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awesome-express posted:Lol at pot addiction. Has it actually been scientifically proven to be addictive? Our scientists consider that cannabis causes accustoming at the regular use. I didn't expect that the joke about a grass, will turn out to be true))) In truth: in each joke there is a joke share. I prefer to live among people with clear sense.
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Oct 19, 2014 14:40
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utjkju posted:Our scientists consider that cannabis causes accustoming at the regular use. I live in an American state with legalized cannabis, but we also have gay people here so you'd probably hate it. Question: Do you know anybody who served in the Russian military during one of the two Chechen campaigns?
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Oct 19, 2014 15:40
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utjkju posted:I prefer to live among people with clear sense. I'm surprised you think there is any such thing; you're a scientist by training, aren't you? Do perceptual illusions fill you with existential dread?
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Oct 19, 2014 16:06
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I just love the "our scientists" part. The typical western scientist is effeminate, degenerate and morally bankrupt. Don't trust his LBTGTGB-fascist numbers, always cite a proper russian researcher!
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Oct 19, 2014 16:07
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I want to picture Utjku accidentally seeing a pride parade or the bondage festival that just happened in SF. I'd pay to see her reaction.
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Oct 19, 2014 16:34
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:I live in an American state with legalized cannabis, but we also have gay people here so you'd probably hate it. 1) You hate. I am surprised.) 2) No, I don't know.
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Oct 19, 2014 17:08
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awesome-express posted:Lol at pot addiction. Has it actually been scientifically proven to be addictive? Pot is still illegal in the US as a matter of federal law. It is considered to be addictive by most researchers working in the field or addiction research, although it's very difficult to accurately quantify addiction due to definition problems. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Oct 19, 2014 |
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Oct 19, 2014 17:27
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This weekend I attended home guard exercises. A platoon of 1st cavalry division stationed in Estonia was one part of the OPFOR with their Stryker APCs. That was awesome. And educational. Meanwhile, looks like some interesting happenings have been happening on the shores of Sweden.... e: and of course the US troops here are kept busy in ways more than one: they've painted fences for orphanages, cleaned a zoo, and one U.S. soldier passing on the street helped a lady change her car tyre. And much more. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Oct 19, 2014 |
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Oct 19, 2014 17:35
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awesome-express posted:I want to picture Utjku accidentally seeing a pride parade or the bondage festival that just happened in SF. I'd pay to see her reaction. Of course there aren't, I said, and told him when it was held.
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Oct 19, 2014 18:00
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Irony.or.Death posted:I don't think Cuba is in Ukraine or Crimea. I admit I could be mistaken, but it would surprise me. According to the historical documentary series "CoD:Blops I and II" Cuba is a Cobra Command type organisation that sends shock troops all over the world to annoy America and has had troops present in every flashpoint since the 60's.
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Oct 19, 2014 18:23
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Regarde Aduck posted:According to the historical documentary series "CoD:Blops I and II" Cuba is a Cobra Command type organisation that sends shock troops all over the world to annoy America and has had troops present in every flashpoint since the 60's. Well, they were all over Africa for years.
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Oct 20, 2014 00:15
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waitwhatno posted:I just love the "our scientists" part. Lysenkoism is alive and well it seems.
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Oct 20, 2014 00:54
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My Imaginary GF posted:Well, they were all over Africa for years. Yeah, they sent literally thousands of troops to Angola to support the MPLA (who were USSR-backed). Meanwhile, the US openly supported Jonas Savimbi and UNITA but didn't actually send soldiers in as far as we know.
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Oct 24, 2014 22:44
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chitoryu12 posted:Yeah, they sent literally thousands of troops to Angola to support the MPLA (who were USSR-backed). Meanwhile, the US openly supported Jonas Savimbi and UNITA but didn't actually send soldiers in as far as we know. Yeah but apartheid South Africa did.
