Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has repeated a call for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be assassinated, saying that the only way the war in Ukraine could end is if Russia “breaks” and someone “takes Putin out.”
“How does this war end? When Russia breaks, and they take Putin out. Anything short of that, the war’s gonna continue,” Graham said on the Fox News program America Reports on Wednesday.
Graham said the US is “in it to win it, and the only way you’re gonna win it is to break the Russian military and have somebody in Russia take Putin out to give the Russian people a new lease on life.”
The hawkish senator made similar comments back in March when he asked if there was a “Brutus” in Russia who could kill Putin. In his comments on Wednesday, Graham also said the Biden administration should send Ukraine the advanced and long-range weapons that Kyiv has been asking for.
When asked to what extent the US should continue to support Ukraine in the war, Graham replied, “completely, all in without equivocation.” He said the US needs to provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons to help “dislodge” Russia from areas of eastern Ukraine, including Crimea.
He said if Ukraine had larger drones, such as Reapers and Gray Eagles, Ukraine would “kill tons of Russians without losing any Ukrainians in the endeavor.” Ukraine has asked for Gray Eagle drones, which can fly for about 30 hours and are capable of carrying powerful Hellfire Missiles, but the Biden administration has held off from sending them so far.
Our senior politicians are now calling for the assassination of foreign (elected) officials. It’s not surprising when the CIA engages in such sub rosa, but, this is shocking. I wish is Graham would be morphed into a 20-year-old living in the US. contemplating a future in which nukes look like the probable outcome. Graham has been in office virtually his entire career, barring time he spent as a defense lawyer in the air force. (That constitutes his life-endangering work for his country. In a courtroom. In West Germany.) He represents South Carolina; the US Southeast has now become the center of defense industry HQ’s. Boeing is very big in SC. Is he gearing for a run (again) at presidency? Thinks by puffing out his chest he’ll get the nomination? And by so doing he perpetuates this benighted undeclared war of all against all (we have managed to instantiate Bush’s Axis of Evil).
They are assassinating elected and other officials in foreign countries, that is normal, just not going public calling the target by name, least of all the president of a nuclear superpower.
To think, people elect such POS, not once, they reelect that POS over and over again.
The irony is not many Russian “Brutuses” are angry at Putin for not retreating from Ukraine; they are pissed he hasn’t dropped a tactical nuke yet https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-its-troops-left-lyman-avoid-encirclement-2022-10-01/
The people are voting for neocons because they are brainwashed. They don’t understand the consequences. US has no chance to win the war against Russia/China.
Supposing, the situation in the remote future changes and US militarism will be victorious. In such a case, all the world resources will belong to the main corporations, which makes them stronger and the democratic system in US weaker. For the overwhelming majority of American people it is a lose-lose situation because the unrestricted power of the victorious neocons can give them nothing but the totalitarian system at home.
“the democratic system in US weaker.”
The “democratic system” in the US is pretty weak already, considering that it was stillborn.
Yes, it is weak, but the situation with the democracy in US is deteriorating further. As I said, if neocons, by some miracle, achieve the full spectrum dominance over the planet, the totalitarian regime will be established not only abroad, but also within USA.
” For the overwhelming majority of American people it is a lose-lose situation because the unrestricted power of the victorious neocons can give them nothing but the totalitarian system at home.”
I think we have reached that point already.
They don’t work for you or I, they serve a cabal of gloperialists (with nuclear bunkers and who believe that we must reduce earth’s human population drastically to achieve their warped utopia) with heavy interests in the MIC
“Is he gearing for a run (again) at presidency?” Yes, he’s affecting the late Viet Nam hero, John McCain.
Biden had already said the same thing early on, remember?
I got news for Sen. Pansie Graham….the war is over, and Putin won. So sad the Ukrainian people are being used as cannon fodder.
For those few remaining…..stand up and remove this cross-dressing sock puppet Zelenskyy before it’s too late.
I don’t think the ad homs are necessary. Graham’s actions alone convict him. I do not think this is over. The US is readying propaganda against China. This will expand the conflict and make it exponentially more dangerous for life on Earth.
This war was over back in early spring…..what you speak of isn’t the Russian/Ukraine conflict. And yes Graham is a neocon “pansie”, sorry it hit too close to home.
I’m not entirely sure JJ but I think you have just insulted a flower…
Flower, cupcake, tart, swish…..there are many phrases that fit.
I don’t care that Lady G is gay; I care that he’s a moronic asshole in a position of power.
Spot on….I guess the “say it loud, say it proud” only pertains to when they choose to say it. You bring it up and folks get triggered and miss the entire point of the comment…..Graham is a loser.
That’s funny, I’m not gay. I was simply pointing out that it had no relevance.
Sure you’re not…..you sure seem triggered by it.
It just doesn’t seem relevant. I knew a gay Marine who picked up a Silver Star on Guadalcanal.
Is Graham gay? Most people seem to think so. Does it matter? No.
Sure you did…..you guys just keep exposing yourselves. Weird how you chose to say the Marine was gay….what did that have to do with him winning a medal?
By the time this thread is over I will have all you “dudes” out of the closet…..way too funny!
You’re not very bright, are you?
That was an intelligent response…..you did exactly what I did, but somewhere in that pea sized brain of yours you think they are different.
Your response shows your emotional and intellectual immaturity.
Well, you’ve got me there. I doubt anyone would challenge your credentials in the area of emotional and intellectual immaturity.
Have a merry Christmas, and here’s hoping your mommy bought you those Yu-Gi-Oh cards you want so badly.
Another gem…..you certainly don’t disappoint.
“Weird how you chose to say the Marine was gay….what did that have to do with him winning a medal?”
Jack, I think that was Thomas’ point, that it didn’t matter. God, you’ve got an attitude.
Then why say it then bash me for saying it…..talk about double standard.
Graham is gay…..that is who he is….he is also corrupt, which is what the thread was about but the morons on here focused on the gay part.
I don’t have the attitude…..it’s the tool bags that whined about it that have the problem. This is EXACTLY what we are fighting against…..the “woke”. Shocking how mind numbingly blind you are.
It’s not complicated:
We have rules.
You don’t have to like the rules.
The rules are the rules whether you like them or not. And whether you whine about them or not.
I get it…..you’re a woke beta with underlying gay inclinations. Don’t try taken it out on me pal…..you’ll get what you have been getting!
“It just doesn’t seem relevant.”
No. It doesn’t. But that’s all from you as moderator?
Never mind that it isn’t “relevant” – “Swish” is an obviously derogatory term for gays and for effeminate behavior.
“Doesn’t seem relevant” is the extent of yr response to malicious gay-baiting – openly hostile attacks on gays and on members of this community that:
a/ ridicule members of this community as gay and as ‘in the closet,’
b/ say yr gonna ‘out’ them; and
c/ when community members object, accuses people randomly labeled gay/in closet as ‘playing the victim.’
Haven’t looked at this site’s “guidelines,” but yr failure, Thomas, to even gesture at community guidelines in this case is…well, imo, a real failure:
a failure to fulfil basic duties of a moderator;
a greater failure since – vs the ‘death threat’ case, where your intervention reinforced commentator community values – the community clearly objects to this gay-baiting behavior;
and, imo, a personal failure of yours – throwing into question yr evenhandedness as an arbiter of community sentiment and decency on this website.
I urge you to reconsider how you handled this, and how you might handle similar future instances.
Fair enough. I decided to try to talk some sense into the idiot instead of enforcing the guidelines, which was probably a bad call in both parts.
So, here’s the guideline in question, and I’ll try to do a better job of enforcing it from here on out:
“You’re entitled to your opinion. You’re not entitled to use Antiwar.com’s facilities to publish slurs or supremacist claims based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, or to link to sites promoting such material. We don’t want that stuff here.”
Also I don’t get “triggered”.
Really…..your victimization post is the definition of “triggered”.
Must suck to wake up every day looking for something to be outraged about. Maybe talk to somebody about it, it could help.
Thanks for proving my point. Merry Christmas.
Thanks for being the example of my point…..nothing more annoying than a comment cop.
PS….you’re not that important.
Please stop, guys! We’re here to trash Graham, not each other!
The gays are so sensitive and easily triggered. They’re a ‘protected class’.
Do you get “buttercupped”?
What is that?
From Urban Dictionary:
Buttercupped:
The act of one sticking a Reese’s peanutbutter cup up another’s butt.
**********
Hmmm. Creative I suppose, but not what I would do with a Reese’s. To each his own I guess.
Seems to me it would have to be frozen … and done quickly.
Merry Christmas/Happy New Year
Silly.
Good one. Trying to figure how a frozen one would work. Unless they were those mini ones.
Jeff that’s just TOO MUCH INFORMATION! 😆
Right. I just think that your hatred of gays doesn’t really have any relevance to Putin. (if that’s what it’s about).
Also I guess you can’t comment w/o adding insults.
Says the guy that posted a negative response to my comment…..you’re lack of self-awareness is mind boggling.
Where did I use an ad hominem attack? I don’t have any personal against you. I just thought your argument was stronger without it. But do as you will.
You are right, the war in Ukraine is only the first episode of the military conflict between NATO and Russia.
Yes, it seems “our neocon leaders are intent to keep their crazy quest for “Full Spectrum Dominance” in the face o their declined & declining dominance in great game , peer nuclear & rocketry deterrence acheivments which were neglected chasing nomads & Muslims. Now, apparently from deprecation they are over reaching badly by provoking Chins while running a hot war against Russia! “Hubris precedes a great fall in full display 4 allthe world to witness.
Neocons are able to promote this great project only because MIC is supporting them. MIC doesn’t care about the project itself, they are making money in the process. They don’t mind if the war for the full spectrum dominance will last forever.
…….Or blow up life as we have known it. Should such happen there will come a time when a bushel of dollars will not buy a loaf of bread.
That Graham belongs to the Ernst Rohm wing of the War Party is relevant to the discussion. He’s a deceitful closet case hypocrite and that’s a fact – not an attack.
Sure, but it has nothing to do with Putin. It might make sense in anti-gay legislation.
Don’t blame the gays for the morons blind blood lust. HE… is an existential threat to every living thing on this planet………!!!!!!!!
Yeah, why complicate the issue?
