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SkyDekker

Ukraine

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Here is a link to a fascinating and terrifying interview with Fiona Hill, an expert on Russia and Putin who worked in national security for both Democratic and Republican administrations.  There is a whole lot of historical meat to the interview.  Take home, though, is that Putin dreams of restoring to old Russian Empire, which extended well beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union, he is willing to use any methods to achieve that including nuclear weapons, and the West including NATO have had their heads in the sand for a long time.  Absolutely Putin does not intend to stop with Ukraine, although his methods may not be military invasion in all cases, but rather breaking up states and making them subservient to Russia as is already the case with several former USSR countries.

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45 minutes ago, GeorgiaDon said:

Here is a link to a fascinating and terrifying interview with Fiona Hill, an expert on Russia and Putin who worked in national security for both Democratic and Republican administrations.  There is a whole lot of historical meat to the interview.  Take home, though, is that Putin dreams of restoring to old Russian Empire, which extended well beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union, he is willing to use any methods to achieve that including nuclear weapons, and the West including NATO have had their heads in the sand for a long time.  Absolutely Putin does not intend to stop with Ukraine, although his methods may not be military invasion in all cases, but rather breaking up states and making them subservient to Russia as is already the case with several former USSR countries.

Chilling read, thank you for posting. Some of what is mentioned in that article we definitely see on here:

"I mean he has got swathes of the Republican Party — and not just them, some on the left, as well as on the right — masses of the U.S. public saying, “Good on you, Vladimir Putin,” or blaming NATO, or blaming the U.S. for this outcome. This is exactly what a Russian information war and psychological operation is geared towards. He’s been carefully seeding this terrain as well. We’ve been at war, for a very long time. I’ve been saying this for years."

 

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1 hour ago, GeorgiaDon said:

Here is a link to a fascinating and terrifying interview with Fiona Hill, an expert on Russia and Putin who worked in national security for both Democratic and Republican administrations.  There is a whole lot of historical meat to the interview.  Take home, though, is that Putin dreams of restoring to old Russian Empire, which extended well beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union, he is willing to use any methods to achieve that including nuclear weapons, and the West including NATO have had their heads in the sand for a long time.  Absolutely Putin does not intend to stop with Ukraine, although his methods may not be military invasion in all cases, but rather breaking up states and making them subservient to Russia as is already the case with several former USSR countries.

Hi Don,

For a long time now, Putin has said that the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century was the breakup of the USSR.

IMO he is trying to rebuild the USSR, he calls it the Russian Federation.

Fiona Hill is right.

Jerry Baumchen

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57 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Don,

For a long time now, Putin has said that the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century was the breakup of the USSR.

IMO he is trying to rebuild the USSR, he calls it the Russian Federation.

Fiona Hill is right.

Jerry Baumchen

This is why is I say the onus must be on the Europeans. They have their Union and regardless of the expense they must show Russia, it probably isn't just Putin, that they will vigorously support their territory and that of their friends. But that's their Union, not NATO. To the Union we send material, intelligence and if needed troops to hold ground in NATO countries so their forces can deploy forward. Obviously we hope they're not stupid about it and get their own countries attacked because then we're all screwed.

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8 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

It's like reading America First Committee statements.

Sure, whatever you like. I am happy for our nation to honor our treaty obligations but in the absence of a strike on a NATO ally I just don't think we should be sending troops to fight. I am no doubt a prisoner of my own ignorance and won't pretend to know more than those in charge. But for now I think the Europeans should be in charge, and leading the charge.

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5 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

As much as that sounds wonderful, there is no way of verifying this and could just be part of information warfare.

Buzz kill.

Although I admit, saying that just to mess with Putin's head would be a great tactic. LOL!

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3 hours ago, Phil1111 said:

Russians have been distracted by a little bank robbery and looting. 

The GOP has just officially labeled that "legitimate political discourse."  Marjorie Taylor Greene will explain how anyone who disagrees with that hates freedom.

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15 hours ago, SkyDekker said:
15 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

This is why is I say the onus must be on the Europeans.

It's like reading America First Committee statements.

