Scandalrama 8

You say Russia needs to make concessions for this theft, what did you have in mind?

We should focus on those areas where our interests are threatened. Emphasis on “ours” rather than Europe’s. Going down the list…

How about getting out of Syria all together

I’m against it. The Russians are helping Assad win, which I think is the best outcome at the moment. Besides, the Russians being the ones Assad is beholden to gives them leverage to manage Iran after the civil war ends.

a promise to quit destabilizing Ukraine, The Baltic’s, and The Balkans

The Balkans are probably doable. Ukraine and the Baltics would be more problematic. I don’t think the Russians have much incentive to stop. But yes, we can try.

How about free oil and natural gas to Ukraine for the next 10 years, along with some cash?

That’s worthy of negotiation.

Russia has been an Iran enabler, Iran sponsors terror through out the world, how about some verifiable help in isolating Iran with Russia joining the rest of world sanctions against them?

Yes, although I don’t think Iran is really our problem either. Where we could really use Russian cooperation is on North Korea.

Russia to date has not been held accountable for anything, the Ukraine theft, meddling in out election or any of the meddling it is doing with it’s neighbors.

Who cares? The Russians will fight a war over Ukraine. Will we? We shouldn’t be interested. It doesn’t affect us at all.

As for election meddling, I’m equally concerned about the meddling conducted by British and Ukrainian nationals. Why don’t we do anything about that?

What benefit would it be for us to allow Russia back in the G-7(8), we do little trade with them as it is.

Not a huge amount. They never bought a large number of our imports, even before sanctions. However, some economic ties provide at least a reason for us to not antagonize each other.

Yes, I think Trump is doing this primarily to stick a thumb in the eye of all those “Trump is a stooge for Putin” hecklers

He isn’t. He’s putting the onus for the high tensions between Russia and the West on the Germans and UK (and yes, the Obama State Department), who helped precipitate the Ukraine crisis which led to the seizure of the Crimea in the first place.

They’re more dependent on Russia than we are and they’re also directly threatened by what it does. They need to come to an accommodation with Russia instead of demanding that we wage a new cold war on their behalf.

I’ll ask you. Should we be expanding NATO to include Ukraine? Should Western Europe keep trying to pull Ukraine into its own sphere of economic influence and away from Russia’s? Why or why not? These are the issues that are driving conflict with Russia. If we want that country to stop going rogue, we should be assuring its security, not threatening it at every turn.

Who cares? The Nazi’s will fight a war over Austria/Poland/Denmark/Norway/Belgium/France. Will we? We shouldn’t be interested. It doesn’t affect us at all.

Not to defend Nazi aggression but the way the Western allies treated Germany post-WWI by devastating its economy and separating it from its lost territories led directly to the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. You can’t humiliate and devastate a nation economically and weaken its core security interests without expecting them to do something about it.

I don’t really care one way or the other, but I don’t think Western Europe is doing that now.

But they were prior to the Crimean takeover. Russia could justifiably claim that it was protecting its own interests by annexing Crimea.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-08-18/why-ukraine-crisis-west-s-fault

But this account is wrong: the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine — beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004 — were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president — which he rightly labeled a “coup” — was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.

The West is making stupid decisions. Trump is saying that we’re not going to participate in these stupid decisions anymore. Good!

You seem to want to give Russia a pass wrt to the Crimea theft, they don’t deserve a pass.

Well, what do you propose we do about it?

Yes, I’m all for Europe putting on their big boy pants and doing some of their own heavy lifting but this notion that if it doesn’t happen in my back yard that it’s no big deal, is naive and dangerous.

What’s naive and dangerous is assuming that we can continue threatening Russia’s security and economic well-being for no reason whatsoever and that they’re just going to take it quietly. There’s absolutely no way that Russia agrees to reduce tensions and work with us on anything worthwhile as long as we continue expanding (the anti-Russian alliance) NATO directly on their borders, put anti-ballistic missile defenses in Poland, and support coups against democratically elected governments in countries that are critical to their interests and meaningless to ours.

Russia is not our friend and should be treated as such.

But it’s not our enemy either. We have nothing they want nor do they have anything we want. There’s nothing for us to fight over, unless WE decide to find something.

A revanchist Russia threatening it’s neighbors, stealing territory is not in our interest.

Nor is it a problem for us. Russia has friendly puppets in multiple former Soviet republics. Should we start destabilizing those countries too simply because the EU wants to open up their markets?

