Is anyone surprised? Ukraine invaded

[Thomas]

Come on groo ! Are you still there?

I appreciate you and many others on here are very uncomfortable about the wests hypocrisy on ukraine , not to mention oligarch billions swirling around london and linking the westminster elite to putin ,or the two main british parties knee deep in russian sleaze , but that doesnt mean you have to misrepresent me because i have upset you by pointing it out.

[Thomas]

(the union of course originating from a Scottish King)

The snp are against the political union of 1707 , not the monarchial union. As i understand it , they still want lizzie as head of state in scotland ( im against that). ( sturgeon wants a future debate on it though) Do keep up groo.




#Forgive me barry for the off topic history and snp policy lecture for my dim witted friend above , just correcting someone else yet again from spouting guff about me and my politics.#

[Thomas]

Really surprised by the hypocritical Thomas, so full of desire for Scotland to be independent outside the control of what he sees as a foreign Country (the union of course originating from a Scottish King) yes so supportive of another territory being subjugated by a foreign Country. Even so much as starting a thread denying their right for self determination.

using the quote tags please quote me where i say i support putin subjugating another territory?

If you cant , then we can dismiss yet another post trying to tar me by someone yet again who has a personal axe to grind with me.

Im pointing out the wests hypocrisy on the matter .

[Groo]

He could take out Ukraine's military capabilities (his "demilitarization"), have a friendly mate he could control next door, and then roll back to Russia. Declare his "peacekeeping" mission over after a few days. Few casualties. West may grumble, but not enough to hurt. What Putin got instead: Zelenskiy stayed and mobilized Ukrainians. The army fought much much harder than he thought they would. People did not lay down their arms. For the most part, they didn't run away from the war. And now it gets messy. What's Putin to do?

Russians, doped up as they are on RT and TASS and Rossiya 24, well, they're starting to see their favourite singers and actors speak up about what is a FULL SCALE WAR! They're seeing photos of bombed kindergartens, dead kids. They're seeing this isn't going to be a walkover. And oh, this is going to hurt. It'll hurt Putin. It'll hurt his entourage. In the words of a now sadly deleted tweet from the account of @JosepBorrellF, no more Gucci lifestyle (though, actually, they can still get Gucci). All those oligarchs _must_ be getting nervous now.

So, Putin expected a cake walk but there's no cake to be seen. What's he to do? Try to kill Zelenskiy? He'll die a martyr. How do you control a country of 44 million Ukrainians who suddenly have something to believe in?"

[Groo]

But Zelenskiy is a clean-skin. He's a satirist funnyman who until v. recently made dick jokes for a living. His ascent to the presidency, unlike Putin's, was driven by desire to make things better, to get rid of graft and corruption. Don't get me wrong, he's not perfect. But suddenly, Ukraine had a president it could believe in. A president who wasn't a cynical appointee of some other country, who wasn't someone seeking the presidency to enrich themselves. (@herszenhornhas an excellent profile of him here:
Politico

And when Putin attacked Ukraine, Zelenskiy, a 44-year-old Colbert-type — he didn't get on the first plane out of Kyiv, a la Ashraf Ghani and co. He stayed. He is still in Kyiv. When Putin talked about decapitating Ukraine's government, he is not talking metaphorically. Putin literally wants to take out Zelenskiy, because he can't control him. He has no baggage. And instead of fleeing and running a government in exile from somewhere safe, Zelenskiy stayed, knowing what fate awaited him. His prime minister - stayed. His cabinet - stayed.

Zelenskiy is saying: Look, we are all here. We aren't running, we're fighting. And so, Ukrainians, ordinary Ukrainians, they have something to fight for too. They have someone to believe in.

So, Putin, expected Afghanistan 2021. But he got  Afghanistan 1979. Ukrainians aren't rolling over or welcoming back an old friend. They are digging in for war. And that's an ugly scenario indeed. To be clear, here is what I think (again, this is not reported fact, this is my personal read): Putin expected Ukrainians to lay down their arms, Zelenskiy to flee. He could then install a Putinist puppet in Kyiv, take Donbas and Crimea and probably a chunk more .

Continued next post

[Groo]

Been reading through the thread and surprised some people who wrote at the beginning can show their face later on.

