I haven't logged/posted here in years, but recently I was checking to see how you were doing. I knew you lived near Ukraine.

Fuck Putin. Fuck the Russian Oligarchy.

I'll make a donation shortly.

Btw, thanks for checkin' in, buddy. It's been a whirlwind week. I had no idea anyone here would even see my post. I just did it out of loyalty to our friend, who's a Ukrainian transplant to Slovakia. She told my wife in a phonecall yesterday, in tears, that the best thing we can do is to tell the truth about what's going on. In Slovakia, we're OK. We're a NATO member country, so I'm not too worried. If that fucking mafioso attacks here, it's basically nuclear holocaust, in which case, nobody will left to give a shit.

OK, but let Russia react to the West, not innocent civilians in Ukraine. I'm not going to pretend the US and NATO never did anything to Russia, but Ukraine certainly didn't.

While 99% of this tragedy is Putin's to own, the US bears some responsibility for vocally advocating for Ukrainian membership in NATO for so many years, when it wasn't their decision to make, and also when they knew damn well the Alliance was extremely hesitant to admit them. While I believe in national sovereignty and Ukraine's right to seek membership in whatever international group it wants, their acceptance has always been a huge long shot, and the US acted like it was a done deal. Of course, Putin knew all this damn well too, but the US really gifted him tons of gasoline for his propaganda dumpster fire.

I will also say this: Putin is full of shit. The oligarchs robbed the military blind for two decades. God only knows how many of his nukes would actually fire, and I don't believe his crazy man schtick for a second. He hasn't got the cojones to push the button, and he doesn't exactly have the same unilateral control of the matter as the POTUS does. Nothing has changed since the Cold War: Russia talks up its capabilities and the US goes along with it to galvanize public opinion. Of course, I could be wrong about all this, and it's good for everyone it's not my call to make, but I'm convinced of it. More and more people are starting to realize the emperor is naked.

How is this the U.S's fault? Ukrain knows damned well this is just like Hitler's move to make an excuse to invade Poland. Of course they want to be part of NATO. And why should we turn them away? Fuck Putin. If he goes for the scorched earth tactic, he is going to. If you know a cerial kiler has the drop on you and is going to kill you and there is no stopping it, at that point you have nothing to lose.

I'd only hope that there is a guy like the Russian during the Cuban Missle Crisis who will pop him if he were to really try it. That Russian back then didn't have anyone killed to prevent a nuclear war, but he had the mind to know what mutual distruction is. 

The invasion of Ukraine is absolutely no one's fault but Putin's, 100%. I revise my earlier statement because fuck Putin after all the atrocities I've witnessed and heard first-hand accounts of during the last 5 weeks (we have several families of refugees in our house and village and have heard of lots of horrors). That being said, my point was it was disengenuous of the US to act like Ukraine's inclusion in NATO was a done deal back in 2008 (or was it 2009?), when they knew damn well that other members of the Alliance, mainly France and Germany, were not going for it. Not saying who was right or wrong in the decision over Ukraine's NATO membership, but the US definitely knew Ukraine's membership was not a foregone conclusion, yet chose to bait Russia with it anyway, probably as a hangover from the hawkish Bush "empire of evil" years (not to mention the fact that Obama was only fractionally less hawkish than Bush).

Thanks. Yes, Zelenskyy is a badass. He's like Churchill crossed with a WWII partisan. And he was a comedic actor! Stick that up your fuckin' toxic masculinity, Putin-lovers. That's like if Steve Martin had guided London through the Blitz. I guarantee you if Moscow was in the same position Kyiv was in a couple weeks ago, Vlad would already be in the Cayman Islands with the entire Russian budget in a fucking steamer trunk.

What is so fucked up and tragicaly ironic about Putin's horible logic, is that he is attacking a Jewish comedian. How the fuck can one be Jewish and a Nazi? That's like Chickens for KFC.

Not really, Bush Sr didn't finish the job, he left Saddam in power. But as far as leaving Afghanistan, Trump had already set the stage for leaving, Biden simply followed through. I will say that leaving all that military stuff there is a bit baffling. That was a huge fuck up. But it would have probably been worse if Trump had done the exit while he was in office.

Yes, let's all pretend that countries have infintie resourses to take care of endless streams of immigrants and refugees. Let's pack as many people as we can into high priced housing, let's destroy more wildness areas to make room for all the new refugees to live here. Let's kick our own citizens into the streets as homeless so the refugees can have a home. Then we'll blame the homeless and housing crisis on 'capitalism' and not too many fucking people because we invite the whole world to move here.

