>

Trump (R) blew up the Iran deal, Iran is supplying Russia with arms currently devastating Ukraine. Trump's (R) fave buddy was NK, NK is arming Putin, too.
Hey (R,) you can join the good side anytime now.
Just a reminder, the Wagner Group is so named because one of its founding members was a fan of Hitler, and Hitler's favorite composer was Wagner.
Meanwhile, Putin has the gall to claim Ukraine needs to be "de-Nazified." 
Putin is pure evil. >

Oh, the whole denazification stuff was BS from the beginning. Just a good way to scare the Russian sheep. >

I live in a country that fucking borders Russia, not that that has anything to do with identifying a Nazi. Something that CAN help identify a Nazi though, is seeing if someone has the SS collar tattooed on their collarbone, and a Nazi eagle on their chest. Something that the LEADER of the Wagner group absolutely has. I'm not sorry, if you have a fucking swastika tattooed on your body you are a Nazi. Full stop. >

I don’t believe you can know someone’s intentions by a tattoo. The Hindu with Swastika tattoos don’t want to kill Jews, are they nazis? >

Defending somebody with nazi symbols tattooed on their body is pretty telling of your shitty character, man. >

I’m just defending someone’s right to do whatever they want. Freedom. Do I think it’s wrong, yes, but I don’t support the suppression of it. You can’t beat fascism with more fascism. >

Well, good thing clamping down on the use of fascism isn't fascism in and of itself, then. >

That sounds exactly what it is like actually, to me anyways. How do you suggest going about it? >

It sounds like you prop up your ego by being a contrarian. 
So much in fact, that you’re willing to defend a man with an ss symbol and other Nazi imagery that leads a violent private military made up in majority of actual convicted murderers and rapists to invade a country led by a Jewish president while focusing on hitting in priority civilian centers and civil infrastructure rather than military targets. You a dipshit >

Imagine asking North Korea for aid lol. >

North Korea knew Russia was desperate and probably got the better end of the deal. >

North Korea getting those sweet sweet early-1990s missile designs >

They are pointier.. >

This is very important for a missile. >

If it isn't pointy, then people won't be scared of it. >

~Runs finger across throat~ >

We should also deliver arms to Wagner via a different delivery method. >

Includes live demonstrations! >

That must be great for morale, when you see the “DPRK Military Surplus” stamp on the barrel, both in terms of the quality of the gear, and implication that Russia needs to turn to a former quasi-satellite for arms! >

Broke ass bitch. 
Me personally, I would never get caught receiving arms from North Korea. Might as well get caught accepting money from a homeless guy. >

I mean 5 dollars is five dollars no matter where you get it from >

What matters is the how, Deep_Charge. >

Sucking dick is honest work >

It really is >

I haven't seen a collection of shit bag asshole bad guys get together on the same side like this since  GI Joe and other cartoons in the 80's. There is such a complete lack of "gray area" for just how bad and evil they really are. Even over the top action movies of the 80's painted bad guys with more of a objective viewpoint and reason.
Iran, North Korea, Russia. They really can't wait to live up to what we imagined the worst case scenario was for these assholes. 
*Speaking largely of their leadership. I'd have no problem with the people of any of those countries throwing off the reins of their tyrants and wanting to make peace and come together. >

Can’t believe I’m saying this but George W Bush was right lol >

Without context, I have no idea why you're downvoted (I'm not from the US) >

He made an infamous “Axis of Evil” speech during the iraq war to refer to Iraq, Iran and North Korea. In this case my comment was referring to Iran and NK - who have supplied weapons to Russia. Basically he tried to paint them as credible threats to the west. 
George Bush is a controversial president, largely for lying about the justifications for invading iraq and continuing to sell out the country to corporate interests, so saying something good about him is the simple reason I’m being downvoted >

What a tri-partite. Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Add in China when it’s good for China to join the dance. >

North Korea is the broker for Chinese weaponry. 
China doesn’t want its fingerprints on this but Russia needs to win or China loses the economic war they started against the US in 2012. >

