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Wednesday April 20, 22
05:05 AM
Ways To End the Russo-Ukrainian War That Just Won't Happen,
*because they are too cool for reality*.
1. Recognize the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics. Immediately declare war on them.
2. NATO declares war on Ukraine, invades with everything they can bring, fires a few Nerf darts at Ukrainian soldiers. Turns tail and runs, leaving everything they brought. Pity. Russia has shown us this just might work.
3. Sudden outbreak of common sense.
4. Putin is visited by three ghosts.
5. Countries bordering Russia leave NATO (if they are members) form a new alliance, and march right in.
6. We all wake up.
Ways To End the Russo-Ukrainian War That Won't Happen
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
(1)
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all.
-- Ogden Nash
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @06:36AM (5 children)
7. History's greatest hero puts a bullet between Putin's beady eyes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @06:55AM (3 children)
What if he, like many despots before him, feels the walls closing in and commits suicide? Does that form some sort of logical singularity that causes the end of the universe?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @06:09PM
Some people commit suicide by taking others with them.
Ponder that for a while.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:24PM (1 child)
Possibly, but if so, nothing will matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @12:09PM
no no. the bombs are nuclear, but not anti-matter bombs.
only after anti-matter bombs nothing would matter any longer.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @06:39PM
That's 3.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Mykl on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:46AM (42 children)
I think #1 is closest to the truth (though without the immediate declaration of war afterward).
The situation in Donetsk and Luhansk has become so dire that I doubt they'll ever accept being folded back into Ukraine again. The people are mostly ethnically Russian, they primarily speak Russian, they trade in Rubles etc. The history behind that is interesting, but ultimately irrelevant - it's where we are now.
As much as I hate the idea of Putin 'winning', I can't see peace in these areas unless those regions separate from Ukraine.
Perhaps we can follow the pattern of Korea and Vietnam? North Donetsk and South Donetsk? Then we can sell the contract to maintain the wall between the two halves (to Blackwater/Academi of course - fine people!)
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @01:58PM
First we have to get Trump to build a wall between them. Nobody is better at building walls than Trump.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 20 2022, @02:14PM (40 children)
Donetsk has been under Russian control/marital law since 2014. Appeasement didn't work then so I don't know why it would start working now.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @03:27PM (28 children)
Don't feed the trolls. Floating bad ideas is the #1 method to imfluence public opinion. Big crimes can become no big deal with enough repetitive propaganda.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:09PM (27 children)
So if we allow those bad ideas to float unopposed, then that somehow doesn't influence public opinion? Let's see what happens when I pull your other finger.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:37PM (26 children)
On the other hand Russian apologia is part of the culture war now.
And you were saying earlier that we shouldn't be fighting the culture war any longer so where does that leave us?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @12:55AM (24 children)
See it is fine when that lines up with khalliw's agenda, less fine when people use it to subvert his country and push such blatant lies. I must say I find it odd how steadily khallow has agreed with reality regarding Ukraine but when it comes to US conservatives doing similar stuff he loses all perspective.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @02:52AM (23 children)
Your inability to see my consistency is not my fault.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @01:31PM (22 children)
That's not consistency, just extremely fluid rationalization.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @02:31PM (21 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 22 2022, @10:53PM (20 children)
Columbia?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @04:41AM (19 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 23 2022, @12:23PM (18 children)
We didn't use 200,000 troops in Operation Ajaz, either. Just a small number of CIA agents in that one, a few Special Forces in another, multiple tank divisions in yet another.
It's amusing how you can condemn Russia when they are doing the same things that we have done in the past. What was that whole 'cash for gun' thing with Oliver Stone? Iran-contra or something like that? I mean, the US wouldn't push drugs to get the money to fund an insurgency would they?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @02:12PM (17 children)
We haven't done those things in the past. It's a false equivalence because Russia crossed a boundary that the US has yet to - naked invasion with no attempt made at consensus building for the invasion or serious justification. I won't even agree that the sins of the US in the past have emboldened or enabled Russia today. They would have found some other excuse, even if these particular whataboutisms weren't available.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 23 2022, @06:28PM (13 children)
Ahhhh, I see. If you get a consensus, then it's all democratic, and legal, and moral, and just, and God is on your side. Got it. Oh wait. Who was involved in the supposed 'consensus' when the US toppled a healthy, thriving democracy to install their freakish puppet? US, UK, and BP, right? That's a helluva consensus, right there.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @07:42PM (12 children)
It's certainly closer to that than the unilateral "I'll decide to be a dick today" approach that Russia used. Consensus is an obstacle to tyranny and country-level thuggery because you have to convince or bribe others to join you. If the US had tried to pull a Ukraine, they'd have no support at all (aside from a few puppet states) just like Russia does today.
A healthy, thriving democracy that stole from the wrong people and buckled easy under that coup? It definitely wasn't healthy or thriving, and theft isn't what I'd consider democratic. It's also interesting how you have to pull examples from the middle of the last century. Want to know another government like that? Cuba. Similar sad tale, similar ending, but with the roles of the two superpowers swapped.
