Things that President Trump won’t do as when meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki:
Demand that Russia withdraw from Ukraine and renounce its illegal claim to Crimea. President Truman did similar, successfully.
Cease backing the murderous Assad regime in Syria and work for a diplomatic outcome that protects the rights and security of all Syrians. President Kennedy successfully took on Khruschev about Laos.
Actually push for stronger human rights across the world, as President Ford did successfully with Russia and many other countries – in Helsinki.
Push Russia to stop supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The previous U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis had the guts to do so. No sign of the President pushing this now.
Halt provocative military actions on NATO’s periphery and harassment of United States personnel in Moscow. Many U.S. Presidents have done this successfully, none more boldly than Truman throughout the Berlin airlift and its consequences.
Limit nuclear and ballistic arms through binding treaty. President Nixon did sterling work here with Khruschev.
And indeed with Brezhnev.
Gain full cooperation to pressure Kim Jong-Un to denuclearise completely. Since Obama could successfully negotiate with Russia to denuclearise Iran, there must be something useful Trump can do.
… or face actual consequences. Because that is the kind of real agenda that U.S. Presidents have delivered for quite some time, with significant and positive results.
I always enjoy listening to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov give the Russian point of view. He is like the voice of sanity compared to what is going on from the US side.
Thank you ep for that link, a very good watch and yes a breath of common sense and honesty in the morass of crap in which we are drowning.
Advantage …. does whataboutism not work both ways?
[lprent: He is as entitled to put up a viewpoint as you are. Just be careful about what you say about our authors as opposed to what they wrote about. I have a particular viewpoint on that and I’m seldom shy about delivering it. ]
It’s important to note that the Ukraine armed forces are riven with ulta-right wing neo Nazis – supplied with arms from Israel which is acting on behalf of the US
One final point. Putin reminded everyone in his 2018 Victory Day speech that it was Russia that defeated the Nazis (80 percent of German losses were on the Eastern Front) at great cost to itself, and never capitulated or collaborated. This gives it the moral high ground when it comes to talking about preserving freedom around the world.
with a big helping form General Paulus who refused to retreat when he still had time and thus offered the 6th Army to the gods of warfare and his Fuehrer as a sacrifice. Little spineless obedient fuck, like so many of the Germans at the time.
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 – 1 February 1957) was a German general during World War II who commanded the 6th Army. He attained the rank of field marshal two hours before the surrender of German forces in the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). The battle ended in disaster for Nazi Germany when Soviet forces encircled and defeated about 265,000 personnel of the Wehrmacht, their Axis allies and collaborators.
Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad on 31 January 1943,[Note 1] the same day on which he was informed of his promotion to field marshal by Adolf Hitler.
Hitler expected Paulus to commit suicide,[2] repeating to his staff that there was no precedent of a German field marshal ever being captured alive. While in Soviet captivity during the war, Paulus became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Soviet-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany. He moved to East Germany in 1953.”
he should have retreated in 1942 and march back his soldiers, he waited until it was to late and surrended. At the time the war in russia was lost, and anyone and their dog knew it. In fact, someone should have made a point of not invading Russia in Summer and believing their own bullshit to have conquered the country by winters fall.
He was a spineless fuck that could not stand the idea of retreating, loosing his honor and reaping the wrath of his fuehrer and thus he killed his Army.
Every single on of them.
There is an old saying in Europe, it kind of dates back to Napoleon.
You don’t win against General Frost. Winter was/is the Russians biggest asset, combined with the fact that they fought for their ‘Vaterland’, while the Germans were the invaders who were woefully under equipped to fight in Winter.
Please show me where my quote from wikipedia contradicts my assertion.
As for the sixth Army, they were marched to siberia. Those who survived came back in 1955. Even there the spineless fuck was better treated.
Battle of Stalingrad
Main articles: Battle of Stalingrad and Operation Uranus
The Soviet counter-attack at Stalingrad
German front, 19 November
German front, 12 December
German front, 24 December
Soviet advance, 19–28 November
On 28 June 1942, Army Group South began Operation Blau, the German Army’s summer offensive into southern Russia.[6] The goals of the operation were to secure both the oil fields at Baku, Azerbaijan, and the city of Stalingrad on the river Volga to protect the forces advancing into the Caucasus.[7] After two months, the 6th Army reached the outskirts of Stalingrad on 23 August.[8] On the same day, over 1,000 aircraft of the Luftflotte 4 bombed the city, killing many civilians.
Stalingrad was defended by the Soviet 62nd Army under the command of General Vasily Chuikov.[9] Despite German air superiority over Stalingrad, and with more artillery pieces than the Red Army, progress was reduced to no more than several meters a day. Eventually, by mid November, the 62nd Army had been pushed to the banks of the Volga, but the 6th Army was unable to eliminate the remaining Soviet troops.[10]
On 19 November the Stavka launched Operation Uranus, a major offensive by Soviet forces on the flanks of the German army.[11] The first pincer attacked far to the west of the Don, with the second thrust beginning a day later attacking far to the south of Stalingrad.[12] The 6th Army’s flanks were protected by Romanian troops, who were quickly routed, and on 23 November, the pincers met at Kalach-na-Donu, thereby encircling 6th Army.[13] A relief attempt was launched on 12 December, codenamed Operation Winter Storm, but this failed.[14] The army surrendered between 31 January and 2 February 1943.[15] German casualties are 147,200 killed and wounded and over 91,000 captured, the latter including 24 generals and 2,500 officers of lesser rank.[15] Only 5,000 would return to Germany after the war.[1]
I don’t want anyone be mistaken into believing that i support what my country man – my grandfathers, my great uncles, did in Russia and elsewhere. Nothing about it is forgivable. But the fact remains that the ‘obedient’ little fucks that were the Generals and officers of the Sixth Army literally killed their soldiers and could not have done a better job at it then the Russian Army. The russian Army just had to shoot them of and then march them to Siberia.
You don’t invade Russia. You don’t win against General Frost. And you don’t fuck around with the Russian Bear.
But Russia alone did not win he war against Germany. There were the English and their stubbornness to be British and drink tea even in the most dire situation and never surrendered even when their country got bombed night after night. . There were the French resistance. There was General Tito in what became Yuguslavia after the war. There were those ‘workslaves’ that died for sabotaging the ‘war effort’ by essentially building duds. The resistance in Holland, Belgium, Italy and so on and so on.
The Germans lost because they thought they could not loose, they lost because the high ranking officers put misplaced ‘honor’ above country. They lost because to many Germans had absolutely no issue killing the ‘others’ in order to be ‘racially pure’ and ‘be made great again’. The Germans lost because they were blinded by their own hubris. They lost because their idea of ‘greatness’ depending on killing everyone else. And eventually they lost because their largest army, the sixth army soldiers died in ditches, froze to death in Stalingrad by not being equipped for winter warfare and then on the way to the Prisoners of war camps in Siberia
You might wish to watch (on YouTube) Glantz, a West Point military historian on Barbarossa who makes a compelling case that despite great tactical victories, two months into the invasion that strategic victory was beyond German capabilities. Stalingrad and Kursk merely bookmark a war the Russians fought by attrition from the first.
Do you not know that the Soviet Union joined in the invasion (The cause of Britain and France declaring War on Germany) and dismemberment of Poland in 1939?
Do you not know the Soviet Union provided Nazi Germany vital raw material right up until the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941?
Do you not remember the Soviet Union suppressing independent dissent in Eastern Europe from 1945 till 1989?
Sure, I am very aware of the history of the Second World War, and the other sides of this argument. There were contradictions in nearly every theatre of the war. France had a Vichy government, Italians fought against the Nazis as much as for them through the Italian resistance movement, the United States would have been happy to let Germany win the war until Japan attacked it. The Russian soldiers acted appalling in Germany etc.
But I think the Russian perspective IS important at the moment. Russia is being painted as the aggressor by the United States which claims to represent freedom and democracy.
But it is the United States that is acting aggressively. For example, people may not be aware that the US/NATO and the Swedish government are trying to scare the Swedish people into joining NATO with pamphlets going into EVERY household saying that Sweden is in danger of attack – the first time since the middle of WWII.
Putin is reminding everyone that it was Russia that crushed Nazi fascism at the cost of millions of Russian lives, so the United States can not claim moral superiority.
I would love to see Russia become a real democracy but while it is surrounded by aggressive forces that are interfering out of self interest in the political affairs of its closest neighbours, such as the Ukraine whose armed forces include Neo-Nazis, lead by a country that is steadily eroding the rights of its own citizens, there is zero chance of the Russian democratic movement flourishing. All the Russian people have at the moment is a leader who for all his enormous faults at least sticks up for them against the United States.
[lprent: Tell me have you ever read about the occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. There are a lot of Poles who weren’t exactly impartial about that unprovoked aggression by both of those very similar empires. Both at the time were so similar. For instance they were world leaders in concentration camps and mass murder.
