Ukraine War

[Thatguy 8478]

4 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

y'all remember when everyone got war boners over the smart bomb technology and other death toys during the gulf war? holy shit I can't imagine priapism they get watching shit like this. reads like a goddamn video game

 

From the comments.....

 

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Thatguy

[Thatguy 8478]

2 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

You are correct on these points but all of this stepped up when we started meddling in their affairs over....Ukraine. Putin flipped his wig when he saw his boy Yanokuvych have to haul ass outta Dodge in his pajamas or whatever and rightly or wrongly he blames the US for those protests and he thinks he could be next. 

And all those bullet points are mere annoyances compared to a possible ww3. Five years ago I was right there with you, but now I have come to believe that Fox News is the greater enemy domestically and China the more fearsome adversary globally. Yes Fox and the Russkies can walk in lockstep, but Fox is far better at it than they are. Our brainwashed elders and friends did not get there through RT (unless they are weirdoes like one of my aunts) but through Fox. 

  You are my boy blue, but come on man. China, while a superpower, has stuck to themselves. Russia has been swinging their dick around for a century. That's like saying we should be more worried about the big black dude sitting in the corner because he looks menacing even though he hasn't done anything but drink his coffee, meanwhile we are ignoring the dude who has already been to prison 3 different times for stabbing random people.

  We turned our back on Russia in 14 and they took Crimea. We continued and they hacked us, meddled with our infrastructure, and crashed an election. We still sat on our hands and here we are. If you guys don't see that they will not stop then I am not sure what to tell you. This is classic bullying 101 that we all learned in grade school. Bullys keep bullying until you stand up to them. It's time to draw the line in the sand before this dude starts rolling over all of Eastern Europe. And before you say he can't let me remind you that Russians don't fight the way we do. They will gladly sacrifice their entire male population to claim victory.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

You are my boy blue, but come on man. China, while a superpower, has stuck to themselves.

Tell that to Tibet. 

And just because the other non-Han Chinese who have been captured inside China and would as soon rather not, like the Uighurs.

Come on, man, Putin is not going to kill his entire male population on some Genghis Khan like war of total conquest. To even be able to consider that, you need to fuckstomp your first mid-major opponent and he is failing at that totally. We really think this war machine is gonna hydra out of Ukraine into Poland, Romania and Slovakia, while he simultaneously moves in on the Baltics?

All that materiel and all those soldiers ain't gonna replace themselves, esp since the country is now a pariah. 

[Dahobbs 17420]

6 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Tell that to Tibet. 

And just because the other non-Han Chinese who have been captured inside China and would as soon rather not, like the Uighurs.

Come on, man, Putin is not going to kill his entire male population on some Genghis Khan like war of total conquest. To even be able to consider that, you need to fuckstomp your first mid-major opponent and he is failing at that totally. We really think this war machine is gonna hydra out of Ukraine into Poland, Romania and Slovakia, while he simultaneously moves in on the Baltics?

All that materiel and all those soldiers ain't gonna replace themselves, esp since the country is now a pariah. 

Fine. Go tell the Ukrainians to stop fighting. Let us know how that goes for you. 

[Gil Bang 25865]

The Big Dog and George W. went together today to a Ukrainian church in Chicago today, and laid sunflowers at the statue of some saint.  

 

Nice gesture, and it's nice to remember that we have ex-presidents that aren't total cunts.  4 out of 5 anyway. 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Gil Bang

[Neonmoon 38127]

3 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

You are correct on these points but all of this stepped up when we started meddling in their affairs over....Ukraine. Putin flipped his wig when he saw his boy Yanokuvych have to haul ass outta Dodge in his pajamas or whatever and rightly or wrongly he blames the US for those protests and he thinks he could be next. 

And all those bullet points are mere annoyances compared to a possible ww3. Five years ago I was right there with you, but now I have come to believe that Fox News is the greater enemy domestically and China the more fearsome adversary globally. Yes Fox and the Russkies can walk in lockstep, but Fox is far better at it than they are. Our brainwashed elders and friends did not get there through RT (unless they are weirdoes like one of my aunts) but through Fox. 

