Wars & Rumours of Wars

nivek

As Above So Below

Ukraine’s foreign minister names the two EU countries that don’t supply weapons to Ukraine

The head of the Foreign Ministry said that in contrast to the stances of Budapest and Vienna, Ukraine is now being helped by countries that have never in their modern history supplied weapons to conflict zones, including Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands. “With the exception of Hungary and Austria, the supply of weapons to Ukraine is not a taboo for any other European country, although it was (before),” said Kuleba.

“Therefore, the question is not if they (EU countries) are against it, because they aren’t, but in practical terms. Many different issues appear, arguments and discussions...how much to supply, how long it should last and where the balance is between (the countries’ own) defense needs.”


At the end of July, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry announced that they were ready to let all military aid from Western partners Ukraine pass through its territory. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó claimed that his country had refused to supply weapons to Ukraine, ostensibly to protect Hungarians in Ukraine’s far-western Transcarpathia region from Russian shelling. Russians invasion forces have attacked mainly the south and east of Ukraine, with only a few missile attacks being made on the west of the country.


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nivek

As Above So Below

China is now running the Solomon Islands: Fears over Beijing's growing influence in the Pacific as US Coast Guard cutter is denied entry into Guadalcanal port

A U.S. coast guard cutter conducting patrols as part of an international mission to prevent illegal fishing was recently unable to get clearance for a scheduled port call in Solomon Islands, an incident that comes amid growing concerns of Chinese influence on the Pacific nation. The cutter Oliver Henry was taking part in Operation Island Chief monitoring fishing activities in the Pacific, which ended Friday, when it sought to make a scheduled stop at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, to refuel and re-provision, the Coast Guard office in Honolulu said.

There was no response from the Solomon Islands' government for diplomatic clearance for the vessel to stop there, however, so the Oliver Henry diverted to Papua New Guinea, the Coast Guard said. China has been assertively trying to expand its presence and influence in the Pacific, and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare alarmed some neighbors, the U.S. and others after he signed a new security pact with China. The pact has raised fears of a Chinese naval base being established within 1,200 miles off the Australia's northeast coast.


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nivek

As Above So Below

China THREATENS US with 'counter measures' unless Biden revokes $1 billion arms package to Taiwan that includes missiles to destroy ships and aircraft

The United States on Friday announced a $1.1 billion arms package for Taiwan, vowing to keep boosting the island's defenses as tensions soar with Beijing, which warned Washington of 'counter-measures' if the deal was not stopped.

China, calling Taiwan an 'inalienable' part of its territory, said the United States to should 'immediately revoke' the arms sales.

'It sends wrong signals to "Taiwan independence" separatist forces and severely jeopardizes China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,' said Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington.

'China will resolutely take legitimate and necessary counter-measures in light of the development of the situation,' he said.

The sale comes a month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defiantly visited the self-governing democracy, prompting mainland China to launch a show of force that could be a trial run for a future invasion.

The package -- the largest for Taiwan approved under President Joe Biden's administration -- includes $665 million for contractor support to maintain and upgrade a Raytheon early radar warning system in operation since 2013 that would warn Taiwan about an incoming attack.

(More on the link)

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pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable

China is now running the Solomon Islands: Fears over Beijing's growing influence in the Pacific as US Coast Guard cutter is denied entry into Guadalcanal port

A U.S. coast guard cutter conducting patrols as part of an international mission to prevent illegal fishing was recently unable to get clearance for a scheduled port call in Solomon Islands, an incident that comes amid growing concerns of Chinese influence on the Pacific nation. The cutter Oliver Henry was taking part in Operation Island Chief monitoring fishing activities in the Pacific, which ended Friday, when it sought to make a scheduled stop at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, to refuel and re-provision, the Coast Guard office in Honolulu said.

