Ukraine war mega thread

[helge]

You are arguing there are no or very few healthy democracies.

No

Unfortunately low voter turOnout is the norm, not the exception

Has gone down lately many places. In november we voted and had a 84,2 % turnout.

Our politicians would freak out if the percentage got near 50.

And so they should. Their legitimacy would be gone

Slowly but steadily erasing russian style corruption.

Believe me
They do not need cultural inputs from anyone, when corruption is on the agenda.

Observing how a robust democracy is building in Ukraine.

I shall ..observe.

I know that it'll improve.



Read the observer report yet ?

Not harsh, but the voting proces in Ukraine wasn't perfect.

[Hugh Cow]

You criticise Ukraines elections but criticism is easy when you do not have to offer any alternative.
Democracies are far from perfect. In Australia we have compulsory voting (which I support). One could argue that in itself is undemocratic. Our two party system itself could be also considered undemocratic as there is only one alternative to the government which could be considered no real choice at all.
You IMO are nit picking. Many countries with non compulsory voting have in effect, governments voted in power by a minority of the population. As I said they are far from perfect. They say the best government is a benevolent dictatorship but this is counter intuitive.Benevolent dictatorships require someone that is not only benevolent but competent as well. In General the people that become dictators by their very nature generally have neither of these attributes. Exponents of socialism fail to see that all end up into some form of dictatorship. Socialism and democracy sometimes flirt with each other but the marriage never lasts. As Stalin once said,"It is not the voter who holds the power but the one who counts the votes". Lukashenko is a classic example.

[helge]

You criticise Ukraines elections but criticism is easy when you do not have to offer any alternative.

What a weird comment

I have posted a report from the European Council, who observed the election. Read that

I commented on Takeover's post, and his claims.

In Australia we have compulsory voting (which I support). One could argue that in itself is undemocratic.

One could. Pro and cons there

Our two party system itself could be also considered undemocratic as there is only one alternative to the government which could be considered no real choice at all.

Shit system, if you don't mind me saying so

You IMO are nit picking.

Just commenting, but up to you

Many countries with non compulsory voting have in effect, governments voted in power by a minority of the population.

Yes in shit systems like yours.
Can't really be done, where I come from if people turn out to vote.

(but know what you mean)

I think that 12 parties is represented in our parlement right now, which shows that a huge part of the population has representatives

Socialism and democracy sometimes flirt with each other but the marriage never lasts.

The social democrats might be sad to hear your verdict, but then again.......you could ofcourse be right

But I doubt it

[sabang]

UKR officials describe the increasingly futile RU effort to take the city as ‘a meat grinder’.

Well General Wesley Clark described it as a meat grinder (for the Ukrainians) but as for "futile"- it doesn't seem so to me.



"Ukrainian military: street fighting is already underway in Bakhmut"
Just a moment...



"The Ukrainian military command is transferring additional units, including foreign mercenaries, to the area in an attempt to make up for heavy losses.
However, it seems that the foreign volunteers are not willing to take part in the bloody battle anymore. For example, the founder of the US “Mozart” PMC, a retired colonel of the US Marine Corps Andrew Melbourne complained that members of his so-called “humanitarian mission” in Bakhmut are hunted by Wagner fighters.
“Unfavorable circumstances” like “evil Russians” and the lack of funding from the Ukrainian command may push Mozart mercenaries out from Ukraine in early 2023
Ret. Col. Melburn also confirmed that the media is not lying claiming that the losses of the Ukrainian Army amounts to about 70% of its personnel."
https://southfront.org/foreign-mercenaries-ready-to-retire-from-ukrainian-front-lines/


"The situation near Bakhmut could be a disaster for the Ukrainian army. More evidence shows heavy losses of manpower and vehicles in the AFU, while the Ukrainian command is still unable to stabilize the front line."
American Veterans From The Mozart Group Confirm The Critical Situation Of Ukrainian Troops In BakhmutSouth Front


More general war porn here, from a russian source-

"In the NVO zone, the parties to the conflict exchanged a series of powerful blows"

Just a moment...

[pickel]

Once again, a tiny shred of truth is taken by the Russian propagandists and spun, dripped in falsehoods, and then shit out into the mouths of useful idiots such as yourself, who then bore intelligent readers with the dribble.

The Mozart Group (not PMC) are not participating in combat.

[Norton]

More general war porn here, from a russian source-

Plus some fine condos for those wishing to live in Rosinka.

Rosinka International Residences

[sabang]

The Mozart Group (not PMC) are not participating in combat.

