Ukraine war mega thread

[sabang]

I am not, stop being such a baby. When snubski posted that tweet that turned out to be fake news, I did notcakl it out as such (but had my suspicions) as any intelligent reader can clearly see for themself #11570.

[misskit]

“Any intelligent reader”

Getting a little overused.


Juan Williams: Ukraine unites Americans like little else

At year’s end, let’s first sweep away the bad news before we get to the good news.
The bad news is that Americans see political extremism as now second only to inflation as the most important issue facing the country, according to FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos polling.

Now the good news. Americans can agree on one thing.
Most Republicans, Democrats and every other kind of partisan agree the U.S. is right to stand up against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in October found that 73 percent of Americans — including 81 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Republicans — favor continued U.S. support for Ukraine against Russia.
This tracks with a poll from the Chicago Council of Foreign Affairs conducted in November. It found 65 percent of Americans support continuing to support Ukraine with arms, 66 percent support continuing economic aid and 75 percent favor continuing sanctions on Russia.
Despite intense political polarization on most issues, Americans are unified on backing Ukraine and for now are willing to make sacrifices.
“One area, however, seems to be far less contentious than the domestic strife we hear so much about, U.S foreign policy,” Jordan Muchnick and Elaine Kamarck wrote for the Brookings Institute website earlier this month.

“While there are of course arguments to be had, the level of vitriol is minuscule by comparison, and polling indicates bipartisan unity on many of the foreign policy issues in the news today.”
Kamarck and Muchnick also looked beyond Ukraine. On U.S. foreign policy for dealing with China and Iran, they again found relative unity across political lines.
Support for Ukraine stands as the star guiding us to common ground in this era of polarized U.S. politics.

Unified support for Ukraine showed signs of fraying in a Wall Street Journal poll released at the start of November, however.
It found 57 percent of Americans favoring continued funding, but 48 percent of Republicans saying the U.S. is “doing too much.” That was a jump in concern among Republicans from just six percent in a March poll.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to a joint session of Congress last week, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) left their seats empty in a show of dissent.

But they are fringe players even among Republicans. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), struggling to get far-right backing to become Speaker, declares his support for Ukraine even as he says he wants accountability for American money sent to Kyiv.
“The most important thing going on in the world is to beat the Russians in Ukraine,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters on the evening of Zelensky’s speech . “And also, it’s nice to have something here at the end of the year that we all actually agree on.”
Yes, strong GOP voices agree with President Biden and Democrats on Ukraine.
The result is that since Russia’s February invasion, Congress has directed over $50 billion in aid to the Ukrainians. The end-of-year spending measure passed by Congress last week authorizes another $45 billion.
Some voices on Capitol Hill want to slow further funding. There is concern, too, about debate over sending military “advisers” — a term that stirs fear of Vietnam-style escalation of U.S. involvement.
So far, Biden has held the line on not sending U.S. troops into the conflict. Such a move would threaten domestic political support.
That support extends beyond the U.S. to the impressive international coalition he has formed to stand against Russian aggression.
The past year of strong public support for Ukraine differs from the critical U.S. public response to the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
At around the time of the withdrawal in August of 2021, Pew Research found “about seven-in ten or more said the administration had done an only fair or poor job dealing with the situation there.”

The criticism was strongly partisan, with Pew finding that 82 percent of Republicans said the Biden administration had done a “poor job” in Afghanistan while 40 percent of Democrats said the administration did an “excellent or good job.”
According to an analysis from FiveThirtyEight, it was the rocky withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that first sent Biden’s overall job approval rating into negative territory.
Since then, his approval rating, while showing recent signs of improvement, has stayed below 50 percent.
In my opinion, history will record Biden’s decision to end the nation’s longest war as overdue and right. At the time of the Afghanistan withdrawal, 54 percent agreed it was right, according to the Pew survey.

The flawed execution of the Afghan pull-out came at a political cost for Biden. The president’s success in killing al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in July this year was a positive afterword. But there is still criticism of the withdrawal.
In contrast, overall support for U.S. standing with Ukraine has yet to be undone by partisanship.
While no one is breaking out in choruses of “Kumbaya,” it is good news that Americans can agree on making a difference in Ukraine and setting a red line against aggression by authoritarian regimes such as China.

Nearly a year of public agreement on backing Ukraine stands as a bright star on the Christmas tree of hope in a season of American political polarization.

