Taking stock of the situation in Ukraine $111 billion and 10 months later

American Thinker ^ | December 31, 2022 | By Rajan Laad

[Kazan]

If you were to ask any Democrat or Republican politician in D.C. about their reasons for supporting Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine, their reductive reply is likely to be ‘to defend freedom and democracy.’

###

Since the beginning of the war, Zelensky applied draconian measures to restrain the press such as threats of criminal prosecution and fines against media outlets and journalists critical of the government.

Zelensky also banned many media outlets claiming they were carrying Russian propaganda. But reports suggest these outlets were merely holding Zelensky accountable. Also, all television channels in Ukraine have been shut down except for the one controlled by Zelensky.

###

To sum it up, Zelensky has total control of every syllable being uttered by the Ukrainian media.

What about Political Opponents?

Weeks after Russia’s intervention, Zelensky imposed martial law to suppress opposition political parties.

Zelensky “temporarily” banned 11 of his political opponents including “The Opposition Platform for Life”, which has 44 seats in Ukraine’s national parliament. The party was accused of, you guessed right, being pro-Kremlin.

###

What about religious freedom in Ukraine?

Earlier this month, Zelenskyy sanctioned personnel within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church claiming they were “affiliated with centers of influence” in Russia.

###

The Church is the largest in Ukraine with about 12,000 parishes.

###

Zelensky is being called the modern Winston Churchill.

Churchill didn’t ban the Labor Party ,or adversarial media outlets, or churches. He used his powers of persuasion to bring people together, not tyrannical, draconian measures.

The Perils

This is much worse than the wastage of $111 billion of your funds.

The war in Ukraine had attracted over twenty thousand foreign fighters, who obviously haven't been vetted. These “fighters” could pilfer advanced weaponry for further use or sell it on the black market. The buyers could be terrorists. Biden’s open borders would allow these arms into the U.S. and could be used against citizens.

[MarMema]

It was in fact exactly a civil war. The east rebelled against the Nazi regime and declared themselves separatists.

Eight years of fighting. East versus west.

Crimea had nothing to do with it.

[MarMema]

No doubt. You are one of many thousands of Americans who have never been to these countries, spoken the languages,
studied the histories, kept up with the news and politics.

Bamm. Small brains believe what the US msm says - Putin is evil, no reason for the invasion. Its all black and white to you who know nothing and have been nowhere.

I tire of you - plural. I pity your families if your thinking and analytical reasoning is always this poor.

I hate that Americans are so dumbed down.

[MarMema]

Again...knows nothing, never been there. Yawn.

Scholars around the world warned of the precedent set by Kosovo. Putin mentioned it an early speech and almost everyone knew exactly what he meant.

Some people get it.

[MarMema]

Here. Some pity on you.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/kosovo-precedent-still-haunting-nato-200771

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/feb/23/thekosovoprecedent

Kosovo is an alarming example of how far interventionists are willing to go to bypass the requirement for a congressional declaration of war. Not only did the Clinton administration bypass Congress in initiating that conflict, it did so in the teeth of a Congressional refusal to endorse an attack on Serbia. Clinton and his supporters insisted that adequate international support was sufficient authorization for U.S. action, even absent congressional approval.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/syria-kosovo-precedent

[BroJoeK]

MarMema: "It was in fact exactly a civil war.
The east rebelled against the Nazi regime and declared themselves separatists.
Eight years of fighting.
East versus west.
Crimea had nothing to do with it."

Those are total lies.
Here's how Wikipedia summarizes 2014:

"Shortly after Yanukovych's overthrow and exile to Russia, pro-Russian unrest erupted in Ukraine's eastern and southern regions.
Simultaneously, unmarked Russian troops moved into Ukraine's Crimea and took control of strategic positions and infrastructure, including government buildings.
Russia soon annexed Crimea after a highly disputed Crimean status referendum.

In April 2014, pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region proclaimed the establishment of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic with considerable but clandestine support from Russia.
Ukrainian attempts in late 2014 to retake separatist-held areas were unsuccessful, leading to a protracted war in Donbas.
Although Russia continued to deny involvement, Russian troops directly participated in the undeclared war."

Here's the truth: there was no "civil war" before Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
Ukrainian Russian separatists were always supported by Russian troops.
It was a Russian invasion masquerading as internal civil war.

Crimea had everything to do with it in 2014.

[jpp113]

Just a heads up - citing to Wikipedia for a proposition completely undermines a poster’s credibility.