Our governments do know how to get rid of unwanted people when they want to, see Kennedy, and they silenced the young progressives in no time and got rid of Al Franken and others. Manchin is doing well.
The war is not over. When Ukrainians are finished, there are a lot of other cannon fodder; poles are involved massively already. There are also Germans in the queue. No shortage of the weapons or money. We are lucky if it will not go nuclear. I think it will.
No shortage of weapons…. Yes, but without the ones that matter in this case were they to get involved……!!!!
Just this week, a long time friend of mine got red faced angry at me when I told her what you said. Sadly, SO many people are in denial and cannot see through the smoke screen. Bad, bad, bad!
yep
Even earlier he called Putin a killer on national TV. That was the moment when I regretted my vote for him.
Trump is incompetent to be president, a liar, but senile Biden is worse, he is incompetent and evil. Both men are conmen and evil, but Trump had a snipped of charisma.
The corporate elite controls the neocons, congress and all the presidents.
Exactly.
Ditto that.
What was remarkable was the fact that no one in the press said a critical word about his bad behavior for acting so undiplomatically and stupid after decades in politics and 8 years VP.
Operation Mockingbird endures.
Renate, ByeDone reminds me of that old country song “ Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox if I Die”.
I’m not so sure he’s actually still breathing.
Does he wear a mask or is he wearing finger thick make-up? I can’t tell either.
I think he is a dangerous psychopath who has unmasked himself as a fool and a danger to all life on earth..!!!!!!!
Renate, I believe I’ve mentioned this before. My brother has a good friend whose nephew is in the Secret Service. Said nephew maintains that it takes HOURS daily to even achieve a pretense of making ByeDone appear “presidential”.
I must have missed it, but it certainly is plausible.
“Weekend at Biden’s” pops into my head.
😂
“Prop me up behind the podium if I die”
Even milk toast republicans hate Graham. He’s dead weight
I think all this talk of brave soldiers and uniforms and missiles has caused all the blood in his head to rush elsewhere. He isn’t making much sense. We want to aid Ukraine in restoring its proper borders and to give it as strong a negotiating position as we can. We have no interest in internal Russian politics
I say we have interests in internal Russian politics, but the experience has taught us (unfortunately not so much the US) that taking action on such interests is seldom a good idea.
What exactly are our interests in internal Russian politics?
If no other interests then for them to have a democratic political system. That would be in the interest of the US (and the world in general).
EDIT: even if democratic the US likely would have interests, like EU (and e.g. Iran) had with regards to the US where we would have preferred anyone else but Trump in 2016.
They had a democratic political system but we fixed that.
If ‘we’ had fixed it a comedian with Russian as his native language, of family of the Abrahamic faith, standing on a peace platform would never have been elected.
Why? Democracy is long gone in Ukraine – It exited when we helped violently overthrow the democracy in 2014.
No there has been two democratic elections in Ukraine since they ousted the legally elected government in 2014 – the best evidence is that the ultra nationalists were very popular in 2014, but lost their last seat in parliament in 2019 – if it had been a coup like many suggests this would not have been allowed to happen – nor would a Russian speaking person of the Abrahamic faith have been elected.
Only in the parts of Ukraine where they weren’t “killing their own people”./
Well for good reasons the Russians had occupied Crimea and supported an insurrection which held about 1/3 of the territory of Luhansk and Donetsk – where they were fighting the insurrectionists.
Perhaps we should work harder on having a “Democratic political system” here in Amerikkka.
That would be great, it could be easily achieves, but it was not the question.
As a Dane, Michael, you sadly do not realize that no, it is NOT. Achievable…
The question was specifically a counter argument to ‘We have no interest in internal Russian politics‘, so no there was no relation to improving the poor state of democracy in the US – I do not at least not on purpose engage in whataboutery if I can avoid it.
Get real, the past two elections have proven to anyone with a brain that the whole thing is virtually rigged. Vote rigging to psy op non stop propaganda from the MSM that is proven to work on such an ill informed populace. The people of the world vote the way they do because they want to break the chains that DC has them in.
“… the past two elections have proven to anyone with a brain that the whole thing is virtually rigged. ”
In both the US and Ukraine.
Did I claim that the US has a democratic system? The evidence that it does not is there for all to see – gerrymandering – the politicians choosing their electorates!
This is also very/partially true – as it is clear that the Europeans do not vote to break the chains, nor do the electorates in: Japan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, Israel (of cause), Canada, Mexico – but sure in many of the countries the Europeans and the US have been exploiting the resources of their lands they are less enthusiastic about the US – but importantly in many of those countries they do not vote.
taking action on such interests is seldom a good idea.
Only for the people we’re looking to “help”…
We, on the other hand make out like bandits. Just wait for the receipts from our LNG sales come in.
Ka -ching!
I was talking about Iraq, Syria and Libya – the US is manifestly not invading Ukraine to ‘help’ that is what Putin is doing!
A proxy war is no less an invasion.
A proxy war is in every way different from an invasion – in an invasion:
– there is no need for local people to assist
– there is no need for local support (though you need more troops to occupy then)
– there is no need to supply troops not part of the invading army
– there is no need to train troops from the invaded country on weapons systems foreign to them – or
– there is no need to obtain weapons systems familiar to local forces
– there is a need to get the invading troops familiar with local geography
– there is a need to get the invading troops familiar with local customs
– there is a need to get the invading troops familiar with local infrastructure
In all these ways an invasion is very different from a proxy war.
After an invasion the invader is responsible for providing for the invaded – not so in a proxy war. It is actually hard to think of any way where a proxy war is similar to an invasion.
But I guess to the untrained eye they can seem very similar as long as you just do not think of actually doing the ‘job’.
A proxy war is where you have someone else doing the dying for you somewhere else. That sums up US policy in Ukraine/Russia without a lot of irrelevant bullshite… See?
You claimed it was the same – as the Russians are finding out to their cost they manifestly are not, in almost no relevant way – as there simply are not enough locals willing or able to fight for their cause – i.e. they do not enjoy public support.
Those locals have fended off a fascist onslaught for eight years until the cavalry came to the rescue.
Yes do not worry the fascists Wagner group will soon be pushed right out and then those locals can be safe again, that is the few that survived Putin’s forced mobilization and getting stuck fighting a war with bad equipment.
See you’re using the word “fascist” like some dirty hippy from the old days who threw it around quite liberally toward anyone they disagreed with, cops, clergy, parents etc. etc…
I, on the other hand, am calling fascist the people who call themselves – loudly and proudly – fascists. They carve it into their skins and into their souls. They came in at the ground floor back in WW2 so please dont call them neonazis. They’re paleo all the way. God willing, they will come to the same end and soon..
No I used the term exclusively for the Wagner group – a lot of whom we have pictures of with swastika tatoo’s and many with other Nazi memorabilia – as well as their own words for their admiration of e.g. Hitler.
I go by much the same rule – i.e. calling the Wagner group fascist and or neo-nazi is more justified as calling the whole Ukrainian army fighting in the Donbas since 2014 fascist – the parallel would be for you to restrict the term to the Azov – though only about 30% of them self identifies as fascists.
The Ukrainians weren’t fighting IN the Donbass. They were fighting THE Donbass and getting their nazi asses kicked by the locals.
The Wagner group are a professional military group who have a solid reputation for bravery in combat – unlike the West’s Blackwater who have an a reputation for killing civilians in a blind panic at traffic circles.
The Ukrainians were fighting in the Donbas, a lot of the people of the Donbas having fled to the Ukrainian side, you may not know but a majority of he people living in Luhansk and Donetsk not being ethnic Russians or feeling like being Russians – that is why even with Russian support they only managed to hold on to about 1/3 of Luhansk and Donetsk – but sure there was no threat of the Ukrainians taking the rest.
As for Wagner being a professional military group – yes that is one way to call mercenaries – and they certainly have a reputation for ruthlessness
https://www.csis.org/analysis/massacres-executions-and-falsified-graves-wagner-groups-mounting-humanitarian-cost-mali
https://www.respublica.lt/neonacizmas-rusijos-samdiniu-tarpe
So clearly not the upright soldiers you make them out to be.
There was no threat of Donbass liberating the balance of there lands was because there was a diplomatic solution in place – Minsk 2, heard of it?..
It was cobbled together by the major European powers after the Ukrainians were beaten so bad that if they didnt sign on it would have been destroyed utterly, like what’s happening now that they shirked it.
The agreement would have preserved Ukrainian sovereignty over the Donbass and that is certainly off the table now.
Something else you failed to mention is Wagner is in demand worldwide. African countries are hiring the firm just as they’re kicking out the colonial powers who have failed to meet there needs. It looks like a bright future for the Russian firm while it’s US competition keeps changing its name to shake off its past history of scandal.
Yes – two points: 1) did I say that they were a threat of liberating the remaining 2/3 of Donetsk and Luhansk? 2) They need not be a threat to the remaining 2/3 to be a threat in general – as in the Ukrainians had to deploy very large forces to keep them in check and provide counter fire to prevent them from increasing the area under their control.
Neither party kept to the points in the agreement – so pretty much a useless agreement.
100% agreed.
Indeed I failed to mention this and how corrupt regimes all over the world now can also call upon the Wagner group to deal with restive populations – though at least one of the links I provided spoke of their crimes in some of these countries.
Yes the market for mercenaries is unfortunately a very lucrative one and having more companies to chose from is going to develop the market even further.
so pretty much a useless agreement.
A useless agreement because it was signed in bad faith as per Nazi M.O. and by the admission of Poroshenko and Merkel…
Better do your homework.
And because it was forced upon the Ukrainians after Putin had broken the previous treaty – so perhaps you’d better do your homework.
The Russians weren’t even in the Donbass and not party to the treaty other than as interlocutors.. You better just sit down.
Russia was party to the Budapest Memorandum a treaty logged with the UN:
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=0800000280401fbb
Do try to keep up!
And when was this “treaty” ratified in the US Senate?
I’m waiting….
I am not aware that it was not ratified if you have evidence that it was not please provide it.
Even if it was not ratified by the US senate that would not mean that the other parties were free to break it, as it was a multi nation agreement.
Finally the claim was that the Minsk agreement was signed in bad faith – and my response is that if so, it was not the West/Ukraine that started signing deals in bad faith it was the Russians – as they signed the Budapest memorandum in bad faith – so the potential non ratification of the US does not enter into the bad faith on the Russian side.
