Bidens SCOTUS pick

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Umm, what I said is nowhere near what your beginners guide requires. To begin with, I didn't say it was to be a liberation. I said it was to totally eradicate the Taliban. The purpose was to annihilate an enemy who refused to turn over another avowed enemy. The help to rebuild was merely to "help" refurbish the infrastructure we destroyed. The short time required to do that would also include sticking around long enough to assure that the Taliban in Afghanistan was inoperative or even to allow it to give up Bin Ladin, as much as that could be done. But I did not say to stay there for years. I mentioned nothing about all the other things listed in chapters 1-9 in your beginners guide. Perhaps you didn't read it.

BTW, I'm not against some of the things done in your guide's version of nation building. It would depend on circumstances. One circumstance that would make it perhaps too difficult, is trying to build an Islamic nation into a democratic Western style nation founded on individual freedom and secular rule of law. Islam is totally incompatible with such a nation.

Perhaps we could have done a Hiroshima/Nagasaki type operation. Utterly destroy one large Afghan city, and if that didn't cough up Bin Ladin, do it to another large city, and keep doing it until either we got Bin Ladin or the Taliban and Afghanistan was totally destroyed. Kinda like what Putin is doing to Ukraine, whatever his motive is.

So, you’re proposing that we should have committed war crimes, because your belief is that the Muslim faith is incompatible with what you perceive to be the state religion of the United States?

So then, just how are you rationalizing Putin’s tactics or motives?
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

So, you’re proposing that we should have committed war crimes, because your belief is that the Muslim faith is incompatible with what you perceive to be the state religion of the United States?

No. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not war crimes.

Pacifists think war is a crime. It's certainly a moral crime against the innocents who want no part of it. If there were a legitimate reason to start a war, then the defenders against it would ipso facto be criminals. If there were no legitimate reason to start a war, then the attackers would thus be criminals. The idea that you can come to some gentleman's agreement about what is allowed in war and what is not allowed and calling what is supposedly not allowed a crime supposes that there is actually an agreeable world community in which everybody operates under the same law. We do not have such a community. Telling the losers that they committed crimes and condemning them in some world court (or the winner's court) is a kind of ridiculous grim humor.

Hey! . . . the winner can do what ever it wishes to the loser. If the winners hate what their adversaries did, they can deal out whatever "just" vengeance they want. Hiding behind some righteous sounding trial by a supposedly impartial Court is some kind of dark humor. I would have no compunction against executing Putin without much of a trial over his invading Ukraine, killing thousands, uprooting millions, destroying the country. There was great rejoicing when Ceaușescu and his wife were shot after a very brief phony predetermined "trial."


because your belief is that the Muslim faith is incompatible with what you perceive to be the state religion of the United States?

I don't perceive it that way, but if you believe that secular rule of law is a state religion, then, yes, you could put it that way. Islam is not compatible with the "religion" called secular rule of law. Islam firmly, unbendingly, functions under its religious laws. Islam is, indeed, a state religion. It is an absolute theocracy.

So then, just how are you rationalizing Putin’s tactics or motives?
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I'm not. I made a comparison (no comparison is perfect). Putin is asking for something that is not being given and he is responding in a manner that he thinks is legitimate on his stage of what is ethical in war. Perhaps he is telling NATO and Ukraine that their romance is reneging on the agreement that Ukraine would not be welcomed into joining NATO. Perhaps he is broadcasting how he will react if the romance spreads to other countries that were not allowed to join NATO.

Or, perhaps, he's a bloodthirsty criminal.

[Pete F.]

What “agreement”, the Budapest memorandum?
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

What “agreement”, the Budapest memorandum?
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Putin and the Russians saw it as an "agreement." In spite of the fact that there was no formal "agreement," Russia saw the discussions with Western leaders re NATO as assurances that NATO would not expand eastward. It is Putin's point of view that needs to be considered in an analysis of why he is destroying Ukraine.

For instance, exerpts from Politifact:

Baker told Gorbachev that "if we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO 1 inch to the east."

Those comments, along with similar remarks from Baker’s European allies, like Genscher and Kohl, were part of what researchers at George Washington University’s National Security Archive called a "cascade of assurances" offered to the Soviets.

Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, and Robert Gates, the deputy national security adviser at the time. Gates said the Soviets "were led to believe" NATO would not expand eastward.

Gorbachev insisted that he was promised NATO would not "move 1 centimeter further east."

you have the very adamant Russian position: ‘We were totally betrayed, there’s no doubt about it.’

The [German Foreign Ministry] reported that Yeltsin’s complaint was formally wrong, but it said it could understand "why Yeltsin thought that NATO had committed itself not to extend beyond its 1990 limits,"

Shifrinson, an associate professor of international relations at Boston University, wrote that while no formal agreement restricted NATO’s expansion, Baker and other diplomats had offered the Soviets verbal assurances that NATO would not enlarge to the east.

The record, from 1991, quotes a German official as telling British and American policymakers, "We had made it clear during the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe (a river in Germany). We could not therefore offer membership of NATO to Poland and the others."

Shifrinson said "There is a legitimate point to say that the U.S. offered assurances to the Soviets that NATO would do something, but that is not the same thing as saying NATO offered an agreement,"

Marc Trachtenberg, a professor emeritus from the University of California, Los Angeles, has summarized the research on the NATO-enlargement-promise debate. His writing also argued that U.S. officials made assurances to the Soviets that they ultimately reneged on.

Trachtenberg said that the term ‘tacit understanding’ [rather than formal agreement] is a better way to put it."

Given all that info as related by Politifact, it is not difficult to see why Putin, given his self-serving view of the world, would understand that NATO was reneging.

[Pete F.]

So how’s that working out for him
Finland, Sweden and more joining NATO.
Putin’s armed forces destroyed.
Russians committing and supporting war crimes.
Typical Authoritarian
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

So how’s that working out for him
Finland, Sweden and more joining NATO.
Putin’s armed forces destroyed.
Russians committing and supporting war crimes.
Typical Authoritarian
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Authoritarian Pete self-importantly states the obvious when he doesn't need to spread a lie.

[Pete F.]

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary, on 5 December 1994, to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The memorandum prohibited the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

The Budapest Memorandum \
The memorandum prohibited the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine,

Gee, maybe Biden didn't know about the Memorandum when he economically coerced Ukraine by threatening to withhold money promised to them.

Belarus, and Kazakhstan, "except in self-defence

And maybe poor pootie sees the destruction of Ukraine as, overall, a defensive move against the encroachment of NATO.

or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons.

Bad move . . .

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Bad move . . .

Not that the disgraced former president of the USA ever withheld aid, prestige or anything from Ukraine while hosting Lavrov in the Oval Office.
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Not that the disgraced former president of the USA ever withheld aid, prestige or anything from Ukraine while hosting Lavrov in the Oval Office.
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Biden admitted that he coerced Ukraine. Zelensky said that Trump didn't coerce him. But that's not the point. The point is that we don't have some higher moral ground in that respect of the Budapest Memorandum than Russia. And that Putin may well believe his action is a desperate defensive measure against NATO encroachment.

I'm trying to see it through Putin's eyes, not mine. I despise what he is doing.

[Pete F.]

Russian President Vladimir Putin may use the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine as a pretext to order another campaign to interfere in American politics, U.S. intelligence officials have assessed.
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Russian President Vladimir Putin may use the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine as a pretext to order another campaign to interfere in American politics, U.S. intelligence officials have assessed.
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There you go.

[Pete F.]

For the first time in American history, white men are a minority on the Supreme Court.
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

For the first time in American history, white men are a minority on the Supreme Court.
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Hurray--I guess. Are they the only minority?