In this one post, you have blamed the US for the 2014 Maidan Revolution and also said Putin blaming the USA could be wrong 

You further said Fox News is the greatest threat domestically ignoring the Russian talking points they’re echoing and why they say them, while at the same time say China is the more fearsome adversary globally ignoring the fact that Russia is the one attacking our elections.

[bolverk 29360]

3 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

You are correct on these points but all of this stepped up when we started meddling in their affairs over....Ukraine. Putin flipped his wig when he saw his boy Yanokuvych have to haul ass outta Dodge in his pajamas or whatever and rightly or wrongly he blames the US for those protests and he thinks he could be next. 

Stop saying this. It was Putin who's been meddling in Ukrainian affairs.

It's important to recall the timeline of events here. In 2012, Ukraine and the EU commenced negotiations on their Association Agreement. Then-president Yanukovych was  initially supportive of that agreement and pushed for it to be approved after passing several laws to meet EU standards. In 2013, Putin "flipped his wig" and changed customs regulations that stopped all imports from Ukraine, causing their exports to immediately crash. Yanukovych then reneged on the deal, which then resulted in widespread protests leading to Euromaidan and Yanukovych's ouster and flight to Russia. Putin then "flipped his wig" again and invaded Ukraine.

And the above doesn't even include the Orange Revolution in 2004 which was caused by a corrupt and rigged election during which the pro-Western opponent of Yanukovych (Russia's boy) was poisoned and disfigured by dioxin - an unfortunate malady that seems all too common for people who Putin doesn't like. Maybe he "flipped his wig" then too when Ukraine was already looking West.

[bolverk 29360]

44 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Come on, man, Putin is not going to kill his entire male population on some Genghis Khan like war of total conquest. To even be able to consider that, you need to fuckstomp your first mid-major opponent and he is failing at that totally. We really think this war machine is gonna hydra out of Ukraine into Poland, Romania and Slovakia, while he simultaneously moves in on the Baltics?

All that materiel and all those soldiers ain't gonna replace themselves, esp since the country is now a pariah. 

Yesterday, you were freaking out about the possibility of him going nuclear, which would also result in him killing his entire male population. You're just not being very consistent with your lines of thinking about this subject at all.

[Hagbard Celine 10734]

10 hours ago, Captainant said:

The interesting thing about the Holocaust is that (as far as academics have found) there was never a meeting or explicit plan to do a Holocaust.

off-track but as we have high standards for accuracy here in the CR.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference

highly recommended:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(2001_film)

[cactusflinthead 27593]

1 hour ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Come on, man, Putin is not going to kill his entire male population on some Genghis Khan like war of total conquest

He is working on it one battalion at a time. I'm not sure why you're digging this hole. It keeps getting deeper and you're calling in a backhoe. 

[Bullneck 18976]

2 hours ago, Thatguy said:

From the comments.....

 

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

Hey, did y’all know Putin is a christo-fascist supremacist trying to create his own Reich in Russia?  Kinda sounds like some other guy from history. 

[ultimaton 2966]

5 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Hey, did y’all know Putin is a christo-fascist supremacist trying to create his own Reich in Russia?  Kinda sounds like some other guy from history. 

What's his stance on probiotics

[Nivek 16808]

  You are my boy blue, but come on man. China, while a superpower, has stuck to themselves. Russia has been swinging their dick around for a century. That's like saying we should be more worried about the big black dude sitting in the corner because he looks menacing even though he hasn't done anything but drink his coffee, meanwhile we are ignoring the dude who has already been to prison 3 different times for stabbing random people.
  We turned our back on Russia in 14 and they took Crimea. We continued and they hacked us, meddled with our infrastructure, and crashed an election. We still sat on our hands and here we are. If you guys don't see that they will not stop then I am not sure what to tell you. This is classic bullying 101 that we all learned in grade school. Bullys keep bullying until you stand up to them. It's time to draw the line in the sand before this dude starts rolling over all of Eastern Europe. And before you say he can't let me remind you that Russians don't fight the way we do. They will gladly sacrifice their entire male population to claim victory.

