Apart from the final sentence he almost makes sense.
A first for Viv.........

Sending anything to Ukraine is sheer stupidity, when we don't have the necessary military resources to defend ourselves. Russia should not have invaded Ukraine, in most people's opinions, but it has nothing to do with us, 13,000 kilometres away as it is.

If the show pony ex-comedian Ukrainian president thinks that having the country razed to the ground and the population killed or made homeless is preferable to whatever Russia has to offer rather than death and never ending horror, so be it.

Another losing American war we, against our better instincts, will be implicated with by fawning Politicians.

I’ll rethink my position when bombs finally land on American soil. Then and only then!

Dan

At the Nato summit in Madrid, the demented President Biden has announced the United States is to significantly boost its military, naval and air presence in Europe, including bolstered deployments to front-line states bordering Russia. Biden's announcement indicates that the US is increasingly willing to risk direct military confrontation with the Putin regime.

The balloon could go up at any time. While the US is 'bolstering' in Europe, what about us? Will their be enough of America’s might left over to protect us from China? China is sure to move Taiwan up on its to-do list, with Joe willing to confront their mate Russia.

Please, President Comedian, can we have our Bushmasters back?

Nothing has changed, really. We have had a target on our back for some time and by a nuclear armed entity. As for the bushmasters, their role in that theatre may well result in sales elsewhere as manufactured exports?

As for net zero? Doable if we transition to nuclear power ASAP. Nuclear power is carbon-free power! And we need to go nuclear given the potential adversary is a nuclear armed entity as is Russia.

Non nuclear proliferation is a joke, given every nation that wanted to go nuclear has done so including several outside the non proliferation joke!. Moreover, only nuclear power will enable a return to onshore manufacturing.

We have to get past the irrational nuclear power fearmongering and understand all we need fear is fear itself!

If we do have this target on our back? the only solution is to build stuff faster than the potential adversary! We have the resources! What is missing is our own owned and controlled energy and at prices that have every high tech manufacturer beating a path to our door! Understand just two things.

Just 8 grams of thorium contains enough energy to power your house and car for a century without refueling! Thorium is the most energy dense material on the planet!

Let's end the fearmongering BS and just crack on with what needs doing! And that ain't sitting on our hands as usual waiting for someone else to do it for us! Let the evidence speak as opposed to the usual antinuclear/green BS.
Alan B.

Viv Forbes is right with that one !

Thanks Viv Forbes for the article- interesting point about the bisection of The Ukraine.

«Australia has no vital interests in Ukraine and should not get embroiled in a messy foreign family quarrel.»

But we do!

We must show China that the relatively-free world is not going to crumble divided and conquered, that we stand together, that when a large country tries to conquer a smaller country of relatively-free people, either they will fail or the price of conquest will be so high that they will regret it for generations to come.

It is in Ukraine that we defend our own borders rather than waiting passively for the war to arrive at our own shores.

Viv,
>What is happening in Ukraine today is absolutely awful, but it will not be helped by sending more weapons.
We don't know that!
Sending more weapons will almost certainly help turn Russian public opinion against the war. It may help Ukraine win the war. And it will also help deter China from invading Taiwan.

The more weapons we send to Ukraine now, the less we will have to spend on weapons in the future.

>partition may be the only humane way of bringing peace to Ukraine
Considering how dismally that policy's failed almost everywhere else, I think it is safe to say that statement is false. Whenever a country is partitioned, there will always be people on one side (and often on both sides) who want to reclaim the other half.

>As Ted Dwyer says "Australia now has a target on its back".
That makes no sense. Australia's jus tone member of a large alliance of countries trying to deter warmongering. If Australia were developing nuclear weapons, that would put a target on Australia's back - but we aren't and never will.

>We cannot help the military mess in Ukraine,
We can and are, despite your opposition to doing so.

>and have destroyed our possible value there as an impartial mediator.
There were people who wanted America to be an impartial mediator n the Falklands War. Were you among their number?

>And unless we dump Net Zero Nonsense, we will soon be defenceless in a hostile world.
It's time for you to drop your net zero nonsense! Net zero is a sensible policy and there's nothing worth doing that it's incompatible with.

It may help Ukraine win the war. And it will also help deter China from invading Taiwan.
Aidan,
It's way too late to think along those lines. Ukraine will never again be on Russia's side even if they get annexed again. And China ? Forget about swaying their policies !
Westerners have had long enough now to show how greed, fostered by nil responsibility can make people stupid & useless !

Indy,
>It's way too late to think along those lines.
Says who? It was predicted at the beginning of the war that Ukraine would quickly capitulate. It didn't and Russia gave up trying to take over the whole country. Now we see Russia very slowly advancing and Ukraine counterattacking, so a Ukrainian victory is just as likely as a Russian one.

>And China ? Forget about swaying their policies !
Despite appearances, China's leader isn't actually a bear of very little brain. He's certainly smart enough to avoid battles he doesn't think he can win.

>Westerners have had long enough now to show how greed, fostered by nil
>responsibility can make people stupid & useless !
So why are you advocating going with greed instead of taking responsibility?

