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Sequoia

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  1. Like
    Sequoia reacted to akd in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Yes.
  2. Like
    Sequoia reacted to sburke in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    uuuuhh c'mon dude.  Italy elections, Le Pen in France?  Ring a bell?
  3. Like
    Sequoia reacted to panzermartin in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Actually yes, my parents. My father in Athens had some very rough time, executions, hunger, people dying in the streets searching for food...My mother in Crete had a better 4 years living in a self sufficient village. Only one day they were rounded up in a church with her mother and the villagers with germans pouring gasoline around. Repisals for beating (killing?) two german soldiers. The wehrmacht doctor, that also looked after the kids of the region, intervened and prevented the holocaust. I still believe they didnt intend to burn them though but rather scare them. But a 15yr old kid that run away was shot in the back. Strangelly she still recalls, a soldier among the chaos stealing a pouch and some money from some poor peasants house and the officer forcing him to return it. A paradox, among the sheer sinster brutality they still had a sense of "professionalism" and discipline. 
    Apologies for the off topic but thought you mind find it interesting. So yes, I dont think there is wisdom in supporting fascism. That being said I dont think Russia will ever achieve even a fraction of the level of darkness Nazi Germany brought, so I cant see the parallel with Hitler. I hope I'm not mistaken with their potential, I will come here to sincerely apologize to be honest and recognize the vision you all had and I missed.
     
    And I very respect that.
     
    Here I have to say that Russias intervention role effectively ended the rule of ISIS. I don't know what we were doing there training and arming moderate rebels that somehow were ending in the radical islamists ranks but we had a share on the mess. I think ISIS was hell on earth. Probably worse than Assad. And ISIS was the child of the iraqi invasion, Europe had no involvment and opposed vigorously. (hence the French fries were banned) .
    Also the refugee boats are filled with many nationalities, some are coming through Libya that has become an international slave hub, some from Iraq, many were also coming from Afghanistan. The biggest weaponizer of the refugees is by far Erdogan, (see the greek/turkish border crisis a couple of years ago) a ruler we are harbouring in our alliance, conduct common army drills and even allowing to have a say in Finland -Sweden entrance to NATO. 
     
     
  4. Like
    Sequoia reacted to Combatintman in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Beat me to it - the time to invade Ukraine would have been while the US and NATO still had forces in Afghanistan - all that military hardware that is pouring into Ukraine now would have been unthinkable if troops were still on the ground in Afghanistan.  All it would have taken was for a US/NATO soldier to get killed in Afghanistan and someone to unearth a social media post where the soldier said before their death - 'we didn't have enough body amour/MRAPs/fire support because it got sent to Ukraine.'  In fact it wouldn't even take that - the press or an opposition politician would just seize on the fact that equipment and supplies were going to a non-US//NATO country while the former were still engaged in Afghanistan. 
    Also, all of those ISR platforms that were able to focus on Ukraine and Russia plus the analytical support behind them which did and still is making a huge difference to Ukraine would likely have been at least half of what they are now.  Also look at the political bandwidth that is being spent in Ukraine right now.  For the latter, I go back to the optics - the calculus would be 'are there any US/NATO troops there?  Nope ... Let's throw Ukraine some bones to keep the press off our backs but we need to focus on where US/NATO troops are in a combat training and advising role.'
    US/NATO weakness in Afghanistan was signalled well before August 2021 and the current US President's decision to call it a day earlier that same year.  I can't name an actual year when it was obvious that the US/NATO will was lacking but it was at least a decade ago and probably longer than that.  Or put another way - the 'Biden was weak' theory is ... errrmmm ... weak.  
  5. Like
    Sequoia reacted to danfrodo in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    wow, what a great bunch of posts, thanks all.  I ran out of likes pretty fast.  I was scrambling to get some work stuff sent out so I could then catch up on all the posts, guilt free.
    I singled out the quote from dan/CA above, because it really is so true.  Fossil fuels drive so much of international problems and we could be doing sooooooo much better w minimal investment compared to the ongoing economic, environmental, and political costs of fossil fuels.  Fossil fuels are AMAZING in power, transportability, etc.  But dang, the costs!  Unfortunately fossil fuels, like DDT & asbestos, which were really really good at their intended use, have a rather nasty bunch of side effects.  Picture Saudi Arabia & Russia w/o all that oil money -- what a beautiful world.
    Aragorn once again ready to ride into Ukraine!  Right on, Dude!  My little fantasy is that Belarus invades on the western-most N-S highway toward Lviv and Poland jumps across the border and smashes them.  Hey, that sounds like a great CMBS module!  I wouldn't want to play as Belarus, that's for sure.  Anyway, Lukashenko falls and it starts a bigger political collapse all the way to Putin, fulfilling The Prophecy of Dan/CA.  
    And let's remember who's at fault for this war:  PUTIN.  No one but PUTIN.  Yeah, lots of folks could've done this or that or some other, but the reality is that this is all PUTIN.  It continues because PUTIN needs to save face.  He's driving his entire nation over the cliff because he can't politically afford to lose a war of choice that has no conceivable payback relative to cost -- even including all the stolen toilets.  And stolen MacBooks -- they do realize those are password locked, right?
     
