Doc Holliday said:

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whiterock said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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How many pro-hamas/anti-us rallies do you attend a week?

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You're the liberal internationalist on here…so you tell me.

I'm not interested in supporting either side of a Semitic blood fueled on the other side of the planet.

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The only thing you could point out liberal about me was I hurt your Russian feelings

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I only have American feelings there little guy

You should try putting America first for a change before some other foreign country like Ukraine or Israel

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you should try not putting Russia first......

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Name me one way I have ever "put Russia first"

Advocating for less wasteful spending and a more rational foreign policy is in the interest of America and the American people first and foremost

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Russia invades Ukraine to subsume it in entirety? It's the natural order of things.
We send help to Ukraine? it's empire!

The Maidan protests weren't caused by Russian interference in Ukrainian politics (to reject an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian Parliament that he'd promised for years to sign). Oh no. It was caused by interference from Victoria Nuland.

Yanukovich signs an agreement with the political opposition to end the Maiden, then flees the country. the Ukrainian Parliament then formally removes him from office and forms an interim government followed by elections. You describe the whole thing as a CIA-led coup d'etat.

I could go on a bit. Russia can do no wrong in Ukraine, and we have a moral obligation to let them.

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1. You assume the war is to "subsume" the entirely of Ukraine into Russia. For all we know its just a regime change operation to install a friendly government in Kyiv.

Not much different than the war DC waged in Iraq.

You don't see how to most countries in the world the actions of DC and Moscow seem very similar (invade who they want and over throw governments they don like)
The stated goal (see annexations) is to subsume parts of Ukraine. The obvious implicit goal, both from statements and actions, was to move the remnant of Ukraine toward Belarus status. And it is fairly obvious that Belarus is a client leaning toward return to Russian polity.

2. The Maidan protests of course had a native element to them (so do our own BLM protests) but the fact that you and others refuse to deal with the role of Victoria Nuland and the CIA/State Department in those protests just makes it seem like you don't want any criticism spoken of about ruling class. DC has spent billions on Ukraine to influence their internal political system (for good or bad)
Neither Nuland nor CIA organized unarmed crowds to fight police and paramilitary units for days. No evidence. There was no "leader" of that. Names please. What you completely ignore is that those leaderless crowds did not take power after Yanukovich fled. Nope. Yanukovich was removed and replaced by entirely constitutional processes.....by existing elected leadership in an interim unity coalition of elected parties. At literally every step of analysis, facts blow your presumption clean out of the water. There was no coup. There was no change in constitutional order. Just spontaneous riots when Yanukovich at the last minute (due to Russian meddling) refused to sign an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian parliament, a bill which had overwhelming public support, for years, a bill he'd made repeated promises to sign, in campaigns and in office.
It was RUSSIAN MEDDLING which caused the Maidan, not American meddling!

But no one ever said Russia was not active in Ukraine...hat is the whole point....Russia has always been there on the political level...its DC getting itself involved in the country that is new and outside our traditional area.
You keep issuing that platitude with studious indifference to the real world. We were involved at the breakup of the USSR, were we not? We were involved in the disposition of Ukranian nukes, were we not? We are a part of Nato, are we not? Ukraine is a strategic question for Nato, is it not? And on and on and on. Ukraine does not belong to Russia. It is a sovereign country recognized by the entire world.

3. I never said it was a completely thought up and executed CIA coup...Ukraine (like our own country was political-cultural divided) yet from the perspective of the ethic russians in the East of the country and the powers that be in Moscow that protest/coup in Kyiv was a massive seismic event in the internal politics of Ukraine.
Stop it with the motte & bailey. Your entire argument is premised on the idea that we orchestrated the Maidan. You say it just like you did above "the role of Nuland/CIA." Well, were their actions dispositive or not?

How many voters in the East of the country looked at what happened in Kyiv and said "well even when we vote our guy in they just use street thugs to throw him out"
about half. And Russia exploited that with little green men to destabilize the province, then invade it. Which of course, is our fault, according to you.

Example...lets say you were an average conservative American in flyover country and you watched as the BLM protesters drove Trump from power in summer of 2020 how would you feel? What if you then found out that the Chinese communists had been giving billions to Leftists NGOs and Leftists activist groups on the ground. What if Chinese politicians had flown into DC to give encouragement to the protestors? What if Chinese bureaucrats were seen on the streets handing out sweats?
The proper analog would be this: the MAGA movement drove Trump from power for NOT signing a bill that would fully fund the wall and build the infrastructure to conduct mass deportations like he promised, because the Mexico (controlled by drug cartels) paid him to balk at it. And then, after he left and RDS was sworn in and started actually building wall and deporting people, Mexico invaded to take New Mexico and Arizona. Yeah, the public would be pretty upset about that. People from all across the political spectrum would line up to go fight the Mexican Army and take back Arizona and New Mexico.

Would you come away from that bloody event thinking everything was on the up and up?
You are letting false premises lead you to sophomoric conclusions.

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A governing majority of Ukrainians wanted to join the EU. That number has risen, thanks the the Russian invasion of their country. It is in our interest that Ukraine belong to EU rather than some notional Russian equivalent. it is in our interest that Russians not have any more military bases in Ukraine. it is in our interest that if Ukraine cannot be non-aligned, that it is aligned with us rather than Russia. All very simple, obvious facts......

Ukraine has fought Russia to remain independent many times. We are not obligated to stand by and let them lose this one just because they've lost others. We are in fact obligated to do what is good for us. And a Ukraine aligned with us is good for us. That getting to that point involves destroying tens of thousands of tanks and arty tubes and killing a generation of Russians?.....well that is tens of thousands of tanks and tubes and a generation of Russian soldiers that we no longer have to plan to destroy in central Europe. That we will have to help rebuild Ukrainian cities rather than Baltic cities, Polish cities, Romanian cities, etc......that is an entirely noble endeavor. It's why we engage in alliance. To deter, and if necessary defeat threats.

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This 'good guys vs. bad guys' bs has got to stop. Its all bad guys.

We're not fighting to keep Ukraine independent. We're fighting to own them.

You have to fight for peace so the bankers can make $$ on the bombs and then loans to the country for the rebuild, and when they cant pay the debt, the bankers take the REAL ASSETS. Same playbook has been used for centuries. Warriors and fighters are being eliminated, resistance to the western machine is being culled on all fronts.

If Russia owns them, then oligarchs run the show, and there's a VERY TINY chance they are more powerful and become a marginally larger threat to Europe.

If the west owns them, we flood their country with anti Judeo-Christian immigrants and spread our woke dogma just like we've done all over Europe for quite some time now.

Lets just skip to the end and set aside $5 trillion, get directly involved in this war, avoid peace and spread the woke gospel as the American people continue to be wage slaves battling money printing to make this all possible.

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if we're going to get into cynical moral equivalence, then let's say it this way: better Ukraine be controlled by our oligarchs than the Russian oligarchs, since only former will prevent Russian armies from deploying along the Polish and Romanian borders.

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The endless weapons support to Ukraine has got to be hurting the our ability to deter China from invading Taiwan and win if a conflict with China did break out. Surely it will take a decade or so starting from now to develop the human capital and stockpiles, and now we have enormous competition for light/heavy metals, etc. Example Korea.

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Quote:

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career diplomats in authoritarian regimes are the proverbial tits on a boar.

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whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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trey3216 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation.

One China has been recognized under US policy since 1972.

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No it hasn't.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/2479

First line:

"Taiwan Relations Act - Declares it to be the policy of the United States to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, as well as the people on the China mainland and all other people of the Western Pacific area."


later:

"Stipulates that the absence of diplomatic relations with or recognition of Taiwan shall not affect U.S. laws relating to Taiwan. "

That is One China policy in the same way North Korea has a democratic republic.

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China and Russia only understand one thing, strength. They go about it different ways, but it is the same mentality, they will take as much as you give. They rely on the US and NATO playing the diplomatic, reasonable and want peace game. All the talk is just that talk, until you stop them from invading Nations, making islands in the S China Sea, stealing tech, and so on. This play nice and they will play nice what Putin and Xi are counting on.

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They understand diplomacy exponentially better than we do. Russia has some of the top diplomats in the world where we have mostly amateurs.

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I don't know if they have good diplomats...or if its more like other nations just want to trade with Russia for its natural resources.

But many other countries are sitting out this conflict

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Russian Diplomats Are Eating America's Lunch
By JAMES BRUNO
April 16, 2014

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is fairly typical. A graduate of the prestigious Moscow Institute for International Relations (known by its Russian acronym, MGIMO) and 42-year Foreign Ministry veteran, Lavrov speaks fluent English as well as Sinhalese, Dhiveli and French. A former U.S. ambassador who had dealt with Lavrov at the United Nations described him to me as disciplined, witty and charming, a diplomat so skilled "he runs rings around us in the multilateral sphere."

Russia has always taken diplomacy and its diplomats seriously. America, on the other hand, does not. Of this country's 28 diplomatic missions in NATO capitals (of which 26 are either currently filled by an ambassador or have nominees waiting to be confirmed), 16 are, or will be, headed by political appointees; only one ambassador to a major NATO ally, Turkey, is a career diplomat. Fourteen ambassadors got their jobs in return for raising big money for President Obama's election campaigns, or worked as his aides. A conservative estimate of personal and bundled donations by these fundraisers is $20 million (based on figures from the New York Times, Federal Election Commission and AllGov). The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, a former Microsoft executive, bundled more than $4.3 million.

By contrast, all but two of Moscow's ambassadors to NATO capitals are career diplomats. And the two Russian equivalents of political appointees (in Latvia and Slovakia) have 6 and 17 years of diplomatic experience respectively. The total number of years of diplomatic experience of Russia's 28 ambassadors to NATO nations is 960 years, averaging 34 years per incumbent. The cumulative years of relevant experience of America's ambassadors are 331, averaging 12 years per individual. Russia has 26 NATO ambassadors with 20-plus years of diplomatic service; the United States has 10. Furthermore, 16 American envoys have five years, or fewer, of diplomatic service. The figure for Russia: zero. Five U.S. NATO posts currently have no ambassador. None of Russia's is vacant. With Michael McFaul's departure in February, there is no U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the moment.

Domestically, the situation is equally worrisome. Three-quarters of the top policy and management positions at the State Department currently are occupied by non-diplomats, mainly Democratic Party activists or liberal think tankers. "Most are competent, but must pass an ideological test to be appointed," a former senior official who worked with Obama's appointees at State told me. "These positions," she added, "are handed out based on party connections and loyalty." In the hands of these decision-makers, all major foreign policy issues are viewed through an "ideological prism as opposed to an eye toward the long-term interests of the United States," she said. The White House's National Security Council staff, furthermore, has ballooned from about four dozen three decades ago to more than twice that today, a shift that has had the effect of concentrating power in the White House, and infusing key decisions with political calculations.