[BroJoeK]

MarMema: "You are one of many thousands of Americans who have never been to these countries, spoken the languages, studied the histories, kept up with the news and politics.
Bamm.
Small brains believe what the US msm says - Putin is evil, no reason for the invasion.
Its all black and white to you who know nothing and have been nowhere."

Actually, my history is a bit different.
I served in the US Army and stood guard for three years in West Germany during the Cold War.
In those days the Soviet army was considered superior to ours in both manpower and equipment, not to mention motivation.
Our job was to keep the Russians deterred by maintaining an adequate level of readiness.
We did our jobs and the Russians stayed put.
Ukraine today shows us what could have happened, had we failed back then.

Soon after my service in West Germany ended, Vlad the Pute became a Soviet apparatchik in East Germany.
Ukraine is the old Russian/Soviet Empire reborn.

That's the truth.

MarMema: "I hate that Americans are so dumbed down."

Sorry, FRiend, but you own brain has been fried by Russian propaganda.
You should not be accusing others of your own mental defects.

[BroJoeK]

MarMema: "Scholars around the world warned of the precedent set by Kosovo.
Putin mentioned it an early speech and almost everyone knew exactly what he meant.
Some people get it."

You mean, "Paid Russian propagandists around the world spouted Russian nonsense."
Two conditions invalidated Serbia's claim over Kosovo: 1) Serbs are only 4% of Kosovo's population and 2) Immediately on declaring independence from Yugoslavia, Serbs began persecuting non-Serbs in Kosovo.
Neither condition existed in Ukraine, Russian propaganda notwithstanding.

[BroJoeK]

MarMema: " Not only did the Clinton administration bypass Congress in initiating that conflict, it did so in the teeth of a Congressional refusal to endorse an attack on Serbia.
Clinton and his supporters insisted that adequate international support was sufficient authorization for U.S. action, even absent congressional approval."

Sorry, I can't/won't defend Clinton, or any other Democrat.
But any government forfeits it's "right to rule" whenever it mistreats its citizens, as Serbs did in Kosovo.

None of that happened in Ukraine.

[MarMema]

None of what you have posted here is correct.

Wikipedia is hardly a reference.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1fsMqYqHnN0

The civil war in Ukraine was about Nazis and separatism after the Odessa massacre.

This is a much better explanation for you.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraines-bloody-civil-war-no-end-sight-12509

Additionally you are not making sense. Why would Russia rescuing Crimea (Ukraine removed their water) lead to
Donbass declaring separatist status and civil war, centered on donbass? Many links to support what I am saying.

The tragedy that occurred in Odessa on May 2, 2014, no doubt gave impetus to the escalating political crisis in Ukraine. Many in fact consider it a point of no return that opened the door to a full-out civil war
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2022/05/10/a-witness-recalls-the-2014-odessa-massacre/

https://abcnews.go.com/International/ukraine-teetering-brink-civil-war-violence/story?id=23594278

https://truthout.org/video/is-ukraine-descending-into-civil-war/

On the 26th of May 2014 the Ukrainian Army under command of the newly elected president Petro Poroshenko started waging a war against the people of Donetsk. The Peoples’ Republic of Donetsk declared independence in Ukraine in accordance with valid international law. But the president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is not accepting this independence. He now started a war of terror against the local Ukrainian population in Donetsk and the Donbass region. The Ukrainian Committee for Human Rights is condemning this onslaught on the Ukrainian cities of the Donbass. This lead to dozens of casualties amongst the civil population. We are calling for negotiations.
https://ukraine-human-rights.org/ukrainian-army-and-airforce-waging-war-against-the-people-of-donetsk/

You really are clueless about these parts of the world.
A shame that western media has successfully polluted so many minds. I am not even going to try with Serbia because you are simply regurgitating what you have been told, and you don’t know anything about the 4%, history of Kosovo, or the brutalities in that war.

Just fyi, however, the KLA leader we glorified, who became president of Kosovo, was found to be guilty of drug running, organ harvesting from Serb pows for the black market, bunch more goid stuff.
Yep those Serbs were the bad guys. 😂😂😂
That’s what you were told.

https://news.yahoo.com/kosovo-president-thaci-resigns-war-111207805.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJBmlEXHTFEaVl7Z3rZYLJTiZ_AeOzwKwoxiifdIpwjL9AapY100b29fpQonCJsZx8wHUK7mglDfbrcs32IeDcV4aNHAPgAoFXKemcZMvc0nLVxSRpscOCNZdJa3vQ5fMShlrKTKTI2_7QCcfgfA4-1vb3sRh5s5eAfR2P8ouG2N

We love to pick these complete losers like Zelensky, crack addict, bring them to the white house, and support them in wars against actual good guys that we have demonized to the ignorant believing public...

