(Thread IKs:
fart simpson)
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I think US arms sales are usually not for actually use but to build up brownie points with the US. I dunno why Australia would think they would need to butter up the US more. I am amused at the idea of AU fearing a Chinese invasion that would make Normandy look laughably small though. They are just waiting to pounce!
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Jan 11, 2022 22:07
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 01:52 |
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I'm not sure the blob ever wants actual warfare. They just want tensions to get clicks/views and to rally for more defense spending. If we actually started fighting who knows how many toys we've spent billions on don't actually work when they have to be properly used and not just shown off in carefully controlled tests. Easier to just build and build and hype tensions for more contracts, more strategy conferences, more think tanks, etc.
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Jan 19, 2022 23:37
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It seems like everyone got the wrong ideas about the Gulf War because they all forgot about the Iran Iraq war which is, AFAIK, the biggest post Korea war of the 20th century. The Iraq that the US gleefully destroyed was absolutely devastated already from that war and was in no kind of shape to resist regardless of Clancy poo poo about whatever weapons they had. Of course, when the US came stomping through the 2nd time the Iraqis had been further destroyed by a decade of sanctions which meant any boasting about how quick even more pointless.
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Feb 2, 2022 00:02
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Mantis42 posted:https://twitter.com/Seamus_Malek/status/1488633822514192387?s=20&t=sD-M0s-gK-F4ZFbwj5ImGw I've been wanting to watch the first one. What's a site to watch Chinese movies at a decent quality with English subtitles? I haven't found many options for the majority of Chinese movies so I've only watched the handful that turn up on US streaming sites. They also don't ever turn up on usenet. Otherwise I sometimes stumble into them on Youtube but the quality sucks.
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Feb 3, 2022 22:18
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I just wanna pay for a service that lets me browse Chinese movies and watch them with subtitles rather than screw around with looking for a good copy on Youtube. I couldn't find any Chinese streaming sites with English options.
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Feb 4, 2022 00:00
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Al-Saqr posted:one big reason why america didn’t internalize the lessons of the Vietnam war was because the 1990 gulf war blowout happened. Gulf War is going to end up as the textbook example of victory disease.
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Feb 15, 2022 20:45
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Some Guy TT posted:is there any good poutine in seattle Nothing extraordinary. The hockey bar in greenwood is alright.
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Feb 17, 2022 07:01
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But loving around in Ukraine seems to be broadly unpopular so I don't understand the play here. His poll numbers aren't going up. Even if all of this super secret intel about Putin is true then I don't see any advantage to Biden/dems to do all this pageantry nonsense. The only one benefiting is the US media as I assume they are pulled great numbers for clicks/views so I know why they hype every single thing, but it's still requiring a lot of active help from the Biden admin.
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Feb 18, 2022 23:52
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Torpor posted:Americans don’t want to get involved in Ukraine and nobody cares if they sanction Russia either. Yeah I feel like twitter/foreign policy blob have their head up their asses and forget that the great mass of the US doesn't care about other countries or actually like foreign wars. They like to feel bad rear end and pointlessly murder brown people, but actual 'oh poo poo this could affect me negatively' wars are not popular. No one cares about Ukraine and countering Russian aggression is only relevant to a sense of feeling vaguely bad rear end. A few muscular speeches would've been enough. No one cares about what sanctions we do or don't do. I don't think anything short of Russia attacking the continental US is going to get a patriotic polling bounce.
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Feb 19, 2022 00:19
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Do most Americans even really know the distinction between Ukraine and Russia? We've really heated up the Russophobia the last 6 years and the media has been working overtime to explain that Ukrainians == good Russians, but I could see plenty of people confused why we care about any Russians.
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Feb 19, 2022 02:00
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lol look at this China bump (gallup) I like the people not giving up on Iraq FuzzySlippers has issued a correction as of 02:12 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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Feb 19, 2022 02:10
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Comparing Russia occupying Ukraine to Americans occupying Iraq or Afghanistan is pretty dumb. 0% of Iraqis considered themselves American when we invaded. We didn't share a border. We didn't speak the language.
