Russia v Ukraine just began 6 mins ago

CowpokeU said:
I know those folks too. They only jump through one hurdle and that's, everything said bad about Communism and the govts are psyop lies to convince us to stay capitalists 😂

They, are their own unique breed of weird lol
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Sad thing is, I know this guy very well. We have a lot of good memories of floating down rivers Huck Finn style. Were roommates. Hell, I married him and his wife. He's been so brainwashed in the past 10 years... sad.
 
Toadman005 said:
Speaking for myself, I’m always open to debate with anyone semi open minded and civil. I will not however take the moral high road anymore. Turning the other cheek is noble when slapped, but stupid when getting hit with a nail covered bat.
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Since I vote Democrat, I know I am open minded and have the high ground. Just because of how I vote.
 
BlkSabbath74 said:

MSN

www.msn.com

Evidence is mounting that many Russian soldiers are reluctant to fight.

Social media is littered with videos of lost and hungry soldiers looting, begging for food or ditching their tanks and trucks. Captured soldiers have expressed confusion about the war’s purpose and have surrendered once they discovered they were not on a training exercise. Hundreds of armored vehicles have been abandoned or captured by Ukrainian forces and, in at least one case, by a local farmer.

Many of Russian equipment losses have been because of abandonment and capture, not destruction. Indeed, dozens of videos of lines of stranded military equipment can be found on TikTok. Russian military authorities have threatened physical abuse or worse to enforce discipline in some units. And Reuters correspondent Phil Stewart tweeted this earlier Tuesday:

The Russian Army has built-in problems that undermine morale

Scholars offer four reasons soldiers fight hard on the battlefield: ideology, including nationalism and patriotism; material benefits such as money; for fellow soldiers; and fear, including of one’s own commanders.

Like many armies, Russia’s military is marked by prewar inequalities between soldiers that undercut combat motivation. Take, for example, the status and economic hierarchies between contract soldiers, who make up about 70 percent of the military, and conscripts. Contract soldiers serve for three-year contracts, are paid fairly well (about $1,100 a month) and are better-trained. As officers, they also enjoy numerous opportunities to engage in corruption, including siphoning off conscript pay.

Conscripts, in contrast, are poorly trained, receiving four months of basic training, and serve for only a year, during which they are often victimized by their own contract officers, who often violently haze young recruits. For their troubles, they are paid less than $25 a month. Small wonder that there’s a robust black market in seeking deferments to avoid conscription. Poor pay and the chasm between contract soldiers and conscripts combine to undermine unit cohesion.
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Somebody like Babylon bee should do something like a Ukrainian used car salesman commercial, selling Russian military vehicles.

"We've got them rolling in by the hundreds! Got a big family? Get a troop carrier, Got a mean mother in law? Get an APC! Need a tank? We got you covered! There's so many we got to let them go CHEAP!!!"
 
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Believe me @CowpokeU I understand. Things are very toxic and the divide is way to wide for us to be united. It would take nothing short of an outright miracle for that to happen.
There's a reason when I mention America I don't use either the United States or the US. Because we are damn sure not united.
It's been that way for awhile and I have noticed. But, in the mid nineties is when I got my first taste of leftie fanaticism.
But it's been ramped up over the last few years.

I have a very large tendency to just avoid people now. I pay attention to what's going on but at a distance.
 
LyquidMetal said:
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Believe me @CowpokeU I understand. Things are very toxic and the divide is way to wide for us to be united. It would take nothing short of an outright miracle for that to happen.
There's a reason when I mention America I don't use either the United States or the US. Because we are damn sure not united.
It's been that way for awhile and I have noticed. But, in the mid nineties is when I got my first taste of leftie fanaticism.
But it's been ramped up over the last few years.

I have a very large tendency to just avoid people now. I pay attention to what's going on but at a distance.
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People are the hardest puzzle for me mainly due to emotional decisions and such. If I'm emotionally compromised, I ain't making a single decision.

When it comes to these ideals people strive to uphold, I don't even get it. The right and the left have gone so far apart from each other on their extreme ends that they are the same people. Dogmatic and hateful to the core.

