213374U
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Posts posted by 213374U
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1 hour ago, Lexx said:
Looks like another secret family got sanctioned. The attached twitter thread is also an interesting read:
I'm the last to complain when the rich get eaten. That being said, I wish we'd see a more frequent and uniform application of the law that allowed for that.
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I think he was referring to ethnic Russians in Ukraine, not Russians in Russia.
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9 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:
Local population is on their side in the whole Ukraine, even the ethnic Russians. Because Putin is currently shelling the cities with the highest ratio of ethnic Russians. Kyiv is the sole exception.
That's a bit of an assumption. The city council or local military command decides whether the city surrenders, not the average Ivan on the street. If the mayor of a city insisted in holding out as long as possible in a hopeless situation to for political reasons or w/e, regardless of the cost, he could do it against Ivan's wishes. And subsequent deaths could be pinned on "reckless" local authorities by propaganda.
It all depends on the spin.
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Witcher 4 Epic exclusive, then?
Heh.
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Actually I haven't. We sometimes get a lot of desert dust from Northern Africa but that picture is quite striking. Very cool except for the fact that breathing that **** is really bad, and it's happening around the same time as polen levels are on the rise...
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13 minutes ago, bugarup said:
Really. But what it is impossible to try people responsible for Iraq right now for whatever reasons? So, since someone who committed war crimes went yet uninvestigated, Putler can do whatever he pleases because, I dunno, it's rude to jump the Hague queue?
No, not because it's rude, but because literally the only thing that an institution like the ICC works on is credibility as there is no actual international law enforcement. If you systematically only try non-Westerners, because every time someone brings up the possibility of trying a NATO brass commander it must be postponed indefinitely because of "whatever reasons", it's never going to work. And without it, what you get is a might-makes-right international politics which lead to things like Putin invading Ukraine because he can.
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46 minutes ago, bugarup said:
Ah, the good old "But what about <insert appropriate tangent here>
!!!!" argument. I don't know why I bother since you likely post these tangents deliberately, but in case if I'm mistaken - yes, civilian deaths in Iraq is humanitarian catastrophe and should not be forgotten. But when you throw them in here, in the thread about ongoing revanchist war waged by unhinged fascist dictator, it does not look like you are doing this because you give a **** about war crimes committed against dead Iraqis. It looks like you are looking for excuses to whitewash war crimes currently being committed by said fascist dictator.
This was brought up in the context of Russian shelling of residential buildings where Ukrainian troops were sheltering. As per the Geneva Conventions, this makes it a legitimate military target, and has been the justification in, for example, Israel bombing hospitals. The extent to which the damage is excessive in relation to the military reason given is debatable, and ultimately, a question of law. Pointing out precedent is neither "a tangent" nor "whataboutism*" -- it is just that, precedent that is used to establish context. The same argument you are directing at Zoraptor could be just as easily adapted to suggest that you don't care about Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes. It's... not terribly useful to infer motivations, and it generally leads to discussions degenerating into petty squabbles.
I'd happily see Putin tried for launching a war of aggression in the ICC. But if we are going to have that working, other people need to be tried there first -- because their crimes predate Putin's.
*this has to be one of the most perverse buzzwords in a long time. Anyone pointing out any sort of inconsistency? Just claim "whataboutism" and you don't need to address any actual points. Accusations of hypocrisy? Don't worry, fire back with "whataboutism" and you win automatically. It's basically a way to justify the old "do as I say, not as I do", but with less words and no possible rebuttals. It's great!
Also, please do not circumvent the word filter. Thanks.
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4 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:
Moldova wants the Russians gone from Transnistria
I mean, if by "news" you mean 2020, then sure.
4 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:Uzbekistan as one of the closest allies to Russia has raised some fingers. Statements like this would be unimaginable few days ago...
