Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[Aeson]

.

You say I lied about how much the US helped?

Trump lied about how much we had helped. He claimed we had sent $350 billion. It's a bald faced lie. Reality is closer to $110 billion that's actually gone to Ukraine, and even that is using replacement value for all equipment, munitions, etc.

[Aeson]

BS Aeson. I am a defender of the truth and opposer of hyperbole and emotional distortion. I totally oppose the "shakedown" of Ukraine as stupid. That move by the US is not a "bad guy move" in the Ukraine war, however. The US had only the vague non-binding political commitment of the Budapest memorandum to compel it to forever materially support Ukraine in the war against fellow nuclear armed Budapest memorandum guarantor and unprovoked invader of Ukraine Russia. The only "threat" the US offers against Ukraine to back up its "shakedown" is cessation of future assistance to Ukraine. That's stupid but it wasn't yet a shakedown. When Trump offers to help Russia unless Ukraine caves to the demands that may be a shakedown depending on how specific and credible the threat is. If the US only offered to end sanctions or some other economic indirect assistance (not a grant of any kind) to Russia I'm not even sure that would constitute a shakedown if the stick was massively dwarfed by the carrot of more military support for Ukraine.

You say I lied about how much the US helped? where? the numbers have varied surely but I've been settling on 184 billion for weeks now. you call that a lie? I also never said the US is doing what good people do. Doing what good people do is a separate issue from being a "Bad guy". If most people look the other way as someone is mugged on a sidewalk the people looking the other way and not offering to help in any way whatsoever are surely not acting as "good people" in that context but they aren't one of the "bad guys" in that situation either. I think that the US was doing what good people do for Ukraine under Biden. I think that was swiftly curtailed under Trump. That doesn't make the US "bad guys". Even a verbal absurd accusation that Ukraine started the war, especially absent any binding action such as a UN vote to back up the assertion was certainly not sufficient to make the US meaningfully one of the "bad guys" in the Ukraine war. The US taken as a state has surely even now not only materially assisted Ukraine in its war more than any other state in the world and by a huge margin but it has not yet materially inflicted harm on Ukraine's war effort in any form other than cessation of prior extremely generous support.

The US may well become one of the bad guys in the Ukraine war. it definitely wasn't there when I objected to it being characterized as such. not even close really.

You say you detest people who can see Trump is doing an appallingly exceptional bad job as president yet "defend him" continually on an off-topic forum overwhelmingly frequented by posters completely opposed to Trump. What I detest are people who are happy to redefine everything and spin everything however is most effective to shore up their political agenda.

As I said, you think it's what good guys do. You don't see the evil in it.

[Geronimo]

So you claim that if the UK had sent whatever old tank it could find half-rusted somewhere instead of Challenger IIs, Ukraine would be better off?

You're asking me if the UK had replaced sending its Challenger II tanks with instead sending some vague something implicitly defined as something grossly inferior to the Challenger IIs whether that alteration would leave Ukraine better off? Is that an incredibly lazy troll or do you sometimes have some lapses of reason? What possible relevance would my reply have?

I said that if every country in the world had mirrored US policy with respect to Ukraine since the Start of Russia's full-scale invasion that surely Ukraine would have won by now and that the harm under Trump's second term to Ukraine arising from Trump's policies with regard to Ukraine as of the start of this part of our discussion a few weeks ago when everyone insisted that the US were "The Bad Guys" in the Ukraine war would be negligible harm. So, I'll ignore your moronic question/troll and assume what you really meant was since you regard the UK policies towards the Ukraine war (and presumably the policies of most of Ukraine's allies who have materially contributed to Ukraine's defence) was to give military equipment of substantially superior quality to the US contributions that you would apparently argue that were every country in the world to have mirrored US policy toward Ukraine since the start of the full scale war that in fact Ukraine would be worse off because of these other allies downgrades to the quality of their top of the line contributions and this helps demonstrate that the US have been "bad guys" in the Ukraine war since at least the start of my verbal opposition to it being characterized as such in this thread.

