'The West has the means to help Ukraine finish the war' - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15243515
late wrote:Lying is not going to help you.

He did the same in Syria, modern warfare is not that crude. It's also beyond what the Russian military can do.


Dude, NATO phucked up Afghanistan , Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq ( just to name the few)....USA/NATO's "War on terror" and "humanitarian interventions" rendered these countries into stateless amorphous crap and left the physical and political scorched earth.
Destroyed millions of lives including hundreds of thousands children ( which your camp considers as worth dying for your agenda).

You should have realised by now-when you release Zelensky from your leash, you will release Ukrainian people from suffering.
That's the very best mean , you NATO intruders can apply to help Ukraine.
#15243667
Independent_Srpska wrote:Dude, NATO phucked up Afghanistan , Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq ( just to name the few)....USA/NATO's "War on terror" and "humanitarian interventions" rendered these countries into stateless amorphous crap.

That's a disgusting lie. Iraq has been a huge success sine 2003. Its economy has grown enormously. Life measures have improved. The success of Iraq is something the liberal media are desperate to hide .
#15243671
Rich wrote:That's a disgusting lie

Lawmakers Arrested In Kurdistan Protests; Sadr Gives The Judiciary A Week To Dissolve Parliament; Baghdad Braces For Framework, Sadrist Demonstrations; Kurdistan Election Delayed – On August 6, protests demanding jobs and payment of delayed public servants’ salaries erupted in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil. Security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters, resulting in injuries. The New Generation party said security forces arrested six of its lawmakers who participated in the protests, among 600 people arrested across the region, while a press freedom group said 11 journalists were also arrested. On August 1 ...

OCHA, Iraq Security and Humanitarian Monitor: August 4 – 11, 2022


:lol:
#15243677
Rich wrote:
That's a disgusting lie. Iraq has been a huge success sine 2003. Its economy has grown enormously. Life measures have improved. The success of Iraq is something the liberal media are desperate to hide.



The truths is in between, and a lot more complicated than either of you will like.

I just got up, I may do a post on this later.
#15244304
Rich wrote: Iraq has been a huge success sine 2003.


You mean since the USA stopped sanctions and left the country.

Lybia apparently is now also on the road to recovery.

Syria however is still occupied (the USA blocks the oil and the agriculture) and down in the mud.

Funny how not being sanctioned does wonders to a country. Seems to be a pattern of sorts.

By the way, according to international law, sanctions are illegal unless ordered by the UN.
#15244713
I agree with most of the above, however:
Negotiator wrote: [...] By the way, according to international law, sanctions are illegal unless ordered by the UN.

Really? Where is this written?
"The use of force is prohibited under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter but there is no general prohibition on coercive economic sanctions under international law."
We can agree that sanctions often hurt the wrong people. In the case of some russsian oligarchs they are justified imho. Also stopping providing e.g. Russia with military equipment or technology to support said military. At least in the situation as it is now.

In a general context:
Why does Russia build entirely military stuff and almost nothing else? All the budget evaporates into the cloud of weapons and military. Even the US are building and researching all kinds of other things, and even China does.
Art and science are decoupled from the small reigning class as it was under the tsar. Is the russian civilian society extinct?
#15244714
Wels wrote:I agree with most of the above, however:

Really? Where is this written?
"The use of force is prohibited under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter but there is no general prohibition on coercive economic sanctions under international law."
We can agree that sanctions often hurt the wrong people. In the case of some russsian oligarchs they are justified imho. Also stopping providing e.g. Russia with military equipment or technology to support said military. At least in the situation as it is now.

In a general context:
Why does Russia build entirely military stuff and almost nothing else? All the budget evaporates into the cloud of weapons and military. Even the US are building and researching all kinds of other things, and even China does.
Art and science are decoupled from the small reigning class as it was under the tsar. Is the russian civilian society extinct?

