The world seems to be going nuts, racing towards a great depression, energy poverty, food shortages, world war three, and nuclear annihilation. What happened to John Lennon's sentiment "Give Peace a Chance".
Oh, I know, I know. Putin's a big bully and we need to teach him a lesson.
You fucking idiots.
Here is what John F. Kennedy had to say about it.
Above all, while defending our
own vital interests, nuclear
powers must avert those
confrontations which bring an
adversary to a choice of either a
humiliating retreat or a nuclear
war. To adopt that kind of course
in the nuclear age would be
evidence only of the bankruptcy
of our policy -- or of a collective
death-wish for the world.
- JFK
Yes. What he said!
Who exactly is in charge of negotiating a peace here? It appears only Elon Musk at this stage. This was his tweet on the subject.
Ukraine-Russia Peace:
- Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is the will of the people.
- Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Krushchev's mistake).
- Water supply to Crimea assured.
- Ukraine remains neutral.
There, was that so bloody hard? Don't let's quibble on the details. That's up to the multi-party negotiators to hash out. The fact that there is zero discussion of peace from the world powers as we rush headlong into WW3 is some form of mass death-wish if you ask me.
Oh well, it's been a pretty nice world up to now.
Well said, Julie. Peace and prosperity is always to be strived for. Both sides of that conflict are in part to blame. It's ridiculous standing on "principle" on either side. The best to be hoped for is a compromise towards an honourable peace for both sides and an end to war mongering.
ReplyDelete100%
DeleteI agree Julie.
ReplyDeleteNATO needs to sit down with Russia and work out a peaceful solution to this conflict.
The question is does NATO have the leadership to do the right thing?
Countries like Canada could take a lead role but unfortunately we are currently let by a cowardly dickhead who cowers from a bunch of Truckers.
Dont count on Biden , so who steps up?
No, that's the problem. We are being lead by a bunch of idiots because politics has become such a toxic waste dump that only the greedy-dumb need apply.
DeletePerhaps the recent election results in Italy , Sweden ,and others will force their hand.
DeleteI like the new Italian leader.
Yes. I understand she has already said she'll take Russian energy, which is an incredibly smart move on her part. We must reject this binary native that one side is pure good, and the other pure evil.
DeleteJulie,
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with your politics in any fashion. That said the question you ask here is one the world should be focused on. Partisan politics aside. Neither is offering solutions. The Kennedy quote is exactly where we find ourselves because the world did not act quickly enough to prevent it.
The UN and every other world power stood back when Putin warned everyone off by threatening nuclear war. The way to confront those tactic is to call it early before he engages. No one did that.
Now we see this velocity vector of civil dissent and defiance in countries that are usually controlled by brute force, here in the US we are as divided as we could ever be and the truth is without a strong American world presence the door is open to see despots like Putin force his will on the world.
The war on Ukraine has exposed his military might isn't strong enough to support his moving forward. His hold card is nuclear weapons and that now seems his only option
But I doubt Russia is the country we should be the most wary of...recent testing by North Korea shows us the ultimate nothing to lose enemy of a stable world.
But from wherever it comes from we will not be prepared for it. And I will end by saying for once you have my ears on something other than the need for you to spend many days bare bottomed over a parental lap.
I would say the West (and in particular, the US), was very complicit in "poking the bear" by continuing to advance NATO beyond the agreed upon limits and then funding and instigating a pro-Western revolution in Ukraine in 2014. Thus is their "end game", goading Russia into attacking and then draining them of resources. What these idiots don't seem to comprehend is that we are dealing with a nuclear super-power, something JFK well understood.
DeleteWell ,ok, this is not a particularly US provocation. And since we are going down the partisan path, if Agent Orange had not shown signs that he would co-sign Putin's "genius" (his words) bombard the civilians of Ukraine and if her were President he would not stand in his way was the push Putin took. As to 2014:
DeleteSince Russia began its aggressive actions against Ukraine, Russian officials have accused NATO of a series of threats and hostile actions. This webpage sets out the facts.
MYTHS
NATO as a "threat"
Claim: NATO's presence in the Baltic region is dangerous
Fact: NATO has taken defensive and proportionate steps in response to a changed security environment. In response to Russia's use of military force against its neighbours, Allies requested a greater NATO presence in the Baltic region.
In 2016, we deployed four multinational battlegroups ─ or "enhanced forward presence" ─ to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. In 2017, the battlegroups became fully operational. More than 4,500 troops from Europe and North America work closely together with home defence forces.
NATO's presence in the region is at the request of the host nations, and Allied forces uphold the highest standards of conduct, both on and off duty.
Claim: NATO missile defence threatens Russian security
Fact: NATO ballistic missile defence is not directed against Russia and cannot undermine Russia's strategic deterrence capabilities. It is designed to protect European Allies against missile threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area.
NATO invited Russia to cooperate on missile defence, an invitation extended to no other partner. Unfortunately, Russia refused to cooperate and rejected dialogue on this issue in 2013.
And yes you can point to Kennedy's statement as much as needed to justify your pointed finger, but the facts remain the same. Putin has no rights to Ukraine and his continued attack does not stand on civility or peace.
If you want to see the world give Peace A Chance use your words to promote that not condemning people who don't share your politics for agreeing with you from their differing perspective. The goal is shared. Can we please give agreement a chance...
You miss the point that it was an agreement with the then NATO countries themselves not to expand beyond where they were in exchange for the wall coming down. Does not matter what those other countries wanted, NATO went back on its agreement by admitting them.
DeleteYour FACTS are silly. The distinction between defensive and offensive is a matter of point of view.
Nailed it Julie. Its silly to say oh its just defensive lol. If the surrounding countries are joining a military coalition that is anti-Russia then Russia has every right to feel threatened. These countries shouldn't even be a part of NATO and even if they were, should not host military bases or nuclear missiles in the first place.
DeleteI think it's absolute common sense that if you keep pushing NATO further and further East, you are the aggressor.
DeleteThe leader of Ukraine - legally rejected any negotiations. Ukraine - blows up bridges and destroys civilians. What can be the world with fascists and terrorists? It's time for you to take off your rose-colored glasses. Ukraine-now-the center of world terror.
ReplyDeleteAnybody who believes the one-sided narrative that Russia is pure evil and Ukraine and the US/NATO is pure good in this conflict has been brainwashed by propaganda.
DeleteJulie, its refreshing to hear someone from the western world finally take a non brainwashed opinion about these kinds of things. Its amazing how the entire Russia = evil, US = good, propaganda has stood the test of time since the cold war days.
DeleteI'm not going to say Russia is good. They have good and bad parts, as does the West. It's childish to argue points of good and evil in the affairs of nations. That's propaganda for the children.
DeletePutin is a dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine. Period. The civilized world should do everything possible to ensure he gains nothing from his agression.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I understand why you say that and a part of me is totally with you, but at what price? You good if the result is nuclear war? It's like, if a robber with a gun wants your wallet. Is the right thing to do fight him, even if it means you die? Think about that.
DeleteSure, give the robber your wallet. He’ll come back for your car. Then what? You think Putin will just stop?
DeleteOr fight him. Get shot, game over. But instead of a single person, we're talking about all of humanity. See JFK's quote above. Idiotic, macho, testosterone-laced idiocy like this will kill us all.
DeleteBut don't let them win. Do Jiu-jitsu. Yield and circle. Slowly, slowly catchee monkey.
DeleteTo think anyone can really STOP Russia is ridiculous. They are way too powerful. And the west doesn't have the will or the resources to defend anyone else. The right thing to do is dialogue and compromise.
DeleteOh and please stop calling the west "civilized world" as if the rest of the world and especially the Russians are all barbarians. The "civilized world" has done a lot of uncivilized things in the name of "democracy and freedom".
People subject to Western propaganda have a giant blind spot as to the evils of their own side.
DeleteYou’re preaching appeasement. It doesn’t work. Nuclear war needs to be avoided but appeasing dictators who take over other countries has always led to worse wars. Study a little history and get back to us.
ReplyDeleteMost of the history you refer to does not include nuclear weapons. Smarten up.
DeleteNuclear weapons don't change human behavior or reaction Patterns , it just makes the stakes higher.
DeleteYou can hold 3 positions simultaneously:
ReplyDelete1- The Russian invasion is morally reprehensible.
2- The Ukrainian government is corrupt to the bone.
3- The West has been needlessly provocative throughout this entire affair.
Putin is no saint. Far from it. He bears full moral culpability for all the blood shed in this conflict. He gave the order to start this "special military action" and he is responsible for it. But the Western elites and their demographers in the press have created a boogeyman out of a basic political thug and they are so desperate to get one over on him that they are willing to bring as close to nuclear war as we've been since the Yom Kippur War.
Russia is not Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam or any of the other countries ravaged by the gallivanting the Western political establishment has undertaken over the last 50 years. They are a nuclear power and have the fools in continental Europe by the balls with regards to energy with winter on the way. They have leverage that many other nations simply don't, and the inability or willful refusal of our leadership to recognize that is alarming.
By the way, should we investigate some of these green organizations for potential influxes of Russian money? It sure seems like they'd have quite a large interest in Europe and America neutering themselves on energy policy and therefore making themselves dependent on a hostile power.
Well said.
DeleteThat's more likely China pushing this ridiculous and deeply self-destructive green agenda. They rake it in selling windmills and solar panels to the West while building dozens of coal energy plants themselves every year and laughing at us. But not to worry, they've "promised" to reduce CO2 emissions by 2060 😂
Well said Anon!
