The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Bob Ness]

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

If you have evidence that Putin isn't a former KGB, judo-proficient, journalist-killing dictator that said the end of the USSR was "the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century", I'm certainly all ears.

Haha that ain't happening. Cue Jeff coming in to tell us that Putin is the victim of a bunch of Nasi /Ustachi /Fascists bent on invading Russia and taking over the world. Ridiculous. Count on him to spit out the most recent of RT news though. And we're all being taken in by the MSM rather than the people who live there btw. He knew better than my PJ friend who was in Maiden square photographing the activities during that fiasco.

I'm thinking of sending him job applications like I did my buddy who was so gung-ho about the US invading Iraq.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Bob Ness

[Bob Ness]

48 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Paul, I didn't see Jeff making any specific predictions of hostilities or war, but he alleges an economic  motive from the West.

I'm not sure what good missiles will do in Poland if you're not going to use them. Do you think they would? Maybe another chip to remove in the future. It's hard to see circumstances in the future where Nato would dare to admit Ukraine in.

Despite the escalation in rhetoric, and the anticipant verbal chess playing. I tend to think nothings going to happen. That is, the Russians won't invade , so Nato won't invade, if they were ever going to. . They seem to be playing up these hostilities that have been going on in Donbass. I suppose we'll see soon about that.

 

PAGE #600!

With fast-track passports, Russia extends clout in Ukraine - KSTP.com Eyewitness News

Standard procedure. Start handing out passports. Did the same thing in Crimea.

[Ron Bulman]

4 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

The 5th or . . .

Trump and two eldest children must testify in New York case, judge rules (msn.com)

5 things to know about the possible depositions of Donald Trump and two of his children (msn.com)

[Benjamin Cole]

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov (pictured) stated on Friday that the government has estimated the risks of a large-scale escalation between Kiev on one side and Donbass and Crimea on the other as low.

Speaking to the Verkhovna Rada, Reznikov also stressed that the administration is not planning military action against the two aforementioned regions. He added the country has received more than 2,000 tons of weapons from its Western allies amid the ongoing fears of a potential Russian invasion.

[Sean Coleman]

 

You can kind of see where Putin’s coming from, he had a nice buffer zone once. Don’t forget the  Russian’s suffer from chronic paranoia and only see the Western devils getting closer and closer…..blimey, whats their problem? At least they’d be allowed to wear Levi’s and not queue for bread if they’d only let us in…..😁

He’s a crank btw

 

[Matt Allison]

All those new NATO members don't want to be part of some future Putin version of the USSR.

That's precisely why they joined NATO.

[Steve Thomas]

 

Oh goody. Let's all move to Georgia.

Steve Thomas

[W. Niederhut]

11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

Not that I would offer unsolicited advice but … if you dropped the comic-book supervillain framework then the world might seem a bit more comprehensible.

Jeff, you ignorant slut... 🤥

But no, seriously, thanks for sharing the perspective from Russia Today on the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine.

War is peace.  Freedom is slavery.  Ukraine is My Kraine.

Incidentally, I know a great deal more about Russia and Putin than you imagine.

You probably forgot (from our lengthy debate a few years ago about Russiagate) that I'm a long-time member of the old (White) Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR.)

Do you remember what Putin told ITASS about the role of "religion" when he and the FSB seized the ROCOR in 2007?

[Paul Brancato]

12 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/11/the-ultimate-end-of-nato/?utm_source=pocket_mylist

Very cogent article, probably will look like Russia propaganda to most here, not to me. 

[Paul Brancato]

William - leaving aside your expertise on Russia, what was your position on Colin Powell’s weapons of mass destruction speech at the UN in 2003? 

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

William - leaving aside your expertise on Russia, what was your position on Colin Powell’s weapons of mass destruction speech at the UN in 2003? 

Paul,

    I was strongly opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and a few of my family and friends were quite angry at me at the time.  I watched Powell's "WMD" presentation at the UN, and privately cheered for Dominique de Villepin's rebuttal.  I thought we were being conned by the Bush/Cheney administration, long before the sordid details of the con slowly emerged in the media.

[Jeff Carter]

The National Security Archive (https://nsarchive.gwu.edu) has published four briefs since 2018 featuring primary documents regarding the expansion of NATO, pledges and assurances related to that expansion, and the articulation of security concerns by representatives of Russia. All of it predates Putin and all of it is consistent with the concerns expressed now.

Since December, the dispute has broadened directly into essentially the same geopolitical dissensions which escalated into the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, not that anyone on this thread has noticed. NATO has now publicly repudiated the positions taken by the Kennedy administration at that time. That seems to be of some importance, and rather more complex than the comic-book dichotomies favoured in the legacy/corporate media and mindlessly repeated here. The Russians have the letter of signed treaties established through multilateral institutions on their side, and have the same  regarding the territory in Eastern Ukraine as expressed at the UN Security Council yesterday.

There is also a grim but telling symbolism in the retreat of US embassy and CIA staff to the city of Lvov in the Galician province of Ukraine. This extends way back to the OSS and Allen Dulles and the formation of “stay-behind” units connected to Gehlen’s networks post WW2. Once a hot topic amongst parapolitical researchers, it is now smugly dismissed as “Russian propaganda”. Interesting times indeed.

[Bob Ness]

3 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

All those new NATO members don't want to be part of some future Putin version of the USSR.

That's precisely why they joined NATO.

Nailed it.

[Bob Ness]

4 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

The National Security Archive (https://nsarchive.gwu.edu) has published four briefs since 2018 featuring primary documents regarding the expansion of NATO, pledges and assurances related to that expansion, and the articulation of security concerns by representatives of Russia. All of it predates Putin and all of it is consistent with the concerns expressed now.

The National Security Archives has published NO signed agreements between NATO, it's allies or countries in the region and Russia that divests those countries interest in determining their own policies. You're basically saying the back and forth that goes on between governments constitutes agreements. They don't.

Your stance on this stuff is getting beyond the pale at this point Jeff. First Crimea, which you were clearly wrong about and now Putin doubles down on on East Ukraine. You clearly want Ukraine taken over at the cost of potentially thousands of more innocent lives.  It's unconscionable.

There was and is no military threat to Russia on that border. Putin is threatening and possibly will invade that country for political objectives and you're waving his flag.

Please don't blither on about the US destabilizing the country. NATO is why there hasn't been another outright slaughter from one European country and it's colonies (like Canada) to another in nearly 80 years. That's a fact and the only destabilizing country in the region is Russia. That's why those countries prefer a Western association rather than living under some sort of dictatorship, which you're suggesting (that's not hyperbole).

[Kirk Gallaway]

Jeff, Maybe we can agree that the people of Ukraine are regretfully  being held as a pawn in a  Super Power geopolitical game. But what I'd like to hear from you and Glen Greenwald (from his recent tweets) and even Oliver Stone is that Putin's invasion of Ukraine would be unconscionable. And all I'm hearing up to now from you is justification.