Military Events in Syria and Iraq Thread #4

the classy ones wouldn't remind them of home

 

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"Mssrs. Petrov and Boshirov must immediately surrender themselves for trial, or we'll reveal all their kinks to the world."

They probably made her pee on them while wearing an American flag.

 

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Missed this above - the point remains pertinent:

It was - three weeks, actually. And then came the hard part.

The Soviets tried that already. That's how the Taliban came to be. Israel did something similar, in Palestine - with similar consequences.

Every generation seemingly has to learn the lesson for itself: bullying is incompetent governance. Putin is not going to be able to control Syria, and he may not be able to leave if it's not under control. It's possible. He might be bogged down, already.

 

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The Soviets were brutal in Afghanistan but I don't see how it was attempted genocide, they had local allies they tried to install in power and couldn't stabilize them. As I understand it the USSR took something like 20,000 dead and 50,000 wounded over a period of 10 years, that's like a single day of WW2. Seems to me the Soviet failure was more a matter of financial collapse and government mismanagement than an overwhelming military defeat from mountain people.

Nonetheless...

All I can say is that despite my personal doubts, I really hope you're right, because nothing would be better for global security right now than to have Russia bogged down and paying a heavy price for their adventures.

 

if there is one thing life has taught me is that the difference between fantasy and reality is in reality evil can and does win all too often.

 

In the reputational system I have proposed they would be unable to do this.

I considered negotiations between Russia, Iran, and Turkey. I did not consider any negotiations with Kurds. If they are hard to handle or irrelevant is not the point, it is irrelevant for the negotiations between Russia, Iran, and Turkey, because there is no difference between them that there should be no Kurdish state.

The Russians living there are Russians based on their self-identification, and at least if they have preserved their Soviet passports (but I think even Ukrainian passports have it, I don't know) by what is written in the passport as nationality. And, no, I have given completely different explanations why Russia has not violated any international law, and why it is not an annexation.

No, they were not enthusiastic. Been there in communist time, at an elite university - and have learned there songs in traditions of the White movement, read underground literature, and heard Russian underground rock. Party members were considered and despised as pure careerists.

And, no, they were dominant only in numbers of citizens, the leading roles among the communists have been played by other nationalities. Guess yourself by which, or look into history books.

This does not change the fact that Russians may be citizens of Ukraine, the Baltic states, even US or Germany. They don't stop being Russians.
And there was no annexation. There was independence of Crimea, as the result of a coup in Kiev and the breakdown of the constitutional order in the Ukraine, and then Crimea has joined Russia based on a referendum of the population of Crimea.

There was no reason to mention them, given that the point I made was that your "Millions of Tatars were killed by Stalin and his successors" is BS. That this Georgian communist did horrible things I do not question at all, I simply correct your BS.

Nonsense. New states do not appear by international consultations and approval, but by the facts on the ground, who controls the territory.

There was no attacking Albanians, there were police actions against some Albanian terrorist groups. Kosovo's fate has been decided by a NATO aggression, which included bombing civilians in Belgrad, without any approval of the UNSC, thus, also without any support by international law. It is now a big US base, surrounded by a mafia-ruled territory, with the mafia paid some money by the US.

I have informed you that the Budapest Memorandum was not ratified, and therefore it is nothing but a political declaration without any legal power. If you think they have been ratified, so what, the burden of proof is on your side.

 

There are significant differences between them concerning matters in which the Kurds have great influence.
- - - - -

Living and learning about the rich and powerful.
(You clearly haven't seen how organized crime operates - or major industry.)

Ok - energetic and effective. Maybe not the elite college kids, but that's trivial.

And in the military, and in industry, and in the police, and so forth. The language was Russian, the currency was Russian, the capital was Moscow.

Crimea was annexed by Russia, using military force and installation of a client government after a several year campaign of destabilizing the Ukrainian political system and wrecking the country. We in America are just now getting a look at some of that, through the involvement of people like Paul Manafort. That happened, right in front of you. Children's stories of independence by magic and happy liberated Russians voting their will are for other venues.

Yes, they do. At least, they'd better.
Although if they don't understand that, it would be wise to keep an eye on them - the US has allowed too many in, if they are going to undermine their adopted country in Russia's interest.

