Nobody interested in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

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Pepe
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15 Feb 2023, 6:36 am

envirozentinel wrote:

Well, Russia shouldn't have invaded a sovereign country namely Ukraine in the first place. I think Putin has been in power far too long and when someone's been at the helm that long they invariably seem to go off the rails, become megalomaniacs and since they're not immortal they want some sort of glory / legacy which they can twist to make them seem the innocents.

This.

The same thing applies to Xi.

magz
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15 Feb 2023, 6:39 am

Pepe wrote:

envirozentinel wrote:

This.

The same thing applies to Xi.

Potentially - he broke the two-cadence rule.
I find it more dangerous than it may seem.

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Mikah
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15 Feb 2023, 6:50 am

Pepe wrote:

On the bright side, Russia is becoming less of a threat and will be neutered for a decade or more.
The Russian Federation may even fall apart.

They never were much of a threat really, not since most of the Soviet army vanished into rust. They can turn Ukraine upside-down but that's pretty much their limit militarily, apart from making sure everyone loses in a nuclear missile exchange.

magz wrote:

The argument that the one responsible for a crime is the one committing it?
Well, if you refuse to accept it, that's your problem.

If you refuse to accept that intimidation through needless and provocative military expansion and making a country feel unsafe and like it has no non-violent recourse can lead to such events - that is your problem. Let's hope you never get into politics, we'd all be dead in six months.

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TwilightPrincess
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15 Feb 2023, 6:53 am

Quote:

They never were much of a threat really, not since most of the Soviet army vanished into rust.

Haven’t they done a bit of rebuilding since that era?

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TwilightPrincess
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15 Feb 2023, 6:54 am

magz wrote:

Mikah wrote:

And around and around the argument goes...

The argument that the one responsible for a crime is the one committing it?
Well, if you refuse to accept it, that's your problem.

This.

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Mikah
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15 Feb 2023, 6:57 am

Twilightprincess wrote:

Quote:

They never were much of a threat really, not since most of the Soviet army vanished into rust.

Haven’t they done a bit of rebuilding since that era?

Some. They performed much better than expected in Syria and they are certainly better than they were post-Soviet collapse, but they are nowhere near as strong as the Soviet Union was back at the height of the Cold War.

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magz
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15 Feb 2023, 6:57 am

Mikah wrote:

magz wrote:

The argument that the one responsible for a crime is the one committing it?
Well, if you refuse to accept it, that's your problem.

My political opinions are not far away from mainstream enough to make that much difference.

And I hope you never get to any politics, too - or any agression could be "justified" as someone else's fault, while supporting a smaller country attacked by a bigger one would be a crime. That would surely improve the world safety /s

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Pepe
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15 Feb 2023, 6:58 am

magz wrote:

Pepe wrote:

envirozentinel wrote:

This.

The same thing applies to Xi.

Potentially - he broke the two-cadence rule.
I find it more dangerous than it may seem.

I tried to Google this...
What does it mean?

envirozentinel
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15 Feb 2023, 7:03 am

Yes I too have never heard that expression...

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magz
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15 Feb 2023, 7:11 am

I probably mistranslated something I read in Polish: an unofficial rule that after Mao, no one was the leader of China for more than 10 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... c_of_China

Xi just broke it.

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Josh68
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15 Feb 2023, 7:26 am

magz wrote:

Josh68 wrote:

I used to believe my country had some moral upon which to stand, but I no longer do. A worse humanitarian crisis is occurring in Yemen right now, where thousands of people are being massacred. Guess who is still funding that genocide?

We have an Arab on our site who gave me more insight into what's going on in Yemen.
Generally, the ones responsible for that mess are the Houthis who started the civil war. Various parties try to intervene, usually making things even worse.

I admit USA does not understand Middle East, which makes them cause disasters there. Still, I wouldn't want them to withdraw from NATO in Europe or from their bases in South Korea. USA is moderately awful as an occupant but not bad at all as an ally. Certainly infinitely better ally than Russia - I have our own history and some Belarussian sources to have comparison.

