Posted on 03/21/2022 7:52:57 AM PDT by JewishRighter
Let as the question in reverse
What would Churchill do if he was the current Russian leader?
Any let be honest... we are talking a man that attacked the French fleet after the French surrender to Germany to Keep it out of possible German hand
He “interjected” with a completely different subject. Since that kind of invasion activity is allowed, we should just invade northern Mexico.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4043681/posts
“Cripple them economically.” That requires that their primary source of hard currency, the sale of oil and gas, be minimized.
***The Russians weren’t even interested in western Ukraine until oil was found there. Their interest is simply in raping that country. Russia gets 60% of its revenues from oil exports. Europe gets 40% of their oil from Russia.
In 2012 massive oil and gas reserves were found in Crimea. Crimea signed a $10 billion exploration contracts with Shell and Chevron to develop the new found oil and gas fields. These oil and gas products would compete in Europe with Russia’s oil and gas, reducing Russia’s oil revenues, which we recall amount to 60% of their total GDP. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, cancelling the contracts with Shell and Chevron.
But Ukraine still had massive reserves in, you guessed it, Donetsk and Luhansk, and other areas East of the Dnieper River. In 2019, Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine, and soon after Ukraine awarded exploration contracts to a consortium of U.S. oil companies. Again, these oil reserves would compete in Europe with Russian oil, so Putin is invading Ukraine to shut down this latest attempt to extract Ukrainian oil and sell it in competition with Russian oil.
This explanation makes more sense to me than the “Putin feels threatened by NATO expansion” excuses for the invasion.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4044221/posts?page=1#1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmdSzVFSKc
If the Ukes allow some small region in the west to be its own republic, but the OIL belongs to Ukraine, do ya think Pootypoot would allow that? Nope.
If Putin goes for the Baltics that would theoretically involve NATO. I say “theoretically” because NATO, including the USA, have signaled extreme reluctance to do anything to get in Putin’s way. We might soon be getting an answer to the question, “Is NATO a paper tiger?”
'Victory gained through combat; the subjugation of an enemy.' None of that requires occupation.
I could come to your house, kick your tail and walk out. I could sit at the bar and speak of my conquest over Kevmo and be telling a whole truth. You can argue with yourself from here.
Who would want Northern Mexico? At this point it would be an act of war to give Mexico Los Angeles which they have essentially taken over already.
I would agree with you to a limited extent - money is definitely a big motivating factor.
But the simple fact is that NATO - specifically the US - lied to them about expanding NATO; with the prospect of letting Ukraine join, Russia would have faced NATO forces armed with the most modern equipment, used by the most highly skilled operators in the world (with the possible exception of the Israelis), the very distinct possibility of nukes - and all of that within a very short distance of Russia’s major population centers and industrial & military facilities. That’s not nothing, not by a long shot - though I’ll agree with you that it also isn’t everything.
Thanks, and thanks also for your observation about Russians and Ukrainians here. They are almost all “old school,” meaning that they’re going to do their best to fit in, to be law-abiding and productive citizens, and to have thoroughly American kids who will know that this country gave them refuge and that they should be grateful for it.
Oh, and that line about younger people being easily swayed by propaganda...unfortunately they don’t have the wisdom to understand that governments of all stripes lie constantly, and we have too many like that on FR (notably one idiot who calls pretty much everyone a “Putin Puffer”). That’s a problem that we’re not going to fix - it is embedded in human nature - that’s why all of the wise men in history have white hair.
But the simple fact is that NATO - specifically the US - lied to them about expanding NATO;
***When and where? Is it a signed agreement like the Budapest Agreement? If not, then it’s just a bunch of words bandied around by guys at a negotiating table, unsigned and unacted upon.
with the prospect of letting Ukraine join, Russia would have faced NATO forces armed with the most modern equipment, used by the most highly skilled operators in the world (with the possible exception of the Israelis), the very distinct possibility of nukes - and all of that within a very short distance of Russia’s major population centers and industrial & military facilities.
