- Joined
- Sep 10, 2009
- Messages
- 41,857
- Likes
- 79,509
Yeah, not having your experience with actual Russians, I wouldn't have known all that stuff about this guy. My sentiment on the rest of my post still holds true though...
-
If you enjoy the forum please consider supporting it by signing up for a NES Membership The benefits pay for the membership many times over.
What Putin’s War in Ukraine Reveals About Russia—and the Likely Path Ahead
- Thread starter SFC13557
- Start date
I think you need to read post #8 in this thread.But, yes to your first two questions. I’m not equating the U.S. to Russia, but we need to accept that the U.S.’ history is one of constant war too.
slugworth
NES Member
He has a lot of videos. He would post one a week from the start of this war.
In God We Trust
NES Member
We got into a 20 year war with cavemen (and lost) because they wouldn’t give us one dude we wanted. Not downplaying 9/11, but was it worth it? Could we have handled it another way?
The US has lost any right to criticize who someone else invades.
SHOCKNAWE
NES Member
No but it is annoying as hell to write out a check to a thief who is robbing you to your face lol
Mesatchornug
NES Member
He's right, it's quite a bit of scratch. I'd feel pecked over.
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2020
- Messages
- 1,610
- Likes
- 1,886
Ok, I'll bite. Give me an example of the US invading another country that did not start the war with us first.
But, yes to your first two questions. I’m not equating the U.S. to Russia, but we need to accept that the U.S.’ history is one of constant war too.
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2020
- Messages
- 1,610
- Likes
- 1,886
You were naive to think they could be anything like Europe or like the US.
United States helped Russia/USSR when they ran out of food in 1920, 1941, 1976, and 1997. EACH TIME they responded by screwing us over and by unleashing a wave of hate propaganda against the United States!
In 1998, Russia was unable to pay money and defaulted. No nation would lend them a penny! One of America's top and most respected banks, Mellon Bank, decided to help Russia by providing backing of the dept. In layman's terms, Mellon bank said, "I vouch that Russia will be a responsible borrower going forward, and if they don't, we will pay what they owe". In exchange, Mellon would be allowed to operate in Russia. Investments poured into Russia! Within five years, Russia has recovered financially. Guess what they did next?! Yep, you guessed it! They accused Mellon of corruption and confiscated billions of dollars of banks' assets in Russia. Mellon bank was on the brink of collapse. CEO of Mellon tried to sell the company to another bank, but NOBODY wanted a bunk that was about to collapse. In 2006 Bank of New York "merged" with Mellon bank, essentially buying it for $0.
Russia has been screwing the west over and over and over for decades(and centuries). This is not a policy of a group of politicians who have no relation to the people. People's apathy, thug-like mentality, and utter lemming-like behavior resulted in a thug-like government. Of course, some people in Russia are intelligent, hard-working, and honest, but they are a tiny minority. Even a smaller portion is willing to do something about the situation in Russia(ex. Navalny).
I’ll give you a little leeway on “start the war” and include attacking us or not abiding by agreements, like OIF and OEF. I’ll also ignore our actions in Africa against elements like the Lord’s Resistance Army. They never attacked us, but I think it’s a pretty clear moral justification.
Admittedly I had to look up some of these because I don’t know everything. Note that a lot of these were not just unprovoked, but done to seize territory.
- The Seminole Wars in the 19th century: we decided to take ignored truces and just decided to attack and relocate them
- The Winnebago war: U.S. persons were trespassing on their lands and they stopped that, but we decided to respond with a show of force
- Mexican-American War/The Texas Revolution/U.S. annexation: Americans overthrew the rightful Mexican government in Texas and brought it into the U.S.
- The Apache Wars: U.S. captured their leader, kicking off hostilities
- The Comanche Wars: We just moved in and said it was our land…. Much like many smaller Indian wars. Manifest destiny and all that
- The Cayuse War: Another manifest destiny war, but not a small one
- Navajo Wars: ANOTHER significant manifest destiny war
- Yakima War: U.S. persons disregarded agreements with the Yakima … because of gold
- The Pig War: We took the San Juan Islands from Britain after an American killed an Irish pig
- The Yavapi Wars: Hey, another war caused by manifest destiny. We take what we want
- The United States Expedition to Korea 1871: We decided to survey Korean waters with armed military vessels and strong arm a trade agreement. Korea told us they weren’t interested, but we continued to bring military ships and landing parties into their waters and land
- The Great Sioux War of 1876: We wanted their land because of gold
- The Egyptian Expedition 1882: We were protecting American ex-pats in Egypt, but still invaded Egypt without Egypt attacking the U.S.. It would be not too different than Russia invading Luhansk to protect Russian citizens living there who were being mistreated. Of course. We left Egypt shortly thereafter.