You’re not aware of a lot of things – like the fallacy of proving a negative.
As for being free to break the terms of the agreement you should tell that to the US government who broke it when they leveled sanctions on Belarus in 2013, also party to the agreement.
Want to know who wasn’t party to the agreement?.. The Nazi scum who seized control of the country in a violent coup. Russia had no agreement with them and were under no obligation to surrender there Black Sea Naval base in Crimea to a hostile and illegitimate entity.
The neocons didn’t anticipate the annexing of Crimea or the resistance in the Donbass. They didn’t anticipate Russian reaction to the troop build up by Ukraine designed to wipe out the Republic of Donetsk and Lugansk. They don’t anticipate the possibility of sparking a Third World War by their proxy war on Russia either.
You neocons don’t anticipate a lot of things…. Stupid neocons are going to get us all killed.
I am aware of the problems proving a negative – however the non ratification of a signed treaty is an event – whereas it is difficult to find the ratification of any of the treaties the US has ratified
I can easily dig up the countries that have not ratified e.g. the Paris climate agreemet:
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/08/13/countries-yet-ratify-paris-agreement/
Because not ratifying a deal that a country has negotiated and signed is very much a story whereas ratifying it is not.
The Budapest Memorandum did not prevent a country from being sanctioned – it was a promise to respect their territorial integrity, borders and their sovereignty – that the US applied sanctions to Belarus did not violate any of these promises.
That the Nazi scum in Moscow did not feel obliged to respect their agreements is exactly what was the issue – you sign an agreement with a country that includes all future administrations if you chose to break the treaty then you have to find a reason to justify that and just calling people Nazi scum does not suffice.
The neocons were not
Do you have documents to prove when this build up took place – because what I have seen post dates the Russian build up – so you have a timeline problem. The Russian build up started in March/April 2021 – when do you have evidence for a Ukrainian build up to wipe out Donetsk and Luhansk?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_to_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#:~:text=In%20March%20and%20April%202021,annexation%20of%20Crimea%20in%202014.
See it is when you have to resort to name calling and insults that I know you have lost the debate based on the arguments.
– however the non ratification of a signed treaty is an event –
It’s a non-event, because it’s not a treaty… Damn, you’re slow!
The Budapest Memorandum did not prevent a country from being sanctioned –
You don’t know much about the contents your “treaty”…
The agreement specifically states the signatories will ” Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest “.
Do you have documents to prove when this build up took place..
Ukraine positioned half of it’s armed forces ( estimated at 125,000 ) on the contact line with Donbass prior to Feb, ’22 intervention by Russia. In addition to NATO’s naval activity in the Black Sea. Stepped up cross border attacks by Ukrainian nationalist militias were reported by various sources. These attacks have been continuous throughout since the ceasefire in ’14.
There’s also Poroshenkos and Merkel’s admission to the true nature of ceasefire.
The March / April ’21 activities were a scheduled military exercise that came and went without incident.. Another non-event.
name calling and insults
Not an insult, just an observation.
It is a treaty and deposited as such with the UN – that was one of the links I gave you so yes in the eyes of the UN it is a multilateral treaty:
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=0800000280401fbb
I knew this, but the reason that the US applied sanctions to Belarus was not because they wanted them to subordinate themselves to US interests i.e. it was not as if the US had been rebuffed in some demand and then applied sanctions – it was because Lukashenko disregarded the interests of his own citizens and undermined the democratic processes of his own country – it is there in the open for you to read – not one of the sanctions have anything to do with subordination to US interests:
https://www.state.gov/belarus-sanctions/
So no you did not have evidence that Ukraine build up forces and Russia only responded to this build up – actually you had evidence that it was the other way around – Russia started its build up in March/April 2021 and Ukraine only responded to this.
Yes since Russia helped start and fund an insurrection in the Donbas.
A ceasefire forced upon them by the Russians – and as is indeed the point of this debate, that the Ukrainians may have made a deal to obtain a ceasefire in bad faith is not so strange given that Russia had signed the Budapest Memorandum in bad faith.
No it was the exercise the continued into the SMO – Russian troops never went home from that exercise
Yes I noted a few more of that kind of unsubstantiated observations in this comment – good to know you still feel so perturbed that you feel the need to make such observations!
The difference between an agreement and a treaty is the same difference between a guarantee and an assurance… legal obligation. Budapest has none.
The agreement was signed in ’94 – long before the “Orange Revolution”, Maidan or anything like hostilities appeared on the radar… Of course it was signed in good faith, don’t be ridiculous!
I don’t put much stock in anything the US State Dept. claims are it’s reasons for violating an agreement only that I recognize that the agreement was violated by the US with respect to Belarus in ’13 and Ukraine in ’14.
My evidence of Ukraine’s military build up are the 100,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers rotting in the fields of Donbass.. 100,000 and counting.
As for my dubbing you a neocon is “unsubstatiated” – “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”
No a treaty is a formally concluded and ratified agreement between states – that is it – and once deposited with the UN in its library of treaties that’s about it.
That there are no agreed upon consequences of breaching the Budapest memorandum does not make it a non treaty.
The treaty had the simple concepts of respecting the borders, independence and sovereignty of the states involved – that also involves respecting that a government may be ousted and thus the treaty still applies, if the Russians think that the Maidan revolution somehow nullifies the treaty then the Russians obviously did not sign it in good faith.
You would have to show evidence that the US broke the treaty i.e. applied sanctions to Belarus owing to it not subordinating itself to US demands – otherwise we only have your unsubstantiated assertion that it was so against my substantiated that it was not. As for the US being in breach of its treaty obligations towards Ukraine, well Ukraine would have to make that claim – I am not aware that Ukraine has made any such claims, come to think of it I do not remember Belarus making such a claim either – so is it just you?
Not even the Russian MOD makes this claim – so I take it that this is just you making unsubstantiated claims on behalf of others:
The Russian MoD figures for February to 21.September 2022: 61,207 killed, 49,368 wounded
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
Know many neocons who objected to the war on Iraq (both of then) were against the intervention in Libya and against the Sanctions on Iran under Trump – I have made these views clear here on this site so…
Know many neocons
The company you keep…
Not a single one – I live in Denmark, we are by most standards not a country which is very conservative in any sense.
If they’re anything like you they have no sense at all.
A judgement from a person incapable of providing evidence for most of his assertions and failing to argument for them too – I think they would be happy about that.
They’re easily amused.
The Ukrainians weren’t fighting IN the Donbass. They were fighting THE Donbass and getting their nazi asses kicked by the locals.
The Wagner group are a professional military group who have a solid reputation for bravery in combat – unlike the West’s Blackwater who have an a reputation for killing civilians in a blind panic at traffic circles.
Pure casuistry … your forte.
It is when people are reduced to unsubstantiated insults that it is known that they have lost the debate based on the arguments – or: if you have points to make – make them – this is just sad!
We want to aid Ukraine in restoring its proper borders and to give it as strong a negotiating position as we can.
And specifically what is our interest in that?
Nothing really, we just want to F Russia up at low cost to ourselves. But it is expected that we have some opinion about the outcome. The difficult will come ( hopefully not) if Ukraine starts to lose. Then we have to have the discipline to keep our troops out, but remember to shed a tear when it is done.
Low cost?.. We’re into this at a $ billion a month – a real bargain huh? Ukraine started losing in 2014 but have no fear about US troops. We wont sacrifice New York for Lvov.
Relative to our 800 billion a year, year and year out expenditure to counter the Soviet er Russian threat yes. Real cheap in fact.
There wasnt any Russian threat until we poked the Bear.
Well as frequently pointed out, they have a lot of nukes
As do we but unlike them we’ve used them.
Why are disputes between two dictatorships any of our business?
We don’t like one of them, and the other one we kinda do.
We like them to death, it seems.
Linda graham, please shut the f*** up.
Remember late Justin Raymondo called SenbGraham’s antics “Auntie Lindsey clutching her pearls”.
He cannot protect zUS borders, and i in debial about Zelensky prosecuting Christians, raiding churches and monasteries.
If there is anyone in danger it is Zelenski. He does not permit any withdrawals from utterly indefensible possitions killing in the process mostly the Orthodox Christians he despises! 75% of Ukrainian population is Christian Orthodox. And while he was forever accusing Russian orthodox for meddling, but lately he hit on Ukrainian Orthodox Church looking for traitors, Smart move, these are 75% of people he lied into voting for him. He is tge one that needs to watch his back.
He does not permit any withdrawals from utterly indefensible possitions
Makes you wonder whose side he’s really on…
Bianca hits this one clear out of the solar system…..
Sounds like another Israel,
Loose lips sink ships. And his cannot come looser than that.
Anti-ship missiles sink ships, including carriers and their supporting battle groups.
Like the Moskva for example.
Shortly after that there was a window this war could be ended. It should have. But it needed statesmen. Sadly there are no people who see and think clearly on the Western front. There are cheerleaders, fanboys, chickenhawks, useful and useless idiots, fools and jokers abound, as now Graham set out to prove not only beyond reasonable, but all possible doubt. But no one of any use.
Window? Putin was furious after his ship went down. How was that a window?
Was he as furious as LBJ in the contrived false flag op in the Tonkin Gulf that eventually got over 50,000 Americans killed for nothing?
Which has nothing to do with Stof claim that “Shortly after that there was a window this war could be ended”.
He probably genuinly was. That is the point. That was a great symbolically victorious moment for Ukraine. And Putin is still a very smart calculating realist whether he’s happy, sad or mad. You don’t stay on top of that very steep pyramid by being a hysterical basket case.
“very smart calculating realist ” LOL. What in this war makes you believe that?
Yes, you do have a point, the facts on the ground imply that I should add cautiously operating to his defining characteristics.
Exactly – thank you for being supportive and describing a recent case of that.
You welcome.
Loose lips sink ships.
So do Israelis.. Remember the Liberty!
1. The Liberty did not sink. 2. The attack was clearly a case of the “fog of war”. Once Israel realizes the mistake they send search and rescue helicopters out. They also send ships out to aid the Liberty.
Friendly fire happens in all wars so get over it. Heck the US sunk two of its own subs in WW2.
You’re full of sh!t up to your eyeballs, pal—-“fog of war” my ass. Read the testimonials of the survivors!