 

I will admit that I misunderstood the casualty figures described by my original source and the way they were tabulated. Doesn't change the fact that the Crimean Tatar population today represents only a tiny fraction of those who were originally repressed and expelled. Most Tatars and their descendants have never been allowed back to the territory especially under Soviet rule, those who've been allowed back mostly can't afford the cost of returning, and most of the population dies young from lack of food and health care while living in Russian Siberian exile. Bottom line is there would be millions of them in Crimea today if you weren't spreading your toxic waste there to replace them.

If the Crimean Tatar population was twice as big 200 years ago, you cannot say that Russians settled the territory peacefully, can you? And if Russia didn't settle the land peacefully, that it means it owes the Crimean Tatars financial and territorial compensation for the loss of their homeland, correct?

So in other words, might is right? The current elected government of Ukraine controls Kiev, do you acknowledge that it rightfully belongs to them?

But you just said territory belongs to whoever controls it, right? NATO controls Kosovo because the Russian army and slavic nationalists are too weak to do anything about it. How is that not fair according to you?

I'm not a Russian lawyer, I see no info anywhere on that treaty not having been part of Russian law prior to the Euromaidan. I stand by my assertion that Russia has violated its own treaty by invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea until you can show some evidence to the contrary.

Careful, he's going to label you a Nazi for not taking Russian citizens in and letting them treat your country like a beachfront dacha. My sentiments are similar to what you express here- anyone born in a country who identifies with that country has the right to be part of that country with full citizenship rights. On the other hand if someone just wants to exploit compassionate immigration laws, dual citizenship and civil rights for the benefit of a hostile expansionist Motherland thousands of miles away, regardless of where their parents shat them out, they should get lost and go be Russian back in Russia.

U.S. hardly has this problem aside from a few Russian Mafia factions in the big cities. Russia could send every single Russian speaker on the planet to the US and they'd simply melt into the background as an irrelevant minority. The Baltic states have it far worse.

 

And this is false too. A large number of them returned to Crimea, the size of Crimean Tatars now and before the deportation are comparable.

Why would I like to say such things? The tsarist empire was a classical empire, it has conquered a lot of territory during wars.

No. History is history. Essentially, all nations living today on Earth have conquered their land in wars. Compensation for something done hundreds of years ago by the grandfathers is nonsense. Or a variant of punishing family members, which is a quite fascist idea which I do not support at all.

At least I do not make claims about them occupying Russian land. Even if the whole region known as Novorussia was Russian land for centuries. But, indeed, might makes right is the nature of the state in its relation with other states. The other element is contract law.

It is not fair according to the official Western ideology. That's all. The Russian elites have understood this, and that they will be the next, and decided that they would better prepare against a NATO aggression. Which is what they did.

You know, my own ideology is that all states are immoral, and based on might makes right. So, I do not propose any ideological system which justifies actions of states. This does not prevent me from fighting the propaganda lies they use to cheat the sheeple.

Feel free to stand by believing in aliens, invisible pink unicorns, or whatever. I see no reason to correct every fantasy of fascists about things which do not exist.

Just to clarify: The rich and powerful may be able to force people to sign some contracts. What they cannot do is to prevent the distribution of information about contract breaking, if it is organized in the way I have proposed - a distribution system as simple as good old USENET, with information in it in a predefined format with electronic signatures of the relevant participants - of the contract and of the acceptance of a particular arbiter by the contracting sides as part of the contract, and of the decision of the arbiter by the arbiter.

What is trivial is that these are your propaganda fantasies. The education in the Soviet Union was free, students even got some small but sufficient stipend and a place to sleep in some dormitory, so that they were, from their social status, average. What made them elite were the requirements in the entry exams and the quality of the education you got there.

A propaganda fantasy. There was a new government, but elected by those who had the right to elect it, the parliamentarians elected in the democratic elections a few years ago. There was no Russian attempt to destabilize or wrecking the Ukraine at all. This is what the US and the EU have done during the Euromaidan.

Manafort was an American guy supporting the election campaign of Yanukovich. The Russians did not pay him. Yanukovich was a figure of the Donetsk oligarch Achmetov, who resides now in the part controlled by the Ukrainian fascists. So, according to your own criteria, both (Achmetov and Yanukovich) are Ukrainians, not Russians.

Wow, CptBork was almost right when he said "Careful, he's going to label you a Nazi for not taking Russian citizens in and letting them treat your country like a beachfront dacha."

