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@TWS1405
Whatever, yours is superior. I will never question anything you say.
Tulsi Gabbard, Truth teller to the DNC, leaves Democrat party.
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@sadolite
Whatever, yours is superior. I will never question anything you say.
You need to work on your grammar.
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@bmdrocks21
And post- Cold War NATO expansionism all the way up to one country beyond Russia’s border seems to be somewhat of an accelerant leading to this conflict.
Peace is the last thing the establishment wants. There's no money in peace. At least, not for those in charge of the military.
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@bmdrocks21
There is something known as “mutual interest” in which something can be good for us and good for another country (shock! The horror!)
I have been trying to explain this to other Americans for years. It is called election interference and it doesn't always mean that the candidate is a puppet.
The US does it all the time.
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@Public-Choice
When people heard election interference, they all thought that Russia hacked voting machines and changed votes.
They actually just spent a few thousand dollars on some ads and other inconsequential stuff. Nothing even remotely as manipulative as what we have done.
But hell, I don’t blame Russia or China or us for meddling in elections one bit. It’s a country’s job to do what is in its peoples’ interests. And the leaders of neighboring countries and superpowers affect our citizens and theirs. It’s just how this works and it should be expected
There is no reason to get all angry about it. I don’t want other countries doing it to us. We should also do what we can to stop them, but that’s just one way power is exercised
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@TWS1405
Whatever, yours is superior. I will never question anything you say.You need to work on your grammar.
TWS you clearly didn't read the link and failed English at school.
You NEVER use the latter 2 which is exactly what the link teaches you, Sadolite was spot on.
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@bmdrocks21
No? “Could cause a war [against Russia] with us [America]” See: took just a little bit of dissent for you to accuse me of being Russian.
The fault is yours "Hillary Clinton.... could cause a war with us" would only be correct grammar if you were Russian, right? and I did not accuse, only asked with some expression of doubt.
Thank you for proving my point. I’m not only a traitor- I’ve ceased to be American!
I can't tell what point you suppose you've proved. Republicans think Gabbard a traitor, I only asked if you were a Russian. If you had proved to be a Russian, it would not make any sense to call you a traitor.
Russia preferred Trump because of what Trump said relative to what Hillary said, not what other Republicans and Democrats said.
You missed the point. You were suggesting that Clinton was the extremist by characterizing her as a "psycho hawk." By establishing that moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats agreed on opposing Russian objectives in Syria with a no-fly gives the lie to your suggestion of extremism.
The Kurds were fighting out of their own interests and we paid them monthly stipends and sent lots of weapons to them. Basically mercenaries with a temporary mutual interest
That's right.... our allies of thirty years until Trump betrayed them immediately after a single, still unexplained phone call from the Turkish dictator.
Did you not learn from Iraq that perhaps it isn’t wise to topple leaders for the sake of “democracy” in the Middle East?
Which is why Clinton policy kept Hussein in power with a no-fly zone through the '90's until Republicans waged a fake war based on evidence Republicans falsified. Clinton's Syria no-fly zone was clearly a policy designed to leave Assad in place.
Russia won’t dare touch a NATO country. If they did, I’d 100% support an active war against them.
I wish the history of dictators supported such confidence. History tells me that Putin will keep taking, as fast or as slow as European resistance permits until he is dead.
And Ukraine wasn’t valuable enough to let into NATO compared to the risk. And post- Cold War NATO expansionism all the way up to one country beyond Russia’s border seems to be somewhat of an accelerant leading to this conflict.
NATO is not invading new countries and forcing them into that alliance. Participation in NATO is expensive and voluntary. Eastern European countries join NATO because their assessment is that you are wrong and Putin will keep eating Europe until Europe stops him.
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@Greyparrot
Tulsi Gabbard.
Discuss.
Probably sexually active.
Though seemingly carries a certain weight of socio-psychologically accrued baggage.
Therefore, could be prone to cognitive dissonance.
So perhaps not to be relied upon.
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@TWS1405
whatever, yours is superior.
