We aren't arguing about whether Ukraine had a coup. We're arguing your narrative fantasy of how it went down, and unsupported and unwavering defense of Putin.Sam Lowry said:And there it is. J6 doesn't qualify because there was no real firepower and no chance of success. Maidan had both of those things…but it still doesn't qualify. Whatever suits the narrative.ATL Bear said:Well, at least I understand where the fantasy derives. The same inanity of Jan 6 as a coup is now being projected on the US in Ukraine.Sam Lowry said:What you've done over and over again is try to deny the facts instead of saying what you really mean -- that overthrowing Yanukovych was a good idea and there was nothing wrong with our involvement. It reminds me of when you fought tooth and nail to prove non-existent violations of Iran's nuclear agreement, and when that didn't work you finally broke down and admitted you didn't want the deal to succeed because it would give the regime too much credibility. At some point you became so convinced by your own rhetoric that you lost the distinction between "negotiations failed" and "I hope they fail."ATL Bear said:Asked and answered over and over again. It's in this very thread. I'm not wasting any more time on an errant fantasy.Sam Lowry said:More conclusory statements and rhetoric, still no effort to refute the pertinent facts.ATL Bear said:You're not presenting facts. You're inventing narratives. It's like trying to convince a child there is no Santa Claus.Sam Lowry said:None of the facts are in serious dispute. I imagine it is hard to debate when your only rebuttal is "nuh-UHHH!"ATL Bear said:It's frankly hard to debate because as you and I both know Sam and others in here project capabilities and actions on people and events that are so far removed from the possibility of occurring it's borderline fantasy.whiterock said:Sweet Jesus, Sam has gone thru the rabbit hole of Third World Think = The USG is omniscient and omnipotent, so if something significant happened, by definition the USG either sponsored or allowed it.ATL Bear said:This is a complete fabrication and false alignment of events. It's not even worth rehashing because I've dealt with each point independently, and shown where it doesn't fit with the events. Now you're parsing the Nuland phone call, which was a Russian intel op by the way, and going hook line and sinker there with wild inferences.Sam Lowry said:
A coup mechanism is any mechanism that one uses to accomplish a coup. The rest is just you trying to define away the issue.
I've drawn you a straight line from our early support of right-wing extremists, to their resurgence after the Cold War with our help, to their key role in Maidan. Nuland met with the leader of Svoboda in December 2013 (she wasn't just there to serve sandwiches) and again a week before the government collapsed. We don't have to speculate about why they met because we have direct evidence in the form of her taped conversation. We know that, contrary to the agreement with Yanukovych, the US was pushing for total regime change with the "Big Three" as a replacement. This was far from mere advocacy, considering how dependent these would-be rulers were on our support. It was a signal of what we would do going forward and what kind of success they could expect if they kept the pressure on.
Not every counter policy opinion or effort is a coup mechanism.
Reality is this: Ambassadors all over the world talk to opposition party leaders all the time. it's their job. Those opposition leaders might win an election someday. They might win a coup some day. Better to know them than not.
And IF the USG is going to engage in hanky panky with an opposition leader/party, it's damned sure not going to do it with an Ambassador. LOLOLOLOL. I mean, what the heck does Sam think the CIA is used for? In the exceedingly rare instances when such does happen, you keep your Ambassador as far away from it as possible = plausible deniability.
Mercy sakes Ukraine has totally discombobulated poor Sam.
Thi
I suspect the same thing is going on when you try to argue that supporting a coup isn't really supporting a coup unless it involves quasi-military tactics. Under most circumstances this is obviously not something an intelligent person would say. Try using it as a defense in the seditious conspiracy cases that arose from J6, for example. But you've lost the distinction between "it didn't happen" and "it was a good thing." You may have even convinced yourself it wasn't a coup at all but rather a mostly peaceful transfer of power and a victory for free speech. Never mind that the former government was peacefully elected and the new one forcibly imposed, leading to civil war with a large part of the country which didn't want it.
That's the kind of fantasy our government sells in the guise of promoting "democracy." If nothing else I hope you'll take time to ask yourself why you're afraid to own it.
Maybe I've been around enough coups to recognize that if we did try it in Ukraine it wouldn't have looked anything like what occurred. In fact, Yanukovych would have had to have been a part of it to even play out like it did because of the time frames involved. You're now taking US support of the protesters cause as the coup. That's simple absurdity. Then you go down paths of Nazi threats, and other RU propaganda ops as your basis. Coups don't require military action, but they do require a coordinated strategy, not the association of random unrelated circumstances. The latter is how propaganda is built.
And I have no recollection of that Iran conclusion. You may be confusing me with another poster.
Why Are We in Ukraine?
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Last: 1 hr ago by whiterock
Tell me who we subjugate to this standard today. Trying to see how your subjugation works. And relate that to Blackrock if you can.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Putin has a Billion dollar palace on the Black Sea, 2 yachts, a cash funnel from Gazprom, and what do you think is going to happen with his oligarch partners Derapasky, Rotenberg, and Abramov with their new Ukrainian spoils? He already rewarded Rotenberg with the Kerch Strait bridge to Crimea. And you're concerned about a publicly traded U.S. company and post war rebuild projects? You want the Russian "sphere of influence" angle? This is what it's all about. Russia's the world's most prolific kleptocracy.Redbrickbear said:Doc Holliday said:What I've said all along is that it's as if the point of this war is to kill off Ukrainians for the purpose of the west capturing their marketshare and being close enough to bully Russia.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:you have it completely ass-backwards.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:For six months after Putin invaded Ukraine, my daughter was C/OPs at a US AF base in Germany and kept several squadrons of fully armed F-16's in the air flying CAPs over Romania & the Black Sea (playing bump & nudge with Russian fighters).KaiBear said:whiterock said:KaiBear said:whiterock said:As long as Nato keeps sending Ammo, Ukrainians will keep killing Russians, who are in a condition not much better than the Ukrainians.....KaiBear said:whiterock said:This war can go on for years, and likely will until well after Trump is inaugurated. And if Trump does indeed follow up on his statement about a "lend/lease" to Ukraine, Russia will be in a world of hurt. They are stretched to the breaking point. We start building bases in Finland and Sweden, increasing troop deployments to the Baltics, and loading Ukraine up on arty rounds & long-range missiles....Russia will have to sue for peace.KaiBear said:
NATO is a shell.
There is zero willingness of any of the NATO populations to fight and die for Ukraine or even other each other.
The manicheanism of "zero/any" renders this statement flatly untrue. Not true of Finland or Sweden. Not true of the Baltics. Nor is it true of Poland, or Romania. And the numbers jump if we talk about further Russian encroachments.
The combat readiness of almost every NATO country is non existent.
again, more manicheanism. The militaries are smaller than they should be, and in aggregate the level of readiness is subpar, but there are several nations who have very capable armies that are far more capable than the Russians.
Ukraine is running out of resources; especially in manpower .
Ukraine is running out of ammo. They have enough men to soldier on for years.
Meanwhile Russia's infrastructure has barely been touched .
The vaunted economic sanctions a complete joke.
Flatly untrue. Russia is sending 70-year old tanks to the front, borrowing-back ammo it gave to North Korea 70 years ago. Russia is unable to replace mechanized vehicles or arty tubes at the rate it's burning it up.
The false dilemma you've created here is one of expectations - that economic sanctions which do not crater a country's eonomy have no value. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sanctions drive up the cost of doing business, and afford diplomats more things to negotiate over. They can cripple key sectors of the economy, and have done so specifically on weapons & ordnance to great effect.
By any measure Russia is winning this war and as a result Ukraine needs to reach an accord while they still can salvage their sovereignty.
Russia is making small, tactical gains in some sectors, after having suffered several months of tactical losses in some sectors, which was preceded by a prior period of some tactical gains, which of course was prefaced by some significant tactical losses.
You are nuts.
Ukraine can't endure continued infrastructure and manpower losses for years .
They are barely holding on now.
And your hero Trump is never going to be president again.
His latest political gaffe will be followed by even more erratic ones as Election Day approaches.A
Wars of attrition are ugly things.
No it's just entertainment to goofs like you.
I have a daughter on the front-line of the conflict and would very much prefer she avoid combat, which will be far less likely if we push ahead and help Ukraine finish the job.
A bloodletting that Biden help bring on.
Agreed.
And money can NOT replace dead soldiers.
That is a reciprocal equation. Russia is losing soldiers at a rate greater than their numerical advantage.
Russia has far deeper reserves. Far deeper pools of manpower.
Which they cannot tap due to having to defend a far larger geographic footprint, AND to avoid political destabilization in core Russian demographic areas.
This war is either going to end via a diplomatic settlement or a rapid of the Ukrainian army within the next 14 months.
14 months is a good guess. I would put it closer to 24 months. Everyone wants to see what Trump will do. Those who think he's going to hand Ukraine over to Putin are going to be sorely disappointed.
Bull****
How exactly do you have a daughter on the 'front line' of the Russia Ukraine battlefield ?
See below
Dude
Trump is not going to be president .
You might be right. But a lot of people made fools of themselves in 2016 saying exactly that, so I advise a little more hedging.
Why would the Dems ' steal the election' in 2020 only to play nice in 2024 ?
Discussed before. It's only viable to steal a close election, 3pts margins or less. Any more than that, and the math starts to highlight rather than obscure the funny business. That's why Dems are panicking. Biden is down nationally, and down well-outside the 3pt range in enough swing states to make fraud non-viable. That's why you hear Trump talking about winning big......to overwhelm the fraud.
Besides Trump is continually verbally self destructive.
He's going to scare the living **** out of independent voters right into Biden's camp.
Fact is, right now he's winning them comfortably. That's because Biden is scaring the **** out of them even more. And it's not likely to change.
The most obvious way to keep her from dodging Russian missiles is to win the damned war in Ukraine. Any other outcome increases the risk to her, and all the other sons & daughters in uniform, who are on war footing as we debate this. It's hard to understand how smart people can work so hard to avoid seeing such an obvious reality staring them in the face. The costs of finishing the job in Ukraine are nominal compared to the costs of dealing with a loss.
I can understand your view. (And I hope your daughter remains safe)
But without the direct intervention of NATO ground troops how is this war to be won?
Ukraine is getting vast amounts of gear, weapons, and cash payments…..but it's manpower they lack.
Without NATO getting directly into the fighting what's the end game here?
They have the manpower but not the gear?
[Ukraine The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line, military personnel in the field said this week a perilous new dynamic for Kyiv nearly two years into the grinding, bloody war with Russia.]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/08/ukraine-soldiers-shortage-infantry-russia/#
Some people on here don't have a problem with it. I think its immoral and evil to send people through the meat grinder for those goals.
Certainly there is going to be a lot of cheap farm land to buy up in Ukraine after this war is over.
Blackrock is going to make a killing......
I don't think anyone has every said Putin is not rewarding his oligarchs will Ukrainian spoils.
Does that then justify DC doing the same?
ps.
While Putin will leverage any power in Ukraine to bleed money out of the country....DC will do the same while also demanding they import in endless amounts of Africans and MENA migrants and accept the whole liberal cultural values like LGBTQ ideology.
Ukraine under Moscow will be subjugated...but still Slavic and Christian
Ukraine under DC rule will be subjugated...and within 30 years not even recognizable as Ukrainian
You aligned post WW2 anti-communist Nazi sympathizers with modern events with the only relevance being symbology used to poke Putin, and a YouTube video about democracy as a coup instigator. The people aren't as unsophisticated as you are Sam.Sam Lowry said:I've documented it with sources from our own CIA and NED, among others. You're sticking with "deniability," in other words lies. No surprises there.whiterock said:Sam Lowry said:One straw man after another. No, obviously we did not create all opposition parties in all countries.whiterock said:There you go with the conspiracy again.Sam Lowry said:There you go with the conspiracy theories again. No one is attributing omniscience to the US. We did a lot more than just speak to the opposition, though. We essentially created them and gave them the green light by signaling our continued support.whiterock said:Sweet Jesus, Sam has gone thru the rabbit hole of Third World Think = The USG is omniscient and omnipotent, so if something significant happened, by definition the USG either sponsored or allowed it.ATL Bear said:This is a complete fabrication and false alignment of events. It's not even worth rehashing because I've dealt with each point independently, and shown where it doesn't fit with the events. Now you're parsing the Nuland phone call, which was a Russian intel op by the way, and going hook line and sinker there with wild inferences.Sam Lowry said:
A coup mechanism is any mechanism that one uses to accomplish a coup. The rest is just you trying to define away the issue.
