What is the over under on the return of Hilldog?

I find it almost impossible to believe they will continue running Biden, but then again I did not expect them to let him run again from the start.

You’ll get labeled as terrorists regardless.

Unlike America where you get to choose between: genocide in Gaza and uhm… also genocide in Gaza.

The way Chinese elite keep themselves in power is different from the way American elites keep them selves in power, but in the end what does it matter to you. Or do you want America to bring democracy to China at the end of a riffle, or be racist against Chinese people and Culture because you don’t agree with their government?

Edit: for the people (purposely?) misreading my comment, nowhere do I excuse the actions of China. I just want to point out that this rhetoric of condemning the human rights abuses of geo-strategic rivals is a known strategy that has a body count counted in millions. And pointing at Gaza is not a whataboutism, it is to show that Americas deep care for the Uyghurs or Taiwan independence is purely about cynical power.

They are just edging this bill till nobody pays attention. Democracy at work!

These kinds of articles make sure that the sides of the canals where I used to live, will never be rust free.

The only substantive aid it delivered, was aid Israel in the massacre of Palestinians. Team America at it again.

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But surely it is possible to see which direction they are moving, or not moving.

It doesn’t matter where the frontline goes in a war of attrition, it matters what resources you have. This is why Ukraine is loosing, it has a manpower problem, the only resources the west can not help with.

Yeah just like the US depleted those Vietnamese forces so effectively for so long and that was the key to their victory.

Ukraine is not North Vietnam. I’m sorry to repeat myself but Ukraine has a man power problem, people don’t want to die for this cause. If anything, they more resemble South Vietnam, and we all know how that ended.

Dude now you’re just saying talking points.

Sure it’s a talking point, but it’s also true. Seeing Ursula von der Leyen advocate for war crimes in Gaza with the same vigor as supporting escalation in Ukraine makes me skeptical of her motives. Same goes for Blinken crying about Ukrainian civilian casualties and saying dead children are the price of war about Palestinians, kinda makes you wonder. And they make the decisions, not random guys and gals on Lemmy.

Want no escalation? Pack your shit, get back across the border.

I’m not Russian, I have no power over what they do. Peace is complicated, and requires living with injustice, but in return you spare a lot of suffering from happening.

Sorry to be rude about it again.

I mean I can rude as well. If you think this conflict is truly worth dying for, then go there, and go die.

Yes those are my sources and yes it is Gary Brechner aka the war nerd, he is sadly getting old but I really enjoyed his recent series on the us civil war.

I didn’t answer because I don’t know. I have heard it theorized that Russia is depleting the Ukrainian forces and building up behind the lines for a summer offensive, but also that the recent reshuffle of the Russian Security Council means that Putin expects the war to last until at least 2025. It is mostly speculation so not really a value add.

On all the details, I am just like most people dealing with limited information. And it’s hard to get a good idea what’s happening on the frontlines and on the broader strategic battle field. But there are sources I trust and sources that have shown to be at best incompetent and at worse straight up propaganda. This might be one of those rare morally uncomplicated wars, but the fact that the loudest voices in support of Israel are also oft the loudest voices in support of further escalations with Russia makes me skeptical.

https://www.ft.com/content/d7e95021-df99-4e99-8105-5a8c3eb8d4ef

https://youtu.be/slkn2-N3oR0?si=d9Z_4KEvKS5kYXjp

If you read between the lines of ft articles it becomes quite clear that the manpower problem is almost insurmountable, but there are also other articles from nyt or Dutch or German mainstream media that try to package it positively but can not hide the underlying problems. And then there is John Mearsheimer who gives a higher level overview, that to me sketches quite a clear picture of Ukraines prospects.

Plus I like to listen to “war nerd radio” podcast. It’s not a news source perse, but they discuss the Ukraine war sometimes and they seem to be better at predicting what is to come than most news papers. For example they were rightfully quite skeptical about the great summer offensive of 2023 whereas other sources were promising the conquest of Crimea.