  6. Like
    Sequoia reacted to akd in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    This is a lie. You know the level of knowledge about Ukraine present here.  Can’t believe you would try and trot this out in front of this crowd. Since everything else is just Fox News talking points also, I doubt there is any reason to address this in detail, but broadly:
    -Biden worked to end corruption in Ukraine, carrying out the policy of the US and our European partners, including putting pressure on Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who WAS NOT actively pursuing an investigation of Burisma (which concerned issues predating Hunter Biden’s term on the Burisma, and so COULD NOT have been an investigation of H. Biden).
    -Trump tried to extort a fake investigation of H. Biden by Ukraine for purely domestic US political purposes by threatening to withhold military aid, in direct contravention of US foreign policy.
    If you don’t think the latter display of complete contempt for Ukraine on the part of the US didn’t play into Russia’s plans in Ukraine (which did not start out of the blue in Nov 2020), then I don’t know what to say.
  7. Like
    Sequoia reacted to billbindc in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/16/trump-administration-broke-law-in-withholding-ukraine-aid.html
    I'm sorry but that's an absurd statement. Russia didn't decide to invade because Biden was weak kneed on Ukraine. In fact, Biden has been seen as a hawk in DC on the topic since at least 2008 or so. Russia invaded because before his administration Putin had successfully out maneuvered Bush and Obama while Trump was fairly actively his acolyte. The good times were over, American military aid was about to ramp up and the Ukrainian government was no longer as amenable to pressure. In short, Ukraine was about to become much harder to swallow up (if not as easy as the FSB imagined).
     
