Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
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I keep hearing we need to learn more about what drives Putin. It's corruption and greed. It isn’t to create and then protect a prosperous and free Russia. It is to rule and steal whatever he can. What is the biggest threat to that? Free and prosperous nations surrounding his poor and backwoods Russia.
That and the problem of more. People like Putin and his corrupt mafia want more. The only way to get it is to take it from others.
T 
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin by Andrew S. Weiss
When I was thirteen years old, Ronald Reagan became president. All his tough talk about the Soviet Union being the Evil Empire sounded like dangerous fearmongering. And to a rebellious teenager eager to escape Southern California, it was hard to think of anything more exotic than the U.S.S.R. So on my first day of college in 1986, I threw myself into studying Russian language and literature as well as a now-extinct academic discipline known as Sovietology.
The U.S.S.R.’s final leader, a fatally flawed man named Mikhail Gorbachev, had become an international darling for trying to reform the Communist system. What he didn’t appreciate was that brutality, dysfunction, and lies were actually the glue that kept the country together. By the time I arrived at Vladimir Putin’s alma mater in Leningrad as an exchange student in 1989, the mighty U.S.S.R. was starting to fall apart.
I started working at the Pentagon in summer 1991, on the eve of a failed coup by Soviet hard-liners. Just months later, the Soviet Union disappeared, and America’s relationship with Russia was transformed. The Pentagon was hungry for expertise on the twelve brand-new countries that had replaced the U.S.S.R., and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. At one point, the U.S. secretary of defense made a spur-of-the-moment decision to call his Russian counterpart, just to say hello, using a new secure telephone line. No one had made proper preparations, so I was hustled into his office at the last minute to be the translator. By the time I was thirty. I was going in and out of the Oval Office helping the president and his top advisers deal with their Russian counterparts.
Overconfident American officials kept saying the same thing to our new Russian friends: We were going to be partners, not adversaries. Yet Russia’s leaders quickly found that it had been a lot more fun being America’s enemy than our friend. With their country flat on its back, they resented being told to follow our lead. When the Russians did try to push back, they quickly realized how unequal our two countries’ partnership actually was and that they were antagonizing the very people in the West who were paying billions of dollars to keep Russia from collapsing.
The West’s hopes for Russia to make a successful transition to democracy and free markets turned out to be very unrealistic. Still, if you’d told me back then that a former mid-level KGB officer named Vladimir Putin, then forty-six years old, would be plucked from the back rooms of the Kremlin to run the country, I'd have told you to get your head examined. Yet there I was with President Bill Clinton on the August morning in 1999 when the Russians secretly informed him that Putin was going to be the country’s next president. Even then, no one on Clinton’s team could have imagined that Putin would eventually dominate Russia like a modern-day czar, let alone become one of the world’s most feared leaders.
Western experts like me would make plenty more mistakes in the decades that followed.
Even today, it’s not always easy to understand what drives Putin. A lot of what we think we know about him is the product of pop psychology and misreadings of Russia’s thousand-year-long history. Peeling all of that back is made harder by Putin's toughguy theatricNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:6ix, none of the things you think are important are actually important. Nothing. You are a zero, 6ix, same as every other whiny little prick who votes for Trump and complains about how hard their life is. Life is easy in America if you are not defective, mentally ill, or an addict, but Trumptards are overburdened with flaws in their character. And thus life is hard for Trumptards. For example, you're an addict, 6ix, a drunken fool for a decade. It is absolutely unsurprising how you ended up at the bottom of American society. But the Trumptards like you, who are angry poor white trash, want to rule America. You can't even run your own lives worth a goddamn.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Why don't we talk about your President* and his party and how they're driving Americans off a cliff?
This is rhetorical, of course. You talk about Russia all day long now because there is nothing good to say about the Democratic Party in 2023.
The same is true of Russians. They could have made something out of life, as the people in the EU have done, but Russians wouldn't do it. Drunkenness was involved in Russia's downfall, the same as with 6ix. The Russians have become the angry poor white trash of Eurasia who want to rule over Europe, the same as Trumptards want to rule over America. But the Russians can't even run their own country worth a goddamn. Luckily for them, the Russians found their equivalent of Trump. They found Putin to conquer Europe. I don't think he will even conquer Ukraine, but time will tell.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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‘Expect Russia to wage war again’: Romney on the danger of leaving Ukraine unsupported
It’s in America’s best interest to support Ukraine and ensure that Russia is less likely to launch future wars
By Mitt Romney
Mar 4, 2023, 10:00pm CST
Doing the right thing for another nation can also be the right thing for America. It is in America’s interest to support Ukraine. If Russia were able to conquer, brutalize and subjugate Ukraine with impunity, expect it to wage war again — and expect those wars to damage our economy and threaten our security.