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Oct 24, 2014 23:11
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Ardennes posted:Yeah but apartheid South Africa did. If I remember, the MPLA was allowing guerrillas from the north to camp out in Angola so they could get closer to South Africa to gently caress up their days. That gave them some more incentive to get involved.
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Oct 25, 2014 00:04
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chitoryu12 posted:If I remember, the MPLA was allowing guerrillas from the north to camp out in Angola so they could get closer to South Africa to gently caress up their days. That gave them some more incentive to get involved. Yep, socialist comrades as they all were the MPLA let SWAPO (namibians) operate out of its own territory. USA had very little to do with that conflict aside from very early aid to Jonas Savimbi's organization the UNITA, then some congressmen shut down the money and equipment flow. However it looks like many countries managed to support one of the three factions of angolan civil war in one way or another in those few decades, with Soviet tech and Cuban manpower being most prominent. Cubans were also in Eritrea, Ogaden war, Yom Kippur war, but not nowhere near with such a huge presence as in Angola. Gaddafi also decided to congratulate his revolutionary comrades in Mozambique (after the revolution of 1974 in Portugal) with 10 T-55 tanks. But the ship landed by mistake in Durban and South Africans gave those to Rhodesians who were willing to take anything that could be even remotely of use.
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Oct 25, 2014 06:59
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jonnypeh posted:Yep, socialist comrades as they all were the MPLA let SWAPO (namibians) operate out of its own territory. USA had very little to do with that conflict aside from very early aid to Jonas Savimbi's organization the UNITA, then some congressmen shut down the money and equipment flow. However it looks like many countries managed to support one of the three factions of angolan civil war in one way or another in those few decades, with Soviet tech and Cuban manpower being most prominent. The US didn't show up as often as the Soviets and Cubans (the Soviets actually had advisers and officers in the field), but they did deliver $25 million in aid to UNITA including a shipment of Stinger missiles once. From 1985 to 1992 they gave UNITA a total of $420 million (with Savimbi taking a lot for personal expenses). They didn't really stop until Bill Clinton came in and changed the country's foreign policy to "UNITA is terrible and have never been the good guys. I don't know what you're talking about."
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Oct 25, 2014 19:31
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chitoryu12 posted:The US didn't show up as often as the Soviets and Cubans (the Soviets actually had advisers and officers in the field), but they did deliver $25 million in aid to UNITA including a shipment of Stinger missiles once. From 1985 to 1992 they gave UNITA a total of $420 million (with Savimbi taking a lot for personal expenses). They didn't really stop until Bill Clinton came in and changed the country's foreign policy to "UNITA is terrible and have never been the good guys. I don't know what you're talking about." Sources? From what I read, nobody ever saw a drop of a Stinger in that place or any piece of US military equipment whatsoever, as opposed to Russian provided (used by cubans) MiGs, tanks, grads and SA-8 SAMs. I think all three angolan factions were very similar, their programs in 1975 had little differences (independence, education, prosperity, all that) and their methods were all very similar. But then MPLA had to dick around before the elections.
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Oct 25, 2014 20:25
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jonnypeh posted:Sources? From what I read, nobody ever saw a drop of a Stinger in that place or any piece of US military equipment whatsoever, as opposed to Russian provided (used by cubans) MiGs, tanks, grads and SA-8 SAMs. Wikipedia lists Angola: Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction pp. 38–39 for the Stingers and $25 million. Further Googling found this archived Orlando Sentinel article that mentioned it. Digging for backup, I found this here written by Peter Hammond, a Christian mercenary in Angola at the time. Quote from him: quote:There were over 50,000 Cuban troops in the country. The communists had attacked and destroyed many churches. MiG-23s and Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships were terrorising villagers in Angola. I documented numerous atrocities, including the strafing of villages, schools and churches. In 1986, I remember hearing Ronald Reagan's speech – carried on the BBC Africa service – by short wave radio: "We are going to send Stinger missiles to the UNITA Freedom Fighters in Angola!" Those who were listening to the SW radio with me looked at one another in stunned amazement. After a long silence as we wondered if our ears had actually heard what we thought we heard, one of us said: "That would be nice!" We scarcely dared believe that it would happen. But it did. Not long afterwards the Stinger missiles began to arrive in UNITA controlled Free Angola. Soviet aircraft were shot down. The bombing and strafing of villagers, schools and churches came to an end. Without any doubt, Ronald Reagan's policies saved many tens of thousands of lives in Angola. For the hundreds of millions in aid, this was linked as the source of the quote but the link is now dead.
