Most of the world neutral on Russia-Ukraine war

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by Lil Mike, Mar 18, 2022.

  1. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Well-Known Member

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    That at the height of the problems caused by US sanctions. While Covid delivered an even bigger blow in some ways, today, the attitudes haven't changed. The slight, 1-2 percent more favorable attitudes towards the US from its lowest points at 12% to around 14-15% mainly those who see Biden in slightly a better light than Trump.

    https://cissm.umd.edu/research-impact/publications/iranian-public-opinion-start-raisi-administration
    Iranian Public Opinion At the Start of the Raisi Administration
    October 15, 2021
    [​IMG]


    In the meantime, the economic situation has also improved. Even the Economist recognizes as much.

    Iran’s flourishing stockmarket reflects its resilient economy
    The economy was hurt badly by sanctions but did not collapse
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  2. Pollycy

    Pollycy Well-Known Member

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    You are right -- it is totally absurd, and even the Ukrainian billionaire oligarch who handpicked Zelenskyy to be their president, Ihor Kolomoyskyi, is also Jewish! Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ihor_Kolomoyskyi

    [​IMG]. "Would somebody inform Putin that my guys left there in 1943!" :icon_jawdrop:
     
  3. Oh Yeah

    Oh Yeah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My son and my wife asked me at dinner the other night why we are not taking in refugees from the Ukraine . My answer didn't go over well but it seems to be true. I told them it was because they are white. Nobody likes to talk about these things because being politically correct is more important than be a humanitarian. India, Pakistan, Mexico, Indonesia etc. see the EU (notably the UK) as colonists and past oppressors of people of color. The African nations wonder why all this news coverage about a bunch of white people being slaughtered and hardly a passing thought about the conflicts in Africa and people of color. Resentments and slights from the past, all the way to biblical times, are never really forgiven.

    I love the Chinese people and much of their culture but I have no misgivings that I would be re-educated, if I was lucky enough, to survive a take over of my country. My family history says to never trust the Germans because of their anti-Semitism, and yet, I am married to a German. I lost uncles to war against Germany and my father fought against the Japanese. I had a Uncle who fought and was wounded in Korea. I am a veteran of the Viet-Nam war. I do not personally hold any grudges or animosity against any of those people but I do have a suspicious attitude of their intentions when I am around them. It's almost like we respect each others cultures but push come to shove we would throw each other under the bus when it came to fighting for our country.
     
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  4. Pollycy

    Pollycy Well-Known Member

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    The next time this comes up at dinner, you might mention to everyone that 'Ukraine' is kind of a big deal right now if only because it is a large-scale, devastating, murderous invasion staged by one of the three most powerful nuclear-armed nations on EARTH! If Russia had launched an identical invasion of some third-world country in Africa, South America, or Asia, you may be sure it WOULD be a 'big deal' also! But, of course, there are some people who see every single thing in life through the 'lens' of RACISM, whether that has anything to do with the issue or not....
     
  5. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Accepting that for our premise, I would point out these two, glaring errors of omission, in your analysis:

    1) *It was TRUMP who pulled us out of SYRIA, and left it all to RUSSIA.


    2)°°Easily the clearest sign to all, how
    unreliable a partner, was the U.S., was our treatment of the KURDS.

    It was
    TRUMP'S abandoning them, in SYRIA, to the TURKS, that cost us these very loyal allies, who were, unlike most other military partners in the region, competent, effective fighters.

    So, for the loss of what could have been that source of
    non- extremist stability in the region, and a proven reliable partner of the U.S., you have no one but Donald Trump to blame, as he did this over the objections of the military brass and his Security & Defense advisors.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
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  6. pitbull

    pitbull Banned Donor

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    Do you want to pitch an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory? That's crazy, bro. :(
     
  7. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Another line of delineation, between First World Countries, and the rest.

