Comments by "David Ford" (@davidford3115) on "Channel 4 News" channel.

  1. And several wars before that. The Teutonic Knights have fought the Slavs since antiquity.
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  2. Minisk Agreement is overblown. You seem to forget that Russia violated its promise to not violate Ukraine's territorial integrity as a condition of Ukraine's nuclear disarmament. Your blatant disregard for that shows your intellectual dishonesty.
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  3.  @minimax9452  No, Germany did not star "The Great War", they were dragged into it by the Austro-Hungarians. Francis Ferdinand had no business being in Sarajevo, a city where almost everyone wanted him dead. And considering the performance of the Hungarians in that war, Kaiser Wilhem should have never honored the call to arms and instead done what Italy ended up doing: stay out of it (for the most part initially). I recently read the West Point Atlas on WW1 by Brigadier Vincent J. Esposito. Very enlightening. Hindenburg's reputation is well earned; he pulled off the Tannenberg campaign flawlessly. Conversely Bulow was a complete incompetent fool who basically cost Germany the entire war with his blunders during the battle of the Marne. Kluck was shafted by Bulow's slothfulness and dithering. Crown Prince Wilhem conducted himself respectably desire never having never commanded a unit larger than a regiment.
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  4.  @garyfredrickson2301  "Ukrainian Russian speakers"? You realize the oxymoron in that? Most Ukrainians across the nation can speak Russian because of their similar linguistic roots. Kind of like how French, Spanish and Italian have a shared Latin origin. And as far as "being forced", that is a strawman because nobody is making them stay in Ukraine. The borders of Ukraine haven't changed much since the time of Ivan the Great. And you are oversimplifying the Russians. Winston Chruchill pegged them best: “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” -Winston Chruchill in 1939.
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  5. Sweden and Finland joining NATO puts to bed your narrative. When even the historically neutral Swiss don't believe your claims, you have lost the plot.
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  6. As he said, times have changed. Even Japan becoming more assertive is a welcome change. And BOTH countries keenly remember their imperialistic past and are reluctant to repeat it; they will use their newfound military power much more reluctantly than they did in the past.
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  7.  @outdoorolli5754  The problem is that the money is simply a short-term band-aide over the problem, and it does not address the underlying issue of sustained and reliable delivery of funds for contracted supplies. When the German government only budgets one year at a time and defense contracting is a three-year minimum, it is a major problem to ensure consistency when the allocated funds quickly disappear if you didn't use them.
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  8.  @Buzzillus  Tell that to the German defense industry who can't count on the German government to ever keep a contract. Ask yourself why very little kit actually gets to the Bundeswehr. Ask why foreign contracts are considered more successful than ones with the Bundeswher.
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  9. Agreed. Are the French willing to give Putin Paris or the Ardennes? Are the Germans willing to part with Kiel or Bremerhaven? Are the Dutch willing to give Putin Rotterdam? Are the Italians willing to give him Sardina or Sicily? If not, they need to shut up because they are making the same blunder as Nevil Chamberlain at the Munich Conference. "Peace in our time" was his words.
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  10.  @notastone4832  You keep telling yourself that. Ther performance of the Ukrainians tells a different story. Oh, and what you claim will happens sounds suspiciously like the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement over the fate of Poland. History has shown what happens to agreements like. I doubt the Poles will be that foolish.
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  11.  @k.k.8394  I tend to agree. Gorbachev and Yeltsin (though they disliked each other) were the cooler heads that allowed the peace of the 90s. They were better leaders than Yuri Andropov or Leonid Brezhnev.
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  12.  @notoriousbig3k  How? Did not the early Germans identify themselves as Teutonic? And are not the people of Eastern Europe generally Slavic, the Poles being in their own distinct group? Those terms are not racist, merely descriptors those people have used to identify themselves.
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  13. As opposed to occupied by a neo-Soviet Union? Nice to see you are parroting the Kremlin talking points. When the historically neutral Swiss, Finns, and Swedes don't believe you, you have lost the plot.
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  14. And Merkel was not much better. She was a member of the East German Communist Youth League, after all.
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  15. I think it was a combination of factors. Do keep in mind Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was broadcasting across the Iron Curtain to put the word out in the Warsaw Pact of another option. But to your point, it took the peoples of Eastern Europe to rise up against their Soviet Oppressors. And rise up they did in Budapest 1956, Prague in 1968, Gdańsk in 1970, and all across Eastern Europe in 1989. It took 40 years, but the encouragement from the West most certainly helped them stay in the fight.
