• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

SpurMeUp said:
It also needs men. Better weapons makes up for it somewhat but the army is outnumbered.

But Ukraine spends this money on arms. So what’s the difference? EU nations have given more to Ukraine than the US, there seems to be a bit of a misnomer about this. And the US makes Ukraine spend it on US companies.
Click to expand...
I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Ukraine doesn't want money so it can go and order weapons and ammo which will take weeks and months to manufacture and transport. The US aid has been vital as it has seen deliveries of huge amounts of ammunition, particularly artillery ammunition. The US industrial base and stockpiles are at a level to be a difference maker against an adversary such as Russia. Europe's collectively were not. If the US had not supported Ukraine it would have surrendered not long after it was invaded and if the US pulled its support tomorrow Russia would take Kyiv within a month or two. That is why Trump said he could end the war in a day. And that's why everyone is now panicking about him talking to the Russians about a peace deal and cutting Europe and Ukraine out.
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Ukraine doesn't want money so it can go and order weapons and ammo which will take weeks and months to manufacture and transport. The US aid has been vital as it has seen deliveries of huge amounts of ammunition, particularly artillery ammunition. The US industrial base and stockpiles are at a level to be a difference maker against an adversary such as Russia. Europe's collectively were not.
Click to expand...
Your logic doesn’t make sense. Firstly, you said the US held up funding which was the reason Ukraine lost territory to Russia. Contrary to what you are suggesting above.

Secondly, if EU nations provide funding (as well as actual arms, the uk has given state of the art tanks recently) and Ukraine can access US arms companies - which they can - they can order arms from the US.
Silly McSilly Face said:
If the US had not supported Ukraine it would have surrendered not long after it was invaded and if the US pulled its support tomorrow Russia would take Kyiv within a month or two. That is why Trump said he could end the war in a day.
Click to expand...
Wasn’t that obvious from the get go? I thought this was common knowledge. It is not just the weapons being supplied, but also western intelligence.
Silly McSilly Face said:
And that's why everyone is now panicking about him talking to the Russians about a peace deal and cutting Europe and Ukraine out.
Click to expand...

Some of the posts on here from so called liberals (not your good self) who lament peace and almost seek war, is surprising. Of course they are concerned with the terms of the peace. But we must at every turn seek peace. And what I find deeply troubling is this turn of events was quite clear from day one. The US (nor Europe) will fund this war indefinitely. This land is on Russia door step and part of its previous empire, so they are more motivated and more connected. That’s not to justify Putins actions. But this kind of scenario was always on the cards.
 
SpurMeUp said:
Your logic doesn’t make sense. Firstly, you said the US held up funding which was the reason Ukraine lost territory to Russia. Contrary to what you are suggesting above.

Secondly, if EU nations provide funding (as well as actual arms, the uk has given state of the art tanks recently) and Ukraine can access US arms companies - which they can - they can order arms from the US.

Wasn’t that obvious from the get go? I thought this was common knowledge. It is not just the weapons being supplied, but also western intelligence.


Some of the posts on here from so called liberals (not your good self) who lament peace and almost seek war, is surprising. Of course they are concerned with the terms of the peace. But we must at every turn seek peace. And what I find deeply troubling is this turn of events was quite clear from day one. The US (nor Europe) will fund this war indefinitely. This land is on Russia door step and part of its previous empire, so they are more motivated and more connected. That’s not to justify Putins actions. But this kind of scenario was always on the cards.
Click to expand...
The challenger 2 is a very good tank, but it isn't "state of the art". Like most equipment donated to Ukraine, we have donated challenger 2 tanks we would have otherwise mothballed as they're 20 years old and due to be replaced by challenger 3 (which is an iterative upgrade rather than a whole new design but then the challenger 2 was an incredible design in the first place so if It ain't broke and all that....

I think we are splitting hairs and are in broad agreement:
- Europe cannot defend itself against the threat from Russia and China.
- That makes the courting of Ukraine by European NATO members and the EU ("poking the bear") all the more f**king stupid.
- People like Boris Johnson, Macron and others that have adopted Churchillian "we'll fight them on the beaches" mentality of fight Russia at all costs are the equivalent of the schoolboys that stand around a playground ruck goading the boys fighting to keep going, while not getting punched in the face themselves...
- There's no clear end-game. Even with western support and billions ploughed into them every year the most "the weat" can.hope for is Ukraine to inflict lasting and catastrophic losses on Russia while slowly losing the war. As Trump has pointed out, much of eastern Ukraine has been completely destroyed.
- This isn't a Hitler/nazi Germsny situation where you're fighting something that is an existential threat to all that is decent and human. Whatever you can say about Putin's Russia, they were provoked and the parts of Ukraime the Russians have occupied and have declared as annexed are majority Russian speaking/ethnically Russian. That's not Putin propoganda. It's cold hard fact.
- it is in everyone's interest to halt this war as soon as possible.
 
