Ah yes, Mike Tyson. That paragon of moral philosophy. How could we forget about him?

Let's see what other gems this treasure trove of wisdom has to offer:

“I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.” — Mike Tyson

Ok, that'll do Mikey. That'll do.

Usually whenever some US foreign policy debacle is unfolding, they start rolling out stories of UFOs, spy balloons, and now drones, apparently.

It's easy to get caught up in the news slop claiming this is 'totally important', only for it to be forgotten a week later.

You're arguing that this instance of first degree murder was perhaps good? — Hanover

Well, capital G 'Good' is a big word. Probably not that. It's not an example I would seek to emulate, or want others to emulate.

But when people play stupid games they win stupid prizes. Both people involved seemed to have won their stupid prize.

Maybe they can both serve as an example.

It reminds me a little of how societies used to round up and behead monarchs who misbehaved.

Obviously that was extrajudicial, but at the same time, perhaps it is good that powerful people are reminded every once in a while that there a limits to how far one can push innocent people.

Admittedly, this is assuming the CEO was a crook. Maybe he wasn't, and this killer was just some deranged person. But that wouldn't make for an interesting philosophical discussion.

Health execs reckon with patient outrage after UnitedHealthcare killing

You know the underlying psychological process is [...] — Benkei

Psychologizing is easy, and so is projecting.

I live in a country with nationalized healthcare and it's awful too, but perhaps that's just a question of who bears final responsibility.

Like I said, I don't know the details of this case. If the CEO was some form of paragon who did nothing to deserve such a grizzly end, then it's a shame.

Somehow I doubt that, though.

If one sets up an enterprise that's meant to ensure people's health, and one does a shitty job at it, one is destroying lives, and then someone might come along and destroy yours in revenge.

That's karma.

It's beyond obvious that something went down between Turkey, Israel and the US, who are now starting to fight over the scraps.

Let's not fool ourselves here.

I know next to nothing about the CEO, but would I be right in assuming he probably bears responsibility for a fair few lives destroyed?

Now someone came along and destroyed his.

It's obviously not justice. It's what happens to people who play dangerous games.

Mhm. A lovely history lesson, but none of those were defeated without a fight.

For anyone who desires to look beyond surface level appearances:

Except of course the Syrian army has been willing to fight for years, and did so successfully in the face of much more pressure than the handful of rebels that now took over the country with barely a shot fired.

This is obviously not normal, nor a spontaneous 'uprising'.

Even Reuters joined in the white-washing. :lol:

By running Aleppo, Syrian rebels seek to show they are alternative to Assad

And the BBC:

From Syrian jihadist leader to rebel politician: How Abu Mohammed al-Jolani reinvented himself

:rofl:

A few short years ago he was beheading people and setting them on fire for kicks, now he donates to children's hospitals. Who is this dark, tall and enigmatic man?

The Syrian army was a formidable fighting force, even without the Russians or the Iranians.

I'm not saying that they may have stopped this eventual outcome, but rather I'm questioning why it crumbled like a crouton, which is ahistorical - armies don't just evaporate under normal wartime circumstances.

Is anyone else slightly alarmed by the way the legacy media is now trying to white-wash the image of the leader of the Syrian rebels - formerly Al-Qaeda and IS, and having ruled his little slice of Syria with an iron fist since he came to power?

It's just whimsical to say that a guy that has now since the start of the war said how Ukraine is collapsing and how victorious the Russians are would be something other than a shill. — ssu

On the other end of that argument you would be disqualifying the entire western media. :lol:

At some point you'll have to accept that when people have a different opinion it doesn't automatically makes them a shill for the other side - that's called growing up.

At the end of the day you're just unable to cope with the fact that various Europeans and Americans are criticizing their own system for all its faults.

You apparently have no lens to view self-criticism by the system you are a part of as anything other than shilling for the other side.

You are clearly stuck in a tribal mindset.

I've actually followed Mercouris for quite a while, and the idea that he never criticizes Putin is simply untrue.

This is just the umpteenth attempt at disqualifying opinions that disagree with your own by accusing others of partisanship.

It has become a bit of a pattern with you.

The immediate jump to accusations of partisanship again? I really don't understand what has gotten into you.

The most important question here is who is backing the rebel forces. That will tell us much about the future of the country.