Really surprised by the hypocritical Thomas, so full of desire for Scotland to be independent outside the control of what he sees as a foreign Country (the union of course originating from a Scottish King) yes so supportive of another territory being subjugated by a foreign Country. Even so much as starting a thread denying their right for self determination.

A great Twitter thread by a Ukrainian.

Twitter

"Watching Putin's attack on Ukraine play out, I am struck by the thought that Putin learned the lesson from the wrong Afghanistan war. And he has also vastly misunderstood post-Zelenskiy Ukraine. I don't have any particular insight into Putin - though I have read a lot of things much smarter people than I am have written about him. But I do know Russians, and I know Ukrainians, and I know Ukrainian Jews.

Putin, I think, lives in a pre-1991/92 world. A world in which the USSR was one whole, if dysfunctional package, of which Ukraine was a part. But here's the thing. Putin has lost touch - hello, bunker mentality. He has lost touch with ordinary Russians - though he is able to mold them (particularly those who watch state-run TV or read state-run newspapers) every which way he wants, the younger generation is accessing media he doesn't control. And Putin is famously tech averse.

But even more so, he has lost touch with Ukrainians. Ukrainians who _do_ have access to dissenting media, and who, since 1991, have developed a sense of statehood. When you surround yourself only with sycophants, suck-ups and people who are afraid of you, you never hear dissent, you lose that finger on the pulse. So Putin in 2022 is looking at Ukraine from a Soviet/1992 perspective. But today's Russia is not the Soviet union.

Ukrainians living in the USSR at least had an ideology, broken though it was, to believe in. The USSR was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was not Russia. Sure, Russia was the big boy, sure the USSR was ruled out of Moscow. But the USSR ≠ Russia. Now, when you were (as I was) a Ukrainian living in the USSR, you saw yourself as fighting for socialism, for equality. Sure, that wasn't the reality, but at least you could tell yourself that there was something bigger than you that you were suffering for.

Soviets are intimately acquainted with suffering for the greater good. But here's the thing: there's a difference between suffering for a cause, and suffering for what everyone in RU and in UKR knows is a corrupt oligarchy that exists to enrich one man and his entourage.

Back to Afghanistan. Putin, I think, saw 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and that galvanized him to invade Ukraine. I reckon he thought he'd roll into Kyiv the way the Taliban rolled into Kabul. Thought ordinary Ukrainians wouldn't resist. No bloodshed. Clean. Quick. He saw himself in the role of the Taliban. Banished by those pesky Americans, sitting, waiting, building, ready to pounce. He saw what the US did to Afghanistan, the impotence of Europe on that front, and thought: Aha, I'm going to go "liberate" Ukraine.

On Monday, in his frankly unhinged speech, he told Ukrainians to lay down their arms and return to their families, and they would not be harmed. This, I think, was his expectation. He thought many, if not most, Ukrainians would do so. He thought they wouldn't care who was installed in Kyiv to govern them. And you know what: If he had done this while Yanukovych or even Poroshenko was in power, if he had done this while he had career-politicians and/or his buddies in Kyiv, he might have been right.

Continued next post

[Thomas]

And we used to complain about Smurf making every thread "Tory Bad".
Do you really want to do the opposite, Thomas and make every thread "Labour Bad"?

By the way barry , while i take on board your comment and have rectified it by starting a thread to further debate the issue , i do feel starmers hypocrisy on democracy with reference to ukraine warranted mentioning in the thread.

Thats the second time over the years you have pulled me up over "my obssessions" , first regarding scottish independence , and now labour bad.

We all have our pet obsessions we feel strongly about. You are no different , while im not claiming you are taking threads off topic , you have bored us all to tears as well with your pet obsession over the last two years regarding covid.

I take on board your comment , i will strive to remain on topic , but i will talk about labour or scottish independence as i see fit when i feel a thread warrants it without you constantly telling me off for doing so.

[Thomas]

What was it boycey , cromwell and others like srb from memory were saying about the dangers of the nasty internet and fake news being spread to brainwash us?


It seems the guardian newspaper

and others have been presenting events from previous years and and even other geographical locations as current coverage from Ukraine. #fakenews #warpropaganda








Thank christ for the truthfullness of the uk media to keep us all on the straight and narrow and out of the hands of the nasty interwebby.

