She is an African speaking the English language, wearing Western clothing, and living in Ireland
It's her who is engaging in cultural appropriation
PS
Russia does similar (if not quite as lame) multicultural/ multiracial propaganda
At least with the Russian video all those groups have long historic, ancestral ties to Russia.
Although the Slavs are the majority and rule Russia, its never been a homogenous country.
Most European countries... but most especially Ireland, were nearly completely homogenous until this post-WW2 period but obviously over the last 20 years it has accelerated into insanity.
Which brings us back to what started all this in the first place, Ukraine is an artificial, fake country created by the communist methuselah Vladimir Lenin.
These lands are historically Polish and Russian.
It is absolutely not an artificial fake country,
Its always been a split country at the least
Parts of it obviously want to be aligned with the West and away from Moscow
And parts obviously want to be aligned with Moscow
The West vs East dynamic was the major fault line of their domestic politics for the entire 30 year history of independent Ukraine.
What part of 1991 do y'all not understand. Overwhelming majorities supported breaking away from Russia. Even Crimea - which most of y'all basically deem "Russia" - was over 50%.
And since then, not one measly area ever voted to leave Ukraine before Russia invaded.
Putin (and some of you) may not like it, but Ukraine has always been a sovereign nation.
And they would be sovereign today had they kept their agreement to remain neutral.
Really, how were they not neutral in 2014?
They were in a state of civil war in 2014. By 2022 they were a de facto US "ally" (although "pawn" might be a better description).
Probably a good idea to join forces with someone when your neighbor invades and kills your people.
Or so they thought. Now they're learning otherwise. They're one of many peoples who have bought into the "freedom vs. tyranny" narrative and suffered the consequences. Israel is another one.
Who invaded whom in 2014 depends on which point of view you take. I would argue it was Ukraine and not Russia that invaded the Donbas. The people of the Donbas would agree, for what little that's worth to Americans. But it doesn't really matter in terms of your larger question. Ukraine's status was uncertain at the time. Its neutrality or allegiance was one of the things that would be decided by the civil war.
The West knew better than to officially invite Ukraine into NATO and then start building up its army. We did things the other way around, hoping that by the time Russia reacted it would be too late. That was where things stood when Russia finally invaded in 2022.
Russia invaded, period. Russia was always going to invade.
Not before 2014 and Maidan revolution they were not
Why would they have...Ukraine under the Party of Regions was friendly with Russia.
Kyiv in fact had just turned away from a EU ascension deal and agreed to a deeper economic partnership with Moscow "Yanukovych reached agreement with Russia's Vladimir Putin, for loans, lower gas prices and joint economic projects"
And just a few years earlier Kyiv had agreed to extend the Russian lease on the Black Sea naval base in Crimea out until 2042
Crazy how a street coup (celebrated in DC) just so happened to break out right after two deals were inked by Kyiv that brought them close to Moscow.....just a coincidence I guess
Again, take your anti-American blinders off and explain how we (or anyone else) knew Yanukovych was going to suddenly change his mind, spurn the EU, and climb in bed with Putin.
"Anti-American" come on now…DC does not speak for America
And the CIA and State Department goobers certainly do not.
PS
I don't think people knew Yanukoych was going to pull out of the EU deal
(Moscow probably bribed him)
The point is the coup took place right after that event.
Almost like certain groups decided he had to go once he pulled out of the EU deal….
Few people understand what the war in Ukraine means for big business. It’s not just the weapons and reconstruction contracts. Ukraine’s vast agricultural lands—among the most fertile in the world—are up for grabs, and American companies like BlackRock are at front of the line. pic.twitter.com/bOa6swCXn4
Complete BS. Corporate America is losing due this war, and it's not even close. We're talking maybe 1 or 2 industries benefitting, and that's debatable based on longer term considerations.
Cant be further from the truth.
Blackrock and the MIC are making billions and when they obtain the farmland it will hundreds of billions.
You guys still don't understand this world is all about money and power. These companies aren't in it for charity or global hegemony.
