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Yes, Putin will no doubt conquer his neighbors if we ever elect that Russian secret agent to the Oval Office… oh wait, that was Joe given the state of the union speech a few days ago.

Just take the L on this one, guys.

(03-04-2022 09:45 AM)RunningGame Wrote:  Yes, Putin will no doubt conquer his neighbors if we ever elect that Russian secret agent to the Oval Office… oh wait, that was Joe given the state of the union speech a few days ago.

Just take the L on this one, guys.

Oof, what a terrible take. YOU might want to sit this one out, friend.

The most unsurprising thing about this whole global catastrophe is the Republican politicians and far right talking heads that have spent years slobbing all over Putin's knob, suddenly backpedaling and doing damage control. Blaming Biden/Democrats for this whole thing. As if this hasn't been Putin's plan for the last 30 years.

The only surprising part is how certain Republicans are STILL praising Putin and trying to blame NATO or the EU or even victim-blaming Ukraine for the invasion. Traitors, every one of them. Bought and paid for by Putin. Disseminating the Kremlin's propaganda. It's sickening.

The far right is so transparent in how it glorifies the "strong-man" type of leaders, such as Putin or Bolsonaro. You know, fascists. They would have been Nazi sympathizers and collaborators if they were born a few generations earlier.

Ukraine will be the sacrificial lamb to get EU and NATO to finally start paying their fair share to protect themselves. Good to see. Putin's nightmare scenario is coming true. Soon even Sweden and Finland will join NATO.

(03-04-2022 12:54 PM)GRBRONCO Wrote:  Ukraine will be the sacrificial lamb to get EU and NATO to finally start paying their fair share to protect themselves. Good to see. Putin's nightmare scenario is coming true. Soon even Sweden and Finland will join NATO.

This is true. The passive, diplomacy-focused German government has voted to increase it's military spending by $100 billion. France is increasing spending. Famously-neutral countries like Switzerland, Sweden, and Ireland have all broken that neutrality and aligned themselves with the West. Even the EU is funding military purchases for the first time ever.

Trump won't say anything bad about Putin because he knows Putin will release the pee pee video.

(03-04-2022 02:17 PM)AllBronco Wrote:  Trump won't say anything bad about Putin because he knows Putin will release the pee pee video.

Also,
Russians have invested heavily in Trump properties, and following Trump's bankruptcies in the 1990s he borrowed money from Russian sources.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Trump+pr...e&ie=UTF-8

“We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” - Eric Trump

(03-04-2022 12:34 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  The most unsurprising thing about this whole global catastrophe is the Republican politicians and far right talking heads that have spent years slobbing all over Putin's knob, suddenly backpedaling and doing damage control. Blaming Biden/Democrats for this whole thing. As if this hasn't been Putin's plan for the last 30 years.

The only surprising part is how certain Republicans are STILL praising Putin and trying to blame NATO or the EU or even victim-blaming Ukraine for the invasion. Traitors, every one of them. Bought and paid for by Putin. Disseminating the Kremlin's propaganda. It's sickening.

The far right is so transparent in how it glorifies the "strong-man" type of leaders, such as Putin or Bolsonaro. You know, fascists. They would have been Nazi sympathizers and collaborators if they were born a few generations earlier.

Let’s clean this up here.

30 years ago, Putin was working for the mayor of Leningrad. Following his quick ride to the top, it was all the smart folks puffing him up. You want to see a sad sight, go back and watch his appearance on Meet the Press with Tim Russert. He even got a Wings jersey out of the deal. Yes, even George Bush was making nice.

Meanwhile, we talked the Ukraine into giving up their nukes. We made vague promises to let them in NATO. NATO slacked on their treaty responsibilities. Bush failed. Then Obama made sure we didn’t put more missile defense systems on the Eastern front. Clinton had the cheesy “Russian reset button.” The press flayed Romney alive for pointing out Putin is bad. They had a lot of laughs. Projecting weakness after weakness and empty promise after empty promise.

So, naturally, you blame the only guy willing to call NATO out for being wusses and refusing to defend itself, and calling out EU countries for increasing their dependence on Russian energy.

This whole Trump/Russia thing is only because he made the boneheaded mistake of briefly hiring Paul Manafort, who was dirty in the Ukraine. It all snowballed in Hillary’s desperate bid to make everyone forget how much they detest her. Meanwhile, four years go by, and the guy who you claim has been preparing this operation for 30 years doesn’t pull the trigger? We all know why.

