Well, the Latvia is just doing the same as Brukina Faso, Mali or Niger. They are getting rid of the rest of colonial power in their country, which murdered and deported hundreds of thousands of Latvians to Siberia, and replaced them with Russian communists and their families to dilute their population which had a goal to get rid of their national identity 🤷‍♂️

14 hours ago, HoonDing said:

Technically Russia is already fighting NATO and considering they only have shovels, not doing too badly

Well, fighting NATO equipment (of various vintage) anyway. They'd fall before our Democracy powered soldiers.

8 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Well, the Latvia is just doing the same as Brukina Faso, Mali or Niger. They are getting rid of the rest of colonial power in their country, which murdered and deported hundreds of thousands of Latvians to Siberia, and replaced them with Russian communists and their families to dilute their population which had a goal to get rid of their national identity 🤷‍♂️

This is a good point, we all so  opposed and outraged by  Colonialism and  Western Imperialism  in Africa so we should accept  and support  all countries that dont want anything to do with Russia and Putins attempt to recreate the Russian empire and its borders.  Who says sovereign countries must learn Russian or care  about Russian history, it should be a choice that the elected  governments make. Russia doesnt get to decide that for other countries 

Always  say NO to Colonialism !!!! 

 

You know, I'm not sure 30% of the population of Burkina Faso or Mali was ethnically French at any point, and that either has lost a third of its population over the past 30 years. Could be wrong, but I don't think I am. You're not going to find me saying the same thing about New Caledonia or French Guiana or Miquelon (and the other couple of islands whose name escapes me; nor here for that matter, where 85% of the population isn't Maori). But there is... a certain irony about trying to force assimilation or eviction and then being upset when the target doesn't like it*, much as there is a certain irony when the colonialist doesn't understand why the colonised isn't appreciating them.

Albanians colonised Kosovo under a deliberate Turkish policy, somehow one suspects that is Different though... as with a lot of things the west is more than happy to talk the talk about equality and the like, but actual application of principle is always done on a self interest basis.

*Please give your framed pictures of Julius Malema and Bob Mugabe a kiss from me, Comrade Bruce

You can always count on the west backing a coup or a straight assassination (Sankara etc.) when ****hole countries start doing too well

Edited December 27, 20232 yr by HoonDing

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

 

*Please give your framed pictures of Julius Malema and Bob Mugabe a kiss from me, Comrade Bruce

Well thats a huge part of  the problem in Africa  with corruption and policy  failure  in several countries that include Zimbabwe. Populist rhetoric blaming things on Colonialism and not being an effective government but enriching yourself at  the expense of the future of your citizens is real

And Malema is not just an anti-white,  ignorant, racist   demagogue. Every single  one of the  EFF economic policies  is about nebulous and extreme mass  nationalization of banks, land, mines and even our Central  Bank whose monetary policy is global and  defined in the Constitution.  So the "shareholders  " are  not normal  shareholders, they dont define policy and they have no influence to appoint 8/15 members of  the board  which include the Central Bank governor and deputy governors.  The EFF wants to "nationalize " our Central Bank but the policies are  already controlled and managed by government appointees.  

So the EFF dont really peddle " lets blame Colonialism" as much as they have  really bad economic policies they  want to implement and they spend most of the time blaming the ANC for things but they dont provide any realistic alternative solutions, they all about grandstanding and populism. Its easy to do that when you are a  opposition party, 11% of national vote,  and don't control or manage anything politically  or have to take responsibility for the policies you espouse 

But the point being I dont have framed  pictures  of Mugabe or Malema for these  reasons 

 

 

 

China was told that Russia will wage the war for 5 years.
That's from March so things might have changed since then.

On 12/27/2023 at 1:59 AM, Malcador said:

A lot of if's tailored for a purpose.  And threatens a lot off what I still see as an impossibility, Russia taking all of Ukraine.

