The West Sucks

Go watch baseball and forget this shit. 

wait til the nazi hugger gets elected in france.

Rightfully, it took several years of warfare and direct attacks before the United States joined the allies in world wars one and two. 

Why the urgency to turn a limited regional conflict into a world war?

There would most certainly be nuclear exchanges. 

And then what would that prove?
 

I thought this was going to be a California thread

https://youtu.be/TBoXJK6k7h4

watching in real time the scenes of invasion, mass murder and destruction of a nation of innocent civilians and not being able to stop it brings a level of sympathy, frustration and anger.

It's completely understandable, but who's ready for their loved ones to die an unknown death on foreign soil / return home permanently fucked up from the atrocities of war? 

you either have a personal conviction to enter into that arena or you don't; the outcome is extremely high risk.

Ras, you still have not offered a suggestion as to a course of action? 

Are you suggesting more and different weaponry?

A no fly zone?

Ground troops?

The West sucks and the East blows. That's why it's so windy all the time.

The other day I heard an interview with some dude who apparently knows Putin pretty well. Here's a brief summation of his POV:

Putin respects one thing only, strength. Right now he sees NATO as weak. If NATO was to lay down a no-fly Zone, he would see that as strength. If Putin decided to enter the air-space, it would be his calculated risk, and he wouldn't do it more than once. NATO enforcement of the Zone would be the ultimate show of strength. Seeing as how Russia is getting their ass kicked by the Ukrainians, they have no chance against NATO. The way to end this war is for NATO to step in now and show strength.

It's an interesting POV, perhaps even with some truth to it. It's also a risk and a half, and a plan that doesn't account for contingencies like nuclear strikes.

Back to the topic, the West doesn't suck that bad. THe Ukraine seems to have all the weaponry it needs to push the Russians back, and even make offensive strikes in Russia.

^from the reporting I've heard, a no fly zone would require eliminating Russian anti aircraft weaponry. This would require direct attacks from NATO.

It would require direct attacks on Russian soil. I don't see that working out well for anyone. 

It's interesting to hear some of the tidbits of info on what's going right.  The war in 2014 led to a lot of work w/ the US military planning on this very invasion.  It's why the 90 mile convey to Kyiv got dropped from the conversation, the Ukrainians destroyed it...  exactly as planned.  They took out fuel trucks and reinforcement of supplies, using shoulder rockets and ATV's on the back trails they know so well.  The hard part is getting reinforcements into the field. Amazing how much russian equipment has been destroyed, let alone casualties. 

 Sadly, so many of the horrors are from missile attacks, which are extremely difficult to stop, since you'd have to do attacks on russian soil, take out radar installations, etc (the no fly zone welcome to WWIII approach).  Sounds like those Polish jets were suppose to be a covert operation that got exposed, so the west had to deny it...  

I expect NATO will continue to help destroy russian ground forces

That's the odd thing about that dude's POV that I posted above. How exactly is Putin seeing NATO as weak? His forces are being crushed by NATO equipment, I'm sure tons of intel, and lord knows what else.

The intel that's been shared publicly has been extremely accurate so far...   sometimes I wonder if meeting with the Australian PM was just to help keep a mark on Putin's whereabouts.

Blaming the 3 letter acronym agencies for the gulf war I always thought was a ruse for the rights agenda (PNAC wanting another Pearl Harbor to achieve it's goals, which they did - patriot acts, etc). It's nice to not have that agenda front and center anymore!  

When Bush 1 went to Kuwait after the first gulf war for a little victory celebration Sadam tried to have him assassinated. I think the second gulf war was as much about that as anything else. Bush 2 trying to score points with daddy after being such a fuck up for most of his life. 

^2nd gulf war was about war profiteering. Military contractors were the winners. Cheney saw that first hand with Halliburton the first go round. 2nd war presented a much larger opportunity. 

>>>>Bush 2 trying to score points with daddy

>>>>2nd gulf war was about war profiteering

It was both.  For W, it was personal.  For Cheney and Rumsfield, it was all about the $$$$

eventually the west will figure out its cheaper to take his oil by force rather than be blackmailed