Yeah, failure of research on my part. But making **** up or not checking is the modern way, isn’t it?
I am well aware of why Putin speaks German Stan - it does not make the overture which he made on that day any less real. I am truly doubtfull about whether massing troops on the border is the best way to actually register disatisfaction with the continual expansion of NATO westwards - maybe other methods could have been preferred but i'm struggling to think what. How would the Americans react if a potentially hostile power was getting closer and closer to their backyard - you don't need to answer that because we have seen it in parts of Latin America. I am not aware of labels such as left wing communitarian libertarian and I am neither a Stalinist nor a Marxist (neither for that matter is Putin) - in any case I decide my political affiliation not you !
All fact I'm afraid Col - he was opening the way for another type of future but the chance wasn't taken. He has been pissed off with the West ever since then.
Back with the moral relativism ‘what about America…..’ Who cares. So what is your political affiliation? Just so I don’t misrepresent you in future.
To be fair to Boris, not easy I know, he's done more, so far concerning Ukraine than most other leaders, which has been acknowledged by Ukraine.
Ben Wallace has said that diplomatic efforts to avoid war in the Ukraine have a 'whiff of Munich' about them. Give it a rest mate, don't feed Johnson's Churchill fantasies.
Christian Socialist with a bit of Anarcho Communist thrown in (as in Kropotkin) I also like the ideas of Tom Paine's rights of man and agrarian justice - but the first of these more than the others. I read Marx in my early years but struggled with it. I was not a fan of the USSR nor am I a fan of Putin but I can recognise when mistakes are being made. I would want to see the end of NATO and its replacement with a new peacekeeping force (if such a thing is unfortunately necessary) which is more neutral and has no one single World view or economic interest behind it and which includes Russia and Europe in a new partnership because that is the only way we can guarantee long term peace in Europe - whether this is possible with Putin I don't know.
A ridiculously high percentage of their base have a fetish for a war they didn’t fight in and are now too old to fight in one so expect this language to be more and more common.
We're getting onto deep stuff here Stan. I have a respect for the Amish people and for the Hutterite tradition and so, by definition to Anabaptism though I haven't belonged to that tradition. Closer to the Quaker tradition though I have not been a member as such, but many friends (pardon the pun here) have been. I also believe in the inclusive nature of religion so eg. a real practicing Muslim would be an extension to my beliefs and not a contradiction, because they are all pointing in the same direction, or should be. If you only have enough religion to divide people from each other in sects then it's not real religion. So what does that make me ? I don't know you tell me. But to clarify things here I am not an enemy of the USA - groups like the Amish, and many other have practiced their religions there for centuries without censure and I repect them for that, because such toleration would not be found in many other countries. The USA started off in a very different way - as a revolutionary force and their Constitution was the most advanced document of it's day - if they lived by it,and according to their roots, things would be very different.
I think we can all agree that in the 21st century, even talk of war examples the failures of the human race.
to be fair, the russians have been putting that many troops on their borders every year for the past few years (nicked this from someone on this forum) Russian troop numbers... 2020 https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-de...undreds-of-planes-to-border-with-ukraine.html 2019 https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/02/are-the-russians-coming-russias-military-buildup-near-ukraine/ 2018 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/1/poroshenko-over-80000-russian-troops-in-and-around-ukraine 2017 https://www.businessinsider.com/wha...sians-going-to-natos-borders-2017-8?r=US&IR=T https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/05/10/u-s-shifting-forces-to-monitor-large-russian-military-exercises-officials-say
