There will always be stooges in any movement
Well, the opposition to the Korean war — as I outlined from the get-go — never rose to anywhere the same pitch. Not while the war was running, not later. Soldiers returning from Vietnam war were "baby-killers", but those who came back from Korea were not. The "peace-movement" being infested by stooges is a confirmed theory that explains all of the known facts. It may be difficult for you to accept, probably, because you and/or your parents participated — without knowing, who got the ball rolling, of course, being sincere useful idiots — but that's what it is.
Yeah, I'm Canadian and I'm quite certain neither of my parents really participated in the peace movement. I would point to this fact as evidence to the fact that you're over-extrapolating from limited data and reaching erroneous conclusions.
All I can say is I consider Marc Theissen to be a terrible analyst, though going into that would be a needless diversion.
and it did not become a disaster for any of the reasons known at the time.of those coordinated protests.
I'm confused, why did you link to quotes of people supporting the war as evidence that the opponents were wrong?
I don't know, I think I'd still call Savage as being on the fringe. Sure he's got a following but he's so far out that he can't even enter the UK.
There you go! NATO was meant to check USSR's advancement further into Europe — without it more countries would've shared the fate of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and others. Because while NATO membership was voluntary, membership of the Warsaw Pact was not. And the Pact invaded those, who tried to get out. What's "unclean" about NATO, I'll never know.
Remember the Cuban missile crisis? The US isn't particularly amendable to countries in its sphere of influence allying with Russia either.
And as you just said NATO was meant to counter the USSR (ie Russia), of course they're going to react with hostility when neighbouring countries start joining a military alliance literally designed to oppose them.
Huh? If they weren't NATO-members, Baltic states would've been taken over by the same "polite" troops long ago. Moldova and Georgia were invaded before Ukraine.
Though Georgia was invaded while trying to join NATO. And the initial situations with South Ossetia and Transitivia happened in the fairly messy aftermath of the collapse of the USSR. My understanding is that the NATO expansion was interpreted by Russians as an aggressive act, and that's been responsible for the subsequent rejection of Western liberalism and the return to an adversarial mindset.
But, it is interesting... So, in your peace-loving opinion, NATO should've rejected Eastern Europe's attempts to join it to please Russia... Just how do you justify this? What sort of ethical standards do you have? What books did momma read to you? Should the wisest of the Three Pigs have rejected his brothers' attempts to hide in his masonry house — so as not to aggravate the Wolf? Wow!
I can see why they wanted to join, the problem is the moment they got in Russia started looking at ways to keep other nations like Georgia and Ukraine out. And you weren't going to get everyone in because a lot of countries weren't stable enough for NATO, and even if you did a Russia entirely surrounded with NATO members is going to be very hostile and might start looking at ways to test Article 5. Do you really think the US is going to declare war on Russia if Putin starts using this same playbook in Latvia?
Honestly I think the proper solution was a local defensive alliance, maybe one centred by a Nuclear armed Ukraine. Russia was willing to declare war on Georgia, would they be willing to declare war on Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, and a bunch of other countries all at once? I think that would have had a lot more teeth than NATO, and wouldn't have looked like a US power grab after the USSR collapsed.
Again remember many grew up in the USSR, people are going to naturally defend their side.
I grew up in the USSR too, you insensitive clod.
I'm not saying everyone born in the USSR will defend it, but they're going to have strong emotions that aren't always rational. I'm half ethnically Ukrainian and I have a very difficult time keeping my emotions in check even though I haven't even had an ancestor there in 100 years.
Point is, their propaganda works — Obama's lukewarm response to Putin's bona-fide textbook evil is evidence of it. It took him months to authorize "non-lethal" supplies (blankets, tents, rations) for Ukraine's defendants. And even today things like helmets and body-armor are still not authorized.
Because he and his people aren't paying attention. Either that, or — which is the same thing — they know, their electoral base is not paying attention.
Obama's response had nothing to do with Russian propaganda, it was the fact that he really had no other choice.
What was Obama's alternative? He couldn't make the sanctions much tougher without the EU's agreement, supplying lethal weapons could easily make Russia even more aggressive since the Ukraine army has no chance against a real Russian invasion. An actual US military intervention might have stopped Putin, but Russia has far more skin in the game and Putin might not be able to pull back even if he wanted to, you could literally be looking at WWIII.
Honestly I don't know if the US can do anything. My personal thought on the best plan right now is some country like Canada tells Putin "you can take Mariupol, but if you do we'll defend the rest of Ukraine with military force and get the rest of the west to fill it with enough money to turn it into West Germany". It puts a major price on Mariupol and a non-Nuclear Western power with a strong military is a far more a credible deterrent than a Nuclear power who's afraid of things escalating.
Hell, if I was in Ukraine there's a decent chance I'd sign up and start fighting, but I really don't know what Obama can do without risking a literal apocalypse.