Been busy the past few days and couldn't agree more. I take the stand of being one of the interventionists. For me; this is no different than our being late to WWII and how many lives could we have saved, not to mention having changed the course of history. One cannot passively support this war. It's time for active support. We're late.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~George Santayana 

Extra Credit: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-united-states-isolation-intervention

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7 hours ago, billvon said:

The GOP has just officially labeled that "legitimate political discourse."  Marjorie Taylor Greene will explain how anyone who disagrees with that hates freedom.

Clearly at the Russian War College they must have had a course citing Attila the Hun. How looting and sacking cities should be idealized.

spacer.png

Meanwhile the yacht above has been seized in France. It belongs to a ex KGB buddy of Putin, Rosneft boss Igor Sechin. His nickname is "Darth Vader".

Further reading on"The "Darth Vader" of Russia: meet Igor Sechin, Putin's right-hand man"

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37 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

Been busy the past few days and couldn't agree more. I take the stand of being one of the interventionists. For me; this is no different than our being late to WWII and how many lives could we have saved, not to mention having changed the course of history. One cannot passively support this war. It's time for active support. We're late.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~George Santayana 

Extra Credit: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-united-states-isolation-intervention

I'd say Santayana's reminder cuts both ways. Help me understand what I don't, if you were given the green light to act as you read this post what actions would you take and when?

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Realistically the west led by the USA could go all in and push Russia out of Ukraine and secure eastern Europe in general. It would be very risky for the whole world on a nearly existential basis. Is it worth that risk? Keith is the only person I know of who seems to think it is. I certainly don't. What Russia is doing is pretty much the way the game has been played for centuries. What Keith is proposing is that we all join in because that's what history teaches. But the game is not the same as it ever was. The Manhattan project ended that. Like it or not we have to deal with the new reality, not the 1945 reality.   

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19 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

Chilling read, thank you for posting. Some of what is mentioned in that article we definitely see on here:

"I mean he has got swathes of the Republican Party — and not just them, some on the left, as well as on the right — masses of the U.S. public saying, “Good on you, Vladimir Putin,” or blaming NATO, or blaming the U.S. for this outcome. This is exactly what a Russian information war and psychological operation is geared towards. He’s been carefully seeding this terrain as well. We’ve been at war, for a very long time. I’ve been saying this for years."

 

I'm not seeing swathes of support anywhere.

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Except for the whack job meme I copied here, even most of my most Trump-loving FB friends are showing little Ukraine flags and the like. And the whack-job poster hasn’t posted anything political since (though they commonly don’t do that much political posting anyway — it’s just pegged when they do)

Wendy P. 

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8 minutes ago, airdvr said:

I'm not seeing swathes of support anywhere.

Here is a story about some.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/technology/russia-supporters.html

There are some people everywhere who take the side of the authoritarian. In the US those people are almost exclusively R supporters. Mostly Trump supporters. So you could use the word "swathes" I suppose. But remember a swath is just a small part of a field. There were swaths of Hitler supporters in the west until that position became so dangerous to speak of that no one did.

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12 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Here is a story about some.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/technology/russia-supporters.html

There are some people everywhere who take the side of the authoritarian. In the US those people are almost exclusively R supporters. Mostly Trump supporters. So you could use the word "swathes" I suppose. But remember a swath is just a small part of a field. There were swaths of Hitler supporters in the west until that position became so dangerous to speak of that no one did.

1939 "Pro American Rally" at Madison Square Garden:

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan

Edited by ryoder

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3 minutes ago, ryoder said:

1939 "Pro American Rally" at Madison Square Garden:

Yes, and not just in the US. All over the western world the ideas of the nazis had supporters. If Hitler wasn't such a poor strategist and tactician our world could be a very different place by now. I'm of the opinion that if Trump and Trumpism had got started when he was 15 or 20 years younger he would have succeeded in turning the world upside down. 

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Petter Hörnfeldt is a Swede living in Spain, who is a training pilot for Ryanair.

He operates the "Mentour Pilot" and "Mentour Now!" Youtube channels.

