Ukraine

[sandtown]

Sandtown, in international affairs, all sides always share some blame. Countries look after their interests..

Careful there - Big Brother insists that you say and believe that the conflict was "unprovoked", and that we have always been at war with East Asia.

Failure to obey the rules could have dire consequences.

[sandtown]

You keep banging away at it like our opinions on the forum- including yours- are going to have an effect on the outcome. Nobody gives a s##t about our opinions.

So your opinions are the only ones that matter ??

Views like mine are all over the news and media if you bother to look -and in fact are shared with around 60 percent of USAeans.

Dunno about Oz

You sound like your have read On the Beach and erroneously think you can escape the fallout down there in Oz.

The following is a deal the US could have had, but they would rather risk nuclear war . .

https://www.juancole.com/2022/02/neu...d-eastern.html

[Canoez]

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/ar...ussian-threats

[skuthorp]

"Views like mine are all over the news and media if you bother to look -and in fact are shared with around 60 percent of USAeans."
Piror to American involvement in WW2, with a much less diverse media, similar vuews existed and the Bund with their anti semitism was very strong in some places.
https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/news_hi...l_overview.pdf

[WszystekPoTrochu]

Views like mine are all over the news and media if you bother to look -and in fact are shared with around 60 percent of USAeans.

Being in the majority does not equal being right, being in the minority does not mean being an independent thinker.
What most people think may or may not be only important when a political party tries to do win elections, with or without intent of making what people think real.

55% percent of USAeans can't tell correctly where does chocolate milk come from

[johnw]

So your opinions are the only ones that matter ??

Views like mine are all over the news and media if you bother to look -and in fact are shared with around 60 percent of USAeans.

Dunno about Oz

You sound like your have read On the Beach and erroneously think you can escape the fallout down there in Oz.

The following is a deal the US could have had, but they would rather risk nuclear war . .

https://www.juancole.com/2022/02/neu...d-eastern.html

You apparently haven't read On the Beach. Oz doesn't escape the fallout. It's a book about how people deal with their impending and certain death.

Look, we're all worried about the possibility of nuclear war. Anyone born since WWII has lived with that possibility all their lives. President Biden has publicly worried about Armageddon. Ukrainian president Zelinsky has said he's worried about it.

The question is, how do we respond to it? If we normalize giving in to nuclear blackmail, it will become more common, and it seems to me the chances of the actual use of nuclear weapons will increase.

You say negotiations should end this war real soon, but on what terms? Do you agree with the terms Putin, and later, Elon Musk, have proposed, where Ukraine cedes the territory Russia is finding it can't defend, in return for the kind of cease fire that followed Russia's incursions into the Donbas in 2014? Wouldn't that look to Ukraine like an operational pause that would allow Russia to get its act together and invade further at a later date?

Here's what Zelinsky has to say on the topic:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63173443
Speaking in English at the presidential palace in Kyiv, President Zelensky said: "They begin to prepare their society. That's very dangerous.



"They are not ready to do it, to use it. But they begin to communicate. They don't know whether they'll use or not use it. I think it's dangerous to even speak about it."


He denied having called for strikes on Russia during an online event on Thursday, saying the word he had used in Ukrainian had been misunderstood.


The initial comment was denounced by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as "an appeal to start yet another world war", while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it demonstrated why Russia was right to launch its operation in Ukraine.


"After that translation," President Zelensky said, "they [the Russians] did their way, how it's useful for them, and began to retranslate it in other directions."


The interview happened hours after US President Joe Biden said that the Russian threat to use nuclear weapons had brought the world closer to "Armageddon" than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Cold War.


President Zelensky said action was needed now, as Russia's threats were a "risk for the whole planet". Moscow, he claimed, had "made a step already" by occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest nuclear station which President Putin is trying to turn into Russian property.



"The world can stop urgently the actions of Russian occupiers," President Zelensky said. "The world can implement the sanction package in such cases and do everything to make them leave the nuclear power plant."

[Tom Hunter]

Being in the majority does not equal being right, being in the minority does not mean being an independent thinker.
What most people think may or may not be only important when a political party tries to do win elections, with or without intent of making what people think real.

55% percent of USAeans can't tell correctly where does chocolate milk come from

Thank you, this is a very good point.

[Garret]

Being in the majority does not equal being right, being in the minority does not mean being an independent thinker.
What most people think may or may not be only important when a political party tries to do win elections, with or without intent of making what people think real.

55% percent of USAeans can't tell correctly where does chocolate milk come from

C'mon - everyone knows it comes from brown cows! Steak grows in styrofoam plastic wrapped packages too.

