Ukraine war mega thread

[Norton]

Win/ Lose- who decides?

Me. There are no winners. Two losers. One loser less than the other.

[OhOh]

Oh dear, the 16% are planning their capitulation .

Western allies meeting regularly to game out potential framework for Ukraine ceasefire as war hits 100th day


By Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis, Barbara Starr and Jeremy Herb, CNn


Updated 1851 GMT (0251 HKT) June 3, 2022

"Staring down the prospect of an extended stalemate in Ukraine, the US and its allies are placing a renewed emphasis on the need for a negotiated settlement to end the war as the conflict grinds into its 100th day with no clear victory in sight for either side.US officials have in recent weeks been meeting regularly with their British and European counterparts to discuss potential frameworks for a ceasefire and for ending the war through a negotiated settlement, multiple sources familiar with the talks told CNN. Among the topics has been a four-point framework proposed by Italy late last month. That framework involves Ukraine committing to neutrality with regard to NATO in exchange for some security guarantees, and negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on the future of Crimea and the Donbas region.

Ukraine is not directly involved in those discussions, despite the US commitment to "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine." US and Ukrainian officials said the US has not been pressuring Ukraine to commit to a certain plan or directly pushing them to sit down with the Russians.

Still, there is some confusion about what kind of framework the US would consider appropriate to bring to the Ukrainians for further discussion.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield told reporters earlier this week that the Italian framework is "one of those initiatives that we certainly would love to see bring a conclusion to this horrific war and the horrific attacks on the Ukrainian people." But two US officials told CNN that the US actually does not support the Italian proposal.

In any case, US and western officials tell CNN that there is a growing concern that if the Russians and Ukrainians don't get back to the table and work out a deal, the war will drag on -- potentially for years.

Subtle language shift

It's not clear whether these discussions will translate into eventual settlement talks. The Biden administration still sees no real prospect for any diplomatic breakthroughs or ceasefires anytime soon and two NATO officials said that the western alliance sees little appetite to negotiate on the Ukrainian side ...."

Continues at:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/03/politics/ukraine-100-days-western-allies-regular-meetings-potential-ceasefire/index.html


After telling Ukraine to abort their negotiations with Russia in February, the 16% leaders are discussing their own off ramp. Without Ukraine being involved.

Why they believe Russia, it's citizens, military and government, will accept any of their "promises" is somewhat laughable.

[Troy]

^ Interesting, but I heard a different narrative. There are countries, such as France and perhaps Germany, that wish a quick end to this war. They would like a ceasefire even if it means Russia gaining more of Ukraine than at the start of the war. There are other countries, such as USA and UK, that want the war to continue until the Russians have been repelled.

In the end it is up to Ukraine and Russia to decide on their terms for a ceasefire.

[OhOh]

Malaya ceased to exist in 1963...

My apologies, to our Malaysian TD members and yourself.

[OhOh]

In the end it is up to Ukraine and Russia to decide on their terms for a ceasefire.

One wonders who, in Ukraine, is able to make that step back to "negotiations"?

[pickel]

I have been trying to warn you all along.

I remember you warning us that Putin would not invade, and it was just western media and governments being hysterical.

[bsnub]

I remember you warning us that Putin would not invade, and it was just western media and governments being hysterical.

He bleated on and on about it from the highest soap box...

...for months...

... In the end, the exact opposite of everything he was bleating about turned out to be true. Western intelligence was not lying, in fact they were spot on.

[sabang]

In which case, all the more blame falls on our side for not preventing the outbreak of war through Diplomatic means, as could easily have been done.

[harrybarracuda]

In which case, all the more blame falls on our side for not preventing the outbreak of war through Diplomatic means, as could easily have been done.

Are you blaming the Russians or the Chinkies here? It's not clear.

[bsnub]

as could easily have been done.

[mackayae]

Young lady returns to Ukraine.

[Backspin]

Let it sink in that Ukraine propagated an almost completely fictional counteroffensive and the entire mainstream media, as well as the brOSINT and analyst community, parroted it uncritically.

And this isn't the first time obviously.

Which is why I refrain from posting on the topic. It's too insane.

[sabang]

I listen to and am influenced by the likes of Kissinger, Chomsky, J. Mearsheimer, Jack Matlock etc. Not the TD bonehead brigade, yelling through their impotent, plastic kiddies megaphones while occupying their humble stations in life, as will always be the case.

[bsnub]

Part three of the interview with the American veteran who is just back from fighting in Ukraine. It is a great watch, well worth the time. This is the guy who was on Twitter in the early part of the war and gained some notoriety as the Russian bots kept posting up fake pictures and claiming he was killed. Good stuff.

[bsnub]

Big news! Leopard 2 MBT are light years ahead of any Russian tanks! One thing the Germans know how to do is make a main battle tank.

The newspaper said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine might receive about 40 tanks that need to be repaired. They have been in storage facilities of the Spanish army's logistics base in Zaragoza for ten years, and are part of a batch of 108 used units that Berlin sold to Madrid in 1995.