Too bad you can’t write a comment without using bad language. Of course the survivors view that they were attacked because they were. But it was not a deliberate attack by Israel. There were communications failures and the Liberty understandably fired back which did not help. No it was truly a friendly fire incident which happens in war.
Just….OMG 🙄🙄🙄
Any other “fog of war” incident like that by any other nation would have resulted in immediate attacks.
Strange how a modern navy would not recognize the American Flag and continue carrying out an attack for a long period of time.
Wonder why they didn’t attack and attempt to sink one of their own ships in that “fog of war”?
There is no records of Israel providing any assistance to the crew of the Liberty after their attack either
This appears to be a pretty accurate discription of the attack and the aftermath of the attack:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/israel-attacks-uss-liberty#:~:text=In%20all%2C%2034%20Americans%20were,Liberty%20for%20an%20Egyptian%20ship.
During the Six-Day War, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attack the USS Liberty in international waters off Egypt’s Gaza Strip. The intelligence ship, well-marked as an American vessel and only lightly armed, was attacked first by Israeli aircraft that fired napalm and rockets at the ship. The Liberty attempted to radio for assistance, but the Israeli aircraft blocked the transmissions. Eventually, the ship was able to make contact with the U.S. carrier Saratoga, and 12 fighter jets and four tanker planes were dispatched to defend the Liberty. When word of their deployment reached Washington, however, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered them recalled to the carrier, and they never reached the Liberty. The reason for the recall remains unclear.
Back in the Mediterranean, the initial air raid against the Liberty was over. Nine of the 294 crew members were dead and 60 were wounded. Suddenly, the ship was attacked by Israeli torpedo boats, which launched torpedoes and fired artillery at the ship. Under the command of its wounded captain, William L. McGonagle, the Liberty managed to avert four torpedoes, but one struck the ship at the waterline. Heavily damaged, the ship launched three lifeboats, but these were also attacked–a violation of international law. Failing to sink the Liberty, which displaced 10,000 tons, the Israelis finally desisted. In all, 34 Americans were killed and 171 were wounded in the two-hour attack. In the attack’s aftermath, the Liberty managed to limp to a safe port.
Thanks for setting that dipsh!t right, Rightster! I’ll also add the the Amerikkkan guvvmint ordered the survivors to keep their mouths shut under threat of death to them and their families.
Looks like we have a Zio-apologist in our midst, but coming from him, it surprises me not at all.
And from wiki. There are records of Israel helping after the mistake.
two IAF helicopters were dispatched to Liberty’s location. The helicopters arrived at about 3:10 pm, about 35 minutes after the torpedo hit the ship. After arriving, one of the helicopter pilots was asked by his ground-based controller to verify that the ship was flying an American flag. The helicopters conducted a brief search for crew members of the ship who might have fallen overboard during the air attack. No one was found. The helicopters left the ship at about 3:20 pm.
At about 4 pm, two hours after the attack began, Israel informed the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv that its military forces had mistakenly attacked a U.S. Navy ship. When the ship was “confirmed to be American” the torpedo boats returned at about 4:40 pm to offer help;[47] it was refused by the Liberty. Later, Israel provided a helicopter to fly U.S. naval attaché Commander Castle to the ship.[48] (pp. 32, 34)
It didn’t sink despite Israel’s best efforts and the bravery of her crew whose lives you clearly hold in utter contempt… Judas.
The Liberty was a SPY SHIP, and the ones responsible for the attack were the Arabists in the State Department and Navy that sent the ship into a war zone to spy
There were Russian ships in Israel’s self declared war zone, nothing happened to them.. The pigs knew better.
Please explain how I hold the crew lives in contempt?
Please GFY.. I don’t talk to traitors.
This fellow gives “chicken hawk” a bad name … seriously? “We’re in it to win it”? Who’s we, chief, and what are we winning? It’s just a bunch of absolute nonsense. But of course if someone in Russia had said the same, there’d be hell to pay, right?
We’re just very very lucky the other side here has been calm and forbearing with all these provocations.
“the other side here has been calm and forbearing” If you mean bombing the power supply for civilians is calming and forbearing, than I agree.
No, I mean not responding to provocations like calling for death of the president of the country that we are not at war with, supposedly. Mr Graham is not Ukrainian you realize?
Since he brought up the subject maybe it’s old Linseed that needs to be taken out.
And maybe commenters here should give anything even remotely hinting at death threats a wide berth, since they violate our guidelines.
Well then I presume you will preemptively ban Graham, right?
He didn’t even take down that comment! So it doesn’t appear that he banned anyone.
Exactly – why is that article appearing here that violates “the Guidelines”?
“The guidelines”
1) do not forbid reporting news; and
2) are commenting guidelines, not authorial guidelines for the site.
😂
Good one Bear!
Why is this story even on your site then? Thomas so we can’t comment on a threat you printed on your site? Stooges all of you!
In what dream did you fantasize that you can’t comment on the matter?
OK then how about framing it as a moral question- if it’s morally acceptable for Graham to call for Putin’s murder then would Putin be justified in calling for Graham’s murder? Graham doesn’t have nearly the security Putin does and the US is fairly awash in guns and nutjobs so a few words from Putin might actually get it done, though of course Russia would no longer have Graham to quote anymore.
Try reading what I wrote.
I didn’t delete the comment.
I didn’t ban the commenter.
I just used the comment as a convenient anchor for a cautionary note about how far to not take it.
Well then Putin should call for Graham to be murdered, only he wouldn’t because then he would look like a fascist buffoon too and besides which Graham is more asset than liability.
refrain from “death threats…since they violate our guidelines”?
yea…though i’d rather it was clear ‘our guidelines’ meant the commenting community as well as the website rules…
Let me put it a different way:
I am not the editor of the articles published at Antiwar.com, and therefore have neither any interest in, or information concerning, the authorial guidelines.
I am the moderator of comments posted at Antiwar.com, and therefore have both an interest in, and information concerning, the commenting guidelines.
When death threats are covered in news articles and people start discussing those articles, I usually (if I remember) take the opportunity to caution about making such threats in comments. Those, I can, and am expected to, do something about. The articles are someone else’s problem.
Maybe you can use your influence to send a comment to the people who determine what articles are included here, if they include calls for assassination/threats to kill leaders of nations. That way the guidelines for commenters would be held in the same “free speech” mode as the articles being commented on.
I wouldn’t “use my influence” in that way because I’m not an idiot, and if I did it would be ignored because my bosses aren’t idiots.
Reporting that someone called for an assassination is not the same thing as calling for an assassination.
Thomas, the phrase “drawn and quartered “ keeps coming up in my head…just mentioning in passing, of course😉
though we’re not disagreeing here, not sure you entirely grasped the purpose or point of my post:
1/ my comment was in response to yr 1st comment – and restricted itself to commenters, not authors; the author/poster point is clear and i did not challenge it.
2/ as well as my 1st comment – which was ‘yes’ w/a caveat involving the ideal of ‘self-regulated’ communities – i gave yr 1st comment a thumbs up
3/ to be clear, i found the comment in question to be distasteful and stupid – stupid in both content and expression. if yr a moderator, then you know i occasionally ‘traffic in violent ideation’ and sometimes profanity…which, though i ‘may have my reasons’ i accept may mean censorship here.
4/ note that – though i did not make it explicit – my 1st response to you carried the idea that there was already ‘self-regulation’ going on (an idea supported by the cross-partisan range of ‘likes’) – a pov i believe underpinned your comment too.
5/ didn’t know til now you were a moderator.
best
What a sick bastard…
While the senator might be right in the sense that it is unlikely that the west will offer Putin any deal that will be acceptable to him, I think it is in general very unwise to call for the leader of any foreign nation to be taken out – saying that he does not believe that there will be peace while Putin is in office would be a less dumb formulation (though likely not a wise one).
Putin is probably the best hope for peace in terms of Russian leadership. If he’s deposed he’ll either be replaced by someone more nationalist/imperialist/militarist/hard-line than himself, or there will at least be a period of chaos when itchy trigger fingers are less constrained.
I’m not all that convinced that he will be replaced, but if he is then I think it highly likely that it will be by someone more nationalist/imperialist/militarist/ hard-line – I’m also quite sure that there will be a period of chaos when Russian itchy trigger fingers are less constrained in any such transition.
But I’m also quite sure that any more hardline replacement for Putin will find it well neigh impossible to change the Russian prospects in any dramatic positive way. Their problem is as I see it not that Putin is holding them back but that there are no easy way to win this conflict which yields a positive outcome.
Potential winning options and their problems:
1) Nukes – breaks the nuclear taboo and will get Russia isolated by even supposed friends like India/China
2) General conscription (large force) – Russia could not supply the troops they deployed in February and they cannot amass troops now on account of HIMARS
3) Outlast the Ukrainians – problematic as the Ukrainians are getting tougher not weaker, while the Russian economy is getting weaker faster than the western economies supporting Ukraine are running out of the ability to support Ukraine.
4) Any other suggestions?
So any hardliner taking over after Putin will face a period where he is less difficult to oust and where he is unable to make things look much better for Russia (that period would probably be less than a year). So a more hardline replacement is as I see it more vulnerable to a less hardline replacement taking over.
Available evidence and reasoned analysis both suggest that Russia launched the initial invasion with too few troops because of erroneous assumptions about the US-NATO response. Of course it could have supplied more troops, many, many more, if it had planned to do so. It’s Russia. It had active-duty forces five times Ukraine’s before the invasion and total military personnel and reserves of about 3.6 million to Ukraine’s 1.2 million.
Russia has been and is massing many more troops now. No weapons systems provided to Ukraine are preventing that, nor could anything US-NATO-Kiev prevent that without triggering a disastrous escalation.
If Ukraine were “getting tougher,” Russian forces wouldn’t be inching forward in some important and heavily-defended areas along the line of contact and holding the line everywhere else. And that is what is actually happening.
In and around Bakhmut, for instance, Kiev is sacrificing an apparently endless stream of troops and equipment in a failing attempt to stop Russian advances against extremely robust and extensive fortifications that had been built expanded and upgraded over a period of eight years before the February invasion. Even Ukrainian troops are calling it a meat grinder.
No they had been stopped before the NATO response managed to up deliveries – but sure it got worse from there.