Can you explain further? >

Sure. 
The Chinese communist party is an extension of one man’s ideals. Xi Jinping. 
Circa 2012 xi proclaimed “I will control the internet” and no one really took him seriously. He was relatively unknown at the time and China was frankly not the juggernaut that it is now. 
But for nearly 20 years China has been willing to produce a $40 part (if it was made in the US) for $4.  It’s not that it somehow magically costs that much less to build in China, it’s that the CCP basically Nationalizes any company large enough to make a difference.  Xi realized that Americas appetite for cheap shit is insatiable. In fact our entire economy demands that we buy 3-7% more shit every year or the wheels fall off the bus. The entire economic policy as written and managed by the federal reserve is predicated on this growth. 
On the Chinese side the CCP doesn’t exactly have an objective auditor to cross check their books. So if the yuan is let’s say, 1000 to the USD or 10,000 to the USD, it doesn’t really matter if you are taking a long approach. You simply turn the money printing machines up to 10, nationalize any domestic Chinese business that can be used for control, and place an agent of the CCP in the C suite offices of any multinational company  that does business in China. 
Then you use your “low loss leader” plan to undercut anyone and everyone until you control supply chain for basically everything. From steel manufacturing and solar panels to Huawei’s 5G cell infrastructure. 
There is rarely a product in existence today that doesn’t have some component that is made in China. 
The thing is, this economic war plan has a limited lifespan. At some point you need to execute the next phase.  You can’t just be the worlds slave labor forever. 
Xi had a very ambitious plan called “made in China 2025” that would basically culminate this “investment” in slave labor and locking up supply chain.  
But how?  Well you simply take over as the preferred currency of world trade and suddenly the yuan is worth exactly what you say it is. 
The reason world trade is measured in USD is simply because the U.S. military industrial complex won WW2 and the victor writes the rules. It was no different for the Roman’s or the Greeks in the past. 
Enter BRICS and the bridge and road initiative. 
The CCP for years has been willing to give out high interest loans to all the countries that the U.S. likes to forget about.  From Latin America to Africa, Pakistan and Cambodia, they all received lots of that 10x Chinese Yuan, which allows China massive amounts of leverage over everything from raw materials supply chain, to building a military base and calling it a “port”. 
It’s imperial military expansion under the guise of economic development and investment. 
But in order for it all to work, Xi still has to make the Yuan take over the USD. And his clock is ticking. Local level corruption inside China has turned into Xi’s nemesis. From the housing industry that builds homes no one can afford (evergreen) to the time honored tradition of stacking all the materials at the front door of a warehouse and telling everyone it’s full to the brim, corruption is the bain of the CCP’s existence. In the first half of this year it forced xi to issue nearly $100B worth of provincial bonds just to try and keep it all together. 
Covid is testing it even farther.  Most of Xi’s platform is built on the belief that only he and he alone can make these decisions for 1.4B Chinese. But that starts to breakdown when they start asking why they have been welded into their apartments eating rotten vegetables for 3 years while everyone else is drinking beer at the soccer World Cup.  
Xi has had to build an absolute Goliath machine of intelligence called the MSS.  The Chinese version of the CIA but MUCH larger. For 1.4B people he has had to build an army of censors t surveil and censor comments on weibo, the only state allowed social media platform. 
And that’s just the domestic program. The Chinese “police stations” in Canada, the U.S. and Europe are all extensions of this same massive machine. 
Huawei, ten cent, tik tok etc are all nationalized extensions of Xi’s attempts to “control the internet” and destabilize the USD and therefore america. 
How does this relate to Ukraine? 
Early Covid taught us that the US economy runs on semiconductors. From the chips in Raytheon’s bombs to the seat heaters in ford trucks, Facebook to your 401k, the US economy relies on those sweet cheap processors for virtually everything. And whoever controls the supply, would effectively be the puppet master.  
If Xi had Taiwan (where 90% of those chips are made) he could divert them from ford to his own AI project and simultaneously starve out the US economy and build his surveillance and censorship empire and effectively “control the internet”. It’s why Huawei is willing to undercut any and all other vendors to install their 5G towers at a loss. And it’s why tik tok has a different algorithm for the West that essentially incentivizes a 3 minute attention span and harvests data from absolutely everywhere. 
Russia on the other hand is a mafia state. Nothing happens unless the hands at the top get greased.  It’s why Putin has amassed $200B in net worth while making less than $200k a year on paper. 
Ukraine, and specially the donbas region of Ukraine is where the majority of the neon used in EUV lithography (microprocessor production) comes from. And for nearly 10 years xi has been making certain that he controls the rest.  
In august US congress passed a $50B CHIPS act to bring all that manufacturing back stateside. Because the never ending drive for cheaper shit made us willing to overlook the slavery, pollution and corruption that drove it to China decades ago. 
We outsourced our mining and manufacturing via EPA mandates and our own corporate greed. 
Now we pay the price. Nothing is ever free. It just depends on how far down the spectrum you have to look before you see the cost. >

Nice read. But isn't world's preferred curency heavily tied to the stability of that currency, and hence the nation (or alliance in EU's case). Like currency used to be tied to gold but nowadays lots of countries use USD as the substitute for gold because of its stability (currency and the nation). When covid and russian war happened lots of currencies, including euro, fell compared to USD, which just shows what currency people believe is the most stable. It's not related to who won ww2. Arguably russia won it too but their currency is what is what it is despite having massive oil exports. I don't think a lot of people believe that China, or especially the current regime, is stable. Isn't that factor alone enough to destroy Xi's wet dream? >

