, in the interests of immediately defusing the situation, preventing the complete decimation of Ukraine, and then playing the patient long game of undermining Putin and Russia in the usual way that the West does with all kinds of other regimes and nations?
Is it now simply time for realism and pragmatism?
If/when President Jinping feels emboldened to flex China's muscle and he takes exception to Australia hosting the US Pine Gap military base in what he considers his backyard, would you be arguing for appeasement?
As Chinese paratroopers dropped onto Australian soil, would you be suggesting that Aussies let China 'have its way'?
Putin has shown he isn't interested in negotiation, he used the last talks to prepare his army for an invasion.
Freedman’s latest piece is up.
https://samf.substack.com/p/russias-plan-c
A good read: runs through Russia’s failed plans, what might come next, and why Putin has very few decent options.
For Opto, if you haven’t read up on the ethno/ demographic/ nationalist / political splits yet, here’s a quote for you:
“ Kharkiv, the city that has suffered the worst, remains defiant. This is supposedly one of the most Russophile cities in Ukraine, where the Russians hoped to trigger a popular counter-revolution to the EuroMaidan revolution of February 2014. No longer.”
There’s Russian-speaking Ukrainians facing down Putin’s troops all over Ukraine, but particularly in the East. Unarmed civilians stopping convoys, or others picking up weapons and fighting the troops that have been sent to ‘save’ them.
Oh dear, people are now talking about my worst fears about this whole situation..
https://ba.n1info.com/english/news/fmr-high-representatives-urge-eu-to-f...
“February 24, 2022, is a black day in European history because of the threat that such aggression against a sovereign state could encourage other dictators to take similar steps,” two former high representatives in BiH, Christian Schwarz-Schilling and Valentin Inzko, told the president of the European Commission, reacting to the dramatic development of the situation in Ukraine and the attacks of the Russian army on civilian targets.
Apart from Putin's attacks reminding them of the war in BiH and the artillery terror against the people of Sarajevo, the two diplomats believe that “Dodik and Vucic could use Russia's aggression against Ukraine and provoke incidents or a new war in BiH or Kosovo.”
“Serbia and [the BiH entity of] Republika Srpska have not achieved their goals from the 1990s. In addition, they nurture very close relations with Russia. Therefore, we are afraid that the current aggression against Ukraine could spread to the Western Balkans, primarily to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo,” they said in a joint letter to Ursula von der Leyen.
“No one knows what Putin's goals are. That is why we ask you to do everything in your power to protect BiH. Its citizens must receive NATO guarantees in case the war spreads to the Western Balkans,” Inzko said.
The high representatives demand sending NATO troops to the Brcko corridor and the BiH border with Serbia, citing Stoltenberg's recent statement: “The Kremlin is trying to put NATO and the EU in a position to provide less support to their partners, and therefore our collective response must be to give even more support to countries such as BiH, Moldova and Georgia, so we could help them succeed in their democratic reforms and the path they have chosen.”
Not a bad article CBG.
Actually quite balanced and rational. I’m not normally a huge fan of Chomsky as I find his style a bit hyperbolic, and some of his logic threads a little tenuous.
But, that was good.
upnorth wrote:If/when President Jinping feels emboldened to flex China's muscle and he takes exception to Australia hosting the US Pine Gap military base in what he considers his backyard, would you be arguing for appeasement?
As Chinese paratroopers dropped onto Australian soil, would you be suggesting that Aussies let China 'have its way'?
Putin has shown he isn't interested in negotiation, he used the last talks to prepare his army for an invasion.
Well of course it's impossible to say since it's impossible to speculate about the exact circumstances and scenario, and options available, etc, in a future event like that. At the moment though I do believe that Australia should try to maintain a positive and workable relationship with China instead of the current trajectory of a deteriorating and increasingly antagonistic relationship.
I just think that in this current situation with Ukraine the best solution seems to be a peace negotiation and compromise, and an agreement between the US/NATO and Russia, for the establishment and guarantee of a demilitarised, liberal democratic and politically neutral and unaligned Ukraine which is free to focus on improving the living standards and way of life of the Ukrainian people by concentrating on economic growth and development, and economic integration with the world.
I believe this is what's in the best interests of the people of Ukraine and the world.
There also seems to be the need for the establishment of a new security mechanism and set of institutions in Europe since the current one has failed miserably.
