Putin Invades Ukraine II

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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by stuper1 » Fri Nov 25, 2022 12:56 pm

Yes, and also pitiful that this this so-called news report gets reposted here as if it adds anything of value to the conversation. People should use a little thought before they repost stuff. If it's obviously propaganda, or has a high likelihood of being propaganda, then just don't repost it and amplify it's effect. This is how we avoid getting to WW3 with nuclear missiles flying is by not ratcheting up tensions with a nuclear-armed adversary. Every person can play a little part in showing a bit of wisdom. Clamoring for regime change in Russia isn't going to help the situation. If the Russians want a new leader, they are fully capable of achieving it. They don't need the rest of the world trying to hector them into it. From reports I've read, they are very happy with their current leader. Speaking for myself, and based on very limited knowledge, so I fully admit I could be wrong, but if I were Russian, I suspect I would be very happy with Putin as a leader because he is not shy to protect Russian interests, including non-economic, cultural interests, which are important for a strong society.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by SilentMajority » Fri Nov 25, 2022 1:32 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 12:56 pm
Yes, and also pitiful that this this so-called news report gets reposted here as if it adds anything of value to the conversation. People should use a little thought before they repost stuff. If it's obviously propaganda, or has a high likelihood of being propaganda, then just don't repost it and amplify it's effect.
There's so much propaganda everywhere now... It's like the talent pool is seriously diluted. Rags like the independent are reduced to quoting Zelinsky sides and senior Ukrainian military about Putin. This is one step up from saying "anonymous sources" or "some people are saying".

They can't even afford good propaganda writers because they're in such demand everywhere.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by vnatale » Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:00 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:38 pm

dualstow wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:09 pm

We are butchers, for sure. Although we don’t kill our own people overseas with polonium or novichok.


I would take those "reports" with a grain of salt. Similar to the reports in Syria of Assad gassing his own people, which seem very likely to have been invented propaganda.

As I recall, Obama assassinated a US citizen with a drone strike without any due process, and nobody seemed too concerned about it (except for a few people who can actually think for themselves instead of believing everything that the mass media preaches to them and forces down their throats 24/7).


There was a whole Senate hearing this past February 2022 on the appropriateness of the United States using killing drones.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?517840-1/ ... ne-strikes

FEBRUARY 9, 2022
Hearing on the Legacy of Drone Strikes
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the legal impact, financial cost, and human toll of U.S. drone strikes conducted over the past two decades. Topics included the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, congressional oversight of the drone program during four presidential administrations, and compensation for survivors and families of civilians killed in drone strikes.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by stuper1 » Fri Nov 25, 2022 7:27 pm

vnatale wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:00 pm
stuper1 wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:38 pm
dualstow wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:09 pm
We are butchers, for sure. Although we don’t kill our own people overseas with polonium or novichok.
I would take those "reports" with a grain of salt. Similar to the reports in Syria of Assad gassing his own people, which seem very likely to have been invented propaganda.

As I recall, Obama assassinated a US citizen with a drone strike without any due process, and nobody seemed too concerned about it (except for a few people who can actually think for themselves instead of believing everything that the mass media preaches to them and forces down their throats 24/7).
There was a whole Senate hearing this past February 2022 on the appropriateness of the United States using killing drones.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?517840-1/ ... ne-strikes

FEBRUARY 9, 2022
Hearing on the Legacy of Drone Strikes
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the legal impact, financial cost, and human toll of U.S. drone strikes conducted over the past two decades. Topics included the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, congressional oversight of the drone program during four presidential administrations, and compensation for survivors and families of civilians killed in drone strikes.
Ok, and did the AUMF allow for using military force against US citizens without due process? I'm going to guess it didn't, otherwise it would have been declared unconstitutional very quickly. My point is that Obama is still held up as the paragon of a wise statesman, because he doesn't make mean Twitter posts, but in fact he could easily be charged with murder. The people who clutch at their pearls about some silly outlandish statement by Trump end up supporting people who are cold-blooded murderers, but such murders seem to be no problem as long as they are done with dignity.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by vnatale » Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:36 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 7:27 pm

vnatale wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:00 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:38 pm

dualstow wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:09 pm

We are butchers, for sure. Although we don’t kill our own people overseas with polonium or novichok.