We were fucking with eachother for a long time. The only time we stood down it seems was when trump was in office. When they attacked our 21 soldiers in Syria with 500 men and lost, our orange idiot did nothing.

Without the idiot in office, I am sure we fuck with them back but don’t advertise it to all.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33825]

4 hours ago, Thatguy said:

From the comments.....

 

 

That is un fucking believable. Amazing.

Btw, Putin lost this war the second he made it conventional. He's using WW2 tactics against weapons literally a one armed, one eyed person can operate. Oh, and they don't have legs either. He should have stuck to the cyber and mental wars he was winning. Russia can throw millions of people at a task and take the world to its knees, but only if it's behind a keyboard. Clearly it's not behind the controls of a tank or a plane or a helicopter. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

1 hour ago, cactusflinthead said:

He is working on it one battalion at a time. I'm not sure why you're digging this hole. It keeps getting deeper and you're calling in a backhoe. 

You can't wish lost men and materiel into existence, esp when you are country of 130m with an economy the size of Texas. He had the nerve to invade Ukraine because he thought it would be relatively easy. It hasn't been, not by a long shot. Why on earth would he think picking a war with NATO would be easier? Why do we seem to believe he'd be able to knife through even 25 miles of NATO territory with what we be raining down on him from above? And on his cities at home? He's having a hard time dealing with ground forces armed with glorified bottle rockets.

 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

Yesterday, you were freaking out about the possibility of him going nuclear, which would also result in him killing his entire male population. You're just not being very consistent with your lines of thinking about this subject at all.

You are moving the goalposts. Killing the entire male population suggests a conventional war. Nuclear war would take out the entire population. 

[cactusflinthead 27593]

Just now, MaybeACoordinator said:

You can't wish lost men and materiel into existence, esp when you are country of 130m with an economy the size of Texas. He had the nerve to invade Ukraine because he thought it would be relatively easy. It hasn't been, not by a long shot. Why on earth would he think picking a war with NATO would be easier? Why do we seem to believe he'd be able to knife through even 25 miles of NATO territory with what we be raining down on him from above? And on his cities at home? He's having a hard time dealing with ground forces armed with glorified bottle rockets.

 

Well yeah that's what we've been saying. He's lost more men in 23 days than we did in 20 years of Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what you're arguing in favor of.

[brakeman 28214]

 

 

LOL.

Wow, that's gonna sting.

[cactusflinthead 27593]

 

[Hagbard Celine 10734]

9 hours ago, C-Man said:

Pretty interesting read on why Russia hasn't established air supremacy in Ukraine.

https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/russian-aircraft-shoot-down-ukraine/?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0U4C_gh3kZcf1gLSGVQfoBowgUGo4cQYhvht6aJ966eias2ShO1DVDlQo

 

another high-quality must read

and another proof of why we don't need to create a no-fly zone, there already is one

and air superiority would not stop the indiscriminate rocket attacks which is what is killing the most civilians

[bolverk 29360]

1 minute ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

You are moving the goalposts. Killing the entire male population suggests a conventional war. Nuclear war would take out the entire population. 

I'm not moving the goal posts. In both of those cases, there's an inherent irrationality to the confrontational act:

1. Conventional warfare against Nato would result in the destruction of the Russian nation due to the loss of the entire male population. You stated "He'd be crazy to do that."
2. Nuclear warfare against Nato would result in the destruction of the Russian nation, and all the world, due to the loss of the entire world's population. You stated "He's liable to do that."

So, he is not crazy enough to risk losing his nation while also stating that he is crazy enough to risk losing his nation and the whole world. Those are wholly illogical and contradictory thoughts. In either case, he loses his nation whether he's crazy or not.

It doesn't make any sense even in the jilted lover circumstance of "if I can't have her, no one can." He can't have her in either scenario. He's either crazy, or he's not.