There was no response from the Solomon Islands' government for diplomatic clearance for the vessel to stop there, however, so the Oliver Henry diverted to Papua New Guinea, the Coast Guard said. China has been assertively trying to expand its presence and influence in the Pacific, and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare alarmed some neighbors, the U.S. and others after he signed a new security pact with China. The pact has raised fears of a Chinese naval base being established within 1,200 miles off the Australia's northeast coast.


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The Solomons, Guadalcanal in particular, aren't very nice places today. Crime, drugs, violence etc. I don't think tourism is encouraged. Could be wrong.

It's geographic importance hasn't changed but how relevant that is today is an open question. This isn't 1942 and the Chinese navy is definitely not the Japanese Imperial Navy.
One of my favorite historical episodes to read about, fiction pales by comparison. Actually, it was the completion of a seaplane base on Tulagi about 20 miles north across Iron Bottom Sound that prompted Operation Watchtower. There was also a garrison on nearby Gavutu that was one of the initial objectives. The airfield on Guadalcanal wasn't completed and there were more Korean laborers there than Japanese troops at the time.

Wouldn't it be a weird ironic historical twist if at some point US, Japanese and Australian forces cooperated in the defense of that region ?
 

AD1184

Celestial
Did the West sabotage a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia?


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6qjy4iKcAg

I believe that Boris Johnson saw the Ukraine war as a means of deflecting attention from a stupid media frenzy surrounding some workplace parties that occurred over the lockdown period, during the pandemic, and which were a threat to his continued premiership (indeed, in spite of the ongoing war in Ukraine, he was ousted as PM largely for this reason). I said as much back in March here:


A negotiated peace between Ukraine and Russia would have been even more prematurely fatal to Johnson's political ambition.

1571_big.jpg


It is therefore not surprising that he sought to scupper the deal. It is somewhat galling that he made remarks to the effect that it was not up to western powers to force a compromised peace upon Ukraine, only to learn that he also forced Ukraine to abandon its own attempt to reach such an agreement.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
It is somewhat galling that he made remarks to the effect that it was not up to western powers to force a compromised peace upon Ukraine, only to learn that he also forced Ukraine to abandon its own attempt to reach such an agreement.

Its almost maddening given Western (NATO) powers set the stage for this war to begin with, thereby forcing war upon Ukraine...Then causing Europe's energy problems by cutting off supplies from Russian sources...Europe is going to suffer greatly this winter...

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nivek

As Above So Below
I swear, all rational and common sense has been fleeting or nonexistent in Western governments as of late...

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Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
Its almost maddening given Western (NATO) powers set the stage for this war to begin with, thereby forcing war upon Ukraine...Then causing Europe's energy problems by cutting off supplies from Russian sources...Europe is going to suffer greatly this winter...

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It is very rational policy.

It makes perfect sense for US to push Europe into war. If nukes go off they'll be falling all over EU not over US. Both North & South american continents are the safest place on the earth because they are separated on two sides from other continents with two largest oceans on the planet. So, as long as conflict stays conventional US is 100% safe, even in a case of limited nuclear war US still safer then EU.

Since US has its own oil reserves and EU doesn't EU will suffer more from energy crisis and that's good for US because it will weaken it's biggest competitor. Russia is totally irrelevant.

Practically its a triple whammy: US weakens it's major competitor, the EU, and US makes EU economically more dependent on US. And Russia probably self-disintegrates. This might have one positive side-effect, that EU succumbs and abolishes that stupid bureaucratic law that forces all the sites to have cookie warning pop-ups.

Even long ago Obama said that Pacific region is an area of dominant strategic importance for US, not the EU. US has to prepare for war with China, so it needs to sort out situation in peripheral areas, like EU, Russia etc. Europe is nowhere close to what it was a century ago. So, step by step, US is gaining hold in a global domination.

If I was US I would do exactly that. Very rational policy.
 
