I'll bet they're are going on about those things. In your last post you said they don't even have any stories.
What's your point?
I watched CNN and Sky yesterday and they had loads of commentators on is Putin mentally unstable?
I really don't think he is. There will be a lot of support in the Kremlin for keeping Ukraine out of NATO. Yes I know Putin is gone beyond justifying the NATO stance but the whole conflict is at the heart of Ukraine wanting to be an independent nation and make its own alliances.
as did I. protest.
There are very little good guys in geopolitics. Anybody who says otherwise is naive.
A well made point but loses kudos when you call me a communist (tankie reference) giving succor to fascism . somewhat a dichotomy , no?
But I'd love to have a rant at speakers corner.
But Overall I cant accept your argument
I've no interest in war but I'd rather know the truth than cheerlead what Skynews/BBC and our own intellectual behemoth that is Timmy Dooley are selling.
The truth is Ukraine isn't good and Russia isn't bad. They (the political and money elite) can be (and probably are) both **** and there is a lot more to this that we are seeing in the media. It is possible to not want to cheer either side ,be the anti war.
if my desire for truth upsets you , so be it.
@El_Duderino 09 made some good points above touching on similar.
I protested the Iraq war. I came across plenty of foaming-at-the-mouth types with their highly selective world views. Judging modern administrations and institutions because a country invaded someone else 60 years ago, always trying to validate the "good guys are bad" narrative.
We get it, and there's a thread for that.
Back on subject, Putin is a severe threat to Europe and the world, this conflict has the potential to escalate to very serious levels.
Of what value are moral judgements like this?
We have to deal with the world as it is, not how we would like it to be.
Just a gut feeling and having seen Putin's popularity in Russia, I don't think a coup is a possibility yet. It may be if this becomes a long protracted thing, which is why he wants to achieve his aims quickly. He's loved. He may have lost some support over the past few years, but they love him and as soon as he starts his anti-west 'standing up to America' stuff, the people love him some more. Many Russians believe they are victims of the west.
They haven't given up the narrative about EU or Nato expansion. They're even more relevant now as a result of the invasion.
How long is that chain, do you reckon? 10? 5? 3?
Given twenty years in power, I'm sure he will have managed to find a dozen people willing to watch the world burn. I doubt Putin is even the most nuke-hungry person on his team.
Even they have given up that pretext. Especially as Ukraine didn't seem to be about to be joining nato and they have just brought a lot of nato weaponry very close to their doorstep with this invasion.
More about the nazi excuse these days from what I can see.
They don't even have any stories? Ah, I'm not sure if you're being serious. They probably tell each other we have no stories and we're here telling each other great stories in which we're the heroes.
The stories don't really matter that much after the fact. They're just interesting to hear.
I know that visually Putin is starting to look more and more isolated, the long tables, ministers across the room etc. But as they leave the room are all his Generals and ministers chatting and saying 'This is a great idea, the way forward' or are his war cabinet thinking 'this is a really bad move'.
Is there any possibility of a mutiny in the higher orders of Putin's regime?
You mean in response to the act of war by putin invading an independent country?
Maybe the Polish can lease out some suitable runways for the Ukranians to use. After all Belarus is making its countries resources available to the Russians. Fairs fair.
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.politico.eu/article/belarus-russia-war-ukraine/amp/
The Russians are going to use thermobaric weapons. That's when the real horror starts. But yes, there are evil people in all these camps, nato, America, Russia. It is more complex than 'goodies and baddies'. I've been saying so in this thread. The uber plan is more complex than most people are willing to believe. But Putin is a pure bad ass.
Sure we dismiss their concerns the exact same way they dismiss our concerns. We just make up the stories to paint ourselves as the good guys. I'm not sure if you consider the EU, and nato to be similarly hostile empires, expanding towards Russia, but that seems to be how they see it.
You'd hope so, but let's face it all cultures and countries have their own narratives that range in and out of the truth depending. With Russians it's more out of the truth and they're used to that. My experiences of Russian folks living here would be broadly similar to Woody's and others. Very proud and defensive of Russia and at worst think Putin was the right man for the job and a very clever man, at best their saviour. No media is really to be trusted, but if push comes to shove they'll buy into theirs. If you point out something like their currency going down the drain during Czar Vlad's rule they will just ignore it, or claim it's western propaganda. Now this can also be a bit of the immigrant effect too I suspect. Like the way Irish Americans can be 'more Irish than the Irish themselves' sometimes to the point of jingoistic farce and double down on any criticism of the 'Old Country'.
