Play Nice The NM Devils Chessboard thread.

[Swallow_Wood]

Just wait until the excuses for China attacking Taiwan; they will be legion.

A long time ago I made peace with the fact that all power structures have blood on their hands. No dominant power gets to where it is without doing some desperately ****ed up s**t. All that most nations can do for their people is to align themselves with a power structure that provides them with the best opportunity for peace and security, and the potential for prosperity. We here in Australia and the west find ourselves under the influence of the greatest imperialists in the history of the world, and woebegone anyone who finds themselves in their crosshairs. And thats ****ed up and dirty.

But would i rather be living in this society as opposed to the alternatives, where despots commit genocide on their own people, where others get imprisoned for 20 years for protesting, where even attempting to find the truth can end up with your government killing you? And i fully agree that the west is far from perfect, and in some ways is more insidious than the alternatives. But on the balance of things I'm happy to say Putin can go * himself. And I say that with my eyes wide open.

 

[Mav]

It is a childish argument that allows for no comment by anyone, ever, on anything.

And there in lies your problem. It’s not an argument.

 

[B4Bear]

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/intel/RL32508.pdf

It would be fascinating to know what platforms are being used, and what is being fed directly to Ukraine from NATO.

I imagine that constant satellite, drone, communications, cryptographic analysis, direction finding and social media is being fed directly into the Ukrainian high command.

 

[B4Bear]

And there in lies your problem. It’s not an argument.

Argument = Point of view

 

[Forever North]

Putin and his dodgy ex commo party/KGB oligarchs probably should have just continued in their filthy, corrupt merry way by raking in the billions, ‘administaring‘ state owned enterprises, buying up even more London real estate and controlling the masses via fear and intimidation but instead these fools have ****ed it up for themselves by being stupid greedy campaigners by also wanting Ukraine’s riches and starting a ‘war‘ that they simply will not win.

 

[Val Keating]

 

[Val Keating]

Journalists that cover war are extremely brave.

 

[B4Bear]

Journalists that cover war are extremely brave.

Absolutely.

 

[B4Bear]

Lucky they didn’t work for Sky.

 

[Sopwiths North]

So tiresome, this "NATO/US/the West" blame game on here. Putin wrote a manifesto, for godssake. Less than a year ago. A freaking "Manifesto". Who does that nowadays? Bloody tsars and despots, that's who.

And in that manifesto he clearly states that his desire is to restore the old Soviet empire, and that Ukrainians are not people. End of story. This isn't about NATO, it's about a desire to hold on to and recreate the past. It's Putin's own deluded dream, and he'll fail, because the world has changed. Both inside and outside his own country.

Russia has a long history of fallen tsars and revolutions. What we're watching is another one coming. It's not about NATO. And Ukraine absolutely deserves every word of compassion and anger written for it on here. What's happening right now is horrific, and the whattaboutism, serial contrarianism, and intellectual ego displays trying to detract from that on here need to just stop. Please. A genocide is happening in front of the entire world right now. At the hands of one man. That is the truth.

 

[The Warlord]

What’s with all these Syrians going to fight for Russia? 16,000 of them. After what Russia did to Syria you’d think they’d hate them. Do they have reason to hate Ukraine?

Russia saved Syria mate. Once Assad made it "me or the jihadists" fight, the vast majority of the population chose him and basic freedoms over the head chopping sex slavery of the "moderate rebels".

 

[The Warlord]

Journalists that cover war are extremely brave.

And mostly psycho and addicted to s**t.

The Marie Colvin book/movie is good in this regard.

Very close friend of mine had to basically "wean" off war reporting like a junkie slowly reducing doses, he was that addicted to it all.

 

[The Warlord]

Just on the section of people close (not so smart) to him and those managing the macro economics (smart); I took that as 2 distinct groups. The former are part of his inner network. Bumbling ministers if you will, and the later are the hard working, competent public servants... to put it in an Australian context.


Edit.... like straight out of the ABC comedy Utopia....

But the article also says he keeps his St Peterburg cronies tight, the only ones he can rely on.

