The MASM Forum
General => The Soap Box => Topic started by: hutch-- on March 07, 2023, 02:12:34 PM
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The head honcho of the Wagner group has in the last day or so made a direct video appeal to Zelensky to allow old men and teenage kids to withdraw from the meat grinder in Bakhmut. Behind him as prisoners of war were old men with white beards and teenage kids. His comments were that such combatants have a life span of about 2 days in the style of warfare that is occurring in that area.
As it appears that the US politicians have no value on the lives of Ukrainian men and Zelensky is willing to keep sending Ukrainian men to their death, I can only hope that the Ukrainian military stage a coup and get rid of the shifty little b*stard.
There are and have been many very brave defenders of Ukraine in the military, but its a war that is already over. Zelensky is simply throwing the lives of Ukrainian men into the meat grinder to keep American money coming into his pocket and that of his cronies.
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> Zelensky is simply throwing the lives of Ukrainian men into the meat grinder to keep American money coming into his pocket and that of his cronies.
It is a real tragedy and must be stopped. Total madness.......
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Zelensky is willing to keep sending Ukrainian men to their death, I can only hope that the Ukrainian military stage a coup and get rid of the shifty little b*stard.
Can we assume that you are entirely supporting the actions of VlAdolf Putin in this conflict by blaming ONLY Zelenski!!!! (who cares about all those Russians soldiers and Ukrainian civilians)
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Ray,
I wish it was as simple as the western media (including our own) make out, the wicked Russians decided just over a year ago to invade Ukraine for no reason at all to gain extra territory. Then you see it from the historical viewpoint where its a war that started in 2014 with western backing and years of shelling of the Donbass area by neo nazis following in the footsteps of Stepan Bandera in killing people who were not a member of his master race.
The motivation for trying to make the war last a lot longer was to weaken Russia so it could be invade and its massive assets could be taken over like it was in Yeltsin's time. This would be like China being able to invade and occupy Canada to strip it of its resources.
The 2014 western backed government change in Kiev was illegal and the eastern provinces were not willing to be massacres by the neo nazis from Kiev. If you have a strong stomach, look for some of the data on Telegram, civilians being blown to pieces by Ukrainian mortars and artillery shells.
I am off for my morning coffee.
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Over the next week you will hear a long line of 'experts' say in the media that Bakhmut has no strategic value whatsoever,
and you will not hear a single journalist ask why Ukraine has sacrificed so many lives to preserve it.
An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.
-Sun Tzu-
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Ray,
Now somewhat more awake than my first reply, to sum up both Zelensky and Putin.
Putin, ex KGB, to use an Australian expression, "as cunning as a shithouse rat", yet unusually honest for a Russian president, the Yeltsin days of envelopes of money for favours are over. He has very high support from the Russian population and the main criticism he has received in Russia was the he did not originally send the army in to flatten the place.
Zelensky is an ex comedian that stood for office a few years ago on a platform of making peace with the Russians. It seems he got the hint to change his mind after death threats from the nazis. In the footsteps of Poroshenko, he has continued the attacks on the Russian speaking populations of the Donbass. 8 years of mortar and artillery shelling of the Donbass with a very high casualty rate among civilians is why you are seeing a massive Russian attack to decimate the Ukrainian army.
Who do I support in this conflict ? Ukrainian men and boys being thrown into the Russian meat grinder with about a 2 day lifespan. Old men and teenage kids should not be there. I don't care about the losses with the nazis.
Strategically the Russian don't want to occupy areas that are not mainly Russian speaking as non Russian speakers don't want them but they do want to ensure that Russian speakers in the Donbass area are no longer a target of attempted genocide. The locals in the Donbass appear to be happy about now being Russian citizens being protected by the Russian army.
As Trump has said, the conflict could be over tomorrow but that does not suit the Biden administration, the military/industrial complex in the US want it to go on for years so they can keep fleecing US taxpayers.
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the Yeltsin days of envelopes of money for favours are over
Putin distinguishes clearly between good and bad oligarchs, that's true. The bad ones live dangerously and die early.
