Is the letter "Z" Putin's new swastika?

[lwf]

Likewise, the siege warfare by Azov against the Russian enclaves in Donbass through artillery shelling of residential areas has also been effective - both in taking civilian lives, and also in eventually provoking Russia to invade. These a-holes have sabotaged chances for negotiated peace and settlement. Zelensky proved inadequate to overcome them.

They shouldn't have done that. And Vladimir Putin shouldn't have used it as an excuse to attempt a conquest of a sovereign country, and in doing so revealing just how weak his military is, strengthening NATO resolve all across Europe, and cutting the innocent Russian people off from the rest of the world and dooming many of them to starvation and suffering.

This is what comes when you underestimate your enemy.

 

[Tigerace117]

That's why you need patience. Siege warfare is playing the long game, and sanctions are an even longer game. But eventually they work. You sacrifice instant gratification for a strategically superior position so that down the road, perhaps a generation or two, the enemy changes himself willingly, rather than you trying to change him by force.

Look up "The Cuban Thaw." Sanctions present an opportunity for the target to better itself by establishing positive relations with the country imposing them. Direct action stiffens their resolve. Sanctions eat away at resolve until there is nothing left. This is what needs to happen to Russia.

Since when have the American people had any sort of “patience”? People will get bored and prissy when the sanctions don’t led to Russia rolling over and doing what we want, and a few years down the line the whole thing will be forgotten.

.....you mean the deal the US immediately went back on within five years of agreeing to? THAT “thaw”?

 

[lwf]

Since when have the American people had any sort of “patience”? People will get bored and prissy when the sanctions don’t led to Russia rolling over and doing what we want, and a few years down the line the whole thing will be forgotten.

.....you mean the deal the US immediately went back on within five years of agreeing to? THAT “thaw”?

The Americans haven't gotten tired of the sanctions on North Korea have they? Sanctions don't seem to be the kind of thing that Americans get tired of.

And yes, the Cuban Thaw is showing that Cuba is westernizing. Just because it isn't happening all at once doesn't mean that sanctions aren't effective. Look where we are now compared to where we were before sanctions were put in place.

 

[sanman]

They shouldn't have done that. And Vladimir Putin shouldn't have used it as an excuse to attempt a conquest of a sovereign country, and in doing so revealing just how weak his military is, strengthening NATO resolve all across Europe, and cutting the innocent Russian people off from the rest of the world and dooming many of them to starvation and suffering.

This is what comes when you underestimate your enemy.

But whose mistake came first?

It seems to me that Zelensky the TV Hero should have stepped up in real life.

Mr I-Play-President-On-TV should have stopped the militias from killing those people in Donbass. The President is supposed to give the orders, and not meekly take orders from the militias.

"Oh shit! If I piss them off, they might overthrow me, or kill me!"

Time to shit or get off the pot. Time to fish or cut bait. Time to show them who's boss, or else resign.

Can Putin really say, "I didn't want to invade Ukraine! The generals made me do it!"
Give me a freakin break.

Reagan was an actor too - but he was able to meet the challenges of real life leadership.

 

[Tigerace117]

The Americans haven't gotten tired of the sanctions on North Korea have they? Sanctions don't seem to be the kind of thing that Americans get tired of.

And yes, the Cuban Thaw is showing that Cuba is westernizing. Just because it isn't happening all at once doesn't mean that sanctions aren't effective. Look where we are now compared to where we were before sanctions were put in place.

The Cuban Thaw shows that westernizing is pointless because the US can’t be trusted to keep its word. The same goes for the situation with Iran. We’ve shot our credibility in the head. And as for North Korea, we’ve repeatedly grown tired of sanctioning them, but their insanity has left the US with basically no choice but to keep flailing about.

“ William M. LeoGrande summarized that the embargo against Cuba is "the oldest and most comprehensive US economic sanctions regime against any country in the world" imposed over half a century ago. According to LeoGrande, "the embargo has never been effective at achieving its principal purpose: forcing Cuba's revolutionary regime out of power or bending it to Washington's will."