I would take those "reports" with a grain of salt. Similar to the reports in Syria of Assad gassing his own people, which seem very likely to have been invented propaganda.

As I recall, Obama assassinated a US citizen with a drone strike without any due process, and nobody seemed too concerned about it (except for a few people who can actually think for themselves instead of believing everything that the mass media preaches to them and forces down their throats 24/7).


There was a whole Senate hearing this past February 2022 on the appropriateness of the United States using killing drones.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?517840-1/ ... ne-strikes

FEBRUARY 9, 2022
Hearing on the Legacy of Drone Strikes
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the legal impact, financial cost, and human toll of U.S. drone strikes conducted over the past two decades. Topics included the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, congressional oversight of the drone program during four presidential administrations, and compensation for survivors and families of civilians killed in drone strikes.


Ok, and did the AUMF allow for using military force against US citizens without due process? I'm going to guess it didn't, otherwise it would have been declared unconstitutional very quickly. My point is that Obama is still held up as the paragon of a wise statesman, because he doesn't make mean Twitter posts, but in fact he could easily be charged with murder. The people who clutch at their pearls about some silly outlandish statement by Trump end up supporting people who are cold-blooded murderers, but such murders seem to be no problem as long as they are done with dignity.


I listened to the whole thing. The Democrats were the ones most upset, believing that all the presidents, starting with Obama's predecessor and continuing through the incumbent have all taken actions that they believe each of the four presidents did not have the power to do so. The Republicans were more like, these are terrorists we are talking about and any way we can kill them is fine with us and there will always be civilian casualties.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by stuper1 » Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm

And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by vnatale » Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:26 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm

And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.


I cannot counter all your false premises.

You have a winning argument if your premises are true but, unfortunately, not one of them is true.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by dualstow » Sat Nov 26, 2022 7:03 am

stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm
And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.
You don’t have to go all ad hominem on everyone who doesn’t share your worldview, which is most people. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying, stuper, to just quietly know that the rest of the western world is fooled while you know better?
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by stuper1 » Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:01 am

dualstow wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 7:03 am
stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm
And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.
You don’t have to go all ad hominem on everyone who doesn’t share your worldview, which is most people. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying, stuper, to just quietly know that the rest of the western world is fooled while you know better?
What would be more satisfying to me is if the US would stay out of other countries' business and stop using my tax money to get so many people killed needlessly ... fighting to the last Ukrainian.

Here's another apt example I came across last night while reading Pat Buchanan's "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War": Czechoslovakia didn't get any war guarantees from Britain and France, and so didn't resist when it was being carved up by neighboring countries who wanted their land and people back that had been taken from them by the Versailles Treaty. By the end of the war, the people in these lands formerly known as Czechoslovakia had suffered about 100,000 dead.

By contrast, Poland got war guarantees from Britain and France, and so decided to fight when Germany demanded Danzig back (Danzig was a very German place that was given to Poland by Versailles). Well, the guarantees from Britain and France basically amounted to nothing, and Poland suffered 6,000,000 dead by the end of the war. Even stranger is that Britain actually was trying to signal to Poland to give up Danzig because of its historic ties to Germany, but Poland got the wrong signal.

Both Poland and Czechoslovakia ended up in the Soviet bloc after the war of course, but Czechoslovakia had a lot less dead people.

The lesson for Ukraine is that if you're a small country next to a big, bad country, and if you actually house many people who ethnically are from the big, bad country, you'd better mind your P's and Q's -- don't go aligning yourself with the enemies of the big, bad country, unless you want to get a lot of your own people killed. Again, this is realism versus idealism.

By the way, you might want to re-check what an ad hominem attack is like. An ad hominem attack is mudslinging meant to divert attention away from the real issue. The statement I made about people believing whatever their television tells them is hardly a diversion; it's at the heart of the problem.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by stuper1 » Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:30 am

stuper1 wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:01 am
dualstow wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 7:03 am
stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm
And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.
You don’t have to go all ad hominem on everyone who doesn’t share your worldview, which is most people. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying, stuper, to just quietly know that the rest of the western world is fooled while you know better?
What would be more satisfying to me is if the US would stay out of other countries' business and stop using my tax money to get so many people killed needlessly ... fighting to the last Ukrainian.