NATO is not invading new countries and forcing them into that alliance. Participation in NATO is expensive and voluntary.
NATO should just drop the N, Rename Atlantic to American, and become what it really has been all along. An extension of modern American imperialism.
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@oromagi
and I did not accuse, only asked with some expression of doubt.
"Let's also recall that Russia did not give a single fuck about provocation when you imposed your no-fly zone against us weeks after Trump got into office or at the Battle of Khasham a year later."
You said "you imposed your no-fly zone against us". So either you are accusing me personally or me as a collective member of Russia as having imposed that no-fly zone.
I can't tell what point you suppose you've proved. Republicans think Gabbard a traitor, I only asked if you were a Russian. If you had proved to be a Russian, it would not make any sense to call you a traitor.
Not supporting a foreign country also doesn't make me a traitor. Neither I nor Gabbard is under any obligation to support Ukraine.
You missed the point. You were suggesting that Clinton was the extremist by characterizing her as a "psycho hawk." By establishing that moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats agreed on opposing Russian objectives in Syria with a no-fly gives the lie to your suggestion of extremism.
Agreement among politicians among two parties doesn't make a position not extremist. And there is no need to get hung up on me calling her a psycho. That's irrelevant. The relevant point is that Russia (or any other country) can support a US candidate without making that candidate a puppet, shill, or traitor. And the fact is, Hillary's foreign policy positions made her very unpopular with Russia. And supporting policies that could easily lead to an armed conflict over a fairly unimportant country's territory is something I would consider extreme and not in our interests. It also just so happens that it also isn't in Russia's interest to fight us.
Which is why Clinton policy kept Hussein in power with a no-fly zone through the '90's until Republicans waged a fake war based on evidence Republicans falsified. Clinton's Syria no-fly zone was clearly a policy designed to leave Assad in place.
Russia has provided direct military aid to Assad. Russia has historically supported Assad. Why would putting a no-fly zone that could target Russian military planes be something that in any way keeps him in power? Russia vetoed draft resolutions from the UN that were demanding Assad's resignation. It is clear that these no-fly zones threatened Assad, not help him.
A coalition of NATO-led powers imposed a no-fly zone in Libya and Gaddafi got sodomized with a bayonet.
I wish the history of dictators supported such confidence. History tells me that Putin will keep taking, as fast or as slow as European resistance permits until he is dead.
And Putin knows from history that alliances (which were much less powerful than NATO) led to massive conflicts. He isn't insane, he knows that he has no hope of winning a fight against NATO. He is barely winning against Ukraine with far less equipment, money, and manpower (even with foreign help) than most singular NATO nations.
NATO is not invading new countries and forcing them into that alliance. Participation in NATO is expensive and voluntary. Eastern European countries join NATO because their assessment is that you are wrong and Putin will keep eating Europe until Europe stops him.
Those Eastern European countries are right to join- it is in their interests. They know that it is the strongest military deterrent there is. And for Poland and some of the others, they are valuable enough to allow in. Ukraine wasn't valuable enough relative to the risks. NATO isn't invading countries, but it is an expanding military alliance that was meant to keep Russia out. NATO expansionism is obviously a catalyst for this conflict. We had a good opportunity post-Cold War to have a friendly relationship with the Russians, but continuously expanding NATO was like spitting in their face.
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@bmdrocks21
an expanding military alliance that was meant to keep Russia out.
NATO Should have been dissolved in 1992.
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@Greyparrot
NATO Should have been dissolved in 1992.
I don't really have an issue with military alliances, assuming every country pitches in. But expanding it into their former territory all the way to their doorstep seems to have been a poor plan
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@Greyparrot
I refuse to die for Albania or Montenegro
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@bmdrocks21
You said "you imposed your no-fly zone against us". So either you are accusing me personally or me as a collective member of Russia as having imposed that no-fly zone.
- POST #37: "The fault is yours "Hillary Clinton.... could cause a war with us" would only be correct grammar if you were Russian, right? and I did not accuse, only asked with some expression of doubt."
Not supporting a foreign country also doesn't make me a traitor. Neither I nor Gabbard is under any obligation to support Ukraine.