Meaningless flame war starters just annoy me. If I get annoyed enough I like to enhance the debate as I target the arsehole who tries to trigger it. ]
Churchill also a concentration camp speciallist from his time in the Boer Wars…
It can be interesting to read books from both sides, not just from the winner.
no one knows what either one of these guys will do as this is a ‘private’ meeting.
Exactly – only two translators will be with them. So no record of what they discuss. Maybe how to “fix” the mid terms?
But “No Collusion” Yeah Right!
Whatever – this can only end badly.
Demand that Russia withdraw from Ukraine and renounce its illegal claim to Crimea.
People have the right to self-determination as guaranteed by the UDHR. The people of Crimea chose to secede from the Ukraine and rejoin Russia.
I see nothing illegal in them choosing to do so.
Actually push for stronger human rights across the world, as President Ford did successfully with Russia and many other countries
That’d be nice but even the US doesn’t really support human rights:
The UDHR has three components, which are of equal status: civil-political, socioeconomic and cultural rights. The US formally accepts the first of the three, though it has often violated its provisions. The US pretty much disregards the third. And to the point here, the US has officially and strongly condemned the second component, socioeconomic rights, including Article 25.
Would be somewhat hypocritical for them to demand stronger human rights from anyone really.
Push Russia to stop supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Representatives from Russia and the Taliban “laughed” at US claims that Moscow has been arming the group, according to Russia’s envoy to Afghanistan.
Zamir Kabulov said on Thursday that in their talks with the Taliban, the group’s representatives said they buy all their weapons illegally from the Afghan government and police, and asked for financial support for that.
In that request, the Russian representatives replied, “Sorry, we have no money”, Kabulov told a press conference in Moscow.
Not according to Russia or the Taliban.
Halt provocative military actions on NATO’s periphery and harassment of United States personnel in Moscow.
Are you claiming that a group of people can just decide to physically separate themselves from a central authority via force of arms at any time of their choosing?
NATO are doing military exercises on the borders of Russia. Russia would have good reason to think that such exercises are a prelude to invasion. It is, after all, what Germany did to them in WWII.
That is very naïve, Gosman. Hitler merely shifted his attention to Russia. Fortunately, he failed there, and, like Napoleon, lost 80% of his military power. If he had succeeded in knocking Russia out of the war in one or two years, Britain would have been toast. If he had knocked Russia out in time, we would not even have won at El Alamein. And whether you like it or not, it was indeed Russia that did the hard yards – not Britain and the USA.
So we come back to why Stalin could not get an agreement with Britain, France and Poland to stand with him against Germany?
Britain and France thought Communism worse than Nazism (Queen’s photo as child is part of that) and Poland refused permission for Russian soldiers to go through Polish territory to fight with France and Britain against Germany. All unworkable. Stalin’s only way out was the Ribbentrop agreement with Hitler, dividing up Poland. It was pretty well forced upon him, partly by the very right-wing Poles themselves. For Stalin, it triggered the war breaking out in the West against Britain and France, instead of in the East against his country. Not one country in the West had a leader with any vision at the time. And Stalin got a little extra time to prepare. Not that he had much vision – he later refused to believe that Hitler was about to launch Barbarossa..
Considering Russia saved the UK in World War 2, you would think they would show more appreciation.
BAHAHAHA
The lend-lease program from the ‘western’ allies to Russia was critical to the Russian’s ability to mobilise.
Approximately one third of all heavy armour in the Russian arsenal during the summer of ’41/’42 summer was of UK origin. By the end of the war, about 30% of Russian aircraft were lend-lease sourced.
More importantly trucks, train locomotives and stock (more than 90% of all rolling stock!), rations, clothing, and munitions were heavily supplemented by lend-lease from ’41 to ’45. Without the program, the Russian army would simply not have been able to move. Let alone fight.
The simple fact is that neither the western, nor eastern, allies could have won on their own. To claim otherwise is utterly nonsensical.
Bollocks. The UK heavy armour was rubbish at that time: lumbering oxen with pea-shooters attached. Even the British tank brigades recognised that they were fighting with inferior equipment. Russia moved its entire Military production east of the Urals, and built its own supply of fast, mobile and powerful war-winning T-34 tanks. Summer of 41-2 was before they achieved full production. The aircraft Britain sent were outmoded Hurricane fighters. The Russians later produced their own, far superior fighters..
The Russians were helped to a small degree by trucks, Jeeps etc during summer of 41-42, but they were still largely in retreat. And don’t forget that after a disastrous convoy to Murmansk, the British stopped delivering.
The Germans had no idea of what the Russians were building. They had no idea that two new, well-equipped armies would cut them off at Stalingrad, then vastly outnumber their Panzers at Kursk.
The trucks and rolling stock helped to a degree, but to pretend that Russia survived only because of the limited supplies delivered from the West is foolish. The Russians did it themselves, and arguably still would have done so without the limited help they got from the West.
And where did this vast supply of lend-lease railway rolling stock come from after the British convoys stopped? I think you will find that the Russians did it largely by themselves.
When Adolf Hitler launched his surprise Blitzkrieg – codenamed Barbarossa – on the Soviet Union in June 1941, bringing Russia into the war against Nazi Germany, Britain no longer stood alone against the fascist threat. Putting aside his lifelong antipathy to Bolshevism, Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill authorised urgent naval convoys of vital war material to Russia. Shipped across some of the most dangerous waters in the world, the Arctic Convoys between 1941 and 1945 delivered tanks, fighter planes, fuel, ammunition, raw materials and food to the Soviet Union’s northern ports.
Churchill’s genuine, if pragmatic, change of heart was announced the very day of the Nazi assault on the Soviet people. In a radio broadcast, Britain’s wartime leader said: “… we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and to the Russian people. We shall appeal to all our friends and Allies in every part of the world to take the same course and pursue it as we shall, faithfully and steadfastly to the end.”
Known as the ‘Russian’ and ‘Polar’ convoys – or by the sailors who risked their lives to bring the supplies to Russia, the ‘Murmansk Run’ – the Arctic Convoys were part of the Lend Lease programme under which the United States supplied France, Great Britain, China, the USSR and other Allied nations with food, oil, and material between 1941 and 1945. The programme started in March 1941 and ended in September 1945. Supplies to the Soviet Union also came overland via the Persian Corridor and to Russia’s Far East by the Pacific Route.
Figures and details true, but even here in the West many see it as one-sided to claim that the Russians could not have won without us.
The more I read about it, the more I suspect that the Western allies helped Russia far less than they could have, and also that the Russian policies would have succeeded without any help from the West at all.
Well, yes and no.
The soviets might have lasted long enough to win without western aid, just as they might have persisted after Moscow got taken because the Siberian divisions were kept in the far east because Stalin never got the word that the Japanese weren’t going to attack.
But the longer the war, the more likely that there’s a collapse similar to ww1.
the more I suspect that the Western allies helped Russia far less than they could have, and also that the Russian policies would have succeeded without any help from the West at all.
If what you think had been the case, and Europe was left to the Soviets, the outcome would have been horrific – you might like to ask Angela Merkel about what it was like to live in Eastern Europe under the soviets.
My wife visited in 1966 driving through East Germany and Poland and Leningrad to Moscow. The depravations and lack of freedoms were extreme. The soviet system was an abject failure.
But of course the D-Day landings and Allied advance on Berlin, the annihilation of German infrastructure and manufacturing by allied bombing, and the cutting of all shipped oil supplies by the RN had nothing to do with it.
Macro, I drove through East Germany myself in 1980, and agree with you. Nowhere did I say that I admire Stalin, or the USSR system. I just get tired of people believing our own one-sided version of the story.
By the way, it is just possible that the Allies did the Normandy landing etc because they suddenly realised what would happen if they did not. The Russians felt it was far too late.
And while allied bombing was devastating to the civilian population, you may be overestimating its effect upon German war production, which peaked in 1944. That is strangely late in the war, is it not? Huge bombing had been done before then, but the Germans adapted. Only in Autumn of that year (less than a year to VE Day) did bombing really start to hurt German supplies.
By that time the Russians had the Germans in full retreat anyway.
Initially allied bombing was directed at towns as a tit for tat reply to the bombing of civilian targets in England. When the allies got smart and then directed their targets to infrastructure (late 1943 – early 1944) the volume of war material began to fall dramatically. https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c17284ec4e3500b23e46556985170a84
Agreed, Macro, but even by that time Russia had Germany on the ropes. If D-Day had not happened, the Red Army would have been on the other side of the English Channel.
Improvement in night-bombing targeting by the RAF helped, but basically the Russians had the upper hand by then. Have you looked at Russia’s production compared to Germany’s? Putin is not wrong about Russia being the main winner over Germany, however little people here may like the Russian style of government, or Putin himself. And however ignorant they remain about how much effort Russia put in to winning WW2.
Russia suffered losses that we can comprehend only by trying to remember the terrible butchery of WW1.
I am not saying that Stalin was an angel, or that Putin is one.
I am saying that Putin is right on this point, and that we have far too many who think that The USA and Britain defeated Hitler. They did not. Russia did.
