Random Thoughts. The Return.

[Bong-Man]

If this situation wasn't so serious, I would call it quite fun watching the entertainment right squirm for a position on events in the Ukraine.  They can't agree with the President, so they're left with two losing hands they're quite willing to play.  They either embrace Putin, or they call for direct NATO involvement with ground troops and a no-fly zone, both losing hands.  A no-fly zone should be called exactly what it really is....a declaration of war against Russia.  Their best attempt at staying neutral is to spend half their time ripping the V.P. because it's safe for ratings.  Unlike Bow-tie Tucker & the blonde female Mr. Ed on Fox, Hannity actually agrees with every move NATO & the President has made.  He just twists his presentation so he can call it all his own.  I watch for the entertainment, not the facts.

Nothing bugs me more than watching the 85-90 year old people in the Ukraine.  They began their lives with this bullshit, and now they're ending their lives the same way.  That's fucked up.  Bury me in a hole with a shoulder rocket and let me take out a tank before I go.         

[redrum]

Bury me in a hole with a shoulder rocket and let me take out a tank before I go.   👍

[Stryder1978]

This article just came out...EXACTLY what I've been saying....

Biden's risk-averse approach to Russia could create greater threat, experts say

SHANNON K. CRAWFORD

Wed, March 23, 2022, 3:10 AM·6 min read

 

 

President Joe Biden's high-stakes summit with other NATO leaders on Thursday will be one of the most scrutinized meetings on the world stage in decades, and could have enormous implications for both the war in Ukraine and the global balance of power.

Despite calls from Ukraine to do more to help stave off Russia's ruthless invasion, Biden has taken a cautious approach — wary of escalating the conflict by drawing in U.S. forces as part of a more direct NATO response. But after nearly a month of fighting, some foreign policy and national security experts ABC News spoke to say it may be time for the alliance to take on a more direct role.

Preparing for 'the worst case'

Since before the fighting broke out, Biden has insisted that American troops would not fight Russian forces inside Ukraine, warning that going head-to-head would lead to "a third world war."

But Barry Pavel, a former National Security Council senior official during the Bush and Obama administration and the senior vice president and director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council, says that's far from inevitable.

"There have been other cases where U.S. and Russian forces have unfortunately come into friction and World War III didn't start," Pavel said, characterizing the strategy as simplistic. "There are hundreds of options that could be done between what NATO is doing now and risking World War III."

The greater threat, warns Pavel, might be in leaving Putin unchecked.

"If he is emboldened by success in Ukraine, then he will be more aggressive in his efforts to nibble and to move into areas of perceived weakness in NATO members," he said. "If he achieves his goal, you'll have Russian forces on the borders of seven NATO members, including nuclear forces in Belarus, and so he'll use that new posture to really heighten European insecurity to a great degree."

And it isn’t Biden’s — or NATO’s — choice alone. Moscow could also escalate the conflict by striking a NATO member, either intentionally or accidentally, triggering a sweeping response.

"Article 5 — in the most basic sense — is NATO's 'Three Musketeers' provision, which is to say, 'all for one and one for all' — an attack against any member is an attack against every member of NATO," said Sean Monaghan, a former civil servant in the U.K. Ministry of Defence and a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, calling it "the most important red line in international politics."

"This is a contingency that NATO forces are already preparing for," said Monaghan. "That's what the military does — prepare for the worst case."

MORE: Russia-Ukraine live updates: Moscow responds to Biden on biological, chemical weapons

While the response to a Russian strike wouldn’t necessarily need to be eye for an eye, Monaghan says in theory, the alliance would be obligated to provide “an overwhelming response” if any member state was hit.

“The practice, some would say that NATO being collective of 30 nations, that have to reach consensus for any actions to be to be taken, that might hinder a response. But I think in this conflict, NATO has shown itself to be quite a lot more resolute and speedier of action than many people would have predicted,” he added.

The next phase for NATO

While the Biden administration has underscored the power of NATO’s overwhelming unity in the face of Russian aggression, when it comes to charting a path forward to counter the Kremlin, cracks within the alliance are beginning to emerge. While the summit will be an opportunity for the powers to get on the same page, it may also cast a spotlight on areas of disagreement.

For instance, Poland plans to propose a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine — a move the U.S. has effectively ruled out. Article 5 lays plain that an attack on a member merits a response, but will the alliance retaliate if Russia resorts to chemical weapons in Ukraine? And while NATO may not be willing to establish a no-fly zone over the country, Pavel says that doesn't mean there isn’t a debate to be had about what more can be done to help the country defend its own airspace.