Then what are these highly paid foreign mercenaries doing in an active war zone? Carrying stretchers?

[harrybarracuda]

Then what are these highly paid foreign mercenaries doing in an active war zone? Carrying stretchers?

Among other things yes. Along with training and EOD clearance.

Of course you wouldn't know that from the Kremlin propaganda site you keep quoting.

[pickel]

Then what are these highly paid foreign mercenaries doing in an active war zone? Carrying stretchers?

Yes, carrying stretchers, among other things, like UXO clearance and evacuations, and training soldiers in survival skills.

Funny how you don't show your disdain of real mercenaries, such as the Wagner Group PMC. Why is that?

[David48atTD]

I did. A balanced commentary which concludes the Ukraine could retake the Crimea if a whole lot of things go their way. Worth the watch.

I also did and yes, worth a watch.

[Hugh Cow]

Yes in shit systems like yours.
Can't really be done, where I come from if people turn out to vote.

Some of your comments make no sense. Your above answer to my comment on low voter turn out is a perfect example as Australias' voter turnout last federal election was around 95% and that was considered low by Australian standards. Whilst 2 party systems are far from ideal, 15 parties full of minority representation and competing agendas is not exactly a picture of efficient governance. It may work for your country safely esconced on the teet of the EU sheltered workshop, but for a country that must rely on its own to trade with the rest of the world it would rapidly become an economic basket case.

[OhOh]

Zelensky was elected by a large majority

Who were given a number of promises.

No. 1 election promise - 0% delivered.

Acceptable in NaGaStan obviously, elsewhere, not so much.

Zelenskiy's First Year: He Promised Sweeping Changes.

April 25, 2020 12:53 GMT

By Christopher Miller

Ending The War

"When he was sworn in as president in May 2019, Zelenskiy also inherited the role of supreme commander in chief of Ukraine's armed forces and a grinding war against Russia-backed separatists who hold parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in what is known as the Donbas. More than 13,000 people have been killed since fighting began in April 2014.

One of Zelensky's two main promises was to bring the war to an end, a goal that polls have shown Ukrainians want to see accomplished more than anything."

Zelenskiy's First Year: He Promised Sweeping Changes. How's He Doing?

[OhOh]

or a country that must rely on its own to trade with the rest of the world it would rapidly become an economic basket case.

Top 12 global export countries:

Australia Exports By Country	Value	Year
China	$116.82B	2021
Japan	$30.32B	2021
South Korea	$22.59B	2021
India	$13.62B	2021
United States	$11.02B	2021
New Zealand	$8.19B	2021
Vietnam	$7.01B	2021
Indonesia	$7.00B	2021
Singapore	$6.57B	2021
Hong Kong	$4.58B	2021
Thailand	$4.23B	2021
Malaysia	$4.21B	2021

https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/balance-of-trade

11 out of 12 local Asians, led by China.

About us

"Trading Economics provides its users with accurate information for 196 countries including historical data and forecasts for more than 20 million economic indicators, exchange rates, stock market indexes, government bond yields and commodity prices. Our data is based on official sources, not third party data providers, and our facts are regularly checked for inconsistencies. Trading Economics has received more than 1.3 billion page views from more than 200 countries. "



WITS

2020 figures:

Australian balance of trade with China :

39,000,000,000 US$.

Australian balance of trade with NaGaStan:

-12,000,000,000 US$.

https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryPr...ner/by-country

About WITS

Introduction

"The World Bank — in collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and in consultation with organizations such as International Trade Center, United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) — developed the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS). This software allows users to access and retrieve information on trade and tariffs.

[helge]

Whilst 2 party systems are far from ideal, 15 parties full of minority representation and competing agendas is not exactly a picture of efficient governance.

But that is democratic and nobody ever promised that it would be pretty or easy

It may work for your country safely esconced on the teet of the EU sheltered workshop, but for a country that must rely on its own to trade with the rest of the world it would rapidly become an economic basket case.

Democracy is bad for trade, or what is the essence of what you are saying ?

Too deep for my little brain

Should we let it go ?

[Norton]

Should we let it go ?

Fine by me mate.

[OhOh]

Three videos of the Ukraine war.

A discussion by Michael Vlahos and Col. Douglas Macgregor.

"Michael Vlahos and Douglas Magcregor meet in the library of the illustrious Army-Navy Club, Washington, D.C., the Imperial City, to reflect on the war in Ukraine."

The first:

Is the war in Ukraine entering its decisive phase?