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  16. Yeah, there is much talk about trying to stop him when he militarized the Rhineland. Alas, France and England did not want to experience the butchery of World War One (aka the Great War) all over again..
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  17. You are ignoring the fact that Poland and the Baltic States joined of their own accord. And so has Finland and Sweden. If Russia didn't menace their neighbors, they would not have felt a need to join up.
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  18. Or perhaps they just don't agree with being part of a European collective where the best interests of the Island take a back seat to the desires of the technocrats in Brussels. What is good for the European continent may not be what is best for the Island.
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  19.  @callsigndd9ls897  Indeed. When the fighting breaks out, you cannot afford to turn away ANY assistance. But during the fighting the wheat is separated from the chaff, and the ideologues are separated from the professionals such that only the competent soldiers remain.
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  20. Oh, I don't disagree that the WHOLE truth about Ukraine is being obscured. But I think you are also being deceived. How much do you know about the oil deposits that Shell was contracting for in Donbas and off the coast of Crimea? How about the Coal deposits in Luhansk? Ukraine with western backing could have become the THRID largest oil producer in Europe after Norway and Russia. They had a good possibility of undercutting Russia's near monopoly on European energy. All of that came to a halt with the theft of Crimea.
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  21.  @elaineread15  Someone around the time of the American Revolution said that only an Englishman could talk another Englishman into being a slave.
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  22. Yeah, Sweden and Finland tell another story. So does Poland and the Baltic States. On the surface, your contention sound good, but you conveniently ignore some dirty little details such as what Putin wanted from the West that made his offer of partnership untenable. Yes, post 9/11 was an opportunity to partner with the Russians against jihadism. But the asking price was more than the west could accept. And it was certainly beyond what the former Warsaw Pact was willing to stomach.
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  23.  @crhu319  Dude, they just did. Turkey rescinded its objection. It is a done deal.
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  24. NATO war in Ukraine? Um, it was Russia that invaded. No NATO soldier had died in the fighting. The cost in blood is being paid by the Ukrainians. And as far as the weapons, most of the former Warsaw Pact has handed over their surplus stockpiles. As for Singers, they stopped making them in the late 90s because it is actually an obsolete system that has since been replaced in NATO arsenals. As for post war, I can assure you that once LONG-TERM stability has been achieved, the revenues from the oil and coal deposits in Donbas will ensure a steady stream of money for the rebuilding process.
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  25. One should not have to ask that question as it should be irrelevant. But to your point, the fact that they would laugh rather than give an honest response is a serious problem.
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  26. How?
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  27. The Russian Bear is geriatric.
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  28.  @crhu319  You have lost the plot. Nothing you have just posted has any data supporting it. There is no logic nor reason behind your rant.
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  29. Indeed. For as corrupt as the Russian logistical situation is, they at least get SOMETHING at the end of the pipeline. The German administrative state prevents ANYTHING from getting to the Bundeswehr. Most German military hardware goes outside of Germany because the German government is a horrible customer, with payment for services being unreliable.
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  30. Wishful thinking. The war in Ukraine was a foregone conclusion after Russia stole the Crimea.
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  31.  @crhu319  That isn't an augment, it is just an emotional outburst.
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  32.  @Buzzillus  I think you are conflating the Warsaw Pact plan "Seven Days to the River Rhine" with NATO defense plans. The US and by extension NATO was committed to NOT being the first to launch nukes, only in retaliation. It is the Soviets who wanted to turn West Germany into a glass parking lot. To which NATO would have responded by nuking Communist capitals.
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  33.  @Sparks95  "You have the choice between dishonor and war. You chose dishonor and so you shall have war," -Winston Churchill. Hitler was furious after Munich. He was purposely trying to provoke France and the UK to start a fight by being outrageous in his demands. The German diplomatic correspondence is quite clear on that.
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  34.  @itchyvet  Forbidden by the US? What kind of Schnapps have you been drinking? That may have been the case in the immediate aftermath of WW2, but by the 1960s, it was clear that George S. Patton was right: "rehabilitate" the Germans(sic) and use them against the Soviets.
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  35. Operation Barbarossa was complicated, to say the least. The Ukrainians viewed the Germans as liberators from the USSR in the wake of the Holodomor famine. That was until the Germans started butchering, they alongside the Russians. At that point the Ukrainians figured that they were going to be occupied by either Germany or the Soviet Union and so chose to be on the winning side in the vain hopes that the Russians would remember that.
