HashtagGirlboss posted:

Welcome back thread. You’re not wrong about that QCS thread. It goes places. I’m not sure how much longer spaces that look at the war in a nuanced skeptical way are going to last on any English language platform, that’s hardly SA specific. There’s a certain dogged moral certainty that has overtaken pretty much everyone. It’s almost been remarkable to watch it develop in real time

I really don’t think it helps at all that most of the higher profile voices in opposition to US involvement have been MAGA types

The CPC letter and the push to deplatform BJG are other examples. It’s wild out there

Not So Fast posted:

The pushback BJG has been getting us wild

https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/sta...ingawful.com%2F

Isizzlehorn posted:

Imma eat a probe for taking sides on war zone orphans left in the war zone or put into foster care?

Not sure that's the win they think it is but as long as more of those kids get to live that's all I care about. War sucks and should end, etc.

HashtagGirlboss posted:

The CPC letter and the push to deplatform BJG are other examples. It’s wild out there

HashtagGirlboss posted:

Welcome back thread. You’re not wrong about that QCS thread. It goes places. I’m not sure how much longer spaces that look at the war in a nuanced skeptical way are going to last on any English language platform, that’s hardly SA specific. There’s a certain dogged moral certainty that has overtaken pretty much everyone. It’s almost been remarkable to watch it develop in real time

I really don’t think it helps at all that most of the higher profile voices in opposition to US involvement have been MAGA types

The CPC letter and the push to deplatform BJG are other examples. It’s wild out there

Meow Tse-tung posted:

war orphans are like baby birds, if you touch it the birth country won't come back for it so it's best to just leave them in a HIMARS crater and hope for the best

Isizzlehorn posted:

War sucks and should end

Raskolnikov38 posted:

well that was stupid

Danann posted:

https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1587916575310745601

can't help but go mask off when they think they can get away with it

Cuttlefush posted:

HashtagGirlboss posted:

Welcome back thread. You’re not wrong about that QCS thread. It goes places. I’m not sure how much longer spaces that look at the war in a nuanced skeptical way are going to last on any English language platform, that’s hardly SA specific. There’s a certain dogged moral certainty that has overtaken pretty much everyone. It’s almost been remarkable to watch it develop in real time

I really don’t think it helps at all that most of the higher profile voices in opposition to US involvement have been MAGA types

The CPC letter and the push to deplatform BJG are other examples. It’s wild out there

PhilippAchtel posted:

Slightly off topic, but vaguely related, if you haven't listened to Season 3 of Blowback about the Korean War go do it right now

Azathoth posted:

I'm old enough to remember the Iraq War runup and so much of what is happening in the media feels just like that.

Majorian posted:

Let's leave the war orphans topic alone for a bit, if you don't mind. Bit of a flash point in the QCS thread.

speng31b posted:

https://apnews.com/article/ukrainian-children-russia-7493cb22c9086c6293c1ac7986d85ef6

the main narrative basically just paints a picture of nightmarish bureaucratic fuckups, but some parts like the quotes below were pretty unsettling

quote:

Russia hasn’t given an overall number, but officials regularly announce the arrival of Ukrainian orphans in Russian military planes.

In March, Russian children’s rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova said more than 1,000 children from Ukraine were in Russia. Over the summer, she said 120 Russian families had applied for guardianship, and more than 130 Ukrainian children had received Russian citizenship. Many more have come since, including a batch of 234 in early October.

Lvova-Belova has said these children need Russia’s help to overcome trauma that has left them sleeping badly, crying at night and drawing basements and bomb shelters. She acknowledged that at first, a group of 30 children brought to Russia from the basements of Mariupol defiantly sang the Ukrainian national anthem and shouted, “Glory to Ukraine!” But now, she said, their criticism has been “transformed into a love for Russia,” and she herself has taken one in, a teenager.

“Today he received a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation and does not let go of it!” she posted on Telegram on Sept. 21, along with a photo. “(He) was waiting for this day in our family more than anyone else.”

Lvova-Belova has been sanctioned by the United States, Europe, the U.K., Canada and Australia. Her office referred the AP to her reply in a state-owned news agency that Russia was “helping children to preserve their right to live under a peaceful sky and be happy.”

In August, a post from a senior official at the Moscow Department of Labor and Social Protection thanking the Russian foster families declared: “Our Children...Now they are ours.”

Azathoth posted:

I'm old enough to remember the Iraq War runup and so much of what is happening in the media feels just like that.

Azathoth posted:

I'm old enough to remember the Iraq War runup and so much of what is happening in the media feels just like that.

CRAZY KNUCKLES FAN posted:

Not mine. I want peace

Starsfan posted:

yeah but unlike the Iraq War runup nobody you are likely to ever meet IRL gives a poo poo about this war or your opinion on the war one way or the other. It's only a thing for the terminally online NAFO crowd and certain elements in the media.


**what Raskolnikov said

quote:

A new report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reveals that the Ukraine has become a thieves’ paradise in which corporate loan defaults are written off; embezzlement from banks is not traced; the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) no longer audits the country’s bank liabilities and reserves; and the IMF admits it cannot tell how much of the $35 billion in foreign cash grants and loans promised to Kiev has been disbursed, or to whom.

“Disbursements of all committed funds over the remaining months of the year is urgently needed and will make a difference,” declares Kristalina Georgieva (lead image), the IMF Managing director since 2019, “especially in light of the recent horrific damage to energy infrastructure.” Georgieva was speaking in Berlin on October 25.