DeleteYes, there’s so much ego in “diplomacy”. Elon Musk is suddenly making sense. We need to find an exit for Putin or it could end very badly.
ReplyDeleteRosco
I agree. Applying schoolyard bully rules to a nuclear power is the height of folly. See JFK.
DeleteTell me you don't live in Europe without telling me you don't live in Europe.
ReplyDeleteIf someone took a big bite of your country, bombed your civilians, raped and murdered people, etc. would you "turn the other cheek"? Ukrainians aren't any more willing to bargain away a peace of their country than Americans are, so what Musk or other babied Westerners think isn't important.
Sorry, are you referring to the crimes of the Azov brigade in the Donbas?
DeleteTell me you only ever hear one side's propaganda without telling me you only hear one side's propaganda and are swayed by it.
Europeans have always had a much more balanced view of the evils of Russia versus the evils of the USA.
I am European you idiot. Honestly, it's like you were spanked in the head.
DeleteI talk to more Europeans than just you, and surprise, surprise, there is a diversity of opinion. Nobody elected you to be the spokesperson for all of Europe. Talk to some Italians, Swedes, Hungarians, ... people across the EU are getting fed up with your type of Americanist war mongering.
Delete>people across the EU are getting fed up with your type of Americanist war mongering.
DeleteWhat? I don't even know what this means.
If you think I'm some kind of simp for Ukraine, or that I'm not critical of NATO, that's your own brain making wild assumptions based on insecurity or paranoia. I don't like these guys any more than you, in all likelihood. But you can talk to the Ukrainian refugees here: they are mad. They are not going to give Russia their houses and land because some twitter shitposter said it would appease Russian hawks.
That just doesn't make sense, regardless of what kinds of political opinions we all have. Even Russia isn't proposing this, because it doesn't suit their warm aims anyway.
So what is your suggestion for how to get to peace? And don't say a complete and utter withdrawal from Ukraine and then Ukraine joining EU and NATO, because that obviously will not fly.
Deleteyou are the biggest propagandist of all
ReplyDeleteI submit that you listen to the West's propaganda exclusively and are completely swayed by it.
DeleteConsistency was/is the first victim of this war/special military operation.
ReplyDeleteChina is a nuclear power too. Taiwan, unlike the annexed parts of Ukraine, has always been part of a greater China.
Yet, I have very little doubt that if this was a war between China and Taiwan instead, that the cool heads and peace-loving preachers in the West would come out very Hawkish and doomsday advocates. And maybe vice versa as well.
Now, if we want to be consistent, this campaign is more like the USSR failure in Afghanistan, or the US failure in Vietnam than a full-blown war between super powers.
The main deference in narrative, I'd argue, is Putin's lack of control over his own country. Even Nixon could maintain more domestic discipline (pun intended) without threatening to use a nuclear power on Hanoi to appease his supporters who were grieved by the large loss in men and equipment.
There's something else that needs to be said about Putin's propaganda with regards to Christendom and Western Values. That should have yielded as much success as Napoleon's "conversion" to Islam on winning the Egyptians.
Unfortunately, hate too is finite, and with the right wingers in the West spending all of their hateful resources domestically, Putin had to win some of their hearts be it totally or partially.
Tucker Carlson's early commentaries on the war was very telling on some Americans' and Westerners' lesser-of-two-evils attitude towards Putin:
“Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? ... Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity?”
Fearing an eminent nuclear war seems to be founded on this worldview of "Putin is not my enemy" than on actual .... I don't know ... fear of an eminent nuclear war!
Tucker's point was why embroil the US in foreign wars where there is nothing to be gained and a tremendous amount to be lost by the US.
DeleteSaying 'Let's not quibble on the details' while offering the dumbest masterplan currently in existence.
ReplyDeleteScreaming 'nuclear war' while ignoring the fact that, instead of using a tactical nuke on the front line after the Kerch bridge attack (the best possible moment for justifying a tactical nuke), the Russian military instead decided to bomb non-miliary targets all over Ukraine.
Saying that there should be UN mandated referenda in the occupied territories when Russia has been actively killing Ukrainian civilians in these territories (something the UN is actually investigating).
Still calling Russia a bear after what they have shown in Ukraine over the last few weeks and months.
Real live copium at its finest!
Musk's proposal is a starting point for a negotiation. That's how peace works. What is your alternate proposal for a basis for peace?
DeleteOr is all you can think about is war, war, war, down to the last Ukrainian, damned the 'nukes, damned the cyber-attacks on the West. You don't need heat, electricity, Internet, banking a working supply chain. Let's take Putin out at all costs. Yeah! Go Team!
This never would have happened with a strong american president. One that could remember what state he lived in like the state of confusion. Bring back a strong president.Say Donald Trump. 2024 Firefighter Steve
DeleteYes, I think it's clear that some real leadership was and still is required.
DeleteCouldn't agree more. It's scary that we could be this close, yet we're not hearing from leadership what is being done to de-escalate things. It seems that each day is only adding fuel to the fire. Nobody wants another Blitz where Europe is swallowed whole. But I also think they've gone too far in the eyes of Russia especially by allowing formally neutral countries into NATO and putting troops directly on their doorstep. It's like kids when they play "hey, stop hitting yourself. Why are you hitting yourself?!" -- you're literally instigating an extreme reaction from the other side by doing something NATO said it wouldn't do.
ReplyDeleteI see it from both sides because at the same time you can't just sit there and accept a country invade another and killing people.
I genuinely hope that the leadership can wake up and realize that we all started as innocent children, and that their actions are causing the end of their lives before they've had the chance to live it. Power is corrosive.
Indeed. I would have expected 100% agreement with my brief comments above. The ones who are objecting seem to be the war mongers. I hope they can recognize that in themselves.
DeleteWell you sure gave retardation a chance and decided it fit you well.
ReplyDeleteThere's a new take. "Peace is retarded!" 😂
DeleteThe fact my comment was beyond your comprehension doesn’t surprise me. You’re a cult45 sycophant who knows nothing of the real world; just the fantasy world that all cult members live in.
DeleteIn English, you’re retarded and hopefully Putin gets the Mussolini treatment (who I’m also sure you’re a fan of, just like Hitler, Pol Pot, Zedong, Lenin, Stalin, Amin, and Trump) followed by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Then sent from major city to major city across the world so people can throw feces and rotten foods at his rotting corpse.
I only publish your stuff so people can see how you come across. Ain't free speech grand?
DeleteI'm curious. If Russia was currently occupying Victoria and Edmonton would you be as willing to allow them to keep those cities in the name of peace? Or would you be unwilling to allow larger countries to sit down and divide up your nation.
ReplyDeleteIf the alternative was constant fighting that would kill everybody and nuclear Armageddon, then yup, I would.
DeleteBut it's not the same. Ukraine was a founding partner in the USSR (along with Russia and Belarus). Half the population was pro-Russian alignment, the pro-Russian President was ousted by an illegal coup funded by the CIA in the Maiden uprising, and ethnic Russian Ukrainians were discriminated against and the neo-Nazi Azov brigade was allowed to murder them. So not >quite< the same situation.
Then by your bullshit analogy, you should be ran by Romans, since you’re under the British monarchy and Britain was part of the Roman Empire. America as well, although parts of it would be Spanish and French.
DeleteDo you not truly understand how stupid you are?
I get it. You’re bored, you have nothing else to discuss, you have no life, so in an attempt to get a rise out of people, you post asinine bullshit that no rational or logical person could possibly fathom. However, you also probably named your dildo “Bigly Don”, since you love Trump so much, so I honestly believe you are perfectly ok with bowing to a dictator if his happiness brings peace. If Putin said “Julie, if you bring me your entire family to be raped, tortured, and fed to pigs in exchange for world peace” would you do it, or tell him to fuck off? Would sacrificing like what, 15 people be sufficient to bring about world peace?
You made the analogy. I brought it back to facts. But I can see you don't love peace and don't wish to work towards it. Let's pray we're not hit by a nuclear war just so I can say "I told you so". Hopefully saner people than you will come to their senses.
Delete“You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not” -Johnny L
ReplyDelete... "the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.”
DeleteI don’t think Russia or Ukraine want peace. If the Russians wanted peace they would never have invaded and if the Ukrainians wanted peace they wouldn’t be fighting so hard. I predict this lasting many years.
ReplyDeleteThere are many parts of that region that don't want peace due to longly held grudges. That's why the international community has a responsibility to push for peace, stability, and prosperity, or else be pulled down the drain with them.
DeleteAs you know, we almost never (never) agree on politics. Ukraine and its borders are not terribly important to the US or Europe. The problem is that any activity aimed at gobbling up territory is provocative. Russia is a huge country with lots of natural resources. There is no reason for Ukraine to gain or lose territory.
ReplyDeleteYour proposal is what happened in the late 1930s. England advocated appeasing Hitler by agreeing to accept his gains if he stopped wanting more territory. It didn't work. The same is true with Russia. A significant percentage of the Russian government (and people) want to bring back the Soviet Union. Ukraine is just the first step.
I never liked expanding NATO because it gave us (the US) more exposure to fight a war in Europe. That's not the problem here. You can't seriously believe that if we agree that Crimea is part of Russia, that the hostilities in Ukraine will stop. Putin wants to annex the entire country.
I'm afraid we are heading for another war. If Russia feels successful in any land grab, it will want more. It has an army nearly as powerful as ours (the US. Canada is, well, not very strong that way). I think that Russia will use tactical nukes or chemical weapons. I have no idea what the right response to this would be.
I agree that Ukraine needs to be kept out of NATO. That would be poking the bear. We all need to take the situation there very seriously. If Russian can afford it, you will see moves to annex most of Eastern Europe. Russia want to go back to1950 in terms of territory.
