Posted on 03/21/2022 12:02:44 PM PDT by standing man
VANITY I am a long time lurker and occasional poster. I consider Free Republic to be one of the most informative sites available, but I find myself confused with the direction of commentary regarding Russia and the Ukriane. The media, the democrats, George Soros,the UN, the World economic forum. ALL either have LIED to us continually for the last four years or are actively involved in planning the destruction of our nation. At the Risk of being called a putinista or putard I have to ask the question. Why do we accept as fact the narrative that we are being fed by the msm? This link is not the hill I am willing to die on but it does present an alternative point of view worth considering https://burningbright.substack.com Stand Tall Brad
Putin asked to join NATO.
***Hmmmmm, that adds a wrinkle to the discussion.
Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule
This article is more than 4 months old
George Robertson recalls Russian president did not want to wait in line with ‘countries that don’t matter’
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin said in 2000 that he ‘cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world’.
Thu 4 Nov 2021 01.00 EDT
Vladimir Putin wanted Russia to join Nato but did not want his country to have to go through the usual application process and stand in line “with a lot of countries that don’t matter”, according to a former secretary general of the transatlantic alliance.
George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2003, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said.
The Labour peer recalled an early meeting with Putin, who became Russian president in 2000. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”
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The account chimes with what Putin told the late David Frost in a BBC interview shortly before he was first inaugurated as Russian president more than 21 years ago. Putin told Frost he would not rule out joining Nato “if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner”.
He told Frost it was hard for him to visualise Nato as an enemy. “Russia is part of the European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world.”
Lord Robertson’s comments on the One Decision podcast, which is presented by Michelle Kosinski, a former CNN journalist, and Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of M16, underscore how Putin’s worldview has evolved during his 21 years of unbroken rule of Russia.
After the Orange Revolution street protests in Ukraine in 2004, Putin became increasingly suspicious of the west, which he blamed for funding pro-democracy NGOs. He was further angered by Nato’s continuing expansion into central and eastern Europe: Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania chose to join the alliance in 2004; Croatia and Albania followed in 2009. Georgia and Ukraine were promised membership in 2008 but have remained outside.
Robertson also recalled how he became the first and only Nato secretary general to invoke Nato’s collective defence clause, known as article five, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Invoking article five was “a gamble” and it was far from a foregone conclusion that Nato members would reach for it after a terrorist attack, he said, noting it was “designed for an attack by the Soviet Union across the Fulda Gap in Germany”.
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Some Nato allies were uneasy about invoking the collective defence clause to support the US, fearing it would give George W Bush’s administration a licence to invade Iraq. Robertson recalled one minister asking him: “‘Does this mean we’re giving them a blank check to invade Iraq?’ We said: ‘No, it’s not.’”
The Scottish former minister also revealed how the historic decision to invoke article five nearly went awry. The day after the 11 September attacks, Robertson was due to attend a routine meeting of EU foreign ministers. Anxious not to upstage the EU by calling for article five, he asked a couple of friendly foreign ministers – Jack Straw of the UK and Louis Michel of Belgium – to ask a question that gave him an opening to discuss it. But neither minister asked the question. “So I left, and afterwards there was a bit of bad blood and they said I should have announced it. But I said: ‘Well, I was going to announce it, but nobody asked the question.’”
After the 9/11 attacks, many Nato allies joined the US in invading Afghanistan, with Nato taking over the mission command in 2003.
Robertson said he urged the late US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to keep US forces in Afghanistan alongside Nato allies after the Taliban’s military defeat. He warned Rumsfeld he would denounce any US withdrawal as unacceptable. “So he [Rumsfeld] got a bit upset at that point, and I said: ‘No, … you’re not going to say we did the cooking, you can clean up the dishes.’ I said: ‘That’s not it. We went in together, and we’re staying in together.’”
He was critical of the US’s chaotic withdrawal two months ago, but contended that the 20-year long mission of western military forces made a difference, despite the return of the Taliban. “We’ve left a legacy there that these theological hoodlums are not going to be easily unravelling. And I think that Afghanistan in the future will be a very different place.”
I would prefer we (the US) stay out of this. There are good points on each side. Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk all want to secede. Up to 50% of Ukrainians have pro-Russian sympathies. It’s not black and white. Then again, Putin may indeed be evil to the core. It’s not our fight.
For the same reason the first invasion happened under obambam: Putin perceives them to be weak. He was right about obambam. He’s probably right about Biden.