The route of "assurances of never joining NATO" was gone as soon as they invaded east. Ukraine has every reason to join NATO now and will be accepted with open arms. Putin only option is a long protracted, expensive occupation of the Ukraine which will plunge Russia into an economic crisis.
I have to say there is alot of denialism in the Irish Greens though. We need energy from somewhere. We need to dispose of waste. For example I recall the Green Party overruling the Dublin City council & blocking Dublin's waste incinerator getting built for many years while they had a ministerial seat and ability to do so but they didn't seem to have other answers or solutions for what should be done with the waste, they just didn't like it and didn't want Dublin burning it (the fact it was to be located in a minister's constituency afair may have also had something to do with it).
Yes, they are perfectly right about the dire need to "decarbonise" the economy but the Irish Green party anyway really doesn't seem to get that we will still need energy from somewhere, the technology to get it all from renewable sources is not there yet, and we will also need to do "dirty" stuff like get rid of waste. We can't go back to the paleolithic now and dispense with modern energy hungry society, the road only runs one way.
...
Poland and NATO head Jens Stoltenberg just clarified that there will be no deliveries of arms by Poland into Ukraine, same for planes.
Its up to Ukrainians to move them over the border, NATO members will not.
You give succor to fascism. With this one war alone, Putin has put the long European peace directly in the firing line and people like you are content to dust of your old tankie pamphlets and act as if this is speakers corner, trying to do a circular accounting job trying to to end up with the conclusion 'everyone is as bad as each other'.
It's pathetic
Russia is a state like any other, there is no reason to think it’s ‘concerns’ about its sovereign neighbours or the expansion of NATO gives them a pretext for a new era of imperialism. They are no more entitled to act on real or imagined concerns with military force than Belgium or Botswana.
There’s an awful stench around here from the idea that Russia is some form of legitimate counterweight to US and EU power. It’s just a large banana republic and a rogue state.
Exactly that. It's not good vs evil, it's us vs them. I'm on our side so I don't really have to buy into the storytelling.
We have our stories that make us the heroes and they have their stories that makes them the heroes.
They’re the types that sicken me the most- happy to leach off the opportunities and amenities of a democracy but still cheer lead the dictator in Moscow (that they chose not to live under).
This guy is such a legend of a leader
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy tells the European Parliament that his country is “giving away its best people” for its desire to be treated as equals and for the price of freedom.
He says:
"We are giving away our best people. Our strongest ones. The most value-based ones.
Ukrainians are incredible."
Zelenskiy says Ukrainians are fighting for their land and for their freedom.
"Nobody is going to enter and intervene with our freedom and country.
Nobody is going to break us. We are strong. We are Ukrainians."
I imagine it’s similar to just US planes using Shannon as a refuelling depot?
Poland have confirmed they are donating jets, I'm not sure of how they will be delivered, maybe Ukraine pilots will travel to Poland to collect. Can't imagine the Polish airforce will fly them in.
Edit: Yeah they are collecting them, can't post links but it's on a good few news sources
I always wonder about the support Putin has. I hear it's fairly strong but it's gotta be near impossible for outsiders to gauge. In the Duma election they didn't break 50% I don't think. Of course you could argue they just do enough rigging (why bother with 70%?) But it would make one think that he doesn't have majority support by default.
Yeah people might find comfort in the lesser of two evils but I don't personally. It's not good vs evil, it's one ideology and view of the world vs another.
You may be right on this one.
Who knows what'll happen in the short-term, but in the long-term Putin has done irreparable damage to Ukrainian relations. Instead of bringing Ukraine closer into the Russian orbit, his actions will only push the country towards the EU. What's worst for Russia is that for the first time since I can't remember, Europe is completely united in support of Ukraine, even Orban's Hungarian government has backed Ukrainian membership to the EU.
My guess is that at some point Ukraine will become an EU member and this war will accelerate the process. It's hardly a difficult choice for the average Ukrainian to make. Do you go with the lads killing countrymen and destroying your cities, or the lads who are taking in your refugees and providing financial/military support?
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