Back to the Gaza war

Just finished Bob Woodward's "War". A few takeaways. Biden and Harris detest Netanyahu and privately tried to discourage him from attacking Gaza, but Netanyahu received encouragement to "destroy Hamas" from the Jordanians, UAE, Saudis and Egyptians. pic.twitter.com/BzEwYxDrQF

— Idrees Ahmad | idreesahmad.bsky.social (@im_PULSE) November 1, 2024

Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Realitybites said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Realitybites said:

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Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Yes, it's been awkward for some time how Sachs has parroted the Putin narrative without acknowledging any number of Russian moves in Eastern Europe and specifically Ukraine over that same period.

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Realitybites said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Realitybites said:

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Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Yes, it's been awkward for some time how Sachs has parroted the Putin narrative without acknowledging any number of Russian moves in Eastern Europe and specifically Ukraine over that same period.

---

a good rebuttal would be showing where he is wrong on the timeline or what's missing from the timeline and, naming some of those "Russian moves".

---

I'm exhausted from having done it maybe half a dozen times in this very thread. Clearly narratives and not facts are of most import to some.

boognish_bear said:

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The US has deployed B-52 bombers to the Middle East. 🇺🇸

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 1, 2024

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Don't believe those ancient bombers are going to the Middle East. There is no tactical use for such aircraft in this situation.

Hope it's still another example of fake news.

KaiBear said:

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boognish_bear said:

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The US has deployed B-52 bombers to the Middle East. 🇺🇸

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 1, 2024

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Don't believe those ancient bombers are going to the Middle East. There is no tactical use for such aircraft in this situation.

Hope it's still another example of fake news.

---

it's an elephant walk, if nothing else. Also an actual threat to Iranian nuclear facilities

KaiBear said:

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boognish_bear said:

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The US has deployed B-52 bombers to the Middle East. 🇺🇸

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 1, 2024

---

Don't believe those ancient bombers are going to the Middle East. There is no tactical use for such aircraft in this situation.

Hope it's still another example of fake news.

---

those ancient bombers are expected to be in service until 2050 or 2060. They can carry a variety of stand-off munitions.

Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

KaiBear said:

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boognish_bear said:

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The US has deployed B-52 bombers to the Middle East. 🇺🇸

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 1, 2024

---

Don't believe those ancient bombers are going to the Middle East. There is no tactical use for such aircraft in this situation.

Hope it's still another example of fake news.

---

Wouldn't they go to Diego Gracia?

Ukraine must have missile launchers in the produce section.

⚡️Russia attacks supermarket in Kharkiv, injures 13.

The attack damaged a supermarket, multistory apartment buildings, commercial facilities, and cars, according to Ukraine's State Emergency Service. At least 13 people were wounded.https://t.co/fK7VZTUXYy

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) November 3, 2024

KaiBear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

Sachs is a screaming Keynesian, he makes Yeltsin look like Milton Friedman.

This was is who we are listening to about foreign policy? Actually, I can see several on here using him as source material on Ukraine, China and just simple US evilness.

FLBear5630 said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

Sachs is a screaming Keynesian, he makes Yeltsin look like Milton Friedman.

This was is who we are listening to about foreign policy? Actually, I can see several on here using him as source material on Ukraine, China and just simple US evilness.

---

This guy literally believes in a weaker America and stronger China. And if some of the guys touting him checked out his climate change positions they'd flip out. He's a major promoter of the Green New Deal.

ATL Bear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

Sachs is a screaming Keynesian, he makes Yeltsin look like Milton Friedman.

This was is who we are listening to about foreign policy? Actually, I can see several on here using him as source material on Ukraine, China and just simple US evilness.

---

This guy literally believes in a weaker America and stronger China. And if some of the guys touting him checked out his climate change positions they'd flip out. He's a major promoter of the Green New Deal.

---

Absolutely. Definitely pro-China and pro-Russia. Would not be surprised if several on here have a Sachs tattoo... End poverty with other people's money and the UN...

ATL Bear said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

First of all, thanks for acknowledging that it had nothing to do with Russia. Your usual claim when the US trashes an agreement is that the Russians brought it on themselves. Our withdrawal from the INF treaty may not have been directly related to Russia either. At the time we seemed more interested in positioning ourselves to threaten China. That doesn't mean it didn't profoundly affect Russian security interests. We were all less secure as a result, and the Russians have planned accordingly.