Trump is the only candidate who has any real idea how to bust up the deep state.
Go back to Euwetopia.
Biden is too stupid to know he's in it up to his neck.
Unfortunately, the dumbass has told Pooty-Poot everything Biden wouldn't do which has greenlighted everything Putin has done.
Joe Bidens incompetence and inability to be strategically vague to keep our enemies guessing is precisely why the world is on fire right now.
That and the 81,000,000 (alleged) voters that are DUMBASSES and "voted" for him.
Preach!
If you opened up a GoFundMe account to send me to Ukraine, I would go. I would help them build their own nukes because, after all, the Budapest Agreement is obviously null and void.
And the Ukes would blow up maybe 1 Russian tank column in Russia as a demo, demanding that every last Russian submit to blue helmets and walk home with only the clothes on their backs and 3 days’ food supply. Any sabotaging of weaponry would be met with long prison sentences.
So... you’re saying “Soros, the media, the Globalists, the Derp State, the Sodomarchy, and countless other bad groups, bad guys and bad actors” are on my side, that they agree with me?
YEP they ALL agree with you, YOU are on the wrong side of this sorry but you are!!!
Putin didn’t invade over ideology or corruption. This is about oil. The Russians weren’t even interested in western Ukraine until oil was found there. Their interest is simply in raping that country. Russia gets 60% of its revenues from oil exports. Europe gets 40% of their oil from Russia.
In 2012 massive oil and gas reserves were found in Crimea. Crimea signed a $10 billion exploration contracts with Shell and Chevron to develop the new found oil and gas fields. These oil and gas products would compete in Europe with Russia’s oil and gas, reducing Russia’s oil revenues, which we recall amount to 60% of their total GDP. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, cancelling the contracts with Shell and Chevron.
But Ukraine still had massive reserves in, you guessed it, Donetsk and Luhansk, and other areas East of the Dnieper River. In 2019, Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine, and soon after Ukraine awarded exploration contracts to a consortium of U.S. oil companies. Again, these oil reserves would compete in Europe with Russian oil, so Putin is invading Ukraine to shut down this latest attempt to extract Ukrainian oil and sell it in competition with Russian oil.
This explanation makes more sense to me than the “Putin feels threatened by NATO expansion” excuses for the invasion.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4044221/posts?page=1#1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmdSzVFSKc
If the Ukes allow some small region in the west to be its own republic, but the OIL belongs to Ukraine, do ya think Pootypoot would allow that? Nope.
Biden stated “an incursion or two”.
Putin is going to define “incursion” to this idiot administration.
I will put it on my list and prioritize accordingly.
Building a “Nuke” is hard work.
I would prefer we (the US) stay out of this.
***I have the same preference. But we stuck our nose into it when we enabled the Ukes to give up their Nukes.
There are good points on each side.
***One side invaded the other. That kinda negates this stick-to-the-middle approach.
Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk all want to secede.
***DId they want to do so before the Ukes gave up their nukes and the rukes started meddling in their affairs as soon as oil was discovered there? Probably not.
Up to 50% of Ukrainians have pro-Russian sympathies.
***Well now that’s interestin’ seein’ as how 69% of Ukes wanted to join NATO.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-nato-idUSKBN19V12V
It’s not black and white.
***The thing about grey is that when you look at it real closely, like under a magnifying glass or a microscope, what you see is... specks of black and white.
Then again, Putin may indeed be evil to the core.
***Sure he is. And Zelenskyy is a corrupt idiot. When you find yourself issuing pablum, you need to go up and look at things from 40,000 feet.
It’s not our fight.
***We made it our fight when we stripped the Ukes of their Nukes in that Budapest Agreement.
You can’t even defend your side. You have no discernment.
Fascinating. If all those folks agree with me then there will be a nuke plume over Moscow within a week.
Any 3rd year physics student could do it. The A-Bomb Kid did it within 1 semester in his dorm room.
Mushroom: The story of the A-bomb kid
https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-bomb-John-Aristotle-Phillips/dp/0688033512
It isn’t our fight Kevmo.
Yup. If the RINO’s and the left are FOR something then it ultimately has to end up being harmful to the values we hold. In the past I would have said “the values we hold as Americans” but that ship has sailed. American values are now what the left decides.
The side you think threw the first punch say the other side attacked them first over the last several years. At least thats what has been said.
***It’s amazing how bullies change their stories when they’re confronted with video of the event.
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