Possibly, but I don't think this or EU membership matters in this situation since the EU isn't yet a military alliance. It's something they usually duck away from each time a European Army is proposed, let alone a whole defence force.
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Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
- Start date
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Now she is damning her predecessors:
This is what Liz Truss said near the start of the hearing when asked why efforts to deter Russia from invading Ukraine failed. She said:
I think post-Cold War the west took its eye off the ball.
Defence budgets were cut, there was too much entering into trade and economic relationships without understanding the underlying strategic dependency that would lead to.
That’s particularly true of hydrocarbons, which are of course a major part of the Russian economy, but it’s also true of technology exports ...
Everything from financial services to broader parts of the service economy were integrated with Russia despite the fact that we saw what happened in 2008 [in Georgia], we saw what happened in 2014 [in Crimea].
This is what Liz Truss said near the start of the hearing when asked why efforts to deter Russia from invading Ukraine failed. She said:
I think post-Cold War the west took its eye off the ball.
Defence budgets were cut, there was too much entering into trade and economic relationships without understanding the underlying strategic dependency that would lead to.
That’s particularly true of hydrocarbons, which are of course a major part of the Russian economy, but it’s also true of technology exports ...
Everything from financial services to broader parts of the service economy were integrated with Russia despite the fact that we saw what happened in 2008 [in Georgia], we saw what happened in 2014 [in Crimea].
Ah but you know the usual Tory line.
It's all the fault of Labour in power for the first two years of that long period since.
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That is true.. but one if our more astute commentators here .. David McWilliams , has constantly been making the point that what disturbs Putin is EU membership or associations, and NATO is a red herring. If a country can actually pull together in cooperation with other countries rather than skulduggery , and backstabbing, it is curtains for Oligarchs.
As, indeed, Boris and the brexit bandwagon of happy offshore multinationals escaping eu consumer and worker protection and anti monopoly action against Google etc..
I find that a very strange point of view.
I think this is a far greater issue than oligarchs, who are not the big issue that some in the West like to make them for their propaganda purposes. It was after all Putin who cracked down so hard on them in 2000 after his creator Yeltsin had created the oligarchy.
And I don't agree that NATO is just a red herring to Putin or Russia. I think the EU being a stepping stone into NATO (which is what the USA has long been promoting) is more what Putin fears.
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"The Nightwatch is modified to withstand the electromagnetic pulse coming from a nuclear explosion (something that would bring down any other aircraft). It can also refuel mid-flight and, in fact, is ready to stay in the air for a week without interruption. "US Doomsday Plane Spotted Flying Over Nebraska Airspace
Soon, god's farts will be visible
(9th day)
Webb Mirror Alignment Continues Successfully
'Atlas of Human Suffering': New UN Climate Report Is Shockingly Grim
UN climate report: 'Atlas of human suffering' worse, bigger
Deadly with extreme weather now, climate change is about to get so much worse. It is likely going to make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer, gloomier and way more dangerous in the next 18 years with an “unavoidable” increase in risks, a new United Nations science report says.apnews.com
Presumably they have clockwork or steam powered aircraft that can fly up and refuel it?
HIs real identity isYou went West to East? And now you live in Wales... Who ARE you oyster? What the heck were you doing going West to East and why? (I'm Herr Starmer, I ask da kvestions!
Basildon Bond
That is one of the few large towns I have never been to.HIs real identity is
Basildon Bond
You do seem to be in a minority, but the reality is that you aren't the only one.
FWIW, I for one believe the majority of your comments and analysis presented come closest to the actual truth, by a long way, and that's basing my judgement on listening to many, many political historians and (proper) journalists (as opposed to MSM journalism which these days mostly seems to just regurgitate information and propaganda fed to them from government sources)
The fascinating (and troubling) question then arises, why are the 'others' taking the generally opposite viewpoint?
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This.
The rhetoric and utter hypocrisy I'm hearing all around at the moment from 90% of ... well EVERYWHERE is truly staggering.
Don't get me wrong, the Russian government has done (and is doing) some very, very bad things. But so have many other governments over the last decades, including us and the USA (especially the latter). Why weren't people/the press/our politicians outraged when THOSE atrocities were being carried out ???
flecc has the advantage of a real and personal experience f world war 2 while most of us were not even born or too young for that. By the time I could notice things, most of the war torn towns have been repaired. Still, we tend to split hair on this thread, the differences between us aren't as big as the conversation goes. We agreed well before the Russians started to invade that Ukraine will be militarily crushed in due course.
Then Putin's army attacks all the big cities East of Lviv.
We most differ after that. It's simply not tolerable for me.
I think Ukrainians should stand their ground and fight the Russians. Their fight will not only be just but also benefit the whole humanity. The West should do everything it can to help.
Interestingly, I very much remember the gap-toothed rows and terraces in many towns. Where one, or a few, buildings had been bombed and collapsed.
They were so much a part of the scene, I don't think I ever really expected them to disappear - as they almost all have.
The juxtaposition of the two sections I've enlarged in bold is what is intolerable to me.
Killing and maiming so many, creating a huge refugee crisis and destroying so much infrastructure is inherent to that policy of fighting, totally unnecessary and not benefitting the whole of humanity.
Did all of the previous wars stop this one? No, and this one will not stop any future wars. There can be no benefit. Listen to the language of the Ukrainians now on what they are going to do to the Russians. They've sunk to the same level as the Russian behaviour, it's what war does to people.
Being a good neighbour seven years or more ago could have prevented any chance of this war, it should at least have been tried, instead of the idiotically aggressive language the Ukrainian president used then and is continuing to use.
Failing that working and Russian forces massing on the border years later should have been met by him taking the high moral ground with Putin with this message to him, made public worldwide:
"For many centuries we were first Russians, second Ukrainians. We are not in any way a threat to Russia and never intend to be since we are brothers, neighbours and would be friends.
As such we will refuse to fight you, so you do not need any forces or need to use any force to enter our country.
If you have a problem which Ukraine can help with, you only need to ask and we will do everything we reasonably can to help.
I look forward to meeting you."
That would give peace a chance. If it failed to get a mutual agreement and Ukraine capitulated with no fighting to unreasonable Russian demands, the West could still have taken all the same harsh punitive measures against Russia that it has taken now.
But that way there would be no deaths, no maiming, no wrecked infrastructure, no refugees. Just a wholly innocent nation of peaceful people made the victim of a ruthlessly unreasonable neigbour who is being duly punished long term.
That is the civilised way to deal with this issue.
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Who does the maiming and killing exactly? Who decides which cities to reduce to rubble? Who forced millions to seek shelter underground? When you have a bullying neighbour like putin, if you don't fight, he'll make you his slaves.
Yes that is what should and might have been said in 2013.
Who co-operated in the maiming and killing, reducing the cities to rubble, forcing millions to seek shelter underground?
The Ukrainians who knowingly and defiantly chose that course of victimhood instead of making every effort to avoid it.
They've fought and will end up with all the harm and be all the more ill treated slaves as a result.
How utterly pointless.
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