Well we shall see – so far the evidence that this is not the case I think you will just reject – but I can tell you that it is complaints from Russian soldiers on the front suffering from shortages owing to failing supplies.
Quite right the Ukrainians will not fire first on soldiers in Belarus.
Why not? The fact is that Russia has lost territory each of the last 4-5 months – that they are taking a few hundred meters to a kilometer at times near Bakhmut is not evidence that they are winning – just that they can in areas get local superiority (a little like the Ardennes offensive only much smaller and taking much less territory).
That is not how the Ukrainians are seeing it, their representation is that the Russians are wasting some of their better troops storming head on some of the strongest defensive works on the front.
I’m sure the truth is somewhere in between – but I do wonder why the Russians are storming a very well fortified place!
Exactly. We need to be aware that not all choices available are a Goldilocks bowl that is just exactly what we want in that moment.
If Western leaders had wanted a liberal in the Kremlin, they could have supported Putin. Putin is a liberal conservative who is considered a pro-Americn traitor by the nationalists. No, the West wants an ultra-nationalist psychopath like Navalny, who will destroy the Russian Federation by inciting ethnic hatred in the regions of the Federation.
“considered a pro-Americn traitor by the nationalists” Those folks must be nuts.
Not really. Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin have for the last 30 tried to appease the West in the hope of being accept as equal partners. The nationalists have always said, don’t trust the West, they will betray you. The nationalists were right all along. They should not have trusted the West.
There will be no end to the war as long as Putin is in charge. The same thing happened in the US. LBJ was replaced by a militant maniac who escalated the war to the point of insanity. Eventually the American oligarchs did a cost/benefit analysis on the war, dumped Nixon and exited Vietnam ignominiously.Same thing happened to the Soviets and the US in Afghanistan, the French in Algeria and Vietnam and the Portuguese in Africa.Imperial powers can’t believe they are being defeated by weaker nations so the hawks usually take control and double down. But the escalation does not work in the long run. Ironically, it is the hawks who usually end asymmetric wars after they realize escalation leads to blow back that makes the resistance stronger.
Getting rid of Putin is a question for the Russian people and/or the oligarchs.The US should not get involved. Any attempt by the US to bring about Putin’s demise or overthrow would lead to blow back and be counter productive. But the war won’t end until Russia withdraws and that means replacing Putin.
Better check your time line. Nixon ended US involvement in Vietnam before he was ousted in a palace coup.
Better do your homework!
“he was ousted in a palace coup.” LOL. Where do you come up with these?
Will Russia offer Biden any deal that would be acceptable to him?
Biden is I think going to avoid doing an Anthony Eden on Ukraine.
No, because Russia wants to take over Ukraine.
Russia doesn’t want an aggressive alliance threatening them./
When such a goal is officially accepted by White House, US will become a legitimate target for a preventive nuclear attack. Neither China, not any other country, would be able to condemn Russia if it happens.
They will protest simply because the fallout from retaliation will be so severe as to ruin their economies too – the idea that any nation would go to all out nuclear war because an other nation has it as their official goal to have someone “takes their leader out.” is and expect the rest of the world to accept the very dire consequences for them is absurd.
If Russia had the official goal of having someone “takes Biden out” I can guarantee you that there would be plenty of protest from even NATO countries if the US decided to preemptively pollute very large parts of the northern hemisphere just because they didn’t like the oblique threat.
Neither the threat nor an actual assassination meets the specification of the Russian policy for the use of nukes. And I’m pretty sure the Russian leadership doesn’t confuse Graham’s nonsensical spewing with a legitimate threat by the US.
Also, Michael64 is right. The whole world would condemn even the threat of a nuclear response and all the survivors would condemn an actual nuclear attack, although the world would probably be focused on more immediate issues and public statements would have limited reach anyway.
For sure, the condemnations would reach those still alive within shouting distance.
The attempt to kill the head of state is a casus belli. It was always so. In other words, such an action justifies the full scale war.
Recently Putin told that they are thinking about changing the military doctrine. At the moment, Russian military doctrine, unlike American one, doesn’t consider the possibility of the preemptive nuclear attack. This situation is going to be changed.
From the practical viewpoint, it makes a perfect sense. Most likely, in a couple of years US will develop the hypersonic weapons. Russia, at the moment, is producing hypersonic nuclear weapons on the massive scale. If the military conflict is unavoidable, it is logical to attack US before they created the hypersonic weapons and will be able to attack Russia themselves. There is a good chance that US capacity to retaliate would be neutralized.
No. There is virtually no chance that a retaliatory strike could be prevented.
Many of the 400 or so siloed Minutemen are in hardened silos which would likely withstand anything but direct strikes. And it would be foolish to imagine that there would be anything like 400 direct hits in a preemptive strike.
There are nearly 350 Trident II SLBMS wandering the oceans in about 20 nuclear submarines. On average, each Trident II carries four warheads. It would be beyond reckless to believe that anything like a majority of the Ohio-class boomers could be found and destroyed in a first strike — or any other strike. Oh, the Brits’ Vanguard subs would have to be taken out also.
US strategic bombers (B-52, B-1, B-2) armed with air-launched cruise missiles, gravity bombs, etc. are scattered around the planet and in any situation tense enough make a nuclear exchange at all likely some of them would be airborne 24/7. The chances that enough of these aircraft could be destroyed to prevent a horrific counter-strike are slim and none.
NATO members France and the UK are nuclear-armed and would certainly launch retaliatory strikes if Russia attempted a preemptive strike against the US. If Russia were crazy enough to try to take out the nuclear arsenals of those nations preemptively, it would be necessary to destroy the UK’s Vanguard-class nuclear subs. Likelihood of success? It would be a stupid bet.
In Europe, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey host US nukes as members of the US “nuclear sharing” program. Does anyone really imagine that Russia would attempt to destroy all those weapons preemptively, or that it could be successful if it did?
Now, for a reality check, let’s imagine that a preemptive strike did succeed in preventing retaliatory strikes by all of the forces and systems noted above. And let’s ignore the likely long-term effects of the strike itself. What do you think would be the attitudes and postures of the entire rest of the world toward Russia? What policies do you think the other nuclear-armed nations — Israel, Pakistan, India, China, North Korea — would adopt toward Russia in the wake of such an attack?
It’s ridiculous to think that a preemptive strike could successfully prevent disastrous retaliation and it would be fully batshit-crazy to be willing to risk the aftermath of such a strike even if someone mistakenly imagined that it could be successful.
There should be no debate. That there is, is scary. We. are. all. dead.
Yup, crazy-ass scary.
No one can win a nuclear war.
Red, you analysis is spot on. A preemptive will not succeed in knocking out the USA ability to counter strike. It is call MAD for a reason.
They would not have to condemn Russia, because Russia would cease to exist. The US Navy will drop 1700 + nuclear warheads on Russia with in a hour after a Russian nuclear attack.
You conveniently left out the part where we were dead, and the US ceased to exist.
Did you read the whole thread? Mikhailovich already handled that fact in his initial comment.
If Russia has a sufficient number of the hypersonic missiles, US Navy will never have this hour. Anyway, from the viewpoint of common sense, the best time for Russia to start the war is when US is about to begin to produce the hypersonic missiles and Russia already has plenty of them. It gives to Russia a real chance to win. Some military experts in Russia are sure about that.
Please tell me how a hypersonic missile can hit a submarine? Even if it has nuclear warhead. It is a big ocean and subs are hard to find.
Graham has always been a war hawk, makes you wonder if hes compromised and they have something on him, or he just serves his donors and not the people.
If foreign governments don’t have dirt on Graham they aren’t trying.
He serves his donors and himself. He leaches onto any one who currently controls power. And they are all one big club anyway.
Imagine if a Russian said the same about Lindsay Graham.
I wish they would.
Graham better watch out who he bumps into. Remember Kim Jong-dan?
…………………….
Wouldn’t be the same. Putin is in a far more authoritative position that Graham can ever hope to be. It would be the same if they said that about any leader of any NATO country.
Mr Graham is certifiably nuts. the US political scene would be better off if he and some of his hawkish cohorts were not in power or existance. If the balloon ever goes up Lindsay will be cheering the destruction on.
And Putin will just stand by and let it happen ? , it`s idiots like this who bought about WW1 / WW2 and every other war since .
Touche’.
How much longer must we suffer Graham? Only so much ignorance can be tolerated.
At least 4 more years.
Saying it all out loud now.
Lindsey Graham talks big about Putin invading Ukraine, but says nothing about our southern border.
We’re sick of all these frauds.
Do your damn job and pass legislation to secure our borders. Otherwise shut up!
He and the gloperialists he serves need a constant flow of cheap labor, so no border security for us!
You don’t need cheap labor anymore. At least, but when everyone is broke. This influx of people is for something much more sinister. Why else leave the border open, then lie about it.
That robot McDonald’s is rocking in Texas. No labor needed there.
Here’s the authority the US Constitution gives Congress over immigration:
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
I guess you forgot about the money!
Really? I know that you are not so unaware to think that Congress confines itself to the authority granted in the Constitution. I am certain that it does give the Congress the power to declare war. Hmm, I wonder why they aren’t doing that? Seeing as how concerned they are with Constitutional authority!! Oh, it most certainly does not give them the authority to assassinate foreign leaders!
The Constitution does define who is a “citizen,” in the 14th Amendment.
And it defines who can be president in Article II. So ? Neither have anything to do with immigration.
The restriction of immigration laws in the Constitution had a stated shelf life that has come and gone. This implies that from then on Congress DOES have the authority to do what every other nation in the world does.. We’ve been over this before.
Better do your homework.
My homework was probably done before your mommy put you in your best pair of short pants and ushered you onto a school bus for the first time.
If you did the lesson didn’t take.
Citizens have rights. Non-citizens can be denied a vote and sent packing. That is why the 14th Amendment protected former slaves by making them citizens. Citizen and immigration are closely linked, but of course not the same. I did not mean to suggest identity.
According to the US Constitution, non-citizens have rights as well (see Rehnquist’s explanation in his opinion in US v. Verdugo-Urquidez — constitutionally there are rights of citizens, rights of “persons” — that’s everyone — and rights of “the people,” which includes both citizens and long-term residents). For example, the right to trial by jury refers expressly to “persons,” not to “citizens.”
