Let’s have a war!

[ousdahl]

but I thought Japhy already told you guys

care to comment on the Maidan revolution?

We are past that, try to keep up.

[ousdahl]

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.c ... ry-17-2024

Although few Americans paid much attention at the time, the events of February 18, 2014, in Ukraine would turn out to be a linchpin in how the United States ended up where it is a decade later.

On that day ten years ago, after months of what started as peaceful protests, Ukrainians occupied government buildings and marched on parliament to remove Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych from office. After the escalating violence resulted in many civilian casualties, Yanukovych fled to Russia, and the Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, returned power to Ukraine’s constitution.

The ouster of Yanukovych meant that American political consultant Paul Manafort was out of a job.

Manafort had worked with Yanukovych since 2004. In that year, the Russian-backed politician appeared to have won the presidency of Ukraine. But Yanukovych was rumored to have ties to organized crime, and the election was full of fraud, including the poisoning of a key rival who wanted to break ties with Russia and align Ukraine with Europe. The U.S. government and other international observers did not recognize the election results, while Russia’s president Vladimir Putin congratulated Yanukovych even before the results were officially announced.

The government voided the election and called for a do-over.

To rehabilitate his reputation, Yanukovych turned to Manafort, who was already working for a young Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska worried that Ukraine would break free of Russian influence and was eager to prove useful to Vladimir Putin. At the time, Putin was trying to consolidate power in Russia, where oligarchs were monopolizing formerly publicly held industries and replacing the region’s communist leaders. In 2004, American journalist Paul Klebnikov, the chief editor of Forbes in Russia, was murdered as he tried to call attention to what the oligarchs were doing.

With Manafort’s help, Yanukovych finally won the presidency in 2010 and began to turn Ukraine toward Russia. In November 2013, Yanukovych suddenly reversed Ukraine’s course toward cooperation with the European Union, refusing to sign a trade agreement and instead taking a $3 billion loan from Russia. Ukrainian students protested the decision, and the anger spread quickly. In 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power and he fled to Russia.

Manafort, who had borrowed money from Deripaska and still owed him about $17 million, had lost his main source of income.

Shortly after Yanukovych’s ouster, Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and annexed it, prompting the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia itself and also on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs, prohibiting them from doing business in U.S. territories. These sanctions were intended to weaken Russia and froze the assets of key Russian oligarchs.

By 2016, Manafort’s longtime friend and business partner Roger Stone—they had both worked on Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign—was advising Trump’s floundering presidential campaign, and Manafort was happy to step in to help remake it. He did not take a salary but reached out to Deripaska through one of his Ukrainian business partners, Konstantin Kilimnik, immediately after landing the job, asking him, “How do we use to get whole? Has OVD [Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska] operation seen?”

Manafort began as an advisor to the Trump campaign in March 2016 and became the chairman in late June.

Thanks to journalist Jim Rutenberg, who pulled together testimony given both to the Mueller investigation and the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, transcripts from the impeachment hearings, and recent memoirs, we now know that in 2016, Russian operatives presented Manafort a plan “for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland, where Kremlin-armed, -funded, and -directed ‘separatists’ were waging a two-year-old shadow war that had left nearly 10,000 dead.”

In exchange for weakening NATO, undermining the U.S. stance in favor of Ukraine in its attempt to throw off the Russians who had invaded in 2014, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to help Trump win the White House. The Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 established that Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Kilimnik, whom it described as a “Russian intelligence officer,” acted as a liaison between Manafort and Deripaska while Manafort ran Trump’s campaign.

Now, ten years later, Putin has invaded Ukraine in an effort that when it began looked much like the one his operatives suggested to Manafort in 2016, Trump has said he would “encourage Russia to do whatever they hell they want” to NATO allies that don’t commit 2% of their gross domestic product to their militaries, and Trump MAGA Republicans are refusing to pass a measure to support Ukraine in its effort to throw off Russia’s invasion.

The day after the violence of February 18, 2014, in Ukraine, then–vice president Joe Biden called Yanukovych to “express grave concern regarding the crisis on the streets” and to urge him “to pull back government forces and to exercise maximum restraint.”