- POST #2: Republicans like Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger are not calling Gabbard a traitor because she fails to support Ukraine. They clearly state that Gabbard is a traitor for deliberately spreading QAnon/Russia's false propaganda that the United States Military was developing bioweapons in the Ukraine in violation of many international treaties, which Russia cited as justification for striking US facilities. Since Gabbard is active military in Psy-ops with top secret clearance and has sworn her allegiance to that institution, her enlistment of support against that military is correctly labeled as treasonous. Nobody has said anything about your obligations to anything.
Agreement among politicians among two parties doesn't make a position not extremist.
- No, what makes a position extremist is distance from the poltical center. When the majority of moderates from both both parties agree that a certain position is correct, that is what makes a posistion "not extremist."
And there is no need to get hung up on me calling her a psycho. That's irrelevant. The relevant point is that Russia (or any other country) can support a US candidate without making that candidate a puppet, shill, or traitor.
- The Russian dictator's stated goal of restoring totalitarian dominance in Europe is a threat to peace, democracy, capitalism, equality and freedom worldwide. Any US poltical candidate who is comfortable enough with Putin's agenda to merit Russian support is disqualified from poltical office on that basis alone. Advocates for democracy and a global economy have a problem with Putin's plans for the world, period.
And the fact is, Hillary's foreign policy positions made her very unpopular with Russia.
- You mean unpopular with Putin, the Russian dictator. No rational observer would suppose that Putin's foreign policy represents the interests of the Russian people.
And supporting policies that could easily lead to an armed conflict over a fairly unimportant country's territory is something I would consider extreme and not in our interests.
- Putin is clearly dedicated to a policy of fairly continuous, slowly escalating armed conflict on any and all its borders. There is no question of whether Russia is avoiding armed conflict, they are actively aggressively pursuing armed conflict. The only question is whether the international community stands together to oppose unlawful invasions or waits to fall piecemeal to expansionist dictators.
Russia has provided direct military aid to Assad. Russia has historically supported Assad. Why would putting a no-fly zone that could target Russian military planes be something that in any way keeps him in power? Russia vetoed draft resolutions from the UN that were demanding Assad's resignation. It is clear that these no-fly zones threatened Assad, not help him.
- Since I used the Iraq example, I think it is obvious I meant a no-fly zone as opposed to US ground forces invading just as a no-fly zone in Iraq proved a cheap and efficient means of suppressing Hussien's influence, protecting the Kurdish and Shia groups as US allies, discouraging Iranian incursions when compared to the Republican preference for ground invasion which proved very costly and ultimately destabilized all of those interests. I'm not necessarily defending no-fly as a strategy, I'm just explaining that from the moderate's perspective no-fly zones were a proven stablilization technique
A coalition of NATO-led powers imposed a no-fly zone in Libya and Gaddafi got sodomized with a bayonet.
- A win as far America was concerned and also effective in Kosovo.
He isn't insane, he knows that he has no hope of winning a fight against NATO. He is barely winning against Ukraine with far less equipment, money, and manpower (even with foreign help) than most singular NATO nations.
- Disagree about sanity. Hyperagressivon, narcissism, sadsim- strong psychopathic traits that are pretty common to all dictators. Also strong indicators of some kind of profound neurological disorder- most likely Parkinson's. Putin has had to delay a number of important public appearances, apparently because he is often suffering from an unpresentable state.
- Strongly disagree that Russia is winning in any sense of the word. Notice the guys who blew up the Crimean Bridge were Russians The guys who shot up the Russain training base were Russians. A lot of prominent influencers are falling out of windows or dying under unusual circumstances which suggests a large degree of resistance within the Russian elite. A lot of unusual fires and infrastructure failures suggest a large degree of resistence from the proletariat as well. As I've said elsewhere, I think we are in Putin's endgame now and I doubt he will be alive 2 years from now, however thing play out. Just yesterday, Russia evacuated the single major regional capitol they managed to acquire, Kherson, which tells us that Russia thinks they've lost that hub for the winter- along with fresh water and fuel pipelines to Crimea. If Russia has to evacuate Crimea this winter I don't think any Russian can keep pretending that they winning something.
