Russia & Ukraine War

[br6205]

that speaker is kind of dry. China is not scared but they do only care about themselves, the US dollar wont used for international trade forever, if the US sanctions china like it did Russia then all the store shelves would be empty.

But that works both ways. China would also be in a deep depression & on the positive side it would force the US to start making stuff again and consumers stop being unneeded items.

 

[GoneWithTheWind]

yea, china doesnt want to be cut off, which probably has a lot to do with why they stay away from ukraine.
Here is some relevant information from one of my favorite youtube channels

 

[tampa24]

that speaker is kind of dry. China is not scared but they do only care about themselves, the US dollar wont used for international trade forever, if the US sanctions china like it did Russia then all the store shelves would be empty.

Good points. Yes. Unless or until we move much more manufacturing back here to the U.S. we will be very heavily reliant on China for our basic consumer goods and gadgets. It would hurt us tremendously in the short term at least if we ended up sanctioning China (over an invasion of Taiwan perhaps) the same way we sanctioned Russia for Ukraine. But then... Telling China to keep and stuff the billions of dollars of consumer goods that would normally be exported to the U.S. that will not be bought and paid for...would also be a crisis for them in factory shutdowns and mass layoffs.

Also, you're right about it being difficult finding good quality YT videos that tell a news story or commentary effectively in an adult-like and compelling way. It bugs me when college professors with post-graduate degrees mispronounce basic words, drone on dryly, use incorrect words for the points they are making, or accidentally state the opposite of whatever point they obviously intended to say in a sentence.

Some of the better speakers in the vids will also sometimes have videos that go on for over an hour. I don't bother posting those because I know that in here most of us don't have either the time, patience, interest or attention spans to devote to much lengthier explanations of a story. lol

 

[tampa24]

yea, china doesnt want to be cut off, which probably has a lot to do with why they stay away from ukraine.
Here is some relevant information from one of my favorite youtube channels

Thanks Tyr! That's a good one.

 

[tampa24]

I could easily justify putting this on the music thread or elsewhere. But I figured that for some heartwarming levity and inspiration I'd post it here.

If you just click on the "Watch on YouTube" option in the box below, you'll be able to watch it.

 

[br6205]

Frankly, as I get older I watch what is called news much less. As a youngster I was addicted but now find it a waste of time & too depressing. I limit my time to under 1 hour per day.

 

[kgmets2]

Very interesting.

 

[br6205]

'The plan has failed': Putin’s secret weapon has fizzled

It was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s big plan to punish Europe. It's been a fizzer.

ablink.newsletter.mail-nzherald.co.nz

 

[br6205]

‘Nothing but hatred’: Russia’s ‘Rambo’ turns on Vladimir Putin

Russian 'Rambo' Artur Smolyaninov in trouble after a series of anti-war statements.

ablink.newsletter.mail-nzherald.co.nz

 

[mikeyank]

Hopefully the new Republican controlled House will not let the U.S. funding of the Ukrainian efforts be limited by budget cuts.

 

[br6205]

Unfortunately with the deals made, it seems likely.

 

[kgmets2]

Hopefully the new Republican controlled House will not let the U.S. funding of the Ukrainian efforts be limited by budget cuts.

And the threatening to do that along with the pro Putin ranting on Fox TV is already going on! If that happens, the moderates have to stand up, depose McCarthy and replace him with a moderate Republican ruling the house in coalition with the Dems. The crazies are also threatening to destroy the American economy by causing a default as early as the end of this week. If they do that would also make it a patriotic duty for the moderate Republicans and the Dems to replace them with a moderate Republican led coalition government supported by the Dems. The less drastic alternative option would be for just enough moderate Republicans to join the Dems on critical votes concerning Ukraine and the potential war on our economy and just outvote them issue by issue.

 

[tampa24]

And the threatening to do that along with the pro Putin ranting on Fox TV is already going on! If that happens, the moderates have to stand up, depose McCarthy and replace him with a moderate Republican ruling the house in coalition with the Dems. The crazies are also threatening to destroy the American economy by causing a default as early as the end of this week. If they do that would also make it a patriotic duty for the moderate Republicans and the Dems to replace them with a moderate Republican led coalition government supported by the Dems. The less drastic alternative option would be for just enough moderate Republicans to join the Dems on critical votes concerning Ukraine and the potential war on our economy and just outvote them issue by issue.