There also probably needs to be the establishment of a new overall international security mechanism and set of institutions between the US/EU/Commonwealth and China/Russia, since things are slowly spiralling in the wrong direction there too and we no longer seem to be in a unipolar distribution of power dominated by the US.
But maybe I'm dreaming, and I don't care if I am.
Captured Russian soldiers speaking.
bluediamond wrote:Captured Russian soldiers speaking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhhFgb1GcvE&t=111s
Sad, young men are always the pawns in old men's wars ...
So heavy.
gsco wrote:upnorth wrote:If/when President Jinping feels emboldened to flex China's muscle and he takes exception to Australia hosting the US Pine Gap military base in what he considers his backyard, would you be arguing for appeasement?
As Chinese paratroopers dropped onto Australian soil, would you be suggesting that Aussies let China 'have its way'?
Putin has shown he isn't interested in negotiation, he used the last talks to prepare his army for an invasion.Well of course it's impossible to say since it's impossible to speculate about the exact circumstances and scenario, and options available, etc, in a future event like that. At the moment though I do believe that Australia should try to maintain a positive and workable relationship with China instead of the current trajectory of a deteriorating and increasingly antagonistic relationship.
I just think that in this current situation with Ukraine the best solution seems to be a peace negotiation and compromise, and an agreement between the US/NATO and Russia, for the establishment and guarantee of a demilitarised, liberal democratic and politically neutral and unaligned Ukraine which is free to focus on improving the living standards and way of life of the Ukrainian people by concentrating on economic growth and development, and economic integration with the world.
I believe this is what's in the best interests of the people of Ukraine and the world.
There also seems to be the need for the establishment of a new security mechanism and set of institutions in Europe since the current one has failed miserably.
There also probably needs to be the establishment of a new overall international security mechanism and set of institutions between the US/EU/Commonwealth and China/Russia, since things are slowly spiralling in the wrong direction there too and we no longer seem to be in a unipolar distribution of power dominated by the US.
But maybe I'm dreaming, and I don't care if I am.
Blissful ignorance is certainly one approach
David Aaronovitch on why President Putin’s exposure as a reckless ideologue bent on fulfilling a self-scripted destiny shouldn’t have been a surprise
"Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen, was it? One minute we’re dealing with the aftermath of a pandemic and worrying about inflation and the next we’re in the middle of a new Cold War and fretting at the edge of a new hot one, while a big European country burns. And all because of one man. Literally all because of one man.
A man most of us obviously got wrong. If I may crudely distil the popular wisdom of recent years concerning Vladimir Putin, it is that he is (or was till last week) a pragmatic kleptocrat with a single over-riding objective: staying in power. This motivation is what had led him to suppress dissent at home, strengthen despotism on his borders and destabilise the western democracies and their alliances.
We have shoe-horned almost everything he has done into this idea of him and his regime. Annexing Crimea? It made him more popular at home. Having his agents wander round Britain with vials of nerve agent? The mafioso’s punishment for breaking the code of omerta. Massing troops on the Ukrainian border? Support for rebel regions so as to weaken the democracy in Kyiv and the power of its example to Russian citizens. All bad, but containable.
Then came last week’s speech, the night before the troops and bombers went in. Many clever people still thought he was maybe after a slice of the Donbas and a bit of Luhansk, whatever and wherever they were. We awoke to discover that he was actually after the entire country and that the pragmatist had become the ideologue.
The day after the invasion began, the government-controlled Russian news agency, RIA Novosti, suffered a nasty case of premature publication and emitted a piece by a Petr Akopov that had clearly been intended to coincide with VU Day.
In toppling the Ukrainian government, wrote Akopov, “Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together, in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians [Ukrainians].” By leading this invasion, continued Akopov, “Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations.”
Off fall the blinkers, worn in good faith because not to wear them was to live always in the shadow of an impending conflict. To show that far from being a calculating and venal bad person, Vladimir Putin is a reckless, ideological bad person, one of those destiny men who sees himself as a great figure with only a small window in which to recreate Great Russia. Including the whole of Ukraine.
Which leaves us in a worse situation than during most of the Cold War. After Stalin the leadership was essentially collective. The men in fur hats replaced Khruschev in 1964, then let Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko ail and die in office and finally chose Gorbachev. Their imagery was collective: the row of men on the top of Lenin’s tomb saluting the rockets and gymnasts, with the general secretary primus inter pares. Together, advising each other, they were not uncareful.