@Silly McSilly Face an excellent post. Totally agree. A far more real critique than you hear most of the time.

Football tribalism is one thing, I love to hate gooners as much as the next man - because sport is light relief from reality. In actual war putting all tribalism to one side and pursuing peace is the best option. The wests record funding conflicts is terrible with so many dead, displaced and nations flattened. From offices in Whitehall and Washington politicians commit young men’s lives and destroy nations. Whether Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya etc

The reason Boris was so active supporting Ukraine was because he has saddled up to more Russian Oligarchs than a bimbo gold digger. His guilt and conscience propelled him towards Ukraine.
 
SpurMeUp said:
@Silly McSilly Face an excellent post. Totally agree. A far more real critique than you hear most of the time.

Football tribalism is one thing, I love to hate gooners as much as the next man - because sport is light relief from reality. In actual war putting all tribalism to one side and pursuing peace is the best option. The wests record funding conflicts is terrible with so many dead, displaced and nations flattened. From offices in Whitehall and Washington politicians commit young men’s lives and destroy nations. Whether Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya etc

The reason Boris was so active supporting Ukraine was because he has saddled up to more Russian Oligarchs than a bimbo gold digger. His guilt and conscience propelled him towards Ukraine.
Click to expand...
Yeah the situation Europe has got in is summarised by the humiliation of:

Starmer: "US backstop needed to impose peace deal"

US: "Nope, you guys need to sort yourselves out"
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
Yeah the situation Europe has got in is summarised by the humiliation of:

Starmer: "US backstop needed to impose peace deal"

US: "Nope, you guys need to sort yourselves out"
Click to expand...

It is a fascinating time. Will Europe come together to develop a more cohesive military power base? The continent has the money, technology and stability. But highly developed European nations prefer to use the money for other things. How/can a diverse collection of nations actually work together on defense? It is a tough ask as "europe" isn't a cohesive whole. It has vastly different cultures, histories and affiliations. But if the EU could oversee a coalition with the UK I think we would be more pragmatic and effective than the US has been. The only military intervention I can think of that was a success was in ex-Yugoslavia, where Europe were able to affect a peace through military intervention.

For almost every other US-led military intervention there is a litany of failed states, displaced people and failure. I don't think anyone can claim that campaigns in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq have been successful. If you added up the lost and ruined lives, and the billions spent, it is truly tragic.

Maybe there are some successes in Africa where interventions have worked, but ostensibly Trump is correct to pull back from these remote wars. Since Vietnam the US have been mostly failing to help anyone in these interventions. Ironic that it takes a right wing nutter to notice, while so called Liberals call for more war. Yes this is an oversimplification, but the overarching reality of failed foreign interventions can't be denied.
 
SpurMeUp said:
It is a fascinating time. Will Europe come together to develop a more cohesive military power base? The continent has the money, technology and stability. But highly developed European nations prefer to use the money for other things. How/can a diverse collection of nations actually work together on defense? It is a tough ask as "europe" isn't a cohesive whole. It has vastly different cultures, histories and affiliations. But if the EU could oversee a coalition with the UK I think we would be more pragmatic and effective than the US has been. The only military intervention I can think of that was a success was in ex-Yugoslavia, where Europe were able to affect a peace through military intervention.

For almost every other US-led military intervention there is a litany of failed states, displaced people and failure. I don't think anyone can claim that campaigns in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq have been successful. If you added up the lost and ruined lives, and the billions spent, it is truly tragic.

Maybe there are some successes in Africa where interventions have worked, but ostensibly Trump is correct to pull back from these remote wars. Since Vietnam the US have been mostly failing to help anyone in these interventions. Ironic that it takes a right wing nutter to notice, while so called Liberals call for more war. Yes this is an oversimplification, but the overarching reality of failed foreign interventions can't be denied.
Click to expand...


To fully understand why we are where we are, it is very important (IMO anyway) to gauge how transactional it has always been. From the earliest invaders insisting that Christianity is the only 'right' religion, pretty much every historic incursion into non-western countries has had nothing to do with 'improving' the lives of those there and everything to do with creating either some hoped-for cultural dominance or furute marketplace. The West has never, ever understood the Middle East. It has never really tried. Instead, it has been a series of subjugate/commercially-motivated moves which have (of course) done nothing long-term other than create space for nefarious local exploiters and unrest among the people. If anyone can name an extremist group in the region which has not grown due to outside influence, I'd be interested to learn. As for the US 'withdrawing' from 'remote wars', I'd wager the only reason is that there are others to serve and that it simply does not align with enough favourable 'returns' to continue some of these. As human beings, WE see the overarching reality of failed foreign interventions, lives and cities destroyed, and antagonists emboldened; sadly, I'd guess that there have been a percentage of those at the 'top' of such trees who have benefitted enormously, either strategically, materially, or both.

