Posted on 02/20/2024 7:31:38 PM PST by Mariner
MUNICH — As the leaders of the West gathered in Munich over the past three days, President Vladimir Putin had a message for them: Nothing they’ve done so far — sanctions, condemnation, attempted containment — would alter his intentions to disrupt the current world order.
Russia made its first major gain in Ukraine in nearly a year, taking the ruined city of Avdiivka, at huge human cost to both sides, the bodies littered along the roads a warning, perhaps, of a new course in the 2-year-old war. Alexei Navalny’s suspicious death in a remote Arctic prison made it ever clearer that Putin will tolerate no dissent as elections approach.
And the American discovery, disclosed in recent days, that Putin may be planning to place a nuclear weapon in space — a bomb designed to wipe out the connective tissue of global communications if Putin is pushed too far — was a potent reminder of his capacity to strike back at his adversaries with the asymmetric weapons that remain a key source of his power.
In Munich, the mood was both anxious and unmoored, as leaders faced confrontations they had not anticipated. Warnings about Putin’s possible next moves were mixed with Europe’s growing worries that it could soon be abandoned by the United States, the one power that has been at the core of its defense strategy for 75 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
We were actually talking about truth and virtue.
It really does come down to it.
As for Russia threatening to blow up Europe if it doesnt get its way - you know where that leads, right? Anyone with nukes can then go to war with its favorite enemy and try make them kowtow with such a threat. A peaceful world will ensue, no doubt.
I suggest you follow St. Thomas rubric, step by step, and see if your conclusions match. Do not forget to examine your assumptions. St. Thomas was not after rhetorical talking points.
Are you a “reverend”, or is it just a nom de guerre?
Most Protestant seminaries, afaik, do St. Thomas.
Just a nom de plume.
I’m not a Catholic, but I suggest that lies about weapons of mass destruction doesn’t follow any “just war” concept.
Neither does invading, deposing and leaving a chaos vacuum like Libya.
Neither does creating another moslem state in Europe like Kosovo.
Not to mention the GAE tried the same Regime change / Color Revolution stupidity in Syria, but was defeated by Russia, and failed.
I am exploring, out loud if there are really any actions the US and the rest of the West
can actually take to back up our forrver support of the Ukes. We keep saying that we support the Ukes to win or at least achieve a reasonable settlement on terms. Thete is nothing to indicate we and the West can actually DO to back that up.
It is a straw man argument to insist that we must be for nuclear war if we support the Ukes. I’m not surexwe are doing EVERYTHIBG we could be, short of nuclear war, to back up what our big mouths keep saying in support of Zelensky. Are we?
And further, what is it about the Ukes that necessitates this lavish deficit spending on them and the real risk of WW3 with Russia over it? What does Zelensky and his handlers have over Biden and the rest of the West that they appear to be desperately blackmail Mitch McConnell and the Obama people really running the US to keep us spending $$ in the Ukraine?
>> We were actually talking about truth and virtue.
Well, no, we weren’t. You jumped in by responding to my post #17, wherein I asked:
“Russia is at war with Ukraine. Europe is arming and aiding Ukraine. Is that not provocation in and of itself?”
Nothing to do with truth, virtue, your heart, my heart, etc.
Only the cold hard realpolitik of provoking a nuclear power fighting an enemy in her own back yard.
I’ll repeat: logic is not your strong suit.
Get back to me when you’re sober.
You may insult me and I may deserve it. But just because you are not interested in the Uke war does not mean that the Uke war is not very interested in us. We ignore it at our peril, I think. Can they do all those things to us here? If yes, why haven’t they already? I propose that they cannot do them back. Who is right?
The USA Southern border is wide open.
The Northern border is increasingly not under control.
And you think it is a smart strategy to go for: deliberate pandemics, agricultural sabotage, agricultural animal epidemics, infrastructure destruction and sabotage, medical supply sabotage and destruction...
And you think that is a rational response to a dispute over the Donbas ?
Who, for example, in Brazil, or Argentina thinks that they have to risk global war over the borders of Donetsk ?
Western European nations might actually have to defend their borders from illegal invaders.
It would be a shocking change for sure.
Lol.
Disagree. The princelings of the Bidens, Pelosis, Kerrys and Romneys and their friends ALL had "real interests in Ukraine." As did DARPA, so does it seem.
But "that was then" and we are supposed to have forgotten.
With respect, sir, you are disputing with an admitted monarchist, dreaming of its return while his comfy hole in Spain, someone who worked decades in the US but chose not to become a US citizen. Here is a previous exchange by which to document:
"I am so conservative that I support the restoration of the Spanish empire under the Bourbon monarchy, and my guides in political philosophy are Thomas Aquinas and De Maistre.In his own words.You extremist republican liberals that call themselves 'conservatives' are funny. You have never understood what you are, much less why you are what you are.
And yet, and yet ...
We actual, genuine conservatives in the great old European tradition see an assertion that we dispute as a challenge to argument, an 'en garde', to a civilized crossing of blades. As did, note, Thomas Aquinas, as his 'Summa' is really a guide to arguments.
Throwing garbage is not defending your position. It is boorish and disorderly behavior best suppressed by the monarch."
Our manufacturing capabilities largely left America in the early 90s, with the skids greased by Free Traders in both parties. See David Ricardo for a better understanding of the concept of comparative advantage, a favorite theory of Marx.
“If NATO collapses over this, it will be a win for Putin, and for us.”
Putin stated, “The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy in geopolitical history”.
Abutting NATO applicants, Sweden and Finland, were listening to Putin and EVEN TODAY reject your assertion.
NATO was going to collapse - or more likely whimper out - in November 2021 if Putin hadn’t invaded Ukraine.
Oh look - waving a foreign flag like some POS quisling and ripping off my country... and children.
Since management allows TRASH like you - I guess we just need to hope you just go choke to death.
Quisling.
I think Spain should reimburse the descendants of the Maya that they Looted their gold and murdered them
“Putin is a homosexual.”
I’m sure that’s your fantasy.
I can’t square why the US leadership insists on being all in on continuing a war in Ukraine that the Ukes are doomed to lose because of demographic numbers reality and the complete inability of the West to supply enough war machinery to even delay this by much? Does our leadership know something we all don’t that’s a game changer for the Ukes? Or are they so thoroughly blackmailed and compromised by the Ukes or bigger players who subside corruption in Ukraine?
This doesn’t square in anyway.
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