[Thomas]

Kevin McKenna: Putin's greatest asset is the West's hypocrisy

OF all the big questions about Ukraine currently being avoided by the UK's political savants perhaps the most intriguing one is this: why, eight years after the first Russian incursions, is this country still not in NATO? The answer is also one they would all rather body-swerve: that none of the big players in the world's most powerful and tooled-up military alliance are willing to go to actual war to defend Ukraine.
Instead they choose to fall back on the West's weapon of choice when there's some geopolitical belligerence for which (for once) they're not directly responsible: they shake their fists and impose their sanctions. And they tell the Ukrainian people that President Vladimir Putin will pay a heavy price for his actions by being marginalised and excluded from the theatre of global affairs. That'll make them feel better, right enough.
Given that the West has been marginalising and excluding the Russian president for the last two decades I'm not entirely convinced this will give him pause for thought. I'm sure too he'll have gamed the sanctions bit. Perhaps that's why China have been somewhat cautious in joining the chorus of global condemnation about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One country's sanction is another one's opportunity.

We've been here before and many times. When the old Soviet Union brutally repressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 there were similar expressions of outrage from the West. Curiously though, NATO adopted a somewhat more callous line to the effect that the Hungarian uprising was a collective act of national suicide.
In 1968, in Czechoslovakia when the Prague Spring was similarly dealt with by the Soviets and its eastern bloc allies there was more outrage and condemnation. This included UEFA imposing a punitive sporting sanction when they decided to rearrange the first round of fixtures in the European Cup to separate western clubs from eastern European ones. That'll learn them Soviets.


Happily, the poor citizens of Hungary and Czechoslovakia didn't have to contend with social media. Thus, they were spared all the tears and emoting that turns the internet into a giant virtual therapy session for Western liberals at times like this. Within a few hours of the Russian advance people were sending love and kisses to Ukraine by painting their social media profiles in blue and yellow.
In Edinburgh, St Andrew's House was bathed in blue and yellow as the most empathetic and narcissistic government in the world stood "shoulder to shoulder" with the Ukrainian people. This is retaliation by group hug. Already, Twitter firing-squads are being assembled targeting those who aren't sufficiently in touch with their feelings. "Putin-lover" is this year's "kill the witch".
In the absence of "boots on the ground" the UK's politicians have reached for sanctimony. On Thursday morning Lord Richard Dannat, former head of the British Army, stopped just sort of saying that the Russkies deserved a damn good thrashing. "Russia has got to be made to pay for this," he spluttered. "It's unacceptable to bring this sort of damaging and destructive war into Europe in the 21st century. Frankly, we finished with that in the middle of the 20th century."

In the absence of "boots on the ground" the UK's politicians have reached for sanctimony. On Thursday morning Lord Richard Dannat, former head of the British Army, stopped just sort of saying that the Russkies deserved a damn good thrashing. "Russia has got to be made to pay for this," he spluttered. "It's unacceptable to bring this sort of damaging and destructive war into Europe in the 21st century. Frankly, we finished with that in the middle of the 20th century."
This will be news to the people of Kosovo. And it cheerfully ignores the fact that NATO, led by the US and Britain, have spent much of the last 50 years bringing "damaging and destructive war" to most of the Middle East and large parts of Africa. "Welcome to our world," as the innocent families of Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan might be saying right now.
On BBC Question Time on Thursday night the British political and academic establishment gathered to wring their hands. This was a time for unity of purpose, said the Tory minister and his Labour shadow as they congratulated themselves for putting political differences aside. Now isn't the time to be divisive, said the posh magazine editor.
We need more tanks, said the Polish MEP.
An entire hour passed without anyone going anywhere near the other big question being studiously avoided by UK conservatives and liberals alike: why do we even need NATO years after its main purposes for existence had all been settled: the denazification of Germany; the dismantling of the Soviet Union and bringing the US into the orbit of European affairs?

https://archive.ph/Ph0by



Good article here from kevin mckenna , and quite a good comment for my mate good old calling me a putin lover .......

Already, Twitter firing-squads are being assembled targeting those who aren't sufficiently in touch with their feelings. "Putin-lover" is this year's "kill the witch".

[Thomas]

Go give your head a wobble.

To compare Starmer's attempts to derail Brexit within the rules of our parliamentary system with Putin's in vasion of the Ukraine is truly daft.