Hey, I’ll give Biden credit, he has flatly resisted a “no fly zone,” which may work for countries flying a handful of 50-year old jets, but is something else entirely against our chief geopolitical foe (right Barack?). But luckily for his sake the EU finally got it through its thick skull that they can’t sit there in the circle jerk doing nothing.

Trump clumsily armed Ukraine and lambasted lazy Euros. Democrats spent 50 years slobbing over the knob of the second most murderous nation on planet earth, and only discovered their backbone once it became useful to win elections. The Left grew Putin, trained him, armed him, tiptoed around him, and after 30 years of winking at him finally learned their disinterest has deadly consequences. Being Democrats, naturally it can only be Republicans’ fault…

Are you guys afraid if you deviate from media talking points or criticize the president that something bad will happen to you?

And here’s something important to remember. Thanks to Pres. Obama and VP Biden, we do not have a military based on the doctrine of winning a two-front war. After decades of complaints about spending all that money on guns and not on ending poverty, we find ourselves at this juncture. Were we to engage Russia in war, we can probably not defend Taiwan from China, which would have grave consequences for us. China is run by a guy who makes Putin look like an amateur Mussolini.

I also can’t see people who spent decades dumping on the military suddenly going all in on doubling the Navy. But maybe I’m wrong, sometimes people can learn lessons. It seems after two decades of misadventures the Republicans at least are engaging in some introspection on how much combat the American people will stomach. Or, maybe they might go full isolationism like they did in the 30s.

OMG, people still believe in the Russian collusion hoax after all these years? Wow. Keep watching CNN and believe what you want.
I'm sure they haven't reported on Ukraine's 13 Wuhan -type bio labs that the US has funded that Putin just destroyed to prevent future pandemics. There's way more going on than what corporate media is reporting, like always.

(03-04-2022 06:43 PM)sketownguy Wrote:  OMG, people still believe in the Russian collusion hoax after all these years? Wow. Keep watching CNN and believe what you want.
I'm sure they haven't reported on Ukraine's 13 Wuhan -type bio labs that the US has funded that Putin just destroyed to prevent future pandemics. There's way more going on than what corporate media is reporting, like always.

Interesting. Links please.

This has all the makings of another long long no intention of actually winning Vietnam battle.

RunningGame,

First of all, I want to say that I'm not a Democrat or a leftist and I don't watch mainstream, traditional news media. And I don't particularly like Biden. I thought he was the worst, most boring candidate the Dems could trot out. They propped him up because he was a household name, and they needed someone "known" in order to beat Trump. I do think he's done as good a job as anyone could have in handling this crisis. But don't lump me into those groups. Although I have started leaning more left after watching the rise of populism, Trumpism, far right politics over the last 6-7 years.

I agree with some of what you said, but also disagree with some. Romney was absolutely right about Putin and Russia. He's been right about a lot lately, and it's interesting to see him get vindicated. He called out Trump's BS in the 2016 primaries and basically predicted everything that has come afterward. We should have listened to him. A politician with morals and decency, a rarity. I've gained respect for him. He continues to rail against Trump, and the GOP has essentially exiled him. It's sad to see the hold that Trump still has on the party.

Trump's connections to Russia go far deeper than that. He has extensive business ties there. You're either being naive or disingenuous. But do I think Trump is willingly and knowingly working for the Kremlin's interests? No, probably not. I think he's just a buffoon. He got played but Putin hard. He was a walking, talking propaganda machine for Russia. He insulted and disparaged the UN, NATO, the EU, and all of our allies every single time he got the chance. He pissed off EVERYONE. He drove divisions in our alliances, focused all of our attention on China. China is also a problem of course, but we've been entirely focused on them for years, allowing Putin to make moves under the radar.

Vladimir Putin has absolutely been planning these moves for decades. He was a KGB agent in East Germany when the USSR fell. And by all accounts, it affected him deeply. In 2005, he called the collapse of the Soviet Union the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" and that it was a "genuine tragedy". He has slowly consolidated power for decades now, eliminating political opponents, stifling dissent, literally murdering or imprisoning or exiling anyone the called him out. Journalists, activists, politicians, anyone. His hatred of the West never subsided, but he knew how to play the game. He schmoozed and bowed to Western leaders for years, and we ate that **** up. Democrats, Republicans, leaders from all over Europe, all over the world. We just thought all those hardcore Soviets that witnessed the fall and humiliation of their great empire would simply....let it go. Let bygones be bygones. We're all friends now.

