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  • Jan 1, 2025, 06:22 AM
    tomder55
    Glad to know there is a new boss in Syria .

    Abductions, extra-judicial killings surge in Syria under HTS rule: Report

    Ethnic cleansing ? Mass murder ? I thought that Assad was the only bad actor in the country.
    (warning graphic )
    Scenes of Islamic Rule in the New Syria - Geller Report
    That is why we were so quick to drop the bounty on the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS ) terrorist leader .

    US drops $10m reward for arrest of Syria’s new leader after Damascus talks | Syria's War News | Al Jazeera

    That is not really surprising for someone who has watched Clueless Joe all these years.

    The news to me was Ukraine's support with the rebels in Syria.
    Syria eyes 'strategic' ties with Ukraine, Kyiv vows more food aid shipments | Reuters

    Ukraine has been assisting the terrorist HTS fighters with intelligence and drones(paid for with US monopoly bucks ) .
    US announces $5.9 billion in military and budget aid to Ukraine | Reuters

    For Ukraine it made sense. They were fighting Russian backed Syria. enemy of my enemy......

    But now Assad is in Russia . It appears that Ukraine plans to keep the relationship alive.
  • Jan 12, 2025, 07:36 AM
    tomder55
    In the days before Trump assumes the Presidency ; Zelensky is making a last desperate effort the get NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine .

    Quote:

    I believe that such deployment of partners’ contingents is one of the best instruments. Let’s be more practical in making it possible.”

    Zelensky Calls on NATO Allies to Deploy Troops in Ukraine - Newsweek

    There is nothing practical in his idea unless the goal is to plunge us into WWIII .


    Trump does not speak diplomateese so he sounds simple . But his take is the more realistic assessment of how we got to where we are .

    "
    Quote:

    A big part of the problem is, Russia - for many, many years, long before Putin - said, 'You could never have NATO involved with Ukraine.' Now, they've said that. That's been, like, written in stone," Trump said.
    "And somewhere along the line Biden said, 'No. They should be able to join NATO.' Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feelings about that."
    Trump says he sympathizes with Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine | Reuters

    It is the same reason we risked Armageddon when Russia put nukes in Cuba.


    The trouble is that Russia was burned once before in negotiations


    Quote:

    former German chancellor Angela Merkel revealed the West's real intention behind its negotiation with Russia and Ukraine to promote a ceasefire in 2014. She admitted the Minsk agreements were an "attempt to give Ukraine time" and that Kiev had used it "to become stronger."
    Real intention behind Minsk agreements further destroys credibility of the West - Global Times
  • Jan 19, 2025, 04:07 AM
    tomder55
    There is still one day left to start WWIII before Trump is inaugurated . NATO apparently is all in . They are holding war games on the Russian border in Latvia

    War games escalate as hundreds more NATO troops arrive near Russian border

    It also borders Russian ally Belarus and is near the strategic Suwalki Gap between Latvia and Poland ;a short corridor to Russia's Kaliningrad .

    What does Russia REALLY want ?

    A Putin ally has asserted that a land bridge to Kalinigrad is on Putin's wish list

    Putin Ally Warns Russia Needs Land Crossing Through NATO Countries - Newsweek


    NATO deploys Norwegian F-35 fighters for 1st time during Russian Jan. 15 attack on Ukraine

    F-35 Survives Close Encounter with Russian Jet Over NATO Lake: Video - Newsweek

    Nato launches 'Baltic Sentry' mission to protect undersea cables

    Sweden to contribute up to 3 warships to reinforced NATO presence in the Baltic | AP News

    Japan launches NATO mission in Brussels
  • Jan 19, 2025, 04:59 AM
    tomder55
    Germany will deploy troops in Ukraine to enforce the peace . Ok

    Germany plans to send troops to secure Ukraine

    The last time Germany entered Ukraine it was a corridor to their invasion of Russia.
  • Jan 21, 2025, 05:43 AM
    tomder55
    Over 10,000 NATO troops are conducting war exercises in Romania .
    It is called 'Steadfast Dart ' and it involves troops from 9 NATO nations . Romania is on the Black Sea ;a stone's throw from Crimea . It borders southern Ukraine and the Russian ally Serbia. In other words ; a short hop skip from the front lines . It's goal is to test NATO's new Allied Reaction Force (ARF) with the aim of training them to reinforce NATO troops already deployed in Romania , Greece and Bulgaria. .
  • Jan 23, 2025, 04:25 AM
    tomder55
    NATO so wants WWIII . How badly do they want it ? The Sec General of NATO Mark Rutte wants Trump to continue sending weapons the Ukraine and NATO will pick up the tab.
    NATO chief Rutte says Europe will fund US weapons for Ukraine
  • Jan 25, 2025, 06:31 AM
    tomder55
    Putin says that had Trump won in 2020 he may not have invaded Ukraine .

