Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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Quote:There were too many stated objectives, all of them bogus. The United States bombed South Vietnam and US troops fighting in South Vietnam indicated that the multitude of stated objectives was false and nonsense. If the Vietnam War had been fought sensibly, almost all the US troops would have been in NORTH Vietnam and all the bombings would have been in NORTH Vietnam.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OK, SECOND, I'll make it easy for you: Whether you "win" a war or "lose" a war depends on whether you met your objectives.
What were our objectives in Vietnam?
The real objective was to defend the pride of the President of the United States. On the North Vietnamese side, the objective was the same as Ukraine's, survive until a foolish and prideful President, and his successor, and then the successor after him withdraws.
Some politicians claimed the US was fighting North Vietnam to prevent it from attacking the US, but Vietnam did not invade the US after the US withdrew, although that would have been justice. Being a clever and dishonest politician, Putin is claiming he is fighting Ukraine to prevent NATO from invading Russia. For some reason, Putin doesn't talk about how his pride and over-confidence caused him to invade Ukraine.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Some politicians claimed the US was fighting North Vietnam to prevent it from attacking the US, but Vietnam did not invade the US after the US withdrew, although that would have been justice. Being a clever and dishonest politician, Putin is claiming he is fighting Ukraine to prevent NATO from invading Russia. For some reason, Putin doesn't talk about how his pride and over-confidence caused him to invade Ukraine.
Oh fuck you dude. All you've been saying since this started is that we're paying for it so Russia doesn't attack the EU and move on to us with weekly reminders that nuclear war is on the table.
If you weren't so drunk off of gargling Biden*'s cum you wouldn't...
Oh... Nevermind. You've been a hypocrite all your life.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:Who did the US invade next, after Vietnam? Grenada. Panama. Iraq. Afghanistan. Iraq for a second time. None of those countries were better for having been invaded.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Some politicians claimed the US was fighting North Vietnam to prevent it from attacking the US, but Vietnam did not invade the US after the US withdrew, although that would have been justice. Being a clever and dishonest politician, Putin is claiming he is fighting Ukraine to prevent NATO from invading Russia. For some reason, Putin doesn't talk about how his pride and over-confidence caused him to invade Ukraine.
Oh fuck you dude. All you've been saying since this started is that we're paying for it so Russia doesn't attack the EU and move on to us with weekly reminders that nuclear war is on the table.
If you weren't so drunk off of gargling Biden*'s cum you wouldn't...
Oh... Nevermind. You've been a hypocrite all your life.
Who did Vietnam invade after Vietnam? Cambodia, where Pol Pot had massacred two million people. That genocide was caused by Nixon's bombing of Cambodia. Cambodia was much better after Vietnam invaded it than after Nixon bombed Cambodia. Do you see the difference, 6ix?
By the way, in places that Russia has invaded, about 100,000,000 people died violently. Wherever Russia goes, people die because Russia makes everything worse. The same old thing is happening in Ukraine and Putin promises to do the same to other countries once he finishes with Ukraine.
6ix, do you see how Russia and the US have a great deal in common when either of those two countries invades other countries?
Cambodian Genocide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide#United_States_bombing
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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A Russian state TV host has said the West will be "reduced to Ashes" in a nuclear war should the country find itself losing the conflict in Ukraine.
Rossiya 1 TV host Vladimir Solovyov declared Russia was in a "holy war" against Ukraine and the West as he criticized U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders.
Solovyov said: "We live in the latter days. What's happening in Ukraine won't stay in Ukraine. A holy war is underway. We're fighting for the right of mankind to live in its original state, as designed by the Creator."
"Those fools who are trying to fight they aren't fighting against us, they're at war with God. In case of their victory, their end is certain."
"When I say that either we win, or the whole world will be reduced to ashes, this also has another meaning. How can humanity that fights against God continue to exist?"
Solovyov praised Russia as a defender of Christendom, a claim made by supporters of Vladimir Putin who paint the West as degenerate.
Solovyov added: "Look at (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky's face. Look at Biden's face, an absolutely deceitful, nasty, scary no-good person."
"He isn't like Trump. Why was Trump out of favor? Because he is totally traditional, at least in some ways. Trump's traditional character provoked hatred."
"If you think about what's happening. It's Satanism. They're purely demonic, you can't put it any other way."
The Russian TV host, who has regularly pushed pro-Kremlin propaganda in the past, then justified the use of nuclear weapons against Western Europe and the U.S. by referencing the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Solovyov said: "When people are trying to tell me about whether nuclear weapons can be used or not, I will respond to that briefly and clearly, 'do you remember this part of Biblical history?' Sodom and Gomorrah?'"
According to the Bible, God destroyed the two thriving cities due to the evil and wickedness of their populations.