The second can be found here:

Why NATO strategic failure? A war of deceit, denial



The third can be found here:

What is to be done? Can a corrupted US military be renewed?

[bsnub]

A discussion by Michael Vlahos and Col. Douglas Macgregor.

A couple of complete clowns. Macgregor is a disgrace to the officers that served with him. A laughable shill that should never be taken seriously. More clowns for the stooges clown car.

Complete trash.

[Iceman123]

A couple of complete clowns. Macgregor is a disgrace to the officers that served with him. A laughable shill that should never be taken seriously. More clowns for the stooges clown car.

Complete trash.

The armchair basement dwelling genius has managed to view 2 hours of videos in less than 17 minutes. We have to take his balanced views seriously.

No, you are the dumbest clown to grace this forum

[sabang]

Israel doesn't think so-

In 2019, Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi, Chief of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) General Staff made MacGregor's 2003 book, Transformation under Fire, required reading for all officers in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and above. On February 17, 2020, Macgregor traveled to Israel as a guest of the IDF Chief of Staff

Neither Gen Wesley Clark-

Macgregor was the top planner for General Wesley Clark, the military commander of NATO, for its 1999 attack on Serbia.

Trump didn't seem to think so, when he nominated him as US Amabassador to Germany.
Douglas Macgregor - Wikipedia

[bsnub]

The armchair basement dwelling genius has managed to view 2 hours of videos in less than 17 minutes.

You really should scrap together a couple of more brain cells, you dimwitted buffoon. Your repetitive dribble has become laughable. I know exactly what those two bozos said as they have been repeating the same shit for months. They are useful idiots that push Russian propaganda. Idiots like you swallow it up like gospel.

No, you are the dumbest clown to grace this forum

I have been humiliating imbeciles like you and the other useful idiots here for months. You like your boyfriend Sab suffer from Dunning-Kruger syndrome and are too stupid to see it.

Take Putins cock out of your mouth, you laughable moron.

Says the man who claims Ukraine is winning

Yep I am on the side of reality, and unfortunately Ukraine are losing.

Now when are you going to accept the reality that Ukraine are not winning.

the Ukraine has virtually no chance against a superior force in numbers and equipment.

Who’s winning now on planet Bsnub?

here on earth Ukraine are losing for sure.

I will repeat to try to get it to sink in “Russia is winning”

Putins useful idiot.

[bsnub]

Trump didn't seem to think so, when he nominated him as US Amabassador to Germany.

Trump. Man stupid is out in force tonight.

[sabang]

While I personally do consider you stupid, I think childish and petulant is closer to the mark.



Russian Drone Strikes Leave Most of Ukraine’s Odessa Region Without Power

Zelensky warns that it could take longer to restore electricity supply as Russians expand their strikes on critical Ukrainian infrastructure

KHERSON, Ukraine—Most of Ukraine’s southern Odessa region was without power following the latest in a series of Russian drone strikes on the country’s electric grid.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 1.5 million people in the region were without power. Only critical infrastructure was connected to the power grid, he said, adding that restoring service could take longer than after previous attacks.

“Unfortunately, the hits were critical,” Mr. Zelensky said in his nightly address Saturday. “This is the true attitude of Russia toward Odessa, toward Odessa residents—deliberate bullying, deliberate attempt to bring disaster to the city.”

Odessa region officials didn’t say what exactly had been hit, but wrote on Facebook that repairing the damage could take two or three months. DTEK, one of the country’s largest energy companies, said almost the entire region was without power late Saturday, and utility workers were giving priority to reconnecting hospitals and other critical infrastructure to the grid.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-drone-strikes-leave-most-of-ukraines-odessa-region-without-power-11670753545

[bsnub]

Utterly laughable that anyone would take a bozo like this seriously...


Fox News’ Invasion Expert Is a Trump-Appointed Putin Propagandist Who Thinks Russia Is Being ‘Too Gentle’

Tucker Carlson has been a little confused about how to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He’s long praised Vladimir Putin and even said the other year that he was rooting for him against Ukraine. Putin has since waged a war that has resulted in thousands of deaths, muddling Carlson’s messaging. The Fox News host last month called the invasion “horrifying” and a “tragedy” for which Putin is “to blame,” before wondering how the U.S. should respond.

He’s turned to Douglas MacGregor — a former Army colonel and Trump appointee with a history of racism — to help answer that question and generally make sense of what’s happening overseas.