Here's my take. The USSR was the real deal - pure evil. Sure they did some things nice: their slaves were educated, pioneered various sorts of non-threatening equality like gender equality, and they were good at industrialization and infrastructure building.
But they had that invasion playbook. They'd do whatever it took to get in power in a country and then change the political system so that they could never be kicked out. A big symptom was the brazen Robin Hood - steal from the rich and give some to the poor usually via nationalization. Iran was following that playbook when the coup happened. Maybe they weren't planning on going communist, but well, it would have looked that way to the US. And well, a freakish puppet would have been less threatening to the US than another Communist country in the heart of the Middle East.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 23 2022, @10:58PM (11 children)
You mean, like NATO members and the EU?
Horse shit. You can back that up, or withdraw it.
More horse shit. Citations. There were zero indications that Iran was ever going to switch off to communism. You should browse photos from Iran in the 1950s. They were as west as France is west. FFS, MINISKIRTS in a MUSLIM country!!! Operation Ajax set that country back a couple hundred years. And, no, you can't justify that kind of shit - you cannot. An extra couple cents per barrel of oil might justify a lot of things, but it doesn't justify destroying a democracy.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @11:24PM (10 children)
They aren't US puppets. Way too powerful for that.
You already backed most of it up for me. You acknowledged the coup. That doesn't happen in healthy, thriving democracies. And there's the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's assets without compensation. That's theft.
Two more examples would be the nuttery of Chile under Allende before the Pinochet coup or the present shenanigans in Venezuela. An early move is to steal the assets of businesses to destroy their power and use the assets to increase control over the country.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 23 2022, @11:39PM (9 children)
Nope - you said Iran was stealing from someone, presumably the US, the UK, and/or British Petroleum.
You can't back that up, unless you presume that the UK/UK own all the oil in the world.
Today's extreme leftists in Washington would argue with you. Our own democracy almost toppled because a cop was bashed in the head, and a crowd was screaming unkind things about Biden, Pelosi, and a hand full of other idiots. Turn on CNN and catch the latest talking points about 1/6/2021.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 24 2022, @12:20AM (8 children)
The someone would be BP and UK perhaps directly perhaps by proxy. Oil doesn't magically leap out of the ground and hop into the gas tank. There's an enormous amount of infrastructure that does all that. As to the possibility of direct theft from the UK government, I wouldn't be surprised to find that the UK government had paid for much of that extraction infrastructure on BP's behalf (say via loans or such).
The cop wasn't actually bashed in the head. That turned out to merely be a convenient narrative that got dropped once they put the guy (Officer Brian Sicknick) in the ground. And is the US really a healthy and thriving democracy right now? I think there's a lot wrong beyond the hysteria over the election and/or January 6 protest.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 24 2022, @09:53AM (7 children)
What you appear to be saying here is, you have no fucking idea what Operation Ajax was all about.
BP and the UK were going to have to pay a little bit more to pump oil in Iran. Nothing was being stolen. No assets were being seized. Nothing was changing in daily operations. The only thing that was changing was, Iran was lawfully increasing the price of it's own oil. Any nation on earth can establish laws regarding the prices of commodities - we do it with farm products, we do it with oil, we do it with damned near everything.
BP would have simply passed on those higher costs to customers. Neither BP nor the UK were going to lose anything at all. Such cost increases are absorbed around the world, routinely.
The whole problem here was, "Them sand niggers is getting uppity!"
And again, I insist that there is no possible justification for the destruction of a healthy democracy. All of your made up bullshit is just that, bulllshit. Iran was thrown under the bus in the name of profit. Nothing more, nothing less.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 24 2022, @07:23PM (6 children)
Sorry, I'm not the one missing the really important part about BP infrastructure getting nationalized. Sounds like you have no fucking idea what Operation Ajax was all about. It's not about saving a few pence. It was about the UK's survival.
Except, of course, that assertion is wrong. For example, the Abadan refinery [abadan-ref.ir] was part of that nationalization seizure. At the end of the Second World War, it was the largest refinery in the world, built by the UK when it lost similar facilities in Burma.
I grant that this situation is similar to the Russian military efforts in Ukraine for the past eight years. We have a dying empire desperately abusing another country (while barking about communist takeovers and such). They didn't invade Iraq with 200k troops after lying about the invasion, but I gather you think that's a minor detail for some reason.
But what I find mystifying is why you're presenting this as an excuse for Russia rather than as a pretty glaring reason this ought to stop. The cognitive dissonance is interesting here. It's bad when the US did Operation Ajax so we'll make excuses for Russia and their special military operation even though that's worse with even weaker rationalizations and such.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 25 2022, @12:29AM (5 children)
Sorry, but BP wasn't going to be nationalized. Iranians asked for a little more money. BP balked. Iran threatened to nationalize the oil. Then the coup. There was no bartering, no bickering, no negotiations, just 'wham bam thank you ma'am'. If BP had negotiated in good faith, the price would have gone up a bit, and then business as usual.