***Russia ALREADY has that in the form of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Those countries were smart enough to apply for NATO membership as soon as they could, instead of dillydallying about it for 30 years like the Ukes did.
That’s not nothing, not by a long shot - though I’ll agree with you that it also isn’t everything.
***The Ukes failed in both regards. They didn’t join NATO — otherwise they would not be invaded right now nor in 2014. They also gave back their nukes in the Budapest Agreement — otherwise they would not be invaded... You get the picture.
I would want northern Mexico. We could have a 100 mile buffer zone between us and the Narco State. And we would intercept illegal colonizers on Mexican soil. No longer such a thing as an anchor baby. It would be like a 100 mile wide Puerto Rico. Let them decide for themselves if they wanna be a territory of the US, their own country, or an emBASEeeed portion of Mexico.
EmBASEee Strategee:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4043681/posts
A few years ago, McCaw of McCaw Cellular proposed a plan to buy all of Baja Mexico. Run it as a separate country attuned to the needs of tourists and retirees. The land would skyrocket in value.
Yup, let’s carve up northern and northwestern Mexico. The people living there won’t mind much at all.
Occupation is not a requirement for conquest.
***It is per the definition. You can humpty-dumpty it all ya want, but that does not change the definition.
You don’t think I looked it up before I commented?
***Yes I think that is true, you did not look it up.
‘Victory gained through combat; the subjugation of an enemy.’ None of that requires occupation.
***Post where ya got that definition and let us all see for ourselves where you took a partial phrase.
I could come to your house, kick your tail and walk out.
***And the next time you came I would point my gun at you and walk you back the frack out.
I could sit at the bar and speak of my conquest over Kevmo and be telling a whole truth.
***Not when those barflies go back and talk to Kevmo.
You can argue with yourself from here.
***You can throw down more humpty-dumpty meaningless phrases from here.
Grenada is between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s more than 1,000 miles from the nearest part of the Gulf of Mexico.
When the Gadsden Purchase was arranged, Mexico agreed to give up more land than we ended up taking. Congress pared back the purchase because of fears that the area would later become part of a slave state.
That has been my experience, and I have had a lot of very close contact. There were some young men demonstrating near our local Costco wanting to collect money to send to help the people of Ukraine. All of them were clean cut and fit. No one was making a spectacle out of themselves. They were the children of Ukrainians who had moved here, and they looked much better than most of the “local” kids. And this happens all the time here. When you see a neat, tidy, fit and wholesome looking young man around here... most of the time they are either Russian or Ukrainian.
I am fairly certain that the people living in northern and northwestern Mexico would vote to join the USA if it meant citizenship and benefits. The only thing standing in the way would be the cartels and their government. If it were not for their oil reserves, it probably would have happened already.
Yes, I am not going to mention his name, because he has called me various derivatives of “Putin Puffer”. But anyone who watches the first part of this video short will know instantly who he is and will understand why even when he is trying to be pleasant, he typically comes across poorly. ; )
I believe Churchill to have been a great man. I’m saddened at some of the comments on this thread (I was stunned at someone calling him a lapdog for Russia - which for anyone who has studied Churchill to any extent is an extraordinary accusation - his hatred for bolshevism is well documented), but each is entitled to their opinion.
It is impossible to know exactly what Winston would have done in the shoes of the Ukrainian leader, but I suspect the following quotes of his, give a clue:
“Nations that go down fighting rise again, but those who surrender tamely are finished....if our long island story is to end at last, let it end, only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”
He would probably also quote (as he did on more than one occasion) from Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient Rome’:
“Then up spake brave Horatius, the captain of the Gate: To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods.”
Churchill was not perfect. He was wrong on many things throughout his long, long, career. But when in a hole, with hope fading, and the odds seemingly impossible, give me Churchill every time.
Thanks. I know better than to think that there is anything like unanimous opinion on anything or anyone, but I too was disappointed by the sheer hostility of some comments.
I think I owe an apology for not making it adequately clear, but I was really thinking WWWCD if he were asked to advise America how to proceed, not Ukraine or any other country.
I’ll have to read up on that. It sounds oddly pertinent.
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