Ukraine and Russia

[DrP]

8 hours ago, MigL said:

( say what you will about 'evil' Americans, but Canadians haven't had to face this kind of behavior since 1812 )

yea? Keep on embarrassing them with your clean air, free and happy life style, good manners, good international relations, great care for your ex military, care for the mentally ill, low crime, high public safety, recycling, inclusion of minorities, open immigration policy, blindness to skin colour and homosexuality etc..  I'm sure they will need to wipe out that kind of commie socialist dystopian BS at some point before they are made to look TOO dumbass. ;-)    

 

 

[Raider5678]

30 minutes ago, DrP said:

yea? Keep on embarrassing them with your clean air, free and happy life style, good manners, good international relations, great care for your ex military, care for the mentally ill, low crime, high public safety, recycling, inclusion of minorities, open immigration policy, blindness to skin colour and homosexuality etc..  I'm sure they will need to wipe out that kind of commie socialist dystopian BS at some point before they are made to look TOO dumbass. ;-)    

2

When it really comes down to it, it's hard to seem like a dumbass when you're the one holding the rifle.... Just saying....

[dimreepr]

3 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

When it really comes down to it, it's hard easy to seem like a dumbass when you're the one holding the rifle.... 

ftfy

[Raider5678]

22 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

ftfy

If you say so.......

[dimreepr]

53 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

If you say so.......

Are you holding the rifle?

[Raider5678]

40 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Are you holding the rifle?

It was a joke about America thinking it's awesome because they supply all the weapons.

Don't think too deeply in between the lines man.

[MigL]

Really DrP ?

Do a side by side comparison with any other major power of the world.
How well does Russia ( the subject of this discussion ) stack up against the US ?
How concerned are her neighbors ?

Or China. How do Tibetians, Japanese and Taiwanese feel about them ?

Us Canadians aren't stressed at all about having the most powerful military in the world, next door.
Americans have pulled your 'arse' out of the fire a couple of times already; and are ready and willing to do it again.
( even with a dumbass as their leader )

[Phi for All]

8 minutes ago, MigL said:

Americans have pulled your 'arse' out of the fire a couple of times already; and are ready and willing to do it again.
( even with a dumbass as their leader )

We prefer "commander". He is NOT a leader.

While we, the People, are always willing to come to the aid of a valued ally, it's our commander in chief who would make that decision. I think he would help Canada (after twisting your arm about milk or something else you "owe" us for), but I don't think he would ever cross Putin to do the same for Ukraine. Whether he would try to stop Congress from doing so is a good question. 

[Hans de Vries]

Belarus is not terribly stressed by Russia's presence. Kazakhstan and China aren't either Finland probably isn't either.

A big % of Ukrainians probably aren't either - in USSR times Ukrainians and Russians (except Western Ukrainians) were considered practically one nation (like English and Scottish people), milions of people moved between Russian and Ukrainian SSR without any issue and they still do - for a matter of fact, 4 out of 8 leaders of USSR were ethnic Ukrainians.

[MigL]

That was over 40 yrs ago, Hans.
In case you hadn't noticed, they are close to being in a state of war.

And what about Latvia, Estonia and Poland ?
( Canada has troops in Latvia, not that they'd do any good against invading Russian forces; purely symbolic  )

[Hans de Vries]

I may say, yes and no.

The southeastern part of Ukraine was deprived of any sort of political representation after a violent coup that forced a democratically elected president to flee the country at the threat of death and brought a government that is completely unacceptable to people in those regions of Ukraine - in Donbass over 90% of people speak Russian as their main language, they do not want to be forced to speak Ukrainian and worship Western Ukrainian ww2 Nazi collaborators like Bandera and Shukhevych..

 

So they started a rebellion and Russia was forced to intervene - otherwise it would be a treason of its own people. An analogous situation would be if the French speaking part of Canada tried to violently impose its identity over the rest of the country. If the Anglo-Candians then rose in revolt, wouldn't it be legitimate for US to intervene militarilu?

 

 

 

[MigL]

No, it would not !

[Hans de Vries]

Like seriously?

If the aforementioned far-right Quebecois violently took power in Canada, declared French to be sole official language, banned all English langage media and declared Anglo-Canadians to be invaders who oppressed the true (French) Canadians for centuries - then an armed revolt in multiple regions of Canada would be certain. And in that case, US will have full right to intervene in Canada in order to protect its brethren people.

 

 

[coffeesippin]

 

11 hours ago, DrP said:

yea? Keep on embarrassing them with your clean air, free and happy life style, good manners, good international relations, great care for your ex military, care for the mentally ill, low crime, high public safety, recycling, inclusion of minorities, open immigration policy, blindness to skin colour and homosexuality etc..  I'm sure they will need to wipe out that kind of commie socialist dystopian BS at some point before they are made to look TOO dumbass. ;-)    

 

 

I've lived in Canada 71 years and Dr. P you sure aren't describing the Canada I live in where white cops shoot Blacks and Orientals because they are that race, where peaceful democratic protesters are beaten and jailed, where the working poor are slaves to the landowners, where tens of thousands of us get sick and die each year from air pollution, where our water is covered by BlueGreen algae and dogs die quickly after swimming in rivers where people get ALS from bluegreen toxins.    Sure is clear you never lived where I live, Dr. P.   But we do have free Health Care if you don't count dental .. that's on the plus side.