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

LOL

https://thehill.com/policy/international/509269-trump-taps-retired-army-col-douglas-macgregor-as-next-ambassador-to

Edited March 19, 2022 by Hugo Stiglitz

[HenryJames 65868]

.

Edited March 19, 2022 by HenryJames

[Hornius Emeritus 12403]

4 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

The Big Dog and George W. went together today to a Ukrainian church in Chicago today, and laid sunflowers at the statue of some saint.  

 

Nice gesture, and it's nice to remember that we have ex-presidents that aren't total cunts.  4 out of 5 anyway. 

It was St Alfonso. Afterwards they had a pancake breakfast. George W. stole the margarine.

[mchookem 16095]

4 hours ago, bolverk said:

Yesterday, you were freaking out about the possibility of him going nuclear, which would also result in him killing his entire male population. You're just not being very consistent with your lines of thinking about this subject at all.

 

[Guest Lobo]

32 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

.

That guy literally looks like Mike Pompeo fucked Lindsey Graham 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33825]

6 minutes ago, Lobo said:

That guy literally looks like Mike Pompeo fucked Lindsey Graham 

[Thatguy 8478]

5 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Tell that to Tibet. 

And just because the other non-Han Chinese who have been captured inside China and would as soon rather not, like the Uighurs.

Come on, man, Putin is not going to kill his entire male population on some Genghis Khan like war of total conquest. To even be able to consider that, you need to fuckstomp your first mid-major opponent and he is failing at that totally. We really think this war machine is gonna hydra out of Ukraine into Poland, Romania and Slovakia, while he simultaneously moves in on the Baltics?

All that materiel and all those soldiers ain't gonna replace themselves, esp since the country is now a pariah. 

    Escalation is in the Russian playbook. It's all they've ever known. They just keep throwing bodies at the problem until the problem goes away. It's what they did in WW1 losing 2 million soldiers, and close to 10 million in WW2. Russians have no problem sacrificing their own for the greater good.

[Sawbonz 27375]

 

1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

I'm not moving the goal posts. In both of those cases, there's an inherent irrationality to the confrontational act:

1. Conventional warfare against Nato would result in the destruction of the Russian nation due to the loss of the entire male population. You stated "He'd be crazy to do that."
2. Nuclear warfare against Nato would result in the destruction of the Russian nation, and all the world, due to the loss of the entire world's population. You stated "He's liable to do that."

So, he is not crazy enough to risk losing his nation while also stating that he is crazy enough to risk losing his nation and the whole world. Those are wholly illogical and contradictory thoughts. In either case, he loses his nation whether he's crazy or not.

It doesn't make any sense even in the jilted lover circumstance of "if I can't have her, no one can." He can't have her in either scenario. He's either crazy, or he's not.

 

I am speaking in the moment of the facts on the ground and you are speaking of some grand invasion that is about as likely as a Detroit Lions Super Bowl win. We are much, much closer to nuclear war than we are to Putin's army marching on Warsaw.

Right now he is the bully who got his ass kicked. Great. High fives all around. That all changes when the little pussy goes home and gets his AK out of the closet, returns to the scene, and opens fire.

Just as guns are a great equalizer, so are nukes. I mean, if he really wanted to push this to the limit, and he does invade NATO, we would be obligated to respond in kind. There is no way he wins that war aside from the Charlie Sheen "winning" of planetary nuclear winter. He is gambling that he can make a Belarussia out of Ukraine and we won't go to the mat for that. And we shouldn't. And we can all step back from the brink and one day perhaps a chisel out a truly neutral Ukraine. Fuck, American Indians were able to do this shit. I remember reading that the longest word in the history of languages was some Massachusetts Indigenous word designating a lake that divided two warring tribes. The name meant "you fish on your side, we fish on our side, nobody fishes in the middle."

Although in Ukraine's case, I'd advise letting everybody fish in the middle. Make it the entrepot between east and west for trade and banking. Make it too valuable for either side to want to flatten. Just disarm it as near as possible and let the money flow.

