Skiluros

We are going in circles. Short sentence on what you think I need to admit to. This shouldn't be difficult.

The future US special representative for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, in his peace plan suggests freezing the front lines. He also reportedly advocates for pressuring Kyiv and Moscow to sit down at the negotiating table and lift sanctions against Russia, reports US broadcaster CNN.

Am I missing something?

From my understanding (speculation really), Trump is going to comply with all of Putin's demands (other than surrendering Zaporozhie and Kherson), lift all sanctions and then claim he "stopped the war" and his supporters will of course buy it because they know little about Ukraine and some have a tendency to support demagoguery in a genuine manner.

I made a relatively calm (considering your shit eating lemmings rant), jovial remark about how a clear case of corruption (on an outcome basis) might undermine people's view of legal proceedings against a rich, well-connected celebrity/businessman.

You then went on a rant about how I am wrong to view the sackler case as an example of judicial corruption and that it was no big deal that some oligarchs who engaged in mass killings escaped criminal liability.

Where is the strawman?

You said I am not making sense. Can you in one (somewhat short) sentence say what I need to understand or admit to, in order for my agreement to make sense?

Because I don't like ignorant Americans calling Ukraine (or any other country) a "corrupt shithole" while arguing that's it's OK that criminal oligarchs (who organized a massive drug cartel with deaths in the 10s of thousands) should avoid all criminal liability and retain enough money to live opulent lifestyles. You are really in so deep that you can't understand this?

I also don't like people who call others lemmings who like eating shit just because they happen to be be a more sceptical and are more critical about proganada polemics.

P.S. I said I currently live in Ukraine. Does that mean I haven't lived/worked/studied in the US for many years? I've even been to Flint multiple times! I loved how well the US judicial system worked when all those poor black people got life long poisoning.

Not very "free speech" of you I must add.

I am assuming you mean $4B not $40 B (was not able to find anything around a $40B). The exact number is irrelevant if it allows the criminal organization to retain enough money to live an opulent lifestyle on a "generational" basis. This is not a controversial statement.

Not really, no. What do you mean by compromised? The American judicial system is set up in such a way that it’s largely transparent, so large scale corruption would be nearly impossible to sustain.

Remember when I said in Ukraine the criminal do things in a direct manner, while in the US it is done with lots of pomp and in a roundabout manner? With the actual outcome being the same. Why do you think I mentioned this?

As far as the legal system is concerned, that money doesn’t exist, because it can’t be proven that they possess it. This is frustrating, but it’s legally sound.

This is just an excuse. If anything a country like the US can very much resolve this issue. There is a lack of desire. In another case the issue would be solved and there would no pretend BS about "legally sound". Imagine if something similar was relevant to a terrorism case on the scale of 9/11. They would resolve this without any pretend excuses, they would find a way.

You have a very naive view of the world if you think the judges are merely implementing the law. There is a massive feedback loop between the oligarchs, politicians and the judicial system. It's a bit supremacist to think that Americans are inherently incapable of such corruption constructs.

Getting the Sacklers sent to prison would feel good, but it wouldn’t directly help anyone suffering from opioid addiction.

So you believe that if you are an oligarch, it is a reasonable for a "non-compromised" (your implied words) judicial system to allow them to skip prison for their crimes (in this case organizing a massive drug cartel with probably 100K+ deaths)? Do you even read what you're writing? You're basically saying it's good that criminals don't get any liability as long as they are rich and well connected.

How do you know what was the goal of the original ruling being overturned (and subsequent the outcome)? And I didn't see anything about liability for the Sackler family.

I will give you an non-US example. There was a really corrupt court (with scandalous behaviour) in Ukraine that was scheduled to be shut down following the passage of new laws to improve the judicial system. This move was overturned by another high court. Can you guess why this happened? They eventually shut down the court following the fullscale russian invasion because the corrupt judges got scared (angry population) and due to the state of emergency.

Back to Jay-Z. Considering your own admissions that US criminals can and do go free as long as long as they are rich (and for starting a drug cartel that enabled 100K+ deaths, no less), it is reasonable to be skeptical of the overall process w.r.t criminal liability. Not to mention there are earlier examples where it was basically impossible to get anywhere with a criminal lawsuit.

Isn't it reasonable to assume the judiciary in an oligarch run state is going to be compromised (I am referring to the US civil vs. criminal distinction and the inability of winning criminal lawsuits)?

I see a lot of parallels between the judicial corruption in my own country (Ukraine) and the US. Sure our goons are more direct, while Americans prefer more pomp and roundabout methods for corruption, but the outcomes are the same. My favourite US oligarch group is the Sackler family.

In a bankruptcy court filing on July 7, 2021, multiple states agreed to settle. Though Purdue admitted no wrongdoings, the Sacklers would agree never to produce opioids again and pay billions in damages toward a charitable fund. Purdue Pharma was dissolved on September 1, 2021. The Sacklers agreed to pay $4.5 billion over nine years, with most of that money funding addiction treatment. The bankruptcy judge Robert Drain acknowledged that the Sacklers had moved money to offshore accounts to protect it from claims, and he said he wished the settlement had been higher.

What I mean by this tangent is that is not unreasonable to assume that groups that are de facto protected are going to engage in criminals behaviour.

Why makes you say that?

Crypto-oligarch were some of his biggest supporters. Oligarch regimes (elected democratically or otherwise) generally focus on kickbacks to affiliates and pressuring competing oligarch groups. This is not even a US-specific thing.

They try really hard rebranding in name, not Ideas. Asad is bad, the people trying to get in power now are not better.

Do you have any specifics on this? Reports, analysis with reference to facts and data. Something along the lines of this article:

How Syria’s ‘Diversity-Friendly’ Jihadists Plan on Building a State

Not saying you are wrong, HTS and the rebels may well fracture. I guess we'll find out.

This is a re-occurring theme in russian history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War

While the russian economic model evolves with times (Tsarist feudalism, state managed economy under socialism, oligarchic capitalist plutocracy), attitudes around imperialism and governance unfortunately will not change until russians start being treated as they treat others.

Let's see what comes out of this.

It would have been better to put him on trial and execute him for crimes against humanity.

For what it's worth, HTS has seemingly moderated both its public statements and governance (in the areas it controlled) in the last few years.

Not saying we won't have Islamic revanchism, but it's too early to tell and there are some signs that moderate governance is not outside the realm of possibility.