Appeasement has never worked with tyrants. They see it as weakness and it encourages further aggression. I think the solution is to make war painfully expensive for the Russian people. When bread lines return, I think the Russian taste for expansion will go away.
I think you're making a huge leap equating Crimea and Donbas with wanting to re-form the USSR. I know he has used that rhetoric, but it's never been the excuse for this incursion, and these incursions are ridiculously expensive and it's just not practical.
DeleteThe casual acceptance that Putin will use 'nukes which will likely escalate to a full-blown nuclear conflict betrays a frightening attitude on the part of those that hold that view. Sage statesman managed to avert nuclear conflict all during the Cold War when the USSR was definitely trying to expand. It seems that wisdom has departed the world stage.
Julie wrote:
Delete"I think you're making a huge leap equating Crimea and Donbas with [Putin] wanting to re-form the USSR. I know [Putin] has used that rhetoric, but it's never been the excuse for this incursion."
Putin made the same statements, and undertook the same actions in Chechnya and Georgia, before Ukraine, all along ALSO stating that the "Russian Empire" should be reestablished.
I have a very simple philosophy that has long serve me well:
When someone (like Putin) first tells you who they are and what they want, BELIEVE THEM! When someone (like Putin) first demonstrates what they want, BELIEVE THEM!
If someone (like Putin) does is repeatedly, and then some second person keeps making excuses for them, that second person is either an idiot or a confederate!
Both countries that also threatened to join NATO. It's highly unacceptable to Russia to have significant NATO countries bordering theirs. The West has taken a take an inch, take a mile approach regarding their aggressive NATO expansion. So is it Russia expanding its borders, or NATO doing so? Mmmmm.
DeleteBut Julie, you don't understand. When the US and NATO alliance expands it's all goodness and light and peace, but when Russian alliance does so it's evil, dark, baby eaters!
Delete(Please read with appropriate sarcasm).
😂
DeleteOh yeah, how could I forget. I remember now! NATO growth didn't come at the request of host governments, the West killed elderly and children and destroyed cities and other communities to achieve said growth. All this while the unfairly criticized Russian Alliance has attempted to gain territory without atrocities. Thankfully this blog and some of its posters can set the record straight.
DeleteOh yeah, except NATO has bombed Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya, to name just a few. You are so propagandized and don't even realize it. I have no illusions about how evil ALL the players are and have been. You think your side is in the absolute right. That's the difference between us.
DeleteI'm amazed. NATO is a treaty of mutual defense. It doesn't dictate anything about member countries except that in the event of attack, they will come to each other's aid. People of your political persuasion don't like this because it could force your army to defend a country across the ocean.
DeleteThe argument that NATO membership is the reason Russia grabs territory is silly. NATO, in fact, has agreed NOT to accept Ukraine if it applies. NATO's only purpose is to assure that borders stay intact and that member nations can govern themselves without outside military interference.
Donald Trump, who you represent, disliked NATO because it would require US participation in a land grab by his friend in Russia. I'm not happy with joining a war, but I see the value in trying to maintain stability.
People like you and Chamberlain believe that appeasment is the best way to prevent war. He learned it wasn't. The fact that NATO is treated as a threat by Russia surprises me. If Russia is content with its borders, NATO is no threat at all. We both know that Putin wants to put the USSR back together under his rule.
Can you at least admit that NATO is seen as a threat by Russia? Can you admit that NATO agreed to not move East and then did so? Can you agree that NATO forces have instigated attacks, including regime-change attacks?
DeleteI do not represent President Trump, obviously. His stated issue with NATO was that member countries were not paying their agreed upon share, and the US was spending much more.
My own position is that NATO is an anachronism. The West and Russia are natural allies and it's the Chinese we need to be concerned about. But the US Military-Industrial-Uniparty complex you shill for needs Russia to be an enemy for profit. Congrats, Raytheon needs your support.
One can interpret all of Russia's recent border conflicts as protecting themselves from further NATO incursion.
If you can't see things from the other side, you will never reach a peaceful compromise solution and thus you can be correctly labelled 'war monger".
Stay focused julsp. We were talking about conquest of territory, not individual conflicts. Your reference of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya is off point. Those locations weren't added to "NATO territory" as of the current date and much of that military action is long ended, so these countries have had plenty of time to join NATO, but have not yet.
DeleteAnd to shift topics a bit, my family is from the Bosnia, Herzegovina territory. You can call it propaganda, but there were significant atrocities (I won't list them, but they are factually documented). After the NATO involvement a peace accord was established and NATO eventually withdrew. This is not propoganda. I have relatives who lived it.
Very focussed. I was talking about a pro-Western force coming in and unseating existing governments, then leaving after installing a Western-friendly government. The people may like it very much, just as the people of Russia may like it. Though it did not work out so well in Afghanistan, or a similar Western coalition taking out the leadership of Iraq under the false pretences of 9-11 or WMDs. The point is the existing leadership markedly did NOT like it. The difference this time being Russian leadership has 'nukes.
DeleteYou may be surprised to learn that I agreed with the former reality TV star that we pay much more than our fair share of NATO. I also agree that the West is potentially a great ally of Russia. China does pose the greatest threat to us. However, China has allied itself with Russia and North Korea. The Russians seem happy with that alliance.
DeletePerhaps if Putin is out and a more liberal Czar is in, we can work something good out with the Russians. NATO is a red herring for you and Putin. It isn't any more a danger to Russian than the US. We (the US) have sufficient power to fight Russia if we wanted. I hope we don't. We don't need NATO for that. NATO's value is that it prevents the sort of land grab that Russia is attempting in the Ukraine. If Ukraine had been a NATO member, Puitin wouldn't have tried to take territory. The risk to Russia would have been too great.
I don't know if you remember the Cold War. The governing theory behind keeping peace was the idea of mutual mass destruction. The US and the USSR each had sufficient nuclear weapons to destroy the other. Only a madman would risk a war. When the USSR broke up (which I'm sorry happened), that part of the world destabilized.
I wonder if Russia would have an appetite for land grabs if its economy were stronger. Could Putin's moves be motivated as a way to distract the Russian people from their economic woes? It's a tried-and-true tactic here in the US. George W Bush went into Iraq to make himself look powerful. There were no weapons of mass destruction there. (I knew one of the UN weapons inspectors who was in Iraq *before* Bush sent in troops. He worked for the CIA and they informed Bush that there was no risk in Iraq.)
Countries, even countries with crazy heads of state, don't spend billions of dollars and kill thousands of citizens without a reason that the military leaders don't support. Bush got support because the Joint Chiefs saw a path toward more funding. Putin got support to avoid the wrath of a hungry citizenry.
I don't think the Russians can be said to be "happy" with China, but what choice do they have other than to sell their gas at a 50% market discount to China? The West continues to push Russia into China's arms.
DeleteRussia has always been clear about the risk they feel of NATO pushing East, breaking promises made nor to do so. Their response has each time been aggressive, entirely predictable and predicted.
Dictators like Putin and Xi don't have the same pressures to curry public favour as politicians do in the West (although public sentiment certainly helps). Dissidents are harshly dealt with.
But you assume public sentiment is not with Putin. The older Russians who remember the chaos before Putin came in and organized himself as the top honcho of the criminal oligarchs support him and the war. Much like organized crime bosses in Colombia and Sicily in earlier days had public support. The younger Russians are against it and want closer ties to the West.
You are assuming that these people want peace. To them peace is achieved not with compromise but with their opponents downfall. So war it is. Sadly.
ReplyDeleteI think it's all about profit for the Military-Industrial-Uniparty complex.
DeleteIf only you could stop to watch fox news and read real books.
ReplyDeleteTimothy Sydner : https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war
Before I lay this out, we will first have to clear away the nuclear static. Speaking of nuclear war in a broad, general way, we imagine that the Russo-Ukrainian War is all about us. We feel like the victims. We talk about our fears and anxieties. We write click-bait headlines about the end of the world. But this war is almost certainly not going to end with an exchange of nuclear weapons. States with nuclear weapons have been fighting and losing wars since 1945, without using them. Nuclear powers lose humiliating wars in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan and do not use nuclear weapons.
To be sure, there is a certain temptation to concede mentally to nuclear blackmail. Once the subject of nuclear war is raised, it seems overwhelmingly important, and we become depressed and obsessed. That is just where Putin is trying to lead us with his vague allusions to nuclear weapons. Once we take his cue, we imagine threats that Russia is not actually making. We start talking about a Ukrainian surrender, just to relieve the psychological pressure we feel.
This, though, is doing Putin's work for him, bailing him out of a disaster of his own creation. He is losing the conventional war that he started. His hope is that references to nuclear weapons will deter the democracies from delivering weapons to Ukraine, and buy him enough time to get Russian reserves to the battlefield to slow the Ukrainian offensive. He's probably wrong that this would work; but the rhetorical escalation is one of the few plays that he has left.
As I'll explain in a moment, giving in to nuclear blackmail won't end the conventional war in Ukraine. It would, however, make future nuclear war much more likely. Making concessions to a nuclear blackmailer teachers him that this sort of threat will get him what he wants, which guarantees further crisis scenarios down the line. It teaches other dictators, future potential blackmailers, that all they need is a nuclear weapon and some bluster to get what they want, which means more nuclear confrontations. It tends to convince everyone that the only way to defend themselves is to build nuclear weapons, which means global nuclear proliferation.