The two cities have been referenced numerous times recently by people who view modern nations as being decadent and moving against God's will.
Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin for comment.
Russian TV hosts have regularly made indirect threats to the West since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine earlier this year.
Earlier this month, Russian state TV hosts on Rossiya 1 joked about invading Western capitals including London and Lisbon.
In the clip, the group discussed a plan for Moscow to seize London, including its soccer clubs and pubs.
"If we reach Lviv (the largest city in western Ukraine) it will be ours. If we reach Lisbon and London, they will be ours," said one Kremlin propagandist.
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-tv-host-says-west-will-reduced-
ashes-nuclear-war-1767985
When Russians run their mouths about nuclear weapons it’s because they have reached the end of the rope and all they’ve got left is scare tactics.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Why did the Russian plan fail? Part of the blame rests with Russia’s FSB intelligence service, which had falsely reported that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government had little public support and was likely to crack under pressure. But the biggest problem appears to be Putin himself.
In the war’s early days, Western intelligence officials and independent experts quickly concluded that the Russian president’s stated belief in the idea that Ukraine was a fake country, rightfully part of Russia, was genuine. This blinded him to the motivating power of Ukrainian nationalism for its leadership, military, and population.
“He actually really thought this would be a ‘special military operation’: They would be done in a few days, and it wouldn’t be a real war,” Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at the CNA think tank, told me in March.
In recent months, our understanding of the Russian failures has only grown. This month, researchers at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British think tank, published a report on the war based on a tranche of captured Russian orders provided by the Ukrainian government. “These plans,” RUSI finds, “were drawn up by a very small group of officials and the intent was directed by Putin.” Most of the Russian government was kept in the dark; there were no contingency plans in case things went wrong.
“The plan itself [never] envisaged any outcome other than its own success,” the RUSI researchers conclude.
These errors were a predictable consequence of the structure of Putin’s regime.
In a prescient prewar analysis published in Foreign Affairs, political scientists Seva Gunitsky and Adam Casey argue, “If he makes a miscalculation and launches a major invasion, it will likely be because of the personalist features of his regime” — meaning the degree to which power has been consolidated in the hands of one man. Personalism, they argue, exacerbates a fundamental tendency of authoritarian states toward policy miscalculations.
“Leaders suppress dissent, punish free expression, encourage personal loyalty, and divide their security agencies. They therefore struggle to understand both how their people feel and what other states are planning,” Gunitsky and Casey note.
The course of the war bore out this general theory. Because Putin has surrounded himself with cronies and yes-men, there was no one in the Russian government who was willing to criticize the invasion plan in any serious way — let alone challenge the president’s underlying theories of the Ukrainian state.
Of course, war is unpredictable. But from the vantage point of the present, it appears that Russia has fallen into a classic authoritarian trap — blundering its way into a policy disaster due to a system that insulated its leadership from reality.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/19/23453073/2022-year-
democracy-russia-ukraine-china-iran-america-brazil
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Bully in the Bubble (written before the War)
By Adam E. Casey and Seva Gunitsky, February 4, 2022
11–14 minutes
When Western leaders and observers speculate about what will happen to Ukraine, they usually focus on one man: Russian President Vladimir Putin. And for good reason. Under Putin, Russia has increasingly become a personalist regime—an authoritarian system in which power is concentrated in a single individual rather than in a ruling party or a military elite. A similar trend has emerged in China under Xi Jinping, in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and in Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro. Around the world, personalism is on the rise.
Personalist regimes are incredibly opaque. They lack channels of open deliberation and formal institutional procedures, functioning instead through interpersonal relationships and unofficial arrangements. Putin, for example, prefers to deliberate during small, casual meetings and is so obsessed with secrecy that he doesn’t use a cell phone. This makes it extremely difficult for analysts to understand his policymaking patterns.
But personalist systems have common characteristics that shape how their leaders operate, and studying them can help observers understand what drives strongman behavior — including Putin’s. Personalist dictators, for instance, face fewer checks on their power than do other heads of state. They are harder to punish when their foreign policy decisions fail. And critically, they choose their circle of advisers based on loyalty rather than competence, surrounding themselves by scared and sycophantic underlings who feed them limited, biased, self-censored, and overly optimistic information.
For Kyiv, this is cold comfort. Because personalist rulers are more insulated from the consequences of their actions, they can afford to be more violent and less risk averse than other kinds of autocrats. To repress domestic opposition and keep power, they staff their regimes with devotees from the military and the security services who are prone to aggression and whose hostile outlook begins to permeate foreign policy decision-making. As these courtiers compete for the ruler’s attention, they may leave out inconvenient facts and offer belligerent, eye-catching plans for how to deal with what they see as threats.