Juan Williams: Ukraine unites Americans like little else | The Hill

[sabang]

The unintelligent readers make themselves obvious.

[sabang]

^^ Gee, I don't recall the USA being as united on one thing since.... the invasion of Iraq.

[pickel]

I am not, stop being such a baby. When snubski posted that tweet that turned out to be fake news, I did notcakl it out as such (but had my suspicions) as any intelligent reader can clearly see for themself #11570.

I'm not talking about snubbies post bonehead, I'm talking about your Intel Slava Z post. But I suspect you know that and are just being a cock.

[david44]

I don't recall the USA being as united on one thing since.... the invasion of Iraq.

They all want to be slimmer but 95% eat junk food full of corn syrup refined processed fillers and of course plenty of salt sugars etc

As we all know the cream of USA reside here or languish sleepless in Seattle saving up to come.

[panama hat]

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Modern psychology at work . . . the officers should be nervous

Military analysts will be having a field day on why such low tech weaponry got so far into Russian territory without detection/destruction.

It's all fake as Russia has the newest, fastest, most destructive weaponry that can even destroy Patriot missiles . . . this is one of the reasons they are getting weapons from North Korea

[david44]

getting weapons from North Korea

yep slipping spicy kimchee into the Borscht can bring any army to its knees.

Some don't perceive the US has no interest in a quick resolution that leaves Putin and Russian intact , a long slow drawn out bleeding to leech the bears strength, for US arms procurement its a win win for Ukrainians, pace loves ,taxpayers not so much.

[harrybarracuda]

Yes, as he said like Iraq. Chomsky is a peacenik, Kissinger certainly isn't. They are conjoined by a common cause, of calling out the bullshit narrative that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was totally unprovoked for the absolute, utter bullshit it is.

Chonsky hates America and Kissinger is a mass murderer.

And yet you still drool over their every word.

[sabang]

And let's see. You drool over every word of dubya, sleepy Joe, and Tony b liar. As spoon fed to you by MSM. Prefer having my own mind, my own voice thanks.

[sabang]

The more Ukraine can be bled, impoverished, destroyed and depopulated- the more profit opportunities for the vulture capitalists. The more Russia can be drained, the better it suits the Straussian/ neo-cons. Clownboy is playing his part by dismantling all Ukrainian worker protections. My advice, if you are 'Ukrainian' - get out, if you can. It's gonna be like Yeltsin's Russia was.

[bsnub]

Sabang still doesn't get it.

He has been utterly clueless since before this thing even kicked off. Yapping on about how this war would never start. He is nothing more than a clown, just like his lapdog iceman/icebitch. They are two propagandized, utter buffoons. Just amazing that the two school girls even come around and still post at all. Both of the clowns suffer from Dunning-Kruger, like most of the useful idiots.

[harrybarracuda]

The more Ukraine can be bled, impoverished, destroyed and depopulated- the more profit opportunities for the vulture capitalists. The more Russia can be drained, the better it suits the Straussian/ neo-cons. Clownboy is playing his part by dismantling all Ukrainian worker protections. My advice, if you are 'Ukrainian' - get out, if you can. It's gonna be like Yeltsin's Russia was.

It's like he cut and pasted this off some idiot's instagram or something.

[bsnub]

Still waiting on your Intel Slava Z retraction btw.

That will not happen. Let's be very clear about something. Southfront is a social media outlet of the Kremlin, it is all lies. The video I posted is real, as is the video of the beat down you posted. The vid you posted was of a DPR commander beating conscripts that had been stripped of their arms. The truth will always win in the end.

[harrybarracuda]

And let's see. You drool over every word of dubya, sleepy Joe, and Tony b liar. As spoon fed to you by MSM. Prefer having my own mind, my own voice thanks.

Oooooh look, let's make a straw man then people will never guess how stupid you are.