I've drawn you a straight line from our early support of right-wing extremists, to their resurgence after the Cold War with our help, to their key role in Maidan. Nuland met with the leader of Svoboda in December 2013 (she wasn't just there to serve sandwiches) and again a week before the government collapsed. We don't have to speculate about why they met because we have direct evidence in the form of her taped conversation. We know that, contrary to the agreement with Yanukovych, the US was pushing for total regime change with the "Big Three" as a replacement. This was far from mere advocacy, considering how dependent these would-be rulers were on our support. It was a signal of what we would do going forward and what kind of success they could expect if they kept the pressure on.
Not every counter policy opinion or effort is a coup mechanism.
Reality is this: Ambassadors all over the world talk to opposition party leaders all the time. it's their job. Those opposition leaders might win an election someday. They might win a coup some day. Better to know them than not.
And IF the USG is going to engage in hanky panky with an opposition leader/party, it's damned sure not going to do it with an Ambassador. LOLOLOLOL. I mean, what the heck does Sam think the CIA is used for? In the exceedingly rare instances when such does happen, you keep your Ambassador as far away from it as possible = plausible deniability.
Mercy sakes Ukraine has totally discombobulated poor Sam.
Thi
And LOL at "what is the CIA used for?" No doubt the Nuland call is just the tip of the iceberg. We all know what the CIA does, but try getting ATL to admit it.
Don't opposition parties exist in all democratic countries? (Yes). Did we create ALL of those, too? (No). Didn't Ukrainian elections show swings from one party to the other? (Yes). So isn't it in fact true that there has been a Ukrainian opposition party in existence continuously since independence from the USSR? (Obviously).
You are making shyte up to support a predetermined conclusion.
I didn't create any strawmen, just torched yours by illustrating that your example is unremarkable given that what you cited is a core function of diplomacy and done everywhere.
We created neither a Ukrainian opposition, nor a coup to depose a Ukrainian regime.
ATL Bear said:Tell me who we subjugate to this standard today. Trying to see how your subjugation works. And relate that to Blackrock if you can.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Putin has a Billion dollar palace on the Black Sea, 2 yachts, a cash funnel from Gazprom, and what do you think is going to happen with his oligarch partners Derapasky, Rotenberg, and Abramov with their new Ukrainian spoils? He already rewarded Rotenberg with the Kerch Strait bridge to Crimea. And you're concerned about a publicly traded U.S. company and post war rebuild projects? You want the Russian "sphere of influence" angle? This is what it's all about. Russia's the world's most prolific kleptocracy.Redbrickbear said:Doc Holliday said:What I've said all along is that it's as if the point of this war is to kill off Ukrainians for the purpose of the west capturing their marketshare and being close enough to bully Russia.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:you have it completely ass-backwards.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:For six months after Putin invaded Ukraine, my daughter was C/OPs at a US AF base in Germany and kept several squadrons of fully armed F-16's in the air flying CAPs over Romania & the Black Sea (playing bump & nudge with Russian fighters).KaiBear said:whiterock said:KaiBear said:whiterock said:As long as Nato keeps sending Ammo, Ukrainians will keep killing Russians, who are in a condition not much better than the Ukrainians.....KaiBear said:whiterock said:This war can go on for years, and likely will until well after Trump is inaugurated. And if Trump does indeed follow up on his statement about a "lend/lease" to Ukraine, Russia will be in a world of hurt. They are stretched to the breaking point. We start building bases in Finland and Sweden, increasing troop deployments to the Baltics, and loading Ukraine up on arty rounds & long-range missiles....Russia will have to sue for peace.KaiBear said:
NATO is a shell.
There is zero willingness of any of the NATO populations to fight and die for Ukraine or even other each other.
The manicheanism of "zero/any" renders this statement flatly untrue. Not true of Finland or Sweden. Not true of the Baltics. Nor is it true of Poland, or Romania. And the numbers jump if we talk about further Russian encroachments.
The combat readiness of almost every NATO country is non existent.
again, more manicheanism. The militaries are smaller than they should be, and in aggregate the level of readiness is subpar, but there are several nations who have very capable armies that are far more capable than the Russians.
Ukraine is running out of resources; especially in manpower .
Ukraine is running out of ammo. They have enough men to soldier on for years.
Meanwhile Russia's infrastructure has barely been touched .
The vaunted economic sanctions a complete joke.
Flatly untrue. Russia is sending 70-year old tanks to the front, borrowing-back ammo it gave to North Korea 70 years ago. Russia is unable to replace mechanized vehicles or arty tubes at the rate it's burning it up.
The false dilemma you've created here is one of expectations - that economic sanctions which do not crater a country's eonomy have no value. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sanctions drive up the cost of doing business, and afford diplomats more things to negotiate over. They can cripple key sectors of the economy, and have done so specifically on weapons & ordnance to great effect.
By any measure Russia is winning this war and as a result Ukraine needs to reach an accord while they still can salvage their sovereignty.
Russia is making small, tactical gains in some sectors, after having suffered several months of tactical losses in some sectors, which was preceded by a prior period of some tactical gains, which of course was prefaced by some significant tactical losses.
You are nuts.
Ukraine can't endure continued infrastructure and manpower losses for years .
They are barely holding on now.
And your hero Trump is never going to be president again.
His latest political gaffe will be followed by even more erratic ones as Election Day approaches.A
Wars of attrition are ugly things.
No it's just entertainment to goofs like you.
I have a daughter on the front-line of the conflict and would very much prefer she avoid combat, which will be far less likely if we push ahead and help Ukraine finish the job.
A bloodletting that Biden help bring on.
Agreed.
And money can NOT replace dead soldiers.
That is a reciprocal equation. Russia is losing soldiers at a rate greater than their numerical advantage.
Russia has far deeper reserves. Far deeper pools of manpower.
Which they cannot tap due to having to defend a far larger geographic footprint, AND to avoid political destabilization in core Russian demographic areas.
This war is either going to end via a diplomatic settlement or a rapid of the Ukrainian army within the next 14 months.
14 months is a good guess. I would put it closer to 24 months. Everyone wants to see what Trump will do. Those who think he's going to hand Ukraine over to Putin are going to be sorely disappointed.
Bull****
How exactly do you have a daughter on the 'front line' of the Russia Ukraine battlefield ?
See below
Dude
Trump is not going to be president .
You might be right. But a lot of people made fools of themselves in 2016 saying exactly that, so I advise a little more hedging.
Why would the Dems ' steal the election' in 2020 only to play nice in 2024 ?
Discussed before. It's only viable to steal a close election, 3pts margins or less. Any more than that, and the math starts to highlight rather than obscure the funny business. That's why Dems are panicking. Biden is down nationally, and down well-outside the 3pt range in enough swing states to make fraud non-viable. That's why you hear Trump talking about winning big......to overwhelm the fraud.
Besides Trump is continually verbally self destructive.
He's going to scare the living **** out of independent voters right into Biden's camp.
Fact is, right now he's winning them comfortably. That's because Biden is scaring the **** out of them even more. And it's not likely to change.
The most obvious way to keep her from dodging Russian missiles is to win the damned war in Ukraine. Any other outcome increases the risk to her, and all the other sons & daughters in uniform, who are on war footing as we debate this. It's hard to understand how smart people can work so hard to avoid seeing such an obvious reality staring them in the face. The costs of finishing the job in Ukraine are nominal compared to the costs of dealing with a loss.
I can understand your view. (And I hope your daughter remains safe)
But without the direct intervention of NATO ground troops how is this war to be won?
Ukraine is getting vast amounts of gear, weapons, and cash payments…..but it's manpower they lack.
Without NATO getting directly into the fighting what's the end game here?
They have the manpower but not the gear?
[Ukraine The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line, military personnel in the field said this week a perilous new dynamic for Kyiv nearly two years into the grinding, bloody war with Russia.]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/08/ukraine-soldiers-shortage-infantry-russia/#
Some people on here don't have a problem with it. I think its immoral and evil to send people through the meat grinder for those goals.
Certainly there is going to be a lot of cheap farm land to buy up in Ukraine after this war is over.
Blackrock is going to make a killing......
I don't think anyone has every said Putin is not rewarding his oligarchs will Ukrainian spoils.
Does that then justify DC doing the same?
ps.
While Putin will leverage any power in Ukraine to bleed money out of the country....DC will do the same while also demanding they import in endless amounts of Africans and MENA migrants and accept the whole liberal cultural values like LGBTQ ideology.
Ukraine under Moscow will be subjugated...but still Slavic and Christian
Ukraine under DC rule will be subjugated...and within 30 years not even recognizable as Ukrainian
[Subjugate: to bring under control...
: to make submissive : SUBDUE ]
Unless this war ends with two Ukrainian States (aka like the Korean war)
Then the current Ukraine will be under the control (submissive to) the West under the power of DC or under the control of Moscow.
DC or Moscow will have (to a lesser or greater extent) control over what kind of government is in power Kyiv, massive economic influence over the nation, and high military-foreign policy influence.
Ukraine will be de-facto a "client state" of either power.
If you really believe symbology is the only relevance, you didn't read the articles I posted. They were specifically in response to that propaganda point.ATL Bear said:You aligned post WW2 anti-communist Nazi sympathizers with modern events with the only relevance being symbology used to poke Putin, and a YouTube video about democracy as a coup instigator. The people aren't as unsophisticated as you are Sam.Sam Lowry said:I've documented it with sources from our own CIA and NED, among others. You're sticking with "deniability," in other words lies. No surprises there.whiterock said:Sam Lowry said:One straw man after another. No, obviously we did not create all opposition parties in all countries.whiterock said:There you go with the conspiracy again.Sam Lowry said:There you go with the conspiracy theories again. No one is attributing omniscience to the US. We did a lot more than just speak to the opposition, though. We essentially created them and gave them the green light by signaling our continued support.whiterock said:Sweet Jesus, Sam has gone thru the rabbit hole of Third World Think = The USG is omniscient and omnipotent, so if something significant happened, by definition the USG either sponsored or allowed it.ATL Bear said:This is a complete fabrication and false alignment of events. It's not even worth rehashing because I've dealt with each point independently, and shown where it doesn't fit with the events. Now you're parsing the Nuland phone call, which was a Russian intel op by the way, and going hook line and sinker there with wild inferences.Sam Lowry said:
A coup mechanism is any mechanism that one uses to accomplish a coup. The rest is just you trying to define away the issue.
I've drawn you a straight line from our early support of right-wing extremists, to their resurgence after the Cold War with our help, to their key role in Maidan. Nuland met with the leader of Svoboda in December 2013 (she wasn't just there to serve sandwiches) and again a week before the government collapsed. We don't have to speculate about why they met because we have direct evidence in the form of her taped conversation. We know that, contrary to the agreement with Yanukovych, the US was pushing for total regime change with the "Big Three" as a replacement. This was far from mere advocacy, considering how dependent these would-be rulers were on our support. It was a signal of what we would do going forward and what kind of success they could expect if they kept the pressure on.
Not every counter policy opinion or effort is a coup mechanism.
Reality is this: Ambassadors all over the world talk to opposition party leaders all the time. it's their job. Those opposition leaders might win an election someday. They might win a coup some day. Better to know them than not.
And IF the USG is going to engage in hanky panky with an opposition leader/party, it's damned sure not going to do it with an Ambassador. LOLOLOLOL. I mean, what the heck does Sam think the CIA is used for? In the exceedingly rare instances when such does happen, you keep your Ambassador as far away from it as possible = plausible deniability.
Mercy sakes Ukraine has totally discombobulated poor Sam.
Thi
And LOL at "what is the CIA used for?" No doubt the Nuland call is just the tip of the iceberg. We all know what the CIA does, but try getting ATL to admit it.