If you argue that the Russians which become American citizens have to give up what makes them Russians (language, culture, various connections, family ties and so on, to Russia) I would indeed call you a fascist. And the anti-Russian hysteria in the West becomes, indeed, more and more fascist, with fighting now even the Russian criminals which run away from Putin with their robbed money to the save West not because they support Putin (they obviously don't) but because they are Russians. (The "Ukrainization of the West" is already an established meme in the runet, and describes this process too.)

 

..and how is this communicated except via large coms infrastructure owned by who?

 

In western democracies you can speak Klingon or any other language you please, play whatever style of music you like, and you can eat borsht or bratwurst or anything else that fits within the health code. You can do all those things and celebrate Russian culture and heritage without serving as an agent of the Kremlin or trying to undermine the pluralistic values that allow you and your ancestors to be whatever they want to be in the new country. Those who want to serve as Kremlin agents or undermine the liberal pluralistic values of their host societies have the right to go do that in Russia, but not in the West.

As for Russians fleeing Putin and being targeted by western governments, do you still include Sergei Skripal in that category? How did Britain manage to identify two Russian "tourists" and trace them all the way from Skripal's house on the day of the attack back to their arrival at Gatwick Airport, only to discover even to Putin's personal "shock" that one of them was in fact a military colonel that Putin personally decorated with the highest national honour?

Skripal aside, it's well known that Putin and his inner circle hide their stolen wealth amongst the Russian diaspora and that not all of them are hostile to him by any means.

 

Britain should immediately demand verified DNA and fingerprint samples from Col. Chepiga to match with samples from the hotel where he nailed the hooker. This guy's going to end up being a serious liability to Putin, hopefully he'll get knocked off by his own comrades as his reward for a job well done.

 

Via encrypted messages. If the states do not prevent this, there will be always sufficient providers who offer such communication channels.

All you need are a lot of people interested to get the actual list of contract breakers. They set up their own server at home, which connects to some of those other people interested in this list, who also have installed a server at home. You would need a very sophisticated centralized censorship system like the Chinese Great Wall to prevent such use of the internet. So, all you need for this is someone who provides internet connections without forbidding encryption. A free market will certainly give this.

Fine. It would be even better if this would be not only your propaganda but reality.

And, once you can define "serve as Kremlin agents" and "undermine the liberal pluralistic values" as you like, freedom of speech is a vague memory of past times. And you have actually more freedom of speech in Russia.

Of course. The same argumentation holds. There is no plausible Russian motive (if Russians would have liked to kill him, they could have done this while he was in Russian prison. The most plausible motive have those related with the Steele dossier against Trump - he was in close connection with them.

First of all, this "information" is from Bellingcat, thus, nothing one would take seriously. But even if it would be true: You think this is difficult if you want to fake a "murder by Putin"? Get some list of people one could plausibly sell in the media as such GRU guys, wait until one of them visits Britain, follow him, if he by accident visits Salisbury, murder Skripal.

Yes, the greatest enemy of the actual Western powers hides all his stolen wealth in banks easily accessible to his enemies.

Britain is not in a position to demand something. They can present the Russian police the evidence they have, and then the Russians decide if they start a process against this guy. Such is the law. Russian cannot extradite its own citizens anyway. But if all what is presented is http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/0...og-to-hide-the-holes-in-its-skripal-case.html nobody in Russia will care about this.

 

But since I don't, you're going to have to find some other line of bs.

Russians paid him, gave him big loans, etc, apparently for his services in corrupting the politics of Ukraine in Russian interests.
That seems to have been what he offered in signing unto the Trump campaign, also.

How does that make the Russian role in the Soviet Union a propaganda fantasy?

Sure they can. They simply have to make the consequences severe, or cooperation with themselves rewarding. Organized crime does that routinely.

And that's not the central issue. The central issue is whether information about contract breaking would even matter. It won't. Your notion that people will avoid making deals with the rich and powerful because they sometimes renege on them with impunity is naive to the point of obliviousness. Look at the way people line up to deal with Russian oligarchs - even with examples like Magnitsky famous in the news.

Assad did not buddy up to Putin in ignorance, not knowing his record of betrayals and so forth.

 

No, you are missing the point.
The internet requires more than just providers. It requires infrastructure, cabling, satellites, towers, international treaties, primary nodes etc.
Like interstate and international highways, sea ports, bridges, rail links, etc
other wise called long term infrastructure, run and owned by who exactly?