Here's another apt example I came across last night while reading Pat Buchanan's "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War": Czechoslovakia didn't get any war guarantees from Britain and France, and so didn't resist when it was being carved up by neighboring countries who wanted their land and people back that had been taken from them by the Versailles Treaty. By the end of the war, the people in these lands formerly known as Czechoslovakia had suffered about 100,000 dead.

By contrast, Poland got war guarantees from Britain and France, and so decided to fight when Germany demanded Danzig back (Danzig was a very German place that was given to Poland by Versailles). Well, the guarantees from Britain and France basically amounted to nothing, and Poland suffered 6,000,000 dead by the end of the war. Even stranger is that Britain actually was trying to signal to Poland to give up Danzig because of its historic ties to Germany, but Poland got the wrong signal.

Both Poland and Czechoslovakia ended up in the Soviet bloc after the war of course, but Czechoslovakia had a lot less dead people.

The lesson for Ukraine is that if you're a small country next to a big, bad country, and if you actually house many people who ethnically are from the big, bad country, you'd better mind your P's and Q's -- don't go aligning yourself with the enemies of the big, bad country, unless you want to get a lot of your own people killed. Again, this is realism versus idealism.

By the way, you might want to re-check what an ad hominem attack is like. An ad hominem attack is mudslinging meant to divert attention away from the real issue. The statement I made about people believing whatever their television tells them is hardly a diversion; it's at the heart of the problem with the western world.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by Mountaineer » Sat Nov 26, 2022 1:37 pm

No wonder the participants in this thread have such varying opinions. Putin never did, to the best of my knowledge, invade the Ukraine. I think Russian troops directed by Putin did - but Putin? I doubt it. Words matter. Sorry, I couldn't resist after all the pages of opining by those who can do just about zilch toward influencing an outcome. This is on par with watching/listening to the daily "news" and basing ones well-being on it. ;)
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by SilentMajority » Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:02 pm

dualstow wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 7:03 am
stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm
And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.
You don’t have to go all ad hominem on everyone who doesn’t share your worldview, which is most people. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying, stuper, to just quietly know that the rest of the western world is fooled while you know better?
It is a discussion board, the purpose of which is an outlet for opinions and such. The premise that stuper said that most people believe anything the TV says is probably true, but it's a shrinking population. A vocal minority of the country believe and support what the TV tells them. Most people are too busy with their own lives to care and then there are people who think for themselves which is a small group.

I think most people do not support the indiscriminate killing of people by the US government and oppose the US government support of the Kiev regime. It's just a minority in the western world that supports it. It might only be a vocal minority on this discussion board even.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by SilentMajority » Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:06 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:01 am
dualstow wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 7:03 am
stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm
And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.
You don’t have to go all ad hominem on everyone who doesn’t share your worldview, which is most people. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying, stuper, to just quietly know that the rest of the western world is fooled while you know better?
What would be more satisfying to me is if the US would stay out of other countries' business and stop using my tax money to get so many people killed needlessly ... fighting to the last Ukrainian.

Here's another apt example I came across last night while reading Pat Buchanan's "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War": Czechoslovakia didn't get any war guarantees from Britain and France, and so didn't resist when it was being carved up by neighboring countries who wanted their land and people back that had been taken from them by the Versailles Treaty. By the end of the war, the people in these lands formerly known as Czechoslovakia had suffered about 100,000 dead.

By contrast, Poland got war guarantees from Britain and France, and so decided to fight when Germany demanded Danzig back (Danzig was a very German place that was given to Poland by Versailles). Well, the guarantees from Britain and France basically amounted to nothing, and Poland suffered 6,000,000 dead by the end of the war. Even stranger is that Britain actually was trying to signal to Poland to give up Danzig because of its historic ties to Germany, but Poland got the wrong signal.

Both Poland and Czechoslovakia ended up in the Soviet bloc after the war of course, but Czechoslovakia had a lot less dead people.

