The war in the Ukraine is about Oil

Free Republic ^ | March 30, 2022 | Kevmo

[Kevmo]

Europe Told to Turn Down the Heating in Russia Gas Standoff
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4050969/posts

[Kevmo]

KEYWORDS: chat; chatforum; fuel; newsforumabuse; oil; proofbyverbosity; russia; tldr; ukenukes; ukewarisaboutoil; ukraine; vanity;

***Regarding newsforumabuse;
When I posted this thread, I had several choices on where to put the thing in news. I chose 5 items, like Extended News, Foreign Affairs, Current Events including vanity. But it said we’re only allowed 4, so I dropped vanity.

I notice that the Putin Puffers aren’t coming onto this thread. They appear to be sniping with keyword abuse. That’s pretty cowardly.

[Yo-Yo]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

[Kevmo]

As far as I can tell, you started this. I had the notion rattling around in my head but you attached some data to it.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the ping.

[packagingguy]

Here is a professor from the University of Chicago who explains the divisions in Ukrainian society:

https://www.mearsheimer.com

That’s his personal website. Here is some of what he talks about:

Essentially Ukraine is extremely divided by ethnicity.. Russian to the east, Ukrainian to the west. When you look at the election results map there is an enormous difference in political preferences.

Their map is stark: east vs. west, sort of like our red/blue map shows urban vs. rural. It’s amazing they were able to keep the place together for as long as they did.

A house divided against itself cannot stand, and that may well be said for us too.

[ETCM]

At the very least, Putin has caused enough destruction in Ukraine, that any oil profits would have to go into rebuilding cities, rather than doing the kind of development that could make Ukraine an important modern European country. What a damn shame!!

Putin doesn't need Ukraine's oil and gas per se, he needs to prevent alternative sources to Europe. Just as he blocked the Qatar-Turkey pipeline through Syria, he is blocking Ukraine. Ukraine joining the EU and replacing Russia as a source of gas and oil to Europe would not just have an effect on Russia's economy, it would greatly reduce Russia's geopolitical influence. If anyone should be willing to fight for Ukraine, it's Europe. This is the 2nd time Putin has blocked them from alternative sources of gas. It's not just about oil and gas, it's about power and global influence.

[Kevmo]

If anyone should be willing to fight for Ukraine, it’s Europe. ... It’s not just about oil and gas, it’s about power and global influence.
***They’re wusses, looking for someone else to take up their fight. A lot like Taiwan.

Britain and Ireland signed the Budapest Agreement, and it is clearly violated by those 2 invasions. So the Brits & Irish should be sending boots on the ground. Oh, lookie here, WE signed that agreement as well. So... uhhh.... now all of a sudden the refuse-to-learn-Sudetenland-lesson appeasers are all about making this Europe’s problem.

Russia INVADING Ukraine twice is a clear violation of that agreement. They claim that it’s not an invasion, it’s a “special military exercises”. Then SO CAN WE claim a “special military exercise” to “respect the borders” of Ukraine as SIGNED in the Budapest agreement. What’s not-invasion sauce for the pootypoot goose is not-invasion sauce for the USA gander. In my view, as long as we put boots on the ground in any conflagration, we should insist on emBASEees.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4043681/posts

[Mount Athos]

i really appreciate this kind of vanity, nice outside of the box thinking.

[Kevmo]

It’s kinda weird how a war about oil is considered outside-the-box thinking.

[Kevmo]

Where does he talk about that stuff, and where is his map?

When I clicked on the most prevalent thing about Ukraine it was a long youtube presentation from someone else
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

[Kevmo]

Their map is stark: east vs. west, sort of like our red/blue map shows urban vs. rural. It’s amazing they were able to keep the place together for as long as they did. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and that may well be said for us too.
***From my home page

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Secession

It's time for us to jettison those who reject our national values because there's no changing them. Time to secede.

We should extend the invitation to secede on a county by county basis.

While we're at it, since we'd be forming a new country, we should extend the invitation to counties in Canada and Mexico as well.

Note that this option is becoming increasingly popular.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4000029/posts

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[Mount Athos]

The Budapest agreement was a mere “memorandum of understanding”.

It was not a treaty.
There was no enforcement mechanism in the document.

It was only signed by the leaders of 3 countries, it was never endorsed by their legislative bodies.

To what degree can the president of united states bind later governments of the US with a mere signature on a signing agreement with foreign powers?

NOT AT ALL. Not even a little bit.

If they could, we’d all be bound by Kyoto right now, which also was merely signed by the President and never ratified (or even put to a vote) by congress. If they could, the USA could obligate USA foreign policy forever with a simple signature all over the place.