  8. Like
    Sequoia reacted to danfrodo in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    China attacking Taiwan is an utterly insane, self destructive choice for China.  They are dependent on trade and world is dependent on them.  Attacking Taiwan wrecks all that.  There is simply no cost-benefit that is in 1000 miles of making sense.
    And so maybe China will actually do that.  considering it was insane for Putin to make this move.  Actually Putin's move was less insane than Taiwan attack would be -- Putin was staging a coup that went sideways.  China would be full on war.  I guess insane cost-benefit ratio doesn't really mean a dictator won't do actually pull the trigger.
  9. Like
    Sequoia reacted to sburke in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Heh China has a couple aircraft carriers they are still learning how to use.  Japan had 6 fleet carriers and the most experience using them of any Navy.  To counter them the US had 5 fleet carriers and now has 11 and over 75 years of experience.  
    Taking Taiwan would make the Normandy landings look like child's play.  The channel from Portsmouth to Normandy is 100 miles.  The Germans were restricted to pretty much the mk 1 eyeball and were mislead as to where a landing might take place.  The US had experience doing multiple amphibious landings.  China has never done one.  The moment a fleet even starts organizing we'll know and Taiwan can reach pretty far out into that strait. 
    Militarily it is a suicide mission.
  10. Like
    Sequoia reacted to Huba in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    A really great article about France's position during the war, concentrating mostly on the failures of Macron's mediation attempts. A little excerpt to give you a taste:
    https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/macron-must-avoid-immolation-french-influence
  11. Like
    Sequoia reacted to FancyCat in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    That's a take. I doubt if you asked the Irish if they enjoyed the famines, the answer would be positive. India, I'm sure their famines and deindustrialization aren't taken as a positive. I could go on, but that's some silly stuff, imperial conquest is good, jeez.
  12. Like
    Sequoia reacted to panzermartin in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    It's true that every war, occupation and colonization brings developments in infrastructure, governing model, cultural additions, lots of good things as well. The Romans also invaded Britain and brought some good things too, walls, forts, aqueducts, ways to count etc. Even Brittania was a word of theirs. One can say it was in a way part of the evolution of human race. But you wouldn't want the Romans above your head all the time, would you? . It still was an occupation that involved a lot of violence, suppression and humiliation of natives. Colonial powers didn't set those countries free because they matured but because there were bloody unrests and weren't strong enough anymore to handle them . Cricket and driving on the left is fine but they had been also killing people as recently as in the late 50s in Cyrpus for instance...
    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/07/tortured-to-death-the-14-cypriot-men-killed-by-british-in-50s-uprising
     
     
  13. Like
    Sequoia reacted to Gpig in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Hmmm . . . looks like it drove up on the guard-rail and got high-centred. Mobility kill?
    Edit: The driver rolling up on a well marked verge might have something to do with the 420 stencilled on the turret side
  14. Like
    Sequoia reacted to FancyCat in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    You know, had the invasion not occurred, i would have largely agreed with you, but....since the invasion has occurred, and suddenly everyone in Europe (aside from the Balkans), must confront the idea of war and military conflict once more, with EE feeling pensive about the faithfulness of its Western European allies, NATO serves to defend Europe, and especially Eastern Europe. 
    For all the idea of Russia suffering massive damage in Ukraine, lets not underscore the fact Ukraine has been severely damaged. No state in EE wants to suffer any of that, and NATO remains the best guarantee at warding off Russian threats. 
    The damage Russia is inflicting on a nation of 44 million people, with hundreds of millions suffering side effects from the economic damage of the food conflict does not endorse your viewpoint. 
  15. Like
    Sequoia reacted to Haiduk in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Thanks ) Just became some more of work, my wife turned back and often occupies PC because her work, also it's hard to live three months 24/7 as war news translator, so I took small vacations 
  16. Like
    Sequoia reacted to sburke in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    why I remember the day when your news came on a piece of paper - you could write all the comments you wanted... but nobody could read them... you youngsters.  Then we'd started yelling at the TV....
  17. Like
    Sequoia got a reaction from Freyberg in So has playing Combat Mission make you now cringe when you watch war movies?   
    I've been trying to think of ANY modern war (WWI and on) movies that shows combat realistically. Perhaps the one scene that's an exception that comes to mind is in Band of Brothers where they attack the artillery emplacement in Normandy. Short ambushes sometimes are portrayed alright, but that's about it. 
    Most movies still have attackers line up in some sort of skirmish line and advance upright in the open. Suppression is almost never represented. I suppose real life combat isn't very cinematic as you usually only see the heads of the enemy at best most of the time. 
    List your exceptions and let's see if we can dissuade you that they are realistic.
     
