Ukraine Update

Submitted by Lookout on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 8:34am

I just want to share a couple of perspectives this morning from two of my favorite Ukraine analysts. Gonzalo is speaking with Scott Ritter this morning, and Alex Christoforou is commenting from Cyprus. Clips below the fold...

Screenshot 2022-04-11 at 08-32-02 Russia-Ukraine war by the numbers Live Tracker.png

Here's Alex take...

about a 20 min discussion focusing on the big act/PR scam.

Details of the past, current, and future military actions in Ukraine (1.3 hours)

Scott explains the war like only he can.

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Ukraine
Scott Ritter
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Submitted by Fishtroller 02 on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 11:13am

I have been doing some reading yesterday and today about the original claim that the US and NATO lied to the Soviet Union (before the meltdown into becoming Russia again) about the expansion of NATO. It is the major claim that Putin is hanging his hat on. There are views on both sides. It looks like we can thank James Baker for making a verbal promise that NATO would not expand one inch past East Germany, but that was never codified, and eventually Gorbachev agreed that no promise not to expand NATO was ever made by either the US or NATO. Nevertheless you can certainly find a lot of information on it. Some links below...

After taking all this in, I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing....nothing here that justifies what Putin is doing to Ukraine. Gorbachev and Yeltsin set the stage in many ways for this by not getting verbal discussions in writing or in treaties or in some form that codified the discussions. The meltdown of the former Soviet Union is what caused the countries in the Warsaw Pact to turn to NATO. While Russia protested this, they had no legal standing to stop it.

https://www.france24.com/en/russia/20220130-did-nato-betray-russia-by-ex...

https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1577192/lrt-facts-has-nato-ever...

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-promise-not-...

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-...

https://theconversation.com/ukraine-the-history-behind-russias-claim-tha...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/12/russias-belief-in-nato-bet...

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/28/candace-owens/fact-che...

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Submitted by CB on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 12:43pm
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@Fishtroller 02
and continual expansion of NATO has left Russia with no other choice.

Kremlin responds to Clinton’s NATO statement
Washington has repeatedly declined Russia’s accession to the bloc, according to Putin’s spokesman
11 Apr, 2022
...
Earlier last week, Bill Clinton published an article in The Atlantic attempting to justify his administration’s policy on the expansion of NATO.

“My policy was to work for the best, while expanding NATO to prepare for the worst. Yes, NATO expanded despite Russia’s objections, but expansion was about more than the U.S. relationship with Russia,” the former president explained. He added that, “[the US] left the door open for Russia’s eventual membership in NATO.”

In late February, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a nearly hour-long video address to the nation, in which he explained the Kremlin’s security concerns over Ukraine, primarily regarding Kiev’s NATO-oriented foreign policy.

In his speech, the Russian leader shared that he had raised the question of Russia’s accession to NATO with then-president Bill Clinton but to no avail. Instead of embracing Moscow into the US-led military alliance, according to President Putin, Washington has responded with supporting terrorists inside Russia, the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and the expansion of NATO threatening the security of the world’s largest nation.

According to the Kremlin, the disdain of Americans for Russia’s safety concerns and NATO’s refusal to provide Moscow with security guarantees, including the non-alignment of its neighbors to the Western military bloc, have provoked Russia to recognize the independence of Ukraine’s breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk republics and take military action, launching an offensive against Ukraine. Kiev and the West believe that Moscow’s attack was completely unprovoked.

I believe that the US main military goal in arming Ukraine and shelling the Donbas was/is to provoke Russia in an attempt to defang/neuter Russia in preparation for the oncoming conflict against China. The US government will destroy itself (and the world) rather than lose its global hegemony. But it is too late. Russia and China are now too strong and the majority of the world's nation's are no longer allied with the US. They can see the writing on the wall.

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Submitted by enhydra lutris on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 1:03pm
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@Fishtroller 02

Gorbachev and Yeltsin set the stage in many ways for this by not getting verbal discussions in writing or in treaties or in some form that codified the discussions.