“ Writing in 2021, in the context of the 2021 Cuban protests, according to Pavel Vidal, a former Cuban central bank economist who teaches at Javeriana University in Colombia, reforms in Cuba "do not depend on the embargo, and the embargo should be eliminated unilaterally, independently from reforms in Cuba. Both cause problems."[63]”

United States embargo against Cuba - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[iguanaman]

No, the ones acting exactly like the NAZIS, are the COLLECTIVE WEST, confiscating money and goods from people simply because of their nationality, same for lots of other types of discrimination! People get punished simply because they belong to a certain nationality = pure Nazism!

LOL Imposing sanctions on a country that that is waging and illegal war on another is not what the Nazi's did. The entire country is being punished in an effort to change their behavior. You think we should reward it?

 

[iguanaman]

But whose mistake came first?

It seems to me that Zelensky the TV Hero should have stepped up in real life.

Mr I-Play-President-On-TV should have stopped the militias from killing those people in Donbass. The President is supposed to give the orders, and not meekly take orders from the militias.

"Oh shit! If I piss them off, they might overthrow me, or kill me!"

Time to shit or get off the pot. Time to fish or cut bait. Time to show them who's boss, or else resign.

Can Putin really say, "I didn't want to invade Ukraine! The generals made me do it!"
Give me a freakin break.

Reagan was an actor too - but he was able to meet the challenges of real life leadership.

LOL In "real life" the evil is not the good like you want to believe. The people of Donbass were pawns of Putin and now that they see what he did they regret supporting him. Even the Nazi's did not murder German speaking people. 1/3 of Ukraine speak Russian.

This War Is Not in My Name​

I felt sick when I read about Vladimir Putin announcing the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Images of bloodied civilians and bombed-out residential buildings flood my phone and TV. I still feel shaky. And angry.
It hit me, physically, how Mr. Putin abuses my language. Steals it to pretend he is defending the rights of Russian speakers. Russian is my mother tongue. It is the language I speak with my children. And I do not want it to be the language of war. Unfortunately, that is what it has become.
These words will offer no comfort for those under fire in Ukraine — but the least Russian citizens like me can do is not remain silent, even from afar. I only regret not speaking up when it all began in 2014.
It has been a long eight years since Russia annexed Crimea and Russian-backed separatists started a war in the Donbas region. Now, the 1.5 million people who fled from there to more peaceful areas of Ukraine are again at risk of losing their lives and their homes. It feels as if all hope for peace is gone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/opinion/putin-ukraine-russia-language.html

 

[lwf]

But whose mistake came first?

It seems to me that Zelensky the TV Hero should have stepped up in real life.

Mr I-Play-President-On-TV should have stopped the militias from killing those people in Donbass. The President is supposed to give the orders, and not meekly take orders from the militias.

"Oh shit! If I piss them off, they might overthrow me, or kill me!"

Time to shit or get off the pot. Time to fish or cut bait. Time to show them who's boss, or else resign.

Can Putin really say, "I didn't want to invade Ukraine! The generals made me do it!"
Give me a freakin break.

Reagan was an actor too - but he was able to meet the challenges of real life leadership.

Well Zelenskyy has certainly met the challenge of a Russian invasion of his country.

 

[lwf]

The Cuban Thaw shows that westernizing is pointless because the US can’t be trusted to keep its word. The same goes for the situation with Iran. We’ve shot our credibility in the head. And as for North Korea, we’ve repeatedly grown tired of sanctioning them, but their insanity has left the US with basically no choice but to keep flailing about.

“ William M. LeoGrande summarized that the embargo against Cuba is "the oldest and most comprehensive US economic sanctions regime against any country in the world" imposed over half a century ago. According to LeoGrande, "the embargo has never been effective at achieving its principal purpose: forcing Cuba's revolutionary regime out of power or bending it to Washington's will."

