Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Freaky Russian behavior has gotten Ireland and Switzerland concerned that Putin has gone mad:

May 08, 2024, 9:47 AM CET

Four traditionally neutral European countries—Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, and Malta—have approached NATO seeking enhanced bilateral cooperation.

This development was reported by the Austrian newspaper Die Presse, which cited details from a joint letter sent to the North Atlantic Alliance. https://www.diepresse.com/18440412/wie-sich-oesterreich-der-nato-annae
hern-will

The newspaper reveals that these countries, often grouped together as the Western European Partners (WEP4), sent a two-page letter to NATO in December 2023. In this letter, they expressed a desire to deepen their relationships with the alliance.

Proposals for Military Cooperation

The WEP4 countries, already considered NATO's "closest partners," are looking to bolster military cooperation at a time when the strategic importance of such alliances is growing.

The letter outlined specific proposals to strengthen these ties, including conducting additional joint military exercises and obtaining privileged access to NATO documents and intelligence.

The Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while speaking to Die Presse, effectively confirmed the authenticity of the letter and indicated that the initiative was motivated by ongoing geopolitical shifts in the region.

While neutral countries like Sweden and Finland have opted to abandon their neutrality in favor of full NATO membership in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the WEP4 have not taken such steps.

However, there have been repeated affirmations, particularly from the Swiss government, regarding an intention to deepen cooperation with NATO, reflecting a broader reassessment of security postures in traditionally neutral countries.

https://www.dagens.com/news/rethinking-nato-ties-new-military-alliance
s-emerge-in-europe

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 7:52 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Biden's Escalation Fears on Russia and Iran Have Dangerous Consequences

Pressuring allies not to retaliate against attacks raises the risk of spiraling conflicts.

By Jakub Grygiel | May 9, 2024, 6:00 AM

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/05/09/putin-nuclear-russia-biden-ukrain
e-israel-iran-war-escalation-retaliation-missiles/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921

Many Western leaders press allies and partners not to hit back hard when their enemies attack. After the foiled Iranian attack on Israel last month, for example, U.S. President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “take the win” instead of retaliating. Ukraine has been similarly pressured by its Western supporters not to strike targets in Russia—such as oil refineries—even if their unobstructed functioning directly aids Russia on the battlefield. Restraint has become the West’s guiding strategic principle, seemingly preserving a modicum of international stability by keeping wars from escalating out of control.

Even if Israel and Ukraine don’t heed them, such requests to practice restraint are dangerous. They incentivize the attacker to be more aggressive, not less. By conveying to Russia or Iran—and by extension, China—that Western partners will be pressed to absorb the attack and fight a strictly defensive war on their own territory, Western policymakers achieve the opposite of what their risk aversion intends: They elevate the risk of a widening war. They are making aggression relatively cost-free for imperial powers, to be fought only on the attacked country’s land or thwarted by expensive defensive means. Paradoxically, restraining allies that have been attacked is destabilizing; the Western attempt to control escalation ultimately makes it more likely.

Take, for example, the recent case of Iran’s onslaught on Israel. Deterrence clearly failed as Iran directly attacked Israel for the first time using a substantial and layered package of missiles and drones. Iran chose to attack despite a standing Israeli policy to punish every attack on its territory and citizens—and despite the effective denial technologies fielded by Israel. It was the largest drone and missile attack in recent history, more substantial than anything Russia has launched against Ukraine in a single night.

But whereas deterrence failed, Iran’s missiles and drones were almost completely intercepted by Israel with the aid of the United States, Britain, France, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Only a few missiles fell on two Israeli air bases, causing minimal damage; one civilian was wounded by shrapnel in the Negev desert. Such a failure should cause relief and be a source of celebration. After all, what could have been horrific devastation in Israel turned into an embarrassing turkey shoot for Iran. Punishment for such a failed attack, the argument goes, was not warranted: Defense was a success, the strategic interaction was over. Restraint ought to prevail.

Undoubtedly, the restraint advocated by many in the West is appealing. It may bestow a veneer of moral superiority to a country willing to suffer attacks without responding in kind. Tit-for-tat, after all, seems childish, and revenge even worse. In the case of a successful defense such as Israel’s interception of Iran’s missiles, retaliation may even look unnecessary.

But erecting the air defense necessary to deny such attacks comes at great cost, and the shield is not perfect. The resources necessary to develop, deploy, and operate a complex, multilayered defensive system capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones are substantial. Iran’s attack probably cost it around $100 million, whereas the bill for Israel’s defense during that single night probably reached something in the $1 billion range. Israel is estimated to have incurred more than half of these costs, with most of the rest borne by the United States. The fiscal equation clearly favors the attacker.

Beyond the sheer expense, there is the unquantifiable cost in potentially greater insecurity. The more successfully a defensive system protects a country—even as it fails to deter the attacker in the first place—the less credible the threat of punishing retaliation will be. This invites the attacker to strike again, while the defender is pressured to absorb the attacks without responding in kind. Given how cheap drones and even ballistic missiles have become, Iran can seek to saturate Israeli defenses and increase the likelihood that missiles get through. Alternatively, too many attacks could bankrupt the target. And yet, Biden seems to think that one failed Iranian attack will deter further assaults. “Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks,” he said in a statement, “sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel.”

The Biden administration’s approach to Russia’s attack on Ukraine is analogous. U.S. defense official Celeste Wallander recently said that “Ukraine holds itself to the highest standards of observing the laws of armed conflict.” Although the laws of war say no such thing, the administration considers Russian oil refineries out of bounds for Ukraine to strike, with the Ukrainians supposed to limit themselves to the exchange of fire on the front line. Behind the moralizing, the administration seeks to control any escalatory dynamics by holding the Ukrainians back—albeit not entirely successfully. The logic or hope behind this reasoning is that a restrained Ukraine will limit Russian escalation and contain the war. A more aggressive Ukraine that strikes deep inside Russia, or so this argument goes, will only result in greater Russian escalation against Ukraine and perhaps even against countries supporting Ukraine. The unmistakable message to Moscow is that Washington and other Western capitals would rather see Ukraine under military duress than Russia under attack. The same thing holds for the red lines the West imposes not on Ukraine but on itself—German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refusing to provide Ukraine with Taurus long-range cruise missiles, for example—all of which emboldens Russia even further.

The Biden administration’s obsession with restraining front-line allies and partners is misplaced. Taking offensive actions off the table—by not providing the appropriate weapons, by sending them under the strict condition that they only be used on Ukraine’s territory, or by telling Israel to “take the win”—is highly likely to produce the opposite of the intended effect. By limiting Russia’s and Iran’s risks and costs, it lowers the bar for further aggression.

The repercussions of this faulty Western understanding of escalation go far beyond Europe and the Middle East. With its pressure on Israel and Ukraine, Washington is sending a signal to China that a potential attack on Taiwan will be met only by defensive measures such as intercepting incoming missiles and that force will only be wielded along a thin line of contact. Maybe Taiwan will be told to “take the win” if not much damage is done in an initial Chinese strike or that the “highest standards” require it to refrain from striking Chinese ports or logistical nodes.

It is dangerous to believe that a regional equilibrium will be maintained simply by pouring a lot of money into defensive systems and denial technologies. Front-line states must have the ability—and support of their allies—to strike the enemy behind the apparent safety of its borders and not just absorb its attacks. For deterrence to be restored or strengthened, these states have to be able to retaliate with offensive actions.

Stability does not arise exclusively out of the ability to parry the enemy’s blows, but out of the credible promise of hurting him back.

Jakub Grygiel is a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a senior advisor at the Marathon Initiative, and a former senior advisor in the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff during the Trump administration. Twitter: @j_grygiel

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 10:29 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukraine Has Changed Too Much to Compromise With Russia

By Illia Ponomarenko | May 7, 2024

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/05/ukraine-chan
ge-compromise-russia/678312/

Here in Ukraine, we often react very emotionally when we hear people in the West calling for peace with Russia. According to some commentators, this would be achieved by means of a “compromise,” entailing Ukrainian “concessions” that would somehow satisfy the Kremlin and stop the war: major territorial giveaways, armed forces reduced to insignificance, no further integration with the West—you name it.

Most of us see such views as extremely naive, given the totalitarian and militaristic nature of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Having built his rule on war hysteria, land grabs, imperial chauvinism, and global confrontation, Putin is hardly likely to stop even at a deal that most Ukrainians would find entirely unacceptable.

But that leads us to another problem that much of the Western media fail to fully appreciate: Ten years of confrontation with the Kremlin, and especially the past two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, have fundamentally changed Ukraine. These changes are not superficial or easily swept away.

A little more than a decade ago, many young Ukrainians—including those, like myself, from Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east—were angry and restless, itching for something we saw just over the horizon. In high schools and universities, we read Montesquieu and soaked up such tantalizing concepts as the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. Western values felt native to our generation; we were open to the world in a way that our parents had never imagined. Most of them had ventured no farther than Central Asia for their Soviet military service, or maybe Moscow for the 1980 Olympics.

My peers and I wanted our country to have clean streets, polite police, and government officials who would resign at the exposure of petty corruption scandals. We wanted to be able to start businesses without passing money under the table, and to trust that courts of law would render justice. What we did not want were irremovable, lifetime dictators who packed the government with cronies on the take and sent goons to beat us up in the streets.

In Kyiv’s Maidan Square, starting in November 2013 and lasting into February 2014, demonstrators showed their fervor for such a future in what became known as the Revolution of Dignity. Some gave their lives to unseat Viktor Yanukovych, the kleptocratic ruler Moscow supported, and orient Ukraine unequivocally toward the West. At the site of desolation, armloads of flowers commemorated these dead. Yanukovych fled a country that despised him and had spiraled out of his control.

A new Ukraine began—and with it, a decade-long war of independence, as the Kremlin marked our revolution by seizing Crimea and infiltrating the Donbas region in the country’s east. For nearly a decade, Ukraine was fighting on two fronts: a military war against Russia, and an internal struggle for its revolution’s ideals, which meant stamping out corruption, obsolescence, unfreedom—everything that might drag the country back into the past.

Ukraine is still far from achieving all that my generation once dreamed of. But we do live in a country that is radically different from the Russian-influenced Ukraine of 2013—politically, mentally, and culturally. And we are starkly different from Putin’s Russia.

Ukrainians have tasted freedom and experienced a competitive, vibrant political life. We elected a comedian to be our leader after he faced down an old-school political heavyweight in a debate that was held in a giant stadium in downtown Kyiv and aired live to the nation. We’ve reinvented Ukrainian culture, generating new music, poetry, and stand-up comedy. Starting in 2014, we had to build our country’s armed forces almost from scratch; we are insanely proud of them, as they have fought heroically against one of the largest and most brutal war machines in existence.

A few weeks ago, I brought my dog to a veterinarian in Bucha, the town outside Kyiv where Russian forces committed a well-documented massacre in 2022. As the young doctor handled my dog, I noticed a large Ukrainian trident entwined with blue and yellow ribbons tattooed on her wrist under her white sleeve. For my generation of Ukrainians, such national symbols are an expression of pride in all we’ve made and defended.

