Al-O-Meter
Well-Known Member
Whatever Thriller. It isn't spin or dishonesty to point out that Biden is not popular and that his best days are behind him. It is not spin or dishonesty to point out the weakness he is projecting to the world.
The *OFFICIAL* Russia Is About To Invade Ukraine Thread
- Thread starter Gameface
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Hearsky
Well-Known Member
Come on, man. Trump was like a dog humping Putin's leg.
You did show me the study, and the hazard ratio for the vaccinated-after-disease populace was significantly better than the disease-and-not-vaccinated. You did not address that point then.
Moot.
Do we have a long term yet?
Al-O-Meter
Well-Known Member
Trump isn't the President.
Ahh, I now understand why he used the mysterious word "was" which I was having a hard time understanding the meaning of until your post clarified that for me.
Avery
Well-Known Member
Putin is a great number of adjectives, but dumb is not one (in an intellectual way). He knows that there’s 0% chance he can win any war with Ukraine and NATO - 0%. They don’t have the technology, they don’t have the manpower, they simply have bluster.
My guess is they continue to simply use the position as a bargaining chip which Putin solely controls as no one can tell him otherwise.
My guess is they continue to simply use the position as a bargaining chip which Putin solely controls as no one can tell him otherwise.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
So ****’em and let Putin swallow them!
Well if they were a Democracy they should be killed by fire immediately because that is the absolute worst form of government that has ever existed.
I only root for Constitutional Republics!!! All other looser government types kick rocks.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
LOL
You should create a separate thread so you can prove to all these indoctrinated Americans that we are a republic, not a democracy.
President Wilson was wrong, we went to war to “make the world safe for democracy (should have said republics)!”
FDR was wrong too when he said, “In our Democracy (should have said republic), officers of the government are the servants and never the masters of the people.”
Or George W Bush speaking together with Tony Blair, “The notion of democracies (should have said republics) beginning to emerge scares the ideologies.”
Or “liberal” Donald Trump:
“She (Hillary Clinton) put her emails on a secret server to cover up her pay for play scandals in the state department. Nothing threatens the integrity of our democracy (should have said republic) more than when government officials put their public office up for sale.”
Thank god we have true Americans like you who can straighten out this mystery. This Russia thing has been stressing me out. But not nearly as much as people calling America a democracy. That’s the real threat facing the western world today.
I would caution you, kind sir, that you have made an egregious error assuming the U.S. is only a Republic. We are a mighty Constitutional Republic. A simple Republic is hardly better than a lowly direct Democracy. Both are subject to the whims of mere men. Our Constitution was crafted by American GODS! There was Devine influence on the creation of our sacred national documents, most specifically the Constitution! The constitution is inviolable (unless enough people agree...). The constitution was not formed by mere men, well, it was actually, but they were really awesome dudes. The constitution guarantees that the rights of all people will be respected (depending on skin color, gender, sexual orientation, of course).
Without such a constitution you might find people just deciding that other people could be kept as slaves. Without such a constitution you might find people being forced into military service against their will. Without such a constitution you might find the rights of people to live and work and pursue happiness infringed upon based on such arbitrary factors such as sex, sexual identity, sexual orientation, skin color, ethnicity, or other such arbitrary differentiations between people.
We are ONLY great because our constitution is great. It and it alone, without the cooperation of men, without their consent or mere force of will, makes freedom, liberty and justice possible. There is no way that people without a Constitutional Republic could form a just government, and there is no way that under a Constitutional Republic that a government could be unjust.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
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Douchebag K
Well-Known Member
Lol now you’re getting the idea. Good point !!
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
European responses are beginning. This is a pretty big deal. Cutting Nord Stream 2 is going to hurt Russia’s economy.
www.cnn.com
February 22, 2022 Ukraine-Russia crisis news
Tensions between Moscow and Kyiv are at their highest in years, with Russian President Vladimir Putin signing decrees recognizing two separatist pro-Moscow regions in Ukraine as independent, a provocative move as fears of an invasion mount. Follow here for the latest news updates.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
That’s the stuff. Send Russia back to the Stone Age economically. Force the Russian oligarchs to choose between seeing their assets frozen and travel visas blocked or talking Putin off this ledge. I guess they could always do plan C, serving Putin some special tea to end this… I’d also be fine with that.
Red
Well-Known Member
As tragic events unfold in Ukraine, take a moment to consider that the foreign policy goals of defeated former president Donald Trump and his MAGA movement bear a striking resemblance to those of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
What does Putin want? His aims go well beyond Ukraine. As the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum summarizes: He “wants to put so much strain on Western and democratic institutions, especially the European Union and NATO, that they break up. He wants to keep dictators in power wherever he can, in Syria, Venezuela, and Iran. He wants to undermine America, to shrink American influence, to remove the power of the democracy rhetoric that so many people in his part of the world still associate with America. He wants America itself to fail.”
