Ukraine

[PigFish]

3 hours ago, 99call said:

You just hate what your country has told you to hate....Ray.  Over and over and over again.    It's almost like something you would expect from North Korea

I've got a lot of time for you mate.  But on this I think you're talking absolute horseshit, and not only that,   but incredibly dangerous horseshit. 

.....with all due respect and warmest regards

 

I have just pointed out a historic fact about what Hitler did to labor. Do you care to rebut it or deny it?

He destroyed the rights of workers to represent themselves and replaced it with a government run entity that could be controlled from the top, by him. You did not answer it, nor deny it with facts, you rolled right over the facts and filled your arguments with hyperbole.

Where are your facts about what Hitler did to foster individualism, respectful of individual liberty and natural rights...? What did he do to protect the voice of the minority? Where exactly did he respect natural law and natural rights in this model of government? He did not... He ruled from the top down, just like socialists and communist do the world over...

My government did not teach me this. My grandparents flead communism from central Europe. My father's family was from Ukraine, and my mother was Czech. They taught me this...

 

 

[BEVOSREVENGE]

4 minutes ago, 99call said:

I see Putin, has invited Zelenskyy to Belarus for 'talks'.     yeah right Vlad! top trolling

Interesting.

If I am Zelenskyy, I tell him that I'll meet him in Switzerland

[99call]

3 hours ago, BEVOSREVENGE said:

Interesting.

If I am Zelenskyy, I tell him that I'll meet him in Switzerland

Yup!

 

3 hours ago, PigFish said:

Do you care to rebut it or deny it?

I'll PM you Ray

[PigFish]

5 minutes ago, 99call said:

I'll PM you Ray

... save it my friend. You are entrenched and so am I. Lets leave it and continue to be friends. Being a capitalist at heart, someone is buying my time and I owe them their money's worth while I am on their clock! Cheers! -Ray

[BrightonCorgi]

26 minutes ago, RichG said:

Does Putin truly want to absorb the Ukraine in full, or would he be satisfied with concessions that render her in his mind harmless, no NATO, neutrality and disarmament, etc.? Concessions of this nature would essentially be yielding their autonomy to him anyway. 

Seems like the former at this point.  Maybe a new government under his control and he'd be good on that.  I don't think Putin was expecting as much a fight.  His term as leader in Russia could very well be in jeopardy at this point.

[MrBirdman]

5 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Seems like the former at this point.  Maybe a new government under his control and he'd be good on that.  I don't think Putin was expecting as much a fight.  His term as leader in Russia could very well be in jeopardy at this point.

I don’t think full annexation is in the cards. Easier to maintain buffer states under your finger like Belarus. Remember, even under the Soviet Union Ukraine was nominally “independent.” 

[Kitchen]

I think the more important question now is how will this impact future foreign policy?  

IMHO, first any small country outside of the large Western countries (including smaller NATO ones) will consider any promises made to them for protection to be now worthless.  The Afghanistan debacle suggested this notion and now the Ukraine debacle proves it.  I would suspect even those with ratified treaties will start to feel this way.  Likewise, more then likely at this point, NATO exist in name only.  

Second, large western countries will be seen as living in a fantasy world of their own creation.  The spin machine is already at work insisting "this was all foreseen anyway and everything was done correctly.  No, no, no, nothing was done wrongly, so there is nothing to apologize for, nothing to self assess, and nothing to reassess.   We did everything right you see ... it's really climate change we need to be worried about anyway!"  And in a couple of weeks, all the inflation and supply chains issues we have been dealing with will suddenly be blamed on the war in Ukraine.  In other words, we will no longer be viewed as a serious nation looking to help with serious problems, and instead will be seen as the rich drunk at the ball.  Good to bum a free drink off of, but dont bother asking for any life advice.  

Third, many will start to ask, if Ukraine did not give into the West in 1994 to get rid of the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world and instead just kept them aimed at Russia, would this have happened?  Impossible to know, but why tempt fate, right?  So expect many smaller nations to say "to hell with you and your broken promises, we're going nuclear."  It's going to be a hard argument to counter now.   

Taiwan certainly has the capabilities to develop their own arsenal, and I would not blame them if they suddenly went into hyperdrive on it.  Japan as well and South Korea.  Expect the clock to tick a little closer to midnight after this.  

[99call]

9 minutes ago, PigFish said:

... save it my friend. You are entrenched and so am I. Lets leave it and continue to be friends. Being a capitalist at heart, someone is buying my time and I owe them their money's worth while I am on their clock! Cheers! -Ray

Still.....I will PM you.....it's my latest attempt to bring down the capitalist machine.!  I know keeping you off the tools, hits them hard

Be well Ray

 

[MrBirdman]

5 minutes ago, Kitchen said:

Taiwan certainly has the capabilities to develop their own arsenal, and I would not blame them if they suddenly went into hyperdrive on it.  Japan as well and South Korea.  Expect the clock to tick a little close to midnight after this.  