I was with one of the first groups of journalists to enter Bucha after the Russian retreat in 2022. To describe the atmosphere is very difficult: I remember rot, stillness, a miasma of grief. The Russians had graffitied the letter V everywhere. On a fence along the main street: Those entering the no-go zone shall be executed. V. We followed the Ukrainian police as they broke through doors into premises inhabited only by the dead. Some of the bodies were charred and mutilated. I saw two males and two females lying on the ground, incompletely burned, their mouths open and hands twisted. One looked to be a teenage girl.

Outside the Church of Andrew the Apostle—a white temple that rises high over Bucha—Ukrainian coroners in white hazmat suits carefully removed layers of wet, clayish soil from a mass grave and placed 67 bodies on simple wooden doors under the cold drizzle. A tow truck hoisted the cadavers out one by one, hour by hour. Now and again, the rain would pick up, and the coroners would hastily cover the grave with plastic sheeting stained with dried gore.

“My theory is that there was a very brutal Russian commander in charge of Bucha,” Andriy Nebytov, the chief of police for Kyiv Oblast, told reporters at the church that day. “And they unleashed hell in this place.”

The Continent apartment complex used to be one of the finest in Bucha. I met a guy named Mykola Mosyarevych in a basketball court there. In his 30s and fit, he was a likely target for the Russians—a potential guerrilla fighter or member of the Territorial Defense—and so he’d spent the whole month in a basement. After the Russians left Bucha, on the day of my visit, he sat staring at a pair of ripped Russian fatigues marked with the orange-and-black striped ribbon of Saint George—a symbol of war and love for destruction. He wept. Over and over again, he said: “I just don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why they would want to do all this to us.”

We all asked similar questions, and our fragmentary answers could bring little comfort to Mosyarevych or anyone else: lust for power, years of aggressive propaganda, a sense of impunity, a would-be emperor grasping at illusion. Deep down, fear.

Later that day, I walked alone with my camera through what was left of a Russian armored column on Vokzalna Street. Bucha’s defenders recalled that the Russians in this column had been moving carelessly and singing patriotic songs when Ukrainian forces struck their leading and trailing vehicles. The column stopped. The remaining Russian vehicles scrambled like bumper cars to maneuver through the wreckage, find a way out, and save themselves. But Vokzalna Street is narrow: They were trapped. A Ukrainian artillery strike left hardly any vehicle whole. The layer of ash on the ground was so thick that it crunched underfoot like snow.

What used to be a leafy green lane, part of my favorite bicycle route to Bucha and Hostomel, had become a cemetery. But within three weeks, Ukrainian workers had cleared away the rubble and repaved the road. Later, Warren Buffett’s son donated funds for Ukrainian authorities to completely renovate the street and construct new, Scandinavian-style, single-family houses with lawns and picket fences. Online, people posted tens of thousands of likes and comments under images comparing Vokzalna Street during the Russian occupation and after.

Springtime soon came, too, and with it snaking lines of cars, as thousands of people who had fled poured back into their hometown days after its liberation. Young mothers returned with their strollers. Time would absorb the grief and horrors of this war, as it had of so many that had come before.

Even so, I don’t want to think about what will happen to my dog’s veterinarian if the Russians make it back to Bucha. Or what will happen to Ukraine. After everything that’s transpired over the past decade—and especially given what Russia has become—Ukraine must not be made a Russian colony again.

Today’s Russia is a neo-Stalinist dictatorship led by an aging chauvinist. In the grip of his messianic delusion, Putin initiated the biggest European war since World War II. He seeks to eliminate Ukraine not only as an independent nation, but also as an idea. No concessions or compromises are possible with such a vision—not given the kind of country Ukrainians have made and fought to defend.

This essay is adapted from I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv, published on May 7 by Bloomsbury.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 10:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
"Fuck Ukraine. Trump will be fine. He will be your next President." 6ix, that is you in a dozen words. Make it your signature.

Also, that would be 13 words. You must be using that Democrat Math, huh?
You are off by one, assuming 6ix knows that "dozen" means "12":
1 Fuck
2 Ukraine.
3 Trump
4 will
5 be
6 fine.
7 He
8 will
9 be
10 your
11 next
12 President.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

You forgot ALSO between will and be.

You've seen it 1,000 times before, dummy.

So what's the problem here? You can't math or you can't read?

Or both?

That's a great Democrat education you got yourself there, son.

I'd demand a refund.

Fuck Ukraine.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 1:07 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
"Fuck Ukraine. Trump will be fine. He will be your next President." 6ix, that is you in a dozen words. Make it your signature.

Also, that would be 13 words. You must be using that Democrat Math, huh?
You are off by one, assuming 6ix knows that "dozen" means "12":
1 Fuck
2 Ukraine.
3 Trump
4 will
5 be
6 fine.
7 He
8 will
9 be
10 your
11 next
12 President.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

You forgot ALSO between will and be.

You've seen it 1,000 times before, dummy.

So what's the problem here? You can't math or you can't read?

Or both?

That's a great Democrat education you got yourself there, son.

I'd demand a refund.

Fuck Ukraine.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

Judging by the walls of bullshit that SECOND posts, those authors apparently believe that intelligence is by the word.

Yes, sometimes when explaining a complex idea you need a lot of words. Occasionally entire books!

But lots of words are also needed to "explain" why up is down and black is white. You just inch your way from one position to another and lubricate it with a torrent of crap.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 1:22 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Freaky Russian behavior has gotten Ireland and Switzerland concerned that Putin has gone mad:

There is - literally- no mention of "Putin" in either of SECOND'S links. I think he just made up the headline himself.

What? You thought nobody would look, SECOND?

Quote:
`Biden's Escalation Fears on Russia and Iran Have Dangerous Consequences
Pressuring allies not to retaliate against attacks raises the risk of spiraling conflicts.

Yep! Black is white! Because escalating a conflict is a great way to prevent escalation!

Quote:
Ukraine Has Changed Too Much to Compromise With Russia

Ukraine isn't in charge of its foreign policy, the collective west is. And we won't allow Ukraine to compromise because Ukraine is our proxy (not an ally) and we will insist that Ukraine fight to the last Ukrainian in our effort to topple, or at least weaken, Russia.

So much for that wall of bullshit!

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 1:28 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

MILITARY SUMMARY CHANNEL:

59 Brigade Runs from Krasnohorivka | Breakthrough West of Avdiivka | Military Summary For [Night of] 2024.05.09

I posted the link so it wouldn't load bc I didn't want to slow the thread down.
If you're interested you can follow it yourself.

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 2:32 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Yes, sometimes when explaining a complex idea you need a lot of words. Occasionally entire books!

But lots of words are also needed to "explain" why up is down and black is white. You just inch your way from one position to another and lubricate it with a torrent of crap.

May 9, 2024, 11:03 a.m. ET

The head of Poland's counterintelligence service has raised concerns about Putin. According to Jaroslaw Strózyk, Putin is reportedly considering the invasion of parts of Estonia and Sweden, possibly targeting the city of Narva in Estonia or landing on one of Sweden's islands, as part of a broader strategy to exert control over the Baltic states.

Strózyk suggested that Putin's ambitions to revive a Russian Empire have been somewhat stalled by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has strained Russia's resources.

https://www.frontpagedetectives.com/p/putin-invasion-nato-country

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 2:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
"Fuck Ukraine. Trump will be fine. He will be your next President." 6ix, that is you in a dozen words. Make it your signature.

Also, that would be 13 words. You must be using that Democrat Math, huh?
You are off by one, assuming 6ix knows that "dozen" means "12":
1 Fuck
2 Ukraine.
3 Trump
4 will
5 be
6 fine.
7 He
8 will
9 be
10 your
11 next
12 President.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

You forgot ALSO between will and be.

You've seen it 1,000 times before, dummy.

So what's the problem here? You can't math or you can't read?

Or both?

That's a great Democrat education you got yourself there, son.

I'd demand a refund.

Fuck Ukraine.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
Judging by the walls of bullshit that SECOND posts, those authors apparently believe that intelligence is by the word.

Yes, sometimes when explaining a complex idea you need a lot of words. Occasionally entire books!

But lots of words are also needed to "explain" why up is down and black is white. You just inch your way from one position to another and lubricate it with a torrent of crap.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

Yup.

This is how Second's writers spend their days when they're not pawing through their thesaurus to load up their propaganda bullshit with all the words nobody uses in regular everyday speech.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, May 9, 2024 3:02 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Yup.

This is how Second's writers spend their days when they're not pawing through their thesaurus to load up their propaganda bullshit with all the words nobody uses in regular everyday speech.

Putin says Russia ‘will not allow anyone to threaten us’ as Moscow revels in military might. The May 9 event commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II but the Kremlin keen to cast parallels between the Red Army’s victory in 1945 and the current conflict in Ukraine.

In other news, a Ukrainian air attack on Russia’s Belgorod region injured eight people and damaged scores of residential buildings and cars, the governor of the border region said Thursday. I presume Putin will re-invade Ukraine to retaliate. Oh? Russia never left? Then Russia will just have to fight even harder, maybe bring out the nukes, which they mention constantly.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/09/ukraine-war-live-updates-latest-news-i
n-russia-and-the-war-in-ukraine.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 3:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Yup.

This is how Second's writers spend their days when they're not pawing through their thesaurus to load up their propaganda bullshit with all the words nobody uses in regular everyday speech.
Putin says Russia ‘will not allow anyone to threaten us’ as Moscow revels in military might. The May 9 event commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II but the Kremlin keen to cast parallels between the Red Army’s victory in 1945 and the current conflict in Ukraine.

In other news, a Ukrainian air attack on Russia’s Belgorod region injured eight people and damaged scores of residential buildings and cars, the governor of the border region said Thursday. I presume Putin will re-invade Ukraine to retaliate.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/09/ukraine-war-live-updates-latest-news-i
n-russia-and-the-war-in-ukraine.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

This reply has nothing at all to do with the fact that you spend your entire day blowing yourself and smelling your farts while you're down there.

So once again, I'm confused why you quoted me and then followed up with a bunch of unrelated bullshit.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 3:06 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

This reply has nothing at all to do with the fact that you spend your entire day blowing yourself and smelling your farts while you're down there.

So once again, I'm confused why you quoted me and then followed up with a bunch of unrelated bullshit.

Oh? Russia never left Ukraine? Then Russia will just have to fight even harder, maybe bring out the nukes, which they mention constantly.

Almost forgot. Putin will be fine. He will be your next President, 6ix.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, May 9, 2024 4:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

This reply has nothing at all to do with the fact that you spend your entire day blowing yourself and smelling your farts while you're down there.

So once again, I'm confused why you quoted me and then followed up with a bunch of unrelated bullshit.
Oh? Russia never left Ukraine?

I never said anything about that one way or the other. I don't care.