Russia’s gross domestic product, or GDP, is a fraction of that of China, the EU or the United States. Its population is half of ours and an eighth of China’s — and it is declining. Putin’s oligarch-corrupted economy lags far behind. The late John McCain quipped that “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country.”
Putin has aimed to forestall Russia’s decline as a great power by invading Georgia, Crimea and now the rest of Ukraine. These invasions are intended to secure additional population, a larger economy and a more competitive industrial base. Putin cannot restore Russia’s stature simply by capturing Ukraine: he must invade others, possibly a NATO ally, drawing America into war. By helping Ukraine, we make Russia far less likely to launch major new wars.
Ukraine’s vigorous defense is devastating the Russian military. The U.K. estimates that Russia has suffered approximately 200,000 casualties, lost almost half of its tanks, as well as numerous aircraft and guided missiles. Putin’s Russia is not our friend — it has 1,500 nuclear missiles aimed at us — and it is China’s most powerful ally. Weakening an adversary enhances our national security advantage, and it is being done without shedding American blood.
By supporting Ukraine, we not only stand with our European allies, we strengthen our alliance. European NATO members have massively increased their defense budgets, while focusing on the financial stabilization of Ukraine. Our allies have contributed nearly $70 billion in aid. In addition, Europeans have suffered an enormous spike in energy prices as Russian supply has been constricted. Europe has also carried the burden of eight million Ukrainian refugees. We want the EU to do even more. But whether or not the EU has sacrificed enough is irrelevant to our own national interest.
Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was the site of numerous nuclear weapons. In 1994, as an incentive for Ukraine to abandon its nuclear arsenal, the United States signed the Budapest Memorandum, which assured Ukraine’s sovereignty. Were we to abandon Ukraine under siege, we would be saying to the world that America’s commitments are virtually meaningless. It would be a blow to current and future alliances, which are fundamental to our national security advantage — particularly in the context of the escalating China threat. Honoring our word is the right thing to do, and the right thing for America.
It is in America’s interest that China does not invade Taiwan, a source of almost three-fourths of the world’s semiconductors. When Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, former President Donald Trump predicted that China would imminently invade Taiwan. But Ukraine’s vigorous defense and the united action by America and our allies may have forestalled China’s aggression. Without question, China is watching what is happening in Ukraine, and the more Russia’s invasion is blunted, the less likely it is that China will imminently follow suit.
Over the past two years, Congress has appropriated $104 billion in aid, some 40% of which is used by Ukraine to buy military equipment made in America. Our defense budget was more than $740 billion last year — and spending a small portion of that budget to wreak havoc on an adversary, which helps ensure our own safety and national security, is money well-spent.
While transferring our military hardware to Ukraine has depleted some of our own equipment, this process has revealed gaps in our military readiness that we now
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Clearing a minefield is a slow, complicated, and deliberate process that involves several steps, but Russian tanks appear to drive right through them. Some of the tanks blow up, some retreat, and some are hit with anti-tank guided missiles like the Javelin, and the process just repeats itself when the Ukrainians lay more mines.
"It's just dumb," Edmonds said. "And you just see them do this over and over again."
"I'm not seeing any tactical-level adaptability," he continued. On one hand, there's no display of basic levels of training, like knowing how to react to contact. Additionally, there's no development or innovation from the Russians, which he attributes in part to Russia's style of warfare — a top-down type of leadership as opposed to something like the ground-level "upwelling" of initiative seen in Western militaries.
"You would think at this point maybe you would see the better application of maneuver and combined arms," Edmonds said of the Russian tactics. "But I'm not seeing it."
