Day by day, hour by hour the Kremlin crime boss is destroying a peaceful European democracy and for all the sanctions, legal action, weapons delivered and heroic Ukrainian defence, the West is still not prepared to will the means to put Putin firmly in his box. Putin is being given a pass because some worry about taking on the Russian rogue state.
We are now seeing the price of weakness and the bully will not be deterred by such weakness, only come back for more as his appetite for expansion grows more glutinous.
The immediate answer is simple, a red line to many, not without risk or the potential for NATO large losses :
1. No fly zone 2. Russian invasion force to begin withdrawing within 12 hours 3. Ukraine to be admitted to NATO with immediate effect.
Boris and other western leaders have said Putin must lose and be seen to lose. They need to take the decisive action that will ensure he does lose. Nothing else will do or work.
Or go Mossad +. Stop playing nice. Putin’s kids in Switzerland - kill them. Oligarch’s children arriving by private jet in Mykonos - dead in their hotel beds. Make every Russian of any vague standing terrified for their children because they are enabling Putin to allow his forces to kill Ukrainian children.
Open a second front for Russia by dropping every Islamo-terrorist in captivity into Chechnya with weapons.
Take the fight into Russian streets with terrorism - they have been telling their people that the west has been doing nasty things - may as well just do them.
Hooray for collective punishment! Let's round them up and put them in camps.
Nice try with the Nazi equivalency - doing Vlad’s work there…..
Clearly I meant targeted on the kids of those enabling Ukrainian kids to be killed - I’m sure they don’t have a prob with kids being killed yes?
And opening a second front whilst Russian army stretched - quite obvious.
But yes I am a Nazi and want every Russian in a camp…..
If you're talking about killing the children of the relevant people -- even if the relevant people are war criminals -- then you are the bad guy. I'm open to the concept of extrajudicial killing in EXTREME circumstances and where there no reasonable hope of justice being served (that's just war), but targeting non-combatants who happen to be related to commanders is really, really fucking dark.
It is dark and I hate even thinking it but if it’s the choice between that and watching, from our lovely safe armchairs, kids’ hospitals being bombed and civilians being targeted for nothing then it’s the lesser evil.
I’m sorry if you disagree and I totally get why you or anyone does but unfortunately some people will only realise what they’ve done wrong when it truly comes home to them.
If we wilfully killed children, how would we be any different to him?
Did we bomb German cities during WW2 killing civilians including children? Are we as bad as Hitler or did we choose to do something horrific in order to save more lives in the long run?
Collateral damage around a valid military target (especially with the technology of WW2) is not remotely the same as deliberately seeking out and murdering a child in their bed. Come on, you don’t need me to tell you that.
Dresden
DresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresden
Harris had run out of targets by then. The rest of Germany’s cities were ruined or overrun. But to be honest, if he could have, Harris would have inflicted a Dresden on every city he attacked. He fully believed the war could be won through bombing alone, and tried really hard to prove it. In the end he failed, but he also never got his 4000 Lancaster strong bomber force which he believed he needed.
7,377 Lancasters were built in total
Yes but the attrition was such that there were never anything like that available. The early thousand bomber raids were done by scraping every available aircraft into the air, including some pretty poor ones. Later the lancs and halifaxes dominated, but Harris’s vision was 4000 heavies just waiting to be pointed where he wanted that night. It was probably an impossible dream. Max Hastings contends that the vast industrial resource allocated to the bombing war could have been better used elsewhere. He’s probably right, although the bombing campaign for much of the war was political as much as military. It provided a second front to appease Stalin when the U.K. and U.S. were in no state to take on hitlers land forces in France. In that context it did it’s job, and it’s certain that by the end Harris had a superb weapon, albeit one that had no more function, as he had run out of cities to wreck.
Day by day, hour by hour the Kremlin crime boss is destroying a peaceful European democracy and for all the sanctions, legal action, weapons delivered and heroic Ukrainian defence, the West is still not prepared to will the means to put Putin firmly in his box. Putin is being given a pass because some worry about taking on the Russian rogue state.
We are now seeing the price of weakness and the bully will not be deterred by such weakness, only come back for more as his appetite for expansion grows more glutinous.
The immediate answer is simple, a red line to many, not without risk or the potential for NATO large losses :
1. No fly zone 2. Russian invasion force to begin withdrawing within 12 hours 3. Ukraine to be admitted to NATO with immediate effect.
Boris and other western leaders have said Putin must lose and be seen to lose. They need to take the decisive action that will ensure he does lose. Nothing else will do or work.
Or go Mossad +. Stop playing nice. Putin’s kids in Switzerland - kill them. Oligarch’s children arriving by private jet in Mykonos - dead in their hotel beds. Make every Russian of any vague standing terrified for their children because they are enabling Putin to allow his forces to kill Ukrainian children.
Open a second front for Russia by dropping every Islamo-terrorist in captivity into Chechnya with weapons.
Take the fight into Russian streets with terrorism - they have been telling their people that the west has been doing nasty things - may as well just do them.
Hooray for collective punishment! Let's round them up and put them in camps.
Nice try with the Nazi equivalency - doing Vlad’s work there…..
Clearly I meant targeted on the kids of those enabling Ukrainian kids to be killed - I’m sure they don’t have a prob with kids being killed yes?
And opening a second front whilst Russian army stretched - quite obvious.
But yes I am a Nazi and want every Russian in a camp…..
If you're talking about killing the children of the relevant people -- even if the relevant people are war criminals -- then you are the bad guy. I'm open to the concept of extrajudicial killing in EXTREME circumstances and where there no reasonable hope of justice being served (that's just war), but targeting non-combatants who happen to be related to commanders is really, really fucking dark.
It is dark and I hate even thinking it but if it’s the choice between that and watching, from our lovely safe armchairs, kids’ hospitals being bombed and civilians being targeted for nothing then it’s the lesser evil.
I’m sorry if you disagree and I totally get why you or anyone does but unfortunately some people will only realise what they’ve done wrong when it truly comes home to them.
If we wilfully killed children, how would we be any different to him?
Did we bomb German cities during WW2 killing civilians including children? Are we as bad as Hitler or did we choose to do something horrific in order to save more lives in the long run?
Collateral damage around a valid military target (especially with the technology of WW2) is not remotely the same as deliberately seeking out and murdering a child in their bed. Come on, you don’t need me to tell you that.
Dresden
DresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresden
I could debate with you about Dresden for a while but instead can we focus on the poster above suggesting we murder children in their bed?
Meanwhile whilst you debate Dresden how many Ukrainian children are being killed in their beds?
If it took killing 20 Russian oligarchs’ children to save 200 Ukrainian children is that the correct ratio?
Or 2000 Ukrainian children?
Seriously - someone who’s critical or telling me to stop posting please let me know how many Ukrainian children you are happy to have killed rather than explore the idea that bad times call for nasty solutions?
It is never right to kill kids.
If it became the policy of any British Government to do so I would do everything I could to overthrow that Government by any means necessary.
Day by day, hour by hour the Kremlin crime boss is destroying a peaceful European democracy and for all the sanctions, legal action, weapons delivered and heroic Ukrainian defence, the West is still not prepared to will the means to put Putin firmly in his box. Putin is being given a pass because some worry about taking on the Russian rogue state.
We are now seeing the price of weakness and the bully will not be deterred by such weakness, only come back for more as his appetite for expansion grows more glutinous.
The immediate answer is simple, a red line to many, not without risk or the potential for NATO large losses :
1. No fly zone 2. Russian invasion force to begin withdrawing within 12 hours 3. Ukraine to be admitted to NATO with immediate effect.
Boris and other western leaders have said Putin must lose and be seen to lose. They need to take the decisive action that will ensure he does lose. Nothing else will do or work.
Or go Mossad +. Stop playing nice. Putin’s kids in Switzerland - kill them. Oligarch’s children arriving by private jet in Mykonos - dead in their hotel beds. Make every Russian of any vague standing terrified for their children because they are enabling Putin to allow his forces to kill Ukrainian children.
Open a second front for Russia by dropping every Islamo-terrorist in captivity into Chechnya with weapons.
Take the fight into Russian streets with terrorism - they have been telling their people that the west has been doing nasty things - may as well just do them.
Hooray for collective punishment! Let's round them up and put them in camps.
Nice try with the Nazi equivalency - doing Vlad’s work there…..
Clearly I meant targeted on the kids of those enabling Ukrainian kids to be killed - I’m sure they don’t have a prob with kids being killed yes?
And opening a second front whilst Russian army stretched - quite obvious.
But yes I am a Nazi and want every Russian in a camp…..
If you're talking about killing the children of the relevant people -- even if the relevant people are war criminals -- then you are the bad guy. I'm open to the concept of extrajudicial killing in EXTREME circumstances and where there no reasonable hope of justice being served (that's just war), but targeting non-combatants who happen to be related to commanders is really, really fucking dark.
It is dark and I hate even thinking it but if it’s the choice between that and watching, from our lovely safe armchairs, kids’ hospitals being bombed and civilians being targeted for nothing then it’s the lesser evil.
I’m sorry if you disagree and I totally get why you or anyone does but unfortunately some people will only realise what they’ve done wrong when it truly comes home to them.
If we wilfully killed children, how would we be any different to him?
Did we bomb German cities during WW2 killing civilians including children? Are we as bad as Hitler or did we choose to do something horrific in order to save more lives in the long run?
Collateral damage around a valid military target (especially with the technology of WW2) is not remotely the same as deliberately seeking out and murdering a child in their bed. Come on, you don’t need me to tell you that.
Dresden
DresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresden
I could debate with you about Dresden for a while but instead can we focus on the poster above suggesting we murder children in their bed?
Sure
Just enumerate the valid military targets in down town Dresden, and we're good
The factories and the homes of those who worked there.
Civilians homes are legitimate targets ?
Considered so during total war in the 1940’s yes. The ‘idea’ was to shut the factories by destroying them and dehoming the workers. No factory outputs, no weapons, win the war. War is brutal.
Yes. They were legitimate targets then. They are not now, because we have precision bombs. We also wouldn’t attack factories themselves because we can be accurate on military targets.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Yes, but they said the same in 1938 about Czechoslovakia.
And there was no relevant difference between the world of 1938 and now
Clearly the last thing the internet needs is hyperbole, but we have to accept the possibility that events might not unfold nicely and that the quiet life might not be an option whatever we do.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Yes, but they said the same in 1938 about Czechoslovakia.
I'm sure they did, and its a fascinating lesson for me as to how difficult the debate must have been. It isn't quite the right comparison though. Putin is not set on invading western Europe and then the UK.
It’s horrible to wake up and realise your living in 1939.
That’s it! I havn’t been waking up happy.
But did people in 1939 or 1914 realise they were in 1939 or 1914 😕
Big difference between the two is that in 1939 they had 1914-1918 relatively fresh in the collective memory. But in many respects people didn't find out the worst of WWII until the very end, when the concentration camps were liberated, while of course now we can be aware of the worst before it is printed in the newspapers.
I know she's wrong that to "close the sky" doesn't involve fighting.
I don't think that distinction matters any more.
