Right enough Archie. I've been reading a couple of timelines, Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ukraine-crisis and this that goes back to 1917. https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f38ec2.html
No black and white easy outcome to this.
Off Topic Politics Thread
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No black and white easy outcome to this.
Nobody is saying "the enemy must be crushed". Literally nobody. I defy you to find someone who has said it.
Russia has been attacking all of Ukraine with impunity. Missiles have hit schools, blocks of flats and hospitals. What missiles have flown into Russia? None*. Because Ukraine is restricting its efforts to kicking the invader out. Not destroying Russia, just getting them out Ukraine's internationally recognised borders. If that's "destruction of Russia", my dick's a kipper.
I find it hard to understand why otherwise intelligent people cannot see this.
If it helps, I agree wholeheartedly that it would be better to have found other ways to resolve matters but, just for clarity, remember that Russia invaded a neighbouring sovereign democratic nation. That moment changes things. So it's entirely possible to set the blame for the bloodshed firmly at the Kremlin's door. In the same way that it's entirely possible to lay the blame for the bloodshed in Iraq at America and Britain's door. I know the left in Britain can't cope with this but it's possible for both the USA and Russia to be in the wrong at different times.
I keep asking but never have I received an answer. What should Ukraine have done when tanks were rolling towards Kyiv?
I already know your answer will be "it's too difficult, too complex" but try avoiding the weasel words and telling us what Ukraine should have done when their capital was in imminent danger of being taken. This isn't a complex question.
In your opinion, what concrete action should they have taken in those days when their nation was being invaded and could have fallen? Surrender? Fight? Escape? Ask for help? Before you tell me it's too complex, as though I'm asking for a definitive solution that would resolve everything to everyone's satisfaction, I'm asking your opinion of what the Ukrainians should have done at that point.
Vin
* [EDIT] Apologies - there are suspicions that some military fuel depots inside Russia may have been struck by drones.
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If you already know what my answer will be, why ask the question? But yes, history is complex, and simple answers seldom serve.
I am certainly not arguing for submission to tyranny. That would be contrary to everything I believe about the relationship between the powerful and the (comparatively) powerless. The wider point I am trying to make, is that;
a) The narrative presented to us by the entirety of our media and body politic, is partisan and incomplete. For example, of all the Western nations, only Germany seemed even remotely cognisant of the optics regarding German tanks being in Kiev. Kiev was the site of one of the biggest tank battles of WWII, in case you were unaware. And then there's Crimea; I urge you to do a little research into the history of Russia's claim to the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Without some knowledge of Sevastopol's strategic importance, you will not be able to understand why it is that no Russian leader of any political persuasion would ever be able to tolerate it's permanent loss.
b) The only solution to Putin's aggression being offered to us by, again, the entirety of our media and body politic, is to meet force with an even greater show of force. This approach can hardly be said to have served humanity well in the past.
Regarding point B, I would suggest that appeasement of tyranny has served humanity far worse to date.
I assume this is a reference to the 1930s. For the sake of a little context, it’s a widely accepted historical consensus that the punitive conditions imposed on Germany at the Treaty of Versailles, played a significant part in creating the conditions from which Nazism emerged.
The Napoleonic Wars, The Franco-Prussian War, WWI, WWII, the war in Ukraine; it’s at least arguable that it’s all the same bloody war, and it won’t end for as long as nations place their flags over buildings, and send their young men to die for a vision of freedom/ sovereignty etc. that always serves the interests of their rulers.
If anyone wants to see another side to American then look at their empirical expansionist policies. It's so easy to see Russia and China as 'the enemy' and that is the way Amerrica does view both countries but there is an alternative viewpoint. America has over 1000 based dotted around the world and it seeks to impose its will on other countries and to shape whole regions to the way America wants it.
It ain't all one way traffic Vin, and you only need to watch for 5 minutes in the first video to see a different view of the world we live in.....
Another video featuring John Pilger .....
It ain't all one way traffic Vin, and you only need to watch for 5 minutes in the first video to see a different view of the world we live in.....
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Another video featuring John Pilger .....
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The geriatric ****s seem determined to escalate things and kill as many people as possible.
Bad times for the world. I trust Biden almost as little as I trust Putin. Both are corrupt and evil as ****.
Bad times for the world. I trust Biden almost as little as I trust Putin. Both are corrupt and evil as ****.
You're still dancing around the fact that you can't really offer an alternative here. You aren't in favour of allowing Russian aggression, you just aren't in favour of stopping it either. To date, the only thing I've seen you offer is that everyone involved should read more Tolstoy.
Regarding Sevastopol, I'd suggest that you also do a bit of research. As recently as 2010, Ukraine had agreed a long-term extension to the lease of the port to Russia that was valid through the 2040s, in exchange for guarantees to Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine didn't rip up that agreement; Russia did.
Wow. This is a staggering take. To even think that they are worth putting in the same sentence with regards to corruption and evil is truly mind boggling. You are both underselling Putin and over selling Biden on those metrics to be able to use them in the same sentence.