That coup was all about profits - just as the coup in Ukraine all these years later. There's a lot of money in a coup, if you just know how to harvest all that lovely green stuff.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 25 2022, @05:50AM (4 children)
The legislation to nationalize said oil infrastructure of AIOC (BP predecessor) was became law [wikipedia.org] on March 17. 1951 (with the Abadan properties expropriated by another vote on March 28). The coup happened in 1953. So not a threat but a real thing that predated the coup by more than two years.
But was that BP's fault, or your fault for mischaracterizing what actually happened? I don't see any actual evidence of said negotiations and the above nationalization law was passed 10 days after the primary obstruction to the law, Haj Ali Razmara was assassinated [wikipedia.org] on March 7, 1951. Admittedly, Razmara seems to have been deep in the pocket of the UK or AIOC, but it was pretty unseemly to push through that law so soon after his death. Was that assassination part of your good faith negotiations?
There's plenty wrong with the Iranian coup (as the subsequent decades of suffering revealed), but your sloppy characterizations of it indicate a deep ignorance of what actually went on. You should wonder why your sources presented such a one-sided view of it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 25 2022, @02:08PM (3 children)
Obviously, my time line was wrong. You're still helping to point out that a government was toppled for the sake of profit. The US/UK created the crisis, Iran responded rationally and appropriately, so Iran was toppled. There was no threat to join the Soviet, no lives were threatened, or any of the other crazy stuff Iran is accused of.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 28 2022, @11:14AM (2 children)
And obviously, that made your whole argument wrong as a result. Again, I think you should wonder why your sources were presenting this narrative of an innocent Iran making mild requests of the UK and US when it just weren't true.
I agree here, but I think you don't understand how important "profit" was to the UK. They were just starting to recover from the Second World War. Losing that massive infrastructure in Iran meant that there was a lot less of that "profit" to rebuild the UK.
My take is that a smarter and/or less greedy government in Iran could have pulled this off. And a smarter and/or less greedy UK probably could have found a way that wouldn't have caused 70 years and counting of suffering.
How this is relevant to present day Ukraine? I grant that the original seizure of the Crimea in 2014 was very similar to the Iran coup. Past that, we've lost the narrative. There was no significant threat to Russian control of the Crimea over the last eight years. And the other excuses we've heard have been similarly sketchy: the NATO boogeyman (ignoring that NATO hasn't done anything harmful to Russia over the entire existence of NATO), a couple percent of Ukrainians might be neo-nazis (which isn't much different than anyone else), Ukrainian ethnic Russians weren't getting mistreated by anyone (even if that were Russia's business, protip: Your country has no responsibility for someone just because their ethnicity label shares with your country's name), or vague assertions of Ukrainian shelling or other minor aggression back in February.
My take? Putin was rebuilding the empire, and an intact Ukraine would get in the way.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 28 2022, @11:25AM (1 child)
No, the fact remains - the US and UK agreed to overthrow a government for the sake of PROFIT. Both countries give lip service to the idea of profit, neither country gives the smallest damn what government is in charge, so long as it is profitable to them. Iran asked for more money, Iran asked for an audit. Neither was forthcoming. The response from the oil company was, 'You darkies will take whatever we give you, and you'll like it!'
Dress it however you like, it all comes down to profit over ideology.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 29 2022, @01:49AM
And Iran took the largest refinery in the world at the time. It wasn't done for pennies.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday April 26 2022, @08:44PM (2 children)
Well, it kind of depends on your point of view, but the 1983 invasion of Grenada by the USA checks a lot of boxes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Grenada#Legality_of_the_invasion [wikipedia.org]
I am absolutely not maintaining that the actions of the USA in that instance are equivalent to the current actions of Russia, but you can see how it might be spun by propagandists.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 27 2022, @03:15AM (1 child)
Indeed. The catch here is why is it supposedly ok for Russia to do something because the US did? It's really just an immature argument that country X got away with it so Russia should be able to get away with it as well. For example, they routinely admit that they think it was bad that the US got away with the corresponding evil deed, but somehow this is still an excuse for the evil deeds that Russia does now?