Trump’s foreign policy sought to do much of what Putin wants to achieve, including intimidating Ukraine by withholding vital defensive weapons. Trump, like his role model in Moscow, favored weakening NATO, elevating dictators (from China to Turkey to North Korea to Hungary to Russia), undermining democratic elections, demonizing the media (the best check against power-hungry politicians) and finding common ground with kleptocratic-style government.
None of this was based on America’s interest, but it was in the interest of wannabe authoritarians and illiberal regimes. As Fiona Hill, a former Trump adviser and brave witness in the former president’s first impeachment hearings, put it: "There’s no Team America for Trump. Not once did I see him do anything to put America first. Not once. Not for a single second.”…..
……It seems that contempt for democracy domestically often goes hand in hand with contempt for democratic allies abroad — and hence, sympathy for authoritarian regimes. By contrast, defenders of American democracy are generally on the side of other democratic countries. It’s one more reason we dare not let the MAGA-infused GOP back in power.
LogGrad98
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Much of this is factually wrong. Putin has bad taste in his alliances with very desperate failing Marxist countries, for sure. Trump would have made deals with them that would have brought them into possible development according to their abilities to produce stuff. Putin generally just gives out payola and calls it a day. Trump was a capitalist. Putin is a power manipulator. Xi, at least, has capitalist ideas about prosperity. And a broader notion of how his own prosperity relates to others.
Most particularly, while Obama sent Ukraine medical stuff or food and maybe a few small arms, Trump sent Ukraine some substantial military stuff that could be used in the fight.
Biden is a more like Putin. I have said elsewhere that Hillary and Putin are a lot alike, except that Putin is better and more honest and less bloodthirsty. Putin is not any kind of real American. He is in some respects the first Real Russian since the Czars. Russians don't have much hope for stuff like personal liberty, prosperity, individualism. That's why Siberia is still Siberia. The serf mentality is actually the model of psychology behind socialist government worldwide. The Globalist Agenda is qactually more like Czarist Rule over Russia.
Trump is in many respects quite the opposite of Putin and the globalists. He is not that jcomplicated, really. He thinks traditional American values and capitalism are great, and sees where completive interests can make deals and cooperate to everyone's advantage.
The effort it takes to squeeze him into a right/left political paradigm is useless, wasted energy. The effort it takes to create endlessly negative comparisons with every boogeyman in the closet is a waste of human intelligence.
Trump would not have given in on the Russian gas pipeline to Germany. He would have kept American production open and low-cost and would have made deals to supply gas to Germany from our resources. Russia, and Putin, would not have taken any Ukraine moves beyond the "status quo" stalemate in the Donbas. Neither would Ukraine have done jso. Trump would have stood for the Minsk accord to negotiate the issue to a conclusion agreed to by all partis. That agressment might have formally limited NATO expansion into Russian security spheres. It might have validated Russian alliances with neighbors including Syria.
Russia is building nuke technology, and Trump would have matched or bettered that. Russia would have been facing unsustainable military expenditures, and low oil revenues. Russia would be closer to China than, say, Germany, looking for trade and prosperity somehow.
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A few weeks ago, perhaps ten days even, Biden slipped up and siad we might be OK with Russia taking a piece of Ukraine's Donbas.
Seeing the rhetoric since then, I don't think that is OK anymore.
What we are faced with is now an issue of "accepting" a pair of separatist states supposedly independent, but who can call on russia fror military assistance within "their" territory. With Russia taking tens of thousands of Ukranians refugees into the Rostov area, he has some basis for arguing that they need a place of their own, like the Palestinians say. Only this is a more valid sort of claim. People actually driven out by Ukranian miitary action after Ukraine refused to negotiate according the Minsk accord.
I think you have to look for more in US rhetoric and policy than Ukrainian sovereignty to justify a refusal by Ukraine to negotiate with the separatists. It starts to look like genocide of Russian ethnic people or political dissidents from a regional minority. We have lots of states that were formed as a result of such facts. Ireland/Northern Ireland. North Korea/South Korea. Taiwan/China. Lots of African divisions simply amount to that.
The United States and Britain had a "separatist" dispute and a war.
The facts on the ground in the Donbas deny the claim that the separatists are significantly composed of Russian"volunteers". Rather, there are many more Ukdranians who came to the Donbas because orf their dislike of the Ukraine general goverernment. Maybe people who preferred or had some reason for favoring Russia benevoence over NATO associations.