[C-Man 26992]

2 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

another high-quality must read

and another proof of why we don't need to create a no-fly zone, there already is one

and air superiority would not stop the indiscriminate rocket attacks which is what is killing the most civilians

Yeah, sounds like the Stingers and whatever other under-the-table military equipment we are sending over into Ukraine is helping create an extremely hostile environment for Russian fixed-wing aircraft and helos.

[Underdog 28437]

9 hours ago, brakeman said:

 

 

LOL.

Wow, that's gonna sting.

Very cool gesture, unfortunately, this will be the fate of those brave men... 

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

Wish we would have started with full embargo…in 2017…or 14

[Huckleberry 32685]

7 hours ago, Thatguy said:

    Escalation is in the Russian playbook. It's all they've ever known. They just keep throwing bodies at the problem until the problem goes away. It's what they did in WW1 losing 2 million soldiers, and close to 10 million in WW2. Russians have no problem sacrificing their own for the greater good.

You're arguing with someone who analyzed things after years of evidence and determined Charlie Strong is a good head coach and shouldn't have been fired. 

[956 Worldwide 34314]

6 hours ago, C-Man said:

Yeah, sounds like the Stingers and whatever other under-the-table military equipment we are sending over into Ukraine is helping create an extremely hostile environment for Russian fixed-wing aircraft and helos.

Wasn’t exactly under the table.  We advertised most of what was going in and we still are.  The point was/is not only to equip the Ukrainians to defend themselves but communicate costs and commitments to Russia as well.  They didn’t listen closely. I’m not saying there isn’t assistance that we choose not to advertise, but the vast bulk of it was clearly stated. 

[Thatguy 8478]

6 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

I am speaking in the moment of the facts on the ground and you are speaking of some grand invasion that is about as likely as a Detroit Lions Super Bowl win. We are much, much closer to nuclear war than we are to Putin's army marching on Warsaw.

Right now he is the bully who got his ass kicked. Great. High fives all around. That all changes when the little pussy goes home and gets his AK out of the closet, returns to the scene, and opens fire.

Just as guns are a great equalizer, so are nukes. I mean, if he really wanted to push this to the limit, and he does invade NATO, we would be obligated to respond in kind. There is no way he wins that war aside from the Charlie Sheen "winning" of planetary nuclear winter. He is gambling that he can make a Belarussia out of Ukraine and we won't go to the mat for that. And we shouldn't. And we can all step back from the brink and one day perhaps a chisel out a truly neutral Ukraine. Fuck, American Indians were able to do this shit. I remember reading that the longest word in the history of languages was some Massachusetts Indigenous word designating a lake that divided two warring tribes. The name meant "you fish on your side, we fish on our side, nobody fishes in the middle."

Although in Ukraine's case, I'd advise letting everybody fish in the middle. Make it the entrepot between east and west for trade and banking. Make it too valuable for either side to want to flatten. Just disarm it as near as possible and let the money flow.

   You assume that Russia lost the war. How? That's only from our perspective. They have mismanaged it, but they have not lost. For all intensive purposes they look like they are trying to grind down Ukrainian resolve and outlast Western support. In their own country they are pumping people full of anti-west propaganda, and as you have seen the Russian people by and large are buying it.

  Why you are confused about that is beyond me, considering you were stark dead in the middle of watching the US headed towards Autocracy herself, and a good portion of the American people were eating up having their own "strong man" leader saying the most ridiculous, embarrassing shit in public for 4 years. Those people were running around claiming you were UnAmerican or not Patriotic if you didn't believe in their leader. And the flags. Whenever you have seen that many flags in history what comes after has never been good. Appropriation of the national flag for themselves is straight out of the Authoritarian Playbook. Luckily we have enough checks and balances in place.

  I am sure you know the phrase "If you don't know history you are doomed to repeat it". We are seeing Putin pull out the Adolf Hitler playbook. Just like then we are assuming all he wants is Ukraine, until its not. These kinds of men want power, and when they get it they want more. Everyone is telling you that this dude wants to recreate the USSR. The moves he is making at home suggest that is indeed what he is trying to do. If that is so Ukraine is just the beginning. If Ukraine loses and Zelensky is ousted, they will install a puppet regime. That regime can merely hand the keys to the kingdom over to Putin over dinner and a glass of wine one night.

