Does Russia now control 30 percent of Ukraine?

originally posted by: PatriotGames4u
a reply to: face23785


We didn't have a defense agreement with Kuwait, but we did with Saudi Arabia

To my knowledge we had no such agreement with Saudi Arabia either. If you can point me to the agreement you're citing, I'd love to read it. It's entirely possible I've just never heard of it before.

and we did not wait for anyone to approve anything, thousands of Marines at 29 Palms boarded hundreds of civilian planes that had landed in the desert around the base less than 12 hours after the first Iraqi entered Kuwait.

These Marines were chosen because the entire division's forward depolyed equipment and supplies, enough for 60 days of all out war which is normaly stored at Okinawa, was already docked and being unloaded in a Saudi port for a planned excercise a couple months after that.

This in no way refutes what I said. As I'm sure you're aware, we initially sent only a defensive force to Saudi Arabia in Operation Desert SHIELD. We later built up an offensive force and, only after the U.N. approved it, attacked Iraq and its forces to eject them from Kuwait in Operation Desert STORM. They were different operations.

It's also a matter of record that we got the Saudi King's permission to deploy forces to his country for Desert Shield. Having one ship there prior to that for a planned exercise is hardly an example of us acting unilaterally "without anyone's approval." That ship certainly had SA's permission to be there for said exercise.

Now, did we need the U.N.'s approval before launching Desert Storm? Of course not. The U.N. has no authority over us. But the fact remains we did not launch the operation until the U.N. had authorized it.

a reply to: face23785


Yes, we obviously wanted UN approval before the big stuff, and this was especially important due to the very large number of countries that fought alongside us, but we did not wait for the UN to defend Saudi Arabia, we went there to fight the minute iraq dared step over the Saudi border, which we did in Khafji well before the UN resolutions you referred to.




As far as I know, there is no official agreement to defend Saudi, but every president since carter had publicly pledged to do so in exchange for Saudi oil stability, and those words mean something to Americans, regardless of party affiliation.

It's the same reason we are currently helping Ukraine defend itself now, because we gave our word that we would when Ukraine gave up it's soviet nukes and chem/bio weapons.




Unfortunately, a former president didn't keep that promise in 2014, so we're now dealing with a larger scale invasion this time.

originally posted by: PatriotGames4u
a reply to: face23785


Yes, we obviously wanted UN approval before the big stuff, and this was especially important due to the very large number of countries that fought alongside us, but we did not wait for the UN to defend Saudi Arabia, we went there to fight the minute iraq dared step over the Saudi border, which we did in Khafji well before the UN resolutions you referred to.

Definitely incorrect. The U.N. resolution authorizing the Gulf War was passed in 1990. Battle of Khafji was in 1991.

That's really beside the point anyway, because for us Khafji was a defensive action. No U.N. resolution is needed to make a defense legitimate under international law. From the beginning my point here has been that we sought U.N. approval before we took offensive action. You may be confused by my loose wording on the previous page, where I said "we didn't do anything" until we got the U.N. resolution. You have to look at the context of the paragraph. The entire paragraph is about Kuwait. We did nothing about liberating Kuwait until the U.N. resolution was passed. Defending Saudi Arabia was another matter. We got the King's approval to deploy our forces to SA to defend them.

It's the same reason we are currently helping Ukraine defend itself now, because we gave our word that we would when Ukraine gave up it's soviet nukes and chem/bio weapons.

Not really. I understand your confusion though because this has been commonly misrepresented by the media and their "experts" throughout coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. They refer to the security guarantees from 1994 from when we were trying to get Ukraine to give up their nukes. In the agreement, we pledged not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, to respect (not defend) their sovereignty, to respect their economic integrity, pledged not to invade them, and pledged to provide assistance to them only if they were attacked with nuclear weapons. That part is misread by some people as meaning we would defend them from any attack, but it was specifically worded to be about nuclear attack. In effect, we became their 2nd strike capability if they were nuked. That was what convinced them to give up their nuclear weapons.

Russia signed that agreement as well, which they broke by invading in 2014 and 2022, but under that agreement we are under no obligation to defend Ukraine against Russia unless Russia uses nuclear weapons in the conflict.

To be clear, I support supplying them with arms and I wish we gave them more before the invasion happened. If they had sufficient conventional capability, Putin may not have invaded. And I agree we should have responded more strongly in 2014.

a reply to: ScepticScot


1:25






russian military intentionally attacking both civilians AND a clearly marked PRESS vehicle on an open road far away from any Ukrainian military positions.

originally posted by: face23785
a reply to: putnam6

I agree with most of it. It says pretty much what I said. Events after the Soviet war in Afghanistan led bin Laden to hate the U.S.

It doesn't even address how much of our equipment ever fell into bin Laden's hands from the Soviet war in Afghanistan. From what I've read/seen over the years it was very little, if any.

There's also some mistakes in it. The U.S. was not an ally of Kuwait, not a "MILITARY" ally or any other kind. The U.S. had no obligation to defend Kuwait when Iraq invaded them in 1990. We had some economic ties to them, that was all. There was a reason why we didn't do anything until after the U.N. had approved it. If we had some kind of treaty with Kuwait to defend them, we could have acted without the U.N.'s approval. We had no such treaty or any kind of defense agreement with them, so we had to wait for U.N. authorization.