Don't opposition parties exist in all democratic countries? (Yes). Did we create ALL of those, too? (No). Didn't Ukrainian elections show swings from one party to the other? (Yes). So isn't it in fact true that there has been a Ukrainian opposition party in existence continuously since independence from the USSR? (Obviously).
You are making shyte up to support a predetermined conclusion.
I didn't create any strawmen, just torched yours by illustrating that your example is unremarkable given that what you cited is a core function of diplomacy and done everywhere.
We created neither a Ukrainian opposition, nor a coup to depose a Ukrainian regime.
Some said that about Germany, Mr. Red.Redbrickbear said:You continue to use the propagandist term of "isolationist"....and of course non-intervention and not engaging in war mongering adventurism is of course not the same as isolationism.whiterock said:Again, we see the isolationist argument that we caused a war in which we had no interest. Both are patently false premises. Russia would have NEVER invaded or usurped Ukraine if Nato hadn't been meddling? Pfft. If NATO hadn't expanded eastward, Russia would have expanded westward. The issue at hand is merely about where the razor wire will be strung. NATO was slow, deliberate, and cautious in its move eastward, out of deference to Russia. And it is instructive that EVERYONE (except Belarus) wants to be on the west side of the wire.Osodecentx said:Good article, difficult questions. I don't know the answerSam Lowry said:
How the United States was transformed from guardian to spoiler of the postwar international order. An excellent summary from Harper's magazine.Quote:
Why Are We in Ukraine?
On the dangers of American hubris
by Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne
From the early Nineties, when Washington first raised the idea of NATO expansion, until 2008, when the U.S. delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest advocated alliance membership for Ukraine and Georgia, U.S.-Russian exchanges were monotonous. While Russians protested Washington's NATO expansion plans, American officials shrugged off those protests--or pointed to them as evidence to justify still-further expansion. Washington's message to Moscow could not have been clearer or more disquieting: Normal diplomacy among great powers, distinguished by the recognition and accommodation of clashing interests--the approach that had defined the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during even the most intense stretches of the Cold War--was obsolete. Russia was expected to acquiesce to a new world order created and dominated by the United States.
The radical expansion of NATO's writ reflected the overweening aims that the end of the Cold War enabled Washington to pursue. Historically, great powers tend to focus pragmatically on reducing conflict among themselves. By frankly recognizing the realities of power and acknowledging each other's interests, they can usually relate to one another on a businesslike basis. This international give-and-take is bolstered by and helps engender a rough, contextual understanding of what's reasonable and legitimate--not in an abstract or absolute sense but in a way that permits fierce business rivals to moderate and accede to demands and to reach deals. By embracing what came to be called its "unipolar moment," Washington demonstrated--to Paris, Berlin, London, New Delhi, and Beijing, no less than to Moscow--that it would no longer be bound by the norms implicit in great power politics, norms that constrain the aims pursued as much as the means employed. Those who determine U.S. foreign policy hold that, as President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." They maintain, as President Bill Clinton averred in 1993, that the security of the United States demands a "focus on relations within nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure."
Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, which prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to dub America "the indispensable nation"--and which Gorbachev said defined America's "dangerous winner's mentality"--it lavishly expanded previously established conceptions of security and national interest. In its crusading universalism, it could be regarded by other states, with ample supporting evidence, as at best recklessly meddlesome and at worst messianically interventionist. Convinced that its national security depended on the domestic political and economic arrangements of ostensibly sovereign states--and therefore defining as a legitimate goal the alteration or eradication of those arrangements if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values--the post-Cold War United States became a revolutionary force in world politics.
https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/
We are the major economic power on earth and have a two ocean navy along with bases in 80+ countries and territories around the world. No one has even said we should dismantle those fleets or bases.
What people have said is that we should not get involved in bloody conflicts that we have no vital interest in or that do not involved a ally of the USA. Ukraine is not a NATO ally.
And your argument that Russia (with a poverty level and per captia GDP like Mexico) is going to expand Westward is laughable...and then you contradict yourself by saying correctly that no one wants join them.....so then how can they expand Westward? Talk about grasping for reasons to get into a conflict with a nuclear power...fantasies of "imminent expansion into the West" lol
J.R. said:Some said that about Germany, Mr. Red.Redbrickbear said:You continue to use the propagandist term of "isolationist"....and of course non-intervention and not engaging in war mongering adventurism is of course not the same as isolationism.whiterock said:Again, we see the isolationist argument that we caused a war in which we had no interest. Both are patently false premises. Russia would have NEVER invaded or usurped Ukraine if Nato hadn't been meddling? Pfft. If NATO hadn't expanded eastward, Russia would have expanded westward. The issue at hand is merely about where the razor wire will be strung. NATO was slow, deliberate, and cautious in its move eastward, out of deference to Russia. And it is instructive that EVERYONE (except Belarus) wants to be on the west side of the wire.Osodecentx said:Good article, difficult questions. I don't know the answerSam Lowry said:
How the United States was transformed from guardian to spoiler of the postwar international order. An excellent summary from Harper's magazine.Quote:
Why Are We in Ukraine?
On the dangers of American hubris
by Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne
From the early Nineties, when Washington first raised the idea of NATO expansion, until 2008, when the U.S. delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest advocated alliance membership for Ukraine and Georgia, U.S.-Russian exchanges were monotonous. While Russians protested Washington's NATO expansion plans, American officials shrugged off those protests--or pointed to them as evidence to justify still-further expansion. Washington's message to Moscow could not have been clearer or more disquieting: Normal diplomacy among great powers, distinguished by the recognition and accommodation of clashing interests--the approach that had defined the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during even the most intense stretches of the Cold War--was obsolete. Russia was expected to acquiesce to a new world order created and dominated by the United States.
The radical expansion of NATO's writ reflected the overweening aims that the end of the Cold War enabled Washington to pursue. Historically, great powers tend to focus pragmatically on reducing conflict among themselves. By frankly recognizing the realities of power and acknowledging each other's interests, they can usually relate to one another on a businesslike basis. This international give-and-take is bolstered by and helps engender a rough, contextual understanding of what's reasonable and legitimate--not in an abstract or absolute sense but in a way that permits fierce business rivals to moderate and accede to demands and to reach deals. By embracing what came to be called its "unipolar moment," Washington demonstrated--to Paris, Berlin, London, New Delhi, and Beijing, no less than to Moscow--that it would no longer be bound by the norms implicit in great power politics, norms that constrain the aims pursued as much as the means employed. Those who determine U.S. foreign policy hold that, as President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." They maintain, as President Bill Clinton averred in 1993, that the security of the United States demands a "focus on relations within nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure."
Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, which prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to dub America "the indispensable nation"--and which Gorbachev said defined America's "dangerous winner's mentality"--it lavishly expanded previously established conceptions of security and national interest. In its crusading universalism, it could be regarded by other states, with ample supporting evidence, as at best recklessly meddlesome and at worst messianically interventionist. Convinced that its national security depended on the domestic political and economic arrangements of ostensibly sovereign states--and therefore defining as a legitimate goal the alteration or eradication of those arrangements if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values--the post-Cold War United States became a revolutionary force in world politics.
https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/
We are the major economic power on earth and have a two ocean navy along with bases in 80+ countries and territories around the world. No one has even said we should dismantle those fleets or bases.
What people have said is that we should not get involved in bloody conflicts that we have no vital interest in or that do not involved a ally of the USA. Ukraine is not a NATO ally.
And your argument that Russia (with a poverty level and per captia GDP like Mexico) is going to expand Westward is laughable...and then you contradict yourself by saying correctly that no one wants join them.....so then how can they expand Westward? Talk about grasping for reasons to get into a conflict with a nuclear power...fantasies of "imminent expansion into the West" lol
But they didn't.
Everyone was afraid of the growing economic (and population growth) of Germany.
Germany at the beginning of the 20th century was a rising power….Russia at the beginning of the 21st century is a rapidly depopulating nation with a bad economy
[In 1871, German unification dramatically altered the balance of power in Europe. This new power bloc at the heart of central Europe strengthened further when Germany formed an alliance in 1879 with neighbouring Austria-Hungary, which Italy joined three years later. Fear of Germany's growing strength encouraged Russia and France to enter into alliance in 1893. German ambitions to build a battle fleet initiated a naval arms race with Britain that seriously strained relations between the two. Britain had long seen France and Russia as potential enemies, but from 1904 it negotiated agreements with them, aiming to secure its empire…]
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-the-world-went-to-war-in-1914
you can fill a bibliography to the brim with conspiracy theories and it's still just one big conspiracy theory.Sam Lowry said:I've documented it with sources from our own CIA and NED, among others. You're sticking with "deniability," in other words lies. No surprises there.whiterock said:Sam Lowry said:One straw man after another. No, obviously we did not create all opposition parties in all countries.whiterock said:There you go with the conspiracy again.Sam Lowry said:There you go with the conspiracy theories again. No one is attributing omniscience to the US. We did a lot more than just speak to the opposition, though. We essentially created them and gave them the green light by signaling our continued support.whiterock said:Sweet Jesus, Sam has gone thru the rabbit hole of Third World Think = The USG is omniscient and omnipotent, so if something significant happened, by definition the USG either sponsored or allowed it.ATL Bear said:This is a complete fabrication and false alignment of events. It's not even worth rehashing because I've dealt with each point independently, and shown where it doesn't fit with the events. Now you're parsing the Nuland phone call, which was a Russian intel op by the way, and going hook line and sinker there with wild inferences.Sam Lowry said:
A coup mechanism is any mechanism that one uses to accomplish a coup. The rest is just you trying to define away the issue.
I've drawn you a straight line from our early support of right-wing extremists, to their resurgence after the Cold War with our help, to their key role in Maidan. Nuland met with the leader of Svoboda in December 2013 (she wasn't just there to serve sandwiches) and again a week before the government collapsed. We don't have to speculate about why they met because we have direct evidence in the form of her taped conversation. We know that, contrary to the agreement with Yanukovych, the US was pushing for total regime change with the "Big Three" as a replacement. This was far from mere advocacy, considering how dependent these would-be rulers were on our support. It was a signal of what we would do going forward and what kind of success they could expect if they kept the pressure on.
Not every counter policy opinion or effort is a coup mechanism.
Reality is this: Ambassadors all over the world talk to opposition party leaders all the time. it's their job. Those opposition leaders might win an election someday. They might win a coup some day. Better to know them than not.
And IF the USG is going to engage in hanky panky with an opposition leader/party, it's damned sure not going to do it with an Ambassador. LOLOLOLOL. I mean, what the heck does Sam think the CIA is used for? In the exceedingly rare instances when such does happen, you keep your Ambassador as far away from it as possible = plausible deniability.
Mercy sakes Ukraine has totally discombobulated poor Sam.
Thi
And LOL at "what is the CIA used for?" No doubt the Nuland call is just the tip of the iceberg. We all know what the CIA does, but try getting ATL to admit it.
Don't opposition parties exist in all democratic countries? (Yes). Did we create ALL of those, too? (No). Didn't Ukrainian elections show swings from one party to the other? (Yes). So isn't it in fact true that there has been a Ukrainian opposition party in existence continuously since independence from the USSR? (Obviously).
You are making shyte up to support a predetermined conclusion.
I didn't create any strawmen, just torched yours by illustrating that your example is unremarkable given that what you cited is a core function of diplomacy and done everywhere.