“ Writing in 2021, in the context of the 2021 Cuban protests, according to Pavel Vidal, a former Cuban central bank economist who teaches at Javeriana University in Colombia, reforms in Cuba "do not depend on the embargo, and the embargo should be eliminated unilaterally, independently from reforms in Cuba. Both cause problems."[63]”

United States embargo against Cuba - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

All this argues for is more sanctions. And don’t think for a second the US is even close to finished coming up with new ways to sanction Russia.

 

[Tigerace117]

All this argues for is more sanctions. And don’t think for a second the US is even close to finished coming up with new ways to sanction Russia.

No, it shows the opposite, rather— that sanctions don’t necessarily work, and that piling sanctions on tends to harden attitudes towards the West.

 

[lwf]

No, it shows the opposite, rather— that sanctions don’t necessarily work, and that piling sanctions on tends to harden attitudes towards the West.

They work better, and harden fewer attitudes towards the West, than missiles do.

 

[Tigerace117]

They work better, and harden fewer attitudes towards the West, than missiles do.

“Better than literally world war three” is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

 

[TheDoctorWasIn]

Godwin-ing is boring.

 

[lwf]

“Better than literally world war three” is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

I never argued that sanctions are a fun and economically beneficial diversion for a bored country.

That they are better than world war three is the only endorsement required.

World war three is the quick path to resolution on NATO's terms. Sanctions are the much slower, and exponentially safer, path to resolution on NATO's terms.

 

[sanman]

I never argued that sanctions are a fun and economically beneficial diversion for a bored country.

That they are better than world war three is the only endorsement required.

World war three is the quick path to resolution on NATO's terms. Sanctions are the much slower, and exponentially safer, path to resolution on NATO's terms.

NATO was not created to provoke WW3, it was meant to be purely defensive in nature -- but it has strayed away from its roots, and is now a risk for provoking WW3.

 

[Tigerace117]

I never argued that sanctions are a fun and economically beneficial diversion for a bored country.

That they are better than world war three is the only endorsement required.

World war three is the quick path to resolution on NATO's terms. Sanctions are the much slower, and exponentially safer, path to resolution on NATO's terms.

If you actually think tens of millions of Americans getting incinerated is “resolution on NATO’s terms” you are more clueless than I thought.

Folks on this board apparently looked at MacArthur’s advisors in Korea and thought “you know what their problem was? Not enough blind confidence”.

 

[lwf]

NATO was not created to provoke WW3, it was meant to be purely defensive in nature -- but it has strayed away from its roots, and is now a risk for provoking WW3.

What risk is that?

 

[sanman]

What risk is that?

A risk of provoking WW3. That's what I said above.

 

[sanman]

Well Zelenskyy has certainly met the challenge of a Russian invasion of his country.

He's on TV like a TV star, anyway. It's a lot different to actually do things, as opposed to being a guy who spent his career posing onscreen.

 

[yankintx]

All the west has to do is ease up on the sanctions. Russians haven't even begun to suffer under the sanctions currently in place. The suffering of the innocent in Russia will change the calculus of support within its borders, and whomever gets the support of the military will have the strength to resist being deposed. We can only pray it will be sooner rather than later.

Basic food supplies have increased in Russia, some like milk increased by 30%. It's amazing how fast the sanctions are having the desired effect, nuking the Russian economy.

 

[lwf]

A risk of provoking WW3. That's what I said above.

How is NATO a risk for provoking WW3?

 

[HangLow]

The letter Z is becoming a symbol of Russia's war in Ukraine. But what does it mean?

It has become a symbol of the Russian invasion, painted on military vehicles, printed on T-shirts and widely distributed through social media in support of Moscow's war.

www.npr.org

New Swastika?? LOL
Be honest, you don't know what it means.

look like someone needs new windows...

​