Russia knows NATO is not going to invade it. But they would be very unhappy if any more former Soviet republics became part of NATO. The Russians would feel they are being bottled up, and not have primacy in their immediate area. Their support of the eastern Ukrainians is all about that, plus the wartime memory of the war in the Donbass, the very threshold of Volgograd. Think the Battle of Stalingrad for the significance of that.
As for the meeting, I reckon Putin will want the west to recognise the reality of Crimea. In return they will give up on east Ukraine, or least only insist on it being a semiautonomous region within Ukraine. That would mean the end of sanctions and a reset of the US Russia relationship. Other stuff like a deal on nuclear weapons could also be done.
DTB so Manafort siding with Putin taking 10’s of millions in Consultancy fees and another $10 million loan from Putins henchman oligarch.
Money laundering etc etc.
Neither side has my support but Trump /Kucshner have received extensive funding from other Putins Russian Mafia linked oligarchs.
Like “Wise” (guy/mafia fixer Manafort)
Trump has proven ties to the US mafia.
Both side’s are equally corrupt.
Fox news and RT(Russian equivalent of Fox).
Under what circumstances does the definition of ‘equally corrupt’ cover both of, say:
1: Robert Mueller’s detailed indictments, and
2: the fever dream nonsense of ‘Benghazi’ or ‘Uranium One’?
Things that President Putin won’t do when meeting U.S. President Donald Trump in Helsinki:
Demand that the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq and renounce its illegal blockade of Cuba.
Demand that Trump cease backing the murderous Netanyahu regime in Israel and work for a diplomatic outcome that protects the rights and security of all Palestinians.
Actually push for stronger human rights across the world.
Demand the U.S. stop supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.
Push the U.S. to stop supporting the outlaw Israeli government in the Occupied Territories, as well as the oppressive and anti-democratic regimes in Brazil, Guatemala and Honduras.
Get the U.S. to halt provocative military actions on North Korea’s periphery and similar provocations in vassal states like Poland.
Gain full cooperation to pressure Binyamin Netanyahu to denuclearise completely.
Force the U.S. to cease its destructive cyberoperations and drone assassinations all over the world, but especially in Yemen and Afghanistan. Obama unfortunately encouraged it.
The perfect riposte to the neocon drivel that this post delivers.
Anyone who has seen Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States would know Truman was a terrible U.S President, captured by the military industrial state.
Advantage’s post is preposterous from beginning to end. Are the administrators of this site going to turn it over to Whaleoil for a guest post now? He couldn’t be any more biased or untruthful than this bloke “Advantage”.
[lprent: If you are looking for a long vacation, then please just ask for one. Otherwise stop whining like a spring chicken. Authors write what they choose to write, that is why we have them here. The authors will argue amongst themselves. Which acts as background. Mike and I tend to just look at the good of the site. If we think that something is getting in the way of the objectives of the site then we will deal with it.
You don’t get any say in that. As you know, this is pretty clearly stated in the policy. Including the fuckup off if you don’t like it consequences of whining about it. ]
Russia is a brutal, undemocratic state. It’s very bad indeed. But compared to the United States and Britain, it is indeed “all goodness and lightness.” That’s a fact that the likes of the person who wrote this fantastic “Trump Meets Putin” article seems unwilling to acknowledge.
Please note that my views on America and Russia are very similar to those of Morrissey, Maui, Brigid, Draco and Esoteric.
My views are hardly out there on this.
The world sees the US and Israel as rogue states.
I just see the US as being lumbered with a self-contradictory and very inflexible constitution that was designed for a different time and a radically different demography.
They haven’t managed to make a useful amendment to it since 1967, 50 years ago. The right to vote shouldn’t been in any reasonable constitution, so voting at age 18 shouldn’t have been in there in 1971. And the 1992 one to prevent the members of congress voting themselves pay rises… Well what can one say…
Effectively the whole society is slowly cracking under the constitutional strain as the institutions struggle to adjust. For instance look at the Economist editorial this week.
Ed – Hardly anyone here is saying that the US, as it is at the moment, is a beacon of democracy. The repugnants are in desperate need of growing a spine and impeaching the radge orange bampot. As Lprent says the constitution is in desperate need of revamp, and the country – like NZ is heavily biased in favour of the conservative rural vote. Overlaying all of this is an economic system which bestows greater freedoms to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. This is much the case in all capitalist economies, to a greater or lesser extent. Nevertheless, the US, up until the advent of Trump had, in many cases, attempted to be a good global citizen, even if, not all of its activities met your approval.
Over the past 540 days, however I grant that the US has become more and more, an unstable and unreliable global citizen – particularly in the sphere of human rights and environmental protections, to say nothing about its friends and alliances. One can only hope that this phase is temporary, and the damage done is not so bad that it cannot be restored.
The fact that many see Russia as a rogue state is more to the point. The blatant interference in other nations politics and elections is but one example.
It is not a blockade of Cuba. It is restricting US trade with them. any country can do that. It is no different to NZ deciding not to allow GMO products in to the country.
We should be kind to Morrissey. He clearly just has a temporal fugue or possibly that he is an illiterate speaker of Spanish unaware of the word embargar from which the English usage of embargo derives or it could simply mean that he is a idiot who prefers to make up his fantasy history.
The US blockade of Cuba started on the 22nd of October 1962 and ended on the 28th of the same month.
There have been an embargoes by the US of various types of trade with Cuba since they were first imposed on the Barista regime in 1958 (preventing arms sales). These were extended by the US after the uncompensated nationalisation of various US owned assets in Cuba in 1962, well before the Cuban missile crisis later that year.
The embargo should have been negotiated away long ago. However crass political motives by grandstanding unfeeling fuckwits on both sides has preferred to maintain the embargo rather than dealing with the harm that it causes.
It doesn’t matter if you look at the daft names of the US domestic acts or stupidity extending the embargo or the name that the Cubans prefer to use, it all just reeks of dickheads waving their stupidity around.
Despite the Spanish-language term bloqueo (blockade), there has been no physical, naval blockade of the country by the United States after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.[4] The United States does not block Cuba’s trade with third parties: other countries are not under the jurisdiction of U.S. domestic laws, such as the Cuban Democracy Act (although, in theory, foreign countries that trade with Cuba could be penalised by the U.S., which has been condemned as an “extraterritorial” measure that contravenes “the sovereign equality of States, non-intervention in their internal affairs and freedom of trade and navigation as paramount to the conduct of international affairs.”[5]). Cuba can, and does, conduct international trade with many third-party countries;[6] Cuba has been a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) since 1995.[7]
Beyond criticisms of human rights in Cuba, the United States holds $6 billion worth of financial claims against the Cuban government.[8] The pro-embargo position is that the U.S. embargo is, in part, an appropriate response to these unaddressed claims.[9] The Latin America Working Group argues that pro-embargo Cuban-American exiles, whose votes are crucial in Florida, have swayed many politicians to also adopt similar views.[10] The Cuban-American views have been opposed by some business leaders who argue that trading freely would be good for Cuba and the United States.[11]
At present, the embargo, which limits American businesses from conducting business with Cuban interests, is still in effect and is the most enduring trade embargo in modern history. Despite the existence of the embargo, the United States is the fifth largest exporter to Cuba (6.6% of Cuba’s imports are from the US).[12] Cuba must, however, pay cash for all imports, as credit is not allowed.[13]
The scofflaw state of Israel labels itself “the Jewish state.” That has not stopped it treating the Palestinians in a manner that even its own cabinet ministers, like the hardline Tommy Lapid, have compared to the actions of the Nazis.
Actually I’d say that the way that the Israelis operate their concentration camp in Gaza is very similar to the treatment of political prisoners including Jews in Nazi Germany in 1933 to 1939.
After all the really efficient death camps were placed outside Germany after 1939 in case they disturbed the German population.
In Germany up to 1939, the German camps concentrated on simply slowly starving people to death and denying them access to medical care. Order was primarily maintained by armed guards with shoot to kill orders against unarmed civilians.
Personally I can’t see much difference between that and the current behaviour of the gutless Israeli barbarians deliberately shooting clearly defined medics from the fortified boundaries of their camp.
Bearing in mind the public statements of some of the Israeli populations, especially some of the ulta orthodox and ‘settler’ groups, it makes me wonder how long before they follow the Nazi solutions.
Your views are not shared by the likes of Tommy Lapid or other honest Israeli politicians such as Moshe Dayan. Perhaps instead of sitting on your arse watching Fox News last December 3rd, you should have gone to the Mt Eden Memorial Hall to see one of the great Israeli journalists talking….
Israel has three regimes. First, there is the “liberal democracy” which is the privilege of its Jewish citizens, but there are many threats to this. The second regime is aimed at the Palestinians—the “Israeli Arabs” who comprise 20 per cent of the population, and who have formal civil rights; they are deeply discriminated against in every way. The third regime is very different from any “liberal” posturing—this is Israel’s dark heart, the regime in the Occupied Territories. This is one of the most brutal tyrannies on Earth today, no less than that.
