Here's one for you Putin fans, . .

Politics and Social Issues
1

Curious Number Of Russian Oligarchs Have Died Since Invasion Of Ukraine

Video

Ali Velshi reports on four separate instances of Kremlin-connected, extremely wealthy Russians with ties to the oil industry who have died by suicide since Russia’s war in Ukraine began.

Fox News host Chris Wallace pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on the subjects President Donald Trump failed to bring up in an interview following the press conference.
By Manuela TobiasJuly 19, 2018

In New Book, Journalist Alleges Russian Links To Mysterious Deaths Abroad

2019

Blake and her BuzzFeed News team were finalists in 2017 for their investigation of Russian assassinations on British soil. Her new book based on that reporting, From Russia with Blood, chronicles 14 suspected assassinations in the U.K., including the death by poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, a defector who had been critical of the law allowing extrajudicial killings.

So remind me, why do you like Putin and trump?

2

You forgot to mention Saudi Arabia, rather a lot of “oligarchs” there and makes Russia look like Haight Ashbury in the 1960s.

3

What have you been smoking?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/14/europe/ukraine-russia-atrocities-eyewitness-intl-cmd/index.html

Saudi Arabia are monsters in their own right, very rich, done much mischief in global politics, but what they do is no justification for what Putin and Russia are doing, even if they are probably profiting from it, like others.

4

This is a strawman counter argument, I did not say Saudi Arabia’s behavior justifies Putin’s. What we can see though is rank hypocrisy. Why is Putin’s bombing of Ukraine any worse that Saudi’s bombing of Yemen? This is the selectivity of the Western media, always aligned with the central belief that the West are “right” and anyone opposed to the West (like say Russia or China) are "wrong’.

Have you not noticed the hypocrisy? Recall at the start of Putin’s invasion the Western press reported stuff like “Ukraine is a sovereign state and has every right to decide for itself if it wants to join NATO”?

Did you read that? it was all over the news at the start of this. Well contrast this with this lesser reported news:

"When the Solomon Islands’ prime minister stood before Parliament on Wednesday to announce that his government had signed a sweeping security agreement with China, he insisted that it would “not adversely impact or undermine the peace and harmony of our region.”

The US is vocally opposed, but surely the Solomon Islands, being a sovereign country has the right to decide such things for itself?

From CNN

" But others worry the agreement could be the first stage in a bigger plan – to establish a permanent Chinese military presence on the islands.

The reaction to Tuesday’s announcement of a signed pact was swift.

In a joint statement, the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand said the pact poses “serious risks to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

How, odd that sounds very much like what Russia has been saying about NATO for years, you know NATO bases here and there near the Russian border, some with US nuclear weapons…

Its rank hypocrisy and the sickening infatuation with Zelensky and the plight of the Ukrainians with Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn and all the rest of the glitterati fretting while the West facilitates the very same kind of barbarity in countries like Yemen should be what these people really care about, but they are all sheep, uncritical sheep.

5

what Russia says and what Russia does are two different things. They claim to be for peace, when they are about expansion. You can’t just compare one pact to another and call them equivalent or say the response should be the same. We respond to what we know Russia has done and will do and is doing.

6

So do you agree that the Solomon Islands have as much right to decide whether to join a military pact as Ukraine does?

Do you agree that it is hypocrisy to express outrage over Ukraine while expressing indifference to Yemen?

7

Me thinks you a crazy game player.

8

They have the right. That’s separate from assessing the threat.

Very different countries, different histories. I don’t know why you think they are the same, so, not gonna go into some deep dive on that

9

I see, so an outpouring of sympathy, special programs to expedite visas, all sorts of benefits concerts backed by the wealthy for victims of war in Ukraine while indifference even contempt for other victims of war is warranted according to your logic?

You are proving my point Lausten, hypocrisy has been normalized, airbrushed over whenever the aggressor does not share Western geopolitical goals. When they do (Saudi Arabia, Israel, and many more) then the victims are unpeople, collateral damage, regrettable but unavoidable, someone else’s fault.

Notice too how I never once claimed they were not different countries with different histories. The West is “good” and Russia, China are “evil” this is the mindset and this is why we have war and potential nuclear conflict. The West are morally superior, and those we are opposed to are heathens, evil, dictators etc etc etc.

10

What a weird calculus, beside ignoring the utter monsterious viciousness and scorched earth destruction being dumped upon innocent civilians - here, now, today.

Seems like hugo is basically thinking, if one despises Putin, it means one supports those other atrocities. {Nasty below the belt theatrics}

I’m crushed by the fact that yes, in a way historically, I believe that Cheney/Bush’s hysterical post 9/11 reaction and our shock’n awe war of convenience and profit, ultimately paved the way to this current monstrosity.

first) made plain to the world that we really were as monstrous as Arab extremists were screaming. (A self-fulfilling proficiency, that we played right into, thanks to the hysterical and stupid unthinking Right Wing ).

Second, it sent a signal directly to Putin, and all he read was, permission to do anything his paranoid mind wanted. So by and by, here we are.