The US does not abide by or adhere to treaties or agreements unless they are one sided and exploitive, you can't trust us an inch, we abrogate treaties with enormous regularity.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by Fishtroller 02 on Tue, 04/12/2022 - 2:31pm

@enhydra lutris

Both sides do it. All sides do it. The basic question though in terms of this whole issue is what can we do to help the people of Ukraine? Or maybe that isn't the question here. Let's just pontificate (which I have also done) while 10,000 people are massacred, and Putin declares he doesn't give a rat's ass about it, and intends to keep bombing until he gains control of the whole country. And when I say "we" I mean the US and Europe.
We should all walk away because the US is a bad international actor?

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Submitted by CB on Tue, 04/12/2022 - 7:05pm
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@Fishtroller 02 @Fishtroller 02
you would realize that Putin is not "taking control of the whole country". He is just freeing the Russian speaking Donbas region that has been pounded by the Azov battalions who have killed 14,000 children, women and men during the last 8 years just because they are ethnically Russian. Ethnic Ukrainian people have never occupied the Donbas in their ENTIRE history going back 500 years. The people in this region will get to vote if they want to stay with Ukraine, go to Russia or remain independent.

You have not studied the situation in the least. I doubt you didn't even know the slightest about the history of Ukraine and their various regions until a few months ago. Many people here have posted lots of historical data. I suggest you read them.

Look at the map in the heading of this diary to get a clue!

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Submitted by CB on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 1:32pm
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@Fishtroller 02
When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind.

Ukraine crisis instigator: US-led NATO reneges on ‘Not one inch eastward’ promise to compress Russia’s space to the extreme

Since the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine began, the international community has become increasingly aware of the roles the US and NATO have played behind the crisis.

From leading NATO's eastward expansion to hem in Russia's territorial space, to launching color revolutions; from imposing sanctions on "disobedient countries," to coercing other nations to pick sides… the US has acted like a "Cold War schemer," or an "vampire" who creates "enemies" and make fortunes from pyres of war.

The Global Times is publishing a series of stories and cartoons to unveil how the US, in its superpower status, has been creating trouble in the world one crisis after another.

This is the first instalment.

  1. Ukraine crisis instigator: US-led NATO reneges on 'Not one inch eastward' promise to compress Russia's space to the extreme
  2. Instability brewer: Behind every war and turmoil in the world is shadow of the Star-Spangled Banner
  3. 'Vampires' in the war: US warmongers feeding on the bloody turbulence in other countries
  4. Cold War schemer: Reminiscing in its past 'victory,' US brings color revolutions to 21st century to maintain its hegemony

When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Russia, as the "eldest son" of the 15 Soviet republics, inherited the Soviet Union's "one-vote veto" status in the UN Security Council, as well as most of the Soviet territory, overseas assets, and debts. At the same time, Russia also inherited the great power and historical leanings of the Soviet Union, as well as the promises and betrayals, grievances and hatred surrounding the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Among them, the eastward expansion of NATO might have been the most jolting for Russia.

In the eyes of President Vladimir Putin and other Russian political elites, the West has reneged on promises made before the Soviet Union's disintegration. Instead, it has, for the past three decades, been continually hemming in the strategic security space of Russia. This is not only an arrogant result of the US and NATO, but also a betrayal that Russia can never accept.

'They brazenly tricked us!'

"'Not one inch to the East,' they told us in the 90s. So what? They cheated, just brazenly tricked us! Five waves of NATO expansion and now already, please, the systems are appearing in Romania and Poland," Putin, at his annual press conference on December 23, 2021, pointed out.

Earlier the same day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave a speech claiming that the alliance has never made promises not to expand, in particular to the East.

The promise of "Not one inch to the East" has always been the Achilles' heel of the West.

As early as in January 1990, in his speech on German reunification, the West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher made clear that "the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an 'impairment of Soviet security interests.'"