Here I missed one thread by a person, you recommended me to check sometimes few weeks ago. She pretty much sums it up, why Russia will sooner or later attack NATO country (Baltics), if they will consider themselves victorious in Ukraine 🤷‍♂️ You could see in the last speech of Putin, when you compare it to his previous, that he is already fully convinced, that they are winning 🤷‍♂️

 

15 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

You know, I'm not sure 30% of the population of Burkina Faso or Mali was ethnically French at any point, and that either has lost a third of its population over the past 30 years. Could be wrong, but I don't think I am. You're not going to find me saying the same thing about New Caledonia or French Guiana or Miquelon (and the other couple of islands whose name escapes me; nor here for that matter, where 85% of the population isn't Maori). But there is... a certain irony about trying to force assimilation or eviction and then being upset when the target doesn't like it*, much as there is a certain irony when the colonialist doesn't understand why the colonised isn't appreciating them.

Albanians colonised Kosovo under a deliberate Turkish policy, somehow one suspects that is Different though... as with a lot of things the west is more than happy to talk the talk about equality and the like, but actual application of principle is always done on a self interest basis.

*Please give your framed pictures of Julius Malema and Bob Mugabe a kiss from me, Comrade Bruce

At what point in the history has any country or part of country, which have been conquered and colonialized by Russia had 30% of ethnic Muscovite population, before they engaged in mass murder and ethnic cleansing of indigenous population? 🤷‍♂️

 

EDIT: It always amuses me, how are people defending the "poor" Russian speaking "minorities" in other countries, how they are "oppressed" when they have to learn the state language of the country, where they are living, and at the same time, they consider Russians killing the minorities living in Russia left and right as business as usual, because "evil" west was doing the same 100 years ago 🤷‍♂️

5 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Here I missed one thread by a person, you recommended me to check sometimes few weeks ago. She pretty much sums it up, why Russia will sooner or later attack NATO country (Baltics), if they will consider themselves victorious in Ukraine 🤷‍♂️ You could see in the last speech of Putin, when you compare it to his previous, that he is already fully convinced, that they are winning 🤷‍♂️

 

Is such an escalation though, I doubt they'll go for it, really. A type of victory also doesn't remove Ukraine from the board, so they could be used in a future war.  Not as if NATO is going to be sitting idle for 10 years as well.

Just the new domino theory to scare people.  Is sort of odd how people judge NATO for how they respond to an outsider

11 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Just the new domino theory to scare people.

This. I've been living in Murica for 37 years and I've been hearing one version or another of the same alarmist talk the entire time. This is classic neocon rhetoric. For a little while there it was aimed in a different direction during that period of time when we were trying to have a friendlier relationship with The Russkies, plus were were well mired in the Middle East at that time, so the neocons had plenty of other stories to tell to get people frightened and get us to keep pumping more money into the military. Now we're back to Russia being the boogeyman again. That doesn't make this sort of talk automatically false, but I've heard one version or another of this story so many times that let's just say I'm skeptical.

Meanwhile, the much bigger threat (not necessarily from a military standpoint) is just chugging along and benefiting from all of this. Queue people linking to articles or videos about how China's economy is about to collapse. I've been reading those articles and seeing those videos for well over a decade and the "collapse" is always just around the corner. Maybe it is, but color me skeptical.

Why do you think there's a carrier parked in the mediterranean? Urkania is old news, soon IDF will repeat Lebanon 2006.

8 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

At what point in the history has any country or part of country, which have been conquered and colonialized by Russia had 30% of ethnic Muscovite population, before they engaged in mass murder and ethnic cleansing of indigenous population? 🤷‍♂️

At what point in history has any country or part of a country which has been conquered and colonised by Britain had 30% British population before they engaged in mass murder and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population?

It's a pretty short list of Euro countries that hasn't done that at some point. I used the example of New Zealand which has ended up with 85% non Maori population. You can dislike the people responsible for those policies as much as you like but they're all dead. Blaming people who weren't even alive at the time is asinine and breeds pointless division and its only positive is making people feel superior to others based on the one thing they have literally no control over- their genetics. One of the reasons I hate ethnicity as a concept.