And people buy the lies.

Its the American way these days. Biden, Clinton, and the Bushes.

[MarMema]

After the US government attacked Yugoslavia, the first act of the Republicans was to take tax cuts off the table (if they were ever really on it). This symbolic gesture underscores a point: when a war is on, the work of liberty is off. For this reason, everyone concerned about freedom must oppose war.

At the outset, Clinton gave reasons for his military intervention. A quick look showed them to be models of the state disinformation we’ve come to expect in wartime.

He said he was dropping bombs to prevent the spread of war. But this is straight out of Orwell. Escalating war does not prevent its spread. It encourages it. It brings about more property destruction, suffering, and death.

He said he wanted to underscore the credibility of Nato. The truth is that Nato has had no credibility since the collapse of the Cold War. The entire world now sees this organization for what it is: a fig leaf for the retention of US military domination of Europe. Nato has become a threat to peace because the US believes Nato must fight wars to preserve US hegemony.

As the war dragged on, Clinton became more expansive. He said the war is about stopping intolerance. The problem, he said, is that the Serbs (read: the embodiment of all evil) were oppressing Albanians (read: morally unimpeachable minorities) because they happen to be born different. Thus, the civics-book version of American civil-rights history is invoked to justify aggression against a civilian population halfway around the world that has never threatened any American citizen.

The actual conflict in Kosovo comes down to this: Serbia believes that the territory belongs to it, and bases this claim on history dating back 600 years. On the other hand, Kosovo is today (as versus a few years ago) inhabited by a majority Moslem population that demands the right to secede.

Which principle should prevail: the claims of history or the political rights of the majority in a polyglot territory? Look at American history. Both the claims of history and the rights of the majority were solidly in favor of Southern secession. But the US decided on union by force. Ever since then, the US has generally opposed secession, not only at home but around the world.

Only during the first world war did the US back self-determination, when the fanatical Woodrow Wilson used this principle as a weapon against the multinational monarchies he was dead-set on destroying. It was political propaganda, then and now.

The hypocrisy is nowhere as clear as in US opposition to Kurdish demands for separation from the Turkish government. The US sees Turkey as a reliable satellite, so the US turns a blind eye to ethnic oppression of the most brutal sort. It turns out, then, that the principle is not that downtrodden ethnic groups ought to have autonomy, but that the US ought to centrally manage the entire map of the world.

And how well does the US do this? In the same region the US is now bombing, Clinton enforced a unified, multicultural Bosnia, where US troops are permanently stationed, against the pleas of every ethnic group that resides there for independence. This is the peace of a prison camp, which also deprived Serbia of the Bosnian Serb area that wanted to be part of the Serbian nation state, an act which inflamed the present crisis.

So who is right? The Kosovo independence movement that claims to speak on behalf of the Moslem majority, or the Milosevic government that claims to represent the Christian majority’s desire for a Serbian-controlled province?

The short answer is: this is not for the US government to decide. When we consider the original American vision—of a peaceful, commercial republic staying out of the endless quarrels of the Old World—we can only be utterly alienated from the ruling regime, which dominates a country conceived in liberty. It is clearer than ever that the welfare-warfare state must be demolished, so that it can no longer threaten the world, or trample on true American ideals.

https://mises.org/library/lies-war

[MarMema]

President Bill Clinton’s favorite freedom fighter just got indicted for mass murder, torture, kidnapping, and other crimes against humanity. In 1999, the Clinton administration launched a 78-day bombing campaign that killed up to fifteen hundred civilians in Serbia and Kosovo in what the American media proudly portrayed as a crusade against ethnic bias. That war, like most of the pretenses of US foreign policy, was always a sham.

Kosovo president Hashim Thaci was charged with ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by an international tribunal in The Hague, in the Netherlands. It charged Thaci and nine other men with “war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture.” Thaci and the other charged suspects were accused of being “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders” and the indictment involved “hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include political opponents.”

Hashim Thaci’s tawdry career illustrates how antiterrorism is a flag of convenience for Washington policymakers. Prior to becoming Kosovo’s president, Thaci was the head of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), fighting to force Serbs out of Kosovo. In 1999, the Clinton administration designated the KLA as “freedom fighters” despite their horrific past and gave them massive aid. The previous year, the State Department condemned “terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army.” The KLA was heavily involved in drug trafficking and had close to ties to Osama bin Laden.