    Putin claims ‘Ukraine crisis’ may have been averted if Trump was president | CNN

    He is willing to negotiate . Russia is paying a heavy price for the invasion . For Ukraine it has been a generational catastrophe.
  • Feb 2, 2025, 03:28 PM
    tomder55
    You may have read that the NORK troops in Russia defending the tiny strip of land Ukraine gained in their surprise offensive in Kursk
    have taken heavy casualties and have pulled out of the fight .

    North Korean troops pulled back from frontline after heavy losses, Ukrainian officials say | CNN

    Don't be fooled . After 4 months they are regrouping reinforcing .They will come back stronger having gained valuable experience .
    Worryingly for the U.S. and its allies backing Kyiv, the estimated 11,000-strong North Korean army contingent has defied high casualties to amass experience in the high-intensity, millennial war that current-generation Western troops lack.....

    Motivated, disciplined, well-equipped: North Koreans in Ukraine defy expectations - Washington Times
    The South Koreans are more realistic

    ."With around four months having passed since the deployment of troops to the war between Russia and Ukraine, (North Korea) is assumed to be accelerating preparations for additional measures and deployment amid multiple casualties and occurrence of prisoners," the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a written assessment.

    N. Korea suspected of preparing for additional troop deployment to Russia: JCS | Yonhap News Agency
  • Feb 5, 2025, 05:23 AM
    tomder55
    The evolution of Trump's Ukraine policy
    ....This war must end
    .....I will end the war in 24 hours

    Trump misses his own deadline to end Ukraine war | CNN Politics

    .....we will continue funding the war in exchange for rare earth minerals

    Trump wants Ukraine's rare earth elements as a condition of further support | AP News
  • Feb 12, 2025, 09:54 AM
    tomder55
    Defense Sec tells some hard truths to the war party . At a meeting of the larger group of allied nations of Ukraine the Ukraine Defense Contact Group(UDCG) he told them that Ukraine returning to pre- invasion borders is unrealistic.
    He said instead Trump was going to seek a negotiated settlement to the war.

    "We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield."

    Besides establishing agreed borders he says :
    NATO membership is off the table
    "Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops."
    He envisions a peace keeping force that will NOT include US troops ;and will NOT be subject to NATO Article 5 terms

    The US has choices to make ;and given our need to defend our own borders ;and a growing threat in the Pacific from China "prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe."

    He joined Trump in calling for Euro nations to pony up 5% of their budget to their defense. Although the US is committed to NATO ; America "will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency."

    RIGHT ON !

    "Rather, our relationship will prioritize empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security," "Honesty will be our policy going forward."Opening Remarks by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at Ukraine Defense Contact Group (As Delivered) > U.S. Department of Defense > Speech
  • Feb 15, 2025, 06:06 AM
    tomder55
    Evidently there has been some pushback against Hegseth's statement about Ukraine Lindsey Graham still insists that NATO membership is still on the table. VP Vance said US troops in Ukraine is still on the table.

    In Graham's case ;he it is no secret that he is a member of the war party .
    Vance is walking back his comments and claims he was misquoted .

    'It doesn't advance American interests' — JD Vance walks back WSJ comments on US troops in Ukraine


    Critics claim that by saying it ;Trump loses a negotiation chip

    This is Clueless Joe's war . He pushed for NATO membership to Ukraine even though Putin made it plainly clear that was a red line.


    Ukraine does NOT meet NATO requirements . It has had a long standing civil war since the US orchestrated the Maidan Revolution and regime change in 2014 . It also doesn't qualify due to corruption that was evident in both regimes.

    Further there was talk about Zelinsky and Putin hammering out a deal that would've avoided war. It was Joe and Boris Johnson who sabotaged that deal.