Idk, I just don't understand why people collectively would cut their own noses off to spite their face. That's American politics summed up since the 00's at least
 
CowpokeU said:
People are the hardest puzzle for me mainly due to emotional decisions and such. If I'm emotionally compromised, I ain't making a single decision.

When it comes to these ideals people strive to uphold, I don't even get it. The right and the left have gone so far apart from each other on their extreme ends that they are the same people. Dogmatic and hateful to the core.

Idk, I just don't understand why people collectively would cut their own noses off to spite their face. That's American politics summed up since the 00's at least
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Accepting your premise…The radical left hates anyone that doesn’t agree with them. The right hates the radical left. There’s a pretty big difference imo. But I may be biased.
 
Toadman005 said:
Accepting your premise…The radical left hates anyone that doesn’t agree with them. The right hates the radical left. There’s a pretty big difference imo. But I may be biased.
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No. I don't think you're biased. Sure the right has some crazies. But the left seeks to eliminate everything/body that doesn't march in lock step with them.

Sounds a bit nazish or commie to me.
 
Toadman005 said:
Accepting your premise…The radical left hates anyone that doesn’t agree with them. The right hates the radical left. There’s a pretty big difference imo. But I may be biased.
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Well the radical right I speak of are the Klansmen, Trad Volk, Timothy McVeigh types. To me, they are lock step in their intolerance and tactics with the commie, purple haired, pegging their boyfriend for women's rights, left.
 
CowpokeU said:
I have genuinely seen some older people so tied up in conspiracy that they think there's some evil Cabal coming from Ukraine & that Putin is on some pure, religiously correct, altruist trying to save the world and that the "West" is a communist front.

Like what fucking hoops do you jump through to get to that point? The West has always stood for open, fair elections, democracy, open societies etc. Putin, Xi and others are against the very fabric of democracy.
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I am not sure how exactly to wade into this, but at best the West has only paid lip service to the ideals. We have never had issue with interfering with open elections up to and including outright overthrowing governments when the elections did not suit our wants. We are no better than the East in those regards.
 
CowpokeU said:
Well the radical right I speak of are the Klansmen, Trad Volk, Timothy McVeigh types. To me, they are lock step in their intolerance and tactics with the commie, purple haired, pegging their boyfriend for women's rights, left.
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Well I agree, fucking bury them too. But I think there’s one of them for every thousand of the later.
 
Toadman005 said:
Well I agree, fucking bury them too. But I think there’s one of them for every thousand of the later.
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I actually agree here. The Big hate end on the right side is lesser in numbers but they do exist and they have made physical impacts on my life so they do exist.
 
CowpokeU said:
Well the radical right I speak of are the Klansmen, Trad Volk, Timothy McVeigh types. To me, they are lock step in their intolerance and tactics with the commie, purple haired, pegging their boyfriend for women's rights, left.
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But that's a very small % of people. The radical left holds a larger percentage of people. For every Klansman there's a dozen antifa fucks.
 

MSN

www.msn.com

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, United States intelligence had predicted a blistering assault by Moscow that would quickly mobilise the vast Russian air power that its military assembled in order to dominate Ukraine’s skies.

But the first six days have confounded those expectations and instead seen Moscow act far more delicately with its air power, so much so that US officials cannot exactly explain what is driving Russia’s apparent risk-averse behaviour.

“They’re not necessarily willing to take high risks with their own aircraft and their own pilots,” a senior US defence official told Reuters news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Vastly outmatched by Russia’s military, in terms of raw numbers and firepower, Ukraine’s own air force is still flying and its air defences are still deemed to be viable – a fact that is baffling military experts.

After the opening salvos of the war on February 24, analysts expected the Russian military to try to immediately destroy Ukraine’s air force and air defences.

That would have been “the logical and widely anticipated next step, as seen in almost every military conflict since 1938,” wrote the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think-tank in London, in an article called The Mysterious Case of the Missing Russian Air Force.

Instead, Ukrainian air force fighter jets are still carrying out low-level, defensive counter-air and ground-attack sorties. Russia is still flying through contested airspace.
 
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