Quote:
Then Russia will just have to fight even harder, maybe bring out the nukes, which they mention constantly.

Fuck your fear porn, pussy.

Quote:
Almost forgot. Putin will be fine. He will be your next President, 6ix.

Your guy is the Communist. The good people of America are fighting against your trash.

Quit pretending that Putin isn't your hero, scrub.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, May 10, 2024 7:29 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that the Moldovan government is engaged in a Nazi-like "genocide" in Moldova — a notable inflection in Kremlin officials' rhetoric about Moldova that is likely meant set conditions for a Russian effort to secure control over Moldova and not just some of its regions. Zakharova gave a Victory Day interview to Kremlin newswire TASS in which she absurdly claimed that Moldovan President Maia Sandu and her administration are engaging in "eugenic" practices comparable to those of the Nazi Third Reich.[19] Zakharova focused heavily on the Moldovan government's policies towards Moldovan language, claiming that the Sandu government is replacing the Moldovan language with Romanian and that this constitutes "elements of genocide against an entire people." Zakharova claimed that Moldovan language, culture, and identity will remain after Sandu leaves office and that Sandu will leave "a dark spot in the history of Moldova," suggesting that the Kremlin expects a new administration that is unlike Sandu's Western-oriented government to come to power in the future. Zakharova notably did not lambast the Sandu government for its policies towards Russian speakers in Moldova as other Russian and pro-Kremlin Moldovan officials have done recently, focusing instead on the Moldovan language.[20] The Kremlin has repeatedly invoked its self-proclaimed need to protect Russia's "compatriots," particularly Russian speakers allegedly facing discrimination, to justify Russian aggression abroad, including in Ukraine and Moldova.[21] Kremlin officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, have recently promoted the narrative that Russia is in an existential geopolitical conflict with an alleged modern Nazi movement that is purportedly prolific in the West.[22] ISW previously assessed that many people may not identify with Kremlin narratives about Russian "compatriots abroad" and that the Kremlin may have decided that claims of Western "neo-Nazism" may be more effective with a wider audience.[23] Moldova's two pro-Russian regions, the autonomous region of Gagauzia and the breakaway republic of Transnistria, are home to large Russian speaking populations, and the Kremlin's shift from allegations about persecution of Russian speakers to that of Moldovan speakers indicates that the Kremlin is likely trying to justify future Russian aggression in all of Moldova.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-9-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, May 10, 2024 7:40 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

What Does America Want in Ukraine?

Washington’s current approach is a strategic cop-out — and risks making another forever war.

By Emma Ashford, Joshua Shifrinson, and Stephen Wertheim | May 9, 2024, 2:42 PM

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/05/09/america-ukraine-forever-war-congr
ess-aid/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921

Congress has finally approved around $61 billion in new aid to Ukraine, and something strange has happened: Talk of Ukrainian victory has returned to Washington. It’s a jarring turnabout. For the last few months, the White House and others issued dire warnings that if left unaided, Ukrainian lines might collapse and Russian troops might again roll on Kyiv. But with the worst averted, sights are setting higher. The Biden administration is now working to build up the Ukrainian Armed Forces over a 10-year period, at a likely cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, while National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan suggested that Ukraine would mount another counteroffensive in 2025.

This optimism is misplaced. The new bill may well represent the last big package that the United States will send to Ukraine. As the geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer noted, “America continuing to send Ukraine [$]60 billion in support year after year [is] unrealistic no matter who wins the presidency.” Current aid will mostly help to put Ukraine in a better position for future negotiations. It will ameliorate shortfalls in ammunition and weaponry, making it less likely that Ukrainian forces will lose more ground in coming months. Yet Ukraine still faces other challenges: insufficient fortifications, a yawning manpower shortage, and a surprisingly resilient Russian army. On the whole, Ukraine remains the weaker party; Western assistance has not altered that reality.

The White House presented the supplemental as an all-or-nothing choice: Approve billions in funding or watch Ukraine go under. Such rhetoric contains eerie echoes of wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan, where the United States kept pouring resources into lost causes at least in part because no U.S. leader wanted to be held responsible at the final moment of failure. Throughout the Ukraine aid debate, key questions were left entirely unanswered: What is the United States trying to achieve in Ukraine given that total victory is not feasible? What is it willing to risk and spend to get there? The supplemental punts these uncomfortable questions down the road. But if Washington doesn’t confront them, it may end up back in the same position next year—or worse.

The matter of an endgame in Ukraine has always been fraught. Political scientists have frequently noted that any end to this war will include diplomatic negotiation. Some draw the conclusion that if negotiation is inevitable, talks should begin sooner rather than later. Others argue that Ukraine must improve its battlefield position before negotiating. The government in Kyiv maintains that Russia must be driven completely out of Ukraine, including Crimea, before talks can begin. Some even argue that regime change in Moscow is a precondition for peace.

The squishy middle of the Washington debate, which seems to include senior members of the Biden administration, falls somewhere between these extremes: hoping for major Ukrainian advances, while avoiding escalation and acknowledging privately or anonymously that the math is not in Kyiv’s favor. The White House is correct that aid should be designed to put the Ukrainians in a strong negotiating position. But this raises further questions: How should one determine when the moment for negotiations has arrived? If Ukraine keeps fighting without talking, will its bargaining power improve or diminish?

The calculation is also complicated by confusion about what the United States is trying to achieve in Ukraine. Some emphasize broad, universal principles such as defending democracy or protecting the international order. These are laudable goals, but they could plausibly produce opposite conclusions: either that universal principles have already been adequately defended—the steep price Russia has paid could dissuade future aggressors—or alternately that Ukraine must score a definitive victory.

More hard-nosed analysts instead argue that America’s primary goal in arming Ukraine is to bleed Russia. Keeping up the flow of Western weapons, they argue, allows the West to diminish Russia’s military capabilities at a reasonable cost. As an objective, however, weakening Russia offers no endgame, and implies a long-term, semipermanent commitment to war. Given Russia’s ability to reconstitute its forces, it is not even clear the West is succeeding on this front.

A final group offers more concrete goals: enabling Ukraine to retake specific chunks of territory so as to protect its economic viability as a sovereign state, or to prevent Russia from seizing Odesa and other valuable places. But although these are more specific objectives, there is no consensus on them in Western capitals and little willingness to push for peace negotiations once they are achieved.

This is perhaps why White House officials return so often to the formulation that Western aid is simply intended to put Ukraine in the best possible position at the bargaining table. Saying this requires no difficult decisions about the territory Ukraine needs to retake and no consideration of how long Western aid should continue. It also evades the question of Ukraine’s future orientation—will it join the EU or NATO?—which may need to be resolved in order to end the war.

In short, the current approach is a strategic cop-out. Its primary benefit is to paper over differences among Ukraine’s supporters. The risk is that the war will join the ranks of forever wars and end in one of three ways: in defeat, on worse terms than could have been obtained earlier, or on the same terms at a higher human and financial toll.

“Forever war” became a slogan over the past decade-plus, used by activists to describe the seemingly endless American deployments overseas in complex wars from Afghanistan to Syria and Niger. Like all slogans, the term was imprecise, but it crisply conveyed the problem of waging open-ended conflicts aimed at absolute, unachievable victory.

The conflict in Ukraine should not be directly compared to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: No U.S. troops are engaged in combat, and the government of Ukraine is fighting an illegal invasion. Still, there are parallels. Once the Afghanistan surge failed, the debate pitted those who argued that the conflict could not be won against those who argued that it could be sustained at a low enough cost indefinitely. Today’s Ukraine debates have begun to trend in that direction. Sen. Mitch McConnell, among others, has argued that aiding Ukraine is a bargain in defense terms and pumps money back into the U.S. economy.

The common link between Ukraine and past forever wars is thus the way genuine strategic debate gets evaded or stigmatized. Lawmakers and policymakers find it easier to sustain the war effort by presenting a succession of all-or-nothing choices than to look ahead and weigh realistic alternatives.

Proponents of either disengagement or escalation fill the vacuum left by ill-defined or unattainable goals. The former proved surprisingly successful in holding up U.S. assistance for six-plus months. The latter camp, meanwhile, is ascending. After all, if the present trajectory is unfavorable and adopting more limited aims is ruled out, policymakers will seek the other logical solution: that of expanding involvement in the conflict.

The West has gradually escalated over the past two years, as has Russia. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine and its Western supporters have pushed for ever more advanced weapons. From support vehicles to tanks, tube artillery to ATACMS, the cycle was consistent: As soon as the White House approved one system, pressure would mount to supply the next. A similar trend played out in Europe. Yet with the third year of the conflict underway, technological exhaustion is imposing an upper limit on this trend. In many areas, there is now no “next system” to send.

This dynamic helps explain the recent discussion of more intensive forms of involvement. Just last week, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron told reporters that Ukraine could use British-provided weapons to strike targets inside Russia. French President Emmanuel Macron renewed his recent suggestion that he might send troops to Ukraine to serve in behind-the-lines roles. Each of these was a distinctly escalatory proposal that even six months ago would not have happened. On Monday, citing the British and French statements, Russia announced it would hold drills to practice the battlefield use of tactical nuclear weapons.

Another proposal, which the Department of Defense is reportedly considering in some form, is to send greater numbers of U.S. military advisors to Ukraine to provide maintenance support, training, and tactical advice. This is likewise portrayed as a middle step between the status quo and entering the conflict directly. But it’s also dangerous, creating the potential for direct conflict with Russian forces should advisors be killed or wounded. Russia, for its part, may view the measure as a precursor to greater Western involvement and escalate in turn. The experience of the Vietnam war—where advisors proved to be steppingstones to full combat—ought to serve as a warning.

Of course, the intent of recent calls for intensified Western involvement is to improve the balance of power between Ukraine and Russia. But if a vast infusion of Western technology over the last two years has not resolved Ukraine’s weakness vis-à-vis Russia, then neither advisors nor behind-the-lines support would likely change this dynamic.

For all the effort the Biden administration has put into delivering aid to Ukraine, it has also set U.S. strategy on autopilot. There appears to be no plan other than to try to keep the money flowing—the new aid could last as little as six months or as long as 18 months—which will work until it doesn’t.

Instead, the administration should publicly acknowledge that Ukrainian and American interests are not identical and that Kyiv’s stated aim of liberating every inch of Ukrainian territory is not realistically achievable. America’s most important interests are to safeguard Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign state and to avoid direct conflict with Russia. Each of these should take priority over the further liberation of territory.

Accordingly, U.S. leaders should encourage and incentivize Ukraine to prioritize defense over offense, a process that is already beginning. The last two years have demonstrated the ability of defenders to hold off motivated and more numerous attackers; both sides have experienced slow advances and limited gains when facing dug-in opponents. Washington should channel its assistance into ensuring Ukraine can protect itself, which means more basics like ammunition and fortifications and fewer high-tech offensive systems like ATACMS. It should also help Ukraine to rebuild its military-industrial base.