And Article I, Section 9 specifically forbade Congress to regulate immigration prior to 1808, after which a constitutional amendment would have been required to confer such a power on it. That was a restriction it recognized and abided by for 90 years until after an activist Supreme Court miracled up such a power out of thin air.
“Citizens have rights.”
And non-citizens as well. Rights are not granted by the state, they are inherent in our nature as human beings. As far as the Bill of Rights goes, I believe the word “citizen” does not appear once, while the words “person” or “persons” appear numerous times.
The Constitution makes no reference to any common crime,but government has assumed the right to regulate burglary,murder ect.Rightly so.
Tell me you either have never read, or don’t understand the meaning of, the US Constitution, without telling me you either have never read, or don’t understand the meaning of, the US Constitution.
The Constitution specifically, clearly, and unambiguously forbids the federal government to regulate immigration.
“We’re sick of all these frauds” all?? Than why was he reelected with 54% of the votes?
South Carolina. ‘Nuff said.
Was he? *WAS* he? 🤔
Yes. He was.
Because our media are all in for forever warfare>?
Money. Hershal Walker got millions of votes for goodness sakes.
“Do your damn job and pass legislation to secure our borders.”
Any political attempt to “secure our borders” is not only unjust and unconstitutional, it is no more effective and enforceable than similar attempts to use the violence of the state to keep people from ingesting certain substances or forcing them to be more charitable.
Freedom of movement is a basic, inalienable, individual right.
Not true. Freedom of movement is limited by property rights. You don’t have the freedom to camp outside my bedroom window.
Similarly, if freedom of movement is a basic right, why is anyone worried about Ukraine’s border? Russians should be able to go where they want right?
“Russians should be able to go where they want right?”
Absolutely, Russians should be able to peacefully cross the border from Russia into Ukraine. The Russian military, however, has absolutely no right to aggressively wage warfare against Ukraine, shooting, bombing and otherwise mass murdering innocent people. Again, you are mixed up here, peaceful immigration is NOT the same as aggressive warfare, in fact, they represent opposite paradigms.
Peaceful is determined by the people who’s country you are entering. Nothing is mixed up here. If the majority of US citizens — especially those in border states don’t want people streaming across the border, then those people are not “peacefully entering.” They are entering against the will of the people. They are crossing private property. People have been robbed, and had their property stolen.
Why do you think the people of Martha’s vineyard freaked out when only 50 people were dropped off there? What about Chicago, and New York? More people “peaceful immigrants” were sent to those two places, but it remains the same issue. The people of those two cities didn’t want to deal with the influx either (or simply didn’t have the means).
In our current state of affairs, we have the US government acting against the will of the people. These people aren’t “immigrants” they are part of a mass migration program spearheaded by the UN.
There are two giant NGOs that are facilitating the mass migrations here in North America, and in Europe.
Check out “sdgs.un.org/2030agenda”
** The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also referred to as UN Agenda 2030, represent a comprehensive global effort to reform governance and the economy to be more in line with what the UN considers to be sustainable.
The Chinese Communist Party boasted that it played a “crucial role” in the SDG plan, which UN leaders said represents a “master plan for humanity” that will “transform our world.” The UN is involved in this effort as part of “The International Organization for Migration (IOM)” and the “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).” **
Do you think that we should have no border with Mexico or Canada?
“Do you think that we should have no border with Mexico or Canada?”
In a word, yes. I am a free market anarchist, therefore I don’t believe in the institution of the state. If there were no states, there would be no need for borders between states. People should interact voluntarily with each other. States (governments, if you will) interfere with that free association. I think that as long as states exist, borders should not keep people, goods, and services out, but they should keep the depredations of existing states in, that is, they should not allow the scope of control by the state of its residents to exceed the limits of its own borders. That is why I am a non-interventionist on foreign policy. The US government should properly have no legal authority over anything outside its borders.
The mass migration from Latin America is a prelude to setting up a North American Union. I see no reason for me to support people who have bred irresponsibly and eaten themselves out of house and home.
“I see no reason for me to support people who have bred irresponsibly and eaten themselves out of house and home.”
The poverty in Latin America is because of the corruption and depredations of their governments, not because of any inherent irresponsibility on the part of their people.
Studies have shown that Latino immigrants are family oriented, hard working, and with a lower incidence of violence (even “illegal” immigrants) than the native born.
I don’t know about you, but what I fear is the power of our central state, not some nebulous, mythical, danger from “those people.” Any policy changes that reduce the power of the central state are to be applauded and supported, including the power to control immigration through state violence.
Peaceful is determined by the people who’s country you are entering. Nothing is mixed up here. If the majority of US citizens — especially those in border states don’t want people streaming across the border, then those people are not “peacefully entering.” They are entering against the will of the people. They are crossing private property. People have been robbed, and had their property stolen.
Why do you think the people of Martha’s vineyard freaked out when only 50 people were dropped off there? What about Chicago, and New York? More people “peaceful immigrants” were sent to those two places, but it remains the same issue. The people of those two cities didn’t want to deal with the influx either (or simply didn’t have the means).
In our current state of affairs, we have the US government acting against the will of the people. These people aren’t “immigrants” they are part of a mass migration program spearheaded by the UN.
There are two giant NGOs that are facilitating the mass migrations here in North America, and in Europe.
Check out “sdgs(dot)un(dot)org(slash)2030agenda”
** The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also referred to as UN Agenda 2030, represent a comprehensive global effort to reform governance and the economy to be more in line with what the UN considers to be sustainable.
The Chinese Communist Party boasted that it played a “crucial role” in the SDG plan, which UN leaders said represents a “master plan for humanity” that will “transform our world.” The UN is involved in this effort as part of “The International Organization for Migration (IOM)” and the “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).” **
This movement of people is not “natural.” It’s part of a larger plan that ignores the sovereignty of the US.
“Peaceful is determined by the people who’s country you are entering.”
No, it is determined by each individual person in the country you are entering. Property rights should not be subject to a vote.
In case you weren’t aware, each person has different wants, desires, needs and tastes. Which is why we have both McDonald’s AND Burger King.
That is the way we should approach immigration, with those who wish to associate with immigrants, and those who do not wish to associate with immigrants, peacefully coexisting, neither forcibly interfering with the other. Freedom of association. Freedom of contract. In a word, freedom.
“Freedom of movement is limited by property rights.”
I agree. So let’s follow this out to its logical conclusion.
I am a property owner on the US side of the US/Mexican border. I voluntarily choose to allow a Mexican national to cross the border and enter my property. I make an agreement with a similar property owner whose property is adjacent to mine, but further from the border, to allow the immigrant I am “harboring,” and all further Mexican immigrants, to enter his property from mine.
Now let’s extend this argument. Suppose I can get an agreement with a sufficient number of contiguous property owners to make the transfer of Mexican immigrants to a point 100 miles from the border simpler by building a highway across our properties Note that no property rights have been violated in this process.
Now your precious socialist/fascist federal government steps in and says, sorry, I have not allowed these “illegal” immigrants to be here, I am going to use gun violence to forcibly deport them. Now, exactly who is obeying natural law, and who is violating property rights?
You see, you are confusing an international border with a property line. One of these is an arbitrary gang turf line, claiming to control who has the authority to rule whom, and the other is a somewhat more just delineator, which sets who legitimately controls a physical object or land area. And if I wish to “harbor” an “illegal” immigrant on my property, whether it be land, housing, workplace, school, medical facility, etc., I am sorry, but your precious socialist/fascist federal government has nothing legitimately to say in the matter.
The construct of a Mexican crossing the US/Mexican border is isomorphic with that of a Californian crossing the California/Nevada border. In terms of individual rights, I see no difference.
The simple fact of the matter is that open borders is the only immigration policy which is consistent with economic liberty and property rights. Think about it, and use reason, don’t simply have a knee jerk reaction based on your prejudices.
You may be thinking, “this guy must have an axe to grind here.” In a sense, I damn well do, in that I think Latina women are some of God’s most beautiful creations, and would welcome having more of them in this country. Not to mention, my grandfather, Everrett Stroberg, was a Swedish immigrant, and if he hadn’t been allowed to come here, I wouldn’t be here. Wait, you say, “I would never stop a white protestant from coming here.” Yes, Swedish immigrants were mostly white protestants, but, believe me, that didn’t stop a lot of nativists of 120 years ago from making the same arguments about Swedes as you do about Latinos today.
You said, “…don’t simply have a knee jerk reaction based on your prejudices.” I’m not responding because of “prejudices.” I don’t care where someone comes from, that’s not the issue. I explain this in one of my other replies, I had to try to post it twice, making sure that there are no webpage links. I think that they block that.
I had a link to the UN Agenda 2030 website, where they detail what’s really going on — the UN is behind mass migrations all over the globe. None of these mass migrations are “natural” or “spontaneous.” They are coordinated often without the help of the country the migrants are to occupy.
And what is your response to my primary argument about property rights? I see not one word.
“UN Agenda 2030”
The United Nations has pretty much become a puppet organization of the United States. If there is a UN “master plan” to increase immigration into the United States, it is pretty much guaranteed that this is being put in motion by the government of the US, the same government you wish to be in charge of immigration. And, that’s my point, governments shouldn’t be controlling anything, but society should evolve from the voluntary choices of individuals in a free market.
That gets to my point. The US citizen is no longer being represented, at least not at the federal level. In fact, that’s been the case for 50+ years. It’s just never been more obvious than it is now.
The WHO wants to have the authority to control what happens in every member country on the planet — in the event of a pandemic. Which of course we are not in the middle of, but the emergency order has still never been rescinded. It probably never will be. The “health emergency” is how all of these western governments are enacting their totalitarian powers.
And you want to talk about property rights. Look at what they are doing in The Netherlands. Forcing farmers NOT to farm? The entire world is caught up in this mess.
https://ogre.substack.com/p/the-g20-vaccine-passports-and-social
I think Trump caused the WEF cult followers to require fast forwarding their plans, causing more of their agenda to be exposed.
“I think that they block that”
Your comment with link came through fine. I’ll take a look when I have time tomorrow.
Thomas L. Knapp has explained to me that it is actually disqus who sometimes filters out comments if their algorithms think it is spam, not antiwar.com. If that ever happens to you, and your comment is not spam, send him a note and let him know, and he can restore your comment for you.