ATL Bear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

Sachs is a screaming Keynesian, he makes Yeltsin look like Milton Friedman.

This was is who we are listening to about foreign policy? Actually, I can see several on here using him as source material on Ukraine, China and just simple US evilness.

---

This guy literally believes in a weaker America and stronger China. And if some of the guys touting him checked out his climate change positions they'd flip out. He's a major promoter of the Green New Deal.

---

You're a major promoter of anti-vax wingnuttery, but you're not wrong 100% of the time.

Sachs isn't an authority on this topic because he's a conservative or because he's right on every issue. He's an authority because he has personal knowledge of the people and the events.

Nuland has personal knowledge of the people and events, too....

whiterock said:

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Nuland has personal knowledge of the people and events, too....

---

Good. Let's consider all the evidence instead of wasting time with ad hominems and fear-mongering about unrelated issues. I'd love to see how many of his fact assertions she can successfully dispute.

Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Realitybites said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Realitybites said:

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Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

Sachs is a screaming Keynesian, he makes Yeltsin look like Milton Friedman.

This was is who we are listening to about foreign policy? Actually, I can see several on here using him as source material on Ukraine, China and just simple US evilness.

---

This guy literally believes in a weaker America and stronger China. And if some of the guys touting him checked out his climate change positions they'd flip out. He's a major promoter of the Green New Deal.

---

You're a major promoter of anti-vax wingnuttery, but you're not wrong 100% of the time.

Sachs isn't an authority on this topic because he's a conservative or because he's right on every issue. He's an authority because he has personal knowledge of the people and the events.

---

Viewed through a very specific lens. Neither he nor Nunland are credible. She is just as bad from the other side. Both their comments are self serving and to position themselves that they are and were right. Nunland had a very specific agenda to move Ukraine West. Sachs to cure poverty through Govt intervention and his Russian economic policies. Neither were successful.

Nunland ended up with a war. Reagan and Bush moved Nations West with no war. Clinton/Obama/Biden a catastrophy. Ukraine has the right to defend themselves and we should help. But make no mistake- They shouldn't have to.

Sachs economic policies has Russians living in the street! His policies were and are economic and humanitarian disasters.

So neither has any credibility. And both should just quietly slink away...

Maybe Trump can broker a peace that keeps Ukraine as a Nation and gets Putin off their back. It may include Zelinski going away. Let's see if he is that big a Patriot

Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Nuland has personal knowledge of the people and events, too....

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Good. Let's consider all the evidence instead of wasting time with ad hominems and fear-mongering about unrelated issues. I'd love to see how many of his fact assertions she can successfully dispute.

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Exactly

I was unaware of Sachs prior to watching the clip.

His information was first rate, timeline easy to follow.

whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Nuland has personal knowledge of the people and events, too....

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Good. Let's consider all the evidence instead of wasting time with ad hominems and fear-mongering about unrelated issues. I'd love to see how many of his fact assertions she can successfully dispute.

---

This is not at all a question of who has right facts and wrong facts. It's a question of who has looked at the same set of facts and made the proper conclusions. It's quite rare for anyone to get it 100% right, but Sacks (like you and others) are way out in left field. You are lionizing our own power and infantilizing Russia as a hapless dupe who got maneuvered into spending a half-million troops and tens of thousands of armored vehicles on a piece of real estate that was not a Nato member, had not asked for Nato membership, did not qualify for Nato membership, had never hosted any Nato combat units, etc......a country which posed no threat to Russia whatsoever, which had committed no hostile acts against Russia whatsoever, etc....

You and Sacks are not dumb, just plain goofy when it comes to Ukraine.

---

I'm only observing what was predicted by foreign affairs experts across the political spectrum -- NATO expansion has led to conflict. Now that we see it happening, you're trying to rewrite history and make your critics look like Russian dupes. Otherwise you'd have to admit they were right all along.

You know as well as I do that both NATO and Putin were looking at a timeline of a decade or two. Meanwhile Ukraine's military was growing year by year. Russia had to make a decision before Ukraine became a member. Anything else would have risked a costly, if not fatal, confrontation with the West.