Viv’s article is full of red herrings and half-truths. Yes, Ukraine has been invaded, assimilated, reformed and restructured many times over the centuries. So has most of Europe. That provides zero justification for Russia’s invasion now.

And yes, there has been a virtual civil was in Ukraine for many years. That’s predominantly because Russia has supplied the money, equipment and sometimes personnel to prosecute the fight.

If Viv is correct that “there are only two possible solutions – total defeat of one side, or separation of the warring parties” then surely the least-bad outcome is total defeat of Russia. While this may be harder than some western optimists believe, the “resistance is futile” line parroted by Putin’s apologists may still prove wrong. Russia’s military have been a lot less effective than many had feared, and with Western support may be drive back. It’s interesting that today’s news reports that Russia has withdrawn from Snake Island because it is in range of weapons supplied by Ukraine’s western supporters.

It seems that Europe is waking up to the fact that its comparative peace of the past 70+ years cannot be taken for granted. If we are moving into an era of a new cold war type conflict between western-style democracies and a Chinese-Russian led alliance of lawless autocracies, Australia cannot and will not sit on the sidelines. What happens in Ukraine and Europe will be watched very closely by China as a pointer to how the USA and the west might respond to its plans for Taiwan and the South China Sea, and its broader ambitions for more global influence and control. So Ukraine may be a long way from Australia, but the outcome of the conflict could matter very much to us.

Aidan,
You're only making academic sense, not practical sensible sense !

"So why are you advocating going with greed instead of taking responsibility?"
Where am I saying that ? You're one of those vehemently opposing a National Service/discipline scheme.

It is rare to see a historical event in terms of absolute good and evil, but I think that Ukraine is the exception.

Every country which joins the UN has recognisable borders, and Ukraine is no exception. You can argue that The Crimea should be a part of Russia for historical reasons and I would agree with you there. But the only reason for the war in Ukraine today is because Vladamir Putin is another Hitler who wants to recreate the USSR.

Australia's response is that we should give Ukraine everything we can spare because defending a true democracy against some mad totalitarian dictators bend on imperial expansion is what all democracies should do. In the past few decades western nations have given away loads of military gear to regimes and people who were not worth a pinch of s-h-i-t, but the Ukrainian people are another matter.

There is a real opportunity here if only the western leaders are smart enough to grab it. Defeat of Putin in Ukraine might just get him ousted which might just get Russia into a western oriented democracy. And that is worth an immense amount of effort. So too, defeat of Russia would make that mad hatter Ji Jin Ping think twice about invading Taiwan. Don't forget that most Chinese weapons are copies of Russian weapons and Russian weapons, especially their tanks, are being seen to be very inferior to western weapon systems.

Saying "it is none of our business" will backfire if China ever gets it in their head to invade Australia. I am heartened that so many free countries are contributing to Ukraine's defense, and I hope they will do the same for us if needed. Australia has sent Ukraine 6 M777 artillery pieces, lets give them 20 more and the ammo to throw at our collective totalitarians enemies.

130 Australian are now on an official Russian government list which prevents them from ever visiting Russia again. I am outraged that I am not on that list, and I hope that the Russian government will correct this mistake immediately.

Indy,
>You're only making academic sense, not practical sensible sense !
Yes, I'm making sense that can be rigorously defended, not sense so "practical and sensible" that it fits the prejudices of the stupid.

>Where am I saying that ?
You agree with Viv, and want to put our short term interest ahead of defending a democratic nation. Do you really think that isn't greedy?

>You're one of those vehemently opposing a National Service/discipline scheme.
Yes of course - like the vast majority of people, I oppose unnecessarily depriving people of their freedom just because they're young! And I've already pointed out the absolute preposterousness of your delusion that the decent young would regard national service more favourably.

that it fits the prejudices of the stupid.
Aidan,
'So, if those stupid decide to stipulate where the money earned from their efforts goes it makes them greedy ? You're the greedy one here thinking we all owe you a living because you think you deserve it ? To deserve you first have to earn & a Uni or TAFE course isn't earning.'

..our short term interest ahead of defending a democratic nation.

'ok, let's do away with the short-term hand-outs for the likes of you & see how you'll defend the Nation that feeds you.'

depriving people of their freedom just because they're young!

"exposure to basic discipline & decency is not deprivation of freedom, it's a vital learning process to prevent more young people from becoming what you et al are !"

Only a few minutes ago I listened to Australia all over & there were a few hints at bringing back a kind of National Service. It'd be for young people to get exposure to community mindedness & recognise the importance of responsibility & diligence.
The much pushed line of "denying freedom" by the the self-centred & greedy parents of quite good young people does not come up in my conversations with young people about a NS.
I get an near 100% approval rate from the young ones, particularly those who find it very difficult to get into the workforce. Just about all of them remark with a hint of hope that such a scheme will eventuate. Of course, I'm only speaking with country young & not the brainwashed glued-to-phone concrete jungle dwellers who are convinced that only video games & social media saturated time wasting is the way forward !
My advise to the young is "don't listen to your parents if they're Millennials or late Baby Boomers because most of them are the ones who stuffed it all up for all of us".