Putin's plan is to ethnically cleanse Ukraine of non-Russians. So Putin did not really want a quick victory. He'd still be stuck with Ukrainians that are not Russian nationalists still living there. He wants a long war so Ukrainians opposed to him will leave. The west must play along and welcome all these refugees even though we all have major affordable housing crisis and now food crisis in the west. Kick our own citizens to the streets so we don't appear xenophopbic. So all the 'refugees welcome' people play right into Putin's hand.

Supposedly, the west stands with Ukraine, so why do we take in draft dodgers from Ukraine? I support taking in women and children while the men fight to take back their homes. But NATO countries are all setting up to permanently resettle these people. So Ukraine becomes ethnically Russian, the west gets a refugee crisis. Just what Putin wants to see. 

I know, I know, virtue signalling is all that matters and one must ignore the reality of living on a planet with limited resourses to sustain human life. So virtue signal away....

Oh stop. Nobody is saying we should have unlimited people comming in. Just like a lifeboat on a ship, it only has only so many seats. WE GET THAT. We are saying not to be racist assholes, and villify a fellow human being like they are a cockroach infestation. But sorry, evolution is always going to cause people in fear of oppression, fear of starving, fear of dying in crime or war, cause that person to find a safer sanctuary. That is called migration, and our species has always done that, for good or bad.

I am not going to put up with the bullshit dog whistle crap comming from Fucks Noise and the GOP winking at White Nationalists with their party leader who thinks assholes shouting "Jews will not replace us" are "good people". Let me clue you in, all 7 billion humans eventually get replaced by the next generation. And there is no such thing as religion or political party being the 5th amino acid in DNA.  If for example, every Palelestinian and every Israeli were to take DNA tests, they would know they have always overlaped in DNA. 

The issue isn't refugees, the issue are that humans are so busy being stuck on labels, they cannot see the biger picture that no matter where you go, we are an invasive species and the bigger we get as a population worldwide, the quicker we exploit and exhaust resources and that causes infighting and international fighting. But that does not excuse  anyone to be a fucking dick to humans merely trying to survive. Even if you have to deport someone, don't fucking treat them like trash or a villian in a slasher movie. Most humans are not criminals, and most humans simply want to survive.

DP

 EXE, I agree that the military industrial complex has a major appitite, and humanity should not feed it so much. But what the fuck do you want? Evolution isn't going to change, humans will always fight over resource and make religious and political ideological excuses to get control over them. We are not above nature, we are simply one species among many, and we compete with each other for those resources. 

I want to pay taxes to have a military, because like it or not, there is no fucking such thing as a utopia, and isolation doesn't always work. Isolating Germany after WW1 and the allies not doing anything to prevent Hitler from rising to power gave the entire world a fucking shitshow that could have been avoided. 

And since the world is not perfect, I am damned fucking glad, there were people braver than me, who kicked the Nazi's sorry asses and made Hitler eat a bullet in shame. Otherwise we could be under Nazi rule if Hitler had not been such a dumbass with his resources. He did come as close to having German subs in the Hudson river filming Manhatten.  

The issue isn't having a military, that is always going to be an unfortunate part of our species. Taxes pay for that. The issue is how we can better distribute our resources to things like intelligence and cybler security, and diplomacy. 

As far as Ukraine, I do not have any simple solutions. We did see what happened to Europe when not enough people realized that if you appease Hitler he will stop, wasn't going to work. He didn't stop, until we made him stop. Putin has that same mentality. If you think he will stop if we give him Ukraine, you are not learning the lessons of history. 

Unfortunately strategy matters in global intrests. Putin wants access to ports because his economy is in a shambles and he is using propaganda to get his public to back him, and unfortunately there is enough people in Russia who buy his hyper nationalism. He is very dangerous because he feels like he has nothing to lose and he wants to preserve his legacy by proving himself to be a great leader. Unfortunately, his narcissism and fragility in wanting that status is a threat to regional and global stability.  Like any asshole bully, you give them an inch, they will expand until you stop them. 

Poland lived under soviet rule for a long time. And if you look at where it is located, it also has lots of whaterfront property, and Hitler wanted Poland for the same reason. So if you think Putin is going to simply stop at Ukraine if we back down, again, you are failing to learn the lessons of history. It would be nice if we could simply not play world's police. I would love that, but the world is not flat, and our global interests are part of a planet that we cant migrate off of.  Ignoring a threat will not make it go away. 

