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Certainly! When it comes to war, the default assumption of citizens of ANY country is that their government is withholding vital information which would make t

by EGreg 4y ago

Certainly! When it comes to war, the default assumption of citizens of ANY country is that their government is withholding vital information which would make them not support the war. Either they are outright lying (WMDs in Iraq) or hiding information (Secret War in Laos, the Iran-Contra Affair, the US placing nuclear missiles against USSR in Turkey, or secret operations designed to draw another country into a war). Years later they will declassify it and be proud of their choices, not even regretting the millions of people who died as a result. Often if there is a proxy war somewhere, it was because the KGB or CIA was involved in instigating it. Examples: 1) https://www.mnvietnam.org/story/the-cia-the-hmong-and-the-secret-war/ https://www.mnvietnam.org/story/the-cia-the-hmong-and-the-se... 2) https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/213722 https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/how-jimmy-carter-... 3) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9... 4) https://www.npr.org/2017/01/23/511185078/america-in-laos-traces-the-militarization-of-the-cia https://www.npr.org/2017/01/23/511185078/america-in-laos-tra... 5) https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-10-30/nuclear-weapons-turkey-1959 https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-1... So when we are told that we are simply “arming moderate rebels in Syria”, that is not much different than Russia saying they are “supporting the separatists in Donetsk” since 2014. They empower mostly terrorists and exacerbate conflicts that would have otherwise been resolved if US or Russian weapons weren’t used by the separatists / terrorists. Same with Saudi and Iranian government in the Yemen civil war. A popular revolution (Arab spring) to overthrow some hated government sounds like a great achievement until larger powers get involved and arm the counterrevolutionaries against the revolutionaries leading to a bloody civil war. In Russia this happened after the Bolsheviks took power - with 20 million dead. So when you read about the war in Ukraine, say, your default assumption can be that you are being told only enough to support the war as the current administration wants you to, and all dissent would be forcefully suppressed. In 8 years expect to finally learn what the CIA has done, because at that point they could declassify the full extent of it: https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/exclusive-secret-cia-training... Ukraine, like Syria, was a theater for a proxy war between USA (wanting to fully surround and tame Russia) and Russia (wanting to maintain its influence in its own neighbors just as China and USA want to do). I would not be surprised at all if it involved covert arming and training of “not so moderate” people on all sides. Very likely the uprisings in Belarus and Kazakhstan in 2021 had elements of spy agencies fomenting revolutions to do regime change there and see what can happen. The Russians do it far less stealthily (Strelkov and Motorola) than the CIA. But they have gotten better at it … just in the last few months the resignations of governments in Slovakia and Moldova (that get hardly reported in the West) have me suspecting strongly that Russian saboteurs have tried to foment revolution there to overthrow pro-Western governments, just as USA did the other way in Ukraine.

oneshtein 4y ago
Factcheck your claims. Iraq WMD[0] were moved from Iraq to Syria by air bridge[1], where they are used frequently[2]. USA spent lot of effort to strip Ukraine from nuclear weapons and other military tech which can be used to harm USA, see Budapest memorandum. Just year ago, USA predicted that Ukraine will fall in two weeks, but Ukraine refused to comply with that. [0]: https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/18714.htm https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/18714.htm [1]: https://www.foxnews.com/story/exclusive-former-top-military-aide-to-saddam-reveals-dictators-secret-plans https://www.foxnews.com/story/exclusive-former-top-military-... [2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23927399 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23927399
- EGreg 4y ago
  You're right. Both USA and Russia had terribly miscalculated, while they were both arming terrorists and ramping up the proxy war in Ukraine. If Russia attacked Ukraine's capital the way USA attacked Iraq and other countries ("shock and awe" and carpet bombing) then yes they would have surrendered. Russia did this in Syria (Aleppo, Homs) and Chechnya (Grozny) where the entire city was razed to the ground. There, they were fighting anti-government forces, and just like in Afghanistan etc. they were very brutal. Russia's goal in Ukraine seems to have been very different. They wanted a repeat of this war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War It had all the same elements: NATO welcoming Georgia, two breakaway republics who wanted independence, Russia intervening on their behalf, Russia sending a slow-moving convoy of tanks to the capitol to intimidate them and force them to agree to stop shelling these breakaway regions forever. (Russia of course would station peacekeepers there to make sure of that, and also to protect their black sea fleet / military interests). The difference is, in that war, they reached an agreement in a week, and the war was over. Nicolas Sarkozy helped make that happen. This time around, Ukraine was too far into NATO + CIA arming and training their army and irregulars (far-right batallions) all over the country, for it to have ended that way. Russia had hoped that it would all be over by the time the tanks reached Kyiv. But that never happened. Here is a lot of evidence for this: 1) Russia already had done this exact thing with Georgia. It's more reasonable to expect them to want to do the same thing and expect a similar result. After the agreement, Russia never went further to take over all of Georgia nor since 2008 went beyond stationing peacekeepers in the breakaway republics, so all the breathless claims that if peace agreement is reached, Russia will continue invading Europe, seem to be totally contradicted in the case of Georgia. 2) All military experts were baffled why Russia didn't use its air superiority to decisively win in a few days https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-happened-russias-air-force-us-officials-experts-stumped-2022-03-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-happened-russias-a... https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lack-of-air-superiority-baffles-experts-mdq9hxljg https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lack-of-air-superiority-b... https://www.timesofisrael.com/western-experts-baffled-by-russian-air-forces-low-profile-in-ukraine/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/western-experts-baffled-by-rus... 3) Russia sent "only" 150,000 troops in, no way they can hold an entire country after regime change 4) USA and UK killed the peace deal according to the peacemakers themselves (Bennett playing the role of Sarcozy) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs 5) There are even further speculations from people I interviewed, like Chomsky, that may or may not be true: https://www.eurasiareview.com/19092022-is-zelensky-afraid-of-far-right-chomsky-says-his-peace-platform-should-be-made-publicfor-the-first-time-oped/ https://www.eurasiareview.com/19092022-is-zelensky-afraid-of...

