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Isaac

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You don't have to 'make peace' with a state. Stop shooting people, stop bombing people. Just don't shoot and bomb. Job done. Peace. No 'states' requir...
November 14, 2022 at 09:00
Just interested in how you square this within your narrative. As I see it, Biden's fighting this war because the arms lobby lobbied him to. He's fundi...
November 14, 2022 at 08:49
If anything, the act of signing a peace treaty usually requires the exact opposite belief. One cannot consider territorial changes as part of a peace ...
November 14, 2022 at 08:08
Go on. Explain your argument. A Russian diplomat is prevented from signing a document (and thereby constraining his government to act in accordance wi...
November 14, 2022 at 07:35
Do you think that this should have happened in Chechnya? Do you think the Chechen separatists ought to have recognised that Russia was an actual state...
November 14, 2022 at 06:45
So you're asking a hypothetical? The answer would be the same. It's not made so simply by you saying it. You have to argue the case. In what way does ...
November 14, 2022 at 06:35
It's not downplaying it to place it in context. The question of what we do in Ukraine can't be answered without answering the question of what we do t...
November 13, 2022 at 18:49
I prefer to think of it as rhetoric, but 'ramble mode' if you like. The point is not eradicated by the elimination of any particular methodology. It d...
November 13, 2022 at 18:08
Then I'm afraid the point you're making remains opaque. Is having your children abducted horrifying? Yes. Did we really need to point that out?
November 13, 2022 at 17:54
This is a good example of the limits of our knowledge. there have been no child abductions. UNICEF's director for emergency operations, Manuel Fontain...
November 13, 2022 at 17:47
I think I've made my preferred solution quite clear - end the war, cede territory if need be, then support those Russians (and newly 'Russian' Ukraini...
November 13, 2022 at 17:33
Exactly. "Or what?" Is the only relevant question. Putin ought no get away with so much as throwing litter if the punishment is easily administered an...
November 13, 2022 at 14:19
Love the way you guys are so buried in your own reality you've had to start quoting each other.
November 12, 2022 at 18:39
No. One couldn't. Not unless one is a qualified economist. Neither you nor I are in a position to judge the relative plausibility of economic theories...
November 11, 2022 at 13:33
What kind of answer is that? I've supplied a stream of qualified experts talking about the very real risk of escalation to nuclear weapons and your co...
November 11, 2022 at 07:38
Yes, I agree. I don't think it's a coincidence that the estimates of nuclear escalation were similar to the estimates of Ukraine taking Donbas. I thin...
November 10, 2022 at 15:30
Yeah, right. So the top performing superforecasters from the US Government IARPA Good Judgment Project were asked "Will a nuclear weapon be detonated ...
November 10, 2022 at 14:34
So? A nuclear armed state can hold the world to ransom. So much the worse for nuclear arms proliferation. Perhaps America should have thought of that ...
November 10, 2022 at 11:31
You've repeatedly insulted my intelligence ("you don't know much if anything", "you don't understand"...), and my morality ("support Putin", "putinist...
November 10, 2022 at 11:01
That's right. Yet what you've provided is evidence that some people think "it was not just a corporate opportunity to "screw everyone", because to som...
November 10, 2022 at 06:56
I'll take what I "understand" from experts in their field thanks, not some neo-liberal twat off the internet. In case it's the scale you disagree with...
November 10, 2022 at 06:43
And yet you, it seems are as incapable of basic comprehension as you were 300 pages ago. Neither of the quotes you cited say this, only that territori...
November 09, 2022 at 22:48
Ulterior motives are important, but so's the gloss (often more so). There is a significant neo-Nazi problem in Ukraine, it did ought to be dealt with,...
November 09, 2022 at 19:59
Yeah, I see what you mean. There's a line to walk with any deal between offering Putin a face-saving off-ramp and offering him a sweetener that he act...
November 09, 2022 at 18:39
The Marshall Plan was a US government loan instrument. It was not a corporate reconstruction contract, which is what I was referring to with Bayer. Mo...
November 09, 2022 at 13:14
What?
November 09, 2022 at 11:18
Yes, I think UN involvement will be essential to the success of any plan. I think Crimean neutrality might be a offer worth considering, but militaril...
November 09, 2022 at 11:18
Interesting. Which American corporations were significantly involved in those reconstructions?
November 09, 2022 at 11:06
I don't think at this stage that Ukraine are going to want any kind of realistic deal, but it's not their opinion that matters to us, we're concerned ...
November 09, 2022 at 07:11
It's a pattern repeated over and over - War -> reconstruction requirements -> corporate opportunity to screw everyone. I can't think of a single examp...
November 09, 2022 at 07:01
Peace terms that the other side are never going to accept are little more than a gloss on a continued war effort. ...trouble is, Minsc II already had ...
November 09, 2022 at 06:57
Interesting development you highlight here... Ahh Bayer to the rescue, phew... This would be the same Bayer who plead guilty and pay a fine of $66 mil...
November 08, 2022 at 19:32
I'd be in favour of literally any agreement which ended the fighting. The less territory in Russian control the better though, so if they'd go for you...
November 08, 2022 at 18:56
George Beebe, the director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute, said the reports are a stark reminder that the war “could rapidly escalate into ...
November 08, 2022 at 13:23
...
November 07, 2022 at 19:59
So what you mean to say is "Yes, that's right, they don't just randomly guess", but it seems you're allergic to agreeing with anyone not on your team....
November 07, 2022 at 18:24
Of course it's measured, don't be stupid. Governments, NGOs, corporations, don't just make random guesses as to the impact of their interventions. The...
November 07, 2022 at 16:32
To a point. I don't have any truck with racism, or nationalism. I'm not going to act as if militarism is an OK opinion to have, or that war crimes, an...
November 07, 2022 at 16:23
And yet someone has to, and we either participate in holding those decisions to account or we wash our hands of the whole dirty business and let other...
November 07, 2022 at 13:38
The damage. As I've explained above. The costs are measured in millions of lives. Dodging the question again. I didn't ask "At what point did the US c...
November 07, 2022 at 13:11
That's not having a say in whether the war is worth it, is it? That's having a say in what to do about the consequences. At what point did the US cons...
November 07, 2022 at 10:20
So I'll ask again... The war in Ukraine severely increases the risk of starvation for millions in Africa by increasing the cost of fuel reducing suppl...
November 07, 2022 at 09:06
Bullshit. It's about the famine in Somalia which literally every expert in the world agrees is (and continues to be) exacerbated by the conflict in Uk...
November 07, 2022 at 08:52
I have no idea what you're talking about. What has the pragmatic acknowledgement that Russia had legitimate security concerns (if you poke them, they'...
November 07, 2022 at 06:02
Yeah. This from UNICEF in October. It's not enough. The war needs to stop as quickly as possible, countries just aren't independent any more, the idea...
November 06, 2022 at 21:04
More nationalist bullshit. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1116152 8 million children. Did anyone ask them whether they want the war to continue ...
November 06, 2022 at 19:52
There is, yes. The latter tells us a lot more about support for particular strategies in the areas where is actually matters, as opposed to an almost ...
November 06, 2022 at 18:20
I'll be sure to add that to my collection of 'stuff ssu reckons'. Any thoughts on an actual argument?
November 06, 2022 at 14:32
All surveys apply only to the sample. Whether the stratification is specified or not. Your study, for example, was limited to Ukrainians outside of do...
November 06, 2022 at 14:25
So? There's 40 million Ukrainians. And the desperate, terrifying and bloody circumstances of the soldiers on the front line are hardly good conditions...
November 06, 2022 at 12:38