I suspect like any politician he keeps fall guys handy to suffer the consequences for stuff up, but that's hardly unique.

 

[The Warlord]

 

[ferball]

But you’re very happy to criticise others. You’ve been criticising the US and Europeans for the past week.

More whataboutism to deflect from the fact that Russsia is murdering innocent civilians right now.

The Europeans haven't done anything to cause this situation.

 

[B4Bear]

The Weakness of the Despot

An expert on Stalin discusses Putin, Russia, and the West.

www.newyorker.com

Absolutely destroys the Nato myth
and provides the historical context for where this came from.

Scholarly and factually accurate.


The West is a series of institutions and values. The West is not a geographical place. Russia is European, but not Western. Japan is Western, but not European. “Western” means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted. We sometimes forget where they came from. But that’s what the West is. And that West, which we expanded in the nineties, in my view properly, through the expansion of the European Union and nato, is revived now, and it has stood up to Vladimir Putin in a way that neither he nor Xi Jinping expected.

If you assumed that the West was just going to fold, because it was in decline and ran from Afghanistan; if you assumed that the Ukrainian people were not for real, were not a nation; if you assumed that Zelensky was just a TV actor, a comedian, a Russian-speaking Jew from Eastern Ukraine—if you assumed all of that, then maybe you thought you could take Kyiv in two days or four days. But those assumptions were wrong.

 

[The Warlord]

wHaTaBoUtIsM

 

[Mav]

And mostly psycho and addicted to sh*t.

The Marie Colvin book/movie is good in this regard.

Very close friend of mine had to basically "wean" off war reporting like a junkie slowly reducing doses, he was that addicted to it all.

I know one that was reporting years ago on the Thai/Burma boarder. He climbed out of his bunker to sleep among the shelling rather than have all the rats crawl over him! He came back to Aus, was walking with his family through suburbia and froze after he stepped onto a verge. He had to take a minute to calm himself and then convince himself there were no land minds in Aus so he could continually walking.

 

[ferball]

He wouldn't have needed to because he would have installed his own puppet regime. A self determining Ukraine was something he would never have allowed as they were increasingly looking westward for their future.

He failed to maintain influence because the Ukranian parliament and people roundly demanded they join the EU as an associated member rather than the Russian controlled Eurasian Economic Union despite the disparity in the quality of the deals offered. The then president wanted to go towards Ruasia but the parliament and people wanted to go Europe. The US took advantage of this turmoil to ensure the ascent of a leadership that was as westward looking as is people and parliament. In response Vlad then invaded the Crimea and flooded Donbas with military support and bolstered their separatist movement. In reality Russia invaded the Ukraine 8 years ago. They just waited until they felt conditions were right to launch phase 2.

Vlad lost the battle for influence because Ukranians don't want to be a Russian vassal so he used NATO encroachment as an excuse to take back what he feels is rightly a land in the Russian sphere of influence. If he can't control his largest western neighbour by economic and political means he will do so by military means. His biggest misunderstanding is his belief that Ukrainians want to be Russian as much as he wants Russia to absorb Ukraine.

12 years ago before the US started overtly interfering in Ukrainian politics they were going their own way and it didn't involve joining NATO. Even the people who ran the Orange revolution were happy to deal with Putin and the Eu and have nothing to do with the US and they were happy to deal directly with Russia if it meant cutting out Ukrainian oligarchs and the supporters of Yanokovych and the other Victor.

They were looking no further west than Germany. There was * all US interference in Ukraine before Tymmochenko and Putin did the 2009 deal for cheap gas and to by pass Ukrainian middle men to sell it to the Ukrainian state.

In reality Russia invaded the Ukraine 8 years ago. They just waited until they felt conditions were right to launch phase 2.

I agree with the first sentence but the second one is silly. There is nothing "right" about these conditions now. Ukraine is in a better position now than it was 8 years ago to resist an invasion. This is a response to Nato involvement and its happening now because the Russians thought things would be even worse for an invasion in a year or two.

 

[ferball]

Oh dear.

Nice selective quoting there. Did you leave the rest out for a reason?