Authoritarian Checklist below. Read all the talking points. Sound familiar?

 

https://verfassungsblog.de/the-authoritarian-regime-survival-guide/

[Bama Chick 28596]

That guy literally looks like Mike Pompeo fucked Lindsey Graham 

That’s a man no woman has ever fucked willingly.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

26 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

   You assume that Russia lost the war. How? That's only from our perspective. They have mismanaged it, but they have not lost. For all intensive purposes they look like they are trying to grind down Ukrainian resolve and outlast Western support. In their own country they are pumping people full of anti-west propaganda, and as you have seen the Russian people by and large are buying it.

  Why you are confused about that is beyond me, considering you were stark dead in the middle of watching the US headed towards Autocracy herself, and a good portion of the American people were eating up having their own "strong man" leader saying the most ridiculous, embarrassing shit in public for 4 years. Those people were running around claiming you were UnAmerican or not Patriotic if you didn't believe in their leader. And the flags. Whenever you have seen that many flags in history what comes after has never been good. Appropriation of the national flag for themselves is straight out of the Authoritarian Playbook. Luckily we have enough checks and balances in place.

  I am sure you know the phrase "If you don't know history you are doomed to repeat it". We are seeing Putin pull out the Adolf Hitler playbook. Just like then we are assuming all he wants is Ukraine, until its not. These kinds of men want power, and when they get it they want more. Everyone is telling you that this dude wants to recreate the USSR. The moves he is making at home suggest that is indeed what he is trying to do. If that is so Ukraine is just the beginning. If Ukraine loses and Zelensky is ousted, they will install a puppet regime. That regime can merely hand the keys to the kingdom over to Putin over dinner and a glass of wine one night.

Authoritarian Checklist below. Read all the talking points. Sound familiar?

 

https://verfassungsblog.de/the-authoritarian-regime-survival-guide/

He is not Hitler if only because he is incapable of being Hitler. He doesn't have the resources -- human or natural -- to fight against NATO. To me, nationalistic fervor within Russia is immaterial if they don't have the clout to match. He does not have superior tanks or airplanes. He has not developed a new set of tactics on the order of the blitzkrieg. In fact, he is basically still using cumbersome blitzkrieg tactics now, and is paying the consequences. With NATO air support, their levels of attrition would approach that of the Krauts at Stalingrad or the Iraqis on the highway of death. (This argument that Ukraine is just a speed bump to empire reminds me more and more of how Saddam was allegedly going to blaze through Kuwait and take down Saudi.)

I did not mean to imply he has the lost the war. It does seem to me like a Pyrrhic victory, in that they have been exposed as a paper tiger. He will win this fight but the underdog caught him under the chin and put him on the canvas for a three-count. 

[WhatTheBuck 28700]

21 hours ago, Thatguy said:

  Don't be obtuse. lol. The point is people use probies for a lot of different things and they work. Now back to your 20 yr old MREs.

Have the Russians encircled Kyiv? Yes or no?

[WhatTheBuck 28700]

10 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

It was St Alfonso. Afterwards they had a pancake breakfast. George W. stole the margarine.

*Alfonzo

*mar-juh-reen

[cactusflinthead 27593]

"The go-to notion that “Democrats have endangered your family” in every international moment from Vietnam to 9/11 is not about altering Democratic foreign policy or improving our national security; it is about peeling off White, working-class (and lately, Hispanic working-class) voters and turning them into reliable Republicans. The idea that Democrats are overcommitted to diplomacy and international institutions became standard GOP messaging long ago."

 

[Tuco 5076]

{Meant to quote thatguys “intensive purposes”, but fucked it up. }
It’s “intents and purposes”, which is more than just grammar-smack. There is no way he will achieve his intent or purpose of this invasion. Putin will never fully control Ukraine and his paper tiger military has been exposed.