Hypocrisy is just a fact of life at the international level. If we excuse everything because someone got away with something similar (often at a vastly reduced degree of evil), then why would we even bother caring about the good or evil of any deed? There would be no point to discussing the good or evil of the Russian invasion, sure, but similarly pointless to discuss the good or evil of arming Ukraine to its eyeballs with advanced weapons (a thing Russia has done on occasion in the past, including recently in eastern Ukraine). They want to have their cake and eat it too.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday April 28 2022, @09:36AM
Points I may come back to (have other priorities on my time at the moment): Exceptions to Westphalian sovereignty [wikipedia.org]; Russian and Chinese attitudes; USA attitudes; internationally recognised justifications for violations of sovereignty; convenient fig-leaves/excuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @02:08AM
This has nothing to do with culture. It's just seedy rationalizations.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @06:19PM (10 children)
You mean, since the US/NATO coup? Or was that just a coincidence?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:17PM (9 children)
No, because even if we choose to accept uncritically the removal of Yanukovych as a "US/NATO coup" (February, 2014), the Russian-backed civil war happened later (April 2014). And the Russian occupation (when Russia sent soldiers in to support their side) happened even later (August, 2014). You can reasonably argue a cause and effect (though by choice of Russia in response to Ukraine's actions), but not that this was a part of the Euromaidan coup in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:31PM (8 children)
Ah yes, "pull the other one" indeed. The projection is so thick
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @10:05PM (4 children)
How are the Russian citizens leading, and fighting in, the "civil" war, a "projection" now? They leave real corpses when killed.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @12:52AM (3 children)
Just the ever popular methods of propaganda that has worked so well for conservatives. Firehose of bullshit, once you abandon integrity it is dead simple to make up lies that sound even only half plausible. Just keep throwing shit at the wall and the morons will nod along.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @12:58AM (2 children)
Just put official propaganda on every channel, and the morons will nod along.
Indeed they do. Never seen it this bad before.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @06:18AM
What has changed is that even the dumbest and most gullible can post their feelings online and be read by you.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 22 2022, @10:57PM
Perhaps you are still young. Or you have forgotten the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. Everyone was echoing George Bush's talking points. Those of us who argued against the invasion were branded traitors, and worse. "If you're not with us, you're against us!" Very very few spoke aloud against Pope Bush's Crusade.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @02:14AM (2 children)
Look, your argument is just stupid. Why don't you try thinking for once?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @03:55AM (1 child)
Coming from a propagandized zombie.. you are a tragi-comedy
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @04:40AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 20 2022, @02:19PM (29 children)
Why no winning option for Ukraine?
#7 Ukraine wins
So long as the boots we put on the ground in Ukraine don't contain American soldiers we might just win this thing!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @06:16PM (10 children)
"Ukraine wins"...
I'm not going to compute the numbers, but there are many dead, many displaced, and a lot of infrastructure destroyed.
no matter what happens for the rest of the war, Ukraine already lost a lot, just because the local bully went crazy.
also: the russians are saying that nuclear weapons will not be used, which most likely means they'll be using them by next week. I don't actually believe this, but, to the extent that I can reason about the situation, that is what the facts so far indicate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @06:44PM (9 children)
Russia's Victory in Europe Day celebrations are on May 8. That would be the most symbolic time for Putin to nuke Ukraine, probably Kyiv or Lviv, if not both. So in two and a half weeks.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @06:21AM (8 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @09:47AM (7 children)
I don't get it.
I know that chicken little is famous for claiming that the sky/sun will fall onto the earth, but what does the "40 +/- 6" stand for?
I'm genuinely curious what you mean.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @03:52AM (6 children)
khallow is trying to come to terms with the fact that there's a MAD event about 3-4 years from now, followed by at least a year of nuclear winter. Summer never came during the year of hell, and crops failed worldwide.
unless
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @06:17AM (2 children)
what the fuck is your problem?
this conversation is about a real event, and we're taking it seriously.
why the hell are you bringing lies and/or delusions into it? get the fuck out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @08:47PM (1 child)
Nuclear winter isn't serious?!
Tell you what, if you can have WW3 without it ending in a planetary catastrophe, I owe you a coke. But I don't think you can, so I'm going to keep the countdown running until N-day, especially since it just so bothers the shit out of the herpaderp macho crowd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @08:34AM
"a nuclear MAD event 3-4 years from now" is not a serious statement.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @04:53AM (2 children)
In other words, I'm pointing out the silliness of predicting doomsday scenarios about the future. We'll see if the present global situation devolves into a world war. I grant it could happen, but needless to say, I think it very unlikely.
Will you be apologizing to the rest of us, if it doesn't happen? Or do you already have a ready excuse?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @02:25PM (1 child)
Compose, +, -. fwiw, ± is also encoded by ISO-8859-1 (0xB1).
If you want more specific, countdown continues until -6±6.
I find the discomfort this countdown is causing you interesting. All the more reason to continue.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @04:29PM
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday April 21 2022, @06:09AM
This was a list of things that won't happen and are "too cool for reality", and while I want them to win I recognize that any realistic winning scenario is likely to come at an extreme cost. They will have cities full of rubble and starving people, like much of Europe after WW2. It may be the best thing in the long run, but it's definitely not too cool for reality.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Friday April 22 2022, @02:00AM (16 children)
I think it's because the meat-grinder in the Ukraine needs to stop and needs to stop now.
Pressing on so "We" might win means continuing the war at the cost of thousands more lives.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @04:57AM (15 children)
Well, stop it then, if you feel so strongly about the matter.
Funny how it's always the responsibility of the victims to acquiesce to the crime, isn't it?
OTOH, I think losing thousands of lives is a small price to pay so that Russia doesn't do this again and again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @02:36PM (5 children)
Why don't you go to the front and be one of those thousands of lives, if you feel so strongly about the matter?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @04:36PM (4 children)
Ah yes, the coward argument. Well, Buttercup, I'm perfectly fine with Ukrainians slaughtering a bunch of Russians until the latter gets their political issues figured out. And I'm not there because it's not my country. But I'm perfectly fine with the West shipping them all the shiny weapons they can fire at Russians.