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Feb 24, 2022 07:56
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I think Zelensky was more concerned with not getting assassinated or coup'd. So much of international politics is just performing for points in domestic politics until some real poo poo starts.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:01
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deathbysnusnu posted:It's obviously not apples to apples. But the whole shock and awe missile strikes leading to sage conclusions of a quick victory same day is a bit on the nose. That and the Ukraine is a nazi country therefore the slaughter that comes with an occupation is totes ok smells of "What part of Sadam is a bad guy do you not get". I'll take all of the internet shame if I'm wrong, but this war will kill a lot of innocent people, it will result in tremendous violence, and a total cluster gently caress and any suggestions things are going to be over by months end. This is more like what happened in Georgia than America's aimless invasion of an unrelated country. If Russia gets their desired political aims accomplished there's little to gain from having occupying forces sitting around getting shot at. That's the advantage of having an actual political goal instead of vague ideas of nation building and getting rid of the entire civil sector because they were a part of the ruling classes political party. I do think if all this hype about Russia hitting all these assets and sites in the first hours is true then it's the shock and awe Rumsfield was dreaming of.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:08
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Ya know I'm not one of those to shriek Russian disinformation bot hordes, but it would be pretty useful during an invasion to create twitter chatter that you've torn through defenses, you are already in the capitol, and soldiers are surrendering. Seems like a cheap way to lower morale of the kids at post who are inevitably checking their phones. Not saying they are doing it, but that'd seem like a thing.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:52
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So far the most drastic reports are from twitter randos and I'd just expect this utter destruction of the Ukrainian forces to have more shaky cell phone footage. TBH I hope it's true because continued fighting will only hurt more civilians. The political question is already solved it is only a question of what the body count for this is going to be. Dragging out great power poo poo only leads to more mayhem.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:02
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lol the lighting strike again except https://twitter.com/WorldWar3tv/status/1496763559937593349?s=20&t=m0JNtX5KAWo7Tp-zjJgyMQ Putin Israel China North Korea Trump Biden NATO Russsia WW3 WWII!!!!
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Feb 24, 2022 09:37
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It's pointless to try moralizing great power politics. It's all awful end to end. All of them are bad and doing terrible things across the globe. Trying to find unique villains is falling for someone's propaganda and is inevitably overlooking some other great power's culpability in creating the situation.
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Feb 25, 2022 01:23
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In retrospect it is a lot easier to predict an invasion when you refuse to budge on anything of note and publicly state repeatedly you won't intervene militarily. One thing you can always count on from authoritarian regimes: they'll happily eat poo poo diplomatically over and over without ever trying to use force. After all their entire domestic position isn't tied into projecting strength. I can imagine Putin going on Russian TV to announce "sorry guys I tried" before he sends the troops home.
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Feb 25, 2022 01:35
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Majorian posted:I don't think anyone here claimed they did. A lot of us thought the costs for Putin would be too high for him to follow through with an invasion. We were wrong on that. Yeah, I expected NATO to at least push some heavy sanctions but leaving energy out seems pretty weak.
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Feb 25, 2022 01:42
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Didn't the gas deal with the Germans fall through before the invasion start it? That feels like it could have caused a "gently caress it, nothing left to lose" calculation from Putin. Yeah it seemed like Ukraine/NATO just flipped the table yesterday so I dunno what was left to haggle over. No NS2, no minsk 2, and nato membership non negotiable. I know Zelensky was in a difficult position since he'd face coup/assassination so he may have had his eyes more on domestic politics and thought this could blow over.
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Feb 25, 2022 01:58
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Frosted Flake posted:In hindsight, a lot of the certainty in US statements seems pretty loving ominous in terms of knowing what would happen when time expired and letting it get there deliberately. This is why the great man bullshit flowing around Putin's diseases or posture or birth sign is silly. Russian's position is incredibly clear. Nato bad, pipeline good, and donbass settled. Don't drag into moral lenses on those objectives good or bad but it's all straightforward. Putin's personality is irrelevant. On the other hand, what is the US objective behind the last month? Did they actually think their position strong enough that Putin would hesitate to invade even though the US clearly stated they wouldn't stop it? Did they intentionally want Russia to invade so they could open up a proxy conflict? I dunno
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Feb 25, 2022 02:09
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Are there more teeth to the sanctions that I'm missing? I really thought the US would at least try harder on the sanctions. That's like the only thing the US has zeal for. The fact that they are even hedging on supplying arms is weird.