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Oct 25, 2014 21:41
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Oct 28, 2014 23:09
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Nessus posted:Your parallelism to our American conservatives is amazing. Do you feel that this modern rock and roll music should be turned down? If you owned a house or dacha with a lawn, would you want those drat kids to cease playing on it? Forgall fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 11:26
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Forgall posted:I pretty much feel that only difference between Russian and American cultures (or just different cultures in general) is percentage of conservatives. It's like some awful disease that has same root everywhere, but manifests differently depending on how much of malignant tissue is present in the society's body and how much control it has taken over the host. If anything the rise of radicalism/nationalism in Russia makes more sense in Russia than the US, Russia more or less went through a Weimar type period while things in the US were relatively good since the early 1990s (at least in comparison).
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Oct 31, 2014 14:05
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I'm going to revive this thread to discuas how I see things playing out for Russia, given the continued downward trend in energy markets and Rosneft's requirements for an emergency capital infusion. Russia does a deal with the Chinese that allows them to temporarily re-capitalize Rosneft for the near term. Funds will probably be secured for 6 months, given market fluctuations. So, Putin sees himself as buying 6 months to finish this Ukranian affair and secure the Black Sea as Russia's strategic energy lake. The oligarchs understand this, and have been pressuring Putin to hurry up with finishing off Ukraine. If anything, Putin has been the delaying voice on further advancements in Ukraine in order to provide the Russian military with time to build up for a proper finishing blow in winter. I'm sure this matches up to Putin's perspective on the Second and Third periods of the Great Patriotic War. So, what I expect to see between now and when everything freezes over enough in Ukraine to support rapid advance is a Russian buildup for a pincer to encircle Mariupol, with regular army forces supplemented by spetznev and local militia. I'm working on a GIS map of the situation to demonstrate where I'm keeping my particular eye towards for Russian social media content being geolocated from to inform this suspiction. What you're likely to see from NATO in response is a force buildup in Romania and eastern Poland, to dissuade the Russians from further incursions in Ukraine, Moldovia, and Romania. The Romanian annexation of Moldovia to counter Russian moves cannot be ruled out, and Russian annexation of Transnistria would result either as an incidental or the self-fulfilling cause of these Romanian political developments; terrorism in Romania may increase over the medium term due to Russian needs, depening upon Romanian energy moves. While the operation is ongoing in Ukraine, one may expect the Republican Congress in America to expand sanctions to Gazprom or to begin authorization of American energy exports and near-term approval of the Keystone Pipeline and other Enbridge projects as a national security move. This will further Russia's capital issues and reduce the timetable of Rosneft insolvency, and potentially bring about insolvancy of Gazprom before year's end, necessitating the transfer of the whole of Russia's Sovreign Wealth Fund to bail out Rosneft and, potentially, a third bailout from China at even worse long-term rates for energy and ever-growing export capacity and reliance upon Chinese energy imports. This stage is the most critical one for the world and is the moment when a true global conflict could break out. Here's why: Turkey. My views on Erdogan's ambitions are widely known in the ME thread, and I maintain that there exists no check on Erdogan's power, nor limit to his willingness to work counter to American security interests, and Erdogan may do a deal, if he hasn't already, with Russia to partition Syria and allow Turkey a free hand in Northern Iraq to secure the Kirkuk field by genociding the Kurds. This is why you're seeing American boots on the ground in Iraq: the primary purpose may be state to halt ISIS, however, any impact towards that end will be in the secondary. The American buildup in Iraq is aimed towards countering Erdogan's ability to partition Syria and genocide the Kurds and other minority groups that are incidental to Erdogan's ambitions. A move by Turkey would result in further moves by Iran and either open conflict with Turkey and intervention to secure the Kurdistani oil fields, or Kurdistani declaration of independence with immediate American and Iranian support against any potential move by Turkey to turn Kurdistan into the next 1947 War. The Kurds know this; they have previously withheld independence because of the threat of an imminent Iraqi, Iranian, and Turkish invasion and partition attempt. However, if any Turkish move occurs, America may interpret it as a sign of Erdogan's shifting loyalty and an attempt to increase his influence and independence from American policy