There's a lot more going on behind the scenes. The obvious question to ask is how a regime that withstood years of heavy western pressure suddenly crumbles like a crouton, because that already fails the common sense test.

The most-likely culprit here seems to be Erdoğan, and there are rumors that Assad due to his strong dislike of Erdoğan was getting in the way of a deal between the Turks and the Russians over Syria.

Alexander Mercouris goes deep into the subject in his latest update.

What is certainly an aspect worth noting about this event is that an ideologically neutral Syria is now (at least on the surface) controlled by jihadi extremists - a development that will probably be very displeasing to Israel, though there are some upsides as well.

Using the metaphorical nose, this Korean scenario stinks of Guoanbu influence. — kazan

Any concrete indications of that?

As far as I've been able to tell this president and his party have been notoriously hawkish on North-Korea, which would not seem logical.

Let him visit. See what happens.

Amnesty International investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza

Same shit, different day.

Is there anything left to say at this point?

[...] yet there are many Putin apologists like one frequent commentator on the thread [...] — ssu

In fact one commentator in this thread [...] — ssu

No idea if this latest jab was aimed at me, but is this some kindergarten-level attempt at misrepresenting other people's opinions while trying to save yourself from a rebuke?

Grow up.

Those great men you talk about were no more "god like" than people around today. They were just as ruthless, immoral, power-hungry, and cruel as you seem to want to be. Their status is a product of slanted history and your fantasy life. They killed and enslaved millions of people. — T Clark

You think anyone living in western society today (which I'm assuming this thread is about) is going to be remembered as a great person?

I loved it. :up:

Western society is no longer an example worthy of emulating. It provides nothing in the way of spiritual fulfillment, no role models, no worthy causes, etc.

It's just a hot mess. We're all caught up in it.

If you're living in the city you'll have it worst. I would consider moving to a place closer to nature, where you'll probably find more like-minded people seeking to get away from the clownshow.

I conclude that you're unable to admit even something so basic as NATO and Russia being involved in a proxy war against each other. That's how flimsy your arguments are - you need to twist and turn around even the most obvious realities.

On the topic of first-hand accounts: I have shared them. You, presumably, haven't even bothered to look at them.

Can you ever just make a concise point? All this waffling and linking articles is just vague and pointless. I'm not going to fish through dozens of articles and previous posts to figure out what your arguments are.

Also, just linking articles is not something that holds any value in today's information environment. The internet is flooded with propaganda and nonsense.

I could find hundreds of articles about why the earth is supposedly flat if I wanted to. You'll simply dismiss them, as will I with yours.

You replied to my post stating that NATO has been involved in a proxy war in Ukraine for three years.

Do you dispute this?

Do we hear from you what was wrong there? — ssu

The title alone makes me not take it seriously - trying to claim authority by presenting 'fresh evidence', as though anything is going to top the three corresponding Ukrainian accounts that have been out there for years, and the Western press has done everything in its power to ignore.

Then they mention some details and pretend 'this makes everything different' - how convenient. Plausible deniability achieved, etc., people who have been searching for any excuse to dismiss the clear picture we already had now have a little yarn to spin.

I don't waste my time on such 'journalism'. That's why I dismissed it.

What? :brow:

These aren't 'Kremlin lies' - these are common views held among many Western scholars. If you don't want to debate, don't debate, but don't throw this weak nonsense at me.

We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance [...]

, that's not very ambiguous, is it?

You really think a commitment to the very the thing that sparked this whole catastrophe was going to set the Russians at ease in 2021?

How harmless do you believe the Russians viewed this as, considering 'ambiguous' commitments in 2008 led to over a decade of Western involvement in Ukraine, complete with coup d'etat and military training and armament - all of which clearly intended to make Ukraine jump the gun on a Russian intervention and create a fait accompli?

[...] yet there are many Putin apologists like one frequent commentator on the thread who promote "realpolitik" and the anti-American narrative and tow the Kremlin-line. — ssu

What's your deal with getting so personal?

Well, what did you expect?

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but NATO has been involved in a proxy war against Russia for about three years now. We're launching missiles into Russia. Imagine if the roles were reversed, and it was Russia firing missiles into Europe.

You're looking at the world through star-spangled glasses, that's why 579 pages in you still haven't gotten beyond the surface-level propaganda.

