Suranis wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 5:46 am
*sigh* Ok.
Basically I feel that the war was taking all the goodwill America had built up, then the states urinated on the worlds leg with Bush. Then you had the 11th of September, the States had the sympathy and goodwill of the world, and then they took a bucket of urine and dumped it all over the worlds head, and all for a lie a 3 year old could have seen through.
And while they did that we were all supposed to keep feeling sympathy for the 11th of September attacks while stinking from the urine.
But yes, you dragged the world into a war with a tissue of lies, abandoned Afghanistan when you had a real chance of doing something right just so a dickhead could have HIS WAR, and have acted all butt hurt when people have pointed it out since, and pulled out the dirty greasy tarpaulin of NINE ELEVENEN to shut people up.
I'm in a country where people were blowing one another up for decades and the UK has been bombed loads of times. The 11th of September was a serious attack but it was a one time pinprick in a country behind a huge moat. It ranks right up my Nose when you use NINA EHVENEN as an excuse, and stick to tell people to shut up at any criticism.
And as a result the world became an unstable place. And you use that instability and NINE EHEVENENENENEN to launch 6 or 7 new carriers while your roads crumble, and your people are ground down more and more into poverty.
Sadly, one of the lessons the neocons learned in Iraq was that in America, the money doesn't matter. We spent a trillion dollars there - more, probably - and more than half of it was just waste and fraud and looting the US treasury. But nobody really suffered because of that, back here in the US. A lot of us were outraged about it. But nobody did anything, nobody went to jail, nobody paid any price, instead they couldn't find places to stash all the money they stole, and they paid no penalty.
That's a big difference from Ukraine. Russia can't spend a trillion dollars there, and what they do spend is going to lead to starvation and the collapse of the Russian economy, IMHO.
Things would be very, very different if America had really suffered for the Iraq invasion, the way Russia is really going to suffer for the Ukraine invasion. We'd have had a very different past two decades, that's for sure.
The more I learn about this planet, the more improbable it all seems.
Illia Ponomarenko @IAPonomarenko
Major General Vitaliy Gerasimov, the chief of staff with Russia’s 41st Combined Arms Army, has been eliminated by Ukraine's military intelligence operators.
I still don’t get it what Russians are hoping for in this war.
Word on the street is that Valery (not Vitaliy) Gerasimov is actually the chief of staff and that he (Valery) isn't anywhere near Ukraine. Or dead. FWIW.
Although there are twitters that he may be dead after Putin gets done with him for the state of the war.
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
Some Russian officials think invading Ukraine was 'a mistake' and are 'discouraged, frightened,' and 'making apocalyptic forecasts,' report says
President Vladimir Putin has alienated some top Russian officials since the early stages of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian journalist Farida Rustamova reported.
According to the journalist Ilya Lozovsky's English translation of Rustamova's Tuesday report, officials and members of parliament she spoke with said they were increasingly worried about how Putin was handling the war.
"In reality, the attitude toward the war within the corridors of power is ambiguous," Rustamova wrote, according to Lozovsky....."I came to this conclusion after speaking with several members of parliament and officials at various levels. Many of them are discouraged, frightened, and are making apocalyptic forecasts."
Another person granted anonymity said Kremlin officials were "carefully enunciating the word clusterfuck" when describing the invasion.
raison de arizona wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 2:04 pm
Yes, simply stop resisting, change your constitution to enshrine a Russian puppet government, and cede three areas of your country to Russia.
Russia will stop 'in a moment' if Ukraine meets terms - Kremlin
Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.
"We really are finishing the demilitarisation of Ukraine. We will finish it. But the main thing is that Ukraine ceases its military action. They should stop their military action and then no one will shoot," he said.
On the issue of neutrality, Peskov said: "They should make amendments to the constitution according to which Ukraine would reject any aims to enter any bloc."
He added: "We have also spoken about how they should recognise that Crimea is Russian territory and that they need to recognise that Donetsk and Lugansk are independent states. And that’s it. It will stop in a moment."
For a moment I thought I wandered into the Cops Behaving Badly thread, the fake "stop resisting" bullshit was smelling so strong and familiar.
But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;
And the truth shall ever come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.
- Charles Mackay, "Eternal Justice"
Real, or Ukrainian propaganda? I dunno. Powerful though.
flexghost.@flexghost1 wrote:
A poem from a Russian soldier to his mother. Written in a Ukrainian hospital
Mom, I'm a prisoner but don't cry. I was broken now I’m new. I was treated by a Kherson doctor. I’m so tired. They treated me. Can you believe that? I fired from Gradov. Half the hospital was rubble…
but he treated me: "because you’ need attention."
Mom, I'm a monster, I'm sorry. In the constant lies we got lost. All my life I have to bear this cross. Now my eyes are open. We were taken to places to attack. Where did the shells land? What have we done with Kherson!
The hospitals are full of wounded. Everyone here curses Russians. A father, turned whiter than a sheet, shakes his dead child
Mother, I am a monster, an executioner. There are no terrorists here. There is only sad cries. And we are the ones who are more terrible than the Nazis.
We, mother, we were sent to slaughter. The battalion commander had no remorse. Then a Kherson man shouted to me: “Stop! Get down!" and do you know what, mother? He didn't want to shoot me. He is human and I a killer. Do you hear, mother, I am a murderer, I spilled their blood!
