News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 16 [706]

If nothing else, democratic leaders have to be more careful with how costly their wars turn out and/or make a better job in justifying them. Moral issues aside, this makes it less likely to overcommit. The USA lost approx. 50k dead soldiers in Vietnam before they pulled out. The Russians have already lost 4 times that in Ukraine (while having a smaller population and much worse demographic) with no sign of stopping.

Hence one country will end this decade as a superpower, while the other can look forward to a future as China's second North Korea (if they are lucky).

News / Poland and Germany should unite, says Lech Walesa [102]

@jon357


Believe what you want. It would be nice if the names were in the brackets, then I would not have to manually add the before I insert quotes, but it is how it is. I just copy what I want to quote and put it in quote brackets. Since everyone seems to understand when he is referred to, it is not a problem I am particulary interested in solving.


You... You are aware that the Netherlands have a more urbanized population than the UK right? And that it shares a land border with Belgium, the most urbanized country in Europe, and is partof/close to the most densely populated regions in Europe? Knowing that, no one could possibly believe that the UK was in a more challenging position during Covid than the Netherlands.

While the UK is surrounded by sea (and that land border in Ireland but still).

News / Poland and Germany should unite, says Lech Walesa [102]

@jon357


I do no such thing. They are just not in the brackets when I use them.


Might ask you the same question. You came up with the idea that the UK - an island no less - was in a uniquely challenging in Europe situation during Covid due to its' population density. Like seriously. As if being densely populated was something uniquely to the UK.... .

News / Poland and Germany should unite, says Lech Walesa [102]

@jon357


Sure. If you try someone in a German court, the German system applies. If you try someone in Poland, the Polish system applies. If you want to extradite someone, you'll have to convince the court of the country in question.


The UK had also some key advantages. It is literally an island and not that densely populated. Compare that to e.g. Germany, whose population is on average older, and was neighbouring countries that had extremely high infection rates at times (AUstria, Netherlands, Czech Republic). The jury is still out how badly the UK did compared to other European countries, but there is nothing to suggest that it perform well compared to most.


We are talking about not having enough evidence to charge someone with murder. That was the initial problem with prosecuting him. That is not abusing anything.

News / Poland and Germany should unite, says Lech Walesa [102]

@jon357


Not others, just those in German courts. You can not prosecute someone in Germany if his crime has passed the statute of limitations in Germany.

Same goes for other countries.

This can go both ways. If the German who is suspected of the murder of the little girl in Portugal should ever end up in a court, the chance of convicting him will be higher in Germany because from what I have read, statutes of limitation Portugal would prevent most charges by now.


UK Covid deaths among worst of big European economies

google.com/amp/s/bbc.com/news/health-65975154.amp


That goes with adhering to the rule of law.

Besides, Poland is hardly in position to complain over slow reactions to an extradition request after allowing the NSII suspect to escape. The consequences of which will be probably felt for a long time in the legal cooperation between those two countries.

@Bratwurst Boy


Not gonna happen and with good reasons if we look at our history.

News / Poland and Germany should unite, says Lech Walesa [102]

@jon357


Sure. And there are crimes which according to international law are so heinous that jurisdiction applies universal, like crimes against humanity/genocide. Hence the trials against the IS and former Assaad loyalists in Germany. But claiming jurisdiction is one thing, whether the country in which the culprit lives extradites, is another. You need special arguments for an extradition, which weren't fullfilled.


Not necessarily. Just a consequence of the circumstances. The crime happened 20 years before there was even a chance to prosecute him. By that time, any crime but murder would have passed the statute of limitation. Which is where the difficulty in this trial was, since the circumstances could support manslaughter. Without the new found witnesses, something the prosecution had initially no knowledge, a conviction would probably not have succeesed.

News / Poland and Germany should unite, says Lech Walesa [102]

@jon357


That is how jurisdiction works. The crime happened in Germany, the culprit was German. Not to mention the connection to the service of a (former) German state. Anything else would be highly unusual.