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"Oligarch"
Why are Russian millionaires called oligarchs, while Western millionaires are called philanthropists? As we know, Klaus Schwab, for example, is not a millionaire trying to exert any kind of influence in the social, political and economic sectors.
Language in dystopian times.
-- 1984 --
The Ministry of Peace deals with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture, and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation.
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:biggrin:
> The Ministry of Peace deals with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture, and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. :rofl:
This bunch of current bastards must have read the book. :thdn:
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Carl on Quora (https://fr.quora.com/Que-pensez-vous-de-la-guerre-russo-ukrainienne-Do%C3%B9-vient-le-v%C3%A9ritable-origine-de-ce-conflit/answer/Carl-19) (no idea how correct it is, but he seems to be well informed):
A historical dispute for a very long time, to which is added a context of mistrust of the Ukrainians since the beginning of the USSR, with in particular Stalin who organized a 2nd appalling famine during the collectivization.
A legitimate anti-Soviet sentiment during the Second World War, which in no way legitimizes the anti-Semitic exactions of some Ukrainians, who through the Nazi propaganda Bolshevik = international Jewry, and an ancient anti-Semitism (pogrom is a Russian word), participated in the Final Solution, and tens of thousands are engaged in the SS and SD. Attention, the majority of Ukrainians. The majority of Ukrainians did not take any action against Jews and were disgusted with anti-Semitic acts.
It should be noted that the Vatican, the British and the Canadians never wanted to hand over their prisoners from these SS and SD units to the Soviet authorities.
The Orange and Maidan revolution, which in political terms is called a coup d'état against the "democratically" elected president (the electoral changes being favourable to the pro-Russians) in a system of generalized corruption, a kleptocratic, pro-Russian regime and at the same time playing on a nationalist register and on the financial aid of the West, a very bastard policy which was only intended to benefit the kleptomaniac regime which impoverished the Ukrainian people. Yanukovych, faced with the end of Western and IMF aid, turned to Russia, in particular for the resources and the ageing industrial fabric of the Donbass...
The will after Maidan, Yanukovych being sure not to be re-elected and seeking to further criminalize society and undertake new electoral shenanigans, and the rapprochement with the West of the new Ukrainian governments, with a change in the oligarchy, exacerbated tensions, and the Russians took a false pretext, the neo-Nazism of the whole of the newly installed power. Putin, with Yanukovych in power, hoped for a favourable evolution in customs cooperation first, and a grip on the Ukrainian industrial fabric, before certainly his imperialist dream of rebuilding a territory on the Soviet model but without communism. Moreover, this was the time when the Moscow dictatorship was being strengthened...
Euromaidan can be seen as a democratic awakening of the Ukrainian people, and for Putin the end of his dream to "peacefully" make Ukraine a Russian region...
The pro-Russian separatist reaction, due to the Russian-speaking population of Donestk and Luhansk, supported by Moscow, set off the powder keg and was ordered from the Kremlin. The Ukrainians knew that a rapprochement with NATO was necessary....Moscow took the lead.
And I myself was surprised by the brutal invasion, I thought at the time that the massed troops were certainly a serious threat but a pressure point for talks, even though I had long considered Putin a dangerous character and that it was the lack of possibility of talks that would provoke a probable risk of invasion in the spring.
Mea culpa, history has proven me wrong.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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Reasonably typical one sided propaganda that forgot the massacre of the Poles by the Bandera gang, its OK to be the master race removing inferior races and if you lose, start whining about it.
I wonder why this was not posted as a link rather than a large block of text.
Should we do the same for the Wagner group ?
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I wonder why this was not posted as a link rather than a large block of text.
The original is in French. I doubt that many members read French. It's also a somewhat difficult text to translate - DeepL was "challenged" ;-)
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:biggrin:
Here is a fan page for Ramzan Kadyrov. :tongue:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2017/02/16/ten-crazy-things-ramzan-kadyrov-has-said-in-his-decade-ruling-chechnya-a57181 (https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2017/02/16/ten-crazy-things-ramzan-kadyrov-has-said-in-his-decade-ruling-chechnya-a57181)
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Unrelated, Google translation seems to do OK.
