Russia

He then went on and on to attack Putin as the KGB guy who kills people and attacks his neighbors, etc.  (fear fear fear)

Originally posted by spudone

Fear fear fear... because that's all true.

Originally posted by tuwood My point isn't to say is not true, but how is that different than what we do as a nation. We have corrupt politicians and we invade countries abroad for our own interests.

Originally posted by spudone

I can agree the USA and Russia are about on par with something like Syria or Afghanistan.

But then there's the whole annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.  An equivalent of that situation, would be like the USA claiming Prince Edward Island... and then sending irregular fighters into mainland Canada to tear up their infrastructure and make sure they don't take that island back.  Sorry but we're not even close to that.

And we don't poison our political dissidents with polonium or shoot them in broad daylight amongst other things.

Originally posted by Left Brain

Trump knows nothing about Polonium............I didn't see THAT on twitter....but just think about it.....he doesn't.

Originally posted by spudone

I can agree the USA and Russia are about on par with something like Syria or Afghanistan.

But then there's the whole annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.  An equivalent of that situation, would be like the USA claiming Prince Edward Island... and then sending irregular fighters into mainland Canada to tear up their infrastructure and make sure they don't take that island back.  Sorry but we're not even close to that.

And we don't poison our political dissidents with polonium or shoot them in broad daylight amongst other things.

Originally posted by tuwood

I guess I'm not trying got make a moral equivalent argument because Russia has done some bad things over the years, but I feel our government does a lot of the same things, but just does them in a different way.

For example we may not execute people in public, but we do use the IRS to oppress the opposition and selectively prosecute political foes while covering for the party in power.  We did unilaterally go invade iraq with a "trumped up" WMD cause for justification.  

Even with Crimea we had the US getting involved in essentially overthrowing the government or "brokering a power transition" as Obama said.  I'm not justifying Putin going in with force, but one could argue that the US was the instigator there more than Russia.  It's a little more equivalent of Russia coming in and putting in place a pro-russia government in Florida.

Originally posted by spudone

Commenter on that video is correct - The US brokered a deal for the transition of power AFTER the protests.

This wasn't a case of the U.S. trying to install a new leader.  This went back years and years in Ukraine.  Yanukovich originally became president in Ukraine in 2004, via *real* voter fraud.  The people rebelled and finally their supreme court nullified his win and his opponent, Yushenko, became president.

Keep in mind, this is the guy who was backed by the Kremlin, not to mention by many of their agents who have already embedded themselves in the Ukrainian government.  DURING that 2004 campaign, there was the attempted assassination on Yushenko with dioxin poisoning.  Who do you think was behind that?  Yeah.

Yanukovich goes after the presidency again in 2010, much under the same circumstances.  Anyhow there was a lot of unrest and unhappiness just because of that election, but it came to a head when he rejected their EU trade agreement and kicked off more protests.  Civilians start getting shot by the government, he escapes to Russia, etc - you know the rest.

 

This wasn't some U.S. plot to overturn the Ukrainian government.  That unrest came about because the Ukrainians wanted to control their own destiny and not be a puppet state of Russia.  I was in Kiev in 2013; I know a lot of the opinions over there firsthand.

Originally posted by chirunner134 Russia being the super scary devil is something that will go away over time. Advantage of cycle of life. I know my dad still talks about how 1972 Olympics where US was cheated over the gold metal in basketball. I watched it for first time about a year ago and I actually saw it as a loss by the US. It is hard to see past old grudges. Hillary seemed to want to get back in against Russia. I heard Condi Rice was supposed to try to start cold war up again with Russia on 9/11/2001 but speech was cancelled due to well 9/11. (I remember correctly though I think I heard that in Michael Moore's movie). If you want to remember how bad Russians are just watch Rocky 4.

Originally posted by tuwood

I've heard it said over and over again, but the more I watch our government the more I'm starting to believe it.  There's a Trillion dollar "big war" industry and they need wars in order to stay in business.  If we're not lobbing million dollar missiles and bombs at somebody then their sales go in the tank rapidly.

I hate to suggest that our government is actively trying to keep perpetual war going, but we've pretty much been doing that for the past 25 years and even before that with the "cold war" we spent just as much or more due to the "threat of war".

The war mongers are not trying to keep peace, they're trying to keep us in wars. 

Originally posted by tuwood

I've heard it said over and over again, but the more I watch our government the more I'm starting to believe it.  There's a Trillion dollar "big war" industry and they need wars in order to stay in business.  If we're not lobbing million dollar missiles and bombs at somebody then their sales go in the tank rapidly.

I hate to suggest that our government is actively trying to keep perpetual war going, but we've pretty much been doing that for the past 25 years and even before that with the "cold war" we spent just as much or more due to the "threat of war".

The war mongers are not trying to keep peace, they're trying to keep us in wars. 

Originally posted by spudone

I can agree the USA and Russia are about on par with something like Syria or Afghanistan.

But then there's the whole annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.  An equivalent of that situation, would be like the USA claiming Prince Edward Island... and then sending irregular fighters into mainland Canada to tear up their infrastructure and make sure they don't take that island back.  Sorry but we're not even close to that.

And we don't poison our political dissidents with polonium or shoot them in broad daylight amongst other things.

Originally posted by axteraa

Leave my island out of this!

Originally posted by spudone

Um that's MY island now.