[sandtown]

I thought that you were opposed to personal attacks and straw men?.

Did you complain when several of us were called Rooskie Bots ??

No.

[sandtown]

If we normalize giving in to nuclear blackmail, it will become more common, and it seems to me the chances of the actual use of nuclear weapons will increase.:

So you reduce the chances of nuclear war by risking nuclear war ??

Makes perfect sense (insert sarcasm emoji here)

[ERGR]

So you reduce the chances of nuclear war by risking nuclear war ??

If you accept the terms of a blackmailer, you only invite more blackmail. That holds up also for nuclear blackmail.
/Erik

[lupussonic]

Sandtown, this is for you and for you only.

Realise if you can, your own situation. You are an ex soldier / killer now advocating for peace, paranoid and deeply worried about nuclear war.

Seems you didn't seem so worried when you were pumping lead into your 'enemies' flesh way back when, when you were too dumb and idiotic to think for yourself but now you have grown a consciousness and think you have all the answers? Man, stop talking.

Really, I'm sick of hearing your BS.

All your vets for peace shizzle is bull****. You think sailing around with a bunch of old damaged farts is going to bring your utopia?? You have no idea.

I have 4 generations of Royal Marines in my family, all as f*cked up as you. PLEASE stop your BS.

I'm sick of hearing it.

Get a useful vocation, because what you have now isn't one.

[johnw]

So you reduce the chances of nuclear war by risking nuclear war ??

Makes perfect sense (insert sarcasm emoji here)

So, you reduce the chances of nuclear war by encouraging nuclear blackmail?

Really, this is getting old. Instead of engaging in the actual things people have said, you just keep repeating that they are some kind of monsters who have no idea what nuclear war could mean. Stop this and engage in the conversation. As I said in the post you selectively quoted from, we all worry about nuclear war. The question is, how do we best avoid it?

You say the key is to negotiate peace, but that empty phrase never translates into any proposed action. If negotiations are to take place, what is negotiable?

You have yet to tell us, what should Russia do to bring Ukraine to the table? What should each side be prepared to sacrifice? Do you agree with the terms Elon Musk proposed?

Remember that Foreign Affairs article by Hill and Stent that you steered me to?

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russi...ntent=20220917

According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries. But as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in a July interview with his country’s state media, this compromise is no longer an option. Even giving Russia all of the Donbas is not enough. “Now the geography is different,” Lavrov asserted, in describing Russia’s short-term military aims. “It’s also Kherson and the Zaporizhzhya regions and a number of other territories.” The goal is not negotiation, but Ukrainian capitulation.

At any point, negotiations with Russia—if not handled carefully and with continued strong Western support for Ukraine’s defense and security—would merely facilitate an operational pause for Moscow. After a time, Russia would continue to try to undermine the Ukrainian government. Moscow would likely first attempt to take Odessa and other Black Sea ports with the goal of leaving Ukraine an economically inviable, landlocked country. If he succeeds in that, Putin would launch a renewed assault on Kyiv as well, with the aim of unseating the present government and installing a pro-Moscow puppet government. Putin’s war in Ukraine, then, will likely grind on for a long time. The main challenge for the West will be maintaining resolve and unity, as well as expanding international support for Ukraine and preventing sanctions evasion.

[johnw]

Did you complain when several of us were called Rooskie Bots ??

No.

I did object, but you continue the straw man arguments with me, and you continue to pretend that I don't care about avoiding nuclear war, which amounts to calling me either a fool or a knave. It really doesn't seem to make any difference how people treat you, your response is to lash out at all the people who try to talk to you.

[L.W. Baxter]

So your opinions are the only ones that matter ??

Views like mine are all over the news and media if you bother to look -and in fact are shared with around 60 percent of USAeans.

Dunno about Oz

You sound like your have read On the Beach and erroneously think you can escape the fallout down there in Oz.

The following is a deal the US could have had, but they would rather risk nuclear war . .

https://www.juancole.com/2022/02/neu...d-eastern.html

you've supplied yet another link in which ukraine is infantilized.

this time, ukraine should have been made a demilitarized buffer...between russia and the west.

no mention of the self determination of ukraine. hey, maybe they don't want to be a buffer state. maybe they don't want to be a demilitarized, easy victim for an aggressive neighbor.

maybe that's why ukraine applied for nato membership in '08, and again just this month. nato has been careful not to provoke russia into aggression, denying ukraine's application. in other words, the west has been plenty cautious.

if ukraine had not stood up and fought the russians to a standstill, the west would be wringing our hands and wondering "who is going to be our buffer state now?"

let's stop talking about ukraine as if they are only a pawn between russia and the u.s..

