War Games: Russia Takes Ukraine, China Takes Taiwan. US Response?

[Phi for All]

12 hours ago, SergUpstart said:

Then the ban on education in Russian should also be considered genocide.

That would remove all meaning from the word, but I'm sure that's why you said it. More whataboutism. It's boring.

[mistermack]

I've just seen a repeat of a satire show, done just before the invasion.

Boris Johnson said there would be "significant consequences" and Liz Truss (next PM) said there would be a "severe cost". 

How right they were. They didn't say that the cost would be for us, not Putin though.

I also read elsewhere that Olaf Scholz went to see Zelenskyy just weeks before, and asked him to abandon the intention of joining NATO to avoid invasion. Zelenskyy turned him down flat. 

Does anybody still think he's a wise and gracious leader, who's guiding his country down the best available path? 

Putin's ok. He's got sky-high prices for his exports, and his Ruble is doing really well. And his European enemies are in deep economic woe, and it's not even winter. The US is doing great, it's energy rich so little to worry about and much to celebrate. 

Ukraine on the other hand is doing rather badly. You get what you vote for. That's 'democracy' Ukraine style. 

 

[Endy0816]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

I've just seen a repeat of a satire show, done just before the invasion.

Boris Johnson said there would be "significant consequences" and Liz Truss (next PM) said there would be a "severe cost". 

How right they were. They didn't say that the cost would be for us, not Putin though.

I also read elsewhere that Olaf Scholz went to see Zelenskyy just weeks before, and asked him to abandon the intention of joining NATO to avoid invasion. Zelenskyy turned him down flat. 

Does anybody still think he's a wise and gracious leader, who's guiding his country down the best available path? 

'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.'

...and considering how even many Russian notables suffer mysterious accidents, perhaps one wouldn't be serving all that long either.

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Endy0816

[MigL]

Only reason Europeans are suffering is because they got in bed with V Putin and the Russians.
Divorce is often painful, but most often, it's for the best.

Europe will be OK, eventually.
We'll see how Russia fares in the long run.

[geordief]

8 hours ago, MigL said:

Only reason Europeans are suffering is because they got in bed with V Putin and the Russians.
Divorce is often painful, but most often, it's for the best.

Europe will be OK, eventually.
We'll see how Russia fares in the long run.

Nobody got into bed with them

There was always a legitimate  hope that Russia could evolve into a half decent political  system and ,as with China the hope was that change might come through osmosis.

 

Everyone was taken off guard  by this invasion. 

 

It may have a silver lining (not for the Ukranians) of both showing their real face and giving   the climate change  measures  due urgency  rather than relying  on a boiled frog ,(lobster?) response.

 

Easy to criticise Germany  but they changed their Ostpolitik policy  very quickly  -and they are  very much in the Russian  nationalist's line of fire ("march to Berlin" they were boasting before the invasion)

[mistermack]

If you think about Zelenskyy's thinking, when he turned down the option to avoid invasion by comitting his country not to join NATO, it's frankly ludicrous, and it reveals just what sort of a man he is.

Firstly, he couldn't possibly have thought that it was best for Ukraine. How could anybody possibly think that? To be invaded by a much bigger power has to be the worst option for the country.

Secondly, he had the perfect excuse, to accede without losing face. Olaf Scholz visited him personally and asked him (to put it mildly) to abandon the goal of NATO membership to avoid the invasion. While Scholz had his own german reasons for being keen to avoid the invasion, it was still a golden oportunity to pass the buck, save face, and do the non-NATO deal. But Zelenskyy still said no. 

Maybe he was being conned by NATO, with vague promises of significant help. An invasion is a good outcome for NATO, it justifies the existence of the organisation. A friendly Russia would spark questions of whether we need NATO at all, so there are a lot of top jobs that are safer now as a result.

In the end, I think Zelenskyy was motivated by the macho culture that pervades eastern Europe. He couldn't face being seen as giving way, even though he knew it would cost many thousands of lives. And Putin is probably motivated in the same way. He can't face the domestic humiliation of Ukraine joining an enemy of Russia on his watch. He would have preferred a deal, but had to be prepared to back up his threat. To threaten, and then do nothing when rebuffed, would have been the biggest humiliation of all. 

So it's all down to egoes. Firstly NATO's, then Putins, and then Zelenskyy's. But NATO set the ball rolling. 

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

If you think about Zelenskyy's thinking, when he turned down the option to avoid invasion by comitting his country not to join NATO, it's frankly ludicrous, and it reveals just what sort of a man he is.

What's ludicrous is to imagine he wanted his country to be invaded...

Should he blindly follow the school bully, just in case the bully is kind to him, or hide behind the kid the bully is scared of?

