romad1 Posted March 31, 2022 Posted March 31, 2022 1 hour ago, mtutiger said: What a waste of time and a waste of lives.... very apt. If this war did anything good it brought the global stock in authoritarianism down. It was not worth the tens of thousands of lives lost and millions of lives disrupted for that. Hey, Democracy is weak! Oh wait...dictatorships are terrible. Quote
gehringer_2 Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 2 hours ago, Tigerbomb13 said: sickening. This is why I have sympathy for so many of the Russian troops that have been sent there to die. They don’t know what they are doing. They’ve been fed nothing but lies and propaganda - their “leader” doesn’t give two shits about them. But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection. -- W. Shakespeare 2 Quote
mtutiger Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 3 hours ago, romad1 said: very apt. If this war did anything good it brought the global stock in authoritarianism down. It was not worth the tens of thousands of lives lost and millions of lives disrupted for that. Hey, Democracy is weak! Oh wait...dictatorships are terrible. Small-d democratic leaders have to face the voters... As such they are encouraged to listen to ideas and be challenged. At least in theory anyway. Dictators surround themselves with people who are either sycophantic or are too scared to tell the truth. That's how we got here... Putin wanted this, and no one was gonna stop it. 1 Quote
romad1 Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 9 hours ago, mtutiger said: Small-d democratic leaders have to face the voters... As such they are encouraged to listen to ideas and be challenged. At least in theory anyway. Dictators surround themselves with people who are either sycophantic or are too scared to tell the truth. That's how we got here... Putin wanted this, and no one was gonna stop it. Voters often don't want to do the hard things necessary for statecraft. This is one of those things that causes values to be in tension with one another. A Trump and a Putin can exploit things like that. Quote
1984Echoes Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 3 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said: More land mine fun in Ukraine. Why don't they pick them up and landmine the Ukrainian/ Russian/ Byelerussian borders? I mean, when they can. They're repurposing every other Russian military piece of equipment that they can get their hands on... They should have asked for 1,000,000 land mines prior to the invasion and put 10K at every road leading in to Ukraine... including from Crimea... Just a thought... Quote
romad1 Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 Just now, Tigeraholic1 said: "Oh no! the Russians will escalate the war if it comes home to them!" My GOTT IN HIMMEL... 1 Quote
mtutiger Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 Hard to think of a country in more of a pickle than Kazakhstan these days.... 1 Quote
romad1 Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 23 minutes ago, mtutiger said: Hard to think of a country in more of a pickle than Kazakhstan these days.... Ukraine? Quote
mtutiger Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 7 minutes ago, romad1 said: Ukraine? Aside from Ukraine, yes lol 1 Quote
romad1 Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 5 minutes ago, mtutiger said: Aside from Ukraine, yes lol I think Zelensky should call any offensive operations into Russia "Enhanced Sanctions" Quote
chasfh Posted April 1, 2022 Author Posted April 1, 2022 On 3/30/2022 at 8:44 PM, Jim Cowan said: Wow. If that is true, it is another catastrophic failure of leadership. That, or an indication of an old, even Tsarist, way of regarding their military: as expandable widgets, which can be easily and cheaply replaced if they’re “neutralized”. I see how the first part could be; I’m not so sure the second part is that easy. Quote
chasfh Posted April 1, 2022 Author Posted April 1, 2022 Amid the relentless firehose of seemingly all bad news for Russia, this kind of succor could be concerning. Quote
chasfh Posted April 1, 2022 Author Posted April 1, 2022 I see that Axios has gotten hammered in other threads as a Republican Trojan, the way Politico has been, but that doesn’t mean China and India aren’t actually helping Russia back on its feet, since that would pass the smell test. US ignores that at our peril. Quote
romad1 Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 4 minutes ago, chasfh said: I see that Axios has gotten hammered in other threads as a Republican Trojan, the way Politico has been, but that doesn’t mean China and India aren’t actually helping Russia back on its feet, since that would pass the smell test. US ignores that at our peril. India is an important ally against China. We are being very careful with our relationship with them. India also has a huge percentage of Russian/soviet built weapons in its arsenal. The UK which has the huge diaspora Indian population is really working hard to sell weapons/ships to the Indians. China for its part is going to play this for its own ends. They benefit from some Russian tech transfers. Quote
gehringer_2 Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 (edited) 22 minutes ago, romad1 said: India is an important ally against China. We are being very careful with our relationship with them. India also has a huge percentage of Russian/soviet built weapons in its arsenal. The UK which has the huge diaspora Indian population is really working hard to sell weapons/ships to the Indians. China for its part is going to play this for its own ends. They benefit from some Russian tech transfers. yeah - India's defense posture against a hostile Pakistan and semi-hostile China goes in the crapper without Russian support for their military hardware - so they cannot simply throw the Russians overboard even if they wanted to, which isn't clear anyway. It is claimed that India has no ideological sympathies with Russia at all, the tie is purely transactional based on Russia being their arms supplier, but India has always been loath to buy from the West because of their dedication to their self image of a 'non-aligned' nation. Edited April 1, 2022 by gehringer_2 Quote
romad1 Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 I love the headline: Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking it. GTFO you genocidal byotches. 2 Quote
Tigeraholic1 Posted April 1, 2022 Posted April 1, 2022 (edited) These barbarians need to be treated like Nazi war crime tribunals. Firing squads for them all. Edited April 1, 2022 by Tigeraholic1 1 2 Quote
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