No less important, the time has come to encourage negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. If Ukrainian forces, buoyed by new aid deliveries, can stabilize the front line, then the summer of 2024 may prove to be a favorable negotiating window. Up to this point, the Biden administration has been wary of pushing Ukraine to negotiate for fear of appearing to signal a lack of U.S. commitment. In addition, negotiations can be slow, and Russia may not yet be willing to participate in earnest. But the proposition has not been tested, and it is worth trying, particularly because punting the decision to Kyiv, while supplying it with arms, has the perverse effect of discouraging Ukraine from talking. Neither side can truly gauge what it could obtain until it starts talking to the other, and recent revelations about prior negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow suggest that a settlement is not impossible.

Finally, Washington should lean on its European allies to spend the money and place the orders to equip Ukraine. America’s commitments may falter, whether because of popular dissatisfaction, a new president, or crises elsewhere in the world. Moscow, too, may eschew talks, reasoning that Ukraine’s position is only getting weaker. To mitigate these possibilities, Washington should shift more of the burden to European countries whose proximity to Russia give them a strong interest in Ukraine’s success. These states have already begun to step up; the Czech Republic, for example, has spearheaded an innovative ammunition initiative. But Europe can do much more: increase national funding for ammunition and rocket production, authorize emergency funds and improve cross-continent defense procurement through the European Union, and take over the organizational burden of coordinating aid.

This time, Congress eventually delivered. Next time, it might not. On both sides of the Atlantic, governments should prepare for U.S. aid to dry up and work to place Ukraine on a more strategic and durable footing. After all, current levels of support have not sufficed to put the worst outcomes—whether a Russian breakthrough, a destructive forever conflict, or an expanded war—out of view. Averting those outcomes requires opening the space to weigh difficult trade-offs now. You can take only so many all-or-nothing gambles until you end up with nothing.

——————————————————

Emma Ashford is a columnist at Foreign Policy and a senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center, an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, and the author of Oil, the State, and War.

Joshua Shifrinson is an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and a nonresident senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is the author of Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts and a co-editor of Evaluating NATO Enlargement: From Cold War Victory to the Russia-Ukraine War.

Stephen Wertheim is a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, May 10, 2024 11:51 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

As the author notes: shades of Vietnam. And how did that work out for us?

Quote:
As soon as the White House approved one system, pressure would mount to supply the next. A similar trend played out in Europe. Yet with the third year of the conflict underway, technological exhaustion is imposing an upper limit on this trend. In many areas, there is now no “next system” to send.

This dynamic

creeping escalation with no endpoint

Quote:
helps explain the recent discussion of more intensive forms of involvement. Just last week, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron told reporters that Ukraine could use British-provided weapons to strike targets inside Russia. French President Emmanuel Macron renewed his recent suggestion that he might send troops to Ukraine to serve in behind-the-lines roles. Each of these was a distinctly escalatory proposal that even six months ago would not have happened. On Monday, citing the British and French statements, Russia announced it would hold drills to practice the battlefield use of tactical nuclear wespons

There was more to it than that. Since Ukrainians don't know how to program longer range missiles with targeting data, they need British "advisors" to do that for them. And if those missiles are used to strike Russia, Russia said that would make Britain a direct participant in the war against Russia, and Russia would feel free to target British military assets anywhere in the world, including Britain. The British ambassador to Russia was called into the Foreign Office and supposedly given a list of Brirish military assets that would be targeted.

All of this resulted in a huge but very quiet NATO climb down. Very little of this ACTUAL threat to NATO was published in western media, which shows just how serious it was.

Quote:
America’s most important interests are to safeguard Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign state and to avoid direct conflict with Russia. Each of these should take priority over the further liberation of territory.

Accordingly, U.S. leaders should encourage and incentivize Ukraine to prioritize defense over offense, a process that is already beginning.

Instead of Abrams tanks, Bradleys, F-16s and ATACMS, USA money would have been far better spent on bulldozers and trench diggers and concrete dragons-teeth and building materials and mine-laying equipment. But that wouldn't paid off our "defense" contractors with the big payday they've been lobbying for.

And, it is very difficult to prepare defenses when you're already under attack and on the run. These would have to be prepared well behind the current front lines.

Quote:
No less important, the time has come to encourage negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

This overlooks the difficulty that the Ukrainian Constitution FORBIDS negotiating with Russia, and makes NATO membership an official goal.

In order for negotiations to happen, Ukraine would need a new Constitution and a new government, since Russia put Zelensky and Poroshenko on the wanted list (along with a number of other high ranking officials, indicating that they will not negotiate with them), and Zelensky's term of office ends May 21 anyway.

So the terms of negotiation already start out with the overturning of the current regime in Kiev, the reconstitution of the Ukrainian government, and a new Constitution.

There was, it has been reported, an assassination attempt on Zelensky and two Internal Security colonels have been arrested. Rumors abound that the USA is canvassing potential replacements for Zelenskiy. Not to find someone who will negotiate wuth Russia but to find someone who will prosecute the war more successfully. Maybe someone not so high on coke who allows so much $$ and materiel to be pilfered.

One hopes that it will be someone who can organize and build defenses expeditiously.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Friday, May 10, 2024 12:59 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
As the author notes: shades of Vietnam. And how did that work out for us?

Vietnam was lost in 1963 when Kennedy approved the "removal" of South Vietnam's President Diem for someone more suitable. Removal was elevated to assassination. No one more suitable came along in all the years since. It was game over for Diem and Kennedy, who was killed 3 weeks after Diem. What goes around, comes around. There is no one more suitable than Volodymyr Zelenskyy. If Biden approves his "removal", it is game over in Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_assassination_of_Ng%C3%B4_%C4
%90%C3%ACnh_Di%E1%BB%87m#US_reaction

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, May 11, 2024 8:37 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukrainian draft dodgers don't have the Vietnam War draft dodger's excuse that Nixon is evil personified nor that the Domino theory is false nor that Vietnam is on the other side of the world from America:

Conscription in Ukraine
Odessa’s vanishing lads
Ever more Ukrainians are dodging the draft

The Economist May 4th 2024

https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/04/28/dodging-the-draft-in-fearf
ul-ukraine

The idea was madness, opening a bar in the throes of war. Russian warships dominated Odessa’s horizon and the streets were barricaded with tank traps. But for a group of former philosophy students, it was the moment dreams were made. By early summer 2022 they had refashioned a beauty salon into a new cultural hotspot, selling erotic photography and moonshine vodka.

No one remembers when the party stopped. It was a shock when the first man from the group left the country. But then a second departed. Customers began vanishing. In late 2023 the bar’s owner escaped across the border. Ultimately only “Sasha", the barman, remained.

Vladyslav, who is 24, began the war as a committed patriot. He watched the reports of Russian atrocities and felt a strong urge to fight. Then the males in his life started to go to the front line. Friends, relatives, his father and stepfather all became soldiers. Many of his friends died. A colleague was killed just three days after being sent to Bakhmut. Another was assumed dead only to be later returned in a prisoner exchange, saying he had been tortured. Vladyslav’s family now urge him to stay clear of the conscription officers who prowl Odessa’s streets. “It’s not that I’m scared to fight, but I’m scared because I know what is happening out there.”

For a generation of young men in Odessa, life has been postponed. Of those not already fighting, more and more are hiding from conscription officers. Men in green uniforms conduct regular sweeps of the city’s buses, gyms and train stations, often dragging their targets off by force.

The recent lowering of the minimum mobilisation age from 27 to 25 is a further challenge. Parliament took months to pass the law. It was an urgent necessity for the army, which is struggling to hold the front lines. Perhaps its most significant provision requires that all draft-eligible men must register in a new online database.

Sasha, the barman, feels stuck in the middle, not wanting to leave his home but fearful the draft officers might knock on his door next. “You can leave, but it’s a oneway ticket. You can go to the front lines, but that may be a one-way ticket too.” One estimate late last year suggested 650,000 men of fighting age had left Ukraine, the majority by illegal means. Getting papers to leave was once a matter of paying a few thousand dollars to a corrupt officer. Now it is nearly impossible.

Vladyslav has witnessed several raids. He describes the draft officers as “fishermen” who “catch” their victims. “The officers lurk near bus stops and stop the buses as they depart...Everyone says victory is near, but it feels quite far away if you’re a 25-year-old in Odessa.”

Conscription officers are reluctant to talk. The Economist sent two requests for comment, only to be told to send a third. Ruslan Horbenko, an MP, says draft officers have an unenviable task. Most of the forcible detentions concern deserters. In some brigades as many as 10% of the soldiers are believed to have fled. Odessa is one of their prime destinations, he says. Soldiers who have stayed on the front lines feel “abandoned”, and recruitment officers take it out on the deserters.

Those still in Odessa are mostly hiding. A trip to the philosophers’ bar on a recent Thursday found only one man present. Female patrons gossiped about mobilisation. The rumours were flying: Volodymyr Zelensky was about to lower the draft age to 20. Russia was supposedly preparing a new operation to take Odessa. One woman said her boyfriend refuses to move around town except by taxi. A barwoman admitted business had gone downhill. The bar will soon close, she said.

Vladyslav faces financial struggles, too. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion he sold plumbing equipment. Since then he has been unemployed. Without military papers he cannot look for a job. His girlfriend is expecting their first child. He dreams of a life as a new father in a peaceful Ukraine. For Sasha, the last of Odessa’s philosopher dreamers, hope dies last: “Hope that we wake up in the morning alive.” ¦

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, May 11, 2024 9:02 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

“Russia cannot afford to lose, so we need a kind of a victory”: Sergey Karaganov on what Putin wants

By Bruno Maçães | 6 May 2024

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2024/05/russia-canno
t-afford-lose-need-victory-sergey-karaganov-what-putin-wants

Editor’s note: Sergey Karaganov is a former adviser to Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. Bruno Maçães interviewed him at the end of March 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Following reports on 6 May 2024 that Karaganov has been re-hired by the Kremlin to study ways in which to “deter the West”, we are repromoting the interview and revisiting the question of what Putin wants.

A former presidential adviser to both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, Sergey Karaganov is honorary chair of the Moscow think tank the Council for Foreign and Defence Policy. He is associated with a number of key ideas in Russian foreign policy, from the so-called Karaganov doctrine on the rights of ethnic Russians living abroad to the principle of “constructive destruction”, also known as the “Putin doctrine”. Karaganov is close to both Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and he formulated many of the ideas that led to the war in Ukraine – though he has also expressed disagreement with the idea of a long-term occupation of the country.

Karaganov has promoted the concept of “Greater Eurasia” and has defended a closer partnership with China. He is known as a foreign-policy hawk, and has argued that the long reign of the West in world politics is now at an end. On 28 March the New Statesman columnist Bruno Maçães interviewed Karaganov about his views on the war – including controversial statements on Ukrainian nationhood and denazification that would be disputed by those outside Russia – and the future of the liberal international order.

