War with Russia

[Deleted member 49]

If you read my post, I didn’t even say that I, personally, admired, or, approved of Putin, nor that I in anyway approved of the present situation wrt to dirty Russian money being laundered in the UK.

If you read, and retained, many of my posts, you would know, I voted Remain (I have even been admonished by Mudsticks, for mentioning it to frequently), so, while I am not an admirer of Nigel, in general, I do see that he out manicured the two major political parties, and got his desired outcome. It wasn’t MY desired outcome.

Maybe try reading the post yourself ? You mentioned Farage with admiration lol....

 

[Moodyman]

One does not have to agree with someone's position or stance to admire their output.

For all his faults, Putin has very high approval ratings at home.

The lives of ordinary Russians have improved massively since he came to power. Russia has gone from a country deeply indebted to having one of the largest current account surpluses and foreign currency reserves.

Contrast that with Britain, where the quality of life of ordinary Britons has deteriorated due to years of austerity.

 

[BoldonLad]

In what way an 'underdog'?

Despite an unbroken run of electoral defeats (including at the hands flippers of a man in a dolphin suit), he was given a ridiculous amout of publicity and afforded an enormous amount of airtime - notably by the BBC, who had him on Queston Time 35 times, where he was the show's most regularly featured guest in its history.

If blanket exposure and and a regular platform from which to spout his lies and bile, frequently unchallenged, count for anything, then it's hardly surprising he was able to be instrumental in dragging this country down into the filth it presently wallows in.

I honestly don’t understand what you are trying to say, in disagreement with what I said. Farage, virtually single handed, with virtually no elected representation, other than a few local councillors, managed to outwit Both Dave and Jeremy. He somehow managed to get coverage way beyond his elected support. Pretty impressive, I think, even although I disagree with everything he says. Which, was rather the point of the original post.

 

[BoldonLad]

Maybe try reading the post yourself ? You mentioned Farage with admiration lol....

You are rather a black and white sort of person, aren’t you? One might even say extreme. The point I was making, is/was, it is, surely possible to admire certain aspects, without admiring the entirety. I even admire certain aspects of Jeremy.

 

[matticus]

Although, surely, even you have to admit, he has chosen his timing well, and, for now, at least, sidelined US, UK, EU, and NATO.

He saw an open goal, and because he chooses not to be constrained by the same rules as [most] major powers relevant to this, it didn't take much cunning or skill to take that opportunity. I don't see that as admirable - even Johnson would be smart enough to make this move if he operated with the same freedoms as Putin does.

IMHO, he is a dangerous, but, rather shrewd bully.

Yes, he probably is - not mad, but with a slightly different set of ethics to most of us. Not hard to understand him for anyone familiar with the history of past belicose leaders; and probably shrewder than most of them due to his KGB background.

 

[matticus]

I even admire certain aspects of Jeremy.

Have you been to his farm-shop yet?? Try talking to some of us that have to live near him ...

 

[BoldonLad]

He saw an open goal, and because he chooses not to be constrained by the same rules as [most] major powers relevant to this, it didn't take much cunning or skill to take that opportunity. I don't see that as admirable - even Johnson would be smart enough to make this move if he operated with the same freedoms as Putin does.


Yes, he probably is - not mad, but with a slightly different set of ethics to most of us. Not hard to understand him for anyone familiar with the history of past belicose leaders; and probably shrewder than most of them due to his KGB background.

Well, exactly, but, so far, it would appear, beyond the wit of just about every Western leader, including our own Boris.

 

[BoldonLad]

Have you been to his farm-shop yet?? Try talking to some of us that have to live near him ...

No, I haven’t visited his Farm Shop, and, no, I don’t live near him (thank god). I assume you have a problem with his Farm Shop?

 

[Deleted member 49]

You are rather a black and white sort of person, aren’t you? One might even say extreme. The point I was making, is/was, it is, surely possible to admire certain aspects, without admiring the entirety. I even admire certain aspects of Jeremy.

Extreme ffs....don't like it when I point out that I think it's fecking delusional to admire Farage in any capacity.
But your right I'm very black and white.

