thaibeachlovers

Are you being serious? Sometimes it's hard to know.

Oh dear, I never said all Arabs were lovely. I just said that not all were awful. IMO one shouldn't despise an entire population because of a few. Much like people in every country I've been in.

Stuff happens in every war, and every side loses it's way in the heat of battle. Plenty examples of such from Vietnam war. That was just one possible explanation, and there could be others, but at this stage the evidence is lacking. I'm just saying we don't actually know at this point in time.

Which could have been avoided if a negotiated settlement had been reached before the conflict started. I wasn't in the room, but from what I've read it seems it was the Ukrainian leader that chose war. Like I said, I wasn't in the room, and Putin might have just preferred to send his troops in to kill loads of people and blow up cities. Perhaps we'll learn what really happened sometime in the future when it becomes history.

Photos of dead people means nothing if we don't know who killed them. The propaganda says it was Russian soldiers, and that may be true, but they might also have been killed by other people for other reasons; perhaps because they were collaborators with the Russians, but at this stage we don't know the facts. Unless photographic evidence of a Russian soldier shooting them emerges, it's not a foregone conclusion. The above does not make me a Putin apologist, and any personal attack on me will be reported.

No you didn't. The Saudis had to pay well above market rate to get westerners to stay there as most I knew hated the religious police. If it wasn't for them, Saudi would have been a fantastic place to work. Most of the men I met were OK ( forbidden to meet women there ), and some were very nice, but some were really horrible.

No, I was responding to a different poster.

Ended for me when the sex stopped. Looking back it was apparent when they stopped loving me, but I ignored the signs, to my later disadvantage.

The cancel culture on this very forum. It's why on certain threads a small clique end up talking among themselves without any opposing input.

You raise an interesting point. If we ( the west ) are so invested in freedom and democracy ( LOL ) that we risk WW3 by getting involved in the Ukraine conflict, why are we allowing the Taliban to rule Afghanistan, when they are fundamentally opposed to freedom and democracy? I guess all those Allied troops died for nothing and it was a complete waste of money, but that's for a different conversation.

It's just a forum, not a meeting of the G7, and we should be able to post without getting abused by anonymous people. If he's wrong you can present your "facts" to correct him.

Why would Russia do so?

You thought he wouldn't use it if enemy nations sent planes to get involved? It's his trump card and I doubt any western leader doesn't know what the stakes are. Hopefully they won't do anything stupid that starts WW3. How do you think the US and allies would have reacted if Russia threatened to send aircraft over Iraq during the conflict to shoot down allied planes?

Are you confusing me with some other poster? I never mentioned a "small or regional nuclear war". Far as I'm concerned once the first one falls it's all in. BTW, IMO our world ( of humans ) is doomed from overpopulation anyway. Given the way we are destroying the forests and polluting the oceans into death it's just a matter of time. Gaia will be grateful when we are gone.

IMO it was to explain why there were a load of characters that were not in the book in the movie, but for sure the movie was too long, and could have been half an hour shorter if they'd cut out the irrelevant bits.

Being conservative does not mean that one isn't woke.

and why is it necessary to bring "diversity" into the group of main characters? It's a story about a group of 1930s English people on holiday on a boat on the Nile, not a group of Americans of a modern era. In his Orient Express movie Branagh didn't feel obliged to invent roles for minority ethnicity actors.

I'm sure he can't sleep for worrying about that, NOT.

My point which you chose to ignore is that being indicted by the court probably means nothing to Putin. I doubt he'll be holidaying in Blackpool any time soon.

If you live in LOS you should get a Thai driving licence. Yes, but far as I know only applies for one year. I was driving in NZ on a Thai licence, but only for one year.

There are a few million Chinese that disagree with your opinion. IMO to them the west is an oppressor that exploits the poor of Asia to get rich ( the west has been doing that since they introduced opium to the Chinese to get rich ), and IMO they probably like it that the west is looking impotent to do much no matter how many brave words they say.

If the west depends entirely on some dictator having a "meaningful" dialogue we really are screwed, IMO. Perhaps we really are so pathetic, but I am descended from people that didn't bother with "meaningful dialogue" when they went out and conquered half the planet. Where are the people in the west with the guts to do that now- all no more than dust?

Well said indeed. If I didn't go on this forum I'd never even know it was happening. After it's all over it'll be as important to the world as Syria. Compared to the economic destruction imposed by governments in reaction to covid, IMO it won't have much effect. Where I live the Ukraine war is so unimportant that not a single person I've talked to mentions it.

It's a sign that you shouldn't get married. I had a few "signs" before I married my Thai lady, and I wish I'd taken the hint and not got married. If she loves you she'll live with you, and you can have a village wedding instead of the legal morass you want to enter.

Really? So it's not our problem if someone causes the deaths of millions of people so long as they don't cross the border? I can't agree with that. Atrocities are atrocities wherever they are caused. IMO it's hypocritical of western countries to criticize Russia while allowing the outrageous situation in Burma.