The Russians have gone in

[Beemerguy53]

The more I learn about what's been going on there and who's been involved the more I doubt many things. One needs to confirm things through multiple sources and still wonder.

Rudi, I'm not sure what there is to doubt about what's been going on: The images are all over the news, every day. It's heartbreaking and infuriating to see what the Russians are doing to innocent people...and there is no justification -- none whatsoever -- for it.

There is clearly an agenda at work, being followed by public figures who keep ginning up stories and rumors about Ukraine. Some people are simply trying to avoid having to admit how badly they misjudged Putin when they sucked up to him. Others are, I'm afraid, actively working as agents of Russia. And some others have let their partisanship get the better of their empathy and humanity.

Regardless...even if everything you've heard is true...there is no excuse, no legitimate reason, for what Putin and his myrmidons are doing to Ukraine.

 

[biku324]

The Russian disinformation machine is spinning furiously - you can identify them on discussion forums by paying attention to peculiar expressions and sentence construction and by unexpected Cyrillic characters in Youtube/Instagram/Twitter/TikTok, etc., posts. The past four weeks have been a really bad time to expand your news sources beyond major media in the west, western governments, universities, and reputable NGOs.

The Internet Research Agency, aka Glavset (the Trolls from Olgino) owned by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, based in Saint Petersburg, has been quickly, dramatically expanded to include locations all over SE Europe and South Asia. There are at least 20 very new clones.

If you don't trust media, especially don't trust new/unkown sources of information and DO NOT leave your e-mail running while browsing!

 

[Beemerguy53]

The news pages on Facebook, and the comments sections of online publications, are chock-full now of obvious Russian trolls. They're not very hard to spot: thin profiles, with no photos or friends; poor grasp of English, no use of, or understanding of, American slang, etc., etc.

When I see a comment by one of these creeps, I respond to it by asking him how the weather is in Moscow today, and suggesting that he needs more training before he'll be ready to impersonate a Yank...

 

[biku324]

I usually make crude drug- and homophobic remarks about Putin personally to those thugs. Or ask how the Micex is today.

 

[oldbrownhat]

I was just talking with my gf, who had been talking with her Russian mother earlier. Ma (Ludmilla) said that the Mariupol area was previously an area of one of the branches of the Cossacks, and "If Putin really knew his history, he would know that there was no chance the Cossacks would roll over and capitulate!"

They have some Cossack in their family history, as one great-grandfather married a Cossack princess and was disinherited by his family.

We are truly "witnesses to history" in all this (unfortunately).

 

[Rudi]

Rudi, I'm not sure what there is to doubt about what's been going on: The images are all over the news, every day. It's heartbreaking and infuriating to see what the Russians are doing to innocent people...and there is no justification -- none whatsoever -- for it.

There is clearly an agenda at work, being followed by public figures who keep ginning up stories and rumors about Ukraine. Some people are simply trying to avoid having to admit how badly they misjudged Putin when they sucked up to him. Others are, I'm afraid, actively working as agents of Russia. And some others have let their partisanship get the better of their empathy and humanity.

Regardless...even if everything you've heard is true...there is no excuse, no legitimate reason, for what Putin and his myrmidons are doing to Ukraine.

Of course, there is a war there. Obvious. Civilians killed. Destruction. But old photos, photoshop, etc. have been used. We can not discuss many of the most important aspects of this situation. Who is behind the curtain?

 

[LVSteve]

Of course, there is a war there. Obvious. Civilians killed. Destruction. But old photos, photoshop, etc. have ALSO been used. We can not discuss many of the most important aspects of this situation. Who is behind the curtain?

Fixed it for you.

"Who is behind the curtain" implies some kind of short term agenda. Wall Street timescales don't work when it comes to disagreeable moments in Europe. Usually, trouble has not been brewing for a few years, or even decades, much of it is ingrained over centuries. There was stuff that went on in the former Yugoslavia that the perpetrators made clear was payback for what happened at the Plain of the Blackbirds...in 1389. Battle of Kosovo - Wikipedia

Ukraine and Russia have been niggling or attempting to exterminate each other for more years than this country has existed. The entirety of this did not start on 24 February 2022, any more than Gulf War One started on 17 January 1991, just ask anyone from Kuwait.

 

[Rudi]

Yes, my point. Many layers there.

 

[UncleEd]

Inspector Clouseau comments:

"I believe everything and I
believe nothing. I suspect
everyone and I suspect
no one."