We created neither a Ukrainian opposition, nor a coup to depose a Ukrainian regime.
you might want to do a bit of research on this before posting furtherKaiBear said:J.R. said:They call them Army Rangers now.KaiBear said:J.R. said:Wow, she sounds fascinating . That is one balsy lady. My good son is a Green Beret and we have no idea where he is and havent' for 6 months.whiterock said:For six months after Putin invaded Ukraine, my daughter was C/OPs at a US AF base in Germany and kept several squadrons of fully armed F-16's in the air flying CAPs over Romania & the Black Sea (playing bump & nudge with Russian fighters). Because of that deployment, her base had to bring in squadrons of two additional airframes: F-15s to do the CAPs over Germany (what had previously been the mission of the F-16s), and KC-130 tankers to refuel everything. She had to not only refuel, resupply, and maintain the F-16s deployed to Romania, but also open up two entire supply chains for the new aircraft: new hangars, new supply depots, additional fueling storage and stations, additional maintenance yards, etc..... We're talking 600x fuel usage over pre-invasion levels (and all other supply metrics showing similar jumps). It was 24/7, 7 days a week 31 days a month, no leave & little sleep kind of duty. She did a quick rotate back to Pentagon for a year (hated it) and took the option of early enrollment at the C&GS school, which is wrapping up soon. In June, she takes over command of a "mobility unit" in Italy. Wife and I will likely go over to attend the ceremony. "Mobility Units" are theater rather than base specific. Meaning she will not serve the base but rather front line units on deployment.KaiBear said:whiterock said:KaiBear said:whiterock said:As long as Nato keeps sending Ammo, Ukrainians will keep killing Russians, who are in a condition not much better than the Ukrainians.....KaiBear said:whiterock said:This war can go on for years, and likely will until well after Trump is inaugurated. And if Trump does indeed follow up on his statement about a "lend/lease" to Ukraine, Russia will be in a world of hurt. They are stretched to the breaking point. We start building bases in Finland and Sweden, increasing troop deployments to the Baltics, and loading Ukraine up on arty rounds & long-range missiles....Russia will have to sue for peace.KaiBear said:
NATO is a shell.
There is zero willingness of any of the NATO populations to fight and die for Ukraine or even other each other.
The manicheanism of "zero/any" renders this statement flatly untrue. Not true of Finland or Sweden. Not true of the Baltics. Nor is it true of Poland, or Romania. And the numbers jump if we talk about further Russian encroachments.
The combat readiness of almost every NATO country is non existent.
again, more manicheanism. The militaries are smaller than they should be, and in aggregate the level of readiness is subpar, but there are several nations who have very capable armies that are far more capable than the Russians.
Ukraine is running out of resources; especially in manpower .
Ukraine is running out of ammo. They have enough men to soldier on for years.
Meanwhile Russia's infrastructure has barely been touched .
The vaunted economic sanctions a complete joke.
Flatly untrue. Russia is sending 70-year old tanks to the front, borrowing-back ammo it gave to North Korea 70 years ago. Russia is unable to replace mechanized vehicles or arty tubes at the rate it's burning it up.
The false dilemma you've created here is one of expectations - that economic sanctions which do not crater a country's eonomy have no value. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sanctions drive up the cost of doing business, and afford diplomats more things to negotiate over. They can cripple key sectors of the economy, and have done so specifically on weapons & ordnance to great effect.
By any measure Russia is winning this war and as a result Ukraine needs to reach an accord while they still can salvage their sovereignty.
Russia is making small, tactical gains in some sectors, after having suffered several months of tactical losses in some sectors, which was preceded by a prior period of some tactical gains, which of course was prefaced by some significant tactical losses.
You are nuts.
Ukraine can't endure continued infrastructure and manpower losses for years .
They are barely holding on now.
And your hero Trump is never going to be president again.
His latest political gaffe will be followed by even more erratic ones as Election Day approaches.A
Wars of attrition are ugly things.
No it's just entertainment to goofs like you.
I have a daughter on the front-line of the conflict and would very much prefer she avoid combat, which will be far less likely if we push ahead and help Ukraine finish the job.
A bloodletting that Biden help bring on.
Agreed.
And money can NOT replace dead soldiers.
That is a reciprocal equation. Russia is losing soldiers at a rate greater than their numerical advantage.
Russia has far deeper reserves. Far deeper pools of manpower.
Which they cannot tap due to having to defend a far larger geographic footprint, AND to avoid political destabilization in core Russian demographic areas.
This war is either going to end via a diplomatic settlement or a rapid of the Ukrainian army within the next 14 months.
14 months is a good guess. I would put it closer to 24 months. Everyone wants to see what Trump will do. Those who think he's going to hand Ukraine over to Putin are going to be sorely disappointed.
Bull****
How exactly do you have a daughter on the 'front line' of the Russia Ukraine battlefield ?
See below
Dude
Trump is not going to be president .
You might be right. But a lot of people made fools of themselves in 2016 saying exactly that, so I advise a little more hedging.
Why would the Dems ' steal the election' in 2020 only to play nice in 2024 ?
Discussed before. It's only viable to steal a close election, 3pts margins or less. Any more than that, and the math starts to highlight rather than obscure the funny business. That's why Dems are panicking. Biden is down nationally, and down well-outside the 3pt range in enough swing states to make fraud non-viable. That's why you hear Trump talking about winning big......to overwhelm the fraud.
Besides Trump is continually verbally self destructive.
He's going to scare the living **** out of independent voters right into Biden's camp.
Fact is, right now he's winning them comfortably. That's because Biden is scaring the **** out of them even more. And it's not likely to change.
All that's to say she's already been on the ramparts to deter Russian decisionmaking. For the next two years, if Nato does end up engaged, under whatever scenario that may entail, she will be responsible for pushing troop units, artillery pieces, weapons systems, ammo for all the foregoing, MREs, uniforms, mobile hospital units, etc.....downrange to the center of the Nato line. She had in mind becoming an Africanist (she remembers living there). But timing is what it is and she was in the right place at the right time and now will likely be climbing the Nato mission ladder for the rest of her career.
The most obvious way to keep her from dodging Russian missiles is to win the damned war in Ukraine. Any other outcome increases the risk to her, and all the other sons & daughters in uniform, who are on war footing as we debate this. It's hard to understand how smart people can work so hard to avoid seeing such an obvious reality staring them in the face. The costs of finishing the job in Ukraine are nominal compared to the costs of dealing with a loss.
Good information.
Didn't realize the Green Berets were still active units .
But if so, they are almost always in the **** .
Army Rangers go back to WW2.
Not positive, but I believe it was under the Obama administration that the Green Berets might have been inactivated.
that part in bold bears repeating.ATL Bear said:Well, at least I understand where the fantasy derives. The same inanity of Jan 6 as a coup is now being projected on the US in Ukraine.Sam Lowry said:What you've done over and over again is try to deny the facts instead of saying what you really mean -- that overthrowing Yanukovych was a good idea and there was nothing wrong with our involvement. It reminds me of when you fought tooth and nail to prove non-existent violations of Iran's nuclear agreement, and when that didn't work you finally broke down and admitted you didn't want the deal to succeed because it would give the regime too much credibility. At some point you became so convinced by your own rhetoric that you lost the distinction between "negotiations failed" and "I hope they fail."ATL Bear said:Asked and answered over and over again. It's in this very thread. I'm not wasting any more time on an errant fantasy.Sam Lowry said:More conclusory statements and rhetoric, still no effort to refute the pertinent facts.ATL Bear said:You're not presenting facts. You're inventing narratives. It's like trying to convince a child there is no Santa Claus.Sam Lowry said:None of the facts are in serious dispute. I imagine it is hard to debate when your only rebuttal is "nuh-UHHH!"ATL Bear said:It's frankly hard to debate because as you and I both know Sam and others in here project capabilities and actions on people and events that are so far removed from the possibility of occurring it's borderline fantasy.whiterock said:Sweet Jesus, Sam has gone thru the rabbit hole of Third World Think = The USG is omniscient and omnipotent, so if something significant happened, by definition the USG either sponsored or allowed it.ATL Bear said:This is a complete fabrication and false alignment of events. It's not even worth rehashing because I've dealt with each point independently, and shown where it doesn't fit with the events. Now you're parsing the Nuland phone call, which was a Russian intel op by the way, and going hook line and sinker there with wild inferences.Sam Lowry said:
A coup mechanism is any mechanism that one uses to accomplish a coup. The rest is just you trying to define away the issue.
I've drawn you a straight line from our early support of right-wing extremists, to their resurgence after the Cold War with our help, to their key role in Maidan. Nuland met with the leader of Svoboda in December 2013 (she wasn't just there to serve sandwiches) and again a week before the government collapsed. We don't have to speculate about why they met because we have direct evidence in the form of her taped conversation. We know that, contrary to the agreement with Yanukovych, the US was pushing for total regime change with the "Big Three" as a replacement. This was far from mere advocacy, considering how dependent these would-be rulers were on our support. It was a signal of what we would do going forward and what kind of success they could expect if they kept the pressure on.
Not every counter policy opinion or effort is a coup mechanism.
Reality is this: Ambassadors all over the world talk to opposition party leaders all the time. it's their job. Those opposition leaders might win an election someday. They might win a coup some day. Better to know them than not.
And IF the USG is going to engage in hanky panky with an opposition leader/party, it's damned sure not going to do it with an Ambassador. LOLOLOLOL. I mean, what the heck does Sam think the CIA is used for? In the exceedingly rare instances when such does happen, you keep your Ambassador as far away from it as possible = plausible deniability.
Mercy sakes Ukraine has totally discombobulated poor Sam.
Thi
I suspect the same thing is going on when you try to argue that supporting a coup isn't really supporting a coup unless it involves quasi-military tactics. Under most circumstances this is obviously not something an intelligent person would say. Try using it as a defense in the seditious conspiracy cases that arose from J6, for example. But you've lost the distinction between "it didn't happen" and "it was a good thing." You may have even convinced yourself it wasn't a coup at all but rather a mostly peaceful transfer of power and a victory for free speech. Never mind that the former government was peacefully elected and the new one forcibly imposed, leading to civil war with a large part of the country which didn't want it.
That's the kind of fantasy our government sells in the guise of promoting "democracy." If nothing else I hope you'll take time to ask yourself why you're afraid to own it.
Maybe I've been around enough coups to recognize that if we did try it in Ukraine it wouldn't have looked anything like what occurred. In fact, Yanukovych would have had to have been a part of it to even play out like it did because of the time frames involved. You're now taking US support of the protesters cause as the coup. That's simple absurdity. Then you go down paths of Nazi threats, and other RU propaganda ops as your basis. Coups don't require military action, but they do require a coordinated strategy, not the association of random unrelated circumstances. The latter is how propaganda is built.
And I have no recollection of that Iran conclusion. You may be confusing me with another poster.
One does not engineer a coup by sending crowds into the street to overwhelm the police. That is by definition a popular uprising.
Meanwhile, in NATOs largest military...
"Diversity management calls for creating a culture of inclusion in which the diversity … shapes how the work is done. … Although good diversity management rests on a foundation of fair treatment, it is not about treating everyone the same. This can be a difficult concept to grasp, especially for leaders who grew up with the EO-inspired mandate to be both color and gender blind. Blindness to difference, however, can lead to a culture of assimilation in which differences are suppressed rather than leveraged. Cultural assimilation, a key to military effectiveness in the past, will be challenged as inclusion becomes, and needs to become, the norm."
The statement is from the 2011 report of the commission on "Military Leadership Diversity.
The message is clear: if you are a straight white (or Asian) male and join up, you will be permitted to be shot for America when a feminazi or ****** orders you to the eastern front, but don't plan on things like leadership, promotion, or career development being part of your future.
Orwell would be proud.
"Diversity management calls for creating a culture of inclusion in which the diversity … shapes how the work is done. … Although good diversity management rests on a foundation of fair treatment, it is not about treating everyone the same. This can be a difficult concept to grasp, especially for leaders who grew up with the EO-inspired mandate to be both color and gender blind. Blindness to difference, however, can lead to a culture of assimilation in which differences are suppressed rather than leveraged. Cultural assimilation, a key to military effectiveness in the past, will be challenged as inclusion becomes, and needs to become, the norm."
The statement is from the 2011 report of the commission on "Military Leadership Diversity.
The message is clear: if you are a straight white (or Asian) male and join up, you will be permitted to be shot for America when a feminazi or ****** orders you to the eastern front, but don't plan on things like leadership, promotion, or career development being part of your future.
Orwell would be proud.