Japan and South Korea don’t need nukes - they’re already included under the US nuclear umbrella. 

If Taiwan began development of nukes it would just speed up China’s timetable for invasion. 

The only way Putin invades a NATO power without a continental war is if a certain superpower pulls out of the alliance entirely  

 

[Bijan]

4 minutes ago, Kitchen said:

IMHO, first any small country outside of the large Western countries (including smaller NATO ones) will consider any promises made to them for protection to be now worthless.  The Afghanistan debacle suggested this notion and now the Ukraine debacle proves it.  I would suspect even those with ratified treaties will start to feel this way.  Likewise, more then likely at this point, NATO exist in name only.

Specifically NATO is not going to defend non NATO members in the same way as NATO members that's the purpose of NATO it's a mutual defense alliance not a policing the rest of the world alliance. That Ukraine wanted to join NATO and Russia didn't want them to join and that was part of their war aims doesn't affect how NATO would react if Russia invaded a NATO member.

[BEVOSREVENGE]

37 minutes ago, therealrsr said:

I agree with the sentiment regarding the rabbit hole of which is worse, but Russia is using the Nazi claim as justification to its citizens for invading their "brothers".  This makes that nazi claim part of the discourse.  It is a convenient lie that plays on historic sensitivities.  I have no clue about the level of anti-semitism in Ukraine.  I would not be surprised to learn it runs deep.  However, I have not heard of Russians liberating concentration camps in the march to Kyiv so it is just more of Putin's BS justification at this point.

I was happy to see this morning that the UK will be sanctioning Putin individually and hope the EU and US will follow their lead.  I wish Germany had the opportunity to snatch his yacht, Graceful, but it sailed out of Hamburg just in time.🙄

How often does a bully decide to stop unless someone stands up on them? 

In regards to Putin and not you, of course.....  in our office, we tend to say, if you are explaining you are losing. 

I agree that it is obvious to everyone that what was said before the invasion was nothing more than empty rhetoric.  

Putin could have said that Ukrainians like green eggs & ham and then invaded.   The green eggs and ham statement justifies his invasion of Ukraine as equally as does the theater he provided earlier in the week (calling them Nazis, claiming it is not a country, etc.).

[Chas.Alpha]

38 minutes ago, BEVOSREVENGE said:The green eggs and ham statement justifies his invasion of Ukraine as equally as does the theater he provided earlier in the week (calling them Nazis, claiming it is not a country, etc.).

There are some in this country that believe Putin’s “justifications” for his invasion were brilliant and an act of savvy brinksmanship. Of course, that’s a completely different rabbit hole...

[BrightonCorgi]

12 minutes ago, Chas.Alpha said:

There are some in this country that believe Putin’s “justifications” for his invasion were brilliant and an act of savvy brinksmanship. Of course, that’s a completely different rabbit hole...

If his intent was the best time to invade Ukraine, he picked the right time.  Weak US leadership and fickle NATO; rising inflation & oil, and further alliance with China.

Taiwan must be very nervous right now.  If US and NATO get deep into it with Ukraine, US won't be able to stop China going into Taiwan at all.  US cannot beat Russia in a conventional war as it is.  US public has no appetite for confrontation of either country.

[99call]

-

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by 99call

[El Presidente]

2 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said:

US won't be able to stop China going into Taiwan at all. 

Everyone in this part of the world already understands that. 

It has nothing to do with being overstretched. It has everything to do with being outmatched and geographically disadvantaged. 

[BrightonCorgi]

9 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

It has nothing to do with being overstretched.

I don't recall saying overstretched?

[El Presidente]

2 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said:

I don't recall saying overstretched?

If US and NATO get deep into it with Ukraine, US won't be able to stop China going into Taiwan at all. 

Apologies if I read the above incorrectly. 

[Chas.Alpha]

19 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said:

If his intent was the best time to invade Ukraine, he picked the right time.  Weak US leadership and fickle NATO; rising inflation & oil, and further alliance with China.

I find the leadership in the U.S. being neither weaker or stronger than in previous years. The fact that NATO wasn’t able to count on U.S. support as much as it could in the past probably had something to do with Putin’s estimation of it’s response. That, coupled with the reliance of Western European countries on Russian energy products probably also factored in to his decision.

Either way, yes. Taiwan is likely keeping a close eye on the situation and the West’s response. Maybe it’s finally time to rid Cuba of its Nazis?

[NSXCIGAR]

4 hours ago, MrBirdman said:

Wrong. Let’s get this straight - from long before he even came into power Hitler had called for an invasion of “Slavic” countries - basically Russia and Eastern Europe - and the extermination and replacement of their inhabitants with ethnic Germans. This is what is meant by “Lebensraum” or “living room.” Genocide - extermination of unwanted groups, including the disabled - was absolutely part and parcel of Nazism and this is beyond dispute or reasonable opinion. 