Liubov Tsybulska @TsybulskaLiubov Lots of killed and wounded after terrible bombing of the maternity hospital. 1170 killed civilians only in Mariupol city. We don’t ask to fight for us, just close the sky. If that’s how democracies react to RU war crimes, then something wrong with these democracies.They’re broken https://twitter.com/TsybulskaLiubov/status/1501613250605158402
Unless you are prepared to attack targets around Moscow it matters.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Yes, but they said the same in 1938 about Czechoslovakia.
I'm sure they did, and its a fascinating lesson for me as to how difficult the debate must have been. It isn't quite the right comparison though. Putin is not set on invading western Europe and then the UK.
Nicola Sturgeon has called for a no-fly zone to be considered. She's also against nuclear weapons. Interesting combination.
I am please she has pardoned those witches though
I don’t know if our resident (and very knowledgable) Historians and History teachers know anything that can answer this, but surely the point is they weren’t witches? Was there really that many witches or were they wrongly accused?
What were they then? Was it a political or religious tool for attacking opponents? Did it target popular or intellectual people, feminists, or was it straightforward misogyny. Did the people behind this really believe they were fighting widespread Witchcraft?
Whatever, it was bloody disgusting. 😠
Oh, a lot of them [edit: the prosecutors, but probably some of the witches] were dead serious. And it happened in England etc too, though not to the same degree.
There's at least one good website about it. We were talking about it some weeks back as it happens (you probabluy missed it, but we all miss stuff on PB).
PS As I said at the time, it's disconcertingf to realise how many were killed in what can be a very tiny and dozy little village today.
Thanks for links 👍🏻
So the PB consensus was it was largely for real on both sides? Not exploited for political, mysonginst or religious reasons?
There's a paper floating around suggesting that witch trials were a form of religious market competition.
Not much of a competition, the law and the church vs a bunch of illiterate old women
Graham Hancock thinks the women had been on the psilocybin and were communing with the machine elves.
I’ve put your post through google translate and psilocybin is magic mushrooms. You could have just said magic mushrooms?
Machine Elves? The hyper-spacial entities that inhabit the DMT realm. Seemingly sentient, cheerful, mischievous little beings who love to play and show you their wonderful psychedelic alien machinery. Meeting the machine elves is generally regarded as the textbook 'breakthrough' DMT experience. They're like jewelled self-dribbling basketballs.
As to be expected, it’s all very uptight and frustrated right now between get involved/mad to get involved, want to do more/what can we do and the frustrations we all feel really showing in complete breakdown on mood and temper on this blog tonight. 😔
But I’ve got to log off now. The massage towel is laid out. She’s going to give me a massage.
You are not prepared to stand firm against Putin. It's a perfectly reasonable appeasement position as long as you are happy for Ukraine to become a Russian puppet state and risk Finland, Sweden, Moldova and Georgia to go the same way.
The choice is simple and stark. Act robustly against Putin or let him roam with grisly impunity and all that comes with it.
If Russia expands into the old USSR and Tsarist Empire so be it.
I am not prepared to start WW3 with a country armed with nuclear weapons unless it invades a NATO state
Yet we all stand and watch as Putin literally destroys Ukraine. I’m not even convinced Putin stops there - he is clearly unhinged
I’m sorry. The world isn’t as black and white as you make out.
I am afraid in the real world it is.
We provide supplies to Ukraine, nothing more
Unfortunately you do not live in the real world
But you have criticised my post about “killing children”. And you are accusing HYUFD of not living in the real world - children are being killed every day by Russia in Ukraine. Whatever happens next more children are going to be killed - WW3 lots of children killed, arming Ukraine to keep fighting longer, more children killed, and insurgency for years, more children killed. Do you not think that it’s important to consider overcoming the squeamishness and the horror of the idea that if it stopped hundreds of kids being killed then something grim has to be done?
I don't know what the inverted commas above are for. You reccommended killing children, there's no "" about it. Your post was grotesque, as well as being grotesquely stupid - how do you think Putin would react to his children being executed?
In case you're wondering, that's a rhetorical question, I don't actually want to read any more of your blood-crazed soliloquy on this issue. Get a break from PB and the news.
The inverted commas were because my point had been distilled into the single issue of killing children.
Whilst my point was clearly clumsy and brutal I stand by the argument that until something happens that brings the pain and suffering that the parents of Ukrainian children who are murdered - because that’s what it is - to the Russian regime who can effect that murder with a stroke of a pen on an order then they will not feel it and will not stop.
They are insulated from the pain and suffering they cause.
I apologise for the offence of what I wrote but I am so incredibly angry at the senseless bombing of civilians. One of the most distressing things I saw as a child was a newspaper photo of a Kurdish baby and their mother gassed by Saddam Hussein and to this day there is nothing I wouldn’t do to try and stop the random killing of innocent children in some game of power by these monsters. I remember looking at that photo for a couple of hours and crying and it will never leave me.
And unfortunately I believe - and clearly you disagree - that if it took the death of 20 oligarchs’ kids to make them stop Putin to save hundreds of Ukrainian children then it’s a grim calculation that I would support.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Yes, but they said the same in 1938 about Czechoslovakia.
And there was no relevant difference between the world of 1938 and now
Clearly the last thing the internet needs is hyperbole, but we have to accept the possibility that events might not unfold nicely and that the quiet life might not be an option whatever we do.
However. We shouldn't write off the possibility that is with some of the ludicrous ideas being pushed here. The Israelis, Turks, and most likely Chinese too will explore every possibility. It isn't just Putin v Ukraine and the West. There's a whole rest of the world he isn't impressing. Some of whom were reasonably favourable to Russia before. Allies are peeling away, or edging towards the exit. Don't underestimate their influence.
You are not prepared to stand firm against Putin. It's a perfectly reasonable appeasement position as long as you are happy for Ukraine to become a Russian puppet state and risk Finland, Sweden, Moldova and Georgia to go the same way.
The choice is simple and stark. Act robustly against Putin or let him roam with grisly impunity and all that comes with it.
If Russia expands into the old USSR and Tsarist Empire so be it.
I am not prepared to start WW3 with a country armed with nuclear weapons unless it invades a NATO state
Putin's useful idiot speaks.
Apart from Tugendhat, what MPs are for a shooting war with Russia? For that is what a NFZ means.
Tobias Ellwood was talking about it a few days ago. Don't know whether that's still his position.
You are not prepared to stand firm against Putin. It's a perfectly reasonable appeasement position as long as you are happy for Ukraine to become a Russian puppet state and risk Finland, Sweden, Moldova and Georgia to go the same way.
The choice is simple and stark. Act robustly against Putin or let him roam with grisly impunity and all that comes with it.
If Russia expands into the old USSR and Tsarist Empire so be it.
I am not prepared to start WW3 with a country armed with nuclear weapons unless it invades a NATO state
Yet we all stand and watch as Putin literally destroys Ukraine. I’m not even convinced Putin stops there - he is clearly unhinged
I’m sorry. The world isn’t as black and white as you make out.
I am afraid in the real world it is.
We provide supplies to Ukraine, nothing more
Unfortunately you do not live in the real world
But you have criticised my post about “killing children”. And you are accusing HYUFD of not living in the real world - children are being killed every day by Russia in Ukraine. Whatever happens next more children are going to be killed - WW3 lots of children killed, arming Ukraine to keep fighting longer, more children killed, and insurgency for years, more children killed. Do you not think that it’s important to consider overcoming the squeamishness and the horror of the idea that if it stopped hundreds of kids being killed then something grim has to be done?
I don't know what the inverted commas above are for. You reccommended killing children, there's no "" about it. Your post was grotesque, as well as being grotesquely stupid - how do you think Putin would react to his children being executed?
In case you're wondering, that's a rhetorical question, I don't actually want to read any more of your blood-crazed soliloquy on this issue. Get a break from PB and the news.
The inverted commas were because my point had been distilled into the single issue of killing children.
Whilst my point was clearly clumsy and brutal I stand by the argument that until something happens that brings the pain and suffering that the parents of Ukrainian children who are murdered - because that’s what it is - to the Russian regime who can effect that murder with a stroke of a pen on an order then they will not feel it and will not stop.
They are insulated from the pain and suffering they cause.
I apologise for the offence of what I wrote but I am so incredibly angry at the senseless bombing of civilians. One of the most distressing things I saw as a child was a newspaper photo of a Kurdish baby and their mother gassed by Saran Hussein and to this day there is nothing I wouldn’t do to try and stop the random killing of innocent children in some game of power by these monsters. I remember looking at that phot for a couple of hours and crying and it will never leave me.
And unfortunately I believe - and clearly you disagree - that if it took the death of 20 oligarchs’ kids to make them stop Putin to save hundreds of Ukrainian children then it’s a grim calculation that I would support.
If we kill children we are lowering ourselves to Putin’s level.
A few days ago I commented on Putin's type as a gambler, characterising it as the Martin Gale (geddit?) type. Double or quits in other words. Now the article by Thomas L. Friedman someone referred to earlier confirms that. It is a must read in my opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/opinion/putin-ukraine-russia-war.html
OT but since this is a site about politics, I think it is worthy of note that Lord Tebbit retired this evening after 52 years of Parliamentary service. Personally I have a lot of time for him and hope he has a happy retirement, though of course it will be tinged with sadness after the loss of his wife.
You are not prepared to stand firm against Putin. It's a perfectly reasonable appeasement position as long as you are happy for Ukraine to become a Russian puppet state and risk Finland, Sweden, Moldova and Georgia to go the same way.
The choice is simple and stark. Act robustly against Putin or let him roam with grisly impunity and all that comes with it.
If Russia expands into the old USSR and Tsarist Empire so be it.
I am not prepared to start WW3 with a country armed with nuclear weapons unless it invades a NATO state
Putin's useful idiot speaks.
Apart from Tugendhat, what MPs are for a shooting war with Russia? For that is what a NFZ means.
Indeed. And that is the recklessness of our failure to directly confront Putin and all that it means. It's akin to placing sanctions, resolutions and legal threats upon Germany after they invaded a defenceless Czechoslavakia in 1939.
You are not prepared to stand firm against Putin. It's a perfectly reasonable appeasement position as long as you are happy for Ukraine to become a Russian puppet state and risk Finland, Sweden, Moldova and Georgia to go the same way.
The choice is simple and stark. Act robustly against Putin or let him roam with grisly impunity and all that comes with it.
If Russia expands into the old USSR and Tsarist Empire so be it.
I am not prepared to start WW3 with a country armed with nuclear weapons unless it invades a NATO state
Yet we all stand and watch as Putin literally destroys Ukraine. I’m not even convinced Putin stops there - he is clearly unhinged
I’m sorry. The world isn’t as black and white as you make out.
I am afraid in the real world it is.
We provide supplies to Ukraine, nothing more
Unfortunately you do not live in the real world
But you have criticised my post about “killing children”. And you are accusing HYUFD of not living in the real world - children are being killed every day by Russia in Ukraine. Whatever happens next more children are going to be killed - WW3 lots of children killed, arming Ukraine to keep fighting longer, more children killed, and insurgency for years, more children killed. Do you not think that it’s important to consider overcoming the squeamishness and the horror of the idea that if it stopped hundreds of kids being killed then something grim has to be done?
I don't know what the inverted commas above are for. You reccommended killing children, there's no "" about it. Your post was grotesque, as well as being grotesquely stupid - how do you think Putin would react to his children being executed?