Yeah, imagine a country already being invaded wanting a stronger army. Baffling.

Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Realitybites said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Realitybites said:

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Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

First of all, thanks for acknowledging that it had nothing to do with Russia. Your usual claim when the US trashes an agreement is that the Russians brought it on themselves. Our withdrawal from the INF treaty may not have been directly related to Russia either. At the time we seemed more interested in positioning ourselves to threaten China. That doesn't mean it didn't profoundly affect Russian security interests. We were all less secure as a result, and the Russians have planned accordingly.

---

No one was less secure by the departure from the ABM. It was literally a reverse action treaty focused on missile defense systems that became irrelevant with the START treaties. If anything we did it so we could redeploy defenses and not be violating anything with the Russians. We also continued to expand START with Obama and Medvedev signing New START which your boy Putin pulled out of unilaterally.

Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

Sachs is a screaming Keynesian, he makes Yeltsin look like Milton Friedman.

This was is who we are listening to about foreign policy? Actually, I can see several on here using him as source material on Ukraine, China and just simple US evilness.

---

This guy literally believes in a weaker America and stronger China. And if some of the guys touting him checked out his climate change positions they'd flip out. He's a major promoter of the Green New Deal.

---

You're a major promoter of anti-vax wingnuttery, but you're not wrong 100% of the time.

Sachs isn't an authority on this topic because he's a conservative or because he's right on every issue. He's an authority because he has personal knowledge of the people and the events.

---

He has little to no personal knowledge of this situation, and was run out of Russia in the early 90s after his advised economic approaches failed. He then began rejecting the very capitalism he helped promo in Latin America and became an environmental wacko and got very anti American.

His time line is a convenient stringing together of unrelated events to build a narrative. The guy ignores so much it's hard to even address.

And just so some of you understand clearly the ABM withdrawal, here are Bush's public remarks, and the official withdrawal notice provided to Russia:

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002-01/us-withdrawal-abm-treaty-president-bushs-remarks-and-us-diplomatic-notes

U.S. Withdrawal From the ABM Treaty: President Bush's Remarks and U.S. Diplomatic Notes
ARMS CONTROL TODAY
On December 13, President George W. Bush announced that the United States would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in six months. Although the United States and the Soviet Union agreed in 1972 that the treaty should be of "unlimited duration," the treaty included a provision for either party to withdraw if "extraordinary events" jeopardized their "supreme interests" and required six months' notice of an intent to withdraw, including a statement of the "extraordinary events." The day of Bush's announcement, the United States sent the required notice to Russia, as well as to Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The text of Bush's statement and the notice are reprinted below.

President Bush's Remarks, December 13, 2001
Good morning. I've just concluded a meeting of my National Security Council. We reviewed what I discussed with my friend, President Vladimir Putin, over the course of many meetings, many months. And that is the need for America to move beyond the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

Today, I have given formal notice to Russia, in accordance with the treaty, that the United States of America is withdrawing from this almost 30-year-old treaty. I have concluded the ABM Treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue-state missile attacks.

The 1972 ABM Treaty was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union at a much different time, in a vastly different world. One of the signatories, the Soviet Union, no longer exists. And neither does the hostility that once led both our countries to keep thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, pointed at each other. The grim theory was that neither side would launch a nuclear attack because it knew the other would respond, thereby destroying both.

Today, as the events of September the 11th made all too clear, the greatest threats to both our countries come not from each other, or other big powers in the world, but from terrorists who strike without warning, or rogue states who seek weapons of mass destruction.

We know that the terrorists, and some of those who support them, seek the ability to deliver death and destruction to our doorstep via missile. And we must have the freedom and the flexibility to develop effective defenses against those attacks. Defending the American people is my highest priority as Commander in Chief, and I cannot and will not allow the United States to remain in a treaty that prevents us from developing effective defenses.

At the same time, the United States and Russia have developed a new, much more hopeful and constructive relationship. We are moving to replace mutually assured destruction with mutual cooperation. Beginning in Ljubljana, and continuing in meetings in Genoa, Shanghai, Washington and Crawford, President Putin and I developed common ground for a new strategic relationship. Russia is in the midst of a transition to free markets and democracy. We are committed to forging strong economic ties between Russia and the United States, and new bonds between Russia and our partners in NATO. NATO has made clear its desire to identify and pursue opportunities for joint action at 20.