This is his take on what the sanctions will do to Russian commercial aviation.

 

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1 hour ago, BIGUN said:

See post #37. 

You'd risk World War III on a bluff? I mean, under what authority could you even make such a play? Even if you could pretzel logic a legal sounding pretense why send Americans first? That's plain wrong. Now if you want to position some US divisions on our allies soil so they can send an equal amount first that would be fine by me. 

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1 hour ago, gowlerk said:

Realistically the west led by the USA could go all in and push Russia out of Ukraine and secure eastern Europe in general. It would be very risky for the whole world on a nearly existential basis. Is it worth that risk? Keith is the only person I know of who seems to think it is. I certainly don't. What Russia is doing is pretty much the way the game has been played for centuries. What Keith is proposing is that we all join in because that's what history teaches. But the game is not the same as it ever was. The Manhattan project ended that. Like it or not we have to deal with the new reality, not the 1945 reality. 

Ken, I understand yours and Joe's points. And, it would be nice if we could go down that path alone, but we understand who's playing this game and his intentions. Russia (Putin) did not seek to "bring" the Ukraine back into the Russian empire; he is taking it. He's killing thousands of people to achieve his personal agenda. It would have been nice to have a three-pronged approach (from 2015), but he's not that kind of guy.

By contrast, still others will want to short-circuit escalation, saying that Mr Putin must be stopped before it is too late. As images of suffering emerge from the ruins of Ukraine’s cities, calls are going up for nato to do something, such as to create a no-fly zone. However, enforcing one requires shooting down Russian aircraft and destroying Russian air-defences. Instead, nato needs to preserve a clear line between attacking Russia and backing Ukraine, while leaving no doubt that it will defend its members."  

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/03/05/when-vladimir-putin-escalates-his-war-the-world-must-meet-him?utm_medium=social-media.content.np&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=editorial-social&utm_content=discovery.content

My view was and still is that a large presence on his doorstep is a balance of deterrence and compellence. I fear we are a week too late. What happens in the next week is particularly concerning to me. I do not wish to bury more soldiers, but I also don't wish for another genocide that we see playing out. We put on the pickle suit for a reason.     

Edited by BIGUN
*bring
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8 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

You'd risk World War III on a bluff?

Is Putin bluffing?

8 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

I mean, under what authority could you even make such a play? Even if you could pretzel logic a legal sounding pretense why send Americans first? That's plain wrong.

What authority did Putin exercise. He's been planning for this for years. No, it's not wrong. It's about as right as one can get.

11 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

Now if you want to position some US divisions on our allies soil so they can send an equal amount first that would be fine by me. 

I did in post #37.   

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3 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

Ken, I understand yours and Joe's points. And, it would be nice if we could go down that path alone, but we understand who's playing this game and his intentions. Russia (Putin) did not seek to "being" the Ukraine back into the Russian empire; he is taking it. He's killing thousands of people to achieve his personal agenda. It would have been nice to have a three-pronged approach (from 2015), but he's not that kind of guy.

By contrast, still others will want to short-circuit escalation, saying that Mr Putin must be stopped before it is too late. As images of suffering emerge from the ruins of Ukraine’s cities, calls are going up for nato to do something, such as to create a no-fly zone. However, enforcing one requires shooting down Russian aircraft and destroying Russian air-defences. Instead, nato needs to preserve a clear line between attacking Russia and backing Ukraine, while leaving no doubt that it will defend its members."  

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/03/05/when-vladimir-putin-escalates-his-war-the-world-must-meet-him?utm_medium=social-media.content.np&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=editorial-social&utm_content=discovery.content

My view was and still is that a large presence on his doorstep is a balance of deterrence and compellence. I fear we are a week too late. What happens in the next week is particularly concerning to me. I do not wish to bury more soldiers, but I also don't wish for another genocide that we see playing out. We put on the pickle suit for a reason.     

Yes, I more or less agree with all that. And a large presence, or at least  large enough to be a clear trigger on his doorstep is needed. The question is where is the threshold of his door? I don't recall Ukraine inviting us in before the assault began. There is no easy answer.

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