In case you're wondering, that's a rhetorical question, I don't actually want to read any more of your blood-crazed soliloquy on this issue. Get a break from PB and the news.
The inverted commas were because my point had been distilled into the single issue of killing children.
Whilst my point was clearly clumsy and brutal I stand by the argument that until something happens that brings the pain and suffering that the parents of Ukrainian children who are murdered - because that’s what it is - to the Russian regime who can effect that murder with a stroke of a pen on an order then they will not feel it and will not stop.
They are insulated from the pain and suffering they cause.
I apologise for the offence of what I wrote but I am so incredibly angry at the senseless bombing of civilians. One of the most distressing things I saw as a child was a newspaper photo of a Kurdish baby and their mother gassed by Saran Hussein and to this day there is nothing I wouldn’t do to try and stop the random killing of innocent children in some game of power by these monsters. I remember looking at that phot for a couple of hours and crying and it will never leave me.
And unfortunately I believe - and clearly you disagree - that if it took the death of 20 oligarchs’ kids to make them stop Putin to save hundreds of Ukrainian children then it’s a grim calculation that I would support.
If we kill children we are lowering ourselves to Putin’s level.
Worse. I doubt even he has them on the target list, he just doesn’t insist on taking special care to avoid them like he should.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
This is, regretfully, where I am at too.
Nobody’s lives are going to be bettered if we escalate this to a global conflict. Billions of lives would be destroyed, and those that aren’t would be irreparably and irreversibly damaged.
I am sure if I was a Ukrainian I might feel differently right now. I understand that. That is their right and I have no place to tell them otherwise sitting at home in the UK without living in the shadow of the bombs.
Are we arming any other anti-Putin movements in Chechnya etc?
I do hope so..
I hope not. Thats exactly what we did in Afghanistan in the 1980s and look how that ended.
Support peaceful demonstrators such as Navalny's lot. Russia looks very solid until suddenly it isn't.
You don't want the Russian army's attention to be drawn away from Ukraine?
Russian reinforcements to Ukraine are coming from places like this.
Remember the Beslan school massacre, or all the Chechens fighting with ISIS?
Do you really not expect blowback if you arm them?
I want to beat Putin.
Do you?
Of course, but we differ on means.
I don't believe you do.
I think you'd much prefer a "draw".
Well, you are wrong, and quite obviously so.
Quote any post back to me that I have made suggesting that would be desirable, or withdraw the accusation.
I think Russia is facing a catastrophic defeat, and Putin will be deposed by his own people. Provided we are not all evaporated in a nuclear apocalypse first.
I apologise. I'm so angry about this that I'm trying to force people onto sides.
My side is that we have to stop Putin. Dead.
Apology accepted. Everyone is appalled by Putins war on Ukraine, but there are differing methods to exit this situation.
You are not prepared to stand firm against Putin. It's a perfectly reasonable appeasement position as long as you are happy for Ukraine to become a Russian puppet state and risk Finland, Sweden, Moldova and Georgia to go the same way.
The choice is simple and stark. Act robustly against Putin or let him roam with grisly impunity and all that comes with it.
If Russia expands into the old USSR and Tsarist Empire so be it.
I am not prepared to start WW3 with a country armed with nuclear weapons unless it invades a NATO state
Yet we all stand and watch as Putin literally destroys Ukraine. I’m not even convinced Putin stops there - he is clearly unhinged
I’m sorry. The world isn’t as black and white as you make out.
I am afraid in the real world it is.
We provide supplies to Ukraine, nothing more
Unfortunately you do not live in the real world
But you have criticised my post about “killing children”. And you are accusing HYUFD of not living in the real world - children are being killed every day by Russia in Ukraine. Whatever happens next more children are going to be killed - WW3 lots of children killed, arming Ukraine to keep fighting longer, more children killed, and insurgency for years, more children killed. Do you not think that it’s important to consider overcoming the squeamishness and the horror of the idea that if it stopped hundreds of kids being killed then something grim has to be done?
I don't know what the inverted commas above are for. You reccommended killing children, there's no "" about it. Your post was grotesque, as well as being grotesquely stupid - how do you think Putin would react to his children being executed?
In case you're wondering, that's a rhetorical question, I don't actually want to read any more of your blood-crazed soliloquy on this issue. Get a break from PB and the news.
The inverted commas were because my point had been distilled into the single issue of killing children.
Whilst my point was clearly clumsy and brutal I stand by the argument that until something happens that brings the pain and suffering that the parents of Ukrainian children who are murdered - because that’s what it is - to the Russian regime who can effect that murder with a stroke of a pen on an order then they will not feel it and will not stop.
They are insulated from the pain and suffering they cause.
I apologise for the offence of what I wrote but I am so incredibly angry at the senseless bombing of civilians. One of the most distressing things I saw as a child was a newspaper photo of a Kurdish baby and their mother gassed by Saran Hussein and to this day there is nothing I wouldn’t do to try and stop the random killing of innocent children in some game of power by these monsters. I remember looking at that phot for a couple of hours and crying and it will never leave me.
And unfortunately I believe - and clearly you disagree - that if it took the death of 20 oligarchs’ kids to make them stop Putin to save hundreds of Ukrainian children then it’s a grim calculation that I would support.
If we kill children we are lowering ourselves to Putin’s level.
We would be lowering ourselves below Putin's level. Indiscriminate and brutal though the shelling of these cities is (quite apart from the fact that the invasion shouldn't be happening anyway), we do not know that Putin's forces targeted the site because they wanted to target the civilians within.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Yes, but they said the same in 1938 about Czechoslovakia.
I'm sure they did, and its a fascinating lesson for me as to how difficult the debate must have been. It isn't quite the right comparison though. Putin is not set on invading western Europe and then the UK.
They said that in 1938 too.
Yes yes and so what. I support the world standing up to Putin, ruining his economy, trying to equip the Ukrainians. But ultimately if the choice is my children dead or my children living in a world where Putin has reconquered the former soviet empire and we're back in a cold war but still very much alive and doing what we want, I choose the latter.
"Then Putin has won" I hear you say. Perhaps. But my kids would also have won. Nobody wins if we are all dead.
OT but since this is a site about politics, I think it is worthy of note that Lord Tebbit retired this evening after 52 years of Parliamentary service. Personally I have a lot of time for him and hope he has a happy retirement, though of course it will be tinged with sadness after the loss of his wife.
When I was seven (c.1993), we were staying at The Rock Inn at Haytor, Devon. My parents tell me that the Tebbits were in the bar when we got there, but annoyingly I don't remember this.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Yes, but they said the same in 1938 about Czechoslovakia.
I'm sure they did, and its a fascinating lesson for me as to how difficult the debate must have been. It isn't quite the right comparison though. Putin is not set on invading western Europe and then the UK.
Also worth noting we didn’t have to factor in an “oh well the Fuhrer has a stonking great doomsday machine he can trigger and blow up half the planet if we go to war with him” element. And thank goodness we didn’t have to.
We live in an incredibly imperfect world always in the shadow of that very simple fact. Until we find a way to put the genie back in the bottle (if we ever will) we exist under that uncomfortable truth.
Day by day, hour by hour the Kremlin crime boss is destroying a peaceful European democracy and for all the sanctions, legal action, weapons delivered and heroic Ukrainian defence, the West is still not prepared to will the means to put Putin firmly in his box. Putin is being given a pass because some worry about taking on the Russian rogue state.
We are now seeing the price of weakness and the bully will not be deterred by such weakness, only come back for more as his appetite for expansion grows more glutinous.
The immediate answer is simple, a red line to many, not without risk or the potential for NATO large losses :
1. No fly zone 2. Russian invasion force to begin withdrawing within 12 hours 3. Ukraine to be admitted to NATO with immediate effect.
Boris and other western leaders have said Putin must lose and be seen to lose. They need to take the decisive action that will ensure he does lose. Nothing else will do or work.
Or go Mossad +. Stop playing nice. Putin’s kids in Switzerland - kill them. Oligarch’s children arriving by private jet in Mykonos - dead in their hotel beds. Make every Russian of any vague standing terrified for their children because they are enabling Putin to allow his forces to kill Ukrainian children.
Open a second front for Russia by dropping every Islamo-terrorist in captivity into Chechnya with weapons.
Take the fight into Russian streets with terrorism - they have been telling their people that the west has been doing nasty things - may as well just do them.
Hooray for collective punishment! Let's round them up and put them in camps.
Nice try with the Nazi equivalency - doing Vlad’s work there…..
Clearly I meant targeted on the kids of those enabling Ukrainian kids to be killed - I’m sure they don’t have a prob with kids being killed yes?
And opening a second front whilst Russian army stretched - quite obvious.
But yes I am a Nazi and want every Russian in a camp…..
If you're talking about killing the children of the relevant people -- even if the relevant people are war criminals -- then you are the bad guy. I'm open to the concept of extrajudicial killing in EXTREME circumstances and where there no reasonable hope of justice being served (that's just war), but targeting non-combatants who happen to be related to commanders is really, really fucking dark.
It is dark and I hate even thinking it but if it’s the choice between that and watching, from our lovely safe armchairs, kids’ hospitals being bombed and civilians being targeted for nothing then it’s the lesser evil.
I’m sorry if you disagree and I totally get why you or anyone does but unfortunately some people will only realise what they’ve done wrong when it truly comes home to them.
If we wilfully killed children, how would we be any different to him?
Did we bomb German cities during WW2 killing civilians including children? Are we as bad as Hitler or did we choose to do something horrific in order to save more lives in the long run?
Collateral damage around a valid military target (especially with the technology of WW2) is not remotely the same as deliberately seeking out and murdering a child in their bed. Come on, you don’t need me to tell you that.
Dresden
DresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresden
Harris had run out of targets by then. The rest of Germany’s cities were ruined or overrun. But to be honest, if he could have, Harris would have inflicted a Dresden on every city he attacked. He fully believed the war could be won through bombing alone, and tried really hard to prove it. In the end he failed, but he also never got his 4000 Lancaster strong bomber force which he believed he needed.
7,377 Lancasters were built in total
Yes but the attrition was such that there were never anything like that available. The early thousand bomber raids were done by scraping every available aircraft into the air, including some pretty poor ones. Later the lancs and halifaxes dominated, but Harris’s vision was 4000 heavies just waiting to be pointed where he wanted that night. It was probably an impossible dream. Max Hastings contends that the vast industrial resource allocated to the bombing war could have been better used elsewhere. He’s probably right, although the bombing campaign for much of the war was political as much as military. It provided a second front to appease Stalin when the U.K. and U.S. were in no state to take on hitlers land forces in France. In that context it did it’s job, and it’s certain that by the end Harris had a superb weapon, albeit one that had no more function, as he had run out of cities to wreck.
OTOH, by the end of the war, night precision bombing had become a thing - see OBOE. To the point where they had to correct for errors in the intersection of mapping systems.
It's interesting to look at the target books from later 43 onwards. More and more raids against precise targets which so happened to be key production sites for various components to systems. Not just "1000 Lancasters to flatten X".
Given that Harris was never given the full story on ULTRA, someone need to write up *how* the targets were chosen. It certainly wasn't just randomly flattening cities - though Harris did come back to that again and again.