    Trump and his administration is only stating out loud what has been obviously true.
  • Feb 15, 2025, 07:08 AM
    tomder55
    One way for Putin to break up NATO would be for him to insist that Ukraine join NATO as a condition for peace. The NATO nations that actually support it are a total of 9 out of 32 members called for membership when Russia invaded

    There are at least 7 who openly oppose it.

    Nine NATO allies back Ukraine's path to membership - Euractiv

    At least 7 countries resisting Ukraine's NATO membership invitation, Politico reports

    It takes a unanimous vote .

    There is incentive to end the war on both sides .For Ukraine they have squandered a generation to defend land that Ukrainians in the occupied territory are Russian ethnics and preferred the nation when a Russian sympathizer ran it.

    For Russia ;they have already achieved any realistic goals . Every day he proves that Russia is no where's near the power they were during the Cold War. All it took was an influx of weapons to stalemate the war into a deadly grind. He had to make an alliance with the NORKS to add meat to the grinder. Worse he had to make nice with China (no real friend of Russia)

    The next few years will be defined I believe as a competition for resources. Russia has abundant untapped resources with a sparce population on it's eastern frontier with China. China may see that as easy picking after seeing Russia struggle in Ukraine.
  • Feb 17, 2025, 06:04 AM
    tomder55
    Zelensky said at an "emergency" security conference in Munich that “I truly believe that the time has come to create the armed forces of Europe,”

    BINGO !!! Give that man a cigar !!!!

    The time when America supported Europe simply because it had always done so is over.”

    RIGHT ON!!

    NATO Boss Mark Rutte said "that Europe had to show its usefulness if it really wanted to weigh in on negotiations between Russia and the United States to end the war in Ukraine."

    “The time has come to create Europe's armed forces” (V.Zelensky)

    Yeah ;on Ukraine and a number of other issues. 80 years after the end of WWII it is time to stop suckling.
  • Feb 17, 2025, 07:21 AM
    tomder55
    Combine Vance and Hegseth's addresses to Europe last week ;it should be a wakeup call. The US is telling Europe some brotherly intervention.

    Fix your economy (Vance AI speech in Paris where he told them over regulation would leave them behind economically. )

    Provide a greater share for your common defense.
    (as an example ;the Brits plan to increase their defense spending to 2.3% GDP . Kier Starmer wants 2.5% . The goal should be 5 % )

    MEGA Make Europe Great Again.
  • Feb 19, 2025, 05:41 AM
    tomder55
    Why is it that of all the "democracies " in the West ;only the US under Trump and Hungary under Viktor Urban is interested in ending the bloodshed in Ukraine and laments the loss of Ukrainian lives ?

    Just a quick rehash. In Bucharest April 2008 NATO met and promised both Georgia and Ukraine that they would eventually become NATO states .
    Quote:

    NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.
    NATO - Official text: Bucharest Summit Declaration issued by NATO Heads of State and Government (2008), 03-Apr.-2008

    Putin called it a red line . NATO had fought a war in the Balkens . During the same conference they invited Balken states into the alliance.

    Putin warns Nato over expansion | Vladimir Putin | The Guardian

    By August he invaded Georgia and carved out a Russian buffer zone in South Ossetia.

    Evita then said out loud what the real goal was. In an interview she said that the goal was to dangle Ukraine as bait for Russia to invade so that the West could supply weapons and Russia would have another Afghanistan like quagmire .
    Hilary Clinton Wants To Turn Ukraine Into Afghanistan - YouTube

    In other words Ukraine emerging victorious was never the goal . The goal was to prolong the war to damage Russia ;not to defeat them.

    But what was our beef with Putin ? For that we have to go back to Bubba's reign. Boris Yeltsin's rise pretty much follows the rise of Bubba. He was President of Russia from 1991 -1999 . In that time was the rise of the corrupt oligarchs . They looted the country and it's resources and laundered it through western banks . Yeltsin was in trouble in 1996 and Bubba came to the rescue.
    TIME Exclusive Yanks To The Rescue : TIME Magazine : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

    When Putin took charge of the country he began to forge relations with Germany Together they built Nord Stream to bring cheap gas to Europe. This was unacceptible to the US who wants to be Europe's energy source (except for windmills and solar panels )

    This lasted through the Gerhard Shroder and Angela Merkel regimes. Olaf Scholz became Chancellor 2021 and Clueless Joe's regime began the same year. Russia began immediately to prepare for war in Ukraine. Putin fell into the Evita trap.
  • Feb 24, 2025, 05:46 AM
    tomder55
    Scott Horton is a libertarian human rights attorney and the author of books on American foreign policy. His new book is a (lengthy ) history of American policy from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the current Ukraine war. His thesis is evident in the title ....'Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine' .
    Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine – The Scott Horton Show
    He hits on many of the points I've made in this posting that the policy of expanding NATO to the borders of Russia are the real cause of the war and our current tensions with Russia.