Maybe not 1944 Nazi Germany, but not far off 1937 maybe.
Shooting kids, delaying and denying access to basic life needs, segregationist controls on ghettoes, advanced propaganda machine to paint the victims as parasitic invaders intent on extermination…
Not since Munich 1938 have we had a world leader willing to surrender everything thing for nothing to a tyrant. #TrumpPutinSummit— Harry Leslie Smith (@Harryslaststand) July 15, 2018
Relatively safe for who in particular? If you members of the Assad regime you would be correct. If you mean anyone perceived to be a threat to the Assad regime you would be wrong.
Gosman I really don’t think you know very much about Syria, that could be because you rely only on information provided by CNN, BBC, Guardian et al since 2011.
Have you ever actually talked to any Syrian about their country?
Brigid
Are you completely unaware of the massacres of protestors by the Assad regime in 2011 ( the sort of thing his father did)? That is what started the civil war.
Yes Syria was at “peace” prior to 2011, just like Iraq was under
Suddein. The sort of peace that Stalin would have been proud of.
However Assad will win the civil war, with the probable exception of the Kurds. Will Russia and the US give them a guarantee of autonomy. Maybe that might be sorted tomorrow!
According to Tim Anderson the so called “protestors” were armed by islamist extremists. I guess that would make them not protestors, but closer to fighters or militants.
Also Syria has a reputation as a safe haven for minorities in a volatile and unsafe region. Your portrayal of Syria as some sort of Stalinist hellhole is very misleading imo.
I think you’re guessing at how their Government functions and behaves. So am I too, but from all appearances minorities were safe in Syria and as spikey says the Government was generally well liked and supported by it’s citizens. Those are two strong points that are hard to disprove I think and don’t mesh with your portrayal of a brutal regime.
Comparisons to Stalin or to Hitler or to whatever other evil figure you can think of may serve the purpose of denigrating whoever to the level of non human but does little to reveal anything of actual circumstances.
Western media sources in early 2011 were pretty universal in their realisation that Assad was popular and unlikely to be deposed. Even after the initial violence in Daraa. Life in Syria at that time may not have been attractive to you Wayne but I guess thats why you didn’t live there.
If you would care for a little more detail on the origins of the war in Syria, you could start here…
Almost 90% of the country voted in Assad, so that’s a reasonable starting point for a safe country. Plus there wasn’t a war going on or millions of residents fleeing the country.
I don’t trust the portrayal of middle eastern leaders by corporate news sources either. So I find it incredibly difficult to gauge how good or bad the leaders of say Syria, Iraq or Libya were.
John R. Bolton
On May 6, 2002, then-Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton gave a speech entitled “Beyond the Axis of Evil”. In it he added three more nations to be grouped with the already mentioned rogue states: Cuba, Libya, and Syria. The criteria for inclusion in this grouping were: “state sponsors of terrorism that are pursuing or who have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or have the capability to do so in violation of their treaty obligations.”[5]
A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (commonly known as the “Clean Break” report) is a policy document that was prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Perle for Benjamin Netanyahu, the then Prime Minister of Israel.[1] The report explained a new approach to solving Israel’s security problems in the Middle East with an emphasis on “Western values.” It has since been criticized for advocating an aggressive new policy including the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and the containment of Syria by engaging in proxy warfare and highlighting its possession of “weapons of mass destruction”. Certain parts of the policies set forth in the paper were rejected by Netanyahu.[2][3]
Trump is conflicted, he needs the NATO confrontation with Russia over Ukraine/Crimea to realise the 2014 promise of 2% GDP defence spending by 2024. Especially given he is being ridiculous about bumping that up to 4% and demanding Germans take American gas rather than make use the new pipeline arrangment with Russia.
Thus he has nothing to offer Putin in return for “global” co-operation.
And given his pretence that completing Obama era plan for nuclear weapons upgrade investment will be his own achievement, he will look away from bi-lateral nuclear arms reduction issues.
He has achieved nothing with North Korea, but will do the same here so he can pretend he made a difference (when the USA is actually co-existing with a nuclear armed and ICBM capable N Korea) – all so he can posture as GOP strongman on Iran to please the Jewish and Christian Zionist lobbies.
I suppose he could sacrifice Kurds in Syria for a Russian “promise” not to do to the US what the US did to Russia in Afghanistan, but only if he has Likud permission …
Crimea never voted to leave the Russian Federation, but they did vote to rejoin it. And there where lots of attacts on Russian ethinics in the East of Ukraine to justify action.
Assad is a democratic leader, and one of the few in the region who isn’t a puppet for the world’s Zionist empire.
A talk about a reduction on nuclear weapons would be good. Expect they will have one, indirectly. But reducing the power of the Industrial Military Complex is to happen slowly to avoid crazy folk hitting the panic buttons.
It’s a provocitive post for The Standard. This demonising of Trump is so truely non-productive.
Ad, you third point the real problem is that trump has been attacking human rights and civil rights. So there is no way this is going to happen, I fear the next few years are going to continue the trend that civil rights and human rights are going backwards.
A couple I would have liked you to add, was that he speak up for LGBTI rights, and help stop sex trafficking.
But alas we ain’t going to see that either. We are not going to see anything, but more of trump the distractor whilst the US empire keeps killing the world with it’s over consumption.
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died ...
Session thirty-three was highly abbreviated, via having to move house in a short space of time. Oh well. The party decided to ignore the tree-monster and continue the attack on the Giant Troll. Tarsin – flying on a giant summoned bat – dumped some high-grade oil over the ...
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. The action Biden took on just his first afternoon in office demonstrates a radical shift in priority for the US when it comes to its efforts to combat the climate crisis. It could put more pressure on New Zealand to step up. ...
Ban Bomb Day event at the New Brighton Pier, 9am, on January 22nd, 2021 January 22nd, 2021, marks the first day the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) Enters into Force and becomes international law. Aotearoa NZ is one of the ...
The lights are burning into the night at the New York Yacht Club's America's Cup base as they race to fix their damaged boat. And Suzanne McFadden discovers something surprising may emerge. Out of American Magic’s calamity may come opportunity - for even more speed. While the lights burn bright ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve BrauniasFICTION 1 Tell Me Lies by J.P. Pomare (Hachette, $29.99) Every January, there's a new best-selling crime thriller by the New Zealand-born author who lives in Melbourne. Pomare is ...
Our approach so far in trying to end what Dr Collin Tukuitonga describes as a 'racist' disease - rheumatic fever - has not worked. It's time we try something new, he writes. Acute rheumatic fever and the rheumatic heart disease it causes, long-known as a disease of poverty, is a blight on ...
New Zealand triple-code star, Anna Harrison, can't stop returning to the courts - whether it's netball or beach volleyball. She tells Ashley Stanley what keeps drawing her back. The day before Anna Harrison leaps back into netball, she will have one more hit-out at another of her favourite old sports ...
New to sailing? With the Prada Cup resuming this weekend, here’s how to bluff your way into sounding like a pro. When I was 10, my mum made my brother and I join the local sailing club. It was a favourite pastime of families in Kerikeri, and my brother was actually ...
A formal complaint to the UN, signed by a NZ Muslim group, says France’s Islamophobic laws and policies are entrenching discrimination and breaching human rights laws. The Khadija Leadership Network has joined a global coalition of Muslim organisations to formally complain about the French government’s systemic entrenchment of Islamophobia and discrimination against ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey, Leonie Hayden and a lineup of incredibly successful New Zealand women as they confront their imposter syndrome once and for all. First published 20 October, 2020. Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members ...
With criticism from National piling on over the property market, the prime minister has detailed when the government will make housing announcements. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marco Rizzi, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Western Australia Some Australians could be receiving a COVID-19 vaccine within weeks. Amid the continued spread of the virus and emergence of highly contagious variants, the federal government has accelerated the start of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University Australia’s Threatened Species Strategy — a five-year plan for protecting our imperilled species and ecosystems — fizzled to an end last year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Lecturer, General Dentist & PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland Baby teeth, or milk teeth, act like lighthouses to guide the adult ones to their correct destination. A baby tooth will become wobbly and fall out because the adult tooth ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he’s joined by Simon Coley, co-founder of All Good and Karma Drinks.Bananas are one of the ...
Tackling topics such as rugby and body image, Stuff’s latest podcast shines a much-needed light on Aotearoa’s complex relationship with masculinity, writes Trevor McKewen, author of the book Real Men Wear Black.I wasn’t sure what to think when two episodes of the new local podcast He’ll Be Right landed in ...
The Rainforest Alliance reveals that 68%* of Kiwis say the COVID-19 pandemic has made them more conscious about environmental and social sustainability issues. Seventy two percent* state that they have been trying to make more sustainable purchasing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin University The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has raised concerns that Australia’s proposed News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code could fundamentally break the internet as we know it. His concerns ...
