War in Ukraine soon?

watfly said:
You need to reread as well, both what you said and what I said. I never said the US can dictate, but it does have far more leverage to influence. Your also deluded if you think Biden has a built a coalition, he was typically the last of the NATO leaders to come around to the sanctions. He was also the one that put the kibosh on the MIG's.
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You took a single sentence from a paragraph and concluded that I was self-defeatist and that I was asserting that our President can't be a global leader. I'm fine with what I wrote. I laid out why a President in power for a year would have challenges countering decades old policies of China & Russia, you offered nothing more than a blanket statement in relation to that paragraph.

What is this "more leverage"? The US has very little leverage over Opec+ which includes Russia. It has very little leverage over the score or more of African countries who look to China & Russia as partners, because of what they have already done. It clearly has very little leverage over China or India unless it wants to start sanctions there and potentially crash the global economy.

The expectation of instant everything these days is mind boggling. In less than 40 days, Russia has invaded the Ukraine, Nato has united like nothing before, the Russian economy is a basket case, arms are flowing into the Ukraine, the EU is united and neutral European countries are in lockstep along with traditional non-European allies like Japan, Australia etc. (hint: that's the coalition), hundreds of billions will now be spent on military spending (awesome conclusion that!), the Russian military has been shown to be inept - it could get better or catastrophically worse in the next 40 days.

Feel free to offer Biden your magic 8-ball to solve this, I'm sure he'd like nothing better than to magic it all away - I mean its not very complicated is it, just be a Global Leader and viola, we're done!
 
whatithink said:
You took a single sentence from a paragraph and concluded that I was self-defeatist and that I was asserting that our President can't be a global leader. I'm fine with what I wrote. I laid out why a President in power for a year would have challenges countering decades old policies of China & Russia, you offered nothing more than a blanket statement in relation to that paragraph.

What is this "more leverage"? The US has very little leverage over Opec+ which includes Russia. It has very little leverage over the score or more of African countries who look to China & Russia as partners, because of what they have already done. It clearly has very little leverage over China or India unless it wants to start sanctions there and potentially crash the global economy.

The expectation of instant everything these days is mind boggling. In less than 40 days, Russia has invaded the Ukraine, Nato has united like nothing before, the Russian economy is a basket case, arms are flowing into the Ukraine, the EU is united and neutral European countries are in lockstep along with traditional non-European allies like Japan, Australia etc. (hint: that's the coalition), hundreds of billions will now be spent on military spending (awesome conclusion that!), the Russian military has been shown to be inept - it could get better or catastrophically worse in the next 40 days.

Feel free to offer Biden your magic 8-ball to solve this, I'm sure he'd like nothing better than to magic it all away - I mean its not very complicated is it, just be a Global Leader and viola, we're done!
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Well I gave Biden a C- on Ukraine. That greatly raises his foreign policy and overall GPA. I think we both believe he dserves an F on Afghanistan. Its a tough balance on Russia between being weak and reckless. IMO his timing on Russia has been weak but I'm no foreign policy expert, just a voter, and no way to know if he showed more strength on this issue whether the outcome would be any different. Putin is a wild card.

As far as leverage goes energy security is a big factor in geopolitical leverage. I have a vague recollection that you may not agree with that. Secretary Granholms infamous comments from a couple months ago combined with our current gas prices illustrate how important energy security (not completely accurate to say independence) is to our country.

Thanks for the debate. Here's to hoping things improve.
 
espola said:
Just wondering if blam is still a Putin supporter today.
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I go where the facts say, and it has been hard to figure out the facts from the fakes news. There is a crisis of credibility in the mainstream presses. The hunter biden admission by NYT really shook me.

Today, it is clear, very clear, that the dissenting voices are censored and opinions are formed based on the type of media consumed. This is why the Western european governments and youtube banned Russia Today. What you read affects how you think. I sometimes have to ask myself to make sure that I am not deciding something based on what I read and hear but I am thinking independently and critically.

None of these would have happened if not for Euromaidan 2014, supported by the US, an illegal overthrow of the then Ukrainian president. This led to a break away of states that disagreed with overthrow, creating a civil war, and an opportunity for Putin to play the rescuer to enter Crimea where he was greeted with open arms by the majority pro Russian population. The radical neo Nazi group of Ukraine which disagreed with the Minsk accord did not help and forced the weak Ukrainian government to not have the sufficient political will to resolve the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

The same "playbook" is used now by Putin to enter Eastern Ukraine to stop the civil war in Ukraine. He is again greeted with open arms as the locals want to see an end to the civil war.