    Remember it was Sec State James Baker under GHW Bush who told Gorbachev that NATO would not expand "one inch " into the former Eastern Block if Russia would removed it's troops from East Germany.

    Quote:

    “And then I put the following question to him [Gorbachev]. Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position? He answered that the Soviet leadership was giving real thought to all such options [….] He then added, ‘Certainly any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.’” Baker added in parentheses, for Kohl’s benefit, “By implication, NATO in its current zone might be acceptable.”

    Well-briefed by the American secretary of state, the West German chancellor understood a key Soviet bottom line, and assured Gorbachev on February 10, 1990: “We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity.”
    NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard | National Security Archive

    That lasted until Bubba's reign . Then the US and NATO demonstrated that they could give a rat's a$$ about border integrity . (see the NATO intervention in the Balkan states where under Bubba we supported the take over of the region by the Muslim population .... and US planes bombing Serbia into submission) and the various "color revolutions " by the emperor supported surreptitiously and openly by the American Intel agencies

    Horton's analysis goes into much deeper details . Bottom line is that you can't say that Baker's assurances were not worth the paper they were written on because they made sure their oral assurances never made it onto a formal agreement.
    Russia under Yeltsin was in no position to object . But Putin did not forget.

    It is sad when you think about it . Had NATO not taken such an aggressive position there could've been a true partnership with them in the GWOT. Russia could've been integrated into the west(as Bubba claimed he wanted ;and had been a long historical desire by Russia. ) Instead we have delivered Russia into an alliance with our biggest strategic and dare I say existential threat (China.)

    It is going to take me some time to finish this book (some 1,200 pages +) . But I see where he is going.
  • Feb 24, 2025, 07:11 AM
    tomder55
    This is not new revisionism . Various people including Thomas Friedman ;George Kennan and Owen Harries warned Congress about the course we had taken back in 1998 (I believe I have referenced Kennan previously)

    Here was Harries take

    Between 1989 and 1991 a political miracle occurred. The Soviet regime, steeped in blood and obsessed with total control as it had been for most of its history, voluntarily gave up its Warsaw Pact empire, collapsed the Soviet system upon itself and then acquiesced in its own demise—all with virtually no violence. This extraordinary sequence of events was in no way inevitable. Had it so chosen, the regime could have resisted the force of change as it had done in previous occasions, thus either extending its life…or going down in a welter of blood and destruction…. A necessary condition [for the peaceful surrender] was an understanding, explicit according to some but in any case implicit, that the West not take strategic and political advantage of what the Soviet Union was allowing to its empire and to itself. Whatever is said now, such a bargain was assumed by both sides, for it was evident to all involved that in its absence—if, that is, the West was intent on exploiting any retreat by Moscow—events would not be allowed to proceed along the liberalizing course they actually took.

    Congressional Record, Volume 144 Issue 19 (Tuesday, March 3, 1998)
  • Feb 25, 2025, 06:26 AM
    tomder55
    Quote:

    It is sad when you think about it . Had NATO not taken such an aggressive position there could've been a true partnership with them in the GWOT. Russia could've been integrated into the west(as Bubba claimed he wanted ;and had been a long historical desire by Russia. ) Instead we have delivered Russia into an alliance with our biggest strategic and dare I say existential threat (China.)
    Quote:

    In 2021, almost 50% of Russia’s exports went to European countries… Yet, by the end of 2023, less than two years after the invasion began on February 24, 2022, the picture was completely transformed. Recently published figures for 2023 show China and India out in front as Russia’s two main export markets, accounting for 32.7% and 16.8% respectively — half the total. In 2021, China accounted for 14.6% of Russian exports whereas India accounted for just 1.56%.
    The two countries have swept up the export market share previously taken by European countries. The 2023 figures show European nations accounting for barely 15% of Russian exports, a huge drop from the almost 50% of two years earlier.
    How has Russia's economy dodged Western sanctions? – DW – 02/22/2025

    The Russians shifted their markets east and all of Clueless Joe's boasting of crippling Russia's economy failed.
    President Biden Archived on X: "As a result of our unprecedented sanctions, the ruble was almost immediately reduced to rubble. The Russian economy is on track to be cut in half. It was ranked the 11th biggest economy in the world before this invasion — and soon, it will not even rank among the top 20." / X

    Instead our's and Europe's economy took the hit.