That doesn’t mean more violence in Ukraine is preordained. In the past, Putin has been pragmatic and sensitive to war’s costs. But the Russian president’s circle of trust has consolidated over time, insulating him from information that does not fit with his prior beliefs. His minions share his anger toward the West, and he faces no serious internal constraints. The future of Ukraine may hinge on a man ensconced in a bubble that both feeds his aggression and shields him from its consequences.
SHOOTING THE MESSENGER
Authoritarian states are bedeviled by an inherent contradiction. To stay in power, autocrats desperately seek reliable information on the attitudes of their citizens, elite rivals, and foreign threats. But to avoid opposition, they establish political systems that make quality data exceptionally hard to obtain. Leaders suppress dissent, punish free expression, encourage personal loyalty, and divide their security agencies. They therefore struggle to understand both how their people feel and what other states are planning.
In a personalist autocracy, these problems are even worse. Government officials not only struggle to obtain factual information; they also face strong personal incentives to censor what they find. Consider, for instance, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s behavior before the 2003 Iraq war. Iraqi government records captured by the United States show that he badly underestimated the probability of a U.S. invasion and, in the event of one, expected his troops to put up much greater resistance. That is not because his advisers were (entirely) blind to reality. It is because his underlings — fearful of confronting a dictator famous for violent purges — never challenged his rosy assessments. As the politic
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OK, SECOND, I'll make it easy for you: Whether you "win" a war or "lose" a war depends on whether you met your objectives.
What were our objectives in Vietnam?
SECOND: There were too many stated objectives, all of them bogus.
Well! Amazingly, we agree!
Quote:
SECOND: The United States bombed South Vietnam and US troops fighting in South Vietnam indicated that the multitude of stated objectives was false and nonsense. If the Vietnam War had been fought sensibly, almost all the US troops would have been in NORTH Vietnam and all the bombings would have been in NORTH Vietnam.
The real objective was to defend the pride of the President of the United States. On the North Vietnamese side, the objective was the same as Ukraine's, survive until a foolish and prideful President, and his successor, and then the successor after him withdraws.
Some politicians claimed the US was fighting North Vietnam to prevent it from attacking the US, but Vietnam did not invade the US after the US withdrew, although that would have been justice.
I think there's more to it than Presidential pride. SOMEBODY went thru the trouble of faking one "attack" on a USA warship to justify ramping up the war. (Gulf of Tonkin incident)
None of the STATED objectives made sense, if we can figure out who was at the heart of this partial fakery we might be able to deduce the actual motivation.
Going on a tangent, it was like the 2nd Gulf War. ALL of the "reasons" ...9-11! Yellowcake! Aluminum tubes! GWOT! Nuclear weapons! ....every single one was provably falsified. But there WAS a reason to destroy Iraq, it just wasn't obvious.
Quote:Well, maybe because NATO in Ukraine IS the real reason. After all, USA policy papers' goals are stated as the destruction of Russia. YOUR stated goal is the destruction of Russia. Why would Putin not take that seriously? And Crimea was part of that plan.
SECOND Being a clever and dishonest politician, Putin is claiming he is fighting Ukraine to prevent NATO from invading Russia. For some reason, Putin doesn't talk about how his pride and over-confidence caused him to invade Ukraine.
Putin's brought it up many times, beginning with the Munich Security Conference all the way back in 2007, so it's not like this is a convenient reason he just pulled out of his ass yesterday.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Kremlin: "US & Russia On The Brink Of A Direct Clash" In Ukraine
Monday, Dec 19, 2022 - 12:40 PM
The Kremlin is urgently calling on Washington to avoid further escalation over its support to Ukraine's military, on the same day that President Vladimir Putin made a rare state visit to neighboring Belarus, amid growing fears that Belarusian armed forces could enter the fighting in Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Monday that the United States' "dangerous and short-sighted policy" has put it "on the brink of a direct clash" with Moscow, according to state media reports.
"It is the US’ desire to maintain American hegemony at all costs… as well as its arrogant unwillingness to engage in a serious dialogue on security guarantees" that led to the current crisis, she continued, in reference to Moscow's last February pre-invasion appeal for "guarantees" that Ukraine would not enter NATO.
State media described the sharp words as a necessary reaction to US State Department Spokesman Ned Price's recently placing sole blame on Moscow for the rapid deterioration in US-Russia relations. Price had characterized the current state of relations as "unstable and unpredictable".
Zakharova continued in the Monday remarks: "After the high-profile fiasco in Afghanistan, America is increasingly drawn into a new conflict, not only supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev financially and with weapons, but also increasing its military presence on the ground." While not specifying the precise accusation regarding a US "presence on the ground" - this could be a reference to recent widespread reporting that US intelligence has expanded its role in helping the Ukrainians, especially with things like targeting.
