Ukraine war mega thread

[panama hat]

I think he is younger than slowjo.

Yet twice as intelligent as you

[David48atTD]

One opinion among many ...

[sabang]

^^ So you salute the genius of dubya for his invasion of Iraq, Einstein? Gonna take some doing to reach a million dead in Ukraine I suppose, but slowjo is on the job.

Meanwhile, in unrelated news, the annual bonus of Lockheed, BAE and Raytheon executives are skyrocketing. Guess they don't have to worry about inflation, or starvation.

[bsnub]

More idiotic whataboutism from one of the forum buffoons.

[bsnub]

[David48atTD]

China is seeking to replenish its strategic crude stockpiles with cheap Russian oil, according to people with knowledge of the plan.
This is a sign Beijing is strengthening its energy ties with Moscow just as Europe works toward banning imports due to the war in Ukraine.

[sabang]

Buy when there is blood on the streets. A maxim of the smart investor.

[David48atTD]

Buy when there is blood on the streets. A maxim of the smart investor.

Yes, if I was a country who didn't give a F*** about what happened in Europe, I'd be looking to fill my boots with cheap Russian Oil and Gas.

It's a purely economic decision.

China is doing what is right for China.

[sabang]

If I were a rational leader, I would be taking care of the best interests of my own citizens. I guess that just shows you how out of touch with the irrational western world I am.

[David48atTD]

If I were a rational leader, I would be taking care of the best interests of my own citizens. I guess that just shows you how out of touch with the irrational western world I am.

Yes, but also remember that ...

The good of the many (Europe)

Outweigh the good of the few,

... or the one (Russia)

Putin isn't a rational leader striving to do the best for his country, he's trying to, among other goals, create a legacy for himself.

[HermantheGerman]

Absolute Classic.

No classic! Nothing new! We all knew he is a douchebag.

Applause that you finally got it too.

Anymore posts from your child predator?

[HermantheGerman]

Post from sabang and his child predator!

Ex-UN inspector gets prison in Pa. sex case

Scott Ritter and Sabang...a couple made in heaven


Meet the Sneakiest Defenders of Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-t...ang-repression

[bsnub]

Meet the Sneakiest Defenders of Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

Excellent find! Those are litterally all the bozo's on Sabwangs clown car of propagandists and liars.

[bsnub]

Sabwang is the personification of a tankie.

With Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine from three directions, Russian President Vladimir Putin seems determined to overthrow Ukraine’s government and install a puppet regime. If he persists in this mad act of imperial aggression, it will be catastrophic not only for Ukraine but for Russia and all of Europe — and maybe even the entire world. With his forces encircling Kyiv but bogged down after five days of heavy combat, Putin placed Russia’s nuclear forces on alert.

If you identify as a leftist, wherever you live and whatever your nationality, your duty now is to stand by the people of Ukraine as they resist Russian state terrorism — and to stand by those thousands of Russian citizens courageously protesting the war in dozens of cities across their country. If you opposed the criminal U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003, then you must oppose this criminal attack on Ukraine. Not just consistency, but a minimal degree of decency and human solidarity requires it. Putin’s war is a blatant violation of international law against an independent country that posed no threat to Russia.

Solidarity with the oppressed — regardless of race, religion, nationality, gender, and so on — must be the driving force of leftist politics if they are to have any ethical value. Unfortunately, a small but loud faction that claims to be on the left and to be anti-imperialist has for years backed deeply oppressive dictatorships around the world, from Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, who declared war against his own people, to the Chinese government, which has forcibly detained up to a million Turkic Muslims in internment camps, to Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, who abandoned the left many years ago and now rules over his country as a right-wing dictator.

These pseudo-leftists — sometimes called “tankies,” a name deriving from an earlier generation of Western leftists who backed the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 — also defend Russia’s behavior today. Other commentators like Gilbert Achcar and Dan La Botz have explained this crowd’s origins in detail, but the key element in the tankie mindset is the simple-minded assumption that only the U.S. can be imperialist, and thus any country that opposes the U.S. must be supported. As author and human rights activist Leila Al-Shami put it several years ago, “The pro-fascist left seems blind to any form of imperialism that is non-western in origin. It combines identity politics with egoism. Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners — only white men have the power to make history.”