In a crucial meeting on February 10, 1990 between West German leader Helmut Kohl and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, it was agreed that Soviet would assent in principle to German unification in NATO, as long as NATO did not expand to the east.

Then US secretary of state James Baker made his famous "Not one inch eastward" assurance regarding NATO's expansion in his meeting with Gorbachev on February 9, 1990. "Neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place," Baker said. "Not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO's present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction," he said.

Experts noted that if it were not for the subsequent expansion of NATO all the way to the east, the current crisis in Ukraine would likely not be. But unfortunately, the "brazen trick" of "Not one inch to the East" knocked down the first piece of the domino.
...

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 1:35pm
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@Fishtroller 02

The US did promise Russia that it would not move to the east after the wall came down and there have been many articles on that posted here. I’m not looking for something that you won’t read so if interested you can look yourself.

But since we have done that which you can see on a map the point might be mute since Russia has said that Ukraine joining NATO or having nukes was its red line. Again you can only imagine how we’d react if Mexico and Canada were regime changed by Russia and loaded with weapons that could destroy our country. Russia didn’t start the war. We did. It’s been going on for 8 years and Ukraine and its Nazis have been killing Russian civilians living there. They have every right to defend their country. I posted a link on that yesterday that you must have missed? If you are supporting Ukraine you are supporting Nazis. Period. Lots of examples of that have also been posted here. You can start here by choosing 1 of 21 articles on that.

Donbass. Genocide. 2014-2022

This special project was launched to shed light on what has happened in Donbass over the past eight years, with the aim to show not only episodes of crimes by the Kiev regime against the civilian population, but also to explore the roots of the disaster occurring in the region.

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Submitted by Fishtroller 02 on Tue, 04/12/2022 - 2:42pm

@snoopydawg

"If you are supporting Ukraine you are supporting Nazis. Period."

I really don't need to hear anything more from you.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Tue, 04/12/2022 - 6:41pm
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@Fishtroller 02

If you post something that isn’t true then I will respond to it. There are tons of old articles decrying our supporting Nazis in the past, but that’s who this country is supporting. Congress even passed legislation against us doing it. But now they are. Russia will not allow them to continue killing Russian people living in Ukraine. They will not allow them to live in a country on their border. If you can’t see that you aren’t looking. Again, Russia did not start the war. We did.

Here is some more reading for you so you can see how we have been supporting the Nazis.

Seven Decades of Nazi Collaboration: America’s Dirty Little Ukraine Secret

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Submitted by on the cusp on Tue, 04/12/2022 - 7:10pm

@snoopydawg to the Ukraine. It just pissed me off.
I have this little tin containing several oz. of shrapnel removed from my Dad's body, courtesy of fucking Nazis SS Elite machine gunners 13 days after he landed on Utah Beach, D-Day.
The day I give one cent to Nazis is the day my Dad rises from the grave to beat my ass.
I am gob smacked at how the world according to the United States pressure upon said world, completely ignored the 10,000 Russian speaking Ukrainians, slaughtered by Nazis.
Not a cent. Never a vote for any of our esteemed elected officials cooperating to make the Nazis stronger.
I read that Zelenski was pushing for peace until the Nazis threatened to kill him and his family if he made peace with the Russians. I guess the President of Ukraine is more afraid of Nazis than Russians. I would be, too.
I may go get that little tin of shrapnel and rattle it around, make some noise.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by snoopydawg on Tue, 04/12/2022 - 7:25pm
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@on the cusp

Zelensky was voted in because he ran on making peace with Russia, but some of the Nazis threatened him that if he did they would kill him when he said that he was going to honor the Minsk accord. He said that he was the president and they should do what he tells them. They laughed. The greyzone has the article on that. It’s been posted here numerous times too.

Lots of dads and grandpas would be quiet upset if they knew what was happening, but they didn’t know how many people financed Hitler before and during the war. They were used as cannon fodder for the banks and corporations just like most wars. I wish more people would understand that.

One lady said that she doesn’t want to cancel student loans because she joined the military before she went to college and if she could do that everyone else could too. Yes she got hammered over it.