Insofar as there is some kind of nuclear threat, it is directed not against us, but against the Ukrainians. They have been resisting nuclear blackmail for seven months; and if they can do it, surely we can too. When prominent Russian political figures such as Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov talk about nuclear use, they mean in Ukraine. But this is also not how the war is going to end. Kadyrov also claims that he is sending his teenage sons to fight in Ukraine. So that they can be irradiated by Russian nuclear weapons?
Russia claims to be mobilizing hundreds of thousands of new troops. This is not going at all well, but even so: would Putin really take the political risk of a large-scale mobilization, send the Russian boys to Ukraine, and then detonate nuclear weapons nearby? Morale is a serious problem already. It appears that more than half a million Russian men have fled the country rather than be sent to Ukraine. It would not help the situation if Russians thought that they were being mobilized to a zone where nuclear weapons would be detonated. They will get no appropriate protective gear. Many mobilized soldiers lack the appropriate gear for a conventional war.
You seem to be very swayed by the war-mongering propaganda. Ukraine was the one calling for pre-emptive tactical nuclear strikes. Russia has been measured in their threats. Refer to JFK above.
DeleteHi again Julie:
DeleteI try to maintain an open mind on all subjects, and I am well aware that all news sources have some inherent bias in which facts they report, and which facts they omit. I do try to read a very wide range of sources to minimize effects of various media's behavior.
However, I have never encountered any reporting, either here in North America, nor any of the European news media, reporting that "Ukraine [has repeatedly called] for pre-emptive tactical nuclear strikes." (Presumes your use of term of the plural term "calling" was intended as the plural.)
You have stated, repeatedly, that many of us are being "propagandized," by which I presume you mean either provided false or incomplete information.
Could you please provide two (2) verifiable sources to confirm that the Government of Ukraine has "called for"/requested/suggested that the United States, Great Britain or France utilize any of their tactical nuclear weapons in a preemptive manner against any of the parties/territories involved in the Ukrainian war?
Everyone is entitled to their own interpretations and opinions regarding public events. However, no one is entitled to their own "facts." "Facts" are what we almost all people can agree are objectively true; they are socially confirmed.
You have "dodged" a great many previous challenges to some of your very questionable statements.
As a personal expert in nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear / radiation protection. I think I have a right to DEMAND that you provide two independent sources for this statement.
It's simple: Are you willing to debate and argue as an Adult, or are you simply another of those propagandists that you claim to detest?
You do seem to have a "news blind spot" if you missed that.
DeleteZelenski was addressing an Austrian. conference very recently where in the context of Russia using nukes he urged preemptive strikes. Here's the video with an English translation I'm assuming is accurate: https://youtu.be/uwUWidMCQ88 it's been widely reported as accurate.
Ukraine officials later walked it back saying he was urging preemptive sanctions, but judge for yourself. Given they are already sanctioned up the wazoo and I've never heard the term "preemptive strike" applied to sanctions.
Sorry for the three-day delay in getting back to you on this matter.
Delete(The basic problem: Zelenskyy is a native Russian speaker who was speaking "off the cuff" in Ukrainian (second language) when answering questions, and intermixing Russian words and phrases with his Ukrainian words as he did that. The conversation was being translated by a native Ukrainian speaker translating "mixed" wording into English (the translator's third language). Thus, I had to consult an acquaintance, a Russian woman with a Ph.D. Slavic Linguistics, who lives and works in Virginia, USA. (She mostly works for US Federal Agencies and engineering firms.)
(1) Zelenski never said "nuclear weapons" of any kind in any way in reference to any NATO or Western weapons. In fact, he never referenced ANY NATO or Western weapons of any type ANYWHERE in his ~39 minute speech and answering questions. (He did, however, thank the Australian Government for sending unarmed APC's to the Ukrainian Army.) The only nuclear weapons he ever referenced were Russia's nuclear weapons in the context of "Russian blackmail."
(2) Zelenskyy never said "preemptive strike." The actual words he used can be interpreted in a variety of ways: (1) Translators for most Western and European news organizations rendered the phrase as "preventive action," as did Zelenskyy's translator in real-time; (2) My own translator told me that those translations did NOT adequately express Zelenskyy's wording, which more closely meant "strong preventive action" or possibly "forceful preventive action." (The concept of "preemptive strike" arose in the early 1960's as part of US and Russian examinations of "Nuclear War Fighting" strategies, and has no comparable translation into/out-of "Ukrainian.")
(3) Zelenskyy NEVER called for NATO to take any action whatsoever. Zelenskyy was very clear that he wanted the "international community" to be the entity to undertake "strong preventive action." (Zelenskyy's only reference to NATO or any other armed western entity was near the beginning of his answer, when he repeated and rephrased the moderator's original question -- see below.)
(4) Zelenskyy was responding to the moderator, who asked him an extended question, the last sentence of which was:
" What do you want NATO to do to deter Russia from using nuclear weapons?"
(5) Zelenskyy gave an extended response (~3.7 min.), most of which had nothing to do with that question, but dealt mostly with Zelenskyy's assertion that Russia is engaging in "Nuclear Blackmail" with occupies Ukrainian Nuclear Power electric plants, and what Zelenskyy wanted other countries to do about it: "sanctions."
(6) Zelenskyy then spoke words in Ukrainian, which have been widely, VERY WIDELY translated and published in English as this:
"What NATO has to do? [pause] Prevent and deter the use of nuclear weapons by [Russia]."
(7) My Ph.D. linguist tells me there are two problems with that (above) translation; one simple problem; one inexplicable problem.
(a) The last word in the last sentence was "unintelligible" in the original video recording. She could not determine what that word was. From the context, my linguist thought it reasonable that this word could have been "Russia," as that would make the sentence complete and coherent. (As noted above, a "simple problem," that most translators and media outlets "fixed" by using the word "Russia.")
(cont. . .)
(. . . cont)
Delete(b) Inexplicably, every single published translation was missing one (1) word from Zelenskyy's original spoken words! It is a very simple word; Zelenskyy 's own translator heard and correctly translated that word into English. That word is very, VERY clearly heard both coming from Zelenskyy's mouth (in Ukrainian) and from the translator (in English). THAT WORD IS "TO." The entire sequence of Zelenskyy's spoken words was:
"What NATO has to do [pause] 'to' prevent and deter the use of nuclear weapons by [Russia]."
There are no English sentences, other than certain poorly formed "questions," that begin with the word "to"!
The above phrase could only make sense, with including that additional "to", if it was punctuated in three possible ways:
(i) "What NATO has to do? [pause] 'To' prevent and deter the use of nuclear weapons by [Russia]?"
(ii) "What NATO has to do, [pause] 'to' prevent and deter the use of nuclear weapons by [Russia]?"
(iii) "What NATO has to do; [pause] 'to' prevent and deter the use of nuclear weapons by [Russia]?"
It appears very clear that Zelenskyy was simply repeating and slightly paraphrasing the moderators original question (see #4, above)! That is the ONLY translation that works and also includes that second copy of the word "to"!
(8) Many people and news outlets (mostly Russian) have alleged that Zelenskyy was referring to nuclear weapons when he used the phrase "strong preventive action." While that cannot be ruled out, the circumstantial evidence contradicts such interpretations:
(a) Zelenskyy use the phrases "sanctions" and "economic sanctions" six (6) times in the main body of his speech;
(b) Zelenskyy NEVER referred to any offensive weapons (other than Russia's weapons) in his speech or subsequent answers to questions;
(c) Zelenskyy DID refer to "sanctions" twice after the moderator's question, but before Zelenskyy "rephrased" that question.
(d) Zelenskyy DID make specific reference to the date (at the start of the war) when sanctions were originally imposed against Russia, in the context of "actions" should be taken "before" rather than "after" Russia might use nuclear weapons.
In totality, the evidence very strongly supports that Zelenskyy wanted: the "international community" to use "sanctions" as "strong preventive actions" to deter Russian. That they should be used: "before the fact," rather than "after the fact," like previously at the start of the war.
(The complete speech and QA session, with simultaneous translations, Posted by the Lowry Institute, is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHDPj04F7rg)
(The transcript of the complete speech, prepared by the Lowry Institute, is here: https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/svit-povinen-pokazati-silu-shob-postaviti-krapku-u-spromozhn-78325)
RE: "[Donn], you do seem to have a "news blind spot" if you missed that."
DeleteYou know, Julie, it is really "fast and easy" to through shit around. It take a lot of "time and effort" to clean up other people's shit. In fact, the standard Russian "modus operandi" is to throw as much "shit" as possible, overwhelming the truth and those working to present accurate information; soon enough, by Russian thinking, everything (including truth) looks like shit, even when true.
I would hope that your own "throwing shit" (above "preemptive strike with tactical nuclear weapons") was simply a mistake, and not an intentional attempt to buttress your own perspective and opinions in these matters.
(READERS: Cleaning just that one piece of "Julie's shit" required almost six (6) hours of professional work and consultation!)
To assist anyone who wants to listen to the specific question and Zelenskyy's answer, without "wading" through the entire forty (40) minute speech and QA session, the exchange in question can be found in that YouTube video at these time-stamps:
DeleteOriginal Question: 20m:27s.
Zelenskyy's Answer: 42m:20s.
Thank you for doing that research, Donn. I agree that he was not at all clear. In fact, his answer was very long and rambly.
DeleteHowever at around 25:30 of the full interview he was clearly talking about preventing and deterring Russian nuclear weapons (the power plant stuff was earlier) and said "preventive strikes, preventive actions, so that Russia would know what would happen to them, and not in return, not waiting for the nuclear strikes first." Quite possible he meant sanctions, but that's not what his words said. At the minimum he misspoke, or his own translator totally butchered it, which is on him.
