01-28-2022, 04:48 PM
@"Ninurta"
I don't agree with the 'stick poking' notion. That gets back to the 'Ukraine as Russia's colony' viewpoint.
Arguably, the only people who may have 'poked a stick' was the government of Georgia a few years ago. And they got hit hard for that.
But, going further back.
The situation that Russia is in today is 100% the doing of RUSSIANS while they ran the Soviet Union. Their economy was run like crap and the management of non-Russian peoples led everyone who was part of the USSR to flee if they could so. It was no accident that not only Ukraine, but Belarus as well, fled that 'marriage'.
We should bear in mind NONE of that was the doing of the USA or NATO. Those other people wanted to govern themselves, and this happened while the West was still trying to figure out what was really happening east of the former Iron Curtain.
Oh, Putin's government resents the position of Russia today? Well, maybe they should line themselves against a wall and tell the execution squad to open fire, because that is where the responsibility lies. Not USA. Not NATO. Russian cock-ups from start to finish. But NOW -- thirty years later --, the Russian government wants to say 'let's go back to 1985 and start over'. Yeah ... right.
The propaganda is rich; such as suggesting that NATO 'misled' them about other countries joining NATO. Two key points on this. First, those other countries were SOVERIGN POWERS. As such, they get to choose their foreign and domestic policies without reference to Moscow. The other point that should be brought out is the rank absurdity of the contention of the Russian government that NATO "verbally promised" them something. I mean, GTFO. Let's try to go to the bank and open an account (that is, a formal relationship with the bank) on the basis of verbal agreement only. We'd get laughed out of the building. And relations between sovereign powers? We can bet everything we have that agreements that mean anything at all are always in writing, and -very- tightly written at that. There are no 'verbal understandings' among powers that contended for the control of an entire continent over a span of 45 years.
So, the only people really 'poking the bear' have been the incompetents running things in Moscow since at least the Cold War.
Ukraine's military forces won't mount any invasions of Russia. No, the opposite has already occurred and will shortly get much worse. And the responsibility for this situation suddenly becoming a crisis is 100% on Moscow.
How long has Ukraine been an independent power? And NOW, SUDDENLY, this is an existential crisis for Putin's government? Horse-sh**. Nothing but an excuse for a Russian-prompted war because the people in Moscow don't have a clue of what to do with Russia's potential. They are nothing but a reborn Weimar Republic, but this time, armed with nuclear weapons.
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON.
Cheers
Quote:Putin may be a danger to Ukraine, but he's no danger to the US, unless we keep poking that bear with a pointy stick. There is no sign we are going to stop anytime soon. We'll eventually get him hemmed up in a corner, and from there the only way out he has is through us.
I don't agree with the 'stick poking' notion. That gets back to the 'Ukraine as Russia's colony' viewpoint.
Arguably, the only people who may have 'poked a stick' was the government of Georgia a few years ago. And they got hit hard for that.
But, going further back.
The situation that Russia is in today is 100% the doing of RUSSIANS while they ran the Soviet Union. Their economy was run like crap and the management of non-Russian peoples led everyone who was part of the USSR to flee if they could so. It was no accident that not only Ukraine, but Belarus as well, fled that 'marriage'.
We should bear in mind NONE of that was the doing of the USA or NATO. Those other people wanted to govern themselves, and this happened while the West was still trying to figure out what was really happening east of the former Iron Curtain.
Oh, Putin's government resents the position of Russia today? Well, maybe they should line themselves against a wall and tell the execution squad to open fire, because that is where the responsibility lies. Not USA. Not NATO. Russian cock-ups from start to finish. But NOW -- thirty years later --, the Russian government wants to say 'let's go back to 1985 and start over'. Yeah ... right.
The propaganda is rich; such as suggesting that NATO 'misled' them about other countries joining NATO. Two key points on this. First, those other countries were SOVERIGN POWERS. As such, they get to choose their foreign and domestic policies without reference to Moscow. The other point that should be brought out is the rank absurdity of the contention of the Russian government that NATO "verbally promised" them something. I mean, GTFO. Let's try to go to the bank and open an account (that is, a formal relationship with the bank) on the basis of verbal agreement only. We'd get laughed out of the building. And relations between sovereign powers? We can bet everything we have that agreements that mean anything at all are always in writing, and -very- tightly written at that. There are no 'verbal understandings' among powers that contended for the control of an entire continent over a span of 45 years.
So, the only people really 'poking the bear' have been the incompetents running things in Moscow since at least the Cold War.
Ukraine's military forces won't mount any invasions of Russia. No, the opposite has already occurred and will shortly get much worse. And the responsibility for this situation suddenly becoming a crisis is 100% on Moscow.
How long has Ukraine been an independent power? And NOW, SUDDENLY, this is an existential crisis for Putin's government? Horse-sh**. Nothing but an excuse for a Russian-prompted war because the people in Moscow don't have a clue of what to do with Russia's potential. They are nothing but a reborn Weimar Republic, but this time, armed with nuclear weapons.
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON.
Cheers
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Location: The lost world, Elsewhen