I agree, it is a fascinating time. What is most alarming to me is that I can never remember a moment in my lifetime where it's next steps and actions belonged in the hands of so few people. I have acquiesced to the fact that I have no control over what is coming...
 
thfcsteff said:
To fully understand why we are where we are, it is very important (IMO anyway) to gauge how transactional it has always been. From the earliest invaders insisting that Christianity is the only 'right' religion, pretty much every historic incursion into non-western countries has had nothing to do with 'improving' the lives of those there and everything to do with creating either some hoped-for cultural dominance or furute marketplace. The West has never, ever understood the Middle East. It has never really tried. Instead, it has been a series of subjugate/commercially-motivated moves which have (of course) done nothing long-term other than create space for nefarious local exploiters and unrest among the people. If anyone can name an extremist group in the region which has not grown due to outside influence, I'd be interested to learn. As for the US 'withdrawing' from 'remote wars', I'd wager the only reason is that there are others to serve and that it simply does not align with enough favourable 'returns' to continue some of these. As human beings, WE see the overarching reality of failed foreign interventions, lives and cities destroyed, and antagonists emboldened; sadly, I'd guess that there have been a percentage of those at the 'top' of such trees who have benefitted enormously, either strategically, materially, or both.

I agree, it is a fascinating time. What is most alarming to me is that I can never remember a moment in my lifetime where it's next steps and actions belonged in the hands of so few people. I have acquiesced to the fact that I have no control over what is coming...
Click to expand...
I think it is worth pointing out that the "west" have by no means been the only "imperialist" or "interventionist" group of people's in human history. Humans are by nature tribal and violent. It is ingrained in our nature and we see tribalistic violence in chimpanzees, our closest animal relatives, who are one of the few animal species that appear to deliberately attack and kill their own kind and deploy methods such as torture and other OTT forms of violence. Chimpanzees have been observed dismembering a captured chimp from another tribe.

Slavery is a great example where it has somehow been allowed to become a thing that is exclusively pinned on "white/western" culture when it is ingrained into human civilisation and all cultures. In fact, African kings traded their own slaves with Europeans.

The zulu empire eventually defeated by British forces was just that, an empire formed partly by the conquering and subjugation of other African nations and people's by the zulus.

A little publicised part of the British military campaigns in Africa is actually how much worse we treated defeated European opponents compared to indigenous ones. Read up on the boer war. British troops are reported to have attacked pregnant Dutch women and we created concentration camps for the boers with very similar conditions to the nazi ones. There is no equivalent historical records of similarly brutal treatment handed out to defeated African forces for example. For example, King Cetshwayo was allowed to remain King of Zululand in with reduced powers after surrendering to the British after the battle of Ulundi and he even visited Queen Victoria and the British prime minister in London as a distinguished and respected guest.

History is far more complicated than people like to make out.
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
I think it is worth pointing out that the "west" have by no means been the only "imperialist" or "interventionist" group of people's in human history. Humans are by nature tribal and violent. It is ingrained in our nature and we see tribalistic violence in chimpanzees, our closest animal relatives, who are one of the few animal species that appear to deliberately attack and kill their own kind and deploy methods such as torture and other OTT forms of violence. Chimpanzees have been observed dismembering a captured chimp from another tribe.

Slavery is a great example where it has somehow been allowed to become a thing that is exclusively pinned on "white/western" culture when it is ingrained into human civilisation and all cultures. In fact, African kings traded their own slaves with Europeans.

The zulu empire eventually defeated by British forces was just that, an empire formed partly by the conquering and subjugation of other African nations and people's by the zulus.

A little publicised part of the British military campaigns in Africa is actually how much worse we treated defeated European opponents compared to indigenous ones. Read up on the boer war. British troops are reported to have attacked pregnant Dutch women and we created concentration camps for the boers with very similar conditions to the nazi ones. There is no equivalent historical records of similarly brutal treatment handed out to defeated African forces for example. For example, King Cetshwayo was allowed to remain King of Zululand in with reduced powers after surrendering to the British after the battle of Ulundi and he even visited Queen Victoria and the British prime minister in London as a distinguished and respected guest.

History is far more complicated than people like to make out.
Click to expand...

I think the wests consistent push that they are bastions of piety is what is difficult. I do not think anyone thinks western people are more capable of oppression than others. However the flex that they are about helping the world is nonsense. Powerful people do bad things.
 