Uzbekistan said it doesn't recognize the DPR and LPR (i.e. it doesn't recognize them at this time) but that's not really news. Literally no country except Russia has recognized them, no matter how friendly with Russia they are. Not even Belarus. Kazakhstan's stance, for example, is much opposed to Russia's in this matter. And this is despite Russia sending troops there to help quash a rebellion there two months ago. But this isn't really news either, it's the same as it has been since this begun three weeks ago -- either silence or outright opposition.
Twitter "news" are like anything else from Twitter: crap. But man, it's really starting to make me miss the days when people would post Breitbart "news". I mean, how many dead Russian generals already? 20? 2000? 20 million?
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2 hours ago, Lexx said:
Sounds like a crap deal.
Is it? It's basically going back to the status quo pre-2014 -- minus Crimea, which there's no way in hell they are getting back anyway. If Russia is offering those terms, there might be something to the reports that they are significantly depleted and would struggle to sustain combat operations long enough to fully de-militarize Ukraine, remove Zelenskyy and forcefully secede the Donbass. However what alternative is there? NATO isn't getting involved and I don't see any possible scenario where Ukraine wins this.
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On 3/14/2022 at 5:26 PM, Chilloutman said:
taking a break from CK3 for a while and I got discount for Spellforce 3 on GoG so now I started that. I really like the graphics and gameplay reminds me a lot of good old Warcraft 3. Looks like I will spend some time with it. Also I started one of the campaigns and I can't shakea feeling that my mine character is dude who voiced Adam Jensen in Deus-ex
Yeah, general Gerard of Rivera was a bit unsettling. Fantastic game, they released a patch late last year that remade the base game to have it work with the improved engine from the latest expansion. Great time to get into it.
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4 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:
but it was before US went into war. thats why I am saying before. You are looking for semantics the point still same. USA gave or traded weapons with all sides of conflict BEFORE they became part of it
No. You simply were wrong in stating that the US were funding the Soviets before WWII, because WWII started in 1939, and not in 1941 when the US entered the war.
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15 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:
https://share.america.gov/america-sent-equipment-to-soviet-union-in-world-war-ii/
there was also trade before what is mentioned in above. America was and is profiteering on any war from WW1.
Seriously.
before preposition
/bɪˈfɔː(r)/
/bɪˈfɔːr/
earlier than somebody/something--
There is no definition of this word, in any dictionary, that makes true the statement: "America was 'funding' everyone before WW2 including soviets." Your link tells of the well-known Lend-Lease aid which I referenced before (so I don't see why you felt the need to link it to me), which only started arriving in in 1941 (WWII is generally agreed to have begun with Germany's invasion of Poland, in Sept. 1939), and only after Germany broke their non-aggression pact with the USSR. Furthermore, the Soviets still had to pay for the stuff, even at heavy discounts. That debt carried over and survived the Soviet Union, and was only fully liquidated in 2006.
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1 minute ago, Chilloutman said:
So yes?
39 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:America was 'funding' everyone before WW2 including soviets.
No, not really.
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30 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:
America was 'funding' everyone before WW2 including soviets.
No. The only US started pumping money (and equipment) into the Soviet Union when it became useful to do so to keep the Germans bleeding out in the East. In fact, one of the main reasons why Roosevelt attempted to restore diplomatic relations with the USSR pre-war was so the latter would resume Tsarist-era debt payments to the US. Another was to have the Soviets act as a sort of counterweight to Japan in the Pacific.
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Yeah. Let's not get too carried away discussing other users, guys.
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If you are looking for a sandbox, look elsewhere. SWTOR is an on-rails themepark MMO. The endgame scene is in a bad place right now. The expansion scaling and tuning is bad, there is no new endgame content, and the grind is terrible. I've quit the game over how bad it is, and I had been doing consistent raiding for the last, eh, 5 years or so. It's a complete dumpster fire.
