Russia Russia Russia

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

40 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

Opportunity:

 

 

As did: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

 

May as well speculate Turkey mined the pipeline.

[Deranged Rhino]

39 minutes ago, IDBillzFan said:

 

I regret I'm not smart enough to track all of this. Why would the BIden admin do this? There's no upside to it, unless the point is that they (the US) wants an escalated war with Russia, which makes no sense.

 

 

 

That’s exactly what they’ve wanted from the beginning: regime change in Moscow. Every action taken since the permawar establishment returned to power was made with that goal in mind. 

[Deranged Rhino]

27 minutes ago, IDBillzFan said:

 

I get the point you're making, but I'm convinced the people running the WH know precisely why they do what they do, even if Joey Tapioca is unaware. 

 

But someone just cut off what appears to be Europe's energy supply just as they head into the winter.

 

Like DR commented, it's stupid for Russia to do it since they can get the same result without blowing their shit up, so if it was the Biden admin, is the idea to stick it to Russia? While leaving Europe, literally, out in the cold? 

 

 

for clarity:

 

 

 

It’s the Neocons. Again. 
 

They don’t give a flip about Europeans, Ukrainians, or us. They care only about retaining power. 

[Deranged Rhino]

23 minutes ago, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

 

They also wouldn't be doing it with explosives. 

 

The US Navy has submarines that can go down below 400 feet, rest on the seabed, and tap communication cables.  Those same vessels could easily poke holes in a pipeline directly, without mining it.

But doing it that way makes it clear who the culprit was and defeats the purpose. 
 

Using explosives makes it “a mystery” as to who did it and why. 

[Deranged Rhino]

12 minutes ago, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

 

As did: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

 

May as well speculate Turkey mined the pipeline.

Except there’s a cost to all them. If they were behind it, their countrymen freeze. 
 

There’s not a cost to Biden’s team. It gets then one step closer to the outcome they’ve said out loud for 9 months (and years prior) they desire. 

[SackMan518]

44 minutes ago, IDBillzFan said:

 

I regret I'm not smart enough to track all of this. Why would the BIden admin do this? There's no upside to it, unless the point is that they (the US) wants an escalated war with Russia, which makes no sense.

 

 

 

 

Russia is basically the last bastion of Western values and Christianity now and add in the fact that they're an economic powerhouse and you have scared Globalists who see them as the final threat to their worldwide Feudalism. Unfortunately for them we're ill-equipped to fight them and India and China are siding with Putin so all we can do is propaganda stunts like this one.

[Deranged Rhino]

Again - the sequence is important:

 

1) Biden is on tape saying they would turn off the pipeline should there be an advance with or without Germany’s help/approval. 
 

2) The CIA issues a magical warning weeks before it happens. 
 

3) The US mil had the exact types of operators you’d need to perform such an act in the area days before it happened.

 

... But sure. It’s just a coincidence that this event happens and leads to people calling for the the political outcome the US has publicly  lobbied for. 
 

Just like it’s a coincidence that after 4 years of peace, we get a brand new war when the permawar establishment retook power. 
 

Funny that. 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Deranged Rhino

[Nouseforaname]

10 minutes ago, SackMan518 said:

 

Russia is basically the last bastion of Western values and Christianity now and add in the fact that they're an economic powerhouse and you have scared Globalists who see them as the final threat to their worldwide Feudalism. Unfortunately for them we're ill-equipped to fight them and India and China are siding with Putin so all we can do is propaganda stunts like this one.

Economic powerhouse? Russia’s gdp = Florida (before the war)

 

[Deranged Rhino]

Remember what lies at the root of this crisis. It’s about defending a country with no strategic, historical, or tactical value to the US or its defense. 

 

And because of that, today we are:

* Closer to a nuclear exchange in Europe than at any point since the Berlin Airlift. 
* Closer to a full scale war on the continent since the cessation of WW2. 
* Giving billions (soon to be trillion) to defend a strategically unimportant, yet deeply corrupted, country with little to no oversight as the global economy melts down. 
* Staring down the barrel of an energy crisis which has been aided and abetted by Biden’s own policies. 
 