You are not prepared to stand firm against Putin. It's a perfectly reasonable appeasement position as long as you are happy for Ukraine to become a Russian puppet state and risk Finland, Sweden, Moldova and Georgia to go the same way.
The choice is simple and stark. Act robustly against Putin or let him roam with grisly impunity and all that comes with it.
If Russia expands into the old USSR and Tsarist Empire so be it.
I am not prepared to start WW3 with a country armed with nuclear weapons unless it invades a NATO state
Putin's useful idiot speaks.
Apart from Tugendhat, what MPs are for a shooting war with Russia? For that is what a NFZ means.
Tobias Ellwood was talking about it a few days ago. Don't know whether that's still his position.
Actually, it might be him that I had in mind not Tugendhat.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Yes, but they said the same in 1938 about Czechoslovakia.
I'm sure they did, and its a fascinating lesson for me as to how difficult the debate must have been. It isn't quite the right comparison though. Putin is not set on invading western Europe and then the UK.
They said that in 1938 too.
Yes yes and so what. I support the world standing up to Putin, ruining his economy, trying to equip the Ukrainians. But ultimately if the choice is my children dead or my children living in a world where Putin has reconquered the former soviet empire and we're back in a cold war but still very much alive and doing what we want, I choose the latter.
"Then Putin has won" I hear you say. Perhaps. But my kids would also have won. Nobody wins if we are all dead.
I’ll make the point again. The Chinese will move heaven and earth to make sure Russia doesn’t use nukes in this conflict. Famous last words, and call me Edoramus, but it isn’t going to happen.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Where is your red line - Putin takes back the NATO Baltic States. Do you have a red line? Putin blackmails UK over some issue with the threat of nuclear war?
At what point do you get off your knees to a dictator?
You are not prepared to stand firm against Putin. It's a perfectly reasonable appeasement position as long as you are happy for Ukraine to become a Russian puppet state and risk Finland, Sweden, Moldova and Georgia to go the same way.
The choice is simple and stark. Act robustly against Putin or let him roam with grisly impunity and all that comes with it.
If Russia expands into the old USSR and Tsarist Empire so be it.
I am not prepared to start WW3 with a country armed with nuclear weapons unless it invades a NATO state
Putin's useful idiot speaks.
Apart from Tugendhat, what MPs are for a shooting war with Russia? For that is what a NFZ means.
Indeed. And that is the recklessness of our failure to directly confront Putin and all that it means. It's akin to placing sanctions, resolutions and legal threats upon Germany after they invaded a defenceless Czechoslavakia in 1939.
It’s wrong to pretend it’s as simple as it was back then (and even back then, it wasn’t simple). Wanting to avoid a strategic level nuclear exchange is a very different thing than wanting to avoid a conventional war, even a bloody total war.
My heart says intervene and stop him directly. My head says that the risk is too high. Above all o wish we’d admitted Ukraine to NATO before now to push this risk back.
You must accept that direct intervention carries with it the risk of the end of human civilisation? Is your working assumption that it wouldn’t come to that, and both sides would refrain, or do you just think defending the principle worth the end of the world?
I know she's wrong that to "close the sky" doesn't involve fighting.
I don't think that distinction matters any more.
Liubov Tsybulska @TsybulskaLiubov Lots of killed and wounded after terrible bombing of the maternity hospital. 1170 killed civilians only in Mariupol city. We don’t ask to fight for us, just close the sky. If that’s how democracies react to RU war crimes, then something wrong with these democracies.They’re broken https://twitter.com/TsybulskaLiubov/status/1501613250605158402
Unless you are prepared to attack targets around Moscow it matters.
Around Moscow?
Does Russia have anti-aircraft missiles near Moscow that can hit Ukraine? I thought the nearest effective ones they had were just beyond the border.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Where is your red line - Putin takes back the NATO Baltic States. Do you have a red line? Putin blackmails UK over some issue with the threat of nuclear war?
At what point do you get off your knees to a dictator?
The red line is what it’s been since 1949 - the NATO border. We should have brought Ukraine in. We should now offer Sweden and Finland immediate membership if they want it. But that’s the only line.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Yes, but they said the same in 1938 about Czechoslovakia.
I'm sure they did, and its a fascinating lesson for me as to how difficult the debate must have been. It isn't quite the right comparison though. Putin is not set on invading western Europe and then the UK.
They said that in 1938 too.
Yes yes and so what. I support the world standing up to Putin, ruining his economy, trying to equip the Ukrainians. But ultimately if the choice is my children dead or my children living in a world where Putin has reconquered the former soviet empire and we're back in a cold war but still very much alive and doing what we want, I choose the latter.
"Then Putin has won" I hear you say. Perhaps. But my kids would also have won. Nobody wins if we are all dead.
I think that presumes no action leads to no further escalation from Putin. Hmmm
Day by day, hour by hour the Kremlin crime boss is destroying a peaceful European democracy and for all the sanctions, legal action, weapons delivered and heroic Ukrainian defence, the West is still not prepared to will the means to put Putin firmly in his box. Putin is being given a pass because some worry about taking on the Russian rogue state.
We are now seeing the price of weakness and the bully will not be deterred by such weakness, only come back for more as his appetite for expansion grows more glutinous.
The immediate answer is simple, a red line to many, not without risk or the potential for NATO large losses :
1. No fly zone 2. Russian invasion force to begin withdrawing within 12 hours 3. Ukraine to be admitted to NATO with immediate effect.
Boris and other western leaders have said Putin must lose and be seen to lose. They need to take the decisive action that will ensure he does lose. Nothing else will do or work.
Or go Mossad +. Stop playing nice. Putin’s kids in Switzerland - kill them. Oligarch’s children arriving by private jet in Mykonos - dead in their hotel beds. Make every Russian of any vague standing terrified for their children because they are enabling Putin to allow his forces to kill Ukrainian children.
Open a second front for Russia by dropping every Islamo-terrorist in captivity into Chechnya with weapons.
Take the fight into Russian streets with terrorism - they have been telling their people that the west has been doing nasty things - may as well just do them.
Hooray for collective punishment! Let's round them up and put them in camps.
Nice try with the Nazi equivalency - doing Vlad’s work there…..
Clearly I meant targeted on the kids of those enabling Ukrainian kids to be killed - I’m sure they don’t have a prob with kids being killed yes?
And opening a second front whilst Russian army stretched - quite obvious.
But yes I am a Nazi and want every Russian in a camp…..
If you're talking about killing the children of the relevant people -- even if the relevant people are war criminals -- then you are the bad guy. I'm open to the concept of extrajudicial killing in EXTREME circumstances and where there no reasonable hope of justice being served (that's just war), but targeting non-combatants who happen to be related to commanders is really, really fucking dark.
It is dark and I hate even thinking it but if it’s the choice between that and watching, from our lovely safe armchairs, kids’ hospitals being bombed and civilians being targeted for nothing then it’s the lesser evil.
I’m sorry if you disagree and I totally get why you or anyone does but unfortunately some people will only realise what they’ve done wrong when it truly comes home to them.
If we wilfully killed children, how would we be any different to him?
Did we bomb German cities during WW2 killing civilians including children? Are we as bad as Hitler or did we choose to do something horrific in order to save more lives in the long run?
Collateral damage around a valid military target (especially with the technology of WW2) is not remotely the same as deliberately seeking out and murdering a child in their bed. Come on, you don’t need me to tell you that.
Dresden
DresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresden
Harris had run out of targets by then. The rest of Germany’s cities were ruined or overrun. But to be honest, if he could have, Harris would have inflicted a Dresden on every city he attacked. He fully believed the war could be won through bombing alone, and tried really hard to prove it. In the end he failed, but he also never got his 4000 Lancaster strong bomber force which he believed he needed.
7,377 Lancasters were built in total
Yes but the attrition was such that there were never anything like that available. The early thousand bomber raids were done by scraping every available aircraft into the air, including some pretty poor ones. Later the lancs and halifaxes dominated, but Harris’s vision was 4000 heavies just waiting to be pointed where he wanted that night. It was probably an impossible dream. Max Hastings contends that the vast industrial resource allocated to the bombing war could have been better used elsewhere. He’s probably right, although the bombing campaign for much of the war was political as much as military. It provided a second front to appease Stalin when the U.K. and U.S. were in no state to take on hitlers land forces in France. In that context it did it’s job, and it’s certain that by the end Harris had a superb weapon, albeit one that had no more function, as he had run out of cities to wreck.
OTOH, by the end of the war, night precision bombing had become a thing - see OBOE. To the point where they had to correct for errors in the intersection of mapping systems.
It's interesting to look at the target books from later 43 onwards. More and more raids against precise targets which so happened to be key production sites for various components to systems. Not just "1000 Lancasters to flatten X".
Given that Harris was never given the full story on ULTRA, someone need to write up *how* the targets were chosen. It certainly wasn't just randomly flattening cities - though Harris did come back to that again and again.
Harris was notoriously against things like the pathfinders, although they really led the way in later years, as you rightly point out. It’s also true that things like oboe and h2s made a huge difference but has to be set against other factors too, such as the decline of the defences making it ‘easier’ and also crews in general lasting longer and getting more experience. It’s clear that the campaign became ever more sophisticated with time, and certainly advances would give a window of use before the enemy worked out how to counter them. Harris also fought against panacea targets as he saw them, but it seems what really did for the German army, and indeed the Luftwaffe, was fuel, and that should have been hit harder.
I know she's wrong that to "close the sky" doesn't involve fighting.
I don't think that distinction matters any more.
Liubov Tsybulska @TsybulskaLiubov Lots of killed and wounded after terrible bombing of the maternity hospital. 1170 killed civilians only in Mariupol city. We don’t ask to fight for us, just close the sky. If that’s how democracies react to RU war crimes, then something wrong with these democracies.They’re broken https://twitter.com/TsybulskaLiubov/status/1501613250605158402
Unless you are prepared to attack targets around Moscow it matters.
Why would we need to attack targets around Moscow?
We could join the war on Ukraine's side, establish air superiority over Ukrainian airspace, send in the armoured brigades to liberate Kherson, and I don't see why we would have to attack targets around Moscow. Yes, we'd have to hit some anti-aircraft defences in Belarus and Russia that were within range of Ukraine. The airfields near to Ukraine would also be targets - but why Moscow?
You are not prepared to stand firm against Putin. It's a perfectly reasonable appeasement position as long as you are happy for Ukraine to become a Russian puppet state and risk Finland, Sweden, Moldova and Georgia to go the same way.
The choice is simple and stark. Act robustly against Putin or let him roam with grisly impunity and all that comes with it.
If Russia expands into the old USSR and Tsarist Empire so be it.
I am not prepared to start WW3 with a country armed with nuclear weapons unless it invades a NATO state
Putin's useful idiot speaks.
Apart from Tugendhat, what MPs are for a shooting war with Russia? For that is what a NFZ means.
Indeed. And that is the recklessness of our failure to directly confront Putin and all that it means. It's akin to placing sanctions, resolutions and legal threats upon Germany after they invaded a defenceless Czechoslavakia in 1939.
One of the problems in this is our (and Putins) obsession with WW2. Each situation is different, and quite obviously our response to the war on Ukraine is already vastly different to Czechoslovakia in 1938.