The lesson for Ukraine is that if you're a small country next to a big, bad country, and if you actually house many people who ethnically are from the big, bad country, you'd better mind your P's and Q's -- don't go aligning yourself with the enemies of the big, bad country, unless you want to get a lot of your own people killed. Again, this is realism versus idealism.

By the way, you might want to re-check what an ad hominem attack is like. An ad hominem attack is mudslinging meant to divert attention away from the real issue. The statement I made about people believing whatever their television tells them is hardly a diversion; it's at the heart of the problem.
Don't forget the Finnish example. They lost territory and hundreds of thousands of lives by refusing the Soviet offer/demand rather than gain territory and save lives. No certainty as to how it would have played out otherwise but that's what happened. The Polish example and the Finnish one should have been instructive to Kiev but they are taking their marching orders from Washington.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by SilentMajority » Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:07 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 1:37 pm
No wonder the participants in this thread have such varying opinions. Putin never did, to the best of my knowledge, invade the Ukraine. I think Russian troops directed by Putin did - but Putin? I doubt it. Words matter. Sorry, I couldn't resist after all the pages of opining by those who can do just about zilch toward influencing an outcome. This is on par with watching/listening to the daily "news" and basing ones well-being on it. ;)
What is the purpose of an internet discussion board?
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by SilentMajority » Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:15 pm

Anyone have any thoughts for how things will play out this winter?
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by dualstow » Sat Nov 26, 2022 4:57 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:01 am
By the way, you might want to re-check what an ad hominem attack is like. An ad hominem attack is mudslinging meant to divert attention away from the real issue. The statement I made about people believing whatever their television tells them is hardly a diversion; it's at the heart of the problem.
No it is not. Ad hominem is purely going after the person and not the argument. You’re not just disagreeing with “television,” but with the bulk of scholars and writers in the western world who have something to say about Putin. Experts who study Putin and Russia, and write volumes on the subject. Going against them doesn’t mean you’re wrong. What’s wrong is saying that people who generally agree with that host of scholars instead of you have gotten to where they are via CNN.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by dualstow » Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:01 pm

SilentMajority wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:02 pm

I think most people do not support the indiscriminate killing of people by the US government and oppose the US government support of the Kiev regime. It's just a minority in the western world that supports it. It might only be a vocal minority on this discussion board even.
Because…the Russians aren’t doing any indiscriminate killing?
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by dualstow » Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:10 pm

SilentMajority wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:02 pm
It is a discussion board, the purpose of which is an outlet for opinions and such. The premise that stuper said that most people believe anything the TV says is probably true, but it's a shrinking population. A vocal minority of the country believe and support what the TV tells them. Most people are too busy with their own lives to care and then there are people who think for themselves which is a small group.

I think most people do not support the indiscriminate killing of people by the US government and oppose the US government support of the Kiev regime. It's just a minority in the western world that supports it. It might only be a vocal minority on this discussion board even.
So the Americans are rubes but over in Kazakhstan or Singapore they know better. I wonder what magic allowed them to overcome the same reports that have entranced people in the U.S. Or are they just watching RT.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by vnatale » Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:16 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:01 am

dualstow wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 7:03 am

stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm

And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.


You don’t have to go all ad hominem on everyone who doesn’t share your worldview, which is most people. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying, stuper, to just quietly know that the rest of the western world is fooled while you know better?


What would be more satisfying to me is if the US would stay out of other countries' business and stop using my tax money to get so many people killed needlessly ... fighting to the last Ukrainian.

Here's another apt example I came across last night while reading Pat Buchanan's "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War": Czechoslovakia didn't get any war guarantees from Britain and France, and so didn't resist when it was being carved up by neighboring countries who wanted their land and people back that had been taken from them by the Versailles Treaty. By the end of the war, the people in these lands formerly known as Czechoslovakia had suffered about 100,000 dead.

By contrast, Poland got war guarantees from Britain and France, and so decided to fight when Germany demanded Danzig back (Danzig was a very German place that was given to Poland by Versailles). Well, the guarantees from Britain and France basically amounted to nothing, and Poland suffered 6,000,000 dead by the end of the war. Even stranger is that Britain actually was trying to signal to Poland to give up Danzig because of its historic ties to Germany, but Poland got the wrong signal.