[StringJunky]

17 minutes ago, coffeesippin said:

 

I've lived in Canada 71 years and Dr. P you sure aren't describing the Canada I live in where white cops shoot Blacks and Orientals because they are that race, where peaceful democratic protesters are beaten and jailed, where the working poor are slaves to the landowners, where tens of thousands of us get sick and die each year from air pollution, where our water is covered by BlueGreen algae and dogs die quickly after swimming in rivers where people get ALS from bluegreen toxins.    Sure is clear you never lived where I live, Dr. P.   But we do have free Health Care if you don't count dental .. that's on the plus side.

But Canada's snow and mountains and pine forests and crystal clear, cold waters  and log cabins....

Edited December 5, 2018 by StringJunky

[MigL]

I'm not as pessimistic as some people about Canada.
As a matter of fact, I like it here; so I choose to stay, and make a life.

I also don't have a problem with America; they are nowhere near as bad as some make them out to be.
If it wasn't for that little bit of extra arrogance, you could put Americans and Canadians in the same room and not be able to tell them apart.

[zapatos]

2 hours ago, Hans de Vries said:

Like seriously?

If the aforementioned far-right Quebecois violently took power in Canada, declared French to be sole official language, banned all English langage media and declared Anglo-Canadians to be invaders who oppressed the true (French) Canadians for centuries - then an armed revolt in multiple regions of Canada would be certain. And in that case, US will have full right to intervene in Canada in order to protect its brethren people.

 

 

No. Not even close. You think we would choose sides based on language?

Canadians are our brethren people, not English-speaking Canadians. Who give a rat's ass what language people speak?

[DrP]

12 hours ago, MigL said:

Really DrP ?

It was an attempt at humour...  with a small friendly dig. 

12 hours ago, MigL said:

Americans have pulled your 'arse' out of the fire a couple of times already; and are ready and willing to do it again.

true dat (+1) - but it was in their own interests too of course - they didn't join the war to save their old pals the Brits, lol, they joined it because they were attacked on their own mainland by the Japs.

If this Ukraine thing starts a war between the EU/UK and Russia....  will the US step in to help or will they say that they want to stay out of European affairs? I know some of those in the US are not a fan of the EU.  I think it is for the same reasons a third of the British public voted for brexit... they are voting for brexit based on what they think they know about the EU based on what they have read in the Sun and the Daily Mail.

 

 

[Sensei]

12 hours ago, Hans de Vries said:

A big % of Ukrainians probably aren't either - in USSR times Ukrainians and Russians (except Western Ukrainians) were considered practically one nation (like English and Scottish people), milions of people moved between Russian and Ukrainian SSR without any issue and they still do - for a matter of fact, 4 out of 8 leaders of USSR were ethnic Ukrainians.

Stalin caused death of over 4-8 millions of Ukrainians...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

If I would be moderator, you would be banned in the "blink of an eye".. as it's too obvious you're simply Russian agent..

 

Edited December 5, 2018 by Sensei

[Raider5678]

9 hours ago, Hans de Vries said:

then an armed revolt in multiple regions of Canada would be certain.

LMAO.

Armed? 

"Honey! Go grab the hockey stick!"

 

 

 

 

 

*(This is a joke and not intended to be taken seriously in any context. I remove myself from any responsibility of proving why or why not someone may say this in Canada)

[Hans de Vries]

I think that's it

 

Having a nationalist French government in Canada trying to violently impose (with help of far right/neo Nazi "activists") French language and anti-English/anti-American political narrative... It is so unlikely that it sounds almost comical.

 

but that's  what's happening in the Ukraine - the current government is systematically trying to eradicate Russian cultural/lingustic heritage in Ukraine even though 50-60% of Ukrainians use Russian as their main language and the two countries are as linked to each other as England and Scotland.

[Silvestru]

23 minutes ago, Hans de Vries said:

but that's  what's happening in the Ukraine - the current government is systematically trying to eradicate Russian cultural/lingustic heritage in Ukraine even though 50-60% of Ukrainians use Russian as their main language and the two countries are as linked to each other as England and Scotland.

It's a long shot considering your previous posts...but do you have a source for this? Conflict aside, how is the government trying to eradicate the linguistic heritage?

[Hans de Vries]

This has been more or less the case since 1991. Even though majority of Ukrainians use Russian, the sole official language since 1991 has been Ukrainian. Yanukovych finally changed that iin 2012, by granting Russian the status of a regional language - and there was a massive fistfight in the parliament over that. After Euromaidan the law was abolished and further restrictions on the use of Russian have been made - ban on import of Russian language books, quotas in media etc. among other things.

 

Mind you, the whole conflict isn't solely about language, far from that. Linguistic policy is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Ten oz]

I am still waiting for my President to make a clear statement laying out our (U.S. of A.) position on what's happening and the extent we do or do not recognize and support Ukrainian sovereignty. Ambassadors for POTUS have spoken but no one actually speaks for Trump but Trump. Contradicting the made by others on his behalf is common sport for Trump. I would feel more comfortable about  if I believed my govt had a clear position here but I fear it doesn't.

[Sensei]

19 hours ago, Hans de Vries said:

The southeastern part of Ukraine was deprived of any sort of political representation after a violent coup that forced a democratically elected president to flee the country at the threat of death

He fled because he would be accused of mass murdering over 100 citizens. He ordered police and military snipers to shoot to protesters. Over 1100 citizens were injured.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution