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

[markysimmo]

 

[Gutter Boy]

I think another thing that has to be taken into account with all of this imo, is the reneging on not having countries that border Russia like Ukraine etc being invited into NATO.
That was a big red line for Russia; i mean how would the US feel if Mexico was invited to be a part of Russia's military treaty and have Russian bases installed in Mexico?

What about when Russia tried to join NATO? The last time it had a freely elected leader

 

[glorygloryeze]

What about when Russia tried to join NATO? The last time it had a freely elected leader

Yeah, he was turned down. Then it seemed NATO 'reneged' on the 'gentleman's agreement' to let bygones be bygones and keep the old Soviet states as neutral buffers and NOT offer NATO membership to any of them and certainly not meddle and get involved with them politically....

 

[johnola]

Yeah, he was turned down. Then it seemed NATO 'reneged' on the 'gentleman's agreement' to let bygones be bygones and keep the old Soviet states as neutral buffers and NOT offer NATO membership to any of them and certainly not meddle and get involved with them politically....

What agreement was that? Would that not have included Poland the Baltics and Germany?

 

[Jordinho]

Yeah, he was turned down. Then it seemed NATO 'reneged' on the 'gentleman's agreement' to let bygones be bygones and keep the old Soviet states as neutral buffers and NOT offer NATO membership to any of them and certainly not meddle and get involved with them politically....

Russia also agreed to leave Ukraine alone when they gave up their old Soviet nukes.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

Moreover, who wants to see all these munitions destroy a country? Not those whose country it is, but those in far flung places who are using Ukraine and its young men as a buffer.

Quite:

- "OMG we can't do a deal with Putin, he's evil, we need to defend our cities at all costs, no surrender!!!"
- The "defended at all costs" city now:

 

[SpurMeUp]

Quite:

- "OMG we can't do a deal with Putin, he's evil, we need to defend our cities at all costs, no surrender!!!"
- The "defended at all costs" city now:View attachment 18921

The playgrounds survive.

It makes me angry that a largely 'liberal' crowd want to keep blowing up brick, if it satisfies their identity politics. How tribal people are without knowing it. They'll destroy a nation and it young, and displace people, because they don't like Trump. No one thinks Putin's actions are just (some of the wests conduct over the past 2 decades hasn't been squeaky clean either). To level Ukraine and not at least try to shake up the entrenched war and somehow end it, is an embarrassing position to have.

 

[Mikey10]

Quite:

- "OMG we can't do a deal with Putin, he's evil, we need to defend our cities at all costs, no surrender!!!"
- The "defended at all costs" city now:View attachment 18921

History very clearly teaches us that there will likely be many more cities looking like this in the Baltic states once the Russians have had a chance to regroup, should they be handed carte blanche in Ukraine by Trump.

Perhaps everyone should just appease them and allow them to roll westwards?

 

[Grays_1890]

History very clearly teaches us that there will likely be many more cities looking like this in the Baltic states once the Russians have had a chance to regroup, should they be handed carte blanche in Ukraine by Trump.

Perhaps everyone should just appease them and allow them to roll westwards?

I was in Dubai last year and its full of Russians now who want nothing to do with the place or Putin. The money is running out to some extent, Putin and the economy are definitely suffering. They didn't roll Ukraine over like many predicted, the army is demoralised by all reports, they are sending in people who are plucked out of areas Putin cares nothing for and forced into the front lines and its showing. Yes there is more at play in the Ukraine/Russia politics as pointed out, but I don't for one second believe the only way forward is to cosy up to Putin and let him have is way, the only reason it works as an option at all is because Trump is Russia puppet. What is the stat? 63 Russian Millionaires who have addresses in the US with a Trump property address?

 

[Gutter Boy]

The playgrounds survive.

It makes me angry that a largely 'liberal' crowd actually want to keep blowing up brick, if it satisfies their identity politics. How tribal people are without knowing it. They'll destroy a nation and it young, displace people, because they don't like Trump. No one thinks Putin's actions are just (some of the wests conduct over the past 2 decades haven't been squeaky clean either). To level Ukraine and not at least trying to shake up the entrenched war and somehow end it, is an embarrassing position to have.

What would you do? Let the Russia's roll the tanks in, ethnically cleanse the Ukrainian population into Poland and the west, and take their 'living space'?

 

[johnola]

The playgrounds survive.

