My Imaginary GF posted:

I can't see what red title I have now, I'd presume my reputation for sarcasm is on par with Kissinger's.

Nintendo Kid posted:

If Russia seizes the Ukranian coastline, I think Turkey would be well within its moral rights to break the straits treaties and bar Russian sea traffic through their straits and their new canal (once it opens).

Nintendo Kid posted:

If Russia seizes the Ukranian coastline, I think Turkey would be well within its moral rights to break the straits treaties and bar Russian sea traffic through their straits and their new canal (once it opens).

Crowsbeak posted:

Should the Blacks of Namibia not lead a guerrilla campaign against South Africa?

Rinkles posted:

kalstrams, today I find myself really missing your massive update posts.

Rinkles posted:

kalstrams, today I find myself really missing your massive update posts.

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Preach it, brother. Sadly, I have a feeling kalstrams has decided that it's time to actually finish grad school, so he is lost to us.

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

I have already said it: Destroy Russia's economy. Let it collapse until it is too weak to cause any more harm.

gently caress Russia, kill Putin.

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

I know.

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

Go watch an EU member being invaded and annexed and Germany and friends doing jack poo poo since Finland is not a NATO member.

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

Send in weapons and money to Russia to prop up a resistance movement. Also send in assassins to kill key Russian leaders. LOL

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

Sounds like Putin.

Cliff Racer posted:

Maybe you should cool off for a bit and return to the thread when you are in a better emotional state?

Unless you are always like this in which case, Christ.

eigenstate posted:

Despite the (unjustified) criticisms of NATO inaction or ineffectiveness of EU sanctions, the West is currently most helpful to Ukraine by not negotiating with Russia and refusing to negotiate with Russia no matter how much of Ukraine it occupies:

1. This respects Ukraine's determination instead of demonstrating that Ukraine (and all of Eastern Europe by extension) is just a poker chip to be traded between the "great powers" of US and Russia.

2. Any further annexations or unrecognized states as large as the Donbass throws all of Russia's borders into question. One of the reason that the breakup of the Soviet Union went as easily as it did was because the West never recognized the annexation of the Baltic states in 1940, so when they declared independence, international recognition followed quickly.

3. Admittedly, this can instigate Russia to escalate the crisis. However, one must remember that any escalation and further deaths are solely Russia's responsibility, and there is no evidence that Russia would respect any agreement and satisfy itself with gains thus far, since it will want to continue to exercise its military and economic power over all of Ukraine.

4. A protracted "crisis" situation in Ukraine will prevent EU public opinion and sanctions from lapsing back to the old normal. This will also help Ukraine.

Cliff Racer posted:

Maybe you should cool off for a bit and return to the thread when you are in a better emotional state?

Unless you are always like this in which case, Christ.

D-Pad posted:

This may have been already posted as fast as the thread is moving, but here is a very interesting article on Russia's unique cause of death statistics. Has some bearing on the Russian birth rate discussion from the last few pages:

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/sep/02/dying-russians/

icantfindaname posted:

He's been like that for some time now, you haven't noticed?

eigenstate posted:

One of the reason that the breakup of the Soviet Union went as easily as it did was because the West never recognized the annexation of the Baltic states in 1940, so when they declared independence, international recognition followed quickly.

axelord posted:

It's pretty disgusting how willing you guys are to throw away Ukrainian lives for your hate of Russia. Maybe think about what your proposing and how it would effect the actual people living there.

Or even what happens if this war continues to escalate.

Arglebargle III posted:

It's amazing how backwards this statement is. I really hope you are sarcastically exhorting people to remember that Putin started this and is directly responsible for the slaughter on both sides, because if you're not you are a goddamn idiot.

my dad posted:

Why am I not even surprised?