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Steven H,
some of us don't forgot, what had said and tranted.
You have choosen a your way of life and as i am also an old man, might know those problems, that you have blondies in real life.
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Hi Timo,
I went to a high school where members of the Jewish community used to show movies at lunch time of the concentration camps during WW2. Much later I learnt about the atrocities enacted by the Japanese in occupied China, the events in Nanjing, video many years ago on the Spanish civil war and the last ones I saw was the Einsatzgrupen massacring their way across Ukraine and Russia, staffed mainly by people from the Baltic states.
If you wonder why I criticise politicians who start and prolong genocide based on racial superiority ideologies, the above may explain it. You can add Pol Pot and Idi Amin to the list. In reference to the war in Ukraine, instead of the bullsh*t about of the war starting a year ago, it started in 2014 with the assistance of people like Victoria Nuland and with the attempted genocide of Russians in the Donbass by the Azov brigade nazis, eventually the Russians said enough is enough and invaded.
My father fought in WW2 in New Guinea and the Solomon islands but he never hated the Japanese, he felt sorry for them. My mother's father fought in Palestine and up into Turkey in WW1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DptsGW6WXas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DptsGW6WXas) but neither waxed lyrical about wars and never joined exservicemens clubs.
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Can we assume that you are entirely supporting the actions of VlAdolf Putin in this conflict by blaming ONLY Zelenski!!!! (who cares about all those Russians soldiers and Ukrainian civilians)
Raymond, I'm sorry to see that you're so misinformed on this situation, as well as misled by "mainstream" (Western, Washington consensus) opinion. Don't worry; you've got lots of company there.
And let me say right off that I certainly respect you as a programmer (and I frequently make use of your FPU library).
But Russia vs. Ukraine: some things that should be said on that:
The emerging consensus among a lot of the world, apart from those who are actually making policy regarding the war, seems to be this:
- That first and foremost, this war was entirely avoidable, if the west had not insisted on disregarding all of Russia's concerns, including ones that were eminently reasonable, like not encircling them with not only NATO nations but NATO military installations, something they'd been promised would not happen ("NATO will not move one inch east") after the breakup of the Soviet Union. (Bad move on their part not to get that in writing, though.)
- That the war was not "unprovoked", as the US and its allies insists; there was plenty of provocation, going back at least to 2014 when the Russian-speaking populations in Eastern Ukraine (the Donbass and Donetsk) were being actively bombarded by Ukraine, not to mention the overthrow of what was essentially a democratically-elected government that was actively assisted by the west (the likes of Victoria Nuland, et al).
As those like John Mearsheimer often point out, provocation does not equal justification; probably nothing justifies Putin's invasion. But let's not pretend that it came out of the blue with no provocation, or that Russia went in simply to conquer Ukraine and grab the land; the west has been poking the bear in the eye for a very long time. Justification is a moral issue, but provocation is a geopolitical one that needs to be dealt with. - The war is really now a proxy war between the US (and its "allies") and Russia, no matter what they say.
- Far from doing what they should be doing, which is trying as hard as possible to bring the war to a conclusion, the west is simply pouring more fuel on the fire, guaranteeing that more Ukrainians (and Russians) will die on the battlefield, or in a bombed apartment block. This is bad faith at its ugliest.
- The war should be--and will be, eventually, unless the Earth becomes a smoking, irradiated ruin--brought to an end by negotiations. The sooner, the better. However, see point above.
- Say what you will about Putin, there's absolutely no justification comparing him to Hitler. Russia, contrary to the narrative being pushed in the west, does not have "imperial designs" on Ukraine. They want pretty much what they've been saying they want all along: the removal of the NATO threat on their borders (and honest people recognize that NATO's very raison d'etre is formerly USSR, now Russian, containment, and nothing else); the de-Nazification of Ukraine; and the protection of the Russian-speaking populations within Ukraine. Their interest in territory doesn't extend beyond Donbass, Donetsk (and Luhansk) and Crimea. They've taken pains not to even attempt to take the capital, Kiev, nor to overthrow the goverment; they want someone there when it comes time to negotiate.