Both Poland and Czechoslovakia ended up in the Soviet bloc after the war of course, but Czechoslovakia had a lot less dead people.

The lesson for Ukraine is that if you're a small country next to a big, bad country, and if you actually house many people who ethnically are from the big, bad country, you'd better mind your P's and Q's -- don't go aligning yourself with the enemies of the big, bad country, unless you want to get a lot of your own people killed. Again, this is realism versus idealism.

By the way, you might want to re-check what an ad hominem attack is like. An ad hominem attack is mudslinging meant to divert attention away from the real issue. The statement I made about people believing whatever their television tells them is hardly a diversion; it's at the heart of the problem.


Over ten years ago I did read that same Buchanan book you reference above. I thought he made a good case for his arguments. However, I'd not agree that that book leads to the lesson you describe.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by vnatale » Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:24 pm

SilentMajority wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:02 pm

dualstow wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 7:03 am

stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm

And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.


You don’t have to go all ad hominem on everyone who doesn’t share your worldview, which is most people. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying, stuper, to just quietly know that the rest of the western world is fooled while you know better?


It is a discussion board, the purpose of which is an outlet for opinions and such. The premise that stuper said that most people believe anything the TV says is probably true, but it's a shrinking population. A vocal minority of the country believe and support what the TV tells them. Most people are too busy with their own lives to care and then there are people who think for themselves which is a small group.

I think most people do not support the indiscriminate killing of people by the US government and oppose the US government support of the Kiev regime. It's just a minority in the western world that supports it. It might only be a vocal minority on this discussion board even.


Here are all the poll results:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/th ... r-AA14s88M

The U.S. Should Continue Supporting Ukraine—Americans Want To
Opinion by Frederick W. Kagan • Wednesday

Americans, fortunately, seem to agree that the US should continue to support Ukraine militarily and financially despite hinted Russian nuclear threats. A Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted on October 4-5 found that a majority of Americans feared that the U.S. is headed toward nuclear war with Russia but that 73% thought the U.S. should continue supporting Ukraine despite Russia’s threats. Support for financial assistance to Ukraine was also high at 59% despite the growing skepticism toward such aid expressed by some Republican members of Congress. The poll even found that 34% of respondents favored sending troops to Ukraine to help defend it against Russia—a remarkably high number considering that President Biden has repeatedly ruled out any such use of the American military and no major or military leader has advocated it.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by vnatale » Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:34 pm

SilentMajority wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:06 pm



Don't forget the Finnish example. They lost territory and hundreds of thousands of lives by refusing the Soviet offer/demand rather than gain territory and save lives. No certainty as to how it would have played out otherwise but that's what happened. The Polish example and the Finnish one should have been instructive to Kiev but they are taking their marching orders from Washington.


Let's see what facts are here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_w ... ng_Finland

25,904 dead or missing.

I firmly believe that Ukraine is making its own independent decisions.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by SilentMajority » Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:50 pm

vnatale wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:34 pm
SilentMajority wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:06 pm


Don't forget the Finnish example. They lost territory and hundreds of thousands of lives by refusing the Soviet offer/demand rather than gain territory and save lives. No certainty as to how it would have played out otherwise but that's what happened. The Polish example and the Finnish one should have been instructive to Kiev but they are taking their marching orders from Washington.
Let's see what facts are here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_w ... ng_Finland

25,904 dead or missing.

I firmly believe that Ukraine is making its own independent decisions.
You're right Vinny. 26k dead in the winter war and another 45k wounded officially. Then 60k+ more dead in the continuation war and a 150k+ wounded.

I said hundreds of thousands of lives lost, on that I stand corrected. If you count Russian dead though.....whoa. let's just say the snow speaks Finnish. I think the top Russian general said they won just enough territory to bury their dead.
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by SilentMajority » Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:58 pm

dualstow wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:10 pm
SilentMajority wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 2:02 pm
It is a discussion board, the purpose of which is an outlet for opinions and such. The premise that stuper said that most people believe anything the TV says is probably true, but it's a shrinking population. A vocal minority of the country believe and support what the TV tells them. Most people are too busy with their own lives to care and then there are people who think for themselves which is a small group.