@Bratwurst Boy


Not that it really matters given his age. But the culprit was fortunate that the crime happened in the GDR, and hence was tried according to GDR sentencing guide lines. In the FRG, murder carried/ still carries a mandatory life sentence, whereas in the GDR one could get away with 10 years. Rather bizarre considering the otherwise brutal nature of the regime if you ask me.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@jon357


But only to a very, very limited degree. The evidence is irrefutable. The UK - like the USA - gave only very limited aid to Ukraine, most of which could also be used in a guerilla war. If London had had greater confidence in the Ukrainian army, they would have supplied them with heavy weapons right away, instead of waiting for 3 more months.

The UK is as you say "independent". They could have supplied Ukraine with tanks, heavy artillery, planes et al even before 2022 with no one being able to veto it. But they did not, most likely because they shared their Western allies scepticism of Ukraine's capabilities. Which is fine. But it is hardly something to brag about.


It is certainly nice to see that the UK has finally a respectable PM again.


I dont, they are just like that in posts when I quote them.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

@Paulina

Didnt some of the Russian executioners end up being purged by Stalin and Chrustchev for unrelated reasons? Not very satisfactory to be sure, but some consolation perhaps?

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

@Bratwurst Boy


You might wanna look up what Höcke said what he'd do if the AfD takes power. "Wohltemperierte Grausamkeiten* for a start.

@Novichok


Climate change, Putin's Russia, modernization of our economy to name a few. All of which way more challenging to our security and wealth.


None.

I mean technically the GDR executed some after show trials, but they lacked any legitimacy.

GG 102 "The death penalty is abolished."

It only took us the horrors of the 3rd Reich to realize that. Most of the civilized world took longer to understand that. And I have no doubt that the USA will one day as well.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

@Bratwurst Boy


There are plenty of articles and videos about Höcke's ideology out there if you are interested.

@mafketis


Human rights are called human rights because they apply to all humans. Innocents, rapists and murderers included.

Solutions that respect our laws and values take time.

@GefreiterKania


Did that once in our history, and Germany has never fully recovered from this.

Even if I believed that the AfD could be trusted with power and knew how to solve this issue and could actually pull it off (none of which could be said with sincerety) there other policy issues are simply too damaging for Germany to make it worth it.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

@Bratwurst Boy


Then I suggest you read up him. Because once you do, you may change your mind about this.

@mafketis


So they basically have the choice between indefinite incarceration without trial or returning to a country where there life is in danger. Every decent lawyer would win this case in 5 minutes in front of the Supreme Court.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

For one I am a centrist (center-right) so I am not inclined to call everyone right to the left "Nazi".

How would you call Höcke?

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

@Bratwurst Boy


And because people may or may not have been too harsh on Lucke back then we should now be lenient on Höcke? If someone votes for Höcke, he is not a victim of circumstances or the mean media.


But due to the AfD the CDU is unlikely to get a majority to make significant changes. They'll be forced to form a coalition with the Green party or the SPD and we can all imagine how those will water down any reform of our amigration/asylum system.

@mafketis


Sounds all nice and well in theory, but is often very difficult in practice. Countries often do not take their citizen backs, or even refuse to confirm their identity. Some countries are not considered safe for return which brings up legal hurdles for deportation.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

@Bratwurst Boy


That argument may have held some weight 10 or 5 years, when there were still doubts about the direction the AfD was heading towards and people could still feign ignorance about the nature of their politicians.

But at some point you need to call a kettle a kettle. There are plenty of information on Höcke out there. One can watch his videos, speeches and learn about his rhetoric and aims. If someone still votes for him in the full knowledge of what he is doing, he can not complain about being "insulted".


I am sure it is less than that if we talk about about people who are 100% on board with everything the AfD wants to do.

If we look at studies about the voters of the NSDAP, then we see that amongst their voters in 1932/1933, many of them may not have 100% on board with all of Hitlers' promised policies. They may not have agreed with murdering jews or starting another war. Yet they voted for him neverthess and helped him to power and in a position where he could implement those policies. That is a historical responsibility they had to live with. And it is something AfD voters may want to think about.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [412]

@mafketis


Pretty much most of their leading politicians are known to either advocate for similar policies and/or downplay Nazi Germany and its' crimes.