The de-Nazification demand is a real and a legitimate one: there are plenty of Nazis within Ukraine who have undue influence over policy there, even though they're a minority. One thing to make clear is that Zelenskyy is not a Nazi himself in any way, shape or form; however, he is under intense pressure to cave to their demands, even to the point of threats of assassination.
The situation isn't black and white, but rather confusing shades of gray. But it is in no way as one-sided as the Western warmongers make it out to be. Putin is neither a devil nor an angel (nor is Zelenskyy). But the actors who are pushing the war are despicable. Especially the Americans (I'm one) who are pouring weapons and advisors and materiel into what is now essentially a meat grinder, and who aren't suffering so much as a goddamn paper cut; what Alexander Cockburn used to call "laptop bombadiers".
And above all, my sympathies lie with the Ukrainians, which has nothing to do with their supposed bravery and heroism but has everything to do with their being the ultimate victims of the war, caught between two great powers.
It's time to bring this shit-show to a halt. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. One can only hope that the whole thing doesn't go nuclear.
Happy to hear your reactions to what I've written.
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But Russia vs. Ukraine: some things that should be said on that
David, that was the best analysis I've seen for a long time - my compliments :thup:
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Thanks, but I must defer to those who know a hell of a lot more about this than I'll ever know. Chiefly John Mearsheimer, who isn't a prophet nor infallible but has been right all along about Ukraine. One example (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiV1h7Dm5E); lots more on YouTube.
I especially respect Mearsheimer because he's a geopolitical realist and the farthest thing from an ideologue with an axe to grind.
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John Mearsheimer on Putin’s Ambitions After Nine Months of War (https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war)
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John Mearsheimer on Putin’s Ambitions After Nine Months of War (https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war)
At first I was going to write "good article", but reading further I found what a heaping pile of horseshit it was. And I mean because of the interviewer (Isaac Chotiner), not the subject of the interview. Chotiner is hostile and antagonistic, which is par for the course for anyone in the American (possibly the western) media establishment. They see their job as defending the gates of the citadel against anyone they see as not going along 110% with the "Washington consensus" on Ukraine and other geopolitical issues. Including people like Seymour Hersh (who ironically used to write for the New Yorker; now he's persona non grata to them and beneath their contempt).
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David, WWII german industry was stopped by bombed into nothing, will us,EU weapons industry on Ukraine side and Russian side weapon industry outside reach war go on and on and make Ukraine /Russian leaders less motivated to feel urged to make peace ?
Endless weapons delivery, compared to futility when Germans ran out of planes,tanks etc?
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What fascinates me is the level in Europe and the US to bleed themselves to death pumping almost all of their military capacity into a sh*thole like Ukraine. Australia is an ally of the US since WW2 (paid off war loan australia by 1948) in a variety of treaties including the latest one AUKUS.
Germany has recently said it is no longer capable of defending itself, the UK is even worse off and American arms manufacturers are saying it will take years to restock what has been pumped in the Ukraine war. NATO is in such bad shape that if it had to respond to any form of attack, they would have to send their armies into war with little better than their dick in hand.
In strategic terms, I simply don't comprehend why Europe and the US via NATO are effectively leaving themselves prostate on the floor before both the Chinese and the Russians. India is effectively neutral and ever increasingly independent and the main leverage the US currently has, endless sanctions, is quickly dying in the arse as more and more countries dump the US dollar and trade in gold, Yuan or cross local currency deals.
China is just starting to wake up from some years of covid lockdowns and has come to its senses and dumped the "Wolf Warrior" foreign policy and now have some chance of rebuilding their "Belt And Road" initiative and power up their economy again.