My heart says intervene and stop him directly. My head says that the risk is too high. Above all o wish we’d admitted Ukraine to NATO before now to push this risk back.
You must accept that direct intervention carries with it the risk of the end of human civilisation? Is your working assumption that it wouldn’t come to that, and both sides would refrain, or do you just think defending the principle worth the end of the world?
Day by day, hour by hour the Kremlin crime boss is destroying a peaceful European democracy and for all the sanctions, legal action, weapons delivered and heroic Ukrainian defence, the West is still not prepared to will the means to put Putin firmly in his box. Putin is being given a pass because some worry about taking on the Russian rogue state.
We are now seeing the price of weakness and the bully will not be deterred by such weakness, only come back for more as his appetite for expansion grows more glutinous.
The immediate answer is simple, a red line to many, not without risk or the potential for NATO large losses :
1. No fly zone 2. Russian invasion force to begin withdrawing within 12 hours 3. Ukraine to be admitted to NATO with immediate effect.
Boris and other western leaders have said Putin must lose and be seen to lose. They need to take the decisive action that will ensure he does lose. Nothing else will do or work.
Or go Mossad +. Stop playing nice. Putin’s kids in Switzerland - kill them. Oligarch’s children arriving by private jet in Mykonos - dead in their hotel beds. Make every Russian of any vague standing terrified for their children because they are enabling Putin to allow his forces to kill Ukrainian children.
Open a second front for Russia by dropping every Islamo-terrorist in captivity into Chechnya with weapons.
Take the fight into Russian streets with terrorism - they have been telling their people that the west has been doing nasty things - may as well just do them.
Hooray for collective punishment! Let's round them up and put them in camps.
Nice try with the Nazi equivalency - doing Vlad’s work there…..
Clearly I meant targeted on the kids of those enabling Ukrainian kids to be killed - I’m sure they don’t have a prob with kids being killed yes?
And opening a second front whilst Russian army stretched - quite obvious.
But yes I am a Nazi and want every Russian in a camp…..
If you're talking about killing the children of the relevant people -- even if the relevant people are war criminals -- then you are the bad guy. I'm open to the concept of extrajudicial killing in EXTREME circumstances and where there no reasonable hope of justice being served (that's just war), but targeting non-combatants who happen to be related to commanders is really, really fucking dark.
It is dark and I hate even thinking it but if it’s the choice between that and watching, from our lovely safe armchairs, kids’ hospitals being bombed and civilians being targeted for nothing then it’s the lesser evil.
I’m sorry if you disagree and I totally get why you or anyone does but unfortunately some people will only realise what they’ve done wrong when it truly comes home to them.
What makes you think the sociopath in the Kremlin cares about his children ?
I know she's wrong that to "close the sky" doesn't involve fighting.
I don't think that distinction matters any more.
Liubov Tsybulska @TsybulskaLiubov Lots of killed and wounded after terrible bombing of the maternity hospital. 1170 killed civilians only in Mariupol city. We don’t ask to fight for us, just close the sky. If that’s how democracies react to RU war crimes, then something wrong with these democracies.They’re broken https://twitter.com/TsybulskaLiubov/status/1501613250605158402
Unless you are prepared to attack targets around Moscow it matters.
Around Moscow?
Does Russia have anti-aircraft missiles near Moscow that can hit Ukraine? I thought the nearest effective ones they had were just beyond the border.
The longest range systems (S400) can hit targets over Ukraine, from deep into Russia. 400km range.....
My heart says intervene and stop him directly. My head says that the risk is too high. Above all o wish we’d admitted Ukraine to NATO before now to push this risk back.
You must accept that direct intervention carries with it the risk of the end of human civilisation? Is your working assumption that it wouldn’t come to that, and both sides would refrain, or do you just think defending the principle worth the end of the world?
I refer you to my comment @ 9:58pm.
You have therefore ignored the question. Good night.
Day by day, hour by hour the Kremlin crime boss is destroying a peaceful European democracy and for all the sanctions, legal action, weapons delivered and heroic Ukrainian defence, the West is still not prepared to will the means to put Putin firmly in his box. Putin is being given a pass because some worry about taking on the Russian rogue state.
We are now seeing the price of weakness and the bully will not be deterred by such weakness, only come back for more as his appetite for expansion grows more glutinous.
The immediate answer is simple, a red line to many, not without risk or the potential for NATO large losses :
1. No fly zone 2. Russian invasion force to begin withdrawing within 12 hours 3. Ukraine to be admitted to NATO with immediate effect.
Boris and other western leaders have said Putin must lose and be seen to lose. They need to take the decisive action that will ensure he does lose. Nothing else will do or work.
Or go Mossad +. Stop playing nice. Putin’s kids in Switzerland - kill them. Oligarch’s children arriving by private jet in Mykonos - dead in their hotel beds. Make every Russian of any vague standing terrified for their children because they are enabling Putin to allow his forces to kill Ukrainian children.
Open a second front for Russia by dropping every Islamo-terrorist in captivity into Chechnya with weapons.
Take the fight into Russian streets with terrorism - they have been telling their people that the west has been doing nasty things - may as well just do them.
Hooray for collective punishment! Let's round them up and put them in camps.
Nice try with the Nazi equivalency - doing Vlad’s work there…..
Clearly I meant targeted on the kids of those enabling Ukrainian kids to be killed - I’m sure they don’t have a prob with kids being killed yes?
And opening a second front whilst Russian army stretched - quite obvious.
But yes I am a Nazi and want every Russian in a camp…..
If you're talking about killing the children of the relevant people -- even if the relevant people are war criminals -- then you are the bad guy. I'm open to the concept of extrajudicial killing in EXTREME circumstances and where there no reasonable hope of justice being served (that's just war), but targeting non-combatants who happen to be related to commanders is really, really fucking dark.
It is dark and I hate even thinking it but if it’s the choice between that and watching, from our lovely safe armchairs, kids’ hospitals being bombed and civilians being targeted for nothing then it’s the lesser evil.
I’m sorry if you disagree and I totally get why you or anyone does but unfortunately some people will only realise what they’ve done wrong when it truly comes home to them.
If we wilfully killed children, how would we be any different to him?
Did we bomb German cities during WW2 killing civilians including children? Are we as bad as Hitler or did we choose to do something horrific in order to save more lives in the long run?
Collateral damage around a valid military target (especially with the technology of WW2) is not remotely the same as deliberately seeking out and murdering a child in their bed. Come on, you don’t need me to tell you that.
Dresden
DresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresden
Harris had run out of targets by then. The rest of Germany’s cities were ruined or overrun. But to be honest, if he could have, Harris would have inflicted a Dresden on every city he attacked. He fully believed the war could be won through bombing alone, and tried really hard to prove it. In the end he failed, but he also never got his 4000 Lancaster strong bomber force which he believed he needed.
7,377 Lancasters were built in total
Yes but the attrition was such that there were never anything like that available. The early thousand bomber raids were done by scraping every available aircraft into the air, including some pretty poor ones. Later the lancs and halifaxes dominated, but Harris’s vision was 4000 heavies just waiting to be pointed where he wanted that night. It was probably an impossible dream. Max Hastings contends that the vast industrial resource allocated to the bombing war could have been better used elsewhere. He’s probably right, although the bombing campaign for much of the war was political as much as military. It provided a second front to appease Stalin when the U.K. and U.S. were in no state to take on hitlers land forces in France. In that context it did it’s job, and it’s certain that by the end Harris had a superb weapon, albeit one that had no more function, as he had run out of cities to wreck.
OTOH, by the end of the war, night precision bombing had become a thing - see OBOE. To the point where they had to correct for errors in the intersection of mapping systems.
It's interesting to look at the target books from later 43 onwards. More and more raids against precise targets which so happened to be key production sites for various components to systems. Not just "1000 Lancasters to flatten X".
Given that Harris was never given the full story on ULTRA, someone need to write up *how* the targets were chosen. It certainly wasn't just randomly flattening cities - though Harris did come back to that again and again.
According to the US Airforce's own assessments by the end of 1944 only 7% of the bombs dropped by the US 8th Airforce fell within 1000ft of the intended target. And that was the point. As far as Harris was concerned there was no need or desire for accuracy.
From October 1943 -
"The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive...should be unambiguously stated as the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany. The destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories."
Now you can argue as to whether he was right to pursue this policy but there can be no argument that this was the policy and it did not require great degrees of accuracy to achieve it.
The red line is what it’s been since 1949 - the NATO border. We should have brought Ukraine in. We should now offer Sweden and Finland immediate membership if they want it. But that’s the only line.
I know she's wrong that to "close the sky" doesn't involve fighting.
I don't think that distinction matters any more.
Liubov Tsybulska @TsybulskaLiubov Lots of killed and wounded after terrible bombing of the maternity hospital. 1170 killed civilians only in Mariupol city. We don’t ask to fight for us, just close the sky. If that’s how democracies react to RU war crimes, then something wrong with these democracies.They’re broken https://twitter.com/TsybulskaLiubov/status/1501613250605158402
Unless you are prepared to attack targets around Moscow it matters.
Around Moscow?
Does Russia have anti-aircraft missiles near Moscow that can hit Ukraine? I thought the nearest effective ones they had were just beyond the border.
The longest range systems (S400) can hit targets over Ukraine, from deep into Russia. 400km range.....
Yup. And we would have to view every Russian airfield this side of Siberia as a potential threat (with the US and Canada) worried about the other side)
Nicola Sturgeon has called for a no-fly zone to be considered. She's also against nuclear weapons. Interesting combination.
Fortunately Sturgeon is neither in charge of the armed forces or the nuclear deterrent
Someone pretending to be a Benny Hill character has ultimate control of the armed forces and the nuclear deterrent. Just saying...
Rather Boris than Sturgeon
I don't like Nippy, but I simply cannot bear Johnson.
The narrative from the Johnsonian wing of the Conservative Party that Johnson is, as you suggested earlier, "the new leader of the free World", in the face of this humanitarian catastrophe, is vomit inducing.
The red line is what it’s been since 1949 - the NATO border. We should have brought Ukraine in. We should now offer Sweden and Finland immediate membership if they want it. But that’s the only line.
WWIII for Estonia is ok but not Ukraine?
Yes, that is the position of both government and opposition.
The red line is what it’s been since 1949 - the NATO border. We should have brought Ukraine in. We should now offer Sweden and Finland immediate membership if they want it. But that’s the only line.
WWIII for Estonia is ok but not Ukraine?
It’s never ok, but basically yes. Nuclear war is not as trivial as you seem to want it to be. We have a responsibility to try and avoid it and we do that by drawing the (NATO) line before the fact and being crystal clear that is the line.
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
The red line is what it’s been since 1949 - the NATO border. We should have brought Ukraine in. We should now offer Sweden and Finland immediate membership if they want it. But that’s the only line.
WWIII for Estonia is ok but not Ukraine?
Yes, that is the position of both government and opposition.
And pretty much everyone who really understands the stakes.
Day by day, hour by hour the Kremlin crime boss is destroying a peaceful European democracy and for all the sanctions, legal action, weapons delivered and heroic Ukrainian defence, the West is still not prepared to will the means to put Putin firmly in his box. Putin is being given a pass because some worry about taking on the Russian rogue state.