But arming the KLA and bombing Serbia helped Clinton portray himself as a crusader against injustice and shift public attention after his impeachment trial. Clinton was aided by many shameless members of Congress anxious to sanctify US killing. Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CN) whooped that the United States and the KLA “stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.” And since Clinton administration officials publicly compared Serb leader Slobodan Milošević to Hitler, every decent person was obliged to applaud the bombing campaign.

Both the Serbs and ethnic Albanians committed atrocities in the bitter strife in Kosovo. But to sanctify its bombing campaign, the Clinton administration waved a magic wand and made the KLA’s atrocities disappear. British professor Philip Hammond noted that the 78-day bombing campaign “was not a purely military operation: NATO also destroyed what it called ‘dual-use’ targets, such as factories, city bridges, and even the main television building in downtown Belgrade, in an attempt to terrorize the country into surrender.”

NATO repeatedly dropped cluster bombs into marketplaces, hospitals, and other civilian areas. Cluster bombs are antipersonnel devices designed to be scattered across enemy troop formations. NATO dropped more than thirteen hundred cluster bombs on Serbia and Kosovo, and each bomb contained 208 separate bomblets that floated to earth by parachute. Bomb experts estimated that more than ten thousand unexploded bomblets were scattered around the landscape when the bombing ended and maimed children long after the ceasefire.

In the final days of the bombing campaign, the Washington Post reported that “some presidential aides and friends are describing Kosovo in Churchillian tones, as Clinton’s ‘finest hour.’” The Post also reported that according to one Clinton friend “what Clinton believes were the unambiguously moral motives for NATO’s intervention represented a chance to soothe regrets harbored in Clinton’s own conscience….The friend said Clinton has at times lamented that the generation before him was able to serve in a war with a plainly noble purpose, and he feels ‘almost cheated’ that ‘when it was his turn he didn’t have the chance to be part of a moral cause.’” By Clinton’s standard, slaughtering Serbs was “close enough for government work” to a “moral cause.”

Shortly after the end of the 1999 bombing campaign, Clinton enunciated what his aides labeled the Clinton doctrine: “Whether within or beyond the borders of a country, if the world community has the power to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing.” In reality, the Clinton doctrine was that presidents are entitled to commence bombing foreign lands based on any brazen lie that the American media will regurgitate. In reality, the lesson from bombing Serbia is that American politicians merely need to publicly recite the word “genocide” to get a license to kill.

After the bombing ended, Clinton assured the Serbian people that the United States and NATO agreed to be peacekeepers only “with the understanding that they would protect Serbs as well as ethnic Albanians and that they would leave when peace took hold.” In the subsequent months and years, American and NATO forces stood by as the KLA resumed its ethnic cleansing, slaughtering Serb civilians, bombing Serbian churches and oppressing any non-Muslims. Almost a quarter million Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, and other minorities fled Kosovo after Mr. Clinton promised to protect them. By 2003, almost 70 percent of the Serbs living in Kosovo in 1999 had fled and Kosovo was 95 percent ethnic Albanian.

But Thaci remained useful for US policymakers. Even though he was widely condemned for oppression and corruption after taking power in Kosovo, Vice President Joe Biden hailed Thaci in 2010 as the “George Washington of Kosovo.” A few months later, a Council of Europe report accused Thaci and KLA operatives of human organ trafficking. The Guardian noted that the report alleged that Thaci’s inner circle “took captives across the border into Albania after the war, where a number of Serbs are said to have been murdered for their kidneys, which were sold on the black market.” The report stated that when “transplant surgeons” were “ready to operate, the [Serbian] captives were brought out of the ‘safe house’ individually, summarily executed by a KLA gunman, and their corpses transported swiftly to the operating clinic.”

Despite the organ trafficking charge, Thaci was a star attendee at the annual Global Initiative conference by the Clinton Foundation in 2011, 2012, and 2013, where he posed for photos with Bill Clinton. Maybe that was a perk from the $50,000 a month lobbying contract that Thaci’s regime signed with the Podesta Group, comanaged by future Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, as the Daily Caller reported.

Clinton remains a hero in Kosovo, where a statue of him was erected in the capital, Pristina. The Guardian newspaper noted that the statue showed Clinton “with a left hand raised, a typical gesture of a leader greeting the masses. In his right hand he is holding documents engraved with the date when NATO started the bombardment of Serbia, 24 March 1999.” It would have been a more accurate representation to depict Clinton standing on a pile of corpses of the women, children, and others killed in the US bombing campaign.

