General Politics Thread

[welshbairn]

2 minutes ago, Zetterlund said:

In Ukraine, generally yes, as a response to the coup. 

Georgia had been brewing  since the pro-western Saakashvili came to power (the same Saakashvili who turned up in Ukraine after the coup and was given citizenship and made a Governor). The Georgians started the war but Russia went too far in their response, international law broken on all sides. I don't know how legit the breakaway regions are - there are two realities in these situations depending what side of the fence you're on. Kosovo good, Crimea bad etc.

Kosovo was a struggle by a clearly oppressed minority for independence, Crimea was an invasion. Ukraine is keeping an unwanted civil war stoked up. I agree about the coup, but Yanukovych was a crook. 

[Jacksgranda]

On ‎15‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 08:28, John Lambies Doos said:

Cooper was very very funny. Dodd not so much

Sent from my SM-A500FU using Tapatalk
 

I thought both of them were excellent

[Zetterlund]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

Kosovo was a struggle by a clearly oppressed minority for independence, Crimea was an invasion. Ukraine is keeping an unwanted civil war stoked up. I agree about the coup, but Yanukovych was a crook. 

No doubt, but his replacement is no better. The point is Russia's 'aggression' was a response to a US/EU coup on its borders, which to Russia could only be seen as hugely threatening. Calling Crimea an invasion is debatable - they had up to 23,000 troops stationed there permanently and it was a bloodless operation.

In any case, if certain countries are going about overthrowing governments and imposing their own, I don't think they have a right to protest if parts of the population don't recognise it.

[welshbairn]

32 minutes ago, Zetterlund said:

No doubt, but his replacement is no better. The point is Russia's 'aggression' was a response to a US/EU coup on its borders, which to Russia could only be seen as hugely threatening. Calling Crimea an invasion is debatable - they had up to 23,000 troops stationed there permanently and it was a bloodless operation.

In any case, if certain countries are going about overthrowing governments and imposing their own, I don't think they have a right to protest if parts of the population don't recognise it.

Yanukovych won the presidency against a rival, Yushchenko, who was disfigured by dioxin poisoning. Russia refused to allow the suspects to be questioned. They really do have a track record for this stuff.

 

Edited March 16, 2018 by welshbairn

[Zetterlund]

57 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Yanukovych won the presidency against a rival, Yushchenko, who was disfigured by dioxin poisoning. Russia refused to allow the suspects to be questioned. They really do have a track record for this stuff.

 

Allegedly. Good job all the other intelligence services in the world have such an unblemished record of transparency and honesty so everything can confidently be pinned on the red menace.

[invergowrie arab]

Some lad our Vlad.

Engineers Brexit, isolates the UK from the US and now has both by the baws.

All with basically a good social media game.

[vikingTON]

15 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

Someone’s has had to do this.  If it wasn’t Russia who else was it?

Anybody who states the culprit with a high degree of probability right now is a moron - see Johnson, B.  A non-state actor size with access to a Cold War-era nerve agent is not even remotely implausible - which opens the culprit list to dozens or possibly hundreds of known or unknown groups. Few of which would have a direct hotline to the Kremlin - although some probably would. 

To state that simply 'Russia did it' is as moronic as to state that 'Serbia did it' when Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb in 1914. 

[FlyerTon]

Russia are to expel 23 British diplomats and are shutting down the British Council in Russia.

 

[vikingTON]

15 hours ago, welshbairn said:

A conspiracy theory that a traitor to a country... was murdered by a state 

Pretty sure that nobody has actually died at the time of posting, which underlines how readily you're gobbling the British establishment boaby right now. Upgrading the crime as well as blithely assuming the culprit. 

Their undoubted past track record also suggests that the Kremlin's official agents would do a much more professional job than possibly botching two targets, seriously injuring a UK police officer and contaminating large parts of an entire town. It'd be unwise to rule out Kremlin agents simply doing a piss-poor job, but it lends further credibility to a non-state actor being responsible instead. 