By contrast, the Russian Foreign Ministry is staffed top to bottom with career diplomats.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/russias-diplomats-are-better-than-ours-105773/

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So you trot out a 10 year old article that was written prior to Russia first invading Ukraine in 2014...and that's what you're rolling with? ? Length of diplomatic career?

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I'm sure this has some sort of relevance in your mind, but I can only guess what it would be.

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career diplomats in authoritarian regimes are the proverbial tits on a boar.

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trey3216 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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trey3216 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation.

One China has been recognized under US policy since 1972.

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No it hasn't.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/2479

First line:

"Taiwan Relations Act - Declares it to be the policy of the United States to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, as well as the people on the China mainland and all other people of the Western Pacific area."


later:

"Stipulates that the absence of diplomatic relations with or recognition of Taiwan shall not affect U.S. laws relating to Taiwan. "

That is One China policy in the same way North Korea has a democratic republic.

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China and Russia only understand one thing, strength. They go about it different ways, but it is the same mentality, they will take as much as you give. They rely on the US and NATO playing the diplomatic, reasonable and want peace game. All the talk is just that talk, until you stop them from invading Nations, making islands in the S China Sea, stealing tech, and so on. This play nice and they will play nice what Putin and Xi are counting on.

---

They understand diplomacy exponentially better than we do. Russia has some of the top diplomats in the world where we have mostly amateurs.

---

I don't know if they have good diplomats...or if its more like other nations just want to trade with Russia for its natural resources.

But many other countries are sitting out this conflict

---

Russian Diplomats Are Eating America's Lunch
By JAMES BRUNO
April 16, 2014

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is fairly typical. A graduate of the prestigious Moscow Institute for International Relations (known by its Russian acronym, MGIMO) and 42-year Foreign Ministry veteran, Lavrov speaks fluent English as well as Sinhalese, Dhiveli and French. A former U.S. ambassador who had dealt with Lavrov at the United Nations described him to me as disciplined, witty and charming, a diplomat so skilled "he runs rings around us in the multilateral sphere."

Russia has always taken diplomacy and its diplomats seriously. America, on the other hand, does not. Of this country's 28 diplomatic missions in NATO capitals (of which 26 are either currently filled by an ambassador or have nominees waiting to be confirmed), 16 are, or will be, headed by political appointees; only one ambassador to a major NATO ally, Turkey, is a career diplomat. Fourteen ambassadors got their jobs in return for raising big money for President Obama's election campaigns, or worked as his aides. A conservative estimate of personal and bundled donations by these fundraisers is $20 million (based on figures from the New York Times, Federal Election Commission and AllGov). The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, a former Microsoft executive, bundled more than $4.3 million.

By contrast, all but two of Moscow's ambassadors to NATO capitals are career diplomats. And the two Russian equivalents of political appointees (in Latvia and Slovakia) have 6 and 17 years of diplomatic experience respectively. The total number of years of diplomatic experience of Russia's 28 ambassadors to NATO nations is 960 years, averaging 34 years per incumbent. The cumulative years of relevant experience of America's ambassadors are 331, averaging 12 years per individual. Russia has 26 NATO ambassadors with 20-plus years of diplomatic service; the United States has 10. Furthermore, 16 American envoys have five years, or fewer, of diplomatic service. The figure for Russia: zero. Five U.S. NATO posts currently have no ambassador. None of Russia's is vacant. With Michael McFaul's departure in February, there is no U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the moment.

Domestically, the situation is equally worrisome. Three-quarters of the top policy and management positions at the State Department currently are occupied by non-diplomats, mainly Democratic Party activists or liberal think tankers. "Most are competent, but must pass an ideological test to be appointed," a former senior official who worked with Obama's appointees at State told me. "These positions," she added, "are handed out based on party connections and loyalty." In the hands of these decision-makers, all major foreign policy issues are viewed through an "ideological prism as opposed to an eye toward the long-term interests of the United States," she said. The White House's National Security Council staff, furthermore, has ballooned from about four dozen three decades ago to more than twice that today, a shift that has had the effect of concentrating power in the White House, and infusing key decisions with political calculations.

By contrast, the Russian Foreign Ministry is staffed top to bottom with career diplomats.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/russias-diplomats-are-better-than-ours-105773/

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So you trot out a 10 year old article that was written prior to Russia first invading Ukraine in 2014...and that's what you're rolling with? ? Length of diplomatic career?

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I'm sure this has some sort of relevance in your mind, but I can only guess what it would be.

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Only you could rejoice at the death of Kissinger and cum in your pants of over an article about Lavrov.

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whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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trey3216 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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ron.reagan said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

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Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation.

One China has been recognized under US policy since 1972.

---

No it hasn't.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/2479

First line:

"Taiwan Relations Act - Declares it to be the policy of the United States to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, as well as the people on the China mainland and all other people of the Western Pacific area."


later:

"Stipulates that the absence of diplomatic relations with or recognition of Taiwan shall not affect U.S. laws relating to Taiwan. "

That is One China policy in the same way North Korea has a democratic republic.

---

China and Russia only understand one thing, strength. They go about it different ways, but it is the same mentality, they will take as much as you give. They rely on the US and NATO playing the diplomatic, reasonable and want peace game. All the talk is just that talk, until you stop them from invading Nations, making islands in the S China Sea, stealing tech, and so on. This play nice and they will play nice what Putin and Xi are counting on.

---

They understand diplomacy exponentially better than we do. Russia has some of the top diplomats in the world where we have mostly amateurs.

---

I don't know if they have good diplomats...or if its more like other nations just want to trade with Russia for its natural resources.

But many other countries are sitting out this conflict

---

Russian Diplomats Are Eating America's Lunch
By JAMES BRUNO
April 16, 2014

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is fairly typical. A graduate of the prestigious Moscow Institute for International Relations (known by its Russian acronym, MGIMO) and 42-year Foreign Ministry veteran, Lavrov speaks fluent English as well as Sinhalese, Dhiveli and French. A former U.S. ambassador who had dealt with Lavrov at the United Nations described him to me as disciplined, witty and charming, a diplomat so skilled "he runs rings around us in the multilateral sphere."

Russia has always taken diplomacy and its diplomats seriously. America, on the other hand, does not. Of this country's 28 diplomatic missions in NATO capitals (of which 26 are either currently filled by an ambassador or have nominees waiting to be confirmed), 16 are, or will be, headed by political appointees; only one ambassador to a major NATO ally, Turkey, is a career diplomat. Fourteen ambassadors got their jobs in return for raising big money for President Obama's election campaigns, or worked as his aides. A conservative estimate of personal and bundled donations by these fundraisers is $20 million (based on figures from the New York Times, Federal Election Commission and AllGov). The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, a former Microsoft executive, bundled more than $4.3 million.

By contrast, all but two of Moscow's ambassadors to NATO capitals are career diplomats. And the two Russian equivalents of political appointees (in Latvia and Slovakia) have 6 and 17 years of diplomatic experience respectively. The total number of years of diplomatic experience of Russia's 28 ambassadors to NATO nations is 960 years, averaging 34 years per incumbent. The cumulative years of relevant experience of America's ambassadors are 331, averaging 12 years per individual. Russia has 26 NATO ambassadors with 20-plus years of diplomatic service; the United States has 10. Furthermore, 16 American envoys have five years, or fewer, of diplomatic service. The figure for Russia: zero. Five U.S. NATO posts currently have no ambassador. None of Russia's is vacant. With Michael McFaul's departure in February, there is no U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the moment.

Domestically, the situation is equally worrisome. Three-quarters of the top policy and management positions at the State Department currently are occupied by non-diplomats, mainly Democratic Party activists or liberal think tankers. "Most are competent, but must pass an ideological test to be appointed," a former senior official who worked with Obama's appointees at State told me. "These positions," she added, "are handed out based on party connections and loyalty." In the hands of these decision-makers, all major foreign policy issues are viewed through an "ideological prism as opposed to an eye toward the long-term interests of the United States," she said. The White House's National Security Council staff, furthermore, has ballooned from about four dozen three decades ago to more than twice that today, a shift that has had the effect of concentrating power in the White House, and infusing key decisions with political calculations.

By contrast, the Russian Foreign Ministry is staffed top to bottom with career diplomats.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/russias-diplomats-are-better-than-ours-105773/

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So you trot out a 10 year old article that was written prior to Russia first invading Ukraine in 2014...and that's what you're rolling with? ? Length of diplomatic career?

---

I'm sure this has some sort of relevance in your mind, but I can only guess what it would be.

---

career diplomats in authoritarian regimes are the proverbial tits on a boar.

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Senate Armed Services draft NDAA Summary that would require the registration of women for the draft. Also earlier today, the House approved automatic Selective Service registration for the first time since 1972 during the Vietnam War. Does anyone hear the drums of war and see… pic.twitter.com/No6cK7q4od

— Dennis Kucinich (@Dennis_Kucinich) June 14, 2024

Redbrickbear said:

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It's time to get the women into the fight again the dastardly russkies….

Senate Armed Services draft NDAA Summary that would require the registration of women for the draft. Also earlier today, the House approved automatic Selective Service registration for the first time since 1972 during the Vietnam War. Does anyone hear the drums of war and see… pic.twitter.com/No6cK7q4od

— Dennis Kucinich (@Dennis_Kucinich) June 14, 2024

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HERE ARE THE NAMES OF THE SLUTS FOR WAR WHO WANT TO CONSCRIPT YOUR DAUGHTERS FOR WWIII, BECAUSE THEY KNOW YOUR SONS WON’T BE ENOUGH TO SATISFY THEIR BLOOD LUST.

Jack Reed. D, RI
Jeanne Shaheen. D - NH
Kirsten E. Gillibrand. D - NY
Richard Blumenthal. D - CT
Mazie K. Hirono. D -… https://t.co/y3OKc58Ic6

— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) June 15, 2024

Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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How many pro-hamas/anti-us rallies do you attend a week?

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You're the liberal internationalist on here…so you tell me.

I'm not interested in supporting either side of a Semitic blood fueled on the other side of the planet.

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The only thing you could point out liberal about me was I hurt your Russian feelings

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I only have American feelings there little guy

You should try putting America first for a change before some other foreign country like Ukraine or Israel

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you should try not putting Russia first......