considerations by leveraging Russia's situation to conclude deals that are in Turkey's best interest which Russia cannot refuse. So, if Erdogan makes any moves against the Kurds, or within Syria, you can expect regime change in Turkey, or at least an attempt at such. This is why I've posited that Erdogan continues to supply ISIS and only cracks down where America looks and has indesputable evidence--to do so is in Erdogan's interest, as ISIS would advance Turkish interests without necessitating overt Turkish intervention and triggering Iranian counter-movements. The real kerfuffle of a headache, and why you're seeing Obama in direct talks with Iran, comes from Iranian political realities. The hardliners are still pressing for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons while the moderates and reformists accept that joint American-Israeli military response would occur as a reaction and the world would be thrown into a third world war as Russia, and China, make moves to appease respective power bases and counter American-Israeli strikes on Iran. The Iranian hardliners posit that Americans are not that insane and that Israel is too much a pussy to initiate strikes on Iran without American support. Obama has been in direct contact with the Ayatolla to reinforce that Israel had previously assessed that Iran was committed to acquiring nuclear weapons, while American analysts were not, and that Israeli deferrment to Americans on the issue was the only thing holding back the Israeli pre-emptive strike because America, at the time of these assessments, still had the political alignment behind Obama to force through an actual and substantial Israeli concession towards a two-state solution. This is why you've heard Obama publicly bemoaning how Netanyahu is a little poo poo lately: Netanyahu correctly assesses that American politics are now at the point where an Israeli move against Iran would require American support and follow-up strikes automatically should American and Israeli security services for a moment come into alignment on their assessment that Iran has gone from indecision on acquisition of nuclear weapons to commitment to acquire weapons. Yes, America really is that crazy to risk a world war if American security services assess Iran is committed to acquiring nuclear weapons, and that is part of the reason why America will be committing substantial ground forces to Iraq so now is the best possible chance for American-Iranian normalization of relations so long as Iran follows the exact outline that Americans will approve. Whether this will work, I'm uncertain. There is certainly a possibility of Chinese assessment that America is willing to attack Russian energy sources due to Ukranian and Turkish foreign policy developments and that Chinese security forces must immediately press the South China Sea issue and secure those energy reserves as a counter to American developments and as an appeasement of growing resentment towards the CCP's corruption, failed economic policies, and weakness in protecting Chinese interests. These are amplified by the contractionary forces at play within the Chinese economy and the continuing freezing of credit within the Chinese subprime and unofficial loan markets. China's use of its foreign currency reserves to secure long-term economic benefits from heavily lopsided Russian energy agreements will provide some thawing of credit markets; however, due to China's failures at structural reform, my assessment is that this will be akin to pissing in an overflowing bucket of Ebola-laden poo poo. So, Russia becomes too big to fail for China, while China is failing and pissing away its foreign currency reserves to prop up Russia and prevent a collapse of the energy agreements. Russian assessment is sure to have taken this into consideration and plans to use these facts as leverage for further Chinese foreign currency investment within Russia following the start of Russia's winter offensive. What remains to be seen is whether China will use this period to implement austerity and political reform (highly unlikely given the developments in Hong Kong and continued refusal by the central bank to unpeg the currency and loosen restrictions on capital flow) and accept a prolonged period of depressionary economic trends, will use this time to prepare for securing Russian energy assets by force in Siberia and potentially securing enegy assets in the South China Sea, or continue as if everything were normal and accept Russia as a partner-state that is too big to fail, as the Gulf economies have had to do with Egypt. This provides Russia with some leverage over China and access to foreign capital to stall the impact of sanctions until the completion of the winter offensive; whether China understands the delecate position they've put themselves in remains to be seen. So yeah, those reports of Russian aircraft buzzing NATO assets? That's not being done as an idle threat but as an exercise in case China balks at bailing out Russia come the end of the year. The real danger, like in Europe before the great war, is that the locking up of alliance systems from previous powerplays made under the framework of a Congress system causes a cascade of impacts which force actions that can easily force other actions and rapidly erupt from a regional crisis to a global war. Thoughts?
