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Russia Invades Ukraine
In a speech Wednesday night, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation,” followed immediately by troops entering Ukraine and large explosions throughout the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the attack and declared martial law. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called it a “full-scale invasion,” adding, “Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under strikes. This is a war of aggression. Ukraine will defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now.”
Putin strenuously warned against international meddling. “To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history,” he said. “All relevant decisions have been taken.”
President Biden issued a statement: “The prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine tonight as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces.” He added that he will consult with the leaders of the G7 on Thursday and promised “severe sanctions.”
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What is your basis for saying that?
There are at this time long lines at the ATMs in Ukraine.
The problem is that sanctions on Putin’s henchmen in London, Miami, and Italy will cause pain for the people in London, Miami, and Italy who benefit from that Russian money.
I said what I meant: Whether or not it’s our problem is not for us to decide. Does it help when I write it that way? It would be nice if we could decide things like that, but we can’t.
I guess you’d still vote for Biden over Trump. That tells me all I need to know about you. The CoC prevents me from saying more. Well, this: I’m not your friend, special or otherwise.
Wise of you. Rushbabe got suspended for saying more.
Getting suspended from what is turning into a dumpster fire doesn’t concern me, but there are such things as manners.
Domestically, we’re already in the late 1920s/early 1930s.
Sometimes the cops are made worthless or worse than worthless by political interference and top brass policies, i.e. the Kyle Rittenhouse situation.
Of course, doing the right thing cost him dearly, and could have easily destroyed his life.
And I forgot to mention that the most pained persons will be elites in London, Miami, and Italy.
Sanctions are generally about crippling a state’s capacity to project power, not regime change.
We were not a house divided against itself at the time….we are no longer an ‘exceptional’ country, either in spirit (in the eyes of the Democrats) or in terms of relative power.
It kinda did destroy his life, even if he didn’t go to prison for it.
It destroyed any chance he had at a normal life, but he might be able to make it work for him, now. Either way, its better than being railroaded into prison as a ‘mass-murderer’ by truly horrible people. It all depends on whether Democrats and CINO judges are in charge of his civil actions.
Presidential election here in Korea on March 9, and they may well elect another China/N. Korean appeaser.
Sir, have you ever considered NOT voting, rather than voting, and giving your stamp of approval to an anti-American agenda?
I don’t like Trump, but voted for him after taking a millisecond look at the history and agenda of the opposition.
Ah, but you see, Gary has Principles.
You do, Gary. On a site with a some hundreds of regularly active members, a couple dozen find it absolutely intolerable that even one member apologetically voted against Donald J. Trump. Short of ritual suicide, I don’t believe there is a thing you can do to get them to give up the grudge.
I haven’t heard a thing about this bill, but I don’t think any president should have the ability to enact tariffs. This should be the job of Congress, not the Executive branch. You may like having that much power in the hands of the president when it is your guy, but 50% of the time the president is a Democrat.
Not really. My impression is that most, if not all, would be at least mostly satisfied if he would admit – especially given the current situation, as well as what happened with Afghanistan etc – that it was a mistake. And maybe promised not to do it again.
Bit o’ pot and kettle here. Steven Seward never made the claim you are rebutting. I don’t care what Bolton said and neither does Europe.
What is the point of bringing up Bolton’s quote? “Not a consistent supporter,” is some incredibly weak tea for demonstrating that Trump is somehow not missed in Europe. Sounds like an NT trying to shoehorn an irrelevant and mildly disconcerting fact into an unrelated conversation. Even were Bolton’s quote an accurate and damning portrayal of a feckless, fickle Trump policy toward Europe — Ukraine just got eaten on Biden’s watch. Gee I bet they miss Trump now.
If there’s a better connection, I’m missing it.
If I thought there was ever any chance whatsoever that this post wouldn’t turn into a [CoC], I might feel some responsibility for my initial comment, since it clearly set several people off. It might have been more flippant than strictly necessary, but it’s a reflection of my deep disgust over where we are.
Here’s the hard truth. Putin is going to take as much of Ukraine as he wants. And there is nothing that we or anyone else are prepared to do that will stop that. The time to stop it was before it started, through what is, to be entirely honest, mostly bluffing that we will do something that he can’t recover from. That’s why it didn’t happen while Trump was in office; because Putin couldn’t tell how far Trump might go. Joe Biden presents no credible threat whatsoever, other than the danger of unleashing our strategic harrumph reserve. Unfortunately, every time our bluff is shown to be hollow, it becomes less effective the next time.
In the meantime, we are in no state to fight a war against a major power, and make no mistake, you can compare the Russian economy to Italy all you want, but when it comes to military, Russia is a major power. And to stop them at this point would take a full scale invasion, which would take months to ramp up, by which time this will be over and Putin will be solidifying his positions, while reminding his troops of what their grandfathers did at Stalingrad.
We, on the other hand, are looking at a crisis of confidence in every single institution of our society including, for the first time since Vietnam, the military. A military that is led by people who are more concerned with intersectional politics and protecting the environment than they are with combat readiness. The only positive thing that can be said about that leadership is that it’s slightly less incompetent than the civilian leadership; the only person in the country who is more of a blithering idiot than the president, is the vice-president. It’s being a reported by a media that a majority of people in the country consider to be “the enemy of the people”, and with good reason. There is no solid basis to believe anything that we are being told, whether by government or media. It doesn’t mean everything they say is a lie, just that we have little way of knowing when it is.