    I have pointed out this unsupportable claim of yours, in the past, and yet you continue to make it, with no basis, whatsoever. If you want to knock "Western Media," that's fine; but ALL Western Media is NOT LIBERAL. Therefore, as a second grader should be able to follow, unless you can show that CONSERVATIVE, RIGHT WING, Western Media DOES cover the stories of conflict around the world, which are given short shift by the more "liberal" media-- other than just when they are seen as an opportunity to attack a Democratic President-- your contention about it being a, specifically "liberal point of view," is all in your head, with no justification, in the real world. Western Media cater to Western points of view-- both the Conservative, as well as the liberal ones.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  8. AlpinLuke

    AlpinLuke Well-Known Member

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    Being fair, I'm noting that my African friends [immigrants who work here in Italy] are pro-Russia.
    A Senegalese friend of mine explained his opinion:

    it seems that NATO agreed about not enlarge its sphere of influence beyond a certain line. Ukraine was beyond that line.
    So that, this is what my African friend has told me [and this is what African medias say], Russia has felt to be threatened and harassed by the excessive potential expansion of NATO. South Africa has declared its support for Russia [at least this is what we have heard in Italy].

    About this I have to underline that Russia enjoys the status of a not colonialist power in the eyes of African, Southern American and Asian countries. Even if Russia colonized Siberia and some areas of Northern America, but this detail is not so relevant.

    To say all, when Russia have used its hypersonic missile my Senegalese friend was enthusiast.
    There is a reason for this: in Western Africa they want to get rid of France and Russians are helping them. So that they want Russia to win, not to lose Russian aid against France.

    P.S. I have to say that I agree with my Senegalese friend about a detail: why should African countries use a money issued in Africa, but with the value granted by France? In Western Africa they are still using French Franks [to make it simple]. This is pure colonialism!
     
  9. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    That's a perspective that just isn't going to be on US TV media, and unlikely to ever be in any major US newspapers or news magazines.
     
  10. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    "Right Wing" media is a sliver of total Western news media, and itt sets the agenda, not the "Right Wing." Do the other news networks take their editorial cues from Fox? I think you know better than that.
     
  11. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    That is a strawman argument-- an academically underperforming Strawman, at that. Setting the agenda, is an irrelevant metric. Does all Right Wing Media, follow the lead of the Mainstream Media (some of which is also Right Wing)-- No. They lavish coverage on things like "CRT," transgender athletes, personal pronouns, Hunter Biden, "Wokism," and other, timely topics. There is nothing stopping them from covering these conflicts, the ignoring of which, you are blaming exclusively on liberals. On what basis do you leave out the Right? Do you feel that any analysis of statistics about black Americans, for example, are irrelevant, because they are just a "sliver of total" American population? So let me give you an analogy of what you are doing:

    Americans are racist = Western Media largely ignores stories that don't appeal to Western audiences;

    Liberal Media ignores non- liberal points of view = White Americans are racist.

    You can't pin it on blacks, because they are only a sliver of the overall population, so they don't (by definition of democracy), "set the agenda," right?


    IOW, you are inserting the term "liberal," in a circumstance in which, it has
    no effect on the result. Your statement applies to ALL Western Media. The fact that you consider most of it, to be liberal, is neither here nor there. But by including this adjective, you are making false implications.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  12. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I imagine that's because NATO never made an agreement not enlarge its sphere of influence beyond a certain line, with Ukraine being beyond that non-existent line:

    Did NATO Promise Not to Enlarge? Gorbachev Says “No”
    Steven Pifer Thursday, November 6, 2014
    https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-f...ato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/

    Of course, that's not to say our less-than-worthless MSM won't peddle uninformed and outright false "perspectives" - including blatantly fabricated conspiracy theories - if it suits its own interest....
     
