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Fame Douglas posted:Where does the idea that people haven't criticized US foreign policy and imperialism in the past even come from? Mostly people living inside the U.S. within a very tiny media bubble.
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Apr 3, 2022 11:50
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:Dude you're full of poo poo. "Know your enemy" is not "I love Putin". You are angry and want to yell at Russian sympathisers, I understand. What they've done is utterly dreadful and indefensible they are wholly and completely in the wrong and I want them to lose. You haven't found one though.
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Apr 3, 2022 11:52
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mobby_6kl posted:Not that the NATO enroachment thing wasn't always bullshit, but how are we still talking about it now, after this war clearly showed that there is zero intention to actually do anything about russia? Now would be the best time to attack since the 90s and yet we can't even hand over some planes to Ukraine because it would make putin sad. I mean they do have nukes and would probably use them if attacked. That's also the reason why the whole 'threatened by NATO encroachment' bullshit is just that - NATO cannot attack Russia without the extremely high risk of a nuclear war. It always has been and always will be about imperialism on Russia's part and has nothing to do with threats to Russia's territory. edit - the people who believe NATO has anything to do with it are just dumb idiots who swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker.
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Apr 3, 2022 11:52
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:Why would a Russian soldier be carrying around a bunch of condoms in his pocket? I'm pretty sure most armies will issue condoms to their soldiers, the goal is to prevent STDs.
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Apr 3, 2022 11:53
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:Why would a Russian soldier be carrying around a bunch of condoms in his pocket? Maybe they thought they were going to end up somewhere other than a hostile foreign country. In fact interrogations seem to leave no room to doubt this is true in at least some cases. Alternately, every one of them came to Ukraine to commit rape, as they're inhuman beasts etc.
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Apr 3, 2022 11:54
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:Why would a Russian soldier be carrying around a bunch of condoms in his pocket? Nazi soldiers were issued condoms before Barbarossa.
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Apr 3, 2022 11:56
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18 year old men are endlessly optimistic.
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Apr 3, 2022 11:56
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lilljonas posted:Whataboutism is when you excuse one side’s atrocities because someone else is supposedly worse. The correct moral answer is ”yes, faction B did a bad thing too. That doesn’t excuse or nullify the bad actions of faction A”. To bring up and talk about at length how Ukraine, the EU, the US, NATO, "The West", associated countries and so on have also done bad things takes away time, attention and energy from the real issue and achieves the same thing as a whataboutism, even if a comparison or connection isn't directly spelled out. That's what that Quora-level loaded question baited you to do. Mr. Smile Face Hat fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Apr 3, 2022 |
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Apr 3, 2022 12:03
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Morningwoodpecker posted:"Know your enemy" is not "I love Putin". If you're assuming Russia gets to dictate if Ukraine joins NATO or not, and can invade them if necessary to stop that from happening, than by default you're part of the problem and full of poo poo.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:03
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Morningwoodpecker posted:"Know your enemy" is not "I love Putin". There's a difference between "Know your enemy" and "Appease your enemy" though. You can acknowledge that doing something will make your enemy feel threatened, then do it anyway because maybe doing things your enemy doesn't like is a good thing given that they're your enemy. Russia didn't invade Ukraine because it wanted to join NATO, Russia didn't want Ukraine to join NATO because it wants to be free to invade whenever it wants. Saying "I'm sure this is the last time Putin will invade a sovereign neighbour, lets just leave him to it" is exactly how we ended up here.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:05
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Scoss posted:I don't know how to pose this question without revealing that I am a poor student of history and politics, and a big stupid American, so I won't even pretend. There's some specific structural differences between USA and Russia in this regard. While American media is stupid, it is still very much independent from the state, and embedded reporters would take notice if US soldiers were routinely going My Lai on locals. It doesn't matter if it's CNN, Fox, NBC, NYT, NYP or any other big media, they would absolutely love to find out about US soldiers executing, raping and torturing people because it would be a banger of a story, like Abu Ghraib was. USA also has a two party system where the administration can't automatically assume that even their own congressmen and senators will not start digging up poo poo on abuses. In practise the system is really good at protecting soldiers from real consequences, like seen in the case of Haditha massacre. Killing unarmed civilians was punished with a slap on wrist. But still the case was reported and investigated despite an attempt to cover it up. quote:An initial Marine Corps communique reported that 15 civilians were killed by the bomb's blast and eight insurgents were subsequently killed when the Marines returned fire against those attacking the convoy. However, other evidence uncovered by the media contradicted the Marines' account.[1] A Time magazine reporter's questions prompted the United States military to open an investigation into the incident. The investigation found evidence that "supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot civilians", according to an anonymous Pentagon official.[3] Three officers were officially reprimanded for failing to properly initially report and investigate the killings. On December 21, 2006, eight Marines from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines were charged in connection with the incident.[4][5] quote:The coverup at Haditha reportedly began instantly. However, an Iraqi journalism student shot a video the day after of the bloodstained and bullet-riddled houses where the massacre had occurred. That video made its way to an Iraqi human rights group and finally to Tim McGirk, a correspondent from Time magazine. When Time made its first queries, the Marine spokesman, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, who had issued the first statement on Haditha as an action against terrorists months earlier, told reporters that they were falling for al-Qaida propaganda. 