Tell me, you think Russia gobbling up vast swaths of stolen territory is no big deal, what about China’s move into disputed waters, building military and airbases on the Spratley’s and Parcel Islands. Another remote place on the far side of the world, is this worth any concern at all?

Oh, no. The Pacific is crucial to our own interests and China is a real concern. And you know what? We need Russia to help contain and pressure China. Our current policy toward Russia pushes them toward China and it’s counterproductive to our interests. Europe is rich and populous enough to deal with Russia by itself. Let them do it and let’s make our own arrangement with Russia to obtain their support where we actually need it.

TLDR: Fuck Ukraine. We have our own concerns.

It must really suck being Jeff Sessions:

Non-political story here. What in the fresh hell does IHOP think it’s doing?

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/11/ihop-isnt-changing-its-name-its-just-promoting-its-new-line-of-burgers.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

This is a terrible idea. Nobody is going to start taking lunch at IHOP if what they’re primarily offering are hamburgers. It’s an unhealthy option, you can get a decent burger cheaper at other franchises, and people with short lunch breaks aren’t going to want to go to a sit-down restaurant for them. IHOP isn’t even in the top twenty of restaurants I would consider for lunch and I have two within 15 minutes of my house.

Honestly, they ought to focus on breakfast food and late night dining and close at 1 PM like other breakfast-focused restaurants do.

I had a bigger problem with the idiot presenter…or maybe it was a winner, who talked about them being the moral compass of the country.

Seriously? That’s teeth-gnashingly asinine considering Hollywood’s problems with endemic child sexual abuse, mistreatment of female actors from being used as Weinstein’s cum sock to a very real earnings gap, drug and alcohol abuse, and totally unconcealed contempt for those of us they feel the need to constantly preach at.

re: Russia

Grendel, you’re spot-on about Russia. They couldn’t take and hold Ukraine if they wanted to even without NATO involvement. The Baltics definitely wouldn’t be worth the effort.

I subscribe to the view that the Russians are in deep decline, economically and demographically, and that the reason they’ve been taking these wild risks and acting like they have nothing to lose is that they don’t.

Here’s a piece I’d like your opinion on. It says that Putin is going to have to choose whether Russia ultimately becomes China’s or the West’s bitch in the next decade.

https://tsarizm.com/analysis/2018/06/10/the-hi-tech-traditionalist-the-g6-will-be-brought-to-heel-it-will-be-fun-to-watch/

Trump’s push to reintegrate Russia into Western power structures such as the G8 is crucial to giving Putin the excuse he needs to choose America as his liege lord. After decades of anti-Western and specifically anti-American propaganda, Putin needs a strong cover story for his people, one that shows Russia as holding its own against its western adversaries. Putin also knows that China will be much harsher in its treatment of Russian people and Russia’s environment than America would ever be. All he needs is to save face, a few cheap gestures that cost nothing, but mean everything.

Maybe he is doing that just too piss Sesesions off, or just to see if hes really awake over there at Justice.

Or he’s looking at grabbing the youth vote and increasing his share of the black vote in 2020.

https://twitter.com/EmmyA2/status/1006307456396361735

Burger King has reached Wendy’s-tier Twitter-fu.

Damn! And just like that, Wendy’s turns up the dial.

Their social media team are a bunch of savages. I think they all have coffee mugs made out of human skulls and mouse pads bound in flesh.

Then why the big push to readmit them back into the G-7 except to stick his big thumb in the eye of Europe and insult them needlessly?

It’s not needless. That’s “Trump is a Cartoon Villain” thinking. Even our allies are economic competitors and it’s rational to believe that Russia should be allowed to participate. Especially since our European allies demand that we protect them from Russia even as they buy its energy cheap.

You’re so in love with doing the bidding of other countries for free and I don’t get it. Russia is just another country and a dying one at that. They’re not a threat to us unless they drunkenly misplace some of their nuclear warheads. Where there are opportunities and advantages in dealing with them for own sake, we should do it even if Angela Merkel doesn’t get leg tingles over it

.The reason Russia got booted out of the G-7 in the first place was its invasion of Crimea

…to prevent NATO from seizing it and denying them the use of their only warm water port in the west.