I look forward to visiting Moscow, to continue our discussions, as we seek a formal way to express a new strategic relationship that will last long beyond our individual administrations, providing a foundation for peace for the years to come.

We're already working closely together as the world rallies in the war against terrorism. I appreciate so much President Putin's important advice and cooperation as we fight to dismantle the al Qaeda network in Afghanistan. I appreciate his commitment to reduce Russia's offensive nuclear weapons. I reiterate our pledge to reduce our own nuclear arsenal [to] between 1,700 and 2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons. President Putin and I have also agreed that my decision to withdraw from the treaty will not, in any way, undermine our new relationship or Russian security.

As President Putin said in Crawford, we are on the path to a fundamentally different relationship. The Cold War is long gone. Today we leave behind one of its last vestiges.

But this is not a day for looking back. This is a day for looking forward with hope, and anticipation of greater prosperity and peace for Russians, for Americans and for the entire world. Thank you.

Source: The White House

Text of Diplomatic Notes to Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, December 13, 2001
The Embassy of the United States of America has the honor to refer to the Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems signed at Moscow May 26, 1972.

Article XV, paragraph 2, gives each Party the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of the treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.
The United States recognizes that the Treaty was entered into with the USSR, which ceased to exist in 1991. Since then, we have entered into a new strategic relationship with Russia that is cooperative rather than adversarial, and are building strong relationships with most states of the former USSR.

Since the Treaty entered into force in 1972, a number of state and non-state entities have acquired or are actively seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. It is clear, and has recently been demonstrated, that some of these entities are prepared to employ these weapons against the United States. Moreover, a number of states are developing ballistic missiles, including long-range ballistic missiles, as a means of delivering weapons of mass destruction. These events pose a direct threat to the territory and security of the United States and jeopardize its supreme interests. As a result, the United States has concluded that it must develop, test, and deploy anti-ballistic missile systems for the defense of its national territory, of its forces outside the United States, and of its friends and allies.

Pursuant to Article XV, paragraph 2, the United States has decided that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of the Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests. Therefore, in the exercise of the right to withdraw from the Treaty provided in Article XV, paragraph 2, the United States hereby gives notice of its withdrawal from the Treaty. In accordance with the terms of the Treaty, withdrawal will be effective six months from the date of this notice.

Source: Department of State

ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Realitybites said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

First of all, thanks for acknowledging that it had nothing to do with Russia. Your usual claim when the US trashes an agreement is that the Russians brought it on themselves. Our withdrawal from the INF treaty may not have been directly related to Russia either. At the time we seemed more interested in positioning ourselves to threaten China. That doesn't mean it didn't profoundly affect Russian security interests. We were all less secure as a result, and the Russians have planned accordingly.

---

No one was less secure by the departure from the ABM. It was literally a reverse action treaty focused on missile defense systems that became irrelevant with the START treaties. If anything we did it so we could redeploy defenses and not be violating anything with the Russians. We also continued to expand START with Obama and Medvedev signing New START which your boy Putin pulled out of unilaterally.

---

Preserving the ABM was a condition of expanding START. Russia immediately withdrew from START II after we withdrew from the ABM, so it turned out not to be so irrelevant after all. What followed was a chain reaction, predicted by many critics, which led to the collapse of the INF and essentially the entire arms control framework. New START is all that remains (and Putin didn't withdraw from it; he suspended inspections during the Ukraine war). To say this marked the beginning of a historic decline in US/Russia relations isn't particularly controversial.

ATL Bear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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ATL Bear said:

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KaiBear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

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ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

Sachs is a screaming Keynesian, he makes Yeltsin look like Milton Friedman.

This was is who we are listening to about foreign policy? Actually, I can see several on here using him as source material on Ukraine, China and just simple US evilness.

---

This guy literally believes in a weaker America and stronger China. And if some of the guys touting him checked out his climate change positions they'd flip out. He's a major promoter of the Green New Deal.

---

You're a major promoter of anti-vax wingnuttery, but you're not wrong 100% of the time.