Sam Lowry said:I've documented it with sources from our own CIA and NED, among others. You're sticking with "deniability," in other words lies. No surprises there.whiterock said:Sam Lowry said:One straw man after another. No, obviously we did not create all opposition parties in all countries.whiterock said:There you go with the conspiracy again.Sam Lowry said:There you go with the conspiracy theories again. No one is attributing omniscience to the US. We did a lot more than just speak to the opposition, though. We essentially created them and gave them the green light by signaling our continued support.whiterock said:Sweet Jesus, Sam has gone thru the rabbit hole of Third World Think = The USG is omniscient and omnipotent, so if something significant happened, by definition the USG either sponsored or allowed it.ATL Bear said:This is a complete fabrication and false alignment of events. It's not even worth rehashing because I've dealt with each point independently, and shown where it doesn't fit with the events. Now you're parsing the Nuland phone call, which was a Russian intel op by the way, and going hook line and sinker there with wild inferences.Sam Lowry said:
A coup mechanism is any mechanism that one uses to accomplish a coup. The rest is just you trying to define away the issue.
I've drawn you a straight line from our early support of right-wing extremists, to their resurgence after the Cold War with our help, to their key role in Maidan. Nuland met with the leader of Svoboda in December 2013 (she wasn't just there to serve sandwiches) and again a week before the government collapsed. We don't have to speculate about why they met because we have direct evidence in the form of her taped conversation. We know that, contrary to the agreement with Yanukovych, the US was pushing for total regime change with the "Big Three" as a replacement. This was far from mere advocacy, considering how dependent these would-be rulers were on our support. It was a signal of what we would do going forward and what kind of success they could expect if they kept the pressure on.
Not every counter policy opinion or effort is a coup mechanism.
Reality is this: Ambassadors all over the world talk to opposition party leaders all the time. it's their job. Those opposition leaders might win an election someday. They might win a coup some day. Better to know them than not.
And IF the USG is going to engage in hanky panky with an opposition leader/party, it's damned sure not going to do it with an Ambassador. LOLOLOLOL. I mean, what the heck does Sam think the CIA is used for? In the exceedingly rare instances when such does happen, you keep your Ambassador as far away from it as possible = plausible deniability.
Mercy sakes Ukraine has totally discombobulated poor Sam.
Thi
And LOL at "what is the CIA used for?" No doubt the Nuland call is just the tip of the iceberg. We all know what the CIA does, but try getting ATL to admit it.
Don't opposition parties exist in all democratic countries? (Yes). Did we create ALL of those, too? (No). Didn't Ukrainian elections show swings from one party to the other? (Yes). So isn't it in fact true that there has been a Ukrainian opposition party in existence continuously since independence from the USSR? (Obviously).
You are making shyte up to support a predetermined conclusion.
I didn't create any strawmen, just torched yours by illustrating that your example is unremarkable given that what you cited is a core function of diplomacy and done everywhere.
We created neither a Ukrainian opposition, nor a coup to depose a Ukrainian regime.
It's that time again:
**** Nuland
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” (The Law, p.6) Frederic Bastiat
LOLOLOLOL!!!whiterock said:that part in bold bears repeating.ATL Bear said:Well, at least I understand where the fantasy derives. The same inanity of Jan 6 as a coup is now being projected on the US in Ukraine.Sam Lowry said:What you've done over and over again is try to deny the facts instead of saying what you really mean -- that overthrowing Yanukovych was a good idea and there was nothing wrong with our involvement. It reminds me of when you fought tooth and nail to prove non-existent violations of Iran's nuclear agreement, and when that didn't work you finally broke down and admitted you didn't want the deal to succeed because it would give the regime too much credibility. At some point you became so convinced by your own rhetoric that you lost the distinction between "negotiations failed" and "I hope they fail."ATL Bear said:Asked and answered over and over again. It's in this very thread. I'm not wasting any more time on an errant fantasy.Sam Lowry said:More conclusory statements and rhetoric, still no effort to refute the pertinent facts.ATL Bear said:You're not presenting facts. You're inventing narratives. It's like trying to convince a child there is no Santa Claus.Sam Lowry said:None of the facts are in serious dispute. I imagine it is hard to debate when your only rebuttal is "nuh-UHHH!"ATL Bear said:It's frankly hard to debate because as you and I both know Sam and others in here project capabilities and actions on people and events that are so far removed from the possibility of occurring it's borderline fantasy.whiterock said:Sweet Jesus, Sam has gone thru the rabbit hole of Third World Think = The USG is omniscient and omnipotent, so if something significant happened, by definition the USG either sponsored or allowed it.ATL Bear said:This is a complete fabrication and false alignment of events. It's not even worth rehashing because I've dealt with each point independently, and shown where it doesn't fit with the events. Now you're parsing the Nuland phone call, which was a Russian intel op by the way, and going hook line and sinker there with wild inferences.Sam Lowry said:
A coup mechanism is any mechanism that one uses to accomplish a coup. The rest is just you trying to define away the issue.
I've drawn you a straight line from our early support of right-wing extremists, to their resurgence after the Cold War with our help, to their key role in Maidan. Nuland met with the leader of Svoboda in December 2013 (she wasn't just there to serve sandwiches) and again a week before the government collapsed. We don't have to speculate about why they met because we have direct evidence in the form of her taped conversation. We know that, contrary to the agreement with Yanukovych, the US was pushing for total regime change with the "Big Three" as a replacement. This was far from mere advocacy, considering how dependent these would-be rulers were on our support. It was a signal of what we would do going forward and what kind of success they could expect if they kept the pressure on.
Not every counter policy opinion or effort is a coup mechanism.
Reality is this: Ambassadors all over the world talk to opposition party leaders all the time. it's their job. Those opposition leaders might win an election someday. They might win a coup some day. Better to know them than not.
And IF the USG is going to engage in hanky panky with an opposition leader/party, it's damned sure not going to do it with an Ambassador. LOLOLOLOL. I mean, what the heck does Sam think the CIA is used for? In the exceedingly rare instances when such does happen, you keep your Ambassador as far away from it as possible = plausible deniability.
Mercy sakes Ukraine has totally discombobulated poor Sam.
Thi
I suspect the same thing is going on when you try to argue that supporting a coup isn't really supporting a coup unless it involves quasi-military tactics. Under most circumstances this is obviously not something an intelligent person would say. Try using it as a defense in the seditious conspiracy cases that arose from J6, for example. But you've lost the distinction between "it didn't happen" and "it was a good thing." You may have even convinced yourself it wasn't a coup at all but rather a mostly peaceful transfer of power and a victory for free speech. Never mind that the former government was peacefully elected and the new one forcibly imposed, leading to civil war with a large part of the country which didn't want it.
That's the kind of fantasy our government sells in the guise of promoting "democracy." If nothing else I hope you'll take time to ask yourself why you're afraid to own it.
Maybe I've been around enough coups to recognize that if we did try it in Ukraine it wouldn't have looked anything like what occurred. In fact, Yanukovych would have had to have been a part of it to even play out like it did because of the time frames involved. You're now taking US support of the protesters cause as the coup. That's simple absurdity. Then you go down paths of Nazi threats, and other RU propaganda ops as your basis. Coups don't require military action, but they do require a coordinated strategy, not the association of random unrelated circumstances. The latter is how propaganda is built.
And I have no recollection of that Iran conclusion. You may be confusing me with another poster.
One does not engineer a coup by sending crowds into the street to overwhelm the police. That is by definition a popular uprising.
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
Sam Lowry said:LOLOLOLOL!!!whiterock said:that part in bold bears repeating.ATL Bear said:Well, at least I understand where the fantasy derives. The same inanity of Jan 6 as a coup is now being projected on the US in Ukraine.Sam Lowry said:What you've done over and over again is try to deny the facts instead of saying what you really mean -- that overthrowing Yanukovych was a good idea and there was nothing wrong with our involvement. It reminds me of when you fought tooth and nail to prove non-existent violations of Iran's nuclear agreement, and when that didn't work you finally broke down and admitted you didn't want the deal to succeed because it would give the regime too much credibility. At some point you became so convinced by your own rhetoric that you lost the distinction between "negotiations failed" and "I hope they fail."ATL Bear said:Asked and answered over and over again. It's in this very thread. I'm not wasting any more time on an errant fantasy.Sam Lowry said:More conclusory statements and rhetoric, still no effort to refute the pertinent facts.ATL Bear said:You're not presenting facts. You're inventing narratives. It's like trying to convince a child there is no Santa Claus.Sam Lowry said:None of the facts are in serious dispute. I imagine it is hard to debate when your only rebuttal is "nuh-UHHH!"ATL Bear said:It's frankly hard to debate because as you and I both know Sam and others in here project capabilities and actions on people and events that are so far removed from the possibility of occurring it's borderline fantasy.whiterock said:Sweet Jesus, Sam has gone thru the rabbit hole of Third World Think = The USG is omniscient and omnipotent, so if something significant happened, by definition the USG either sponsored or allowed it.ATL Bear said:This is a complete fabrication and false alignment of events. It's not even worth rehashing because I've dealt with each point independently, and shown where it doesn't fit with the events. Now you're parsing the Nuland phone call, which was a Russian intel op by the way, and going hook line and sinker there with wild inferences.Sam Lowry said:
A coup mechanism is any mechanism that one uses to accomplish a coup. The rest is just you trying to define away the issue.
I've drawn you a straight line from our early support of right-wing extremists, to their resurgence after the Cold War with our help, to their key role in Maidan. Nuland met with the leader of Svoboda in December 2013 (she wasn't just there to serve sandwiches) and again a week before the government collapsed. We don't have to speculate about why they met because we have direct evidence in the form of her taped conversation. We know that, contrary to the agreement with Yanukovych, the US was pushing for total regime change with the "Big Three" as a replacement. This was far from mere advocacy, considering how dependent these would-be rulers were on our support. It was a signal of what we would do going forward and what kind of success they could expect if they kept the pressure on.
Not every counter policy opinion or effort is a coup mechanism.
Reality is this: Ambassadors all over the world talk to opposition party leaders all the time. it's their job. Those opposition leaders might win an election someday. They might win a coup some day. Better to know them than not.
And IF the USG is going to engage in hanky panky with an opposition leader/party, it's damned sure not going to do it with an Ambassador. LOLOLOLOL. I mean, what the heck does Sam think the CIA is used for? In the exceedingly rare instances when such does happen, you keep your Ambassador as far away from it as possible = plausible deniability.
Mercy sakes Ukraine has totally discombobulated poor Sam.
Thi
I suspect the same thing is going on when you try to argue that supporting a coup isn't really supporting a coup unless it involves quasi-military tactics. Under most circumstances this is obviously not something an intelligent person would say. Try using it as a defense in the seditious conspiracy cases that arose from J6, for example. But you've lost the distinction between "it didn't happen" and "it was a good thing." You may have even convinced yourself it wasn't a coup at all but rather a mostly peaceful transfer of power and a victory for free speech. Never mind that the former government was peacefully elected and the new one forcibly imposed, leading to civil war with a large part of the country which didn't want it.
That's the kind of fantasy our government sells in the guise of promoting "democracy." If nothing else I hope you'll take time to ask yourself why you're afraid to own it.
Maybe I've been around enough coups to recognize that if we did try it in Ukraine it wouldn't have looked anything like what occurred. In fact, Yanukovych would have had to have been a part of it to even play out like it did because of the time frames involved. You're now taking US support of the protesters cause as the coup. That's simple absurdity. Then you go down paths of Nazi threats, and other RU propaganda ops as your basis. Coups don't require military action, but they do require a coordinated strategy, not the association of random unrelated circumstances. The latter is how propaganda is built.
And I have no recollection of that Iran conclusion. You may be confusing me with another poster.
One does not engineer a coup by sending crowds into the street to overwhelm the police. That is by definition a popular uprising.