Agreed. I've never liked Tucker Carlson. But to see him on there acting like a pro-Putin puppet spoating Russian talking points denigrating Ukraine is something even I didn't think him capable of. The far right has gone pro-Russian and Pro-Putin. I guess it's one more clue as to how fascist they've become.

 

[GoneWithTheWind]

My opinion about Russia and Ukraine might be less then popular in this thread, but here I go.
Russia(Putin) was pressured into acting by the US and other NATO nations pushing all his buttons, doing nothing would have been political suicide for him with his own people eventually.
Why do I need to pay for a pointless war that was essentially started by my own politicians?
Ukraine has always been corrupt and anyone who denies this is ignorant, so how much of the aid being sent to Ukraine is even staying there and how much of the aid is being sold to the highest bidder to line someone's pockets?
No one actually knows where anything is going because the US government refused to track anything stating that it would slow down the support.
This war is horrible for all the people involved, but the people who benefit are no where near the front line. I am not convinced western life is best.
When will politicians (yes i mean US politicians) start caring about the people involved in their crusades?

 

[br6205]

My opinion about Russia and Ukraine might be less then popular in this thread, but here I go.
Russia(Putin) was pressured into acting by the US and other NATO nations pushing all his buttons, doing nothing would have been political suicide for him with his own people eventually.
Why do I need to pay for a pointless war that was essentially started by my own politicians?
Ukraine has always been corrupt and anyone who denies this is ignorant, so how much of the aid being sent to Ukraine is even staying there and how much of the aid is being sold to the highest bidder to line someone's pockets?
No one actually knows where anything is going because the US government refused to track anything stating that it would slow down the support.
This war is horrible for all the people involved, but the people who benefit are no where near the front line. I am not convinced western life is best.
When will politicians (yes i mean US politicians) start caring about the people involved in their crusades?

Perhaps it might be wise you ask the people of Ukraine what they think, sure there waas plenty of corruption before the present regime, which as under the umbrella of Russia. Also ask yourself where is it right to invade another country, perhaps Pakistan by India or New Zealand by Australia. By the way how did WWII start in both Europe & Asia; Germany invading whqat it called Germen domains & Japan claiming areas off its coast.

 

[GoneWithTheWind]

Perhaps it might be wise you ask the people of Ukraine what they think, sure there waas plenty of corruption before the present regime, which as under the umbrella of Russia. Also ask yourself where is it right to invade another country, perhaps Pakistan by India or New Zealand by Australia. By the way how did WWII start in both Europe & Asia; Germany invading whqat it called Germen domains & Japan claiming areas off its coast.

I understand what you are saying, and the world we live in is a dirty place. How many countries has the US invaded, and why was no one asking what the people of those countries thought about it then? I don't like war, but my country sure does. I don't like paying for it, if they want to donate a bunch of stuff then take it out of the current military spending and stop adding to my taxes.

 

[tampa24]

My opinion about Russia and Ukraine might be less then popular in this thread, but here I go.
Russia(Putin) was pressured into acting by the US and other NATO nations pushing all his buttons, doing nothing would have been political suicide for him with his own people eventually.
Why do I need to pay for a pointless war that was essentially started by my own politicians?
Ukraine has always been corrupt and anyone who denies this is ignorant, so how much of the aid being sent to Ukraine is even staying there and how much of the aid is being sold to the highest bidder to line someone's pockets?
No one actually knows where anything is going because the US government refused to track anything stating that it would slow down the support.
This war is horrible for all the people involved, but the people who benefit are no where near the front line. I am not convinced western life is best.
When will politicians (yes i mean US politicians) start caring about the people involved in their crusades?

You are absolutely entitled to your opinion Tyrgineer. As pro-Ukraine as I am at the moment, I am also intellectually honest with myself. As one of the vids I posted earlier (from Peter Zeihan I believe) made the point....Russia sees Ukraine as pivotal to its longterm security. Russia has always looked for "forward depth" facing the West. Wanting enough geography and distance so that Moscow and the rest of Mother Russia would be far enough away from Germany, France, (even Sweden and Turkey) so that any conventional war starting from the West primarily would take an invading army until wintertime to reach Moscow. Distance and brutally cold weather have been the only things that have saved them in the past (or at least given them time to sort out terms of surrender) from attacks emanating directly from the West. (Think Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler.)

You're right that with Ukraine and NATO playing footsies and being coy about ever allowing Ukraine into the alliance before the war, it sparked alarm from the Russian side. I grant you that all of that is true. Russia sees seizing more territory in Eastern Europe as essential for its long term survivial. And I'll even go so far as to say that they are probably right. (In the long, long term that is.)