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

13 minutes ago, Tuco said:

{Meant to quote thatguys “intensive purposes”, but fucked it up. }
It’s “intents and purposes”, which is more than just grammar-smack. There is no way he will achieve his intent or purpose of this invasion. Putin will never fully control Ukraine and his paper tiger military has been exposed.

agreed, and Putin will never get his French benefits from Ukraine that he so desperately desires. 

[Nivek 16808]

On 3/18/2022 at 3:24 AM, Thatguy said:

  Hitler wasn't doing that at the onset either my friend.

Of course, but he was setting up the stage all along.   Putin doesn't want to murder people he can use as cannon fodder.   

On 3/18/2022 at 3:28 AM, MaybeACoordinator said:

Not sure what you are referring to but I don't think whether Moldova falls under the Russian sphere of influence or that of the west is worth a single American life. Call me a pussy, or call me Machiavellian, or some combo, but all of this goes back to Thucydides: Strong nations do what they will, weak nations endure what they must. It would be nice if our rulers operated by any other rule than that, but they don't. Our gov't doesn't give a shit about the Ukrainian people save for those of Ukrainian descent or have a Ukrainian / anti-Russian voting bloc. (Chicago, etc.) 

If we really gave a fuck about oppressed minorities, there would be a Kurdish state, a Tibetan state, a Uighurstan, a Palestinian state. 

We did a good job of bringing a good deal of the former Warsaw Bloc into NATO: the Baltics, Hungary, Czechia/Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Poland. We pushed the Iron Curtain back hundreds of miles and brough democracy and self-determination to millions of people, but we cannot take it to them all. 

Moldova and the map, was a comment about the Belarus puppet leader projecting how they plan to incorporate Moldova (he showed a map of this).   

You misread this I think.   We care about Tibet and others, but the risk-reward isn't there for us as a nation.   Just like France dragged their ass to help us out in the late 1700's.  One needs to be pragmatic.   

[Nivek 16808]

On 3/18/2022 at 2:33 AM, Bama Chick said:

Not yet he isn’t.

And I’m sure the rash of “Russians falling out of windows” and accidentally getting poisoned with polonium is just a tragic coincidence.

There is a big gap between murdering opposition members and invading neighbors and mass murdering on a scale never seen before which includes needing to cut costs for the murder because bullets become too expensive.      But I guess if you want to see hitler everywhere then I guess you see hitler everywhere.    Which diminishes the real horror that was Nazi Germany.  

[Nivek 16808]

On 3/18/2022 at 8:01 AM, Captainant said:

IMO, I think the comparison is warranted from a civics and government perspective. Hitler used the levers of government as a weapon against his enemies and used his domestic media apparatus to stoke support for a war of aggression.

The interesting thing about the Holocaust is that (as far as academics have found) there was never a meeting or explicit plan to do a Holocaust. They were all just racist shit heels that egged each other on, and combined with a culture of "agree or be purged" that didn't check their radicalism, ultimately led to the horror that happened.

It's pretty important to call out parallels when they happen. Its how we learn from history and avoid repetition.

As I type this, putin is purging his military in the name of purity. He is using fascist suppression tactics to dominate his people. Hitler, being the last dictator to invade Kyiv, seems like a fairly fit comparison.

How is this different from any other tyrannical leader?  

Drawing parallels is fine when it is appropriate.  It is not here.  Hitler and Putin are not alike in their motivations or actions.  I mean both were Surly manlets and wore pants so I guess a lot of you need to be watched.    Putin is purging people who question his motives and their dedication to his cause for subjugating Ukraine.  Once again, this is not a mass murder campaign where people were literally rounded up, had everything stolen from them (including the gold from their teeth) and put in gas chambers and then cremated in mass.    This argument is sophomoric at best.     