Sachs isn't an authority on this topic because he's a conservative or because he's right on every issue. He's an authority because he has personal knowledge of the people and the events.

---

He has little to no personal knowledge of this situation, and was run out of Russia in the early 90s after his advised economic approaches failed. He then began rejecting the very capitalism he helped promo in Latin America and became an environmental wacko and got very anti American.

His time line is a convenient stringing together of unrelated events to build a narrative. The guy ignores so much it's hard to even address.

---

He has a great deal of knowledge about America's intentions toward Russia and its actions behind the scenes, which you've always taken such pains to ignore.

His failure in Russia was not so much a failure of policy as a failure of funding. He designed a plan with the assumption that we wanted to help build Russia's economy. He'd be the first to acknowledge that was an error.

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

---

Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

---

Complete horse hockey.

---

Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

---

Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

---

Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

---

The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

---

Sachs is a screaming Keynesian, he makes Yeltsin look like Milton Friedman.

This was is who we are listening to about foreign policy? Actually, I can see several on here using him as source material on Ukraine, China and just simple US evilness.

---

This guy literally believes in a weaker America and stronger China. And if some of the guys touting him checked out his climate change positions they'd flip out. He's a major promoter of the Green New Deal.

---

You're a major promoter of anti-vax wingnuttery, but you're not wrong 100% of the time.

Sachs isn't an authority on this topic because he's a conservative or because he's right on every issue. He's an authority because he has personal knowledge of the people and the events.

---

He has little to no personal knowledge of this situation, and was run out of Russia in the early 90s after his advised economic approaches failed. He then began rejecting the very capitalism he helped promo in Latin America and became an environmental wacko and got very anti American.

His time line is a convenient stringing together of unrelated events to build a narrative. The guy ignores so much it's hard to even address.

---

He has a great deal of knowledge about America's intentions toward Russia and its actions behind the scenes, which you've always taken such pains to ignore.

His failure in Russia was not so much a failure of policy as a failure of funding. He designed a plan with the assumption that we wanted to help build Russia's economy. He'd be the first to acknowledge that was an error.

---

I'm not the one consistently ignoring actions behind the scenes. Your blind eye to the Russians is legendary at this point. BTW, I'll see if I can dig up an incredibly embarrassing interview of Sachs by of all places The New Yorker. And if he was such a "friend" to Yushchenko, the fact he went to the blame America for the Orange Revolution but not a word on his poisoning (speaking of behind the scenes actions with intention) is incredibly telling of how much BS this guy is shoveling.

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

ShooterTX said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

Japan was an Allied Power in World War I.

23 years later they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Such a drastic change requires some self examination. It is also a lesson on how quickly the world can change.

---

Are you implying that the United States was somehow responsible for causing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor? That the US did something that made them want to attack?

---

I'm saying that if in 23 years you can go from fighting a war with someone to fighting a war against someone that the foreign policy that led to such an outcome needs to have a proctologist look at it.

This is equally true of the few decades from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current mess in Ukraine.

Not all wars can be avoided. But it is one thing for simmering tensions between hostile nations to boil over (Armenia/Azerbaijan), and it is quite another to convert an ally or potential ally into an enemy in a short period of time.

---

Curious, how was Ukraine the US fault or avoidable? Ukraine and the others wanted to align west and have access to the western economy and security.

---

You keep shilling for that State Department/CIA talking point

In truth half of Ukraine's voting population did not want to align with DC-Brussels and consistently voted for the pro-Moscow party (The Party of Regions)

They even won the election in 2010 by 49.55% of the vote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election

Indeed a various points its been the largest political party in Ukraine (until Zelensky banned it)

[The Party of Regions ,Partiia rehioniv, is a political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.]


Ukraine was always a divided country between its capital region and western provinces who wanted to align with the EU-USA and its eastern provinces that wanted to align with Russia

Obviously both DC and Moscow have engaged in taking advantage of those internal fault lines to try and pull the whole country into one or the other camp.

But its foolish and wrong to say that "all Ukrainians wanted to align with Russia" or to say "all Ukrainians wanted to align with the West"

---

Gee, I wonder how the Party of Regions happened to ascend to power during that period…

---

By building an electoral power base in the Eastern part of the country?