I think most people do not support the indiscriminate killing of people by the US government and oppose the US government support of the Kiev regime. It's just a minority in the western world that supports it. It might only be a vocal minority on this discussion board even.
So the Americans are rubes but over in Kazakhstan or Singapore they know better. I wonder what magic allowed them to overcome the same reports that have entranced people in the U.S. Or are they just watching RT.
I'm afraid I don't follow :(

I want to though. Are you saying people in Kazakhstan or Singapore are siding with or against kiev?
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by vnatale » Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:16 pm

From the concluding paragraphs of the book on the Cuban Missile Crisis and the lessons to be learned from it to be applied to today:

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The November 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall was widely perceived as representing the triumph of capitalism and freedom over the forces of oppression and discredited doctrine of communism. The Soviet Union collapsed two years later with its vast armed forces and nuclear arsenal intact. John Lewis Gaddis wrote in 1997: ‘It may be that the West prevailed during the Cold War . . . because that conflict just happened to take place at the moment in history when the conditions that had for thousands of years favoured authoritarianism suddenly ceased to do so.’

A quarter of a century on, and especially following Vladimir Putin’s murderous assault upon Ukraine, it is impossible to sustain that judgement. Lawrence Freedman wrote recently that the optimistic mood of the first post-Cold War decade appears naïve: ‘A return to great power competition is now described as a defining feature of the 2020s.’ Autocracies are widely ascendant, above all President Xi’s China. Economic failure was the fundamental cause of the collapse of the Soviet empire. Yet one of the most remarkable and dismaying achievements, not only of the USSR but also of the Russian Federation that succeeded it, has been to exercise a baleful influence upon world affairs, from a strategic position of ever-worsening weakness. In the twenty-first century, Russia’s only significant exports are oil, gas and extreme violence. Nonetheless, these have enabled President Putin to wield astonishing clout, for unflaggingly malign purposes. He exerts less trammelled personal authority than did Khrushchev in the era of the Soviet Presidium. All the while the institutions of the United States find themselves under siege from within, by forces some of which must be characterized as neo-fascist, in a fashion that America’s leaders of 1962 would find incomprehensible and terrifying. The liberal order is imperilled as much by its domestic enemies as by its foreign foes.

Although this narrative has included strictures upon US policy, especially towards Cuba, no citizen of the modern West should lose sight of a fundamental reality: in the Cold War America led forces that aspired to advance human freedoms, such as the Soviet Union ideologically opposed. In politics and international affairs good and evil are always relative. All of us who inhabit democracies have cause to be grateful that the United States prevented the communist superpowers from securing victory, even if the outcome – viewed from the distance of decades – has proved to represent something less than the comprehensive triumph for freedom which visionaries hailed in 1991.

The most important fact of the struggle is that the world survived it without a nuclear catastrophe. This reflected a collective wisdom on both sides that transcended the misjudgements of both the Kremlin and the White House: the sum of their statesmanship was greater than its parts. It has been observed that both Khrushchev and Kennedy were bad at crisis avoidance, effective at crisis management. Among some of today’s Western leaders and military commanders, a nostalgia is discernible, such as would have seemed unimaginable back in 1991, for that era’s adversarial certainties. International order and stability are banished, perhaps forever. It does not seem merely nostalgic to suggest that Khrushchev was a more rational and measured Russian leader than is Putin.

What is happening today is not, for many reasons, a replay of the old Cold War, though it may well represent the start of a new one. Territorial dominance and influence, rather than ideology, are at stake. As Rodric Braithwaite wrote recently: ‘The Soviet Union’s role as the second superpower is no longer available [to Russia] . . . being taken by China.’ This change does not, of course, make the world a safer place. There are trigger points, led by Taiwan and the entire Russian periphery, that threaten consequences as grievous for humankind as those which beckoned sixty years ago, and are highlighted by the invasion of Ukraine. In one respect, this latest crisis is a mirror reflection of the 1962 Cuba: just as the USSR found itself hopelessly strategically wrongfooted on an island ninety miles off the North American coast, so the West faces severe difficulties in securing the future of a vulnerable state that is Russia’s immediate neighbour. Understanding between the leaderships of China, Russia and the US is as remote as ever it was, and mutual sympathy seems unattainable. The scope for a catastrophic miscalculation is as great now as it was in 1914 Europe or in the 1962 Caribbean.