 

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

this Ukraine war doesn't come close to the mass murder of 10% of the 1980s Afghan population by the 10 year Soviet invasion, far worse than Ukraine will ever get.  Saddam's war with Iran was much worse (for both sides) - guess who we supported.  Nothing will resemble WW2 / Holocaust but a few in the last 100 years are in the ballpark -- Armenia, Rwanda, Cambodia.  Ukraine isn't as bad as the ones mentioned; refugees in the others didn't have the luxury of internet or nice trains to depart the country with food, clothing and shelter readily available within hours. The USSR planted tens of thousands of landmines in Afghanistan to blow up and maim families as they walked across the desert for days, pure hell for a people who already lived in a brutal landscape.  Forgot to mention Syria which is a ghoulish indescribable madness. So no, Ukraine is luxury compared to other situations. 

[SaucyJack 3484]

14 hours ago, ultimaton said:

What's his stance on probiotics

Not taking any more this Spring.  The numbers don't add up.

[956 Worldwide 34314]

21 hours ago, bolverk said:

Decent write-up on Rachel Blevins, the young co-host from Texas for RT.

 https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texan-face-of-rt-america/

If the full article is tldr, these four paragraphs on her background kind of says it all:

Blevins’s family moved from Colorado to Mineral Wells, an economically struggling town of around 15,000, when she was eleven. She attended Community Christian School, a small, private religious institution, where she graduated as valedictorian in 2013. A scholarship landed her at Texas Tech, where she began taking journalism classes. After her professors warned that young journalists usually have to toil for years covering local crime and local elections, Blevins said she planned to switch majors—that is, until one of her professors assigned her and her classmates to conduct an official interview with a source. She chose the topic of government control of media. Her father, a regular listener of talk radio, suggested she interview Ben Swann, a TV journalist originally from El Paso who has alternated between stints as an award-winning major-market local TV anchor and an enthusiastic promulgator of conspiracy theories—sometimes at the same time. When they met, Swann had a short-lived radio show on the Republic Broadcasting Network, a fringe Texas-based outlet that has repeatedly featured hard-core white supremacists and Holocaust deniers. 

Blevins says the interview helped open her eyes to what she terms “independent journalists” and “independent networks.” Facebook’s algorithm had catalyzed the explosive growth of viral content farms, many of them seat-of-the-pants publishers that specialized in sensational and conspiratorial stories—and it just so happened that Swann was launching a website, Truth in Media, that needed writers. “I was kind of in the place of saying, ‘Okay, well, I don’t have much experience, but I can try.’ And so I started out writing for him.” By June, she was regularly freelancing for the site.

Swann was also a regular guest on RT America at the time, sometimes echoing Kremlin propaganda. In one 2014 segment, he averred that “any credible evidence does not seem to exist” that Russian-backed insurgents in Ukraine were responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17—an argument that was part of a larger campaign by Putin and RT to sow confusion about who was responsible for the 298 deaths that resulted. (An RT reporter resigned on air in disgust over the outlet’s coverage of the incident.) Years later, when Blevins had her own RT America show, Swann would pop up as a guest; in one of her last shows, he was introduced as a “crypto analyst.” 

It didn’t take long for Blevins to get noticed by RT higher-ups. Just a few months into her freelancing gig at Truth in Media, during the fall semester of her sophomore year, the news director for RT America saw one of Blevins’s stories and reached out to offer her a job as a reporter. “I said, ‘Hey, I’m still in college; I’m going to get this degree. I will reach back out, and let’s keep in touch and basically keep the networking going until I graduate.’ ” The offer might seem odd, or premature, but it was standard practice for RT. A 2020 Oxford study, based on interviews with 23 RT journalists, found that the network’s management deliberately recruited journalists with little to no experience, in order “to be able to mold the newly hired journalists and shape their minds.”

Quote

Blevins, for all her pro-Kremlin messaging, had never quite fit the stereotype that might leap to mind when one thinks of Putin’s American puppets. For lack of a better term, she came across as a normal young American journalist, passionate and seemingly sincere. But she’d been with RT America for three and a half years, and she continues to vociferously defend its journalism. 

“She never fit the stereotype except for constantly praising the Kremlin and also “Kremlin, Moscow” was her employer’s W2 address.” Fuck, Texas Monthly, you better sit down the copy editor to talk about that one.

Overall a great piece, TM still writes good shit.