In the present context, the tankies either directly defend, or make excuses for, Putin and Russia, even though the government is phenomenally corrupt, a crony capitalist regime led by a thug who assassinates his political opponents. The tankies tend to be correctly critical and probing about U.S. empire but don’t apply these critical faculties to Russia. They become gullible and naïve when dealing with Russian officials and their narrative. It would be tempting simply to ignore the tankies, but we must repudiate them. If we don’t, they will continue to give the left a bad name, especially among people fighting repressive regimes, who often assume tankies speak for the rest of us and thus feel betrayed by Western leftists.

What the tankies fail to acknowledge is that Putin’s regime is as deeply reactionary socially as it is repressive politically. That’s why right-wing extremists in western Europe and the U.S., including Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, have applauded him, and why neo-Nazis have celebrated him as the savior of the white race. In supporting Putin, the tankies are in league with the far right.

Like American leaders when they engage in imperial ventures, Putin does not see his invasion as an illegal war. In a long, potted essay last summer, he argued that the two countries are “one people, a single whole” and criticized Lenin’s establishment of the Soviet Union as a federation of equal republics with each having the right of secession. Russia, Putin claimed, “was robbed” by the Bolsheviks. He wrote that the “true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.” The message could not have been clearer: Ukraine has no right to genuine independence; it belongs to Russia. This policy toward Ukraine is more reminiscent of 19th-century Great Russian chauvinism than anything else.

Putin heightened the rhetoric to fever pitch after ordering Russia’s “special military operation.” He absurdly accused Ukraine of committing “genocide” in regions of eastern Ukraine where the Russian language dominates and separatists have a foothold. Putin called Ukraine’s government a “junta” led by a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis,” and he declared that the goal of the invasion was to “demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.” Ukraine led by Nazis? The president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who was elected in 2019 by a landslide, is a Jew whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust. Though there are fascist militias in Ukraine, just as there are in the U.S. and other Western countries, Ukrainians have repeatedly and decisively rejected neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists at the polls.

Responsibility for this war rests with Russia and Russia alone. But that should not obscure the fact that NATO, led by Washington, laid the groundwork for confrontation with a series of missteps after the breakup of the Soviet Union, provocations that fueled Russian resentment and fears of Western encirclement. First came the ill-advised expansion of NATO in the late 1990s, which was criticized not only by the left, but by a long and impressive list of former establishment cold warriors, including George Kennan, Richard Pipes, Sam Nunn, and many more. Western leaders had an opportunity to reorder the European security architecture in a way that included Russia at the highest levels after the fall of the Soviet Union. Instead, led by President Bill Clinton, they committed to the eastward expansion of NATO, an organization built on the premise of confrontation with Russia.

Even more misguided was the Western vow in 2008 to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. As Anatol Lieven, a Russia specialist at the Quincy Institute, put it in a recent interview: “We never had the slightest intention of defending Ukraine, not the slightest.” NATO’s declaration, he said, was “deeply immoral” for its hollowness. President Joe Biden’s current CIA Director William Burns, a veteran Russia expert formerly at the State Department, has long argued against both of those provocations, most recently in a memoir published just a few years ago. Even New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, that popinjay of pompous platitudes and parrot of establishment opinion, noted that, in this unfolding disaster, “America and NATO are not just innocent bystanders.”

What now? We must demand a full and unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine, and we must insist that the United States and NATO keep to their repeated public vows not to get directly involved militarily. Some of the sanctions may do more harm to the Russian people than to their government; the freezing of the government’s foreign bank reserves could bring the entire Russian economy to its knees. But freezing the money secretly stashed overseas by wealthy Russians — which some economists estimate could amount to as much as 85 percent of the country’s GDP — would be a good way to narrowly target Putin and the oligarchs surrounding him.