“In a best-case scenario,” she added, “we estimate that Ukraine’s financing needs would be about $3 billion per month. When we incorporate some additional financing for higher gas imports and some repair of critical infrastructure, we quickly reach $4 billion per month. The recent missile attacks, which have clearly caused much more damage, not only confirms the validity of these estimates but leads us to consider $5 billion upper range.”

However, in a 32-page IMF staff report on the state of Ukrainian budget finance and the risk of system-wide financial collapse, the Fund experts have concluded that “large-scale forbearance with a delayed recognition of NPLs [commercial bank non-performing loans] and the suspension of NBU enforcement actions and audits of financial statements make a comprehensive assessment of the impact of the war difficult and uncertain.” The report has been released at this link on the IMF website.

“Uncertainty” is IMF officialspeak for black hole. “The balance of probabilities,” according to the staff paper dated October 3, “would suggest that Ukraine has an unsustainable level of debt.” According to the Fund rules, this should suspend or stop IMF and all other foreign government cashflows.

Georgieva and the IMF board, dominated by the US, say otherwise. The black hole, the staff report goes on to say, is “unique to the extreme circumstances now prevailing in Ukraine, [so] very high uncertainty makes it difficult, at present, to estimate with sufficient precision the impact of the war on the debt outlook, and what would be required to restore sustainability.”

Instead, they have accepted a promise issued in a letter to the Fund dated October 1 from the Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergei Marchenko and NBU Governor Kirill Shevchenko. “We commit to undergoing a new safeguards assessment of the National Bank of Ukraine and will continue providing IMF staff with the NBU’s audit reports and authorize its external auditors to hold discussions with staff.”

This is a future promise. The NBU audit reports already received by the Fund in Washington ought to show exactly how much foreign cash has been received at the NBU, and what has happened to it in the disbursement throughout the Ukrainian public finance system. They don’t. In fact, the staff report tables show “disbursed and prospective official financing” conflating the two numbers together, and treating both as imprecise and unreliable because they are “2022 proj[ected].”

On October 7 the Fund’s Executive Board met to agree to the despatch of a fresh $1.29 billion in cash, and to accept the NBU’s promissory note for future accountability. The staff report says the new money is to be paid through the “food shock window of the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI)”. The black hole promise has been assigned an IMF acronym; it’s to be called the PMB – “Project Monitoring with Board involvement.”

Once PMB is put into operation, Marchenko and Shevchenko told the Board in their letter, “we expect [it to] help eventually pave the way for an Upper Credit Tranche arrangement in the near future”. This is Ukrainian officialspeak for turning “eventually” into the “near future”; and for throwing more good money after bad.

Since the present Ukrainian government was installed in Kiev in February 2014, the IMF has demonstrated a long record of failing to audit the NBU and commercial banks and of refusing to stop the multi-billion dollar diversion, fraud and embezzlement of the foreign funds by the oligarchs close to the regime and to Washington.

Azathoth posted:

I'm old enough to remember the Iraq War runup and so much of what is happening in the media feels just like that.

Azathoth posted:

I'm old enough to remember the Iraq War runup and so much of what is happening in the media feels just like that.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

i do think the vitriol of the pro-ukrainian side is largely confined to social media. no one in DC* seems to talk or care about the war at all anymore

*federal triangle and adjoining areas excepted

speng31b posted:

I'm going to at least post the link to what was said in the old thread so people can see discussion of it is possible without blind insanity if you don't mind. specifically, to my post about how what russia is doing is gross and they say the quiet part out loud about their intentions, but it's also a nighmarish bureaucratic fuckup with few good options

Raskolnikov38 posted:

i do think the vitriol of the pro-ukrainian side is largely confined to social media. no one in DC* seems to talk or care about the war at all anymore

*federal triangle and adjoining areas excepted

Azathoth posted:

I'm old enough to remember the Iraq War runup and so much of what is happening in the media feels just like that.

ArmZ posted:

i love the nuanced skepticism here that says everything is nato's fault

Azathoth posted:

Yeah, run into way less "nuke their rear end take their gas" types, but I do drive past two farms on a regular basis decked out in Blue and Gold. They're not the local school colors.

HashtagGirlboss posted:

At least in online spaces this feels more absolute than the run-up to Iraq. Things got heated for sure but there wasn’t the overwhelming consensus, and there was a lot of vocal opposition even if it turned out to be utterly for naught

HashtagGirlboss posted:

Welcome back thread. You’re not wrong about that QCS thread. It goes places. I’m not sure how much longer spaces that look at the war in a nuanced skeptical way are going to last on any English language platform, that’s hardly SA specific. There’s a certain dogged moral certainty that has overtaken pretty much everyone. It’s almost been remarkable to watch it develop in real time

I really don’t think it helps at all that most of the higher profile voices in opposition to US involvement have been MAGA types

The CPC letter and the push to deplatform BJG are other examples. It’s wild out there

Dixon Chisholm posted:

This thread will be shut down, and multiple posters banned.

really queer Christmas posted:

I hope this war ends in peace and an overthrow of the capitalist order

ArmZ posted:

i love the nuanced skepticism here that says everything is nato's fault

ArmZ posted:

i love the nuanced skepticism here that says everything is nato's fault