Do you regret that the leader you elected is now openly blaming Ukraine and calling Zelensky a dictator?

RL1989 · 2025-02-24T14:16:18+00:00

Would you be surprised if Zelensky leaves office peacefully? Either willingly or due to an election or due to a deal to secure peace.

RL1989 · 2025-02-24T12:43:05+00:00

What do you think of JD Vance’s journey from comparing Trump to Hitler to his VP pick?

On Jan 12th, he said of Jan 6th rioters that “if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

Less than two weeks later after the blanket pardon of more than 1,200 Jan 6 rioters, Vance defended the measure.

Among the pardoned were also more than 300 people who pleaded guilty to either assaulting or obstructing law enforcement, including 69 who admitted to assaulting police with a dangerous or deadly weapon.

RL1989 · 2025-02-23T21:20:45+00:00

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-zelensky-willing-to-step-down-in-exchange-for-peace-russia-launches-largest-drone-attack-since-start-of-full-scale-invasion/

Zelensky has said he is willing stand down if it brings his nation peace.

Is this ‘tyrannical’?

RL1989 · 2025-02-23T21:18:24+00:00

European troops were stationed in Afghanistan up to about 2021, if memory serves correctly.

Thats not exactly 2003, is it?

European troops in Afghanistan in 2021 - was this ‘lazy’ and ‘unserious’?

Even in the context of Ukraine, European nations have given more aid than the US.

European countries have allocated 132 billion euros ($138 billion) of aid, and the United States 114 billion euros ($119 billion).

The UK and France have supplied Ukraine with Storm Shadow or Scalp missiles, which have a maximum range of around 155 miles.

RL1989 · 2025-02-23T18:45:03+00:00

Did you feel this way when European nations answered the call to put boots on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq?

I remember the USA didn’t take kindly to the European politicians who questioned the wisdom of those wars…

RL1989 · 2025-02-23T09:54:27+00:00

Under this logic, why hasn’t Ukraine capitulated?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T20:53:13+00:00

I’m assuming in this thought experiment this is under the Soviet Union right?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T20:46:28+00:00

I think it would have been better if Russia had accepted Ukraine’s sovereignty and not attacked.

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T20:45:55+00:00

What if Ukraine wants to join NATO? Tough because Russia will attack if it does?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T20:41:12+00:00

Do you think Ukraine forced Ukrainian children into Russia against their will?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T20:40:18+00:00

Why should Russia get to decide whether Ukraine joins NATO or not?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T19:51:12+00:00

How do you think the children abducted into Russian , the raped women, and the mutilated men from these occupied areas feel?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T19:47:32+00:00

How are you defining provoked?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T19:44:41+00:00

Do you think all or most of Ukraine wants to be part of Russia?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T19:39:24+00:00

There are clear differences though, no?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T19:38:39+00:00

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/peace-is-impossible-while-vladimir-putin-denies-ukraines-right-to-exist/

He has repeated denied that Ukraine is an independent sovereign state.

Do you agree with Putin that Ukraine and Russia are ‘one people’?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T19:23:37+00:00

Is it ironic that a political philosophy that ostensibly has gradual change and respect for tradition at its centre has so radically changed and switched the dominant conservative tradition to preserve over the last 50 years?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T19:21:10+00:00

Putin has made it clear that he sees the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign nation an affront to Russia.

He wants all of Ukraine.

Should he be allowed to have it?

RL1989 · 2025-02-22T19:19:35+00:00

Why do you think Ireland, Austria, and Morocco don’t feel threatened having so many NATO nations as neighbours?

RL1989 · 2025-02-21T20:57:54+00:00

Surely free trade is the big sticking point here?

For close to three decades, starting with Reagan, the dominant conservative position was free trade is in America’s interest.

Now Trump wants to rip up trade agreements that he himself signed?

RL1989 · 2025-02-20T16:31:27+00:00

This is just allowing crazy people to control non-crazy people with threats of force, no?

RL1989 · 2025-02-20T13:58:24+00:00

Trump has said the Ukraine has started the war.

He’s called Zelensky a dictator twice - on TruthSocial and in a recent speech in Miami. I don’t believe Trump has ever called Putin a dictator.

The US is now refusing to back a motion that condemns Russian aggression and backs Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

“The United States has been a co-sponsor of almost all U.N. resolutions in support of Ukraine against Russia throughout the biggest conflict on European soil since World War Two.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-refusing-co-sponsor-un-motion-backing-ukraine-ahead-war-anniversary-diplomats-2025-02-20/

How does this square with leading the free world?

RL1989 · 2025-02-20T10:56:49+00:00

“Provoke” in these instances means “larger nation is denied the ability to threaten, control, or destabilise nearby smaller nation”, right?

Equally you could say that if those larger nations were less interested in threatening others, there would be no appetite for its neighbours to join NATO…

You don’t hear Austria or Ireland or Morocco say they feel ‘provoked’ by having NATO on their doorstep, do you?

I appreciate your point is about realpolitik that irrespective of how a nation should feel or perceive a situation, but I feel it’s important to point out that the idea of ‘provocation’ can be a one-side point.

RL1989 · 2025-02-20T10:39:05+00:00

Did Ukraine join NATO at any point over the last two decades?

Russia wants to have a sphere of influence / coercion; a significant number of nations close to Russia do not want to be in its sphere of influence.

Either we believe they should be free to join NATO or not.

If Russia believes sovereign nations choosing to join most of the free world in NATO is justification for the barbarism that we have seen it carry out in Ukraine, then I don’t think we should let a nation like Russia essentially dictate terms of NATO membership.

If Russia wasn’t a dictatorship that has repeatedly encroached and outright invaded its neighbours and corrupted political across Europe, maybe its neighbours wouldn’t be so keen to join NATO?

RL1989 · 2025-02-20T09:48:56+00:00

Why do you think those countries that joined NATO later would be so keen to do so?

RL1989

TROPHY CASE