alanjjohnstone
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MODERATOR NOTICE
1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
I am very lenient when the thread veers off at a tangent (I please guilty of the same transgression)
But please note it was the main reason that the previous moderator closed the Hong Kong protests topic.
Please bear in mind not to dwell too long on extraneous posts and quickly return to the topic.
I made an analogy that challenged your belief that Stalin was not responsible for the gulags, that is all. Creating straw-man arguments are deflections from my point.
“But Hitler was its driving force. Without him there would have been no holocaust.”
“But Stalin was its driving force. Without him there would have been no purges.”
There is actually more evidence that Stalin was culpable of war crimes in that Stalin did put his signature to a directive instructing the killing of Polish officers.
You and Furr may dispute it by many scholarly and more reliable historians have verified his signature.
Dmitri Medvedev described the publication as a “duty”. “Let people see it, let them know who made the decision to kill the Polish officers. It’s all there in the documents. All signatures are there, all the faces are known.”
If you wish to consider Medvedev a Russian traitor, then Putin must also be, as he and Putin have been close political allies.
But to pre-empt a possible distraction. Hitler did sign the order to execute commandos which was a war crime
WHO predicts that up to three million Ukrainians could leave their homes in search of warmth and safety
“Half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is either damaged or destroyed. This is already having knock-on effects on the health system and on people’s health,” said Hans Henri P Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe. “This winter will be about survival,” he warned.
I am minded of the bombing of German cities and the mass deaths of civilians being justified because the cities were also military targets, armament factories or important railway junctions. I think TS has also justified the Russian destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure for similar reasons.
TS – “You think Stalin personally oversaw the arrest and trial of every criminal in the Soviet Union?”
Where is the evidence that Hitler actually ordered the Final Solution?
He, too, did not personally oversee the death camps.
This German historian does not deny the Holocaust but argues it was not planned by Hitler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Mommsen
I suggest your reply does not explain dictators and how they direct and control a country.
Iran team didn’t sing their national anthem in solidarity with the protests
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/63706487
Iran TV cut its coverage of the anthem
Bijou Drains, you are being semantic.
True Scotsman, you doth protest too much
I deleted a number of references.
It’s as I expected from yourself, no understanding of your own double standards.
Russia holds an ambivalent attitude toward the Kurds and they make tactical alliances with them.
I have no doubt that Russia’s amicable relationship with the Kurds is opportunistic, as was America’s, but you resort to hyperbole. Equating Kurdish forces with nun-killing Nicaraguan Contras is not learning anything from history.
I’ll start with a Russian source
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Kurdish formations are ready to provide security for Russia’s task force
https://tass.com/defense/978971
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Russian military observers will be deployed to Afrin and al-Shahba, northwestern Syria, to coordinate with Kurdish and local forces and “maintain security,”https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/29082017
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The Russian-Kurdish cooperation in Deir ez-Zor “developed on Russia’s initiative,” an official from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the YPG’s political winghttps://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2017/12/turkey-syria-kurds-move-closer-russia.html
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Russia had already helped to end clashes on the ground following a pact between the Kurds and Damascus which has seen Syrian government forces and allied Russian forces return to areas under Kurdish controlhttps://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syrian-kurds-urge-russia-impose-no-fly-zone-halt-turkish-airstrikes
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Turkey protests as PYD opens office in Moscowhttps://www.trtworld.com/europe/international-network-of-pkk-affiliates-to-expand-with-a-new-us-office-17016
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Russia has displayed sympathy toward the Syrian Kurds and has even invited rival Kurdish groups to Moscow in an attempt to bring about unity between them
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Kurds in Syria have been U.S. allies but now they’re making a deal with Russia. Russian flags are flying in Kurdish territoryhttps://www.npr.org/2019/12/02/784225309/kurds-in-syria-make-a-deal-with-russia
—–The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council, political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding with a Syrian Marxist party in Moscow. The memo calls for aligning the SDF with the Syrian Army and finding a solution to the Kurdish issue.
TS – >>>“Support” for Syria? Assad’s government represented Syria.<<< You defend the rights of Russian-speakers to form their own republic so do you extend similar rights to those who speak Kurd to breakaway and form their own republic? Or do you believe those who are trying to establish self-governing Rojova are CIA-Nazis.
Universal free healthcare at risk in Scotland. Means-testing?
A “two-tier” health service is mentioned in draft minutes of a meeting of NHS Scotland health board chief executives in September.
Plus the possibility of curtailing some free prescriptions.
I can’t reconcile your comment
“the Russians hoped for a quick surrender.”
That has been my case all along. That they hoped to capture Kiev in days. That it was not a diversionary attack.
You will, of course, dismiss any analysis from Western sources.
But the Washington Post has a detailed description of the Russian strategy and the battle of Kiev.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2022/kyiv-battle-ukraine-survival/
And you will reject Wiki as CIA lies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antonov_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyiv_offensive_(2022)
But my reading is that the Russians definitely intended to take Kiev but underestimated the resistance which halted reinforcements.
It was a defeat.
Plan A had failed so Plan B had to be quickly implemented. That is the plan you insist was the original one.
This war is not going to be over any time soon, IMHO.
Ukraine won’t be defeated and neither will the Russians be dislodged from the occupied territory.
The Nazis (if you wish to define them as such) are still in power and have grown stronger.
The separatist regions’ population have needed to be evacuated because the Russians cannot guarantee to protect them in DPR and LPR
Ukraine’s and other neighbouring countries(Finland and Sweden) relations with NATO have grown closer, and NATO presence has been strengthened in the Baltic countries and Poland. All NATO nations are increasing their arms spending
It has been a disaster for Putin as he has not accomplished his special military operation. While retaining the patriotic loyalty of most Russians as all wars in all countries have a tendency to happen, he has alienated a substantial minority.
His hope was indeed a swift victory by capturing Kiev and that did not succeed.
TS continues to deflect from the fact that the assault on Kiev failed. It was now merely a diversion according to him.
TS buys into the Russian story that it was to buy time for the Eastern offensive and that it was not a military miscalculation.
The Russians failed to establish full control over the airport with its elite airborne regiment from which capture they intended to reinforce its vanguard.
And the other supply line, the long convoy of trucks 40 miles in length on the main highway was easy prey to the Ukrainians but according to reports, mostly disorganization and bad planning.
Was it to be the sacrificial lamb if TS is correct, a diversion to pin down Ukrainian forces?
Or part of an intended siege army? Or a relief column for the Russians hanging on at the airport?
What was its mission?Russia call its dispersal, a re-deployment. Others called the retreat a rout.
It was the unsustainability of the attack on Kiev that caused Russia to withdraw the East.
Certainly not as been suggested a peace gesture for negotiations