NATO is still a collection of nation states with interests, being powerful does not mean you can be trusted. (As the US has shown multiple times)

The people actually fighting this war, don’t want to, they need to be forcibly conscripted by the Ukrainian government, I have met multiple people that can no longer renew their pasport because the Ukrainian government (and western governments by extension) want them to die at the front.

And finally Ukraine is losing, and probably always was, the economic and manpower difference is just too big. There was a point in the summer of 2022 where Ukraine had a position to get a deal on relatively good terms, and there actually was a peace process going on. But somehow this broke down, I’ve heard rumors that it was the UK or the US that convinced/coerced Zelensky to walk away. I really hope that isn’t true because that would mean they have a lot of blood on their hands, and mostly Ukrainian.

Accepting how the world works is not the same as saying it’s moral.

If someone threatens to shoot you, you saying it’s immoral is not a practical defense, unless there is some kind of higher power like a justice system with a police to enforce it. But the entire point of international politics is that such a force does not exist, just countries with interests.

The Freikorps consisted mostly of veterans of the Prussian army, and the specific division that executed Luxemburg and Liebknecht was led by Waldemar Pabst a high ranking official in the Prussian army.

What I am “implying” is that there was good reason why in the interwar period being anti fascist and anti SPD was not an uncommon opinion.

Calling it a democratic government is quite a short cut. They were in the middle of a revolution, in the process of deciding what the future of Germany would look like, no elections had taken place. In the population there was huge support for dismantling the Prussian military institutions, but the SPD decided to not only keep the military as is but also to use it against their political opposition. I’m not saying the Spartakusbund were the good guys, I’m saying that the excessive violence of the SPD was foreboding of what was to come.

The line “first they came for the communists” from Martin Niemöller’s famous poem, goes back longer than just the Nazis.

After the fall of the Kaiser the SPD started working together with ultra rightwing shock troops (Freikorps) to subdue communists, the broader left and the labor movement. Gustav Noske (SDP) literally called himself the bloodhound (bluthond).

Lookup the death of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht for more fun facts about the SDP in that era.

I only read the article before, but Christ that video is shocking. He just intensionally twists the question three times, and then accuses the journalist of not doing his job for only citing two sources (the fucking Israeli government and the UN). Plus the moderator constantly interrupting the journalists while the government is just obviously lying. Staatsräson in action.

They should have asked Annalena Baerbock she has seen the videos.

Out of curiosity, if this is ever legally recognized as a genocide, is there anything human-rights law or international law says about people knowingly spreading lies in support of it?

Edit: And will she be just as vigilant about Israel systematically raping prisoners as a form of torture (something for which there actually exists multiple sources).

If Russia succeeds in occupying Ukraine completely it will take an immense amount of resources to subdue the population, I don’t see why this will be any different than Iraq. Given the current resistance it might even be impossible for Russia to simply occupy Ukraine and extract its resources, this is also probably the reason why they have tried to sue for peace multiple times.

Putin is a moderate in Russian politics, and it is relevant because it means there are ways to negotiate with him.

How does this argument work, the military spending of the Nazis was insane in the build up to the war, up to 40% in 1939, no such numbers in Russia. Even now it’s just estimated at 10% and they clearly need all of it just to fight the war in Ukraine. How are they ever gonna steamroll Nato with those numbers, there is no tangible proof that they are planning for this.

The Putin is Hitler mantra also doesn’t make any sense, he has been a moderate (all be it an authoritarian) politician for decades, and now he suddenly is the rebirth of Hitler. Just looking at his politics he’s clearly not a fascist.

We’ve been sold that Ukraine can win this war militarily, and the collective west can cripple the Russian economy with sanctions alone. Now that this turns out to be complete BS, they (a subset of western politicians) are looking for a way out, and clearly their preferred way is further escalations. So now they are selling us even more BS to justify this.

A leaked draft of the UNRWA report detailed an interview that gave a similar account. It cited a 41-year-old detainee whe said that interrogators “made me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire,” and also said that another detainee “died after they put the electric stick up” his anus.

So they are raping people to death…