During the Missile Crisis, even the Kremlin’s hawks recognized that in a nuclear showdown there could be only one winner – if such a word can be used even pejoratively – which would not be the USSR. This knowledge had a decisive impact on their decisions. Today, by contrast, many strategy gurus believe that China, exploiting the superiority of its hypersonic weapons, might well prevail in an air and naval collision with US forces off its own coast. Whereas in 1962 Khrushchev’s nation merely masqueraded as an equal of the US, sixty years on China is close to justifying a claim upon peer status, with a GDP eight times the size of Russia’s, which makes it correspondingly more dangerous.

Meanwhile Vladimir Putin’s obsessive resentment, his craving for respect and willingness to take huge risks and to initiate hideous atrocities around Russia’s borders in pursuit of a pan-Slav fantasy, is increased by his consciousness of China’s giant progress, of America’s continuing innovative technological mastery, alongside Russia’s relative stagnation. Putin’s view of history is skewed by a mingling of ignorance, amorality and nationalism, blended with his country’s long-cherished narrative of grievance and victimhood. We should be in no doubt that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an act of a far graver moral order than was Khrushchev’s deployment in Cuba. The Soviet Union in 1962 had some sort of case for its actions. Putin in 2022 has none.

Yet we should also acknowledge a widely-held Russian belief and grievance, that for decades the Americans exploited their nuclear and conventional dominance, most conspicuously in the Missile Crisis, to frustrate Moscow’s aspirations and to sustain dominance of the vast US sphere of influence. Georgy Shakhnazarov, who served Mikhail Gorbachev in the Kremlin, addressed American Excom veterans attending a 1987 historical conference: ‘All of you believed yourselves in both a military and a moral position of superiority. You speak of deception, and so on. But, according to international law, we had no reason to inform you beforehand [of the Cuban deployment]. You did not inform us of your intention to put missiles in Turkey . . . The conflict was political, and the moral case was unclear.’ Putin is not the only modern Russian who sees hypocrisy in the West’s attempts to frustrate – for instance – the Kremlin’s hegemony over Ukraine. Shakhnazarov continued: ‘The United States did not want to recognize others’ right to equal security. It desired to keep its superiority . . . According to international law both sides have equal rights to make arrangements with third parties to protect their security.’

The passage above does not represent an assertion of the smallest enthusiasm for the modern Kremlin regime – a desire to become what Germans now contemptuously call a Putinversteher or Putin apologist. Instead, it merely seeks to explain something of how differently the world appears, as viewed from Moscow, than from Washington or London. As we age, we learn that there is no single universal truth or logic: every culture cherishes its own narrative. In the twenty-first century, as when Shakhnazarov spoke, Americans and Russians retain contrasting perspectives on the Missile Crisis, and much else.

Walter Lippmann wrote wisely that the word appeasement has often been abused since 1938, to denounce those seeking necessary international compromises: ‘You can’t decide these questions of life and death for the world by epithets like appeasement. I don’t agree with the people who think we have to go out and shed a little blood to prove we’re virile men.’ Professor Sir Michael Howard said in old age: ‘Appeasement is often a very sensible policy, when you are dealing with a leader less satanic than Adolf Hitler.’

Yet it is difficult, if not impossible, to make any principled case for appeasement of Vladimir Putin, as distinct from acknowledging the practical and strategic difficulties of frustrating his ambitions. It may be impossible politically for Western troops directly to engage the Russian aggressors in Ukraine, but it is assuredly necessary to deploy NATO forces prepared to do so in the Baltic states and Poland. The dangers of a general war with Russia are real – but so also are those of passivity in the face of a grave threat to European order and security.