Let me start this off by saying that the crimes committed over Albanians on Kosovo during Milošević's regime are inexcusable atrocities. That having been said:

Someone very close to me was inches away from ending up on the list of children killed by NATO bombs targeting residential areas. Not too long after the fall of Milošević, my family was in mortal danger because my father opposed the smash-and-grab privatization of a certain working, profitable company. Sure, the guy behind the privatization itself was a local rich thug, but the people in the government my father tried to talk to didn't do poo poo about it because their patrons in US and Europe insisted that unrestricted privatization was the ultimate force of good, and losing the support of their patrons would be a career ending move at the very least. (one of the government guys was pretty open about it, too)

During the bombing, NATO used large amounts of depleted Uranium ammo. That poo poo coincides with the sudden surge of cancer rate, leukemia, and birth deformities that the destruction of chemical plants alone cannot account for. Incidentally, that also explains the health issues experienced by a large number of KFOR troops stationed near popular missile targets (Mostly Italians. Those guys always get the wrong end of the stick). And since Kosovo was the most heavily bombed region of Yugoslavia, I can't even imagine how hard this effect its population. (Incidentally, RT is all over this, and separating stuff that quotes their propaganda from stuff that quotes actual reports is hell)

A direct result of NATO's post-war politics in Kosovo is ethnic cleansing of Kosovo and exile of a large number of Serbs, Roma, non-Albanian Muslims, Orthodox Christian Albanians, and several other groups who lived there, and extreme proliferation of criminal groups operating from Kosovo. It didn't get better once EU took over, either, and certainly didn't improve once the independence of Kosovo was declared. A highlight of how hilariously powerful the criminal control of Kosovo is would be that time when the head of the privatization agency got stabbed 11 times and the court declared it a suicide. A highlight of the international community not giving a gently caress would be death by lead poisoning of 27 Roma in an UNMIK camp in Kosovska Mitrovica, and also the fact that there was no serious international initiative to process KLA crimes until Ban Ki Moon himself insisted on it recently.

In short, gently caress NATO and gently caress the EU.

As of recently, I'm willing to say "gently caress Russia", too. Holy poo poo, the situation in Ukraine is growing worse by the minute.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

I hate to break it to you, but DU isn't really used in bombs. And it's a lot less toxic than most of the alternatives, so you can rage all you want, but your facts seem highly suspect.

D-Pad posted:

This may have been already posted as fast as the thread is moving, but here is a very interesting article on Russia's unique cause of death statistics. Has some bearing on the Russian birth rate discussion from the last few pages:

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/sep/02/dying-russians/

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

DU doesn't irradiate areas.

my dad posted:

Areas that were peppered with depleted Uranium and had the recorded radiation level increased several times compared to pre-bombing levels? I'd say the that word irradiated fits well enough.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

I hate to break it to you, but DU isn't really used in bombs. And it's a lot less toxic than most of the alternatives, so you can rage all you want, but your facts seem highly suspect.

Dusty Baker 2 posted:

I think they're being intentionally stupid. Clearly you don't mean irradiated Chernobyl-core style, you're saying "irradiated" as in "littered with toxic radioactive by-products". And yes. You are correct. DU is extremely hazardous and has resulted in birth defects and other health issues due in large part to its use by NATO.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

DU scare would be more believable if the alternative wasn't horrifically more toxic.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Contaminated is probably a better word, since it's also a toxic metal on top of whatever radioactivity.

I'm not sure the fact that things could be worse somehow mitigate the problems that do result from it?

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

So what we're left with is a few thousand 30mm bullets from warthogs, assuming each one was fired from a warthog and didn't come from the smaller guns on strike fighters. I don't think the health impact is as high as you seem to believe it is. 10 tons can't have come from just 3000 rounds of bullets that weigh a few ounces.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

Contaminated is a perfectly acceptable word, but we're just not talking about that much heavy metal from 3000 rounds of 30 mm.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

Alternatives are important, no one is going to stop using penetrators in war unless we see people stop driving around in tanks and APC's. So if NATO uses something that's less dangerous than Tungsten then it counts for a lot.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

The US admitted to using warthogs during the war, so I don't see how they were lying about using DU during the war. Everyone knows what a warthog main gun round shoots. That's a ton and a half. The rest of the tonnage either comes from you guys lying, finding contamination that isn't NATO's fault, or NATO being run by Snidely Whiplash and putting DU in bombs where it makes absolutely no military sense to do so.

my dad posted:

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

edit: And the linked article miss attributes the dangers of DU to being an internal radiation source. Find some better sources that don't read like something I'd hear on coast to coast about gulf war vets getting sick or something else. You can find plenty of actual legitimate things about DU with out having to resort to conspiracy science.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Contaminated is probably a better word, since it's also a toxic metal on top of whatever radioactivity.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Isn't the DU used for penetration? Can you explain why using it in bunker busters would make no military sense?