In 2019, Bill Clinton and his fanatically pro-bombing former secretary of state, Madeline Albright, visited Pristina, where they were “treated like rock stars” as they posed for photos with Thaci. Clinton declared, “I love this country and it will always be one of the greatest honors of my life to have stood with you against ethnic cleansing (by Serbian forces) and for freedom.” Thaci awarded Clinton and Albright medals of freedom “for the liberty he brought to us and the peace to entire region.” Albright has reinvented herself as a visionary warning against fascism in the Trump era. Actually, the only honorific that Albright deserves is “butcher of Belgrade.”

Clinton’s war on Serbia was a Pandora’s box from which the world still suffers. Because politicians and most of the media portrayed the war against Serbia as a moral triumph, it was easier for the Bush administration to justify attacking Iraq, for the Obama administration to bomb Libya, and for the Trump administration to repeatedly bomb Syria. All of those interventions sowed chaos that continues cursing the purported beneficiaries.

Bill Clinton’s 1999 bombing of Serbia was as big a fraud as George W. Bush’s conning this nation into attacking Iraq. The fact that Clinton and other top US government officials continued to glorify Hashim Thaci despite accusations of mass murder, torture, and organ trafficking is another reminder of the venality of much of America’s political elite. Will Americans again be gullible the next time that Washington policymakers and their media allies concoct bullshit pretexts to blow the hell out of some hapless foreign land?

https://mises.org/wire/new-kosovo-indictment-reminder-bill-clintons-serbian-war-atrocities

[BroJoeK]

jpp113: "Just a heads up - citing to Wikipedia for a proposition completely undermines a poster’s credibility."

Claiming that Wikipedia is total lies completely undermines your credibility, FRiend.

What Wikipedia reliably does is report the "common wisdom", meaning generally accepted facts of any subject.
So, viewpoints contrary to Wikipedia are not necessarily invalid, but Wikipedia does tell us what "most people" accept as true.

Therefore, the burden of proof lies on those who dispute Wiki accounts -- which exact facts did Wiki get wrong? Which exact viewpoint is skewed by unfair bias rather than balanced reasoning?

Handwaving to the effect that "Oh, Wikipedia always lies" is not an argument.
It only means that you have no real arguments to make, FRiend.

[BroJoeK]

MarMema: "None of what you have posted here is correct.
Wikipedia is hardly a reference."

Wikipedia reports what most people accept as true.
The burden of proof, then, is on those who dispute Wiki's account.
So far, I've seen no facts -- not one -- which in any way disputes the Wikipedia report.

MarMema: "The civil war in Ukraine was about Nazis and separatism after the Odessa massacre."

So, here's what the Ukrainian government said about the Odessa massacre:

"The Foreign Ministry Andrii Deshchytsia stated that "there is every reason to believe that the tragedy was an action planned in advance and generously paid for by the Russian special services, the purpose of which was to provoke an explosion of violence in Odesa and destabilize the situation in the entire southern region of Ukraine."
He also said that the government believed "that a full and impartial investigation, which is being conducted by law enforcement agencies of Ukraine, will enable us to find not only the perpetrators of the tragedy, but also their puppeteers and sponsors both in Ukraine and in Russia."[61]"

And here's what the Russian government said:

"Russia's Foreign Ministry said that the fire was "yet another manifestation of the criminal irresponsibility of the Kyiv authorities who indulge insolent radical nationalists ... which are engaging in a campaign of physical terror", against those wanting 'greater autonomy' living in Russian-speaking regions.[147]
Russian Duma member Leonid Slutsky (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) compared this accident to a nazi-crime, like Khatyn massacre.[148]"

It's worth noting that the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 14, 2014 and the Odessa Massacre on May 2, 2014.
Therefore, in American terms, the pro-Russian anti-Maiden demonstrators were giving "aid and comfort" to the Russian invaders waging war against Ukraine.

So the Odessa Massacre is much regretted, but it was a consequence of the Russian invasion, not its cause.

MarMema: "Additionally you are not making sense.
Why would Russia rescuing Crimea (Ukraine removed their water) lead to Donbass declaring separatist status and civil war, centered on donbass?
Many links to support what I am saying."

Only a brain-dead Russian propagandist would call Russia's February 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea a "rescue".
And only such brain-fried would forget that Ukraine cut off Crimea's water supply only after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea.

It was nothing more than Vlad the Pute reestablishing the old Russian Empire by military conquest.
Everything else is just nonsense.