I notice you don't have any skin in this game either.
What you miss here is that slaughter thousands today may well mean we avoid slaughtering billions later and have a pretty good future instead. That sound good to you? It sure sounds good to me.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @08:43PM (3 children)
so edgy
such macho
wow
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @11:07PM (2 children)
Why aren't you demanding that Russia stop this war? They are after all the ones who started it - all in Ukraine's territory so it would be little cost strategically to withdraw and cease fighting.
Instead you spring this guilt trip on the victims of this war.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @11:28PM (1 child)
How is the countdown not a demand that Russia stop the war? I did not bring it here in a truck, so it should be able to be exactly what it is.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 24 2022, @12:28AM
What countdown?
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Monday April 25 2022, @10:19AM (8 children)
Am I God?
??
That's not funny, that's abhorrent.
Propagandists on the Russian side (and opposing sides) will use the loss of lives to fire up opposing parties to "avenge and liberate". So encouraging thousands more to die makes future violence more likely, not less. The exception is when a country is comprehensively defeated, occupied, policed, re-educated and its institutions rebuilt from the ground up. Like Germany and Japan were. Even for those cases, you have Iraq and Afghanistan.
Why not have peace now and voting later? I doubt Russia can hold onto regions where most people hate them.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 25 2022, @12:33PM (7 children)
Sure sounded like it a few back. Or maybe you thought DeathMonkey or the rest of us, whom you replied to, could just stop the war? Because otherwise why demand it of us?
Russia isn't going to stop any time soon. They wouldn't have started to invade, if those thousands of lives mattered to the leaders of Russia. So who else can stop the war except the victim, Ukraine?
Indeed. But you have to remember a couple of things. First, propagandists will always be able to find something. After all, one of the pretexts for the war was a small number of neo-nazis. They'll be able to find something like that again and again when they need to invade again and again - even if they have to outright lie about it. Keeping one's nose cleaner is no guarantee of peace.
Second, the only country that was in a position to do that was Russia. What would their new Ukraine look like? And what evils would it enable Russia to do further? There are numerous smaller countries around Russia which don't have a similar capacity to defend themselves from Russia in the area (Baltic states, Finland, Moldova).
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Monday April 25 2022, @11:38PM (6 children)
This is what I said, and your later response:
My statement is so obvious and self-evident, it's hardly worth debating. The killing needs to stop now. The main difference in our positions is you think substantial more killing is required now so "billions" may be saved later on. From another part of this thread:
No, both parties - Russia and Ukraine - can stop if they act in concert and make some smart sacrifices now. Egging either one on for 'full victory' is a poor choice.
Let's put it this way -- if your son or daughter was a Ukrainian or Russian draftee, would you be as eager to risk their necks to "save the Baltics" or "protect the Donbass" or whatever foreign conflict or potential conflict is driving this slaughter? If not, treat others as you would want to be treated.
The killing needs to stop now.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 26 2022, @04:14AM (5 children)
This war wouldn't have existed in the first place, if it weren't for the Russians. So how will you get them on board? I propose a way - depleting their military in Ukraine until they reach the point where continued warfare would put them at risk of being unable to protect themselves from future threats (such as from the US, Europe, or China).
The problem with this scenario is that it's not a foreign conflict to them. And I wouldn't be willing to destroy their future to save their lives now.
Russia didn't invade because they wanted to make smart sacrifices. And I'm not interested in "full victory". I'm interested in stopping the threat demonstrated by said Russian invasion.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Tuesday April 26 2022, @06:16AM (4 children)
I guess you have the same view as the US defense establishment -- it wants Russia weakened [cnn.com], so it is doing its part in keeping the terrible meat grinder running, while the real losses are incurred on the ground by the Ukrainians and the Russians.
Not saving your children's lives now means the destruction of their future.
No, they thought they could get away with it cheaply. Now both sides are escalating, because the Ukrainians have a steady stream of funds and weapons. So it's in Russia's best interests, and Ukraine's too, for both to make smart sacrifices now to end the war.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Tuesday April 26 2022, @06:22AM
Importantly, any negotiated settlement should include provisions for trials for war crimes. It doesn't even matter if each side tries its own soldiers - what matters is they are held, monitored by independent parties, justice is substantially done. I am sure each side will be relieved to be rid of its out-of-control elements.
With a meat-grinder of a war dragging on, there is little chance of justice to be delivered. And both sides slide closer to anarchy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 27 2022, @03:05AM (2 children)
That's just sound strategy for dealing with a nuclear power that unilaterally invades without a serious pretext.
Incorrect, it's merely a risk to their lives that they may survive. OTOH, a world where we return to the days of the strong oppressing the weak (and my children being on the side of the oppressed) is a sure thing.