 That is not true. 

I accept the reality that there will not be a perfect utopia where you can save everyone. And dispite what you might think, most liberals do understand this. Having said that, what we object to is the vilification and "otherism" to justify being dicks to people they have never met. 

Even Ukrainians do this, not because they are evil, but any group of people when they get used to having a pattern they can rely on, and that gets upset by the unexpected, they get scared. I have heard stories of Ukrainians getting upset with migrants who went to school there, or have mixed relatives, and they get mad at a dark skinned person who gets to cross the border to safety before they can. And even the countries that do accept Ukrainian refugees also some there, look sideways at a dark skinned person or mixed person who crosses into their country.

In America it fucking infuriates me when racist assholes vilify their fellow human beings because they simply need to eat and don't want to die. That is evolution, and most people when stressed to that point, are going to leave and attept to go somplace in the world where they feel they can be safe. 

But of course, there is a certain amount that will not get in, and a certian amount we have to deport. But I will always say FUCK YOU to assholes who do not understand, that person you are villifying is a human, just like you. 

I know you are familiar with the M.S. St Luis. And don't bring up Cuba, Cuba was merely stepping stone to their real goal, America, which turned them away too. And it wasn't simply "We don't have enough room for more refugees", most of the world was anti Semetic, even many Americans at that time. So even back then we were scared of "the other".  There were many Nazi sympathizers unfortunately living in America, and many famous high powers at that. We sent back over 900 Jews only to find out a good portion of them died by the hands of the Nazis. 

You deport hispanics back to Mexico, or central or south America, they are at risk of starvation, environmental disasters, crime and political fighting. Nobody can or should blame a fellow human being for not wanting to die. 

And I am also aware that we are the invasive species, and the world's populaiton is exceding the earth's ability to absorb our damage and polution to regenerate. The earth itself will be fine without us, it is one tough customer, and even other life, like the water bear and cockroaches. But, not even knowing that justifies vilifying others. 

Tell that to America, who financially and logistically overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine in favour of an anti-Russian government, who from day 1 denied the people in the contested region the right to vote and have spent 8 years abusing the civilians in said region, in a piss poor attempt to put even more missiles on Russia's borders. This entire thing is the fault of the US.

The idiots believing US propaganda are as bad as the idiots believing Russian propaganda. The more support Ukraine gets the less of a Ukraine there will be when Russia is done with them, and nothing the West can do short of nuclear war will stop Russia on it's quest for self defence. All you fools supporting the criminals in the US and Kiev are literally as bad as anyone supporting Putin. Too stupid to comprehend how all you're doing is supporting more innocent deaths on all sides.

Once again you are full of it EXE. Biden's withdraw was origionally authored by Trump prior to Biden taking office. 

I see the parties flip constantly over the decades on overseas actions constantly. It is basically human nature to want to have power and when the other is in power the minority party politicians go against the majority. That is how our politics work. Just like Mitt Romney authored his own state health care bill and Obama modeld his ACA after Mitt's plan, then all the sudden the GOP didn't like it. 

I agree with Ike's warning of an over bloated industrial military complex. But still, there are always going to be compititon over distruptions in power, and when a void is created, enemies will seek to fill that void. We  do it, Russia does it China does it, both friend and foe. I thought that BOTH of Bush's wars were ill advised and we could have gotten better results without ground invasions. Bush did lie about Iraq and WMDs, but that did not make Saddam a good moral man. And we could have sent drone up Bin Laden's ass instead of Bush telegraphing our moves. They were a waste of money.

But in the case of Ukraine, this is different. This is an invasion by a tyrant, with REAL POWER and VERY REAL NUKES, hopefully we can keep this to a ground war regardless. But Putin doesn't want the Ukraine for religious or even political perposes or to "Make Russa Great Again". He ultimately wants to create a strategic position so he can have closer access to waterways to export his oil. He won't stop at Ukraine. He would if he could also take other nations and even Poland or Findland or Norway because of their access to the Arctic waters. 

It isn't a matter of playing word's police or isolationism. To me it is more like we need to pick our battles. But just on a moral tone, Putin is a bully, and on a strategic tone, we cannot aford Russia to incroach and undue all the progress the eastern nations made by breaking loose from the SOVIET rule, and Putin is a product of that rule. 