I find you were misinformed by your news sources because you had no idea this recent speech and his very badly phrased words were even out there. I was the one who had to inform you. How bad is that?
The benefit of free speech is that I could put that out there, and you can rebut it, and the audience can make up their own mind.
As to the rest of the speech, I found it to be terribly propagandistic and one-sided. If only you'd taken as much trouble to fill in all the missing context regarding the conflict that Zelenski artfully omitted!
Strict Julie wrote: "I find you were misinformed by your news sources because you had no idea this recent speech and his very badly phrased words were even out there. I was the one who had to inform you. How bad is that?"
DeleteI am confounded how you, Julie, could make such erroneous inferences. Nothing I have written is any any way even circumstantial evidence for being either "mis-informed" or "under-informed," and "Julie informed" (to paraphrase Julie).
I first learned of Zelenskyy's speech and QA session back around October 7-8 (not from Julie). The speech and QA was reported in many US-based web-news sources. I, myself, noted the articles in "The Hill," "Politico," "Newsweek," "The Washington Examiner," as well as "Reuters." (It was even covered in "Meduza," the "ex-pat" Russian site from Germany.) (To feed the propagandist, that story was NOT covered, in the least, by the four largest and "most liberal" print-media outlets in the US: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and CNN!)
(I can't read all of these sources everyday, but I do scan their headline several times per week to help ensure I have not missed something small but significant.)
I was well aware of Zelenskyy's speech. In fact, almost all of those sources covered it as: (1) "[NATO should] prevent and deter Russian from using nuclear weapons;" and (2) "[International community should undertake] preventive action . . ."
I was personally surprised, at that time, about part #1, above, but did not further investigate the matter. Part #2 seemed simple repetition of many past Zelenskyy statements, and thus basically irrelevant:
There was never any suggestion by these many legitimate, "primary source," news organizations that Zelenskyy was suggesting NATO use of nuclear weapons. THAT was why I found your original statement/assertion to be so strange and suspicious, and requested your "sourcing."
Once again, you have not provided any sourcing for your original claim that Zelenskyy proposed that the "[West/NATO called for] pre-emptive tactical nuclear strikes [against Russia]."
For me, this matter is settled:
(1) You have had ample opportunity to document and source your assertion.
(2) Instead, you have provided excuses and mis-directions, NOT valid "sources."
Obviously, the readers of this blog can reach their own decisions on your veracity.
inside you,
Your original comment made no mention at all that you had any awareness of where my statement might be coming from. Therefore I concluded you were not informed on the subject, as mentioning that it came from such and such a speech that you believe I misinterpreted would have been the much more logical response from you had you been aware.
DeleteMy "source" is listening to Zelenski's speech, the exact part I pointed out:
"preventive strikes, preventive actions, so that Russia would know what would happen to them, and not in return, not waiting for the nuclear strikes first."
Do you not consider Zelenski's own words to be an adequate "source"? 😂
Basic Logic and Analysis:
Delete(1) Ms J states that Mr.Z stated "X".
(2) Mr. Z makes dozens, if not hundreds of "comments" every week; week after week, for years. Easily thousands in the past year.
(3) Mr. Z had NEVER stated "X" in any of his comments.
(4) Ms. J expresses her amazement that Donn could not figure out which of those hundreds of comments (by Mr. Z) in which he did NOT make the NEVER stated comment "X"!
Julie, really? You think it is somehow "illogical" for me to not be able to figure out which of those thousands of Mr. Z's comments you twisted into something he never said to begin with?
Really?
X = "preventive strikes, preventive actions, so that Russia would know what would happen to them, and not in return, not waiting for the nuclear strikes first." stated directly by Z at 25:30 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHDPj04F7rg
DeleteYou claim you were well aware of Zelenski's speech but did not know the huge controversy those words kicked up? Give me a break.
Ukraine was what?!!! You want so much to appear like a rebel that you support what you hate the most in this world: communism. You're lost in your own confusion. You just think that going against the commun sense makes you smarter. It doesn't.
ReplyDeleteWho says I support communism? That's a stretch, Russians aren't even communist in any real sense. It's a criminal oligarchy. I support peace.
DeleteFor god sake just smack the shit out of your husband’s ass and tell us about it already.
ReplyDeleteTaking a little detour to do my part to help avoid total nuclear Armageddon.
DeleteHow disappointing that you're adopting an approach that appears to side with the totalitarian regime that decided to invade a democratic nation
ReplyDeleteFor someone who talks about freedom and democratic elections, this is very weird position.
It seems you've fallen for the Russian position that it was NATO move east that forced Russia's had
Do yourself a favour and understand why Ukraine wanted to join. Russia for the last 10 years as been pouring weapons into areas like the Donbas to stir up trouble.
Are you really surprised that Ukraine wanted to be in the same position as Poland or the Baltic states
Perhaps you've missed the footage of the horrific war crimes committed against civilians?
Again, it's strange that someone who strongly defends Trump against the forces railed against him, won't adopt the same support for the people of Ukraine
Begs the question that would you have adopted the same approach to Hitler in 1939 when he invaded Poland
There is clearly fault on both sides. The West's actions have been provocative, tantamount to going up to a Mafia guy and spitting in his face. Perhaps noble (if only, in this case), but not wise.
DeleteI do not support Putin in any way. As I stated many times above, I believe him to be a complete criminal. (I also believe Biden is a complete criminal, by the way, based on the influence peddling evidence from the laptop and Tom Bobulinski's testimony, just not as successful.)
Who do you think profits from the Billions spent? Where do you think many of the arms wind up? Did you know that Ukraine is now paying ISIS and Al-Qaeda to use their fighters, thus funding terrorism indirectly with US tax dollars?
Did you know that the democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine was removed in an insurrection funded and supported by the US in 2014, and that was what directly lead to the conflict in Crimea and the Donbas?
Thus facile "West is Best!" cheerleading, without acknowledging any fault on their side, is a bad take.
As I clearly stated above (in good company with JFK), the difference between Hitler and Putin is nuclear weapons, and thus diplomacy is also required, not constant escalation.
Rogering here. Dont agree with all your Political views, but on this topic your spot on in your analysis.cheers
DeleteTa
Delete"democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine" simply isn't true if you take the time to read widely on this subject
DeleteThe only reason why they "won" was due to sustained interference by the Russians into the process
Fascinating how you can spend so much time trying to convince people that Trump actually won, despite any actual evidence of this. By actual, I mean something that a court of law would accept
Yet are happy to ignore actual electoral fraud in the Ukraine
As for this comment " Did you know that Ukraine is now paying ISIS and Al-Qaeda to use their fighters" it's actually laughable again because outside of a few Youtube videos it's not true
What I find really disturbing is that as a woman you're very happy to turn a blind eye to the human rights atrocities that the Russians are committing on a mass scale including rape
And do you think the US was not also engaged in sustained interference in the process?
DeleteDo you believe that doubt in an electoral process is sufficient to declare the election results void and overthrow the duly elected by force? Do you apply that logic to Trump?
It's not my position that I know Trump won. It's my position that there were a lot of well-documented irregularities and nobody can know for sure either way due to the increasingly unauditable election mechanism.
In a recent Rasmussen poll responding to the question "How likely is it that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election?", 55% answered "likely" as opposed to "not likely". Independents were 53%, even registered Dems were 35%. So a majority of the population agrees with me. You're in the minority.
The New York Times was the first to report Chechen ISIS aligned fighters in the Donbas back in 2015. This was never denied by Ukraine. Nothing has changed since, except perhaps a ramping up of that.
I'm not turning a blind eye to any atrocities, in the same way I'm sure you're not turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by the Azov brigade in the name of Ukraine, or any of the other dozens of states the US sponsors that commit acts of atrocities. What I don't do is selectively ignore atrocities from one side to make my point. You're the one doing that.
Putin would be proud of your attempts to normalise atrocities.
DeleteYes, the Azov brigade committed some horrendous crimes back in 2014 in Crimea which no one denies. That's the reason the brigade was integrated into the Ukrainian marines
What you've failed to do is demonstrate is any actual war crimes committed by Ukraine since Russia invaded. Whereas there are scores of horrendous Russian crimes including murder, torture and rape
Let take some other parts of your story
The Chechen story is here
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/world/europe/islamic-battalions-stocked-with-chechens-aid-ukraine-in-war-with-rebels.html
It talks about muslim chechens who fought russians, but no mention of ISIS. You just added this little extra which wasn't in the story and nullifys your point
Is it any surprise that the Chechens would want to fight Russians
As for this comment "lot of well-documented irregularities", again simply not true
You're sadly confusing allegations with actual facts.
Take Arizona where the Republicans were determined to find fraud. They commissioned two audits, which found no more irregularities than any other election and found that Bidens vote had been undercounted
What is strange is why you're not prepared to stand up for Ukraine here. A country which has clearly been invaded by its neighbour
No doubt in 1939 you'd have taken the same stand about Poland and Germany
Nobody here is "condoning atrocities". By throwing that allegation at me, you display yourself to be the dishonest broker you are.
Delete"Integrated"? Should have been entirely disbanded and thrown in prison!
There are many allegations of Azov brigade brutality, including tying civilians to trees and beating them, shooting Russian POW's, and raping "pro-Russian" women. There is exactly as much proof of those as there are of Russian atrocities.