'I cannot believe you're buying any of this,'[65] he wrote in an e-mail. Nonetheless, word reached Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the second-highest-ranking U.S. military officer in Iraq, that there had been no investigation and he ordered one immediately. Russia, on the other hand, has effectively suppressed all media in the country and all opposition is in prison or threatened to keep it mum. As a consequence there is zero accountability for war crimes. If you're interested you can find articles by Anna Politkovskaya during the 2nd Chechnyan War - at a time when Russian media still had a lot more freedom to investigate the army's crimes. Colonel Yuri Budanov was one of the extremely rare instances where a Russian officer was tried and sentenced for the abduction, rape and murder of a Chechen teen girl, and only because of the media's dogged interest and because Chechen authorities wanted his blood. Despite the sentence he was still held as a hero in Russia, but as a villain in Chechnya and he was assassinated by Chechens after his release. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Budanov
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Apr 3, 2022 12:05
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Nenonen posted:There's some specific structural differences between USA and Russia in this regard. While American media is stupid, it is still very much independent from the state, and embedded reporters would take notice if US soldiers were routinely going My Lai on locals. It doesn't matter if it's CNN, Fox, NBC, NYT, NYP or any other big media, they would absolutely love to find out about US soldiers executing, raping and torturing people because it would be a banger of a story, like Abu Ghraib was.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:16
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Nenonen posted:Informative post Also of note: Anna Politkovskaya was later murdered in what seemed like a contract killing. It's a chillingly common pattern that keeps repeating to reporters who "dug too deep" in Russia.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:22
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mobby_6kl posted:Not that the NATO enroachment thing wasn't always bullshit, but how are we still talking about it now, after this war clearly showed that there is zero intention to actually do anything about russia? I wouldn't say that. If the European governments follow through with their plans, we are going to be economically almost completely decoupled from Russia in ~5 years, European NATO will be rearmed and ready to defend against them and all of Europe (except Ukraine  ) will be safe, even without US help. These are huge steps and I'm not sure there is much more that could be done. Nobody is doing Barbarossa II: Regime Change Boogaloo. I'm gonna take up arms to topple the government here before I take arms to march on Moscow and luckily nobody is talking or even thinking about something so hosed up.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:22
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Finland looks set to stake out a position re: NATO before Easter https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1510528153407606785?s=20&t=cX2iggDc2nDYhjiTwRCEmA
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Apr 3, 2022 12:23
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GilliamYaeger posted:I'll also note that the scale of the massacres being talked about here are a lot different. Even if it ultimately ended with slaps on the wrist all around, the tragic deaths of 15 people still caused a pretty big stink and higher ups still ordered an investigation upon hearing about it. Here, we have entire towns being executed on orders of Russia's equivalent higher ups. True, it's not just some trigger happy platoon opening fire on civilians and then deciding to keep mum and frame them as terrorists. This is systemic, widespread and done with full awareness and blessing from higher ups.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:23
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Chalks posted:There's a difference between "Know your enemy" and "Appease your enemy" though. You can acknowledge that doing something will make your enemy feel threatened, then do it anyway because maybe doing things your enemy doesn't like is a good thing given that they're your enemy. Russia are trying to retake/rebuild the USSR. If we don't collectively stop them in Ukraine this will spread much further. A dispassionate view of the years leading up to that isn't appeasement. Failing to fully support Ukraine or rearm the whole of Europe would be.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:33
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Morningwoodpecker posted:Russia are trying to retake/rebuild the USSR. If we don't collectively stop them in Ukraine this will spread much further. Morningwoodpecker posted:You can know your enemy without agreeing with your enemy. It's vital when it comes to predicting their next potential moves.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:39
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Nobody who has said "Russia will be unhappy if NATO/the EU expands East" has come up with any sort of compelling alternative model of what the West should do. The obvious analysis is "If you are going to do things we know will provoke a risk of a hostile Russian reaction, you also need to do more to deter Russia." That second bit is the ball that's been dropped.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:50
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Doesn't China simply not get it? Or they trying their best to remain neutral even if it's the lamest excuse? Maybe China, a country who has invaded and occupied a neighboring country for decades now, realizes the hypocrisy of them speaking out against the russians on this.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:52
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His Divine Shadow posted:Maybe China, a country who has invaded and occupied a neighboring country for decades now, realizes the hypocrisy of them speaking out against the russians on this. China is the most peaceful country in the world and they never have invaded any other country and you just don't understand their 5000 year history.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:54
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Looking back 20 years, the NATO expansion has now been proven entirely correct and at no point did it go too fast. One could argue it should have been done faster. Had it gone slower Putin just would have been able to act on his dirty desires earlier. A year ago the argument would have been more interesting but we now got the answer sheet and lol some are still arguing.