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nivek

As Above So Below

How tyrants have tried to TWIST the past: From Hitler's outlandish claims before Poland invasion to Stalin airbrushing old foes out of photos... how Putin is following long line of despots trying to re-write history

The claims made by Putin today echo the attempts by tyrants including Adolf Hitler, Stalin and China's Mao Zedong to use lies to achieve their objectives. In August 1939, SS men disguised as Polish saboteurs attacked a radio station in the German city of Gleiwitz. To make the raid seem more convincing, German concentration camp prisoners dressed in Polish army uniforms were given lethal injections and then shot in the face to avoid identification (corpses top right). The attack was one of a number of 'false flag' operations launched by Germany in what was codenamed Operation Himmler. Just a few hours after the attack, Hitler launched his invasion of Poland. Stalin used a large team of photo retouchers to cut his enemies out of photographs. One famous erasure was that of Nikolai Yezhov, a secret police official who oversaw Stalin's purges. Stalin's censors removed Yezhov from existing photographs, including one (left) which showed the official smiling next to his boss as they stood in front of the Moscow Canal. In China today, Mao Zedong continues to be heralded as the hero father of the Chinese communist state. But the dictator's infamous Great Leap Forward - an attempt an economic and social engineering campaign to transform Chinese society - led to the deaths of millions in the Great Chinese Famine (bottom right, Chinese villagers pleading for food during the famine). Officials blamed the disaster on bad weather and a decline in food output. Now, Mao's crimes are not discussed in public, even though records show how he was aware of the deaths.

How Putin is following the likes of Hitler and Stalin in attempting to re-write history

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Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
When I was growing up back in Yugoslavia, I thought that wars are something that happens in Africa or in Middle East, but that Europe has definitely done with wars and there will always be piece. How wrong was I.

US is really future of the world, because in US all different nations and races live together as one. I hope that one day United Nations of Europe will be formed ( obviously not speaking German or Russian ).
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable

How tyrants have tried to TWIST the past: From Hitler's outlandish claims before Poland invasion to Stalin airbrushing old foes out of photos... how Putin is following long line of despots trying to re-write history

The claims made by Putin today echo the attempts by tyrants including Adolf Hitler, Stalin and China's Mao Zedong to use lies to achieve their objectives. In August 1939, SS men disguised as Polish saboteurs attacked a radio station in the German city of Gleiwitz. To make the raid seem more convincing, German concentration camp prisoners dressed in Polish army uniforms were given lethal injections and then shot in the face to avoid identification (corpses top right). The attack was one of a number of 'false flag' operations launched by Germany in what was codenamed Operation Himmler. Just a few hours after the attack, Hitler launched his invasion of Poland. Stalin used a large team of photo retouchers to cut his enemies out of photographs. One famous erasure was that of Nikolai Yezhov, a secret police official who oversaw Stalin's purges. Stalin's censors removed Yezhov from existing photographs, including one (left) which showed the official smiling next to his boss as they stood in front of the Moscow Canal. In China today, Mao Zedong continues to be heralded as the hero father of the Chinese communist state. But the dictator's infamous Great Leap Forward - an attempt an economic and social engineering campaign to transform Chinese society - led to the deaths of millions in the Great Chinese Famine (bottom right, Chinese villagers pleading for food during the famine). Officials blamed the disaster on bad weather and a decline in food output. Now, Mao's crimes are not discussed in public, even though records show how he was aware of the deaths.

How Putin is following the likes of Hitler and Stalin in attempting to re-write history

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denying the blatantly obvious ? who would do such a thing ? that's pure malarkey .........................
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Russia may collapse from the inside out...

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Russian opposition to Putin's Ukraine invasion grows as families flee to Georgia to escape conscription: Shock troops arrest 2,000 protesters nation-wide in clampdown - as even allies turn on regime and blame mobilisation for mass exodus and anti-war demos

Now even Vladimir Putin's allies are speaking out against the way civilians are being conscripted, with officers having resorted to using stun guns and truncheons on protesting crowds in recent days. In the mainly Muslim area of Dagestan, videos shared to social media show women in head scarves chasing police away from a rally and standing in front of police cars carrying detained protesters, demanding their release. Dozens of women chanted 'No to war!' in the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala today, while police fired warning shots to disperse more than 100 people who blocked a highway in the region while protesting Vladimir Putin's military call-up, according to Russian media. At least 2,000 people have been arrested in recent days for similar demonstrations around Russia. Many of those taken away have immediately received a call-up summons. Thousands have therefore opted to instead flee to neighbouring countries, with photos showing people dragging suitcases across the Georgian border.