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Feb 25, 2022 02:19
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Some Guy TT posted:everyone was bullshitting about russia invading ukraine but then putin decides to invade anyway because he interpreted the bullshitting as a sign of weakness is an extremely funny if horrifying direction for this to have gone ironically if the American media hadn't been losing its poo poo for the last month Biden wouldn't have had to comment over and over he wouldn't intervene militarily. Such a weird thing to want to shout, "the Russians are going to invade!!" while also saying "not that we'd do anything about it"
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Feb 25, 2022 02:30
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Varinn posted:this account just tweets anything lol This is what Ukraine looked like last night according to that account
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Feb 25, 2022 02:34
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paul_soccer12 posted:putin = hitler ukraine = friendless poland
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Feb 25, 2022 03:02
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StashAugustine posted:who gets to gloat about being right on armchair clancychat if the russians do actually get bogged down in the mud
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Feb 25, 2022 03:12
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500 good dogs posted:if things were going poorly for Russia I don't think they'd be holding back as much Yeah I keep seeing footage of a handful of Russians just chilling somewhere. No vast tank columns or whatever. Even the missiles/air combat seems pretty sporadic. Think of the footage over Baghdad in 03 compared to any footage I've seen of Ukrainian cities. It feels like Russians are still probing. Which is good maybe this whole mess will end without the usual vast civilian death toll.
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Feb 25, 2022 06:28
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIPNVm6lNfM looks like just people going to work in Kiev
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Feb 25, 2022 06:36
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For the battle of kiev about to start there is still a lot of pedestrians and casual motorists. I can hear some distant explosions though
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Feb 25, 2022 07:38
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SchrodingersCat posted:If the United States and Russia were direct neighbors, yes. Yeah people looking at the US defense spending numbers forget this. The US can steamroll Canada but the US fighting a war thousands of miles from its borders is always going to be tough. Like the US is never saying it can take whomever in a straight fight. It's saying it can take them while it bounces on one leg and sings the national anthem backwards. I think any country that isn't a total crater like Iraq was before they even showed up is gonna be a way different story.
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Feb 25, 2022 07:53
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ASB News is total nonsense. How much of that footage is peace time stuff? The casualness is still weird to me. Like if there's active fighting and tanks are getting blown up and these tanks are taking up positions in the city you'd just drive around them? "loving tanks I gotta get to work!"
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Feb 25, 2022 08:00
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someone's lovely boss on the phone: I don't care if the russians are invading you get to work. They'll be hungry later just like anyone else
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Feb 25, 2022 08:03
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SchrodingersCat posted:The entire reason the US spends so much on defense is because of the obscene distances that they actually want to be able to project force. That's what I'm saying you can't compare dollar to dollar or capability to capability. The US needs a poo poo ton of expensive carriers because it wants to fight China. China just needs to blow up the carriers which it can do with a myriad of cheaper options. They can spend 1/10 what we do and still potentially have a stronger local military where it matters to them. The same even goes for Iran or NK. Considering how many mishaps the US military has in peace time anymore I'm not sure we could actually take any of our geopolitical rivals on their terms.
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Feb 25, 2022 08:22
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Atrocious Joe posted:https://twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1497105764422500354?s=20&t=LQi8MQphUdtBpjDSjGhXWQ that seems like an excellent rumor for russia to start spreading lol
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Feb 25, 2022 08:29
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Seems like a good way to encourage your troops to get jumpy and start shooting at each other.
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Feb 25, 2022 08:36
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SchrodingersCat posted:One on one, right now, I think direct confrontation between the US and China or Russia in their regions would be a toss-up. Yeah I think the reason the FP blob is so randy for wars right now is they also realize this is about as good as it gets for US capability vs its rivals.
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Feb 25, 2022 08:47
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Didn't it take us almost a month to take Baghdad in 03? I'm not sure why were people expecting Russia to take 24 hours to topple the capital in a bigger less broken country. Afghanistan was a country being retaken in a civil war and not an invasion.
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Feb 25, 2022 09:07
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Google Butt posted:to be fair it's literally across the border this time I'm counting from when the US was staged on the border and started across. I think it was 6 -ish months to get to that point.
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Feb 25, 2022 09:10
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 01:52 |
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Can we even get to the iss without catching a ride with Russia? Makes for an awkward ride after this.
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Feb 25, 2022 09:49
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