MORE: After Pentagon demurs, Biden confirms Russia fired hypersonic missile: Ukraine Day 26

"In terms of the weapons pipeline, we should be doing much more. We can't let the Ukrainians fly aircraft in their own defense? Forget these ridiculous restrictions on what equipment we can provide a sovereign country who asks for it to defend themselves against an invading force" he said, referencing the U.S. and other allies' hesitancy to hand over fighter jets to Ukraine for fear of Russian retaliation.

Pavel added that additional anti-aircraft and anti-ship weaponry, as well as enhanced intelligence support and humanitarian aid on the ground, could go a long way in resistance efforts.

Thomas Graham, a former NSC senior director for Russia and a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says that beyond discussing support for Ukraine, NATO leaders should use the upcoming summit to make sharpen their signaling to the Kremlin.

"NATO leaders want to make sure that they've done everything that they can in order to deter the Russians," he said. "Have we augmented the forces in Eastern Europe to the appropriate levels? And have we convinced the Russians that in fact we are determined to honor the Article Five guarantee and protect every inch of NATO territory?"

Monahan predicts this week's gathering will result in a reversal to a mindset not seen since the days of the Soviet Union.

"We can foresee it as the beginning of a step change, almost a return to NATO's Cold War posture of, if not territorial defense, then a much increased forward presence designed to deter a Russian regime that is clearly willing to resort to war" he said.

Battle lines of the future

Beyond addressing the immediate crisis, experts say NATO must ensure it is ready to respond to a more aggressive Russia and prepare for the new geopolitical frontier it is forging.

"The war in Ukraine will end at some point will end, but Russia will remain," said Graham. "And what the conflict has demonstrated is that the hopes we had had for integrating Russia into the Euro-Atlantic community are dead."

Pavel says plotting out a strategy not only for ending the conflict — but for managing exactly how the conflict ends — will be critical.

"When wars have ended in the past, the new boundaries have been drawn where the force set, through the middle of Germany, through the middle of Berlin," Pavel said. "When the dust settles, where do we want Russian forces to be and where do we want Ukrainian and potentially NATO forces to be?"

Another repercussion may be an onslaught of arms races. Russia's alleged deployment of hypersonic missiles—a technology the U.S. has not yet mastered—is an area of competition, but Pavel says it's not the only one.

"Putin has spent 10, 15 years modernizing the Russian nuclear forces — a lot of new types of exotic Russian nuclear weapons, pretty significant," he said. "Certainly, the U.S. and some NATO members have nuclear capabilities, but they are aging. They have not been modernized at the pace that we should be doing."

"All of this means that we'll have we'll have a lot more to do, unfortunately, on the security agenda going forward," Pavel added.

[BobDobbs]

5 hours ago, Stryder1978 said:

I couldn't agree less!  There is no unified coalition against Putin's aggression by NATO.  Just words.....well, if he uses chemical weapons, well. if he invades a NATO country....etc.  A unified, show of force while he was piling up troops along the border would have given him pause.  But no, all he got from the West was words and weak sanctions that he was warned about well ahead of time so Vlad the Invader and his rich cronies could adjust their finances to avoid the brunt of those.

And if Vlad was insane enough to start WWII, it wouldn't last long judging by how well he's doing against just Ukraine's military might!  And no, I don't think nukes would be involved.

BTW, I thought Russia got rid of all their chemical weapons per the Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty by 2017 and it was just the USA that still had 6% of it's stockpile left!     

 

So you would gamble with nuclear war? Well, I guess it is a god thing your not in charge otherwise we might all be glowing in the dark but hey, at least the Russkies would be out of Ukraine. Because Ukraine and the rest of the world would be an uninhabitable wasteland.

[BobDobbs]

4 hours ago, Bong-Man said:

If this situation wasn't so serious, I would call it quite fun watching the entertainment right squirm for a position on events in the Ukraine.  They can't agree with the President, so they're left with two losing hands they're quite willing to play.  They either embrace Putin, or they call for direct NATO involvement with ground troops and a no-fly zone, both losing hands.  A no-fly zone should be called exactly what it really is....a declaration of war against Russia.  Their best attempt at staying neutral is to spend half their time ripping the V.P. because it's safe for ratings.  Unlike Bow-tie Tucker & the blonde female Mr. Ed on Fox, Hannity actually agrees with every move NATO & the President has made.  He just twists his presentation so he can call it all his own.  I watch for the entertainment, not the facts.

Nothing bugs me more than watching the 85-90 year old people in the Ukraine.  They began their lives with this bullshit, and now they're ending their lives the same way.  That's fucked up.  Bury me in a hole with a shoulder rocket and let me take out a tank before I go.         

and let us never forget, the Nazi's did NOT start WWII by themselves. It was BOTH the Soviet Union and Germany who started WWII by jointly invading Poland. As soon as we defeated Germany we should have invaded the Soviet Union, taken out Stalin and ALL the Bolsheviks who supported him, and installed a democratic republic govt. and then immediately held elections. The Soviets were just as bad as the Nazi's, no real difference whatsoever. Of course lets not forget Stalin's manufactured famine which killed between 3.5 - 5 million Ukrainians. Gee, I wonder why the Ukrainian's hate Russia.