Look at Putin’s chosen furniture. His imagery (vast table, echoing hall, distant cowed underlings and him, alone, exercising sole power) is monarchical. He is an autocrat, not a chief oligarch. His creatures are political eunuchs. If you were an adviser to Putin you’d work out very carefully what advice he wanted.
Those images reminded me of something. My late mother was a commie and a movie buff and in our house that meant trips to see the works of the great Soviet director, Sergei Eisenstein. I must have been nine or ten when I first saw his two films about Ivan the Terrible, commissioned by Stalin in 1942 as the Nazis raced for the Volga, and believe me, they stick in the memory.
In these films Ivan is a cruel man, a driven man, but above all a necessary man. His ruthlessness and violence is in the service of Russia, its people and its almost mystical existence as a place and an ideal. In the movies he takes on the Tatar Khanates of the East and conquers them, wages war on the effete, sneering westerners of Poland and Livonia, and crushes revolts by over-powerful nobles. He is always alone.
Ivan the Terrible — credited with murdering his own son — was not much celebrated in the post-war Soviet Union. No tsar was. But in 2016 an eight-metre statue to him went up in the town of Oryol which he founded in the 1560s. The mayor, who organised the erection, linked the tsar to the president. Both were strong men and both embodied the will of the people.
If, like me, you’re something of a Russophile, you may have looked through streaming services for contemporary Russian TV series and movies. In the last decade they’ve churned out several series on past tsars and tsarinas, from Catherine the Great to Ivan himself. And always the same themes, between the ripped bodices and sword-fights: western hostility and subterfuge, Russian authenticity, and the need to guard against internal enemies. The message is constant, although I imagine more appreciated by the older, provincial citizen than the connected TikTokkers of the cities.
But Putin himself seems to believe in something more organised than a set of movie memes. In 2005 he arranged the repatriation and reinterment of the remains of an early 20th-century Russian philosopher, Ivan Ilyin. Since then Ilyin quotes have peppered Putin’s speeches and interviews and Ilyin’s works have been recommended to Russian officials and Russian youth.
Which should have been a warning because for much of his life Ilyin was what you might call a Christian fascist. Decrying democracy and the limitations of law, Ilyin preached that Russia — “an organism of nature and the soul” — was, even when it was expanding into an empire, essentially suffering victimhood at the hands of others. Russia was always innocent and always indivisible. Whatever it did was right.
Imagine giving total power to someone who believes this. It is so frightening that we decided (aside from a pessimistic few, now able to claim their prophetic mantles) not to notice. The nasty but negotiable kleptocrat suited us better. Well, we know better now and Ukrainians are bleeding with the knowledge.
Bertolt Brecht put it well in his allegory of the origins of the Third Reich, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. “If we could learn to look instead of gawking,/ We’d see the horror in the heart of farce,/ If only we could act instead of talking,/ We wouldn’t always end up on our arse.”"
https://m.
yeh yeh, there's a china thread...
https://m.
acab
That's really interesting. I once saw that dude in Shenzhen and approached him and told him I liked his YouTube videos.
He’s the real deal, has been in China a decent amount of time and speaks Chinese very well.
In a way I’m surprised and saddened to see him become so negative and bitter, and end up leaving China (I didn’t realise he had left). But in another way I can understand due to the reaction of the Chinese authorities to the often quite sensitive and provocative nature of his videos.
I know a number of people in the finance industry who’ve been in China far longer than him and can speak Chinese far better than him, but who didn’t become bitter and angry, quite the opposite actually.
In the above videos it’s obvious that his anger and emotions have gotten the better of him a bit and he’s twisting the facts quite badly here and there to suit his bitter narrative.
But some of what he says has a lot of merit and of course now he’s left China - and I assume he never intends to go back - he’s free to wage his own personal information and propaganda war against China…the rest of the world is doing it too…
bluediamond wrote:Captured Russian soldiers speaking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhhFgb1GcvE&t=111s
No offence at all but to me it looked like they were reading what they were saying there. I hope I’m completely wrong. Who knows. I don’t. I hope it was sincere. The last few years have scrambled my perceptions.
Peace and love.
yeh, he does come across as a bit of a lover scorned...
but as you say, difficult to do what he does without drawing attention
I just found that vid interesting after watching the other one, he has quite the catalogue
I also found it interesting how he said things have changed, with authorities clamping down over the last 10 years or so...