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Apr 3, 2022 12:55
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Threadkiller Dog posted:Looking back 20 years, the NATO expansion has now been proven entirely correct and at no point did it go too fast. One could argue it should have been done faster. Had it gone slower Putin just would have been able to act on his dirty desires earlier. Yeah, it's pretty clear now that if there hadn't been a NATO expansion this war would now be fought by Poland and the Baltics. The moment Putin did his deranged meltdown about Ukraine not being a real country was when the last bit of the mask slipped off. The only "security architecture" that was ever acceptable to Russia in eastern Europe was full imperial subjugation by Moscow and conflict/hostility with western Europe.
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Apr 3, 2022 13:03
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There's a similarity to Taiwan in that until the bad neighbours actually do something inadvisable and provocative, domestic support is generally in favour of status quo ambiguity, even if this weakens its own security interests in favour of the neighbour's. The neighbour, conversely, may or may not choose to live with that concession. Sometimes one gets Finland: at no point was it up to Finland as to whether it would still be independent a week thence and it knew it; nonetheless it managed to outlast the Soviet empire. At other times one gets, uh, Ukraine.
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Apr 3, 2022 13:04
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Germany signals support for stronger sanctions but what would that even involve at this point if not the energy sector? As the horrors in places like Bucha and Irpin are documented, is there a sense that increased public pressure could make German leaders cut off Russian oil and gas? Or is German industry so utterly dependent on Russian energy that the idea is likely to remain a non-starter? I don't know enough about the political climate myself. https://twitter.com/RikeFranke/status/1510582634308681730?s=20&t=z9XO9OvZSVnyj0TLnei-tA
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Apr 3, 2022 13:22
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How many supposed casus bellis has Russia trotted out by now? Ukraine is not a real country Ukraine is run by Nazis Ukraine is committing genocide in Donbas Ukraine is planning on attacking Russia Ukraine is seeking nuclear weapons Ukraine is developing anti-Russian pathogens in Hunter Biden's biolab If Russia actually cared about NATO that much, they would just be banging the NATO drum. It wouldn't be just one excuse in the propaganda potpourri.
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Apr 3, 2022 13:26
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Looks like Ukraine downed another plane. @UAWeapons is saying either SU-27 or SU-35 and there are claims the pilot was captured.  Distant video of it falling out the sky. Video starts after whatever caused it Wreckage photos are floating around too The video quality isn't great making it harder to judge, but the black smoke seems to start at a reasonable altitude. If so, that has to be a boost for Ukraine. Anti-aircraft seems to be a weakness so far.
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Apr 3, 2022 13:31
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PerilPastry posted:Germany signals support for stronger sanctions but what would that even involve at this point if not the energy sector? As the horrors in places like Bucha and Irpin are documented, is there a sense that increased public pressure could make German leaders cut off Russian oil and gas? Or is German industry so utterly dependent on Russian energy that the idea is likely to remain a non-starter? I don't know enough about the political climate myself. they are very dependent on it, cutting off imports can be done but would hit their economy very hard and there's a risk that the russians will just export their gas for cheap to china and india instead in holland the government just started a campaign calling for people to use less gas, set their thermostat to 19 degrees, have short showers and so on. i dunno why this wasn't started years ago, there are no upsides to using russian natural gas and only benefits for using less of it
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Apr 3, 2022 13:34
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If all these recent aircraft kills are from Starstreak then that is really impressive. Must be easier to aim the thing properly than some had said.
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Apr 3, 2022 13:40
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GilliamYaeger posted:Because it sounds like "people who knew the USSR better than anyone else argued for appeasement" while your other posts take the exact opposite stance, saying appeasement was a terrible idea and NATO should have expanded as hard as they could to prevent USSR aggression. The people who made the argument that NATO expansion should be limited or one phase only were Russia experts, they did know their enemy or they wouldn't have been in a position to offer that advice. The people who said roll on as far as possible were also experts with a different viewpoint. Arguably the former advisers have been proven right by history as here we all are. It doesn't really matter if the Russian leadership genuinely believe it or just use it as propaganda or even a mix of the two, it's part of their internal narrative so we have to take it into account to understand how we got here, how to negotiate and what could happen next.