A Buttery Pastry posted:

3000 rounds is what, 60 seconds of fire from an A10? That doesn't sounds like much firing time to me, but then again, I'm no expert. You're right though, that's only a bit less than a ton.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Sure, finding something better would be ideal. My point is really that this is a small comfort for the people who actually have to live where that poo poo was used, and treating it like some insincere scare is kind of dickish.

my dad posted:

Here: https://www.google.rs/url?sa=t&rct=...9,d.bGQ&cad=rja (warning, PDF download link)

A Buttery Pastry posted:

3000 rounds is what, 60 seconds of fire from an A10? That doesn't sounds like much firing time to me, but then again, I'm no expert. You're right though, that's only a bit less than a ton.

Sure, finding something better would be ideal. My point is really that this is a small comfort for the people who actually have to live where that poo poo was used, and treating it like some insincere scare is kind of dickish.

Isn't the DU used for penetration? Can you explain why using it in bunker busters would make no military sense?

quote:

Most military use of depleted uranium has been as 30 mm caliber ordnance, primarily the 30 mm PGU-14/B armour-piercing incendiary round from the GAU-8 Avenger cannon of the A-10 Thunderbolt II used by the United States Air Force. 25 mm DU rounds have been used in the M242 gun mounted on the U.S. Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the Marine Corps's LAV-25
.
The U.S. Marine Corps uses DU in the 25 mm PGU-20 round fired by the GAU-12 Equalizer cannon of the AV-8B Harrier, and also in the 20 mm M197 gun mounted on AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships. The United States Navy's Phalanx CIWS's M61 Vulcan Gatling gun used 20 mm armor-piercing penetrator rounds with discarding plastic sabots made using depleted uranium, later changed to tungsten.
Another use of depleted uranium is in kinetic energy penetrators, anti-armor rounds such as the 120 mm sabot rounds fired from the British Challenger 1, Challenger 2,[30] M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams.[31] Kinetic energy penetrator rounds consist of a long, relatively thin penetrator surrounded by a discarding sabot. Staballoys are metal alloys of depleted uranium with a very small proportion of other metals, usually titanium or molybdenum. One formulation has a composition of 99.25% by mass of depleted uranium and 0.75% by mass of titanium. Staballoys are approximately 1.67 times as dense as lead and are designed for use in kinetic energy penetrator armor-piercing ammunition. The US Army uses DU in an alloy with around 3.5% titanium.

The Russian military has used DU ammunition in tank main gun ammunition since the late 1970s, mostly for the 115 mm guns in the T-62 tank and the 125 mm guns in the T-64, T-72, T-80, and T-90 tanks.


It is thought that between 17 and 20 countries have weapons incorporating depleted uranium in their arsenals. They include the U.S., the UK, France, Russia, China, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, Iraq and Taiwan.


In a three-week period of conflict in Iraq during 2003 it was estimated that over 1000 tons of depleted uranium munitions were used.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

That would entirely depend on the number of bunkers that NATO busted. I don't think there was much talk of bunker busting during said war, and I can't find any reliable source yet on what exactly the penetrator is made out of. That said, from the opinion of toxology I'd think a giant slug of heavy metal deep in the shattered remains of a bunker is a much smaller concern than that used to penetrate armored vehicles. When we're talking about long term contamination it's largely from the dust. Burnt and oxidized DU is very nasty.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

War itself is pretty dickish, but so is lying about the results and using said lies to claim that NATO is double baby eating instead of just baby eating. You want to blame things on NATO? Be my guest, they do a lot of things wrong, but stick to the facts and don't perpetuate lies and propaganda.