(November 15, 2025 at 6:01 pm)Belacqua Wrote: You think Putin wants to invade the USA? 

More than the current occupation from the whitehouse.....?  Still, funny question for you to ask.  Said he didn't want to invade ukraine.  Still says he isn't invading ukraine.  

Quote:It's impossible for Ukraine to win back the territory it's lost through the military means it has now. Regaining the territory would require a vast escalation of violence, with more countries becoming actively involved. The people you call conservative seem reluctant to have US soldiers fighting there, or pushing a nuclear-armed country too far. 

Russia doesn't appear to believe this is true.  They're feeding 1k suckers a day on average into the meatgrinder to prevent ukraine from retaking even more of the land they've already retaken about a third of.  How far would be too far.  Pushing russia back to it's own borders...too far?  You might want to go tell the ukrainians.  

Quote:The Americans formerly known as "Liberal" are now fully in line with the Military Industrial Complex. So they're pushing for whatever escalation they fantasize can save Ukraine. In the past the old type of liberal didn't want World War III, but that seems to have changed.

Liberals, amiright?  So, thought experiment.  What part of preventing ww3 does acknowledging and failing to prevent territorial invasions serve? Let's imagine a world where the us invades canada and mexico. Simultaneously. How far from the current borders would you counsel people to accept as the cost of doing business with a nuclear armed country that ought not be pushed too far? I know, I know, pedestrian. Let's say the us decides to go to war with...idk..the whole fucking planet. Why not, who's going to stop us...or, more specifically, who should?

These are the kinds of questions I feel anyone who makes this type of argument ought to be able to answer. I truly do. At least then we could scale fore ukraine and say "okay guys, 10km more and you've hit the line." You know? Give them a constructive end space. So they don't get shorted, but also fall short of doing The Bad Thing. In this case, that thing being kicking a burglar out of their fucking house.

This garbage is all so unbelievably stupid I write it down to a sunk cost fallacy. People are fucking embarrassed at being so wrong, and so shitty wrong, about ukraine. There's no actual ideology or reasoning behind it. They just feel they have to keep saying those things.

(November 15, 2025 at 9:20 pm)awty Wrote: Bel shows up for a troll visit. And way too many people feed him.

Agreed.

(November 18, 2025 at 2:55 am)The Valkyrie Wrote:

(November 15, 2025 at 9:20 pm)awty Wrote: Bel shows up for a troll visit.  And way too many people feed him.

Agreed.

Weirdly, I was all set to make a post about how delightful it is that Bel has gone on to sillier pastures. Glad I didn't.

Boru

Reuters, The Guardian, and the Financial Times are reporting that Russia and the US have negotiated a peace plan. According to Politico this was done directly by officials from the two countries, but neither Trump nor Putin has announced that it's agreed. Of course Zelensky won't like it, but it's not clear if he has any say in the matter.

Politico also reports that nobody from Europe was including in the negotiations, with one US official saying "we don't really care" about Europe. At this point the only enthusiasm for continuing the war seems to be coming from European capitals, despite the fact that continuing it means economic suicide.

The plan as reported is worse than what was offered in Istanbul, which was reportedly signed and ready to go until Boris Johnson ordered Zelensky to keep fighting. But the corruption scandal in Kiev, the fact that Ukraine totally runs out of money in February, and continued battlefield losses mean that Ukraine is in a worse negotiating position than it was in Istanbul.

Ukraine has agreed to buy gas from Greece, to cover the losses due to attacks on its energy infrastructure. Greece imports over 40% of its gas from Russia, so this seems to be a similar deal to Germany's, in which they pretend not to buy Russian energy by paying a middleman. (Even Japan, normally America's most obedient vassal, has begun to buy directly from Russia again, though only a little bit.)

As further evidence that the Western establishment is getting sick of Zelensky, the London Telegraph has published an editorial with the headline "Zelensky is Losing Touch with Reality." This is largely due to the fact that he has made deals to buy 100 fighter jets from France and 150 jets from Sweden. These cost a lot of money, which Ukraine doesn't have. They will also take at least 5 years to deliver, and since Ukraine doesn't currently operate any jets from Sweden it will cost a fortune to get the required training, infrastructure, spare parts, etc. And of course the weapons cost extra.

Remember a year ago when people were saying that the F-16s would be a game-changer? They weren't.

The chance that Ukraine will still exist in anything like its present form five years from now is extremely remote. It seems likely that the deals for the jets are just hot air, or, given Ukraine's history of corruption, some kind of deal to enrich a few well-connected dealers.

I'll be surprised, to tell the truth, if this latest peace plan goes through. But it just means that Ukraine will continue to suffer. Remember that two years ago now the BBC reported that 650,000 military-age men had fled Ukraine for Europe, and that number is certainly much higher today.