Ukraine wasn't valuable enough relative to the risks.
- False. As we've already seen Ukraine is vital to feeding North Africa, the Middle East and Russia. Ukrainian democracy is also vital to protecting democracies in smaller, surrounding states. A democratic Ukraine is the best argument possible for democracy in Russia.
NATO isn't invading countries, but it is an expanding military alliance that was meant to keep Russia out.
- Doesn't have to be that way. If the Russian people were willing to support democracy and territorial integrity (I think they do, generally), there is a very realistic long term path for Russia to join the European community.
NATO expansionism is obviously a catalyst for this conflict. We had a good opportunity post-Cold War to have a friendly relationship with the Russians, but continuously expanding NATO was like spitting in their face.
- NATO turned down Ukrainian membership twice in 2008 and 2014 precisely to deprive Putin of the justification for this unlawful invasion which he pursued anyway.
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@bmdrocks21
I don't blame you.
People just randomly say "Russian propaganda" but they don't make solid arguments against her claims.
Here is a claim she made, let's see the arguments against it.
Zelensky tried to have his political opponent arrested after he won election and banned news stations critical of him.
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@oromagi
- POST #2: Republicans like Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger are not calling Gabbard a traitor because she fails to support Ukraine. They clearly state that Gabbard is a traitor for deliberately spreading QAnon/Russia's false propaganda that the United States Military was developing bioweapons in the Ukraine in violation of many international treaties, which Russia cited as justification for striking US facilities. Since Gabbard is active military in Psy-ops with top secret clearance and has sworn her allegiance to that institution, her enlistment of support against that military is correctly labeled as treasonous. Nobody has said anything about your obligations to anything
Correct me if I misread your initial post, but it seemed like there was a clear distinction that she is calling them "bio labs", which are facilities that can research deadly pathogens. Russia seems to be the ones claiming that the facilities are biological weapons facilities, not her. So, if the US has funded facilities that research biological threats to people, then her statement wouldn't be false nor in any way traitorous.
In fact, she clarified remarks related to these biolabs in March stating that she was concerned that strikes on biolabs could cause the spread of deadly diseases.
No, what makes a position extremist is distance from the poltical center. When the majority of moderates from both both parties agree that a certain position is correct, that is what makes a position "not extremist."
I understand that there is certainly some relativism to this, but if both parties suggested that we should start throwing American citizens in prison without trials, that would be something quite extreme regardless of public support.
The character of proposed policies shed a lot of more light on what is extreme or not much more accurately than whatever the media-run state suggests is extreme to the uninformed masses, whose opinions shift notoriously quickly these days.
By your measure, in the future hate speech laws are likely to be a moderate position. By your standards, current belief of the illegitimacy of the 2020 election is a moderate position because Republicans are roughly half of the country and 2/3 of them think it was illegitimate. Unless of course your arbitrary standard is that your party's moderates are the true "center" that we must stick around lest we be "extremists"
The Russian dictator's stated goal of restoring totalitarian dominance in Europe is a threat to peace, democracy, capitalism, equality and freedom worldwide. Any US poltical candidate who is comfortable enough with Putin's agenda to merit Russian support is disqualified from poltical office on that basis alone. Advocates for democracy and a global economy have a problem with Putin's plans for the world, period.
So if a candidate isn't ready to push us immediately into a war with a foreign country because losing American lives and billions of dollars is a hefty price tag, they should be automatically disqualified from political office? You're way too old to be drafted and presumably you have no kids to lose in that war. Many parents would disagree with the haste at which you would like to engage in a land war with a world power.
You mean unpopular with Putin, the Russian dictator. No rational observer would suppose that Putin's foreign policy represents the interests of the Russian people.
Regardless, it isn't in Putin's interest or the Russian peoples' interest to have a war with any country resembling a superpower.