[Peerie Maa]

So, you reduce the chances of nuclear war by encouraging nuclear blackmail?

Really, this is getting old. Instead of engaging in the actual things people have said, you just keep repeating that they are some kind of monsters who have no idea what nuclear war could mean. Stop this and engage in the conversation. As I said in the post you selectively quoted from, we all worry about nuclear war. The question is, how do we best avoid it?

It seems to me that we need a rerun of the realization that the Chicxulub impact resulted in a nuclear winter that wiped out most lifeforms on the Earth. That bought the Soviet government to realize that Nuclear proliferation was a losing strategy.
Poootin, Kim Jong-un and other tinpot wannabees need to be reminded of that.

I hope that the crew of Sandtown's circumnavigation jaunt don't get into trouble when they visit North Korea, and thoroughly enjoy their trip.
Enjoying their trip is about all they can hope for, because you cannot uninvent technology. All you can do is agree ion what we have now, continuous deterrence. For all that they will achieve in persuading governments, they may as well stand in a circle and p!$$ in their neighbors pockets.

[sandtown]

let's stop talking about ukraine as if they are only a pawn between russia and the u.s..

the US treated Ukraine as a pawn with that coup in 2014,

and when they blocked the peace deal of April,

and when they refused to back up Zelensky's peace initiatives after his election.

The US foreign policy Blob treats most of the world as pawns most of the time.

But I have to say (again) that I really admire Zelensky for standing up to Trump's threats and laying the groundwork for the first impeachment.

The Z Man was under tremendous pressure to cave in to the extortion.

[sandtown]

Sandtown, this is for you and for you only.

Realise if you can, your own situation. You are an ex soldier / killer now advocating for peace, paranoid and deeply worried about nuclear war.

Seems you didn't seem so worried when you were pumping lead into your 'enemies' flesh way back when, when you were too dumb and idiotic to think for yourself but now you have grown a consciousness and think you have all the answers? Man, stop talking.

Really, I'm sick of hearing your BS.

All your vets for peace shizzle is bull****. You think sailing around with a bunch of old damaged farts is going to bring your utopia?? You have no idea.

I have 4 generations of Royal Marines in my family, all as f*cked up as you. PLEASE stop your BS.

I'm sick of hearing it.

Get a useful vocation, because what you have now isn't one.

I received that same sort of crap back in 2003 for being right about the invasion of Iraq.

Where were you back then ?? Chugging the Kool-Aid undoubtedly.

I am not going anywhere.

Got that ??

[L.W. Baxter]

the US treated Ukraine as a pawn with that coup in 2014,

and when they blocked the peace deal of April,

and when they refused to back up Zelensky's peace initiatives after his election.

The US foreign policy Blob treats most of the world as pawns most of the time.

But I have to say (again) that I really admire Zelensky for standing up to Trump's threats and laying the groundwork for the first impeachment.

The Z Man was under tremendous pressure to cave in to the extortion.

setting aside the existence of the "blob", let's talk turkey.

how did the u.s. "block the peace deal in april". what was the mechanism. this is at least the third time i have asked. what was the leverage?

how did the u.s. "refuse to back up zelensky's peace initiatives after his election"? what lever was pulled? what part of zelensky's peace initiatives required u.s. support, which were specifically denied, therefore making russian aggression inevitable.

as far as i'm aware, if ukraine was denied anything, it was denied a closer relationship with the west, denied a military alliance which might have scared russia off. wary of nuclear war, nato held ukraine at arms length. which is exactly what you seem to be advocating for, not "provoking" russia by threatening their "security".

so, putin saw in an isolated ukraine an opportunity to expand the russian empire. and if ukraine had been less resolute, putin would have succeeded. what were we gonna do if he rolled right into kiev? putin knew we would not respond militarily, only suing for peace. again, exactly the thing you advocate for, sandtown. the wrench in the works is ukraine, not going gently.

[C. Ross]

I found this persuasive:

https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/d...s-8aabefb03282

Very interesting. Of course it seemed obvious at the time of the killing to consider Ukraine as the source. Does Russia have a strong enough professional police corps able to identify the killer?

[johnw]

the US treated Ukraine as a pawn with that coup in 2014,

and when they blocked the peace deal of April,

and when they refused to back up Zelensky's peace initiatives after his election.

The US foreign policy Blob treats most of the world as pawns most of the time.

