I wasn't sure where this Israel, Iran and China debacle should go, so I thought I would start a new thread and post it here:

Interesting article disusing Israel's actions in trying to destabilize Iran and how it monumentally backfired and brought China into the Middle East... it's kind of crazy

 

"To the extent that Netanyahu played a role here, his plot has backfired monumentally. If the China deal goes through, Iran is much strengthened and its hard liners are entirely unleashed. The positioning of Chinese security forces in Iran will make it increasingly risky for other countries such as Israel or the US to strike Iran, lest they come into conflict with nuclear-armed China."

Edited September 10, 20196 yr by wanna-b-fanboy

3 minutes ago, Fatty Liver said:

Please tell me what I said that is so uniformed?

Your opinion that Ukraine should just surrender. It's patently absurd and entirely ignorant not only of what's taking place but also what's at stake.

59 minutes ago, iHeart said:

I don't know if this was shared yet but this is stunning news

https://people.com/politics/ukrainian-military-says-snake-island-defenders-are-alive-and/?utm_campaign=peoplemagazine&utm_content=manual&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=621d123afb37700001dc5044&fbclid=IwAR0koIbVMOWY9F1qasJgjA0gTc63bVdiV42nltEADRfXng3465Z1-NiehdY

bear in mind that propaganda machines are in overdrive on all sides, so the facts will not get in the way of a good story at this point. 

Like, is there really a Ghost of Kyiv?  Only the Ukrainian air force command knows.

you mean this story could be fake....I wonder if the snopes has this article fact checked

Assume that all stories are fake right now -- especially the ones that capture your attention, like the heroically dying "go **** yourself" snake islanders.

welp they can't play in the world cup they can't play in the world juniors (hell they can't host the world juniors in 2023 now)....I wonder how this will effect the NHL draft

Edited February 28, 20223 yr by iHeart

In case you missed the World can thank Trump for keeping NATO around and the Ukraine's can thank Trump for the bigly bombs that go boom, all according to the greatest person alive according to himself.

Trump trying to rewrite history

 

Edited February 28, 20223 yr by bustamente

7 minutes ago, bustamente said:

In case you missed the World can thank Trump for keeping NATO around and the Ukraine's can thank Trump for the bigly bombs that go boom, all according to the greatest person alive according to himself.

Amazing the way he can turn on a dime and it makes sense to his millions of followers.

What absolute dolts.

 

Putin will get more and more desperate, there is no going back failure of capturing Ukraine is not an option so we come to the portion of this madman's next act carpet bombing cities and killing as many as he can, sooner or later the World is going to have to act with more than just sanctions.

It has been speculated by many international political observers that Trump has been owned by the Russians for some 20 years due to all the money he has borrowed from their banks. There is no way that Ukraine will surrender- the Russians have apparently planned to decapitate the Ukrainian government by capturing or killing every one of them. The Russian army is being shown up as having outdated, poorly maintained equipment, and many of the Russian soldiers are very poorly trained and completely unaware of their mission goals. Putin fits all the criteria for a psychopath, and is at best a sociopath. He will serve himself above all other ends. I would not put it above him to institute a "scorched Earth policy" if forced to retreat out of Ukraine.

On 2022-02-27 at 10:55 PM, Fatty Liver said:

I know a few ex-pat Ukrainians and Russians, they all had to do mandatory military service for 2 years starting at 18 I believe.  The training is brutal, if they had any fat going in, there wasn't an ounce of fat left on them when they came out.  They make our military look like sissified doughboys.

It may not be a popular opinion but I believe the Ukraine should surrender now rather than later when they're forced to, and spare the human carnage and destruction of their cities.  No way in hell they can resist the Russians if they are fully committed to conquering, just as it would be foolish for Canada to resist an invasion by the US..

That being said once the surrender is signed and hostilities stop, they are not committed to honour the agreement in any way with their illegal invader.  They have the rest of the world on their side, eventually continued financial sanctions or Putin's removal will turn the tide and allow them to regain sovereignty of their country democratically.  It may take a regime change within Russia and a number of years to achieve, but it's nothing Ukrainians haven't lived through before, patience will prevail.  Russians are not a happy lot either, I think Putin  just triggered his own demise.

