War in Ukraine

[SteveAJones]

15 hours ago, ScarletMacaw said:

Apparently SteveAJones likes Putin because Putin has fashioned himself as a gangsta in a music video. This is an example of the decline of western cultural standards. There is exactly one thing that Putin is right about, and that is that the West has been experiencing a cultural decline. Our pop culture for the last 30 years has been worshipping criminals and whores. But that doesn't mean our military still isn't the best in the world, nor does it mean our democracy is failing even though it has deep flaws. In fact this war in Ukraine has reminded me of the ways in which I'm still proud to be an American. Congress and the President have pulled themselves together and at least temporarily pushed aside their partisan bickering in order to help defend our allies, Europe in general and democracy. So many people I know are devoting their time to helping the Ukrainians. It goes to show that most Americans share the same values, and the two political parties have to manufacture bogus issues to drive us apart.

We're coming out of the pandemic in much better shape than China, despite all the temper tantrums about mask-wearing. We're much more energy-independent than Europe. We are a net exporter of food. Our political system has stood for over 200 years. Despite a Hollywood culture that exalts materialism, conspicuous consumption, misogyny and the lowest elements of our culture, we're going to be around long after Russia and China collapse. 

It's not that I like Putin, it's that I like him so much more than bloated EU bureaucrats who are accountable to no one. Putin never insists I must give up my air conditioning, my cars and my way of life. As for the music video, it's simply entertaining. It reminds me of some of the limo scenes in Pink Floyd's The Wall.

[SteveAJones]

5 hours ago, ScarletMacaw said:

As Russia has now bombed railways as well as hospitals, and has put land mines in farms, it does not look like they are particularly interested in preserving Ukrainian infrastructure. It's interesting because in WWII, many Japanese soldiers died because they had devastated the areas they invaded and there was no food. 

Seizing the capital first made sense politically and strategically up until the West stuck their nose into this conflict to aid and abet Ukraine. It's clear Russia's strategy then changed from the tried and true "cut the head off the snake" to "divide and conquer". If Russia takes the Donbass this war is all but over.

[redrum]

Like to know how much ended up in Russia. 

In the early 1960s, specialized Cuban government teams sealed the homes of wealthy exiles and took away paintings, antiques and jewelry. Some of the goods, such as one of the world’s largest collections of Napoleonic memorabilia that was amassed by sugar baron Julio Lobo, were housed in Cuban museums where they remain. The Cuban government says it now owns works like that because they were abandoned.

"Abandoned"

😄

 

[JohnOsbourne]

Remember this stupidity:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/style/kony-2012-invisible-children.html

It was a test run, it seems.

[ScarletMacaw]

7 hours ago, redrum said:

Like to know how much ended up in Russia. 

In the early 1960s, specialized Cuban government teams sealed the homes of wealthy exiles and took away paintings, antiques and jewelry. Some of the goods, such as one of the world’s largest collections of Napoleonic memorabilia that was amassed by sugar baron Julio Lobo, were housed in Cuban museums where they remain. The Cuban government says it now owns works like that because they were abandoned.

"Abandoned"

😄

 

WTF does this have to do with anything on this thread? Start your own thread to talk about Cuba. 

[JohnOsbourne]

27 minutes ago, JohnOsbourne said:

Remember this stupidity:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/style/kony-2012-invisible-children.html

It was a test run, it seems.

Exact same MO:

Kony 2012: don't be fooled (newstatesman.com)

[redrum]

19 minutes ago, ScarletMacaw said:

WTF does this have to do with anything on this thread? Start your own thread to talk about Cuba. 

But, but, but......The Russians love Cuba. They really are partners in crime. 

[rm2551]

 

[ScarletMacaw]

From the Wall Street Journal today:

"When Russian tanks were shelling the nuclear core at the Zaporozhskaya power plant with live rounds, not all of the shells exploded because they were too old and decrepit. This story, told to me by Piotr Kotin, head of the company that owns the plant, is a metaphor for Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.... 

The incompetent and corrupt Russian army blundered into this war. Soldiers picked the wrong roads. Broken tanks littered the thoroughfares well before contact with the enemy: mired in mud, out of fuel and, above all, lost. In the 21st century, with satellites dotting the sky, the Russian army was using outdated Soviet paper charts with towns that had changed names and roads that no longer existed.

Why weren’t Russian troops using the Global Positioning System or its Russian counterpart, Glonass? It seems, among other things, that the Russian army fell victim to its own propaganda. Before the war, Mr. Putin had been fascinated with the acquisition of new weapons. Among the most important were electronic countermeasures, or ECM. They were supposed to be a game-changer that could be used to black out GPS, disrupt communications, and take over drones or deliberately crash them into the ground.

---

ECM units were indeed marching with all Russian columns as they entered Ukraine. But they didn’t work as planned. Instead of knocking Turkish drones out of the skies, the ECM units blacked out all communications, including the Russian army’s. “This is the problem of ECM. It either isn’t working, or, when it’s working, it’s wrecking your side much more than the enemy’s,” says Victor Kevluk, a military expert with Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies.

The Russian army blinded itself on foreign land, while the Ukrainians knew their way in the dark. So instead of relying on new technology, the Russians turned to an old tactic: mass terror. Russian soldiers raped Ukrainian women and executed Ukrainian men. Mariupol is being razed to the ground. Former Ukrainian General Staff Col. Oleg Zhdanov vividly described to me in an interview how, in Berezovka, “the dug-in tanks made a shooting range with fleeing civilian cars as targets.”