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Name me one way I have ever "put Russia first"

Advocating for less wasteful spending and a more rational foreign policy is in the interest of America and the American people first and foremost

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Russia invades Ukraine to subsume it in entirety? It's the natural order of things.
We send help to Ukraine? it's empire!

The Maidan protests weren't caused by Russian interference in Ukrainian politics (to reject an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian Parliament that he'd promised for years to sign). Oh no. It was caused by interference from Victoria Nuland.

Yanukovich signs an agreement with the political opposition to end the Maiden, then flees the country. the Ukrainian Parliament then formally removes him from office and forms an interim government followed by elections. You describe the whole thing as a CIA-led coup d'etat.

I could go on a bit. Russia can do no wrong in Ukraine, and we have a moral obligation to let them.

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1. You assume the war is to "subsume" the entirely of Ukraine into Russia. For all we know its just a regime change operation to install a friendly government in Kyiv.

Not much different than the war DC waged in Iraq.

You don't see how to most countries in the world the actions of DC and Moscow seem very similar (invade who they want and over throw governments they don like)
The stated goal (see annexations) is to subsume parts of Ukraine. The obvious implicit goal, both from statements and actions, was to move the remnant of Ukraine toward Belarus status. And it is fairly obvious that Belarus is a client leaning toward return to Russian polity.

2. The Maidan protests of course had a native element to them (so do our own BLM protests) but the fact that you and others refuse to deal with the role of Victoria Nuland and the CIA/State Department in those protests just makes it seem like you don't want any criticism spoken of about ruling class. DC has spent billions on Ukraine to influence their internal political system (for good or bad)
Neither Nuland nor CIA organized unarmed crowds to fight police and paramilitary units for days. No evidence. There was no "leader" of that. Names please. What you completely ignore is that those leaderless crowds did not take power after Yanukovich fled. Nope. Yanukovich was removed and replaced by entirely constitutional processes.....by existing elected leadership in an interim unity coalition of elected parties. At literally every step of analysis, facts blow your presumption clean out of the water. There was no coup. There was no change in constitutional order. Just spontaneous riots when Yanukovich at the last minute (due to Russian meddling) refused to sign an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian parliament, a bill which had overwhelming public support, for years, a bill he'd made repeated promises to sign, in campaigns and in office.
It was RUSSIAN MEDDLING which caused the Maidan, not American meddling!

But no one ever said Russia was not active in Ukraine...hat is the whole point....Russia has always been there on the political level...its DC getting itself involved in the country that is new and outside our traditional area.
You keep issuing that platitude with studious indifference to the real world. We were involved at the breakup of the USSR, were we not? We were involved in the disposition of Ukranian nukes, were we not? We are a part of Nato, are we not? Ukraine is a strategic question for Nato, is it not? And on and on and on. Ukraine does not belong to Russia. It is a sovereign country recognized by the entire world.

3. I never said it was a completely thought up and executed CIA coup...Ukraine (like our own country was political-cultural divided) yet from the perspective of the ethic russians in the East of the country and the powers that be in Moscow that protest/coup in Kyiv was a massive seismic event in the internal politics of Ukraine.
Stop it with the motte & bailey. Your entire argument is premised on the idea that we orchestrated the Maidan. You say it just like you did above "the role of Nuland/CIA." Well, were their actions dispositive or not?

How many voters in the East of the country looked at what happened in Kyiv and said "well even when we vote our guy in they just use street thugs to throw him out"
about half. And Russia exploited that with little green men to destabilize the province, then invade it. Which of course, is our fault, according to you.

Example...lets say you were an average conservative American in flyover country and you watched as the BLM protesters drove Trump from power in summer of 2020 how would you feel? What if you then found out that the Chinese communists had been giving billions to Leftists NGOs and Leftists activist groups on the ground. What if Chinese politicians had flown into DC to give encouragement to the protestors? What if Chinese bureaucrats were seen on the streets handing out sweats?
The proper analog would be this: the MAGA movement drove Trump from power for NOT signing a bill that would fully fund the wall and build the infrastructure to conduct mass deportations like he promised, because the Mexico (controlled by drug cartels) paid him to balk at it. And then, after he left and RDS was sworn in and started actually building wall and deporting people, Mexico invaded to take New Mexico and Arizona. Yeah, the public would be pretty upset about that. People from all across the political spectrum would line up to go fight the Mexican Army and take back Arizona and New Mexico.

Would you come away from that bloody event thinking everything was on the up and up?
You are letting false premises lead you to sophomoric conclusions.

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A governing majority of Ukrainians wanted to join the EU.

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So did Yanukovych. Just not on the predatory terms that we the Ukrainian parliament tried to dictate.

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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How many pro-hamas/anti-us rallies do you attend a week?

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You're the liberal internationalist on here…so you tell me.

I'm not interested in supporting either side of a Semitic blood fueled on the other side of the planet.

---

The only thing you could point out liberal about me was I hurt your Russian feelings

---

I only have American feelings there little guy

You should try putting America first for a change before some other foreign country like Ukraine or Israel

---

you should try not putting Russia first......

---

Name me one way I have ever "put Russia first"

Advocating for less wasteful spending and a more rational foreign policy is in the interest of America and the American people first and foremost

---

Russia invades Ukraine to subsume it in entirety? It's the natural order of things.
We send help to Ukraine? it's empire!

The Maidan protests weren't caused by Russian interference in Ukrainian politics (to reject an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian Parliament that he'd promised for years to sign). Oh no. It was caused by interference from Victoria Nuland.

Yanukovich signs an agreement with the political opposition to end the Maiden, then flees the country. the Ukrainian Parliament then formally removes him from office and forms an interim government followed by elections. You describe the whole thing as a CIA-led coup d'etat.

I could go on a bit. Russia can do no wrong in Ukraine, and we have a moral obligation to let them.

---

1. You assume the war is to "subsume" the entirely of Ukraine into Russia. For all we know its just a regime change operation to install a friendly government in Kyiv.

Not much different than the war DC waged in Iraq.

You don't see how to most countries in the world the actions of DC and Moscow seem very similar (invade who they want and over throw governments they don like)
The stated goal (see annexations) is to subsume parts of Ukraine. The obvious implicit goal, both from statements and actions, was to move the remnant of Ukraine toward Belarus status. And it is fairly obvious that Belarus is a client leaning toward return to Russian polity.

2. The Maidan protests of course had a native element to them (so do our own BLM protests) but the fact that you and others refuse to deal with the role of Victoria Nuland and the CIA/State Department in those protests just makes it seem like you don't want any criticism spoken of about ruling class. DC has spent billions on Ukraine to influence their internal political system (for good or bad)
Neither Nuland nor CIA organized unarmed crowds to fight police and paramilitary units for days. No evidence. There was no "leader" of that. Names please. What you completely ignore is that those leaderless crowds did not take power after Yanukovich fled. Nope. Yanukovich was removed and replaced by entirely constitutional processes.....by existing elected leadership in an interim unity coalition of elected parties. At literally every step of analysis, facts blow your presumption clean out of the water. There was no coup. There was no change in constitutional order. Just spontaneous riots when Yanukovich at the last minute (due to Russian meddling) refused to sign an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian parliament, a bill which had overwhelming public support, for years, a bill he'd made repeated promises to sign, in campaigns and in office.
It was RUSSIAN MEDDLING which caused the Maidan, not American meddling!

But no one ever said Russia was not active in Ukraine...hat is the whole point....Russia has always been there on the political level...its DC getting itself involved in the country that is new and outside our traditional area.
You keep issuing that platitude with studious indifference to the real world. We were involved at the breakup of the USSR, were we not? We were involved in the disposition of Ukranian nukes, were we not? We are a part of Nato, are we not? Ukraine is a strategic question for Nato, is it not? And on and on and on. Ukraine does not belong to Russia. It is a sovereign country recognized by the entire world.

3. I never said it was a completely thought up and executed CIA coup...Ukraine (like our own country was political-cultural divided) yet from the perspective of the ethic russians in the East of the country and the powers that be in Moscow that protest/coup in Kyiv was a massive seismic event in the internal politics of Ukraine.
Stop it with the motte & bailey. Your entire argument is premised on the idea that we orchestrated the Maidan. You say it just like you did above "the role of Nuland/CIA." Well, were their actions dispositive or not?

How many voters in the East of the country looked at what happened in Kyiv and said "well even when we vote our guy in they just use street thugs to throw him out"
about half. And Russia exploited that with little green men to destabilize the province, then invade it. Which of course, is our fault, according to you.

Example...lets say you were an average conservative American in flyover country and you watched as the BLM protesters drove Trump from power in summer of 2020 how would you feel? What if you then found out that the Chinese communists had been giving billions to Leftists NGOs and Leftists activist groups on the ground. What if Chinese politicians had flown into DC to give encouragement to the protestors? What if Chinese bureaucrats were seen on the streets handing out sweats?
The proper analog would be this: the MAGA movement drove Trump from power for NOT signing a bill that would fully fund the wall and build the infrastructure to conduct mass deportations like he promised, because the Mexico (controlled by drug cartels) paid him to balk at it. And then, after he left and RDS was sworn in and started actually building wall and deporting people, Mexico invaded to take New Mexico and Arizona. Yeah, the public would be pretty upset about that. People from all across the political spectrum would line up to go fight the Mexican Army and take back Arizona and New Mexico.

Would you come away from that bloody event thinking everything was on the up and up?
You are letting false premises lead you to sophomoric conclusions.

---

A governing majority of Ukrainians wanted to join the EU. That number has risen, thanks the the Russian invasion of their country. It is in our interest that Ukraine belong to EU rather than some notional Russian equivalent. it is in our interest that Russians not have any more military bases in Ukraine. it is in our interest that if Ukraine cannot be non-aligned, that it is aligned with us rather than Russia. All very simple, obvious facts......

Ukraine has fought Russia to remain independent many times. We are not obligated to stand by and let them lose this one just because they've lost others. We are in fact obligated to do what is good for us. And a Ukraine aligned with us is good for us. That getting to that point involves destroying tens of thousands of tanks and arty tubes and killing a generation of Russians?.....well that is tens of thousands of tanks and tubes and a generation of Russian soldiers that we no longer have to plan to destroy in central Europe. That we will have to help rebuild Ukrainian cities rather than Baltic cities, Polish cities, Romanian cities, etc......that is an entirely noble endeavor. It's why we engage in alliance. To deter, and if necessary defeat threats.

---

And we are not obligated to get involved.

Also its reasonable to believe that most Ukrainians in the central and western parts of the country have now become even MORE pro-Western in their views since the invasion.