You think the Muslim Chechens are not ISIS-aligned? That's a pretty established thing:
"On 23 June 2015, official ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani declared the formation of a new wilayat, or governorate, in Russia’s North Caucasus. The announcement marked a turning point. Never before had ISIS made a territorial claim inside Russia, as press reports noted at the time. Al-Adnani's announcement came just days after reports that thousands of Islamic militants in Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria -- four declared provinces of the Caucasus Emirate, Russia's main jihadist group -- had formally pledged allegiance to ISIS. In doing so, these fighters echoed a December 2014 declaration of allegiance to ISIS by several of the Emirate's senior militants..." https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/future-chechens-isis
Well-documented irregularities: https://electionfraud20.org/
Man you're willfully blind! A majority of the US population sees it, but not you.
It's a "fact" (not an allegation) that a number of superior courts have now declared that the changes to election procedures that massively favoured Dems without State legislature approval were illegal and not constitutional. But hey, yes, they cheated fair and square.
Ukraine was deemed the most corrupt country in the world even before this war broke out. Could not give a crap about what set of corrupt political leaders sit atop Ukraine, be they American stooges or Russian stooges. The plight of the people of Ukraine, that get worse and worse as war-mongers like you demand more and more death, sickens me.
Germany did not have nukes. And yes, well known historical fact that the treat of Versailles which ended WW1 was so punitive to Germany that WW2 became almost inevitable, so yes, I would have argued for a fairer outcome after WW1. Great lessons in history that now we know all the propaganda about the evil Germans bayoneting babies in WW1 that lead to that treaty and thus WW2 was rubbish. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. You probably believed Iraqis took premie babies out of incubators in Kuwait and threw them on the ground to die, right? Pure made up shit. A lot of pure made up propaganda shit from both sides of the Ukraine conflict now, but you willingly guzzle up all the propaganda that you're fed. Wake up.
Point 1 - you claimed that the New York Times reported on Chechen ISIS aligned fighters. The fact is they didn't, but you just ignore this point. Just because some fighters from Chechnya joined ISIS doesn't mean they all did
DeletePoint 2 - allegations of Azov brutality. From whom exactly. Unlike the clear document Russian atrocities such as this
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11332411/Russian-troops-gang-raped-Ukrainian-mother-sex-husband-report.html
there havn't been any confirmed acts like this by Ukraine. If there have please provide some actual evidence from a credible source and BTW Russia Today isn't
Point 3: https://electionfraud20.org/ - you are now joking if that's the only evidence. A website registered before the actual election itself by the Trump camp
Point 4: Ramussen is hardly an independent polling which company which it's results are not used by credible journalists
Out of interest - have you actually spoken to anyone in Ukraine before mouthing off about this?
You may find that they find your pro Russian views appalling
What you present as "evidence" is, of course, propaganda. Laughably unlikely propaganda! Yes, there are atrocities, on both sides in war. War itself is an atrocity.
DeleteNoted that you did not look at the information on the site that gathered all the suspicious shit but dismissed it out of hand.
You: Where are all these well-documented irregularities?
Me: right here
You: I don't look at evidence presented by the Trump camp!
Rasmussen has actually an excellent track record. They were the only ones who predicted the Trump win in 2016 by avoiding the (deliberately?) flawed methodologies of the liberal pollsters. You say they are not independent? In what ways are they more or less independent than any other pollster?
All Ukrainian people are appalled by the war. They were equally appalled by the criminality of their leaders and by the meddling in their affairs by the US, the EU, and Russia that led to this situation.
The right wing it’s world over loves authoritarian’s. You are a prime example of that. Either shut up and dribble or move to Moscow.
ReplyDeleteDisagree. Nowadays it's the left who are so authoritarian. Censoring speech, cancel culture, vax and mask mandates. Modern right is libertarian. Each to their own.
DeleteExcept for abortion rights of course.
DeleteI'm for allowing abortions up to some point (like 15 weeks maybe). But that one is trickier because there's another life involved.
DeleteYou weren’t talking about just yourself. You said the modern right. They are not libertarian. They oppose drug legalization, trans rights and abortion under most circumstances. Pretty authoritarian.
DeleteYeah, drugs are bad, m'kay? How many dying from fentanyl each month?
DeleteConservatives don't oppose "trans rights" - that's a fantasy you made up in your head. They don't like biological males wrecking women's sports. They don't like transitioning children at whim.
The vast majority of conservatives do not advocate for a total ban on abortion.
But yeah, keep saying the party that advocates for censorship, mandates, unequal justice under the law, massive govt and IRS expansion, are not the authoritarian ones.
To make life easy, Libertarians believe in freedom, personal, private, religious. I may disagree with your views, your voice, your choice but it's yours. It gets hairy when people talk about hurt. My views hurt your feelings ? +++ you. Your opinion, give a counter, disagree but don't silence, shout down unless your position is so weak it has little merit.. Boycott ? then you don't believe in your position only bullyboy tactics, verbal, financial....
DeleteIt's ok, the left and the right are the same, big government, bigger all the time until their isn't one single tax payer left.
Free to disagree
Chris
I agree the Democrats plus establishment Republicans (the 'Uniparty") are like that. Us Ultra MAGA Deplorables are more about peace, security, law and order, constitution, individual liberties, free speech and gun rights especially.
DeleteJust a whimsical response to this most serious post - I’ve got the chorus stuck in my head.
ReplyDeleteI bought a Plastoc Ono Band LP in the early 70s. I liked side 1 a lot. Side 2 included mostly Yoko shrieking.
No one ever liked the plastic Ono band, agreed, Yoko shrieking sounds like justin in parliment.
DeleteGive peace a chance was cool. Yoko Ono's shrieking was indeed horrendous!
DeleteIn the name of peace, perhaps you could follow my blog sweet Jules? I'm just starting out and wanting to try something unique and new. Who knows, maybe one day in the game there will be Julie and David characters. I think I have seen enough sneak-peeks over the years to create a Sims true-to-form likeness. xoxo
ReplyDeletehttps://bellagothspanked.blogspot.com/2022/10/meet-mistress-andrea.html
Had a look and will add you to my blog roll. Keep posting to stay near the top!
DeleteOhhh Jules!! You’re such an Angel! Thank you xoxo
DeleteI’ll make a Julie and David character. Sue and your parents. Seated at a dinner table together while you’re in the timeout corner ❤️
DeleteLove it!
DeleteNo one that I know who sang "give peace a chance' were looking for the Vietnamese to accept the partition of their country. We were looking for the invaders to leave and calling on our friends to cease to participate in the war machine. I talked to several of my friends who were 'veterans' of the anti-war movement. We all cheered the Russians who were deserting or leaving Russia to avoid the draft.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a great outcome as well. Unfortunately, the geopolitical situation meant that peace might require partition.
DeleteThe Russian army is collapsing as is Russian support for the war. Why would the Ukranian people agree to a partition at this point? If the Russians had proposed it when they were in a strong position, a better case could be made.
DeleteYou are only getting your news from only one side, and are therefore being heavily propagandized. Suggest you broaden out. A good starting point is the Redacted Podcast.
DeleteMusk's proposal gives Russia everything it wants and Ukraine nothing. The Ukrainian people would turn on their government, The Latvians, Lituanians, Estonians, Poles, Moldavians would all feel abandoned by Nato. It is a ridiculously one sided deal at the exact point that Russia is losing. It makes no sense.
DeleteAgain, I think your entire view of the situation is coloured by your only hearing the one-sided propaganda.
DeleteThe other point of view, which I'm not saying is accurate, but I retain an open mind, is as follows.
- The Russians are not losing. They have been restrained to-date because there are many families that span both Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine has a small army limited in manpower. Russia can field vastly more troops and reduce them. The Russian weapons are at about the same level as the Ukrainians, and they have a much more experienced army. They recently demonstrated a fraction of their capabilities in retaliation for Ukraine damaging the bridge from Russia to Crimea. They are awaiting winter to go on the offense as that is standard military doctrine in Ukraine which is too wet and marshy and muddy to effectively move at other times of year.
- Crimea has been continuously occupied by Russia since it was first handed over from Russia in the 70s by Kruschev. It was in fact leased back from Ukraine by Russia ever since. Crimea is of vast strategic importance to Russia, and they will never cede it.
- The peoples who populated the Donbas regions were heavily ethnically Russian, Russian speaking, voted in the 80%-90% range for pro-Russian politicians, and felt discriminated against by the ethnic Ukrainians and attacked by the openly neo-Nazi and anti-Russian Azov brigade who were made an official part of the Ukrainian army.
- NATO expanded well beyond their original member countries towards the East, directly violating the agreement formed when the USSR split up. Russia has repeatedly warned that they will react violently to further expansion, and have done so in other countries. It was 100% expected what the Russian reaction would be if they felt Ukraine was at risk of joining NATO (Ukraine was aggressively building a US and NATO trained army ever since 2014 that reached 600K strong that Russia feels they must now reduce).
- The US heavily funded and encouraged the Maidan uprising in 2014 which ended in an illegal and unconstitutional coup ousting the democratically elected pro-Russian president.
If you did not know any of these things, it's because you've only been exposed to one side. I suggest you broaden your information sources so you can engage more meaningfully on the topic.
The Russians aren't losing? They have been restrained. Please!
DeleteAfter the bridge explosion Russia sent a great many cruise-type missiles into Ukraine, evading or overwhelming all their missile defences and taking out highly targeted key infrastructure and secret police HQs, demonstrating their reach. The message was that they can hit anywhere and everywhere in Ukraine. The bridge was a red line for Russia. The US was upset about Ukraine targeting it without their sanction, as it escalated right before midterms.