 

[Milzy]

"The Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s about Germany and, in particular, a pipeline that connects Germany to Russia called Nord Stream 2. Washington sees the pipeline as a threat to its primacy in Europe and has tried to sabotage the project at every turn. Even so, Nord Stream has pushed ahead and is now fully-operational and ready-to-go. Once German regulators provide the final certification, the gas deliveries will begin. German homeowners and businesses will have a reliable source of clean and inexpensive energy while Russia will see a significant boost to their gas revenues. It’s a win-win situation for both parties.
The US Foreign Policy establishment is not happy about these developments. They don’t want Germany to become more dependent on Russian gas because commerce builds trust and trust leads to the expansion of trade. As relations grow warmer, more trade barriers are lifted, regulations are eased, travel and tourism increase, and a new security architecture evolves. In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO. There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts. Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power. This is why the Biden administration opposes Nord Stream. It’s not just a pipeline, it’s a window into the future; a future in which Europe and Asia are drawn closer together into a massive free trade zone that increases their mutual power and prosperity while leaving the US on the outside looking in. Warmer relations between Germany and Russia signal an end to the “unipolar” world order the US has overseen for the last 75 years. A German-Russo alliance threatens to hasten the decline of the Superpower that is presently inching closer to the abyss. This is why Washington is determined to do everything it can to sabotage Nord Stream and keep Germany within its orbit. It’s a matter of survival.
That’s where Ukraine comes into the picture. Ukraine is Washington’s ‘weapon of choice’ for torpedoing Nord Stream and putting a wedge between Germany and Russia. The strategy is taken from page one of the US Foreign Policy Handbook under the rubric: Divide and Rule. Washington needs to create the perception that Russia poses a security threat to Europe. That’s the goal. They need to show that Putin is a bloodthirsty aggressor with a hair-trigger temper who cannot be trusted. To that end, the media has been given the assignment of reiterating over and over again, “Russia is planning to invade Ukraine.” What’s left unsaid is that Russia has not invaded any country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and that the US has invaded or toppled regimes in more than 50 countries in the same period of time, and that the US maintains over 800 military bases in countries around the world. None of this is reported by the media, instead the focus is on “evil Putin” who has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border threatening to plunge all of Europe into another bloody war.
All of the hysterical war propaganda is created with the intention of manufacturing a crisis that can be used to isolate, demonize and, ultimately, splinter Russia into smaller units. The real target, however, is not Russia, but Germany. Check out this excerpt from an article by Michael Hudson at The Unz Review:
“The only way left for U.S. diplomats to block European purchases is to goad Russia into a military response and then claim that avenging this response outweighs any purely national economic interest. As hawkish Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, explained in a State Department press briefing on January 27: “If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”
There it is in black and white. The Biden team wants to “goad Russia into a military response” in order to sabotage Nord Stream. That implies there will be some kind of provocation designed to induce Putin to send his troops across the border to defend the ethnic Russians in the eastern part of the country. If Putin takes the bait, the response would be swift and harsh. The media will excoriate the action as a threat to all of Europe while leaders around the world will denounce Putin as the “new Hitler”. This is Washington’s strategy in a nutshell, and the whole production is being orchestrated with one goal in mind; to make it politically impossible for the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to wave Nord Stream through the final approval process. This does NOT need to be FACT CHECKED as its true.

 

[Rusty Nails]