Mom, I'm a prisoner, but don't cry. Damned, but now like new. I was treated by a Kherson doctor Tired, strict and harsh. He did medical duty. Now I, burning with shame, can finally think for the first time, I could think: Who needs a war like this?
Saved from a Ukrainian telegram channel march 5, 2022
How the Ukrainians keep their humanity, dignity and strength is beyond me. Civilians being targeted, women and children being led to Russian land mines on the humanitarian corridor to the border…
And yet they still treat their wounded like brothers
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
Former member (tmohr00) returning after a long absence.
Our beloved revolutionary sweetheart Orly Taitz is shooting out emails on the regular demanding - well, I'm not sure. In true Orly fashion, the subject line was the entire text reproduced below. Don't go changing, Orly. (No link to her infested website, of course)
>>> Based on a treaty with US and Russia, Ukraine not only agreed to give up its nukes, but also bombers and air-launched missiles. Other bombers and missiles were transferred to Russia as payment for natural gas debts. Partially, Bush and Obama are guilty of disarming Ukraine, making it incapable of fighting Russia. We need to send bombers, more so than fighter jets
Dr Orly TaitzESQ
29839 Santa Margarita pkwy, ste 100
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688
ph 949-683-5411 fax949-766-7603
orlytaitzesq.com
Don't say "war" or "invasion," this thread title doesn't meet U.N. guidelines.
► Show Spoiler
► Show Spoiler
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
When Hillary Clinton sought to sow doubts about Barack Obama, her rival for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, she ran an attack ad tarnishing him as dangerously inexperienced. As the screen shows images from a suburban house, a husky-voiced narrator intones: “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing.” There’s clearly been a terrible international incident. The narrator asks, “Who do you want answering the phone?”
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine has unfolded, the narrator’s question has rattled around my head. The invasion is a moral test, because Putin has committed atrocities that demand the strongest possible response. And it is a strategic test, because the strongest possible response could very plausibly escalate into a nuclear conflict.
Joe Biden hasn’t received the full credit he deserves for his statecraft during this crisis, because he has pursued a policy of self-effacement. Rather than touting his accomplishments in mobilizing a unified global response to the invasion, he has portrayed the stringent sanctions as the triumph of an alliance. By carefully limiting his own public role—and letting France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz take turns as the lead faces of NATO—he has left Vladimir Putin with little opportunity to portray the conflict as a standoff with the United States, a narrative that the Russian leader would clearly prefer. He’s shown how to wield American leadership in the face of deep European ambivalence about its exercise.
His handling of the domestic politics of the crisis has been just as savvy. Although he could justifiably have portrayed Republicans as the party of Putin apologists, he refrained from dinging his political enemies. During his State of the Union address, he actively encouraged Republicans to feel as if they were his partners in a popular front.
Russia has vaulted past Iran and North Korea to become the world’s most-sanctioned nation in the span of just 10 days following President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a surge of action led by the U.S. and European allies starting Feb. 22, Russia became the target of 2,778 new sanctions designations, bringing them to more than 5,530, according to Castellum.ai, a global sanctions-tracking database. That surpassed Iran, which has confronted 3,616 sanctions against it over the course of a decade, most for its nuclear program and support of terrorism.
Russia Is Now The World's Most Sanctioned Country
The pressure on Russia has increased nearly every day. Over the weekend, American Express Co. and Netflix Inc. joined the growing list of companies withdrawing from or suspending operations in Russia. Some are doing so because of sanctions liabilities, but others are “self-sanctioning” -- essentially deciding to get out even though they aren’t legally required to do so.
“This is financial nuclear war and the largest sanctions event in history,” said Peter Piatetsky, a former Treasury Department official in the Obama and Trump administrations who co-founded Castellum.ai. “Russia went from being part of the global economy to the single largest target of global sanctions and a financial pariah in less than two weeks.”
The sanctions against Russia underscore the extraordinary unity between the U.S. and its allies in the face of Putin’s invasion and their determination to leverage their economic power to try to dissuade him from pressing his advance. It also reflects the reluctance of those nations to put troops in harm’s way in Ukraine, a non-NATO ally.
Putin said over the weekend that the blitz of sanctions is “akin to a declaration of war.”
Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko wrote:
Ukrainian military intelligence service says Wagner Group dog tags have been found among Russians killed in action in Ukraine
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 4:31 pm
I don't know what that means.
"Wagner group" is Russia's private mercenary soldier force, known for being rather ruthless dickheads. There were rumors that Eric Prince and his band of misfits hooked up with them, but I don't know if that was ever verified. The fact that they are finding Wagner group dog tags with Syrian country codes on them means that Russia is probably pulling paid mercs from Syria to fight in Ukraine.
More or less.
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
Last I heard the Wagner Group were working in Africa with Africaans leaders to increase Russian influence. if Putin has called their asses home, it means he is burning through his competent troops at a massive rate, and has decided Ukraine is the top Priority.
Hmmm. That might explain that on Twitter during less diminished Troll time, some of few I have been curious enough to seek info on were from Uganda (spreading pro-Putin info)
@IAPonomarenko
It's good to see you 
orly
x4