I agree. You are comically clueless
Ok, I agree with the coup part. But, your definition of "popular uprising" is just as humorous! Jan 6th was NOT a popular uprising, it was a riot. It was instigated and spurred on by the sitting President. It was neither popular or an uprising. It was a mob.Sam Lowry said:LOLOLOLOL!!!whiterock said:that part in bold bears repeating.ATL Bear said:Well, at least I understand where the fantasy derives. The same inanity of Jan 6 as a coup is now being projected on the US in Ukraine.Sam Lowry said:What you've done over and over again is try to deny the facts instead of saying what you really mean -- that overthrowing Yanukovych was a good idea and there was nothing wrong with our involvement. It reminds me of when you fought tooth and nail to prove non-existent violations of Iran's nuclear agreement, and when that didn't work you finally broke down and admitted you didn't want the deal to succeed because it would give the regime too much credibility. At some point you became so convinced by your own rhetoric that you lost the distinction between "negotiations failed" and "I hope they fail."ATL Bear said:Asked and answered over and over again. It's in this very thread. I'm not wasting any more time on an errant fantasy.Sam Lowry said:More conclusory statements and rhetoric, still no effort to refute the pertinent facts.ATL Bear said:You're not presenting facts. You're inventing narratives. It's like trying to convince a child there is no Santa Claus.Sam Lowry said:None of the facts are in serious dispute. I imagine it is hard to debate when your only rebuttal is "nuh-UHHH!"ATL Bear said:It's frankly hard to debate because as you and I both know Sam and others in here project capabilities and actions on people and events that are so far removed from the possibility of occurring it's borderline fantasy.whiterock said:Sweet Jesus, Sam has gone thru the rabbit hole of Third World Think = The USG is omniscient and omnipotent, so if something significant happened, by definition the USG either sponsored or allowed it.ATL Bear said:This is a complete fabrication and false alignment of events. It's not even worth rehashing because I've dealt with each point independently, and shown where it doesn't fit with the events. Now you're parsing the Nuland phone call, which was a Russian intel op by the way, and going hook line and sinker there with wild inferences.Sam Lowry said:
A coup mechanism is any mechanism that one uses to accomplish a coup. The rest is just you trying to define away the issue.
I've drawn you a straight line from our early support of right-wing extremists, to their resurgence after the Cold War with our help, to their key role in Maidan. Nuland met with the leader of Svoboda in December 2013 (she wasn't just there to serve sandwiches) and again a week before the government collapsed. We don't have to speculate about why they met because we have direct evidence in the form of her taped conversation. We know that, contrary to the agreement with Yanukovych, the US was pushing for total regime change with the "Big Three" as a replacement. This was far from mere advocacy, considering how dependent these would-be rulers were on our support. It was a signal of what we would do going forward and what kind of success they could expect if they kept the pressure on.
Not every counter policy opinion or effort is a coup mechanism.
Reality is this: Ambassadors all over the world talk to opposition party leaders all the time. it's their job. Those opposition leaders might win an election someday. They might win a coup some day. Better to know them than not.
And IF the USG is going to engage in hanky panky with an opposition leader/party, it's damned sure not going to do it with an Ambassador. LOLOLOLOL. I mean, what the heck does Sam think the CIA is used for? In the exceedingly rare instances when such does happen, you keep your Ambassador as far away from it as possible = plausible deniability.
Mercy sakes Ukraine has totally discombobulated poor Sam.
Thi
I suspect the same thing is going on when you try to argue that supporting a coup isn't really supporting a coup unless it involves quasi-military tactics. Under most circumstances this is obviously not something an intelligent person would say. Try using it as a defense in the seditious conspiracy cases that arose from J6, for example. But you've lost the distinction between "it didn't happen" and "it was a good thing." You may have even convinced yourself it wasn't a coup at all but rather a mostly peaceful transfer of power and a victory for free speech. Never mind that the former government was peacefully elected and the new one forcibly imposed, leading to civil war with a large part of the country which didn't want it.
That's the kind of fantasy our government sells in the guise of promoting "democracy." If nothing else I hope you'll take time to ask yourself why you're afraid to own it.
Maybe I've been around enough coups to recognize that if we did try it in Ukraine it wouldn't have looked anything like what occurred. In fact, Yanukovych would have had to have been a part of it to even play out like it did because of the time frames involved. You're now taking US support of the protesters cause as the coup. That's simple absurdity. Then you go down paths of Nazi threats, and other RU propaganda ops as your basis. Coups don't require military action, but they do require a coordinated strategy, not the association of random unrelated circumstances. The latter is how propaganda is built.
And I have no recollection of that Iran conclusion. You may be confusing me with another poster.
One does not engineer a coup by sending crowds into the street to overwhelm the police. That is by definition a popular uprising.
Geez, talk about spin! Popular uprising is as bad as insurrection, just other side of the spectrum...
Realitybites said:
Meanwhile, in NATOs largest military...
"Diversity management calls..
The message is clear: if you are a straight white (or Asian) male and join up, you will be permitted to be shot for America when a feminazi or ****** orders you to the eastern front, but don't plan on things like leadership, promotion, or career development being part of your future.
Orwell would be proud.
I have no idea who Whiterock (the rest of the pro-war posters) think they are going to get to fight Russia for them….
Military recruitment is going no where and no one wants to die for DC regime change wars
[Military families have soured on the military.
The % of military family members who would recommend service to their children dropped from 55% in 2016 to 32% in 2023.
Relatedly the military fell 41,000 recruits short of its 2023 goal & it is now at its smallest size since 1940.
I've been talking about this lately, but this is the first time I can recall seeing hard numbers. That's a massive drop! I found this June 2023 Wall Street Journal article discussing the crisis in-depth; if you don't have a WSJ subscription, I found this website where the entire text can be read for free. Excerpts:
Today, nearly 80% of all new Army recruits have a family member who has served in uniform, according to the service. That can be a good thing, said Col. Mark Crow, director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point, because "people who know the most about it stick around."
Depending too much on military families could create a "warrior caste," Wormuth said. Her plans seek to draw in people who have no real connection to the military and to broaden the appeal of service.
First, 80 percent of new Army recruits have a family member who serves?! That's massive! And yet, Joe Biden's Army Secretary, Christine Wormuth, is worried about a "warrior caste" being formed. Look, I can see the reason for concern that the same families, and network of families, carry the burden of the nation's war-fighting, but there is something natural in this. And in any case, it's so damned typical of a managerial liberal that they won't be happy until they have forced human nature to conform to a scheme. Do we really have the luxury of fretting about warrior castes when we can't get enough people from any family to sign up?
It's not only about wokeness, but about how the civilian and military leadership of the US has used and abused the armed forces in this century:
Sky Nisperos, who moved around the world as a military brat, said that as a teen she began to see the effect of her father's nearly dozen deployments and tours away from his family. Ernest Nisperos said he remembers being asleep when one of his kids jabbed him in the ribs to wake him. He put Sky's sister in a wrestling ankle lock before he realized he was back home.
"My sister and I would say, 'It's just drill sergeant-dad mode,' especially for the month he came back," Sky said.
Ernest Nisperos realized his deployments, which involved battle planning and top secret intelligence, were taking a toll. In 2019, after he returned from Afghanistan, he took the family to Disneyland. During the nightly fireworks extravaganza, he cowered in the fetal position while his family and "Toy Story" characters looked on.
Sky worried her father would end up like her grandfather, the military patriarch, who in the years since he retired from the Navy started to have what the family describes as flashbacks to his time in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005, sometimes yelling that he needed to take cover from a nonexistent attack.
Her father decided he didn't want that life for Sky and her two siblings.
… The sudden and unpopular conclusion to the war in Afghanistan in 2021 added to the disenchantment of some veterans, including Catalina Gasper, who served in the Navy. Gasper said she and her husband, who spent more than two decades in the Army, used to talk to their boys, now 7 and 10, about their future service, asking them if they wanted to be Navy SEALs.
In July 2019, on her last combat deployment to Afghanistan, she was stationed at a base in Kabul when the Taliban launched an attack. The blast battered Gasper's body and she was transported back to the U.S. for treatment and recovery.
She was left with lingering damage from a traumatic brain injury. She is sensitive to loud sounds and bright lights. She has recurrent dizziness and forgets words. She also has bad knees and herniated discs in her back.
The U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, precipitating Kabul's fall to the Taliban. "We're left with the gut-wrenching feeling of, 'What was it all for?' " she said.
She said she was a patriot but decided she would do everything she could to make sure her kids never enter the military. "I just don't see how it's sustainable if the machine keeps chewing up and spitting out" our young people, she said.
The cost of the Globalist American Empire is paid in part by families like the Gaspers and the Nisperoses. Then many of them come home and find that they've been fighting for a system that despises people who believe in the things they believe in, and a government that expects them to kill and die for its supposed national security interests overseas, but won't even defend its own southern border.]
Another drone strike by US-backed Ukrainian forces on the airbase housing Russia’s strategic nuclear fleet. Would’ve been nearly inconceivable a few years ago -- now barely makes a ripple pic.twitter.com/F8tssnDnX3
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 22, 2024
There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
Speaking of Hollywood (Moscow) mumbo jumbo.
Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
appreciate the response, but you're off on the facts. The West have no ultimatums. Putin did.
There was an agreement, but VY fled to Russia the very next day.
VY's party fully participated in the vote, both votes.
One question you didn't answer, if the plan had long been in place, why didn't Russia intel know? Russia publicly blames the west for all sorts of things, yet Putin said nothing about this until the protests.
And just so I understand, you believe we had this plan in place just in case VY went against everything he campaigned on?
I'm afraid you're off on the facts. The vote was 328-0 with 115 absent, if I recall correctly. The minimum required for removal was 338.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
appreciate the response, but you're off on the facts. The West have no ultimatums. Putin did.
There was an agreement, but VY fled to Russia the very next day.
VY's party fully participated in the vote, both votes.
One question you didn't answer, if the plan had long been in place, why didn't Russia intel know? Russia publicly blames the west for all sorts of things, yet Putin said nothing about this until the protests.
And just so I understand, you believe we had this plan in place just in case VY went against everything he campaigned on?
The "plan" was to have a government in Ukraine that complied with our wishes. If VY fit the bill, fine. If not, all other options were on the table.
That Russia may have had inroads to Ukrainian intelligence is no surprise. Of course we did too, and more so. The CIA reportedly even had an office in the headquarters of the SBU. No doubt Russia was aware of many of our activities. They could hardly fail to be after the events of the Orange Revolution. That doesn't mean they could stop us.
Sam Lowry said:I'm afraid you're off on the facts. The vote was 328-0 with 115 absent, if I recall correctly. The minimum required for removal was 338.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
appreciate the response, but you're off on the facts. The West have no ultimatums. Putin did.
There was an agreement, but VY fled to Russia the very next day.
VY's party fully participated in the vote, both votes.
One question you didn't answer, if the plan had long been in place, why didn't Russia intel know? Russia publicly blames the west for all sorts of things, yet Putin said nothing about this until the protests.
And just so I understand, you believe we had this plan in place just in case VY went against everything he campaigned on?
The "plan" was to have a government in Ukraine that complied with our wishes. If VY fit the bill, fine. If not, all other options were on the table.
That Russia may have had inroads to Ukrainian intelligence is no surprise. Of course we did too, and more so. The CIA reportedly even had an office in the headquarters of the SBU. No doubt Russia was aware of many of our activities. They could hardly fail to be after the events of the Orange Revolution. That doesn't mean they could stop us.
My mistake. Focused on basketball …. I meant "full opportunity" not participation. I do recall a majority of his party abstained. But the vote was unanimous.
Well, the "opportunity" was in a context where a mob had taken over the capital and VY had gone into hiding. Presumably that's why most of them didn't show up at all. I think half a dozen members were present and abstained.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:I'm afraid you're off on the facts. The vote was 328-0 with 115 absent, if I recall correctly. The minimum required for removal was 338.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
appreciate the response, but you're off on the facts. The West have no ultimatums. Putin did.
There was an agreement, but VY fled to Russia the very next day.
VY's party fully participated in the vote, both votes.
One question you didn't answer, if the plan had long been in place, why didn't Russia intel know? Russia publicly blames the west for all sorts of things, yet Putin said nothing about this until the protests.
And just so I understand, you believe we had this plan in place just in case VY went against everything he campaigned on?
The "plan" was to have a government in Ukraine that complied with our wishes. If VY fit the bill, fine. If not, all other options were on the table.
That Russia may have had inroads to Ukrainian intelligence is no surprise. Of course we did too, and more so. The CIA reportedly even had an office in the headquarters of the SBU. No doubt Russia was aware of many of our activities. They could hardly fail to be after the events of the Orange Revolution. That doesn't mean they could stop us.