Bruno Maçães Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

Sergey Karaganov For 25 years, people like myself have been saying that if Nato and Western alliances expand beyond certain red lines, especially into Ukraine, there will be a war. I envisioned that scenario as far back as 1997. In 2008 President Putin said that if Ukraine’s membership of the alliance became a possibility then there will be no Ukraine. He was not listened to. So the first objective is to end Nato’s expansion. Two other objectives have been added: one is the demilitarisation of Ukraine; the other is denazification, because there are people in the Russian government concerned with the rise of ultra-nationalism in Ukraine to the extent that they think it is beginning to resemble Germany in the 1930s. There is also an aim to free the Donbas republics of eight years of constant bombardment.

There was also a strong belief that war with Ukraine was inevitable – maybe three or four years from now – which could well have taken place on Russian territory itself. So probably the Kremlin decided that if you have to fight, let’s fight on somebody else’s territory, the territory of a neighbour and a brother country, once a part of the Russian Empire. But the real war is against the Western expansion.

BM On 25 February Putin called on the Ukrainian army to overthrow President Volodymyr Zelensky. More recently, however, the Kremlin seems to be suggesting that it is interested in negotiating with Zelensky. Has the Kremlin changed its mind? Does it accept that Zelensky is the president of Ukraine and will remain the president of Ukraine?

SK It is a war, and we’re in the fog of war, so opinions change, aims change. At the start, maybe some thought that the Ukrainian military would arrange some kind of a coup so we would have a real power in Kyiv with whom we could negotiate – recent presidents, and especially Zelensky, are considered puppets.

BM You personally do not consider President Zelensky a Nazi, do you?

SK Of course not.

BM What do you think would be the final goal for the Kremlin at this point? What would be considered a successful outcome for the invasion?

SK I don’t know what the outcome of this war will be, but I think it will involve the partition of Ukraine, one way or another. Hopefully there would still be something called Ukraine left at the end. But Russia cannot afford to “lose”, so we need a kind of a victory. And if there is a sense that we are losing the war, then I think there is a definite possibility of escalation. This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest – Russia being, as it has been in history, the pinnacle of “the rest” – for a future world order. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high – for them it is an existential war.

BM You talked about demilitarisation of Ukraine, but it seems that such a goal would not be achieved if the West continues to provide Ukraine with weapons. Do you think Russia will be tempted to stop that flow of arms, and does this risk a direct clash between Nato and Russia?

SK Absolutely! There is a growing probability of a direct clash. And we don’t know what the outcome of this would be. Maybe the Poles would fight; they are always willing. I know as a historian that Article 5 of the Nato treaty is worthless. Under Article 5 – which allows a state to call for support from other members of the alliance – nobody is obliged to actually fight on behalf of others, but nobody can be absolutely sure that there would be no such escalation. I also know from the history of American nuclear strategy that the US is unlikely to defend Europe with nuclear weapons. But there is still a chance of escalation here, so it is an abysmal scenario and I hope that some kind of a peace agreement between us and the US, and between us and Ukraine, can be reached before we go further into this unbelievably dangerous world.

BM If Putin asks for your advice, would you tell him that Article 5 is to be taken seriously or not? I understand from your words that it is not to be taken seriously in your view.

SK It might be that Article 5 works, and countries rally to the defence of another. But against a nuclear country like Russia… I wonder? Put it this way: if the US intervenes against a nuclear country, then the American president making that decision is mad, because it wouldn’t be 1914 or 1939; this is something bigger. So I don’t think America could possibly intervene, but we are already in a much more dangerous situation than several weeks ago. And Article 5 does not presume automatic obligations.

On Ukraine’s right to exist

BM What was your reaction to President Biden’s comment that President Putin cannot stay in power?

SK Well, President Biden often makes all kind of comments. [Afterwards,] he was corrected by his colleagues, so nobody’s taking the statement seriously.

BM Putin has argued that Ukraine does not exist as a nation. I would imagine that the conclusion from the events of the past weeks is that Ukraine does exist as a nation, when you have the whole population, including civilians, willing to sacrifice their lives to preserve the sovereignty and independence of their country. Does Ukraine exist as a nation, or is Ukraine just a part of Russia?

SK I am not sure whether there is a massive civilian resistance as you suggest, rather than just young men joining the army. In any case, I don’t know whether Ukraine will survive, because it has a very limited, if any, history of statehood, and it doesn’t have a state-building elite. Maybe something will grow from below, but it’s an open question… We shall see… This war – or military operation; however you call it – will decide. Maybe the Ukrainian nation will be born: I will be happy if Ukrainians have an effective, viable government – unlike the situation during the last 30 years. They were the absolute losers after the Soviet Union, because of their lack of a state-building elite.

BM If there is a partition, would the Russia-controlled section of Ukraine preserve a nominal independence, or would it be absorbed by Russia?

SK If the operation is to turn Ukraine into a “friendly” state, then absorption is clearly not necessary. There might be some kind of absorption – which has happened, effectively – in the Donbas republics. Whether they will be independent or not – I think they might be. Certainly there are calls for referendums there, but how you could run referendums during a conflict I do not know. So my judgement would be that some of Ukraine will become a friendly state to Russia, other parts may be partitioned. Poland will gladly take back some of parts in the west, maybe Romanians and Hungarians will, too, because the Hungarian minority in Ukraine has been suppressed along with other minorities. But we are in a full-on war; it is too hard to predict. The war is an open-ended story.

BM One argument is that Russia will fall under Chinese control, and this war does not help – because by isolating Russia from the West, it turns Russia into easy prey for Chinese economic influence. Are you worried that this could be the beginning of a “Chinese century” for Russia?

SK There are two answers to your question. One is that China’s economic influence in Russia and over Russia will grow. China has most of the technologies we need, and it has a lot of capital, so there is no question about that. Whether Russia would become a kind of a satellite country, according to the Chinese tradition of their Middle Kingdom, I doubt it.

If you asked me how I would describe Russia in one word, it is “sovereignty”. We defeated those who sought to rule us, starting with the Mongols, and then Carl [Charles XII] of Sweden, then Napoleon and Hitler. Also, recently, we had years of Western domination here. It was almost overwhelming. And nevertheless, you see what has happened: Russia revolted against all that. So I am not afraid of Russia becoming a part of a great China. The other reason I’m not afraid is because Chinese civilisation is very different. We have our Asian traits in our genes, and we are in part an Asian country because of this. And Siberia is at the core of the Russian empire: without Siberia, Russia wouldn’t have become a great country. And the Tatar and Mongol yoke left many traits in our society. But culturally, we are different, so I don’t think it is possible that we will become a subsidiary country.

But I am very concerned about the overwhelming economic predominance of China over the next decade. People like me have been saying precisely [that] we have to solve the Ukraine problem, we have to solve the Nato problem, so that we can be in a strong position vis-à-vis China. Now it will be much more difficult for Russia to resist Chinese power.

On winners and losers

BM Do you think the US is benefiting from this war?

SK At this juncture, yes, because the big losers are, in addition to Ukraine, Europe, especially if it continues with this mysterious zest for independence from Russian energy. But China is clearly the victor of this whole affair… I think the biggest loser will be Ukraine; a loser will be Russia; a great loser will be Europe; the United States will lose somewhat, but still it could very well survive as a huge island over the ocean; and the big victor is China.

BM You have argued that in the future there could be some kind of alliance between Russia and Europe – or at least some European countries, if not others. Surely now you must think there is no possibility for Europe and Russia to come closer together.

SK If we could have solved the crisis peacefully there’s no question that parts of Europe would have orientated themselves not towards Russia itself but Greater Eurasia, of which Russia would be a key part. That scenario is now postponed, but Europe needs to develop a relationship with Greater Eurasia. We lived through world wars and cold wars, and then we rebuilt our relationship. I hope that we shall do that in ten years. I hope I shall see that before I pass.

BM Do you think this is a moment of supreme danger for Russia?

SK I would say yes, this is an existential war. If we do not win, somehow, then I think we will have all kinds of unforeseen political repercussions which are much worse than at the beginning of the 1990s. But I believe that we will avoid that, first, because Russia will win, whatever that victory means, and second, because we have a strong and tough regime, so in any event, or if the worst happens, it will not be the dissolution of the country or collapse. I think it will be closer to a harsh authoritarian regime than to the dissolution of the country. But still, defeat is unthinkable.

BM What would qualify as defeat?

SK I do not know. That is the question. We need victory. I don’t think that, even if we conquered all of Ukraine and all the military forces of Ukraine surrendered, it would be a victory, because then we will be left with the burden of a devastated country, one devastated by 30 years of inept elite rule, and then of course devastation from our military operation. So I think at one point we need a kind of a solution which would be called peace, and which would include de facto the creation of some kind of a viable, pro-Russian government on the territory of Ukraine, and real security for the Donbas republics.

BM If the current stalemate were to continue for years, would that be a defeat?

SK Stalemate means a huge military operation. No, I don’t think it is possible. I am afraid it would lead to escalation, because fighting endlessly on the territory of Ukraine – even now, is not viable.

BM It’s the second time you’ve mentioned that if there is no progress it would lead to an escalation. What does “escalation” mean in this context?

SK Well, escalation in this context means that in the face of an existential threat – and that means a non-victory, by the way, or an alleged defeat – Russia could escalate, and there are dozens of places in the world where it would have a direct confrontation with the United States.

BM So your suggestion is that, on the one hand, we could have an escalation towards the possible use of nuclear weapons – if there is an existential danger to Russia – and, on the other, an escalation towards conflict in other areas beyond Ukraine. Am I following you correctly?

SK I wouldn’t rule it out. We are living in absolutely a new strategic situation. Normal logic dictates what you have said.

BM How do you feel personally? Do you feel tormented by what is happening?

SK We all feel like we are part of a huge event in history, and it’s not just about war in Ukraine; it’s about the final crash of the international system that was created after the Second World War and then, in a different way, was recreated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So, we are witnessing the collapse of an economic system – of the world economic system – globalisation in this form is finished. Whatever we have had in the past is gone. And out of this we have a build-up of many crises that, because of Covid-19, we pretended did not exist. For two years, the pandemic replaced decision-making. Covid was bad enough, but now everybody has forgotten about Covid and we can see that everything is collapsing. Personally, I’m tremendously saddened. I worked for the creation of a viable and fair system. But I am part of Russia, so I only wish that we win, whatever that means.

On the decline of European democracy

BM Do you sometimes fear this could be the rebirth of Western power and American power; that the Ukraine war could be a moment of renewal for the American empire?

SK I don’t think so. The problem is that during the last 500 years the foundation of Western power was the military preponderance of Europeans. This foundation started eroding from the 1950s and 1960s. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union made it seem for a while that Western predominance was back, but now it is done away with, because Russia will continue to be a major military power and China is becoming a first-class military power.