Since I used the Iraq example, I think it is obvious I meant a no-fly zone as opposed to US ground forces invading just as a no-fly zone in Iraq proved a cheap and efficient means of suppressing Hussien's influence, protecting the Kurdish and Shia groups as US allies, discouraging Iranian incursions when compared to the Republican preference for ground invasion which proved very costly and ultimately destabilized all of those interests. I'm not necessarily defending no-fly as a strategy, I'm just explaining that from the moderate's perspective no-fly zones were a proven stablilization technique
And those no-fly zones can be hypothetically moderate. If we do it to a third world dictator and that's the end of story, it could be something worth supporting. However, if we put no-fly zones over Taiwan and threatened military conflict with China, I think we can both agree that that would become much less of a 'moderate' decision.
Strongly disagree that Russia is winning in any sense of the word. Notice the guys who blew up the Crimean Bridge were Russians The guys who shot up the Russain training base were Russians. A lot of prominent influencers are falling out of windows or dying under unusual circumstances which suggests a large degree of resistance within the Russian elite. A lot of unusual fires and infrastructure failures suggest a large degree of resistence from the proletariat as well. As I've said elsewhere, I think we are in Putin's endgame now and I doubt he will be alive 2 years from now, however thing play out. Just yesterday, Russia evacuated the single major regional capitol they managed to acquire, Kherson, which tells us that Russia thinks they've lost that hub for the winter- along with fresh water and fuel pipelines to Crimea. If Russia has to evacuate Crimea this winter I don't think any Russian can keep pretending that they winning something.
I said "barely winning". It's really a stalemate, which seems to be exactly what American leadership wants. They want this to be long and drawn out, sending Ukrainians to the meat grinder. Granted, I prefer that much more than doing it with our troops, but I don't very much enjoy bankrupting ourselves in the process either.
False. As we've already seen Ukraine is vital to feeding North Africa, the Middle East and Russia. Ukrainian democracy is also vital to protecting democracies in smaller, surrounding states. A democratic Ukraine is the best argument possible for democracy in Russia.
Vital to feeding countries that aren't us or any of our major allies. They are certainly valuable to these countries, and I can appreciate an argument related to the acquisition of Ukraine increasing some Russian influence elsewhere. The extent to which that could substantially harm our relations abroad is speculative, though.
Doesn't have to be that way. If the Russian people were willing to support democracy and territorial integrity (I think they do, generally), there is a very realistic long term path for Russia to join the European community.
Why must democracy be a prerequisite for being part of a military alliance? I see a lot of pro-democracy messaging on NATO's website, but that really shouldn't matter.
I guess the optics might not be optimal, but many of our greatest allies during the Cold War were dictators. I think as long as we hold them to some standards of conduct related to use of their militaries, what should actually matter is their military capabilities: will they be an asset in an armed military conflict or not.
NATO turned down Ukrainian membership twice in 2008 and 2014 precisely to deprive Putin of the justification for this unlawful invasion which he pursued anyway.
It could be that we wanted to prevent the invasion. But, if we thought that turning down membership would prevent the invasion, that means that we thought that letting them into NATO would cause an invasion. Which therefore gets back to the point I've made: letting them in would be a liability. It would greatly heighten our chances of entering into an armed conflict with Russia.
7 days later
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@bmdrocks21
Correct me if I misread your initial post, but it seemed like there was a clear distinction that she is calling them "bio labs", which are facilities that can research deadly pathogens. Russia seems to be the ones claiming that the facilities are biological weapons facilities, not her. So, if the US has funded facilities that research biological threats to people, then her statement wouldn't be false nor in any way traitorous.
- It would be a bad mischaracterization to say that Gabbard or Tucker was making a clear distinction between bio-weapons and bio-labs. It would be far more accurate to say that they were deliberately muddying that distinction at every opportunity.