My mistake. Focused on basketball …. I meant "full opportunity" not participation. I do recall a majority of his party abstained. But the vote was unanimous.
Sam Lowry said:Well, the "opportunity" was in a context where a mob had taken over the capital and VK had gone into hiding. Presumably that's why most of them didn't show up at all. I think half a dozen members were present and abstained.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:I'm afraid you're off on the facts. The vote was 328-0 with 115 absent, if I recall correctly. The minimum required for removal was 338.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
appreciate the response, but you're off on the facts. The West have no ultimatums. Putin did.
There was an agreement, but VY fled to Russia the very next day.
VY's party fully participated in the vote, both votes.
One question you didn't answer, if the plan had long been in place, why didn't Russia intel know? Russia publicly blames the west for all sorts of things, yet Putin said nothing about this until the protests.
And just so I understand, you believe we had this plan in place just in case VY went against everything he campaigned on?
The "plan" was to have a government in Ukraine that complied with our wishes. If VY fit the bill, fine. If not, all other options were on the table.
That Russia may have had inroads to Ukrainian intelligence is no surprise. Of course we did too, and more so. The CIA reportedly even had an office in the headquarters of the SBU. No doubt Russia was aware of many of our activities. They could hardly fail to be after the events of the Orange Revolution. That doesn't mean they could stop us.
My mistake. Focused on basketball …. I meant "full opportunity" not participation. I do recall a majority of his party abstained. But the vote was unanimous.
36 of his own deputies votes for his removal along with 100% of friendly parties.
If so I doubt it was because they were in cahoots with the Americans. They were effectively without a president at that point, and VY's future was obviously tenuous at best.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:Well, the "opportunity" was in a context where a mob had taken over the capital and VK had gone into hiding. Presumably that's why most of them didn't show up at all. I think half a dozen members were present and abstained.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:I'm afraid you're off on the facts. The vote was 328-0 with 115 absent, if I recall correctly. The minimum required for removal was 338.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
appreciate the response, but you're off on the facts. The West have no ultimatums. Putin did.
There was an agreement, but VY fled to Russia the very next day.
VY's party fully participated in the vote, both votes.
One question you didn't answer, if the plan had long been in place, why didn't Russia intel know? Russia publicly blames the west for all sorts of things, yet Putin said nothing about this until the protests.
And just so I understand, you believe we had this plan in place just in case VY went against everything he campaigned on?
The "plan" was to have a government in Ukraine that complied with our wishes. If VY fit the bill, fine. If not, all other options were on the table.
That Russia may have had inroads to Ukrainian intelligence is no surprise. Of course we did too, and more so. The CIA reportedly even had an office in the headquarters of the SBU. No doubt Russia was aware of many of our activities. They could hardly fail to be after the events of the Orange Revolution. That doesn't mean they could stop us.
My mistake. Focused on basketball …. I meant "full opportunity" not participation. I do recall a majority of his party abstained. But the vote was unanimous.
36 of his own deputies votes for his removal along with 100% of friendly parties.
Good grief, man. Now you're trying to suggest that WE are running out of manpower? Missing recruiting deadlines is not at all the same problem as available manpower pool.Redbrickbear said:Realitybites said:
Meanwhile, in NATOs largest military...
"Diversity management calls..
The message is clear: if you are a straight white (or Asian) male and join up, you will be permitted to be shot for America when a feminazi or ****** orders you to the eastern front, but don't plan on things like leadership, promotion, or career development being part of your future.
Orwell would be proud.
I have no idea who Whiterock (the rest of the pro-war posters) think they are going to get to fight Russia for them….
Military recruitment is going no where and no one wants to die for DC regime change wars
[Military families have soured on the military.
The % of military family members who would recommend service to their children dropped from 55% in 2016 to 32% in 2023.
Relatedly the military fell 41,000 recruits short of its 2023 goal & it is now at its smallest size since 1940.
I've been talking about this lately, but this is the first time I can recall seeing hard numbers. That's a massive drop! I found this June 2023 Wall Street Journal article discussing the crisis in-depth; if you don't have a WSJ subscription, I found this website where the entire text can be read for free. Excerpts:
Today, nearly 80% of all new Army recruits have a family member who has served in uniform, according to the service. That can be a good thing, said Col. Mark Crow, director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point, because "people who know the most about it stick around."
Depending too much on military families could create a "warrior caste," Wormuth said. Her plans seek to draw in people who have no real connection to the military and to broaden the appeal of service.
First, 80 percent of new Army recruits have a family member who serves?! That's massive! And yet, Joe Biden's Army Secretary, Christine Wormuth, is worried about a "warrior caste" being formed. Look, I can see the reason for concern that the same families, and network of families, carry the burden of the nation's war-fighting, but there is something natural in this. And in any case, it's so damned typical of a managerial liberal that they won't be happy until they have forced human nature to conform to a scheme. Do we really have the luxury of fretting about warrior castes when we can't get enough people from any family to sign up?
It's not only about wokeness, but about how the civilian and military leadership of the US has used and abused the armed forces in this century:
Sky Nisperos, who moved around the world as a military brat, said that as a teen she began to see the effect of her father's nearly dozen deployments and tours away from his family. Ernest Nisperos said he remembers being asleep when one of his kids jabbed him in the ribs to wake him. He put Sky's sister in a wrestling ankle lock before he realized he was back home.
"My sister and I would say, 'It's just drill sergeant-dad mode,' especially for the month he came back," Sky said.
Ernest Nisperos realized his deployments, which involved battle planning and top secret intelligence, were taking a toll. In 2019, after he returned from Afghanistan, he took the family to Disneyland. During the nightly fireworks extravaganza, he cowered in the fetal position while his family and "Toy Story" characters looked on.
Sky worried her father would end up like her grandfather, the military patriarch, who in the years since he retired from the Navy started to have what the family describes as flashbacks to his time in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005, sometimes yelling that he needed to take cover from a nonexistent attack.
Her father decided he didn't want that life for Sky and her two siblings.
… The sudden and unpopular conclusion to the war in Afghanistan in 2021 added to the disenchantment of some veterans, including Catalina Gasper, who served in the Navy. Gasper said she and her husband, who spent more than two decades in the Army, used to talk to their boys, now 7 and 10, about their future service, asking them if they wanted to be Navy SEALs.
In July 2019, on her last combat deployment to Afghanistan, she was stationed at a base in Kabul when the Taliban launched an attack. The blast battered Gasper's body and she was transported back to the U.S. for treatment and recovery.
She was left with lingering damage from a traumatic brain injury. She is sensitive to loud sounds and bright lights. She has recurrent dizziness and forgets words. She also has bad knees and herniated discs in her back.
The U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, precipitating Kabul's fall to the Taliban. "We're left with the gut-wrenching feeling of, 'What was it all for?' " she said.
She said she was a patriot but decided she would do everything she could to make sure her kids never enter the military. "I just don't see how it's sustainable if the machine keeps chewing up and spitting out" our young people, she said.
The cost of the Globalist American Empire is paid in part by families like the Gaspers and the Nisperoses. Then many of them come home and find that they've been fighting for a system that despises people who believe in the things they believe in, and a government that expects them to kill and die for its supposed national security interests overseas, but won't even defend its own southern border.]
And you still have not spotted the flaw in your Ukraine argument. Or maybe you did and launched of on a distraction ploy.
LOL it's like Russia was never there....completely erased from the picture!Bear8084 said:Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
Speaking of Hollywood (Moscow) mumbo jumbo.
whiterock said:Good grief, man. Now you're trying to suggest that WE are running out of manpower? Missing recruiting deadlines is not at all the same problem as available manpower pool.Redbrickbear said:Realitybites said:
Meanwhile, in NATOs largest military...
"Diversity management calls..
The message is clear: if you are a straight white (or Asian) male and join up, you will be permitted to be shot for America when a feminazi or ****** orders you to the eastern front, but don't plan on things like leadership, promotion, or career development being part of your future.
Orwell would be proud.
I have no idea who Whiterock (the rest of the pro-war posters) think they are going to get to fight Russia for them….
Military recruitment is going no where and no one wants to die for DC regime change wars
[Military families have soured on the military.
The % of military family members who would recommend service to their children dropped from 55% in 2016 to 32% in 2023.
Relatedly the military fell 41,000 recruits short of its 2023 goal & it is now at its smallest size since 1940.
I've been talking about this lately, but this is the first time I can recall seeing hard numbers. That's a massive drop! I found this June 2023 Wall Street Journal article discussing the crisis in-depth; if you don't have a WSJ subscription, I found this website where the entire text can be read for free. Excerpts:
Today, nearly 80% of all new Army recruits have a family member who has served in uniform, according to the service. That can be a good thing, said Col. Mark Crow, director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point, because "people who know the most about it stick around."
Depending too much on military families could create a "warrior caste," Wormuth said. Her plans seek to draw in people who have no real connection to the military and to broaden the appeal of service.
First, 80 percent of new Army recruits have a family member who serves?! That's massive! And yet, Joe Biden's Army Secretary, Christine Wormuth, is worried about a "warrior caste" being formed. Look, I can see the reason for concern that the same families, and network of families, carry the burden of the nation's war-fighting, but there is something natural in this. And in any case, it's so damned typical of a managerial liberal that they won't be happy until they have forced human nature to conform to a scheme. Do we really have the luxury of fretting about warrior castes when we can't get enough people from any family to sign up?
It's not only about wokeness, but about how the civilian and military leadership of the US has used and abused the armed forces in this century:
Sky Nisperos, who moved around the world as a military brat, said that as a teen she began to see the effect of her father's nearly dozen deployments and tours away from his family. Ernest Nisperos said he remembers being asleep when one of his kids jabbed him in the ribs to wake him. He put Sky's sister in a wrestling ankle lock before he realized he was back home.
"My sister and I would say, 'It's just drill sergeant-dad mode,' especially for the month he came back," Sky said.
Ernest Nisperos realized his deployments, which involved battle planning and top secret intelligence, were taking a toll. In 2019, after he returned from Afghanistan, he took the family to Disneyland. During the nightly fireworks extravaganza, he cowered in the fetal position while his family and "Toy Story" characters looked on.
Sky worried her father would end up like her grandfather, the military patriarch, who in the years since he retired from the Navy started to have what the family describes as flashbacks to his time in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005, sometimes yelling that he needed to take cover from a nonexistent attack.
Her father decided he didn't want that life for Sky and her two siblings.
… The sudden and unpopular conclusion to the war in Afghanistan in 2021 added to the disenchantment of some veterans, including Catalina Gasper, who served in the Navy. Gasper said she and her husband, who spent more than two decades in the Army, used to talk to their boys, now 7 and 10, about their future service, asking them if they wanted to be Navy SEALs.
In July 2019, on her last combat deployment to Afghanistan, she was stationed at a base in Kabul when the Taliban launched an attack. The blast battered Gasper's body and she was transported back to the U.S. for treatment and recovery.
She was left with lingering damage from a traumatic brain injury. She is sensitive to loud sounds and bright lights. She has recurrent dizziness and forgets words. She also has bad knees and herniated discs in her back.
The U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, precipitating Kabul's fall to the Taliban. "We're left with the gut-wrenching feeling of, 'What was it all for?' " she said.
She said she was a patriot but decided she would do everything she could to make sure her kids never enter the military. "I just don't see how it's sustainable if the machine keeps chewing up and spitting out" our young people, she said.
The cost of the Globalist American Empire is paid in part by families like the Gaspers and the Nisperoses. Then many of them come home and find that they've been fighting for a system that despises people who believe in the things they believe in, and a government that expects them to kill and die for its supposed national security interests overseas, but won't even defend its own southern border.]
I don't think I ever said we are running out of manpower.
We have 330 million people in the USA
Just pointing out that we have some serious problems had home with recruitment and military families are souring on the idea that their children should serve
...and we have had those kinds of problems before. and fixed them before.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Good grief, man. Now you're trying to suggest that WE are running out of manpower? Missing recruiting deadlines is not at all the same problem as available manpower pool.Redbrickbear said:Realitybites said:
Meanwhile, in NATOs largest military...
"Diversity management calls..
