(November 7, 2024 at 11:34 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:(November 7, 2024 at 7:03 am)Belacqua Wrote: There's an old joke that if the Soviet Union had had two Communist Parties then the communists would still be in power. Every few years the Blue Commies would change places with the Red Commies, and each party could aim their hate at the other, while the real power stayed the same.Jesus christ you're thick. If the war is on so that blackrock and vanguard can get all of the profits from ukraines natural resources....then it has to keep going until russia gets off of ukraines natural resources.
Larry Fink said a few days before the election that it didn't matter whether Trump or Harris won -- his shareholders would be well taken care of. Those are the people that the US government works for.
Now that BlackRock and Vanguard are assured of getting all the profits from Ukraine's natural resources, the purpose of that war has been accomplished, and there's no reason to keep it going.
..........................?
In mere reality, the war continues because russia doesn't know how to stop killing ukrainians. They unpersoned them, their entire remaining economy is built around slaughtering them, they've been ritually murdering officials for the sin of harming that aim.
The war is not on so that they can profit; rather the war that has been instigated through Putin and the Russian oligarchies various selfish desires and unlawful invasion of Ukraine has been intentionally prolonged by the current administration; Blinken and Kirby both have explicitly stated that the goal of this war is to see the Russian economy crippled and the long-term harm to Russia's geo-political ambitions.
Ukraine is not a small country; it's similar in size to Texas, and what happens in Eastern Ukraine does not mean someone in Lviv will be affected by it.
Rather the... "usual suspects"... of evil corporations have come in and begun to buy rebuilding rights to Ukrainian infrastructure and businesses, rights to farmland and prime real estate that has now been made available through the death of their previous owners or their fleeing from the country, and to provide "advising and consulting" to the nation for the coming decades to the tune of billions of dollars.
Meanwhile Russia gains control of the warm water port they always crave, some top tier farmland (possibly ruined by their destruction of the Kherson Dam and the infrastructure it took with it) and both off-shore oil in the Black Sea as well as rare earths in the Donbas. All suffering is outsourced to the slaves and ethnic minorities who do the fighting and backbreaking labor to ensure Moscow, Tula, St. Petersburg does not have to suffer the consequences of the war.
Both sides ultimately win - if Trump hadn't stuck his nose in it - while the peasants of both societies are left with the bill and the suffering, and the Ukrainians just get the shaft on both ends. Ukraine just objectively never wins the war without Western support that was never going to be provided by the next admin, and the ability to strike high value targets with western weapons; get the ceasefire now and start building 500-mile thick minefields between you and them.
I agree with you on Russia, but the current strategy will only further weaken the West while Russia and her allies increasingly move towards a militaristic stance.
Trump threatened Putin on multiple occasions; per the Kyiv Independent he stated (paraphrased for brevity,) "I would sit Zelensky and Putin down. I would tell Zelensky he has to negotiate. I would tell Putin if you don't negotiate, I will give Zelensky more weapons than he has ever seen." - he has provided arms during his adminstration when Obama/Biden denied them to Ukraine and has, in a leaked phone call, claimed he threaten Putin he would "bomb him in the middle of fu**ing Moscow." if he invaded Ukraine.
Trump - for better or worse - will change the situation.
Russia might gain territory and Ukraine has to accept this, but NATO has been woken up; if Europe cannot realize the necessity of providing for their own security at this point then they never will, and if they have then we are better off fighting Russia in 5 years than in 2; we are simply not ready for a war with Russia/China/Iran/NK/half of Africa/parts of Latin America and Asia as it stands.