Yeah, I’m not talking about the person(s) that run “antiwar.com.” I just meant Disqus in general. I don’t think I’ve ever seen where web links were allowed I would have assumed that was a Disqus thing. Because they don’t want someone linking to something that redirects to an illicit site, or something of that nature.
Disqus does allow for web links, but including them will often result in a comment being put in the “spam” section where a moderator has to look at it and approve it or delete it. That happens even with links that are obviously not e.g. selling penis pills, essay writing services, or porn.
That makes sense. With my site, I don’t see enough traffic to worry with that. I just moderate all of the comments. As long as they are real, I let them through. I’ve never really had an issue with people threatening anyone or anything like that. Mostly just bots/ads or real people discussing a topic.
Thanks for letting me now how it works with Disqus though, I might end up using a service like this at some point.
Disqus does have a lot of problems. I’m always looking at the latest commenting services with an eye toward recommending that Antiwar.com pick a better one, but the two considerations are:
1) It has to be better than Disqus; AND
2) It has to look like it will be around for a while.
A long time ago, I used a really great commenting service on my own blog. Can’t remember the name of it at the moment. Then it got bought out by another company and almost instantly became worse and then disappeared entirely. So unless I’m using “native” commenting in e.g. WordPress (it’s not terrible for small sites), I go with Disqus these days.
What an utter scum bag. Why on Earth is this area across the globe a part of our interest? Do we need to invade the Chinese for the Uiguhrs? Graham is a PoS swamp creature.
The people of SC are seriously messed up for voting for this turd. Considering the last few “elections” one had to wonder, do they?
No Lady Lindsey, it is you that need to be taken out…!
Calls for assassination of named individuals are criminal. As they should be.
Like Putin? That is not the question.
Another vulgar American Psycho. Imagine uf Putin suggested Biden be taken out. It would be interpreted as an open declaration of war.
Far less than that has been described as “an act of war” by the mongers.
Lindsey has a reliable Christian Zionist base down in SC who fully believe in end times prophecy and all that bizarre Evangelical takfiri steamy dogshite. Blame the diabetic moron voters who drink the hate Socialism koolaid they get from the MSM. You can’t fix stupid.
I have little doubt that the irony of your last sentence after the preceding word salad was totally lost on you! Hate socialism koolaid from the MSM?!!! The people who worship government in all forms?!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The only government they worship is Israel’s
Huh, Israel’s? OH, one of those. Yeah, they don’t pimp for Democrat government?!! On what planet do you live?
On Zion, just like everybody else.
You are a trifle acerbic.
Just a trifle?! Gotta try harder!
You spelled trifling asshole wrong.
Is Senator Graham putting the idea out there to take Putin down? “Hellfire” missiles?… War is so fun Sen. Graham! Playing with fire?… We could, through such machinations, wind up at war with Russia. Two nuclear countries doing a face-off.
Give the guy some nice pyamas, a cape and a ticket to Kiev. He sounds like he knows what he’s doing so Supergraham can take Putin out himself. Break a leg and don’t forget to take some photo’s. Let us know when it’s done. In the meantime let the grown ups get on with the serious stuff.
He is being quite helpful to Putin in particular, and to Russia in general.
This is about the best thing he possibly could say assuming that his goal is to get people to turn away from the US and towards Russia.
Well yeah. Putin said his goal was to end the war as soon as possible and that he hoped to accomplish this through diplomacy. If contrasted with Zelensky’s jingoistic performance art and Graham’s self-humiliating tantrum fancying himself John Wick Putin comes off as the epitome of reason and reasonableness.
I don’t know. When Bush made his gaffe and said Iraq, instead of Ukraine, when he described Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as brutal and illegal and then after correcting himself, he muttered “Iraq too”. So, after the guy that launched our illegal invasion of Iraq admitted it was “brutal and illegal” it stayed in the news for a couple days and was gone. And since Graham is just repeating himself, I kind of doubt it will turn anyone away from the US. Unfortunately.
Oh no it will not. Compared to some “opinionmakers” in Europe Lindsay Graham’s remarks are extraordinarily timid.
In Europe a chief editor of the Dutch “New Isrealite Weekly” Bart Schut, in real Christmas spirit put it this way: “100.000 killed Russian soldiers, a beautiful Christmas present to the Ukranian people. That means 100.000 Russians who are not any more murdering, torturing, raping and pillaging.”
When mild criticism arose from the tone-police on his page he predictably doubled down. He added that he hoped by next year it would be 200.000 dead Russians but expected that take a little longer.
This is the journalistic standard in Europe now. For people who can read this shite:
https://twitter.com/bpschut/status/1605952140261875712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1605952140261875712%7Ctwgr%5E66cbeb5895642339a42459e812762a368f3dbde8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bnnvara.nl%2Fjoop%2Fartikelen%2Fenige-kerstgedachten-rond-deze-oorlog
Oh no it will not. Compared to some “opinionmakers” in Europe Lindsay Graham’s remarks are extraordinarily timid.
In Europe a chief editor of the Dutch “New Isrealite Weekly” Bart Schut, in real Christmas spirit put it this way: “100.000 killed Russian soldiers, a beautiful Christmas present to the Ukranian people. That means 100.000 Russians who are not any more murdering, torturing, raping and pillaging.”
When mild criticism arose from the tone-police on his page he predictably doubled down. He added that he hoped by next year it would be 200.000 dead Russians but feared that might take a little longer.
This is the journalistic standard in Europe now. For people who can read this shite:
https://twitter.com/bpschut/status/1605952140261875712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1605952140261875712%7Ctwgr%5E66cbeb5895642339a42459e812762a368f3dbde8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bnnvara.nl%2Fjoop%2Fartikelen%2Fenige-kerstgedachten-rond-deze-oorlog
What a flat out moron. Making illegal statements that violate international law surely won’t help prevent WWIII. And I’d caution that historically, Russia is the one that takes people out, I’d be careful where you order food you nit wit.
He’s a moron, but where’s this law that you think makes his statement “illegal?”
The Protected Persons Convention very narrowly bans killing heads of state/heads of government/diplomats while they are engaged in official duties or travel abroad, but doesn’t ban talking about killing them, or actually killing them while they’re lying in bed or driving through their nearest McDonald’s.
Assassination is supposedly banned by executive order in the US, but executive orders banning assassination, even if actually obeyed, don’t apply to the speech of US Senators, which is not in fact assassination.
I don’t know the answer to that, I’m not a constitutional lawyer, or a lawyer of any kind. I think the better question might be, even if there is a law who enforces violations? It takes us to the same place. Leaving Putin to take matters into his own hands which can quickly escalate out of control with tit for tat assissinations, which is why it should be illegal to do it if it’s not.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/07/what-are-the-rules-for-government-sponsored-assassinations.html
Furthermore, used moron figuratively, we both know which lobbys sponsor his words. He’s a tool.
Theoretically Thomas, though…
Wouldn’t it be illegal for yours truly to publicly call for, say, ByeDone’s assassination?
I’m pretty sure that’s be a jailable offense.
Yes, that would be a federal crime.
But and I aren’t in the club, and Graham is. The courts have broadly interpreted the Constitution’s speech and debate clause to protect a member of Congress speaking “in an official capacity.” So if he’s speaking “as a Senator,” he can say just about anything he wants.
Doesn’t that only apply when he’s speaking in the Senate.
No, the courts have interpreted the clause much more broadly. Thomas is correct.
And the statement as quoted above is:
There’s nothing illegal about that, no matter who utters it. It’s not illegal, it’s protected speech.
The incitement exception to 1st Amendment protection applies to speech that is intended to incite imminent and illegal behavior and is further likely to incite such behavior. The remark by the cretin Graham doesn’t come close to that definition.
Yup, Thomas, just another case of the rich and powerful having a different system of justice, I guess.
What is Graham’s motivation in all of this? Recently he said that “Ukrainians will fight to the last man” as long as the US and Nato continue supplying weapons. Back in 2013, he was on the Maidan together with McCain to fire up the anti-government protests, which led to the nationalist coup of 2014. In 2016 he assured Poroshenko and Ukrainian troops that the US will do everything necessary for Ukraine to win against Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWHviwLMy8&t=1s
I’d say it also works the other way round. If the Russians would take out Selenskiy and his nazi companions, there would be nobody to force the Ukrainian people into the meat grinder. So far, the Russians have refrained from “shock & awe”. As Putin said, the Ukrainians are slawik brothers and he regrets the killing, but they are completely saturated with russophobia through years of brainwashing.
Looks like Lindsey does not like Putin.
I do not like a lots of people, but cannot understand the mental basketcases that feel entitled to pronounce death sentence on other people — especially this mental creep that purports to speak for American people. These are situations when a senator should be impeached. Yet, looks like business as usual.
Appeasement and pandering to the creep is the only sensible course, right gun junkies?
You’re texting this from the frontlines I presume? So how is it going guy? Packed a nice costume for the victory parade?
Surely Nabi is just taking a short break from his volunteer assignment with the “International Legion of Defence Of Ukraine,” where he and his comrades are heroically holding off the Russian forces attacking Bakhmut.
Can’t imagine him being an hypocrite, so anything less than that just wouldn’t do.
Graham is part of all that is wrong and evil in Washington.
Large antiwar protests are being planned in USA & across the world. If you can’t make it to the city near you, plan an action locally on your main street
Hope the People of Russia can also join this global protest.
They’re doing more than protesting.. They’re ending it.
They could, but will not. They feel — whether we approve or not — as targets of NATO war plans. They are not going to shackle their government in defending tge country.
There are always people ready to protest anything anywhere. But who really represents the majority opinion?
In Russia, there is a silent majority that supports the intervention.
In NATO world, it is the sienced majority that supports the tensions. It has been silenced by the media and politicians through acts of omission and commission. It is ironic, but ot is NATO populstion that are not informed — not Russians or other countries. By witholding information or by gross misrepresentation of events — we have manufactured a narrative consent . No light can shine on such constructs.
Russia is much more united now under the leadership of Putin than a couple of years ago. It looks, at the moment, only about 20% of Russian population feel anti-Kremlin.
Bianca, Do you realize that this Don Julio is the character who accused YOU of posting while intoxicated…??? His other pseudonyms include Don. Bacon, which he largely abandon ed after his post with that name started gathering large numbers of negative responses.