More at https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-losing-armor-ukraine-because-c
ant-use-its-tanks-properly-2023-3
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, none of the things you think are important are actually important. Nothing. You are a zero, 6ix, same as every other whiny little prick who votes for Trump and complains about how hard their life is. Life is easy in America if you are not defective, mentally ill, or an addict, but Trumptards are overburdened with flaws in their character. And thus life is hard for Trumptards. For example, you're an addict, 6ix, a drunken fool for a decade. It is absolutely unsurprising how you ended up at the bottom of American society. But the Trumptards like you, who are angry poor white trash, want to rule America. You can't even run your own lives worth a goddamn.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Why don't we talk about your President* and his party and how they're driving Americans off a cliff?
This is rhetorical, of course. You talk about Russia all day long now because there is nothing good to say about the Democratic Party in 2023.
Enjoy today, fool. Savor it.
Back to the salt mines for you tomorrow, wage slave.
Me? I'll be doing whatever the fuck I want to do.
A nice mid-afternoon nap in my paid-for-with-cash house will almost certainly be on the agenda.
What do you think, Pooh?
Yeah, Pooh. Sounds like a plan to me.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Wow, you have really gotten under SECOND'S skin, SIX. He spends an inordinate number of lies on you.
Just like he spends an inordinate number of falsehoods on Putin, Russia and Trump.
I'm impressed!
*****
Meanwhile...
Quote:Yanno, that describes the USA perfectly.
TheU.S.S.R.’sUnited States' final leader, a fatally flawed man namedMikhail GorbachevTO BE DECIDED, didn’t appreciate ... that brutality, dysfunction, and lies were actually the glue that kept the country together.
What holds the USA together?
NOTHING.
Not even our borders.
When I ask what are America's interests, why do I get *crickets*?
It's bc people can't even envision an "America" anymore.
They imagine that they're Dems, or Repubs, or women, or blacks or some other intersectional identity.
They conflate America's interests with Ukraine's, or Libya's, or some other place on a map they can't even find.
They fantasize that they"citizens of the world" or some such nonsense, or they create existenrial enemies when there were none
They bray about freedom while trampling freedom at home and killing people abroad
We're not even pacified by prosperity, since the American standard of living has been falling for over 30 years
Meanwhile both the Russian and Chinese standard of living has eusen- dramatically in the past 20 years. Can Americans say the same?
America is a broken concept. It can be mended, but not be people like SECOND (who hates Americans) and THUGR (who can't admit that anything is wrong).
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Wow, you have really gotten under SECOND'S skin, SIX. He spends an inordinate number of lies on you.
Just like he spends an inordinate number of falsehoods on Putin, Russia and Trump.
I'm impressed!
Not bad for a "zero", huh?
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:Has America's GDP per capita risen dramatically? Yes, it has, but, unfortunately for angry poor white trash such as 6ix or Signym, it has not. But what else would you expect to happen to Americans who are drunks, jackasses, and fools who defend Trump and proudly announce "Fuck Ukraine"?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
We're not even pacified by prosperity, since the American standard of living has been falling for over 30 years
Meanwhile both the Russian and Chinese standard of living has eusen- dramatically in the past 20 years. Can Americans say the same?
America is a broken concept. It can be mended, but not be people like SECOND (who hates Americans) and THUGR (who can't admit that anything is wrong).
From the Economic Research in the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis
Constant GDP per capita for
US NYGDPPCAPKDUSA
Canada NYGDPPCAPKDCAN
Japan NYGDPPCAPKDJPN
Russia NYGDPPCAPKDRUS
China NYGDPPCAPKDCHN
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=10NtC
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Oh that's that whole "per capita" lie, SECOND. You and I both know that for MOST people (yanno, the America that you hate, and that should hate you) living standards have been declining even as SOME people have gotten inordinately rich.
That's an undeniable fact that you're trying to deny. Even you, yourself, have posted about it many times.
Keep on lying, SECOND. You're just ruining your reputation even more, if that was possible.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:The people I know who still defend Trump are poorer than they were, but it is no coincidence that fools and the crazy don't prosper in America. It will be no coincidence when Trump's fortune shrinks, once the IRS finally forces him to pay, and Putin gets a bayonet up his ass, the same as Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, another man who stayed too long in office.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh that's that whole "per capita" lie, SECOND. You and I both know that for MOST people (yanno, the Americathat you hate, and that should hate you) livung standards have been declared ning even as SOME people have gotten inordinately rich. You, yourself, have posted about it many times.
Keep in lying, SECOND. You're just ruining your reputation even more, if that was possible.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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