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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

#411

Post by trasz »

ghostwriter wrote: post #335
ozzythecat wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a surprise? They’ve been vocally against NATO’s eastward expansion for a long time, and Ukraine was a known line in the sand. Of course, one could argue Ukraine has a right to self determination, but we effectively egged them on and on. And now here we are - Ukraine is getting destroyed in a war of attrition, more or less a proxy war.

> Of course, one could argue Ukraine has a right to self determination, but we effectively egged them on and on. One could argue that, but that would be their eagerness to ignore and dismiss important details of Ukraine's founding legal documents that made their independence possible in the first place. If one reads the Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Ukraine from 1990 [1], one will find it in Chapter IX: "Th…

Predicated by whom? The only entity to enforce Ukrainian constitution is Ukraine itself, not Russia.

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

#412

Post by aaomidi »

leereeves wrote: post #344
aaomidi wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize these licenses take years to materialize? Oil companies use any crisis to get more rights in the future. Biden can use wartime production laws to force oil companies to produce more. Oil companies right now just don’t want to produce more. It’s not that they can’t. They have no reason to do more work to make less money.

Why would oil companies invest in production when the politicians plan to phase out oil in the near future? Infrastructure is expensive and takes a long time to break even. And what investments they do make, like the Keystone XL pipeline, are blocked by the government. Would you invest in that?

No I’d just force them to increase their production now. This is why critical infrastructure being private property is fucking insane.

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

#413

Post by jacobolus »

ghostwriter wrote: post #397
jacobolus wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“This level of evidence” is pretty significant, though the Russian government did a thorough enough cover-up that it’s hard to meet a strict burden of proof from publicly available information. Unless secret documents are someday published, the public will probably never see a convincing conclusion about what happened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings#Rus... https://www.gq.com/story/moscow-bom…

> In the US where free speech is protected, those who made various claims and conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks (Bush did it! Israel did it! The CIA did it! etc.) didn’t get locked up or murdered Only, for some reason the free speech protection did not help Assange from being prosecuted and his life being destroyed for broadcasting US war crimes evidence in Iraq [1]. The same could be said about your…

Assange was arguably mistreated by US law enforcement, but he never went on trial for the crimes he was accused of because he instead fled (to spend years on the run as a pathetic Putin stooge and apologist).

If he ever is successfully extradited to the USA, he will be afforded the same protections of the law as any other accused person. He will face a trial by jury, and have access to an attorney. The prosecutors will need to prove to the jury that he committed a specific crime.

But he won’t be assassinated, summarily executed, or imprisoned without trial, as regularly happens to government critics in Russia.

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

#414

Post by ozzythecat »

themitigating wrote: post #383
ozzythecat wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does it matter if a NATO country is on the border anyway? This question, no matter how well intentioned, is irrelevant. Russia views NATO as an existential threat. It’s irrelevant whether you agree with that NATO is such a threat or not. Russia does not want NATO on or by its borders. They’ve been making this clear since the collapse of the Soviet Union. You can disagree with them, argue in favor of NATO expand…

It's not a surprise but it's still wrong. Also his opinion that NATO is a threat needs to have some backing otherwise I don't accept it as a valid fear

“Wrong” or “right” is meaningless. The only alternative is war, and that’s what we have happening now.

Tell us something. Why does it matter to the US when China tries to expand its sphere of influence over HK or islands in the Pacific?

What would happen if a Chinese bloc propagated itself to the Western Hemisphere and established an alliance with Cuba or South America?

Surely the same argument - that none of it matters in the day of nuclear weapons and ballistics capabilities - that same argument would valid, right? But would Washington stand for this? Absolutely not.

Cuba is still being punished to this day. The Monroe doctrine is still very real.

Russia warned about this for decades. The West basically told Russia that they don’t matter, that they’re a has been, and NATO will do whatever it wants.

Well, here we have the consequences. Now Bidens administration is quietly admitting that the war is becoming an economic liability for the US, but I digress.

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

#415

Post by ozzythecat »

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #300
ozzythecat wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finally, Ukraine has the right to join any alliance it wants and for Russia to invade over that is bullshit. In geopolitics, nobody has any particular rights. Whoever has the bigger stick and better propaganda gets their way. One could argue that there’s no reason to have sanctions on Cuba, that Palestinians should also have the right to self determination, that America doesn’t have the right to interfere in the de…

Please stop with this. Ukraine is an independent nation that can do what it wants. They may have wanted to provoke this war as Russia threatened it. That is their prerogative. It's possible they simply wanted to become part of Europe, and leave Putin, Luchenko, and the rest of the Eastern Kleptocratic Dictatorships behind. Can anyone blame them? Sometimes it's because exactly what is obviously the reason.

> Please stop with this. Ukraine is an independent nation that can do what it wants. They may have wanted to provoke this war as Russia threatened it.