ANALYSIS:By Scott Lucas, University of Birmingham Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path Two weeks after the storming of the US Capitol by the followers of his predecessor, in the middle of an out-of-control pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Cantrell, Lecturer, Creative Writing & English Literature, University of Southern Queensland Described as “the world’s greatest storyteller”, Roald Dahl is frequently ranked as the best children’s author of all time by teachers, authors and librarians. However, the new film adaptation of ...
Peak housing body, Community Housing Aotearoa (CHA) welcomes the updated Public Housing Plan announced today by Minister Woods, and the commitment by this Government to fix New Zealand’s housing crisis. The 8,000 additional homes are a significant ...
Having recently walked much of the South Island stretch of Te Araroa, Kirsten O’Regan reflects on the magnificent landscapes and interesting characters she encountered along the way.On our 36th day of walking, we climb through the fire-blackened hills above Ohau, stopping to examine heat-disfigured trail markers. Fresh green shoots have ...
Miss Torta in central Auckland is putting the spotlight on a snack that’s commonplace in Mexico, but until now relatively unknown in New Zealand.You’ve heard of a torta, but what is it, exactly? Well, depending on the cuisine it can mean a flatbread, cake, tart, sweet pie, savoury pie or ...
Two of three ministerial statements from the Beehive have been released in the name of the PM over the past two days. The more important, insofar as it involves political action that will affect the wellbeing of significant numbers of Kiwis, was the release of the government’s Public Housing Plan ...
Jacinda Ardern has reminded Labour MPs "ongoing vigilance" will be required in 2021 to avoid another Covid outbreak, admitting she held her breath over the summer break. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Despite many young Australians having a deep interest in political issues, most teenagers have a limited understanding about their nation’s democratic system. Results from the 2019 National Assessment Program – Civics and ...
Pinged $65 for overstaying 10 minutes in a parking block? Put away your hard-earned cash and read this first.Hopefully, by now, I’ve already established myself at The Spinoff as the resident tightarse, determined to avoid all unfair and unnecessary punishments (see: oversize baggage charges). Today, I’m focusing my attention on ...
Nuclear weapons states and their allies risk reputational ruin if they flout a new UN Treaty, Carolina Panico argues The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will come into force this month, on January 22, 2021, turning nuclear weapons into illegal objects. It is an achievement that ...
How does one turn into a rabid extremist over the description of a children’s bike? Emily Writes looks at Facebook comments so you don’t have to.You’ve been there, I know it. You’re scrolling along, trying to avoid QAnon conspiracy theories and Trump apocalypse memes when a story catches your eye. ...
Joe Biden is now the President of the United States and many people across America and throughout the world will consequently be breathing more easily. But while the erratic, unpredictable and irresponsible years of the Trump Presidency may be over, ...
Tough border testing for New Zealand honey imports to Japan is re-igniting the conversation about the use of the weed killer glypohsate in New Zealand. ...
The Taxpayers Union should be aware of the law and of the history of ACC. The ACC is a legal system introduced in 1974 to replace the common law right of accident victims to sue for damages for personal injury sustained as a result of negligence ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne Terrorism, political extremism, Donald Trump, social media and the phenomenon of “cancel culture” are confronting journalists with a range of agonising free-speech dilemmas to which there are no easy answers. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the Sydney Pharmacy School, University of Sydney You’ve just come from your monthly GP appointment with a new script for your ongoing medical condition. But your local pharmacy is out of stock of your usual medicine. Your ...
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I always enjoy listening to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov give the Russian point of view. He is like the voice of sanity compared to what is going on from the US side.
Thank you ep for that link, a very good watch and yes a breath of common sense and honesty in the morass of crap in which we are drowning.
Advantage …. does whataboutism not work both ways?
[lprent: He is as entitled to put up a viewpoint as you are. Just be careful about what you say about our authors as opposed to what they wrote about. I have a particular viewpoint on that and I’m seldom shy about delivering it. ]
It’s important to note that the Ukraine armed forces are riven with ulta-right wing neo Nazis – supplied with arms from Israel which is acting on behalf of the US
One final point. Putin reminded everyone in his 2018 Victory Day speech that it was Russia that defeated the Nazis (80 percent of German losses were on the Eastern Front) at great cost to itself, and never capitulated or collaborated. This gives it the moral high ground when it comes to talking about preserving freedom around the world.
with a big helping form General Paulus who refused to retreat when he still had time and thus offered the 6th Army to the gods of warfare and his Fuehrer as a sacrifice. Little spineless obedient fuck, like so many of the Germans at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Paulus
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 – 1 February 1957) was a German general during World War II who commanded the 6th Army. He attained the rank of field marshal two hours before the surrender of German forces in the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). The battle ended in disaster for Nazi Germany when Soviet forces encircled and defeated about 265,000 personnel of the Wehrmacht, their Axis allies and collaborators.
Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad on 31 January 1943,[Note 1] the same day on which he was informed of his promotion to field marshal by Adolf Hitler.
Hitler expected Paulus to commit suicide,[2] repeating to his staff that there was no precedent of a German field marshal ever being captured alive. While in Soviet captivity during the war, Paulus became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Soviet-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany. He moved to East Germany in 1953.”
Sabine your quote from wikipedia contridicts your assertion … as i understood it
he should have retreated in 1942 and march back his soldiers, he waited until it was to late and surrended. At the time the war in russia was lost, and anyone and their dog knew it. In fact, someone should have made a point of not invading Russia in Summer and believing their own bullshit to have conquered the country by winters fall.
He was a spineless fuck that could not stand the idea of retreating, loosing his honor and reaping the wrath of his fuehrer and thus he killed his Army.
Every single on of them.
There is an old saying in Europe, it kind of dates back to Napoleon.
You don’t win against General Frost. Winter was/is the Russians biggest asset, combined with the fact that they fought for their ‘Vaterland’, while the Germans were the invaders who were woefully under equipped to fight in Winter.
Please show me where my quote from wikipedia contradicts my assertion.
As for the sixth Army, they were marched to siberia. Those who survived came back in 1955. Even there the spineless fuck was better treated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_Army_(Wehrmacht)
Battle of Stalingrad
Main articles: Battle of Stalingrad and Operation Uranus
The Soviet counter-attack at Stalingrad
German front, 19 November
German front, 12 December
German front, 24 December
Soviet advance, 19–28 November
On 28 June 1942, Army Group South began Operation Blau, the German Army’s summer offensive into southern Russia.[6] The goals of the operation were to secure both the oil fields at Baku, Azerbaijan, and the city of Stalingrad on the river Volga to protect the forces advancing into the Caucasus.[7] After two months, the 6th Army reached the outskirts of Stalingrad on 23 August.[8] On the same day, over 1,000 aircraft of the Luftflotte 4 bombed the city, killing many civilians.
Stalingrad was defended by the Soviet 62nd Army under the command of General Vasily Chuikov.[9] Despite German air superiority over Stalingrad, and with more artillery pieces than the Red Army, progress was reduced to no more than several meters a day. Eventually, by mid November, the 62nd Army had been pushed to the banks of the Volga, but the 6th Army was unable to eliminate the remaining Soviet troops.[10]
On 19 November the Stavka launched Operation Uranus, a major offensive by Soviet forces on the flanks of the German army.[11] The first pincer attacked far to the west of the Don, with the second thrust beginning a day later attacking far to the south of Stalingrad.[12] The 6th Army’s flanks were protected by Romanian troops, who were quickly routed, and on 23 November, the pincers met at Kalach-na-Donu, thereby encircling 6th Army.[13] A relief attempt was launched on 12 December, codenamed Operation Winter Storm, but this failed.[14] The army surrendered between 31 January and 2 February 1943.[15] German casualties are 147,200 killed and wounded and over 91,000 captured, the latter including 24 generals and 2,500 officers of lesser rank.[15] Only 5,000 would return to Germany after the war.[1]
I don’t want anyone be mistaken into believing that i support what my country man – my grandfathers, my great uncles, did in Russia and elsewhere. Nothing about it is forgivable. But the fact remains that the ‘obedient’ little fucks that were the Generals and officers of the Sixth Army literally killed their soldiers and could not have done a better job at it then the Russian Army. The russian Army just had to shoot them of and then march them to Siberia.
You don’t invade Russia. You don’t win against General Frost. And you don’t fuck around with the Russian Bear.
But Russia alone did not win he war against Germany. There were the English and their stubbornness to be British and drink tea even in the most dire situation and never surrendered even when their country got bombed night after night. . There were the French resistance. There was General Tito in what became Yuguslavia after the war. There were those ‘workslaves’ that died for sabotaging the ‘war effort’ by essentially building duds. The resistance in Holland, Belgium, Italy and so on and so on.
The Germans lost because they thought they could not loose, they lost because the high ranking officers put misplaced ‘honor’ above country. They lost because to many Germans had absolutely no issue killing the ‘others’ in order to be ‘racially pure’ and ‘be made great again’. The Germans lost because they were blinded by their own hubris. They lost because their idea of ‘greatness’ depending on killing everyone else. And eventually they lost because their largest army, the sixth army soldiers died in ditches, froze to death in Stalingrad by not being equipped for winter warfare and then on the way to the Prisoners of war camps in Siberia
You might wish to watch (on YouTube) Glantz, a West Point military historian on Barbarossa who makes a compelling case that despite great tactical victories, two months into the invasion that strategic victory was beyond German capabilities. Stalingrad and Kursk merely bookmark a war the Russians fought by attrition from the first.