 

[The Warlord]

I know one that was reporting years ago on the Thai/Burma boarder. He climbed out of his bunker to sleep among the shelling rather than have all the rats crawl over him! He came back to Aus, was walking with his family through suburbia and froze after he stepped onto a verge. He had to take a minute to calm himself and then convince himself there were no land minds in Aus so he could continually walking.

Oh yeah, that PTSD is intense when you see it up close, I've known folks who can only sit in certain spots in rooms and cars etc, won't go underpasses.

 

[ferball]

Yeah, pretty stupid comment. What he was trying to say was, why do we pretend we didn’t do something bad.

What Putin is doing is sh*t, and Ferbs and SOTDOTB have always agreed with this. They just like to point out the hypocrisy in the fan boy cheering that is going on for just this atrocity.

Thank you. There are alot of people who are cheerleading against Putin for the simple reason its the first time this century they've had someone else they can pretend is the only bad guy.

Also why are we letting what we did slide?

Val is saying "Oh it was 20 years ago, who cares!" but the people responsible are walking around free.

The West is a series of institutions and values

The institutions are the US military and Nato and the values are bombing the s**t out of people and taking their stuff. So when someone else does what God gave us the right to do its only correct that we criticise them.

That war is still happening. Isis is still there fighting the Iraq government. Nothing ended there. Putin is no different to us.

This gets sprouted a lot but where is it proven to be true? This isn’t the first time Russia has invaded, and there’s so much history between the 2 countries. Why was Ukraine so keen to join NATO? The only reason for them to join was because they knew it was only a matter of time before Putin would invade.

I presume the US have always known this and they knew to win the war and the PR battle was to prepare Ukraine.

Before Euromaiden support for Ukraine joining Nato was around 20-30% even when support for joining the EU was alot higher.

The 2019 Rand paper I posted upthread a few pages ago about "extending and pressuring Russia" promoted "Lethal Aid to Ukraine" as one of the ways we could pressure Russia but it acknowledged one of the risks of this strategy was potentially causing Putin's response. That's obviously a risk they were happy to take. Probably because someone else would carry the can for it. Putin wasn't going to invade Connecticut in response.

 

[ferball]

Everyone has their hypocrisy to bear. I didn’t see him and the others excusing Putin protesting the murder of children by the Taliban over the last 20 years.

If no country has clean hands, then if China attack Australia; what then?

It is a childish argument that allows for no comment by anyone, ever, on anything.

You were in an army that murdered children in Afghanistan in my name.

This is a democracy. We're all responsible for that.

Meanwhile this guy is facing life in prison in Australia for telling us about those murdered children.




But nah, Putin is the only bad guy here.

You are as bad as the Australian government trying to prosecute McBride too. All I said to start this shitfight was that the US caused this with their meddling and you jumped on me with the same ferocity the AFP jumped on McBride and the ABC when they reported it. Its obvious if you had the same power you'd take the same steps with people whose opinions you disagree with.

 

[Val Keating]

Thank you. There are alot of people who are cheerleading against Putin for the simple reason its the first time this century they've had someone else they can pretend is the only bad guy.

Also why are we letting what we did slide?

Val is saying "Oh it was 20 years ago, who cares!" but the people responsible are walking around free.

The West is a series of institutions and values

The institutions are the US military and Nato and the values are bombing the sh*t out of people and taking their stuff. So when someone else does what God gave us the right to do its only correct that we criticise them.

That war is still happening. Isis is still there fighting the Iraq government. Nothing ended there. Putin is no different to us.




Before Euromaiden support for Ukraine joining Nato was around 20-30% even when support for joining the EU was alot higher.

The 2019 Rand paper I posted upthread a few pages ago about "extending and pressuring Russia" promoted "Lethal Aid to Ukraine" as one of the ways we could pressure Russia but it acknowledged one of the risks of this strategy was potentially causing Putin's response. That's obviously a risk they were happy to take. Probably because someone else would carry the can for it. Putin wasn't going to invade Connecticut in response.

I didn’t say “who cares”. It’s just not relevant to the invasion of Ukraine.

 

[Val Keating]