Few people understand what the war in Ukraine means for big business. It’s not just the weapons and reconstruction contracts. Ukraine’s vast agricultural lands—among the most fertile in the world—are up for grabs, and American companies like BlackRock are at front of the line. pic.twitter.com/bOa6swCXn4
Complete BS. Corporate America is losing due this war, and it's not even close. We're talking maybe 1 or 2 industries benefitting, and that's debatable based on longer term considerations.
Cant be further from the truth.
Blackrock and the MIC are making billions and when they obtain the farmland it will hundreds of billions.
You guys still don't understand this world is all about money and power. These companies aren't in it for charity or global hegemony.
What about the thousands of companies losing b/c they pulled out of Russia?
And Blackrock is not making $ of this. They were highly profitable in Russia. And they get zilch if Ukraine does not survive as sovereign nation. I despise Blackrock, but it's a red herring here.
She is an African speaking the English language, wearing Western clothing, and living in Ireland
It's her who is engaging in cultural appropriation
PS
Russia does similar (if not quite as lame) multicultural/ multiracial propaganda
At least with the Russian video all those groups have long historic, ancestral ties to Russia.
Although the Slavs are the majority and rule Russia, its never been a homogenous country.
Most European countries... but most especially Ireland, were nearly completely homogenous until this post-WW2 period but obviously over the last 20 years it has accelerated into insanity.
Which brings us back to what started all this in the first place, Ukraine is an artificial, fake country created by the communist methuselah Vladimir Lenin.
These lands are historically Polish and Russian.
It is absolutely not an artificial fake country,
Its always been a split country at the least
Parts of it obviously want to be aligned with the West and away from Moscow
And parts obviously want to be aligned with Moscow
The West vs East dynamic was the major fault line of their domestic politics for the entire 30 year history of independent Ukraine.
What part of 1991 do y'all not understand. Overwhelming majorities supported breaking away from Russia. Even Crimea - which most of y'all basically deem "Russia" - was over 50%.
And since then, not one measly area ever voted to leave Ukraine before Russia invaded.
Putin (and some of you) may not like it, but Ukraine has always been a sovereign nation.
And they would be sovereign today had they kept their agreement to remain neutral.
Really, how were they not neutral in 2014?
They were in a state of civil war in 2014. By 2022 they were a de facto US "ally" (although "pawn" might be a better description).
Probably a good idea to join forces with someone when your neighbor invades and kills your people.
Or so they thought. Now they're learning otherwise. They're one of many peoples who have bought into the "freedom vs. tyranny" narrative and suffered the consequences. Israel is another one.
Who invaded whom in 2014 depends on which point of view you take. I would argue it was Ukraine and not Russia that invaded the Donbas. The people of the Donbas would agree, for what little that's worth to Americans. But it doesn't really matter in terms of your larger question. Ukraine's status was uncertain at the time. Its neutrality or allegiance was one of the things that would be decided by the civil war.
The West knew better than to officially invite Ukraine into NATO and then start building up its army. We did things the other way around, hoping that by the time Russia reacted it would be too late. That was where things stood when Russia finally invaded in 2022.
Russia invaded, period. Russia was always going to invade. Russia was always going to try to take over Ukraine. Russia has never, in its heart of hearts, recognize Ukraine as a sovereign.
Ukraine and the West were naive to lose sight of that. Ukraine gave up its nukes. The West left Ukraine on its own, sending only token support until it was far too late.
It was all right there, in Putin's and his cronies' speeches and writings. It's still there today because they just can't hide it. I mean, of all things, idiot Putin led his Tucker interview with that silly history lesson. He actually thought he could convince the world Ukraine wasn't a real country or real people. Were it not so dire, that would have been one of more comedic moments in geopolitical history.
What changed? That's the question that needs to be asked.
Russia and the US were on the path to a long and peaceful coexistence after the Cold War. Yet the idea of NATO expansion reared its ugly head very early on:
Quote:
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, a chorus of government officials, academics, commentators, and retired bureaucrats and diplomats has dismissed any link between the crisis and NATO's decades-long expansion. Moscow's aggression, we are told, is all about Vladimir Putin's imperial impulse--his desire to recreate the Russian empire. Yet three decades ago we had some warning of Russia's strategic sensibilities about NATO expansion. During the 1990s campaign to bring Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, many leading military and foreign-policy thinkers argued that the enlargement of NATO would lead to trouble with Russia. Expansion would create the very danger it was supposed to prevent: Russian aggression in reaction to what the Kremlin would deem a provocative and threatening Western policy.