It makes me angry that a largely 'liberal' crowd want to keep blowing up brick, if it satisfies their identity politics. How tribal people are without knowing it. They'll destroy a nation and it young, and displace people, because they don't like Trump. No one thinks Putin's actions are just (some of the wests conduct over the past 2 decades hasn't been squeaky clean either). To level Ukraine and not at least try to shake up the entrenched war and somehow end it, is an embarrassing position to have.

What are you the dinner lady?

So when Ukraine asked for help you’d have said no - but you are okay with that?

It is not our culture to surrender or to encourage surrender to bullies.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

What are you the dinner lady?

So when Ukraine asked for help you’d have said no - but you are okay with that?

It is not our culture to surrender or to encourage surrender to bullies.

Why should we help Ukraine fight Russia to keep hold of territory occupied mostly by Russians, many of whom were already fighting Ukraine to attempt to separate? It's another foreign war that is, frankly, nothing to do with us.

 

[SpurMeUp]

What are you the dinner lady?

So when Ukraine asked for help you’d have said no - but you are okay with that?

It is not our culture to surrender or to encourage surrender to bullies.

You are putting words into my mouth, and oversimplifying a complex situation which has decades of build up.

As Jack Straw commented from his time as Forign Secretary, maybe the West pushed Russia too hard too quickly and we should have been more patient. When the UK lost its empire, we had the common wealth of nations effectively as a transition. The US didn’t storm into our former colonies, throw cash at them and try to move them away from our sphere of influence. That Russias former ‘colonies’ border their nation (in a comparable way that Ireland or Scotland adjoin us), and that a traditional adversity in NATO is moving closer and starting to be an option for Ukraine, only made things more imposing and provocative.

What would I have done? Maybe not spent millions of dollars on ‘democracy campaigns’ and public visits from US representatives to places like Ukraine, Georgia etc and let history unfold more organically. The lesson that the US has never learnt is that manipulating nations politically is not something anyone can control. You can fund and fire up political movements in states with autocratic leaders, you can spend on counter insurgences or full blown military campaigns. That is the easy bit. But you can’t control the consequences. Libya is still in civil war a decade after the US decided to change the regime. They gave up on Afghanistan too, and left it in the hands of the taliban. Once upon a time it had been a model Muslim nation with women attending university etc What had the US intervention and billions spent done for Afghanis?

But if you’re asking what to do at this juncture? That is a tough question to answer. Do you keep digging the hole? Knowing that one day you’ll pull out as has been the case in Libya, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc?

For all of Trumps rancour and guff he is at least trying to shake up the slow defeat of Ukraine and trying to engineer a solution. Zelensky has had various openings from which to end this war - see the link posted by Steff to a US article from a couple of years ago which outlines how Zelenskyy pursued peace but then was pull away from it by his own hardline nationalists. Ironically, some of these Ukrainian right wingers were strengthened by US funding during yanakovitchs time. Let’s not forget that he was a fairly elected president of Ukraine, and because he was working with Russia, Europe and the US undermined his rule by seeding and funding an uprising against him.

 

[DubSpur]

Why should we help Ukraine fight Russia to keep hold of territory occupied mostly by Russians, many of whom were already fighting Ukraine to attempt to separate? It's another foreign war that is, frankly, nothing to do with us.

"It's nothing to do with us" is an easy cop out. Just turn a blind eye to a dictator moving from country to country and rebuilding an empire because "it's nothing to do with us" or stop him at the first country...

 

[Gutter Boy]

You are putting words into my mouth, and oversimplifying a complex situation which has decades of build up.

As Jack Straw commented from his time as Forign Secretary, maybe the West pushed Russia too hard too quickly and we should have been more patient. When the UK lost its empire, we had the common wealth of nations effectively as a transition. The US didn’t storm into our former colonies, throw cash at them and try to move them away from our sphere of influence. That Russias former ‘colonies’ border their nation (in a comparable way that Ireland or Scotland adjoin us), and that a traditional adversity in NATO is moving closer and starting to be an option for Ukraine, only made things more imposing and provocative.

What would I have done? Maybe not spent millions of dollars on ‘democracy campaigns’ and public visits from US representatives to places like Ukraine, Georgia etc and let history unfold more organically. The lesson that the US has never learnt is that manipulating nations politically is not something anyone can control. You can fund and fire up political movements in states with autocratic leaders, you can spend on counter insurgences or full blown military campaigns. That is the easy bit. But you can’t control the consequences. Libya is still in civil war a decade after the US decided to change the regime. They gave up on Afghanistan too, and left it in the hands of the taliban. Once upon a time it had been a model Muslim nation with women attending university etc What had the US intervention and billions spent done for Afghanis?