As said many times, I believe Putin is wholly and solely responsible for the criminal invasion of Ukraine, the destruction of billions of dollars worth of property and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Wholly and solely. — Wayfarer

Then I suggest you start reading from page 1 and report back to me once you've caught up.

"Fresh evidence" - Yea, typical nonsense when unfortunate facts need to be white-washed, which is obviously what the West needed to do with their actions in Istanbul.

I've shared multiple accounts (like 5?) of the Istanbul negotiations, all of which either Ukrainian, Western or neutral, and they all sketch the same ugly picture, so accusing me of cherry-picking doesn't impress.

Coming from the person that repeats one single reason for the war. — ssu

What "single reason for the war" do you believe I am repeating?

Putin annexed Crimea. Annexed territory. — ssu

The idea that Russia's annexation of Crimea was purely territorial/imperial is a completely unconvincing argument to make, and not only do you seem to be doing that, but you're also using that argument to then claim Russia's reason for war in 2022 must be the same.

You can no longer rely on the annexation of the four oblasts, since Russia has already proposed to return them to Ukraine in return for Ukrainian neutrality during the Istanbul negotiations, so now you retreat to an even less convincing argument.

Add there all the rhetoric of how artificial Ukraine as a state is and how it should be part of Russia. And all the focus on Novorossiya. — ssu

Again, that's simply cherry-picking.

You're ignoring a decade of clear signals to the West over a selective interpretation of a single sentence.

Whenever the Russians say things that confirm your preconceived notions of this conflict you attribute great value to them. When they don't, you ignore them.

Cute posturing, but you failed to respond to the point I made.

The major reason for the war and the objectives cannot be put more clearly than Putin did in September 30th 2022. — ssu

You're simply cherry-picking.

The idea that the Russian goals in September 2022 more purely reflect their initial goals than those stated up to and including March/April 2022 has no logical basis whatsoever.

In fact, it's plainly counter-intuitive and pretends that the developments of the war, amongst which a complete rejection of diplomacy by the West, did not significantly impact Russian war goals.

Face the reality what Putin wants. — ssu

The unfortunate thing for you is that the Russians have told us exactly in word and in deed what they want for over a decade - a neutral Ukraine.

That is the reality.

You're pretending that all of these things that happened in reality should be ignored in favor of lowbrow "us vs. them" narratives, and attempts at mindreading the Kremlin's 'true' intentions.

The Russians offered us the terms, the Ukrainians accepted and the West boycotted it and subsequently ruled out negotiations in favor of 'breaking apart Russia', 'inflicting a strategic defeat', 'enacting regime change', etc.

You'd have to be pretty foolish to think that such a move on the part of the West wasn't going to have fundamental consequences for the nature of the war.

To gain Ukraine and it's territory is an objective itself and has been absolutely central here. To argue something else is not only wrong, but dangerous. — ssu

The Istanbul agreements are direct evidence to the contrary. Ignoring the evidence that is out there in favor of warmongering for total war is what is dangerous, and that's what many in the West are engaged in.

The Russians were willing to settle the war in March/April 2022 without any territorial gains for themselves.

That's a fact. It's confirmed by neutral sources, and even by the Ukrainian negotiators themselves.

For Putin this war is existential. — ssu

Not just for Putin, mind you.

It's quite popular among the mainstream media to repeat the idea that this is 'Putin's war', but it's been known since prior to the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit that NATO expansion into Ukraine is a red line for much if not all of the Russian political establishment.

So yes, the Russians are prepared to go far in order for this war to be settled in their favor. That much should be crystal clear by now.

That moment has passed, it's not turning, things have changed. — ssu

True. Things have gotten gravely worse for Ukraine. There's nothing left of the bargaining position they had in March/April 2022. Frontlines are crumbling, nations are starting to talk about withdrawing support, etc.

That's a direct result of choosing the military path, and continuing on the military path will obviously extend this trend probably all the way to Ukraine's total demise.


In Ukraine's defense, there is another dimension to this.

In March/April 2022, the West told the Ukrainians to cease negotiations - even make them impossible as Zelensky made sure to cement in the Ukrainian constitution - and double down on the military path.

Ukraine likely did this because of promises that were made by the West.

Now Ukraine is likely and understandably bitter about the prospect of negotiations in the face of wavering Western support. We basically made them fight on for two years, for nothing.

That's probably why Ukraine will need serious 'nudging' (aka, threatening to cut off support) to force them to change their stance.