One note on Biden's "corruption": despite being in Congress for decades, he was consistently one of the poorest members of the Senate. Most Senators are millionaires, through the combination of wealth prior to entering office, and the rather alarming allowance of insider trading for members of Congress.
Biden didn't have any of those lucrative side hustles; his salary constituted most of his income (which we know, because he has released all of his tax returns from 1998 to present). He got wealthy after his vice presidency, but it wasn't because of corruption: it's because he wrote his memoirs. All of his income is traceable.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...through-speaking-and-book-profits/5981003002/
There is always more than one perspective, one paradigm from which to consider any situation. It’s always at least worth considering alternative views, few of which you’ll find expressed anywhere at all in U.K. media at the moment. This article is by Brian Eno - yeah, that Brian Eno. Thank God groupthink hasn’t infected all our public figures.
https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/were-drifting-towards-another-new-war-in-europe/
https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/were-drifting-towards-another-new-war-in-europe/
Again, though, you're simply offering more holier-than-thou "if you did the research", "it's all groupthink", "read more Tolstoy" pap. There is zero detail either in what you have said or in that writeup by Eno, which just says that America and Russia should negotiate. It's Os with a higher syllable count.
The Ukrainians did negotiate. They negotiated the Black Sea Fleet Partition Treaty. They negotiated the Kharkiv Pact. They negotiated Minsk I and Minsk II. They negotiated with Putin's emissary days before the war, even had a provisional agreement in place, which Putin refused. None of that mattered because Russia invaded.
Be more precise. What should they negotiate? How much of their country should they give up? How many of the million of civilians that Russia 'relocated' should they allow to be held? Because to date, you have not provided even the vaguest suggestion of what Ukraine should do if the Russians continue to demand large swaths of their country in exchange for peace, never mind that Russia has demonstrated time and again that they will tear up any agreements the moment it becomes inconvenient. What should they do if they give up 25% of their country, and Russia invades in ten years?
Another question: did you protest the North Vietnamese? They could have ended the Vietnam War, after all, if only they allowed their country to be carved up. Of course you didn't, it's their country and that would be ****ing idiotic. You protested the country doing the carving up.
Why is it that Ukraine are still actively getting shipment after shipment of stuff from Russia, against a backdrop of narrative that goes against this that they have been shut off as it were?
Im confused.
Im confused.
What are they getting shipments of? My internet connection is bad at the moment and all I can find on an initial search is discussions about a deal allowing Ukraine to ship grain out through a corridor russia is supposed to be granting. None of the main stories discuss them shippIng things in from Russian but that could be because those stories don’t have as much worldwide significance
I'm guessing you're talking about natural gas? If so, Ukraine isn't getting that gas. The gas goes from Russia to the EU, through Ukraine. Ukraine hasn't cut it off because a number of EU nations, primarily Germany and Italy, rely on it. It also doesn't come in 'shipments', it goes through a pipeline.
Googling "are the russians shipping goods to ukraine" and vice versa might clear the confusion. I couldn't find anything that showed "shipment after shipment of stuff" in either direction, may I ask what prompted you to post that comment? The last year figures I could find were for 2021 pre war see https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/imports/russia and https://tradingeconomics.com/ukrain...rts to Russia was,updated on February of 2023.
All I've asked is at the point when the (undoubtedly historically complex and incomprehensible to anyone but you, if you like) situation results in another country's army rolling down the road towards your capital, what do you devoted lovers of peace at all costs do?
Vin
I have at no point presumed to tell the Ukrainian people how they should respond to Russian aggression; neither, unlike yourself, have I ever claimed to have all the answers. I’m not the one so confident in his position that I am prepared to cheer on one side or the other in a bloody war that is already turning Ukraine into a smouldering ruin, and which shows no sign of abating any time soon.
My position is simply that I am extremely uncomfortable seeing my own country offering to hold America’s coat (again), while it conducts a proxy war with Russia on Ukrainian soil. I’m even more uncomfortable seeing my country’s politicians of every persuasion, jetting off to Ukraine for a selfie with Zelenskyy because they consider it in their own interests to do so.
Finally, I reject the binary mindset whereby one is either an apologist for Putin, or an enthusiast for NATO intervention in a war way inside the borders of the former Soviet Union (and before that, the greater Russian empire).
I am not arguing that Putin is not the aggressor in this conflict. I am questioning the response of the Western powers. Do you, as a Canadian, feel the need to pick a side and become actively involved in every conflict in the globe? I certainly don’t share that sense of obligation, as a Brit; even though this conflict is happening on my continent (but further away than Yemen, where British arms manufacturers continue to profit from supplying weapons to a tyrannical power).
Nope not talkign about that, they are literally getting shipment after shipment of day to day stuff. I have family in both Ru and Ukr, and for the most part it is business as usual. My relative runs a food wholesale business, and exports caviar from Ru into Ukr, no issues at all.