... Worth it still? 
 

Or maybe it would have been better to sit this one out, or at least advocate for a diplomatic solution rather than a “defeat Russia at all cost” solution. 
 

But of course if we did that, the establishment class (who some here are still doubting the very existence of despite years of unassailable evidence of their existence and agendas) would be missing out on the grift of a lifetime. Endless profits in various forms from gun running to human smuggling to worse. That just cannot happen. 

 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Deranged Rhino

[Deranged Rhino]

The US would never stage an attack to generate a conflict they've been itching to fight...

 

 

Ever!

 

[Deranged Rhino]

Again - they TOLD US what they were going to do. And note who's saying it - the worst of the worst kind of neocon. 

 

 

 

[Robs House]

Anyone else starting to wonder if maybe we're the bad guys?

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

2 hours ago, Robs House said:

Anyone else starting to wonder if maybe we're the bad guys?

 

No.  Russia still attacked a sovereign nation.  All the lunatic conspiracy theories in the world won't change that simple fact.

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

5 hours ago, Deranged Rhino said:

Except there’s a cost to all them. If they were behind it, their countrymen freeze. 
 

There’s not a cost to Biden’s team. It gets then one step closer to the outcome they’ve said out loud for 9 months (and years prior) they desire. 

 

Not to Turkey.  Turkey, in fact, benefits.  They're the alternative export path for Russian natural gas.

 

And what possible interest would Turkey have for deploying naval vessels in the Baltic?  They have no strategic interests there - no other strategic interests.  In fact, deploying naval vessels beyond the Black Sea or Eastern Med is a major effort for the Turkish Navy.  As a frigate navy, they can't project power much beyond those areas.

[Deranged Rhino]

 

[Deranged Rhino]

2 minutes ago, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

 

Not to Turkey.  Turkey, in fact, benefits.  They're the alternative export path for Russian natural gas.

 

And what possible interest would Turkey have for deploying naval vessels in the Baltic?  They have no strategic interests there - no other strategic interests.  In fact, deploying naval vessels beyond the Black Sea or Eastern Med is a major effort for the Turkish Navy.  As a frigate navy, they can't project power much beyond those areas.

No argument. But if Turkey did it, that means NATO did it. 
 

... which brings us to the same end point really. 
 

The mistake being made by many (IMO) is to look at this purely on the nation state level despite all we’ve seen from the IC the past 7 years specifically. Tits to donuts that whoever did it was operating under the direction of a state intelligence branch of some sort, likely without the host state’s knowledge or approval. 

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

1 minute ago, Deranged Rhino said:

No argument. But if Turkey did it, that means NATO did it. 
 

... which brings us to the same end point really. 
 

The mistake being made by many (IMO) is to look at this purely on the nation state level despite all we’ve seen from the IC the past 7 years specifically. Tits to donuts that whoever did it was operating under the direction of a state intelligence branch of some sort, likely without the host state’s knowledge or approval. 

 

Which still makes more sense than "The US blew it up," since then you have to explain how we mined it two months ago without the 15 other NATO countries involved in the exercise knowing about it.

 

Ultimately, though, you determine, a priori, that world events are surreptitiously manipulated by the US before they even happen.  Fact is, there's no evidence either way, and my theory that it was a covert submarine sabotage (even by the Russians - they have that submarine capability as well) is just as well supported by facts.

 

Hell, for all we know it was Greek opium smugglers employed by the Russians.  They have a history of that, what with mining a trawler to steal ATAC from the Royal Navy back in the '80s.  

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

13 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

 

1) Submarine.  The Baltic Fleet is based in and around Leningrad.  They have diesel-electric submarines that would be ideal for the task.  What, we're going to postulate that Russia doesn't have naval access to the Baltic now?

 

2) Why wouldn't they attack their own pipeline?  They've already suspended exports through it, it's not being used, and they're not suffering for the lack of exports?  This decisively and irrevocably cuts off Europe's energy supply for the winter.  It has a drastically adverse impact on Western Europe and NATO, without materially affecting Russia at all.

 

Furthermore, it's just the sort of thing you accuse the US of doing all the time.  Why would the Russians act any differently? 