CARLSON: Does Ukraine have biological weapons? Oh, Ukraine has biological research facilities. What? You mean secret bio labs like the secret bio labs Ukraine definitely doesn't have? Ukraine has those? Yes, it does. And not only does Ukraine have secret bio labs, Toria Nuland said, whatever they're doing in those labs is so dangerous and so scary that she is quote, "quite concerned" that the so-called research material inside those bio labs might fall into the hands of Russian forces. I am not trying to use profanity on the air to describe our reaction. Our jaws dropped. Let's leave it there. Under oath in an open committee hearing, Toria Nuland just confirmed that the Russian disinformation they've been telling us for days is a lie and a conspiracy theory and crazy and immoral to believe, is in fact, totally and completely true. Whoa.But you'll notice at the end of that Kirby refuses to answer the question. Has there been a relationship between the U.S. Pentagon and a bio weapons facility in Ukraine? And if so, what is that relationship? That's Russian disinformation. What's the answer? We're not developing WMD in Ukraine right now. Okay, got it.... Undersecretary Nuland was referring to Ukrainian diagnostic and bio defense laboratories during her testimony, which are not biological weapons facilities. What's the difference exactly? You could describe our nuclear stockpile correctly as defensive. Our nuclear weapons are not designed to preemptively kill anybody. They're designed to prevent other people from killing us, but they're still nuclear weapons. So when do you stop lying and telling us what's going on here?We now know that dangerous biological agents, whether you call them weapons or not, is completely irrelevant, because they can be used as weapons. Is a gun or weapon? Not when you're quail hunting. When you're in a gunfight, it is. It's a ridiculous semantic debate. Dangerous biological agents remain thanks to the Biden administration unsecured in a chaotic war zone.So it's without even going into what they told us was Russian disinformation that is actually true, how concerned are you that Toria Nuland, who is overseeing this war has just admitted there are unsecure bio agents -- dangerous bio agents in Ukraine?GABBARD: I'm extremely concerned as should be every American and everyone in the world. The seriousness of this situation really can't be overstated. First of all, she didn't say no when she was asked by Marco Rubio about there being biological or chemical weapons in Ukraine.CARLSON: Yes.GABBARD: So if there were or are, obviously that would be a violation of the Biological Weapons Convention. Number two, they categorically have been trying to hide this as you've laid out very, very well. And then once they were found out, rather than saying: Hey, you know what, this is a critical emergency, it's a crisis. We have these pathogens in the midst of a warzone, not just in one location, but between 20 and 30 labs in Ukraine. This is a global crisis, we're going to take action immediately.CARLSON: So, we're just getting this from the State Department. This is a tweet and I want to -- I'm reading this cold, but I want to run a bite."The United States does not have chemical or biological weapons labs in Ukraine." Then they put up a graphic that read: "The U.S. is in full compliance with its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention not to develop or possess biological weapons anywhere."I can see about four holes in that. So if you were -- I mean, so they're telling us they don't own any bio labs in Ukraine. I don't remember -- I mean, one of the tells to lying is when you answer a question no one asked. I don't think anyone is suggesting the U.S. government owns bio labs there, right?GABBARD: Exactly. That's right. That's right. But you pointed to evidence, and we've seen through different parts of the world. We saw in China how the U.S. is funding this research or these labs to the tune of hundreds around the world. Why? That question has never been asked or answered by them.Why is this research something that that is so critical, not done in secure labs within the United States?
your standards, current belief of the illegitimacy of the 2020 election is a moderate position because Republicans are roughly half of the country and 2/3 of them think it was illegitimate. Unless of course your arbitrary standard is that your party's moderates are the true "center" that we must stick around lest we be "extremists"
As of last year there were 36,386,591 reported registered Republicans in a nation of 332 million but only 31 states report partisan registrations. Gallup says that about 25% of Americans identify as Republicans. Still the end number is about right since about 3 in 10 Americans (irrationally) question the fairness of the 2020 election.
WIKIPEDIA: The term [EXTREMISM] is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied shared social consensus) to be far outside the mainstream attitudes of society. It can also be used in an economic context. The term may be used pejoratively by opposing groups, but is also used in academic and journalistic circles in a purely descriptive and non-condemning sense. Extremists' views are typically contrasted with those of moderates. In Western countries for example, in contemporary discourse on Islam or on Islamic political movements, the distinction between extremist and moderate Muslims is commonly stressed. Political agendas perceived as extremist often include those from the far-left politics or far-right politics, as well as radicalism, reactionism, fundamentalism, and fanaticism.