Ten years later, Russia has been at open war with Ukraine for nearly two years and has just regained control of the key town of Avdiivka because Ukrainian troops lack ammunition. President Joe Biden is warning MAGA Republicans that “[t]he failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.”

“History is watching,” he said.

for real, thanks for this. I think it is some very relevant historical context to consider here.

the mentions of the Trump goons also connected to this situation is particularly curious, and concerning.

I wasn't familiar with Heather Cox Richardson, but a cursory search suggests she's legit. Among books she's written are titles such as "The Death of Reconstruction" and "How the South Won the Civil War," but I don't think that's to suggest she's some kind of Confederate shill. If anything, her willingness to view history thru the lens of class struggles plugs here as maybe even a bit of a Qusdahl (EEEEEEK)

it sucks that the best articles may be published not by "mainstream media," but on relatively more obscure places like Substack, which are often behind paywalls anyway (hi there, Seymour Hersh).

if there IS some slant to that article at least, I think it'd be that she suggests the post-Maidan militancy in Ukraine was the work of only Russian-backed seperatists, when I've otherwise heard it covered as more of a two-to-tango conflict between Russian-backed separatists in the east and U.S. backed militants in the west. (And the general “Russian foreign meddling bad American foreign meddling good” kinda vibe)

but again, thank you for sharing! This is the historical context that helps us better understand these things in real time, Japhy's views notwithstanding.

[ousdahl]

those who don’t learn from history…

How the US broke Kosovo and what that means for Ukraine

Washington's track record suggests it's better at fighting wars than dealing with what follows.

https://www.politico.eu/article/how-the ... r-ukraine/


long ass article that mostly geeks out to things like energy and infrastructure contracts. But in a nutshell, it suggests while the U.S. is always quick to fight a war, the interest in the wake of the wars is less in building strong nations, and more in letting Evil Rich People loot the places like they're just another get rich quick scheme...plus building military bases there too

oh, and Kosovo has lots of folks named Clinton and Madeline, and also almost named a lake after Trump LOL

[KUTradition]

[ousdahl]

Those who don’t learn from history…





…post tee-ball gifs instead?

[KUTradition]

you had your chance and chose to act like a child

i’m done engaging with you in a serious way

i thought i made that clear

[ousdahl]

Sorry dude, I’ll continue to work on not acting like a child. It’s not something I “choose” to do.

Also, there may be some irony to that gif, cuz it looks like the kid at least still gets the ball into play

[TDub]

no you won't.

yes it is.

way better than you.

[Sparko]

Kosovo loved the genocide? Did I miss something? Once a war is over, winning the peace is always difficult. Don't always have an Alexander Hamilton resetting the debt and pushing you into constititional stability

[jfish26]

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.c ... ry-17-2024

Although few Americans paid much attention at the time, the events of February 18, 2014, in Ukraine would turn out to be a linchpin in how the United States ended up where it is a decade later.

On that day ten years ago, after months of what started as peaceful protests, Ukrainians occupied government buildings and marched on parliament to remove Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych from office. After the escalating violence resulted in many civilian casualties, Yanukovych fled to Russia, and the Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, returned power to Ukraine’s constitution.

The ouster of Yanukovych meant that American political consultant Paul Manafort was out of a job.

Manafort had worked with Yanukovych since 2004. In that year, the Russian-backed politician appeared to have won the presidency of Ukraine. But Yanukovych was rumored to have ties to organized crime, and the election was full of fraud, including the poisoning of a key rival who wanted to break ties with Russia and align Ukraine with Europe. The U.S. government and other international observers did not recognize the election results, while Russia’s president Vladimir Putin congratulated Yanukovych even before the results were officially announced.

The government voided the election and called for a do-over.

To rehabilitate his reputation, Yanukovych turned to Manafort, who was already working for a young Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska worried that Ukraine would break free of Russian influence and was eager to prove useful to Vladimir Putin. At the time, Putin was trying to consolidate power in Russia, where oligarchs were monopolizing formerly publicly held industries and replacing the region’s communist leaders. In 2004, American journalist Paul Klebnikov, the chief editor of Forbes in Russia, was murdered as he tried to call attention to what the oligarchs were doing.