Not so much extinct as never existed. Russia, from at least the time of Peter the Great onwards, has always fulfilled Mussolini’s definition of fascism - “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” Nicholas II, for example, was the sole source of political and social power throughout the Russian Empire. Not even the Russian aristocracy had any political power. It was no accident that Rasputin was murdered by an aristocrat; violence and assassination was the only route open to anyone if they wanted to have any political influence whatsoever. This is why, even among the upper classes, political terrorism had become respectable by the mid-19th century. Assassinating Tsarist officials had become a form of virtue-signalling among the upper-middle classes of Tsarist Russia. This is also why the Bolsheviks became state-worshipping “priests of terror” once they gained power in 1917- everything in Russian history and culture had led to it. And Putin is following in that long tradition.
#15244839
Wels wrote:
Really? Where is this written?


Apparently I was wrong about that.

Cant find anything definite in the UN Charter https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text

And heres a (seemingly) good text from a hopefully neutral source: https://www.epw.in/engage/article/do-sa ... tional-law

According to the later article, certain sanctions are definitely breaking international law. Like the ones under Clinton/Albright that killed half a million children in Iraq.

But the core reason is that sanctions are siege warfare. Putting sanctions on a country is a declaration of war.




Wels wrote:Why does Russia build entirely military stuff and almost nothing else?


Why is that a problem ? The USA does exactly the same.
#15244898
Negotiator wrote:But the core reason is that sanctions are siege warfare. Putting sanctions on a country is a declaration of war.

No it isn't. It's a deeply unfriendly act, but it's not a declaration of war. A blockade, in which nothing gets in or out, not even food or medical supplies, would be an act of war. If you blockade a nation, then its troops will immediate start shooting at you, and nobody would blame them.

Why is that a problem ? The USA does exactly the same.

Not to the same extent, @Negotiator. The USA can out-spend its rivals, of course, but its military budget, as a proportion of its GDP, is not unreasonable. It's held in check by its civil society; most people would rather have decent roads and bridges, schools and hospitals, rather than tanks and missiles. The Russian government is not held in check by its civil society, which barely exists. It therefore spends as much of its GDP on its armed forces as it damn well pleases. The peasants will just have to do without schools or hospitals.
#15245060
Negotiator wrote:Apparently I was wrong about that.
Cant find anything definite in the UN Charter https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text [...]

Wels wrote:
"Why does Russia build entirely military stuff and almost nothing else?"

Why is that a problem ? The USA does exactly the same.

No. As Potemkin wrote the relation between GDP and military spending is within "normal parameters" and reasonable. The USA export a lot more than Russia does, the latter exports natural resouces and weapons, predominantly military and almost no civilian stuff. Education or having independent thoughts is being regarded as weak, or brushed off as "woke" or "globohomo".

The financial surplus Russia gets from its sells, and taxes, go to the military, military research, and vanishes in the pockets of Putin's cleptocracy (read: oligarchs). Social assets and welfare, like veteran's support or national health services are chronically underfunded, and basic standards years away from modern healthcare in the rest of the world.

OT:
In the 1990ies Russia was a failed state, but it was Gorbatchev who had to take the brunt of decade-long soviet misgovernment, he was not the creator.
He introduced more freedom and some capitalistic ideas, which were then earned and brought to fruit by Putin, if only for a short time. Putin soon went back to soviet-style funding, the only difference being the NEW oligarchs do not have to be in some party, being HIS friend and supporting HIM is enough.
Oligarchs that do not, or even dare to be critical, die, at home or abroad.
#15247977
Wels wrote:No.


Yes.

The only industry that really still produces something in the USA is the military industry. Thats because they are technologically so far ahead of everyone else that their high prices dont matter.

Thats the only constellation in which the USA still can competitively produce products. If they are technologically far ahead of everybody else.

Thats why the USA has service exports - stuff like internet services (for example Google, YouTube, Amazon), medication, etc.

But nobody wants, for example, american cars. This was very different in the past.

And this is by the way no accident, but a logical conclusion of the US dollar being at the same time the countries currency and the world currency.

This double use means that the value of the US dollar isnt linked to the productivity of the USA. Therefore the value of the US dollar is too high. Imports are very cheap, but exports are too expensive.

As a consequence, the USA has deindustrialized, and has imported more than it exports since many decades.

The moment the US dollar falls out of use as world currency, its value will drop. Then immediately imports will be more expensive, but exports will be cheaper. Which means the USA will be able to reindustrialize, in the long term. In the short term however there will be a crisis, and it might be quite bad.


I didnt say Russia is in a good place, only that USA and Russia are the world leaders of military exports.

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