That being said, if you want to play with someone else and aren't especially interested in endgame I'd say give it a go. A lot of the F2P restrictions won't impact you overmuch and the base content, the class stories, is probably the best the game has to offer even after all these years. They have pretty much removed the grindy aspects the game used to have back when you played it and you can basically take it as a single player or coop CRPG.
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5 hours ago, Elerond said:
But it is, which is why Russia and Turkey are able to censor their people so effectively even though they are under European court of human rights. EU has avoided using it ability to censor outlets so far, but now they decided to use tactics perfected by Russia in past two decades against Russia.
Of course it is slippery slope and easily lead more censorship in future, but as now it is accordance of European human right principalities and EU laws.
Note that I'm not saying it's illegal -- there's always some loophole or bit of fine print somewhere buried in that document that no one bothered to read when they voted on that referendum fifteen years ago. What I'm saying though is that it's hypocritical. If we are willing to use the same tools as the likes of Turkey and Russia, then we have lost the moral authority to criticize them.
Either the ends justify the means, or they don't. "Sometimes" in this context means very much yes.
3 hours ago, Zoraptor said:**and what else are Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos et al?
Why, "philantropists", of course.
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24 minutes ago, Elerond said:
About EU's decision to ban RT and Sputnik, it is one of those difficult questions where multitude human rights are in conflict with each other. EU banned RT and Sputnik for pro war propaganda, as it is seen that people's right for free speech can be limited when said speech is in support for breaking other people human rights in fundamental way (in this case Ukraine people rights given in article 3 in UDoHR and article 2 in ECoHR ).
Again, no. "Speech in support for breaking other people's human rights" isn't grounds for censorship. Otherwise they could have banned any number of outlets and voices over the past 20 years that peddled bull**** (actual bull****) in support of frivolous wars all over the world. Also Chinese-affiliated media, Persian Gulf state-affiliated media, not to mention all the voices claiming for suspension of basic rights during the pandemic.
A fundamental principle stops having any use or being meaningful if you just claim "exceptional circumstances!" to ignore it whenever it suits you. Doing that while denying opponents the same is textbook hypocrisy. Either we have a free, open and mature democratic society that can not be seriously confused, contaminated and disrupted by propaganda and fake news, or we do and all the authoritarian garbage pushed by the likes of Xi Jinping and Putin is actually on point. You can't just have both simply because you claim to have the moral high ground.
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15 hours ago, Elerond said:
Free speech is about government preventing people expressing their opinions, which includes not publishing messages from the government. So in this case freedom of speech is on side of YT and against RT, which is government owned media and government that owns it prevents people expressing their opinions in multitude of ways.
No. That may be some edge interpretation of the American 1st Amendment, but not really what free speech is about. Free speech is a guiding principle that applies to everyone who is committed to an open society. You don't have a protected right while on that platform, but that doesn't immediately invalidate the principle itself. It is on the private entity running the platform to decide whether they want to uphold that principle and assume the costs and consequences.
I fully support YouTube's right to nuke RT, but I find the decision unfortunate, the execution ham-fisted, and the reasoning given laughable. They have chosen to remove the entire RT channel, but not everything in there was Russian gov't propaganda. Unless you somehow figure that documentaries about the life in deep Siberia of some 30-something guy that looks like a teenager is pro-war Kremlin tripe. All the while claiming to do so under the "violent content" protection guidelines.
What I don't support is ****ing Ursula von der Leyen deciding for some 450 million people what they can and cannot watch in the privacy of their homes. That is censorship, but after what we've been seeing lately, I'm not at all surprised that seldom anyone seems to have a problem with this.
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2 hours ago, kanisatha said:
Very nice straw man there but doesn't fly with me. Show me where I said anything about the US starting any war in Europe? I was talking about the US defending Europe in a future war started by Russia, whenever Russia next decides to invade the Baltics or Poland or even Finland. And you clearly knew this was what I said. So you are full of BS.