 It is for strategic reasons, so why the call for "de-Nazification" of Ukraine?

What was all the talk about "Peter The Great"?

The U.S. Would have done it too? Yea, duh, that is what foes have always done, compete for strategic positions. That still doesn't make Putin a hero to the world. 

Putin is full of shit, oil or not, he is a bully and a tyrant and to gloss that over is insane. Putin is just as much KGB "Pravda" today as when he was a Soviet shit stain. He is nobody's hero. 

And who is claiming the U.S. is perfect? We have done some pretty shitty things. The last war we fought wich made sense was WW2. Everything since has been quagmires. But that is a GOP issue, not the entire Country. Afghanistan we could have sent a drone up Bin Laden's ass instead of what Bush did in telegraphing a ground invasion. And yes, Bush lied his way into Iraq and we bought it. But we were invited the first time by Kuwait becuase Sadamn invaded. 

I do not think every Russian citizen is evil, I never have. But to imply  everyone there loves Putin is absurd. Many have family from the former eastern block nations, including Ukraine and are just as upset at the bloodshed. And since when did body counts become a metric to human cruelty. Our species has unfortunately fought long before even the first king states or written languages. Human tribalism is an unfortunate part of our species. But no, you are never going to convince me that Putin is good for Russia or the world for that matter. 

www.youtube.com/watch

Because Russians are just as inclined to use propaganda as Americans. Throw a hundred darts at the dart board and hope a few stick. The nazi one stuck because while exaggerated it still holds a kernel of truth to it. There are in fact right wing neo nazi's in Ukraine's government and military. The rub is the same can be said for most countries, if not all of them. They aren't a majority by any stretch. But noone hates nazis more than Russians, and if Russia convinces their people that Ukraine has nazis, then Russians will support killing those nazis. Propaganda 101. Americans supported Iraq because of the lie there were weapons of mass destruction. It's no different, except the US was 100% full of shit while Russia is only 90% full of shit.

Referencing historical victories and legends is the same side of the same coin.

Noone here is calling Putin a hero, don't be retarded. Putin is a politician. A much smarter politician than most, but a politician all the same.

You're an idiot. Putin is no different from most any American president in the last 80 years. Certainly no different from any American president in my 43 year lifetime. Indeed he's less a piece of shit than most of them. Obama assassinated more people in 8 years than Putin has in 20. Get off the American propaganda you hypocrite.

I never claimed anyone claimed the US is perfect. I pointed out the hypocrisy of the US villifying Russia for doing a fraction of the damage the US has done. Ukraine is nothing compared to the horrors the US has been directly and indirectly involved in this century alone. Yemen, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria: All of these America bears the brunt of responsibility for. Even Ukraine is the US's fault.

People who throw rocks from glass houses are pieces of shit who will get what's coming to them. Both America and Russia are losing this war, and China is laughing all the way to the bank as the Ukrainian puppet of America and Russia gets decimated, bankrupting both superpowers along the way. When all is said and done Russia and America will both claim victory over Ukraine's corpse, but only China and other neutral countries like India actually win.

Part of me wishes Putin would fuck with Poland. The Poles are fucking nuts, on a whole other level than the Ukrainians. They sacked Moscow once.

We were not really isolationist. Remember we got involved in WW I when it was really none of our business. We sent arms to Britian to fight Hitler. So how was the USA really totally isolationist? The USA gets blamed for wars for being too involved as a hegemonic imperialist. So there are wars either way. Just the history of humanity. At least with isolationism, you don't force taxpayers to make war profiteers even richer.

There have been wars in Europe going on forever. There is this thing call population pressures that mean you have too many fucking people for the available land, so there will necessarily be fighting, genocides, etc... But the reality of our life on our small planet is not someting you could ever accept. If we had been more involved in Europe and war inevitalbe came, the USA would be blamed for being 'imperialist'.

 And now the Gaza / Israel conflict is taking the spotlight off Ukraine and drying up available funds for Zelensky's glorious victory against Russia.  Their counter offensive achieved little to nothing militarily  and the NATO "game changer" weapon systems still haven't changed the game.

 Agree 100%

Funny how all that applies equally to America. Don't be a hypocrite.
Also, none of that is justification for war against Russia. Justification to not go to Russia at most.

Being close is irrelevant. Indeed one can just as easily say you're too close (to the West) and your views don't appreciate the wider picture.