However they ARE a nuclear power. So they will always have that deterrant factor for any direct threats to their own internationally recognized borders. It's not like they have to worry that a simple large tank assault towards Moscow will find them defenseless and in mortal danger with no defense options. They could still unilaterally turn the planet into an uninhabitable cinder. And therein lies the rub. The borders of Eastern Europe have shifted like waves of sand in the desert over centuries and even the last several decades. So yes it's been possible through wars, the economic decline of one power and the economic rise of another (or others plural) that the far western borders of Russia today could fall under the sway of other countries. But that alone doesn't mean Russia will fully cease to exist.

Plus, given the fact that Russia had already invaded Ukraine to seize Crimea and Ukraine's eastern border provinces gave Ukraine and NATO itself the justification for taking a much harder military stance towards Russia, and to be very suspicious of its future intentions. So Russia itself has plenty of blame for the predicament it finds itself in now. In trying to prevent a deteriorization of its military strength and the loss of its claimed "sphere of influence" in Eastern Europe, Russia through its own hubris, incompetence (and rampant corruption) has actually brought about the very situation it had hoped to avoid. Russia is now less secure than it was a year ago. Instead of "demilitarizing" Ukraine... It's Russia's own armed forces and equipment that are being demilitarized.

As much as Erdogan huffs and puffs right now to get what he wants to try to seek the silence, deportation, and prosecution in some cases of Kurds and his other political enemies in the diaspora, I'm betting that he will eventually relent before the end of the year and allow Sweden and Finland to join NATO. And the reason that NATO will be getting two new members is not the fault of a predjudiced rabidly "anti-Russian West", but Putin himself for launching this war.

Also you talk of the rampant corruption of Ukraine. I don't deny that high level of corruption. Nor do I deny it's possibly still going on (to some degree) today. But when Russia accuses Ukraine of corruption, the hypocrisy is laughable. Russia is as corrupt or even more so than Ukarine is. The fact that Russia is struggling on the battlefield now (when it shouldn't be) is testament to the fact that a huge portion of the trillions of dollars Russia spent on the military over the last 20+ years ended up lining other people's pockets and landing in Swiss bank accounts, multiple presidential palaces and mansions for Putin, in tony London real estate, and elsewhere abroad. It obviously didn't truly get spent on all of the supposed modernizations and training.

So the arguments go like a house of mirrors, with a whole lot of the proverbial chicken and the egg thrown in as well. Who did what first (in Russia or the West) to cause one side or the other to respond in this way? Which country is more corrupt than the other between Ukraine and Russia? House of mirrors again. Was pre-war Ukraine a well functioning and nearly perfect country? Oh, hell no. But was Russia? It's possible (and probable) that neither side between Russia and the West has completely clean hands for how we ended up in this proxy war. But given the historical baggage of the behavior of the post-WWII Soviet Union, and the behavior of Russia today under Putin....I side with Ukraine and the West.

 

[br6205]

I understand what you are saying, and the world we live in is a dirty place. How many countries has the US invaded, and why was no one asking what the people of those countries thought about it then? I don't like war, but my country sure does. I don't like paying for it, if they want to donate a bunch of stuff then take it out of the current military spending and stop adding to my taxes.

Study how and why the US entered WWII. The isolationist were in control using the same arguments. It was also true of WWI. In the end the country had no choice & it cost us far more in lives & money. As to Ukraine , what do you suppose Putin would have done if Ukraine fell. His aim would have expanded & taken over Poland , Czechoslovak, Yugoslavia & other countries. In the end as in WWII we would have ended up having to to physically entered another far more costly conflagration

 

[GoneWithTheWind]

You are absolutely entitled to your opinion Tyrgineer. As pro-Ukraine as I am at the moment, I am also intellectually honest with myself. As one of the vids I posted earlier (from Peter Zeihan I believe) made the point....Russia sees Ukraine as pivotal to its longterm security. Russia has always looked for "forward depth" facing the West. Wanting enough geography and distance so that Moscow and the rest of Mother Russia would be far enough away from Germany, France, (even Sweden and Turkey) so that any conventional war starting from the West primarily would take an invading army until wintertime to reach Moscow. Distance and brutally cold weather have been the only things that have saved them in the past (or at least given them time to sort out terms of surrender) from attacks emanating directly from the West. (Think Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler.)