We are now seeing the price of weakness and the bully will not be deterred by such weakness, only come back for more as his appetite for expansion grows more glutinous.
The immediate answer is simple, a red line to many, not without risk or the potential for NATO large losses :
1. No fly zone 2. Russian invasion force to begin withdrawing within 12 hours 3. Ukraine to be admitted to NATO with immediate effect.
Boris and other western leaders have said Putin must lose and be seen to lose. They need to take the decisive action that will ensure he does lose. Nothing else will do or work.
Or go Mossad +. Stop playing nice. Putin’s kids in Switzerland - kill them. Oligarch’s children arriving by private jet in Mykonos - dead in their hotel beds. Make every Russian of any vague standing terrified for their children because they are enabling Putin to allow his forces to kill Ukrainian children.
Open a second front for Russia by dropping every Islamo-terrorist in captivity into Chechnya with weapons.
Take the fight into Russian streets with terrorism - they have been telling their people that the west has been doing nasty things - may as well just do them.
Hooray for collective punishment! Let's round them up and put them in camps.
Nice try with the Nazi equivalency - doing Vlad’s work there…..
Clearly I meant targeted on the kids of those enabling Ukrainian kids to be killed - I’m sure they don’t have a prob with kids being killed yes?
And opening a second front whilst Russian army stretched - quite obvious.
But yes I am a Nazi and want every Russian in a camp…..
If you're talking about killing the children of the relevant people -- even if the relevant people are war criminals -- then you are the bad guy. I'm open to the concept of extrajudicial killing in EXTREME circumstances and where there no reasonable hope of justice being served (that's just war), but targeting non-combatants who happen to be related to commanders is really, really fucking dark.
It is dark and I hate even thinking it but if it’s the choice between that and watching, from our lovely safe armchairs, kids’ hospitals being bombed and civilians being targeted for nothing then it’s the lesser evil.
I’m sorry if you disagree and I totally get why you or anyone does but unfortunately some people will only realise what they’ve done wrong when it truly comes home to them.
If we wilfully killed children, how would we be any different to him?
Did we bomb German cities during WW2 killing civilians including children? Are we as bad as Hitler or did we choose to do something horrific in order to save more lives in the long run?
Collateral damage around a valid military target (especially with the technology of WW2) is not remotely the same as deliberately seeking out and murdering a child in their bed. Come on, you don’t need me to tell you that.
Dresden
DresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresden
Harris had run out of targets by then. The rest of Germany’s cities were ruined or overrun. But to be honest, if he could have, Harris would have inflicted a Dresden on every city he attacked. He fully believed the war could be won through bombing alone, and tried really hard to prove it. In the end he failed, but he also never got his 4000 Lancaster strong bomber force which he believed he needed.
7,377 Lancasters were built in total
Yes but the attrition was such that there were never anything like that available. The early thousand bomber raids were done by scraping every available aircraft into the air, including some pretty poor ones. Later the lancs and halifaxes dominated, but Harris’s vision was 4000 heavies just waiting to be pointed where he wanted that night. It was probably an impossible dream. Max Hastings contends that the vast industrial resource allocated to the bombing war could have been better used elsewhere. He’s probably right, although the bombing campaign for much of the war was political as much as military. It provided a second front to appease Stalin when the U.K. and U.S. were in no state to take on hitlers land forces in France. In that context it did it’s job, and it’s certain that by the end Harris had a superb weapon, albeit one that had no more function, as he had run out of cities to wreck.
OTOH, by the end of the war, night precision bombing had become a thing - see OBOE. To the point where they had to correct for errors in the intersection of mapping systems.
It's interesting to look at the target books from later 43 onwards. More and more raids against precise targets which so happened to be key production sites for various components to systems. Not just "1000 Lancasters to flatten X".
Given that Harris was never given the full story on ULTRA, someone need to write up *how* the targets were chosen. It certainly wasn't just randomly flattening cities - though Harris did come back to that again and again.
Harris was notoriously against things like the pathfinders, although they really led the way in later years, as you rightly point out. It’s also true that things like oboe and h2s made a huge difference but has to be set against other factors too, such as the decline of the defences making it ‘easier’ and also crews in general lasting longer and getting more experience. It’s clear that the campaign became ever more sophisticated with time, and certainly advances would give a window of use before the enemy worked out how to counter them. Harris also fought against panacea targets as he saw them, but it seems what really did for the German army, and indeed the Luftwaffe, was fuel, and that should have been hit harder.
The OBOE equipped Mosquitos could put a cookie on target, given it's blast radius, most of the time. Against large complex chemical plants (such as the synthetic fuels plants....
The problem with Harris, I believe, was the failure to close the loop and read him in on ULTRA - especially FISH. The Germans were sending us the detailed results of raids, and even write-ups on what they were afraid we would do next.
Do I want the bastard to stop bombing childrens hospitals? Yes.
I am prepared to face total war followed by total destruction to stop him? No.
As bad as I feel about what is happening in the Ukraine, I am not prepared to have the same - and so much worse - happen here to "stop him". I like my life and want my kids to grow up and enjoy their lives too.
Where is your red line - Putin takes back the NATO Baltic States. Do you have a red line? Putin blackmails UK over some issue with the threat of nuclear war?
At what point do you get off your knees to a dictator?
The red line has to be NATO states. In many ways it is arbitrary, meaningless, and incredibly unfair to Ukraine, yet it has been drawn and respected for decades. Putin understands its importance, hence demanding Ukraine would never join (or else invasions like this or 2014 would be off the cards). I would suggest immediate accession for certain Scandanavian countries that have been remiss.
We need to gradually escalate what weapons we supply, look to evacuate as many civilians as possible, and seek to completely bankrupt the Russian economy. This isn't some 1930s German powerhouse. This is a corrupt petrol station that is torturing its next door neighbour.
I know she's wrong that to "close the sky" doesn't involve fighting.
I don't think that distinction matters any more.
Liubov Tsybulska @TsybulskaLiubov Lots of killed and wounded after terrible bombing of the maternity hospital. 1170 killed civilians only in Mariupol city. We don’t ask to fight for us, just close the sky. If that’s how democracies react to RU war crimes, then something wrong with these democracies.They’re broken https://twitter.com/TsybulskaLiubov/status/1501613250605158402
Unless you are prepared to attack targets around Moscow it matters.
Why would we need to attack targets around Moscow?
We could join the war on Ukraine's side, establish air superiority over Ukrainian airspace, send in the armoured brigades to liberate Kherson, and I don't see why we would have to attack targets around Moscow. Yes, we'd have to hit some anti-aircraft defences in Belarus and Russia that were within range of Ukraine. The airfields near to Ukraine would also be targets - but why Moscow?
Because to operate a no fly zone you have to degrade the anti-aircraft defences of the Russians. Otherwise, as Dura Ace so eloquently put it the other day you might as well just shoot your pilots in the back of the head before they take off and save on the fuel.
As has already been mentioned the Russian S-400s have a range of 400km. The newer S-500 have a range of 500km. That means they can sit them around Moscow and shoot down our planes over Ukraine.
So again. Are you prepared to attack targets around Moscow?
"This #Russia-dropped bomb would flatten a building — and yet these #Ukraine EODs defuse it with 2 hands and a bottle of water, while shells audibly land nearby."
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
There appeasers are seemingly happy to give Putin exactly what he wants to end the war, but then where is the incentive for Russia not to do the exact same thing again in future?
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
Yes, their modern equivalents are everyone who talks about Russia having “legitimate concerns”.
The red line is what it’s been since 1949 - the NATO border. We should have brought Ukraine in. We should now offer Sweden and Finland immediate membership if they want it. But that’s the only line.
WWIII for Estonia is ok but not Ukraine?
Yes, that is the position of both government and opposition.
And pretty much everyone who really understands the stakes.
The stakes are as high for Russia too. They are the ones that started this.
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
If the Czechs had fought in 38, we would have been sending best wishes. The RAF wasn't capable of bombing Germany from the UK, then. No air supply possible.
We would have had to get the French to fight, and get the BEF through France to attack the Germans across the land border - which would have taken weeks to setup.
Day by day, hour by hour the Kremlin crime boss is destroying a peaceful European democracy and for all the sanctions, legal action, weapons delivered and heroic Ukrainian defence, the West is still not prepared to will the means to put Putin firmly in his box. Putin is being given a pass because some worry about taking on the Russian rogue state.
We are now seeing the price of weakness and the bully will not be deterred by such weakness, only come back for more as his appetite for expansion grows more glutinous.
The immediate answer is simple, a red line to many, not without risk or the potential for NATO large losses :
1. No fly zone 2. Russian invasion force to begin withdrawing within 12 hours 3. Ukraine to be admitted to NATO with immediate effect.
Boris and other western leaders have said Putin must lose and be seen to lose. They need to take the decisive action that will ensure he does lose. Nothing else will do or work.
Or go Mossad +. Stop playing nice. Putin’s kids in Switzerland - kill them. Oligarch’s children arriving by private jet in Mykonos - dead in their hotel beds. Make every Russian of any vague standing terrified for their children because they are enabling Putin to allow his forces to kill Ukrainian children.
Open a second front for Russia by dropping every Islamo-terrorist in captivity into Chechnya with weapons.
Take the fight into Russian streets with terrorism - they have been telling their people that the west has been doing nasty things - may as well just do them.
Hooray for collective punishment! Let's round them up and put them in camps.
Nice try with the Nazi equivalency - doing Vlad’s work there…..
Clearly I meant targeted on the kids of those enabling Ukrainian kids to be killed - I’m sure they don’t have a prob with kids being killed yes?
And opening a second front whilst Russian army stretched - quite obvious.
But yes I am a Nazi and want every Russian in a camp…..
If you're talking about killing the children of the relevant people -- even if the relevant people are war criminals -- then you are the bad guy. I'm open to the concept of extrajudicial killing in EXTREME circumstances and where there no reasonable hope of justice being served (that's just war), but targeting non-combatants who happen to be related to commanders is really, really fucking dark.
It is dark and I hate even thinking it but if it’s the choice between that and watching, from our lovely safe armchairs, kids’ hospitals being bombed and civilians being targeted for nothing then it’s the lesser evil.
I’m sorry if you disagree and I totally get why you or anyone does but unfortunately some people will only realise what they’ve done wrong when it truly comes home to them.
If we wilfully killed children, how would we be any different to him?
Did we bomb German cities during WW2 killing civilians including children? Are we as bad as Hitler or did we choose to do something horrific in order to save more lives in the long run?
Collateral damage around a valid military target (especially with the technology of WW2) is not remotely the same as deliberately seeking out and murdering a child in their bed. Come on, you don’t need me to tell you that.
Dresden
DresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresdenDresden
Harris had run out of targets by then. The rest of Germany’s cities were ruined or overrun. But to be honest, if he could have, Harris would have inflicted a Dresden on every city he attacked. He fully believed the war could be won through bombing alone, and tried really hard to prove it. In the end he failed, but he also never got his 4000 Lancaster strong bomber force which he believed he needed.