So yes, it would be incorrect to call (irratonal) claims that Trump won the 2020 election "extreme" in any political or religious sense exactly because it is too mainstream within the Republican party. Extremism is more a question of measurement and not really much of a question of political quality or violence. Anti-slavery was once an extreme position in American. Feminism was once considered extremist.
The Russian dictator's stated goal of restoring totalitarian dominance in Europe is a threat to peace, democracy, capitalism, equality and freedom worldwide. Any US poltical candidate who is comfortable enough with Putin's agenda to merit Russian support is disqualified from poltical office on that basis alone. Advocates for democracy and a global economy have a problem with Putin's plans for the world, period.
So if a candidate isn't ready to push us immediately into a war with a foreign country because losing American lives and billions of dollars is a hefty price tag, they should be automatically disqualified from political office? You're way too old to be drafted and presumably you have no kids to lose in that war. Many parents would disagree with the haste at which you would like to engage in a land war with a world power.
Regardless, it isn't in Putin's interest or the Russian peoples' interest to have a war with any country resembling a superpower.
- Putin's interests and the Russian people's diverged long ago. Putin has been increasingly ratcheting up the risk of war with NATO since 2014 using a variety of proxies but the plausible deniability is long gone. Putin clearly wants to do as much harm to us in the West as he can get away with.
And those no-fly zones can be hypothetically moderate. If we do it to a third world dictator and that's the end of story, it could be something worth supporting. However, if we put no-fly zones over Taiwan and threatened military conflict with China, I think we can both agree that that would become much less of a 'moderate' decision.
- The US set up a no-China flight zone over Taiwan after WW2 and Taiwan has kept that restriction in place ever since.. China extended its no-fly zone over disputed claims in the South China Sea in 2013, its 50th violative territorial expansion in 65 years. Although China's move was an overt act of war violating Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese territorial claims, those nations and the US have so far tolerated China's naked aggression.
It's really a stalemate, which seems to be exactly what American leadership wants. They want this to be long and drawn out, sending Ukrainians to the meat grinder. Granted, I prefer that much more than doing it with our troops, but I don't very much enjoy bankrupting ourselves in the process either.
- All of this is quite wrong.
- Only one side is retreating so fast it leaves its dead where they fall. In the past 24 hours, Ukraine launched 9 new assaults against Russian positions.
- Russian has demonstrated some real genius in terms of assaulting non-combatants- genocides, infrastructure destruction, drone terrorism, ICBM targeting playgrounds, concentrations camps, etc.
- but Ukrainians have turned the defensive advantages- home territory, interior lines, superior morale and civilian support, superior numbers into major force multipliers. Surprisingly and somewhat mysteriously, Russia's ground game against a mostly volunteer civilian infantry has been nothing short of pathetic. Even using conservative estimates, Russia has sustained in six months more than twice the loses of the ten-year long Invasion of Afghanistan that precipitated the end of the USSR in the living memory of today's Russian ruling class.
- Russia's wincon is at least to knock out the democratically elected govt and force the Ukrainian people to accept some more Russian controlled govt. At present, Russia is farther from that objective than any time since Nazi Germany controled Kyiv. Certainly, Russia must prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and that possibility has never been likelier than right now. All Zelensky's govt has to do is continue to exist- it's Washington's Continental Army vs. George III's overtaxed redcoats all over again. And like the redcoats, the Russian army has no social or political reason to hate much less kill Ukrainians.
- Info out of Russia is scant but all evidence suggest that Putin is rapidly losing his total grip. Kazakhstan is pulling away. Many reports of Russian businessmen dying mysteriously. A couple hundred thousand of Moscow and St. Petersburg young professionals have fled the country, seemingly awaiting the fall of Putin. Putin has replaced his top command structure in Ukraine twice in 10 months. Putin has replaced his top command structure in Ukraine twice in 10 months.
