GABA ghoul posted:

The truth is that German culture has just a long russophile tradition, substantial anti-american sentiments and good penetration by Russian state propaganda that gets consumed without much critique or reflection. All of this gets expressed in German politics and foreign policy.

Xarn posted:

Sorry, but wtf is wrong with Germans?

nurmie posted:

[*] six months time span - so, no invasion before the 24th of June, 2022

Paladinus posted:

I really hate that type of twitter person. I worked in the Netherlands for some time, barely speak any Dutch, and have the knowledge of their political situation on the level of wikipedia articles about their major political parties, but I saw The Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum and it really resonated with me, so I will appoint myself as uniquely qualified commentator on all things Dutch.

Regarde Aduck posted:

Your post describes exactly why Russia cannot allow the Ukraine to invite hostile Nato assets into Russias borders. I’m going to assume you simply forgot that this is not some distant nation that Russia is picking on. That what Nato thinks is acceptable is that it gets to place weapons right next to Russia. Would the US be ok with Mexico allowing a Russian-Chinese alliance to stage weapons on Americas borders?

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Latvian state views proliferation of Russian language as a national security threat, from which everything else follows. It doesn’t help that many of the governments had Latvian ethnonationalists serve as kingmakers, so on top of the concern above we have some of the harshest immigration and naturalisation laws in Europe.

[...]

Latvia, in contrast, only gave citizenship to those who were residents before the occupation. For everyone else the citizenship was issued on the basis of having a single Latvian citizen parent. Those who didn’t meet the condition were allowed to stay as non-citizens, which is a permanent residency status with no political rights (and which “weirdly” invites discrimination from certain groups). Naturalisation path for them is, simplifying, to pass 2 exams - history of Latvia and Latvian language. We still have a huge number of non-citizens in the country, but that’s a conversation for a different time. For instance, while it’s impossible to not learn Latvian in 30 years even if you just slightly care, Latvian government will not only explicitly deny citizenship rights to Russian veterans, but also to their family members - going as far as to deport them. https://www.refworld.org/cases,ECHR,402b5b034.html

cinci zoo sniper posted:

I can point you to a few political parties where you’d fit right in. I hope you’re white, Christian, and don’t have tuberculosis.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

It's not a particularly interesting argument, especially in the context of hypothetical aggressor, Russia, clearly demonstrating that they don't even care to pretend that they're threatening Ukraine to protect Russians in Ukraine.

Elizabeth Cluppins posted:

The security benefits don't justify institutional racism and a society perpetually split across ethnic lines.

I see no reason to believe that being harsher against their Russian population would have saved Ukraine from what happened in 2014. Unlawful occupation finds a way.

Gunthen posted:

America's going to be lucky if it hasn't fallen apart in 20 years bud.

OddObserver posted:

So what it's actually doing is spreading a manifesto published by a mass murderer and saying we ought to give a listen.

The actual main threat to safety of Russian people is the Moscow government. The #2 threat is the government in Grozny. Those two, after all, are responsible for murdering many of Russian citizens.

Neurolimal posted:

Well...as a whole, Eastern Europe outside a few pet countries hasn't been very impressed with capitalist-democracy. If polls are anything to go by.

Ukraine up until eight years ago was certainly not enamored with market economics & a multiparty system (this changed when the country that most benefits from that past annexed a significant chunk of the country). Even now, if I'm not mistaken, Ukraine generally polls unsatisfied with their current system (but are less likely to talk up the USSR, now that its nostalgic capitalist successor is grabbing chunks of the place).

Neurolimal posted:

How many eastern-european states would you argue have moved towards a multi-party iteration of democracy but have not shifted in the direction of capitalism?

There's a pretty obvious insinuation within global politics when discussing Democracy, that being one very specific form of democracy, typically packaged with capitalist reforms. You can count on one hand the number of states that transitioned from Authoritarian Totalitarian Fascist Dictatorship to multi-party democratic communism.

BoldFace posted:

https://twitter.com/ikhurshudyan/status/1487372286596370432

Alchenar posted:

I mean, sanctions on Iraq did make it impossible to rebuilt the Iraqi army from the catastrophic material losses of the first war, which made the 2003 invasion much much easier than it might have been and also kept a lid of Saddam's ambitions to attack the Kurds or have another go at Kuwait.

If you measure sanctions against objectives they aren't intended to achieve then obviously they do not come out looking good.

steinrokkan posted:

Once again the social democrats embarrass and discredit themselves the second they are given a shot at power, the one constant of global politics

mc.schroeder posted:

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1489336004637044746?s=21

mc.schroeder posted:

I’m sure the intelligence is sound, it’s just the smugness with which they announce it that I find hilarious/grating (see also Psaki’s recent statements that were mentioned earlier).