7,377 Lancasters were built in total
Yes but the attrition was such that there were never anything like that available. The early thousand bomber raids were done by scraping every available aircraft into the air, including some pretty poor ones. Later the lancs and halifaxes dominated, but Harris’s vision was 4000 heavies just waiting to be pointed where he wanted that night. It was probably an impossible dream. Max Hastings contends that the vast industrial resource allocated to the bombing war could have been better used elsewhere. He’s probably right, although the bombing campaign for much of the war was political as much as military. It provided a second front to appease Stalin when the U.K. and U.S. were in no state to take on hitlers land forces in France. In that context it did it’s job, and it’s certain that by the end Harris had a superb weapon, albeit one that had no more function, as he had run out of cities to wreck.
OTOH, by the end of the war, night precision bombing had become a thing - see OBOE. To the point where they had to correct for errors in the intersection of mapping systems.
It's interesting to look at the target books from later 43 onwards. More and more raids against precise targets which so happened to be key production sites for various components to systems. Not just "1000 Lancasters to flatten X".
Given that Harris was never given the full story on ULTRA, someone need to write up *how* the targets were chosen. It certainly wasn't just randomly flattening cities - though Harris did come back to that again and again.
Harris was notoriously against things like the pathfinders, although they really led the way in later years, as you rightly point out. It’s also true that things like oboe and h2s made a huge difference but has to be set against other factors too, such as the decline of the defences making it ‘easier’ and also crews in general lasting longer and getting more experience. It’s clear that the campaign became ever more sophisticated with time, and certainly advances would give a window of use before the enemy worked out how to counter them. Harris also fought against panacea targets as he saw them, but it seems what really did for the German army, and indeed the Luftwaffe, was fuel, and that should have been hit harder.
The OBOE equipped Mosquitos could put a cookie on target, given it's blast radius, most of the time. Against large complex chemical plants (such as the synthetic fuels plants....
The problem with Harris, I believe, was the failure to close the loop and read him in on ULTRA - especially FISH. The Germans were sending us the detailed results of raids, and even write-ups on what they were afraid we would do next.
You have to love the mosquito. Faster than the fighters and able to drop a decent bomb load. I believe goering was extremely irked by them.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
I’ll make the point again. The Chinese will move heaven and earth to make sure Russia doesn’t use nukes in this conflict. Famous last words, and call me Edoramus, but it isn’t going to happen.
China intends to conquer the world through trade. Hard to sell stuff to us if we're dead, so yes that makes sense.
Where is your red line - Putin takes back the NATO Baltic States. Do you have a red line? Putin blackmails UK over some issue with the threat of nuclear war?
At what point do you get off your knees to a dictator?
My red line is my responsibility to my children. Think about Putin's end game. Restore the empire, recreate the buffer zone between NATO and Russia. Him taking back the Baltic states brings NATO to his door, so he is most unlikely to try and take them.
I think that presumes no action leads to no further escalation from Putin. Hmmm
I'm not proposing no further action. We - NATO and the EU - need to tool up. Restore our military strength and restate our regional and global alliances. Deter Putin from anything stupid by pointing out that we aren't rolling over.
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
There appeasers are seemingly happy to give Putin exactly what he wants to end the war, but then where is the incentive for Russia not to do the exact same thing again in future?
Who are you talking about? Not our government or opposition for sure.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
There appeasers are seemingly happy to give Putin exactly what he wants to end the war, but then where is the incentive for Russia not to do the exact same thing again in future?
Who are you talking about? Not our government or opposition for sure.
I know she's wrong that to "close the sky" doesn't involve fighting.
I don't think that distinction matters any more.
Liubov Tsybulska @TsybulskaLiubov Lots of killed and wounded after terrible bombing of the maternity hospital. 1170 killed civilians only in Mariupol city. We don’t ask to fight for us, just close the sky. If that’s how democracies react to RU war crimes, then something wrong with these democracies.They’re broken https://twitter.com/TsybulskaLiubov/status/1501613250605158402
Unless you are prepared to attack targets around Moscow it matters.
Around Moscow?
Does Russia have anti-aircraft missiles near Moscow that can hit Ukraine? I thought the nearest effective ones they had were just beyond the border.
The longest range systems (S400) can hit targets over Ukraine, from deep into Russia. 400km range.....
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
If the Czechs had fought in 38, we would have been sending best wishes. The RAF wasn't capable of bombing Germany from the UK, then. No air supply possible.
We would have had to get the French to fight, and get the BEF through France to attack the Germans across the land border - which would have taken weeks to setup.
I didn’t say they were wrong, just that what we are doing is not appeasing Putin.
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
If the Czechs had fought in 38, we would have been sending best wishes. The RAF wasn't capable of bombing Germany from the UK, then. No air supply possible.
We would have had to get the French to fight, and get the BEF through France to attack the Germans across the land border - which would have taken weeks to setup.
I didn’t say they were wrong, just that what we are doing is not appeasing Putin.
Rubbish. Its knicker wetting when faced with a bully’s threats.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
They wouldn’t, but I think Putin wouldn’t dare invade a nato country, that’s the point.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Because we have to draw a line, and NATO is obviously that line. And from what Putin says, it seems he realises this
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
There appeasers are seemingly happy to give Putin exactly what he wants to end the war, but then where is the incentive for Russia not to do the exact same thing again in future?
Who are the appeasers - aside from Farage and Stop the War? Everyone is clear that we need to both do what we can to help Ukraine resist and rearm / redirect NATO to actually pose a sizeable counterpoint to Russian ambitions.
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
I think that we are in a situation more like the summer crisis of 1914 than 1938.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
They wouldn’t, but you “flip” the decision. To invade Poland Putin has to decide to do a thing he knows means war with NATO, rather than us do a thing likely to mean war with him as in intervening now in Ukraine. It’s our deterrence posture and it’s been the plan since 1949 - avoid being on the front foot and ending the world.
I can see why Ukraine thinks it’s shit and in their position I would too.
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
If the Czechs had fought in 38, we would have been sending best wishes. The RAF wasn't capable of bombing Germany from the UK, then. No air supply possible.
We would have had to get the French to fight, and get the BEF through France to attack the Germans across the land border - which would have taken weeks to setup.
I didn’t say they were wrong, just that what we are doing is not appeasing Putin.
Rubbish. Its knicker wetting when faced with a bully’s threats.
No need to abuse. You clearly don’t agree, but my line is not rubbish.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Because we have to draw a line, and NATO is obviously that line. And from what Putin says, it seems he realises this
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
Nah. NATO is finished. No way we would do anything more to defend Estonia or Poland or Latvia.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
They wouldn't but then we have no choice. Right now we do.
One other thing. Given the only thing stopping Putin using tactical nukes right now is the fear of western reaction and the fact that he is not winning or perhaps even losing in Ukraine at the moment, I would suggest it is near certainty that any direct NATO involvement - which would remove his last threat against us - would result in the immediate use of battlefield nukes against Ukrainian cities. After all at that point he has nothing to lose.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Because we have to draw a line, and NATO is obviously that line. And from what Putin says, it seems he realises this
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
Nah. NATO is finished. No way we would do anything more to defend Estonia or Poland or Latvia.
Churchill is likely rolling in his grave
Apart from actually having troops on the ground there ALREADY.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Because we have to draw a line, and NATO is obviously that line. And from what Putin says, it seems he realises this
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
Nah. NATO is finished. No way we would do anything more to defend Estonia or Poland or Latvia.
Churchill is likely rolling in his grave
When’s your flight to Poland to meet up with the international brigade?
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
If the Czechs had fought in 38, we would have been sending best wishes. The RAF wasn't capable of bombing Germany from the UK, then. No air supply possible.
We would have had to get the French to fight, and get the BEF through France to attack the Germans across the land border - which would have taken weeks to setup.
I didn’t say they were wrong, just that what we are doing is not appeasing Putin.
Rubbish. Its knicker wetting when faced with a bully’s threats.
No need to abuse. You clearly don’t agree, but my line is not rubbish.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
They wouldn't but then we have no choice. Right now we do.
One other thing. Given the only thing stopping Putin using tactical nukes right now is the fear of western reaction and the fact that he is not winning or perhaps even losing in Ukraine at the moment, I would suggest it is near certainty that any direct NATO involvement - which would remove his last threat against us - would result in the immediate use of battlefield nukes against Ukrainian cities. After all at that point he has nothing to lose.
So we’re happy to let Putin commit war crimes in Ukraine because we’re scared?
I don’t think we are appeasing Putin. We are doing our best to arm Ukraine and support it. The appeasers in 1938 would have been pressuring Ukraine to give up to Putin.
If the Czechs had fought in 38, we would have been sending best wishes. The RAF wasn't capable of bombing Germany from the UK, then. No air supply possible.
We would have had to get the French to fight, and get the BEF through France to attack the Germans across the land border - which would have taken weeks to setup.
I didn’t say they were wrong, just that what we are doing is not appeasing Putin.
Rubbish. Its knicker wetting when faced with a bully’s threats.
No need to abuse. You clearly don’t agree, but my line is not rubbish.
Gallowgate has gone off the deep end. Sanity seems to be in short supply amongst some PB posters this evening.
EU intelligence diverging from US quite significantly:
"From our estimate, the KIA figure on the Russian side was anywhere from 7,000 to 9,000 a few days ago." "It's not a popular war in the Russian military from what we've seen. People are terrorized, threatened with lawsuits if they decline to fight."
If the EU numbers are correct then we'd be expecting to see at least one Russian front on the brink of collapse, which I don't think we're seeing yet, unless the poor Russian supplies means that many more WIA were turning into KIA than normal.
Why would a front be on the brink of collapse?
The Russians were able to make initial advances with only a portion of their forces and only recently had they deployed the last remaining forces that had been assembled to Ukraine, so losses of one-sixth wouldn't put them on the verge of collapse.
Even with greater losses it depends on the losses suffered by Ukraine.
I think the answer is morale. I suspect that being "out of supply" is a very convenient excuse for units that don't want to fight.
The amount of Russian equipment which has been captured also suggests that:
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Because we have to draw a line, and NATO is obviously that line. And from what Putin says, it seems he realises this
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
Nah. NATO is finished. No way we would do anything more to defend Estonia or Poland or Latvia.
Churchill is likely rolling in his grave
Apart from actually having troops on the ground there ALREADY.
Yup. Invade either of them and from the first contact you’re fighting the British Army and at war with us.
I know she's wrong that to "close the sky" doesn't involve fighting.
I don't think that distinction matters any more.
Liubov Tsybulska @TsybulskaLiubov Lots of killed and wounded after terrible bombing of the maternity hospital. 1170 killed civilians only in Mariupol city. We don’t ask to fight for us, just close the sky. If that’s how democracies react to RU war crimes, then something wrong with these democracies.They’re broken https://twitter.com/TsybulskaLiubov/status/1501613250605158402
Unless you are prepared to attack targets around Moscow it matters.
Why would we need to attack targets around Moscow?
We could join the war on Ukraine's side, establish air superiority over Ukrainian airspace, send in the armoured brigades to liberate Kherson, and I don't see why we would have to attack targets around Moscow. Yes, we'd have to hit some anti-aircraft defences in Belarus and Russia that were within range of Ukraine. The airfields near to Ukraine would also be targets - but why Moscow?
Because to operate a no fly zone you have to degrade the anti-aircraft defences of the Russians. Otherwise, as Dura Ace so eloquently put it the other day you might as well just shoot your pilots in the back of the head before they take off and save on the fuel.