No, Putin has worked to rebuild the empire. His revisionist history and skewed worldview have been on display for a long time. He meddled in Ukraine's elections in 2004. In 2007-2008 and 2011, through tricky political maneuvering, he managed to retain power despite constitutional term limits. He invaded Georgia in 2008 (and found out that the Russian military was not ready for larger conflicts yet). Angered by the Ukrainian revolutions in 2013-2014, which saw the overthrow of a pro-Moscow government in Kyiv, he annexed Crimea and incited rebellion in the Donbas. He has done everything he can to maintain Russia's sphere of influence, rebuild the empire, and position himself as the infallible leader of Russia. Protests were crushed. He's kept Belarus on a leash, exerted influence over Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Ukraine (until 2013), among others. After the Ukrainian revolution, things started to change, and it set events in motion. Ukraine wrote a new constitution, setting goals of joining the EU and NATO. The country democratized and they started burning out the corruption that plagued the nation. The prospect of another EU member, NATO member, a democratic country right on their doorstep...and in Ukraine no less, a country with deep historical ties to Russia (Kyiv actually predates Moscow as a city, and Russia, Ukraine and Belarus originate from Kieven Rus', the medieval federation of Slavic peoples), a central republic of the USSR with social and cultural ties to Russia. There was no way he was going to abide that. Sorry, I went on a history tangent there. There's a reason I got my degree in history.

But it took time to get lay the groundwork, infiltrate the West with an army of trolls, cause chaos, fuel the fire, turn NATO countries against each other and against themselves, while strengthening Russia's military. Alright look, I swear I'm not going to go into the entire history of Russia and Ukraine and Europe and this current crisis. I just don't have the time or energy for it. The point is...these things have been in the works for a long time. And we ignored it.

Trump lit a fire under Europe's ass, not because he was warning them about Russia, but because he signaled to them that the US wasn't interested in them anymore. He threatened to pull us out of NATO, and even out the UN. He is batshit crazy. He palled around with Putin and stood side-by-side with him in front of the cameras saying that he believes Putin's word over the consensus of our own intelligence community, in regards to Russian meddling in the 2016 election. What a blow to the US' reputation. But vindication has been going around lately. Our intelligence sources have been spot on with every single thing Russia has done before and during this invasion.

Don't know where you're getting your information that the left built Putin. Just sounds like some Fox News, Tucker Carlson regurgitation.

As far as your assessment of the current state of the US military, I can promise you that you're dead wrong. I'm not even going to get into it.

Long story short, Putin and Russia have been the enemy for a long time, Putin sought to drive divisions in the West, he underestimated Ukraine and Western response to invasion after basically getting no blowback to annexing Crimea, Biden has done a decent job rallying a coalition of nations against Russia while not involving us directly in the conflict, Trump continues to praise Putin because he's a tone-deaf idiot that couldn't find Ukraine on a map. SHORT SHORT VERSION: blaming democrats for the Russian invasion of Ukraine is just silly, non-factual, and an attempt to simplify an extremely complex situation.

(03-04-2022 06:43 PM)sketownguy Wrote:  OMG, people still believe in the Russian collusion hoax after all these years? Wow. Keep watching CNN and believe what you want.
I'm sure they haven't reported on Ukraine's 13 Wuhan -type bio labs that the US has funded that Putin just destroyed to prevent future pandemics. There's way more going on than what corporate media is reporting, like always.

I don't even know what to say about this. Conspiracy theories, hatred of "the media"...there's a term for this kind of behavior...

Maybe you should look into how Russia, for the past 20 years, has poured resources into building their asymmetrical warfare abilities, because they had no chance in hell of defeating NATO in a conventional war. Cyber warfare, troll farms, disinformation, fanning the flames of social unrest...Russia has meddled in much more than just the 2016 election.

I see the WMU Nazis are out in force again. If I could have a conversation with my 18 year old self, I would tell him to go to MSU or UM. I’m embarrassed to be associated with some of you jackwads.

(03-04-2022 08:23 PM)okgc Wrote:  This has all the makings of another long long no intention of actually winning Vietnam battle.

I've been following the fighting closely. Most of you know I'm ex-military. It's very interesting to see a full-scale invasion involving a world power in this day and age. And with the internet and social media, the whole thing is basically being live-streamed. This is not something I thought I'd see in my lifetime.