But if you’re asking what to do at this juncture? That is a tough question to answer. Do you keep digging the hole? Knowing that one day you’ll pull out as has been the case in Libya, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc?

For all of Trumps rancour and guff he is at least trying to shake up the slow defeat of Ukraine and trying to engineer a solution. Zelensky has had various openings from which to end this war - see the link posted by Steff to a US article from a couple of years ago which outlines how Zelenskyy pursued peace but then was pull away from it by his own hardline nationalists. Ironically, some of these Ukrainian right wingers were strengthened by US funding during yanakovitchs time. Let’s not forget that he was a fairly elected president of Ukraine, and because he was working with Russia, Europe and the US undermined his rule by seeding and funding an uprising against him.

Do you think Britain has the right to invade Ireland and reclaim it from the EU? After all, they are English speakers and have been in our sphere of influence for centuries.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

"It's nothing to do with us" is an easy cop out. Just turn a blind eye to a dictator moving from country to country and rebuilding an empire because "it's nothing to do with us" or stop him at the first country...

Propaganda comes from both sides. Russia has a legitimate (albeit exaggerated) grievance over Ukraine's NATO overtures and the overthrow of a Russian friendly president. It also has a legitimate territorial claim over the Donbas. This isn't Hitler invading Poland. Our own media parrot our side's propaganda. Just look at the state of the fact-check articles that appeared in the wake of Trump's comments. "Russia started the current conflict when it initiated a full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022" drones the BBC. Tom Collins threw the first punch in the playground scrap with Ryan Robins. But Ryan had been sending c**k pics to Tom's girlfriend.

"Putin's claims of nazism and protection of Russian speakers in the Donbas are baseless" continues the BBC. What's that being hastily shoved in the desk drawer? Oh yes, it will be the CIA report recommending against supplying named ukrainian brigades fighting in the Donbas due to links with far right extremism and neo nazism as well as amnesty international reports citing concerns over their operations in the east of Ukraine....

 

[johnola]

You are putting words into my mouth, and oversimplifying a complex situation which has decades of build up.

As Jack Straw commented from his time as Forign Secretary, maybe the West pushed Russia too hard too quickly and we should have been more patient. When the UK lost its empire, we had the common wealth of nations effectively as a transition. The US didn’t storm into our former colonies, throw cash at them and try to move them away from our sphere of influence. That Russias former ‘colonies’ border their nation (in a comparable way that Ireland or Scotland adjoin us), and that a traditional adversity in NATO is moving closer and starting to be an option for Ukraine, only made things more imposing and provocative.

What would I have done? Maybe not spent millions of dollars on ‘democracy campaigns’ and public visits from US representatives to places like Ukraine, Georgia etc and let history unfold more organically. The lesson that the US has never learnt is that manipulating nations politically is not something anyone can control. You can fund and fire up political movements in states with autocratic leaders, you can spend on counter insurgences or full blown military campaigns. That is the easy bit. But you can’t control the consequences. Libya is still in civil war a decade after the US decided to change the regime. They gave up on Afghanistan too, and left it in the hands of the taliban. Once upon a time it had been a model Muslim nation with women attending university etc What had the US intervention and billions spent done for Afghanis?

But if you’re asking what to do at this juncture? That is a tough question to answer. Do you keep digging the hole? Knowing that one day you’ll pull out as has been the case in Libya, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc?

For all of Trumps rancour and guff he is at least trying to shake up the slow defeat of Ukraine and trying to engineer a solution. Zelensky has had various openings from which to end this war - see the link posted by Steff to a US article from a couple of years ago which outlines how Zelenskyy pursued peace but then was pull away from it by his own hardline nationalists. Ironically, some of these Ukrainian right wingers were strengthened by US funding during yanakovitchs time. Let’s not forget that he was a fairly elected president of Ukraine, and because he was working with Russia, Europe and the US undermined his rule by seeding and funding an uprising against him.

Thought so.

 

[SpurMeUp]

Do you think Britain has the right to invade Ireland and reclaim it from the EU? After all, they are English speakers and have been in our sphere of influence for centuries.

No, do you? But imagine during the troubles in Ireland when the British army was controlling parts of the island, if Russia decided to fund the IRA to kick out the Brits. It’s not a perfect analogy but it might allow you to step outside your egocentric viewpoint.

Or suppose Russia provided extensive intelligence to Sadam Hussein before the Allies invaded. And then funded a war against them.

You’d be fine with both these scenarios?