But also reasonable to believe that the eastern part of the country (Donbas & Crimea) have become MORE pro-Moscow in its orientation since the war
Uh, no. The opposite. I mean, we have a remarkably consistent stream of evidence to the contrary.
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-unity-identity-poll-russian-invasion/32001348.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/russia-war-ukraine-national-identity/671685/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/11/ukraine-poll-war-russia-stalemate/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nana.12986

In a sane world a UN monitored partition of the country along lines that are reasonable to the voters would be on the table. (we did it in Serbia with Kosovo)
The Ukrainians want Donbas and Crimea back.

Kyvi can't control the 20% of the east that wants out of Ukraine. Russian can't absorb the 80% of the rest of Ukraine that wants to be with the USA-EU
The East does not "want out" of Ukraine........

---

Ukraine has fought Russia for independence before, many times. The Russian invasion has galvanized Ukrainian nationalism to historic highs....80-90% levels on a range of issue, from generic questions of identity to more specific questions about refusing to cede territory for peace.

.

---

Possibly so

But has it galvanized such opinion in the East?

Even if Kyiv could retake Donbas and Crimea…how would they hold if with intense local opposition?

---

Realitybites said:

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"Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an 'antihegemonic' coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances."

-Zbigniew Brzezinski

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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trey3216 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation.

One China has been recognized under US policy since 1972.

---

No it hasn't.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/2479

First line:

"Taiwan Relations Act - Declares it to be the policy of the United States to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, as well as the people on the China mainland and all other people of the Western Pacific area."


later:

"Stipulates that the absence of diplomatic relations with or recognition of Taiwan shall not affect U.S. laws relating to Taiwan. "

That is One China policy in the same way North Korea has a democratic republic.

---

China and Russia only understand one thing, strength. They go about it different ways, but it is the same mentality, they will take as much as you give. They rely on the US and NATO playing the diplomatic, reasonable and want peace game. All the talk is just that talk, until you stop them from invading Nations, making islands in the S China Sea, stealing tech, and so on. This play nice and they will play nice what Putin and Xi are counting on.

---

They understand diplomacy exponentially better than we do. Russia has some of the top diplomats in the world where we have mostly amateurs.

---

I don't know if they have good diplomats...or if its more like other nations just want to trade with Russia for its natural resources.

But many other countries are sitting out this conflict

---

Russian Diplomats Are Eating America's Lunch
By JAMES BRUNO
April 16, 2014

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is fairly typical. A graduate of the prestigious Moscow Institute for International Relations (known by its Russian acronym, MGIMO) and 42-year Foreign Ministry veteran, Lavrov speaks fluent English as well as Sinhalese, Dhiveli and French. A former U.S. ambassador who had dealt with Lavrov at the United Nations described him to me as disciplined, witty and charming, a diplomat so skilled "he runs rings around us in the multilateral sphere."

Russia has always taken diplomacy and its diplomats seriously. America, on the other hand, does not. Of this country's 28 diplomatic missions in NATO capitals (of which 26 are either currently filled by an ambassador or have nominees waiting to be confirmed), 16 are, or will be, headed by political appointees; only one ambassador to a major NATO ally, Turkey, is a career diplomat. Fourteen ambassadors got their jobs in return for raising big money for President Obama's election campaigns, or worked as his aides. A conservative estimate of personal and bundled donations by these fundraisers is $20 million (based on figures from the New York Times, Federal Election Commission and AllGov). The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, a former Microsoft executive, bundled more than $4.3 million.

By contrast, all but two of Moscow's ambassadors to NATO capitals are career diplomats. And the two Russian equivalents of political appointees (in Latvia and Slovakia) have 6 and 17 years of diplomatic experience respectively. The total number of years of diplomatic experience of Russia's 28 ambassadors to NATO nations is 960 years, averaging 34 years per incumbent. The cumulative years of relevant experience of America's ambassadors are 331, averaging 12 years per individual. Russia has 26 NATO ambassadors with 20-plus years of diplomatic service; the United States has 10. Furthermore, 16 American envoys have five years, or fewer, of diplomatic service. The figure for Russia: zero. Five U.S. NATO posts currently have no ambassador. None of Russia's is vacant. With Michael McFaul's departure in February, there is no U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the moment.

Domestically, the situation is equally worrisome. Three-quarters of the top policy and management positions at the State Department currently are occupied by non-diplomats, mainly Democratic Party activists or liberal think tankers. "Most are competent, but must pass an ideological test to be appointed," a former senior official who worked with Obama's appointees at State told me. "These positions," she added, "are handed out based on party connections and loyalty." In the hands of these decision-makers, all major foreign policy issues are viewed through an "ideological prism as opposed to an eye toward the long-term interests of the United States," she said. The White House's National Security Council staff, furthermore, has ballooned from about four dozen three decades ago to more than twice that today, a shift that has had the effect of concentrating power in the White House, and infusing key decisions with political calculations.

By contrast, the Russian Foreign Ministry is staffed top to bottom with career diplomats.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/russias-diplomats-are-better-than-ours-105773/

---

So you trot out a 10 year old article that was written prior to Russia first invading Ukraine in 2014...and that's what you're rolling with? ? Length of diplomatic career?

---

I'm sure this has some sort of relevance in your mind, but I can only guess what it would be.

---

career diplomats in authoritarian regimes are the proverbial tits on a boar.

---

A predictably ahistorical and thuggish response. Obviously the great statesmen of the last century who dealt with the likes of China and the Soviet Union would disagree. But I'm sure Biden is smarter...just look at how well things have turned out.

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Doc Holliday said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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It's time to get the women into the fight again the dastardly russkies….

Senate Armed Services draft NDAA Summary that would require the registration of women for the draft. Also earlier today, the House approved automatic Selective Service registration for the first time since 1972 during the Vietnam War. Does anyone hear the drums of war and see… pic.twitter.com/No6cK7q4od

— Dennis Kucinich (@Dennis_Kucinich) June 14, 2024

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HERE ARE THE NAMES OF THE SLUTS FOR WAR WHO WANT TO CONSCRIPT YOUR DAUGHTERS FOR WWIII, BECAUSE THEY KNOW YOUR SONS WON’T BE ENOUGH TO SATISFY THEIR BLOOD LUST.

Jack Reed. D, RI
Jeanne Shaheen. D - NH
Kirsten E. Gillibrand. D - NY
Richard Blumenthal. D - CT
Mazie K. Hirono. D -… https://t.co/y3OKc58Ic6

— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) June 15, 2024

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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How many pro-hamas/anti-us rallies do you attend a week?

---

You're the liberal internationalist on here…so you tell me.

I'm not interested in supporting either side of a Semitic blood fueled on the other side of the planet.

---

The only thing you could point out liberal about me was I hurt your Russian feelings

---

I only have American feelings there little guy

You should try putting America first for a change before some other foreign country like Ukraine or Israel

---

you should try not putting Russia first......

---

Name me one way I have ever "put Russia first"

Advocating for less wasteful spending and a more rational foreign policy is in the interest of America and the American people first and foremost

---

Russia invades Ukraine to subsume it in entirety? It's the natural order of things.
We send help to Ukraine? it's empire!

The Maidan protests weren't caused by Russian interference in Ukrainian politics (to reject an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian Parliament that he'd promised for years to sign). Oh no. It was caused by interference from Victoria Nuland.

Yanukovich signs an agreement with the political opposition to end the Maiden, then flees the country. the Ukrainian Parliament then formally removes him from office and forms an interim government followed by elections. You describe the whole thing as a CIA-led coup d'etat.

I could go on a bit. Russia can do no wrong in Ukraine, and we have a moral obligation to let them.

---

1. You assume the war is to "subsume" the entirely of Ukraine into Russia. For all we know its just a regime change operation to install a friendly government in Kyiv.

Not much different than the war DC waged in Iraq.

You don't see how to most countries in the world the actions of DC and Moscow seem very similar (invade who they want and over throw governments they don like)
The stated goal (see annexations) is to subsume parts of Ukraine. The obvious implicit goal, both from statements and actions, was to move the remnant of Ukraine toward Belarus status. And it is fairly obvious that Belarus is a client leaning toward return to Russian polity.

2. The Maidan protests of course had a native element to them (so do our own BLM protests) but the fact that you and others refuse to deal with the role of Victoria Nuland and the CIA/State Department in those protests just makes it seem like you don't want any criticism spoken of about ruling class. DC has spent billions on Ukraine to influence their internal political system (for good or bad)
Neither Nuland nor CIA organized unarmed crowds to fight police and paramilitary units for days. No evidence. There was no "leader" of that. Names please. What you completely ignore is that those leaderless crowds did not take power after Yanukovich fled. Nope. Yanukovich was removed and replaced by entirely constitutional processes.....by existing elected leadership in an interim unity coalition of elected parties. At literally every step of analysis, facts blow your presumption clean out of the water. There was no coup. There was no change in constitutional order. Just spontaneous riots when Yanukovich at the last minute (due to Russian meddling) refused to sign an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian parliament, a bill which had overwhelming public support, for years, a bill he'd made repeated promises to sign, in campaigns and in office.
It was RUSSIAN MEDDLING which caused the Maidan, not American meddling!

But no one ever said Russia was not active in Ukraine...hat is the whole point....Russia has always been there on the political level...its DC getting itself involved in the country that is new and outside our traditional area.
You keep issuing that platitude with studious indifference to the real world. We were involved at the breakup of the USSR, were we not? We were involved in the disposition of Ukranian nukes, were we not? We are a part of Nato, are we not? Ukraine is a strategic question for Nato, is it not? And on and on and on. Ukraine does not belong to Russia. It is a sovereign country recognized by the entire world.

3. I never said it was a completely thought up and executed CIA coup...Ukraine (like our own country was political-cultural divided) yet from the perspective of the ethic russians in the East of the country and the powers that be in Moscow that protest/coup in Kyiv was a massive seismic event in the internal politics of Ukraine.
Stop it with the motte & bailey. Your entire argument is premised on the idea that we orchestrated the Maidan. You say it just like you did above "the role of Nuland/CIA." Well, were their actions dispositive or not?

How many voters in the East of the country looked at what happened in Kyiv and said "well even when we vote our guy in they just use street thugs to throw him out"
about half. And Russia exploited that with little green men to destabilize the province, then invade it. Which of course, is our fault, according to you.