MarMema: "On the 26th of May 2014 the Ukrainian Army under command of the newly elected president Petro Poroshenko started waging a war against the people of Donetsk.
The Peoples’ Republic of Donetsk declared independence in Ukraine in accordance with valid international law.
But the president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is not accepting this independence.
He now started a war of terror against the local Ukrainian population in Donetsk and the Donbass region.
The Ukrainian Committee for Human Rights is condemning this onslaught on the Ukrainian cities of the Donbass.
This lead to dozens of casualties amongst the civil population."

As always, you leave out the key facts:

"As conflict between the separatists and the Ukrainian government escalated in May, Russia began to employ a "hybrid approach", combining disinformation tactics, irregular fighters, regular Russian troops, and conventional military support.[80][81][82]
The First Battle of Donetsk Airport followed the Ukrainian presidential elections.
It marked a turning point in conflict; it was the first battle between the separatists and the Ukrainian government that involved large numbers of Russian "volunteers".[83][84]: 15 
According to Ukraine, at the height of the conflict in the summer of 2014, Russian paramilitaries made up between 15% to 80% of the combatants. [72]
From June Russia trickled in arms, armor, and munitions."

It was never a "civil war", it was always just a Russian invasion with some local Russian speakers' support.

MarMema: "You really are clueless about these parts of the world.
A shame that western media has successfully polluted so many minds.
I am not even going to try with Serbia because you are simply regurgitating what you have been told, and you don’t know anything about the 4%, history of Kosovo, or the brutalities in that war.
Just fyi, however, the KLA leader we glorified, who became president of Kosovo, was found to be guilty of drug running, organ harvesting from Serb pows for the black market, bunch more goid stuff.
Yep those Serbs were the bad guys. 😂😂😂
That’s what you were told."

FRiend MarMema, you are a braindead Russian propagandist here to sell us your lies, distortions and nonsense attempting to defend what is utterly indefensible, namely Vlad the Pute's invasions of Ukraine.
Nothing you can say -- truthful or lies -- will make that wrong right.

On Kosovo -- it's not fair to say Serbs were the only bad people, but they were indisputably the worst:

"A series of war crimes were committed during the Kosovo War (early 1998 – 11 June 1999).
The forces of the Slobodan Milošević regime committed rape, killed many Albanian civilians and expelled them during the war, alongside the widespread destruction of civilian, cultural and religious property.
According to the Human Rights Watch, the vast majority of the violations from January 1998 to April 1999 were attributable to Serbian police or the Yugoslav army.
Violations also included war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA or UÇK), such as kidnappings and summary executions of civilians.[1]
In 2014, the Humanitarian Law Center released a list of people killed or gone missing during the war, including 8,661 Kosovo Albanian civilians, 1,797 ethnic Serbs and 447 civilians of other ethnicities such as Romani people and Bosniaks.[2]"

MarMema: "We love to pick these complete losers like Zelensky, crack addict, bring them to the white house, and support them in wars against actual good guys that we have demonized to the ignorant believing public...
And people buy the lies."

However good Russians may, or may not, be inside Russia, once they set foot invading a foreign country, like Ukraine, they become beasts, orcs, whose only purpose is to die as quickly as humanly possible.
To put such beasts in charge of ruling over Ukraine would be a crime against humanity on the scale of Hitler's WWII atrocities.

Everyone knows that's true, even you know it, but you are brain-fried by Russian propaganda and who knows what else, and all you can do is repeat what you've been told to say.

[MarMema]

Of course the Ukrainian government, mostly Nazis under Poroshenko, said that! 😂😂😂

What did you think he would say? Wikipedia is open to anyone, including you and I, to post things. Look up what they say about Trump.

It is patently absurd that pro Russian demonstrators at Odessa were giving aid to Russia in Crimea.

If we ever had to live under a Nazi regime we would demonstrate and protest as well.

You should visit Eduard Dolinsky on twitter. He is the Director, Ukrainian Jewish Committee. @edolinsky Among his many many videos and pictures is a new artist being interviewed for his 2 paintings, shown behind him on the wall. One is called Jew on Pig It's exactly what it sounds like, a Jew lying on top of a pig. In a suggestive way. (There are videos of blatant antisemitism, plays held in churches with children interacting with the Jewish character, priests blessing all kinds of WW2 SS criminal photos and statues...)