- All modern democratic states share the same objective in Ukraine, support Ukraine's right to self-determination, contain Putin's naked totalitarian aggression and discourage future acts of aggression. No Western democracy benefits from increased harm in Ukraine but if Churchill were among us today he would remind the West that the choice we faced 80 years ago was not fight for Czechoslovakia or peace, as Chamberlain supposed, it was fight for Czechoslovakia or fight for France. If you look at the massive defenses Poland is building on its border with Kaliningrad right now, Poland is under no illusion about what sort of threat Russian constitutes to her happiness. The cost of sending missiles and tanks to Ukraine now is dead cheap compared to the cost of sending an army to Europe for round three.
Vital to feeding countries that aren't us or any of our major allies. They are certainly valuable to these countries, and I can appreciate an argument related to the acquisition of Ukraine increasing some Russian influence elsewhere. The extent to which that could substantially harm our relations abroad is speculative, though.
- False
TOP 10 Importing Countries of Ukrainian Grain in 2020
1China
2Egypt
3Indonesia
4Spain
5Netherlands
6Turkey
7Tunisia
8Bangladesh
9South Korea
10Libya
Hunger in China means trouble in Taiwan. Hunger in Egypt means trouble in Israel. There's no such thing as a nation that will quietly starve without threatening the world's peace.
Why must democracy be a prerequisite for being part of a military alliance? I see a lot of pro-democracy messaging on NATO's website, but that really shouldn't matter.
- Democracies do stable, predictable transfers of power. Democracies spread money and resources around rather than dangerously suck all the money into the king's treasury. Democracies have peaceful tools for getting rid of dangerously mad or incompetent or compromised or greedy kings. Democracies get tired of wars very quickly. Give a nuke to a democracy and they might hold to it forever without doing anything with it. Give a nuke to a dictator and eventually some unscrupulous crazy cunt will try to use that nuke for blackmail, or vengeance , or dominion.
I guess the optics might not be optimal, but many of our greatest allies during the Cold War were dictators.
- Optics and a billions of gallons of blood. How much quicker would we have won the cold war if the West had worked hard to support democracy in Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, South Africa, Philippines, Vietnam, Uganda, Spain, Nicaragua, Indonesia. We preferred the ease of a compliant dictator to the hard work of negotiating with a free and equal nation of peoples with competing and diverging interests and always lost influence and authority on principle and often lost capital and blood. I maintain that if we had stood by our principles and only traded with democracies, the cold war would have been shorter, warmer, and the world would be more democratic today.
It could be that we wanted to prevent the invasion. But, if we thought that turning down membership would prevent the invasion, that means that we thought that letting them into NATO would cause an invasion.
- Yes, we said so explicitly.
Which therefore gets back to the point I've made: letting them in would be a liability.
- False. The evil dictator invaded anyway, as evil dictators always fucking do. You say you believe that Putin would never risk full out war with NATO- if that were true then admitting Ukraine in 2007 would have been the most effective means of preventing the 2014 invasion. By now, the increased freedom and prosperity of Ukraine would have been a major incentive for Russia to hang Putin & friends and take back their wealth and destiny.
Even Obama advised Biden to chill with the usual military industrial BS driving an endless proxy war and come to the table and work out a peace deal.
Let's hope after the red wave that Biden won't continue the policy of to fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian as the anti-war sentiment grows on the left.
Shitty foreign policy with Saudi Arabia just means a red wave as people cannot get cheap gas.
Shitty foreign policy with Russia and supporting the Ukrainian ethnic cleansing of white Russians in the Donbas just to make a buck for Biden's buddies actually might end up with worse consequences than a simple transfer of American political power. I'm sure a clear headed Obama knows this. While largely the Media was able to censor the 10's of thousands civilians slaughtered in the 2014 Ukrainian artillery strikes on the Donbas and the macabre ethnic cleansing, it's unlikely with the current anti-war sentiment on the left to pull off a similar censorship feat in 2022.
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@bmdrocks21
Even the left won't support this if it cannot be censored.
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@Greyparrot
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