Also the nonsense about me not doing the dying. Same for you, isn't it? You won't be doing the dying defending your own country from Russian attack now will you? And as for me, it is logical that I won't be bearing arms myself because I am old. If I were a young man when such a war happened, I would be bearing arms myself.
Sure thing. When Russia attacks a NATO member, that will trigger Article 5. Hasn't happened though, so your fantasizing about a reconstituted cavalry charging against Russians in Crimea (heh) is either describing a fictional scenario, or simply advertising your personal lust for war. A war which, by your own admission, you'd watch on TV. In either case, it's out of place and... weird.
...which brings us to the next point. Yes, my dear armchair general. As a former member of the armed forces, I was part of the active reserve for 5 years after leaving. The law provides for recall of former members in exceptional circumstances so, if things got bad enough, I would probably be called to wear the uniform again, as I am physically fit and not old enough to be excluded.
You can bet your ass that I'd rather go to a military prison than be sent to kill Russians on a war started by some plutocrat clique in the US, though.
2 hours ago, Malcador said:Aside, what's with people trying to portray 2l3374U as a Putin apologist or on Russia's side here ?
It's a typical tactic. Make no actual arguments, but paint anyone with an opinion that disagrees with the party line as a
commie subversiveRussian apologist. Note that he previously labelled Prof. Mearsheimer as one, too.In any case, I guess that if I'm a Putin apologist by suggesting that the West has played a big role in setting the stage for this war, notorious
commie subversivesAmerican patriots like Henry Kissinger, Jack F. Matlock, and even Joe ****ing Biden are also Putin apologists, as they all acknowledged that eastward NATO expansion would inevitably trigger a Russian response.In a predictable exercise of intellectual dishonesty, this is also assumed to mean an excuse of Russia's actions (it isn't) and so, an immediate disqualification of the opponent.
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4 hours ago, kanisatha said:
Right, because the US is shooting up eastern Europe. Why would we fight YOUR war in our country? It's a silly thing to say. If someone ever invades the US, we would fight that war here, and very likely do it all by ourselves with no help from our "allies."
The point is that even though your countries are what will be getting attacked and not our country, we're still willing to die to help you defend yourselves. But hey, if that's something you don't want, by all means feel free to say so. I'm quite sure the American taxpayers footing that huge defense bill defending Europe will be more than happy to find things here at home to spend our money on.
Ain't "our" war, friend. Last I checked, Ukraine is not a part of NATO. You're casually talking about launching a completely new war, one that would have a fair chance of escalating into a major nuclear conflict. So yeah, maybe wait until Russia attacks you before going full Major Kong?
I always find this noble talk about "willing to die to defend you" quite cringe-worthy, by the way. Of course, it's not going to be you doing the dying, right? Nah, you'll be comfortable in your very much unbombed university halls, while others do the actual dying. Heh.
Yeah. By all means, find better things to spend that money on. Won't happen, sadly.
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43 minutes ago, kanisatha said:
Hey eastern European friends, you guys just need to keep Putin off your backs for a couple more years. We Americans are pivoting from counter-insurgency and counterterrorism ops to fighting a land war against a major peer enemy. We just need a couple of years to retool. After our retool, we'll have your backs
Very nice. Would be great if you could fight that war on your own country instead of shooting up other people's places, for a change.
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18 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:
From what I recall reading, it was about a six year "tussle" between Ukraine and Crimea for them to completely come to an agreement with each other on how things should work administratively between the two of them, with Crimea getting special status and treatment that no other areas of Ukraine got...but I did not see any mention of occupation or invasion or anything like that. That doesn't mean nothing happened or was threatened, but it wasn't mentioned.
Yes. The Crimea situation wasn't settled after 1992 any more than it is now after Russia seized it in 2014. The main difference seems to be that back then, Ukraine and Russia were willing to find common ground and respected each other... at least compared to now. Ukraine went from granting it special economic status and allowing Crimea to have its own constitution to stripping that constitution and detaining and exiling the overtly separatist Crimean president. Add to the mix ethnic and historical factors on both sides and you get a much fuzzier picture than "X said that Y belongs to Z and signed so-and-so treaty to that effect". You really can put anything on paper.
