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2022-02-03 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Briefly about Ukraine
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Posted by badanov 2022-02-03 00:00|| || Front Page|| [9 views ]  Top

#1 Continued from yesterday from the stroke of midnight.

We have vital interests in the Persian Gulf. In the South China Sea. In the Caribbean / on our southern Border.But not in Eastern Europe, let alone Georgia and Ukraine.

Are you kidding? Vital interests in the Persian Gulf? The US has the world's largest carbon reserves (I think Canada is 2nd). Exploit them and the Persian Gulf goes back to tribal war and piracy.

The South China Sea? The US has fewer interests and ties there than in Europe. Modern China is a creation of American elites' greed. It is American dollars and, more recently, Euros that created the threat. Cut off the fuel and fire goes out.

How about that Venezuela and Cuba? Feel threatened by them? Wanna go hide in a closet?
Posted by Ulelet Snusotch7182 2022-02-03 00:15||   2022-02-03 00:15|| Front Page Top

#2 Complete bullshit. 3,000 troops ... right. How many did we send to Iraq?

You mean, 1/100th of our Iraqi Freedom expeditionary force is supposed to make a difference to the calculations of a nuclear-armed SUPERPOWER that's essentially fighting on its home turf?

Biden will capitulate because ANY rational US president would capitulate: Ukraine is not a vital interest of ours and therefore none of our business.

Just as Hungary in 1956 was none of our business -- which is why Eisenhower wisely did nothing.

Sigh. Think how much stronger and better this country would be today if we'd had a skeptical, laissez-faire, domestically-focused, non-interventionist and non-Woke, conservative government like Eisenhower's for the lady half-century. Or Nixon's.
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-03 00:19||   2022-02-03 00:19|| Front Page Top

#3 Those "republics" are anything but. Nearly all are third-world shitholes presided over by bandits.

"Republics" were the Soviet Union's designations. They already were poor corrupt shitholes due to misrule by the Communists. That local Communists took over in the south upon dissolution of the Soviet Union is no surprise. What was fortunate is that most of the newly freed eastern European nations threw out the commies and formed democratic nations. No thanks to people like you.
Posted by Ulelet Snusotch7182 2022-02-03 00:23||   2022-02-03 00:23|| Front Page Top

#4 Mr. Ululet: I don't disagree with much of what you say.

The COVID debacle has taught me that we civilized, western, tradition-minded, freedom-loving folk can count on no one to defend our civilization.... certainly none of the globalist virtue-signaling morons who gave us the last five years of insanity over RussiaRussiaRussia, St George Fentanyl, BLMscam, PervOTUS Brandon, St Anthony the Dwarf and the Homy Church of Christ-COVIDian etc etc etc.

Let's agree that we need to
- Defend the homeland first and foremost
- Fix the homeland by beating back Woke-ism and its cucks within the elite
- Reduce overseas commitments -- "Retrench" and "Restrain" as B. Posen, J. Mearsheimer, and R. Schweller brilliantly
- Stand up for our traditional values and culture, especially our sons who've been maligned and assaulted from every corner by a decadent culture of fools, harridans, Marxists and pussifiers

Deal?
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-03 00:28||   2022-02-03 00:28|| Front Page Top

#5 Ukraine is not a vital interest of ours and therefore none of our business.

A country struggling to become a modern (classical) liberal democracy is American business. Another consensual democracy always strengthens the US. You can argue whether the US should go to war over it and nobody here is advocating attacking Russia, but it is always in every democracies' interest. (Tell us about your thoughts on Korea in 1950).
Posted by Ulelet Snusotch7182 2022-02-03 00:32||   2022-02-03 00:32|| Front Page Top

#6 Mr Ferret, a truce as long as it doesn't violate either our principles.

We do agree on a lot of ideas or we wouldn't frequent Rantburg. Domestic agenda is broadly the same: mismanaged borders, political corruption, Marxist capture of institutions, trade.

But I am not an isolationist. Maybe it the generations of military family background. I don't like it when more powerful empires try to swallow up other counties, whether Ukraine or Taiwan. I don't like enabling enemies nor wasting resources on cultures diametrically opposed to ours. I do believe expending resources to advance freedom and democratic rule for people who want it is in our interest.

Posted by Ulelet Snusotch7182 2022-02-03 00:58||   2022-02-03 00:58|| Front Page Top

#7 Truce. Nice to know you. Talisker, Oban or Laphroaig?
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-03 01:05||   2022-02-03 01:05|| Front Page Top

#8 My tastes are pedestrian and support domestic producers. J Daniels will do.
Posted by Ulelet Snusotch7182 2022-02-03 01:17||   2022-02-03 01:17|| Front Page Top

#9 Guys, you cheer me immensely as you choose to find comity.