I imagine russia similar, both countries seemed much more open, and looking for integration, for quite a period - or so it seemed - then both seem to have gone more authoritarian and brutal in dealing with any opposition or dissent...
reactive to western influence / ways?
natural developments? '... 'clash of civilisations' stuff?
corruption?
tech. / social media?
bit of all of the above i suspect
The best thing we can do is concentrate on what divides us
https://www.artlondon.com/
Alana_a wrote:bluediamond wrote:Captured Russian soldiers speaking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhhFgb1GcvE&t=111sNo offence at all but to me it looked like they were reading what they were saying there. I hope I’m completely wrong. Who knows. I don’t. I hope it was sincere. The last few years have scrambled my perceptions.
Peace and love.
Yeah who knows @Alana_a. Just saw it and thought i'd share it for interests sakes. And for the sake of balance, i checked out a Russian news website and they presented pretty much an identical version of events, but with the Russians being the gracious ones..from the article..
'Ukrainians mock Russian prisoners, keep them in bestial conditions, do not feed them, make them shout “Glory to Ukraine!” at the video camera.
We have a completely different attitude. You saw how the Russians treated the Ukrainian marines taken prisoner on Zmeiny Island. They were politely taken to Sevastopol, fed, they took a receipt that they would no longer take up arms and were taken to the border with Ukraine. True, once at home, some Ukrainian warriors begin to lie about the "atrocities" of the Russians.'
https://www.kp.ru/daily/27371/4553169/
There's also a video of the Russian soldiers if you can understand Russian.
It's hard not to be skeptical of everything that's presented by both sides of the media. My only one sounding board, which may also be not very reliable is to take the country who's being invaded as the ones to be more truthful than the invader,...especially when browsing the way the Russian news presents their facts. You can almost see a counter argument/fabrication of every single statement made by the West in the Russian news, which makes it damn difficult to know whats what as it unfolds.
Abc news
reports nuclear power plant has a fire problem.
Abc news
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/russia-ukraine-war-invasion-updat...
Abc news
More on nuclear power plant.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/latest-on-where-fighting-is-happe...
Robwilliams wrote:Abc news
More on nuclear power plant.Highly efficient in producing power. Highly destructive when they go wrong.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/latest-on-where-fighting-is-happe...
O
Anyone want to defend or justify Putin’s actions…? But, but, but,….. NATO…?
This is straight up hostage diplomacy. At a geostrategic level.
zelensky (or fox news) might be getting a bit excited... but if this statement is even half true, shit's getting well outa hand...
"Zelenskyy releases statement on nuclear power plant attack
“Europe needs to wake up. The biggest nuclear power plant in Europe is on fire right now. Russian tanks are shooting at the nuclear blocks. These are tanks equipped with thermal imagers, so they know what they are shooting at.
They have prepared for it. I am addressing all Ukrainians, all Europeans and everyone who knows the word Chernobyl, who knows many casualties were inflicted by the explosion on the nuclear plant. This was a global catastrophe and its consequences were battled by hundreds of thousands of people. Tens of thousands had to be evacuated and Russia wants to repeat that and is already repeating it, but 6 times bigger..."
https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-3-3-2022
ok, I'm gonna say it...
I certainly do not condone Putin's actions or indeed any country invading another.
BUT...
How is this different from:
- cuba missile crisis
- US invading Iraq for absolutely no legitimate reason
- US orchestrating a coup in Iran
- US orchestrating a coup in Ukraine (the seeds that we are reaping now)
- US bombing Libya
- US bombiny Afghanistan
- US bombing Syria
do I carry on ?
There is no such thing as a just war, just hyprocrites and their sheeplike followers.
Most people here would have no idea of the difference between a Ukranian or Russian soldier or where the videos and images originated from. Remember we are being fed a doozy, Putin is no fool I fear for the Ukranians if he does not get his disarmament of Ukraine.
and the Swift sanctions are dead in the water: https://www.eurointelligence.com
@monkeyboy i do agree to some extent, but as a counter argument they were all conducted under different governments/administrations from different times/eras, although one might argue it's all two sides of the same coin and it's all rotten from the inside out and always has been.... But yeah, i do know what you mean. No matter how you look at it, historically injustices have occurred on a mass scale by most participants involved. Its a fundamental spiritual problem that we have as humans that have gotten us to this point in my opinion.