"The Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s about Germany and, in particular, a pipeline that connects Germany to Russia called Nord Stream 2. Washington sees the pipeline as a threat to its primacy in Europe and has tried to sabotage the project at every turn. Even so, Nord Stream has pushed ahead and is now fully-operational and ready-to-go. Once German regulators provide the final certification, the gas deliveries will begin. German homeowners and businesses will have a reliable source of clean and inexpensive energy while Russia will see a significant boost to their gas revenues. It’s a win-win situation for both parties.
The US Foreign Policy establishment is not happy about these developments. They don’t want Germany to become more dependent on Russian gas because commerce builds trust and trust leads to the expansion of trade. As relations grow warmer, more trade barriers are lifted, regulations are eased, travel and tourism increase, and a new security architecture evolves. In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO. There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts. Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power. This is why the Biden administration opposes Nord Stream. It’s not just a pipeline, it’s a window into the future; a future in which Europe and Asia are drawn closer together into a massive free trade zone that increases their mutual power and prosperity while leaving the US on the outside looking in. Warmer relations between Germany and Russia signal an end to the “unipolar” world order the US has overseen for the last 75 years. A German-Russo alliance threatens to hasten the decline of the Superpower that is presently inching closer to the abyss. This is why Washington is determined to do everything it can to sabotage Nord Stream and keep Germany within its orbit. It’s a matter of survival.
That’s where Ukraine comes into the picture. Ukraine is Washington’s ‘weapon of choice’ for torpedoing Nord Stream and putting a wedge between Germany and Russia. The strategy is taken from page one of the US Foreign Policy Handbook under the rubric: Divide and Rule. Washington needs to create the perception that Russia poses a security threat to Europe. That’s the goal. They need to show that Putin is a bloodthirsty aggressor with a hair-trigger temper who cannot be trusted. To that end, the media has been given the assignment of reiterating over and over again, “Russia is planning to invade Ukraine.” What’s left unsaid is that Russia has not invaded any country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and that the US has invaded or toppled regimes in more than 50 countries in the same period of time, and that the US maintains over 800 military bases in countries around the world. None of this is reported by the media, instead the focus is on “evil Putin” who has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border threatening to plunge all of Europe into another bloody war.
All of the hysterical war propaganda is created with the intention of manufacturing a crisis that can be used to isolate, demonize and, ultimately, splinter Russia into smaller units. The real target, however, is not Russia, but Germany. Check out this excerpt from an article by Michael Hudson at The Unz Review:
“The only way left for U.S. diplomats to block European purchases is to goad Russia into a military response and then claim that avenging this response outweighs any purely national economic interest. As hawkish Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, explained in a State Department press briefing on January 27: “If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”
There it is in black and white. The Biden team wants to “goad Russia into a military response” in order to sabotage Nord Stream. That implies there will be some kind of provocation designed to induce Putin to send his troops across the border to defend the ethnic Russians in the eastern part of the country. If Putin takes the bait, the response would be swift and harsh. The media will excoriate the action as a threat to all of Europe while leaders around the world will denounce Putin as the “new Hitler”. This is Washington’s strategy in a nutshell, and the whole production is being orchestrated with one goal in mind; to make it politically impossible for the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to wave Nord Stream through the final approval process. This does NOT need to be FACT CHECKED as its true.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

This does NOT need to be FACT CHECKED as its true.

That appearing at the end of a huge and unattributed cut & paste sets alarm bells right away.

 

[Xipe Totec]

I honestly don’t understand what you are trying to say, in disagreement with what I said. Farage, virtually single handed, with virtually no elected representation, other than a few local councillors, managed to outwit Both Dave and Jeremy. He somehow managed to get coverage way beyond his elected support. Pretty impressive, I think, even although I disagree with everything he says. Which, was rather the point of the original post.

It's not complicated - someone who had the mainstream media hanging on his every utterance, and gleefully affording him a bigger and more regular platform than any of his high-profile & elected opponents doesn't exactly constitute an 'underdog'. I wasn't even considering the vast amounts of deeply dubious, shady money bankrolling his campaign.

It's a different & much broader discussion to challenge the implication that Farage was the be-all & end-all of Brexit (he absolutely wasn't) and that it would never have happened without him (unquantifable) but that's not the very small (and frankly, pedantic!) point I was trying to make!

 

[The Crofted Crest]

That appearing at the end of a huge and unattributed cut & paste sets alarm bells right away.

The original article, down to the paragraph ending "threatening to plunge all of Europe into another bloody war", is here: https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/the-crisis-in-ukraine-is-not-about-ukraine-its-about-germany/

The rest of the cut and paste seems to be cobbled together from a variety of RWNJ sources in the US. The final sentence is nowhere to be found on the webbienet (with or without apostrophe).

Now there's FACT CHECKING!

 

[matticus]

Well, exactly, but, so far, it would appear, beyond the wit of just about every Western leader, including our own Boris.

You missed a key part of my post: different rules. Boris is in no position to order 10,000 troops to go into a foreign state over-night.
Putin can. It doesn't show lack of smarts on the part of other leaders.