(February 16, 2025 at 8:03 am)Ivan Denisovich Wrote: Idea of Poland leading Europe against USA is something that even world best (or worst) comedian wouldn't come with for fear of being too absurd. Who with any knowledge of Europe would think that this christian version of Iran would have pull, ability or even desire to do so?

There were times when it was thinkable that Poland plays a leading role, even somewhat probable, but those times are over since the partition between Russia, Prussia and Austria. I agree that part of the current problem is that Poland seems to be (too) busy with itself. Otoh the polish army seems to be bound to become (actually it already is) a major force in Europe, especially with the program of buying from South Korea.

(February 16, 2025 at 8:37 am)Deesse23 Wrote:

(February 16, 2025 at 8:03 am)Ivan Denisovich Wrote: Idea of Poland leading Europe against USA is something that even world best (or worst) comedian wouldn't come with for fear of being too absurd. Who with any knowledge of Europe would think that this christian version of Iran would have pull, ability or even desire to do so?

There were times when it was thinkable that Poland plays a leading role, even somewhat probable, but those times are over since the partition between Russia, Prussia and Austria. I agree that part of the current problem is that Poland seems to be (too) busy with itself. Otoh the polish army seems to be bound to become (actually it already is) a major force in Europe, especially with the program of buying from South Korea.

These times are long past and as unlikely to return as Lenin rising from mausoleum. We're talking about country where over 17 million of people lives in social exclusion and in which PM blames flood on beavers. It's not leadership material but to paraphrase famous words Upper Volta without rockets. As for army - maybe it will be doing better than rest of this Europe sick man but functional army in dysfunctional state is hallmark of USSR, not anything worthy of XXI century.

To all the Putin apologists who keep insisting Ukraine is about money laundering because you misinterpreted a statement from Zelensky 

https://www.csis.org/analysis/where-miss...id-ukraine

Kindly shut up

(February 18, 2025 at 1:06 pm)The Architect Of Fate Wrote: To all the Putin apologists who keep insisting Ukraine is about money laundering because you misinterpreted a statement from Zelensky 

https://www.csis.org/analysis/where-miss...id-ukraine

Kindly shut up

There you go with facts again. This got to stop. 

Boru

(February 15, 2025 at 6:42 pm)MR. Macabre 666 Wrote:

(February 15, 2025 at 2:51 pm)Ivan Denisovich Wrote: So? Zelensky can dream about it but it won't be anything besides his dream.


I doubt it. In 2023 only 3 countries were over 5% Somehow I don't see it changing to great extent.


I'm more worried about him being fascist willing to fellate other fascists.

You've been screaming that Trump's a fascist since the election last November, what has he done since taking office last month that defines him as a fascist?  Has he outlawed and/or taken control of the media yet? Does he have control of the newspapers? Has he begun mandatory military conscription yet? 

Seriously, going through the government's books and cutting spending on things that don't benefit this country's own citizens? The huge amounts of waste and corruption in our government are being exposed by Musk, and it's much worse than we could have thought it would be. 

America first isn't just a phrase, it should be at the forefront of everything that our government does. If you hate this country of ours, why don't you just leave? Mexico or Canada are just a road trip away.

- This has always been an issue during the whole of the 20th century. No one wanted to join WW1 yet you had to. All those young men who lost their lives in D-Day probably had dreams and wishes for their future, yet they had to be there on that day. The US could have kept all that Marshall Plan aid to itself yet they didn’t. And the list goes on and on. Korea, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan…

    I’m not saying that the US should always keep policing the world at all times. But still, the US military budget is bigger than almost all other major military powers combined:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co...penditures
 
So this should be used for the right cause. Many people in the US are jobless, homeless, working in unsatisfactory jobs, unable to pay their student loans..
 
So this debate must be had somehow. But if all you want to do is “America first” Why do you need such an enormous military machine in the first place?
 
What I mean is that: This world is in full transformation toward a more human way of doing things but we are not really there yet. There will be Putin-like events both in Europe and also in other places in the future (In fact the next Putin might even be an American, That’s what I understand from D. Trump’s reelection). I hope and believe that there will not be the need for another D-Day / like sacrifice from anyone. But all major nations will still have to work (a lot) to maintain democratic values and systems.
 
You might check-out what happened in Hong-Kong for instance. The Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989 isn’t even present in student books. All 2,500 deaths didn’t even happen.
 
And this parallels what Zelensky said today: Trumpists are not fascists but they are people living in this space of disinformation and they are drifting further away from reality every single day. That’s more dangerous than fascism actually

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-envoy-...36043.html

Quote:Trump vowed to end the war during his presidential campaign and on Tuesday repeated his claim that the war would never have started if he had been president. He spoke after U.S. and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia without Ukraine officials.

“I think I have the power to end this war. And I think it’s going very well,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago on the heels of the meeting between U.S. and Russian officials.

“But today I heard, ‘Oh, well we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump continued. “You should’ve ended it in three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...ar-russia/

Putin's Puppet in action.

Quote:KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday of living in a Russian-made “disinformation space,” pointed comments that risked further souring relations with Washington as the American leader pushes for an end to the war.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would like to meet with Trump, a day after senior American and Russian officials held talks that were partially aimed at preparing just such a summit.

Zelenskyy said he “would like Trump’s team to be more truthful” in his first response to a series of striking claims the U.S. president made the previous day, including suggesting that Kyiv was to blame for the war, which enters its fourth year next week.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrain...ab00c23458

(February 19, 2025 at 11:20 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

Quote:Trump vowed to end the war during his presidential campaign and on Tuesday repeated his claim that the war would never have started if he had been president. He spoke after U.S. and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia without Ukraine officials.

“I think I have the power to end this war. And I think it’s going very well,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago on the heels of the meeting between U.S. and Russian officials.

“But today I heard, ‘Oh, well we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump continued. “You should’ve ended it in three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...ar-russia/

Putin's Puppet in action.

It's international affairs version of " She shouldn't have worn that dress"

Trumps view of international cooperation

(February 19, 2025 at 9:46 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: So this debate must be had somehow. But if all you want to do is “America first” Why do you need such an enormous military machine in the first place?

I suspect that Trump has never read War and Peace, but Putin probably has. I don't know anything about military strategy, so I was surprised by the story. Tolstoy's characters are fictional, but apparently the war he describes is historically pretty accurate. 

When Napoleon invades Russia, the aristocratic Russian officers are eager to make a glorious attack. Of course they are all slaughtered immediately. This leaves the army under the command of a fat old general who has seen it all. His strategy is to do as little as possible, retreat a lot, and let time and numbers work for him. Eventually he is woken up from his afternoon nap to be told that Napoleon has admitted defeat and left Russia. 

So we all know that Putin is stupid crazy super-evil Satan double-Hitler, but he's about to get everything he wanted. Despite being completely out of soldiers and equipped with inferior equipment (so I'm told) he's won. And Zelensky isn't invited to the grown-ups' table.