As I noted before, if Russia were into smart sacrifices in the first place, then the war wouldn't have happened at all. The problem with your narrative is that Russia has the initiative here. War stops when they want it to stop. And well, they're choosing otherwise at present.
So how does Russia get that wisdom to accept those smart sacrifices you keep talking about? When their follies threaten their existence. Apparently, they haven't gotten to that stage yet though I'm hopeful with their ending of the Kiev thrust.
In your reply to your post:
Sounds like you'll need to do some "smart sacrifices". If we had the infrastructure to enforce laws of war against a nuclear armed superpower, then we probably could have prevented the invasion in the first place. Serious trials for war crimes involved completely defeated enemies (like the Nazis or the instigators of the Rwanda genocide) who have no power to evade justice. I doubt anyone thinks this is a possibility for the Russian side.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Sunday May 15 2022, @01:32PM (1 child)
I thought about what you said. 'Keep the meat grinder running' strategy may be appear pragmatic to you but spiritually speaking, it is evil. A negotiated settlement is a much better choice.
Russia is obviously the aggressor at this point. However, Ukraine is hardly without missteps. For instance, passing laws to gradually strangle free expression in Russian, the native language of almost 1/3rd its population(!). Just as Mama Bear to the east slowly got infuriated.
Well, Ukraine is already trying Russian soldiers now. But will Ukraine try its own soldiers with the same gusto? The ones caught on video kneecapping captives and executing wounded Russians? After all, mutilation is mutilation and murder is murder, no matter who does it.
It's is a minority of soldiers that initiate war-crimes and encourage their compatriots along. A negotiated settlement is more likely to force _both_ states to try their own bad apples. Otherwise the cry of spilt blood goes unanswered, requiring intervention by God.
This part of the discussion has mutated a bit, so let's let it be. I agree that a world of the strong oppressing the weak is a bad one. And that applies to both: Russia versus Ukraine and Ukraine versus its Russian minority. Smart sacrifice and non-jingoistic mindset is essential. It is critical that lives be saved. As the Bible says "For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion."
No, the war stops when both parties stop fighting. :-) The Ukrainians could continue Funny -- this reminds me what Lavrov said early on-- "the war stops the moment Ukraine wants" (it agrees to our conditions).
Threatening someone's existence is dangerous. This is what the Russians found out. The Russians were initially keen to avoid civilian casualties and wanted a short, sharp war leading to total capitulation. But when threated, Ukraine's polity basically drafted its entire male population to stand and fight, with a sophisticated armament pipeline from the West. That meant the country and its cities became a cauldron where civilians, soldiers, military targets and homes all blended in.
To threaten Russia's existence carries similar risk for the other party.
So how does Russia get that wisdom? How does Ukraine? From wise counsellors, and ultimately, from God.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 15 2022, @10:44PM
So what? Allowing Russia to do what it wants now merely creates a bigger meat grinder in the long run. And Russia can stop that grinder any time it wants right now. Russia doesn't have to choose to kill a bunch of Russians and Ukrainians.
Mama Bear would have found some excuse anyway.
Unless, of course, Russia wants more than those conditions. We already know Russia lied going into the war. No reason to expect them to suddenly discover honesty when it comes to the conditions that would allegedly stop the war.
Well, the problem is that those threats are internal. We can't help make them less threatening because we're not Russia.
Sounds like a good plan. Well, it's Russia's move now.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:02PM (17 children)
Nobody wins. The war drags on. No matter how badly beaten down Ukraine might be, they will refuse any peace terms in which they don't regain all lost territory. For months, even years, the two sides keep shooting at each other. Territory changes hands, repeatedly. The west will continue to prop up the government that they installed in Kiev in 2014, shipping billions in war materials to Zelensky.
The real question is, will NATO get stupid enough to allow Ukraine to join? Do NATO troops ultimately march into Ukraine, and face Russian troops head-on? There can be no good outcome if the west gets that stupid.
The problem is, we have heard from multiple politicos who are calling for exactly that.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:20PM (7 children)
I think rather that Russia, sooner or later, will sign a treaty that returns most of that territory to Ukraine. Then the Ukraine and probably some other countries in the area will join NATO. Tough luck for Russia, but they're bringing it on themselves.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:55PM (5 children)
I agree that Russia would be willing to return parts of Ukraine territory to Ukraine. But, Crimea is out of the question, as well as the North Crimea Canal. Donetsk and Luhansk? Snowball's chance in hell. There will be a land bridge, though I can't say how large, or how formidable that bridge will be. I think all the rest is debatable. No sane man wants to occupy a hostile territory indefinitely.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @02:16AM (4 children)
Presently. The future is a different story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @06:29AM (3 children)
Exactly. Ukraine holding off a joint Russian/Belarusian offensive on Kyiv and not getting completely steamrolled was also considered out of the question. Yet, here we are. Who knows what even more pressure could bring.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 21 2022, @09:49AM (2 children)
There was, and is, speculation that Kiev was a feint. A hugely expensive feint, but a feint all the same. Bear in mind that if a feint isn't convincing, then it's worthless as a feint. Also note that ~1/3 of that feinting force is still positioned right across the Belarussian border, effectively pinning a large portion of Ukraine forces in and around Kiev.
