4 ms·

At home we use a phrase from an interview with a EU politician that was done BEFORE the ukraine war and asked about the US/CIA warnings of an upcomming war and

At home we use a phrase from an interview with a EU politician that was done BEFORE the ukraine war and asked about the US/CIA warnings of an upcomming war and he said "Always remember, the CIA was the agency that told US presidents for years the vietnam war would be over next week" ...

pjc50 4y ago
The irony here is that in this case they were right, and the Ukraine war is turning into a "Vietnam-like" defeat for Russia. Given another six months they might recapture all the territory lost since 2014.
- asdfk-12 4y ago
  - rini17 4y ago
    The "occupied by ethnic Russians" point is moot by now as Russia thoroughly alienated them or turned their cities to ruins. Yesterday they even had to impose martial law there. If narrative is unbelievable, can you just follow the actions? Russian actions are these of genocide, and genocides aren't stopped by compromises.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ukrainian_eastern_counteroffensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ukrainian_eastern_counter... ; "On 12 September, President Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian forces have retaken a total of 6,000 km2 from Russia, in both the south and the east." Now, past performance is not a guarantee of future events, and the Dnipro river is a barrier in both directions, but the counteroffensive has been extremely effective. > escalation Escalation to what? With what forces? The problem with the "escalation" narrative and the "ethnic Russians" argument is that they could easily be extended to, say, declaring that Estonia is part of Russia and nuclear weapons will be used to "defend" it.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > an area largely occupied by ethnic Russians Largely occupied by Russian speaking people, some of whom identity as Ukrainian (more now than before after Russia invaded and destroyed/raped/pillaged through their homes), some as Russian. In the same way that there were Greek speaking Orthodox believing people who identified as Turks during the Greco-Turkish war and the subsequent population exchanges. > Russia presently enjoys economic relations with China, India, Iran, etc. and a very high oil commodity price. Just the other day there was an article here about the crap China sends Russia. India and China have both publicly criticised, delicately, the invasion. Iran is some reading partner! The Russian economy is crumbling and they've faced a massive brain drain. They've been forced to conscription which had had terrible results (thousands running away, protests, cadavers). It's all downhill from here.
  - fulafel 4y ago
    Re energy: We're all in an energy crisis as we have to quickly ramp down fossil use to stave off the global climate catastrophe, and emissions are a global, not local problem. This is very badly overdue, and doing it now is still much easier and cheaper than the much steeper drop we would need later. Don't know where you are getting the high oil price idea from, oil price is low now, way too low from climate crisis pov. It's lower than 10 years ago. There's a lot of headlinse about winter and heating but actually most energy is used by non household users, it's mostly a industrial inputs problem assuming the regulators/politicians have the decency to prioritise households and essential services. And there's a lot of stored gas for the winter.

pjc50 4y ago

The irony here is that in this case they were right, and the Ukraine war is turning into a "Vietnam-like" defeat for Russia. Given another six months they might recapture all the territory lost since 2014.

asdfk-12 4y ago
- rini17 4y ago
  The "occupied by ethnic Russians" point is moot by now as Russia thoroughly alienated them or turned their cities to ruins. Yesterday they even had to impose martial law there. If narrative is unbelievable, can you just follow the actions? Russian actions are these of genocide, and genocides aren't stopped by compromises.
- pjc50 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ukrainian_eastern_counteroffensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ukrainian_eastern_counter... ; "On 12 September, President Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian forces have retaken a total of 6,000 km2 from Russia, in both the south and the east." Now, past performance is not a guarantee of future events, and the Dnipro river is a barrier in both directions, but the counteroffensive has been extremely effective. > escalation Escalation to what? With what forces? The problem with the "escalation" narrative and the "ethnic Russians" argument is that they could easily be extended to, say, declaring that Estonia is part of Russia and nuclear weapons will be used to "defend" it.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > an area largely occupied by ethnic Russians Largely occupied by Russian speaking people, some of whom identity as Ukrainian (more now than before after Russia invaded and destroyed/raped/pillaged through their homes), some as Russian. In the same way that there were Greek speaking Orthodox believing people who identified as Turks during the Greco-Turkish war and the subsequent population exchanges. > Russia presently enjoys economic relations with China, India, Iran, etc. and a very high oil commodity price. Just the other day there was an article here about the crap China sends Russia. India and China have both publicly criticised, delicately, the invasion. Iran is some reading partner! The Russian economy is crumbling and they've faced a massive brain drain. They've been forced to conscription which had had terrible results (thousands running away, protests, cadavers). It's all downhill from here.
- fulafel 4y ago
  Re energy: We're all in an energy crisis as we have to quickly ramp down fossil use to stave off the global climate catastrophe, and emissions are a global, not local problem. This is very badly overdue, and doing it now is still much easier and cheaper than the much steeper drop we would need later. Don't know where you are getting the high oil price idea from, oil price is low now, way too low from climate crisis pov. It's lower than 10 years ago. There's a lot of headlinse about winter and heating but actually most energy is used by non household users, it's mostly a industrial inputs problem assuming the regulators/politicians have the decency to prioritise households and essential services. And there's a lot of stored gas for the winter.