The list of opponents of NATO enlargement from three decades ago reads like a who's who of that generation's wise men. It included the architects of the Cold War containment doctrine George Kennan and Paul Nitze; the former senior Reagan defense officials Fred Ikl and Admiral James Watkins; president Jimmy Carter's CIA director Stansfield Turner; the Nixon-era diplomats Robert Bowie and Robert Ellsworth; the Reagan-era ambassadors to Moscow Arthur Hartman and Jack Matlock; the intellectuals Ronald Steel, Edward Luttwak, and the Cato Institute's Ted Galen Carpenter; the magazine editors Owen Harries (the National Interest) and Charles Maynes (Foreign Policy); and, not least, the distinguished historians Robert Conquest, Richard Pipes, John Lewis Gaddis, and Britain's foremost military historian, Sir Michael Howard.
Officials in the State and Defense departments also opposed NATO plans to expand eastward, including the Polish-born chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili and Defense Secretary Les Aspin, as well as his successor William Perry, who considered resignation in late 1994 when the policy proposal moved forward. Former defense secretaries Robert McNamara and James Schlesinger also aired their concerns that NATO enlargement would decrease allied security and unsettle European stability.
In the lead-up to the Senate's ratification of expansion in 1998, the New York Times editorial board said that it was "the most important foreign policy decision America has faced since the end of the Cold War" and could "prove to be a mistake of historic proportions. . . . It is delusional to believe that NATO expansion is not at its core an act that Russia will regard as hostile."
Although the Times opposed NATO enlargement, it was not the case, as Poland's president, Aleksander Kwaniewski, joked to the columnist William Safire in 1997, that "the only ones against us are the Russians and the New York Times."
In fact, the opponents represented an ideologically diverse group across America's political spectrum--from the unreconstructed accommodationists Noam Chomsky and the Nation on the left to the America First "isolationists" Pat Buchanan and Phyllis Schlafly on the right. In between, there was opposition from legislators on both sides of the political aisle: from the Republican senator John Warner and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to the Democrat senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the former senators Sam Nunn and Gary Hart.
Virtually all opponents were primarily concerned about upsetting Russia's strategic sensibilities in a "new world order"--or what the leading neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer dubbed "the unipolar moment." For Washington, that meant not just the triumph of Western principles and influence, but a pax Americana. For Moscow, though, it no longer meant a security arrangement between equals.
Three critics of NATO expansion distinguished themselves during this period: Pat Buchanan, George Kennan, and Owen Harries. Although they expressed themselves in different ways, all highlighted not only the folly of rubbing Russia's nose in its Cold War defeat but also the ominous consequences of giving security guarantees to the former captive nations of Eastern and Central Europe.
A past and future Republican presidential candidate, Buchanan used his nationally syndicated column to rail against a new cold war with Russia. In 1994, he noted that if the Cold War presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson backed away from confrontation with the Soviet Union over Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, "why would we risk a clash with Moscow when the Cold War is over?" NATO expansion, Buchanan warned, "is a prescription for a NATO-Russia clash, as soon as the nationalists come to power." Three years later, in 1997, he lamented that "antagonizing Moscow" meant "driving her toward China and Iran."
George Kennan--the author of the containment doctrine of 1947, a former ambassador to the USSR, and one of America's wisest students of Russian affairs--spoke for the many dissenters in 1997 when he warned that NATO expansion "would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era." It would weaken Russian reformers, embolden hard-liners, undermine strategic arms agreements, and escalate East--West tensions when Russia got back on its feet and began acting like a great power.
In the 1990s, Russia was no threat to the West and was incapable of serious military action. But "if humiliated further and made desperate," as Owen Harries warned in 1996, "it could be dangerous in a way that a wounded animal can be dangerous." Its potential to be a troublemaker was huge. A sick Russia with a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons would one day get well and declare its own Monroe Doctrine.