For the left, solidarity with Ukrainians under Russian siege is just as vital as solidarity with Palestinians suffering under Israeli apartheid, Yemenis being bombed by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, or any other people fighting oppressive regimes. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

https://theintercept.com/2022/03/01/...ftists-tankie/

[harrybarracuda]

China is doing what is right for China.

That's what parasites do.

[sabang]

It's quite simple with me. I have solidarity with the Ukrainians that want to be Ukrainian- post Maidan. I also have solidarity with those that do not. Let the People decide. Partition, that is what will happen.

[bsnub]

It's quite simple with me.

Actually, it is not. You fit the points in the article above to a "T". You fucking tankie.

I have solidarity with the Ukrainians

Let the People decide.

They did. They chose Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

[sabang]

Not in the Donbass, Crimea, or Kerson snubs. I would be more than willing to have this put to the Democratic test. Of course in Crimea that is past history, but in the other places I believe that is exactly what should be done. To cement the deal.

[Switch]

It's quite simple with me. I have solidarity with the Ukrainians that want to be Ukrainian- post Maidan. I also have solidarity with those that do not. Let the People decide. Partition, that is what will happen.

That is a ridiculous comment. It’s almost like you have a dog in this fight, or you are a concerned national leader of of a country that could be affected by this?

You are not any of those things. You are an unimportant opinion on a disconnected website. So am I, but I’m happy to admit it. Unlike you, I have no grandiose ideas about my own importance.

[OhOh]

China seeking to replenish its strategic crude stockpiles with cheap Russian oil,

You may wish to research the European countries who are ordering high amounts today, to ensure autumn heating/industry .... is possible. Next quarter, next year, will provide the answers to those European citizens who believe in fairy tales.

just as Europe works toward banning imports due to the war in Ukraine.

Working towards the big freeze, or signing up to, the Russian new commercial "rules". But when it comes to the crunch, EU politicians are not delivering on their promises.

THE LORD is, to all his citizens and like-minded, "friendly countries".

[Norton]

Not in the Donbass, Crimea, or Kerson snubs. I would be more than willing to have this put to the Democratic test. Of course in Crimea that is past history, but in the other places I believe that is exactly what should be done. To cement the deal.

The "people" already decided. Ukraine was formed in 1991. In 2013 the then pro Russian President was impeached by a duly elected parliament who then amended the constitution to be pro EU. With me so far Sab? All done by the will of the Ukrainian people.

Putin said fuck the people of the Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Ukrainian people had no say did they?

He then thought would be a great idea to arm separatist groups in other parts of the Ukraine. The Ukrainian people didn't much think such a great idea so turned loose their army on the sepratists.

Well shit, not working out so well so Putin again says fuck the Ukrainian people and invades the Ukraine which is not working out to well either.

The "people" have decided. They decided to resist anyone who attempts to usurp the will of the people of the Ukraine through use of force.

[Backspin]

Kharkov weapons cache hit

[NamPikToot]

Did the right thing, fuk the ATP - sport keeps saying its not political well they need to get off the fence.

Wimbledon: ATP & WTA strip ranking points from Grand Slam over ban for Russians and Belarusians

Players will not receive ranking points at Wimbledon following the decision to ban Russian and Belarusian competitors from the tournament.


Players from the countries have been banned by the All England Lawn Tennis Club from all UK grass-court events after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.


However, events outside Wimbledon, such as Queen's and Eastbourne, will retain their ranking points.


"It is with great regret and reluctance that we see no option," said the ATP.


The WTA said it was a "difficult decision".


"The stance we are taking is about protecting the equal opportunities that WTA players should have to compete as individuals," added the women's governing body.

more https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/61401519

[Backspin]

^
None of that gives Putin the right to invade a sovereign country, no matter how much you rant and rave.

Ukraine was planning on invading the Donbas in March. We have undeniable evidence of this.

If Ukraine was going to invade Donbas with Nato weapons and help, why would it stop at the Russian border ? To Russia this was an invasion no different than Napoleon or Hitler. And this time Russia was going to strike first

[pickel]

The Donbas is part of Ukraine you idiot. And if you think Ukraine was gonna invade Russia, you're a fool.