Here's a mirror, man... 😉

[mistermack]

35 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Should he blindly follow the school bully, just in case the bully is kind to him,

You've totally missed the point as usual. In playground terms, he announced to everyone that he was wanting to join an opposing bully gang, who had already said that they wouldn't intervene to help if he got duffed up. Well surprise surprise !! 

The "school bulley" even gave him the chance to change his stance, but he 'wisely' said no !!

[iNow]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

If you think about Zelenskyy's thinking, when he turned down the option to avoid invasion by comitting his country not to join NATO, it's frankly ludicrous, and it reveals just what sort of a man he is.

You really need to stop blaming the rape victim for being raped. The rapist is the one at fault. Full stop.

[mistermack]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

You really need to stop blaming the rape victim for being raped. The rapist is the one at fault. Full stop.

That's a clear hijack attempt. Start your own rape thread if you want to debate rape. 

[iNow]

🤦‍♂️ 

[TheVat]

9 minutes ago, iNow said:

You really need to stop blaming the rape victim for being raped. The rapist is the one at fault. Full stop.

Not to mention that Z. turning down NATO was not going to prevent invasion, given Putin's oft stated intentions re Donetsk and Luhansk, and multiple indications that he wants to restore the old Soviet empire.  And NATO certainly didn't need the invasion to "justify" its existence - there was little chance of a "friendly" Russia that was osmotically absorbing niceness and democracy from Europe.  We should never let Mack's sympathy for the devil cloud a clear view of Putin as a vicious thug who will bully his way from Kiev to the Brandenburg gate if he can.

[iNow]

Yeah, if only NATO weren’t equivalent to a union then Russia wouldn’t right now be using power plants like nuclear weapons equivalent to 6 Chernobyls if any stray shrapnel hits the wrong component /ridiculous

Edited September 5, 2022 by iNow

[mistermack]

29 minutes ago, TheVat said:

We should never let Mack's sympathy for the devil cloud a clear view of Putin as a vicious thug who will bully his way from Kiev to the Brandenburg gate if he can.

That's just your opinion, you seem to think you know what Putin is thinking. I think you overestimate your mind-reading powers. Russia invaded Georgia when Russian speaking Georgians were under attack. He could have just rolled on right through to the capital, but didn't, and merely protected the areas under threat. 

He took back Crimea, partly because it should never have stayed with Ukraine, which it never was historically, and because the population was hugely Russian, and because Ukraine were clearly not keeping to the independence deal of neutrality, which would threaten his Black Sea fleet. 

It's all been pretty reasoned, as far as I can see. A vicious thug would have just flattened Kiev. He has the weaponry to do it. What would Stalin have done?

[TheVat]

I know Vlad's words and actions, which couldn't be clearer.  He has openly stated he wants to be like Peter the Great and rebuild an empire.  No Vulcan mind-meld needed.  

In Georgia, Putin invaded on the basis of false accusations of genocide and then sponsored ethnic cleansing of Georgians by South Ossetians and then engaged in what international observers described as grave human rights abuses.  (Gosh that sounds familiar!)

Crimea has been a hot mess that empires fight over since it was taken over by Kievan Rus in the mid 10th century.  I can find no trustworthy polling on what current Crimeans want, but Russian state media has (surprise!) found overwhelming support for it being part of Russia.  

[mistermack]

9 hours ago, TheVat said:

Crimea has been a hot mess that empires fight over since it was taken over by Kievan Rus in the mid 10th century.  I can find no trustworthy polling on what current Crimeans want, but Russian state media has (surprise!) found overwhelming support for it being part of Russia.

You really do just see what you want to see, don't you? Not long ago, you were declaring a "landslide" for the pro-west faction, after the Ukrainian coup. You found that trustworthy. But choose to ignore the vote in Crimea of 98% for union with Russia as "no trustworthy polling" even though the western media hardly questioned it's accuracy at the time.

Crimea flipped bloodlessly in a few hours, they needed no encouragement, there was no resistance to the pro-russian takeover. Very different to the violent resistance in the Donbas region, even though the media agree there is a pro-russian majority there. That tells ME that the 98% support figure was almost certainly genuine for Crimea.

[TheVat]

My main point was in the first two paragraphs which it seems you were reluctant to respond to.  I can see why.  When Putin's actions and own words don't fit your narrative it's best to ignore.

 

As for Crimea, not sure when 98% has ever anywhere been a credible vote count.  Really?  It could well be a majority wanted to join Russia, but returns that go into the upper 90s suggest manipulation and intimidation.  538, at the time, had cited polls that found 41% of Crimeans wanting annexation.  Hmm.  

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/many-signs-pointed-to-crimea-independence-vote-but-polls-didnt/

[MigL]

Mistermack should realize that, in the West, he is free to spout his dissenting nonsense on any website, newspaper or assembly area he chooses.
Meanwhile TheVat would be in serious trouble if he chose to post his 'dissenting' views in Russia.

Makes choosing the more credible information, or referendum polling, much easier to anyone who isn't a 'useful idiot'.
 