But in summary: Break up Spain because of the oppression of the Catalans, Basque --> Russian plot, everyone actually loves Spain!

Break up Russia because some infographic suggests more people from poor areas join the army --> Yes please!

13 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Blaming people who weren't even alive at the time is asinine and breeds pointless division and its only positive is making people feel superior to others based on the one thing they have literally no control over- their genetics. One of the reasons I hate ethnicity as a concept.

But in summary: Break up Spain because of the oppression of the Catalans, Basque --> Russian plot, everyone actually loves Spain!

Break up Russia because some infographic suggests more people from poor areas join the army --> Yes please!

We still talking about Latvia here? Because AFAIK nobody oppresses Russian-speaking locals there. Unless "Learn the language of the country you live in order to maybe get a better job" counts, and no, that thousand that media says might be kicked out, is very unlikely local. 

Also your last sentence is pointlessly long. "Break up russia --> Yes please!" is sufficient. 

 

14 minutes ago, bugarup said:

We still talking about Latvia here? Because AFAIK nobody oppresses Russian-speaking locals there.

Speaking of oppressed Russian-speaking locals, the ever-whiny Russian embassy set up a service for Russians in Finland to report on all the ways they are being mistreated and oppressed here. This was a particularly low move, even for the Russian embassy, although it was probably to be expected in the current circumstances.

Let us just say that it not go down all that well: the service did receive an awful lot of feedback, that's for sure, but I would estimate that a lot more than 99.9% was automatically generated and not exactly what they were looking for. Someone, perhaps even anyone, might have guessed that this was precisely what was going to happen, but apparently the Russian embassy did not, because it was, shall we say, upset. No surprises there, either.

Wonder if the EU helps draft Ukrainians where will they run to.

17 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Wonder if the EU helps draft Ukrainians where will they run to.

Over here probably. We have a lot of them even now. There were some articles and rumors that Poland was sending back people to get drafted at the start of the war.

Russia still had a lot of missiles it seems.

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia-moves-forward-with-plans-to-buy-iranian-ballistic-missiles-cf3560e4

Got some from DPRK, too, interesting

Kirby talking about airstrikes in a horrified tone is funny when you remember his comments on Gaza.

Edited January 4, 20242 yr by Malcador

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/07/top-gop-negotiator-border-deal-00134185

So probably some money for Ukraine.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/sweden-states-all-citizens-must-be-prepared-for-war/ar-AA1mDNPb

@Azdeus and @Pidesco

You guys are not part  of NATO yet  so are you guys prepared for war...we never know who Russia will invade next but it wont be a NATO member 

 

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/sweden-states-all-citizens-must-be-prepared-for-war/ar-AA1mDNPb

@Azdeus and @Pidesco

You guys are not part  of NATO yet  so are you guys prepared for war...we never know who Russia will invade next but it wont be a NATO member 

 

They're trying to drum up support for people to join the army and be less pissed off about the reinstated mandatory conscription. Not that I think they will have any real luck to get people to join the army, especially after sucking dicktators. It didn't end particularly well when the army told people to agree to contract that allows service on foreign ground to run the US errands in Afghanistan.

Edited January 9, 20242 yr by Azdeus

I don't think Russia would be dumb enough to invade Sweden. The smell of the the food alone would be enough to send 'em packing.

 

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

I don't think Russia would be dumb enough to invade Sweden. The smell of the the food alone would be enough to send 'em packing.

 

And I really like Sweden, the thought of little , friendly Sweden having to fight a war upsets me 

Little? What the **** are you smoking @BruceVC? Sweden is one of the largest countries in Europe. Once upon a time it was one of the most powerful and warlike empires too. Did you get Sweden confused with Luxembourg, or something?

Edited January 9, 20242 yr by Keyrock

Well, is pretty small compared to RSA.