A chemical agent assassination attempt in London

…which is unproven.

using mercenaries to grab much of southern Ukraine

…after the West sponsored a coup against a democratically elected, pro-Russian leader in that country.

assisting Iran’s attempt to dominate Syria

…which was made possible by the West destabilizing the Assad regime to the point that a civil war broke out, followed by the West arming the rebels and increasing the intensity of the conflict well before any Russian set foot in that country.

Let’s also not forget that Russia is operating fully legally in Syria having been invited by the Syrian government whereas no Western country has even a shred of legality under its own or international laws to be militarily involved there.

and helping to undermine sanctions and global pressure against North Korea

And, as I’ve said, that’s an area for negotiation and why I think we have something to gain by not employing an adversarial relationship on every single issue for Europe or Israel’s sake. Honestly, almost every foreign policy quagmire we’ve had over the past 20 years is arguably the result of us doing for the Europeans what they should be doing for themselves or not being done at all.

I really don’t care about there 300 year relationship with Ukraine, the same thing could be said about England and their relationships with Ireland, South Africa, or India (or America)you don’t see them stealing territory.

And yet we didn’t get involved in any of those acts of imperial aggression, aside from where we were the victims of it (as it should be, really).

Hey, should we put US troops in Punjab since it’s a disputed territory between India and Pakistan? What about a deployment to Tibet since the Chinese are illegally occupying it? Whoa, Sudan and South Sudan have a dispute over Kaka and Jodha. Let’s get in there and kick some ass!

But no, we don’t get involved there. Because Angela Merkel hasn’t demanded it, I suppose. Weird to me that so many Americans are happy with their country being the EU’s muscular errand boy.

Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet empire, we should be an enabler of this.

No, he’s not. He’s trying to guarantee his country’s economic and military security as the West has continuously done its best to undermine it. Again, the beneficiaries of a weak and encircled Russia are the countries of the EU, not us. Yet we’re expected to provide them with military protection that they refuse to pay for in response to any provocations they make. Fuck. This.

Yes, it’s great that Obama’s legacy is being dismantlement brick by brick, but disruption is not a policy, Trump has to build his own and to do this this (globally) he is going to need trust and cooperation from our friends.

He’s not disrupting for its own sake. The world is undergoing a LONG OVERDUE realignment and Trump is presenting them with reality. He’ll have cooperation from our friends because they don’t actually have any other choice but to do business with us. Once they get done complaining about it, they’ll adjust. Or they won’t and they can fail. We’ll be fine either way.

Trump wants them back in because why, just to be contrary?

Because they’re an economic counter to the EU, a military counter to China, a potential partner in the post-Syrian Civil War, and possibly an aide to ensuring North Korean cooperation. Letting them in the G7 costs us nothing and in return, we benefit. The ONLY reason not to do it is that it hurts Angela Merkel’s feelings.

OK, so you want the US out NATO immediately, is that right?

Yes, NATO has outlived its purpose and isn’t necessary. If the Europeans want to contain Russia, they’re strong enough to do it themselves.

Now you are just being silly, and I think you know that.

No, I’m not. I’m illustrating that we don’t get involved in every border dispute in the world. We only do it when it benefits the EU or (in a more limited case) Israel.

And again, I have not advocated for any of that, more silliness.

You are in favor of continuing the post-Cold War policy of using American economic and military power to further the interests of other countries over your own. You really want to fight Russia? You have enough invested in Ukraine that you’re willing to see my children sent off to fight a future war for the sake of Angela Merkel, who won’t even pay her share for NATO membership? You owe me an explanation on that basis alone.

If we can go it alone and don’t need anyone else, why have a State Dept.?

We do need others but the relationships must be transactional and beneficial to us. Refighting the Cold War because Angela Merkel wants to keep natural gas prices low and throwing our troops into occupying Syria so she doesn’t have the political inconvenience of dealing with refugees and going to war with Iran to make sure she keeps getting Saudi oil doesn’t do it for me.

“We’re America, Bitch!!!”, we take what we need and fuck everyone else. Just think of all the money we will save; close down all embassies, and bring our boys home from all foreign bases.

Pretty much. If they want American protection in any form, they will pay for it with something we need. If they don’t have it, good luck.

Until Trump takes your call and gets us out of NATO we have an obligation to stand with the other NATO members,

This is true, but we could certainly negotiate with the Russians and convince them to stop all military activity in Ukraine in exchange for an agreement that Ukraine will never be admitted to NATO or the EU. Let’s at least address what’s driving this conflict instead of piddling around.

if you want to do their bidding by lobbying G-7 partners to include Russia

Only one of us is placing the interests of other countries above his own. And it’s not me.

real democracies that have been our partners for decades, have at it.

