Ummmmmm, are we at war with Russia via the Ukraine?
Shouldn’t we think about this first…
Russia-Ukraine war: NZ entered war without public consultation – former Labour politician
A former senior Labour Party member says New Zealand has effectively gone to war without consulting the public by joining Nato’s efforts to defeat Russia’s military objectives in Ukraine.
Mike Smith, who served as general-secretary of the party from 2001-2009, told RNZ the government was helping to put back a negotiated peace settlement indefinitely by sending Defence Force personnel and resources to Europe as confrontation between Russia and the Western military alliance continues to escalate.
Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February (local time) claiming its “special military operation” would remove anti-Russian neo-Nazi elements entrenched in Kyiv’s institutions of state and protect Russian-speaking populations in the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk after eight years of civil war. It wants a security guarantee its neighbour won’t join Nato, which it views as a hostile threat to its borders.
Smith fears New Zealand could now find itself “on the wrong side of history” by helping prolong a conflict in the interests of waning US hegemony while risking its own interests in the Asia-Pacific region, and increasing the risks of a nuclear war.
New Zealand is also inadvertently helping to arm neo-Nazi militias and far-right groups in Ukraine with modern weapons, which could be used elsewhere, he said.
Former minister in Helen Clark’s Labour government, Matt Robson, echoed his concerns, and called for an informed debate in Parliament over the country’s increasing involvement in the conflict.
…I’ve never been a fan of Putin.
I’m not a Lefty who looks up to or admires him.
I think he is a thug who has used appalling authoritarian tactics to hold onto power.
That’s not to say I don’t agree with his criticism of the West and the abomination that is the US Military Industrial Complex.
I’m not fan of Washington or Moscow.
I argued that Putin would invade the Ukraine because of the attempted coup in Kazakhstan in January and that his view of NATO expansion had become an existential threat.
The West should have ensured Russia’s collective sense of national security was respected.
We didn’t.
Putin’s bluff means he has to double down on the war in Ukraine…
US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William Burns said on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes doubling down on the military conflict in Ukraine will improve the outcome of the war.
…Putin’s desperation of course is now being purposely manipulated by the West…
Behind Austin’s Call for a ‘Weakened’ Russia, Hints of a Shift
When Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declared Monday at the end of a stealth visit to Ukraine that America’s goal is to see Russia so “weakened” that it would no longer have the power to invade a neighboring state, he was acknowledging a transformation of the conflict, from a battle over control of Ukraine to one that pits Washington more directly against Moscow.
…protecting innocent Ukrainians from invading Russians is now secondary to a wider American goal of significantly weakening Russia.
Those are two very different goals and of course the American Military Industrial Complex is already making $33Billion in military aid…
Biden says U.S. sending Ukraine another $150 million in aid
President Joe Biden on Friday authorized the shipment of another $150 million in military assistance for Ukraine for artillery rounds and radar systems in its fight against Russia’s invading forces.
Biden said the latest spending means his administration has “nearly exhausted” what Congress authorized for Ukraine in March and called on lawmakers to swiftly approve a more than $33 billion spending package that will last through the end of September.
…$33billion and a new military aim to weaken Russia.
This stopped being about saving innocent Ukrainian lives sometime ago. This is now about making the American Corporate Military Gods of War rich.
So again, just to be clear, are we now at War in the Ukraine to prolong American Military Industrial Complex profit margins?
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It’s the price of ongoing admission to 5 eyes and well worth paying with China coming for pacific fisheries.
Ardern said NZers don’t need assault rifles to kill farm pests but then signs off on our military training foreigners to use howitzers, weapons of mass destruction. Can’t the Nazis just use YouTube to figure it out, why does it take 30 NZ Defence personnel to train fascists on how to use this penis extension? And Ardern dancing around the question of whether NZ is arming and fighting with Ukraine, of course we are. Helmets and vests are military hardware and intelligence support means we are helping one side in the conflict. And though we aren’t sending Howitzer cannons themselves, training people to use them is just as bad. Ardern is such a contradiction, crying for the children one day and arming nutters to the teeth the next.
Ethan Woke, pest destruction versus invasion of sovereign nation? Really? You can argue all you like about why Russia invaded Ukraine and were they provoked etc, but I have never seen anyone dispute that Ukraine as a nation voted overwhelmingly for independence at the fall of the Soviet Union. You can be sympathetic to either the Russian view or the Western view but either way its invasion of a sovereign nation and has major implications ( remember appeasement in the 1930’s?). If you want to stop Russian annexing the Ukraine there are only so many ways you can go about it. Sternly worded rhetoric combined with sanctions is not enough.