If you don’t understand why no one feels bound by the Budapest memorandum, it’s because you don’t understand the nature of it.

China and France later signed a significantly weaker version of the statement. You said Ireland signed it, they didn’t.

What do you think about NATO, including the USA bombing Serbia for 78 days from high altitude, killing many civilians? To force Serbia to give up territory it held for centuries. If the borders and invasion of Serbia were correct, then why not in Ukraine? If the border changes are so very wrong, then what about Serbia? Should they be given back their territory?

I don’t mention this to be some kind of wiseguy, I mention it because the precedent for the whole world has been changed with the forcible border changes in Serbia. There are situations all over the world, and throughout Europe, where portions of a country would like to be independent.

[ETCM]

Britain and Ireland signed the Budapest Agreement, and it is clearly violated by those 2 invasions. So the Brits & Irish should be sending boots on the ground. Oh, lookie here, WE signed that agreement as well.

There was no security guaranty in the Budapest Memorandum. Even if Russia attacks Ukraine with nuclear weapons, the memorandum only requires that we “seek immediate United Nations Security Council action”. Our primary obligation under the memorandum is to respect their sovereignty and refrain from using military force against them.

Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

[Kevmo]

Hey, when pootypoot engaged in his “special military exercise” he OBVIOUSLY did not violate that agreement, so we are just as free to obviously not violate it in the same way with ‘special military exercise’ that actually DOES “respect the borders” per the agreement.

So buzz off.

[SteveH]

Why is Russia Invading Ukraine? Opinion!
Nate the Lawyer
Mar 6, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmdSzVFSKc

(informative video, thanks for posting)

[packagingguy]

You have the right video, the map is in there. At first one of his student gave a speech, then introduced the professor. So there were two people in the video.

[Kevmo]

https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4050884/posts?page=59#59

To: Kevmo
RE: But Iraq1 was a just war, we were fighting a guy who invaded his neighbor over oil, just like Putin is doing.

I was NOT talking about Iraq1, that was in fact a good example of a just operation
***Interesting that we agree about this. It was a just war that ended too soon. Bush shoulda rounded up Saddam and gave him the Noriega treatment.

with an exit strategy... kick Saddam’s army out of Kuwait and go home.
***We obviously disagree about the exit strategy. It was that lack of exit strategy for rounding up Saddam that led to GulfWar2. And we also shoulda implemented the emBASEee strategee
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4043681/posts

We achieved the first objective but had to baby sit the region until....
***Babysitting is much better done from emBASEees. And to be candid, with dictators deposed like Noriega.

Bush jr. told us we had to go to war in Iraq a SECOND TIME to get rid of Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction.
***DIdn’t ya ever wonder why it was Colon Powell delivering those WMD presentations to the UN? It was because it was HIS fuqqup that led to us not rounding up Saddam in the first place. Besides, there’s quite a bit of evidence that Saddam really DID have WMDs and rounded them up & delivered them to his cousin Hussein who was running Syria. That makes Saddam one of the dumbest dictators, ever. He coulda easily allowed in the UN investigators to come in and round up any or all the rest of the WMDs and he woulda forestalled any invasion. Dumb de dumb dumb: DUUUUMB.

So, tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars later, where were the WMDs that was the reason for going to war?
***They were handed over to Hussein. Naturally if we had been following MY strategees, we wouldn’t have been in that stupid position.

We then participated in another operation to take out Khadaffy in Libya (this, after he openly gave up his WMDs )
***I never really cared much about Lybia. We didn’t have a lot of troops on the ground. It was small potatoes.

turning Libya into a worse hell hole than before resulting in tens of thousands of refugees.
***Maybe Kaddafi should never have written his “line in the sand” or downed that airliner. Not high on my care-o-meter.

In these regard, what makes our policies and better than Russia’s?
***Our POLICIES suck. Because we listen to State Department weenies who wanna do Nation Building. Screw that. Go in, deal with the terrorism, leave behind a big old EmBASEee and the country has its sovereignty but no freedom to attack Americans. This thing in Ukraine is a tad different because we signed an agreement assuring their borders, which have OBVIOUSLY been violated.

[Kevmo]

At what point in the video? I aint lookin at an hour-long mush mouth video. Not worth it on a bandwidth-constricted connection.

[Kevmo]

when pootypoot engaged in his “special military exercise” he OBVIOUSLY did not violate that agreement, so we are just as free to obviously not violate it in the same way with ‘special military exercise’ that actually DOES “respect the borders” per the agreement.