JayJay
21
It’s a metaphor for spoiled Americans who think the pandemic was an excuse for Dems to seize power.
STODR
22
So you can’t do it then? Should be easy for you if you don’t want troops in places.
Tell us what should he do?
no, it was a response to me, which is ironic considering all the faux whining at the dnc yesterday about nonexistent authoritarianism.
JayJay
24
This was a pleasant conversation until some posters wandered in and started being silly.
1 Like
DougBH
25
Its a metaphor for Democrats who think the whole world is the responsibility of the US.
DougBH
26
The pleasant conversation starts out with Trump not knowing that Belarus isn’t part of Russia.
Adam
27
Well, I don’t speak for the libs, but I think most people don’t want Trump just throwing troops into US cities. I think that’s the only complaint so far. What other countries have libs complained about? Most of us “libs” were upset by Trump’s poorly planned pull out of US troops from Syria and even that got cancelled.
And for the record, one of Trump’s favorite claims(and some posters here) is that Obama gave Putin Crimea. If our attitude is that Belarus shouldn’t matter then I guess Crimea didn’t matter. Trump is the one who always boasts about how tough he’s been on Russia, even though there not much evidence of that.
STODR
28
You mean like this poster: "ep- screw the rest of the world…we’re being told to wear masks over here, and that’s a way more grevious sin.

#AmericaIsSpoiledRotten"
or this one “It’s a metaphor for spoiled Americans who think the pandemic was an excuse for Dems to seize power.”
It is just bad if we pull them out or put them in, got it.
Adam
29
It probably hasn’t been part of Russia for as long as you think. For one thing, it hasn’t been part of Russia for almost 30 years. And I had to google this, but for centuries before that sometimes it was part of Poland, sometimes it was part of Lithuania, sometimes Russia.
ukraine is associated with nato. belarus is not
Adam
31
Well technically so is Belarus. “Associated” is a very vague term.
meh, some diplomatic stuff. seems very minor. ukraine as least was being considered for membership. hardly the same
I wrote a paper on this back in my undergrad days, arguing that after Ukraines fall, Belarus would be the next logical place where a regime change would take place.
I was off by a few years, I guess, but I’m still happy it’s moving in that direction.
2 Likes
Belarus is nothing like the Ukraine, they are a lot more tied/pro Russia than the Ukraine. The best way way to put it in perspective is Belarus politically as a country is more akin to Donetsk. Whereas in in Ukraine the western half was pro EU, the two share a common language and geography but that’s were the similarities end politically they are not the same other than both being corrupt.
3 Likes
They are not the same.
“Anti-government protesters have rallied in Minsk and other cities for more than a week, but they haven’t been waving EU flags. Experts point out that Belarus is a pro-Russia country, even without President Lukashenko.”
The concern Putin has is whether Russias populace will get ideas from the current unrest going on in Belarus. A further concern is whether Belarus is drifting westward.
Russia would stomp it out immediately, they would never allow Belarus to go to the West. And as I pointed out as in the article above the overall majority are pro Russian. It’s way different than the Ukraine who are split on west and east.
I understand that. Poland essentially wrote the policy the EU has toward ex-soviet bloc countries, and got the ball rolling for Ukraine’s Orange revolution; essentially planting the seeds for Maidan. My guess was that, given the Polish population in Belarus, something similar could be pulled off by them in the future, should the situation there destabilize.
For sure, but I’m not so sure about the ‘immediate’ part. If they are rolling in their military now, they anticipate political chaos and Lukashenko’s displacement. From a geopolitical standpoint, it’s advantageous for the West to open another front in Belarus, leaving Russia on guard and in possible conflict from indigenous forces from the Baltic all the way down to Crimea.
Putin could try… but how.
This all goes into hypotheticals, of course. If Lukashenko doesn’t leave willingly, I forsee a rising level of violence.