[Robs House]

1 hour ago, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

 

No.  Russia still attacked a sovereign nation.  All the lunatic conspiracy theories in the world won't change that simple fact.

 

That's a good point but I don't think it's dispositive.

 

Russia being in the wrong doesn't necessarily put us in the right.

 

If it's true that peace talks were canceled at the behest of the west, and that we sabotaged the pipeline, it's entirely possible that we're escalating a small skirmish between historical adversaries (that while unfortunate, is of little concern to the rest of the world) and turning it into global crisis with nuclear war on the table.

 

If you think about it in terms of a conflict amongst individuals, we're at that point where one person has initiated a fight and now other parties have joined in on behalf of the victim, and it's unclear whether they're going to allow the initial aggressor to retreat or corner him and pull out their guns knowing he's drawing for his, and there are innocents caught in the crossfire. It's a moral conundrum. 

 

The initial aggressor is the bad guy in this situation, but if you start a shoot out while he's trying to retreat generally that now makes you the bad guy. That's especially true where there could be excessive collateral damage.

 

The part I struggle with most is that I can't think of a legitimate reason why we're doing it. I don't hear a whole lot of people even making a case for it.  It seems to be just assumed that we should support it.

 

We're not sending $200 billion (and counting) and spearheading a war in Eastern Europe out of humanitarian concerns. There doesn't seem to be any articulable reason why Russia would be a direct threat to the security of the west, even in the long run. So what's the angle?

 

I don't subscribe to any particular conspiracy theory on this, but the official story doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  

Edited September 28, 2022 by Robs House

[Deranged Rhino]

2 hours ago, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

 

Which still makes more sense than "The US blew it up," since then you have to explain how we mined it two months ago without the 15 other NATO countries involved in the exercise knowing about it.

 

Unless you stop thinking in terms of nation states, and start thinking in terms of those who truly steer the ship. 

 

There is an undeniable historical, factual, and recent record of powerful interests within the US intelligence apparatus who've been itching for this fight going back to 2012 if not sooner. You can't write it off as mere coincidence this happens precisely when they return to power without jumping through major hoops. 

 

2 hours ago, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

Ultimately, though, you determine, a priori, that world events are surreptitiously manipulated by the US before they even happen.  Fact is, there's no evidence either way, and my theory that it was a covert submarine sabotage (even by the Russians - they have that submarine capability as well) is just as well supported by facts.

 

Motive, opportunity, and the timing point far more to the scenario laid out in this thread (and recapped in Tucker's monologue) than it does Russia. Is it possible? Sure. But it makes no strategic or tactical sense - especially if you buy into the western media's narrative that the Russians are getting hammered. If they were, why risk fanning the flames and bringing more combatants into the proxy war? 

 

If they're not getting hammered, why blow up valuable infrastructure (behind enemy lines in the most heavily patrolled region of water in the world at the moment) that they'd need to turn on to recoup profits after the war is done?

 

Yet, we've had 9 months (3 years really) of western sabre rattling over this exact scenario. Then it happens, as they said it would, and we're supposed to just ignore everything that was said about it prior? Why?

 

The truth is the western IC has a history of playing just as dirty as the Russians in this area. That doesn't suddenly make Russia or Putin the good guys to recognize the shades of gray at play. 

 

2 hours ago, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

 

1) Submarine.  The Baltic Fleet is based in and around Leningrad.  They have diesel-electric submarines that would be ideal for the task.  What, we're going to postulate that Russia doesn't have naval access to the Baltic now?

 

 

They have access - but they'd have to penetrate the most heavily monitored stretch of water in the globe right now to do it. Impossible? Nope. Risky? Sure is. Why take that risk? What does Russia gain from this? 

 

They don't get international sympathy - they get more outrage. They don't prevent new combatants from joining the fray, they encourage more. So you'd not only have to execute a difficult naval operation against the world's best navy - you'd have to hope to gain something from the operation succeeding. 

 

And I just don't see what that could possibly be. 

 

Other groups have FAR more to gain. 

 

Plus, there’s this:

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Deranged Rhino