Food for thought.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @01:05PM
The problem with this theory is that Russia committed too many forces to a supposed "feint" to make progress elsewhere. It's more plausible that Russia didn't expect resistance, attacks on supply lines or mud season. Realizing they don't have enough troops for an occupation force, they've now adopted a more realistic, face-saving objective in the East.
As to tying up troops, many are calling Mariupol a reverse Napoleon and Putin's refusal to storm the steel works from earlier today a lesson from Stalingrad. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @04:16PM
Yes, the "we meant to do that all along" scenario. Well, I guess that these military plans were intended to be flexible. So a decapitating strike can be a feint as well situationally. The messed up logistics and resulting limited mobility are what made it something else.
True.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 20 2022, @08:19PM
I'm not holding my breath for any kind of treaty or returns. They've been fighting over that region for a long time now. A return to the status quo of low level fighting continuing there would probably be enough to get the west to lose interest...
New NATO members signing up, on the other hand, definitely! We all just saw what NOT signing up gets ya!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @07:25PM
There won't be any Russian troops left when Ukraine get through with them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @11:50PM (1 child)
Russia cannot sustain loses indefinitely, echos of the '39 Winter War. [substack.com] And from what I'm seeing, Ukes are of no mind to surrender. [nitter.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @03:41AM
They know what Russians do to prisoners so it isn't that hard of a decision to keep fighting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @02:29AM (5 children)
I honestly don't see it that way. We've got one country, Russia, behaving in ways anyone who's been through a schoolyard would recognize: Russia is a bully.
On the schoolyard, children get away with it. On the international stage, .. should anyone get away with it? Right now, Russia is getting away with it.
There's a time to put up with that horseshit, and a time to draw a line in the sand and say, no more. If telling Russia to sit down and fuck off means risking WW3, so be it. It needs to be done. I don't want to live in a world where any sufficiently large country can get away with this kind of shit because oh noes, they haz nukes. Fuck that way of thinking, entirely.
Invite Ukraine in to NATO. Send in the troops, halt them at EXACTLY the pre-war Ukraine/Russia border. If Russia wants to start throwing atomics around when their actual territory hasn't been invaded? That shows the whole world exactly what they are. Crush them, and damn the cost.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 22 2022, @11:15AM (4 children)
And . . . we have the USA.
Also, size isn't what counts here. The list of nations with nukes includes Israel, N. Korea, the UK, France, Pakistan, India, and China. South Africa had nukes, and Iran is working to build nukes.
Anyway. Is it worth a billion lives to make sure that Russia can't bully the neighbor? Let's be clear here: you won't lob one single nuke at one of Russia's field battalions, and suddenly Putin sees things your way. Is it worth 4 billion lives? Is it worth the extinction of mankind?
And, that is exactly what makes Joe Biden so dangerous at this point in history. The damned fool has made as many, or more, comments suggesting that the war be escalated into a nuclear exchange, than Putin has.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @03:01PM
Old man runaway can't handle having voted for a loser and must lash out with their Fox given concern trolling. Somewhere someone is deeply disappointed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @10:53PM (2 children)
Really? Have you got a few examples of that? Surely you can give us a few links to some credible sources to back up that claim!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @11:04PM (1 child)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piWV78Nbe9A [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @03:54AM
Your link does not support the claims being made. To reiterate, where is the evidence that Biden has made "as many, or more, comments suggesting that the war be escalated into a nuclear exchange, than Putin has"? Be specific. Also, answer to the accusations being made. Thank you.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20 2022, @08:35PM (14 children)
What's a few agitated neo-nazis, right?
https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview [arizona.edu]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @02:22AM (6 children)
Similarly, there is no global neo-nazi menace. There's just small groups like the Azov Battallion. They don't even have those 1.5 billion followers. Yet we're supposed to take seriously Russian claims that the invasion is in part driven by those scary neo-nazis? Pull my other finger.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @03:50AM (5 children)
Russians know more about nazis than you do. But the tabloid propaganda has you totally whipped
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @04:48AM (3 children)
So what? What I do know is the Russians are acting more like the Nazis in this war than the Ukrainians are. Seriously, who again lied about invading Ukraine while doing that military buildup? Who kept that civil war going for eight years? That's typical Nazi tricks.
My take is that if the Russians really did know so much about nazis, then Putin wouldn't be in charge. The fact that he is demonstrates the collective ignorance of the Russian people vastly more than yet another vapid argument from you.