Why does this require extermination? Hitler wrote of the removal of Jews, not necessarily the extermination. You are interpreting Lebensraum as genocide because it led to that, not because they necessarily intended or planned for that.

And again, your position can't explain why the Nazis, specifically Eichmann, still had plans as late as 1940 to deport all Jews to Madagascar. 

I think this LSE paper sums it up: Nazism got to power with the stated goal of destroying the economic livelihood of
Germany’s Jewish population

This I agree with--not your assertion that the stated goal was killing them all. 

4 hours ago, MrBirdman said:

Your statement is also completely obscene  - “if there had been no gays”??? There are gay people everywhere. That’s like saying if there were no black people in Africa we wouldn’t have had slavery. What the hell. 

Totally missing the point. Who are Putin's "Nazis" going to mass murder in Ukraine? The suggestion here is that Nazis are pathologically genocidal. I argue that Nazis are certainly capable of it but historically it was limited in scope and not a fundamental tenet of their ideology. And since just about every ideology has committed repression what makes the Nazis so bad? Communists have killed far more both in numbers and per capita. Should we invade every communist country because of their "history"?

10 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

i am truly staggered by this. i am assuming that you are not a holocaust denier (if i have that wrong then we are never likely to reach any consensus), in which case, i would contend that the holocaust is exactly that evidence. and fairly compelling evidence. there were around half a million jews in germany at the start of the hitler era. obviously some escaped but yet they still killed 6 million. so yes, they wanted to kill all they could find. 80-90% of the jews they killed were from outside germany.

I'm not sure how anything I've said suggests I'm a Holocaust denier. I have acknowledged the genocide several times. It's just unfortunate that anyone who questions any aspect of "mainstream accepted opinion" of 1930s Nazi Germany is labeled as a holocaust denier. 

If they wanted to kill all they found why didn't they? Why even run these camps? Why capture anyone? Why risk survivors (of which there were many)? Why try to deport them at multiple points until 1940?

And as far as "outside Germany" these were areas considered by Germany to be part of the Reich, so yes, they were going to clean those areas out for reasons of "purity". To say they were scouring the world to find jews isn't accurate. They were scouring their prospective future lands.

[El Presidente]

I am going to ask for the final time that all protagonists abandon their apparent compelling need to educate everyone on the correct interpretation of Nazism /anti semitism. 

 

Capice?

 

 

[Ken Gargett]

20 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I'm not sure how anything I've said suggests I'm a Holocaust denier. I have acknowledged the genocide several times. It's just unfortunate that anyone who questions any aspect of "mainstream accepted opinion" of 1930s Nazi Germany is labeled as a holocaust denier. 

If they wanted to kill all they found why didn't they? Why even run these camps? Why capture anyone? Why risk survivors (of which there were many)? Why try to deport them at multiple points until 1940?

And as far as "outside Germany" these were areas considered by Germany to be part of the Reich, so yes, they were going to clean those areas out for reasons of "purity". To say they were scouring the world to find jews isn't accurate. They were scouring their prospective future lands.

before i enjoy my seemingly inevitable, though outrageously iniquitous and always baffling monthly ban, one point on what you have said. i said that i was assuming you were not a holocaust denier. not that you were. to suggest that i have labelled you as a holocaust denier is completely false. 

nor did i say or suggest that they were 'scouring the world to find jews'. my comment related to their actions when they got there.  

i would suggest that there are very simple and obvious responses to your assertions but as detailing them would apparently cross boundaries, best if i leave it. it would seem one of those issues on which we will never agree. 

[PigFish]

30 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

I am going to ask for the final time that all protagonists abandon their apparent compelling need to educate everyone on the correct interpretation of Nazism /anti semitism. 

 

Capice?

 

 

Too bad! I have found it interesting...

I am hoping admin does not pull down either side. Just MHO.

Cheers! -R

PS... not fishing for an explanation or rationale. Making a statement of interest in reading people apparently well read on a topic...

 

[Ken Gargett]

3 minutes ago, PigFish said:

Too bad! I have found it interesting...

I am hoping admin does not pull down either side. Just MHO.

Cheers! -R

PS... not fishing for an explanation or rationale. Making a statement of interest in reading people apparently well read on a topic...

 

who would have ever thought it? ray and i in agreement on something. 

[BEVOSREVENGE]

1 hour ago, therealrsr said:

@BEVOSREVENGE  If you took that as me coming back at you I wanted to make clear that was not my intent.  I agreed with what you said about a rabbit hole.  Peace brother!

I absolutely did not take it that way at all.  We are all good.

[99call]

4 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

who would have ever thought it? ray and i in agreement on something. 

I say ban them both! HA!