It seems Putin miscalculated badly. This invasion has been haphazard and it personally confounds me. I've read reports that Russian generals and people in the Kremlin never expected to invade Ukraine. It surprised everyone. So they hadn't planned for something on this scale. In his bid to isolate himself and consolidate power, Putin now makes decisions in a vacuum. Conscripts that have surrendered or been captured have been saying they had no idea what was going on. Some didn't know they were in Ukraine until they started getting shot at. They thought they were still on exercises. Convoys are running out of fuel and food. Perhaps the most perplexing thing is that Russia still hasn't established air superiority, despite having a much larger and more modern air force along with far superior air defense weaponry. The logistics and organizational failures are just baffling.

Complicating matters is the incredible resistance from the Ukrainian military and civilian population. Backed by Western weaponry, supplies, and crucial intelligence, they are embarrassing the invasion force. Russia thought the Ukrainian military would run as soon as Russian tanks crossed the border, that the Ukrainian government would flee the country, and that Russians would be welcomed as liberators. A massive intelligence failure, again highlighting the significant advantage the US has in the information domain. NATO, EU and other countries aren't willing to risk a wider war, but they will continue to flow weapons into Ukraine and allow private citizens to go fight Russian aggression. Crushing sanctions against Russia and a flood of military aid have bolstered Ukraine's defenders. This isn't the inept Ukrainian military that folded in the Donbas in 2014. They are meeting Russian units head on while SOF and territorial defense units harass supply lines. Modernization programs, training by the US and UK, modern weaponry, operational experience for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers that have cycled through Donbas rotations...it's a mean fighting machine that is giving Russia a bloody nose.

Russia is in a bad way right now. They haven't even achieved their day 1 objectives yet. Of the five largest cities in Ukraine, only Kyiv and Kharkiv have Russian forces near them, and they've beaten back numerous Russian advances. Dnipro, Odessa, and Lviv haven't even been touched. And once they get into these cities, the urban warfare is going to be a meat grinder, especially with the strong civilian effort we're seeing. They're getting desperate. Indiscriminate bombings of civilians and non-military targets (a war crime), use of cluster munitions and thermobaric weapons (a war crime), requesting that Belarus and Kazakhstan contribute troops to the war, using Wagner Group mercenaries and Chechen soldiers as shock troops, they're throwing everything at the wall now.

Such a complex and confusing war so far. So many questions unanswered. Is the Russian military a paper tiger? Has their propaganda been so effective that we really believed in their might? Or are they holding back, and if so...why? How far is Putin willing to take this thing? There's no way he would attempt to stem the flow of weapons into Ukraine, risking a war with NATO, is there? What happens whenever this conflict ends, however it ends? Will Putin and Russia answer for war crimes? Will the people of Russia, under the weight of sanctions and an unpopular war, rise up against Putin?

We are in uncharted waters. I have no idea how all this ends, but none of it will be good.

The comparison to Vietnam is interesting. The script is flipped though. US forces couldn't go into North Vietnam for fear of drawing China and the Soviet Union into it, despite those countries already supplying the NVA and VC with weapons, advisors, training, and intelligence. But now Russia is on the other side of it. They're going to fight a bloody counter-insurgency supported by the West. The results will probably be the same. There's no away Russia can fight a long war with their economy in shambles and a disgruntled population completely cut off from the rest of the world.

(03-04-2022 09:25 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  

(03-04-2022 06:43 PM)sketownguy Wrote:  OMG, people still believe in the Russian collusion hoax after all these years? Wow. Keep watching CNN and believe what you want.
I'm sure they haven't reported on Ukraine's 13 Wuhan -type bio labs that the US has funded that Putin just destroyed to prevent future pandemics. There's way more going on than what corporate media is reporting, like always.

I don't even know what to say about this. Conspiracy theories, hatred of "the media"...there's a term for this kind of behavior...

Maybe you should look into how Russia, for the past 20 years, has poured resources into building their asymmetrical warfare abilities, because they had no chance in hell of defeating NATO in a conventional war. Cyber warfare, troll farms, disinformation, fanning the flames of social unrest...Russia has meddled in much more than just the 2016 election.

I'm not blind to what Russia has been doing but I'm also well aware of what has been going on in Ukraine. After the breakup of the USSR, Ukraine remained an ally of Russia until the Obama administration oversaw a coup of their government. They replaced the Putin Ally with a globalist leader who struck numerous financial deals with the West. We gave them billions in aide while US politicians' children were raking in millions sitting on executive boards. The children of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, etc. Ukraine is by far the most corrupt country in Europe. I'm not giving Putin a pass but I'm certainly not going to give the US and Ukraine a pass either. Both sides are at fault in this.