5 ms·

I can't think of a single case that Starlink ever acted out politically, except the popular debunked one in Ukraine

by mrits 1y ago

DrScientist 1y ago
Not seen the debunking - can you point to something that does so. Here's a recent story from the other perspective. https://www.reuters.com/investigations/musk-ordered-shutdown-starlink-satellite-service-ukraine-retook-territory-russia-2025-07-25/ https://www.reuters.com/investigations/musk-ordered-shutdown...
- DrScientist 1y ago
  I'd also note the interesting timing of Trump removing intelligence sharing ( Mar 5th ? )and the key Russian counter-attack move ( March 8th-9th ) in Kursk to retake territory - essentially leading to Ukraine pretty much losing all it's Russian territory within weeks.
  - exasperaited 1y ago
    Fun fact: the first impact Trump had on the Republican policy platform, before he was even President, was to remove from platform language the promise to arm Ukraine with offensive weapons. Back before the convention in the 2016 campaign. That was secured by Paul Manafort, a man who —- only months earlier -- worked as an advisor to and lobbyist for a pro-Russian Ukrainian PM (Viktor Yanukovych, essentially a Putin stooge). Paul Manafort worked for Trump for free (this is not in doubt), but appears to have had massive debts at the time, which appear to have ultimately been settled. Ukraine is the thread that runs through the entire story of Trump's political career. It is and has always been so utterly, abundantly obvious that Trump's position on Ukraine consistently has favoured and will favour Putin's, that media and journalists failing to observe it is nothing short of malpractice.
    - DrScientist 1y ago
      You could also say that about Biden - the strange case of his son and his job, Biden boasting about meddling in Ukraine internal affairs around corruption investigations and the infamous Nuland-Pyatt phone call etc etc. Question I have about Ukraine - for those hawks that have consistently said Russia's army is about to collapse, and it's just one more push, or one more escalation in western involvement - is where is there red line? At what point do you stop escalating? Western nuclear capable missiles into Russia? Western boots on the ground? Western conscription to enable that? Tactical nukes? Russia appears to be winning on the ground right now. We have stopped talking of victory and now just want to freeze the front line - and Russia isn't interested. I'm sure the hawks will say we didn't commit enough - but you can't say that without being clear about where that red line is. Not in a democracy. You could argue in this case Trump was simply being clear eyed about what was actually achievable, rather than either hopelessly optimistic or having a secret agenda to escalate to an all out war with Russia that nobody would have signed up for at the start.
      - exasperaited 1y ago
        > You could argue in this case Trump was simply being clear eyed about what was actually achievable You could. But you could more credibly argue that the US position on Ukraine has been slowly and comprehensively fucked over in a way that very precisely mirrors Putin's goals, by people who have notably public pro-Putin alignments, from Manafort to Trump himself (a man who literally laundered oligarch money). It is truly obvious what is going on and it's a shame people can't see it.
        DrScientist 1y ago
        So from 2022 ( full scale invasion ) to 2025 when Biden was president it was going swimmingly? If you look at the situation on the front line when Trump got in to power in Jan Russian already had the momentum ( if slow and grinding ). So blaming Trump specifically seems like a bit like scapegoating. Sure he is against it and thus hasn't helped ( this started with me pointing to an incident where he appeared to be actively helping Russia ) - but surely it was already was going south before he became president.

I can't think of a single case that Starlink ever acted out politically, except the popular debunked one in Ukraine

by mrits 1y ago

I can't think of a single case that Starlink ever acted out politically, except the popular debunked one in Ukraine

Not seen the debunking - can you point to something that does so. Here's a recent story from the other perspective. https://www.reuters.com/investigations/musk-ordered-shutdown-starlink-satellite-service-ukraine-retook-territory-russia-2025-07-25/ https://www.reuters.com/investigations/musk-ordered-shutdown...

DrScientist 1y ago
I'd also note the interesting timing of Trump removing intelligence sharing ( Mar 5th ? )and the key Russian counter-attack move ( March 8th-9th ) in Kursk to retake territory - essentially leading to Ukraine pretty much losing all it's Russian territory within weeks.
- exasperaited 1y ago
  Fun fact: the first impact Trump had on the Republican policy platform, before he was even President, was to remove from platform language the promise to arm Ukraine with offensive weapons. Back before the convention in the 2016 campaign. That was secured by Paul Manafort, a man who —- only months earlier -- worked as an advisor to and lobbyist for a pro-Russian Ukrainian PM (Viktor Yanukovych, essentially a Putin stooge). Paul Manafort worked for Trump for free (this is not in doubt), but appears to have had massive debts at the time, which appear to have ultimately been settled. Ukraine is the thread that runs through the entire story of Trump's political career. It is and has always been so utterly, abundantly obvious that Trump's position on Ukraine consistently has favoured and will favour Putin's, that media and journalists failing to observe it is nothing short of malpractice.
  - DrScientist 1y ago
    You could also say that about Biden - the strange case of his son and his job, Biden boasting about meddling in Ukraine internal affairs around corruption investigations and the infamous Nuland-Pyatt phone call etc etc. Question I have about Ukraine - for those hawks that have consistently said Russia's army is about to collapse, and it's just one more push, or one more escalation in western involvement - is where is there red line? At what point do you stop escalating? Western nuclear capable missiles into Russia? Western boots on the ground? Western conscription to enable that? Tactical nukes? Russia appears to be winning on the ground right now. We have stopped talking of victory and now just want to freeze the front line - and Russia isn't interested. I'm sure the hawks will say we didn't commit enough - but you can't say that without being clear about where that red line is. Not in a democracy. You could argue in this case Trump was simply being clear eyed about what was actually achievable, rather than either hopelessly optimistic or having a secret agenda to escalate to an all out war with Russia that nobody would have signed up for at the start.
    - exasperaited 1y ago
      > You could argue in this case Trump was simply being clear eyed about what was actually achievable You could. But you could more credibly argue that the US position on Ukraine has been slowly and comprehensively fucked over in a way that very precisely mirrors Putin's goals, by people who have notably public pro-Putin alignments, from Manafort to Trump himself (a man who literally laundered oligarch money). It is truly obvious what is going on and it's a shame people can't see it.
      - DrScientist 1y ago
        So from 2022 ( full scale invasion ) to 2025 when Biden was president it was going swimmingly? If you look at the situation on the front line when Trump got in to power in Jan Russian already had the momentum ( if slow and grinding ). So blaming Trump specifically seems like a bit like scapegoating. Sure he is against it and thus hasn't helped ( this started with me pointing to an incident where he appeared to be actively helping Russia ) - but surely it was already was going south before he became president.