Until 1971 the USD was tied to the gold standard. Nixon, Kissinger and a handful of others effectively sold us out to the Saudi ruling family at that point for some cheap gas in an attempt to win a re-election. 
Saudi definitely plays a role ever since. Xi Xinpings first overseas visit in over 1000 days was supposed to be to meet MBS in saudi. He diverted at the last minute to meet Putin in Uzbekistan instead.  
Watching that meeting is a huge telltale on Putin.  This war was supposed to last 3-10 days but due to the Ukrainians standing up to him it’s at 10 months.   I don’t believe there was a contingency plan for this.  They simply never expected that level of professionalism and resistance from the Ukrainian people. It was absolutely unprecedented.  
You are correct though. Currency is simply a matter of consensus.  Throughout human history we have used everything form sea shells to beaver pelts to fill the role.  
The U.S. dollar did well enough through the end of the war because the world looked to the US as sort of a moral authority.  We had earned it by supplying the support to Europe in the war.  
The moral high ground eroded with death of JFK, Johnson being in the Vietnam war where we never should have been and was pretty much extinct by the time Of Nixon’s war on drugs in central and South America, watergate, and the petrodollar agreement. 
The U.S. has largely functioned in a 4 year reelection cycle ever since.  We have been so preoccupied with that as a nation that we have missed the grand opportunity of being the “light of the world” and pure democracy ideals that we were built upon. 
Tying the value of the dollar with oil and handing the reins to OPEC, and by extension some of the worst people on the planet was predictably dumb. It won Nixon a few voters and cost us the ability to be a democracy. >

This part I'll disagree with.
A large part of our stability is that we are pretty much unattackable.
As long as the government itself stays solid, the world doesn't care too much if politicians come and go.
Our currency goes up and down some, but it's tied to a ridiculously high GDP and the fact that we aren't going anywhere.  If the GOP gets their way, THEN you can expect to see the dollar crash. >

I'll second this.  The original post in this thread was pretty spot on, but then kinda dove into the ditch.  As an example, positing that the dollar is tied to oil is exactly backward, oil is generally tied to the dollar.  
As for moral high ground, the US's moral high ground has always been murky, between treatment of Native Americans as well as slavery.  However, the US has generally been on an upward trajectory with regard to our moral standing on the world stage.  That doesn't mean we aren't without our setbacks or occasional hypocrisy, but on the whole it is improving. >

I will admit that I may have an unrealistic expectation of commitment to democracy.  My version of that is idealized in ALL men being created equal.  And that includes the person working in a sweatshop making a t shirt that sells for $3 in the US. 
In 1950 the worlds population was 2.5B and the world functioned much slower than it does today. Last month we crested past 8 billion people. And almost all of them are in real time contact with the rest of the world.  Whether through tv and media or actual business transactions, the world has become infinitely smaller in that 70 years. 
The fact that a U.S. President who stated that he would never shake MBS’s hand after he was caught murdering and dismembering a journalist, had to go and shake his hand and effectively beg him to drop the price of oil because of a inflationary US economy that is quickly hitting its terminal velocity tells me that oil controls the dollar and not the other way around. We kiss the saudi ring far more often than they kiss ours over the past 40 years. 
But I’m open to any counter points and thoughts  there as well. >

It's been time,  but ffs .. it's time to start treating our enemies like our f%^& ENEMIES. >

People need to have nuance about this shit. You don’t just start wars. That’s how Iraq and Afghanistan happened.
We’re doing this right, Ukrainians are willing to bear the brunt of this war because they see it as THEIR war. They are looking at a war that will send ripples around the world at that scale.
This may BE the end of the Russian federation as we know it, and the start of an era of western stability our collective culture has  never known.
Zellensky said it himself, this is a victory that Ukraine wants to see as its own war of independence. >

Exactly. The outcome is priceless. Need to support Ukraine and democracy til the end. >

Follow the money, hmmm who else had a conspicuous relationship with North Korea during their presidency as well as Russia. Can't hide for much longer... >

There will be another lies and denies from North Korea supplies to Russia in few days if media asks North Korea. Total 3 countries full of denies. Screw them sob >

How do they literally not have the ability o manufacture a Christ ton of stamped AKs. I always thought Russia had advanced weaponry and tactics but seems pretty low to have to buy guns from North Korea of all places. >

So Ukraine is literally standing as human shield for the world from the weapons of Russia, Iran and North Korea. >

Time for “axis of evil 2.0” >

Did NK also send legs? Or have they only been sending arms?