Harries--a Welsh-born conservative academic and cold warrior who became an Australian diplomat-policymaker and editor of the National Interest (from 19852001)--argued: "Expanding NATO violates the wise principle enunciated by Winston Churchill: 'In victory, magnanimity.' Churchill was no softy, but he recognized the stupidity of grinding the face of a defeated foe in the dirt."
As early as 1993, in a widely quoted essay in Foreign Affairs, Harries warned of the perils of any proposal to intrude U.S. military power into Russia's sphere of influence. It would greatly annoy the Russians, but it would have little credibility, create splits within the alliance, and require much in blood and treasure.
The forty-five-year interlude of the Soviet bloc was merely an episode in a much larger history, Harries said, and its demise did not necessarily mark the end of Moscow's involvement in the region. He cited "strategic interests, traditional motives of prestige, the 'historic mission' of freeing the Greek Orthodox population from infidel rule, and the pan-Slavism that had a very real impact on policy" as reasons to take into account Russian sensibilities and interests beyond its own borders.
"To ignore all this history and to incorporate Eastern Europe into NATO's sphere of influence, and at a time when Russia is in dangerous turmoil and when that nation's prestige and self-confidence are badly damaged, would surely be an act of outstanding folly." Harries warned that in such circumstances, NATO expansion could provide a "catalyst that would enable extreme chauvinistic elements in Russia to exploit frustrations, resentments and wounded national pride in ways that would have unpleasant consequences both internally and internationally."
Another central tenet of the HarriesKennanBuchanan critique was that NATO expansion could suffer a massive credibility problem. Ends and means, Walter Lippmann famously warned in 1943, ought to be brought into balance, and aspirations should match resources in foreign-policy deliberations. Yet here was the U.S. cashing in on the so-called peace dividend by cutting defense spending and army and naval troop levels even as it added security commitments in a part of the world where Cold War presidents felt America had no vital interest justifying a risk of war. Meanwhile, European allies were slashing their own defense budgets and downsizing their own militaries. The irresponsibility of such conduct raised the question of the seriousness of the new commitments being undertaken.
Harries, Kennan and Buchanan were also among the opponents of NATO expansion to draw attention to the assurances the U.S. and Germany gave to Moscow during the early 1990s: that if Russia withdrew from its Warsaw Pact client states and accepted German unification, NATO would not move "one inch eastwards." By expanding NATO to the frontiers of the former Soviet Union, they warned, Washington had repudiated an implicit agreement with Mikhail Gorbachev thanks to which the demise of the Soviet Union did not unleash the kind of chaos and brute force that had characterized the collapse of other empires. As the English foreign-policy realist Martin Wight once put it: "Great Power status is lost, as it is won, by violence. A Great Power does not die in its bed."
What happened in the case of the Soviet Union's collapse was the exception to the rule. From 1989 to 1991, the Kremlin turned loose all of its satellites, allowed the Berlin Wall to fall and Germany to be united, and dissolved the USSR into fifteen independent nations--all with virtually no bloodshed. This political miracle took place in no small part because the George H. W. Bush administration refused to exploit Russia's security vulnerabilities. There was, to be sure, no formal treaty to codify any casual agreement that Washington would not expand its security reach into what Moscow had long viewed as its near abroad. But America had given Russia its word, and then suddenly broken it. As Kennan lamented in 1998: "We did not, I am sure, intend to trick the Russians, but the actual determinants of our later behavior . . . would scarcely have been more creditable on our part than a real intention to deceive."
It was around this time when the eminent historian John Lewis Gaddis said he "had difficulty finding any colleagues who think NATO expansion is a good idea." Gaddis, who later wrote Kennan's biography, observed in the New York Times: "I can recall no other moment when there was less support in our profession for a government policy."
The distinguished Oxford historian Michael Howard illustrated Gaddis's point. "If NATO were to be extended eastward, we would see the beginning of a familiar pattern of aggression," he wrote in the Times of London in 1996. "Russia, seeing herself threatened by her traditional enemies, would once again set about establishing her dominance over Ukraine, Belarus and probably the Baltic states."
