Posted on 02/13/2025 8:43:19 PM PST by marcusmaximus
Russians, otoh, are just being sent to Ukraine to die.
I don’t see their fight as noble. It just looks stupid to me and none of the reasons, excuses or justifications for Vlad’s invading Ukraine make any sense to me.
It’s a foolish waste of people, resources and good will.
It makes sense because they've been mistreated under Russian rule for centuries.
Now they have a taste of actual freedom.
They may not be able to get all of their territories back but they still have 80% of the country and they get to hold on to Odessa.
Now they just need to figure out a way to protect themselves against a future invasion. After this war ends.
The dead Ukrainians died defending their country.
That is honorable, indeed there is very little more honorable than that.
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods.
Americans, and most people, honor their courageous dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_National_Cemetery
Liars gonna lie.
“ hat annexation was recognized by North Korea. North Korea!!!
“Every square inch of it belongs to Ukraine.
“Liberate Alchevsk !!!! Death to the invaders !!!!
……………
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This opinion of yours is one of the hysterias of this age.
Its a narrative that ignores all other, usually more ancient narratives, the most ancient of which is blood and soil - see “Horatius”, Macaulay.
Milei did not depend on “Rules-Based International Order” complaints to win. You may not understand that because you haven’t actually listened to Milei - you don’t understand Spanish. But I’ll help you - here is his Davos speech in English. He is and has always been channeling Milton Friedman “Free to Choose”, 1980.
“We are here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems afflicting the citizens of the world, but rather — on the contrary — are their cause. Believe me, there is no one better than we Argentines to testify to these two issues. When we adopted the model of freedom — back in 1860 — in 35 years we became the world’s leading power, while when we embraced collectivism, over the last 100 years, we saw how our citizens began to systematically impoverish themselves, until they fell to 140th in the world.”
That is, his argument is a throwback to an old narrative. In US terms it is that of Ronald Reagan.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/javiermileiworldeconomicforum54.htm
The two statements (Hegseth vs. Vance) reflect two different situations.
Hegseth was saying US troops would not be sent to enforce a cease fire or DMZ.(1)
Vance is holding out a threat of military action if Pooty won’t negotiate in good faith.(2)
1) Sending US troops to enforce a cease fire or DMZ would be incredibly unpopular, and would implode Trump and MAGA from within. That no-go is of course a huge problem, and faced by many potential countries that could be tapped for the job. Not that there are a lot anyway. If you chop out of the list countries that would be unacceptable to either Russia or Ukraine, you’ve over halved the list. Then remove countries with low-competence militaries, their own problems, lack of manpower (this is going to take a lot of manpower), and so on. Who won’t run if things get dicey? The history on that one sure isn’t any good...
I see no solution to the problem of neutral manning of a DMZ with remotely near the numbers of troops needed. Who the hell would want to be in that position, anyway? We’d be basically setting up an Eastern Euro variation of the Palestinian problem, on a far larger scale. Some Ukrainians will NEVER accept a loss of Eastern Ukraine, and, with access to good technology, stealthy AI drones, etc... Even a well equipped 200k strong peacekeeping force (Z-Man’s number) will have its hands full. Somebody tell me where this force will come from?
2) Indeed, Trump has previously said he’d flood Ukraine with weapons if Pooty wouldn’t deal, which is a far better option than troops, or even air / missile strikes against Russian forces inside Ukraine, in that situation. Best, IMO, in that event, would be to ask Congress for a large amount of discretionary weapons support - that is, the weapons will essentially be ok’d for sending, but, the President is not obliged to send them. Hopefully Pooty would smell the roses. (”Vlad, we have 300 F-16’s set aside to prep, and 300 volunteer [mercenary] pilots. I don’t want to send them, but...”)
Trump has a quite large amount of funding already appropriated by Congress to initially draw from, as around half the support appropriated has never actually been disbursed(!), and some of that has not been obligated — it appears to be mired in the bureaucracy, essentially.
https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/
(As of 9/30/2024)
Russia and China were agitators in the Korean War and Vietnam. We were fighting against them both and the North Koreans in the 50's, and against them and the North Vietnamese in the mid 50's, 60's, and 70's.
Good cop...bad cop routine.
You do realize that over 8 million Russians live in Ukraine, don't you?
Worked great in the 1980’s.
The Reagan strategy destroyed the Soviet Union (now Russia), and kept it a minor problem until Western investment and tech management gave Putin an energy industry with which he could finance Soviet Union II.
Yep.
A long tradition.
You are implying I will be ejected from FR for quoting Macaulay?
Now THAT is a stylish (and very ironic) way to go!
Any “delegation of Polish historians” in Moscow these days aren’t likely to be the sort of characters enjoying much respect in Poland.
“There are no such tells from these though.”
Says the guy who was “almost” an American. Har har.
Almost naturalized.
The consensus here though is once a foreigner always a foreigner. With such as you nobody can win.
We are enemies on sight, on detection. Sadly you insist on that. So be it.
I will be in the US April-May. I doubt I will run into anything like you weirdos. IRL I have better taste, it seems. But who knows.
In terms of behavior, it’s Russia version XLVII.
Or something like that. (It’s kinda hard to decide where to draw the line on the significance & power of the various rulers. A swing of +/- 20 is easily justified.)
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