Example...lets say you were an average conservative American in flyover country and you watched as the BLM protesters drove Trump from power in summer of 2020 how would you feel? What if you then found out that the Chinese communists had been giving billions to Leftists NGOs and Leftists activist groups on the ground. What if Chinese politicians had flown into DC to give encouragement to the protestors? What if Chinese bureaucrats were seen on the streets handing out sweats?
The proper analog would be this: the MAGA movement drove Trump from power for NOT signing a bill that would fully fund the wall and build the infrastructure to conduct mass deportations like he promised, because the Mexico (controlled by drug cartels) paid him to balk at it. And then, after he left and RDS was sworn in and started actually building wall and deporting people, Mexico invaded to take New Mexico and Arizona. Yeah, the public would be pretty upset about that. People from all across the political spectrum would line up to go fight the Mexican Army and take back Arizona and New Mexico.

Would you come away from that bloody event thinking everything was on the up and up?
You are letting false premises lead you to sophomoric conclusions.

---

A governing majority of Ukrainians wanted to join the EU. That number has risen, thanks the the Russian invasion of their country. It is in our interest that Ukraine belong to EU rather than some notional Russian equivalent. it is in our interest that Russians not have any more military bases in Ukraine. it is in our interest that if Ukraine cannot be non-aligned, that it is aligned with us rather than Russia. All very simple, obvious facts......

Ukraine has fought Russia to remain independent many times. We are not obligated to stand by and let them lose this one just because they've lost others. We are in fact obligated to do what is good for us. And a Ukraine aligned with us is good for us. That getting to that point involves destroying tens of thousands of tanks and arty tubes and killing a generation of Russians?.....well that is tens of thousands of tanks and tubes and a generation of Russian soldiers that we no longer have to plan to destroy in central Europe. That we will have to help rebuild Ukrainian cities rather than Baltic cities, Polish cities, Romanian cities, etc......that is an entirely noble endeavor. It's why we engage in alliance. To deter, and if necessary defeat threats.

---

And we are not obligated to get involved.

Also its reasonable to believe that most Ukrainians in the central and western parts of the country have now become even MORE pro-Western in their views since the invasion.

But also reasonable to believe that the eastern part of the country (Donbas & Crimea) have become MORE pro-Moscow in its orientation since the war
Uh, no. The opposite. I mean, we have a remarkably consistent stream of evidence to the contrary.
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-unity-identity-poll-russian-invasion/32001348.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/russia-war-ukraine-national-identity/671685/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/11/ukraine-poll-war-russia-stalemate/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nana.12986

In a sane world a UN monitored partition of the country along lines that are reasonable to the voters would be on the table. (we did it in Serbia with Kosovo)
The Ukrainians want Donbas and Crimea back.

Kyvi can't control the 20% of the east that wants out of Ukraine. Russian can't absorb the 80% of the rest of Ukraine that wants to be with the USA-EU
The East does not "want out" of Ukraine........

---

Ukraine has fought Russia for independence before, many times. The Russian invasion has galvanized Ukrainian nationalism to historic highs....80-90% levels on a range of issue, from generic questions of identity to more specific questions about refusing to cede territory for peace.

.

---

Possibly so

But has it galvanized such opinion in the East?

Even if Kyiv could retake Donbas and Crimea…how would they hold if with intense local opposition?

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ron.reagan said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ron.reagan said:

---

How many pro-hamas/anti-us rallies do you attend a week?

---

You're the liberal internationalist on here…so you tell me.

I'm not interested in supporting either side of a Semitic blood fueled on the other side of the planet.

---

The only thing you could point out liberal about me was I hurt your Russian feelings

---

I only have American feelings there little guy

You should try putting America first for a change before some other foreign country like Ukraine or Israel

---

you should try not putting Russia first......

---

Name me one way I have ever "put Russia first"

Advocating for less wasteful spending and a more rational foreign policy is in the interest of America and the American people first and foremost

---

Russia invades Ukraine to subsume it in entirety? It's the natural order of things.
We send help to Ukraine? it's empire!

The Maidan protests weren't caused by Russian interference in Ukrainian politics (to reject an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian Parliament that he'd promised for years to sign). Oh no. It was caused by interference from Victoria Nuland.

Yanukovich signs an agreement with the political opposition to end the Maiden, then flees the country. the Ukrainian Parliament then formally removes him from office and forms an interim government followed by elections. You describe the whole thing as a CIA-led coup d'etat.

I could go on a bit. Russia can do no wrong in Ukraine, and we have a moral obligation to let them.

---

1. You assume the war is to "subsume" the entirely of Ukraine into Russia. For all we know its just a regime change operation to install a friendly government in Kyiv.

Not much different than the war DC waged in Iraq.

You don't see how to most countries in the world the actions of DC and Moscow seem very similar (invade who they want and over throw governments they don like)
The stated goal (see annexations) is to subsume parts of Ukraine. The obvious implicit goal, both from statements and actions, was to move the remnant of Ukraine toward Belarus status. And it is fairly obvious that Belarus is a client leaning toward return to Russian polity.

2. The Maidan protests of course had a native element to them (so do our own BLM protests) but the fact that you and others refuse to deal with the role of Victoria Nuland and the CIA/State Department in those protests just makes it seem like you don't want any criticism spoken of about ruling class. DC has spent billions on Ukraine to influence their internal political system (for good or bad)
Neither Nuland nor CIA organized unarmed crowds to fight police and paramilitary units for days. No evidence. There was no "leader" of that. Names please. What you completely ignore is that those leaderless crowds did not take power after Yanukovich fled. Nope. Yanukovich was removed and replaced by entirely constitutional processes.....by existing elected leadership in an interim unity coalition of elected parties. At literally every step of analysis, facts blow your presumption clean out of the water. There was no coup. There was no change in constitutional order. Just spontaneous riots when Yanukovich at the last minute (due to Russian meddling) refused to sign an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian parliament, a bill which had overwhelming public support, for years, a bill he'd made repeated promises to sign, in campaigns and in office.
It was RUSSIAN MEDDLING which caused the Maidan, not American meddling!

But no one ever said Russia was not active in Ukraine...hat is the whole point....Russia has always been there on the political level...its DC getting itself involved in the country that is new and outside our traditional area.
You keep issuing that platitude with studious indifference to the real world. We were involved at the breakup of the USSR, were we not? We were involved in the disposition of Ukranian nukes, were we not? We are a part of Nato, are we not? Ukraine is a strategic question for Nato, is it not? And on and on and on. Ukraine does not belong to Russia. It is a sovereign country recognized by the entire world.

3. I never said it was a completely thought up and executed CIA coup...Ukraine (like our own country was political-cultural divided) yet from the perspective of the ethic russians in the East of the country and the powers that be in Moscow that protest/coup in Kyiv was a massive seismic event in the internal politics of Ukraine.
Stop it with the motte & bailey. Your entire argument is premised on the idea that we orchestrated the Maidan. You say it just like you did above "the role of Nuland/CIA." Well, were their actions dispositive or not?

How many voters in the East of the country looked at what happened in Kyiv and said "well even when we vote our guy in they just use street thugs to throw him out"
about half. And Russia exploited that with little green men to destabilize the province, then invade it. Which of course, is our fault, according to you.

Example...lets say you were an average conservative American in flyover country and you watched as the BLM protesters drove Trump from power in summer of 2020 how would you feel? What if you then found out that the Chinese communists had been giving billions to Leftists NGOs and Leftists activist groups on the ground. What if Chinese politicians had flown into DC to give encouragement to the protestors? What if Chinese bureaucrats were seen on the streets handing out sweats?
The proper analog would be this: the MAGA movement drove Trump from power for NOT signing a bill that would fully fund the wall and build the infrastructure to conduct mass deportations like he promised, because the Mexico (controlled by drug cartels) paid him to balk at it. And then, after he left and RDS was sworn in and started actually building wall and deporting people, Mexico invaded to take New Mexico and Arizona. Yeah, the public would be pretty upset about that. People from all across the political spectrum would line up to go fight the Mexican Army and take back Arizona and New Mexico.

Would you come away from that bloody event thinking everything was on the up and up?
You are letting false premises lead you to sophomoric conclusions.

---

A governing majority of Ukrainians wanted to join the EU.

---

So did Yanukovych. Just not on the predatory terms that we the Ukrainian parliament tried to dictate.

---

FIFY

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

trey3216 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

ron.reagan said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation.

One China has been recognized under US policy since 1972.

---

No it hasn't.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/2479

First line:

"Taiwan Relations Act - Declares it to be the policy of the United States to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, as well as the people on the China mainland and all other people of the Western Pacific area."


later:

"Stipulates that the absence of diplomatic relations with or recognition of Taiwan shall not affect U.S. laws relating to Taiwan. "

That is One China policy in the same way North Korea has a democratic republic.

---

China and Russia only understand one thing, strength. They go about it different ways, but it is the same mentality, they will take as much as you give. They rely on the US and NATO playing the diplomatic, reasonable and want peace game. All the talk is just that talk, until you stop them from invading Nations, making islands in the S China Sea, stealing tech, and so on. This play nice and they will play nice what Putin and Xi are counting on.

---

They understand diplomacy exponentially better than we do. Russia has some of the top diplomats in the world where we have mostly amateurs.

---

I don't know if they have good diplomats...or if its more like other nations just want to trade with Russia for its natural resources.

But many other countries are sitting out this conflict

---

Russian Diplomats Are Eating America's Lunch
By JAMES BRUNO
April 16, 2014

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is fairly typical. A graduate of the prestigious Moscow Institute for International Relations (known by its Russian acronym, MGIMO) and 42-year Foreign Ministry veteran, Lavrov speaks fluent English as well as Sinhalese, Dhiveli and French. A former U.S. ambassador who had dealt with Lavrov at the United Nations described him to me as disciplined, witty and charming, a diplomat so skilled "he runs rings around us in the multilateral sphere."

Russia has always taken diplomacy and its diplomats seriously. America, on the other hand, does not. Of this country's 28 diplomatic missions in NATO capitals (of which 26 are either currently filled by an ambassador or have nominees waiting to be confirmed), 16 are, or will be, headed by political appointees; only one ambassador to a major NATO ally, Turkey, is a career diplomat. Fourteen ambassadors got their jobs in return for raising big money for President Obama's election campaigns, or worked as his aides. A conservative estimate of personal and bundled donations by these fundraisers is $20 million (based on figures from the New York Times, Federal Election Commission and AllGov). The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, a former Microsoft executive, bundled more than $4.3 million.