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Apr 3, 2022 13:48
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:If all these recent aircraft kills are from Starstreak then that is really impressive. Reading how it operates it would seem there would be no way to hit a jet with it but then again the Ukrainians already did the impossible with that hit on the ship.
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Apr 3, 2022 13:49
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Scapegoat posted:Reading how it operates it would seem there would be no way to hit a jet with it but then again the Ukrainians already did the impossible with that hit on the ship. I mean, people routinely manage to tag jets with laser pointers these days.
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Apr 3, 2022 13:52
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Pablo Bluth posted:Looks like Ukraine downed another plane. @UAWeapons is saying either SU-27 or SU-35 and there are claims the pilot was captured. I wonder does someone ring a bell in the Thales main office every time a starsteak downs a plane. Morningwoodpecker posted:The people who made the argument that NATO expansion should be limited or one phase only were Russia experts, they did know their enemy or they wouldn't have been in a position to offer that advice. The people who said roll on as far as possible were also experts with a different viewpoint. Arguably the former advisers have been proven right by history as here we all are. Are you just trolling? You’re concluding that Russia wouldn’t not have attacked Ukraine if NATO hadn’t expanded? That’s your take? Not that Russia is invading _before_ Ukraine has a chance to join NATO and it would no longer be able to? I mean you’re sort of right with the second part because it’s a lie, we don’t know who is meant to believe it, internally or externally, it doesn’t matter as it’s still a lie either way. Rapulum_Dei fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Apr 3, 2022 |
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Apr 3, 2022 13:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I mean, people routinely manage to tag jets with laser pointers these days. From what I've read Starstreak requires you to hold aim on the target until its hit (which can take more than a few seconds). Doing that with a fighter jet or attack helicopter while it is on a run or moving real fast has to be quite a bit more difficult than hitting some air liner for a second or 2 which usually are essentially going in a straight line. There was some commentary that this required a decent bit of training to perform in a reasonably accurate fashion but the details are all hazy and vague. The UK MoD sounded very confident in it but with no released attack success numbers or previous examples of its use it was hard to say how well it'd really work.
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Apr 3, 2022 14:00
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Scapegoat posted:Reading how it operates it would seem there would be no way to hit a jet with it but then again the Ukrainians already did the impossible with that hit on the ship. From what I've seen the missile is designed to be extremely fast in order to hit jets. I guess this reduces the amount of complex tracking it would have to do since it's unlikely that the trajectory of its target would have changed much between launch and impact.
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Apr 3, 2022 14:01
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the holy poopacy posted:How many supposed casus bellis has Russia trotted out by now? You clearly have difficulty separating propaganda for internal use, propaganda for selective foreign audiences, and true underlying motives.
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Apr 3, 2022 14:02
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:From what I've read Starstreak requires you to hold aim on the target until its hit (which can take more than a few seconds). Doing that with a fighter jet or attack helicopter while it is on a run or moving real fast has to be quite a bit more difficult than hitting some air liner for a second or 2 which usually are essentially going in a straight line.
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Apr 3, 2022 14:06
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MikeC posted:You clearly have difficulty separating propaganda for internal use, propaganda for selective foreign audiences, and true underlying motives. You do as well if you believe "threatened by NATO" was an actual reason and not something for consumption by useful idiots. The actual reason was safeguarding Russia's ability to extract wealth from Ukraine through extortion.
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Apr 3, 2022 14:06
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Alchenar posted:Nobody who has said "Russia will be unhappy if NATO/the EU expands East" has come up with any sort of compelling alternative model of what the West should do. The last time the US brought proud ex-imperialist nations onboard as part of its hegemony, it did so by taking over the security commitments they were no longer capable of. Hence the shah of Iran, the Saudis, and Vietnam. It’s hard to see less being necessary to pacify the Russians. The choices would be something like a US peacekeeping operation against Ukrainian separatists, or the Yemen model. Just sit back without direct involvement and sell Russia the weapons and training it so obviously needs.
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Apr 3, 2022 14:08
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https://twitter.com/henryjfoy/status/1510551751350534146Shibawanko posted:they are very dependent on it, cutting off imports can be done but would hit their economy very hard and there's a risk that the russians will just export their gas for cheap to china and india instead For Germany the actual impacts doesn’t seem to be too bad. https://twitter.com/florianoswald/status/1509118404279603202 There would be 1-2 rough winters if we (EU) cold turkey gas (main priority should be loving oil up hard), but economy would be very far from tatters. Lesser hit than from COVID-19, according to some models, e.g., the tweet above, and the same instruments used for COVID-19 economy maintenance can be reactivated to handle this, given political will. cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Apr 3, 2022 |
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