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Submitted by on the cusp on Tue, 04/12/2022 - 8:25pm

@snoopydawg Uncle Lee, Uncle Dee, Uncle Frank, Uncle Dan, Uncle Joe, Great-Uncle Jim. None got injured, other than Frank got some ear loss and hair turned white from a bomb exploding nearby.
They were all volunteers. The goal was to eradicate Nazis.
I grew up listening to them talking about it. They avoided the details, but discussed the big picture. I am lucky to have heard first person experiences. It has done so much to shape my world-view. I hope I don't have to man the parapets, but if I must, I know how.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by CB on Tue, 04/12/2022 - 7:16pm
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@Fishtroller 02
A history lesson for you. The USA has secretly supported NAZIS to this very day.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPxGA11hcMU]

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Submitted by Fishtroller 02 on Wed, 04/13/2022 - 12:54pm

@CB

I'm tired of your arrogant claims to all knowledge, whether it's Covid or Ukraine. If you are comfortable with spouting the Pro Russia line, then have at it. But don't tell me that my opinion counts for nothing because I don't agree with your response to the Ukraine crisis the way you do.

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Submitted by CB on Wed, 04/13/2022 - 6:11pm
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@Fishtroller 02
events which has led up to the current conflict. You are welcome to respond with facts that show otherwise. Just having an "opinion" is meaningless in an open debate, especially if you don't know what has led up to the conflict. These conflicts do not happen in a vacuum. The fact is that the majority of the conflict going on in Ukraine is due to the resurgence of Nazism who have a deep hatred for Russians. The neocons in the US also have a deep hatred for the Russians - not only Putin. They want to split Russia into a dozen different countries.

SALON - Pimps of war: Neocons who fueled 20 years of carnage in the Middle East are back for more

The warmongering buffoons who drove the U.S. to disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan are now eager for war with Russia

The same cabal of warmongering pundits, foreign policy specialists and government officials, year after year, debacle after debacle, smugly dodge responsibility for the military fiascos they orchestrate. They are protean, shifting adroitly with the political winds, moving from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party and then back again, mutating from cold warriors to neocons to liberal interventionists. Pseudo-intellectuals, they exude a cloying Ivy League snobbery as they sell perpetual fear, perpetual war and a racist worldview, where the lesser breeds of the earth only understand violence.

They are pimps of war, puppets of the Pentagon, a state within a state, and the defense contractors who lavishly fund their think tanks — Project for the New American Century, American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Initiative, Institute for the Study of War, the Atlantic Council and the Brookings Institution. Like some mutant strain of an antibiotic-resistant bacteria, they cannot be vanquished. It does not matter how wrong they are, how absurd their theories, how many times they lie or denigrate other cultures and societies as uncivilized or how many murderous military interventions go bad. They are immovable props, the parasitic mandarins of power vomited up in the dying days of any empire, including ours, leaping from one self-defeating catastrophe to the next.
...
I do not know if these people are stupid or cynical or both. They are lavishly funded by the war industry. They are never dropped from the networks for their repeated idiocy. They rotate in and out of power, parked in places like the Council on Foreign Relations or the Brookings Institution, before being called back into government. They are as welcome in the Obama or Biden White House as the Bush White House. The Cold War, for them, never ended. The world remains binary, us and them, good and evil. They are never held accountable. When one military intervention goes up in flames, they are ready to promote the next. These Dr. Strangeloves, if we don't stop them, will terminate life as we know it on the planet.

If you post an article that says ivermectin is not effective, I will look at it and see if it is valid. You have yet to offer one that is valid...

I had a look at the ACTIV-6 study
...
None of the links posted show the actual reason for ivermectin's "failure".

Unfortunately the data was removed from the CONFIDENTIAL ACTIV-6 Protocol.

The published information of the 61 page document only goes to page 56. Pages 57 thru 61 which document the data on ivermectin have been removed.
...