 What chance did Britain have against Germany after the fall of Europe ? What chance did Vietnam have against the might of the USA ? What chance did the Afghans have against Russia ? What chance did the Taliban have against the combined force they faced. It has happened many , many times. It takes good leadership and a good battle plan. The Ukraine is already winning the non battlefield war. In today's small world that is extremely important. 

If the Ukraine surrenders it will be the end of the Ukraine for the foreseeable future.

My unpopular opinion:

-Russia has withheld the strongest of its military might on the chance that NATO/US/EU/Somebody joins in on Ukraine's side and needs to be dealt with
-Russia has not invaded full scale regardless of what the press keeps telling me
-Nobody is serious about dealing with Putin/Russia so long as they keep buying Russian fuel
-As fuel prices soar, Putin/Russia literally grow richer as a result of this incursion
-Sanctions will do SFA other than strengthen Sino-Russian cooperation
-A serious attempt to militarily defend Ukraine by any other state would necessarily involve defence/counterattacks/attacks on the Russian military and therefore: is an invitation for Russia to attack the country who attacks their forces.
-******* nobody is going to do that
-therefore: negotiated surrender and acceding to Russian terms is the only outcome.

I don't like it. But I can't see it another way. Saving the Ukrainian people's lives is my most favored outcome at this point and I can't see this go any "better" way for them.

20 minutes ago, bluto said:

My unpopular opinion:

-Russia has withheld the strongest of its military might on the chance that NATO/US/EU/Somebody joins in on Ukraine's side and needs to be dealt with
-Russia has not invaded full scale regardless of what the press keeps telling me
-Nobody is serious about dealing with Putin/Russia so long as they keep buying Russian fuel
-As fuel prices soar, Putin/Russia literally grow richer as a result of this incursion
-Sanctions will do SFA other than strengthen Sino-Russian cooperation
-A serious attempt to militarily defend Ukraine by any other state would necessarily involve defence/counterattacks/attacks on the Russian military and therefore: is an invitation for Russia to attack the country who attacks their forces.
-******* nobody is going to do that
-therefore: negotiated surrender and acceding to Russian terms is the only outcome.

I don't like it. But I can't see it another way. Saving the Ukrainian people's lives is my most favored outcome at this point and I can't see this go any "better" way for them.

Surrender would mean the end of Ukraine for decades and a strengthening of Putin's power in Europe and Asia. Putin wants nothing less than a complete dissolution of Ukrainian self-government and the killing or imprisonment of all opposition there. This is essentially a replay of the Spanish "civil war" where a massively equipped, Nazi-backed force took on democratic inferior forces supported by the international community. The lack of strong response by democratic nations fueled Nazi confidence and led directly to World War 2.
 

This guy is such a fraud

 

10 minutes ago, Tracker said:

Surrender would mean the end of Ukraine for decades and a strengthening of Putin's power in Europe and Asia. Putin wants nothing less than a complete dissolution of Ukrainian self-government and the killing or imprisonment of all opposition there. This is essentially a replay of the Spanish "civil war" where a massively equipped, Nazi-backed force took on democratic inferior forces supported by the international community. The lack of strong response by democratic nations fueled Nazi confidence and led directly to World War 2.
 

Yes. Something very much like that. Crimea and Donbass will be absorbed into Russia. Putin will install a Pro-Moscow President after Zelensky "disappears". The remainder of Ukraine will be... "independent" and disarmed.

Russia  is Approaching comical ali level nonsense now.

 

"Putin is “indifferent” to Western sanctions against him, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday, as he has no assets abroad. 

“The sanctions contain rather absurd statements about some assets, etc… Everyone knows that President [Putin] doesn’t have any assets, in fact, except for those that are declared every year in the amount of a [car] trailer and an apartment, and some bank deposits,” he said."