And exposes something of an obsession with the EU issue as if that is in any way relevant.

Here you go steve , to save barry giving us a slapped wrist for being labour bad and off topic , started a new thread to discuss your , starmers and the labour parties /wider british lefts hypocrisy on democracy over dictatorship.


thread here...

https://pol-tics.com/general-chat/4/keir-starmers-hypocrisy-talking-over-democracy-over-dictatorship/5066/

[Thomas]

I suppose my point was @Thomas, that is isn't exactly a fair argument to make claims about a user without backing it up.

How would you know what cromwell has or hasnt said over the last 12 years regarding his silence on american foreign policy when you have been only posting on here 5 minutes.?

[Thomas]

And we used to complain about Smurf making every thread "Tory Bad".
Do you really want to do the opposite, Thomas and make every thread "Labour Bad"?

ok barry fair comment. 

[Thomas]

No you look Thomas BOycey isn't talking guff you search out my hundreds of posts criticising Putin and while you're at it answer why you were slagging brexiteers off for ruining the eu vision and security post WW2.

And yeah Ive know you a longtime too and you are intelligent know your history and can be quite funny,you can also be very annoying,bombastic and comment on other posters even when they're not on that thread.

For my part I'm not really that bothered and am not falling out with anyone it's just a forum but everyone even if you don't agree is due a hearing.

I fully stand by my comments to you cromwell .Your silence on American foreign policy is deafening.

As long as people like you continue to ignore the activities of certain "countries" , while condemning similar activites of other countries , the cycle of global hypocrisy and accompanying violence will continue.

In the years sampan has posted on here for example , i regualrly see you argue the toss with him and put forth a pre scripted british media pro western slant , While ignoring many of the often valid points sampan makes. I dont always agree with sampan , but often he offers a refreshing view that isnt plucked like yours from the british media who appear to do often for your thinking for you.

Not a peep from you regarding this ukraine affair on the wider picture regarding the broken promises of NATO expansion into eastern europe , the 2014 US backed coup d`etat  in Ukraine, and the fact as i said yet again this is merely one more american proxy war with russia  with the yanks arming and funding the ukrainians which is largely what much of this is about.

This has been going on now for 8 years , and Putin appears to be at the end of his tether now with the yanks war games.

Do you actually believe the nonsense the americans are your (britains) friends?

Uk government policy now , largely since the suez crises in the fifties , has been to hang on to the americans coat tails to protect britians interests overseas , that the uk is currently largely incapable of doing since they lost their status as a world power through the end of their empire. Washingtons bum boy. The yanks say jump , you say how high.

That in effect is the "special relationship " summed up.

Silence  from you on american threats regarding the northern irish protocol , but quick to run in and blame the EU. EVeryone appears to know apart from you jhonson clearly had every intention of shafting the EU over the protocol until the yanks went in and warned him from doing so , humiliating the UK once more , and interfereing in uk domestic issues and the integrity of our "state".

Silence from you of the fact when the IRA detonated their bomb in your very own city , it was done off the back of yank money. Had putin funded the IRA as america did , you would be the first to shout out.

Not a peep out your beloved uk media of the yanks bombing fack out of somalia merely two days ago , but they can tell us the movement of every russian troop in ukraine.

I cant think of any war or flashpoint around the globe in my entire life the yanks havent been directly or indirectly involved in , including in your own backyard in northern ireland , possibly with the exception of the falklands conflict.

.......but putins bad you tell us.

[Barry]

Are you denying my point about starmers anti democratic actions stands?

You can talk about parliamentary process all you like , you can talk about narrow majorities to de ligitimise brexit all you like , it doesnt in any way shape or form negate my comment on starmer and your former despicable anti democratic labour party.

Why am i not surprised you come on here to defend starmer?

You know , as i do , the anti democratic events between 2016 to 2019 , not to mention the fact under milliband your former party didnt even want the people tio have a say on the festering 40 year sore of europe , is a lead weight that will hang abround the necks of the labour party , their leader ,and the wider british left for a long time to come.

And we used to complain about Smurf making every thread "Tory Bad".
Do you really want to do the opposite, Thomas and make every thread "Labour Bad"? 

[Thomas]

I dare say ,Putin, could not have put it better.

Thank you.