You're right that with Ukraine and NATO playing footsies and being coy about ever allowing Ukraine into the alliance before the war, it sparked alarm from the Russian side. I grant you that all of that is true. Russia sees seizing more territory in Eastern Europe as essential for its long term survivial. And I'll even go so far as to say that they are probably right. (In the long, long term that is.)

However they ARE a nuclear power. So they will always have that deterrant factor for any direct threats to their own internationally recognized borders. It's not like they have to worry that a simple large tank assault towards Moscow will find them defenseless and in mortal danger with no defense options. They could still unilaterally turn the planet into an uninhabitable cinder. And therein lies the rub. The borders of Eastern Europe have shifted like waves of sand in the desert over centuries and even the last several decades. So yes it's been possible through wars, the economic decline of one power and the economic rise of another (or others plural) that the far western borders of Russia today could fall under the sway of other countries. But that alone doesn't mean Russia will fully cease to exist.

Plus the fact that Russia had already invaded Ukraine to seize Crimea and Ukraine's eastern boder provinces gave Ukraine and NATO itself the justification for taking a much harder military stance towards Russia, and to be very suspicious of its future intentions. So Russia itself has plenty of blame for the predicament it finds itself in now. In trying to prevent a deteriorization of its military strength and the loss of its claimed "sphere of influence" in Eastern Europe, Russia through its own hubris, incompetence (and rampant corruption) has actually brought about the very situation it had hoped to avoid. Russia is now less secure than it was a year ago. Instead of "demilitarizing" Ukraine... It's Russia's own armed forces and equipment that are being demilitarized.

As much as Erdogan huffs and puffs right now to get what he wants to try to seek the silence, deportation, and prosecution in some cases of Kurds and his other political enemies in the diaspora, I'm betting that he will eventually relent before the end of the year and allow Sweden and Finland to join NATO. And the reason that NATO will be getting two new members is not the fault of a predjudiced rabidly "anti-Russian West", but Putin himself for launching this war.

Also you talk of the rampant corruption of Ukraine. I don't deny that high level of corruption. Nor do I deny it's possibly still going on (to some degree) today. But when Russia accuses Ukraine of corruption, the hypocrisy is laughable. Russia is as corrupt or even more so than Ukarine is. The fact that Russian is struggling on the battlefield now is testament to the fact that a huge portion of the trillions of dollars Russia spent on the military over the last 20+ years ended up lining other people's pockets and landing in Swiss bank accounts, multiple presidential palaces and mansions for Putin, in tony London real estate and elsewhere abroad. It obviously didn't truly get spent on all of the supposed modernizations and training.

So the arguments go like a house of mirrors, with a whole lot of the proverbial chicken and the egg thrown in as well. Who did what first (in Russia or the West) to cause one side or the other to respond in this way? Which country is more corrupt than the other between Ukraine and Russia? House of mirrors again. Was pre-war Ukraine a well functioning and nearly perfect country? Oh, hell no. But was Russia? It's possible (and probable) that neither side between Russia and the West has completely clean hands for how we ended up in this proxy war. But given the historical baggage of the behavior of the post-WWII Soviet Union, and the behavior of Russia today under Putin....I side with Ukraine and the West.

Russia is not good, but when I first heard that word oligarch I thought about US politics. The war happened, now the best thing would be for it to end. My aversion to military spending is not specific to Ukraine, we need to stop spending so much on such a stupid thing. If security is so important then someone else can help pay for it. Russia is taking a significant economic hit so in the long run they already lost, but with progress in alternative energy this might have been their last moment to shine. I guess letting Ukraine crumble would be cruel especially since we have a lot to do with their current situation. This whole thing is complicated for oh so many reasons which is why I usually stay away from discussion. Russia calling Ukraine corrupt is pretty funny tho.

 

[tampa24]

Study how and why the US entered WWII. The isolationist were in control using the same arguments. It was also true of WWI. In the end the country had no choice & it cost us far more in lives & money. As to Ukraine , what do you suppose Putin would have done if Ukraine fell. His aim would have expanded & taken over Poland , Czechoslovak, Yugoslavia & other countries. In the end as in WWII we would have ended up having to to physically entered another far more costly conflagration

Exactly. This is where Putin's mindset is still at. Ukraine was always seen from the Russian side as just a starting point and stepping stone for more wars of conquest along its western borders. They were never going to stop at just Ukraine. So stalling their armies inside of eastern Ukraine is actually preventing more devastating and costly Russian wars of conquest elsewhere in Europe.