That was the Ukrainian Culture Center in Lviv. It has now been destroyed by Russia. Good on them!!

https://thesaker.is/they-tell-you-that-we-are-nazis/

You are so blinded by your hate for Russians that you don't understand what the people of donbass were being subjected to...in Ukraine it was important to be ethnically pure Ukrainian. They had centers where you could get tested. Ethnic Russians, Hungarians and Roma were persecuted.

Discussions on tv about genocide of them. everything Russian became illegal. Just like the Baltic countries (no Nazis there, ha ha!) have now put in place.

Even now, a wonderful celebration of Bandera is celebrated. I hope Russia rakes these evil sickos out. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/01/05/jnwx-j05.html

https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/273306905/poland-reacts-to-ukraines-celebration-of-nazi-collaborator

"Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland met in person with Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of the Svoboda Party, whose former name was the Social-National Party of Ukraine and its symbol was the Wolfsangel. This is despite the fact that Tyahnybok said earlier that Ukrainians must fight against the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” and stop the criminal actions of “organized Jewry“. Both Svoboda and Right Sector see themselves as the ideological heirs to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)[ The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and the Nazi Genocide in Ukraine, p.3] and as admirers of Stepan Bandera, who advocated for an independent Ukraine during World War II."

https://truthout.org/articles/are-there-nazis-in-ukraine-a-visit-to-lviv/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg

McCain was in Ukraine encouraging the Nazis in 2013 and that's where nothing you say is credible. Victoria Nuland was there with him. They were building Ukraine up for a war with Russia, before Odessa, before Crimea.

https://fair.org/home/john-mccain-human-rights-ukrainian-nazi-photo-washington-post/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/john-mccain-went-ukraine-stood-202343813.html

[MarMema]

Of course the Ukrainian government, mostly Nazis under Poroshenko, said that! 😂😂😂

What did you think he would say? Wikipedia is open to anyone, including you and I, to post things. Look up what they say about Trump.

It is patently absurd that pro Russian demonstrators at Odessa were giving aid to Russia in Crimea.

If we ever had to live under a Nazi regime we would demonstrate and protest as well.

You should visit Eduard Dolinsky on twitter. He is the Director, Ukrainian Jewish Committee. @edolinsky Among his many many videos and pictures is a new artist being interviewed for his 2 paintings, shown behind him on the wall. One is called Jew on Pig It's exactly what it sounds like, a Jew lying on top of a pig. In a suggestive way. (There are videos of blatant antisemitism, plays held in churches with children interacting with the Jewish character, priests blessing all kinds of WW2 SS criminal photos and statues...)

That was the Ukrainian Culture Center in Lviv. It has now been destroyed by Russia. Good on them!!

https://thesaker.is/they-tell-you-that-we-are-nazis/

You are so blinded by your hate for Russians that you don't understand what the people of donbass were being subjected to...in Ukraine it was important to be ethnically pure Ukrainian. They had centers where you could get tested. Ethnic Russians, Hungarians and Roma were persecuted.

Discussions on tv about genocide of them. everything Russian became illegal. Just like the Baltic countries (no Nazis there, ha ha!) have now put in place.

Even now, a wonderful celebration of Bandera is celebrated. I hope Russia rakes these evil sickos out. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/01/05/jnwx-j05.html

https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/273306905/poland-reacts-to-ukraines-celebration-of-nazi-collaborator

"Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland met in person with Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of the Svoboda Party, whose former name was the Social-National Party of Ukraine and its symbol was the Wolfsangel. This is despite the fact that Tyahnybok said earlier that Ukrainians must fight against the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” and stop the criminal actions of “organized Jewry“. Both Svoboda and Right Sector see themselves as the ideological heirs to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)[ The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and the Nazi Genocide in Ukraine, p.3] and as admirers of Stepan Bandera, who advocated for an independent Ukraine during World War II."

https://truthout.org/articles/are-there-nazis-in-ukraine-a-visit-to-lviv/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg

McCain was in Ukraine encouraging the Nazis in 2013 and that's where nothing you say is credible. Victoria Nuland was there with him. They were building Ukraine up for a war with Russia, before Odessa, before Crimea.

https://fair.org/home/john-mccain-human-rights-ukrainian-nazi-photo-washington-post/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/john-mccain-went-ukraine-stood-202343813.html

[kiryandil]

Wikipedia reports what most people accept as true.
The burden of proof, then, is on those who dispute Wiki's account.
So far, I've seen no facts -- not one -- which in any way disputes the Wikipedia report.

If it's on Wikipedia and political, IT'S A LIE.

This is accepted by intelligent people everywhere.