"NATO would have to respond by improving its military ties with the Visegrad states and perhaps offering guarantees in the Baltics, which the Russians could only see as further threats to their own security." Sir Michael concluded: "Within a few years, we would be back to a military confrontation in which the security of the Visegrad states would really be threatened, and the whole merry-go-round would begin again."
Notice one argument that was glaringly absent from the debate at the time. That is the argument you're making now, that the dirty Russkies were always going to invade Ukraine or Eastern Europe no matter what.
No doubt there were some troglodytes embedded in the military and intelligence who thought so, but they weren't taken seriously. If anything, the expansionists' argument was exactly the opposite--we could push Russia as far as we wanted with no fear of resistance. On the very eve of the war in 2022, Jake Sullivan was promising that Russia would never invade Ukraine.
So I'll ask you...who's being naive, Kay? The ones who saw all of this coming, or the ones who denied it and are now frantically re-writing history to pretend we had no part in it?
As for Putin's interview, it was misrepresented in the West as usual. He was essentially saying the same thing Owen Harries said in the 1990s, as mentioned in the article above. Russia has legitimate interests beyond its own borders, including a long history with Ukraine. That doesn't mean they can't recognize Ukraine's independence. They recognized it in 1991, on a basis of Ukrainian neutrality, and Putin reaffirms that in the 2024 interview.
The problem is that the West in recent years has taken a completely different view. Now Ukraine must be "aligned" with the West and only the West. Russia can have no say in trade negotiations, despite its deep interconnection with the Ukrainian economy. It can have no say in NATO expansion, despite the long recognized principle of indivisible security.
That is what changed. All based on a rewriting of history, wherein the Russians fought tooth and nail to hold on to their empire and have stubbornly refused cooperation ever since.
A long list of luminaries who helped negotiate the end of the Cold War--and it was negotiated--will tell you that's just not true. The troglodytes tell you otherwise, and they are increasingly loud as the whole unipolar project falls apart. That's the real revisionism. Don't fall for it. It's part of the same hubristic agenda that has failed in the Middle East and will continue to fail wherever it's tried.
The fact that the Biden regime is trying to start WWIII right before Trump, who just won a historic landslide victory who ran on ending the Russia/Ukraine war, just shows how evil these POS treasonous traitors scumbags really are.
Biden and Trump met a couple of days ago. Do we think Ukraine was discussed? Did Trump comment on any of that about Ukraine? One could reasonably read between the lines that Trump wanted all the aid delivered so he would not have to spend his own political capital to get it done.....to give him time to work his own plan.
Trump is in a little bit of a bind here. He pandered to anti-war sentiment to get elected, knowing full well that abandoning Ukraine would be an unfathomably stupid thing to do. i don't blame him at all for the pander. Pandering is an essential part of politics and those who think they're too good to do it aren't worth the proverbial bucket of warm spit. But now he has to figure out a way to avoid doing what a really big and noisy chunk of his base wants him to do - cut & run from Ukraine. For sure he has a plan for how to walk the tightrope, and pushing all that aid into Ukraine before he takes over will give him some room to maneuver.
Keep your eye on the ball here: Trump does not want Ukraine to become Afghanistan 2.0 Trump wants to win so much that America gets tired of winning.
So Ukraine should use the long range missiles that would be launched from Ukraine and are targeted and controlled by NATO?
As far as I know, they did just that today and fired them at a military facility in the Bryansk border region.
Ukraine shouldn't be allowed to attack military targets that used to target Ukrainian military and civilian targets??? Interesting angle....
Good grief dude……exactly what do you think any US administration would do if Russia was openly supplying long range missiles to Mexican Drug cartels and they were actively using them to attack targets in various US cities and states ?
Just once at least attempt to provide an honest / specific answer and not just some generic Rambo bull*****
They would invade Mexico and blockade the country until the threat was subdued.