But I have to say (again) that I really admire Zelensky for standing up to Trump's threats and laying the groundwork for the first impeachment.

The Z Man was under tremendous pressure to cave in to the extortion.

The only real evidence you've supplied so far that America blocked the peace deal was an assertion by Stockman, and assertion by another of your 'realist' friends, and a piece in Responsible Statecraft that was deceptive about what Fiona Hill said and otherwise relied on a report from a Russian propaganda organ.

Characterizing the Maidan revolution as a western coup is just one more way you infantilize Ukraine. These are real people with real aspirations. But your statement is in keeping with Russian propaganda, so at least you are consistent.

Why did Zelensky's peace initiative require American assent? Couldn't the combatants reach a deal on their own, or do you still insist Ukraine has no agency in determining its fate?

I suppose it is comforting to think that someone runs the world, whether they are the Blob, the Illuminati, or the Masons. But blaming the Blob for everything wrong with the world won't cut it. Tell us how they achieved their nefarious ends.

And please answer the questions I, and others, have asked.

You say the key is to negotiate peace, but that empty phrase never translates into any proposed action. If negotiations are to take place, what is negotiable?

You have yet to tell us, what should Russia do to bring Ukraine to the table? What should each side be prepared to sacrifice? Do you agree with the terms Elon Musk proposed?

[johnw]

I received that same sort of crap back in 2003 for being right about the invasion of Iraq.

Where were you back then ?? Chugging the Kool-Aid undoubtedly.

I am not going anywhere.

Got that ??

I opposed the Iraq 2003 war, and I'm sure many others on this forum did as well. Your insights are not as special as you seem to think.

[WszystekPoTrochu]

the US treated Ukraine as a pawn with that coup in 2014

There seems to be a disconnect... what freaking coup?

[johnw]

There seems to be a disconnect... what freaking coup?

Russian propaganda refers to the Maidan revolution as a coup. Sandtown buys it, because he thinks democracy is always manipulated and consent is always manufactured. He can no more imagine a genuine democratic movement than Putin can.

It's sad.

[StevenBauer]

Back to Ukraine news - seems the Kerch Bridge is burning.

EA089E5A-F7B9-46C9-83F8-058D15569503.jpg

[skuthorp]

https://odessa-journal.com/a-militar...-be-destroyed/

[sandtown]

I opposed the Iraq 2003 war, and I'm sure many others on this forum did as well. .

Did you do so out loud and in public ?? If not, it means nada.

[sandtown]

Russian propaganda refers to the Maidan revolution as a coup. Sandtown buys it,.

That is bull-pucky and you know it.

As I posted above, MANY observers including Vets For Peace, were reporting that way back in 2014.

[epoxyboy]

Kerch bridge is totally out of action, roadbed collapsed, fuel tanker train massively on fire. Holy chit, that's going to stir things up.
edit, there might be one lane of the road still standing. For now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaUkrai...t=share_button

Pete

[sandtown]

Back to Ukraine news - seems the Kerch Bridge is burning.

Right, but only after the US gave Ukr permission to blast it.

It is a US proxy war.

[skuthorp]

Since the invention of long range guided rockets and nukes they have all been proxy wars. No head of government or politician wants his friends and familiy cooked in the first half hour of a big one, let alone themselves. And that applies on all sides…………. unless the man with the trigger is a psychopath………or a dictator determined to take it all with him. Such persons are more common than we think, the man who after his wife tires of his behaviour and she leaves him, then kills the whole family and himself is one of them.

[sandtown]

Clare Daly to the EU parliament.

You go ma'm !!!

"In fact, most people seem to get off on the fact that it's escalating," said Daly, an Independent. "And at this precise moment, of course, as usual, the voices challenging the rush to war are attacked and silenced, smeared as traitors, cronies, Putin puppets, Kremlin stooges, Russian agents."
"Frankly, it's pathetic," she continued. "And I don't make the comparison lightly, but the crudeness and cynicism of these slurs coming from mainstream E.U. parties might as well have been written by [Nazi war criminal] Hermann Göring, who infamously said that even though people never want war, they can be brought to war with threats and smears."

[skuthorp]

And we may yet get to that, the Russian propaganda machine is doing it's best. I have been calling the Ukraine conflict 'the Phoney War' (the phoney war) for some time. The difference being that Nato is not going to invade, and the invader seems to have run out of puff. But time will tell Sandy, in the meantime check the sky every morning for mushroom clouds…...

[epoxyboy]

Screenshot_20221008-183128.jpg

[epoxyboy]

And from the other side.
Screenshot_20221008-185341.jpg