If someone votes for a fascist like Höcke in Thuringia (as in, a court ruled that calling him a fascist is not a defamation because his actions and rhetoric support such a description) he can not claim to be a "concerned" citizen or something else. Especially now when there is another protest party with BSW. Which is also problematic in its' own ways, but they are at least not tying their anti-refugee policies with attempts to downplay Nazi Germany.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@jon357


Leaving the "independence" issue aside, there is nothing to suggest that London had greater trust in the Ukrainian ability to withstand an invasion with its' conventional forces. Which is why the UK only send weapons that could be used for guerilla warfare for the first few weeks and only shifted to heavy weapons later alongside other countries. The UK did help Ukraine, but let's not exaggerate it.


But doesn't that lack of dependence on Russian oil/gas (*cough Londongrad) make the lack of support of Ukraine until 2022 from the UK even more egregious? It was London who was party to the Budapest memorandum after all. Yet perhaps due to their occupation with the Brexit folly, London was completely uninterested to invest political capital in supporting Ukraine for pretty much all of the 2020s. And even then there military aid -while effective - was very, very limited in scape. Sure, neither France nor the US were covering themselves in glory either here, but some of their politicians were at least trying. Even the luckless Hollande tried to assist Ukraine during the Minsk negotiations.

The UK was well-positioned to actually make a difference for Ukraine until 2022. The UK had diplomatic cloud and as party to the Budapest memorandum a justification, some even would argue an obligation to help more. The UK had no dependency on Russian gas (although it loved taking Russian money). It did not have the historical baggage and pacifist tradition that prevented it from sending weapons to a conflict zone, let alone to Eastern Europe to be used against Russians. It had the liberty to send heavy weapons, and train the Ukrainians in how to use them. Yet it did not offer substantial aid to Ukraine until Putin invaded.

I mean in all seriousness, we all know and acknowledge that Germany screwed up here, but I really don't get that self-congratulatory tone from a British poster in light of that very, very sketchy record.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]


Wouldn't really change anything. Poland is legally obligated to reach net zero by 2050 and implement the necessary policies. The UK left and is still signing up to emission certificates, the just call them UK now instead of EU.


As did the elites of all the other Western countries as well. And given the differences in ressources, it was not a completely unreasonable expectation.

Who knows how things would have turned out if Zelensky had become a second Karzai instead of a second Churchill, or if the defense of Kiev had been less expertly conducted.


In due time. Scholz deserves a lot of criticism on various issues, but when it comes to aid for Ukraine, we need to give credit where credit is due. Under his watch Germany become Ukraine largest European supporter. German tanks are fighting near Kursk. All of which would have been unthinkeable less than 3 years ago. And now he has made sure that Ukraine -despite the heavy burden the war and the Ukrainian refugees place on the budget - will receive significant military assistance for the next 2 years. After which we'll see how the situation on the ground and the willingness of other countries to keep supporting Ukraine shall look like.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@Bratwurst Boy


Just look at your carbon footprint.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@Bratwurst Boy


Morally. Because we grew rich by causing their homes to be destroyed. Legally because of the treaties we signed to limit our carbon emissions and as a consequence they'll have strong cases if they sue us. Practically there are so many of them.

CO certificates seem cheap in comparison.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@Bratwurst Boy
.
You might wanna look up the predicted consequences of climate change on parts of the world if we can not limit it to a certain threshold. We are not talking about government corruption or a few more hot days per year.


Trouble is, they may not leave us alone at a certain point. And if things really come to happen as experts fear, then there will be no way for us to refuse them.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@Bratwurst Boy


Yeah, but now it is happening due to our own actions. And much faster than it used to.


Really? Our socities grew rich due to using fossil fuels for centuries. Some countries are still poor, and are facing extinction due to our actions and those of our ancestors. If there is a case for reparations, it is this one.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@GefreiterKania


Yea we are. The EU and its' member states are legally commited to the 2050 target.


