But they thought they could take the country over in a short period of time, which while optimistic, wasn't completely implausible. Most western observers thought that Ukraine wouldn't hold on too long. That's very different than attacking the strongest military in the world.
I don't think there's any real evidence that Russia is going to see a revolution if they negotiate an end to the war with basically no gains. Despots lose wars all the time while maintaining power.
Even in a best case scenario, Ukraine was likely to be a 1979 Afghanistan situation with the world never trusting Russia.
I honestly can't think of one despot in the past 100 years that outright lost a total war they started and lived on to live the day to continue to rule outside of arguably Saddam Hussein. I'm sure there are some, but Russia's situation is more complicated.
If we want to use Saddam Hussein, he was not deposed in 1991 but his army was not fully destroyed. And considering he was attacking Israel with scuds and used chemical weapons in the Iran Iraq war, and destroyed as many oil wells as they could while retreating, he's probably not the best example of a despot being rational, as he would have used a nuke if he had one.
And although we don't see eye to eye on some subjects (but certainly do for others) I do appreciate the level of valuable information and calmness you constantly provide research to backup all your arguments.
I don't think there's any real evidence that Russia is going to see a revolution if they negotiate an end to the war with basically no gains. Despots lose wars all the time while maintaining power.
Yep, we have not seen any real movement within Russia that would indicate the people are going to rise up and take him out. They seem to be happy to just sit there and pretend nothing is happening around them, regardless of the outcome. Very disappointing, but the dream of an internal overthrow seems more like a fantasy than anything else.
Exactly. Everyone should be aware of this when reading Firebot's posts. He can't be trusted to relay and interpret news, posts - really anything - honestly or reliably. And all of his posts are walls of text with numerous misinterpretations so even if what he says is consistent within the post, double check that what he's saying is responding to what he says he's responding to. He's a horribly unreliable narrator when paraphrasing other posters.
I can't figure out if he's doing it on purpose, but once you start looking at his posts critically you'll realize literally everything he says is inaccurate. It's terrible.
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Exactly. Everyone should be aware of this when reading Firebot's posts. He can't be trusted to relay and interpret news, posts - really anything - honestly or reliably. And all of his posts are walls of text with numerous misinterpretations so even if what he says is consistent within the post, double check that what he's saying is responding to what he says he's responding to. He's a horribly unreliable narrator when paraphrasing other posters.
I can't figure out if he's doing it on purpose, but once you start looking at his posts critically you'll realize literally everything he says is inaccurate. It's terrible.
I’d say they are emotionally invested in this issue. It’s inconsistent with their otherwise reliable posting.
I’d say they are emotionally invested in this issue. It’s inconsistent with their otherwise reliable posting.
Yeah, they're not a poster I've really noticed one way or another before, but in this thread I've found them to be jaw-droppingly terrible. He's told me to #### off even. He's lied about what I've said. He makes constant straw man posts. Idk, it's easy to write off until you're the guy he's making up lies about and then it causes you to start looking at other things he says. It's hard to find a rational or completely honest post of his in the thread. Dude should take a breath and a time out from posting in here until he can calm himself down, cut it out with the personal insults, read and understand posts, and then respond accordingly without fataing up what people are actually saying.
I'm not so sure Ukraine will give up any territory. They're emboldened because they're winning and the stakes are higher now as they've all lost friends and family to Russia. They also know what Russia has done to the Ukrainians I'm the territory they've taken. I could be wrong, but I don't think the man who tells the US "I don't want a ride, I want a gun" when Russia invaded will give up now.
Eh, it really seems like there's a lot of posturing going on - obviously from the Russians, but also from Ukraine - which is understandable, you need your people to remain committed. I think when push comes to shove, the Ukrainians are going to be rational actors and will be able to weigh costs and risks against immediate benefits of getting enemy soldiers and weapons the #### out of their country and I think they might cede some territory to accomplish that in exchange for money and security. Obviously they're not going to be naive about promises or guarantees of peace or safety in that regard of course; they'll need to be convinced that such guarantees are iron-clad and that's probably the toughest part... I am of course open to being convinced otherwise on any of this by those with a better understanding of the diplomatic situation.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
What do you think it says? Seems rather clear in its message?
If a dirty bomb is used, it will be immediately rejected as a pretext for Russian escalation. This statement was done at the same time that the UK, France and US released on the joint statement
The US has also stated that same day that dirty bombs = severe consequences.
So you have NATO stating that a dirty bomb will be automatically attributed to Russia, and US stating that Russia using a dirty bomb = severe consequences, what more context do you need?
"There would be consequences for Russia whether it uses a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb"
So I ask, what do you think it says?
Does it need to state "We will totally invoke Article 5 and send our military to neutralize Russia back to the stone ages if they use a dirty bomb or nuclear weapon" to understand what is meant by consequences?" NATO or the US most certainly won't use that literal wording in a diplomatic statement.
It's putting a lot of stock in Russia's accusation as some type of shrewd move to put Britain in even larger turmoil to deflect from itself. I don't think Britain cares one bit.
It's effectively a 30 min video about nothing, because the premise assumes that Russia is worth even acknowledging and that they spent more then a minute to think up of the lie.
Yeah, they're not a poster I've really noticed one way or another before, but in this thread I've found them to be jaw-droppingly terrible. He's told me to #### off even. He's lied about what I've said. He makes constant straw man posts. Idk, it's easy to write off until you're the guy he's making up lies about and then it causes you to start looking at other things he says. It's hard to find a rational or completely honest post of his in the thread. Dude should take a breath and a time out from posting in here until he can calm himself down, cut it out with the personal insults, read and understand posts, and then respond accordingly without fataing up what people are actually saying.