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Submitted by Fishtroller 02 on Thu, 04/14/2022 - 9:40am

@CB

history of NATO and the Soviet Union/Russia regarding Putin's excuses for attacking Ukraine. Did you read them all, as I did? Of course not, because they don't fit into you OPINIONS.

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Submitted by CB on Thu, 04/14/2022 - 11:50am
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@Fishtroller 02 @Fishtroller 02
Give me the link...

One of the difficulties with your posts is that you respond several days after the diary was written and has scrolled off the front page. There are many days that I don't have the time to read C99.

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Submitted by Fishtroller 02 on Sat, 04/16/2022 - 10:15am

@CB

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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 11:26am

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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 1:30pm

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Submitted by ggersh on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 11:36am
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who has also note that wherever Russia has invaded and Azov isn't there is no damage done
to those cities.

"This was sent to me by my friend from Kyiv, Father Roman. A housemate is writing, and the priest himself had to flee with his family."

"Good afternoon. I am a citizen of Ukraine, I am in Kyiv. We evacuated from Bucha on March 12.

Our house (250 apartments) is completely looted. The Ukrainian press accuses the "Russian orcs" of plundering Bucha, and people believed it... But, a week has passed, and those single neighbors who still live in the house, in a whisper after you swear by Mom, the health of your children, and all the saints, horrified by the lawlessness they have seen, tell the Truth...

The Russians left Bucha on 30 March. And on the 31st, in the evening, the looting began. A brigade of more than 10 people in civilian clothes worked, but they were guarded and commanded by the military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine around the clock. At night by headlamps.

They ransacked our house for three days (April 31, 1 and 2). All apartments were broken into and looted except for those four where there were people. Everyone knows about it, but they are silent. Even those whose relatives serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the police are silent! Everyone is immersed in animal fear! When women come up to them, they bow and with horror in their eyes begin to cry and say "Thank you" in a trembling voice. Such a reaction because they know that those whom we consider ours are killed immediately without warning.

Four out of six corpses found in the basement of a neighboring house were identified yesterday in Bucha. Two of them turned out to be door installers, and two were locksmiths! This is the elimination of witnesses, marauders who worked for three days for the "commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine"! (break down apartment doors)

Now, our family has (or rather had) a dacha in a large village near Kiev. Phoned a neighbor. The village is destroyed, every 3rd house. Many people evacuated. Only those who have a cow remain ...

Our village was robbed by units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which entered as soon as the Russian troops withdrew!!! Ten days. All houses are broken into and robbed!!! People are silent. A neighbor with small grandchildren went to Malin to his daughter, and handed over the cow and chickens to the care of a neighbor ... The neighbor saw that even furniture was being taken out of his house by "ours" and ran to them: "Boys, why are you robyte, we are our own She was immediately shot under the fence... And her husband too!

Why was Baba Masha killed??? Her milk cows mooed heart-rendingly for three days all over the district, because the neighbors were afraid to leave the hut even to go to the toilet, and went to the pot... On the third day, the warriors of light took pity and cut the throats of the poor cows... our village had 70-80 people. And they all robbed and killed!

Do you think that Ukraine is fascism? No, this is not fascism ... The Nazis did not rob or kill their own! This Satanism is fierce, senseless and merciless! They are not "ours", they are nonhumans!!! They couldn’t help but understand that in the village, although few, there are still people left ... even though they sit in their huts and see what you have been doing these ten days with our village !!! Neighbors see your crimes... Bastards.

About 3,000 people remained in Bucha, and about 40 in our village. People have seen everything, and they know everything and will tell everything!!! You will not kill all the witnesses of your fierce Satanism? And even if you come back, you won't kill everyone! The people cannot be killed... Thank God that it occurred to someone to withdraw the Russian troops from Kyiv... This decision is God's admonition... It put everything in its place...

And most importantly. Over the past three weeks, our family has lost everything: an apartment that we paid for 17 years, we built a summer house for 20 years, investing our souls, a car - everything ... But, Thank God, the children survived.

