(April 16, 2023 at 7:58 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Is taiwan is "still culturally chinese" like ukraine was "still culturally russian" then china might want to give up any dreams of clawing back that island.

It’s a different issue. Russians and Ukrainians have some historical affinities that go back to the middle ages. The first Russian state The Kievan Rus, is the first known Russian state in History. Zellensky has recently asked for Russian to be called “Moscovites” in order to remove any misunderstanding that can appear as a result of this. Because it is still two different nations with two different histories. Like the Kurds and the Iranians I would say (same language family. Two different ethnic group)
 
Yet the Taiwanese are Chinese. Like Hong-Kong’ers. The problem there is political. Since 1991 the self-governing island is a self-governing entity. It takes time to build a democratic culture in one nation and once they have it they don’t want to lose it. China thinks it can assimilate the island like they assimilated Hong-Kong with their “one country two system” plan. Yet the Taiwanese saw what happened in Hong-Kong and they don’t want the same thing to happen to them. Still if China decided to move on a path of more freedom and more democracy, then parts like Tibet and the Xİnjan regions would probably want to move away, but then Taiwan would not object to a unification with that Chinese-Federation of mine

(April 20, 2023 at 2:38 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Russia is losing the war to the point where Putin has had to cancel his beloved World War II victory parade because they don't have the tanks. Every single scrap of metal is needed and sent to their genocidal invasion of Ukraine.

There are problems with F-16’s. Now NATO countries are considering whether they should give Ukrainians French made Rafalles / Mirage planes or Swedish JAS-39 Grippen Jets instead.  
 
The problem is dust: Soviet Mig fighter jet do not require extremely clean and well maintained airbases. F-16’s do. + it’s a huge task to train Ukrainian pilot on these western made fighter jets.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-could-...00814.html

The article points out that the problem is not actually the -task- of cleaning up or lengthening runways - or a "problem with the f-16". Monkeys can do this. It's that it would be highly visible, and so present a clear target for russian strikes.

It would make sense, truly, if russia hasn;t always had clear targets within reach and opted to shell apartment complexes and hospitals and schools, instead. I doubt there would even be a ukrainian force left to go begging for f16s if they'd dropped all of that on the heads of the actual forces, logistics hubs, and production centers that ukr relies on. I get why russia is fucking up this way, because some criminal back in moscow has dibs on the facilities and gear..but it seems like a particularly good way to lose a war to me.

(April 26, 2023 at 9:32 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: The problem is dust: Soviet Mig fighter jet do not require extremely clean and well maintained airbases. F-16’s do. + it’s a huge task to train Ukrainian pilot on these western made fighter jets.

I worked at a USAF base which housed a squadron of 24 F-16s. They're no more nor less vulnerable to typical conditions at a paved airbase, and in wartime from bare-base, "unclean" areas, they did pretty well in Saudi Arabia, whose bases, I can again tell you from personal experience aren't terribly dust- or sand-free.

Of paved airbases, Ukraine has 35 airfields with concrete runways extending over 2000 meters in length.

The holdup is training. At the base I mentioned above, when the 31st TFW converted to F-16s from F-4Es, it took them ten months -- and they were American pilots, familiar with American instrumentation, fluent in English (gotta read those manuals!), accustomed to American (as opposed to metric) measurements, and so on.

They also seem to forget that the Russians are expected to have already shot off the vast majority of their precision-munitions park at civilians -- even though the Ukrainian Air Force is still flying.

So first we got the Pentagon papers that show Ukraine has no choice but to negotiate because they will run out of soldiers, and China is actually willing to arm Russia, and now someone is trying to drone strike the Kremlin? Zelensky or someone else or false flag, I do not know, but if this was Zelensky, giving him weapons was far dumber than arming Al Qaeda and ISIS as Zelensky is the greater threat to the planet.

Oh look, ole shit for brains is back.

(May 3, 2023 at 3:38 pm)Angrboda Wrote: Oh look, ole shit for brains is back.

I figure a 48 hour pass from the asylum.

(May 3, 2023 at 3:45 pm)arewethereyet Wrote:

(May 3, 2023 at 3:38 pm)Angrboda Wrote: Oh look, ole shit for brains is back.

I figure a 48 hour pass from the asylum.

Yeah, I wonder how accusing someone of spreading slurs against their own LGBTQ family members would make someone not want to come around and post much.

(May 3, 2023 at 3:38 pm)Angrboda Wrote: Oh look, ole shit for brains is back.

Which part am I wrong about?

The Pentagon papers show what I say they show. Disprove my claims. Do you support a drone strike on the Kremlin? Do you understand what Russia's response will be if this actually came from Ukraine? The response will be stern, bigly. And again, I'm very open to this being a false flag by Russia to get more local support for the war and conscription. We need to wait for more information before we start making concrete claims about what happened here.

(May 3, 2023 at 3:10 pm)Irreligious Atheist Wrote: So first we got the Pentagon papers that show Ukraine has no choice but to negotiate because they will run out of soldiers, and China is actually willing to arm Russia, and now someone is trying to drone strike the Kremlin? Zelensky or someone else or false flag, I do not know, but if this was Zelensky, giving him weapons was far dumber than arming Al Qaeda and ISIS as Zelensky is the greater threat to the planet.

It was Russian propaganda.

Guaranteed.