Either way, it's just gotta stop. Why can't these leaders/elites that are calling the shots just take each other on instead, face to face and leave the innocent people out of it. .
So sad the whole thing. Who knows where this is all leading.
Totally agree - where does it end, where is the real leadership ? Where are the grown ups ?
Yep. Nailed it @monkeyboy. Those are the most pressing questions at the moment that seem to have no answer.
"Where are the grown ups ?"
the grown ups are biden and harris...
apparently...
(biden, possibly the most compromised person on the planet re. ukraine... and harris, the most disappointing packaged piece of potential ever sold in modern politics...)
what could possibly go wrong?
kamala sent in to save the day....
"Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine so basically that's wrong.'
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10566331/a...
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6299563711001#sp=show-clips
we're in safe hands
#StandWithUkraine.. Social media influencers love a crisis.
monkeyboy wrote:ok, I'm gonna say it...
I certainly do not condone Putin's actions or indeed any country invading another.
BUT...
How is this different from:
- cuba missile crisis
- US invading Iraq for absolutely no legitimate reason
- US orchestrating a coup in Iran
- US orchestrating a coup in Ukraine (the seeds that we are reaping now)
- US bombing Libya
- US bombiny Afghanistan
- US bombing Syriado I carry on ?
There is no such thing as a just war, just hyprocrites and their sheeplike followers.
Most people here would have no idea of the difference between a Ukranian or Russian soldier or where the videos and images originated from. Remember we are being fed a doozy, Putin is no fool I fear for the Ukranians if he does not get his disarmament of Ukraine.
Thanks for the epic whataboutery monkeyboy.
2 wrongs don’t make a right. By repeating these lines you validate what is occurring at the moment.
And while some of your examples are valid, others are straight from the Putin misinformation playbook. Talk about being duped.
Re Just War, there’s no ‘good war’
Seems like regardless of if you think Putin and his methods and requests are sane, reasonable and justified, he’s just going to keep levelling Ukraine until he’s taken seriously, treated with respect and some of his requests are considered?
Question: Is it nearly a situation now that by dismissing and refusing to compromise on Putin’s requests, and by cheering on, encouraging and supporting the Ukrainian government and army, the US, Ukrainian government and others are now also complicit in the further destruction of Ukraine?
We will no doubt be seeing some refugees from this as it continues. Australias who are able and can afford to provide a safe haven for women and children should consider as situation develops. Some of the refuges have entered poor corrupt countries where life is cheap. And dangerous to woman and children who are vulnerable. A lot of empty properties in Australia. People both national and international are going to be seeking safe refuge until events stabilise.
Not sure if that's 1930's Appeasement, Stockholm Syndrome, or both?
Answer is no, that it is unlikely, as US/West has backed and built up Ukrainian ability to defend itself and is probably not going to stop this given an invasion of Ukraine has occurred. Don't think it's an issue of being complicit - it's war. Prevail or don't prevail.
What are Vlad's requests? If I were Vlad I would be quite nervous because much of Eastern Europe going Western/NATO means no buffer states, as they were back in the Cold War days, which would deliver a nightmare scenario to Russia much like 1941 or worse, like June 1812. So I'd want buffer states back.
gsco wrote:Seems like regardless of if you think Putin and his methods and requests are sane, reasonable and justified, he’s just going to keep levelling Ukraine until he’s taken seriously, treated with respect and some of his requests are considered?
Question: Is it nearly a situation now that by dismissing and refusing to compromise on Putin’s requests, and by cheering on, encouraging and supporting the Ukrainian government and army, the US, Ukrainian government and others are now also complicit in the further destruction of Ukraine?
So which of Putin’s requests should be acceded to? And which of them are you, gsco, going to override the views of the VAST majority of the Ukrainian population?
Spell it out. Simple’s, apparently.
There’s just a absence of logic in this thinking:
Russia wants a neutral, (and unarmed), Ukraine. Right?
As an intellectual exercise, and this is certainly no demands for an answer, why don’t you walk us back from subjugation and installation of a pro-Putin government, territorial concessions (Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk) and the right to move nuclear forces onto their soil.
Oh, and acceptance of status as ‘little Russians’.
Start there, which is what Putin has effectively defined as his war aims, and walk backwards to where you think is a reasonable compromise.