By contrast, all but two of Moscow's ambassadors to NATO capitals are career diplomats. And the two Russian equivalents of political appointees (in Latvia and Slovakia) have 6 and 17 years of diplomatic experience respectively. The total number of years of diplomatic experience of Russia's 28 ambassadors to NATO nations is 960 years, averaging 34 years per incumbent. The cumulative years of relevant experience of America's ambassadors are 331, averaging 12 years per individual. Russia has 26 NATO ambassadors with 20-plus years of diplomatic service; the United States has 10. Furthermore, 16 American envoys have five years, or fewer, of diplomatic service. The figure for Russia: zero. Five U.S. NATO posts currently have no ambassador. None of Russia's is vacant. With Michael McFaul's departure in February, there is no U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the moment.

Domestically, the situation is equally worrisome. Three-quarters of the top policy and management positions at the State Department currently are occupied by non-diplomats, mainly Democratic Party activists or liberal think tankers. "Most are competent, but must pass an ideological test to be appointed," a former senior official who worked with Obama's appointees at State told me. "These positions," she added, "are handed out based on party connections and loyalty." In the hands of these decision-makers, all major foreign policy issues are viewed through an "ideological prism as opposed to an eye toward the long-term interests of the United States," she said. The White House's National Security Council staff, furthermore, has ballooned from about four dozen three decades ago to more than twice that today, a shift that has had the effect of concentrating power in the White House, and infusing key decisions with political calculations.

By contrast, the Russian Foreign Ministry is staffed top to bottom with career diplomats.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/russias-diplomats-are-better-than-ours-105773/

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So you trot out a 10 year old article that was written prior to Russia first invading Ukraine in 2014...and that's what you're rolling with? ? Length of diplomatic career?

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I'm sure this has some sort of relevance in your mind, but I can only guess what it would be.

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career diplomats in authoritarian regimes are the proverbial tits on a boar.

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A predictably ahistorical and thuggish response. Obviously the great statesmen of the last century who dealt with the likes of China and the Soviet Union would disagree. But I'm sure Biden is smarter...just look at how well things have turned out.

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typically ignorant spin. Go find a list of famous diplomats of the 20th century and let us know how many Chinese and Iranians have made the list. For that matter, pull out the handful of 3rd world names like Perez de Cuellar and Boutrous Ghali and what you will see is that they are famous not for what the did for their countries, but what they did with international bureaucracy, which can never stop war or forge peace.

In the great opening to China, Kissinger's counterpart was Chinese PREMIER Zhou En Lai. The diplomats arranged the visas and catering and took notes, but the "diplomacy" was done by the head of state. That's the way it works in most of the world. Zhou is instructive. He was no career diplomat. He was a communist organizer who had military and intel postings during the long years of Mao's rise. He was appointed to the 5-man Politburo and chosen Premier of the State Council (Chief of State). He also held the foreign minister portfolio because he was an eloquent communicator and he had studied abroad (at a time when relatively few Chinese had). He did not become premier on a diplomat's resume. He was a communist grinder who made the Long March and was obsequiously loyal to Mao. He was an obvious compromise choice after the number 1 guy got old & died shortly after the number 2 guy got killed in a plane crash.

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sombear said:

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These guys get it.

Polish President Duda speaking at Zelensky’s peace summit in 🇨🇭:

“Russia, called the ‘prison of nations,’ is home to 200+ ethnic groups, most acquired through colonial methods.

Unlike European powers, Russia never decolonized and remains the world's largest colonial empire” pic.twitter.com/tJEHTYC4dW

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 15, 2024

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whiterock said:

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perfectly said....

Perfect thinking and delivery by the Estonian Prime Minister.
Territorial concessions don't work. You'd think everyone knows that.
Obama and Merkel didn't.
We must correct their mistakes.
The entire territory of Ukraine must be liberated from the criminal Russian invader. https://t.co/Eov41yqGqV

— Edward Hunter Christie (@EHunterChristie) June 15, 2024

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whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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How many pro-hamas/anti-us rallies do you attend a week?

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You're the liberal internationalist on here…so you tell me.

I'm not interested in supporting either side of a Semitic blood fueled on the other side of the planet.

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The only thing you could point out liberal about me was I hurt your Russian feelings

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I only have American feelings there little guy

You should try putting America first for a change before some other foreign country like Ukraine or Israel

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you should try not putting Russia first......

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Name me one way I have ever "put Russia first"

Advocating for less wasteful spending and a more rational foreign policy is in the interest of America and the American people first and foremost

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Russia invades Ukraine to subsume it in entirety? It's the natural order of things.
We send help to Ukraine? it's empire!

The Maidan protests weren't caused by Russian interference in Ukrainian politics (to reject an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian Parliament that he'd promised for years to sign). Oh no. It was caused by interference from Victoria Nuland.

Yanukovich signs an agreement with the political opposition to end the Maiden, then flees the country. the Ukrainian Parliament then formally removes him from office and forms an interim government followed by elections. You describe the whole thing as a CIA-led coup d'etat.

I could go on a bit. Russia can do no wrong in Ukraine, and we have a moral obligation to let them.

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1. You assume the war is to "subsume" the entirely of Ukraine into Russia. For all we know its just a regime change operation to install a friendly government in Kyiv.

Not much different than the war DC waged in Iraq.

You don't see how to most countries in the world the actions of DC and Moscow seem very similar (invade who they want and over throw governments they don like)
The stated goal (see annexations) is to subsume parts of Ukraine. The obvious implicit goal, both from statements and actions, was to move the remnant of Ukraine toward Belarus status. And it is fairly obvious that Belarus is a client leaning toward return to Russian polity.

2. The Maidan protests of course had a native element to them (so do our own BLM protests) but the fact that you and others refuse to deal with the role of Victoria Nuland and the CIA/State Department in those protests just makes it seem like you don't want any criticism spoken of about ruling class. DC has spent billions on Ukraine to influence their internal political system (for good or bad)
Neither Nuland nor CIA organized unarmed crowds to fight police and paramilitary units for days. No evidence. There was no "leader" of that. Names please. What you completely ignore is that those leaderless crowds did not take power after Yanukovich fled. Nope. Yanukovich was removed and replaced by entirely constitutional processes.....by existing elected leadership in an interim unity coalition of elected parties. At literally every step of analysis, facts blow your presumption clean out of the water. There was no coup. There was no change in constitutional order. Just spontaneous riots when Yanukovich at the last minute (due to Russian meddling) refused to sign an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian parliament, a bill which had overwhelming public support, for years, a bill he'd made repeated promises to sign, in campaigns and in office.
It was RUSSIAN MEDDLING which caused the Maidan, not American meddling!

But no one ever said Russia was not active in Ukraine...hat is the whole point....Russia has always been there on the political level...its DC getting itself involved in the country that is new and outside our traditional area.
You keep issuing that platitude with studious indifference to the real world. We were involved at the breakup of the USSR, were we not? We were involved in the disposition of Ukranian nukes, were we not? We are a part of Nato, are we not? Ukraine is a strategic question for Nato, is it not? And on and on and on. Ukraine does not belong to Russia. It is a sovereign country recognized by the entire world.

3. I never said it was a completely thought up and executed CIA coup...Ukraine (like our own country was political-cultural divided) yet from the perspective of the ethic russians in the East of the country and the powers that be in Moscow that protest/coup in Kyiv was a massive seismic event in the internal politics of Ukraine.
Stop it with the motte & bailey. Your entire argument is premised on the idea that we orchestrated the Maidan. You say it just like you did above "the role of Nuland/CIA." Well, were their actions dispositive or not?

How many voters in the East of the country looked at what happened in Kyiv and said "well even when we vote our guy in they just use street thugs to throw him out"
about half. And Russia exploited that with little green men to destabilize the province, then invade it. Which of course, is our fault, according to you.

Example...lets say you were an average conservative American in flyover country and you watched as the BLM protesters drove Trump from power in summer of 2020 how would you feel? What if you then found out that the Chinese communists had been giving billions to Leftists NGOs and Leftists activist groups on the ground. What if Chinese politicians had flown into DC to give encouragement to the protestors? What if Chinese bureaucrats were seen on the streets handing out sweats?
The proper analog would be this: the MAGA movement drove Trump from power for NOT signing a bill that would fully fund the wall and build the infrastructure to conduct mass deportations like he promised, because the Mexico (controlled by drug cartels) paid him to balk at it. And then, after he left and RDS was sworn in and started actually building wall and deporting people, Mexico invaded to take New Mexico and Arizona. Yeah, the public would be pretty upset about that. People from all across the political spectrum would line up to go fight the Mexican Army and take back Arizona and New Mexico.

Would you come away from that bloody event thinking everything was on the up and up?
You are letting false premises lead you to sophomoric conclusions.

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A governing majority of Ukrainians wanted to join the EU.

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So did Yanukovych. Just not on the predatory terms that we the Ukrainian parliament tried to dictate.

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FIFY

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It was the Ukrainian parliament that had failed to pass the necessary legislation on the day Yanukovych suspended the deal.

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LOL your historical revisionism has achieved full inversion of truth.

It was not just Yanukovych's refusal to sign the bill already passed by Parliament that caused his fall. It was his rejection of it in favor of a similar pact with Russia.

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Quote:

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Ukraine rejects Tymoshenko bills
Hopes of trade and political agreements with the EU are evaporating.
NOVEMBER 21, 2013 5:10 AM CET

The Ukrainian parliament has rejected a set of laws that would enable the jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko to receive medical treatment in Germany.

The vote -- the second time that the Verkhovna Rada has turned down the bills -- substantially reduces the prospects of Ukraine signing political and trade deals with the European Union next week.

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-rejects-tymoshenko-bills/#:~:text=Hopes%20of%20trade%20and%20political%20agreements%20with%20the%20EU%20are%20evaporating.&text=The%20Ukrainian%20parliament%20has%20rejected,receive%20medical%20treatment%20in%20Germany.

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whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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trey3216 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation.

One China has been recognized under US policy since 1972.

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No it hasn't.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/2479

First line:

"Taiwan Relations Act - Declares it to be the policy of the United States to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, as well as the people on the China mainland and all other people of the Western Pacific area."


later:

"Stipulates that the absence of diplomatic relations with or recognition of Taiwan shall not affect U.S. laws relating to Taiwan. "

That is One China policy in the same way North Korea has a democratic republic.

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China and Russia only understand one thing, strength. They go about it different ways, but it is the same mentality, they will take as much as you give. They rely on the US and NATO playing the diplomatic, reasonable and want peace game. All the talk is just that talk, until you stop them from invading Nations, making islands in the S China Sea, stealing tech, and so on. This play nice and they will play nice what Putin and Xi are counting on.

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They understand diplomacy exponentially better than we do. Russia has some of the top diplomats in the world where we have mostly amateurs.