So the West will never recuperate, but it doesn’t matter if it dies: Western civilisation has brought all of us great benefits, but now people like myself and others are questioning the moral foundation of Western civilisation. I think geopolitically the West will experience ups and downs. Maybe the shocks we are experiencing could bring back the better qualities of Western civilisation, and we will again see people like Roosevelt, Churchill, Adenauer, de Gaulle and Brandt back in office. But continuous shocks will of course also mean that democracy in its present form in most European countries will not survive, because under circumstances of great tension, democracies always wither away or become autocratic. These changes are inevitable.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, May 11, 2024 4:29 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Ukraine SitRep: The 'Sanitary Zone' On The Northern Border With Russia

In today's Daily Report the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed Ukrainian reports that it had launched an attack from Russia into the Kharkiv area in north-east Ukraine:

"As a result of offensive operations, units of the Sever Group of Forces have liberated Borisovka, Ogurtsovo, Pletenevka, Pylnaya, and Strelechya (Kharkov region).

Russian troops have defeated manpower and hardware of 23rd and 43rd mechanised brigades, 120th and 125th brigades of the AFU and the 15th State Border Covering Force close to Volchansk, Vesyoloye, Glubokoye, Neskuchnoye, and Krasnoye (Kharkov region).

The enemy losses were up to 170 troops, three armoured fighting vehicles, and four motor vehicles."

If the numbers in the Daily Report are somewhat correct the Ukrainian losses yesterday included 1620 dead and/or severely wounded, 21 tracked fighting vehicles and tanks, 30 trucks, 47(!) artillery pieces of various types, 4 expensive air defense systems and 6 field ammunition depots. 35 Ukrainian soldiers were taken prisoner.

These losses are about double the usual count.

The opening of a new front towards the Kharkiv region might have one or more of three purposes.

To surround and eventually take Kharkiv city, the second biggest one in Ukraine.
To create a buffer zone along the border to prevent Ukrainian attacks on Russian grounds.
To divert Ukrainian reserves and to prevent them from joining the intensifying fight in the Donbas region.

To 1: Kharkiv has more than a million inhabitants. To surround and eventually take it would require a force of more than 100,000 soldiers. There are no observations or reports about Russian forces of that size anywhere near the larger area.

To 2: There is a lot speaking for this intent. On March 18, following several attacks by Ukraine towards Belgorod, President Putin had announced that a buffer zone would eventually be needed:

“We will be forced at some point, when we consider it necessary, to create a certain ‘sanitary zone’ on the territories controlled by the (Ukrainian government),” Putin said late Sunday.

This “security zone,” Putin said, “would be quite difficult to penetrate using the foreign-made strike assets at the enemy’s disposal.”

To 3: Diverting enemy forces from the main axis is always a benefit when intense fighting is going on. In this the operation towards Kharkiv has already been successful. The Ukrainians have ordered their reserves to move into the Kharkiv region. In yesterday's evening address the Ukrainian president Zelenski said:

"We are adding more troops to Kharkiv fronts. Both along our state border and along the entire frontline, we will invariably destroy the invaders to disrupt any Russian offensive intentions."

Thus the Kharkiv offensive seems designed to create a buffer zone, maybe 6 miles / 10 kilometers deep, on Ukrainian land along the norther border with Russia. That it diverts Ukrainian forces from elsewhere and positions them in mostly open land for their eventual destruction is just a welcome side effect.

It is my understanding that any further liberation of large cities in Ukraine will have to wait until the majority of the Ukrainian forces is utterly destroyed or defeated and incapable of resisting further onslaughts.

Posted by b

https://www.moonofalabama.org

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Saturday, May 11, 2024 4:39 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

https://www.moonofalabama.org

That is the wrong URL. The correct URL is very specific for today:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/05/ukraine-sitrep-the-sanitary-zone
-on-the-northern-border-with-russia.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 4:04 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

For reference.
A good map is hard to find.

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 7:44 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Europe faces long-term confrontation with Russia

Sat, May 11, 2024 - 19:50

Europe is at the beginning of a longer confrontation with Russia, which may not be military, states Czech President Petr Pavel.

"They want to restore the imperial greatness of the Soviet Union, including its sphere of influence, and they are very open about it. So we have to take this seriously. We must prepare for the fact that Russia will not be a peaceful partner," he said.

According to him, Moscow has already shown itself to be a "destructive force" in many European countries, trying to spread propaganda and often outright lies.

The Czech President noted that when Russia behaves constructively, Europe should do the same.

"But when Russia acts against our interests, we must resist it. Otherwise, our way of life and our values will be threatened," he said.

Pavel added that confrontation with Russia can become part of everyday life.

He also expressed his belief that Russia does not seek cooperation with Europe and considers itself a superpower that has the right to dictate the rules of the game.

Western leaders have increasingly seen a high risk of a major war between Russia and NATO member states. This is evidenced by the large number of Russian sabotage operations that have been recorded in Europe.

For this reason, the US, EU, and NATO countries are stepping up arms supplies to Ukraine to counter Russia in order to prevent it from advancing and increasing the threat to the West.

The Estonian government called on European countries to be ready to discuss the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine.

Lithuania said that sending foreign troops to Ukraine would show that it is not Putin who decides who the West should help.

Polish President Andrzej Duda does not rule out that Russia could attack NATO countries as early as 2026.

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/europe-faces-long-term-confrontation-w
ith-1715446202.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 10:09 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

May 12, 2024, 3:08 AM

VOA spoke to H.R. McMaster, national security adviser in the Trump administration, about the war.

“It's past time to provide Ukraine what they need,” he said.

VOA: When we talk about war in Ukraine, does the United States right now have a strategy of what the outcome should look like?

H.R. McMaster: I think the outcome is clear, and it is clear because the Ukrainians defined it themselves. They want a free, sovereign, independent, secure country. That's what we ought to be supporting. That includes winning back the territory that they've lost, and I think we have not been as clear maybe in Washington and other capitals. We say we will support Ukraine as long as it takes. But I think we should define what “it” is. It is, again, a free, independent, secure Ukraine.

VOA: Some critics say that Ukraine is not getting enough arms to make a difference on the battlefield. Does the White House have an idea of what the outcome should look like?

McMaster: I wish that the White House and the president would be clearer about the objective. That would make clearer the amount of assistance, the kinds of weapons and munitions and the scale needed. I think there should be two fundamental military objectives. The first would be to stop the onslaught against the Ukrainian people and against their infrastructure. And the second would be to regain the territory that's been lost, certainly at least since the massive reinvasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

What we should be doing is providing as much material support as we can and stop the "We don't know if we want to provide tanks or jet aircraft or long-range systems." It's past time to provide Ukraine what they need to accomplish those two military objectives.

More at https://www.voanews.com/a/mcmaster-it-s-past-time-to-provide-ukraine-w
hat-they-need-/7606666.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 10:37 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Dominic Cummings [former chief aide to UK's Boris Johnson]: Zelenskyy’s no Churchill and Ukraine’s corrupt

Former Brexit campaign chief says the West is ‘getting f**ked’ by supporting Ukraine.

Cummings — who led Britain’s Vote Leave Brexit campaign and spectacularly fell out with Johnson in 2020 — declared that the West “should have never got into the whole stupid situation” and claimed sanctions against Russia have had a greater impact on European politics than in Moscow.

The former adviser was scathing of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and comparisons with World War II.

“This is not a replay of 1940 with Zelenskyy as the Churchillian underdog,” he said.

“This whole Ukrainian corrupt mafia state has basically conned us all and we’re all going to get f**ked as a consequence. We are getting f**ked now right?”

In a follow-up tweet, Cummings later branded Zelenskyy a “potemkin” leader — but denied he’d called him a “pumpkin” as originally quoted in the interview.

He argued that war would only strengthen the relationship between Russia and China, saying Western nations “pushed [Russia] into an alliance with the world’s biggest manufacturing power.”

Cummings has long been critical of support for Ukraine, a stance that puts him sharply at odds with his old boss Johnson, a vocal supporter of Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s war effort.

He told the paper the West had failed to send Russian President Vladimir Putin a worthwhile signal which would deter him from invading another country.

“What lesson have we taught him? The lesson we’ve taught Putin is that we’re a bunch of total f**king jokers,” Cummings asserted, saying the war had “broadcast it to the entire world what a bunch of clowns we are.”

It comes as the former Vote Leave Brexit campaign chief tests the water for a new political party to replace the Tories...

MORE AT https://www.politico.eu/article/dominic-cummings-volodymyr-zelenskyy-u
kraine-war-corruption/

According to Alexander Mercouris, the British half of The Duran, the Conservative (Tory) party took a shellacking in the latest local elections, thanks to them not addressing the problems of everyday Brits, but spending far too much time and money on Ukraine. Liberals are doing better but not much, since they're part of the British uniparty along with the Tories. For the first time ever, the "anybody else" vote outpolled the Liberals 37% to 34% to Tory 27% (If I remember the figures accurately).
Unfortunately the "anybody else" vote is split between 3 or 4 parties and unable to reach a plurality. But it seems as if Cummings is making a play for this third party vote.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 11:32 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

According to Alexander Mercouris, the British half of The Duran, the Conservative (Tory) party took a shellacking in the latest local elections, thanks to them not addressing the problems of everyday Brits, but spending far too much time and money on Ukraine.

Signym, you cannot say too much without saying how much. How much money did the UK spend on Ukraine?

As of 02 May, 2024, the UK has pledged £12.5 billion in support to Ukraine since February 2022, of which £7.6 billion is for military assistance. This includes £3 billion for military assistance in 2024/25.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9477/

£12.5 billion over 4 years doesn't mean anything until compared to what the UK spends on defense for one year, which was £52.2 billion for 1 year in 2021/22.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8175/

For comparison, in 2022–23, UK government spending was almost £1,200 billion, or around £17,000 per person. This was equivalent to around 45% of GDP.
https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/what-does-government-sp
end-money

On one hand, £12.5 billion over 4 years for Ukraine. On the other hand, £4,800 billion over 4 years for running the UK government. Only if turning Ukraine into smoking ruins is good for the UK will £12.5 billion over 4 years be too much to stop Russia's murder rampage across Ukraine.

Signym, only a retard believes Putin's story that Russia will be exterminated by the Nazis running both Ukraine and the EU unless Russia burns down Ukraine to show those Nazis that Russia cannot be killed.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 1:43 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

In addition to the money spent and arms shipped to Ukraine, the sanctions against Russia and blowing uo Nordstream hit Britian hard. Britain, as it turned out, imported gas from Russia. Enough gas that without it, gas prices quadrupled, home heating and electricity costs skyrocketed, the price of everything went up, and many small and medium-sized firms went out of business (bakeries, greenhouses, breweries, distilleries, small, shops, restauarants and pubs etc.)

Mercouris videoed about this frequently at the time, recording from his posh home in a thick sweater. At one point, some pipes in their home froze and burst, causingan electrical problem, and the family had to move out temporarily while he recorded from a semi-darkened room with the sound of drilling and banging in the background.

This, right after Covid lockdowns, was just too much. Especially with the govenrment constantly yammering about Ukraine.