Thank you, and may we all wake to still have electricity in the morning!
Posted by trailing wife 2022-02-03 02:06||   2022-02-03 02:06|| Front Page Top

#10 A country struggling to become a modern (classical) liberal democracy is American business. Another consensual democracy always strengthens the US. You can argue whether the US should go to war over it and nobody here is advocating attacking Russia, but it is always in every democracies' interest. (Tell us about your thoughts on Korea in 1950).

Truly inspiring, and had you mentioned the 2014 coup that removed a Ukrainian political leader, it would have been the whole truth.
Posted by badanov 2022-02-03 07:59||   2022-02-03 07:59|| Front Page Top

#11 Remember when the reddit crowd was yelling that Trump was going to start WW3 after killing Solamaniac? Wonder where that crowd is now?
Posted by Chris 2022-02-03 09:43||   2022-02-03 09:43|| Front Page Top

#12 Not a peep from Code Pink or Cindy Sheehan either.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-02-03 09:44||   2022-02-03 09:44|| Front Page Top

#13 Forget logic. This is just more theater in which our UniParty signals its virtue by heaping scorn on Deplorables. To them, Putin = Trump... even though Trump was the most anti-Russian hard ass POTUS we've ever had.

Russians, Hungarians and other tradition-minded or rightist Europeans = Jan sixers in the fevered little minds of Lindsey Graham and his ilk
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-03 11:50||   2022-02-03 11:50|| Front Page Top

#14 Truly inspiring, and had you mentioned the 2014 coup that removed a Ukrainian political leader, it would have been the whole truth.

The scale of cheating, sponsored/paid by the Russian SVR, that put Viktor Yanukovych in power in 2010 was truly staggering. Yulia Tymoshenko (primary opponent) was also corrupt elite, while the Russians had poisoned the previous president who Yanukovych lost to in 2004, again with massive fraud in the east.

It was Yanukovych who industrialized corruption into a truly national enterprise w/ a menu of bribes to be paid and the amount to be kicked upwards for any service. It made life impossible for citizens while vastly enriching himself and his cronies.

Yeah, it was truly inspiring to watch ordinary men and women face down imported secret service snipers with nothing but wooden shields to protest the industrialized corruption that was benefiting none but a tiny Russian controlled elite that was purposely killing the country.
Posted by Ulelet Snusotch7182 2022-02-03 12:09||   2022-02-03 12:09|| Front Page Top

#15 
Another consensual democracy always strengthens the US.

Of course, other nations being organized along divine lines would be good for the USA. However,
nation-building is to be avoided, period.
Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2022-02-03 12:34||   2022-02-03 12:34|| Front Page Top

#16 It was Yanukovych who industrialized corruption into a truly national enterprise w/ a menu of bribes to be paid and the amount to be kicked upwards for any service. It made life impossible for citizens while vastly enriching himself and his cronies.

Yeah, it was truly inspiring to watch ordinary men and women face down imported secret service snipers with nothing but wooden shields to protest the industrialized corruption that was benefiting none but a tiny Russian controlled elite that was purposely killing the country.

And it continues to this day with new management.

This time with ten percent for the Big Guy.
Posted by badanov 2022-02-03 13:11||   2022-02-03 13:11|| Front Page Top

#17 as you choose to find comity.

Comedy indeed.
Posted by Skidmark 2022-02-03 14:08||   2022-02-03 14:08|| Front Page Top

#18 And it continues to this day with new management.

This time with ten percent for the Big Guy.

Burisma was controlled by a Yanukovych ally. It was consolidated during Yanukovych's misreign. Hunter joined Burisma's board while Yanukovych was president. You are blaming the wrong faction.

While Burisma gets all the attention in the US, it was not the most corrupt energy dealer. One of Yanukovych's cronies acquired a large portion of Russian nat gas imports and resold it for huge profits. Life under Russian puppets.
Posted by Ulelet Snusotch7182 2022-02-03 14:22||   2022-02-03 14:22|| Front Page Top

#19 And it continues to this day with new management.

This time with ten percent for the Big Guy.

As I have pointed out, the Big Guy was really up to his neck in bribes from the Yanukovitch government, which he blackmailed subsequent Ukranian governments into _not_ prosecuting.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2022-02-03 19:12||   2022-02-03 19:12|| Front Page Top

#20 Part of me thinks this is kabuki theater by Russia to allow Biden to broker a peace, avert the crisis and be the great statesman so as to improve his poll numbers.
Posted by ruprecht 2022-02-03 19:32||   2022-02-03 19:32|| Front Page Top

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