Ok last update for a while I promise but speaking of US propaganda, this from Fox News:
Putin’s nuclear forces action is ‘escalatory and unnecessary’: US defense official
A senior U.S. defense official told Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin that there is no reason to doubt validity of reports that Putin has put his nuclear forces on an elevated alert status.
“We believe this is not only an unnecessary step to take but an escalatory one … that could make things much more dangerous,” the official said. “We have no reason to doubt the validity of this order but how it’s manifested itself is not completely clear yet.”
The official stressed that the Pentagon is “confident” it has the ability to defend “the Homeland, allies and partners” with “tough strategic deterrence.”
But the Pentagon is still working to “assess what this action … actually means in tangible terms.”
Gotta love how they are confident our deterrence will work just like they are confident the sanctions will work. The fog of war lays heavily on Washington DC
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Creepy, Glad the are talking and as we know “Gentlemen you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!” Guess the flick:movie_camera:
Love that movie. I was,alway to Buck Turrgidson comment on nuclear,commitment: “I’m not,saying we won’t get our hair messed. 10 to 20 million tops, depending on the breaks”
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Hello,
today in the Bundestag:
- 100 Billion Sondervermögen Bundeswehr (Money reserved for the German Army to used when needed)
- The once upon a time senseless 2 per mill of GDP for defence: we do not because of our allies demands but to defend our freedom and democraty.
In my understanding Germany will have a higher defence budget than Russia.
There is an English Translation of the speeches on France24 avaiable.
I do not think Putin has made him liked by any Russian militrary or civilians by this results of his actions.
But to all Russian readers: No Emperor in France, no much more insane person in Germany. I do not know any German who hates Russians and the Russians who have spoken against the war and were punished for it are heros to everybody I know.
drushba Gerhard
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Also the Simon Wiesenthal organisation is totally condemning Putin. (and yes they also had criticism of the Ukraine in the pas for naming streets after Nazi collaborators etc). But this time Putin goes much much further and is beyond reason.
Go SWC:
Simon Wiesenthal Center: US Must Cut Off All Diplomatic Cooperation With Putin, Recall Our Ambassador
What does cutting off diplomatic ties with a country mean generally?
I would call it a precursor to unfriendly action.
There are levels of doing this. You might recall your ambassador for consultations up to full diplomatic sundering which means no ambassador, no embassy and no normal channels of communication.
The us has no ties with Iran currently. We had no ties with Cuba forever. Doesn’t mean war but it’s not good
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Interesting that people are willing to spend more on defense but not willing to change their lifestyles.
Is Germany willing to modify their energy policy to reduce dependence on Russian energy. So far the US has done nothing since Biden came into office to increase energy supplies.
Wonder what Europe will do with more defense money. Training and equipment sure makes sense because you never have enough. But will NATO expand? Push forward?
Time will tell.
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Very good point. In my view we Europeans are way too late in thinking strategically instead of going where the energy is cheap and where the ex-politicians are accidentally find unbelievably lucrative jobs. Schröder Germany, Fillion French and Nieuwenhuizen Dutch are all politicians who are Kremlin bought and paid for.
While the politicians are totally ignoring that this is not something new below is a Dutch article from 2013 “natural gas deals over morals”. A few years ago the US argued that Europe let the USA for its defense and at the same time made huge deals with Putin who already had cut of natural gas to the Ukraine earlier. We can’t pretend we didn’t know
This sudden reversal of Europe seems more out of panic than a long term strategy. Building up the military takes a lot of time not just money. And I am not sure that after this crises is over the money will just vanish into “other priorities “.
Yes this is a cynical view but as long as politicians have lots of side jobs and basically gave the European ombudsman the middle finger when she asked that Von der Leyen would publish her secret SMS communications e what do we expect? There is a systematic problem with conflicts of interest.
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All of NATO is complicit here. Long term energy strategy always has been important for self determination but over and over countries put short term politics in front of it. Germany has policy which makes no sense to me which disable all local energy and just import it. But the US has no clue either.
Ukraine should be a rich country full of resources. Given reasonable management I believe they will but it seems like it is full of corrupted purposes and individuals and manipulated by outside forces both West and East.
And in the midst of this NATO, a 30 country military alliance and the EU political organization seems to be a recipe for lack of direction. I’m not sure increasing military capabilities is needed or even a good idea. I think Russia can’t even drive to the end of Ukraine, let alone the North Sea.
Long term China is way more dangerous anyway imho.
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Great point, China (country is much more powerful and much more dangerous than Russia). Then again car companies like e.g. Volkswagen have put factories right in the middle of Uygur concentration camps with the then German Chancellor opening them. Here is an article on Boehmermann a comedian who actually bring really great painful points to the table. You might have to run it through a translator or get a learn German in 24 hours book. (Does only work with Jupiter hours 
The WW2 relevance is that no matter how fantastically people present themselves a lot of us especially the 100% career can be bought and often will put career over common sense or morals. I personally love Eugene Sledge who didn’t want to become an Officer because he didn’t want to send men to their deaths.