Our first alliance was with a monarchy and we abandoned that alliance the moment the country became a republic, you know. Avoiding entangling alliances and only pursuing those relationships that were beneficial used to be considered a wise course.

Where did I say I wanted to fight Russia?

You want to completely destroy their economy with sanctions that we generally apply before we start bombing people and you’re perfectly okay with expanding a military alliance that exists for no other purpose but to fight a war with them to include a country that they require be friendly for their very survival. But you’re not actually interested in actually fighting the war with them that Europe is provoking? You really need to think hard about this.

If you’re not willing to fight and die for Ukraine or for any other American to do it, then you have no justification for saying that it should be allowed into NATO.

I have nothing invested in the Ukraine, except a clear acknowledgement that you don’t recognize that they were the victims of an illegal annexation from a belligerent neighbor.

By your logic, we shouldn’t have any economic agreements with China or Israel since both of them have illegally annexed territory.

But this is a squabble between 2 countries, none of which are ours, you’ve been telling me for the last 3 comments now that we should not be involved in the affairs of other nations, period. Now you want to negotiate.

I never made a blanket statement that we shouldn’t be involved with the affairs of other nations. Only that it should serve our national interests or be consistent with our own carefully chosen obligations when we do.

And yes, the US by itself can block a country from joining NATO.

Except that we are not king of NATO, we have obligations, if you want to be an isolationist then we have to extricate ourselves from the the union altogether.

NATO is meaningless without the US. But if the EU wants to keep it going on their own, admit Ukraine into it, and fight the inevitable war over it that’s their own lookout. FWIW: I think they’d beat Russia.

Where have I even brought up sanctions in this thread?

With regard to Russia, I suppose you haven’t. But you did say this:

Russia to date has not been held accountable for anything, the Ukraine theft, meddling in out election or any of the meddling it is doing with it’s neighbors.

And…

You seem to want to give Russia a pass wrt to the Crimea theft, they don’t deserve a pass.

So you want to hold Russia accountable because they don’t deserve a pass for invading Crimea. But you…don’t…favor sanctions…and think that Obama did nothing about Russia’s invasion of Crimea even though he…put sanctions on Russia.

Do you favor the crippling sanctions against Russia? Or is expulsion from the G7 all the punishment that you expect? But wait…Obama applied sanctions after the Crimean theft. So if you don’t support the sanctions, then you’re actually softer on Russia than Obama was. And if you do support the sanctions, you’re inconsistent if you don’t support sanctions against China and Israel, who have also illegally annexed territory.

I’ll let you digest that for a while.

First off, I think it is lunacy to interpret the G-7 booting out Russia for their naked act of aggression in the Crimea theft as provoking a fight.

That’s true, it is lunacy and not what I’ve said. However, pledging to eventually incorporate Ukraine into NATO and instigating a coup in Ukraine to remove the pro-Russian government is sure provocative, as is destroying a nation’s economy with economic sanctions.

Still is, that is why we are still part of NATO, because the consensus of opinion by those in power for like the last 75 years has been that this alliance is beneficial to us. If you don’t think so then work on getting us out of NATO.

I am. I voted for Trump and I hold out hope that he’ll get us out.

Please show me where I said Ukraine should be admitted to NATO.

Here, though you tried to qualify the hell out of it:

NATO is an alliance of shared values as well as interests, if Ukraine begins to embrace these shared ideals, extricate itself from unsavory conflicts, builds up it’s military and pledges to uphold the 2% standard for defense spending that all the members agreed to 2006, then we can talk about it.

The answer you should have given to the question was a firm “No, under no circumstances.”

But you have endorsed a ready made blueprint for Russian aggression in case any other sovereign state wants to join;Russia invades, steals some land and NATO balks at admission.

So would you like to just put every country that’s bordering Russia into NATO now before Russia invades?

Their biurth rate for ethnic Russian is in the crapper, adn they way to much land tro secure with a dodgy military and constricting budget.

Very true. The answer to the question, “Why are the Russians acting like they have nothing to lose?” is that they don’t. Each year that goes by, they have fewer men of military age to send off for adventures in Syria and Ukraine. If Putin can’t expand his borders now, Russia won’t be able to any time this century.