- Spanish-American War: our warship in Cuba blew up, possibly from its own poor operation, resulting in our invasion and declaration of war on Spain. But really, we were just looking for an excuse to exercise the Monroe Doctrine and take Carribean land from Europeans.
- Philippine - American War: Because our ship blew up in a Cuban harbor, we declared war on Spain and subsequently bought the Philippines from Spain… kind of? Pretty shaky ground to claim the Philippines as ours. And we couldn’t have them declaring independence after we spent so much money on their land.
- Boxer Rebellion turn of the 20th century: Powerful U.S. persons wanted to protect their lucrative opium imports into China under the guise of protecting U.S. missionaries
- The Banana Wars early 20th century: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines taken from the Spanish weren’t enough, we wanted more of the Caribbean and Central America. Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Dominican Republic. All should belong to us, right?
- Operation Blue Bat 1958 intervention in Lebanon: Yeah, the Lebanese government requested our assistance, but their resistance never attacked us before hand.
- The Vietnam War: South Vietnam welcomed our assistance, but make no mistake our national policy was that we wanted to be there to defeat the North Vietnamese communists, who never attacked us.
- Invasion of Grenada: Yeah, we were protecting American students, but it was a hell of a full scale joint forceable entry to seize an entire country to rescue the handful of American students. Oh, but we also wanted to stop communism. Admittedly this one is murky. I don’t think it is totally unjustified. But it was massively disproportionate to the risk of Americans in their country. The U.S. just wanted to stick it to communism.
- Invasion of Panama: Yes, we had a CIA officer imprisoned there, and a military couple were killed at a checkpoint. But Panama had not declared war on us. There were other levers of national power that could have been applied. But nope, full scale joint forceable entry and regime change time. Admittedly this one is murky. I don’t think it is totally unjustified. But it was massively disproportionate to the risk of Americans in their country. The U.S. just wanted to ensure control of the canal.
- Invasion of Libya 2011: A U.S./Hillary Clinton instigated NATO operation that constantly escalated what was claimed to be the limits of what they’d do. Lies upon lies of what the goal and extent of operations would be. Gaddafi had been fully cooperating with the U.S., but Hillary wanted him dead and didn’t mind destroying an entire country to do so.
HARRYM
NES Member
For years American corporations have been investing Billions into Ukraine. Again choosing to screw over American workers. The money and technology sitting there was just to good for Putin to pass up. I really think that's one of the things he's after there.
SFC13557
NES Member
Putin can't let the Ukraine flourish under Western Capitalism because it would erode his power base and tempt Russians to lean more to the West. Russian leaders are so full of hate for the West they keep shooting themselves in the foot. The Chinese lured Western Companies to China after they were admitted into the WTO which made them an economic powerhouse while Russia was left behind. Remember what the Traitor McCain said, "Russia is nothing but a gas station with Nukes"!
For the Russian Kleptomaniacs it's all about preserving their fortunes and keeping their citizens in line with nonsense about Russian Superiority.
HARRYM
NES Member
I think that is a large factor at what's at play there. It's apparent now that Russia internal systems are crumbling and they need an up charge. They are looking at the US Billions in Ukraine and lusted after their neighbors wife.
SFC13557
NES Member
The Russian people have gotten used to Western goods over the last 20 yrs and it's impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. Putin and his cronies are hanging on for dear life with their fantasies of a Greater Mother Russia. They're still stuck in a WWII mentality and use the threat of NATO and the West invading Mother Russia and toppling their corrupt regime. Remember, Stalin refused to allow civilians to evacuate Stalingrad during the Nazi siege, Russian rulers use their people as cannon fodder for the "greater good" of Mother Russia.
rep308
NES Member
HARRYM
NES Member
All true, which is why I keep waiting for Putin to take himself out but jumping out of a 13th floor hotel room.................
From what you hear out of Russia nobody is happy with the Ukraine situation and want it halted.
SFC13557
NES Member
Only time will tell but it ain't looking good for Putin, his little Green Men are getting slaughtered under indirect fire from the Ukrainians (using our weapons systems) and the Euroweenies just approved a 19 billion Euro aid package for the Ukraine which is a direct FU to Putin. If we gave the Ukrainians, the long-range missiles for the HIMARS system Putin's Army would be doomed. Whenever I watch film from war zones around the World I zero in on the civilians and how they're dressed, especially the women. When Russia first attacked the Ukraine last February and they were interviewing civilians I noticed the Western dress of the women, they all had stylish hair, clothes, laptops, smartphones and many spoke English. That told me there was no way they would capitulate to Russian aggression and rule ever again. These aren't Muslim woman nor poor Mexican, Central American woman, they are educated Western Woman who won't go backwards.