As of right now, maybe. But with the onset of climate change and its' negative consequences, it will become impossible to differ between those two causes. It is entirely possible that large parts of Africa and the Middle East will become inhospitable. If you look carefully, there are even parts of Spain, France and Italy that are threatened by desertification. Right now you can justify sending economic migrants back to e.g. Namibia or Ghana, since they "only" face poverty there, not threats to their very survival. Once simple water becomes scarce, that justification goes out the window. We either get serious about fighting climate change, or we'll have to learn sharing our continent for real. In the latter case we won't get away with "only" 3-4 million migrants per year.


Reparations will become a part of it. And really, it is hard to deny them from a moral point of view to e.g. people who lived on island that disappear due to climate change. Technology and education is nice and all, but of little use if the very land you are standing on disappears.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]


We can argue on how to achieve this target.

But the target itself is not in question. We are legally and morally obligated to become emission neutral by 2050. Which will require effort and money. But there is no acceptable alternative.

Some people believe that migration is a pressing problem right now. I wonder how they'd react if Climate change forces a bn people from the ME and Africa to migrate to Europe because their homes become literally unliveable. And unlike now, there would be no justifiable way to refuse them.


I thought the ban was on newly built vehicles, not ones still in service?

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@GefreiterKania


Could, but wouldn't. That is just humane nature. We rarely spend money on not-immedeately threatening issues. And without that pressure, it is highly unlikely we would have achieved the little success that we have.


And prices have been barely starting to go up the until recently due to various political compromises.Those half measures had negative effect on the effectivness of the certificates, though it seems now that we will finally see appropiate increases until 2030.


That is a silly strawman. There is no comparable entity to the EU elsewhere.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@GefreiterKania

Because that approach worked so well the last 30 years...

The new approach compensates for the damage done by CO emissions and put pressure on us to innovate.


Someone has to make a start. And some of the countries have already taken more drastic steps to to reduce CO emissions in the past. If we in Europe had done the same, then some of our recent steps might not be necessary. Now the situation is getting desperate. Either we innovate or we will lose our industries. The idea that we can somehow muddle through with slow changes while China and the USA are leaving us in the dust is absurd.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@GefreiterKania
Does a ton CO weigh less in Poland than in the Netherlands? Does one ton of CO2 from Poland affect the world climate less than one emitted by Luxembourg?

Poland is not a poor developing country. CO output is a resource like any other and there are costs related to it. And given Poland's dependency on coal and smog problems, there is hardly cause for leniency there.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@GefreiterKania


Those CO2 quotas are necessary for two reasons. One they put pressure on the industry to innovate and reduce CO emmission, and the need for innovation has been a driving factor of Two they put an end to the idea that CO2 are free and not directly harmful to our planet. This will hopefully be considered in our favour once the issue of reparations from the industrialized world to countries who are affected by Climate change the most will be raised (which let us be clear, will become an issue down the line and very difficult to refute).

@Ironside


That seems to be the most realistic outcome. Though I would argue that anything but an outright Russian victory - given the vast discrepancies in means and ressources at the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine - should be considered a success. A success that will be expensive, with Europe having to assist Ukraine after the war is over, but cheaper than than the alternative. Better for Poland to pay a few bn to Kiev each year than to have an almost uninterrupted border with Russia from the Baltic Sea down to Lwiv.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

@GefreiterKania

I don't know about Polish coal mines, Germany is preparing to close the German ones by the 2030s.


All sensible policies. Combustion engines will most likely be dead by the early 2030s anyway. The German companies really dropped the ball there. Without those drastic measures, none of the Europeans stay competetive.


They do however give a f*ck about reneweable energy. Both countries are heavily investing into those forms of energy, and it is starting to pay off for them.

e360.yale.edu/features/china-renewable-energy

Those types of energy are the future. If we do not adapt accordingly, we will indeed poor.

News / Is NORD STREAM dangerous for Poland's natural enviroment? [516]

Not sure what you mean with Green policies As I see it, Poland is not forced to repeat the German folly of shutting down your nuclear plants (instead it is building new ones) while pushing reneweables over fossil fuels is objectively speaking the right call and necessary if Europe does not fall behind the USA and China on this market. That is one issue where the Greens are unmistakeably right