We would invade Mexico and use every weapon at our disposal
Yes, against the cartels, in Mexico. Stopping supply chains is a military move. Russia hasn't been effective doing so,
Russia has been effective bleeding out their adversaries for centuries.
Doing the same in Ukraine.
They're 0-2 in the last 50 years on that.
You guys have to get your stories straight
Is Russia this great military threat that we should all be scared of that could conquer Poland and all of Europe?
Or is it a joke military that has not won a war in 50 years?
Stick to a narrative
Their inability to beat NATO or the West isn't stopping them from picking on weaklings. The fact they have difficulty doing so with only modest low end support from the West only exemplifies that, but doesn't change the reasons why they should be stopped from doing so.
The fact that the Biden regime is trying to start WWIII right before Trump, who just won a historic landslide victory who ran on ending the Russia/Ukraine war, just shows how evil these POS treasonous traitors scumbags really are.
Biden and Trump met a couple of days ago. Do we think Ukraine was discussed? Did Trump comment on any of that about Ukraine? One could reasonably read between the lines that Trump wanted all the aid delivered so he would not have to spend his own political capital to get it done.....to give him time to work his own plan.
Trump is in a little bit of a bind here. He pandered to anti-war sentiment to get elected, knowing full well that abandoning Ukraine would be an unfathomably stupid thing to do. i don't blame him at all for the pander. Pandering is an essential part of politics and those who think they're too good to do it aren't worth the proverbial bucket of warm spit. But now he has to figure out a way to avoid doing what a really big and noisy chunk of his base wants him to do - cut & run from Ukraine. For sure he has a plan for how to walk the tightrope, and pushing all that aid into Ukraine before he takes over will give him some room to maneuver.
Keep your eye on the ball here: Trump does not want Ukraine to become Afghanistan 2.0 Trump wants to win so much that America gets tired of winning.
So Ukraine should use the long range missiles that would be launched from Ukraine and are targeted and controlled by NATO?
As far as I know, they did just that today and fired them at a military facility in the Bryansk border region.
Ukraine shouldn't be allowed to attack military targets that used to target Ukrainian military and civilian targets??? Interesting angle....
Good grief dude……exactly what do you think any US administration would do if Russia was openly supplying long range missiles to Mexican Drug cartels and they were actively using them to attack targets in various US cities and states ?
Just once at least attempt to provide an honest / specific answer and not just some generic Rambo bull*****
it is a free sovereign nation aligned with the free world.
Russia invaded it, knowing Ukraine had the support of the free world and knowing we would supply weapons.
1. It was not aligned to the West until a political coup in 2014 overthrew the old government.
Very strong evidence the CIA and State Department were involved in that coup.
2. Why would Moscow know that DC would spend billions to help Ukraine fight a proxy war?
Did Moscow send billions in weaponry to Iraq & Afghanistan after DC sent in troops in 2001 and 2003
Maybe they expected that DC would act like they did and largely stay out of it.
All of Ukraine, including Crimea, voted for independence in 1991. Ukraine has been a free and sovereign nation since then. It has had all sorts of different alliances, but never once did any region vote to be taken over again by Russia. In fact, when given a clear choice at the federal and regional levels, Ukrainians chose the free world. Russia wouldn't accept that, so it invaded in 2014.
Putin had no interest in Iraq or Afghanistan. And he supplies weapons to many of our adversaries.
We and the Euros were clear about what we'd do if Putin invaded Ukraine. And we had been supplying Ukraine weapons forever.
All of Ukraine voted for independence and neutrality in 1991. No region voted to rejoin Russia until after the neutral government of Ukraine was overthrown.
Yanukovych ran on what the vast majority of Ukrainians wanted -- a fair deal with the EU and a balanced relationship with the EU and Russia. He was never allowed to deliver on that.
Russia never wanted neutrality in Ukraine, and was the first nefarious actor.
I know that's an article of faith to you. The truth is that from 1991, to 2014, to the Minsk Agreements, to Istanbul and Istanbul Plus, neutrality has been Russia's constant demand and has remained so to this day.
Russia's actions including forced agreements like Minsk are the examples of their lack of neutrality, not a signal of it.