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Nov 8, 2014 01:07
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Keep going I'm almost done.
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Nov 8, 2014 01:09
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Fojar38 posted:Keep going I'm almost done. Well, it certainly puts the former Ukranian foreign minister's comments that, "Americans will have to die for Ukraine," into context, doesn't it?
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Nov 8, 2014 01:10
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Will it start with a Chinese missile attack on Okinawa, Japan, Taiwan, and Guam simultaneously with an invasion of South Korea or will it start with a Russian tank blitz into Poland and Romania? I need to know this is important. Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Nov 8, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 01:14
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Fojar38 posted:Will it start with a Chinese missile attack on Okinawa, Japan, Taiwan, and Guam simultaneously with an invasion of South Korea or will it start with a Russian tank blitz into Poland? It'll start with a riot in Hong Kong protesting the extreme crackdown that CCP hardliners will force through due to the continued deterioration of Chinese credit flow and employment opportunities due to the heavy foreign capital requirements that Russia will require for the next 3 to 5 years to prevent Russian default. Russian incursion into Ukraine is highly unlikely to advance on Kiev directly and much more likely to be focused upon securing Black Sea energy due to economic pressure within Russia and due to the fact that rapid NATO response to secure western Ukraine would have to be expected and partition would result in an even less-favorable Russian access to Central Europe, should future military movements be required. An advance on Kiev would be certain to ensure both American sanctions on Gazprom and hastily-passed legislation for energy exportation and pipeline approval. So not only is an advance beyond Black Sea objections militarily disadvantageous, its economically disasterous and would require forces far in excess to the buildups reported in Ukraine; if that was a possibility, I'd have expected to see Russian mobilization of sufficient reserves and the economic shift to war footing that such would necessitate. So the question really becomes one of ME politics and less Eastern European outcomes, since Russia appears unwilling to advance to Kiev and America appears unwilling to intervene with non-covert force and reserve build-up so long as Russia limits itself to achieving Black Sea objectives during this phase of the political game.
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Nov 8, 2014 01:36
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJJ-uNmjaYk&t=467s
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Nov 8, 2014 02:25
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Not to follow you, but once again: Israel is never going to make a move on Iran without full US backing. Even IF Iran ever acquired a nuclear weapon, they know full well the consequences of using a nuclear weapon in offense. The Israelis do too. They also know that if they went all 'unhinged' in the Iranians because they suspect they've got a nuke, unless the US has already signed off on a strike, the Saudis would go bonkers. Its not going to happen, that is pure Clancy masturbatory material. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Nov 8, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 06:07
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CommieGIR posted:Its not going to happen, that is pure Clancy masturbatory material. I would like to see a definition of Clancy masturbatory material that does not include the last year of Ukrainian history.