You are joking right?
Do you not know that the Soviet Union joined in the invasion (The cause of Britain and France declaring War on Germany) and dismemberment of Poland in 1939?
Do you not know the Soviet Union provided Nazi Germany vital raw material right up until the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941?
Do you not remember the Soviet Union suppressing independent dissent in Eastern Europe from 1945 till 1989?
Sure, I am very aware of the history of the Second World War, and the other sides of this argument. There were contradictions in nearly every theatre of the war. France had a Vichy government, Italians fought against the Nazis as much as for them through the Italian resistance movement, the United States would have been happy to let Germany win the war until Japan attacked it. The Russian soldiers acted appalling in Germany etc.
But I think the Russian perspective IS important at the moment. Russia is being painted as the aggressor by the United States which claims to represent freedom and democracy.
But it is the United States that is acting aggressively. For example, people may not be aware that the US/NATO and the Swedish government are trying to scare the Swedish people into joining NATO with pamphlets going into EVERY household saying that Sweden is in danger of attack – the first time since the middle of WWII.
Putin is reminding everyone that it was Russia that crushed Nazi fascism at the cost of millions of Russian lives, so the United States can not claim moral superiority.
I would love to see Russia become a real democracy but while it is surrounded by aggressive forces that are interfering out of self interest in the political affairs of its closest neighbours, such as the Ukraine whose armed forces include Neo-Nazis, lead by a country that is steadily eroding the rights of its own citizens, there is zero chance of the Russian democratic movement flourishing. All the Russian people have at the moment is a leader who for all his enormous faults at least sticks up for them against the United States.
See link below on Sweden:
What evidence is there that Neo-Nazi’s have any degreee of influence in the Ukrainian government?
globalresearch.ca will have plently of lead on that one.
You could have a wee look through this if you like. Andriy Parubiy for one and Arsen Avakov for another. The Ukraine parliament speaker and the Interior Minister respectively…
https://www.alternet.org/media/anonymous-blacklist-promoted-washington-post-has-shocking-roots-ukrainian-fascism-eugenics-and
Well it would if not for Molotov Ribbentrop.
Some of the causes of Russia’s high casualty rate are less than admirable too.
Preserving freedom. You funny guy piney.
Except for that time when they were collaborating with their Nazi besties to invade and occupy Poland.
You are hardly impartial on the subject…..
[lprent: Tell me have you ever read about the occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. There are a lot of Poles who weren’t exactly impartial about that unprovoked aggression by both of those very similar empires. Both at the time were so similar. For instance they were world leaders in concentration camps and mass murder.
Meaningless flame war starters just annoy me. If I get annoyed enough I like to enhance the debate as I target the arsehole who tries to trigger it. ]
Churchill also a concentration camp speciallist from his time in the Boer Wars…
It can be interesting to read books from both sides, not just from the winner.
I agree.
So the Jesuit priest defeated the Catholic choir boy, preserving the freedom of the capitalism, hmmmm.
no one knows what either one of these guys will do as this is a ‘private’ meeting.
agree and think that “speculation” is counterproductive and often just thinly disguised shilling
no one knows what either one of these guys will do as this is a ‘private’ meeting.
Exactly – only two translators will be with them. So no record of what they discuss. Maybe how to “fix” the mid terms?
But “No Collusion” Yeah Right!
Whatever – this can only end badly.
People have the right to self-determination as guaranteed by the UDHR. The people of Crimea chose to secede from the Ukraine and rejoin Russia.
I see nothing illegal in them choosing to do so.
That’d be nice but even the US doesn’t really support human rights:
Would be somewhat hypocritical for them to demand stronger human rights from anyone really.
Is Russia supporting the Taliban?
Not according to Russia or the Taliban.
Yes, the US should stop doing military actions on NATOs borders:
Seems provocative to me.
Are you claiming that a group of people can just decide to physically separate themselves from a central authority via force of arms at any time of their choosing?
If that’s what they feel is necessary then yes. I’d prefer it if they simply used a referendum but that doesn’t seem to work too well because the central authority always claims that it was illegal.
Why are defensive military exercises provocative?
NATO are doing military exercises on the borders of Russia. Russia would have good reason to think that such exercises are a prelude to invasion. It is, after all, what Germany did to them in WWII.
There’s a reason provocation is no longer a legal defense in NZ.
Nato may provoke – Russia invades.
Nato invades. Have you heard of Iraq and Afghanistan?
Funny – I thought that was the US.
And its U.K. lapdog.
Considering Russia saved the UK in World War 2, you would think they would show more appreciation.
They didn’t save the UK. By June 1941 the UK was not under any imminent threat of invasion.
That is very naïve, Gosman. Hitler merely shifted his attention to Russia. Fortunately, he failed there, and, like Napoleon, lost 80% of his military power. If he had succeeded in knocking Russia out of the war in one or two years, Britain would have been toast. If he had knocked Russia out in time, we would not even have won at El Alamein. And whether you like it or not, it was indeed Russia that did the hard yards – not Britain and the USA.
Dunkirk? The Germans let the English go. You never seen the photo of the Queen as a child doing the Nazi hand salue? A classic!
So we come back to why Stalin could not get an agreement with Britain, France and Poland to stand with him against Germany?
Britain and France thought Communism worse than Nazism (Queen’s photo as child is part of that) and Poland refused permission for Russian soldiers to go through Polish territory to fight with France and Britain against Germany. All unworkable. Stalin’s only way out was the Ribbentrop agreement with Hitler, dividing up Poland. It was pretty well forced upon him, partly by the very right-wing Poles themselves. For Stalin, it triggered the war breaking out in the West against Britain and France, instead of in the East against his country. Not one country in the West had a leader with any vision at the time. And Stalin got a little extra time to prepare. Not that he had much vision – he later refused to believe that Hitler was about to launch Barbarossa..
Considering Russia saved the UK in World War 2, you would think they would show more appreciation.
BAHAHAHA
The lend-lease program from the ‘western’ allies to Russia was critical to the Russian’s ability to mobilise.
Approximately one third of all heavy armour in the Russian arsenal during the summer of ’41/’42 summer was of UK origin. By the end of the war, about 30% of Russian aircraft were lend-lease sourced.
More importantly trucks, train locomotives and stock (more than 90% of all rolling stock!), rations, clothing, and munitions were heavily supplemented by lend-lease from ’41 to ’45. Without the program, the Russian army would simply not have been able to move. Let alone fight.
The simple fact is that neither the western, nor eastern, allies could have won on their own. To claim otherwise is utterly nonsensical.
Bollocks. The UK heavy armour was rubbish at that time: lumbering oxen with pea-shooters attached. Even the British tank brigades recognised that they were fighting with inferior equipment. Russia moved its entire Military production east of the Urals, and built its own supply of fast, mobile and powerful war-winning T-34 tanks. Summer of 41-2 was before they achieved full production. The aircraft Britain sent were outmoded Hurricane fighters. The Russians later produced their own, far superior fighters..
The Russians were helped to a small degree by trucks, Jeeps etc during summer of 41-42, but they were still largely in retreat. And don’t forget that after a disastrous convoy to Murmansk, the British stopped delivering.
The Germans had no idea of what the Russians were building. They had no idea that two new, well-equipped armies would cut them off at Stalingrad, then vastly outnumber their Panzers at Kursk.
The trucks and rolling stock helped to a degree, but to pretend that Russia survived only because of the limited supplies delivered from the West is foolish. The Russians did it themselves, and arguably still would have done so without the limited help they got from the West.
And where did this vast supply of lend-lease railway rolling stock come from after the British convoys stopped? I think you will find that the Russians did it largely by themselves.
lol Really Ed!
Ever heard of the PQ convoys?
https://www.rbth.com/longreads/arctic_convoys/
More than four million tons of vital military supplies were shipped.
Figures and details true, but even here in the West many see it as one-sided to claim that the Russians could not have won without us.
The more I read about it, the more I suspect that the Western allies helped Russia far less than they could have, and also that the Russian policies would have succeeded without any help from the West at all.
Well, yes and no.
The soviets might have lasted long enough to win without western aid, just as they might have persisted after Moscow got taken because the Siberian divisions were kept in the far east because Stalin never got the word that the Japanese weren’t going to attack.
But the longer the war, the more likely that there’s a collapse similar to ww1.
the more I suspect that the Western allies helped Russia far less than they could have, and also that the Russian policies would have succeeded without any help from the West at all.
If what you think had been the case, and Europe was left to the Soviets, the outcome would have been horrific – you might like to ask Angela Merkel about what it was like to live in Eastern Europe under the soviets.
My wife visited in 1966 driving through East Germany and Poland and Leningrad to Moscow. The depravations and lack of freedoms were extreme. The soviet system was an abject failure.