LutonSpurs said:
I think the wests consistent push that they are bastions of piety is what is difficult. I do not think anyone thinks western people are more capable of oppression than others. However the flex that they are about helping the world is nonsense. Powerful people do bad things.
Click to expand...
I think all cultures think they are bastions of piety. The "West" were the first culture to be able to mass produce advanced technology and fully industrialise hence they were better able to throw their weight around more effectively after that occurrec but for example, the current "Islamic" world was established via conquest beginning in the 600s into Byzantine/Palestine and initiating the "crusades" before the Ottomans finally conquered Constantiople in the 1400s.
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
I think all cultures think they are bastions of piety. The "West" were the first culture to be able to mass produce advanced technology and fully industrialise hence they were better able to throw their weight around more effectively after that occurrec but for example, the current "Islamic" world was established via conquest beginning in the 600s into Byzantine/Palestine and initiating the "crusades" before the Ottomans finally conquered Constantiople in the 1400s.
Click to expand...
So people are all the same when they have the power right?
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
I think it is worth pointing out that the "west" have by no means been the only "imperialist" or "interventionist" group of people's in human history. Humans are by nature tribal and violent. It is ingrained in our nature and we see tribalistic violence in chimpanzees, our closest animal relatives, who are one of the few animal species that appear to deliberately attack and kill their own kind and deploy methods such as torture and other OTT forms of violence. Chimpanzees have been observed dismembering a captured chimp from another tribe.

Slavery is a great example where it has somehow been allowed to become a thing that is exclusively pinned on "white/western" culture when it is ingrained into human civilisation and all cultures. In fact, African kings traded their own slaves with Europeans.

The zulu empire eventually defeated by British forces was just that, an empire formed partly by the conquering and subjugation of other African nations and people's by the zulus.

A little publicised part of the British military campaigns in Africa is actually how much worse we treated defeated European opponents compared to indigenous ones. Read up on the boer war. British troops are reported to have attacked pregnant Dutch women and we created concentration camps for the boers with very similar conditions to the nazi ones. There is no equivalent historical records of similarly brutal treatment handed out to defeated African forces for example. For example, King Cetshwayo was allowed to remain King of Zululand in with reduced powers after surrendering to the British after the battle of Ulundi and he even visited Queen Victoria and the British prime minister in London as a distinguished and respected guest.

History is far more complicated than people like to make out.
Click to expand...

Yep. Slavery is a horrible institution but let’s be clear, it has been practiced all over the world by every race and it is still practiced in some parts of the world today.
 
On politics I would say after Trumps comments today on Ukraine Starmer should be kicking out US diplomats. That is how serious I take it.

Starmer so far is a 7.5 out of 10, been pretty solid. Needs to get rid of Rachel from accounts but overall solid. This is a big test and I hope he stands up to Trump.
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
I think it is worth pointing out that the "west" have by no means been the only "imperialist" or "interventionist" group of people's in human history. Humans are by nature tribal and violent. It is ingrained in our nature and we see tribalistic violence in chimpanzees, our closest animal relatives, who are one of the few animal species that appear to deliberately attack and kill their own kind and deploy methods such as torture and other OTT forms of violence. Chimpanzees have been observed dismembering a captured chimp from another tribe.

Slavery is a great example where it has somehow been allowed to become a thing that is exclusively pinned on "white/western" culture when it is ingrained into human civilisation and all cultures. In fact, African kings traded their own slaves with Europeans.

The zulu empire eventually defeated by British forces was just that, an empire formed partly by the conquering and subjugation of other African nations and people's by the zulus.

A little publicised part of the British military campaigns in Africa is actually how much worse we treated defeated European opponents compared to indigenous ones. Read up on the boer war. British troops are reported to have attacked pregnant Dutch women and we created concentration camps for the boers with very similar conditions to the nazi ones. There is no equivalent historical records of similarly brutal treatment handed out to defeated African forces for example. For example, King Cetshwayo was allowed to remain King of Zululand in with reduced powers after surrendering to the British after the battle of Ulundi and he even visited Queen Victoria and the British prime minister in London as a distinguished and respected guest.

History is far more complicated than people like
Click to expand...

You appear to have taken a defensive stance to my post. My point was very clear, and not to the exclusion of other countries, cultures and their own inner-turmoils. I stand behind the statement that no initial western intervention in the Middle East, Africa or Asia was done for altruistic (or non-agenda driven) reasons. I am keenly aware of the tribal nature of human beings.

And yes. History is complicated, however there are also some very simple truths. No 'conqueror' or 'crusader' every marched into other lands looking to share a sandwich or two, and power will corrupt wherever it is.

British and American imperialism has never been rooted in altruism.

If you want to bring African history into the thread (by all means, it is rich, fascinating and -as you hinted- non-linear) then that becomes another topic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back