Water, sewerage, drainage, national military, police etc. Who would own these organizations?
Do you think full privatization of the national/international long term infrastructure would lead to beneficial results based on your faith in human nature?

Just ask your self:
Where would my dark web be if not for the amazing infrastructure built to support it?

 

What an amazing statement! Just talk to the LGBT community or government opposition parties about it....for example..
You seek a reputation based system yet fully support the exact opposite in Putin's pseudo elected government.
How would a reputation based system work in Russia?
"the ones with the bigger gun do Russia run...."

 

According to some conservative estimates, Putin has spent between 3.5 and 4.5 billion USD on the campaign in Syria.

Do you think he is doing it as a favor to Assad?

 

Achmetov who was the main figure behind Yanukovich may be Russian in my understanding (Russian speaking citizen of Donezk) but is in your understanding an Ukrainian, moreover, an oligarch living now in the Ukrainian-controlled part. In that election, Putin is known to have supported Timoshenko - which is logical, given that she was corrupt and had made a gas deal with Russia on conditions very comfortable for Russia.

It simply clarifies that what I have seen there was not some small elite group distracted from the people, but simply a collection of very intelligent but otherwise normal Russian people. So, again, for all the people I have seen with only a few exceptions the communist leaders were only figures to make jokes about, and their heroes were song writers who have written songs which had either nothing to do with any politics at all or were at least in some aspects anti-communist.

Ok, organized crime can hold some slaves. But what is the point of this possibility? As if slavery would have been abandoned if it would have been efficient for the slaveholders. Forcing people into contracts is today made by big firms using the government, via regulations which forbid the customers to buy things from their competitors.

It would, as long as people have some remaining freedom of contract, they will not use it to sign contracts with known contract breakers.

Why should people care about propaganda news? Today they have no real information about reputation, and therefore they have to rely on other things.

Which betrayals (beyond Western propaganda)?

No. The number fits into what was roughly declared - it can be paid out of the standard military budget, the part used anyway for training, with real combat being the best training imaginable, and for testing weapons, again, with tests on a real battle field being the best tests imaginable. Beyond this, it gives even additional income in arms sales: Interested people all over the world have compared how the T90 compares to Abrams and Leo. The main aim was to prevent the Libyan scenario, even more a strong power base for the IS, who openly wants to control the territories in Russia with Muslim population too. Bombing Chechen terrorists in Syria is much easier than fighting them in Russia.

Who cares about LGBT? The US has also communities excluded from freedom of speech. One of them was even part of the LGBT community, up to the moment when the US offered them some political support in the UN in exchange for their expulsion. And the opposition has all what it needs to distribute their opinion. Even with government support: Echo Moskvy, a leading anti-Putin paper, is owned and paid by Gasprom.

It would work there as good as everywhere, if it would exist. Even better, because Russia has yet a much stronger moral support for personal honor in the population.

In other words, the good old argument that without the state there would be no roads. Boring, and you can take almost every piece of libertarian literature to find the standard counterarguments.

Just to clarify: Libertarians would clearly oppose a society which is not able to build basic infrastructure. They reject the thesis that a state is necessary for this. And this has nothing to do with faith in human nature, simply with self-interest.

 

And what everyone sees in the historical record is what the rest of the normal Russian people - the ones not in elite universities, say - were doing. There's no contradiction.

That's not true. That's the naive part - again: look at how reputational systems work in the real world.

And they are all bs. Because without government there are and will be, in fact, no roads, and no sewer systems, and no fire departments, no schools for poor people, no health care for poor people, and no protection or good management of public resources, and so forth. Libertarians are often idiots, in this respect - they believe very silly things about human behavior.

The hard part comes when they end up backing people like Putin, and Assad, and despots generally, simply because they can't tell the difference between different governance.

 

Of course, you can always blame Russians for communist crimes, given that communism has controlled the Russian territory for more than 70 years.

As explained many times, actually reputational systems exclude most of the people, so that only a small enough community remains. Those outside have no chance to participate.

What is actually in the internet, slowly developing, is yet very inferior, because it does not focus on the main issue, which is on holding contracts.

LOL.

Once truly libertarian-controlled regions are not yet available, nothing remains but preference for the least evil.

My preference for Putin is, btw, restricted only as far as he is fighting the US-controlled globalist world government project. Which would create a totalitarian world state, without even the freedom to choose the least evil state to emigrate.