It has been a theme of this book that those who today dismiss the risks inherent in the Missile Crisis, because neither Kennedy nor Khrushchev wanted nuclear war, are mistaken. In 1962, the world got lucky. Our hopes for averting future catastrophe must rely upon twenty-first-century national leaders never for a moment losing sight of the magnitude of the perils posed by the weapons at their command. The risk of nuclear conflict, which at the height of the Cold War often dominated front pages, has been for decades since scarcely discussed among ordinary citizens, far more preoccupied with the threats posed by climate change, pandemics, conventional clashes and terrorism. If any fragment of good has emerged from the terrible evil of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it has been to awaken oversleeping Westerners to the vital importance of security, which must include powerful elements of both military capability and political will. The US administration could not have achieved a tolerable outcome of the Missile Crisis without being known in Moscow to possess the weapons to unleash overwhelming force in support of its diplomacy.

In 2022 the means still exist for humankind to destroy itself. Power to initiate a nightmare is shared among a growing number of nuclear-armed nations. In the nature of technology, checks upon the use of terrible weapons by careless or deranged subordinates are imperfect. A rightful motto for every national leader is: Be Afraid. Neither John F. Kennedy nor Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was deficient in personal courage, but what distinguished them from Fidel Castro and from some military commanders on both sides of the Iron Curtain is that the two men were prudently haunted by consequences. Winston Churchill said, in his last major speech to Britain’s House of Commons on 1 March 1955: ‘It may well be that by a process of sublime irony we have reached a state in this world where safety is the sturdy child of terror and survival the twin brother of annihilation.’

Such is the optimistic view. Yet even so dauntless a statesman as Churchill could not fail to be troubled by the rise of authoritarian adventurers whose most conspicuous characteristic is an appetite for both oppression and aggression. This is shared by President Xi, President Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. All consider themselves shielded from consequences of their most extravagant actions by a stage-set façade of electoral legitimacy, together with possession of nuclear weapons. Yet, beyond constructively confronting climate change, our planet’s best hope of surviving the twenty-first century relies upon an imperative: that no national leader shows themself deficient in the fear which must lie at the heart of wisdom, and which was indispensable to a peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Putin Invades Ukraine II

Post by dualstow » Sun Nov 27, 2022 1:19 pm

SilentMajority wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:58 pm
I'm afraid I don't follow :(

I want to though. Are you saying people in Kazakhstan or Singapore are siding with or against kiev?
I’ll try to explain. Maybe it’s unfair of me to combine your posts with stuper’s, but you appear to largely be on the same page. Stuper seems to think that most Americans at least are fooled by mainstream media.
stuper1 wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:09 pm
And so it's okay for us to kill terrorists without due process, but it's not okay for Putin to do it, and the only reason most people don't see any contradiction here is because they believe anything their television tells them.
Most people.

You wrote “ I think most people do not support the indiscriminate killing of people by the US government and oppose the US government support of the Kiev regime. It's just a minority in the western world that supports it.” A vocal minority of the country believe and support what the TV tells them.”

You’re two different people, and I shouldn’t lump you together, but both statements cannot be true. Either the majority of Americans are rubes who have fallen for mainstream media, as Stuper said, or they are a “vocal minority” as you and even your screenname assert.

The other possibility is that you mean the U.S. constitutes that vocal minority, in which case I’m asking, what do they know in other parts of the world that Americans don’t know? You said
Most people are too busy with their own lives
Probably, but we have more leisure time, time for armchair politics, than most of the rest of the world. We have access to authors and other experts, not just superficial news reports in the evening.

If you watch ‘Frontline’ you can see how Putin seized power in Russia a few years after I left the country. (I was teaching English there in ‘94) What does the rest of the world know that they find Putin more likeable than I do? What does Stuper know that causes him to discount such news as propaganda? Or for that matter, the assertion that Saddam gassed his own people. He (stuper) himself wrote,
Speaking for myself, and based on very limited knowledge, so I fully admit I could be wrong,
Well frankly, Stuper, I think you’re wrong.

Nothing wrong with being anti-war, anti-invasion. I like that Trump brought troops home. That’s not something to ridicule.

To be pro-Ukraine, however, has nothing to do with bloodlust. it’s just the opposite. If Putin has his way, he will not stop with Ukraine.
RIP Marcello Gandini
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