    Putin has a counter offer to Trump's demands that Ukraine surrender half of it's rare earths for protection.
    He suggests a Russia-US partnership that is worth considering. ( I say that at the risk of being accused of being a Russian agent as the left has resurrected that smear against Trump)

    Russia says it’s open to economic cooperation with US on rare earth minerals and energy | CNN

    Russia's resources will be developed one way or the other. Either the US wll benefit or China.
  • Mar 25, 2025, 04:53 AM
    tomder55
    From Foreign Affairs magazine

    Quote:

    Russian forces have largely pushed Ukrainian forces out of Kursk oblast—territory in Russia that Ukraine had occupied since August 2024—and are now restarting major offensive operations toward the key Ukrainian towns of Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk. Although the Ukrainian military is ensuring that Russia loses many soldiers and much equipment in making these territorial gains, the Ukrainians are also struggling to recruit and train enough personnel to avoid ceding territory. Both countries, meanwhile, are exchanging nightly long-range strikes targeting infrastructure and military logistics.
    Bottom line ;the longer that a cease fire and a settlement is delayed ,the worse shape Ukraine will be in it's bargaining position.

    Quote:

    Europe should have seen this coming. Going back to the Obama administration, the United States has been consistent in acknowledging that it views its primary security competitor as China. Washington’s growing interest in the Indo-Pacific has meant that successive U.S. administrations have wanted to deprioritize the U.S. commitment to Europe. For that to happen, the Americans have urged European countries to build up their armed forces to ensure conventional deterrence against Russia—and thereby free up American capacity to pivot to Asia.
    And yet the belief is that it is exclusively Trump who is changing US relations with Europe. The truth is that until now Europe never took it seriously .

    Quote:

    Even the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, while prompting a great deal of tough rhetoric in Europe, did not push governments to make the necessary investments to regenerate their hollow forces. European leaders were reluctant to bear the cost of this process and feared that a large increase in European defense spending would accelerate the United States’ withdrawal from the continent, making the burden for Europeans permanent.
    If you look at what Jeffrey Goldberg released yesterday from the administration's group chat ; you hear that the US patience with Europe is at an end .

    Vance said that Europe had more at stake in defending shipping through the Suez Canal than the US .He threw out the option of delaying US strikes to send a message
    Quote:

    .“I think we are making a mistake,” wrote Vance, adding that while only 3% of US trade goes through the Suez canal, 40% of European trade does. “There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary,” he added. “The strongest reason to do this is, as [Trump] said, to send a message.”..........“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance wrote. “There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”
    Stunning Signal leak reveals depths of Trump administration’s loathing of Europe | Europe | The Guardian

    If it weren't for the obvious mistake of releasing attack plans on an insecure chat ;I would believe the release of this conversation was intentional.

    The message should be plainly clear to Europe by now . Take care of yourselves.
  • Mar 27, 2025, 12:30 PM
    tomder55
    A follow up to the point Vance made. Kaja Kallas ;former PM of Estonia is now the defense minister for the EU . She has a wonderful idea. The nations of the EU should pool their resources to help Ukraine.

    Her plan is the collect 40 billion Euro ($43billion) by levying a small percent of each nation's income to the cause .

    That proposal was met with cricket chirps . Her backup plan 5 billion is going nowhere fast too.

    Member states bring Kallas back to earth: Ukraine plan slashed from 40 billion to 5 billion

    Italy ;Slovakia ;and France are a no go .

    Quote:

    The countries insisted that contributions to Ukraine remain voluntary, bilateral and not required by Brussels.

    Europe Talks Tough on Military Spending, but Unity Is Fracturing - The New York Times

    She wants Europe to take the mantle . But the girlie men of the continent disagree

    Kaja Kallas on X: "Ukraine is Europe! We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the agressor. Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge." / X


    Here is the plan they will adopt . Talk tough and wait out Trump's term in the hope that a Dem wins in 2028

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