So you acknowledge that the guy you referred to and his political party are irrelevant, right? Good, glad we agree.

But a military leader taking pics with Nazis is not good, we can agree on that as well.

I guess I would say that it's something to be mindful of but I'm not sure how it would change the mission of supporting Ukraine against Russia. It's a Ukrainian problem we need to manage, but it's not reason to change our strategic mission.

Touché

Irrelevant? The guy pictured chumming it up with Nazis (referring to Zaluzhnyi, not Joe Biden, boy do I wince when I have to make that distinction) was the #1 military leader. The founder and leader of the National Socialist party is leading the major military battle right now, as in, their ongoing retreat.
That's why I'm outraged about the New York Times interviewing the latter a couple days ago and completely failing to mention the fact they're talking to a Nazi, a Nazi war criminal no less



Lets say we set up Blackstone's ratio for Ukraine
How many innocent freedom loving democratic progressive Ukrainians need to exist for every one Nazi war criminal they tolerate and empower in their midst? What percent of their leadership, government ministers, military commanders, etc are allowed to be Nazis?
My god its 2024 why are we having this discussion

This post was edited by Goomshill on Feb 17 2024 07:08pm

What Nazi objectives do you think he is fulfilling in that role?

Maybe you think the discussion is crazy because most people are unaware about any Nazi stuff because we don't see any Nazi stuff happening from the Ukrainians.

A few western photographers even spoke out about their discomfort at producing wartime propaganda as they had to ask Ukrainians to cover up their swastika tattoos before taking pictures, would make a rational person question their life choices.
Its the reason why the DW news broadcast a few nights ago had some footage of a Ukrainian tank in combat except they conspicuously blurred a symbol painted on the side of it, but I mean, wouldn't it be against some kraut law to publish that on national TV anyway?

Azov are ultranationalist neo-nazis, they don't need an excuse to film themselves torturing slavic POWs or pissing on slav corpses. They're trying a rematch of a war they fought 70 years ago, do they need a greater objective?

It matters because Scott Ritter is not just a soldier who left the US for ideological reasons to pursue a career in Russia. Ritter didn't have a career in the US after his sex offense and because he got blackballed he either had to find a government that would take him or essentially go work at a McDonalds. No serious agency wants a convict, but states where propaganda and coercion is the name of the game will gladly take you in if it benefits them. Nobody is saying Ritter hasn't paid for his crimes, but his crimes are absolutely unquestionably the reason he is now in eastern europe speaking in shitty Russians to soldiers for propaganda purposes.

Wokeism? Accepting that pedophile Scott Ritter left the U.S cause he couldn't have a career? If truth is woke then i guess it's wokeism.

" also i really dont have an issue calling him an authority on the current conflict as he is following it daily. if thats not an expert, what is ?" - So just to be clear, you and do not agree on if Ritter is an expert or not. You think he is an expert, because he "reads about the conflict every day" and Djunior says that Ritter is in fact not an expert at all. What if Ritter reads misinformation all day, is he still an expert? What if Ritter doesn't really read at all, but skims headlines, is he still an expert? What I and others mean when we talk about experts is generally not some random person who "reads daily" but someone who has a proven and extensive trackrecord in academia or in a practical field. Ritter has none of those things. Ritter is a ballistics expert, not an expert on Russian geopolitics, he even says as much himself. The fact that you disagree with Ritter himself about what he is an expert on should be as alarming as Djunior disagreeing with Putin over the justification for the invasion.

I have explained it multiple times, and its unfortunate that you don't seem to understand it. Ferdia seems to be genuinely interested but I cannot say that for you. Read my comment to above and feel your mind expand.

You guys have two problems here:
1. Is Scott Ritter an expert or not? One person says yes, the other one says no.
2. Did Scott Ritters conviction lead to him being blackballed and unable to persue a career in the U.S? This one has a yes or no answer and is more or less undebated because it's been known fact for such a long time.

The final question is:
If Scott Ritter is a convicted pedo who is begrudged that he can't work in the U.S and went to become a state actor in one of the few countries that would take him and Scott Ritter is indeed not an expert and has no background in Russian geopolitics, who cares what he says? At that point he isn't a trustworthy source, but some random fatty being paid by Kreml. You could literally make his points yourself and they would be as credible.

This whole Scott Ritter pedophilia debate made me look up the charges - he got catfished by a cop in an adults-only chat.

Is that the same as kiddydiddling or do we give him a pass?

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/magazine/scott-ritter.html

I don't have a stake in the "how much of a pedophile is Scott Ritter" competition. Ritter was not convicted once, but multiple times. He identified himself as being 15 to what he thought were young people online and was convicted both in 2001 and 2009.

The fact that he is admitted and convicted ruined any chance of a career in the US for pretty obvious reasons. He now has to work abroad. How much of a pedo he is is relatively uninteresting to me, what is interesting is that it ruined his career in the west so he had to go abroad.