But of course the D-Day landings and Allied advance on Berlin, the annihilation of German infrastructure and manufacturing by allied bombing, and the cutting of all shipped oil supplies by the RN had nothing to do with it.
Macro, I drove through East Germany myself in 1980, and agree with you. Nowhere did I say that I admire Stalin, or the USSR system. I just get tired of people believing our own one-sided version of the story.
By the way, it is just possible that the Allies did the Normandy landing etc because they suddenly realised what would happen if they did not. The Russians felt it was far too late.
And while allied bombing was devastating to the civilian population, you may be overestimating its effect upon German war production, which peaked in 1944. That is strangely late in the war, is it not? Huge bombing had been done before then, but the Germans adapted. Only in Autumn of that year (less than a year to VE Day) did bombing really start to hurt German supplies.
By that time the Russians had the Germans in full retreat anyway.
Initially allied bombing was directed at towns as a tit for tat reply to the bombing of civilian targets in England. When the allies got smart and then directed their targets to infrastructure (late 1943 – early 1944) the volume of war material began to fall dramatically.
https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c17284ec4e3500b23e46556985170a84
In Vino you speak so well.
Agreed, Macro, but even by that time Russia had Germany on the ropes. If D-Day had not happened, the Red Army would have been on the other side of the English Channel.
Improvement in night-bombing targeting by the RAF helped, but basically the Russians had the upper hand by then. Have you looked at Russia’s production compared to Germany’s? Putin is not wrong about Russia being the main winner over Germany, however little people here may like the Russian style of government, or Putin himself. And however ignorant they remain about how much effort Russia put in to winning WW2.
Russia suffered losses that we can comprehend only by trying to remember the terrible butchery of WW1.
I am not saying that Stalin was an angel, or that Putin is one.
I am saying that Putin is right on this point, and that we have far too many who think that The USA and Britain defeated Hitler. They did not. Russia did.
So not Nato invading then.
Maybe provocation ain’t so bad – unless you try to lever it into a casus belli.
Both Iraq and Afghanistan were not NATO operations during the initial invasion. NATO has been involved post invasion though.
Russia knows NATO is not going to invade it. But they would be very unhappy if any more former Soviet republics became part of NATO. The Russians would feel they are being bottled up, and not have primacy in their immediate area. Their support of the eastern Ukrainians is all about that, plus the wartime memory of the war in the Donbass, the very threshold of Volgograd. Think the Battle of Stalingrad for the significance of that.
As for the meeting, I reckon Putin will want the west to recognise the reality of Crimea. In return they will give up on east Ukraine, or least only insist on it being a semiautonomous region within Ukraine. That would mean the end of sanctions and a reset of the US Russia relationship. Other stuff like a deal on nuclear weapons could also be done.
DTB so Manafort siding with Putin taking 10’s of millions in Consultancy fees and another $10 million loan from Putins henchman oligarch.
Money laundering etc etc.
Neither side has my support but Trump /Kucshner have received extensive funding from other Putins Russian Mafia linked oligarchs.
Like “Wise” (guy/mafia fixer Manafort)
Trump has proven ties to the US mafia.
Both side’s are equally corrupt.
Fox news and RT(Russian equivalent of Fox).
Yes.
Both side’s are equally corrupt.
Yes.
Under what circumstances does the definition of ‘equally corrupt’ cover both of, say:
1: Robert Mueller’s detailed indictments, and
2: the fever dream nonsense of ‘Benghazi’ or ‘Uranium One’?
Not quite.
In the US the murder of political opponents is not yet routine.
What political opponent? Bernie Sanders?
He’s not a bad parallel for Nemtsov – neither were about to be elected, but only one was assassinated. The Russian one, of course.
Things that President Putin won’t do when meeting U.S. President Donald Trump in Helsinki:
Demand that the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq and renounce its illegal blockade of Cuba.
Demand that Trump cease backing the murderous Netanyahu regime in Israel and work for a diplomatic outcome that protects the rights and security of all Palestinians.
Actually push for stronger human rights across the world.
Demand the U.S. stop supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.
Push the U.S. to stop supporting the outlaw Israeli government in the Occupied Territories, as well as the oppressive and anti-democratic regimes in Brazil, Guatemala and Honduras.
Get the U.S. to halt provocative military actions on North Korea’s periphery and similar provocations in vassal states like Poland.
Gain full cooperation to pressure Binyamin Netanyahu to denuclearise completely.
Force the U.S. to cease its destructive cyberoperations and drone assassinations all over the world, but especially in Yemen and Afghanistan. Obama unfortunately encouraged it.
But
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-13/neocons-panic-trump-putin-meeting-could-mark-close-syrian-proxy-war
The perfect riposte to the neocon drivel that this post delivers.
Anyone who has seen Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States would know Truman was a terrible U.S President, captured by the military industrial state.
Advantage’s post is preposterous from beginning to end. Are the administrators of this site going to turn it over to Whaleoil for a guest post now? He couldn’t be any more biased or untruthful than this bloke “Advantage”.
[lprent: If you are looking for a long vacation, then please just ask for one. Otherwise stop whining like a spring chicken. Authors write what they choose to write, that is why we have them here. The authors will argue amongst themselves. Which acts as background. Mike and I tend to just look at the good of the site. If we think that something is getting in the way of the objectives of the site then we will deal with it.
You don’t get any say in that. As you know, this is pretty clearly stated in the policy. Including the fuckup off if you don’t like it consequences of whining about it. ]
Couldn’t agree more.
This post belongs on a neocon site.
And you should really find a nutbar site if you think that Russia is all goodness and lightness.
Russia is a brutal, undemocratic state. It’s very bad indeed. But compared to the United States and Britain, it is indeed “all goodness and lightness.” That’s a fact that the likes of the person who wrote this fantastic “Trump Meets Putin” article seems unwilling to acknowledge.
Is there a site at Eds level of nuttiness, ?
My views mirror those of Morrissey, Brigid, Maui on the Key issue of this thread .
Please note that my views on America and Russia are very similar to those of Morrissey, Maui, Brigid, Draco and Esoteric.
My views are hardly out there on this.
The world sees the US and Israel as rogue states.
I just see the US as being lumbered with a self-contradictory and very inflexible constitution that was designed for a different time and a radically different demography.
They haven’t managed to make a useful amendment to it since 1967, 50 years ago. The right to vote shouldn’t been in any reasonable constitution, so voting at age 18 shouldn’t have been in there in 1971. And the 1992 one to prevent the members of congress voting themselves pay rises… Well what can one say…
Effectively the whole society is slowly cracking under the constitutional strain as the institutions struggle to adjust. For instance look at the Economist editorial this week.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/07/12/american-democracys-built-in-bias-towards-rural-republicans
There are a couple of other articles looking at the structural issues.
Ed – Hardly anyone here is saying that the US, as it is at the moment, is a beacon of democracy. The repugnants are in desperate need of growing a spine and impeaching the radge orange bampot. As Lprent says the constitution is in desperate need of revamp, and the country – like NZ is heavily biased in favour of the conservative rural vote. Overlaying all of this is an economic system which bestows greater freedoms to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. This is much the case in all capitalist economies, to a greater or lesser extent. Nevertheless, the US, up until the advent of Trump had, in many cases, attempted to be a good global citizen, even if, not all of its activities met your approval.
Over the past 540 days, however I grant that the US has become more and more, an unstable and unreliable global citizen – particularly in the sphere of human rights and environmental protections, to say nothing about its friends and alliances. One can only hope that this phase is temporary, and the damage done is not so bad that it cannot be restored.
The fact that many see Russia as a rogue state is more to the point. The blatant interference in other nations politics and elections is but one example.
Indeed
Truman was the guy who clipped MacArthur’s wings. Ask a few Asians what would’ve happened if he hadn’t.
Only if you buy into Stone’s version of history.
I do.
It is not a blockade of Cuba. It is restricting US trade with them. any country can do that. It is no different to NZ deciding not to allow GMO products in to the country.
We should be kind to Morrissey. He clearly just has a temporal fugue or possibly that he is an illiterate speaker of Spanish unaware of the word embargar from which the English usage of embargo derives or it could simply mean that he is a idiot who prefers to make up his fantasy history.
The US blockade of Cuba started on the 22nd of October 1962 and ended on the 28th of the same month.
There have been an embargoes by the US of various types of trade with Cuba since they were first imposed on the Barista regime in 1958 (preventing arms sales). These were extended by the US after the uncompensated nationalisation of various US owned assets in Cuba in 1962, well before the Cuban missile crisis later that year.
The embargo should have been negotiated away long ago. However crass political motives by grandstanding unfeeling fuckwits on both sides has preferred to maintain the embargo rather than dealing with the harm that it causes.
It doesn’t matter if you look at the daft names of the US domestic acts or stupidity extending the embargo or the name that the Cubans prefer to use, it all just reeks of dickheads waving their stupidity around.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba
The Ukrainian government can in no way be labelled Neo-Nazi. The PM is from a Jewish background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Groysman
How did you join those two dots together and come up with that perspective, Gosman?
