War with Russia

[BoldonLad]

Nah - the other "candidates" were placed by Putin to make his election look like it had some legitimacy. They weren't running in any real sense. People with genuine conviction end up like Navalny as genuine convicts before having accidents / "falling ill".

Thank you, I never would have guessed that

 

[Milzy]

Nah - the other "candidates" were placed by Putin to make his election look like it had some legitimacy. They weren't running in any real sense. People with genuine conviction end up like Navalny as genuine convicts before having accidents / "falling ill".

My supervisor has been talking to a Russian women on a dating app. She works in a boiler house and once her rent and bills are paid she has barely any pocket change to do anything. It’s an awful existence unless you’re at the very top. Must be even worse under the CCP.

 

[icowden]

My supervisor has been talking to a Russian women on a dating app. She works in a boiler house and once her rent and bills are paid she has barely any pocket change to do anything. It’s an awful existence unless you’re at the very top. Must be even worse under the CCP.

Is he *sure* that he has been talking to a Russian woman... ?

 

[AndyRM]

Is he *sure* that he has been talking to a Russian woman... ?

Of course he is! He's definitely not talking to some chat-bot who's going to try and convince him to send money so she can escape her miserable existence for the promised land of Britain...

If he's lucky, perhaps a Nigerian prince will be in touch soon, or maybe someone who's discovered a vast, unclaimed sum of money and would like him to benefit as an act of charity?

 

[albion]

One hopes so, though am sure an algorithm exists that dictates the best time to turn the conversation around to to money.

 

[icowden]

One hopes so, though am sure an algorithm exists that dictates the best time to turn the conversation around to to money.

Maybe just check he's watched this:-
https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/From_Russia_Without_Love

 

[Beebo]

Islamic State are claiming responsibility for a huge terrorist attack inside Russia.
Many innocent Russians killed.
It will be interesting to see Russia’s response and who they seek to blame.

 

[AndyRM]

Putin is keeping schtum just now, which isn't much of a surprise considering he dismissed warnings of an attack like this.

One particularly batsh!t conspiracy theory is that this was planned by the Russians themselves, to make it look like Ukraine was responsible in order to escalate the war...

 

[Rusty Nails]

Islamic State are claiming responsibility for a huge terrorist attack inside Russia.
Many innocent Russians killed.
It will be interesting to see Russia’s response and who they seek to blame.

Predictable rather than interesting.

It will either be Ukraine or Islamic State in cahoots with Ukraine.

 

[BoldonLad]

Putin is keeping schtum just now, which isn't much of a surprise considering he dismissed warnings of an attack like this.

One particularly batsh!t conspiracy theory is that this was planned by the Russians themselves, to make it look like Ukraine was responsible in order to escalate the war...

According to news I heard (BBC), Putin is already blaming Ukraine.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

The Russian line is that the perpetrators were heading for The Ukraine

not heard much evidence that this is true - or if it is then why we are supposed to think this was anything to do with them

Hunt was on the telly this morning saying that he is taking anything Russia says about it with a large pince of sale.

Seems unlikely to me that you would do something like this and then head for the border most guaranteed to have a load of soldiers (etc) around it
seems like there are several other borders that would be more friendly to them??

 

[farfromtheland]

Not true, there was never any commitment from the US government not to support NATO expansion, and the right of independent states to enter into alliances of their choice was accepted by Gorbachev.

It started with Gorbachev and Bush, and back then the assurance could reasonably be said to apply to Germany, though the talks were broader -
from -
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ief-in-nato-betrayal-and-why-it-matters-today

'Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of the Cold War Stalemate, by the prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte, charts all the private discussions within the western alliance and with Russia over enlargement and reveals Russia as powerless to slow the ratchet effect of the opening of Nato’s door. The author concludes the charge of betrayal is technically untrue, but has a psychological truth.
What is the basis of the complaint?

At one level it narrowly focuses both on verbal commitments made by the US secretary of state James Baker under President George HW Bush and the terms of a treaty signed on 12 September 1990 setting out how Nato troops could operate in the territory of the former East Germany.

Putin claims that Baker, in a discussion on 9 February 1990 with the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, made the promise that Nato would not expand to the east if Russia accepted Germany’s unification.