[Benjamin_Nevis]

19 minutes ago, virginton said:

Pretty sure that nobody has actually died at the time of posting, which underlines how readily you're gobbling the British establishment boaby right now. Upgrading the crime as well as blithely assuming the culprit. 

Their undoubted past track record also suggests that the Kremlin's official agents would do a much more professional job than possibly botching two targets, seriously injuring a UK police officer and contaminating large parts of an entire town. It'd be unwise to rule out Kremlin agents simply doing a piss-poor job, but it lends further credibility to a non-state actor being responsible instead. 

Indeed. I'm fairly positive that had the Kremlin wanted these two actually dead, they'd be dead, rather than this half-arsed clusterfuck that seems to have been created. 

The state of the British MSM is such that Corbyn, for all his faults as a truly shite politician, is being torn to shreds having released nothing more than an entirely reasonable statement suggesting that it might be nice to see some actual evidence before starting a fight which would be the equivalent of a local pub team versus the 1970 Brazil World Cup winning side. 

This seems to sum up current events fairly well. 

[welshbairn]

39 minutes ago, virginton said:

Pretty sure that nobody has actually died at the time of posting, which underlines how readily you're gobbling the British establishment boaby right now. Upgrading the crime as well as blithely assuming the culprit. 

Their undoubted past track record also suggests that the Kremlin's official agents would do a much more professional job than possibly botching two targets, seriously injuring a UK police officer and contaminating large parts of an entire town. It'd be unwise to rule out Kremlin agents simply doing a piss-poor job, but it lends further credibility to a non-state actor being responsible instead. 

You mean like leaving a plutonium trail all the way from the cafe where it was delivered to the plane to Moscow?

[vikingTON]

4 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

You mean like leaving a plutonium trail all the way from the cafe where it was delivered to the plane to Moscow?

Erm yes, because 'radioactivity' is a physical property that can be easily switched off in a substance with a known half-life; either that or you can simply ditch your polonium at airport security alongside a bottle of Evian. Not that they would care much anyway, considering that they got the job done without any collateral damage. 

The lengths of braying stupidity that you are going to in order to insist that EVERYTHING HERE FITS THE PATTERN is ridiculous. 

 

[Zetterlund]

1 hour ago, FlyerTon said:

Russia are to expel 23 British diplomats and are shutting down the British Council in Russia.

 

Disappointing lack of banter from the Russians. I was hoping they'd do something along the lines of their dispute with the US last year, when in response to the US expelling hundreds of Russian diplomats, Putin invited all the US diplomats' kids to the Kremlin Christmas party. 

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Hopefully this triggers the Fancy Bears into releasing more hacked info about British athletes doping [emoji38]

[jagfox]

Congratulations to Mr Putin on winning the Russian Presidential election with 73.9% of the vote.

I suppose the winning margin was reduced due to the heavy telt he received from Theresa and Boris over the nerve agent thingy?

 

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

Only 74%? As good as he is, he's no Saddam Hussein on the popularity front.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_presidential_referendum,_1995#Results

[John Lambies Doos]

Cracking trolling by the Russian embassy re Poirot tweets

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, John Lambies Doos said:

Cracking trolling by the Russian embassy re Poirot tweets

You think, while people are critically ill in hospital?

[John Lambies Doos]

You think, while people are critically ill in hospital?

People lying in hospital is tragic; I'm merely refering to politik between both parties. Where was May and the UK when Russia annexed part of sovereign Ukraine. Not sure we will ever know for certain what happened tbh. An attack on UK sovereign soil like this is totally wrong but what does Putin have to gain here with WC round the corner? If I was a betting man I'd say that it was carried out by rogue Russian intelligent organisations where Putin doesn't have full control.

[pandarilla]

You think, while people are critically ill in hospital?

I'm surprised by the complete lack of balance in terms of looking into what our security forces get up to (or what this guy did to make himself a target).

Obviously a crucial element of these kinds of attacks is keeping it all hush hush - but other than that there's an awful lot of 'won't someone think of the children' responses from our politicians and media.

I'm sorry but if you're a fucking double agent then this shit comes with the job.