I hope I'm wrong because that would also be pretty moronic, if only because most countries in the world representing the large majority of the world economy and military potential have contributed *zero* to Ukraine's defence and mirroring US policies would have resulted in a defence support windfall to Ukraine much vaster than the total of Ukraine's allies contributions. Do you really assert that it makes sense to characterize all of these non-allies to ukraine as "bad guys" in the Ukraine war? if not and if mirroring US policy would massively increase their impact on Ukraine then we are hard pressed to argue that the US was a bad guy in Ukraine at least at the start of this debate.

I could also challenge your assertion that the US contributions were qualitatively inferior to most Ukraine allied contributions but it's not really relevant. the point is that the US to date was a good guy and former good guy in Ukraine but could not meaningfully be characterized as "a bad buy" in the ukraine war when that started being asserted in this thread. Maybe not even now but I suppose Trump may have launched some covert operation against Ukraine or given Russia some intel to use against Ukraine or sold Russia some military hardware or voted against ukraine and with Russia on a harmful UNSC vote or some such and I may well have missed that on vacation. I stand by my assertion however that the US was not meaningfully one of the "bad guys" in Ukraine when we started debating this unless you want to apply a special definition of "bad guys" that makes almost everybody except Ukraine's other allies a "bad guy" in the Ukraine war.

[Geronimo]

Geronimo is just a defender of trying to shake down Ukraine for $500billion, lying about how much we helped, lying about who started the war, after breaking our agreement with them. He thinks that's what good people do.

BS Aeson. I am a defender of the truth and opposer of hyperbole and emotional distortion. I totally oppose the "shakedown" of Ukraine as stupid. That move by the US is not a "bad guy move" in the Ukraine war, however. The US had only the vague non-binding political commitment of the Budapest memorandum to compel it to forever materially support Ukraine in the war against fellow nuclear armed Budapest memorandum guarantor and unprovoked invader of Ukraine Russia. The only "threat" the US offers against Ukraine to back up its "shakedown" is cessation of future assistance to Ukraine. That's stupid but it wasn't yet a shakedown. When Trump offers to help Russia unless Ukraine caves to the demands that may be a shakedown depending on how specific and credible the threat is. If the US only offered to end sanctions or some other economic indirect assistance (not a grant of any kind) to Russia I'm not even sure that would constitute a shakedown if the stick was massively dwarfed by the carrot of more military support for Ukraine.

You say I lied about how much the US helped? where? the numbers have varied surely but I've been settling on 184 billion for weeks now. you call that a lie? I also never said the US is doing what good people do. Doing what good people do is a separate issue from being a "Bad guy". If most people look the other way as someone is mugged on a sidewalk the people looking the other way and not offering to help in any way whatsoever are surely not acting as "good people" in that context but they aren't one of the "bad guys" in that situation either. I think that the US was doing what good people do for Ukraine under Biden. I think that was swiftly curtailed under Trump. That doesn't make the US "bad guys". Even a verbal absurd accusation that Ukraine started the war, especially absent any binding action such as a UN vote to back up the assertion was certainly not sufficient to make the US meaningfully one of the "bad guys" in the Ukraine war. The US taken as a state has surely even now not only materially assisted Ukraine in its war more than any other state in the world and by a huge margin but it has not yet materially inflicted harm on Ukraine's war effort in any form other than cessation of prior extremely generous support.

The US may well become one of the bad guys in the Ukraine war. it definitely wasn't there when I objected to it being characterized as such. not even close really.

You say you detest people who can see Trump is doing an appallingly exceptional bad job as president yet "defend him" continually on an off-topic forum overwhelmingly frequented by posters completely opposed to Trump. What I detest are people who are happy to redefine everything and spin everything however is most effective to shore up their political agenda.

[Aeson]

Geronimo is just a defender of trying to shake down Ukraine for $500billion, lying about how much we helped, lying about who started the war, after breaking our agreement with them. He thinks that's what good people do.