DeleteAs I said, Mary, try expanding your news sources to get a broader view. If you are in error about who is winning and use that as an excuse to not push for peace, you are effectively war mongering, no? Give peace a chance.
Let me end with two quotes from the 60's. Art Buchwald, a wonderful satirist wrote a brilliant article talking refuting the argument that the government was making that it had secret information. You are essentially making the same argument only instead of secret is is all of these rabbit holes that are part of the internet. His article was entitled 'Just because it is secret does not mean it true'.
DeleteThe second is simply ' you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. If you simply stick to public information for facts, public enough that they can be refuted, you are much better off than going onto these web sites. These sites can be useful for interpretation but not for facts. If you don't know who is winning, you will be looking to solutions that can't be sold.
I stated above that I don't know which side is more accurate. No doubt both are lying for propaganda purposes. But we can no doubt agree that there are always two sides to a story. Where are you getting your information regarding the other perspective? Nowhere? Ok. I see.
DeleteYou don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows
DeleteYea, but you do need to be standing in the wind, not 5000 miles away being fed disinformation by both sides 😊
DeleteThe problem is, that “the other point” of view is very inaccurate. But I hope that you will keep your to your word and stay open minded.
Delete"The Russians are not losing"
That’s the least debatable of your claims. But they are not winning either - especially having in mind that the whole “special operation” was meant to last 2 weeks.
"Ukraine has a small army limited in manpower"
Yet a few lines lower you say they have 600k “NATO trained troops”. If they have 600k (most likely they have more right now) they would make it to the top 10 largest armies in the world, only 300-400k less than Russia.
And considering that Russia has at least half of that deployed somewhere else (14k miles of land border won’t guard itself and for example in the border areas of Siberia 6m RU live next to ~40m Chineses people) or those are troops that are not used in Ukraine (Navy, strategic nuclear forces etc.). In fact the Ukrainian army most likely has more forces deployed on the front.
“They are awaiting winter (...)”
The best conditions in Ukraine are in summer, where the RU army was mostly on the defensive.
The so-called Rasputica, which you probably mention, is mostly November/December (now due to climate change in some cases January as well) so most likely the Russians are hoping to go on offensive in February, with the troops they have recruited (by that time some of them may even be of some military value). But considering how ill prepared the RU army logistics and how lacking are the troops in even basic equipment it is unlikely that they will have much success, but that is a different story.
“fraction of capabilities”
After the bridge, RU fired ~80 missiles and ~half of them were intercepted (no, they did not “evade or overwhelm all missile defences”). So they basically hit a country size of Texas with 40 missiles. In 2017 the US fired 59 missiles on one Syrian airbase with very limited success, so the effect of the RU strike on Ukraine was very limited at best. If the Russians had the resources to do so, they should have fired 300-400 missiles, which in many cases would indeed overwhelm the defences, but in some cases they most likely don’t have that many missiles left (besides they want to keep a strategic reserve of missiles for war with NATO as per their doctrine).
Moreover, as the Russians are mostly using outdated rockets now (eg., Kh-22 which date from the 60-ties) many of them missed. For example they did not hit the “secret police HQ” (SBU) - the missile fell on a street not so far away and killed civilians going to work. The most successes the Russians have is hitting residential buildings(some of them are probably hit by accident but in many cases there are no valid military targets anywhere near, worth mentioning that civilian buildings aren’t usually protected by anti-missile defences) or power plants (large targets).
So summing up, yes russia has cruise missile capabilities that Ukraine lacks (but as the fate of Moskva cruiser indicates it is not completely devoid of that capability) which are in particular dangerous to civilian or dual purpose targets (TPPs are in many cases valid military targets, yet russian are bombing them not to hamper UA military industry but to impact civilian population). Of course the UA propaganda strengthens any hits on civilian targets and doesn’t mention hits on military targets.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/why-russias-missiles-ukraine-have-limited-impact-2022-10-11/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Shayrat_missile_strike
“crimea has been continuously occupied by Russia”
DeleteRussia was leasing (not occupying) the Sevastopol naval base, not Crimea as a whole. And yes the base is of strategic importance, but not like it cannot be replaced (currently there are almost no warships there as Russians are afraid of UA missiles).
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/05/myths-and-misconceptions-debate-russia/myth-12-crimea-was-always-russian
“the peoples who populated the Donbas regions were heavily ethnically Russian, Russian speaking, voted in the 80-90%”
Russian speaking has little to do with ethnicity. Canadians speak English yet they are not British to my knowledge. Yes they were voting for the Party of Regions, but that does not make them Russians as well. Besides, there were many people with Russian sentiment in Mauripol and it doesn’t seem like it stopped Russian anyhow from firing over residential districts with surface attack missiles and basically destroying most of the city killing thousands of its citizens in the process. Btw, the Azov (actualy the Azov battalion was disbanded in 2015) consisted ~fully of Russian speaking people from eastern Ukraine.
“NATO expanded well beyond their original member countries directly violating the agreement”
There never was such an agreement. The NATO-Russia founding act of 1997 promised there will be no nuclear forces or permanent NATO forces stationed in “new members” (RU had quatie a good point about that was when the US was building their missile defence bases in eastern NATO countries).
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/115204.htm
“Ukraine was aggressively building US and NATO trained army ever since 2014”
First of all only a miniscule fraction of that army was US or NATO trained (perfectly for the reason not to anger Russia - which now seems to be an obvious strategic mistake - but UA in fact reformed the army in NATO fashion).
Secondly, it is intellectually unfair to say that UA was aggressively building an army without indicating that the reason was that they were invaded by RU and part of their country was already occupied by Russia.
“the US heavily funded end encouraged the Maidan”
For which there is completely no proof besides RU propaganda. In fact the US and the EU diplomats were completely baffled by the Maidan and could not decide what to do/say about that (besides some general statements that they support the will of the nation etc.). In fact it was the EU and US that were pushing UA to negotiate a settlement with the Party of Regions.
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/euromaidan-was-a-us-financed-coup-detat-to-gain-control-over-ukraine
http://archiwum.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/162981,Ukraine-Honour-the-deal-or-you-will-all-be-dead
I could have said “try expanding your news sources” but that seems to be quite a rude way of making arguments.
Thank you John, you make good points. We could go back and forth on most of them, but let's just leave it there for the readers to do their own follow up.
DeleteAt this stage who gives a shit about any of this. Our fearless leaders are leading us to WW3. These so-called "leaders" should negotiate a peaceful compromise given the realities of where things stand, but little chance of that as they all seem to be self-interested idiots.
DeleteThat I can agree with!
DeleteThe Bed in for Peace, where the photo is from, was in 1969 and the U.S left Vietnam in 1973. So somewhere around 2027, assuming you hold an interview from your bed........
ReplyDeleteSounds like fun!
Deletelol u are a trump supporter a man who told his tiki supporter to run over ppl with cars and they did . A man who did cause a whole coop and u are asking for peace. This is hillarious at best
ReplyDeleteWow. You're pretty deranged!
DeleteNegotiating peace. Get out of Ukraine and there’s your peace. No negotiation required.
ReplyDeleteNaïve.
DeleteExactly. I don't sleep well and listen to the Radio through the night. The BBC have a channel called the World Service through the night. The sheer number of conflicts going on at the moment is ridiculous. Often it is squabbling over a worthless stretch of dirt just, satisfy someone's vanity or some brainwashed religious nutters taking a twisted view of a some holy writings and wanting to enforce everyone else to take the same view. You really have to wonder where it is all going to end. There are some crazy people at large in the world, armed to the teeth but with the mentality of three year olds. Some nights I despair.
DeleteTrenchant.
DeleteNice opinion column from David Sacks on the alliance of the woke left and the neocons driving us to WW3: https://www.newsweek.com/neocons-woke-left-are-joining-hands-leading-us-woke-war-iii-opinion-1748947
ReplyDeleteHave you been banned, you have stop responding, what is going on? Jack
ReplyDeleteStill here!
DeleteHello Julie,
ReplyDeleteHave you heard of Judit Varga, the Hungarian Minister for Justice and European Affairs.
It is said of her that she is not in Brussels to please. She is here to fight.
Highly qualified and ambitious, she studied law (Orban's favorite subject) and whatever the issues, she defends her country's position, multiplies the arguments, battles step by step.
She can be aggressive, but she never abandons the debate, nor does she give in (it reminds me of someone...)
In Brussels, this sportswoman took up French and football!
Very present on social networks, she says of herself "I really like clearing the table after a dinner with friends so that the men can chat, I like to do the dishes, I like to clean and dress well"
A trad wife the way you like them, right? Perhaps you could have a "discussion"?
Anders
I'll look her up! Maybe she's a fan of my blog? :-)
DeleteUgh
ReplyDeleteWell said. I agree with you that the provocations from the West are truly "Ugh".
DeleteUkraine is not the aggressor; Russia continues to attack and kill (primarily civilians) in Ukraine. Peace would almost certainly be possible if Putin simply returned to the borders that Russia agreed to with Ukraine, when Ukraine agreed to give up all of its nuclear weapons to Russia.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, if Putin cannot respect his country's own peace treaties, then the word "peace" has no meaning.
Ukraine, as a political force, does not exist. It's an illusion. The US is projecting power via NATO into Ukraine.
DeleteYes, that is one road to peace.
Another road to peace is for the US to agree to recognize Crimea as Russian's, keep Ukraine neutral, and compromise on the Donbas.
Why do you advocate for the "peace proposal" that will never happen. Sounds like a war proposal to me.
"Ukraine, as a political force, does not exist. It's an illusion."