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pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Experts Believe Russia Low On Soldiers After Putin Spotted Trying To Teach A Polar Bear How To Drive A Tank

World · Sep 24, 2022 · BabylonBee.com

Article Image



MOSCOW — Military experts believe the Russian war effort may be in trouble after Vladimir Putin was seen attempting to teach polar bears how to drive tanks.
"No, no you dumb bear! You move turret, not tank!" Putin was heard shouting. "Now bear, you reach down and - did you just eat the gearshift? Bad bear!"
A military debacle from the outset, Russia's invasion has gone from bad to worse as Ukraine's counter-offensive has pushed the depleted Russian army backwards. "We got off to a bad start when our tanks ran out of gas twelve hours into the war," said Russian soldier Fyodor Petrov. "How does a nation that just sells gas forget to pack gas? That is what Americans call irony, no? But now it is getting worse. Half our soldiers die from bombs, and then Putin shoots the ones that survive because he's mad about how many already died from bombs. We are - how do you say - screwed?"
Having killed most of his remaining officers, Putin has been forced to resort to unorthodox means to fill the ranks. "I open jail cells, send prisoners to war - all dead. I invite nice Chechen terrorists to come join us - all dead too," said a forlorn Putin. "With everyone fleeing the draft, now I have to go to the zoo and see what I can get. The mongoose is not too bad on the machine gun, actually."
At publishing time, a frustrated Mr. Putin decided to just launch some nukes, but then realized he already had the people who knew how to launch the nukes all killed.
 

nivek

As Above So Below

Putin's 'Dad's Army': Ageing reservists line up to go to war as Britain reveals number of Russians fleeing tyrant's mobilisation now exceed the size of his initial invasion force

The desperate Russian tyrant ordered the mobilisation of 300,000 extra troops last week in a bid to reverse the fortunes of his botched invasion, in a move which spooked thousands who fled the country. But other hardy civilians decided to join the war effort despite their age, health and limited training, to bolster troop numbers after Kyiv's stunning counter-offensive. In Sevastopol in Crimea, silver-haired and wrinkled recruits stood in line in their uniforms at a ceremony before they took a much-needed cigarette break and then made their way to the front lines. The images, taken on Tuesday less than a week after Putin's order, shows how rushed the mobilisation has been, compared to the six months' minimum training usually provided.

Putin's 'Dad's Army' of ageing reservists line up to go to war

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pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable

Putin's 'Dad's Army': Ageing reservists line up to go to war as Britain reveals number of Russians fleeing tyrant's mobilisation now exceed the size of his initial invasion force

The desperate Russian tyrant ordered the mobilisation of 300,000 extra troops last week in a bid to reverse the fortunes of his botched invasion, in a move which spooked thousands who fled the country. But other hardy civilians decided to join the war effort despite their age, health and limited training, to bolster troop numbers after Kyiv's stunning counter-offensive. In Sevastopol in Crimea, silver-haired and wrinkled recruits stood in line in their uniforms at a ceremony before they took a much-needed cigarette break and then made their way to the front lines. The images, taken on Tuesday less than a week after Putin's order, shows how rushed the mobilisation has been, compared to the six months' minimum training usually provided.

Putin's 'Dad's Army' of ageing reservists line up to go to war's 'Dad's Army' of ageing reservists line up to go to war

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Don’t know about them Commies but Australia was forced to turn to a similar lot to repel the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail. Careful, grampas can be a difficult lot
 
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