With Manafort’s help, Yanukovych finally won the presidency in 2010 and began to turn Ukraine toward Russia. In November 2013, Yanukovych suddenly reversed Ukraine’s course toward cooperation with the European Union, refusing to sign a trade agreement and instead taking a $3 billion loan from Russia. Ukrainian students protested the decision, and the anger spread quickly. In 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power and he fled to Russia.

Manafort, who had borrowed money from Deripaska and still owed him about $17 million, had lost his main source of income.

Shortly after Yanukovych’s ouster, Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and annexed it, prompting the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia itself and also on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs, prohibiting them from doing business in U.S. territories. These sanctions were intended to weaken Russia and froze the assets of key Russian oligarchs.

By 2016, Manafort’s longtime friend and business partner Roger Stone—they had both worked on Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign—was advising Trump’s floundering presidential campaign, and Manafort was happy to step in to help remake it. He did not take a salary but reached out to Deripaska through one of his Ukrainian business partners, Konstantin Kilimnik, immediately after landing the job, asking him, “How do we use to get whole? Has OVD [Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska] operation seen?”

Manafort began as an advisor to the Trump campaign in March 2016 and became the chairman in late June.

Thanks to journalist Jim Rutenberg, who pulled together testimony given both to the Mueller investigation and the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, transcripts from the impeachment hearings, and recent memoirs, we now know that in 2016, Russian operatives presented Manafort a plan “for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland, where Kremlin-armed, -funded, and -directed ‘separatists’ were waging a two-year-old shadow war that had left nearly 10,000 dead.”

In exchange for weakening NATO, undermining the U.S. stance in favor of Ukraine in its attempt to throw off the Russians who had invaded in 2014, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to help Trump win the White House. The Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 established that Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Kilimnik, whom it described as a “Russian intelligence officer,” acted as a liaison between Manafort and Deripaska while Manafort ran Trump’s campaign.

Now, ten years later, Putin has invaded Ukraine in an effort that when it began looked much like the one his operatives suggested to Manafort in 2016, Trump has said he would “encourage Russia to do whatever they hell they want” to NATO allies that don’t commit 2% of their gross domestic product to their militaries, and Trump MAGA Republicans are refusing to pass a measure to support Ukraine in its effort to throw off Russia’s invasion.

The day after the violence of February 18, 2014, in Ukraine, then–vice president Joe Biden called Yanukovych to “express grave concern regarding the crisis on the streets” and to urge him “to pull back government forces and to exercise maximum restraint.”

Ten years later, Russia has been at open war with Ukraine for nearly two years and has just regained control of the key town of Avdiivka because Ukrainian troops lack ammunition. President Joe Biden is warning MAGA Republicans that “[t]he failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.”

“History is watching,” he said.

for real, thanks for this. I think it is some very relevant historical context to consider here.

the mentions of the Trump goons also connected to this situation is particularly curious, and concerning.

I wasn't familiar with Heather Cox Richardson, but a cursory search suggests she's legit. Among books she's written are titles such as "The Death of Reconstruction" and "How the South Won the Civil War," but I don't think that's to suggest she's some kind of Confederate shill. If anything, her willingness to view history thru the lens of class struggles plugs here as maybe even a bit of a Qusdahl (EEEEEEK)

it sucks that the best articles may be published not by "mainstream media," but on relatively more obscure places like Substack, which are often behind paywalls anyway (hi there, Seymour Hersh).

if there IS some slant to that article at least, I think it'd be that she suggests the post-Maidan militancy in Ukraine was the work of only Russian-backed seperatists, when I've otherwise heard it covered as more of a two-to-tango conflict between Russian-backed separatists in the east and U.S. backed militants in the west. (And the general “Russian foreign meddling bad American foreign meddling good” kinda vibe)

but again, thank you for sharing! This is the historical context that helps us better understand these things in real time, Japhy's views notwithstanding.