So does that mean we should normalize or allow Russian to destroy Ukraine. And then watch as he starts attacking Europe, I mean the domino theory fits like a glove to what’s happening right now. Why should we be blind to that? {Putin has made clear that utterly destroying him is what it’s going to take to change his mind, as the Ukrainian’s say Karma is a bitch.}

Hugo’s just using history to divert attention and normalize Putin’s scorched earth behavior - rather than learn from history.

11

Russia has broken international law by invading Ukraine, that - like any easily verified fact - is not and has not been disputed by me.

NATO broke international law when it bombed Serbia in 1999, Israel violates international law and the UN every week as it continues to ignore resolutions demanding it stop building settlements.

My position is that I am calling out the hypocrisy of those who selectively express outrage, their concern for “worthy” victims and their indifference to “unworthy” victims.

One cannot be outraged at what Putin is doing and at the same time not be outraged at what Saudi Arabia or Israel is doing UNLESS they have somehow managed to normalize hypocrisy in their minds.

Russia stated clearly almost twenty years ago that if NATO expanded and began to include countries that bordered Russia, then they would mass troops and perhaps nuclear weapons at their border. They SAID that, it is a matter of public record, I can show you the state department memos if you think I’m making this up.

So despite Russia saying that what did the West do? They EXPANDED NATO they chose to antagonize Russia, call their bluff. Even Zelensky the big mouth was posturing about “Joining” NATO, showing nothing but contempt for Russia’s reasonable demand that NATO get no closer.

It seems you have swallowed the lies lock stock and barrel, actually seeing the West and NATO as hapless good intentioned bystanders in the face of brutal Russian expansionist aspirations.

NATO provoked this war, it is NATO that has been pursuing expansionist aspirations, countless informed people are saying this if you care to take the time to explore.

It is not beyond the realm of possibility that Russia will use nuclear devices, perhaps against a European state that has chosen to host US nuclear weapons, if NATO won’t listen to reason then what options does that leave for Russia?

Perhaps a currency devaluation, ethnic strife and fragmentation like that which befell Yugoslavia? and how do you think China should perceive such a collapse if that were to unfold? with academic interest or as an existential threat to their own country?

12

You’re not staying anything. This is not a conversation. It’s just you shouting

13

Lausten - You have continued to avoid my question:

So do you agree that the Solomon Islands have as much right to decide whether to join a military pact as Ukraine does?

14

You know nothing about me. Go find some other straw man to yell at and feel better about yourself

15

How does asking a question provoke a response like “You know nothing about me. Go find some other straw man to yell at and feel better about yourself”?

Do not attack me please, disagree all you wish but do not attack me for asking a question that you clearly resent being asked, attack the argument not the person presenting the argument.

But as you wish, there’ll be no more conversation between us in this thread.

16

No one in this forum is required to answer all questions posed. Ever.

17

Welcome to the planet Earth. Humans are prone to hypocrisy. It is especially easy to see it in others - are you capable of looking in the mirror?

I’ll bet I’m not the only one equally disgusted with Israel (and their prison camp nation) and Saudi Arab (the country that did more to enable 9/11 and radical Islam than any other nation.) But, neither of them are guilt of the sort of unhinged mass slaughter Putin is committing against civilians (because his army doesn’t have it together enough to fight Ukraine’s military.

How does that justify what Russia just did?

Yeah, we know all about those kinds of pigs.
The 100 pound sweetie pie says, NO, LEAVE ME ALONE,

and 250 pound macho macho says: “You provoked this attack missy!”
Consequence be damned.
I wondering if you are one of them deranged one’s who’s hoping Russia should use those nukes. Be careful what you wish for fool.

Russia has no justifiable claim on Ukraine. Ukraine has not been the aggressor.

A bit of history, it’s complicated and enough room for everyone to blame, still Putin’s imperialist aspirations belong to the dark ages, and that’s where he’ll wind up sending all of us before he’s done.

The salience that Putin and other Russian elites assign to the idea of Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian unity helps explain the origins of the current conflict, notably why Moscow was willing to risk a large-scale war on its borders when neither Ukraine nor NATO posed any military threat. It also suggests that Moscow’s ambitions extend beyond preventing Ukrainian NATO membership and encompass a more thorough aspiration to dominate Ukraine politically, militarily, and economically.

Jesus, can they grow up? Still like a bunch of spoiled testosterone overloaded delinquent teenagers.

18

@citizenschallengev4 - Where did you misread that I said Russia was justified in invading?

19

So, if I understand you hugo, you are more concerned with your definition of hypocrisy than you are with children being bombed? I didn’t misread that, I just looked at what you have been focusing on. You have said nothing about the Yemeni fighters or the Solomon government, who backs them, how much ordinance they have dropped, their governing principles, how they treat their own people, their stated goals, nothing. Pacts, that’s it.

1 Like
20

It’s embedded within your attitude and tone.
And if you can’t appreciate that, well, . . . that speaks for itself.