[sabang]

Nice to know it's Instagrammable, but no that is not a paste. This is certainly not a Tweet, or Instagram-

West prepares to plunder post-war Ukraine with neoliberal shock therapy: privatization, deregulation, slashing worker protections

Originally published: Multipolarista on July 28, 2022 by Jake Kallio and Benjamin Norton (more by Multipolarista) (Posted Aug 01, 2022)

WarEuropeNewswire
While the United States and Europe flood Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars of weapons, using it as an anti-Russian proxy and pouring fuel on the fire of a brutal war that is devastating the country, they are also making plans to essentially plunder its post-war economy.
Representatives of Western governments and corporations met in Switzerland this July to plan a series of harsh neoliberal policies to impose on post-war Ukraine, calling to cut labor laws, “open markets,” drop tariffs, deregulate industries, and “sell state-owned enterprises to private investors.”
Ukraine has been destabilized by violence since 2014, when a US-sponsored coup d’etat overthrew its democratically elected government, setting off a civil war. That conflict dragged on until February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded the country, escalating into a new, even deadlier phase of the war.
The United States and European Union have sought to erase the history of foreign-sponsored civil war in Ukraine from 2014 to early 2022, acting as though the conflict began on February 24. But Washington had sent large sums of weapons to Ukraine and provided extensive military training and support over several yearsbefore Russia invaded.
Meanwhile, starting in 2017, representatives of Western governments and corporations quietly held annual conferences in which they discussed ways to profit from the civil war they were fueling in Ukraine.
In these meetings, Western political and business leaders outlined a series of aggressive right-wing reforms they hoped to impose on Ukraine, including widespread privatization of state-owned industries and deregulation of the economy.
On July 4 and 5, 2022, top officials from the US, EU, Britain, Japan, and South Korea met in Switzerland for a so-called “Ukraine Recovery Conference.” There, they planned Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and performatively announced aid commitments – while salivating over a bonanza of potential contracts.
New NATO candidates Finland and Sweden committed to assure reconstruction in Lugansk, roughly 48 hours after Russia and separatist forces announced the region had fallen fully under their control.
But the Ukraine Recovery Conference was not new. It had been renamed to save the expense of a new acronym. In the previous five years, the group and its annual meetings were instead referred to as the “Ukraine Reform Conference” (URC).
The URC’s agenda was explicitly focused on imposing political changes on the country – namely, “strengthening the market economy“, “decentralization, privatization, reform of state-owned enterprises, land reform, state administration reform,” and “Euro-Atlantic integration.”

Before 2022, this gathering had nothing to do with aid – and a lot to do with economics.
Documents from the 2018 Ukraine Reform Conference emphasized the importance of privatizing most of Ukraine’s remaining public sector, stating that the “ultimate goal of the reform is to sell state-owned enterprises to private investors”, along with calls for more “privatization, deregulation, energy reform, tax and customs reform.”
Lamenting that the “government is Ukraine’s largest asset holder,” the report stated, “Reform in privatization and SOEs has been long awaited, as this sector of the Ukrainian economy has remained largely unchanged since 1991.”

The Ukraine Reform Conference listed as one of its “achievements” the adoption of a law in January 2018 titled “On Privatization of State and Municipal Property,” which it noted “simplifies the procedure of privatization.”
While the URC enthusiastically pushed for these neoliberal reforms, it acknowledged that they were very unpopular among actual Ukrainians. A poll found that just 12.4% supported privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOE), whereas 49.9% opposed it. (An additional 12% were indifferent, whereas 25.7% had no answer.)

Economic liberalization in Ukraine since Russia’s February invasion has been even more grim.
In March 2022, the Ukrainian parliament adopted emergency legislation allowing employers to suspend collective agreements. Then in May, it passed a permanent reform package effectively exempting the vast majority of Ukrainian workers (those at businesses with fewer than 200 employees) from Ukrainian labor law.
While the most immediate beneficiaries of these changes will be Ukrainian employers, Western governments have been lobbying to liberalize Ukraine’s labor laws for years.
Documents leaked in 2021 showed that the British government coached Ukrainian officials on how to convince a recalcitrant public to give up workers’ rights and implement anti-union policies. Training materials lamented that popular opinion towards the proposed reforms was overwhelmingly negative, but provided messaging strategies to mislead Ukrainians into supporting them.

[sabang]

Feck, Doghouse. Sorry about the color and formatting. Here is the Link, anyway-

West prepares to plunder post-war Ukraine with neoliberal shock therapy: privatization, deregulation, slashing worker protections | MR Online

[bsnub]

Time to switch gears then, you utter clown? Apparently you tried to post more shit in the news thread. Come into the den and take a beating, you sad clown.

[sabang]

Still sulking recruit snubski? BooHoo. Don't seem to have heard anything about Kremenna since you posted it may have been taken by the Ukies. Any news?

[bsnub]

Still sulking recruit snubski? BooHoo.