---

Yes, how do you think they built this "electoral power base"? Just ask another Eastern Ukrainian politician like Yulia Tymoshenko.

---

Probably by appealing to the ethnic Russians that inhabit those regions

(They don't want to align with the U.S.-EU

All their trade, cultural, historical ties are East with Russia)

---

You and Sam's fundamental flaw is you posit the same Russian BS that somehow Eastern Ukraine isn't Ukraine.

---

Well demographically its certainly not filled with ethnic Ukrainians. (Donbass and Crimea are full of ethnic russians)

But the people there were ok with being ruled by Kyiv until a bloody coup in 2014 overthrew their candidate who had won the election for another one hostile to their interests.

Who sponsored that coup ATL?

Who set off this cycle of violence that has gripped the country since 2014....

---

The Russians

---

You can be sure that the Russians did not start the Maidan revolution/coup in Kyiv


[Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime ("Revolution of Dignity"). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome ("fascist coup"). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine's war -whatever one calls it - can thus be traced to Maidan.]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ukraines-unnamed-war/regime-change-maidan/BEEA67BB188AC655A1EFDC142D77C664

---

Maidan was a result of the decades of Russian corruption and meddling leading up to it. It's amazing how you guys will cite 17th century history for Russian claims on Ukraine, but there's a 20 year memory hole from post Soviet Union to Maidan. It's amazing how inept you claim the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is, yet in less than 60 days they went from all is hunky dory to pulling off a coup. Hell Victoria Nuland wasn't even in her position at State until late September of 2013.

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Total straw man. We've covered how the US spent years, even decades, destabilizing Ukraine. Maidan was only a culmination of our efforts going back to the Orange Revolution and beyond.

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Complete horse hockey.

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Well this is awkward

Jeffrey Sachs Killed Biden, Zelensky and Kamala!!! pic.twitter.com/INb5j8dLiN

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) November 1, 2024

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Great clip. He was there and knows what happened better than almost anyone.

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Good clip.......explains the time line extremely well.

As much as we have all been educated to believe the US is 'noble' in all its foreign policy moves.

The US has blundered horribly regarding Ukraine; we engineered a proxy war.

And hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result.

I have grave concerns that Harris.....a blathering idiot if there ever was one.........will blunder still again and get the US into a bigger war than anything we have faced since the end of WW2.

Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have absolutely no clue what is at risk.

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The guy said the cancelling of the ABM treaty was a seminal event in our Russia/Ukraine spat. We cancelled it in 2002 (30 years after its usefulness, but that's another topic) because we just had 9/11 and the ABM was very restrictive on where you could deploy missile defense systems. We told the Russians in advance of us doing it, and even Putin acknowledged it had nothing to do with Russia vs the U.S.

Sachs is a whack job. He reminds me of Noam Chomsky.

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First of all, thanks for acknowledging that it had nothing to do with Russia. Your usual claim when the US trashes an agreement is that the Russians brought it on themselves. Our withdrawal from the INF treaty may not have been directly related to Russia either. At the time we seemed more interested in positioning ourselves to threaten China. That doesn't mean it didn't profoundly affect Russian security interests. We were all less secure as a result, and the Russians have planned accordingly.

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No one was less secure by the departure from the ABM. It was literally a reverse action treaty focused on missile defense systems that became irrelevant with the START treaties. If anything we did it so we could redeploy defenses and not be violating anything with the Russians. We also continued to expand START with Obama and Medvedev signing New START which your boy Putin pulled out of unilaterally.

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Preserving the ABM was a condition of expanding START. Russia immediately withdrew from START II after we withdrew from the ABM, so it turned out not to be so irrelevant after all. What followed was a chain reaction, predicted by many critics, which led to the collapse of the INF and essentially the entire arms control framework. New START is all that remains (and Putin didn't withdraw from it; he suspended inspections during the Ukraine war). To say this marked the beginning of a historic decline in US/Russia relations isn't particularly controversial.

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What are you talking about? We went right into the next agreement SORT, and initiated a third add on with New START signed almost 10 years later.

It's a BS attempt to tie disparate events together.

We don't really know who was involved in Yushchenko's poisoning. We do know the US was involved in the Orange Revolution, as well as Maidan.