Then, go find a Ukrainian. Or an Aussie of Ukrainian heritage. I know a couple so if you’re struggling to identify one in your circle of friends I can support an introduction (in a safe environment) . Tell them why you think that your idea is a good one that they should get on board with and tell their relatives to petition their elected government to accept.
Gsco: You seem to propose a course of action that relies on the give Putin what he wants, or ‘let them have a fair fight. There should be no external support’ principle. Is this correct?
(VJ: hit the nail on the head ref European response to Putin’s action. Unintended consequences and all that.)
Etarip my ex principal PhD advisor is Ukrainian (my secondary advisor is Polish) and I’m in discussion with him about it all, including offering him spare rooms in my house for his family and close friends if needed and me going over there to help in the reconstruction of Ukraine.
I already wrote above that I think the best solution is a demilitarised, independent, liberal democratic Ukraine that is politically neutral and not aligned with either Russia or the US. There would need to be proper security and other frameworks and mechanisms in place to guarantee and/or try to achieve this.
Evidently it’s not in Ukraine’s current security interests to seek membership of the EU or NATO given Russia’s stance. This is just the harsh reality Ukraine faces and should respect due to its Soviet history, post Cold War history, and geography as a buffer state. Anyway, Ukraine does not need to be part of these organisations in order to function successfully as an independent liberal democracy and resume a focus on economic development. And circumstances may change in the future but for now that’s the best option.
I believe the Ukrainian people want and deserve most of all their freedom, autonomy, self direction and prosperity as a nation and people and they don’t need to be in the EU or NATO to achieve this, at least not for now.
My ex PhD advisor is pretty ok with all that and has his head screwed on very well about it all. He doesn’t necessarily agree with it all and there is a lot of emotion involved but he is pretty open minded and reasonable.
I don’t agree with all of Putin’a other NATO specific demands.
But I’d also mention that, as you’d know, one always goes into a negotiation situation demanding far more than one would actually settle for. I think Putin is no different and would have certain core non-negotiable demands and others that he would concede.
Finally I think the whole European security mechanism and institutions may need an overhaul since particularly regarding NATO it’s a relic of the Cold War past when there was a counterbalance to its power in the form of the USSR and Warsaw Pact. Now NATO has unchecked expansion apart from Russian pressure and this is part of the problem.
Edit: regarding the “give Putin what he wants or a fair fight”, no and I’ve got no idea where you got that from. I think they should negotiate for peace. Right now the US and other nations won’t negotiate on Putin’s demands and are cheering the war on and pouring fuel on it - they don’t seem to want it to end.
I’m glad you have a broad base to bounce ideas off. That comes through on most of your China views.
“ This is just the harsh reality Ukraine faces and should respect due to its soviet history, post Cold War and Warsaw Pact etc history, and geography as a buffer state.”
Don’t you take a longer view with respect to China and their history? You seem to have started in 1917 for Ukrainian statehood. Do they not get a say? I’d say they have seen that option and are wholeheartedly rejecting it right now. Surely the idea of Ukrainian identity and statehood goes back a little further than 1917?
Your realist position on this aspect is an interesting contradiction from your generally idealist stance.
“ I already wrote above that I think the best solution is a demilitarised, independent, liberal democratic Ukraine that is politically neutral and not aligned with either Russia or the US. There would need to be proper security and other frameworks and mechanisms in place to guarantee and/or try to achieve this.”
What do you mean by ‘demilitarised’? I’m keen to hear that. What offensive capabilities has Ukraine possessed, or sought, that present any kind of significant threat to Russia? Why does Putin need a buffer? He hasn’t got a buffer with Finland and that seems OK.
Wouldn’t a ‘demilitarised’ Ukraine just present an easy target to Russia? I’m assuming by ‘security and other frameworks’ you mean some kind of external force? Who? How? By frameworks and agreements to you mean something like the Minsk accords (duly ignored by Russia), or something else? The Rhineland was demilitarised after WWI, as a buffer. Until it wasn’t. I just cannot see how Putin will accept a vibrant, economically liberal democracy on his doorstep.
While you’ve presented an idealist position, you haven’t really answered my question about how you walk back from Putin’s position. I’m genuinely interested in what you think is the negotiation strategy, and what Ukraine looks like at the end of it.
Septic Tanks are going to Septic Tank