The following day Chancellor Helmut Kohl, ambiguous about Germany remaining in Nato after unification, also told Gorbachev “naturally Nato could not expand its territory to the current territory of the GDR”. The promise was repeated in a speech by the Nato secretary general on 17 May, a promise cited by Putin in his Munich speech. In his memoirs, Gorbachev described these assurances as the moment that cleared the way for compromise on Germany.
...

Russia was given verbal assurances about the limits of Nato’s expansion, but no written guarantees. In March 1991 John Major, for instance, was asked by the Soviet defence minister, Marshal Dmitry Yazov, about eastern Europe’s interest in joining Nato. Major, according to the diaries of the British ambassador to Moscow, Rodric Braithwaite, assured him “nothing of that sort will ever happen”.'

Yeltsin's understanding is also somewhat moot, but this patriotic US website expresses it fairly I think -
https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/p...told-about-nato-in-1993-and-why-it-matters-2/

'What mattered most to Yeltsin was not what Gorbachev was told in 1990, but rather what he was told in October 1993: that the United States was pursuing a Partnership for Peace for all European countries rather than NATO membership for only some European countries. This was not a promise either, but it cemented for the Russians the narrative that regardless of what the United States claimed in conversations with their leaders, it would maximize the American position without regard for Russian interests....

Encapsulating all of the ambiguities of that period more than any other meeting was a conversation that took place in Moscow in October 1993. U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher had traveled to Moscow to explain in advance of the January 1994 NATO summit that the United States would not support new members joining the alliance, but would rather develop a Partnership for Peace that would include all states of the former Warsaw Pact. Yeltsin’s relief was palpable. He thought he had dodged the NATO enlargement bullet at a time at which he was in a raging political battle against hardliners at home. A year later, when he discovered that enlargement was not only on the table but would in fact be proceeding, Yeltsin was apoplectic, and he railed against Clinton publicly at a meeting in Budapest...

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we have the declassified memorandum of conversation (MemCon), which sheds much more light on what was said in October 1993

The idea of partnership for all rather than membership for some was, said Yeltsin, “a great idea, really great. Tell Bill I am thrilled by this brilliant stroke.” [Warren] Christopher noted, “We will tell him that you bought his recommendation with real enthusiasm.”

According to the MemCon, it was only then that Christopher said that the United States would be “looking at the question of membership as a longer term eventuality.” We do not know whether Yeltsin or other Russian officials in the room reacted to this point, nor do we know how clearly Christopher delivered this message. In the MemCon, this specific point is not in quotation marks as is the case with a number of the other comments that were reported.'

(my emphases)

 

[Milzy]

Islamic State are claiming responsibility for a huge terrorist attack inside Russia.
Many innocent Russians killed.
It will be interesting to see Russia’s response and who they seek to blame.

Obama created them didn’t he?

 

[AndyRM]

FFS...

Versions of ISIS go back to the JTJ from the late 90s.

Caliphates are mediaeval.

Other than MAGA/racist fools, what's wrong with BLM?

Again, what's wrong with ANTIFA? The US version of which is pretty much a direct response to Trump.

There is no such thing as a "War on Police". And if any such notion existed it's because of budget cuts by municipal and central government.

Did this latest anti-Obama thing get sent to your supervisor by his Russian chat doll? I know it's popular in some quarters to paint Obama as a terrible president, but the reality is that he did far more good for the US than bad.

 

[icowden]

Obama created them didn’t he?

View attachment 5694

A bit more clarification for you.
Obama was president from 2009 to 2015.

1. ISIS or Daesh originated in 2004 during the Iraqi insurgency. So George W Bush largely to blame.
2. Caliphates have existed since 632 and were banned in 1924. There have been attempts to bring them back. Notably by ISIS (see no.1)
3. BLM did start up during the Obama presidency. It was triggered by a spate of police brutality and illegal shootings / killings of black men, and in particular the acquittal of George Zimmerman for shooting down Trayvon Martin. This did happen on Obama's watch. Not sure why you think that brutally murdering young black men is a good thing?
4. Antifa in the USA started to become prominent during Donald Trump's presidency. Oddly, if you elect a President who seems to echo Fascist ideals (dictatorial leader, forcible suppression of opposition, etc. https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-on-the-march-and-its-trump-who-sets-the-pace
5. The "War on Police" is a direct response to the increased militarisation of Police Forces under Republican Presidents. Hard to see what Obama has to do with it, other than perhaps putting more in place to get rid of corrupt racist police officers.

So that "meme" is a combination of bollocks and misinformation, As usual.