He’s actually like this on every topic he invests time in, as far as the lack of reliability/misinformation and lying and the heavy bias goes. I wouldn’t take it personally.
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It's putting a lot of stock in Russia's accusation as some type of shrewd move to put Britain in even larger turmoil to deflect from itself. I don't think Britain cares one bit.
It's effectively a 30 min video about nothing, because the premise assumes that Russia is worth even acknowledging and that they spent more then a minute to think up of the lie.
Huh? He effectively says Russia made an accusation before even their preliminary investigation is done and offered no evidence. He then went on to say that the only one with anything to gain was Russia. That's how I see it too.
He said Russia had effectively stopped sending gas anyways before it blew, and they wanted to prevent Germany from stockpiling gas before winter. They couldn't just stop or Gazprom would have broken its contract. The UK and Germany stand to gain nothing, so why would they do it?
I feel like we watched different videos...
Last edited by Street Pharmacist; 10-31-2022 at 09:41 PM.
Huh? He effectively says Russia made an accusation before even their preliminary investigation is done and offered no evidence. He then went on to say that the only one with anything to gain was Russia. That's how I see it too.
He said Russia had effectively stopped sending gas anyways before it blew, and they wanted to prevent Germany from stockpiling gas before winter. They couldn't just stop or Gazprom would have broken its contract. The UK and Germany stand to gain nothing, so why would they do it?
I feel like we watched different videos...
It's the same video, just somewhat different takeaways on the purpose. A better explanation to my post: It's like trying to spend time to explain to a flat earther why the earth is not flat or a 9/11 conspiracy theorist why WTC7 wasn't controlled demolition. It really doesn't do anything if the premise / allegation is absurd. Russia did it, we all know they did it, we still need evidence to conclude. We don't need a 30 min to explain why Japan couldn't do it, if Russia suddenly blames them, is all I am saying, as the reasoning starts to get murky. We actually have the same viewpoint on it.
Tonight while trick or treating, we ran into a girl and a dad. The girl was dressed up, and the dad asked us in very fresh English how to know what houses you could go to, if they had to be your friends or not, and to confirm saying “trick or treat” was the right way to ask for candy.
They moved to Calgary from Ukraine 2 weeks ago. She was very excited for Halloween, and her dad watched YouTube videos to see how it worked. We saw her first trick or treat and she was very excited at the successful acquisition of candy. She had no bag, so her dad grabbed her a plastic one at some point from the gas station, which she soon filled. I ran home and grabbed a reusable grocery bag, she filled that sucker with candy acquired with her few newfound English words. She would forget what to say here and there and ask her dad, but she was super brave running up to all of the houses, it was awesome, and cool to see a kid ripped away from friends, family and home just all smiles.
Anyway, we're frigging lucky. If anyone knows someone in need of a real estate or wedding photographer, the dad is looking for work and I grabbed his number.
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Tonight while trick or treating, we ran into a girl and a dad. The girl was dressed up, and the dad asked us in very fresh English how to know what houses you could go to, if they had to be your friends or not, and to confirm saying “trick or treat” was the right way to ask for candy.
They moved to Calgary from Ukraine 2 weeks ago. She was very excited for Halloween, and her dad watched YouTube videos to see how it worked. We saw her first trick or treat and she was very excited at the successful acquisition of candy. She had no bag, so her dad grabbed her a plastic one at some point from the gas station, which she soon filled. I ran home and grabbed a reusable grocery bag, she filled that sucker with candy acquired with her few newfound English words. She would forget what to say here and there and ask her dad, but she was super brave running up to all of the houses, it was awesome, and cool to see a kid ripped away from friends, family and home just all smiles.
Anyway, we're frigging lucky. If anyone knows someone in need of a real estate or wedding photographer, the dad is looking for work and I grabbed his number.
Now this is the perfect feel good story. Thank you, I was all smiles reading it and maybe a little tear..
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Tonight while trick or treating, we ran into a girl and a dad. The girl was dressed up, and the dad asked us in very fresh English how to know what houses you could go to, if they had to be your friends or not, and to confirm saying “trick or treat” was the right way to ask for candy.
They moved to Calgary from Ukraine 2 weeks ago. She was very excited for Halloween, and her dad watched YouTube videos to see how it worked. We saw her first trick or treat and she was very excited at the successful acquisition of candy. She had no bag, so her dad grabbed her a plastic one at some point from the gas station, which she soon filled. I ran home and grabbed a reusable grocery bag, she filled that sucker with candy acquired with her few newfound English words. She would forget what to say here and there and ask her dad, but she was super brave running up to all of the houses, it was awesome, and cool to see a kid ripped away from friends, family and home just all smiles.
Anyway, we're frigging lucky. If anyone knows someone in need of a real estate or wedding photographer, the dad is looking for work and I grabbed his number.
Top notch Mr. Bumface. Top notch.
It was also my UA wife's first Halloween. I can confirm from personal experience that Halloween is definitely not as extravagant (or even on the radar) in much of Eastern Europe outside of a few simple traditions of handing out candy or money to a few kinds who are brave enough to knock on doors. So to see the look and curiosity on her face as kid and parents came dressed in costumes, and all the decorations on people's houses was heartwarming to see.
Hope things work out for that man and his family. It's hard enough moving to a new city knowing what is going on back home. Hope it was a Halloween for them to remember!
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