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I don't know if they have good diplomats...or if its more like other nations just want to trade with Russia for its natural resources.

But many other countries are sitting out this conflict

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Russian Diplomats Are Eating America's Lunch
By JAMES BRUNO
April 16, 2014

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is fairly typical. A graduate of the prestigious Moscow Institute for International Relations (known by its Russian acronym, MGIMO) and 42-year Foreign Ministry veteran, Lavrov speaks fluent English as well as Sinhalese, Dhiveli and French. A former U.S. ambassador who had dealt with Lavrov at the United Nations described him to me as disciplined, witty and charming, a diplomat so skilled "he runs rings around us in the multilateral sphere."

Russia has always taken diplomacy and its diplomats seriously. America, on the other hand, does not. Of this country's 28 diplomatic missions in NATO capitals (of which 26 are either currently filled by an ambassador or have nominees waiting to be confirmed), 16 are, or will be, headed by political appointees; only one ambassador to a major NATO ally, Turkey, is a career diplomat. Fourteen ambassadors got their jobs in return for raising big money for President Obama's election campaigns, or worked as his aides. A conservative estimate of personal and bundled donations by these fundraisers is $20 million (based on figures from the New York Times, Federal Election Commission and AllGov). The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, a former Microsoft executive, bundled more than $4.3 million.

By contrast, all but two of Moscow's ambassadors to NATO capitals are career diplomats. And the two Russian equivalents of political appointees (in Latvia and Slovakia) have 6 and 17 years of diplomatic experience respectively. The total number of years of diplomatic experience of Russia's 28 ambassadors to NATO nations is 960 years, averaging 34 years per incumbent. The cumulative years of relevant experience of America's ambassadors are 331, averaging 12 years per individual. Russia has 26 NATO ambassadors with 20-plus years of diplomatic service; the United States has 10. Furthermore, 16 American envoys have five years, or fewer, of diplomatic service. The figure for Russia: zero. Five U.S. NATO posts currently have no ambassador. None of Russia's is vacant. With Michael McFaul's departure in February, there is no U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the moment.

Domestically, the situation is equally worrisome. Three-quarters of the top policy and management positions at the State Department currently are occupied by non-diplomats, mainly Democratic Party activists or liberal think tankers. "Most are competent, but must pass an ideological test to be appointed," a former senior official who worked with Obama's appointees at State told me. "These positions," she added, "are handed out based on party connections and loyalty." In the hands of these decision-makers, all major foreign policy issues are viewed through an "ideological prism as opposed to an eye toward the long-term interests of the United States," she said. The White House's National Security Council staff, furthermore, has ballooned from about four dozen three decades ago to more than twice that today, a shift that has had the effect of concentrating power in the White House, and infusing key decisions with political calculations.

By contrast, the Russian Foreign Ministry is staffed top to bottom with career diplomats.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/russias-diplomats-are-better-than-ours-105773/

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So you trot out a 10 year old article that was written prior to Russia first invading Ukraine in 2014...and that's what you're rolling with? ? Length of diplomatic career?

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I'm sure this has some sort of relevance in your mind, but I can only guess what it would be.

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career diplomats in authoritarian regimes are the proverbial tits on a boar.

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A predictably ahistorical and thuggish response. Obviously the great statesmen of the last century who dealt with the likes of China and the Soviet Union would disagree. But I'm sure Biden is smarter...just look at how well things have turned out.

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typically ignorant spin. Go find a list of famous diplomats of the 20th century and let us know how many Chinese and Iranians have made the list. For that matter, pull out the handful of 3rd world names like Perez de Cuellar and Boutrous Ghali and what you will see is that they are famous not for what the did for their countries, but what they did with international bureaucracy, which can never stop war or forge peace.

In the great opening to China, Kissinger's counterpart was Chinese PREMIER Zhou En Lai. The diplomats arranged the visas and catering and took notes, but the "diplomacy" was done by the head of state. That's the way it works in most of the world. Zhou is instructive. He was no career diplomat. He was a communist organizer who had military and intel postings during the long years of Mao's rise. He was appointed to the 5-man Politburo and chosen Premier of the State Council (Chief of State). He also held the foreign minister portfolio because he was an eloquent communicator and he had studied abroad (at a time when relatively few Chinese had). He did not become premier on a diplomat's resume. He was a communist grinder who made the Long March and was obsequiously loyal to Mao. He was an obvious compromise choice after the number 1 guy got old & died shortly after the number 2 guy got killed in a plane crash.

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Those high profile meetings require plenty of groundwork. Look at everything Shevardnadze did with arms control, Afghanistan, etc. Or take Lavrov himself, who's racking up wins with BRICS while Putin focuses on the war. Do we have anyone comparable? Blinken is a joke. Nuland was the genius behind the 2023 counter-offensive, which was such a debacle that we're now questioning whether it was a counter-offensive at all. Not to mention Maidan...talk about domination over diplomacy. She had no talent for anything except creating chaos. Par for the course when you're the world's "indispensable nation."

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LOL a professional diplomatic corps doesn't have to have a Shevardnadze or Kissinger to get the paperwork ready for the ceremony. It can, for example, organize global condemnation of Russian invasion of Ukraine, add Nato members, and facilitate enough aid to Ukraine to allow it to completely stymie the offensives of the 2nd largest army in the world, to hold off a nation 3.5x as large for years....... Somehow, we keep getting stronger and Russia keeps getting weaker.

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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How many pro-hamas/anti-us rallies do you attend a week?

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You're the liberal internationalist on here…so you tell me.

I'm not interested in supporting either side of a Semitic blood fueled on the other side of the planet.

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The only thing you could point out liberal about me was I hurt your Russian feelings

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I only have American feelings there little guy

You should try putting America first for a change before some other foreign country like Ukraine or Israel

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you should try not putting Russia first......

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Name me one way I have ever "put Russia first"

Advocating for less wasteful spending and a more rational foreign policy is in the interest of America and the American people first and foremost

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Russia invades Ukraine to subsume it in entirety? It's the natural order of things.
We send help to Ukraine? it's empire!

The Maidan protests weren't caused by Russian interference in Ukrainian politics (to reject an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian Parliament that he'd promised for years to sign). Oh no. It was caused by interference from Victoria Nuland.

Yanukovich signs an agreement with the political opposition to end the Maiden, then flees the country. the Ukrainian Parliament then formally removes him from office and forms an interim government followed by elections. You describe the whole thing as a CIA-led coup d'etat.

I could go on a bit. Russia can do no wrong in Ukraine, and we have a moral obligation to let them.

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1. You assume the war is to "subsume" the entirely of Ukraine into Russia. For all we know its just a regime change operation to install a friendly government in Kyiv.

Not much different than the war DC waged in Iraq.

You don't see how to most countries in the world the actions of DC and Moscow seem very similar (invade who they want and over throw governments they don like)
The stated goal (see annexations) is to subsume parts of Ukraine. The obvious implicit goal, both from statements and actions, was to move the remnant of Ukraine toward Belarus status. And it is fairly obvious that Belarus is a client leaning toward return to Russian polity.

2. The Maidan protests of course had a native element to them (so do our own BLM protests) but the fact that you and others refuse to deal with the role of Victoria Nuland and the CIA/State Department in those protests just makes it seem like you don't want any criticism spoken of about ruling class. DC has spent billions on Ukraine to influence their internal political system (for good or bad)
Neither Nuland nor CIA organized unarmed crowds to fight police and paramilitary units for days. No evidence. There was no "leader" of that. Names please. What you completely ignore is that those leaderless crowds did not take power after Yanukovich fled. Nope. Yanukovich was removed and replaced by entirely constitutional processes.....by existing elected leadership in an interim unity coalition of elected parties. At literally every step of analysis, facts blow your presumption clean out of the water. There was no coup. There was no change in constitutional order. Just spontaneous riots when Yanukovich at the last minute (due to Russian meddling) refused to sign an EU bill passed by the Ukrainian parliament, a bill which had overwhelming public support, for years, a bill he'd made repeated promises to sign, in campaigns and in office.
It was RUSSIAN MEDDLING which caused the Maidan, not American meddling!

But no one ever said Russia was not active in Ukraine...hat is the whole point....Russia has always been there on the political level...its DC getting itself involved in the country that is new and outside our traditional area.
You keep issuing that platitude with studious indifference to the real world. We were involved at the breakup of the USSR, were we not? We were involved in the disposition of Ukranian nukes, were we not? We are a part of Nato, are we not? Ukraine is a strategic question for Nato, is it not? And on and on and on. Ukraine does not belong to Russia. It is a sovereign country recognized by the entire world.

3. I never said it was a completely thought up and executed CIA coup...Ukraine (like our own country was political-cultural divided) yet from the perspective of the ethic russians in the East of the country and the powers that be in Moscow that protest/coup in Kyiv was a massive seismic event in the internal politics of Ukraine.
Stop it with the motte & bailey. Your entire argument is premised on the idea that we orchestrated the Maidan. You say it just like you did above "the role of Nuland/CIA." Well, were their actions dispositive or not?

How many voters in the East of the country looked at what happened in Kyiv and said "well even when we vote our guy in they just use street thugs to throw him out"
about half. And Russia exploited that with little green men to destabilize the province, then invade it. Which of course, is our fault, according to you.

Example...lets say you were an average conservative American in flyover country and you watched as the BLM protesters drove Trump from power in summer of 2020 how would you feel? What if you then found out that the Chinese communists had been giving billions to Leftists NGOs and Leftists activist groups on the ground. What if Chinese politicians had flown into DC to give encouragement to the protestors? What if Chinese bureaucrats were seen on the streets handing out sweats?
The proper analog would be this: the MAGA movement drove Trump from power for NOT signing a bill that would fully fund the wall and build the infrastructure to conduct mass deportations like he promised, because the Mexico (controlled by drug cartels) paid him to balk at it. And then, after he left and RDS was sworn in and started actually building wall and deporting people, Mexico invaded to take New Mexico and Arizona. Yeah, the public would be pretty upset about that. People from all across the political spectrum would line up to go fight the Mexican Army and take back Arizona and New Mexico.

Would you come away from that bloody event thinking everything was on the up and up?
You are letting false premises lead you to sophomoric conclusions.

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A governing majority of Ukrainians wanted to join the EU. That number has risen, thanks the the Russian invasion of their country. It is in our interest that Ukraine belong to EU rather than some notional Russian equivalent. it is in our interest that Russians not have any more military bases in Ukraine. it is in our interest that if Ukraine cannot be non-aligned, that it is aligned with us rather than Russia. All very simple, obvious facts......