Russia is pushing back on NATO expansion, and seemsto view that expansion as aggression, as a threat to Russian sovereignty.
If we don't accept a limit to NATO by treaty, I think it means war.
Seeing the rhetoric since then, I don't think that is OK anymore.
What we are faced with is now an issue of "accepting" a pair of separatist states supposedly independent, but who can call on russia fror military assistance within "their" territory. With Russia taking tens of thousands of Ukranians refugees into the Rostov area, he has some basis for arguing that they need a place of their own, like the Palestinians say. Only this is a more valid sort of claim. People actually driven out by Ukranian miitary action after Ukraine refused to negotiate according the Minsk accord.
I think you have to look for more in US rhetoric and policy than Ukrainian sovereignty to justify a refusal by Ukraine to negotiate with the separatists. It starts to look like genocide of Russian ethnic people or political dissidents from a regional minority. We have lots of states that were formed as a result of such facts. Ireland/Northern Ireland. North Korea/South Korea. Taiwan/China. Lots of African divisions simply amount to that.
The United States and Britain had a "separatist" dispute and a war.
The facts on the ground in the Donbas deny the claim that the separatists are significantly composed of Russian"volunteers". Rather, there are many more Ukdranians who came to the Donbas because orf their dislike of the Ukraine general goverernment. Maybe people who preferred or had some reason for favoring Russia benevoence over NATO associations.
Russia is pushing back on NATO expansion, and seemsto view that expansion as aggression, as a threat to Russian sovereignty.
If we don't accept a limit to NATO by treaty, I think it means war.
@LogGrad98
Here's something I just found...... a real historical treatment of the Russian position, objectively laid out, with hundreds of footnotes and other authoritative sources to back up the analysis, and it is impartial, so far as I can see. You might have some ability to connect the dots here because of your experience in the geographical area fairly recently. good reading.
www.newyorker.com
I put this in this thread because it basically has no reference to Western intentions to run out another Oil War. Hence, it would all run against the fundamental thesis of my thread. Which I still believe is the real purpose of our State Department and Biden policy.
After reading dthrough this article, I have changed my mind on some points. Russia's basis is far more valid than even I have stated in past comments. During the past 30 years, our behavaior has galvanized Russian sentiments against us in massive ways, termed in this article as resembling a glacier moving across the land. Putin could hardly claim to be a russian, standing for Russia's security, and not take a stand against further NATO encroachments.
I now also see Putin's withdrawal from the START treaty and development of new weaponry as aimed at correcting the weakness of Russia in the past three or four decades. And Putin now believes, with China at his back, that he can successfully take this stand. It's not just a weak Putin trying to keep his political support. It's fundamental. If Putin were taken out, the next Russian President would have to take the same stands.
We have made a diplomatic blunder beyond calculation. We will not ever secure Russian oil to maintain our cartel dominance3 over oil or gas or nuclear energy. This is a tipping point in world politics. We were stupid, and we lost our chance to build a credible UN or world order based on our values.
Here's something I just found...... a real historical treatment of the Russian position, objectively laid out, with hundreds of footnotes and other authoritative sources to back up the analysis, and it is impartial, so far as I can see. You might have some ability to connect the dots here because of your experience in the geographical area fairly recently. good reading.
The Historical Dispute Behind Russia’s Threat to Invade Ukraine
Putin claims that, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. promised not to expand NATO beyond East Germany. Does he have a case?
I put this in this thread because it basically has no reference to Western intentions to run out another Oil War. Hence, it would all run against the fundamental thesis of my thread. Which I still believe is the real purpose of our State Department and Biden policy.
After reading dthrough this article, I have changed my mind on some points. Russia's basis is far more valid than even I have stated in past comments. During the past 30 years, our behavaior has galvanized Russian sentiments against us in massive ways, termed in this article as resembling a glacier moving across the land. Putin could hardly claim to be a russian, standing for Russia's security, and not take a stand against further NATO encroachments.
I now also see Putin's withdrawal from the START treaty and development of new weaponry as aimed at correcting the weakness of Russia in the past three or four decades. And Putin now believes, with China at his back, that he can successfully take this stand. It's not just a weak Putin trying to keep his political support. It's fundamental. If Putin were taken out, the next Russian President would have to take the same stands.
We have made a diplomatic blunder beyond calculation. We will not ever secure Russian oil to maintain our cartel dominance3 over oil or gas or nuclear energy. This is a tipping point in world politics. We were stupid, and we lost our chance to build a credible UN or world order based on our values.
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