And it seems to me that the most extreme right-wing Zionists are also of Jewish background… What are you implying, Gosman?
The scofflaw state of Israel labels itself “the Jewish state.” That has not stopped it treating the Palestinians in a manner that even its own cabinet ministers, like the hardline Tommy Lapid, have compared to the actions of the Nazis.
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Their-fathers-sons
They are nowhere near the level of the Nazis. They aren’t treated equally that is for sure but they are not treated as the Jews were in Nazi Germany.
Actually I’d say that the way that the Israelis operate their concentration camp in Gaza is very similar to the treatment of political prisoners including Jews in Nazi Germany in 1933 to 1939.
After all the really efficient death camps were placed outside Germany after 1939 in case they disturbed the German population.
In Germany up to 1939, the German camps concentrated on simply slowly starving people to death and denying them access to medical care. Order was primarily maintained by armed guards with shoot to kill orders against unarmed civilians.
Personally I can’t see much difference between that and the current behaviour of the gutless Israeli barbarians deliberately shooting clearly defined medics from the fortified boundaries of their camp.
Bearing in mind the public statements of some of the Israeli populations, especially some of the ulta orthodox and ‘settler’ groups, it makes me wonder how long before they follow the Nazi solutions.
Your views are not shared by the likes of Tommy Lapid or other honest Israeli politicians such as Moshe Dayan. Perhaps instead of sitting on your arse watching Fox News last December 3rd, you should have gone to the Mt Eden Memorial Hall to see one of the great Israeli journalists talking….
Maybe not 1944 Nazi Germany, but not far off 1937 maybe.
Shooting kids, delaying and denying access to basic life needs, segregationist controls on ghettoes, advanced propaganda machine to paint the victims as parasitic invaders intent on extermination…
The Nuremberg laws were passed in 1935. No law in Israel comes close to the discrimination in these laws.
Civilian deaths and theft of land and property, on the other hand, are quite well advanced…
And the ubermenschen meme is prevalent against the Palestinians..
New laws to make segregation legal are now official government policy.
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2018/07/israels-new-apartheid-law.html?m=1
Are they laws yet?
Soooo – 1934 then?
I’m more curious as to just how far the ironic repition of history will go. I fear the current Israeli leadership are excellent students.
Absolutely.
Ethnic cleansing.
Apartheid.
Ghettoes.
“Almost 1,000 villages and towns in Israel – more than three-quarters of the total – do not permit non-Jews to live within them”
https://t.co/pNkrvBC9td?amp=1
https://t.co/Mh5rVuFmQI?amp=1
These have no basis in law. People can take these places to court to remove such discrimination.
Yeah, Jewish is really interesting, and once you actually start to live it… I’m sure my family will eventually understand why we converted.
Tyrant fighter knows his tyrants.
“Cease backing the murderous Assad regime in Syria and work for a diplomatic outcome that protects the rights and security of all Syrians. “
Syria was a relatively safe and secure place before Obama and the west took an interest in it and said there was a problem. Coincidence much?
Relatively safe for who in particular? If you members of the Assad regime you would be correct. If you mean anyone perceived to be a threat to the Assad regime you would be wrong.
Gosman I really don’t think you know very much about Syria, that could be because you rely only on information provided by CNN, BBC, Guardian et al since 2011.
Have you ever actually talked to any Syrian about their country?
Lots. Why?
Brigid
Are you completely unaware of the massacres of protestors by the Assad regime in 2011 ( the sort of thing his father did)? That is what started the civil war.
Yes Syria was at “peace” prior to 2011, just like Iraq was under
Suddein. The sort of peace that Stalin would have been proud of.
However Assad will win the civil war, with the probable exception of the Kurds. Will Russia and the US give them a guarantee of autonomy. Maybe that might be sorted tomorrow!
According to Tim Anderson the so called “protestors” were armed by islamist extremists. I guess that would make them not protestors, but closer to fighters or militants.
Also Syria has a reputation as a safe haven for minorities in a volatile and unsafe region. Your portrayal of Syria as some sort of Stalinist hellhole is very misleading imo.
Do you honestly think that Assad was running some sort of liberal pluralistic government that did not target perceived opponents of the regime?
I think you’re guessing at how their Government functions and behaves. So am I too, but from all appearances minorities were safe in Syria and as spikey says the Government was generally well liked and supported by it’s citizens. Those are two strong points that are hard to disprove I think and don’t mesh with your portrayal of a brutal regime.
Political minorities were not safe.
Comparisons to Stalin or to Hitler or to whatever other evil figure you can think of may serve the purpose of denigrating whoever to the level of non human but does little to reveal anything of actual circumstances.
Western media sources in early 2011 were pretty universal in their realisation that Assad was popular and unlikely to be deposed. Even after the initial violence in Daraa. Life in Syria at that time may not have been attractive to you Wayne but I guess thats why you didn’t live there.
If you would care for a little more detail on the origins of the war in Syria, you could start here…
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/the-revolutionary-distemper-in-syria-that-wasnt/
Jeez Wayne.
This rhetoric has well been discounted. Do keep up.
Almost 90% of the country voted in Assad, so that’s a reasonable starting point for a safe country. Plus there wasn’t a war going on or millions of residents fleeing the country.
I don’t trust the portrayal of middle eastern leaders by corporate news sources either. So I find it incredibly difficult to gauge how good or bad the leaders of say Syria, Iraq or Libya were.
The media lies.
And many gullible fools fall for it.
you might like this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil
Bolton: “Beyond the Axis of Evil”
John R. Bolton
On May 6, 2002, then-Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton gave a speech entitled “Beyond the Axis of Evil”. In it he added three more nations to be grouped with the already mentioned rogue states: Cuba, Libya, and Syria. The criteria for inclusion in this grouping were: “state sponsors of terrorism that are pursuing or who have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or have the capability to do so in violation of their treaty obligations.”[5]
or this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm
A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (commonly known as the “Clean Break” report) is a policy document that was prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Perle for Benjamin Netanyahu, the then Prime Minister of Israel.[1] The report explained a new approach to solving Israel’s security problems in the Middle East with an emphasis on “Western values.” It has since been criticized for advocating an aggressive new policy including the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and the containment of Syria by engaging in proxy warfare and highlighting its possession of “weapons of mass destruction”. Certain parts of the policies set forth in the paper were rejected by Netanyahu.[2][3]
or this from 1984
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/19/magazine/syria-s-assad-his-power-and-his-plan.html
or this
https://www.globalresearch.ca/1983-cia-document-reveals-plan-to-destroy-syria-foreshadows-current-crisis-2/5584486
so no Obama did not really start anything, he just continued.
cut to the chase. Syria is over populated and the owners are population cleansing and the Russians want a port in the med. qed.
I know. Right!
Trump is conflicted, he needs the NATO confrontation with Russia over Ukraine/Crimea to realise the 2014 promise of 2% GDP defence spending by 2024. Especially given he is being ridiculous about bumping that up to 4% and demanding Germans take American gas rather than make use the new pipeline arrangment with Russia.
Thus he has nothing to offer Putin in return for “global” co-operation.
And given his pretence that completing Obama era plan for nuclear weapons upgrade investment will be his own achievement, he will look away from bi-lateral nuclear arms reduction issues.
He has achieved nothing with North Korea, but will do the same here so he can pretend he made a difference (when the USA is actually co-existing with a nuclear armed and ICBM capable N Korea) – all so he can posture as GOP strongman on Iran to please the Jewish and Christian Zionist lobbies.
I suppose he could sacrifice Kurds in Syria for a Russian “promise” not to do to the US what the US did to Russia in Afghanistan, but only if he has Likud permission …
Crimea never voted to leave the Russian Federation, but they did vote to rejoin it. And there where lots of attacts on Russian ethinics in the East of Ukraine to justify action.
Assad is a democratic leader, and one of the few in the region who isn’t a puppet for the world’s Zionist empire.
A talk about a reduction on nuclear weapons would be good. Expect they will have one, indirectly. But reducing the power of the Industrial Military Complex is to happen slowly to avoid crazy folk hitting the panic buttons.
It’s a provocitive post for The Standard. This demonising of Trump is so truely non-productive.
An excellent comment.
You are dreaming.
Putin stuffed the Crimea full of troops in mufti.
Assad is a murderous asshole just like his dad. Military dictators don’t become democrats just by running the odd rigged election.
Trump is a useless corrupt son-of-a-bitch. Cuddle up to that if you want.
“Assad is a murderous asshole just like his dad. ”
Who did he and his Dad murder? What are their names?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_massacre
Ad, you third point the real problem is that trump has been attacking human rights and civil rights. So there is no way this is going to happen, I fear the next few years are going to continue the trend that civil rights and human rights are going backwards.
A couple I would have liked you to add, was that he speak up for LGBTI rights, and help stop sex trafficking.
But alas we ain’t going to see that either. We are not going to see anything, but more of trump the distractor whilst the US empire keeps killing the world with it’s over consumption.