Truga posted:

oh no, russia has a video!

Mr. Sunshine posted:

Like, "western media should dial down the war hysteria, just look at this embarrassing fuckup" is a perfectly legit take re the Bloomberg thing.

Boris Galerkin posted:

I mean, this is one of those “the US has plans on invading Canada” type things right?

ie: not going to happen but there are actual plans “just in case”

CMYK BLYAT! posted:

Grouchio posted:

Я не собственник!! я не собственник!!
Я продолжаю настаивать, медленно уменьшаясь и превращаясь в початок кукурузы

quote:

Mr. Macron said he had coordinated closely with the Western allies, including the United States and Germany. But some supporters of Ukraine’s pro-Western course have criticized him for being too solicitous of Mr. Putin’s demands. Mr. Macron did nothing to assuage those concerns by telling reporters before his meeting with Mr. Putin that a “Finlandization” of Ukraine was “one of the models on the table.”
The term alludes to how Finland, facing the Soviet Union during the Cold War, was able to maintain independence from its powerful neighbor and survive as a democracy on condition of strict neutrality. A “Finlandization” of Ukraine would imply that it would never join NATO and that Russia would exercise considerable influence over its political options.

Cugel the Clever posted:

Why? I see this line of reasoning brought up a lot and it leaves me perplexed (and, honestly, somewhat suspicious). It's not France's or America's fault that Putin is using the threat of an invasion of Ukraine as leverage to achieve political gains against the West and refusing to treat Ukraine as a sovereign country. If Biden or others sell Ukraine down the river, that's one thing, but the mere act of being forced to serve as more powerful representatives of Ukraine's interests is hardly anything to be upset about (particularly as Western leaders have no doubt been in extensive talks with Zelensky and one another behind the scenes).

There is something appealing about the idea of the West and Ukraine just leaving the phone off the hook, completely ignoring their Russian interlocutors in a clear message to Putin that he'd better poo poo or get off the pot. The West has done nothing to warrant the belligerence, so should walk away from the table entirely and leave Putin to his tantrum (and punish the gently caress out of him if he actually starts throwing punches).

FishBulbia posted:

people constantly invent German resistance to the Nazis.

FishBulbia posted:

You should read that page.

FishBulbia posted:

Thing is, you see it constantly in memoirs. People claim "passive resistance" because they left out food for some slave laborers, meanwhile they worked away at the bomb factory. Seriously, go read any memoir account of "ordinary" "apoltical" Germans.

And yet there was much more resistance to the GDR which had an internal security service at least 5 times as large as the gestapo.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

For clarity, I do not claim that the votes people cast are illegitimate, or that their answers to post-referendum polls are illegitimate. My claims here, distilling, are as follows:

drilldo squirt posted:

Where is this button?

A Buttery Pastry posted:

I feel like this is a tough argument to make as an American. By this logic, the US has carried out acts of war against NATO allies.

WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:

Russia isn't threatening NATO.

Conspiratiorist posted:

In response we have people who, for example, believe Putin is loving Hitler 2.0 and can't be reasoned with repeatedly assert that nevertheless he wouldn't attack because he's a coward or because he's got nothing to gain or won't risk sanctions and it was always just a bluff to earn international respect after being cooped up in a bunker for too long.

Conspiratiorist posted:

Then we have the US publicly declaring they have absolute confidence through their security apparatus that Russia is aiming for a full-scale invasion, only to walk it back hours later, then flip flop again (nevermind Biden's "small incursion" gaffe), with international media alternating between ghoulishly sounding the war drums or pressing NATO governments for proof.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

The Holocaust is considerably further in the past than US election meddling, what with it being on-going. In any case, I was reacting mostly to calling meddling in an election* an act of war in a thread presently discussing the possibly imminent re-invasion of a country that was invaded less than a decade ago by the same country that apparently committed an act of war against the US. Calling election meddling an act of war completely deflates the term.

ted hitler hunter posted:

*fart*

Conspiratiorist posted:

An "act of war" nobody is willing to go to war over. Curious.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Of course a large part of the reason the EU doesn't trust the UK is all the characteristics it shares with Russia, so it's not much of a defense of Russia.

Josef bugman posted:

Errr, may I recommend to you the Troubles

Neurolimal posted:

I don't believe every Ukrainian militia is a neo-nazi front, but it is concerning that neo-nazi Ukrainian militias seem to show up in every puff piece.

Not necessarily an indictment of Ukraine, but certainly of the western journalists who seem to only have contacts w/ nazis, and are either too stupid to recognize their patches, or willingly obfuscating their relation.