Belacqua Wrote:As further evidence that the Western establishment is getting sick of Zelensky, the London Telegraph has published an editorial with the headline "Zelensky is Losing Touch with Reality."

One article in the newspapers doesn't mean that the Western establishment is getting sick of Zelensky. Europe sees Ukraine as a sort of a wall against Russia.

Besides, even if Zelensky leaves doesn't mean that Ukraine would stop fighting for their freedom under the new president.

Belacqua Wrote:This is largely due to the fact that he has made deals to buy 100 fighter jets from France and 150 jets from Sweden.

Then they don't seem to be sick of him if they decided to sell him airplanes.

Belacqua Wrote:These cost a lot of money, which Ukraine doesn't have.

Not necessarily. There is a lot of frozen Russian (Putin's) assets in Europe that could easily cover the expenses.

Belacqua Wrote:The chance that Ukraine will still exist in anything like its present form five years from now is extremely remote.

The chances that Russia will still exist in anything like its present form five years from now are even lower.

Belacqua Wrote:I'll be surprised, to tell the truth, if this latest peace plan goes through.

No shit, Sherlock, because it’s not a “peace deal,” it’s capitulation deal. One of conditions include recognizing Russian as the official state language in Ukraine.

Belacqua Wrote:But it just means that Ukraine will continue to suffer.

They will suffer even more under Russian occupation.

(Yesterday at 7:29 am)Belacqua Wrote: Of course Zelensky won't like it, but it's not clear if he has any say in the matter.

This is one of the more idiotic things I've seen you write. Of course a combatant has a say in when combat ends.

(Yesterday at 7:29 am)Belacqua Wrote: Politico also reports that nobody from Europe was including in the negotiations, with one US official saying "we don't really care" about Europe.

One of the things that astounds me with this is that the Americans appear to have bred a population too stark stupid to understand that this betrayal will have consequences for them. It's as if they think that unilaterally selling out a European country might not make other nations view them as a pack of inbred hicks with atomic weapons. I suppose it isn't that surprising, given that they've managed to engineer Americans that will violently oppose their own healthcare and education, but it'll still come as a shock to certain Americans when the rest of the world decides not to join them at the rail as they take turns pissing into the wind.

On the bright side, Bel's screed really reads: "Trump's Moscow Handlers Give Him New Marching Orders as European Leaders Point and Laugh."

American foreign policy prior to Trump was an interlocking web of forces and relationships. Trump and his supporters in their ignorance think that you can focus on independent transactions without any loss.

The russian theory of victory has never been more clearly explained. Putin, and I suppose Bel too, thinks that the mad king of the usa can give parts of ukraine to russia, and that this will be best for all parties involved.

It's a brilliant plan. Perhaps after we're done doing that we can get canada to agree to give ukraine japan as compensation. Meanwhile, in ukraine, another 1k russians die as invaders in a war they could not win, hoping that putin, trump, and the bels of the world, might someday soon come rescue them with One Neat Trick.

(Yesterday at 12:12 pm)Paleophyte Wrote:

(Yesterday at 7:29 am)Belacqua Wrote: Politico also reports that nobody from Europe was including in the negotiations, with one US official saying "we don't really care" about Europe.

One of the things that astounds me with this is that the Americans appear to have bred a population too stark stupid to understand that this betrayal will have consequences for them. It's as if they think that unilaterally selling out a European country might not make other nations view them as a pack of inbred hicks with atomic weapons. I suppose it isn't that surprising, given that they've managed to engineer Americans that will violently oppose their own healthcare and education, but it'll still come as a shock to certain Americans when the rest of the world decides not to join them at the rail as they take turns pissing into the wind.

On the bright side, Bel's screed really reads: "Trump's Moscow Handlers Give Him New Marching Orders as European Leaders Point and Laugh."

Take care not to confuse the current Administration's outlook with the American population at large.

Quote:Nearly three years into the war in Ukraine, President-elect Donald Trump has been promising a swift end to the conflict when he takes office. Americans’ views about U.S. support for Ukraine have shifted little in recent months, but there continue to be wide partisan differences, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Nov. 12-17.

Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say the United States is providing too much support to Ukraine (42% vs. 13%).

Republicans are also far less likely than Democrats to say the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s invasion (36% vs. 65%).

In addition, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have long been less likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to see Russia’s invasion as a major threat to U.S. interests. But this partisan gap has grown. Just 19% of Republicans now say the invasion is a major threat, compared with 42% of Democrats.

[...]

Americans are also split on whether the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s invasion. Half of Americans say the U.S. has this responsibility, while 47% say it does not. These views are largely unchanged over the last several months.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...n-ukraine/