Also, according to El Pais, Spain offered Kyiv to conduct military training in Latvia on their use. The Spanish army has deployed there a contingent of 500 soldiers with six Leopard 2E tanks.

The second stage of instructing Ukrainian tank soldiers will take place in Spain, El Pais reported.

In addition, Madrid is already completing supplies to Kyiv of Shorad Aspide anti-aircraft missile batteries, which the Spanish army has replaced with another, more modern system, the newspaper writes.

A decision to send these may be made after talks at the International Donor Coordination Center in Stuttgart.

The proposal to supply air defense systems and train tank soldiers was made during a visit to Kyiv on April 21 by Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez, but due to the complexity of the operation, negotiations took a long time.

Spain has already supplied Ukraine with ammunition, body armor and light armaments like С-90 grenade launchers and machine guns.

Spain ready to give Ukraine 40 Leopard tanks, anti-aircraft systems, El Pais writes

[sabang]

A recent article in Politico's Lockheed Martin-sponsored National Security Daily newsletter featured a quote from an empire think tanker who argued that the tyranny of Saudi Arabia's murderous crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) can be tempered by sending him to seminars.

In "Saudi Arabia shows Biden can’t have it all," Politico describes an entirely imaginary conflict of presidential interests between a sincere desire to prioritize humanitarian concerns in Saudi Arabia and a need to maintain warm relations with Riyadh to keep oil prices low amid Washington's economic war against Moscow. I say entirely imaginary because of course the US would happily turn a blind eye to Saudi royals using babies for skeet shooting as long as they continued to advance US fossil fuel interests.

The article features all the usual mundane empire apologia you'd expect from a mainstream publication that is funded by war profiteers (the newsletter was sponsored by Northrop Grumman before Lockheed Martin), but one part stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of sheer foam-brained idiocy. Arguing that the US can advance both its fossil fuel interests and its super important humanitarian concerns, a denizen of the imperial hivemind named Kirsten Fontenrose is cited in the following text (emphasis mine):

So in Fontenrose's empire-addled brain, the US can simply provide private seminars for not just MBS but other foreign leaders as well, teaching them not to do atrocities and war crimes. And this will reconcile the glaring dissonance between what the US government says it values and what it actually does.

That's the kind of thinking that gets you made into a top national security advisor in the government with the most powerful military force ever assembled. Indeed, that's the kind of thinking that runs the empire.

Fontenrose is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a NATO-entrenched think tank that is funded by government entities, the military-industrial complex, fossil fuel companies and plutocrats. When questioned by The American Prospect last year about the fact that the Atlantic Council has received millions from Gulf state monarchies, Fontenrose responded, "Every think tank in Washington gets money from Middle East governments.”

This is true. Generally speaking, think tanks are institutions wherein academics are paid by the worst people in the world to come up with intelligent-sounding reasons why it would be good and smart to do something evil and stupid. Those narratives are then inserted at key points of influence before decision makers and the public, where they are used to help make the world a worse place to live

This is not the sort of dynamic which lends itself to lucid thinking. Fontenrose's Atlantic Council bio reads like a recipe for turning a human brain into a cog in the imperial machine: from Harvard to the National Council on US-Arab Relations, to "building relationships with military officers and diplomats from the Middle East and South Asia for the Near East Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University," to positions in the Pentagon and State Department, to Senior Director for the Gulf at the Trump administration's National Security Council, and then on to the Atlantic Council.

And at the Atlantic Council she shall wait, spewing imperial mouth farts and earning handsome paychecks, until it's time for the revolving door of the Beltway swamp to usher her back into a government position again.

These are the kind of people who run the world. The imperial machine is packed to the rafters with sniveling power worshippers of this variety, people who choose to spend their lives clawing their way up into positions of influence within the most depraved power structure on the face of this planet, demonstrating their worthiness by their continual willingness to advocate awful things no matter how reckless or stupid.

This is why the world is as it is. The systems which allocate power and wealth elevate the worst among us to the most consequential of positions, where they are then free to act out their own inner misery on the rest of humanity and keep us in a state of suffering and trauma. Nothing will get better until we change those systems.

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.co...ing-idiots?s=r

[bsnub]

Fontenrose is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a NATO-entrenched think tank that is funded by government entities, the military-industrial complex, fossil fuel companies and plutocrats.

Good lord, you are just posting utter shit as usual. This shill is clueless, like most of the clowns you follow. The Atlantic council has donors as diverse as the day is long. Atlanticism is not a new concept by any means, and you clearly have no idea what it is.

Once again you are making a fool of yourself posting this shit.

[sabang]

So you are gonna give MBS a seminar in how to be a good boy snubs? And ask him to please take slow joe's phone calls.

[bsnub]

So you are gonna give MBS a seminar in how to be a good boy snubs? And ask him to please take slow joe's phone calls.

You do realize that the person you are quoting was a former member of the trump administration, do you not?

Let me say again, Biden has nothing to do with that clown.

Keep digging...

[Switch]

So you are gonna give MBS a seminar in how to be a good boy snubs? And ask him to please take slow joe's phone calls.

You are living in a different time. People and politics have changed.