  18. Like
    Sequoia reacted to LongLeftFlank in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Agreed, although there is one horrible full colour sequence I won't link from Saipan 1944 ("Hell in the Pacific" series), where a Japanese hetai emerges on fire from his bunker and runs around for a bit before lying down in a ditch to expire. The poor guy's body language expresses less agony than embarassment, as if he had been caught outside naked.
    And then there's this non-explicit but nonetheless poignant sequence of a US tanker on Okinawa, a young skinny kid, likely sole survivor of his crew. His body language alone tells the tale.
    ....These are the kinds of stories a good friend of mine at USVA hears on a daily basis from veterans ever since they began offering extra PTSD benefits.
    The stories invariably begin, "I always thought I'd take this story with me to the grave with me, because who the hell would want to hear it, except my wife who wonders why I wake up screaming at night."
    We are all human.
  19. Like
    Sequoia reacted to JonS in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Yeah, nah. He shouldn't be *doing* "stuff like that."
    Is it understandable? Yes.
    Is it illegal? Also yes.
    Does the first negate the second? No.
  20. Like
    Sequoia reacted to sburke in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    1 agreed - a war crime is a war crime
    2 Ukraine needs POWs.  Russia has been kidnapping civilians.  Force them to trade including the guys from Mariupol.
  21. Like
    Sequoia reacted to FancyCat in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    boiling the frog slowly. little by little push the envelope of equipment. at the start of the conflict we were sending AT weapons, now armed drones 4 months later. is it slow? yes, but Russia is still acting like it can win, and if they think they can still win, they will be less likely to hit the panic button and dare NATO to call their bluff. Important to also emphasize, as each tier of equipment is reached, NATO's more flighty members will be very cautious, so matching and illustrating that Russia is not going to respond, is essential for smoothing their feelings and accommodating their concerns but clearly the direction is heading towards more and more advanced equipment. 
     
  22. Like
    Sequoia reacted to danfrodo in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Hey all, wasn't trying to get political.  I posted it as an example of the kind of talking points that will probably be used to undermine the US efforts to support the war going forward.  Note that Chomsky & Caldwell are both on the same page.  The message is "the US is at fault for setting up the causes of the war and for making the war continue, and this is nothing but a proxy war for the US" -- which, as I mentioned, ignores the reality of what Russia has clearly stated it would do to a conquered Ukraine and its people. 
    But these talking points are a way forward for undermining US popular support and will probably be amplified.
  23. Like
    Sequoia reacted to dan/california in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Ukraine needs to trade Crimea for Russia agreeing to Ukraine joining the EU, and NATO. I realize nobody likes this idea, but short of taking Moscow, and doing something medieval with Putin's corpse this is the thing that would create a stable peace. The other issue with taking back Crimea is that I don't think Ukraine can deal with an unhappy populace that size and retain uncontested Western support. Putting down riots inherently looks bad on TV. The FSB most certainly knows this, and I am sure they have a plan. EU/NATO membership and the 2/24 frontiers as absolutely inviolable international borders make Ukraine a prosperous, UNIFIED, successful country. Sometimes living well really is the best revenge. 
  24. Like
    Sequoia reacted to billbindc in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Chomsky and his ilk tend to see the messaging that confirms their priors or see messaging as having a malign intent almost by definition. Did the Biden administration shape public opinion in both Europe and the US before Russia invaded? Sure. By making sure that a truthful account of what was happening out competed the propaganda emanating from Moscow. Is that 'manufacturing consent'? I'd argue not. It's leveling with your voters. 
    PS: I should add that what Schneider is specifically discussing is the coordinated messaging that was being done before the war began. That made sense then because it was necessary to actively escalate attention to Russian actions that were indicating what was coming. Now, it's here. Russian misdeeds are dominating the news every day and thus the need for what he's describing has waned. Not offense to Schneider but what he's describing is a fairly banal reassessment of need and action.
     
  25. Upvote
    Sequoia got a reaction from G.I. Joe in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Sorry Poesel but I don't buy that diagram. It has several issues, including listing the Eastern European countries other than the Soviet Union as losing the Cold War.
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