When you can't fight the evidence, fight the source. Well, show that tabloid propaganda is wrong. Don't waste my time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @09:38AM
technically the word "nazi" is short for "national socialism".
whatever the philosophical nonsense spewed by the propaganda machine, in practice the german nazi regime was racist and authoritarian, with strict limits on individual freedoms imposed by various means, including a militarized/police state.
in practice, russia and china are both ruled by racist regimes --- china is actively getting rid of at least one ethnicity they don't like in their country (uighurs), they both are authoritarian regimes with strict limits on individual freedoms (with china again the worse offender).
to me, the future of this war is not at all clear. russia is basically bankrupt, but the population is so filled up with propaganda that putin may actually keep them going for a few months. if china decides to help, they may continue on for several years. well-informed people in both countries have probably been doing their best to get out for more than a decade, but I'm sure at least 10% of the population in both countries is still well-informed and rational (but they are afraid to search for each other).
depending on what this fraction of 10% or more will do, the war could easily turn into another world war, with russia hitting everything it can reach with conventional weapons, just to make sure that everybody suffers (it's obvious they wouldn't win a war with NATO). even skirmishes would "hurt" others more than they hurt putin's regime. and china would be perfectly happy supplying russia with the resources needed to keep a front going in ukraine, lithuania, latvia, estonia, finland, possibly sweden and belarus. because the ensuing chaos for the rest of nato would be great for them (bullets cost more to make in the EU, political opportunists would jump at the chance to stir new nationalist sentiment and other racisms, etc).
so there is a real possibility that this will not end soon, and it will get a lot worse before it gets better.
of course, for putin and whatever his name is, winnie the pooh, it's all fun and games.
until that one guy in a million gets pissed off, manages to get control of a nuke from the mismanaged russian stockpile, and does something stupid.
putin doesn't really care, because at the end of this war he's dead anyway: either old age, or assassinated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @04:18PM (1 child)
Well yeah, when they're a bunch of liars, their "evidence" goes up in smoke. Don't let that stop you from building more strawmen..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @07:09PM
It's not a straw man when it really happened. The post I replied to really did do a vapid ad hominem attack.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @06:23AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Thursday April 21 2022, @05:18PM (6 children)
Azov: estimated 1500 at the high end, and only some are nazi. Others, including Jews made "strange bedfellows" with them because they were the first to fight in the east.
Regular UA: approx. 200,000.
The USA's military has had problems with white supremacists, and has the luxury of ferreting them out because we're not in an existential fight. Part of our policies include such things as examining tattoos and rejecting soldiers for racist designs. Without a doubt racism is still a problem.
Nobody in their right mind would justify invading the USA Russian style to fix these problems, if that were even possible.
Pretty much every nation has some kind of problem like this. Waging total war to "fix" it is patently insane and obviously just an excuse fed through state media to brainwashed citizens. The real reason is just empire building, plain and simple.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @05:30PM (5 children)
Russia was invaded by nazis once, why take the chance?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by istartedi on Thursday April 21 2022, @06:10PM
The USA was attacked by Japan once. If you're going to use that logic, the USA should put Japan in the cross-hairs because it still has nationalist groups [wikipedia.org]. To reiterate, every country has odd factions. It's not a just criterion for war.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday April 21 2022, @07:16PM
Because 1) the risk is nonexistent - Ukraine isn't a genuine threat even if they were mostly nazi rather than maybe a few percent; 2) Russia already is more nazi than the Ukraine is - just look at the actions of the Russian government going into this war; and 3) taking chances, especially against nonexistent risks, can have gains far beyond the perceived risks.
And let's face it, the Russian government doesn't really care about nazi Ukrainians in the first place. That's just cover narrative to excuse what they were going to do anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 21 2022, @09:18PM (2 children)
You are right. Russia should get rid of the Nazis. Best place to start with that would be taking the beam out of their own eye. Maybe by taking back the decorations from Senior Lieutenant Roman Vorobyov.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @01:53AM (1 child)
Ya don't say! Funny, I was thinking the same thing
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Saturday April 23 2022, @11:13PM
Sorry, we know it's not about nazis or NATO. It's about empire. Well, the dream of Russian empire is dying hard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @05:53AM (2 children)
7. Give Ukraine a couple dozen tactical nukes.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday April 29 2022, @06:53AM (1 child)
What Putin doesn't know is whether that has already happened.
While it is unlikely that the USA would provide nuclear weapons to Ukraine, there are other possible candidate providers.
If Putin is confident that his intelligence is up to date and accurate, he might think going nuclear is a viable option.
On the other hand, launching a nuclear strike against Ukraine could provoke a reaction from Ukraine that might involve nuclear weapons targetted on Russian territory in 'inconvenient' places. Ukraine had nuclear weapons in the past, and it is possible that Ukraine can obtain or has obtained nuclear weapons now.
It is a well known truism in legal circles: never ask a question in court that you don't know the answer to. For Putin, the question is, "Does Ukraine have nuclear weapons it could retaliate with?". He has to be very sure the answer is "No", especially if he wants to enjoy a well-funded retirement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @05:42PM
russian soldiers rape and torture (other than killing).
everyone involved in the conversation knows this.
would you give their victims nuclear weapons, expecting said victims to remain rational?
I REALLY doubt anyone will be giving Ukraine nuclear weapons soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2022, @12:18PM
https://youtu.be/bwV7X3e0Nso?t=47 [youtu.be]