Europe has some really class manufacturing capacity but are quickly losing it to American poaching of both personnel and companies and it appears to be trying to fill the gap of its own failing industry. The American war effort in WW2 was fuelled by American workers and American industry outperforming both Germany and Japan which contributed to the fall of the nazis and obliterated Japan in the end.
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This was not an avoidable war. It was sought by the USA or by the forces that dominate it, since I harbor hopes that with Trump it would not have occurred.
Crimea was never from Ukraine. I would say that they took advantage of a moment of extreme weakness for Russia after the disintegration of the USSR, not only to become independent, but to take the Crimean peninsula with them. When Russia rallied, it took it back.
In addition to the bombardments on Donbass, Ukraine seems to have been preparing to recapture Crimea. Probably knowing that they had the NATO umbrella.
We already know that the Minsk agreements were just a pretext to have more time to arm themselves. This has been confirmed by Angela Merkel and by someone else whose name I don't remember now.
If Russia has nuclear weapons and one of the most powerful armies in the world. Why seek a confrontation? I think NATO really believed their initial war rhetoric of the Russian military was rusty. A Russian defeat in the Ukraine would not be lethal for it, but it would be strategic. The morale of a strong Russia again that Putin has returned would decline and that would sooner rather than later lead to Putin's overthrow and a toy of the USA put in his place.
What has been pursued at all times here is to test the real strength of Russia in order to prove its weakness. Russia is here the ultimate goal. But not only that, but also ensuring the submission of the EU, blowing up relations between Europe and Russia, literally in the Nord Stream. Long before the war, the USA paralyzed the entry into production of the Nord Stream 2 under threat of sanctions to the companies that operated there. And it was consummated with its total destruction. The Anglo-Saxon world has declared itself opposed at all times to the idea of Eurasia, a common project of Europe + Russia, from which a world power would probably emerge unattainable for the aspirations of monopolar world dominance of the USA.
Russia is playing its role here, also Ukraine and USA. The one that is out of place at all times is the EU, which acts as a servile lackey of one of the parties, to the detriment of its own interests.
Why does the EU act like this? For fear of becoming independent from the protection of the USA? Corruption?
Regarding the justification for the start of the war, since I suppose we are all against a war, the truth is that there was already a similar case with the Cuban missile crisis. Since the US put missiles in Turkey and Italy aimed at Russia, Russia retaliated by putting nuclear missiles in Cuba, starting a pre-war escalation by the US that almost got us to World War III.
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> What fascinates me is the level in Europe and the US to bleed themselves to death pumping almost all of their military capacity into a sh*thole like Ukraine
Because it was a risky bet of the USA: demonstrate the weakness of Russia. But the reverse also works, NATO's weakness can be also demonstrated. So neither side can lose this war because it was framed in terms of who has power.
However, I think Russia knows that it has much more to lose in this war than NATO. So much so that if they found themselves losing, they would have to start using higher-powered weapons: low-intensity nuclear or higher. Therefore, I think that in the future it will be NATO that will have to withdraw, but not without previously demonstrating its power in some way to somehow save face.
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Germany has recently said it is no longer capable of defending itself
In Germany, a story emerged 8 years ago (https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article137549045/Bundeswehr-zieht-mit-Besenstielen-ins-Manoever.html) that made me suspicious from the start: "The poor soldiers have to practice shooting with broomsticks because the Bundeswehr has no money for rifles and ammunition". The truth is that the Bundeswehr spends €50,000,000 per year. It is perfectly possible to buy rifles and ammunition with that money, but it was not enough for the generals...
(https://www.bmvg.de/resource/image/5373946/landscape_ratio16x9/1200/675/62a5cae8cffbe38047144a96cfbf076c/FF3FC2E558A9FA45EC9D83ADD8BAB274/diagramm-entwicklung-verteidigungshaushalt-2014-bis-2022.png)
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What fascinates me is the level in Europe and the US to bleed themselves to death pumping almost all of their military capacity into a sh*thole like Ukraine.
It does seem a mystery, and I really don't have a good answer. However, it would seem that the power and influence of the arms industry would be a good guess of who to blame. They're rolling in dough now.