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Originally posted by second:
Moldova is on the western border of Ukraine.

Incumbent Moldova President Maia Sandu has claimed victory in the Moldovan presidential runoff election held on November 3, 2024.[1] Preliminary results reported by the Moldovan Central Election Commission (CEC) show that Maia Sandu has won around 55 percent of the vote, defeating Kremlin-friendly presidential candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo.[2]

Moldovan authorities reported extensive Russian interference and sabotage efforts during the runoff presidential elections held on November 3, 2024, in a likely effort to favor pro-Kremlin Stoianoglo. Sandu’s National Security Advisor Stanislav Secrieru warned on November 3 of significant Russian interference in the runoff election, noting the organization of voter transport in Transnistria (which is illegal under Moldovan law); the organization of buses and charter flights from Russia to polling stations in Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Belarus; the distribution of vouchers to Moldovan voters in Moscow; and cyberattacks against the Moldova CEC's voter education site.[4]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-3-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I guess the way this was supposed to work is that the vote would apply to Transnistrians but that Transnistrians weren't allowed to vote.

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Coppins: And the other thing that I think we’ve seen is that a big purpose of propaganda and disinformation is not even just to convince people that a certain thing is true but to almost exhaust their ability to tell the difference between what’s true and what’s not, and make them cynical and fatigued and disinclined to even try.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm happy for the people of Ukraine. This war is just about over now.



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Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.

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War is the most complex, physically and morally demanding enterprise we undertake. No great art or music, no cathedral or temple or mosque, no intercontinental transport net or particle collider or space programme, no research for a cure for a mass-killing disease receives a fraction of the resources and effort we devote to making war.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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War is the most complex, physically and morally demanding enterprise we undertake. No great art or music, no cathedral or temple or mosque, no intercontinental transport net or particle collider or space programme, no research for a cure for a mass-killing disease receives a fraction of the resources and effort we devote to making war.

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Who is this "we", kimosabe? Don't paint the entire world with our brush. Our drive to make war on the entire planet, if our warmongering oligarchs decide to, drives everyone else to spend $ on war when they would really just like to develop their economies.

Chop our world-straddling military down to size, restrict its mandate to defending our shores, and you'll eliminate 90% of current global conflict.

Just saying.

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We walk the knife edge always between misunderstood lessons of wars past and new mistakes waiting to be made by the next generation, which will not remember real war and might think it would like to try it. That, too, has happened before.

Has the phenomenon of the allure of battle ended in our own time? There are a legion of examples that say no. Among the more salient, Saddam Hussein rushed Iraq to war with Iran in September 1980, intending to take advantage of the chaotic Iranian Revolution to seize limited territorial goals but in fact commencing a large-scale conflict that lasted almost eight years, to August 1988. His invasion of neighboring Kuwait just two years later on August 2, 1990, led to international intervention and enforcement of no-fly zones and routine bombings by several foreign air forces that lasted to 1998. In 2001, NATO intervened in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban. It did, yet is still fighting there. In 2003, the United States led a truncated coalition in an invasion of Iraq expected to defeat the eroded and second-rate Iraqi Army quickly and decisively. It did, but a long war against regime elements and Islamist radicals was not formally declared over until 2011, when in fact it still was not. A widening and worsening civil war between Shi’a and Sunni continued for years after that. Thirteen years on, there is no end in sight as this is written. Related conflict shattered Syria and spilled across the greater Middle East into the Arabian peninsula and North Africa. And elsewhere? In September 2015, Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag declared that his forces were fully prepared for the “swift, short nature of future wars.” Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif boasted back: “Our armed forces stand fully capable to defeat all sorts of external aggression … short or long.”2 So the illusion abides. So the next war looms.

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Among the more salient, Saddam Hussein rushed Iraq to war with Iran in September 1980, intending to take advantage of the chaotic Iranian Revolution to seize limited territorial goals but in fact commencing a large-scale conflict that lasted almost eight years, to August 1988.

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His invasion of neighboring Kuwait just two years later

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August 2, 1990, led to international intervention and enforcement of no-fly zones and routine bombings by several foreign air forces that lasted to 1998.

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In 2001, NATO intervened in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban.

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In 2003, the United States led a truncated coalition in an invasion of Iraq expected to defeat the eroded and second-rate Iraqi Army quickly and decisively. It did, but a long war against regime elements and Islamist radicals was not formally declared over until 2011, when in fact it still was not.

A widening and worsening civil war between Shi’a and Sunni continued for years after that.

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Thirteen years on, there is no end in sight as this is written. Related conflict shattered Syria and spilled across the greater Middle East into the Arabian peninsula and North Africa.

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And elsewhere? In September 2015, Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag declared that his forces were fully prepared for the “swift, short nature of future wars.” Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif boasted back: “Our armed forces stand fully capable to defeat all sorts of external aggression … short or long.”2 So the illusion abides. So the next war looms.

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Trump reportedly warns Putin against escalating war in Ukraine and reminds him of U.S. military presence in Europe

US President-elect Donald Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged him not to escalate the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

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Kremlin says reports that Trump and Putin spoke in recent days are 'pure fiction'

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