The message is clear: if you are a straight white (or Asian) male and join up, you will be permitted to be shot for America when a feminazi or ****** orders you to the eastern front, but don't plan on things like leadership, promotion, or career development being part of your future.
Orwell would be proud.
I have no idea who Whiterock (the rest of the pro-war posters) think they are going to get to fight Russia for them….
Military recruitment is going no where and no one wants to die for DC regime change wars
[Military families have soured on the military.
The % of military family members who would recommend service to their children dropped from 55% in 2016 to 32% in 2023.
Relatedly the military fell 41,000 recruits short of its 2023 goal & it is now at its smallest size since 1940.
I've been talking about this lately, but this is the first time I can recall seeing hard numbers. That's a massive drop! I found this June 2023 Wall Street Journal article discussing the crisis in-depth; if you don't have a WSJ subscription, I found this website where the entire text can be read for free. Excerpts:
Today, nearly 80% of all new Army recruits have a family member who has served in uniform, according to the service. That can be a good thing, said Col. Mark Crow, director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point, because "people who know the most about it stick around."
Depending too much on military families could create a "warrior caste," Wormuth said. Her plans seek to draw in people who have no real connection to the military and to broaden the appeal of service.
First, 80 percent of new Army recruits have a family member who serves?! That's massive! And yet, Joe Biden's Army Secretary, Christine Wormuth, is worried about a "warrior caste" being formed. Look, I can see the reason for concern that the same families, and network of families, carry the burden of the nation's war-fighting, but there is something natural in this. And in any case, it's so damned typical of a managerial liberal that they won't be happy until they have forced human nature to conform to a scheme. Do we really have the luxury of fretting about warrior castes when we can't get enough people from any family to sign up?
It's not only about wokeness, but about how the civilian and military leadership of the US has used and abused the armed forces in this century:
Sky Nisperos, who moved around the world as a military brat, said that as a teen she began to see the effect of her father's nearly dozen deployments and tours away from his family. Ernest Nisperos said he remembers being asleep when one of his kids jabbed him in the ribs to wake him. He put Sky's sister in a wrestling ankle lock before he realized he was back home.
"My sister and I would say, 'It's just drill sergeant-dad mode,' especially for the month he came back," Sky said.
Ernest Nisperos realized his deployments, which involved battle planning and top secret intelligence, were taking a toll. In 2019, after he returned from Afghanistan, he took the family to Disneyland. During the nightly fireworks extravaganza, he cowered in the fetal position while his family and "Toy Story" characters looked on.
Sky worried her father would end up like her grandfather, the military patriarch, who in the years since he retired from the Navy started to have what the family describes as flashbacks to his time in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005, sometimes yelling that he needed to take cover from a nonexistent attack.
Her father decided he didn't want that life for Sky and her two siblings.
… The sudden and unpopular conclusion to the war in Afghanistan in 2021 added to the disenchantment of some veterans, including Catalina Gasper, who served in the Navy. Gasper said she and her husband, who spent more than two decades in the Army, used to talk to their boys, now 7 and 10, about their future service, asking them if they wanted to be Navy SEALs.
In July 2019, on her last combat deployment to Afghanistan, she was stationed at a base in Kabul when the Taliban launched an attack. The blast battered Gasper's body and she was transported back to the U.S. for treatment and recovery.
She was left with lingering damage from a traumatic brain injury. She is sensitive to loud sounds and bright lights. She has recurrent dizziness and forgets words. She also has bad knees and herniated discs in her back.
The U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, precipitating Kabul's fall to the Taliban. "We're left with the gut-wrenching feeling of, 'What was it all for?' " she said.
She said she was a patriot but decided she would do everything she could to make sure her kids never enter the military. "I just don't see how it's sustainable if the machine keeps chewing up and spitting out" our young people, she said.
The cost of the Globalist American Empire is paid in part by families like the Gaspers and the Nisperoses. Then many of them come home and find that they've been fighting for a system that despises people who believe in the things they believe in, and a government that expects them to kill and die for its supposed national security interests overseas, but won't even defend its own southern border.]
I don't think I ever said we are running out of manpower.
We have 330 million people in the USA
Just pointing out that we have some serious problems had home with recruitment and military families are souring on the idea that their children should serve
such things wax and wane.
Note that you again dodged the Ukrainian part of my post.......(wink)
whiterock said:...and we have had those kinds of problems before. and fixed them before.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Good grief, man. Now you're trying to suggest that WE are running out of manpower? Missing recruiting deadlines is not at all the same problem as available manpower pool.Redbrickbear said:Realitybites said:
Meanwhile, in NATOs largest military...
"Diversity management calls..
The message is clear: if you are a straight white (or Asian) male and join up, you will be permitted to be shot for America when a feminazi or ****** orders you to the eastern front, but don't plan on things like leadership, promotion, or career development being part of your future.
Orwell would be proud.
I have no idea who Whiterock (the rest of the pro-war posters) think they are going to get to fight Russia for them….
Military recruitment is going no where and no one wants to die for DC regime change wars
[Military families have soured on the military.
The % of military family members who would recommend service to their children dropped from 55% in 2016 to 32% in 2023.
Relatedly the military fell 41,000 recruits short of its 2023 goal & it is now at its smallest size since 1940.
I've been talking about this lately, but this is the first time I can recall seeing hard numbers. That's a massive drop! I found this June 2023 Wall Street Journal article discussing the crisis in-depth; if you don't have a WSJ subscription, I found this website where the entire text can be read for free. Excerpts:
Today, nearly 80% of all new Army recruits have a family member who has served in uniform, according to the service. That can be a good thing, said Col. Mark Crow, director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point, because "people who know the most about it stick around."
Depending too much on military families could create a "warrior caste," Wormuth said. Her plans seek to draw in people who have no real connection to the military and to broaden the appeal of service.
First, 80 percent of new Army recruits have a family member who serves?! That's massive! And yet, Joe Biden's Army Secretary, Christine Wormuth, is worried about a "warrior caste" being formed. Look, I can see the reason for concern that the same families, and network of families, carry the burden of the nation's war-fighting, but there is something natural in this. And in any case, it's so damned typical of a managerial liberal that they won't be happy until they have forced human nature to conform to a scheme. Do we really have the luxury of fretting about warrior castes when we can't get enough people from any family to sign up?
It's not only about wokeness, but about how the civilian and military leadership of the US has used and abused the armed forces in this century:
Sky Nisperos, who moved around the world as a military brat, said that as a teen she began to see the effect of her father's nearly dozen deployments and tours away from his family. Ernest Nisperos said he remembers being asleep when one of his kids jabbed him in the ribs to wake him. He put Sky's sister in a wrestling ankle lock before he realized he was back home.
"My sister and I would say, 'It's just drill sergeant-dad mode,' especially for the month he came back," Sky said.
Ernest Nisperos realized his deployments, which involved battle planning and top secret intelligence, were taking a toll. In 2019, after he returned from Afghanistan, he took the family to Disneyland. During the nightly fireworks extravaganza, he cowered in the fetal position while his family and "Toy Story" characters looked on.
Sky worried her father would end up like her grandfather, the military patriarch, who in the years since he retired from the Navy started to have what the family describes as flashbacks to his time in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005, sometimes yelling that he needed to take cover from a nonexistent attack.
Her father decided he didn't want that life for Sky and her two siblings.
… The sudden and unpopular conclusion to the war in Afghanistan in 2021 added to the disenchantment of some veterans, including Catalina Gasper, who served in the Navy. Gasper said she and her husband, who spent more than two decades in the Army, used to talk to their boys, now 7 and 10, about their future service, asking them if they wanted to be Navy SEALs.
In July 2019, on her last combat deployment to Afghanistan, she was stationed at a base in Kabul when the Taliban launched an attack. The blast battered Gasper's body and she was transported back to the U.S. for treatment and recovery.
She was left with lingering damage from a traumatic brain injury. She is sensitive to loud sounds and bright lights. She has recurrent dizziness and forgets words. She also has bad knees and herniated discs in her back.
The U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, precipitating Kabul's fall to the Taliban. "We're left with the gut-wrenching feeling of, 'What was it all for?' " she said.
She said she was a patriot but decided she would do everything she could to make sure her kids never enter the military. "I just don't see how it's sustainable if the machine keeps chewing up and spitting out" our young people, she said.
The cost of the Globalist American Empire is paid in part by families like the Gaspers and the Nisperoses. Then many of them come home and find that they've been fighting for a system that despises people who believe in the things they believe in, and a government that expects them to kill and die for its supposed national security interests overseas, but won't even defend its own southern border.]
I don't think I ever said we are running out of manpower.
We have 330 million people in the USA
Just pointing out that we have some serious problems had home with recruitment and military families are souring on the idea that their children should serve
such things wax and wane.
Note that you again dodged the Ukrainian part of my post.......(wink)
What the Ukraine part?
You think they have enough men for a long protracted war?
The media is implying they do not….
Complete fabrication, at least prior to Euromaiden. And now you're pinning the Orange Revolution on the CIA? Amazing…Sam Lowry said:I'm afraid you're off on the facts. The vote was 328-0 with 115 absent, if I recall correctly. The minimum required for removal was 338.sombear said:Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
appreciate the response, but you're off on the facts. The West have no ultimatums. Putin did.
There was an agreement, but VY fled to Russia the very next day.
VY's party fully participated in the vote, both votes.
One question you didn't answer, if the plan had long been in place, why didn't Russia intel know? Russia publicly blames the west for all sorts of things, yet Putin said nothing about this until the protests.
And just so I understand, you believe we had this plan in place just in case VY went against everything he campaigned on?
The "plan" was to have a government in Ukraine that complied with our wishes. If VY fit the bill, fine. If not, all other options were on the table.
That Russia may have had inroads to Ukrainian intelligence is no surprise. Of course we did too, and more so. The CIA reportedly even had an office in the headquarters of the SBU. No doubt Russia was aware of many of our activities. They could hardly fail to be after the events of the Orange Revolution. That doesn't mean they could stop us.
If you knew anything about Operation Ajax, you would know why the Maiden uprising was not a CIA op.Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
And you are so down a fantastical rabbit hole of what was happening in Ukraine you're spitting straight lies now.
ATL Bear said:If you knew anything about Operation Ajax, you would know why the Maiden uprising was not a CIA op.Sam Lowry said:There's no reason to think VY was complicit. He would have liked an economic deal with both Europe and Russia. We were the ones who said it had to be one or the other. He made interim agreements with the opposition to stop the violence, which the US promised to help him do. When that didn't happen, he was forced to flee. We then arranged an illegal vote in parliament, which voted "unanimously" because none of VY's supporters were present. The mob was used as leverage, as in countless other cases (of all the CIA veterans in the world, our friend Whiterock is evidently the only one who's never heard of Operation Ajax).sombear said:
I'm still waiting for you to answer specific questions, but I'll throw some out again:
Was VY in on it?
If VY was not in on it, when did we know he was going to abruptly do a 180 on most of his campaign issues?
If VY was not in on it, how did we know he'd flee to Russia the day after reaching interim agreements with the opposition?
Why would we openly lobby VY (as our allies were doing and as Russia had been doing) and why would Nuland meet with VY and visit protestors of we were trying to secretly plan a coup?
How did we get around the Russian infiltration in Ukraine intel?
Why was Russia not providing evidence of our plan at the time? (Beyond the nothingburger Nuland call the Russians recorded.)
Did we buy/coerce every member of parliament that unanimously voted to oust VY?
How did we control the next two elections? (The "plan" would only make sense if we knew what was coming next, right?)
Why would the guy we "chose" lose to Zelensky? Was that part of our plan? Were we in fact grooming Zelensky while he was a comedian?!?!?!
The idea that every player was a conspirator or we knew everything that would happen next is Da Vinci Code style Hollywood mumbo-jumbo. We laid the groundwork with years of propaganda and election manipulation. When the opportunity appeared, we guided events in our direction. There was plenty of improvisation involved. That's how it works in reality.
Oh yea…Nuland and the Feds spent billions in Ukraine in the years leading up to it on sandwiches and gay pride events only…sure OK!!!
Since 1991 . . . And most of it spent early and half of which was military and 1/4 of which was direct economic assistance.