"BRUSSELS—The European Union cemented its pledge to provide Ukraine with more than $19 billion in funding next year after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban backed down from threats to block the EU proposal.
The agreement will provide a lifeline of 18 billion euros, equivalent to $19.2 billion, to Kyiv. The Ukrainian government is struggling to maintain basic services amid a war that has crushed its economy, while its energy infrastructure has suffered relentless Russian attacks.
The EU has faced pressure from Kyiv and Washington to step up funding for Ukraine. The U.S. has already provided nearly $32 billion in aid to Ukraine since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February, including almost $20 billion in arms and other security assistance. The EU this year fell €3 billion short of the €10.2 billion in concessionary loans and grants it promised for Kyiv. It has also given far less than it has pledged in lethal aid."
Last edited:
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2020
- Messages
- 1,610
- Likes
- 1,886
Let's! But as a summary, Nothing on your list qualifies as "invasion" to drive expansion, or to go in uninvited, or to create a colony of the US.
- No Indian tribe has a defined border. To call something an "invasion", you need a country. The fact is, Indian wars were inside US territory, so to it's more of an internal conflict rather than an invasion of another country. Not an invasion! That's 1/3 of the list gone. Let's move on.
- Mexican-American war. Started because the US bought a bunch of land(Louisiana purchase) from the French, but the Spanish thought they could take what was not theirs. Then Mexico declared independence and abandoned modern-day Texas territories to be ravaged by the Indians. Look up Camanche-Mexico and Apache-Mexico wars. thousands and thousands of people were murdered and raped by the Apache and Camanche(but hey, it's ok because they were here first!). The people of Texas said, "Screw this! we want to be part of the country that can defend us!". The US was only interested in keeping what was theirs, but when the people of Texas came and said they wanted to secede from Mexico, we agreed. This was NOT an invasion to which we were not invited. So another off the list...
- The Pig War?! Are you seriously calling this a war and invasion? the only casualty of "the war" was a single pig, purportedly. A couple of small islands were not clearly demarcated during the prior agreement between British Vancouver and the US, which started the entire childish "It's mine! No! it's mine!" The definition of the territory was "along a navigable channel". There was NO definitive territory demarcation. In other words, we took no-mans lands. Thus zero casualties.
- The Korean expedition of 1871. Was there an invasion? Did we keep any territories? Let's recap the expedition: US ships came to Korea and asked about the destruction of US merchant ship "General Sherman." Koreans said, "We don't know anything!" so the US let them know that they would go up the Ganghwa straights to see if they could find the ship. Korean Fort in Ganghwa straights opened fire on the ships, so we fought back and landed a party of Marines to neutralize the fort. We did not invade the country; we fought when attacked.
- The Egyptian Expedition. Again, you need to read the details! We sent 3 small ships to observe the British-Egyptian conflict and protect US Embassy in Alexandria, in case it was attacked. We stayed out of the conflict! Until US territory was attacked(embassies are considered the territory of the country whose embassy occupies it). We came in, helped put out fires raging on the embassy grounds(multiple buildings were on fire), and left soldiers to protect the embassy, just in case. US soldiers were ON US SOIL! To call this an invasion is hypocritical.
- Banana Wars and Spanish-American wars are all about the same thing. The Caribbean nations fighting for their independence from Spain and the United States supported them. NONE of the territories were kept, or US rule imposed. EVERY nation retained its independence and sovereignty.
- Philippine - American War was a skirmish. To call it a war is silly. The Philipines were part of Spain. After Spain declared war on the United States, the US Navy attacked and won. After Spain sued for Peace, the US, and as a result of the Paris Peace Treaty, the US was to remain in the Philippines until it became self-sufficient economically and militarily. Sort of like we did with Japan and Germany after WW2. Instead of taking advantage of the situation, some folks fighting the Spanish continued to fight the Americans(we all look the same to them, they said). The US did not start the fight, nor did we invade. Last I checked, the Philippines was an independent country.
- all other conflicts you have yourself wrote that we were ASKED for help.
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2020
- Messages
- 1,610
- Likes
- 1,886
The MAJORITY of Russians support the war. This is based on multiple surveys, including independent ones.
HARRYM
NES Member
Done in Russia by Russia I suppose.........