Why the fuck would I be sulking? Russia is getting beat down and it is retreating.

[sabang]

There were two predictable consequences of the repeated standing ovations recently accorded to President Zelensky of Ukraine by the U.S. Congress.

For Ukrainians, they will confirm the official Ukrainian perspective that, with the world’s preeminent military power irrevocably committed to offering unlimited miltary and economic support, perpetuating the war will be worth all the sacrifices which doing so will entail.

For Russians, they will confirm, dramatically, the official perspective that Russia is at war with the United States and NATO, not with the manipulated “brotherly people” of Ukraine, that this war is existential for Russia and that Russia cannot afford to lose this war.

These reinforced perspectives will render any hope of ending the deaths and destruction in Ukraine and the collateral damage to the rest of the world at any time in the foreseeable future even more dim than they originally were.

During President Zelensky’s whirlwind visit to Washington, President Biden reiterated his six-word mantra that the United States will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”, while remaining, perhaps constructively, ambiguous as to what he deems “it” to mean.
Whatever “it” may mean, four inevitable consequences of perpetuating this war “for as long as it takes” should be indisputable:


1. More Ukrainians and Russians will be killed.
2. Ukraine and its economy will suffer more destruction.
3. American weapons manufacturers will rake in more profits.
4. European economies and European citizens will continue to suffer serious and intensifying pain.

These are the least bad consequences of perpetuating this war. Matters could spiral out of control and produce far worse consequences.
It is easy to understand why the ruling élites in the United States, which, uniquely, are deriving benefits, both geopolitical (a weakened and more subservient Europe) and financial, from this war, would wish to perpetuate it.

It is difficult to envision benefits for anyone else, including Russia and Ukraine, from perpetuating it.

As students of history are aware, wars are not fought only on battlefields, by the competitive slaughter of soldiers, but also on economic and information fronts. A major factor in uselessly prolonging wars has often been the delusional belief of both sides in the veracity of their own disinformation and propaganda about how well the war is going and their prospects for “victory”. The world appears to be witnessing yet another example of this historical phenomenon at a time when, with both sides literally digging in, an effective stalemate, with only marginal gains for either side, is far more likely than a resounding “victory” for either side.

While it is currently difficult to imagine any near-term end to the deaths and destruction, two long-shot hopes may be worth considering:

1. Either Russia or Ukraine proposes a ceasefire-in-place followed by negotiations. If, as currently seems most likely, the other side were to reject such an offer, it would be clear which side would then be responsible for the further deaths, destruction and collateral damage to the rest of the world, with obvious benefits for the proposing country. If, as seems less likely but is not inconceivable, the other side were to accept such an offer, the deaths and destruction would end and the conflict would be re-frozen on somewhat different territorial lines of control than those existing on February 24.

2. Russia formally announces that it has no territorial ambitions regarding internationally-recognized Ukrainian territory beyond the borders of the five Russian-majority regions which are now constitutionally part of the Russian Federation after their respective referendums and annexations. Doing so could constructively defang US/NATO claims that Russia seeks to swallow Ukraine whole or reestabish the Russian empire and might constructively lead to serious thinking, both among Ukrainians and among the citizens of NATO countries, as to whether seeking (with no serious likelihood of success) to maintain western Ukrainian rule over the Russian-majority regions of eastern and southern Ukraine is really worth the further deaths and destruction which such an effort would guarantee.
In both potential instances, it is worth recalling that, when the recent four annexations were proclaimed, a senior Russian official stated publicly that precise borders remained to be determined.

Ever since the United States and NATO contemptuously dismissed Russia’s requests for serious negotiations toward a new mutual security architecture in Europe, under which all countries could feel secure and no country would feel threatened, and Russia responded by extending diplomatic recognition to the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and launching its invasion, there has been no hope for a “good” or “just” ending to this eminently avoidable war.

One must hope, notwithstanding President Zelensky’s worshipful reception by the U.S. Congress, that wiser minds will increasingly focus on realistic, if inevitably imperfect, ways of bringing the deaths and destruction to an end.

John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based international lawyer.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/27/the-consequences-of-for-as-long-as-it-takes/

[bsnub]

The walls are closing in for these dimwits. We all knew this would happen.

[bsnub]

[sabang]

Do you want to get every speakers corner thread thrown in the Doghouse recruit snubski? No skin off my nose.

[bsnub]

Even Icebitch has jumped ship.