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US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

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Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#361

Post by TMWNN »

jacobolus wrote: post #348
TMWNN wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Pushing NATO members to meet their defense spending obligations ended up being damn-near prescient >This was not “pushing” so much as “ineffective trash talking”. Trump and Stoltenberg argue on camera ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k >). Who turned out to be right? Who turned out to completely, totally, 100% wrong? If Trump was so bad for NATO and Ukraine's defense, why didn't the current war didn't b…

Trump was literally impeached for secretly withholding congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine and then extorting the Ukrainian president to make up a fake scandal about his political opponent in return for keeping aid flowing. Several of Trump’s top advisors/officials were directly corruptly involved with previous Russian puppet leaders of Ukraine and corrupt pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarchs, notably Paul…

No post body was provided.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#362

Post by jacobolus »

labrador wrote: post #263
FpUser wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Continue doing business as usual as if they're not murdering women and children?" No we should do everything possible to stop it. There is a problem though - when "murdering women and children" is done by approved country "Continue doing business as usual" is pretty much what the West does. And I am not aware of any real repercussions for the crimes committed.

You have to pick your battles and fact is, the American public wants to stop Russian atrocities in Ukraine. They don't want to do anything about Yemen or Syria. I'm sure many books have been written about how and why people get involved to help strangers.

The problem for both Syria and Yemen with US audiences is that the USA just went through 2 decades of jingoistic anti-Muslim propaganda and complicated Middle-East wars ending in political failure.

The war in Ukraine is a straightforward story with an obvious bad guy, and it doesn’t require much self reflection to figure out or cause much cognitive dissonance.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#363

Post by ghostwriter »

themitigating wrote: post #356
ghostwriter wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finally, Ukraine has the right to join any alliance it wants No, it doesn't have this right to join ANY alliance, as it may violate one of the conditions (military bloc neutrality) under which their sovereignty was granted to them by the USSR, which Russia is a legitimate successor of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31746866

How does the annexation of Crimea play into that agreement?

There's no relation, as the annexation of Crimea has everything to do with a prior armed coup (you can call it "a successful January 6 event", if you wish) against a legitimately[1] elected president in Kyiv. The coup, among many other things, violated the right to a political representation of the people's voice who voted for that president. In case of president Yanukovych, these were the people of the eastern Ukraine, including Crimea, who were deprived of their right to a democratic process in their country.

[1] The election has been widely recognized and endorsed as being fair and an accurate reflection of voters' intentions by all international agencies observing the election including the OSCE and PACE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_el...

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#364

Post by ghostwriter »

jacobolus wrote: post #353
ghostwriter wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just like we were forced to mass murder Chechens Just like the US "was forced" to mass murder Iraqis because, in addition to fake WMD claims, the US intelligence was linking Saddam to Bin Laden. I wonder how exactly you would characterise Khattab, among other "prominent" "freedom fighters", and his role in the Chechen wars. Would you be willing to accommodate similar kind of characters in your country of origin and…

Most people in the USA agree that the Iraq war was a senseless tragedy fought on false pretenses, and a gross violation of international law. Iraq posed no threat to the USA, the USA had no good reason to invade, and the outcomes of the war were tremendously destructive and destabilizing. If it were up to me, the perpetrators would be locked up. If nothing else, the Iraq war led to a sharp political change in the USA…

> The 1999 apartment bombings in Russia attributed to Khattab (among others) were most likely a false flag operation undertaken by the Russian state security service, under orders from Vladimir Putin.

right, and in line with this level of evidence and argumentation, 9-11 in the US was presumably organised and conducted by a joint operation between the Pentagon and FBI.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#365

Post by colordrops »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #73
sha256sum wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note the money drip from Afghanistan has been cut off, with manufacturers looking for more ways to drain tax money away from domestic projects and into the war machine, a status quo since at least Vietnam.

It is literally the exact opposite. Escalating the war in Ukraine by going "all in on sending howitzers, MLRS and other heavy equipment" is exactly what the defense companies want . It's genuinely amazing to see the mental gymnastics here to come to the conclusion that buying fewer weapons is exactly what the defense contractors are lobbying for.

They have approved 40 billion. Is it really that hard to imagine that a protracted war would benefit defense contractors. Do you think these multi billion dollar war machine only thinks in simplistic first order effects.

It requires no mental gymnastics whatsoever. Actually the counter argument is where you need to twist yourself to believe otherwise.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#366

Post by ghostwriter »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #322
klibertp wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't selling Crimea and recognizing the breakaway republics as countries work? It might be unacceptable, but it's definitely simple...

OK you can have the Sudetenland! (please stop there) OK, you can have Czechoslovakia! (stop there, please) OK, you can have Poland. ...France? You see how this doesn't work anymore.

> OK, you can have Czechoslovakia! (stop there, please)

indeed, the UK, France, and Italy should not have been allowed to sign The Munich Agreement of 1938, moreso Poland should not have been allowed to annex Trans-Olza from Czechoslovakia, certainly not in an act of a military ultimatum.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#367

Post by archagon »

cpursley wrote: post #210
at-fates-hands wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question then. . . How long before their economy collapses? Of course with the idea that everything you're saying is true. Which at this point, I have no basis to disagree with you. I'm just wondering how long you think it will take for all of this finally come to a head.

Considering that commodities matter and Russia has them in spades, is run by (mostly) competent people (notice I didn't say moral or ethical) and has many friends outside the west, including the most populous countries, their economy is not collapsing any time soon.

As someone who was born in the Soviet Union, has Russian friends and family, and has been observing Russia for decades...

> is run by (mostly) competent people

Citation needed.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#368

Post by archagon »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #358
cpursley wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google it. Russians might be Orcs, but they can math.

So this is a troll account. Got it.

His recent posts are all in war threads pumping up Russia while smugly mocking Westerners and the US/EU.

Probably not a troll, but a true believer. As a Russian/American following this sick war with abject horror, it really depresses me...

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#369

Post by yucky »

ayngg wrote: post #165
nostromo wrote: post #27

The US government has completely lost the ability to act strategically. Biden is currently in Saudi Arabia begging for more oil production, meanwhile he's blocking measures to increase North American oil production. So, instead of fixing our own problem with inflation, we're asking one of the worst regimes on Earth for help and enriching Russia with higher prices simultaneously. Even if you support greener energy, li…

This entire thing has been some kind of bizarre politics induced self flagellation. Regardless of whether or not you think it is right or wrong, it has been no secret for decades that this conflict would be an outcome of Ukraine alignment with the west, yet the west continued to pursue it even after 2014, even with the huge increased dependency on Russian and Ukrainian resources while limiting domestic investment in…

It's all so obvious, which makes you wonder if it's intentional.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#370

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jimbob45 wrote: post #324
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not filibuster-proof, and it's even less veto-proof. But it would let the Republicans set the legislative agenda, and nothing would pass without their approval.

But that's basically true right now. The Democrats aren't getting anything done without the approval of Manchin and Sinema and still wouldn't post-2022. In 2014, the Republicans held 54 Senate seats after the election. In the very worst case for 2022, we're back to 2014. However, if you actually go look at the upcoming races for this year, it seems much more likely that we'll end up closer to a 50/50 split given how…

Yeah. I have no idea why Biden tried to govern as if he had a strong majority when he had a 50/50 Senate. He's from the Senate himself; he absolutely should have known how weak his hand was. He could have done some things with it anyway, but by playing it as if he had more than he does, he got shot down time after time, and wound up looking quite ineffective.
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