  13. Pollycy

    Pollycy Well-Known Member

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    I don't know how you could have misunderstood what I wrote back to @Oh Yeah any better than you did... I was making the pretty obvious point that the world's reaction to Russia slamming into Ukraine has nothing to do with the fact that both Russians and Ukrainians are Caucasian ("White"). And Putin is not getting any traction with all this bullshit about how Ukrainians are 'overlorded' by NAZIS. On the contrary, both the president of Ukraine, Zelenskyy, and the billionaire oligarch who handpicked him to be president, Ihor Kolomoisky are JEWISH, which is about as far from being "Nazi" as anything I can imagine. I never cease to be amazed at how easily people fail to understand each other.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  14. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    It occurred to me that there is really no point of commonality between us to even discuss this issue. Which actually is a good thing because the thread isn't about what you are trying to steer the subject too. But I realized that if you really think "setting the agenda is an irrelevant metric" we really have no basis for discussion.
     
  15. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    As far as the Russians are concerned, I don't think it matters much whether we promised not to enlarge NATO or not; they were still going to feel threatened by it.
     
  16. Hollyhood

    Hollyhood Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The more we push for everyone to F up their economy with sanctions, the greater the likelihood that countries will turn. They got this white guy talking on an Indian Program, and he keeps saying that he "feels like he's living a different reality" than Indians.
     
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  17. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    We haven't liked Arabs very much since 1973 when they made us stop driving Chrysler Imperials and Cadillac Eldorado 500's
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  18. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    Sanctions never have been very effective largely because not all the world will put them on. This is one of the reasons we came up with the League of Nations and the UN but neither one of them has been very effective at enforcing sanctions either

    Hey, I got an idea, don't even have nations, that way they can't have wars to begin with.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  19. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think that depends on the Russian you talk with, Mike. I have Russian friends and acquaintances who understand full well why the people in the former Warsaw Pact want to protect themselves from a nation that enslaved them for over 50 years.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  20. Pollycy

    Pollycy Well-Known Member

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    You certainly appear to be right. In the article you provided a link to, the issue is focused on directly: https://www.csis.org/analysis/twq-myth-no-nato-enlargement-pledge-russia-spring-2009

    In it, we read, "In 1997, Philip Zelikow, who in 1990 was a senior official on the National Security Council (NSC) staff responsible for German reunification issues, maintained that the United States made no commitment at all about the future shape of NATO, apart from some specific points about eastern Germany that were codified in the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany signed in September 1990. ‘‘The option of adding new members to NATO,’’ Zelikow wrote, was ‘‘not foreclosed by the deal actually made in 1990.’’

    So, who's lying about all this? Is it Ukraine's government, which, in fact, has not (NOT) even been accepted for full NATO membership, or, is it Russia, which has been invading, destroying, and murdering Ukraine's people for the past three weeks -- without provocation!
     
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  21. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We both know the answer to your rhetorical question, and of course the Russians are going to peddle their BS narratives to receptive audiences around the world, especially those who were once in the Soviet and ChiCom orbit and have received financial aid from either one or both of those countries.
     
  22. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Whether it is that you are unable to see this simple truth-- as you would, no doubt, have little trouble discerning, if all else was the same except that our Media were dominated by the Right, and someone blamed RW Media, specifically, for something that the smaller- scale (and I think your saying "slice" is also a misleading term) Liberal Media was guilty of, as well-- or whether it is merely your choice not to, in this debate forum, face up to your own hypocrisy, is of no ultimate relevance. You do you, as they say.


    I had just wished to point out-- in direct contradiction to your false accusation-- that it is
    you, who is "steering the subject to" this issue, by your inserting the word "liberal," where, should it be removed, it would not change what is ostensibly your point. The only reason the word is "needed," in your argument, is to cast stones at the Left and, by implication, leave the Right Wing, off the hook.

    Good to know, and I will remember for the future, that this is your approach.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022
  23. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    You're right. I should have used the word "establishment" rather than "liberal." They are effectively the same thing.
     
  24. Thedimon

    Thedimon Well-Known Member

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    Ancient Greek city-states were frequently at war with each other.
    :)
     
  25. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    "Establishment," would be a perfectly acceptable, accurate (& non-partisan) term to use. That part about it being "effectively the same thing," as saying liberal, is just your opinion.

    There is non- establishment, farther "left" wing media in the U.S., as well, FYI.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2022

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