Icarus27k

Today's the day I go around to MAGA Facebook groups and post things like, "This is where years of donations to George Soros really pay off!"

We got em

Where I argue that a ceasefire or negotiations can be realistic:

When I look at the "countries by nominal GDP" list, I think South Korea and Australia should totally be members of the G7, which would then be the G9.

Countries by nominal GDP.

Hey, did you hear Trump was indicted on 37 federal felonies, has no identifiable defense and people accused of these crimes are almost never granted bail?

Apparently, herbivores have irises and carnivores do not. The more you know.

By "our" I assume you mean the U.S.'s objective. This is a good question. What is the U.S.'s main objective in the Ukraine War? It seems to be, broadly speaking, help Ukraine survive as a free independent state. Any damage done to Russia in pursuit of this objective could be welcome, but it's not the main objective. I believe there is a debate within the U.S. government about whether the objective means not stopping until Ukraine regains all of its territory from the 1991 borders or being satisfied with the territory Ukraine has as of today. The United States government thinks it's really satisfying that Russia is bogged down in a war and their regular volunteer army has been destroyed. They probably think that's really funny. But it's not the main objective.

By the way, soft power is when a nation gets others nations to want what it wants. In China's case, it is being nice to the other nations to curry favor with them, for some ulterior goal. What is that ulterior goal? I don't know for sure, but I suspect it has to do with China wanting to be a superpower at some point.

What you are describing is "soft power". It's an old idea. The United States has done plenty of its share of it in history. The idea of it being indicative of a nation's moral goodness is dubious. International relations are NEVER purely altruistic. It's fine if China is helping other nations build stuff, but it's selfish. They want something out of it. I don't see any difference between soft power and having military bases in foreign countries.

What would I do? Mind my own business and never even think about invading another country. Russia wasn't even close to being forced into military action. This is all moot because all the reasons you listed are Russia's lies about their motivations. None of it was the real reason for the invasion.

You said Russia has a greater capacity for manufacturing for war than NATO does. It totally does not. The U.S. alone could produce more weapons and equipment than Russia can if they wanted to.

Russia has only the 11th largest economy in the world, right behind Canada and Brazil. Russia totally does NOT have a greater manufacturing capacity than NATO, either for war or anything else. War propaganda has to at least be somewhat credible.

None of this justifies or even leads to the conclusion "Russia must invade Ukraine and commit genocide". It's not a very convincing excuse or distraction from the real reason Russia invaded. Imperialism.

I don't see a legal defense for Trump, even with a biased judge. A normal defendant would make a deal with prosecutors at this time. I'm leaning towards that. Even Trump cares about self-preservation.

I think the case against Trump is so strong, even a Trump-friendly judge won't save him. What is the judge gonna do? Dismiss the case? That would immediately be overturned on appeal by the prosecution.

We all know Biden was the one who needed to do the right thing in the kidnapping of Griner. He was clearly the moral actor in that situation.