Ukraine has fought Russia to remain independent many times. We are not obligated to stand by and let them lose this one just because they've lost others. We are in fact obligated to do what is good for us. And a Ukraine aligned with us is good for us. That getting to that point involves destroying tens of thousands of tanks and arty tubes and killing a generation of Russians?.....well that is tens of thousands of tanks and tubes and a generation of Russian soldiers that we no longer have to plan to destroy in central Europe. That we will have to help rebuild Ukrainian cities rather than Baltic cities, Polish cities, Romanian cities, etc......that is an entirely noble endeavor. It's why we engage in alliance. To deter, and if necessary defeat threats.

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And we are not obligated to get involved.

Also its reasonable to believe that most Ukrainians in the central and western parts of the country have now become even MORE pro-Western in their views since the invasion.

But also reasonable to believe that the eastern part of the country (Donbas & Crimea) have become MORE pro-Moscow in its orientation since the war
Uh, no. The opposite. I mean, we have a remarkably consistent stream of evidence to the contrary.
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-unity-identity-poll-russian-invasion/32001348.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/russia-war-ukraine-national-identity/671685/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/11/ukraine-poll-war-russia-stalemate/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nana.12986

In a sane world a UN monitored partition of the country along lines that are reasonable to the voters would be on the table. (we did it in Serbia with Kosovo)
The Ukrainians want Donbas and Crimea back.

Kyvi can't control the 20% of the east that wants out of Ukraine. Russian can't absorb the 80% of the rest of Ukraine that wants to be with the USA-EU
The East does not "want out" of Ukraine........

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Ukraine has fought Russia for independence before, many times. The Russian invasion has galvanized Ukrainian nationalism to historic highs....80-90% levels on a range of issue, from generic questions of identity to more specific questions about refusing to cede territory for peace.

.

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Possibly so

But has it galvanized such opinion in the East?

Even if Kyiv could retake Donbas and Crimea…how would they hold if with intense local opposition?

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Sure they could. Beware your tendency to conflate "Russian speaking Ukrainian" as "a Russian." Every poll done shows that Ukrainian nationalism trumps first language, that the Russian speaking Ukrainians very much see themselves as Ukrainians wanting to be part of Ukraine, and the war has galvanized that dynamic at very high percentage levels. Russia would need to return the 1m or so Ukrainian nationals it has deported to Siberia. And the Russian nationalists who prefer to be in Russia should be allowed to leave (with incentives) and most of them would. That's all part of the peace deal.

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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sombear said:

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These guys get it.

Polish President Duda speaking at Zelensky’s peace summit in 🇨🇭:

“Russia, called the ‘prison of nations,’ is home to 200+ ethnic groups, most acquired through colonial methods.

Unlike European powers, Russia never decolonized and remains the world's largest colonial empire” pic.twitter.com/tJEHTYC4dW

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 15, 2024

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You guys sure like Russia. Or maybe just dislike the US??? I don't know but there really seems to be support for Putin's Special Military Operation among a group. Really, struggling to see why invading another Nation is a "good thing", yet selling weapons to a Nation to defend itself is evil. Really puzzled...

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Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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sombear said:

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These guys get it.

Polish President Duda speaking at Zelensky’s peace summit in 🇨🇭:

“Russia, called the ‘prison of nations,’ is home to 200+ ethnic groups, most acquired through colonial methods.

Unlike European powers, Russia never decolonized and remains the world's largest colonial empire” pic.twitter.com/tJEHTYC4dW

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 15, 2024

---

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You guys sure like Russia. Or maybe just dislike the US??? I don't know but there really seems to be support for Putin's Special Military Operation among a group. Really, struggling to see why invading another Nation is a "good thing", yet selling weapons to a Nation to defend itself is evil. Really puzzled...

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Remember how some of us have talked about the American goal of weakening and breaking up Russia? You'd probably call it a conspiracy theory. Sombear's sources call it "decolonization." It's the same thing. They're just bringing it out in the open now with a catchy new brand name.

In reality it's the rough equivalent of saying the US should be made to divide itself along ethnic lines and give up parts of its territory to Hispanics, American Indians, and so on. What makes it spit take-worthy is the blatant hypocrisy. Obviously we would never agree to anything like that.

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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sombear said:

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These guys get it.

Polish President Duda speaking at Zelensky’s peace summit in 🇨🇭:

“Russia, called the ‘prison of nations,’ is home to 200+ ethnic groups, most acquired through colonial methods.

Unlike European powers, Russia never decolonized and remains the world's largest colonial empire” pic.twitter.com/tJEHTYC4dW

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 15, 2024

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You guys sure like Russia. Or maybe just dislike the US??? I don't know but there really seems to be support for Putin's Special Military Operation among a group. Really, struggling to see why invading another Nation is a "good thing", yet selling weapons to a Nation to defend itself is evil. Really puzzled...

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Remember how some of us have talked about the American goal of weakening and breaking up Russia? You'd probably call it a conspiracy theory. Sombear's sources call it "decolonization." It's the same thing. They're just bringing it out in the open now with a catchy new brand name.

In reality it's the rough equivalent of saying the US should be made to divide itself along ethnic lines and give up parts of its territory to Hispanics, American Indians, and so on. What makes it spit take-worthy is the blatant hypocrisy. Obviously we would never agree to anything like that.

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Ok, this is where you are off base. It is already done and they did agree to it. You are making an argument that should have been made in 1992ish. This is not a conversation of HOW should the Soviet Union break apart, that ship has sailed. The borders were agreed upon and a lease cut for the port.

Now, 40 years later you are saying renegotiate or be invaded. And then actually invading. Saying this is what we think the borders should be now. So, basically there is NO discussion, NO renegotiation just do what we want or we attack you. And in 10 years if we decide we like something else, give it to us or you know what we will do. AND you are good with it.

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FLBear5630 said:

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whiterock said:

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perfectly said....

Perfect thinking and delivery by the Estonian Prime Minister.
Territorial concessions don't work. You'd think everyone knows that.
Obama and Merkel didn't.
We must correct their mistakes.
The entire territory of Ukraine must be liberated from the criminal Russian invader. https://t.co/Eov41yqGqV

— Edward Hunter Christie (@EHunterChristie) June 15, 2024

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Seems like such a basic concept. Yet, it is beyond some that just keep looking to justify invading. Give up Ukraine, Taiwan next. Then the dam breaks, every historic occupation becomes a reason for Russia and China to just keep going. Viet Nam, Korea, parts of Japan, the Baltics, Finland, the list goes on and on.

So, Sam/Red what date IS the official date of when borders mattered?? What is the threshold? How many years ago and it is still within the statute of limitation to take back?

With a receipt, can Russia take back Alaska for a full cash refund?

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Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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sombear said:

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These guys get it.

Polish President Duda speaking at Zelensky’s peace summit in 🇨🇭:

“Russia, called the ‘prison of nations,’ is home to 200+ ethnic groups, most acquired through colonial methods.

Unlike European powers, Russia never decolonized and remains the world's largest colonial empire” pic.twitter.com/tJEHTYC4dW

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 15, 2024

---

---

You guys sure like Russia. Or maybe just dislike the US??? I don't know but there really seems to be support for Putin's Special Military Operation among a group. Really, struggling to see why invading another Nation is a "good thing", yet selling weapons to a Nation to defend itself is evil. Really puzzled...

---

Remember how some of us have talked about the American goal of weakening and breaking up Russia? You'd probably call it a conspiracy theory. Sombear's sources call it "decolonization." It's the same thing. They're just bringing it out in the open now with a catchy new brand name.

In reality it's the rough equivalent of saying the US should be made to divide itself along ethnic lines and give up parts of its territory to Hispanics, American Indians, and so on. What makes it spit take-worthy is the blatant hypocrisy. Obviously we would never agree to anything like that.

---

Ok, this is where you are off base. It is already done and they did agree to it. You are making an argument that should have been made in 1992ish. This is not a conversation of HOW should the Soviet Union break apart, that ship has sailed. The borders were agreed upon and a lease cut for the port.

Now, 40 years later you are saying renegotiate or be invaded. And then actually invading. Saying this is what we think the borders should be now. So, basically there is NO discussion, NO renegotiation just do what we want or we attack you. And in 10 years if we decide we like something else, give it to us or you know what we will do. AND you are good with it.

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No, you don't understand. We're not talking about the breakup of the Soviet Union. We're talking about the breakup of Russia itself. That's the threat that Putin believes he's fighting when he draws the line in Ukraine. This talk of decolonization only confirms what he's been saying.

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

---

sombear said:

---

These guys get it.

Polish President Duda speaking at Zelensky’s peace summit in 🇨🇭:

“Russia, called the ‘prison of nations,’ is home to 200+ ethnic groups, most acquired through colonial methods.

Unlike European powers, Russia never decolonized and remains the world's largest colonial empire” pic.twitter.com/tJEHTYC4dW

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 15, 2024

---

---

You guys sure like Russia. Or maybe just dislike the US??? I don't know but there really seems to be support for Putin's Special Military Operation among a group. Really, struggling to see why invading another Nation is a "good thing", yet selling weapons to a Nation to defend itself is evil. Really puzzled...

---

Remember how some of us have talked about the American goal of weakening and breaking up Russia? You'd probably call it a conspiracy theory. Sombear's sources call it "decolonization." It's the same thing. They're just bringing it out in the open now with a catchy new brand name.

In reality it's the rough equivalent of saying the US should be made to divide itself along ethnic lines and give up parts of its territory to Hispanics, American Indians, and so on. What makes it spit take-worthy is the blatant hypocrisy. Obviously we would never agree to anything like that.

---

Ok, this is where you are off base. It is already done and they did agree to it. You are making an argument that should have been made in 1992ish. This is not a conversation of HOW should the Soviet Union break apart, that ship has sailed. The borders were agreed upon and a lease cut for the port.

Now, 40 years later you are saying renegotiate or be invaded. And then actually invading. Saying this is what we think the borders should be now. So, basically there is NO discussion, NO renegotiation just do what we want or we attack you. And in 10 years if we decide we like something else, give it to us or you know what we will do. AND you are good with it.

---

No, you don't understand. We're not talking about the breakup of the Soviet Union. We're talking about the breakup of Russia itself. That's the threat that Putin believes he's fighting when he draws the line in Ukraine. This talk of decolonization only confirms what he's been saying.

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Than why did they agree?

Putin draws the line? What makes anyone think Putin draws the line at Ukraine? When has Russia stood by anything they say? Remember, they agreed to Ukraine. Until they didn't.

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