The Tories put up a series of PMs, dismissing BoJo (who was knocked for holding drinking "working" parties while everyone else was locked down, but who was dismissed after torpedoing the Istanbul draft ceaaefire agreement and pretending to be Churchill over the issue of Ukraine), then Theresa May, and now Rishi Sunak who is a globalist moneyed elitist and as out-of-touch with struggling Brits as could possibly be. And more outspoken about Ukraine than Britain.

And not that this affects everyday Brits, but the attempted Russian oil "price cap", which withheld insurance from shippers of Russian oil who didn't adhere to them, didn't punish the shippers, who found alternate insurance. It just knocked a lot of business away from Lloyds of London. Also, the sanctions on Russian oligarchs and the Russian central Bank simply meant that the City of London, where all the financial arrangements are made, has been squeezed out of a fair bit of international finance which moved to places like Dubai and Singapore.

You can quibble about any particular point, and I know you will, but there's no doubt that the British Conservative party is suffering from a backlash of historic proportions, and although there were several causes (prolonged lockdowns, failure to take advantage of Brexit), Ukraine is definitely part of that.

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 1:58 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
In addition to the money spent and arms shipped to Ukraine, the sanctions against Russia and blowing uo Nordstream hit Britian hard. Britain, as it turned out, imported gas from Russia. Enough gas that without it, gas prices quadrupled, home heating and electricity costs skyrocketed, the price of everything went up, and many small and medium-sized firms went out of business (bakeries, greenhouses, breweries, distilleries, small, shops, restauarants and pubs etc.)

Signym, that is NOT what happened. You got events in the wrong order, but Putin would approve of you rearranging history to make him the hero. And I am not at all surprised you would cheat, Signym.

Did Russia stop selling natural gas to Europe or did Europe stop buying natural gas from Russia?

In April 2022, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said "the era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe will come to an end". On 18 May 2022, the European Union published plans to end its reliance on Russian oil, natural gas and coal by 2027.

Russia didn’t wait until 2027. Russia cut off the flow in 2022, before the Nordstream pipeline was sabotaged so that Putin couldn’t change his mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022%E2%80%932023_Russia%E2%80%93Europea
n_Union_gas_dispute#Background
The red "X" on 26 September 2022 marks the day Nordstream was sabotaged on the graph.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 3:53 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Er, no.

As you should recall, the turbines needed to be repaired, were shipped to Canada and Canada refused to ship them back via the normal chain of custody bc of their sanctions against Russia.

And the USA blew up Nordstream so GERMANY wouldn't change its mind.

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 5:30 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Er, no.

Signym, stifle yourself. The Tory government did not raise UK natural gas prices. Instead, Gazprom stopped delivering gas, which raised natural gas prices.

On 26 April 2022, Gazprom announced it would stop delivering natural gas to Poland via the Yamal–Europe pipeline and to Bulgaria

On 20 May 2022, Gazprom announced that it had informed Finland that the next morning, natural gas deliveries to the country would be halted

On 14 June 2022, Gazprom announced it would be slashing gas flow via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline

On 16 June 2022, European benchmark natural gas prices increased by around 30% after Gazprom reduced Nord Stream 1's gas supply to Germany to 40% of the pipeline's capacity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022%E2%80%932023_Russia%E2%80%93Europea
n_Union_gas_dispute

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 5:41 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Putin Unveils Dramatic Reshuffling Of Closest Advisors: Shoigu Out As Defense Minister

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-unveils-dramatic-reshuffl
ing-closest-advisors-shoigu-out-defense-minister

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Sunday, May 12, 2024 6:11 PM

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-sanctions-on-russia

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
SECOND:;The Russians claimed that sanctioning was unfair because it was Ukrainians who started the war

I provided TWO quotes SECOND.

Gas was cut off May 2022.

Quote:
May 12, 2022
Russia has banned Gazprom PJSC from shipping gas to Europe through the Polish section of the Yamal pipeline in retaliation for international sanctions, potentially putting the continent’s energy security further at risk.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-12/russia-bans-gas-flo
ws-to-europe-through-key-yamal-pipeline

Sanctions were started in 2019.
LOOK AT THE DATE.
The "SMO" was begun in Feb 2022.

Quote:
UK sanctions relating to Russia
The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 came fully into force on 31 December 2020.

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Monday, May 13, 2024 7:16 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
May 12, 2022
Russia has banned Gazprom PJSC from shipping gas to Europe through the Polish section of the Yamal pipeline in retaliation for international sanctions, potentially putting the continent’s energy security further at risk.

The Russians claimed that sanctioning was unfair because it was Ukrainians who started the war and Ukrainians who were Nazis and Ukraine was part of Russia and a thousand other lies from Russia. Signym, your Russians are mass murderers and thieves who think lying is the universal solvent washing away their crimes. Russia's crimes include price gouging the EU and then blaming the EU's governments for raising natural gas prices.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 13, 2024 7:17 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Russian forces are reaping the benefits of the West's long-term restriction on Ukraine using Western-provided weapons to strike legitimate military targets on Russian territory — territory that Russian forces now depend on to sustain their offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast. Western officials have prohibited Ukraine from using Western-supplied weapons to strike targets on Russian territory, and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly stated their adherence to this condition.[30] UK Foreign Minister David Cameron only recently greenlit Ukrainian forces to use UK-provided weapons to strike targets in Russian territory, but this is insufficient for Ukraine's interdiction needs in Russian territory and came too late to allow Ukrainian forces to inhibit Russia's ability to concentrate forces along the international border.[31] Ukrainian forces have previously used US-provided HIMARS to devastating effect, particularly in forcing Russian forces to withdraw from the west (right) bank of Kherson Oblast in November 2022 and continue to use HIMARS and other US- and Western-provided weapons to strike Russian force concentrations in rear and deep rear areas in occupied Ukraine.[32] Ukrainian forces regularly conduct drone strikes against infrastructure and airfields in Russia, but these lack the same interdiction effects that Ukrainian forces now need to generate to undermine the Russian offensive operations.[33] Ukrainian forces would greatly benefit from being able to use advanced long-range weapons systems to disrupt Russian logistics nodes and routes that are currently supplying the Kharkiv offensive but must instead rely on their limited and depleted stock of indigenous weapons.

Kremlin information operations encouraging Western self-deterrence likely aimed to allow Russian forces to build up and launch offensive operations without the threat of Ukrainian strikes against military and logistics assets. Russian President Vladimir Putin, senior Kremlin officials, and pro-Kremlin mouthpieces have regularly threatened Western states and accused them of "provocations" for continuing to provide military assistance to Ukraine.[34] Kremlin mouthpieces have maintained this rhetorical line even after the passage of a $61 billion dollar US military assistance package to Ukraine in late April, likely in support of an effort to prevent Ukrainian forces from using these weapons to degrade Russia's various ongoing offensive efforts.[35] The Kremlin will likely continue to leverage this information operation as part of its ongoing reflexive control campaign to inhibit Ukraine's ability to use all its available weapons to defend against the current Russian offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast, forcing Ukraine to allocate other resources to a less effective defense and creating opportunities for Russian forces on other sectors of the front to exploit.[36]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-12-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 13, 2024 7:44 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Russia’s ‘brazen’ and intensifying sabotage campaign across Europe

Vladimir Putin is trying to undermine Western support for Ukraine, according to U.S. and European officials. “Russia is definitely at war with the West,” said an analyst.

By Dan De Luce and Jean-Nicholas Fievet | May 13, 2024, 4:00 AM CDT

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/russias-brazen-intensifyin
g-sabotage-campaign-europe-rcna147178

Russia is conducting a sabotage campaign across Europe in an increasingly aggressive effort by President Vladimir Putin to undermine Western support for Ukraine, seeking to damage railways, military bases and other sites used to supply arms to Kyiv, U.S. and European officials say.

The attempted sabotage includes an alleged Russian-backed arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked warehouse in the United Kingdom, a plot to bomb or set fire to military bases in Germany, attempts to hack and disrupt Europe’s railway signal network and the jamming of GPS systems for civil aviation, according to European and British authorities.

The physical sabotage campaign is part of a broader strategy that includes a flood of Russian propaganda and disinformation, increased espionage by Moscow and efforts to exert political influence in Europe to sow doubts about Ukraine’s military prospects and divisions within the NATO alliance, according to Western officials and regional analysts.

“It’s very disturbing, and it’s not like Russia has finished this process. It’s still ongoing,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk of the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank. “Russia is definitely at war with the West.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 13, 2024 10:11 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
SECOND:;The Russians claimed that sanctioning was unfair because it was Ukrainians who started the war

I provided TWO quotes SECOND.

Gas was cut off May 2022.

Quote:
May 12, 2022
Russia has banned Gazprom PJSC from shipping gas to Europe through the Polish section of the Yamal pipeline in retaliation for international sanctions, potentially putting the continent’s energy security further at risk.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-12/russia-bans-gas-flo
ws-to-europe-through-key-yamal-pipeline

Sanctions were started in 2019.
LOOK AT THE DATE.
The "SMO" was begun in Feb 2022.

Quote:
UK sanctions relating to Russia
The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 came fully into force on 31 December 2020.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-sanctions-on-russia

"The west" was at hybrid war with Russia well before the "SMO".

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Monday, May 13, 2024 8:12 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I provided TWO quotes SECOND.

I'll give you a recap of this argument. The UK pledged only £12.5 billion over 4 years for Ukraine. The UK will spend about £4,800 billion over 4 years for running the UK government. Therefore, the cost of Ukraine to the UK is trivial. Signym then adds the cost of price increases for natural gas to £12.5 billion, blaming the UK government for the price increase.

Signym, the blame for higher prices goes to Russia’s decisions, not the UK’s. Russia cheating gas buyers is justification for the UK pledging ten times more than £12.5 billion over 4 years for ammo sent to Ukraine. The UK government is NOT doing anywhere near enough to beat the Russians.

It is a reminder that if winning WWII had been solely a European/UK/Australia/New Zealand responsibility, Germany would now rule Eurasia, except for the parts ruled by Japan. (What was Russia's contribution to winning? Tens of millions of Russians dying in vain, plus Russia stealing Eastern Europe.)

In the future, the weak response by the surrender monkeys of Europe (which includes the UK and its paltry £12.5 billion contribution over 4 years) will allow Russia to rule Eurasia, except for the parts ruled by China.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 13, 2024 8:17 PM

Fuck Ukraine.

This entire thread is a collection of over 1,000 posts about nothing.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Monday, May 13, 2024 8:36 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine.

This entire thread is a collection of over 1,000 posts about nothing.

6ix, you are about as stupid as a person can get without accidentally killing themselves by storing sugar next to rat poison powder, and then adding the poison to their coffee because you were confused about which unlabeled container holds sugar. Russia is rat poison, by the way.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 6:24 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Wishful denial about Putin’s regime

By Alexander J. Motyl | May 13, 2024, 1:30 PM ET

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4660518-wishful-denial-about
-putins-regime/

The only thing worse than wishful thinking is wishful denial.