On 9/5/2022 at 10:03 AM, mistermack said:

What would Stalin have done?

No sense setting the bar too high ...

Edited September 6, 2022 by MigL

[TheVat]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/ukraine-invasion-civilian-volunteers-survival/671241/

Horizontal relations.  Self-organization.  Ukrainians are very good at these.  

[mistermack]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

As for Crimea, not sure when 98% has ever anywhere been a credible vote count.

Well big mistake. I posted from memory that the result was 98% . It was actually 97%.

Sitting on your butt in the USA, you pronounced “returns that go into the upper 90s suggest manipulation and intimidation.  538, at the time, had cited polls that found 41% of Crimeans wanting annexation.  Hmm.  “

 I don’t know where you fish up such rubbish from, or why.

Wikipedia states :

“Gallup conducted an immediate post-referendum survey of Ukraine and Crimea and published their results in April 2014. Gallup reported that, among the population of Crimea, 93.6% of ethnic Russians and 68.4% of ethnic Ukrainians believed the referendum result accurately represents the will of the Crimean people. Only 1.7% of ethnic Russians and 14.5% of ethnic Ukrainians living in Crimea thought that the referendum results didn't accurately reflect the views of the Crimean people.[37]”              

Your posts seem to be a blend of selective rubbish and pure invention. It’s not hard to find out the facts, but when you don’t like them you seem determined to change and insert your own.         

[TheVat]

The 538 report I posted had detailed analysis of the polling leading up to the 2014 referendum.  So your statement that you don't "know where you fish up such rubbish from, or why" would suggest you didn't even look at that report.

Feel free to actually read the report which I posted.  Nowhere did I say that it is not possible a majority of Crimeans prefer annexation by Russia.  (only doubting that it was 97%)  Again you haven't responded to the key points of that first posting on the matter, battening on to a side comment on an issue that is less interesting to me, and which dodges the larger picture which is Vlad the Invader attacking a sovereign nation, including its capital at the outset, which has no interest in being part of Russia.  

How bizarre that you think when a nation is constantly threatened by Russia for several years, and wants to join a military alliance to protect itself from Russia, that this is some kind of unconscionable aggression on the nation's part.  Why aren't you firing up your outrage machine over Finland and Sweden now moving to join NATO?  Is it possible that you have bought in to Putin's Empire philosophy, viz. that places like Ukraine aren't really separate sovereign nations that have any right to exist outside the Russian Empire?  

35 minutes ago, mistermack said:

 

Sitting on your butt in the USA

I am so ignorant of customs overseas.  On what anatomical part do you sit in the UK?  

Edited September 6, 2022 by TheVat

[CharonY]

On 9/5/2022 at 4:52 AM, mistermack said:

Secondly, he had the perfect excuse, to accede without losing face. Olaf Scholz visited him personally and asked him (to put it mildly) to abandon the goal of NATO membership to avoid the invasion.

According to a report Scholz suggested a neutral status for Ukraine with guarantees from Russia and the US. Zelensky responded that Putin could not be trusted to uphold such an agreement and seemingly with good reason. 

Before that, in the meeting between Scholz and Putin, Putin again reiterated the one people claim of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. As such his motivation does not seem to be borne out of fear of the West, but rather a desire of the creation of an USSR style Russia in his image.

[toucana]

An interesting drone video of a Russian tank ‘regrouping’ after the sudden breakthrough by Ukraine army forces during their latest offensive in the Kharkiv Oblast area which led to the capture of the cities of Kupiansk and Izium within the last 48 hours. The video shows the fleeing tank shedding Russian soldiers into the road as it swerves wildly around abandoned vehicles, before crashing into a tree at high speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWfV12XnTH0

[StringJunky]

On 9/6/2022 at 4:47 PM, mistermack said:

Well big mistake. I posted from memory that the result was 98% . It was actually 97%. 

Yeah, of course it was. We can trust the Russians to do a transparent referendum. Wake up.

On 9/6/2022 at 5:29 PM, CharonY said:

Before that, in the meeting between Scholz and Putin, Putin again reiterated the one people claim of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. As such his motivation does not seem to be borne out of fear of the West, but rather a desire of the creation of an USSR style Russia in his image.

This has been a regular theme in my readings. 

Edited September 11, 2022 by StringJunky

[mistermack]

8 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Yeah, of course it was. We can trust the Russians to do a transparent referendum. Wake up.

I've already covered that point. You seem incapable of reading or comprehending, even when it's big, bold and blue. If you read my post above, you would see that the vast majority (68.4%) of ethnic Ukrainians  living in Crimea thought that the referendum result reflected the will of the people of Crimea, and only 14.5% thought it didn't. 

But you, sat on your arse, looking at your screen, think you somehow know better than the ethnic ukrainian people living through it. If anyone needs waking up, it's you.