This war is a balancing act and it takes an immense amount of research to comb through the lies, propaganda, and deceit from both sides.
I believe we are not being told the truth for a variety of reasons.
Does this mean Washington DC gets toasted?
Let’s hope so. I’m getting tired of watching this communist takeover of the entire planet.
Why on earth would any one think that Putin’s fall would result in an improvement in Russian leadership? All these fools seem to be convinced that the next guy will be, what? A civil libertarian peacenik?
For sixty years nuclear war was too horrible to even contemplate. Now we see the talking head class in DC denigrating Russian nuclear capabilities and casually strategizing the waging of WWIII. Both wings of the Uniparty are fighting to lead on this road to Armageddon.
* On October 1, 2002, Applebaum wrote an article for Slate entitled, "You Can’t Assume a Nut Will Act Rationally," in which she argued that Saddam Hussein is not a rational agent in a manner comparable to Adolf Hitler.
She supported the Iraq War.
* Applebaum endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president in July 2016 on the grounds that Trump is "a man who appears bent on destroying the alliances that preserve international peace and American power".
No comment needed.
* Applebaum has underlined the danger of a new "Nationalist International", a union of xenophobic, nationalist parties such as Law and Justice in Poland, the Northern League in Italy, and the Freedom Party in Austria.
* Opposes nationalism -- as least for the U.S. and Europe.
* In January 2022, Applebaum was invited to testify before the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearing entitled "Bolstering Democracy in the Age of Rising Authoritarianism".
Sticking a knife into the January 6the protestors.
* Applebaum is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy and Renew Democracy Initiative. She was a member of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting's International Board of Directors. She was a Senior Adjunct Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) where she co-led a major initiative aimed at countering Russian disinformation in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). She was on the editorial board for The American Interest and the Journal of Democracy.
Respectable Neocon credentials. If you find Neocons respectable.
The writer enjoins us to ask ourselves what the west is defending. A very good question.
Remember when the left and the leftwing Atlantic were all about peace and peace protests? The left is a caricature of themselves, and they are hypocrites to their very core. The left has absolutely no moral compass. They simply adjust their morals to fill their need for power and control.
We are a sanctuary city, unless they come in our backyard.
Money in politics is evil, unless we can benefit from it.
Diversity is our strength, just not in our neighborhood.
Nixon is bad. The spying that Obama did was justified.
Trump is a danger because of the documents he took. “You mean wipe the server with a cloth?”
One thing very certain about the coming years in that region. There is nothing like an invasion for creating a near permanent ‘bad blood’ between countries. For proof, look to Finland’s view of Russia which, has a large basis on the Russo-Finish wars of 1939 and 1945.
This being said, think of the probable drawn-out cold war between the Ukraine and Putin’s desired revanche of Imperial Russia. Much of the European-Russia trade now goes through Ukraine. Much of the rest goes via shipping through Finland and the Baltic countries. Each of these are, for equal bad past history, are unfriends to Russia.
Essentially, southeast Europe aka The Balkans, has been a flash-point of armed clashes for a couple of centuries. Now, the Russian border states are being added as ANOTHER set of conflict points, are they not? AND, of course, Russia’s military performance against this much smaller opponent shows a weakness that is suboptimal for peaceful trade over the coming years.
NOTE: This is NOT A GOOD THING for anybody in that region. I am reminded of “The Guns of August” and how it was the very long-simmering antagonisms of the Ottoman Empire advance & retreat in the Balkans that made the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir in 1914 such a break point for the fall into WW1. Germany readily aligned with Austro-Hungary & the Ottomans (Central Powers) [CP] while Imperial Russia, smarting from the loss to Japan in the 1903 Russo-Japanese War, aligned itself with Serbia, Greece, Italy, France and Great Britain to oppose what was being demanded by the CP opponents.
If we take today and apply the WW1 template, there is the NATO coalition, created as a bulwark against the expansionist Soviet Union & Stalin in post-WW2 era. Then there is the Putin Russia that looks to restore the Imperial Russia of pre-WW1. In this effort, Putin is aligning with China, Iran and even old enemy Turkey (Crimean War). Why do I picture a large barrel of gunpowder and self-inflated people marching around it with cigarettes and waving their hands to boot!
The past is frequently a prologue to the future! Any battle with these opponents will involve a minimum of 4 recognized nuclear powers and probably more unrecognized but nuclear capable powers. One nightmare scenario that some thriller writer could flesh out; A firefight starts at the Russian non-contiguous enclave of Kaliningrad and everybody freezes waiting to see what happens next. With that news for world headlines, Iran thinks that this might be the best time to slap at Israel with ballistic missiles. Israel, seeing the trajectory on its radars, launches a counter strike with its own missiles. Both countries are known to be nuclear capable but neither wants to be first use. Saudi Arabia signals its intent to ready its nuclear forces against any provocation. Pakistan, declares itself an ally of Iran for now and makes aggressive noises about using its own nukes. India quickly responds publicly and in the UN about rabid rhetoric and children lighting matches in the powder magazine.
Wait a minute. It was just a couple weeks ago that there were posts here on FR by pro-Russia FReepers that the PTB were distancing themselves from this guy, and that they did not subscribe to his extremism. Hell, there is also suspicion that the bomb that killed his daughter was actually intended for him, and that it was the work of Kremlin insiders.
Back in 1970, early in my USAF days, one of the first things instilled in us was the threat of “Rumors and Propaganda.”
It is indeed coming
30-45 minutes after the first button is pushed the regret will be huge.
And that bell can’t be unrung.
✝️🙏🛐
Oh please. This is just the apocalyptic rantings of a losing Russian side. The vodka-swilling Russian populace will just carry on and then follow their new leadership once Putin is removed.