Don't get me started about the first Gulf War plenty of evidence Saddam's talks with April Glaspie made him believe all America would do is condemn his attack on Kuwait in the media. No hard evidence but it's not an incredible leap of logic that Bush wanted or manipulated this to happen

a reply to: putnam6


We said that iraq's oil well issues with Kuwait were none of our business.

We did not say we would stand back while iraq invaded Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to steal all of their land and resources and expand iraq.



But she probably qualifies as one of the worst diplomats in the past 70 years for not understanding what iraq was saying and planning, she thought iraq was discussing using it's military to take some controversial oil wells near the iraq/Kuwait border, not invade and completely destroy two peaceful and non threatening neighbors.

a reply to: face23785


The U.N. Security Council declared on August 2 1990, the very day of the invasion, that the Iraqi action of ignoring the basic order of the international community was a violation of international law and adopted Resolution 660, which required the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Iraqi forces.


This resolution did not authorize any use of force against iraq, that came later.






On 29 November 1990, the Security Council passed Resolution 678 which gave Iraq until 15 January 1991 to withdraw from Kuwait and empowered states to use "all necessary means" to force Iraq out of Kuwait after the deadline. The Resolution requested Member States to keep the council informed on their decisions. This was the legal authorization for the Gulf War, as Iraq did not withdraw by the deadline.




This resolution authorized force as of Jan 15, 1991.

iraq invaded Saudi 2 days later, and were stopped at Khafji.





Desert Storm, the ground war, started on Feb 24, 1991, and lasted less than 4 days.

a reply to: ScepticScot

Russia has gone to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

Compared to the US style of Shock & Awe, the Russians have the high moral ground.

originally posted by: Salander
a reply to: ScepticScot

Russia has gone to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

Compared to the US style of Shock & Awe, the Russians have the high moral ground.

As reported by Russian state media.

Reality seems somewhat different.

a reply to: putnam6

You are very well informed. Few people remember the relevance of April Glaspie's testimony before Congress.

It's another of those inconvenient facts the media and government prefer to sweep under the rug.

The US is likely the most bellicose government on the planet, for decades at least.

a reply to: Salander


You think shock and awe targeted civilians?

With the exception of iraq unexpectedly using a military building as a civilian shelter, those were probably the safest 30(ish) days Iraqi civilians had seen for decades.



Try looking for an aerial view of what's left of Marioupol or Popasna for perfect examples of what russia is doing to Ukrainian cities and towns wherever it can.

russia never invested much in modern systems, so they intentionally shell cities to rubble.

Occupied or not.

Nobody in the West has done any of that for at least 70 years.

Nobody.

Anywhere.

originally posted by: PatriotGames4u
a reply to: ScepticScot


You think shock and awe targeted civilians?

With the exception of iraq unexpectedly using a military building as a civilian shelter, those were probably the safest 30(ish) days Iraqi civilians had seen for decades.



Try looking for an aerial view of what's left of Marioupol or Popasna for perfect examples of what russia is doing to Ukrainian cities and towns wherever it can.

russia never invested much in modern systems, so they intentionally shell cities to rubble.

Occupied or not.

Nobody in the West has done any of that for at least 70 years.

Nobody.

Anywhere.

I think you may have replied to the wrong person.

a reply to: ScepticScot


I sure did.

a reply to: PatriotGames4u

Go back and look at Baghdad after our shock and awe campaign. No sewers, no water. Sanctions against medical products after the first war, children with radiation and other poisoning.

Compared to the US style of war in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, what the Russians have done in Ukraine comes across as downright civilized.

a reply to: Salander

Precision strikes against specific targets.

Not indiscriminate bombing/shelling and flattening residential areas.

originally posted by: Salander
a reply to: putnam6

You are very well informed. Few people remember the relevance of April Glaspie's testimony before Congress.

It's another of those inconvenient facts the media and government prefer to sweep under the rug.

The US is likely the most bellicose government on the planet, for decades at least.

FWIW the Gulf War 1.0 really helped me become interested in world affairs and current events, used to discuss it over and over on old message boards.

Oh I think we had to do something, the question is was she intentionally vague, as she was directed by Bush to be vague, or was she just poor a conveying the intended message

I like to think she did what Bush wanted her to do, Initially, he could have been ambivalent but as a former spook, the importance of the oil in the region alone means he was more than dialed in.

a reply to: PatriotGames4u

That was a long way of saying I was right. Thanks.

originally posted by: Salander
a reply to: ScepticScot

Russia has gone to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

Compared to the US style of Shock & Awe, the Russians have the high moral ground.

I would think this was satire if I didn't know better. That's how ridiculous this post is.

a reply to: Salander

"what the Russians have done in Ukraine comes across as downright civilized".

You have rather a novel view as to what "civilized" behaviour is.

And that's putting it mildly.

That, and your rather sad, self loathing whataboutisms.