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Sweden Is a NATO Member

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Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#721

Post by alluro2 »

xedrac wrote: post #710
geysersam wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes almost as ridiculous as the US not being able to pacify Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation.

Russia doesn't care about pacifying Ukraine. If the US had approached Afghanistan with a mindset similar to Russia, there would be no Afghans left, except the few that swore loyalty out of fear. Any dissent would mean death. The US clearly had different goals. Ones that are much much harder to achieve than just killing everyone.

I don't necessarily share the parent commenter's sentiment towards Russia, but I'm curious about your statement - what would those goals of US in Afghanistan be? I mean except from extracting $2.26T from the taxpayers and distributing a significant portion of it to private sector and shareholders, tied to the Senate.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#723

Post by sph »

SamBam wrote: post #660
xdennis wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pro NATO, but I don't think the support of the US is guaranteed. The US has always been an unreliable partner: it depends on who's in power. If the republican war hawks or moderate Democrats are in power they would support Latvia, but libertarians and far leftists would say "it's not our problem".

Is Trump a libertarian or a far leftist? Because he's currently the cause of these discussions -- he's the one that people have the most doubts would agree to defending Latvia.

He's neither. He's a big State conservative populist that cozies up to the far-right cretins as they represent what a lot of the silent, dissatisfied majority thinks.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#724

Post by empath-nirvana »

bluGill wrote: post #368
empath-nirvana wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's clear that at least from Clinton on, I think from Clinton's point of view, at least for a large portion of his term, there was no one to defend europe _from_. Russia was in shambles and retreating everywhere.

In hindsight we know that was wrong. However I'll fully admit that if he has assassinated Putin I would have called him out on it even though we now wish he had.

He wasn't wrong. It was in a shambles and retreating everywhere. I think the actual failure was the US doing too much to exploit that and not enough to support democracy there. Russia really needed a Marshall plan from the west to stabilize them, and not western companies going in and helping kleptocrats loot the country. By the time Putin took over, the situation was already irreparable..

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#725

Post by Slava_Propanei »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #537
AlGrothendieck wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Secretary General, Ismay is also credited as having been the first person to say that the purpose of NATO was "to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down," a saying that has since become a common way to describe the dynamics of NATO

the irony is that NATO is pushing Germany to aggressively and quickly re-arm if NATO wants America in then they need to do something about an angry orange political candidate...

[dead]

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#726

Post by Slava_Propanei »

skissane wrote: post #682
rainworld wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to what, the United States of Guatemala? It’s more or less the same story everywhere in the developed world. At least China’s not seeking to replace their extant populations with foreigners. Really strange seeing people (often gleefully) parrot these talking points, unaware of their own malaise.

> It’s more or less the same story everywhere in the developed world. I don't think it is all the same story. Americans don't have enough children to sustain their population, but they can make it up with immigration. So do most developed countries, with rare exceptions (consider Israel) Compare Australia: same story, but with one fundamental difference: US is experiencing uncontrolled mass immigration over its south…

[dead]

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#727

Post by roguas »

candiodari wrote: post #701
danlugo92 wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this similar to sending ammunitions or "worse"(e.g. more provoking of WW3)...?

The problem with that is simple: if one side believes they are at war, 2 sides are at war. And Russia has explained why they believe they are at war, the insane dictator at the top explained that in the 13th century it was really unfair that some army marched from Poland to what is now Chechnya (even Tucker Carlsson frowned as hard as he could and needed about 6 seconds to collect his jaw from the floor) and therefor…

I was drooling each time he said Poland in that interview. Putin's got special kink for us. Its not well known fact but through weird tricks we ended up ruling Russia for a couple of years. Not a lot of folks on both side knew about it, but then Putin send money for a movie 1612, depicting their heroic retaking of motherland from polish oppressors.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#728

Post by roguas »

alluro2 wrote: post #721
xedrac wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia doesn't care about pacifying Ukraine. If the US had approached Afghanistan with a mindset similar to Russia, there would be no Afghans left, except the few that swore loyalty out of fear. Any dissent would mean death. The US clearly had different goals. Ones that are much much harder to achieve than just killing everyone.

I don't necessarily share the parent commenter's sentiment towards Russia, but I'm curious about your statement - what would those goals of US in Afghanistan be? I mean except from extracting $2.26T from the taxpayers and distributing a significant portion of it to private sector and shareholders, tied to the Senate.

I think the goal was last attempt at nation building in middleeast (that started in 70s, due to oil being way more important for US than now). In order to do nation building of course you have to shake the country and its structure, but you try to shake out the bad people, install stable and reasonable government and plant seeds for democracy, try and introduce some liberalism, education, infrastructure.

It failed, yes. But it succeeded in great many places, eastern europe, large part of south east asia, some african countries.

Russia is just a sorry ass loser, their country is in downward spiral and needs to exert power over its sphere of influence, thing is that countries in that sphere some time ago decided they dont really want to be aligned. Thus Russia decided to punish Ukraine otherwise the rest will also fall out of sphere (ironically I think they accelerated that process even more).

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#729

Post by georgespencer »

Ygg2 wrote: post #713
georgespencer wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. The economic shock therapy. Ah, so you mean the United States' inaction in providing aid to Russia after Yeltsin and the IMF began to aggressively reform Russia's economy? Your logic is that the United States installed Putin by not interfering more ? > You know. It would be fine if it was a few times thing. But US has a long history of putting dictators into power, calling them allies, then turning against them…

> Ah, so you mean the United States' inaction in providing aid to Russia. US is largest contributor to IMF it would be a joke to suggest their opinion has no sway. Especially application of neo liberal way of things. > How many dictators has the United States installed, allied with, and then invaded or killed in your lifetime? Two at least I can recall on the top of my head. Saddam in Iraq and Gaddafi in Libya. Grant…

> US is largest contributor to IMF it would be a joke to suggest their opinion has no sway.

Russia was pursuing this strategy prior to IMF involvement. The membership of the IMF was supportive of the strategy. The United States' Treasury Department did not intervene. Tell me again how this had anything to do with Putin? You make it sound as if the US was providing weapons to Putin or something.

> Saddam in Iraq

I think you have some reading to do if you believe the United States "installed" Saddam. It was the Ba’athists.

Re: Sweden Is a NATO Member

#730

Post by tharmas »

gruturo wrote: post #57
tharmas wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>Was it worth it What extremely stupid question is that? They didn't choose to get invaded. You think we shouldn't have helped? Pity we're not helping enough.

Why is it a stupid question? Their country is destroyed. The demographics are abysmal. All the youth destroyed.

The USA and Ukraine should've negotiated a deal years and years ago that Ukraine would be a neutral state and NOT join NATO.

Ukraine will never join NATO. USA knows that that will trigger Nuclear War.

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