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Nov 8, 2014 06:33
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CommieGIR posted:Not to follow you, but once again: Israel is never going to make a move on Iran without full US backing. You really don't get it, do you? Who the gently caress do you think the Israelis have been conducting joint exercises with to have the capacity eliminate such facilities at any time of their choosing? http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-be-working-with-saudi-arabia-on-iran-strike-plan/ http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/0....html?referrer= Really, read Gates' book. My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Nov 8, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 06:37
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My Imaginary GF posted:You really don't get it, do you? Who the gently caress do you think the Israelis have been conducting joint exercises with to have the capacity eliminate such facilities at any time of their choosing? Ye was wondering why the Saudis would protect Iran.
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Nov 8, 2014 06:55
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My Imaginary GF posted:http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/0....html?referrer= quote:“Let’s just say I’m not sure this is the best way for us to get these guys to play on the same page,” he said. Then he added: “But hey, whatever works, works.” Yes this seems like a solid play, backed by history AND recent actions. I'm glad we've got the ablest and brightest on this crack caper.
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Nov 8, 2014 07:15
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Big Beef City posted:Yes this seems like a solid play, backed by history AND recent actions. Robert Gates would surely never publish a book critical of Israel or US foreign policy.  Unf, lets quote the Times of Israel, no bias there! I've got a job for you: Approach a general officer (Colonel or above) and ask their views on Israel. Ask them why we are allied with them. They are going to give you some pathetic answer. We're allied with them because we have a bunch of politicians who are hugging their loving Bibles a little too close. Thats it. Israel has largely been the most detrimental US policy in the Middle East, and worse yet is we've helped them for no other reason than to make our more fundamentalist whackjobs feel better about themselves. We get no other real benefit from them, they don't even give us bases to operate out of, and tend to like spying on us and have made statements filled with dellusional grandeur about the day Israel will be a world power and the US will be nothing. Even better, the ONLY reason they got aid from us during the Yom Kippur War was because they literally showed us the nukes thry would use on Egypt. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Nov 8, 2014 |
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Nov 8, 2014 16:08
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FrantzX posted:I would like to see a definition of Clancy masturbatory material that does not include the last year of Ukrainian history. Actually, I've been horribly confronted with the fact that it really resembles a game of Paranoia played very straight.
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Nov 8, 2014 18:34
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Warcabbit posted:Actually, I've been horribly confronted with the fact that it really resembles a game of Paranoia played very straight. That's the best way to play. Goddamn it Paranoia is the best loving game.
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Nov 10, 2014 17:35
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CommieGIR posted:Robert Gates would surely never publish a book critical of Israel or US foreign policy. I actually think that Saudi Arabia was/is more detrimental to US interests, all their oil price dropping magic is usefull against Russia (actually, it strengthens China whenever they do that, and China is more of a threat to western hegemony than Russia is).
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Nov 10, 2014 17:57
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Mightypeon posted:I actually think that Saudi Arabia was/is more detrimental to US interests, all their oil price dropping magic is usefull against Russia (actually, it strengthens China whenever they do that, and China is more of a threat to western hegemony than Russia is). The Saudi's would have always happened just because of the oil, but even the Saudi's have a lot of hatred for us due to their vague and loose connection with the Palestinians. Most of our major actions (supporting the Shah, supplying and supporting Israel, backing the Saudis as you mentioned) have done little to help our cause their. But the Israeli's even more so because they tend to flex their muscle and stir up sectarian violence via settlements and land seizures. While the Saudis are no doubt a thorn we created, the Israeli's are the most vocal and visible of our Middle East strategy gently caress ups.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:00
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amanasleep posted:That's the best way to play. Goddamn it Paranoia is the best loving game. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1990654819/paranoia-rpg The new edition has the enemy as 'Terrorists' instead of 'Communists'.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:28
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CommieGIR posted:The Saudi's would have always happened just because of the oil, but even the Saudi's have a lot of hatred for us due to their vague and loose connection with the Palestinians. Everything you post in this thread is the opposite of reality. Nobody in the region gives a poo poo about I/P issues any more; there are more important concerns.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:33
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