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And putting up this BBC article from 9 months ago where the same united politicians gave the Ukraine (and Poland too)/the middle finger by applauding the waiving of the Nordstream sanctions on Russia. If any historian here is looking for subject? No wonder Putin thinks he can get away with it. NATO states complain but lift sanctions and willingly let themselves become dependent on dictator-controlled strategic resources.
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Yeah Another deplorable move from President Brandon.
All this is nothing new. I was reading from the bombing survey on effects from German industry.
The top producer of trucks was Opel, owned by General Motors. The third producer was a Ford subsidiary at Cologne. Opel was heavily damaged during the war and after, Both General Motors and Ford were compensated for damages incurred during the bombing while building vehicles for the war effort. Ford was even building V2 rocket engines.
I don’t object to them building the plants which predated Hitler but to expect and get compensation for their damage is just an ugly side of business over blood.
Personally, I would not have been surprised of Nord stream had suffered a failure of it’s pipeline via a hack attack or maybe an unknown marine vehicle.
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so… that is basically as good as the US acknowledging the Iran doesn’t “exist”, right? If so… what about the people currently in Russia who want to come back to America.
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I’m not sure doesn’t exist is the right term. Maybe we don’t trust them enough to feel safe. Last time we had an embassy in Iran……it didn’t end well.
As for Americans in Russia, they were warned this week to leave. I believe the main reason for this is so many airlines are suspending service it is becoming difficult to guarantee passage.
We still have diplomatic relations with Russia. Shutting those down would be a huge deal considering they are a nuclear armed country with whom we have several treaties with.
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Well, yeah in general keeping talks open is better. Often it happens in secret or via third parties.
Also while again condemning Putin the situation isn’t 100% Evil versus 100% good. To me the Simon Wiesenthal has a great reputation at slamming Antisemitism, Racism, Antilatino black etc etc.
The Simon Wiesenthal center condemned Putin but also the HIDEOUS training of Ukranian extreme right forces allied to the for example the Azov Battaillon. The Azov Battallion uses Swastika like symbols and if that is not evil enough the Adopted the “Black Sun symbol” Which can also be found at Wevelsburg Himmlers “Spiritual” center near Paderborn, Germany. So basically this first order scum and like Mark Felton pointed out in a video Wevelsburg to gamers is also known as Castle Wolfenstein. (but now a very respectable museum).
By the way to complicate matters even more Prime minister Zelensky of the Ukraine is a Jew himself. Not sure what to think if this.
Western countries training far-right extremists in Ukraine - report - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)
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There are always going to be bad people slip through the cracks. Just because the Azov battalion exists does not mean this is Ukrainian policy just that bad actors got together and say and do hateful things.
Let’s see what happens now it’s brought to light. I kind of think it’s low on the priority list right now but it will be important for Ukraine to reaffirm this is not what they believe in.
As for the west training them, we have trained all sorts of bad elements. We send weapons to bad people and we support horrific regimes all in the name of geopolitics. We support Saudi Arabia for example.
On the other hand you support the United States which drones more civilians than the rest of the world combined. I saw a story that the Russians were deploying thermobaric missiles which are awful. Yes they are but getting hit by a hellfire missile isn’t exactly a hug.
It’s a complicated ugly world and while I think the Azov battalion should be barred, disbanded and condemned, they haven’t actually done anything yet have they? Maybe I am missing something.
well the apparantly fought in the 2014/2015 conflict and ran prisons were people were tortured, the “Deutsche Welle” told in on of their programs that they now were part of the inland ministerium. OK I understand that in WW2 some Ukranians sided with the Nazi’s after the holodomor. Right now from a realpolitik standpoints they possible (I am unsure here? )are more of liability than an asset. Putin already calls the Ukranians Nazi’s and uses them as proof. Conveniently ignoring that Zelensky happens to be Jewish.
There are lots of sources but frankly all the info right now is unrealiable, the fog of war rules.
What is more important to me is that at least people are talking and hopefully cooler heads will prevail. I am really worried about an escalation here with lots of weapons on both sides being thrown in to force a military solution ending …where?
Like Gerhard said in the other topic said, lesser heroes lead to hopefully lesser civilian casualties. On a positive note, I know some of my Russian friends who supported Putin in 2015 turned anti-Putin because he went way to far now. Hopefully there are many of them.
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What makes this horrible conflict actually interesting that NOW we cannot see in the future. Just a lot of often unreliable info, some actions in the past and lots of people with opinions and political and military actions of which we don’t know the effect. This is a very different view from that of the “historian” who know the effect and has the luxury of reasoning backwards if that made sense.
Not criticizing historians, but decision making in this murky World is difficult.
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When JD and I were looking at updates on the situation in Ukraine, he found this:
An old abandoned GULAG camp (Belichi Gulag):
Might be relevant to the latest TimeGhost video…
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