by EGreg 4y ago

oneshtein 4y ago

Factcheck your claims. Iraq WMD[0] were moved from Iraq to Syria by air bridge[1], where they are used frequently[2]. USA spent lot of effort to strip Ukraine from nuclear weapons and other military tech which can be used to harm USA, see Budapest memorandum. Just year ago, USA predicted that Ukraine will fall in two weeks, but Ukraine refused to comply with that. [0]: https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/18714.htm https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/18714.htm [1]: https://www.foxnews.com/story/exclusive-former-top-military-aide-to-saddam-reveals-dictators-secret-plans https://www.foxnews.com/story/exclusive-former-top-military-... [2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23927399 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23927399

EGreg 4y ago
You're right. Both USA and Russia had terribly miscalculated, while they were both arming terrorists and ramping up the proxy war in Ukraine. If Russia attacked Ukraine's capital the way USA attacked Iraq and other countries ("shock and awe" and carpet bombing) then yes they would have surrendered. Russia did this in Syria (Aleppo, Homs) and Chechnya (Grozny) where the entire city was razed to the ground. There, they were fighting anti-government forces, and just like in Afghanistan etc. they were very brutal. Russia's goal in Ukraine seems to have been very different. They wanted a repeat of this war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War It had all the same elements: NATO welcoming Georgia, two breakaway republics who wanted independence, Russia intervening on their behalf, Russia sending a slow-moving convoy of tanks to the capitol to intimidate them and force them to agree to stop shelling these breakaway regions forever. (Russia of course would station peacekeepers there to make sure of that, and also to protect their black sea fleet / military interests). The difference is, in that war, they reached an agreement in a week, and the war was over. Nicolas Sarkozy helped make that happen. This time around, Ukraine was too far into NATO + CIA arming and training their army and irregulars (far-right batallions) all over the country, for it to have ended that way. Russia had hoped that it would all be over by the time the tanks reached Kyiv. But that never happened. Here is a lot of evidence for this: 1) Russia already had done this exact thing with Georgia. It's more reasonable to expect them to want to do the same thing and expect a similar result. After the agreement, Russia never went further to take over all of Georgia nor since 2008 went beyond stationing peacekeepers in the breakaway republics, so all the breathless claims that if peace agreement is reached, Russia will continue invading Europe, seem to be totally contradicted in the case of Georgia. 2) All military experts were baffled why Russia didn't use its air superiority to decisively win in a few days https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-happened-russias-air-force-us-officials-experts-stumped-2022-03-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-happened-russias-a... https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lack-of-air-superiority-baffles-experts-mdq9hxljg https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lack-of-air-superiority-b... https://www.timesofisrael.com/western-experts-baffled-by-russian-air-forces-low-profile-in-ukraine/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/western-experts-baffled-by-rus... 3) Russia sent "only" 150,000 troops in, no way they can hold an entire country after regime change 4) USA and UK killed the peace deal according to the peacemakers themselves (Bennett playing the role of Sarcozy) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs 5) There are even further speculations from people I interviewed, like Chomsky, that may or may not be true: https://www.eurasiareview.com/19092022-is-zelensky-afraid-of-far-right-chomsky-says-his-peace-platform-should-be-made-publicfor-the-first-time-oped/ https://www.eurasiareview.com/19092022-is-zelensky-afraid-of...