I’ve posted her analyses here many times. She is not a political writer, but a historian. It is true that, for at least the last few years, her focus has been autocracy/MAGA.

[TDub]

I'm starting to understand Qs position, I mean at least the Russians are rational people with a solid core to their strategic approach.

"aT LeAst He's wiLLiNg tO TaLK AbOUt PeAcE"

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/r ... 39902.html

[ousdahl]

the...standard?

[jfish26]

I'm starting to understand Qs position, I mean at least the Russians are rational people with a solid core to their strategic approach.

"aT LeAst He's wiLLiNg tO TaLK AbOUt PeAcE"

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/r ... 39902.html

Now now, I understand that there is something disconcerting about a "former Russian president" who is a "close ally of Vladimir Putin" doing some nukey saber-rattling if Russia has to give back one inch of what it's taken in Ukraine, BUT have you considered (1) that Putin has said, out loud, the word "peace," and (2) the United States' deplorable internment of Japanese citizens during WW2?

[jfish26]

the...standard?

You haven't found the bottom yet on this, I guess. It's literally the guy's own damn words.

https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/448

[TDub]

the...standard?

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/london-evening-standard/


I know it's not straight from the mouth of Sunflower Hazel Meadow from crooked creek saloon...but...its rated reasonably well.

[ousdahl]

I had previously never heard of it.

the threat of nukes is terrifying tho. That would be one of the most heinous war crimes since the United States did it to Japanese citizens during WW2!

but, if we're gonna assume Russians are lying when they talk peace but are totally telling the truth when they talk nukes, then at the very least, lemme go for some devil's advocate downer pity here.

I once again, and can only imagine maybe even you guys too, might like to see some sort of strategy offered by the west to counter this threat, that might be potentially more effective than:

1. championing piecemeal weapons support to Ukraine which has so far yielded significant Ukrainian territorial gains for Russia

2. whining about not championing enough piecemeal weapons support to Ukraine which has so far yielded significant territorial gains for Russia but at a nominally faster pace (btw buh bye Avdiivka)

[jfish26]

I had previously never heard of it.

the threat of nukes is terrifying tho. That would be one of the most heinous war crimes since the United States did it to Japanese citizens during WW2!

but, if we're gonna assume Russians are lying when they talk peace but are totally telling the truth when they talk nukes, then at the very least, lemme go for some devil's advocate downer pity here.

I once again, and can only imagine maybe even you guys too, might like to see some sort of strategy offered by the west to counter this threat, that might be potentially more effective than:

1. championing piecemeal weapons support to Ukraine which has so far yielded significant Ukrainian territorial gains for Russia

2. whining about not championing enough piecemeal weapons support to Ukraine which has so far yielded significant territorial gains for Russia but at a nominally faster pace (btw buh bye Avdiivka)

You don't need to have heard of anything, I posted a primary source. You can read his words for yourself with a quick translation.

You also continue to cloud simple conversations on discrete issues with irrelevant nonsense.

The aggressor in this war on civilians has thoroughly convinced you that an equitable outcome in this unilateral war of aggression is for the target of the aggression to concede territory and people to the aggressor, against a pinky-swear by the aggressor that it will totally, definitely stop there.

If I may: https://fliphtml5.com/drmcj/eesc/basic

[TDub]

what in the actual fuck are you talking about.

the only time they "talk peace" is when they demand being given land that they invaded! That's NOT talking peace. HeyZeus cristo this isn't that confusing.

[jfish26]

what in the actual fuck are you talking about.

the only time they "talk peace" is when they demand being given land that they invaded! That's NOT talking peace. HeyZeus cristo this isn't that confusing.

It's a neat trick, man!

The guy at QT looked at me funny, and I heard QT overcharged someone last week. Can I go in, beat the shit out of every employee there, and say I'll stop so long as they agree to give me free fountain sodas for life? That's all I'm asking.

[ousdahl]

here we are at the point in the war thread in which I'm given the suggestion to make the effort to go translate Russian propaganda

and now wishing for some strategy beyond the one that has yielded significant Ukrainian territory gains for Russia is "irrelevant nonsense"