So, what are we doing here? We’re going to implement “crippling sanctions”. Again. We’re going to halt their ability to obtain credit on the international market. Well, zippedy-doo-dah. Are you unaware that, unlike us, Russia is not deep in debt? That they have large cash reserves, and a large and steady income stream from the very people implementing sanctions against them? An income stream that is currently being inflated by this invasion? If the sanctions become a problem for them, all they have to do is shut off the energy flow for a couple of days, and Europe will fold like a cheap suit. You don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is happening in the middle of winter, do you?
Not that Europe was going to do anything meaningful anyway. Germany’s contribution to the war effort is to send 5000 helmets to the Ukranians. If Europe thought this was as serious as the media does, why aren’t their armies marching towards Ukraine right now?
Now, if they were talking about sending anti-tank and anti-helicopter weapons in sufficient quantity to destroy everything coming at them, I’d say great, I’m all for it. But that’s not what they’re doing. They’re sending troops and talking about established borders, and territorial integrity, and defending democracy. Whenever they start talking about defending democracy the one thing you can be sure of is that they have no plan. No plan to win, no plan on what constitutes victory, and you can be damn sure that they don’t have a plan to leave.
Since there is nothing meaningful that we will do, why don’t we sit this one out and reflect on how we got here and what we can do to be less useless next time. iWe made some suggestions, at least some of which are solid ideas. Unfortunately, in the current environment there is absolutely no chance they will happen. Letting Europe take the lead for once in their own defense might at least accomplish one thing; teach them that they can’t rely on us to do it for them. Collectively, Europe has an economy that is bigger than ours and has half again as many people. Why are we taking the lead?
Finally, the analogy to walking down the street and seeing someone being assaulted is flawed on several levels, the most obvious of which is that the Ukraine is not on our street. It’s on the other side of the world. Once you expand the scope like that, there are a couple dozen other places you need to answer for. Why aren’t we there? I strongly suspect that the reason people are so hawkish on this is Putin being made out as the reincarnation of Hitler for five years, in order to attack Trump. Do I think he’s a good guy? Of course not, he’s a strongman dictator. But those aren’t exactly uncommon, are they?
Hence my comment.
I understood this and I 100% agree.
But, since we are not properly outraged and demanded we “do something” we are moral reprobates.
Thank you — since you asked, yes I think that’s better.
As to your actual objection, I’d say it depends, perhaps on what level of responsibiity is being claimed or shirked.
As you allude to, none of us are giving orders. Yet each of us is entitled to a position.
If your point is that fate and the machinations of others can gain a veto over our individual preferences, well I agree. COVID is not my problem. Oh yes it is, says the government.
But if your point is that it’s worth clapping back upon expression of a view because the decisio is “above one’s paygrade” or similar, that’s different to me. Sure, at some level we’re all just ants carrying beloved grains of sand across a digital blatherscape, but then all of Shakespeare is just a bunch people walking and talking. We don’t holler at dissatisfied characters that their dissatisfaction is scripted, and they will do what the playwright darned well wrote, neither from the audience nor from on stage. COVID is not my problem, and my rights to free expression, protest, even civil disobedience are more valuable because of the government’s paygrade-level tyranny, not less valuable. Even if my wanking about it on a website doesn’t wry sheer change through force of will and meme magic.
I appreciate your response, and wanted to flesh out my thoughts rather than pepper you with well whaddya mean by that questions.
Well certainly changed. Destroyed as in transmuted, sure. “As he knew it” and all that. But whose life doesn’t get replaced with a new one, for better or for worse (sometimes both!) between the late teens and early twenties?
I think this has worked out quite well for Saint Kyle — for which I am grateful and hope that it continues — and it could very nearly have gone horribly wrong in two different ways.
He will always need to be vigilant. If brushfire violence comes (“unrest” as the US sags toward potential collapse), he will definitely be a target. So is everybody who accomplishes a great victory against a determined foe. <– note non-judgemental language.
Boo [redacted] hoo.
I don’t like having congressional leadership that are bought and paid for by China and a business community bought and paid for by China. You are defending corruption and calling it principle. The only principle you are defending is corruption.
Yes, precisely. No credible threat.
One of the features of Trump was his unpredictability (except we knew he was on our side (the American side) of every issue). This worked especially well in international politics as, I suspect, it does in international business and something he learned to great effect along the way.
It was always going to be a problem with Biden since he was elected (allegedly) for that precise reason — a return to “normal.” Predictability. Not only was his fecklessness predictable, it was predicted — and a reason to vote for him for some foolish people.
I think we need to bring back that saying about Trump — people should take him seriously, but not literally and adjust it for Biden (progressives, Democrats, the Left. . .) — people should take him literally, but not seriously. These are not serious people.
Include the Germans and most Europeans in that. I still can’t get over the Germans shutting down their nuclear plants! Nuclear!?! Which emits zero CO2?? WTH? It doesn’t make sense even from a greenie perspective, unless the point was to induce energy poverty and greater reliance on the Russian thugs.
He’s not apologetic. That’s kind of the problem.
Yeah, that “apologetically voted against” was granting a bit (lot) too much. He didn’t just vote for Biden, he donated money to the cause and worked to get him elected. Hardly “apologetic” at all.