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Ukraine V

As long as Putin types exist (and there are a few of them around at the moment), we need to continue to invest in defense. It's bad enough that we let a couple of GRU types into Salisbury.
 
notaclue said:
It's going 'nuclear' albeit not in that sense. Yet...

Putin says Russia ‘will respond’ if UK supplies depleted uranium shells to Ukraine
“If all this happens, Russian will have to respond accordingly, given that the west collectively is already beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...k-supplies-depleted-uranium-shells-to-ukraine
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Will they respond by also arming their tanks with depleted uranium?

Oh wait, they already did that..(image source)
Fr2iyipWYAckxdi
 
As I understand it, depleted uranium is used simply because it has Trump-like denseness, The shells of the Gatling of the A-10 Warthog tank demolishing plane are depleted uranium.
 
PsB said:
No, I was talking about the Greek package. I was specifically responding to the part in your message #4004 where you said "Ukraine would find its own ability to manage it’s own economy compromised in much the same way as the Greeks". We've been around these arguments many times before: you are most probably referring to the way the EU constrains the ability of member states to run large deficits because the "control" of the currency has been taken away from them by the euro/ECB and because the EU is at heart a neo-liberal project. Separately, you have been at least somewhat sympathetic to the view that NATO by its actions may bear some responsibility (exact percentage to be determined) in certain events that led Russia to invade Ukraine.

The Greeks are indeed recipients/members of the EU + NATO combo package. While they have expressed frustration at times with both parts, there is a consensus in Greece today that membership in both the eurozone and NATO is to be preserved. My simple point is that the Ukrainians would sign up to the same tomorrow morning if they could (they can't, yet). Greece is in a dramatically better situation than Ukraine in part because of its membership of those two organizations. Bringing up Greece in a Ukraine thread as a way of complaining that the EU would constrain Ukraine's ability to manage its affairs is bizarre: Ukraine's GDP and infrastructure are literally shot to bits, key parts of its territory are occupied and/or destroyed, but Ukraine's economy is being kept afloat at the moment by many billions in cash from the EU and the US (not to minimize contributions from other corners, of course).

As for the IMF, it's in the business of providing loans. Like all lenders, it ties conditions to those loans. If those conditions are unacceptable, I'm sure the Ukrainian government has a few channels at its disposal these days to complain effectively.
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You miss the word “if” out of your quote above. My post was not about neoliberalism per se, it was about what the post war economic situation of Ukraine and whether Ukraine will be able to keep its promise to increase social provision.

My wider point is that we should be just as vigilant about the best interest of the Ukrainian people after the war as during it.

Happy to chat about neoliberalism (and the EU) if that is your wish, but there are some who would object.

PS. I have never said that NATO bears some responsibility for the Russian invasion.
 
PsB said:
See previous post: your criticism of the EU in post 4004 is most definitely based on your frequently expressed view that the EU's ideology is essentially neo-liberal. No idea why you say I brought it up. I haven't made that one up, as demonstrated in your next sentence:
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As I have already said, my original post was about maintaining interest in the effects of peace on the Ukrainian people rather than neoliberalism itself. Yes, of course I have an interest in neoliberalism but that was not the main point of my post. It was Kirk who brought up neoliberism and my post was in response to him bringing up neoliberalism by name and in so doing making false assumptions about it.
Don't you think that's maybe just a tad simplistic?
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No, I don’t.
Hmmm, ISTM those birds are everywhere, all the time.
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Precisely, that’s my point
There will also be some fairy Godmothers, some well-meaning people and organizations that will want to help in a disinterested way.
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Fairy godmothers don’t exist.
 
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Kirk said:
I'm guilty of mentioning neo-liberalism. I'm off to confession.
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Yours is a familiar tactic though. You spend a great deal of time and effort trying to exclude certain topics and certain voices, then bring them up again and again wrapped in sarcasm and false assumptions in order to then try to shut the conversation down again.

If you don’t want to discuss a topic, why did you bring it up?
 
Kirk said:
As long as Putin types exist (and there are a few of them around at the moment), we need to continue to invest in defense. It's bad enough that we let a couple of GRU types into Salisbury.
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Not sure that massive investment in military defence would’ve stopped the Salisbury poisoning
 
Back from confession and all is forgiven, but it now looks like I'm now being 'ad-hommed'. Ahem.

Bit rich of Putin to spin the Challenger tank donation into a nuclear narrative considering he is holding a nuclear power plant hostage.
 
notaclue said:
I would also say that the referencing of recent-ish historical US actions are particularly relevant because of the accusations that Ukraine was another attempt by the US at regime change. I imagine most people are aware of such accusations, particularly around events in 2014, but see, for example, John Mearsheimer for a respected academic opinion along these lines https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-08-18/why-ukraine-crisis-west-s-fault if not.

Incidentally*, the US also attacked the power grid in Iraq as part of its 'shock and awe', as Russia is doing with Ukraine.

* For the over-excitable whataboutery crowd, please note that this is an incidental point.
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Attacking civil targets is a big part of the US military doctrine.

They did the same in '99 campaign in Yugoslavia, targeting almost all the power stations and grid in the country...

The same like you wish to Putin and his allies...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans/stories/belgrade052599.htm

Let alone targeting the civil passenger train




Thanks god, the highest officials of UK and US, military commanders and pilots - they were all indicted at the Hague Tribunal for war crimes against civilians!
 
PsB said:
I'm sure you can understand the difference between those 2 sentences.
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But I haven’t said that “NATO by its actions may bear some responsibility (exact percentage to be determined) in certain events that led Russia to invade Ukraine.”
 
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