The mass terror was the direct consequence of mass lying, for it is easier to expend ammunition on a bunch of fleeing civilians than to engage a real military target. Even the looting has become organized. Ruslan Leviev, founder of the open-source-based Conflict Intelligence Team, claimed in an interview that soldiers are driving stolen cars laden with loot to Russia to sell them on improvised markets, and they pay part of the proceeds to their officers....

How did Mr. Putin think he could win this war? The answer has to do with state delusion. It is easy to mistake Russia for a military state. It isn’t. It’s true that the Russian state is run by siloviki (roughly translated as “the enforcers”), but those strongmen are from the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, not the army.

Mr. Putin, himself a former KGB officer, has long been highly suspicious of a possible army coup. The incompetence of the Russian military is at least partly intentional—designed to reinforce that the FSB, not the army, was in charge of running Russian society. The FSB and its political allies told Mr. Putin what he wanted to hear: namely, that Russia had an extensive network of sympathizers in Ukraine who would hand the country to him on a platter...."

Ms. Latynina was a journalist with Echo of Moscow and Novaya Gazeta, Russian press outlets that have been shut down during Russia’s war with Ukraine.

[JohnOsbourne]

This is just sad:

'A huge demand': Ukrainian women train to clear landmines | AP News

Nothing quite says "winning" like sending 20 year old teachers to clear land mines.  Unless of course, the war you're primarily fighting is a propaganda war.

[redrum]

1 hour ago, JohnOsbourne said:

This is just sad:

'A huge demand': Ukrainian women train to clear landmines | AP News

Nothing quite says "winning" like sending 20 year old teachers to clear land mines.  Unless of course, the war you're primarily fighting is a propaganda war.

Guess they don't have enough rats to do it. 

[ScarletMacaw]

On 5/1/2022 at 4:42 PM, JohnOsbourne said:

This is just sad:

'A huge demand': Ukrainian women train to clear landmines | AP News

Nothing quite says "winning" like sending 20 year old teachers to clear land mines.  Unless of course, the war you're primarily fighting is a propaganda war.

Huh? The Russians who you support planted those land mines. But you're blaming Ukraine for...having to get rid of them?? 

And why shouldn't women clear land mines? 

You're obviously not sad about those women, because you think it's ok for Russian soldiers to rape and slaughter them. At least try to be consistent. 

[JohnOsbourne]

39 minutes ago, ScarletMacaw said:

Huh? The Russians who you support planted those land mines. But you're blaming Ukraine for...having to get rid of them?? 

And why shouldn't women clear land mines? 

You're obviously not sad about those women, because you think it's ok for Russian soldiers to rape and slaughter them. At least try to be consistent. 

Actually you're right:  you should definitely go over there and clear landmines.  

[SteveAJones]

3 hours ago, JohnOsbourne said:

Actually you're right:  you should definitely go over there and clear landmines.  

😄

[redrum]

Russia-Ukraine crisis: Angelina Jolie, Priyanka Chopra, Mark Ruffalo, Jared Leto and other Hollywood stars band together to condemn attack.

But, on the other hand..........

“We both have beards,” Oscar winning director Francis Ford Coppola once said. “We both have power and want to use it for good purposes.” 

Other celebrities who embraced Castro-led Cuba over the years include Danny Glover, Gina Lollobrigida, Ed Asner and Woody Harrelson.

Likewise our own president, Barack Obama, offered a vague statement about Castro’s “accomplishments:” “We know that this moment fills Cubans – in Cuba and in the United States – with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.”

The historical record isn’t as kind to Castro as Obama, Trudeau, or any of the other recollections above may fantasize. As dictator of Cuba for nearly five decades, Castro plunged the country into economic depression, thwarted the God-given rights of his people, brutally murdered dissidents, and turned Cuba into a socialist state under Communist rule. (Don't forget Che). 

Castro to pope: Am I going to heaven?

Pope: 😆

Russia and Cuba. Two peas in a pod. 

[rm2551]

 

[ScarletMacaw]

On 5/2/2022 at 5:44 PM, JohnOsbourne said:

Actually you're right:  you should definitely go over there and clear landmines.  

Funny; today I briefly considered going over to Ukraine as a volunteer driver to shuttle people or supplies, to and from the front or between Ukraine and Europe, as a UK-based group is recruiting. I figured if I can manage the California freeways I'm probably qualified.  Then I remembered that I'm supposed to be getting spinal surgery, and spine problems and being in a war zone don't mix. It's interesting that you obviously think I would never go clear landmines as a volunteer, but in fact it's the kind of thing I would do. I have done volunteer work in a war zone before, although it didn't involve clearing land mines. 

[shnflacwav]

Spine issues from patting yourself on the back?

[ScarletMacaw]

8 hours ago, shnflacwav said:

Spine issues from patting yourself on the back?

I took a look at your history of comments. What an unhappy, miserable person you seem to be. 

[john morrison]

scarlet delighted that the posts of the miserabilists do not deter you 

[redrum]

miserabilists

😆

[shnflacwav]

11 hours ago, ScarletMacaw said:

I took a look at your history of comments. What an unhappy, miserable person you seem to be. 

Really? Because 75% of them are in the beautiful women thread, hardly a miserable subject.

[SteveAJones]

On 5/4/2022 at 9:09 AM, shnflacwav said:

Spine issues from patting yourself on the back?

Well played! Her being a self-aggrandizing virtue signaler aside, she genuinely does seem to care about the war in Ukraine.   

[JohnOsbourne]

[jabe]

1 hour ago, JohnOsbourne said:

That's gotta be Thunberg's old man.