 

🤣

 

Edited March 1, 20223 yr by Mark F

3 minutes ago, Mark F said:

Russianis Approaching comical ali level nonsense now.

 

"Putin is “indifferent” to Western sanctions against him, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday, as he has no assets abroad. 

“The sanctions contain rather absurd statements about some assets, etc… Everyone knows that President [Putin] doesn’t have any assets, in fact, except for those that are declared every year in the amount of a [car] trailer and an apartment, and some bank deposits,” he said."

 

🤣

 

 

17 minutes ago, bustamente said:

This guy is such a fraud

That was a week ago. Doesnt count. He was just joking. Taken out of context. 
 

and so on and so forth.

my own daughter is a fan of this snake. 

1 minute ago, Mark F said:

That was a week ago. Doesnt count. He was just joking. Taken out of context. 
 

and so on and so forth.

my own daughter is a fan of this snake. 

Lying is an art form and certain people have discovered that you can become very wealthy as their are millions of rubes that will buy what you are selling. Even a dumb person like Trump has people convinced that he is a successful business man with billions of dollars and the smartest man in the world, on both counts he is wrong but yet people still shout his name and worship him

https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-us-british-envoys-boycott-lavrov-speech-un-rights-forum-2022-03-01/

Quote

GENEVA, March 1 (Reuters) - More than 100diplomats from some 40 Western countries and allies including Japan walked out of a speech by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the top U.N. human rights forum on Tuesday in protest over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

...the international revulsion over an invasion Russia describes as a "special military operation" aimed at dislodging "neo-Nazis" ruling Ukraine.

In his speech, Lavrov accused the EU of engaging in a "Russophobic frenzy" by supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine during Moscow's military campaign that began last Thursday.

The amount of brain rot at the top of Russia's political elite is simply staggering. Putin and his maniacal ilk are nothing more than delusional, decaying turds yearning for a bygone era that's long passed.

1 minute ago, blue_gold_84 said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-us-british-envoys-boycott-lavrov-speech-un-rights-forum-2022-03-01/

The amount of brain rot at the top of Russia's political elite is simply staggering. Putin and his maniacal ilk are nothing more than delusional, decaying turds yearning for a bygone era that's long passed.

 

Solid piece about putin:

 

 

2 hours ago, bluto said:

My unpopular opinion:

-Russia has withheld the strongest of its military might on the chance that NATO/US/EU/Somebody joins in on Ukraine's side and needs to be dealt with
-Russia has not invaded full scale regardless of what the press keeps telling me
-Nobody is serious about dealing with Putin/Russia so long as they keep buying Russian fuel
-As fuel prices soar, Putin/Russia literally grow richer as a result of this incursion
-Sanctions will do SFA other than strengthen Sino-Russian cooperation
-A serious attempt to militarily defend Ukraine by any other state would necessarily involve defence/counterattacks/attacks on the Russian military and therefore: is an invitation for Russia to attack the country who attacks their forces.
-******* nobody is going to do that
-therefore: negotiated surrender and acceding to Russian terms is the only outcome.

I don't like it. But I can't see it another way. Saving the Ukrainian people's lives is my most favored outcome at this point and I can't see this go any "better" way for them.

I agree with a lot of what you've said here. Particularly about the Russian military nit being fully deployed (I don't think they will be at any point, unless the fight goes to russia).

I don't think surrendering to Russia would do all that much to save lives though. Certainly some, but the citizens of Ukraine have from what I understand all taken up arms, this isn't just military  vs military....its military  vs country. Russia does not know who is a civilian or who is a civilian with an AK. Which means come surrender time, civilians would likely be dealt with very harshly, and then after the war, how do you think they would be treated? Given food and shelter? One just needs to loom at how Russia treats Russians to know that is a hope and prayer.

You actually need to sell the oil to realize any gains. So, as long as there are sanctions in place and Russian oil cannot be bought/sold, then the worry about Putin getting richer is a nonstarter. 

You have to ask yourself, why do the alt-right always want to appease Putin and let him do what he wants? Hmmm....