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2020
- Messages
- 1,610
- Likes
- 1,886
Why? Are they afraid to speak their mind? Is their right to free expression becoming a criminal offense? Are we, the United States, turning into Russia!?
HARRYM
NES Member
People do disappear in Russia speaking their minds.....or jump out of 13th floor hotel rooms.........
SFC13557
NES Member
Says who?
Support for the "Special Operation" is mainly from older Russians who lived under the USSR and are nostalgic for the old days.
Younger Russians who have traveled to the West and are educated want NO part of the war of aggression and see their standard of living eroding.
Putin is an old-fashioned KGB thug who looks at freedom of speech and human rights as a weakness that threatens Empires.
It's quite surprising Emperor Xi still embraces the CCP considering his Father was a true believer who was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution and humiliated before vicious young Mao thugs. I guess his philosophy is better to be the f***er than the f***ed.
… yes it is a criminal act in Russia to say negative things about the “special military action” or to even call it a war. Damn straight people are afraid to speak out about it.
Sounds like a lot of excuse making.
Haha, the Indian wars were in U.S. territory… yeah because we took it from them! An invasion can absolutely occur to a nation. It isn’t only limited to states.
And Mexico left Texas unprotected, so it’s okay we took it from them?
For the Pig war, yes I’m serious. We landed forces on an island that wasn’t ours and demanded we keep it. Doesn’t matter if it was bloodless.
For the Banana Wars, they extended far beyond Spanish sovereignty. It was much more than Spanish-American war involvement. And we let Panama remain sovereign? I didn’t realize that. And yes, we eventually left the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Honduras. After about a decade of occupation for each. Hardly a small liberation and release.
I disagree with more of your assertions but I’m not going to waste time and hit on every point. I’ll just end with no, the U.S. is not Russia. And in the past 100 years, we’ve been a lot better than earlier parts of our history. But we can’t be biased and pretend we’re not a country with near constant war.
if you talk about that long boring video guy - i think he is just a byproduct of the recent nationalistic hysteria that controls minds on most of the russian territory, still.Yeah, not having your experience with actual Russians, I wouldn't have known all that stuff about this guy. My sentiment on the rest of my post still holds true though...
i have no really hard feelings about me leaving that land, but as of 'love' - excuse me, no. as of them to think i am a traitor for them - sure, anybody who escapes a shithole is a traitor for those who choose to remain in the shithole.
the russian land will persevere. as of people - who knows, they were very selectively bred over last 100 years now to consistently eradicate the best, smartest and honest people. the system supported and promoted thieves, hypocrites and mediocrities, with a huge bias toward outright criminals. it took its toll over time.
i can tell by just living here for 20+ years now, how the language itself they speak now in there became more like a slang what bandits and criminals used to speak back when i left.
all those who are in there now probably do not even notice that, but, it just screams into my ears. but, whatever. a part of a broader evolution, i guess.
frankly, at this point on my side there are no feelings left at all of what happens there, of does not happen there. all i know - US is making huge mistake getting into that business too deep, essentially repeating the same damn history all over again. some places should be just left alone.
Last edited:
SFC13557
NES Member
During the 80's I worked with a few Poles who escaped during the Lech Walesa protests, they HATED the Russians and would gladly have killed every Russian Soldier they could have. Ask any Eastern European what they think of Russians and your ears will be burning for hours.
Putin knows these countries would gladly enact revenge on him and his cronies if they had a chance, he knows he's surrounded by them and NATO. Time is running out for him and the Russian Federation, but he's too sheltered to realize how much his neighbors hate him.
Like I said 21 yrs ago I was patrolling Bosnia and interacted everyday with civilians, the older ones were nostalgic for the old days because they had crappy jobs but the younger Bosnians hated Russia with a passion. The Country was a shambles because of the antiquated Soviet economic system.
Putin knows these countries would gladly enact revenge on him and his cronies if they had a chance, he knows he's surrounded by them and NATO. Time is running out for him and the Russian Federation, but he's too sheltered to realize how much his neighbors hate him.
Like I said 21 yrs ago I was patrolling Bosnia and interacted everyday with civilians, the older ones were nostalgic for the old days because they had crappy jobs but the younger Bosnians hated Russia with a passion. The Country was a shambles because of the antiquated Soviet economic system.
When I first heard the numbers of the build up of triops/military on the border I knew it was no “exercise”
I still dont get it and by now I figure CNN would be broad casting 24/7 of all the Ukrainians running around with AK47s and SKS and mosin nagants Women children Men ? Not sure what the out cone will be .
Similar threads