[-Jrabbit]

Really? Over 900 word of self-defense sophistry?

[N35t0r]

Total absurdity. mothballed equipment destined for destruction has been demonstrably hugely effective in Ukrainian hands time and time again, especially when facing Russians armed with shovels riding donkeys and backed up by the occasional T-55 but even when facing Russia's cutting edge super weapons.

So you claim that if the UK had sent whatever old tank it could find half-rusted somewhere instead of Challenger IIs, Ukraine would be better off?

[Geronimo]

If all countries had followed the US' example and sent mostly mothballed equipment and stuff destined for destruction and counted it at replacement price? Ukraine would probably be worse off.

Also without the likes of the UK, Netherlands and Denmark who constantly spearheaded new equipment and demonstrated that Russia's "Red lines" were just bluffs, there would still be no tanks or F-15s or cruise missiles.

Total absurdity. mothballed equipment destined for destruction has been demonstrably hugely effective in Ukrainian hands time and time again, especially when facing Russians armed with shovels riding donkeys and backed up by the occasional T-55 but even when facing Russia's cutting edge super weapons.

[N35t0r]

If all countries had followed the US' example and sent mostly mothballed equipment and stuff destined for destruction and counted it at replacement price? Ukraine would probably be worse off.

Also without the likes of the UK, Netherlands and Denmark who constantly spearheaded new equipment and demonstrated that Russia's "Red lines" were just bluffs, there would still be no tanks or F-15s or cruise missiles.

[Geronimo]

And you go and do it again when discussing the Greece/Ottomans/Russia scenario. Whatabouting Russia's behaviour by comparing to the Ottomans, and asking whether the Greeks should have diverted any resources, and asking which is the biggest threat.

It doesn't matter. The Russians where 'bad guys' in that scenario. The Ottomans can have been as well, it's not mutually exclusive.

Similarly, nowadays even though the fact that the sole responsible for the war lies at Russia's feet, that does not mean that the US' behavior hasn't been despicable, and it bears a lot of the responsibility for the probable upcoming rise in nuclear proliferation.

Hell, your answer to how the US is not the good guys for not respecting the Budapest memorandum was... that Russia respected it even less? What kind of argument is that? Congratulations, you've established that the US is not as bad as Russia, that is still balls-deep in 'bad guy' territory.

If a signatory state of the non-binding Budapest memorandum (not a treaty but a political declaration) over 3 years *gifts* conservatively over $180 billion in chiefly military assistance to Ukraine to fend off a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by another signatory guarantor, a declared nuclear power with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world (which continuously threatens nuclear retaliation for any interference) stops sending aid to Ukraine and verbally blames Ukraine for the war and even threatens economic normalization with the true aggressor, that state is not a bad guy in that context. To recognize this is not "whataboutism". If that's as far as things would go it would never be the bad guy. Not even offering to resume military aid at exorbitant prices to Ukraine would be enough to make that state the "bad guy" in that context.

Ok, so I absolutely stand by my insistence that it was inappropriate to call the US "the bad guy" in the Ukraine war and I reject any assertion that this was an argument based on "whataboutism" but rather the assertion was based on overall contribution of the US as a state to Ukraine in the conflict in combination with the terrible (from Ukraine and it's allies perspective) changes to that contribution by the US *not yet at that time* consisting of any intentional direct damage to Ukraine. I refuse to accept that ending any kind of generosity, even that pledged in a political declaration like the budapest memorandum is enough to qualify as "bad guy" in an open large scale existential military conflict related to it. My stance all along certainly can recognizes that Donald Trump is a bad guy in the context of the Ukraine war as the implementor of the extremely unfavorable to Ukraine changes in US generosity as a state, but *not* the US as a state itself.