I still have trousers, shoes, a shirt and only shorts... I will survive this... Because I had a Dream... that "Russian orcs" will be given by God, will return to my beloved Kyiv, to my Bucha, to my village, and I will be able to sign up as a private with them in order to free my Batkivshchyna, my Motherland from the fierce Satanism that tormented our house in Bucha for three days, and tortured my beloved village for ten days ...
Please, "Russian Orcs", Dear ones, Good ones, don't stop... For Christ's sake Dear ones!
Please publish my letter. I am now in Kyiv, and I cannot announce it myself.

And here is MOA

https://www.moonofalabama.org/

The Russian ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, was interviewed by Newsweek. He explained Russia's political and judicial reasoning behind the war:

"The special operation in Ukraine is the result of the unwillingness of the Kiev regime to stop the genocide of Russians by fulfilling its obligations under the international commitments," Antonov told Newsweek. "The desire of the NATO member states to use the territory of a neighboring state to establish a foothold in the struggle against Russia is also obvious."
...
To Russia, Antonov said that the [Maidan] revolution was a "bloody coup d'état instigated by the West" in which "ultranationalist ideas came to power in Kiev." He said that policies viewed by Moscow as hostile such as the removal of Russian as a national language and the rehabilitation of nationalist Ukrainian figures such as Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II, had "taken root in Ukraine under external administration."
...
Antonov argued that it was the "nationalist frenzy and revanchist sentiments of the Kiev regime" that resulted in the effective death of the Minsk deals as Ukraine chose "the path of rapid militarization" with help from abroad.

"The NATO member countries have commenced a military exploration of Ukraine," Antonov said. "It was flooded with Western weaponry while President Vladimir Zelensky announced Kiev's plans to acquire nuclear weapons which would threaten not only neighboring countries, but also the entire world."
...
"In this context, Russia had no other choice but to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics," Antonov said. "Then, in accordance with Chapter VII, Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, with the authorization of the Federation Council of Russia and in execution of the Treaties of Friendship and Mutual Assistance with the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin made a decision to begin a special military operation."

"Its aim is to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine in order to reduce military threats posed by the Western states that are trying to use the fraternal Ukrainian people in the struggle against the Russians," he added.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 11:45am
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The 300 missile defense system donated by Slovakia arrived in Ukraine a few days ago and was immediately destroyed by Russia. But like that had any chance of protection for Ukraine in the first place. Countries are off loading their old equipment on Ukraine and thinking they will make any difference.

Vinderman, the darling of Trump’s 1st impeachment trial wants Biden to send Ukraine weapons that can target Russian infrastructure. Sure you dumb ass do that and see what Russia does in response to the US. Good lord people cannot actually be this dumb can they?

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 11:47am
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5736D83B-EF08-437D-9E57-ADA28082F919.jpeg
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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 12:03pm

casualties.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 12:10pm
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Excellent essay on how the parasite class is thinking that if we just use smaller nuclear weapons that humanity will be able to survive it. Obama decided to spend $1.2 trillion on them, Trump upped the anti to $2 billion and canceled the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty letting us ring both Russia and China with them and Biden’s doing everything in his power to make it possible. For some reason the parasites think that they will be immune to what comes from nuclear war. They’ve already shown us that they don’t give a rat’s ass how many of us die from the Rona, lack of housing, food, health care and whatnot as long as they get to keep more of the marbles. They are already killing much of the planet and it’s species.

4CCADE78-495C-4B2B-9805-10A0F7C422EC.jpeg

Yep this sums us up.

247B2498-9698-4E74-9758-84D36C26ADF4.jpeg

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 1:44pm
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@snoopydawg

No it’s not being scripted…

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Submitted by Lookout on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 2:07pm
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@snoopydawg

Those are bags of sugar or flour. Zelensky's staff came with him from his TV show. Talk about PR....how about propaganda?

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by CB on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 1:06pm
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The Reasons For And Dangers Behind The War In Ukraine

The war in the Ukraine continues but the propaganda hysteria around it seems to have calmed down a bit as reality is setting in.