So, if we East Europeans have a right to choose (some try to deny us this), we prefer not to be occupied by anyone and to be allied with each other and with USA. It just suits our interests best.

I guess you see the U.S. as the lesser of the two evils, despite the fact we've caused more destruction and death in the world over the past 20 years than Russia. And the U.S. doesn't care how many Ukrainians have to die in this proxy war. We intend to bleed Russia as much as possible without any concern for the human cost.

Early on, both Zelensky and Putin were open to ending the conflict diplomatically. But the U.S. put a stop to that!

"Nope! Here's and 40 billion dollars! Let's keep the madness going!"

Rage Against The War Machine!

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Last edited by Josh68 on 15 Feb 2023, 8:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mikah
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15 Feb 2023, 7:52 am

magz wrote:

There used to be an official two term rule as in the USA. Xi had it removed in 2018.

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kraftiekortie
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15 Feb 2023, 8:05 am

Because Xi doesn’t want to relinquish power.

I am 99% certain Trump would have gone for a third term had he been elected in 2020.

magz
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15 Feb 2023, 11:25 am

Josh68 wrote:

I guess you see the U.S. as the lesser of the two evils, despite the fact we've caused more destruction and death in the world over the past 20 years than Russia.

I wouldn't say so, especially after the last year. But even earlier - Georgia, Donbas, Syria, things Wagner Group was doing in Africa... it's just less public.

Josh68 wrote:

Early on, both Zelensky and Putin were open to ending the conflict diplomatically. But the U.S. put a stop to that!

This is factually incorrect. From the very beginning of this conflict, both Zelensky and Putin were unwilling to make any meaningful compromises. If putin was, he wouldn't attack in the first place. If Ukrainians were, they would have given up fighting long ago. But they don't because for both the stake is too high. For putin - his vision of what Great Russia should be, its place in the world. For Ukrainians - literal survival as a nation.

The West, including USA, would prefer not to give a damn as long as they weren't threatned themselves. USA wants to focus on Pacific, they don't hide it. West Europe, especially Scholz and Macron, have been phoning putin like a bunch of annoying salesmen. A year had to pass before they decided to provide tanks. Still no planes. The west is very unwilling to take part in it.

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Josh68
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15 Feb 2023, 12:30 pm

Zelensky was certainly open to sitting down with Putin, there are plenty of articles and sources to back that up.

I think you're wrong about the U S. not wanting to be involved. They've wanted this ever since the Russiagate malarkey started. To weaken Russia is the main goal. I'm totally against sending another dollar to Ukraine because we need that money at home. They can send 110 billion to a foreign country, while Americans are dying because of homelessness and lack of medical insurance.

War is profitable, defense contractors and Wall Street are getting rich. What a wonderful world. To quote Major General Smedley Butler, "War is a racket."

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magz
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15 Feb 2023, 4:05 pm

Josh68 wrote:

Zelensky was certainly open to sitting down with Putin, there are plenty of articles and sources to back that up.

Yes, in the beginning, Zelensky wanted to talk persoanlly to Putin but Putin did not talk to Zelensky.

Josh68 wrote:

I think you're wrong about the U S. not wanting to be involved. They've wanted this ever since the Russiagate malarkey started. To weaken Russia is the main goal. I'm totally against sending another dollar to Ukraine because we need that money at home. They can send 110 billion to a foreign country, while Americans are dying because of homelessness and lack of medical insurance.

That's been the policy of USA for quite a long time...
Memes about "where USA healthcare money go" are much older than this war.

Military budget of USA is 800 bn. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/U ... nse-budget
Military aid sent from USA to Ukraine is 23 bn https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-ai ... six-charts
That's 3%.
I can't find the figure of 110 bn anywhere. Depending on publication date, all articles claim around 50 bn overall aid, about half of it military.

Taking into account that American homeless people have not been better off before, I believe the whole big and serious problem of housing crisis is fairly independent from where 3% of your military budget goes.

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