As an aside, I find it interesting how some people are seemingly much more receptive to Catalonian arguments for self-determination than they are to similar pleas when they are put forth by Crimeans. There are a lot of parallels between the two.
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1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:
The difference I have with Numbers, though, is that I'm really not exactly sure...you know, like, what should have been done instead - how should these things have worked out that would've been better? He mentions expanding NATO as being the critical provoking issue, but if you do not have the concrete backing of a nuclear power, then IMO it is only a matter of time until you are in someone's target sights sooner or later...exactly as we are currently seeing with Ukraine, which did not have any concrete guarantees from anyone about anything, which is exactly why Russia felt pretty secure in invading it. Though things may have looked peaceful back in the 2000s, that is no reason to believe it will be true in the future - a lot can change in just ten years, and this alliance has held and guaranteed the sovereignty of many of its members for much longer than that, so it makes perfect sense that vulnerable countries would join NATO while they could...particularly given that there is no future where the U.S. looks to actually permanently "occupy" or annex any European countries, which is not necessarily the case when you have a directly neighboring regional power like Russia who already seems to kind of look at you like they own you. And if you're a regional power and literally just about all of your neighbors are flocking to different "foreign interests" instead of you, well...what're you doing wrong that your rivals aren't? And invading one of those neighbors certainly isn't going to encourage anyone else to cozy up to you when they could pick a less expansionist alternative instead,
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Diplomacy has no "win" condition. It is both a process and a state of affairs. So long as you are avoiding war between parties with conflicting interests, you are winning. I'm not a fan of the idea that, without the threat of massive force, one cannot have normal relations with one's neighbors. France and Germany have had a history of hostilities and preying on each other's weaknesses at different times. After WWII, a different approach was attempted. It is an open question whether without the Soviet threat, cooperation between them would have borne fruit as it has. What's certain is that if they had continued to regard each other as rivals waiting to stick a dagger in each other's back, the peace we now take for granted would be a pipe dream.
We keep refusing to even consider the Russian perspective -- Ukrainians (and Baltics peoples, and Poles, and...) may be right to be wary about potential Russian aggression. And yet, this isn't mutually exclusive with Russian fears of Western aggression, especially in light of NATO's role after the Soviet collapse. Media and political leaders insist on painting Putin as an insane megalomaniac, when signs point to him rather being a calculating, pragmatic bureaucrat with a mild nostalgia for the past. It pays to remember that Russia has been under siege by the West, economic or military, for more than a century now. Whether this is the Russians' fault is immaterial -- the siege mentality is there, for both the people and the leaders. Dogged ignorance of this is a huge obstacle in the path to building normal relations. Arrogance in diplomacy isn't conducive to good deals. This much is obvious when we look at Putin's demands. And yet, this principle doesn't seem to apply to the West.
The issue about nuclear powers perpetually looking as bullies to their neighbors isn't trivial either. Non-proliferation efforts are a joke, and a cynic could think they are more intended to gatekeep nations from graduating to "equal" status than preventing nuclear war. This of course has the opposite effect of pushing countries that feel threatened to seek nuclear weapons as an existential safeguard. If we really want a world where diplomacy and the international rule of law decide matters, we must push for nuclear disarmament. Otherwise, an exclusive club of countries will always exist that reserve the right to do as they please.
As for why countries seem to flock to the US... funny story. We've had a history of political opposition to hosting NATO here. And yet, every single political leader who has held a position contrary to NATO since the early 80's, magically flips after being elected to office. Acceptance of the cold realities of politics, or utter corruption? Perhaps they are one and the same in this day and age?
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Ukraine Conflict - Das Himmelfahrtskommando
in Way Off-Topic
Posted
So Zelensky to preside over the Red Square May Day parade, then?