If you believe without evidence that something will happen and it doesn’t, you’ll be either disappointed if you hoped for something good or relieved if you feared something bad. But if you believe without evidence that something can’t happen and it does, you’ll be surprised if you didn’t expect something good or devastated if you didn’t expect something bad.

While neither approach to reality warrants emulation — after all, we should have good reasons for our beliefs — wishful denial can get you into far more trouble than wishful thinking.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is occasionally accused of engaging in wishful denial about his country’s possible defeat in Russia’s war. But he has an excuse: Waging an existential war with a genocidal regime, Zelensky has no choice but to insist on a full return of all occupied Ukrainian territories.

The many Americans and Europeans who have been guilty of wishful denial regarding the impossibility of Russia’s defeat have no such excuse. Back in November 2023, for instance, two respected analysts argued that “It’s Time to End Magical Thinking About Russia’s Defeat.”

In reality, a Russian defeat would be inevitable if the significantly richer and militarily more powerful West would support Ukraine with all the military equipment it needs. Indeed, the war could have ended in 2023 if the United States and Europe had not pursued a drip-drip policy of providing Ukraine with too little too late.

Because of its wishful denial of the possibility of Russia’s defeat, the West now confronts the possibility of a Ukrainian defeat, with all the disastrous consequences that would have for the world.

More recently, Peter Rutland, a professor of government at Wesleyan University, argued that claims of the fragility of Putin’s regime amount to wishful thinking. In fact, Rutland is guilty of wishful denial, as Putin’s regime is far less stable than Rutland’s analysis — and Putin’s bravado — suggests.

Responding to an article that compared “Putin’s brittle regime” to the Soviet system, Rutland states that “Historical analogies can be attractive but misleading in that they may focus our attention on superficial similarities, while ignoring structural differences. And there are several important respects in which Putin’s regime is in a very different place from the Soviet Union of the perestroika era.”

Fair enough, if true — but is the analogy really that far-fetched?

First, Rutland argues that Mikhail Gorbachev was weak, while Putin is strong: “institutional foundations of the Putin regime are robust and it will likely survive the death of its founder.” Disregard the circularity: obviously, if the regime is strong, it’s true by definition that it isn’t brittle. Focus on the demonstrable fact that no dictatorships, whether Russian or not, can coexist with strong institutions. If they did, they wouldn’t be dictatorships.

Second, says Rutland, “a critical factor in the unraveling of the USSR was the fact that it was fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. … Russia is fighting a war in Ukraine which it is still confident it can win.” Notice the sleight of hand: That the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable is stated as a fact (even though the Soviets were surely confident they could win), while the war in Ukraine is presumably winnable, simply because Russia believes it to be.

In reality, the war in Afghanistan was winnable if the U.S. had not intervened, as the war in Ukraine would be winnable if the West provided Ukraine with everything it needs.

Third, the Soviet economy was “bankrupt,” while “Russia has a dynamic capitalist economy, well integrated into the global economy.” Dynamic? Russian business is struggling to make ends meet, and the only sectors experiencing growth are military-related. Capitalist? Only if you consider the corrupt Russian state a capitalist. Well integrated? Only if you believe that Russia’s shift from the West to North Korea and China is a good thing.

Fourth and finally, Rutland writes that “the USSR was a federation where ethnic Russians made up 52% of the population. Putin’s Russia is a more centralized state where Russians are 82% of the population.” True, but so what? Rutland senses his argument is weak by adding that, “Admittedly, the possibility of an Islamist insurrection in the North Caucasus is a potential security challenge. But the … Chechens have learned … that pursuit of independence is not worth the effort. None of the other ethnic republics in the Russian Federation are remotely interested in starting a war with Moscow.” Tell that to Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, who has effectively established an independent Chechen state ruled by sharia law.

Rutland also misleadingly focuses only on war. But the non-Russians don’t need to start a war to promote the regime’s brittleness: demands for autonomy, non-fulfilment of Moscow’s demands, conflicts over boundaries and the promotion of their own ethnic identities will do the trick.

So the USSR and Putin’s Russia may actually have more in common than Rutland suggests. Ultimately, that comparison doesn’t matter, because we know from Russia’s history and from the experience of the world’s many dictatorships that absolutist one-person rule really doesn’t work in the long run — and Putin’s 25 years in office surely qualifies as such.

Supreme leaders, especially those of advanced age and long tenure, are prone to making mistakes, resisting reforms, pursuing self-enrichment and encouraging buck-passing. They never measure up to Plato’s philosopher kings. Sooner or later, dictators fall flat on their faces, because their regimes really are brittle. And that’s not wishful thinking.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 7:56 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine.

This entire thread is a collection of over 1,000 posts about nothing.
6ix, you are about as stupid as a person can get without accidentally killing themselves by storing sugar next to rat poison powder, and then adding the poison to their coffee because you were confused about which unlabeled container holds sugar. Russia is rat poison, by the way.

Agreed second.

T

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 8:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
SECOND:;The Russians claimed that sanctioning was unfair because it was Ukrainians who started the war

I provided TWO quotes SECOND.

Gas was cut off May 2022.

Quote:
May 12, 2022
Russia has banned Gazprom PJSC from shipping gas to Europe through the Polish section of the Yamal pipeline in retaliation for international sanctions, potentially putting the continent’s energy security further at risk.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-12/russia-bans-gas-flo
ws-to-europe-through-key-yamal-pipeline

Sanctions were started in 2019.
LOOK AT THE DATE.
The "SMO" was begun in Feb 2022.

Quote:
UK sanctions relating to Russia
The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 came fully into force on 31 December 2020.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-sanctions-on-russia

"The west" was at hybrid war with Russia well before the "SMO".

In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. It was the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War. And they didn't stop there. All the while, comrade signym denied Russian troops were involved.

It's funny how signym complains about how I respond to her posts. She complains I don't treat her right as she posts anti-west bullshit and lies.

G had a thousand post thread, more like thousands of posts, about Russia invading Ukraine. For the longest time, Signym and kiki denied Russia was even involved. She's not the brightest apple on the tree.

T

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 8:39 AM

Is Russian New Prime Minister Influenced By The Chinese? | Crazy Russian News Update

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 8:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
G had a thousand post thread, more like thousands of posts, about Russia invading Ukraine. Signym and kiki denying Russia was even involved. She's not the brightest apple on the tree.

Half of the posts in this thread are me saying Fuck Ukraine, and they're the only posts that matter.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 8:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine.

This entire thread is a collection of over 1,000 posts about nothing.
6ix, you are about as stupid as a person can get without accidentally killing themselves by storing sugar next to rat poison powder, and then adding the poison to their coffee because you were confused about which unlabeled container holds sugar. Russia is rat poison, by the way.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

You are rat poison.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 10:17 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine.

This entire thread is a collection of over 1,000 posts about nothing.
6ix, you are about as stupid as a person can get without accidentally killing themselves by storing sugar next to rat poison powder, and then adding the poison to their coffee because you were confused about which unlabeled container holds sugar. Russia is rat poison, by the way.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

You are rat poison.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

6ix, you are unemployed, at home, waiting for your pancreas to kill you, kept alive by the government providing healthcare to the poor. The Russians are murdering their neighbors, stealing their land, and when the day is done, the Russians drink themselves into a coma, wake the next day with a hangover, and go off to kill more, steal more. 6ix, you and Russians are rat poison.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 11:28 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
SECOND:;The Russians claimed that sanctioning was unfair because it was Ukrainians who started the war.

SIGNY: I provided TWO quotes SECOND.
Gas was cut off May 2022.

Quote:
May 12, 2022
Russia has banned Gazprom PJSC from shipping gas to Europe through the Polish section of the Yamal pipeline in retaliation for international sanctions, potentially putting the continent’s energy security further at risk.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-12/russia-bans-gas-flo
ws-to-europe-through-key-yamal-pipeline

Sanctions were started in 2019.
LOOK AT THE DATE.
The "SMO" was begun in Feb 2022.

Quote:
UK sanctions relating to Russia
The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 came fully into force on 31 December 2020.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-sanctions-on-russia

"The west" was at hybrid war with Russia well before the "SMO".

THUGR: In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. It was the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War. And they didn't stop there. All the while, comrade signym denied Russian troops were involved. G had a thousand post thread, more like thousands of posts, about Russia invading Ukraine. For the longest time, Signym and kiki denied Russia was even involved. She's not the brightest apple on the tree.

You'd think, after getting your ass handed to you multiple times bc you constantly LIED ABOUT my Zeihan/ China posts, you'd learn to stop lying.

But no.

I never said Russia wasn't involved. Go back, dummy. Find me the quote where I said that. It's gonna take you a long time.

That's Ok, I can wait.

Quote:
THUGR:It's funny how signym complains about how I respond to her posts. She complains I don't treat her right as she posts anti-west bullshit and lies.

ANOTHER LIE!

OMFG, you never learn!

I complained about two things:
YOU LIE ABOUT MY POSTS.
YOUR "SOURCES" SUCK, AND YOU BELIEVE THEM.

Here is what I actually posted

Quote:
* I didn't say he was "wrong" about China. I said I needed to independently research it.
Jeezus fucking Christ, THUGR. Having a discussion with you is impossible bc you CONSTANTLY misunderstand or misrepresent what people are saying!

* Poor comrade THUGR. All he can do is keep ~~misrepresenting~~ lying about what I post. I did post about the demographic transition. Its happened in every nation that urbanized. And, yes, it happened in China, too. China is also dealing with the results of the one-child policy, in effect from 1979 to 2015.
But is it a CRISIS? Will it be enough to cause China to collapse and disappear, like Zeihan says? I dunno ...

* YOU misrepresent. Everything about me and everything I post.
Seriously, dood, what's up with that???
He presented some population distribution charts of China, then a "corrected" population chart of China, then claimed that even THOSE were incorrect and overstated China's under 40 population by 100-300 million. Do other researchers agree? ...

* Are these more of those "Trump is colluding with Russia/ Russian bank communicates with Trump Tower/ Russia is running out of missiles/ lasers can shoot hypersonic missiles out of the sky/ China is going to disappear in 10 years" videos?
If not, and they have actual evidence (extended videos or quotes, not snipped, out of context clips, documents etc) and verifiable FACTS from sources that don't have a hx of lying egregiously, then I'll listen. Otherwise you need to vet your info more carefully. Bc I don't have time for nonsense and lies.

* You are seriously dishonest, THUGR. Instead of trying to understand what someone is saying, or figure things out for yourself, you want to "win" every argument at any cost, even if you look really, really stupid and dishonest doing it.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=64889&p=22

I think from now on we should all just assume that every time you post about MY posts, you're lying. I know I'M going to!

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 1:10 PM

Still trying to fix it I see; too late comrade just admit your mistake. Love the rant though.

As for lying about Russia invading Crimea, G's thread can no longer be accessed. But you know that.

T

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024 2:09 PM