The people of Ukraine are stuck in the middle, and become the victims.

From the trend of things, I see Russia expanding into Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine would be broken in 2.

Moral of the story, like so many, never illegally overthrow the government of a foreign nation. The CIA has been doing this for the last maybe 100 years. Where has this gone well.
 
blam said:
I go where the facts say, and it has been hard to figure out the facts from the fakes news. There is a crisis of credibility in the mainstream presses. The hunter biden admission by NYT really shook me.

Today, it is clear, very clear, that the dissenting voices are censored and opinions are formed based on the type of media consumed. This is why the Western european governments and youtube banned Russia Today. What you read affects how you think. I sometimes have to ask myself to make sure that I am not deciding something based on what I read and hear but I am thinking independently and critically.

None of these would have happened if not for Euromaidan 2014, supported by the US, an illegal overthrow of the then Ukrainian president. This led to a break away of states that disagreed with overthrow, creating a civil war, and an opportunity for Putin to play the rescuer to enter Crimea where he was greeted with open arms by the majority pro Russian population. The radical neo Nazi group of Ukraine which disagreed with the Minsk accord did not help and forced the weak Ukrainian government to not have the sufficient political will to resolve the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

The same "playbook" is used now by Putin to enter Eastern Ukraine to stop the civil war in Ukraine. He is again greeted with open arms as the locals want to see an end to the civil war.

The people of Ukraine are stuck in the middle, and become the victims.

From the trend of things, I see Russia expanding into Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine would be broken in 2.

Moral of the story, like so many, never illegally overthrow the government of a foreign nation. The CIA has been doing this for the last maybe 100 years. Where has this gone well.
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That's a lot of words to just say "yes".
 
Putting aside what you might think of either person, check out Sean Hannity's interview of Sean Penn on his trip/documentary to Ukraine. Most fascinating interview I've seen in a long time.
 
Saw the interview and again it continues on the mainstream media narrative of the event, that all this started just a month ago when Putin decides to invade Ukraine in order to expand Russia land and to regain the glorious days of the old Soviet Union for Russia.

All this started due to an illegal overthrow of a pro Russia president in 2014 in Kiev and replaced with a pro Euro President. What should regions that were pro Russia supposed to do after the overthrow? Just accept the new illegal President? Of course they rebelled and thus started the civil war. The illegal overthrow was the trigger. If the capitol attack in 2021 by Trump supporters managed to keep Trump in power despite Biden winning the election, are Biden supporters just supposed to accept Trump because Biden had been overthrow by rioters? Of course not.

This is the mainstaream narrative in summary by Arnold.

This is the response by the Russian side by a powerlifter who met Arnold.


Both sides are valid, so it is a travesty that the alternative view point is being censorred all over. Russia Today removed. Pro Russia twitter account banned etc. etc. etc. to make sure that the general public subscribes to the mainstream narrative. These practices actually started from Covid, but in the days of Covid, one could argue that there is medical-scientific misinformation (not true in many cases), however, this is political speech. Both arguments are valid. Censorship continues...
 
For the left, look at the mirror to see what you have become over the past 2 years. You all have left the Democratic party.

 
@blam When you realize that even on a soccer forum ‘off-topic’ thread, that no one agrees with you… like, not even slightly… you must find that hard to reconcile. Not a swift learner?
 
N00B said:
@blam When you realize that even on a soccer forum ‘off-topic’ thread, that no one agrees with you… like, not even slightly… you must find that hard to reconcile. Not a swift learner?
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He's not the only one who posts in here compulsively despite being ignored or at best mocked.
 
watfly said:
You're not normally known for self deprecating humor, is this the new Espola?
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I liked Espola before this version of forum and at the beginning of this new version 4 some years ago. I trigger people sometimes and he super ignored me because. First and only avatar he ever super ignored and I take it as honor. Grace T has some love for him and I do to. We all need forgiveness and mercy and grace. Everyone needs a second chance at life. This new game will be about service, not pay to play.
 
N00B said:
@blam When you realize that even on a soccer forum ‘off-topic’ thread, that no one agrees with you… like, not even slightly… you must find that hard to reconcile. Not a swift learner?
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Does not matter. At least for me, it is a good opportunity to practice my foreign language. Write in a foreign language and then use google translate to translate to English. I avoid writers block this way as the topic ticked me into inspirational mode.
 
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