He’s just jealous he was a lawyer in the Air Force and wasn’t authorized to wear a Missileman badge or Wings denoting a Rated Officer with an Aeronautical Rating – in his case he would have preferred a loaded B-52 nuclear bomber. Graham = Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.
Wings denoting a Rated Officer with an Aeronautical Rating –
So fairies really can’t fly..
Putin says Lady G must be taken out
Very, very sick individual.
He has always been a warhawk. And don’t forget his prior best bud McCain got the ball rolling on the deadly chaos in Ukraine. Even shared a stage with a notorious Nazi, Oleh Tyahnybok, cheering on his followers, the Svoboda.
Photo from the December before the coup. Tyahnybok is to the right of McCain. The photo on the right is Tyahnybok doing the “salute”.
https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/washington-post-john-mccain-nazi-ukraine-e1535563685107-1024×512.jpg
But not very far right of McCain. 😎
Good one.
In fact:
Lindsey Graham & John McCain in Ukraine – Preparing for a proxy war with Russia (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWHviwLMy8&t=8s
They were joined at the hip.
I remember McCain standing next to a headchopper in Syria too. Good news is we don’t have to worry about that anymore.
“Good news is we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
I am probably going to get a lot of flack for this comment, but we should not wish ill on anyone, including even McCain and his family. No person is perfect. While those who advocate aggressive warfare are, by our standards, performing a great evil, in other ways, we are too. Keep in mind that mass murderers generally have more troubled souls than their victims. We can only hope that McCain is now in a place where he can actually peacefully learn about the wrongness of what he did on Earth. And the same goes for all of us.
I’d say the same thing if he were my father. But my dad wasn’t a “boots on the ground” kind of guy. I won’t stop celebrating deaths of lifelong warmongers and I won’t apologize for it. If there is a god judging me and we meet up someday, so be it.
I wasn’t worried about God judging you. If I believe McCain can be forgiven, certainly he is not going to judge you harshly.
I just always like to keep in the back of my mind that everyone is imperfect in different ways, and that, John McCain, for all his faults, must have had at least a little good in him.
While I find McCain’s position on aggressive warfare to be deplorable, I have trouble saying, “there is simply no excuse for him thinking that way.” None of us really know what we are doing when we cause hurt to others. I honestly believe that the vast majority of what we gauge as evil is nothing more than ignorance.
I don’t expect you or anyone else to simply immediately agree with me on this, as it took me many, many year to adopt this viewpoint.
I see so much acrimony in the world, and, I can only say to myself, “you don’t have to be part of the hatred all around us.” Without hatred there would be no war.
There is a line, in my mind, that human beings don’t get to cross over and come back and be forgiven. And McCain was STILL on the other side of that line when he died.
“There is a line, in my mind, that human beings don’t get to cross over and come back and be forgiven.”
I think your position on this topic is far more common among people than mine is. Certainly I have encountered it with many of the “Christians” I have known who entertain a vindictive streak. But, you come by it honestly, and are not setting yourself up as supreme judge of yourself or others, convinced of your qualifications to enter heaven while everyone you disapprove of is going to the other place. For this, I am grateful.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-vladimir-putin-helped-resurrect-the-russian-orthodox-church/article16361650/
Whenever someone like Graham calls for Putin’s assassination or calls him a dictator, I post articles re Russian church construction that allow a discriminating perspective. President Putin has a popularity rating among Russians hovering near 80 percent.
I’m mildly shocked a Google search allows such access.
I should be grateful I wasn’t raised a Southern Baptist. https://baptistnews.com/article/lindsay-graham-says-he-goes-to-church-about-three-times-a-year-but-wants-supreme-court-nominee-to-rate-her-faithfulness-on-a-scale-of-1-to-10/
And with Graham providing such helpful Russian propaganda – how DARE they publish to their people exactly what Graham stated – his rating will stay high.
Lindsey the armchair warrior, ‘We’re in it to win it”. You or your kin aren’t fighting girly boy. These people seem completely oblivious to what happens if Putin goes. It seems that there are many behind Putin that would be more than willing to go all in as opposed to Putin’s measured approach.
If Putin goes, no ones knows what would happen.
Yes, we do. His very careful, measured approach to dealing with Ukrainian unresolved Soviet baggage, would be abandoned. There are already many in Russia who believe that Putin’s patience with Europe was a bad mistake, and attempts at establishing a modus vivendi with Europe and US were delusions,
There may becsome truth to that. But Putin believes in measuring twice before cutting.
Public also believes he was wrong in waiting eight years to help Russiophone population that was deprived of any political or cultural rights in Ukraine. Not to mention persecutions, murders of journalists, politicians, judges, teachers.
What will happen is rather obvious.
A new, more direct approach to military solution.
And as Europe and us in US serm to be tired of good, comfortable life and are itching for war — it serms everyone will get their wish.
I’m not sure we know what course a Russian leadership replacing Putin would take, but having paid attention to the complaints of dissidents with influence that I have been able to access I think Bianca is quite right.
The likely result of Putin being “taken out” would be the ascension of leaders who are much less careful and measured in conducting the war and who are more likely to make a bad situation even worse, especially considering the ongoing recklessness of the US-NATO.
I’d say it also works the other way round. If the Russians would take out Selenskiy and his nazi companions, there would be nobody to force the Ukrainian people into the meat grinder. So far, the Russians have refrained from “shock & awe”. As Putin said, the Ukrainians are slawik brothers and he regrets the killing, but they are completely saturated with russophobia through years of brainwashing.
domestic politics waggin the foreign policy dog – tryna’ outflank the trump derangement syndrome’d, war-rabies-slavering dems, sure -. still, they’ve got their own batshit crazy original anti-communist stupid fucks – and this one would clearly suicide the world for party advantage faster’n you can say bob’s yr dumb fuck uncle
Give warmonger Lindsey Graham a gun, ship him to Ukraine, and let him be cannon fodder. Give him a purpose for his useless life.
Lindsay is the Medvedev of USA.
Medvedev has real power and influence. Graham does not.
I think Medvedev is probably playing the “bad cop” role, but I also think he’s serious.
The people of South Carolina, whether they’re conservative, centrist or liberal should demand Graham resign but of course won’t and will re-elect him to misrepresent South Carolina and the USA.
If a politician from another country said Bush should be assassinated because of his wars, Obama should be assassinated because of his wars (including the one in Libya) and drone strikes and Trump should be assassinated because of his drone strike to kill Soleimani and for scrapping the Iran Deal and rolling back trade with Cuba, politicians from the West and Japan would call it an act of war.
Bush, Blair, Obama, Trump, Netanyahu and many other current and former leaders and politicians are much bigger warmongers than Putin and belong in the ICC.
The apparent fact that L Graham is elected and keep being elected shows either that democracy does not work or there is some terrible malady in the electorate!!!
Washington University School of Medicine released a study last September that reported COVID victims were 43% more likely to develop mental health disorders.
Leslie Graham had COVID in August 2021.
Any one can take him out.
Very sad the quality of political leadership we have at every level in the US.
It’s the best government oligarchs can buy.
True, and since Tulsi and Lara cannot be bought,they have been pushed aside.
The thing with Tulsi isn’t that she can’t be bought. It’s that she doesn’t stay bought.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/a-german-china-russia-triangle-on-ukraine/
A German-China-Russia triangle on Ukraine
Lindsey Graham is past morally deranged, he’s mentally deranged and, in my opinion, Lindsey belongs in an institution for the criminally insane.
Vladimir, what are you waiting to unleash the SMERSH units on those psychos ???
Didn’t Bush walk back after suggesting in the run-up to the 2000 election Saddam be taken out ? Media was surprised to hear his response . That reaction mystified moron Bush .
Our religious leaders like Falwell and Robertson had suggested killing elected foreign leaders .
Lindsey Graham is a loser . He wants to survive one more day . Everyday he is forced to look for a straw to clutch at ,now more so since the predictable insults and condescending advices from Trump have become too radioactive for him to agree and embrace . He knows that he has no platform other than war to survive .
The New York Times is gonna punish Michael Crowley for posting this in their real-time commentary:
https://archive.vn/pO6dG
Correction though: Despite the leftist propaganda machine, Trump wasn’t impeached. The Democrats in the House voted to impeach him for suggesting that Ukraine look into Biden’s blatant corruption, the Senate didn’t, so he wasn’t impeached. Yet the media keep saying he was, drumming it in until people believe it.
He was impeached. He wasn’t convicted.
“Sen. Lindsey Graham Says Ukraine War Will Only End If Putin Is ‘Taken Out’ The hawkish senator says the US should give Ukraine Gray Eagle drones to ‘kill tons of Russians'”
Targeting President Putin would most likely be the final straw leading to a final nuclear exchange between the Russian nation and the evil US and UK.
President Putin is a more moderate Russian leader who enjoys the support of 80% of Russian citizens. There are other hardliner nationalists who would like to flatten Ukraine with nukes and also would unleash reprisals on any and all nations targeting Russia’s economy and infrastructure. President Putin is a counter to the hardliners in Moscow.
In case Lady Lindsey doesn’t realize, the person waiting in the wings if Putin is removed is Dimitri Medvedev, who has taken a much stronger stance against the U.S. and Ukraine and suggests that Russia should use all means at it’s disposal to end the war. So Lindsey, watch what you wish for.
The tragi-comic part of this is that if someone in Russia called for Graham to be ‘taken out’ OMG the howls of indignation from Washington would be deafening. Be careful when advocating this path, Senator- there may be a Brutus in the shadows watching you as well. And why not? You’re as much a combatant as any soldier on the field- why should you enjoy immunity from having war visited upon you or your family?
1. Remember that HE is the bastard of Billy Graham…anyone knows WHO I am referring to? GOOD!
2. He is NOT a politician. He is a corporate product working on behalf of (mostly) military, big oil.
3. His mentors, the is-ra-hellis, assassinate domestic and foreign elected leaders and persons of their choice all the time.
4. He has NO class, no scruples. He is a right-wing religious NUT-case.
5. For New Year I sincerely, from my heart, wish him a massive, instantly deadly heart attack. Amen.
What goes around comes around.
I blame putin for all this because he is Mr nice&soft, this war was over in one week if putin was Mr……..
Sen. Lindsey Graham Says Ukraine War Will Only End If U.S. Is ‘Taken Out’