An important key here is that I recognize that if the US were to grant basically any materially beneficial aid to Russia or tangible political action directly and actively against Ukraine or favoring Russia (excluding passive political action like voting against NATO membership but including perhaps a vote against Ukraine in the UNSC) or God forbid any kind of military action on any scale against Ukraine then yes, given no ongoing actions in Ukraine's favor at least as large to somehow counter all of that then the US would become at least briefly "a bad guy" in the Ukraine war. Although I'd argue becoming "*the* bad guys" in that conflict would still require either some kind of pact with Russia against Ukraine or US attacks on Ukraine of such a large scale as to surpass Russia's in damage to Ukraine.

That's key because I let myself drop out of the news cycle while on vacation the last 9 days apart from a couple occasions waiting in line for a ferry or security where rather than doing any number of more useful and less self-defeating things with my time, I checked out some Poly OT threads on my phone. When I returned yesterday, I let myself read a few headlines on DW and BBC news and got to feed my post-holiday blues by partially updating myself about Trump's latest trade-war antics. At this point I'm so appalled by Trump's overall trade policies that I need to take a break from trying to keep up on the news. While I suppose based on what I know so far there's no reason I should suspect that Trump probably has or will go far enough with respect to causing the US to directly harm Ukraine enough to make the US bad guys for Ukraine, his trade policies are so irrational that I certainly wouldn't want to bet against it and with such a thin margin established between US as bad guys in Ukraine (just one UNSC vote, one small delivery of arms to Russia, one sharing of US intelligence to Russia materially useful against Ukraine, etc along with negligible aid to Ukraine) and not bad guys I'm probably not going to follow up on this part of the thread much. That doesn't mean that I accept that the US has been meaningfully a bad guy in Ukraine even as recently as a couple of weeks ago when we started this. I do hope by now that you understand that my opposition wasn't based on "whataboutism" but on net and ongoing contributions of the US as a state to the war in Ukraine. If every country apart from Russia had mirrored US policy from the start of the full-scale invasion until a few weeks ago when everyone wanted to call the US as a state "the bad guys" in Ukraine in this thread, not only would Russia's invasion long since have been utterly repelled along with the Crimean occupation as well, but there would be zero damage to Ukraine apart from all of the countries now recanting and accusing Ukraine of having somehow started the conflict and starting to now talk about normalizing relations with Russia (which would probably have a truly ruined economy at this point). Net real damage by those countries mirroring US policy would be zero. That's not the record of a "bad guy" in the Ukraine war. no "whataboutism" required.

I really still don't see how anybody didn't get that, but I also fear it will soon, if not in the last week, be rendered moot by US policy actually making the current US a bad guy in the Ukraine war in current fact.

[Bereta_Eder]

well what netanyahu is doing is very difficult to defend. we're talking ethnic cleansing it seems


the average turk, I don't think we have something to divide and I'm sure noone wants war.

So it's hard to choose.

I say Turkey is worse but I'm not palestinian.

I also admire israel and the israelis/jews very much but I think what netanyahu does now is criminal

[The Mad Monk]

turkish press (which means the dioctaroship press) is having a nervous melt down right now

israel needs greece to keep turkey in check

turkey says it will erase israel from the map

so all is going as intended I guess

Which is worse in your opinion, Israel or Turkey?

[Bereta_Eder]

turkish press (which means the dioctaroship press) is having a nervous melt down right now

israel needs greece to keep turkey in check

turkey says it will erase israel from the map

so all is going as intended I guess

[Bereta_Eder]

the background is : a cable.

there is a huge electricity cable going from cyprus to crete.


turkey sent frigates to stop it.

greece decided no to send frigates (as it had in the past and sunk turksih frigates by gently touching them) because maybe NATO doesn't really need the final blow and the last nail to its coffin right now.

turkey has no problemin allowing this conenction IF greece asks. Greece will not ask since that would mean that it accepts territorial ambitions in international waters

anyway long story short Greece and Israel do share humungus common interests at the present time. also the cable starts from Israel.

[Bereta_Eder]

don't think you have the monopoly on moral repulsniveness btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3QXqovmZVU

(anti-turkish alliance no matter with who...)