"This is a dangerous and short-sighted policy that puts the US and Russia on the brink of a direct clash," the FM spokesperson said further. "For its part, Moscow urges the Joe Biden administration to soberly assess the situation and not to unleash a spiral of dangerous escalation. We hope that they will hear us in Washington, though there is no reason for optimism so far."
This month has witnessed multiple bombshell revelations concerning the Pentagon and US intelligence's deepening role in Ukraine, including the following:
*The White House is mulling the transfer of Patriot missiles to Ukraine.
*The Pentagon is expanding its "on the ground" program of small troop units seeking to monitor and account for US arms transfers.
*Russia is increasingly coming up against US-supplied HIMARS missiles on the battlefield.
*The US has sent an infantry company to Estonia, close to the Russian border for joint drills.
*Calls have grown louder for NATO to "close the skies" over Ukraine, including with the potential transfer of warplanes.
*US intelligence has been assisting Ukrainians with targeting Russian generals.
*The White House has indicated it believes Ukraine's forces are capable of retaking Crimea, but which would risk a nuclear response.
*Ukraine has increased high-risk attacks inside Russian territory.
Ukraine has also grown bolder in showing off its new American-supplied toys...
All of this and more strongly suggests to two sides are indeed inching toward direct showdown and clash, also as there still appears no appetite for so much as a plan even remotely on the horizon to get Kiev officials to the ceasefire negotiating table with Russia.
As for the ongoing speculation that Belarusian forces could enter the Ukraine conflict in support of Russia, top Russian officials are denying this "option"... for now at least.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:Are you kidding? Russians have displayed pathological behavior for many years. I will quote a Russian describing his mental illness:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Well, maybe because NATO in Ukraine IS the real reason. After all, USA policy papers' goals are stated as the destruction of Russia. YOUR stated goal is the destruction of Russia. Why would Putin not take that seriously? And Crimea was part of that plan.
SECOND Being a clever and dishonest politician, Putin is claiming he is fighting Ukraine to prevent NATO from invading Russia. For some reason, Putin doesn't talk about how his pride and over-confidence caused him to invade Ukraine.
Putin's brought it up many times, beginning with the Munich Security Conference all the way back in 2007, so it's not like this is a convenient reason he just pulled out of his ass yesterday.
Rossiya 1 TV host Vladimir Solovyov declared Russia was in a "holy war" against Ukraine and the West as he criticized U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders.
Solovyov said: "We live in the latter days. What's happening in Ukraine won't stay in Ukraine. A holy war is underway. We're fighting for the right of mankind to live in its original state, as designed by the Creator."
"Those fools who are trying to fight they aren't fighting against us, they're at war with God. In case of their victory, their end is certain."
"When I say that either we win, or the whole world will be reduced to ashes, this also has another meaning. How can humanity that fights against God continue to exist?"
Solovyov praised Russia as a defender of Christendom, a claim made by supporters of Vladimir Putin who paint the West as degenerate.
Solovyov added: "Look at (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky's face. Look at Biden's face, an absolutely deceitful, nasty, scary no-good person."
"He isn't like Trump. Why was Trump out of favor? Because he is totally traditional, at least in some ways. Trump's traditional character provoked hatred."
"If you think about what's happening. It's Satanism. They're purely demonic, you can't put it any other way."
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-tv-host-says-west-will-reduced-
ashes-nuclear-war-1767985
Signym, that TV host has not been kicked off the air despite what he said. There must be many Russians who don't see his mental illness as an illness because they share his ill.
Signym, that TV host is not alone in his mental illness. State media’s desperation to control the narrative of the war is palpable, with propagandists seemingly competing for the most outrageous theory on what would happen if Russia loses the war. Head of RT Margarita Simonyan previously alleged that the Russians would end up in Western concentration camps or be turned into mindless “yahoos,” while Professor Dmitry Evstafiev predicted that they would be caged and displayed alongside animals at the zoo.
“What will happen if the West is allowed to build the kind of a world it wants to create? What kind of world will it be? Can a normal person live in this world?,” political scientist Sergey Mikheyev lamented on Solovyov’s show. “Humans will turn into non-humans... humanity as a whole will be eradicated... What is ahead of us is the forced replacement of people with robots and robotization of the people… If we don’t confront the West, utter horror will follow, it will be a catastrophe.”
In an apparent effort to strengthen Russia’s ideological standing and eliminate foreign influence, Vitaly Tretyakov, dean of Moscow State University’s School of Television, pushed for Russia’s liberals to be forced into publicly denouncing their written criticism of the Soviet Union. He called for the Russian Academy of Sciences to arrange for these public denouncements and threw in another proposal: “Maybe we should burn these books!”
Mikheyev eagerly chimed in: “Together with their autho
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