 

[zeke]

With respect, I think you're confusing their reporting and their editorial positions. That can perhaps be forgiven if you're not a subscriber.

I subscribe to three newspapers online, and read them most every day. The Post's reporting is terrific. They don't simply share wire service dispatches from the Associated Press or other papers; they actually have overseas bureaus, with reporters living and working in various countries around the world. That makes for great journalism any time, but it's especially valuable in a situation like this. I read everything with a very critical eye, and I rarely see political bias in their reporting.

Their editorials are another matter. The Post's editorial position is reliably liberal: pick any issue and they will be on the left side of it. I figure they're entitled to their opinions...

Their columnists are a mixed bag. Yeah, there are a number of liberals, but there are also David Von Drehle, George Will, Max Boot, Kathleen Parker, and George Gerson, all of whom are gifted writers with a conservative to moderate slant.

(Von Drehle is a brilliant wordsmith who -- like the late Col. Jeff Cooper -- can turn a phrase so eloquently that he's a pleasure to read. His column is syndicated, if I'm not mistaken, so you can read him without subscribing to the Post.)

I like reading opinions that make me think, or or help me see a given issue in a different light. And I share things to this thread that have helped me better understand the situation in Ukraine. Each of us, of course, is free to make up his own mind as to what he chooses to believe.

Derived many hours of entertainment from correcting and "fact checking" their political fact checkers. For me, they lost all credibility during the Trump era. After that, tough to get it back or place any credibility in their if this happened, that may have happened style of presenting political "information".

And yes, that is certainly is a biased viewpoint.

 

[Greyman50]

Desperate times need desperate measures maybe Putin's next thought and actions.
IIRC the 22,000 Polish were shot with .30 cal. Tokarevs verse the German use of 32 ACPs …

 

[ladder13]

The Kremlin prefers Fox.

………

So do I, and am part, actually 35% Ukraine. And?

 

[Absalom]

….
IIRC the 22,000 Polish were shot with .30 cal. Tokarevs verse the German use of 32 ACPs …

Somewhat ironically, not so:

"The Nagant revolver was initially used to carry out the executions. Later on, the executioners started using German Walther 7.65 due to its reliability and high performance."

That's from what I've found to be the best English-language analysis of Katyn and its background, published by the Warsaw Institute, a public think tank in Poland:

The Katyn Massacre - Mechanisms of Genocide - The Warsaw Institute Review

A really chilling read, a lesson on how mass murder is planned, approved, and carried out.

 

[biku324]

Of course, there is a war there. Obvious. Civilians killed. Destruction. But old photos, photoshop, etc. have been used. We can not discuss many of the most important aspects of this situation. Who is behind the curtain?

Stone-cold obvious - Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the same one who invaded Sout Ossetia, Crimea, and funded the insurrection in Donetsk and Donbass.

 

[biku324]

So do I, and am part, actually 35% Ukraine. And?

And nothing, other than the Kremlin prefers Fox, as Foreign Minister Lavrov said on RT, which incidentally is Russian state television.

 

[bigwheelzip]

Stone-cold obvious ...

Yet so many of us are still convinced to support Putin's obvious appeasers and facilitators.
Sow and reap, I fear.


Sent from my motorola one 5G using Tapatalk

 

[biku324]

Specific incidents in which Putin's agenda was facilitated by America and the West:

Proxy invasion of South Ossetia, 2008
'Annexation' of Crimea, 2014
Russian-facilitated insurrection in Donetsk and the Donbass, 2014 to date
Abandonment of the US Kobani (Syria) airbase to the Russians in Syria, 2019.

 

[ladder13]

Specific incidents in which Putin's agenda was facilitated by America and the West:

Proxy invasion of South Ossetia, 2008
'Annexation' of Crimea, 2014
Russian-facilitated insurrection in Donetsk and the Donbass, 2014 to date
Abandonment of the US Kobani (Syria) airbase to the Russians in Syria, 2019.

Kudo's for your even handed assessment contrary to most here

 

[biku324]

I've spent most of my life working against evil.

 

[Beemerguy53]

Of course, there is a war there. Obvious. Civilians killed. Destruction. But old photos, photoshop, etc. have been used. We can not discuss many of the most important aspects of this situation. Who is behind the curtain?

Rudi, with respect, what is the source for your statement that old photos and photoshop have been used during the news coverage of Russia's attack on Ukraine?