Compare this with China where the majority of Chinese citizens are very supportive of Xi and are happy with the conditions they live in (supported through the many family members I have there as well as non-Chinese expat friends I have working and living there now for many, many years).
This is probably why they say what they say.
Last edited by Mathgod; 03-01-2022 at 02:06 PM.
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Putin and his lackeys have always downplayed sanctions, but they've never been hit this hard or this fast. I wonder how long until the Russian elite turn against them
Putin and his lackeys have always downplayed sanctions, but they've never been hit this hard or this fast. I wonder how long until the Russian elite turn against them
1. Ukraine joins EU. Today Putin's spokesman confirmed that Russia has no problem with Ukraine joining EU.
2. NATO denies Ukraine entry. Some USA-Ukraine defensive pact still possible
3. Ukraine gets Donbass back
4. Russia keeps Crimea as the West officially rules 1954 USSR decree that transfer Crimea from Russia to Ukraine void. This allows west to recognize Crimea as Russian without accepting annexation.
5. Russia pay huge sum to Ukraine in return for gradually removing sanctions.
Not a bad set of points for an end to the conflict.
...but we've come this far in less than two weeks. Why not see if we can shuffle the dictator deck with the economic sanctions.
If you get Putin, you could get the guy in Belarus, you can get the loser in Syria, the Chinese themselves might realise Xi is a bit of an inward thinker and remove him themselves in October. Every time you shuffle the deck you might get another dictator, but you might get democracy.
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An interview with a Senator in the US, from the Intelligence Committee is really indicating that the level of intelligence and the speed at which its getting to the Ukrainian leaders is subpar. It sounds like the Biden administration is being very careful with what is getting released and certain things are getting bogged down and "over lawyered".
It sounds like the issue is the speed and real time nature of it to help. Hopefully that isn't true or can be improved.
If Moscow was New York, what would their version of New Jersey be? I have a feeling someone will be taking Putin for a car ride there. Either that, or he gets Epsteined.
I don't imagine getting alone in the same room with Putin is easy right now, but there is enough money being lost by some powerful people, I think it could happen (soon hopefully).
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
An interview with a Senator in the US, from the Intelligence Committee is really indicating that the level of intelligence and the speed at which its getting to the Ukrainian leaders is subpar. It sounds like the Biden administration is being very careful with what is getting released and certain things are getting bogged down and "over lawyered".
It sounds like the issue is the speed and real time nature of it to help. Hopefully that isn't true or can be improved.
I'll believe it's true depending on what party the Senator is from.
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Definitely don't want to derail this thread, so I won't as what's happening in Ukraine is much more important. But AsianBoss (based out of Korea, I believe) https://asianboss.io/ had a really solid on-the-ground interview piece with folks in China on this credit system and it seems it's not as big a deal as I was lead to believe. Will PM to you!
I'll believe it's true depending on what party the Senator is from.
I can understand that certain things become very political and partisan but I took the interview to be balanced. It talked about the intelligence being accurate leading up to it but the real time nature of the information to assist with this.
Sounds like everybody in Kiev is about to get put into their graves and he was calling for additional deadly weapons, praising the Ukrainian forces and saying America needs to bend over backwards for freedom as Putin has to be stopped. Reiterated a strong and agreeable no to American forces on the ground but that the Biden administration needed to loosen the handcuffs of various agencies in providing the information quicker.
That was always a point that military experts said was an issue with Obama and his administration. An overly complex discussion and analyzation of a drone strike or a special op etc. A lot of the times by the time the decision had been made, the situation had changed.
Trump on the other hand was known to be more decisive and more willing to let the military do what they thought was best and didn't want to be bothered with what he thought (stupidily) was small details.
Perhaps a middle of the road strategy is best.
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I'm curious as to Pointman's perspective on this, how is Stalin taught in schools or as general history? He's pretty comparable to Hitler in my mind, but I doubt that's the case in Russian classes
I spent a month in Russia the spring of 2018. I am surprised that new statues of Stalin are going up as there was no love for Stalin in 2018. Statues of Lenin still existed in just about every city and town but I only saw one statue of Stalin, in the open air museum in Moscow, and he was not depicted in a positive way what so ever.
There was a cage, made of sort of sheep fencing, beside the statue of Lenin. Inside the cage were stones the size of the head of a human. Each head was painted goulish so as to depict the suffering of all those who ended up in Gulags. They are still unearthing mass graves and I believe Stalin killed more Russians than Jews died in concentration camps.
My question is, how has Russia bungled supply chain logistics on an operation they've allegedly been planning for months or years? Is their command structure that inept?
And even if you've lied to your troops that this was a military training exercise you'd think they iron out these kinks in the planning stages.
It all comes off as incredibly short sighted.
Apparently the Russian army is using unencrypted radios that are readily available for purchase on Amazon.
I am...not kidding.
Not only are they available for anyone to hear (and there are links where you can listen in), people have even been able to use the same frequency and have been trolling them.
One such radio call was "Number 2, Number 2! Come in" which was basically a plea for help from the backup unit to come in. The only other responses was other units within the same, and then silence.
There's other videos available showing things like they are using expired rations from 2013 as food. Apparently during the Afghan war they were using WWII era rations, so they have improved a bit.
I'd like to see someone put together a list of how much individual Russian Oligarchs were worth last Friday versus today. I probably have a higher net worth than some of them right now.
You make that statement as fact when it's impossible to know. Unless you are omniscient and we just haven't seen ample proof of it yet.
And acknowledge Bush and Trump for what? Wandering into Iraq for no reason and killing 100's of thousands while simultaneously trashing what little was left of US legitimacy on the global stage? Or systematically undermining nearly every democratic principle and taking a hard right towards authoritarianism in four short years? Like what? Are those the valuable purposes they've served? Bizarre. These are the kinds of purposes the world doesn't need.
I didn’t say any of that. You are putting words in my mouth to make yourself feel better.
What I said was when there’s a bully involved you need a bully or someone with courage on the opposite side. Or the bully has his way.
All of the tyrants in the world are rubbing their hands together right now due to the weak leadership in the western democracies.