This gives room from more sane voices to be heard by the public. I will start with the Russian ones.

The Russian ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, was interviewed by Newsweek. He explained Russia's political and judicial reasoning behind the war:
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It is also what the Canadian Russia expert Patrick Armstrong had mentioned as the most important item after he had read Putin's speeches at the start of the war:

Had I been at home I would have read Putin’s speech earlier and understood sooner. What he is talking about is what the Soviet Union tried to do from 1933 onwards: namely to stop Hitler before he got started. This time Russia is able to do it by itself. In other words, Putin feels that he is making a pre-emptive attack to stop June 1941. This is very serious indeed and indicates that the Russians are going to keep going until they feel that they can safely stop.

The Russian view is not really that far fetched.
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As ambassador Antonov has said the war in Ukraine is not only about the Ukraine.

Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, is correctly pointing out the two levels of the war we see:

It is not that the empathy for Ukraine or support for Zelensky’s national resistance is misplaced, but that it has the appearance of being geopolitically orchestrated and manipulated in ways that other desperate national situations were not, and thus gives rise to suspicions about other, darker motives.

This is worrisome because these magnified concerns have acted as a principal way that the NATO West has gone out of its way to make the Ukrainian War about more than Ukraine. The wider war is best understood as occurring on two levels: a traditional war between the invading forces of Russia and the resisting forces of Ukraine as intertwined with an encompassing geopolitical war between the US and Russia. It is the prosecution of this latter war that presents the more profound danger to world peace, a danger that has been largely obscured or assessed as a mere extension of the Russia/Ukraine confrontation.
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If this two-level perception is correctly analyzed in its appreciation of the different actors with contradictory priorities, then it becomes crucial to understand that in the geopolitical war the US is the aggressor as much as in the traditional war on the ground Russia is the aggressor.

Falk concurs with professor John Mearsheimer who fears that the larger U.S. Russia conflict hidden behind the war in Ukraine may lead to widening of the conflict into a potential nuclear war.
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Towards the end of a talk with Gonzalo Lira former Marine officer and UN Inspector Scott Ritter disputes the potential for escalation. The Pentagon, he says, knows the real situation on the ground and that the Ukrainian army will lose the war. Neither NATO, nor the U.S. nor single countries like Poland have their forces configured in a way that would allow them to successfully wage war against Russia. They would need more time to get ready than Russia will need to win the war in Ukraine.

Ritter predicts that the Pentagon will overrule any escalation the Ukraine warmongers in the State Department and National Security Council may plan and that those responsible for the current mess, Victoria Nuland, Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, will get silenced or removed after the midterms.

I hope he is right.

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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 1:21pm

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Submitted by CB on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 1:52pm
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@humphrey
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD-ioJM8v64]

Now TPTB just have to figure out how to reduce the world's population to a manageable 1 to 1.5 billion. The conflict with Russia seems to be a good start.

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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 1:49pm

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Submitted by ovals49 on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 8:58pm

Those of us who have not studied or participated in warfare could gain some understanding of tactics and momentum of battlefield maneuvers and a better appreciation of the ethics of warfare (I know, that may sound oxymoronic).

Ritter’s frank assessment of the current situation, particularly of the imminent Donbas push, and his explanation of the inevitable limitations of possible near and longer term responses of the Ukrainian forces and their remote supporters provides a context and rationale for what he sees as Russia’s inevitable victory.

He goes on to discuss possible consequences with regard to NATO, the US and China. There’s a lot to digest and think about in this interview, which is likely far more comprehensive and substantive than anything you’re ever going to find on MSM “news” outlets.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 04/11/2022 - 10:16pm

@ovals49

I finally got time to listen to it and it was time well spent.

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Submitted by Lookout on Tue, 04/12/2022 - 9:57am
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@ovals49 @humphrey

Which is why I posted it. Thanks for taking the time to learn from Scott.

All the best to you both!

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8 users have voted.
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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”