DeleteI really don't know how to respond to that. Have you been to Ukraine? To Russia? Do you know Ukrainians? My Ukrainian friends would disagree quite strongly with you, but apparently their existence is just an illusion?!? Even a fair portion of my Russian friends would disagree with you.
With all due respect, it seems likely that you are living inside of a misinformation bubble. Please, question why you believe the things that you do. How is it possible that you believe that the Ukrainian state does not exist? That there is no such thing as the Ukrainian people? These are the same lies that Stalin told, both about Ukraine, but also about many others, such as the Poles. (He killed over 20% of all Polish people in the process, and also about 20% of all Ukrainian people, too. They have not forgotten.)
I was being hyperbolic, Mr. Literal.
DeleteI was not talking about the people at all, whom I support 100%.
I was talking about the government. One of the most corrupt in the world, and completely beholden to either Russia or the US. You think Zelenski has any real power at all? Without massive aide from the US, he is literally toast.
It appears that Zelenski has overwhelming popular support in Ukraine at this point. Hard to believe, given how fractured the country was only 10 years ago.
DeleteEven the once relatively pro-Russian east of the country has largely turned to support for Zelenski, with numbers in the 80-90% range there (previously ~30%).
There is also a corruption index, measuring corruption from country to country. I know Ukrainian corruption well, but it's never reached Russian levels, and has dropped dramatically over the past decade. It's still a relatively corrupt country compared to the western Europe, but dramatically better than it was only a few years ago, and in the same range as eastern Europe now (Hungary, for example).
Again, I hate to say it, but you seem to somehow be repeating official Russian propaganda, and you should question how that could be.
I too find that hard to believe. A little too hard to believe. Are you 100% sure you're not falling for Western propaganda reporting how popular he is? I believe in the last few elections, Crimea and Donbas took no part, yes? That would certainly skew the averages.
DeleteThe data I report about the split in Ukraine and the corruption was pre-2014, and there seems to be no controversy about it. I doubt that is anybody's propaganda. Post 2014, everything is propaganda, I believe.
Now what fact, in particular, that I am stating are you claiming is "Russian Propaganda"
The challenges are nearly infinite in number when it comes to getting accurate polling of a territory while that territory is an active war zone. There are international groups that try to conduct polling, nonetheless. (I would not put any trust in polling done by Russia, and I would put very little trust in polling done by Ukraine.)
DeleteGallup is one well trusted organization that has conducted polls within Ukraine on these topics. I would encourage you to look at that, and not take my word for it.
The IRI also has done polling within Ukraine, but since you appear to distrust the US government completely, and they receive most of their funding from the US government, I'm not sure that you would benefit from their analysis.
I just think it's so hard to get an accurate read after 2014, hence I base my opinion on election results pre that which are pretty concrete. I wrote up my research in a previous post before the latest invasion even happened: https://strictjuliespanks.blogspot.com/2022/01/russia-and-ukraine.html
DeleteI don't think my position means I am being led by Russian propaganda is all. I do try to read multiple angles.
I get most of my information on the topic from Ukrainians and Russians (I am neither). At this point, though, most of my Ukrainian and Russian friends have left Ukraine and Russia, probably never to return. This will prove to be a war with at least two losing sides, no matter how it turns out.
DeleteThe little people don't win in war.
DeleteIt all comes down to this... The ultra MAGA far right don't like Ukraine because they didn't do Golden man a "favor" with his election. They like Russia, because Russia did do some nice things for Golden Man. They also gave Golden Man some very nice compliments.
ReplyDeleteThat's about the dumbest way to say President Trump was against foreign wars and the Biden administration with the neocons are rabid war hawks serving the interests of the military-industrial complex.
DeletePretty darn accurate. I keep hearing my conservative friends talk about corruption in Ukraine. Even if there was, and my guess is that it is just a tucker talking point, these people dont deserve genocide because of it. The republican party has embraced fascism and can't walk away from it. I have a great amount of respect for some of the technological advances that ELon has done. He has been a part of the solution on energy and space, but his social media interests in ukraine and taiwan are doing nothing more than make the matter worse. Anyone with an iq greater than 10 that has ever opened a history book, knows that you can't appease a dictator.
Delete"Even if it was"??? You really have Tucker Carlson living rent free in your mind. Transparency International gives it a score of 2.4/10 (10 being not corrupt). This is not a "talking point".
DeleteWe agree the people don't deserve to have a war waged there. The US should stop antagonizing Russia and war mongering in Ukraine and begin a negotiated peace process.
It's the Democrats who display more authoritarian fascist characteristics than Republicans. Ukraine has actual neo-Nazis in the Azov brigade committing atrocities funded by the US.
Dictators with nuclear weapons require diplomacy, dolt.
Have you ever opened a history book in your life? Was it heavily edited? It's not the democrats that are trying to eliminate history books. Tucker has really gotten into your head. If the US hadn't done anything, Ukraine would be Russia now. Trump would have probably helped Putin take it over. Your silence is complicity.
DeleteYes. All history books are heavily edited by the victors. To believe otherwise is naive.
DeleteYou're the one who keeps bringing up Tucker. Even after I said he was living rent free in your head. That's an extra level of Tucker obsession!
Yes, had the US done nothing it may well be in Russian hands. So what? Being ruled by one set of crooks versus another set of crooks. Just without the massive human suffering.
Musk's peace proposal won't work on someone like Putin. History has shown appeasement to bullies does not work. Lookat what Rome did ti Carthage. Look at the failure of England and Fance to appease Nazu Germany. Look at what Russia and Germany did to Poland. Look at what Putin did to Georgia.
ReplyDeleteMusk is a good technologist, but a poor student of history, and a poor judge of character. The claims that Russia has to Ukraine are as made up as any nation claiming a piece of land. Stalin starved the Ukrainians, killing millions. The Czars moved entire peoples around Russia to keep them weak in their historical homelands and to playbthem off against one another.
Oh, and Russia and the west signed a treaty with a Ukraine to not invade after it willingly gave up the third largest nuclear arsenal. Putin broke it.
The reality is that Putin is a bully. Upthread people speak of the corrupt Ukrainian government. No words are spoken of how corrupt Russian government is, and how much worse the rule of law would be under Russian domination than the fledgling democracy it now has.
Trump isn't the hero you make him out to be, nor is he an honorable or trustworthy individual. Jan 6 aside, he's stated in his own words and deeds he's a liar (his tax and bank statements were false and his defense is "we said they weren't audited, so it's up to the banks to verify what we said is true" - not the same world everyone else lives in), a serial philandering, a serial business failure (4 bankruptcies and counting), a thief (Trump haircuts - that's when he doesn't pay small sub-contactors because he can and will tie them up in litigation), and a fraud (he admitted as much in his settlement with Trump U)
All that aside, the idea that people should not stand up for what is right and just is farcical at best. You aren't a military strategist and you don't appear to know history. MacArthur wanted to spread radioactive along the border of North Korea (today's border) to stop Chinese. He also argued we should use nukes on them to save Korea. He was fired for cause.
Fighting in someone else's land is far better than fighting on your own. As a Canadian you have no cultural experience of this happening on a large scale. Even Americans, who efficiently killed one another and destroyed a lot in the Civil War have forgotten what it means. Most Europeans are too young to have lived through WW2 and the destruction that was visited on their lands - from all the parties.
Giving in to Putin does nothing but embolden bullies and the bad actors of the world. MAD is as true today as it was in the 60s when each side was far more active in opposing one another. And they had vastly more nuclear weapons then than they have today. Putin knows he would lose all his gains in a nuclear war, as would everyone else. That's why the MAD doctrine remains a truism in our tri-polar world.
Based upon your dismissal of other responses I don't expect much back. People stooping to name calling out of frustration won't win any hearts or minds. Seeing your other Trump support I also don't expect the facts to sway you at all. I do wish you had a better understanding of history though. You appear to be an intelligent person, if just ignorant of history. I've cited a number of failures of appeasement. I'm very interested to see you cite successful examples where giving bullies what they want (for now) actuly solved the problem and made them go away.
Your rhetoric is like that of a child, where the world is populated by "bullies" and good guys.
DeleteThe point is not the details of Musk's plan. The point is to begin peace negotiations. The alternative, that you shill for, is continued war mongering, continued death and misery, with an escalation towards nuclear war.
Now, you tell me a case where advocating for the complete defeat of 'bullies" with nuclear weapons ever worked, you child.
This is why a firm grasp on history is so important. Russia blatantly violated sovereignty of a neighboring country. Justified it multiple different ways none of which held water. Your points aren't bad ones but there is absolutely zero good faith negotiations to be had with Putin who fancies himself a mini Stalin strong man. Rewarding this regime with any concessions after his aggressive war is just Chamberlain all over again
ReplyDeleteEvery situation is different. Unlike Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Russia is a major nuclear power. There is no choice but to negotiate a compromise end. Any other position is childish.
DeleteHitler was an Anglophile. He rightly wanted to revise the territorial situation in the interests of justice. Most Conservative British MPs agreed with him on that. If we lost Texas to the Mexicans,how long would it take for patriotic Americans to demand that she be allowed to return.? Hitler was pushed into war by the Focus Group as David Irving shows. In any case our racism was far worse than his, and the real evil was being done by good old Uncle Joe. Get of the mainstream rollercoaster and do your homework,girl. BTW we invaded way more countries in our sphere of influence than Hitler did! And how do you think the Brits got their empire? Or the French? Or the Dutch? Do you think they just asked nice and polite-like? Grow up girl.
ReplyDeleteNo. He was genocidal against Jews, blacks, gypsies, mentally handicapped, ... Totally evil fuck.
Delete