Ukraine can do whatever it wants. It was up to NATO to flat out reject any prospects of Ukraine’s membership and prevent the war, but they egged it on.

Ukraine can do whatever it wants, but the simply truth is that Ukraine is now just ground zero in Washington’s proxy war with Russia. They could have remained neutral and avoided this disaster.

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

#416

Post by AnimalMuppet »

d0mine wrote: post #408
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Russia wins in Ukraine In Ukraine . NATO's population is irrelevant if Russia is not fighting NATO.

Except for boots on the ground [officially], NATO does everything else: intelligence, weapons, training, supplies, etc. It is not a secret e.g., https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/15/infographic-what-we... Imagine, somebody did it for Afghanistan in 2001 what do you think NATO response would be?

Someone (Iran) did do it for Iraq. What was our response?

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

#417

Post by somenameforme »

themitigating wrote: post #404
ghostwriter wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ukrai…

I wouldn't consider it similar to January 6th at all You provided a source to show the elections were valid but who was questioning that? The cause of the uprising (from wiki) "In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests (known as Euromaidan) erupted in response to President Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), instead choosing cl…

Apologies for the hoard of links here, but I think they're necessary. There's so much disinformation and misinformation on this topic that I want to emphasize everything I'm stating is accurate and can be verified easily.

The motion you are mentioning was the Ukraine cabinet passing a resolution (in other words a statement of intent) to continue working towards an EU Association Agreement, the exact same sort they currently have with places such as Israel, Egypt, South Africa, Syria, and many other such nations. [1] That cabinet then chose to not pass any further acts that would have been necessary to move forward with said agreement. Instead it started moving towards the creation of a 3-way association agreement between Ukraine, the EU, and Russia that would help ensure trade could flow amongst all parties. [2]

That's when you started getting protests, which quickly escalated into riots and insurrection efforts. And you then also get completely bizarre scenes like this [3]. That is John McCain in the capital of Ukraine, telling protesters that America is with them and that their future is with America and Europe. Imagine if you had something comparable during January 6th from comparably high level Chinese/Russian officials. It's not only completely surreal, but also understates the issue. Because this was effectively a superpower declaring war on the current establishment of a much weaker country, which is going to endlessly embolden insurrection efforts.

As for merit, neither the protests nor insurrection were supported by the majority of the country [4], at least not until the government was overthrown at which point there were reasons for self censorship, and likely also disrupted polling as various regions began rejecting the new government and declaring their independence. And I don't believe you've considered the implications of your statement that so long as a "meaningful" percent of people participate in an insurrection, it has merit. US elections are regularly decided on near 50/50 scales. Obviously you don't support the idea of the losing party now just trying to violently overthrow the winning party. The only thing that large participation would show is the degree of radicalization among the losing party, which is certainly not a positive thing.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Association_Agr...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union%E2%80%93Ukraine...

[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg

[4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan#Public_opinion_abou...

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

#418

Post by stunt »

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…

I recently listened to a podcast in which two senior political advisers talked about how they were surprised by the importance of fertilizers and the fact that a lot of fertilizers come from those countries. They had no idea before hands, and nobody around them talked about it.

We see incompetent people around us every day, but sometimes we forget that there are incompetent politicians as well. The big difference, and what bothers me the most, is that they never admit their mistakes because of all the political party BS that is often the main priority and goal.

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

#419

Post by trasz »

ozzythecat wrote: post #414
themitigating wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a surprise but it's still wrong. Also his opinion that NATO is a threat needs to have some backing otherwise I don't accept it as a valid fear

“Wrong” or “right” is meaningless. The only alternative is war, and that’s what we have happening now. Tell us something. Why does it matter to the US when China tries to expand its sphere of influence over HK or islands in the Pacific? What would happen if a Chinese bloc propagated itself to the Western Hemisphere and established an alliance with Cuba or South America? Surely the same argument - that none of it matt…

There is a fundamental difference here: US and China are superpowers, as was USSR. Russia, however, is just Nigeria with nukes.

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

#420

Post by trasz »

ozzythecat wrote: post #415
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop with this. Ukraine is an independent nation that can do what it wants. They may have wanted to provoke this war as Russia threatened it. That is their prerogative. It's possible they simply wanted to become part of Europe, and leave Putin, Luchenko, and the rest of the Eastern Kleptocratic Dictatorships behind. Can anyone blame them? Sometimes it's because exactly what is obviously the reason.

> Please stop with this. Ukraine is an independent nation that can do what it wants. They may have wanted to provoke this war as Russia threatened it. Ukraine can do whatever it wants. It was up to NATO to flat out reject any prospects of Ukraine’s membership and prevent the war, but they egged it on. Ukraine can do whatever it wants, but the simply truth is that Ukraine is now just ground zero in Washington’s proxy…

Ukraine remained neutral, and yet Russia invaded it in 2014.
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