It is obvious Russia should have been treated the same as both Germany & Japan post-WWII but since they were not, this is what we get today.

[redrum]

 It was BOTH the Soviet Union and Germany who started WWII by jointly invading Poland. 

Poor Poland. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

[SteveAJones]

18 hours ago, rm2551 said:

The biggest takeaway for me from this event is NATO and even the domestic US political sphere really was far more united, and very quickly.

That's because taking down Putin is absolutely essential to The Great Reset.

[SteveAJones]

7 hours ago, BobDobbs said:

It is obvious Russia should have been treated the same as both Germany & Japan post-WWII but since they were not, this is what we get today.

General George Patton and General Douglas MacArthur wanted to do so. President Harry Truman, a DEMOCRAT, refused to do so.  

[rm2551]

1 hour ago, SteveAJones said:

That's because taking down Putin is absolutely essential to The Great Reset.

Globalist ambition? Not sure what that is. I say the primary reason is just what a cunt (and threat) Putin is and what a cunt-act he has unleashed. Anything else is secondary. Putin has finally made NATO wake up from their 50 year strategic slumber. Hopefully they are actually awake, and not "all words" like usual.

[Stryder1978]

4 hours ago, rm2551 said:

Globalist ambition? Not sure what that is. I say the primary reason is just what a cunt (and threat) Putin is and what a cunt-act he has unleashed. Anything else is secondary. Putin has finally made NATO wake up from their 50 year strategic slumber. Hopefully they are actually awake, and not "all words" like usual.

judging from their actions so far, they appear more "awoke" than awake.

[Stryder1978]

And all you libs that believe NATO taking an aggressive stand against Vlad the Invader will result in an all out nuclear war can have my share of potassium iodide tablets free of charge. 

[BobDobbs]

10 hours ago, SteveAJones said:

That's because taking down Putin is absolutely essential to The Great Reset.

C'mon Steve, you know that's nonsense. If you ever want to get at the heart of the matter just follow the money, its generally all about the money. The Great Reset, there simply is no money in it. Look at the state of things, the corporations are milking us dry, squeezing until thee is nothing left. People buying 60k vehicles and 800k houses on credit, thinking they have the world on a string and not understanding they are little more than wage slaves. That is how the powers that be like it. We have built our own cages and fashioned our own golden chains and people actually think they are free. 

Just because the cage & chains are gold does not make them any less a prison. The corporations run things for the most part. On occasion you get a nutter like Putin who has amassed so much money that he only cares about his legacy, to be remembered as the second Ivan the Terrible. That is the one factor the corporate leaders never take into account. The leader of a nuclear state who decides to go rogue, off script. 

[cryingbluerain]

Can't say I disagree with this..

US Policy in Ukraine Dumb and Dumber - Antiwar.com Blog

"So while Russia’s war is illegal, immoral and criminal, dumb US policies played a major provocation. Poke the beehive long enough, the bees will eventually attack."

[BobDobbs]

48 minutes ago, cryingbluerain said:

Can't say I disagree with this..

US Policy in Ukraine Dumb and Dumber - Antiwar.com Blog

"So while Russia’s war is illegal, immoral and criminal, dumb US policies played a major provocation. Poke the beehive long enough, the bees will eventually attack."

Please, enough of this. It could not be more black and white. Ukraine did nothing against Russia. Russia invaded a sovereign nation with zero provocation, and did it AFTER Zalinskyy stated Ukraine would not seek admittance into NATO which was "supposedly" Putin's reason for aggression. 

I believe the US wars in Vietnam, Iraq, & Afghanistan were just as illegal and just as unjustified as Putin's invasion of the Ukraine. This nonsense has got to stop.

[redrum]

[SteveAJones]

13 hours ago, BobDobbs said:

C'mon Steve, you know that's nonsense. If you ever want to get at the heart of the matter just follow the money, its generally all about the money. The Great Reset, there simply is no money in it. Look at the state of things, the corporations are milking us dry, squeezing until thee is nothing left. People buying 60k vehicles and 800k houses on credit, thinking they have the world on a string and not understanding they are little more than wage slaves. That is how the powers that be like it. We have built our own cages and fashioned our own golden chains and people actually think they are free. 

Just because the cage & chains are gold does not make them any less a prison. The corporations run things for the most part. On occasion you get a nutter like Putin who has amassed so much money that he only cares about his legacy, to be remembered as the second Ivan the Terrible. That is the one factor the corporate leaders never take into account. The leader of a nuclear state who decides to go rogue, off script. 

The Great Reset promotes even greater corporate control.