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  36. You mean occupied. But I get it, you are a shill for Putin. Joeseph Stalin would love lickspittles like you who propagandize for the glory of the Bolshevik Revolution.
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  37.  @outdoorolli5754  A bigger problem is that Angela Merkel was a member of the East German Communist Youth League. You know, the guys who trained the Munich Olympic Terrorists? Once a communist, always a communist. Merkel prostrating Germany to the Kremlin was no accident; it was planned with the malice of forethought.
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  38.  @juergenernst1320  I am actually surprised by that. The way Germans seem to avoid the topic I come away thinking that denialism caused Nazism to be forced underground where it can fester like black mold. I am of the opinion that you let the fools who subscribe to that ideology speak their vulgar mind so that we can all laugh, ridicule, and mock them. Making them a joke or look like fools as the sitcom "Hogan's Heroes" did does much to disarm the toxic ideology. Even better, in Hogan's Heroes, the Nazi characters were played by Jews, the ultimate victory over the Third Reich. Werner Klemperer, John Banner, Leon Askin, and Howard Caine took it as a point of pride that they could effectively play and make fools of the people who tried to kill them (and did murder members of their family).
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  39.  @johnhobbes2268  Don't forget that Angela Merkel was a member of the East German Communist Youth League, the same folks who trained the Munich Olympic Terrorists. Once a communist, always a communist.
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  40.  @SA-ff9uc  He meant the conversation. Use a little common sense.
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  41.  @garyfredrickson2301  What Himmler and his crowd did has no bearing on what came before them. You let them win even beyond the grave by shunning that which they stole from others.
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  42.  @antel704  Your thinking that Biden fixed the problem completely misses the point that he is part of the leftist order trying to bring down the freedom, peace, and stability that the West has enjoyed for 77 years.
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  43. American Imperialism is the reason why Europe is so peaceful. But I get it, you are like a spoiled child when the responsible parent cleans up your mess.
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  44.  @dambrooks7578  Did you enjoy putting the desires of foreign bureaucrats ahead of the needs of your own country and people? I know it is easy to blame people you disagree with politically, but it is quite clear that the citizens of the UK vehemently disagree with you. The biggest problem with the Tories is that they are just as corrupt as any other political party, holding populists in just as much contempt as the labour party leadership does. The Tories should have actually pulled Margaret Thatcher out of the grave rather than put up that faker Theresa Mary who was unqualified to wear the mantel.
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  45. Wow, really? Watching a little too much RT News? You do realize that Ukraine's president is a Jew?
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  46. Europe can survive without Russia. Russia cannot survive without Europe. The Shale Oil revolution which exploded under Trump threatened both OPEC and Putin. If the West is smart, they will unleash the franking industry and completely liberate themselves from the Oil Robber Barons. Interestingly, the Shale Oil revolution made Ukraine possibly the third largest oil Reserve in Europe after Norway and Russia, most of which were located under Donbas. This war is ALL about oil, namely Russian theft of Ukrainian reserves.
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  47. No, the Russian government is NOBODY's friend. But if you love reading the talking points from government mouthpieces, that is your prerogative. "If you read the news, you are misinformed, "-Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain.
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  48. While I agree with your premise about a strong country, the problem is that Russia has ALWAYS had bad leadership. Stalingrad had more to do with the NKVD (KGB predecessor) shooting anyone who tried to retreat. Seriously, go read Kruschev's accounts of the battle.
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  49.  @lv3609  The original plan was always unworkable. The war in Ukraine simply revealed the fundamental flaws in that plan. Not plan for ending fossil fuels is viable without civilian nuclear power. It is the ONLY carbon neutral energy source that is both cheap and efficient. Solar and Wind create more carbon on the front end than they ever save during its entire lifecycle. And that is not counting the carbon footprint from maintenance.
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  50.  @lv3609  Yes it is their choice whether to open or close their nuclear power stations. But it is quite clear that by doing so, they made themselves completely dependent on Russia since Solar and Wind fail to meet their needs. I'm, sure you disagree with the assessments about the carbon footprint regarding wind turbines or the environmental costs of strip mining for the rare Earth metals used for solar. Because the advocates of it always misrepresent the actual costs, particularly for the Cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries. Take a look at Belgum Congo aka Zaire and you will find the horrible human cost to "green energy". And no, the infrastructure for green energy is NOT itself green. Again, that is the fallacy of circular logic. If it was truly economical, then governments would never need to invest in it because rich business tycoons would have already made millions doing so already.
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