As has already been mentioned the Russian S-400s have a range of 400km. The newer S-500 have a range of 500km. That means they can sit them around Moscow and shoot down our planes over Ukraine.
So again. Are you prepared to attack targets around Moscow?
It's 450km from the Kremlin to the nearest corner of Ukraine. Given the stand-off range of many of the missiles fired by NATO warplanes I think that means we could engage in a conventional war on Ukraine's side without hitting SAM systems stationed around Moscow.
Kharkiv, for example, is 650km from Moscow. Sumy is 570km. Kyiv is 750km.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Because we have to draw a line, and NATO is obviously that line. And from what Putin says, it seems he realises this
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
Nah. NATO is finished. No way we would do anything more to defend Estonia or Poland or Latvia.
Churchill is likely rolling in his grave
When’s your flight to Poland to meet up with the international brigade?
I am not a soldier, nor able to offer the international brigade any useful skills of note, so I’m not sure what your point is.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Because we have to draw a line, and NATO is obviously that line. And from what Putin says, it seems he realises this
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
Nah. NATO is finished. No way we would do anything more to defend Estonia or Poland or Latvia.
Churchill is likely rolling in his grave
When’s your flight to Poland to meet up with the international brigade?
I am not a soldier, not able to offer the international brigade any useful skills of note, so I’m not sure what your point is.
You called us cowards (“knicker wetting”). Easy for you to be brave when it’s not you and never has been.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
Where is your red line?
NATO, as I have said, multiple times
If Russia invades Finland the night before they sign up for NATO, do the Finns miss out?
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Because we have to draw a line, and NATO is obviously that line. And from what Putin says, it seems he realises this
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
Nah. NATO is finished. No way we would do anything more to defend Estonia or Poland or Latvia.
Churchill is likely rolling in his grave
When’s your flight to Poland to meet up with the international brigade?
I am not a soldier, not able to offer the international brigade any useful skills of note, so I’m not sure what your point is.
You called us cowards.
Only appeasers tonight. I think cowards was a week ago.
Looking back, we should have been much sturdier with regard to Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. Those were errors. We have fed steroids to the rabid dog
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
So why would those concerns about nuclear apocalypse suddenly disappear if it was Poland instead of Ukraine?
Because we have to draw a line, and NATO is obviously that line. And from what Putin says, it seems he realises this
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
Nah. NATO is finished. No way we would do anything more to defend Estonia or Poland or Latvia.
I disagree (unless Trump wins the next election). I'd have agreed there was a strong possibility of that were it not for what is going on in Ukraine. NATO countries, among others, have had a much stronger response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine than I would have expected, and given that response for a non-NATO ally, I am much more confident of the bloc actually responding in the event of attacks on the Baltics or Poland.
Indeed, whilst it is terrible for Ukraine they won't get the support they want, I'm not sure how you could arrive at a conclusion that NATO would do no more for actual alliance countries if they are willing to go this far in support of a non-member.
If NATO were unwilling to defend a NATO member they'd not have dared to supply arms to Ukraine like they have.
I know she's wrong that to "close the sky" doesn't involve fighting.
I don't think that distinction matters any more.
Liubov Tsybulska @TsybulskaLiubov Lots of killed and wounded after terrible bombing of the maternity hospital. 1170 killed civilians only in Mariupol city. We don’t ask to fight for us, just close the sky. If that’s how democracies react to RU war crimes, then something wrong with these democracies.They’re broken https://twitter.com/TsybulskaLiubov/status/1501613250605158402
Unless you are prepared to attack targets around Moscow it matters.
Around Moscow?
Does Russia have anti-aircraft missiles near Moscow that can hit Ukraine? I thought the nearest effective ones they had were just beyond the border.
The longest range systems (S400) can hit targets over Ukraine, from deep into Russia. 400km range.....
Comments
3-2 on aggregate now.
Max Hastings contends that the vast industrial resource allocated to the bombing war could have been better used elsewhere. He’s probably right, although the bombing campaign for much of the war was political as much as military. It provided a second front to appease Stalin when the U.K. and U.S. were in no state to take on hitlers land forces in France. In that context it did it’s job, and it’s certain that by the end Harris had a superb weapon, albeit one that had no more function, as he had run out of cities to wreck.
If it became the policy of any British Government to do so I would do everything I could to overthrow that Government by any means necessary.
Machine Elves? The hyper-spacial entities that inhabit the DMT realm. Seemingly sentient, cheerful, mischievous little beings who love to play and show you their wonderful psychedelic alien machinery. Meeting the machine elves is generally regarded as the textbook 'breakthrough' DMT experience. They're like jewelled self-dribbling basketballs.
https://non-aliencreatures.fandom.com/wiki/Machine_Elf Way over my head
As to be expected, it’s all very uptight and frustrated right now between get involved/mad to get involved, want to do more/what can we do and the frustrations we all feel really showing in complete breakdown on mood and temper on this blog tonight. 😔
But I’ve got to log off now. The massage towel is laid out. She’s going to give me a massage.
Whilst my point was clearly clumsy and brutal I stand by the argument that until something happens that brings the pain and suffering that the parents of Ukrainian children who are murdered - because that’s what it is - to the Russian regime who can effect that murder with a stroke of a pen on an order then they will not feel it and will not stop.
They are insulated from the pain and suffering they cause.
I apologise for the offence of what I wrote but I am so incredibly angry at the senseless bombing of civilians. One of the most distressing things I saw as a child was a newspaper photo of a Kurdish baby and their mother gassed by Saddam Hussein and to this day there is nothing I wouldn’t do to try and stop the random killing of innocent children in some game of power by these monsters. I remember looking at that photo for a couple of hours and crying and it will never leave me.
And unfortunately I believe - and clearly you disagree - that if it took the death of 20 oligarchs’ kids to make them stop Putin to save hundreds of Ukrainian children then it’s a grim calculation that I would support.
We shouldn't write off the possibility that is with some of the ludicrous ideas being pushed here.
The Israelis, Turks, and most likely Chinese too will explore every possibility.
It isn't just Putin v Ukraine and the West.
There's a whole rest of the world he isn't impressing. Some of whom were reasonably favourable to Russia before. Allies are peeling away, or edging towards the exit.
Don't underestimate their influence.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/opinion/putin-ukraine-russia-war.html
Nobody’s lives are going to be bettered if we escalate this to a global conflict. Billions of lives would be destroyed, and those that aren’t would be irreparably and irreversibly damaged.
I am sure if I was a Ukrainian I might feel differently right now. I understand that. That is their right and I have no place to tell them otherwise sitting at home in the UK without living in the shadow of the bombs.
"Then Putin has won" I hear you say. Perhaps. But my kids would also have won. Nobody wins if we are all dead.
We live in an incredibly imperfect world always in the shadow of that very simple fact. Until we find a way to put the genie back in the bottle (if we ever will) we exist under that uncomfortable truth.
It's interesting to look at the target books from later 43 onwards. More and more raids against precise targets which so happened to be key production sites for various components to systems. Not just "1000 Lancasters to flatten X".
Given that Harris was never given the full story on ULTRA, someone need to write up *how* the targets were chosen. It certainly wasn't just randomly flattening cities - though Harris did come back to that again and again.
At what point do you get off your knees to a dictator?
My heart says intervene and stop him directly. My head says that the risk is too high. Above all o wish we’d admitted Ukraine to NATO before now to push this risk back.
You must accept that direct intervention carries with it the risk of the end of human civilisation? Is your working assumption that it wouldn’t come to that, and both sides would refrain, or do you just think defending the principle worth the end of the world?
Does Russia have anti-aircraft missiles near Moscow that can hit Ukraine? I thought the nearest effective ones they had were just beyond the border.
Even worse, unlike in Syria we haven't even made it clear that it's a red line for us.
Harris also fought against panacea targets as he saw them, but it seems what really did for the German army, and indeed the Luftwaffe, was fuel, and that should have been hit harder.
We could join the war on Ukraine's side, establish air superiority over Ukrainian airspace, send in the armoured brigades to liberate Kherson, and I don't see why we would have to attack targets around Moscow. Yes, we'd have to hit some anti-aircraft defences in Belarus and Russia that were within range of Ukraine. The airfields near to Ukraine would also be targets - but why Moscow?
From October 1943 -
"The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive...should be unambiguously stated as the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany. The destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories."
Now you can argue as to whether he was right to pursue this policy but there can be no argument that this was the policy and it did not require great degrees of accuracy to achieve it.
The narrative from the Johnsonian wing of the Conservative Party that Johnson is, as you suggested earlier, "the new leader of the free World", in the face of this humanitarian catastrophe, is vomit inducing.
The problem with Harris, I believe, was the failure to close the loop and read him in on ULTRA - especially FISH. The Germans were sending us the detailed results of raids, and even write-ups on what they were afraid we would do next.
We need to gradually escalate what weapons we supply, look to evacuate as many civilians as possible, and seek to completely bankrupt the Russian economy. This isn't some 1930s German powerhouse. This is a corrupt petrol station that is torturing its next door neighbour.
As has already been mentioned the Russian S-400s have a range of 400km. The newer S-500 have a range of 500km. That means they can sit them around Moscow and shoot down our planes over Ukraine.
So again. Are you prepared to attack targets around Moscow?
https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1501654584992968712?s=20&t=4TDW7YPGvnS0CwUfLnEnow
We would have had to get the French to fight, and get the BEF through France to attack the Germans across the land border - which would have taken weeks to setup.
But worrying about total nuclear apocalypse is not "appeasement". It is the most profound concern possible. Literally the end of human civilisation. No amount of gung-ho @JackW virtue-semaphoring rantothons can wish that away
A sane Putin would not risk it, of course. But is he sane? Who the fuck knows? No one, possibly not Putin himself
Ukraine thanks you for abandoning them to their fate before you defend Estonia in WWIII
It's not much to go on, but this is a fucking horrible situation, so we do what we can
I can see why Ukraine thinks it’s shit and in their position I would too.
Churchill is likely rolling in his grave
One other thing. Given the only thing stopping Putin using tactical nukes right now is the fear of western reaction and the fact that he is not winning or perhaps even losing in Ukraine at the moment, I would suggest it is near certainty that any direct NATO involvement - which would remove his last threat against us - would result in the immediate use of battlefield nukes against Ukrainian cities. After all at that point he has nothing to lose.
It is not a matter of abandoning Ukraine, it is about how we force Putin to back down. It is about means rather than ends.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
71 Russian tanks captured by the Ukrainians.
Now how many British tanks have been captured by an enemy since 1945 ? Or even in 1943-45.
Kharkiv, for example, is 650km from Moscow. Sumy is 570km. Kyiv is 750km.
It doesn’t seem to split along pre-existing lines like ideology/political allegiance/brexit vote/age
Makes for some truly odd bedfellows
Indeed, whilst it is terrible for Ukraine they won't get the support they want, I'm not sure how you could arrive at a conclusion that NATO would do no more for actual alliance countries if they are willing to go this far in support of a non-member.
If NATO were unwilling to defend a NATO member they'd not have dared to supply arms to Ukraine like they have.
The Russians have a long long history of building very long range SAM systems. See the S-200 (NATO SA-5) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-200_(missile)
which leads us to the story of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812