Putin is a self styled frightened thug and a bully. No amount of irrelevant obfuscation fro you will change that.

[bsnub]

Kirsten Fontenrose

A newly appointed Trump national security council aide and longtime behavioral change analyst worked until recently for the parent of Cambridge Analytica, the controversial political data company whose role in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is drawing scrutiny for its alleged improper use of private Facebook data.

Kirsten Fontenrose joined the Trump White House in March as the NSC senior director for Gulf Affairs. There is no indication that Fontenrose, who also has worked for the State Department and U.S. military, was involved in Cambridge’s election effort or any other activities that have come under scrutiny by investigators.

But her work for Cambridge’s parent company, SCL Group, underscores the firm’s influence in Trump’s Washington, even as critics say that its government contracts deserve additional scrutiny because of the company’s often-controversial work overseas.

It also sheds light on how SCL Group has quietly but aggressively exploited the U.S. government’s outsourcing of some intelligence, military and diplomatic efforts to private contractors, in part by hiring former national security officials like Fontenrose, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who went on to become Trump’s first national security adviser.

An NSC spokesperson declined to discuss Fontenrose’s background or portfolio and said Fontenrose herself would not comment. The NSC official also declined to comment on whether Fontenrose’s current role would involve working with, or having oversight of, government contracts involving SCL or affiliated firms.

The London-based SCL group combines behavioral research and communications methods, a formula that its subsidiary, Cambridge Analytica, says it uses to powerful effect in campaign and elections. The 2016 Trump campaign paid Cambridge Analytica at least $5.9 million to shape its digital media strategy, although former Trump campaign officials have downplayed the company’s role in the wake of revelations that the company was given improper access to data of about 50 million Facebook users.

The political action committee founded by President Trump’s incoming national security adviser, John Bolton, also hired Cambridge to develop psychological profiles of voters with data harvested from Facebook profiles, according to a report published by The New York Times.

Special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly has asked the firm to provide him with emails of any employees who worked on the Trump campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal. That could suggest interest in whether Russia somehow accessed or manipulated the company’s data as part of its interference in the 2016 election, which Mueller is investigating.

SCL boasts of its numerous intelligence, military and civilian contracts for the U.S. government, in many cases to influence human behavior using some of the same high-tech digital messaging techniques that the firm used in the 2016 election. Its website says it provides “data, analytics and strategy to governments and military organizations worldwide,” including “behavioral change programs in over 60 countries.”

SCL does not disclose specifics about the contracts, including dollar amounts, work performed and, in many cases, the government agency, and a company spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. A former company official told POLITICO that it withholds such details for competitive reasons and because the work is often classified.

A Cambridge company official said Thursday that Fontenrose had worked there as recently as a month ago but had no further comment.

nullAfter Trump took office in January 2017, SCL Group was a constant presence in Washington, lobbying to win new intelligence, defense and civilian contracts across multiple U.S. government agencies. The Washington Post reported in February 2017 that SCL’s effort was being driven by a former aide to Flynn, and that Flynn himself had served as an adviser to the company in its efforts to expand its contracting work.

Other newly hired former government officials also helped in that expansion effort, according to a former Cambridge Analytica official.

Fontenrose appears to have been one of them.

Her LinkedIn profile does not mention SCL or Cambridge Analytica, but said as of Friday that she had begun work in January 2017 as an “MFS” independent consultant advising government and private sector partners in “the class and unclass,” or classified and unclassified space.

In March 2017, Fontenrose accompanied SCL’s UK-based chief executive officer, Nigel Oakes, on a visit to the Pentagon to meet with Department of Defense staff, according a BuzzFeed report, which suggested the two were there to drum up more business for the company.

In early 2017, SCL Group won a $496,000 contract to conduct “target audience research” for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which leads U.S. efforts to counter foreign state and terrorist propaganda and disinformation.

Fontenrose has spent more than a decade working on similar issues, including during five years at the State Department as a senior adviser for strategic planning, according to her LinkedIn profile and her publicly available research. Her last job there, ending in November 2016, was as the “Lead for Africa and the Middle East” at the Global Engagement Center. She also was a “strategy consultant” for the Multi National Forces — Iraq and its Strategic Effects Division in 2006 and early 2007, and a vice president at the Archimedes Global Inc. contracting firm.

New Trump White House aide has Cambridge Analytica ties - POLITICO

[bsnub]

Sabang just keeps making a fool of himself. Over and over again.

[sabang]

Catty's article used her as an example of a fucking idiot- and I agree, hence I pasted it here. So if you disagree, you must not think her an idiot then, right? Jeez snubs, maybe just read the article a bit more slowly and digest what it really is saying. But I am pleased you seem to agree with Catty and myself on this matter.

[bsnub]

But I am pleased you seem to agree with Catty and myself on this matter.

I do not agree with her or you because you are both morons. You are backpedaling now, since you tried to link Kirsten Fontenrose to the Biden administration.

Your idiocy knows no bounds.

[OhOh]

New Trump White House aide has Cambridge Analytica ties

Pray tell, what has your post got to do with Ukraine losing its population, it's land, it's political relevance, it's militarily and soldiers?