A deer, wallaby, rabbit, or possum is just as dead be it taken out by a bolt action rifle, or an assault rifle with a large magazine. I think you are confusing removing assault weapons with some moralistic anti death crusade. We haven’t removed the right to kill things, we have just given people the chance to get away/run when a psycho decides its two legged targets that are in season, but they have to stop and reload more often.
My point was that A-pop Ardern can’t be for gun control while simultaneously being a global gun runner.
I TOLD My KiwiSaver manager to buy military shares!
But no, all I got in reply was a load of moralising and preaching about “ethical investing”
Can someone point me to a fund manager that lives in the real world?
Haha. I also had the same line of discussion with my Kiwisaver adviser recently. Like yours it was all about ethics, sustainability, morality….
The interpretation of such in their eyes anyway.
While most kiwisaver schemes are quite moribund it seems the only ones making any money these day are the not terribly ethical, sustainable or moral fossil fuels, foreign banks, drug companies and military hardware manufacturers.
So are there any kiwisaver schemes available for those total pricks who really don’t give a rats arse about the planet or it’s inhabitants and just want the best possible returns, and fuck all the social justice kindness or Mother Earth morality lectures?
provocateur
I’m no constitutional expert but surely any new Zealand government getting us involved in a European war, to the extent that this one has, should have required a parliamentary debate. I mean, under the Westminster system, isn’t this precisely what the “debating ” chamber is intended for?
Fair point Malcom. That said I am not sure if the debate would have been ‘ do we, don’t we’ but more like ‘ how far can we go without putting boots on the ground’ given the rhetoric from the main parties at least.
A war has to be declared or the sending of forces into combat zones. Neither has occurred.
the Greens would be the only ones to complain and they are not relivent
Absolutely. When John Key sent the NZDF to the Middle East allegedly for similar training purposes, he shouted at Andrew Little in Parliament to “ Get some guts” and send other people’s offspring off to join in other people’s wars. I suppose that was John’s idea of a debate. This time, we’re off helping to fight Russia without even a whisper.
The world leaders have no desire for peace which would give us time to come together in getting ready to delay or cope with constant attacks of devastation around the globe by NATURE. That’s nature Nature, not Human nature which is not a lovesome thing.
Time for an ironic laugh about human nature before those of us who are not entirely bland, not entirely brutalised, not entirely confused by tv ‘reality’ shows and fictional images lodged in our memory circuits.
goodreads –
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.
(supposedly) – Albert Einstein
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” ― Mark Twain
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” ― George Carlin
“People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it’s served up.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
“The more one judges, the less one loves.” ― Honoré de Balzac, Physiologie Du Mariage
Woke women need to expand their minds to remember this:
Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him — or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.” ― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night
“Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin!
And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/human-nature
It is human nature to hate the man whom you have hurt. -Tacitus
Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff. -Alan Greenspan
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/alan_greenspan_613479?src=t_human_nature
(If these two people are right, if society deteriorates beyond a certain point we will all end up hating each other!!!)
I have deep disgust that NZ by supporting the Ukraine regime by definition is supporting neo-Nazism. There are statues raised to Banderra in Ukraine, look him up, his people were implicit in the Holocaust, not only killing Jews but probably 100,000 Poles. History matters.
When you finish up being the meat in a sandwich you need to choose a side otherwise you get eaten by both . In WW2 Nazi Germany was a better choice that communist Russia. Unfortunately for them they choose the loser and 4 million died under Stalin
When you finish up being the meat in a sandwich you need to choose a side otherwise you get eaten by both . In WW2 Nazi Germany was a better choice that communist Russia. Unfortunately for them they choose the loser and 4 million died under Stalin
As a matter of fact I would if Ukraine was both democratic and a respecter of sovereignty. It is not, suggest you read this and learn a little about Zhelensky. https://im1776.com/2022/05/27/servant-of-the-corrupt/
My position is that NZ should stay strictly neutral, we should not be supporting ongoing conflict.
Nick J “ My position is that NZ should stay strictly neutral, we should not be supporting ongoing conflict.” Yes Nick, you’re almost certainly right. I think that you are right. Provide humanitarian aid by the bucketful, and more. But joining in under whatever guise, without the consent, or worse, the knowledge, of the New Zealand people is wrong, and is shocking.
I think that Helen Clark snuck us into Afghanistan secretly like this, and Ardern may do what Helen advises, but one person, the PM, having the power to get this country directly involved in the catastrophic tragedy which is Ukraine and Russia, shouldn’t even be possible.
What does Noam say – therein lays the answers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Rh1tKx98k
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