Wikipedia does great on pop culture stuff like movies and musical artists and albums.

Politics? Fuhgeddaboudit.

I would bet you don't even know how to examine any given Wikipedia article's View history tab for the editing wars that go on behind the scenes, BroJoeK.

Lawrence Solomon: Climategate at Wikipedia (Wiki is a liar)
Financial Post ^ | 12/23/09 | Lawrence Solomon
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2415903/posts

[kiryandil]

Just a heads up - citing to Wikipedia for a proposition completely undermines a poster’s credibility.

True.

ANYTHING political on Wikipedia is accompanied by a bodyguard of Leftist liar editors, busily reverting any changes to their Narrative.

[jpp113]

I once had a paralegal that dared to cite to wiki on a memorandum to the court. Good thing I caught it before it got filed because we would have been sanctioned bigtime if it got through. Paralegal was let go that same day.

[BroJoeK]

MarMema: "It is patently absurd that pro Russian demonstrators at Odessa were giving aid to Russia in Crimea."

And that's how braindead you are FRiend.
Those pro-Russians were demonstrating in favor of a foreign invasion force and against potential allies who could help defend Ukraine against Russians.

Did you ever learn about the US Constitution?
Here's how it defines "treason":

"Article 3, Section 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

By the American definition, those pro-Russian demonstrators were giving aid and comfort to foreign invaders.

MarMema: "If we ever had to live under a Nazi regime we would demonstrate and protest as well."

Nothing is more insane than calling Ukrainian government a "Nazi regime."
Using such language simply proves that your brain is fried and you are nothing but a Russian propaganda asset.

MarMema: "You should visit Eduard Dolinsky on twitter.
He is the Director, Ukrainian Jewish Committee.
@edolinsky Among his many many videos and pictures is a new artist being interviewed for his 2 paintings, shown behind him on the wall.
One is called Jew on Pig "

And that explains why Ukrainians elected a Jew as their President?
"Come on, man", how nuts do you have to be to claim that?
Further, what percentage of Ukrainian Russian speakers are Jewish, that they might conceivably suffer from "Nazi-like" persecution?

The word "Nazi" is nothing more than Russian propaganda.

MarMema: "You are so blinded by your hate for Russians..."

No, I love Russians, in Russia, or tourist or immigrants.
But the moment Russian troops cross their borders to invade their neighbors, then they become beasts and orcs who need to die as quickly as possible.
Of course, we still love them, but they have to die, surrender or go the h*ll home.
It's not debatable.

MarMema: "...that you don't understand what the people of donbass were being subjected to...in Ukraine it was important to be ethnically pure Ukrainian.
They had centers where you could get tested.
Ethnic Russians, Hungarians and Roma were persecuted."

So you claim, but I've seen nothing to verify that.
Further, wasn't Ukraine before 2014 ruled by pro-Russians (i.e., Yanukovych)?
So how is all this alleged "Nazi" persecution going on while Russians ruled Ukraine?

MarMema: "Discussions on tv about genocide of them. everything Russian became illegal.
Just like the Baltic countries (no Nazis there, ha ha!) have now put in place."

And all this happened while Russians ruled over Ukraine?
No, it happened after Russians invaded Ukraine, thus making pro-Russian activities treason.

MarMema: "Even now, a wonderful celebration of Bandera is celebrated.
I hope Russia rakes these evil sickos out."

So, let's see, how many Ukrainians did Stalin kill in the Holodomor? Was it 5 million?
And how many Ukrainians did Stephan Bandera kill?
So was it the Soviet or the Ukrainian who was sicker?

And why should a country like Ukraine ever, ever again want to be ruled over by people who do nothing but kill Ukrainians?

MarMema: "This is despite the fact that Tyahnybok said earlier that Ukrainians must fight against the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” and stop the criminal actions of “organized Jewry“."

So, do I understand you to claim that most Ukrainian Russian speakers are Jews, and that's why Ukrainians elected pro-Russian leaders before 2014?
And now that a pro-Ukrainian Jew is president, are pro-Russians now anti-Semetic?

MarMema: "McCain was in Ukraine encouraging the Nazis in 2013 and that's where nothing you say is credible.
Victoria Nuland was there with him.
They were building Ukraine up for a war with Russia, before Odessa, before Crimea."

Again, your word "Nazi" simply identifies you as a braindead Russian propagandist.
It's an insane word to use in this context.

I would suppose, in this instance, if John McCain was doing anything useful in Ukraine, then it would be to help Ukrainians become independent of Russian rule.