In June 2020, at its 50th annual meeting, the WEF announced the Great Reset’s official launch, and a month later Schwab and Malleret published their book on COVID and the Great Reset. The book declared that COVID represents an “opportunity [that] can be seized”; that “we should take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to reimagine our world”; that “the moment must be seized to take advantage of this unique window of opportunity”; and that “[f]or those fortunate enough to find themselves in industries ‘naturally’ resilient to the pandemic”—think here of Big Tech companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon—“the crisis was not only more bearable, but even a source of profitable opportunities at a time of distress for the majority.” 

The Great Reset aims to usher in a bewildering economic amalgam—Schwab’s stakeholder capitalism—which I have called “corporate socialism” and Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has called “communist capitalism.” 

In brief, stakeholder capitalism involves the behavioral modification of corporations to benefit not shareholders, but stakeholders—individuals and groups that stand to benefit or lose from corporate behavior. Stakeholder capitalism requires not only corporate responses to pandemics and ecological issues such as climate change, “but also rethinking  [corporations’] commitments to already-vulnerable communities within their ecosystems.” This is the “social justice” aspect of the Great Reset. To comply with that, governments, banks, and asset managers use the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) index to squeeze non-woke corporations and businesses out of the market. The ESG index is essentially a social credit score that is used to drive ownership and control of production away from the non-woke or non-compliant. 

What Is the Great Reset? - Imprimis (hillsdale.edu)

[BobDobbs]

30 minutes ago, SteveAJones said:

The Great Reset promotes even greater corporate control.

In June 2020, at its 50th annual meeting, the WEF announced the Great Reset’s official launch, and a month later Schwab and Malleret published their book on COVID and the Great Reset. The book declared that COVID represents an “opportunity [that] can be seized”; that “we should take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to reimagine our world”; that “the moment must be seized to take advantage of this unique window of opportunity”; and that “[f]or those fortunate enough to find themselves in industries ‘naturally’ resilient to the pandemic”—think here of Big Tech companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon—“the crisis was not only more bearable, but even a source of profitable opportunities at a time of distress for the majority.” 

The Great Reset aims to usher in a bewildering economic amalgam—Schwab’s stakeholder capitalism—which I have called “corporate socialism” and Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has called “communist capitalism.” 

In brief, stakeholder capitalism involves the behavioral modification of corporations to benefit not shareholders, but stakeholders—individuals and groups that stand to benefit or lose from corporate behavior. Stakeholder capitalism requires not only corporate responses to pandemics and ecological issues such as climate change, “but also rethinking  [corporations’] commitments to already-vulnerable communities within their ecosystems.” This is the “social justice” aspect of the Great Reset. To comply with that, governments, banks, and asset managers use the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) index to squeeze non-woke corporations and businesses out of the market. The ESG index is essentially a social credit score that is used to drive ownership and control of production away from the non-woke or non-compliant. 

What Is the Great Reset? - Imprimis (hillsdale.edu)

Damn, that's just dumb 🤪

[Electrophile]

The simple joy of being able to open your windows and let fresh spring air inside cannot be overstated.

[redrum]

5 hours ago, Electrophile said:

The simple joy of being able to open your windows and let fresh spring air inside cannot be overstated.

Just doing that now with the weather warming up a bit. I put the screen in the window and the cats love it. 

 

[rm2551]

What to listen to tonight? What song specifically. I think a beast No Quarter. I don't think I'll top the few OTHAFA versions I recently listened to.

maybe some random songs from the great sounding SB's of the '75 Us tour.

[chillumpuffer]

Shut the fuck up Biden. 

[cryingbluerain]

1 hour ago, chillumpuffer said:

Shut the fuck up Biden. 

 Never underestimate Dementia Joe's ability to screw things up.

Macron is criticizing Biden for calling Putin “a butcher”. The French president says it’s not constructive.

“I would not use that kind of language. If a ceasefire is to be brokered, we must not escalate — neither through words nor actions.”

'We Can't Escalate' – Macron Criticises Biden's Anti-Putin Rhetoric (breitbart.com)

DEMENTIA JOE RISKS WW3 AS HE CALLS FOR REGIME CHANGE IN RUSSIA – The Phaser

 

 

 

[redrum]

3 hours ago, chillumpuffer said:

Shut the fuck up Biden. 

😄

[redrum]

I'd love to go to New York's central park to see all the different statues and fountains. That, and walk on the Brooklyn Bridge. Or, as Joe Pesci calls it: Da' Brooklyn Britch.   Been watching the old 'Naked City' series that's filmed on location in NYC. 

[Plant77]

On 3/25/2022 at 6:24 AM, Electrophile said:

The simple joy of being able to open your windows and let fresh spring air inside cannot be overstated.

You got that right. What a wonderful time of year.