McGregor has been popping up on various Fox News programs since the invasion, mostly to shill for Putin at a time when he’s unleashing hell on one of America’s allies. He did so again Monday night, arguing on Tucker Carlson Tonight that slapping sanctions on Russia is useless. “The sanctions … will do a lot of damage to us,” he told Carlson. “They’re not going to make much difference to Russia. China will stand with Russia. It knows it has to. Russia has an abundance of food and energy. China will take it all. Russia will not suffer as a result of our sanctions. In fact, it may break down the financial system that we have set up to punish everyone in the world we don’t like.”

JPMorgan estimated recently that Russia’s GDP will decline by 12 percent, that the country’s exports will decline by 13 percent. “What is clear … is that Russia’s growing economic and political isolation will lead to lower growth in the long run,” said Anatoliy Shal, an economist at JPMorgan.

MacGregor’s appearance on Monday comes just days after he told Stuart Varney of Fox Business that Russia’s forces were “too gentle” during the first days of the invasion, that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a “puppet” who shouldn’t be resisting Russia’s incursion, and that everything that’s been coming out of Ukraine is propaganda.
Varney could barely believe what he was hearing. “I’m inclined to disagree with you, Colonel,” he said.

Varney shouldn’t have been so surprised. A few days earlier, Macgregor said on Fox News that America needs to stop demonizing Putin and refrain from sending any aid to Ukraine. When he was asked if America should just let Russia take whatever it wants from Ukraine, Macgregor said “absolutely,” adding that it shouldn’t be a big deal because “the population there is indistinguishable from their own.”

Macgregor is about as pro-Putin as it gets, and, unlike others in the Republican Party, hasn’t backed off as the authoritarian has invaded a neighboring democracy. Nevertheless, Carlson introduced him last week as an “honest man,” after which Macgregor pushed more Putin propaganda, arguing he is simply trying to prevent “further attempts to influence or change Ukraine into effectively a platform for the projection of U.S. and Western power into Russia.”

His subsequent comments about Russia being “too gentle” — which Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) used to highlight the “Putin wing of the GOP” — didn’t dissuade Carlson from having him on again on Monday. His argument against sanctioning Russia is basically another way of saying Putin should be able to do whatever it wants to Ukraine.

Macgregor isn’t just a Putin apologist, either. He’s a staunch anti-interventionist to the point that, like former President Trump, he’s questioned America’s participation in NATO, the West’s primary military counterbalance against Russia. In a 2016 presentation his group delivered to the Command General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Macgregor wrote that “old alliances like NATO may vanish,” and argued that it’s “time to reexamine U.S. investment in ‘allies’ that are doing too little to secure their own sovereign interests,” noting that the “Cold War ended 27 years ago.”

Media Matters recently dug into his past appearances on Fox News, including several on Carlson’s show, and found that Macgregor’s nationalism very much extends to immigration issues. He advocated for instituting martial law at the U.S.-Mexico border, adding that the military should “shoot people” if necessary, as CNN reported in 2020. He’s also argued that Democrats are trying to “transform the United States” by replacing white people with immigrants. Macgregor’s comments align with the Great Replacement theory, which is prevalent in white nationalist circles and is particularly associated with anti-Semitism. Macgregor has a history of trading in anti-Semitic tropes, as well. CNN reported that he has on multiple occasions claimed that U.S. support for Israel is due to the “Israeli lobby” making top officials “very, very rich.”

Carlson is also, of course, a leading proponent of the Great Replacement theory, and Media Matters notes that Trump “repeatedly” considered Macgregor for jobs in his administration after his appearances on Carlson’s show. Trump nominated him in the summer of 2020 to be the U.S. ambassador to Germany, with the White House describing him as a “decorated combat veteran, author, and a consultant,” as well as a “frequent radio and television commentator on national security affairs.” The nomination didn’t pan out after CNN reported on Macgregor’s history of racism. Trump was undeterred, though, appointing Macgregor as a Pentagon senior adviser shortly after the 2020 election.

He apparently hasn’t slipped out of the good graces of Carlson and Fox News, either.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...raine-1318143/

[bsnub]

While I personally do consider you stupid, I think childish and petulant is closer to the mark.

Do I need to compile a list of forum members that have come into these threads to point out that you post a constant stream of shit propaganda? It is a pretty long list.

[sabang]

You mean, the Forum intellectuals? That is quite an accolade actually, thank you.

I don't think the likes of Macgregor, Kissinger, Matlock, Chomsky, Mearsheimer, Buchanan etc give two hoots about being called a stooge, or shill by two bit losers like yourself snubski. Why do you even bother.