Russia and Ukraine

[RandoEFC+]

 

More war crimes.

In more optimistic news, though:

 

 

[Stan]

4 hours ago, Michael said:

 

Just seen this too. 

Balls of Steel! 

 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

12 minutes ago, RondónEFC said:

 

More war crimes.

In more optimistic news, though:

 

 

Someone claiming that "Russia will use WP in the future maybe possibly trust me bro they have plans" is not a war crime. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

12 minutes ago, Stan said:

Just seen this too. 

Balls of Steel! 

 

I'd slap the bitch. 

[RandoEFC+]

3 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Someone claiming that "Russia will use WP in the future maybe possibly trust me bro they have plans" is not a war crime. 

Sorry, did you want me to actually clarify the "if they do this" part? I'd have thought that, even around here, we could all scrape together enough brain cells to figure out that part was implied. Obviously I'm not saying it's already a war crime before they've done it.

They have already bombed hospitals and orphanages so it's not exactly hard to believe. But fine, if this one doesn't end up happening, then you can strike it off the list for all the difference it will make.

Forgive me if I trust the verified accounts of foreign correspondents working for reputable news outlets over the IAmVeryClever hot takes from the modestly informed everyman shitposters on this football forum (and don't be offended because I include myself in that).

Most of these intelligence reports have come true despite armchair experts on the internet convincing themselves that it's all scare mongering. This particular source appeared on my feed as it was retweeted by Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat which is an organisation that spends its entire time debunking false reports of this, that and the other on social media, using some mental open source research tools that I don't fully understand but have always led to reliable conclusions in the past.

But back to the point I was making, to summarise simply, firing indiscriminately on Kyiv with even more lethal weaponry with no regard for civilians is bad, in my opinion. And if Russia do it, that will be bad. Hopefully we can find some common ground in there.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

2 minutes ago, RondónEFC said:

Sorry, did you want me to actually clarify the "if they do this" part? I'd have thought that, even around here, we could all scrape together enough brain cells to figure out that part was implied. Obviously I'm not saying it's already a war crime before they've done it.

They have already bombed hospitals and orphanages so it's not exactly hard to believe. But fine, if this one doesn't end up happening, then you can strike it off the list for all the difference it will make.

Forgive me if I trust the verified accounts of foreign correspondents working for reputable news outlets over the IAmVeryClever hot takes from the modestly informed everyman shitposters on this football forum (and don't be offended because I include myself in that).

Most of these intelligence reports have come true despite armchair experts on the internet convincing themselves that it's all scare mongering. This particular source appeared on my feed as it was retweeted by Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat which is an organisation that spends its entire time debunking false reports of this, that and the other on social media, using some mental open source research tools that I don't fully understand but have always led to reliable conclusions in the past.

But back to the point I was making, to summarise simply, firing indiscriminately on Kyiv with even more lethal weaponry with no regard for civilians is bad, in my opinion. And if Russia do it, that will be bad. Hopefully we can find some common ground in there.

I agree. I have no doubt that they won't do that however. My initial reaction is that I'm just as sick of fuckwits like orange crush posting right wing bullshit from people like that glossy eyed inbred incel PJW, as I am of people misrepresenting this war. Videos like that Ukrainian vehicle crushing that car and hearsay predictions like this one create a very false narrative.  

No one is sitting in Russias war rooms tweeting accurately their feelings and strategies. So don't tell me about your 'mad source bro trust me' I'll cry for the people of Kyiv being indiscriminately MOABed when it happens, not before. The US used their version of those very same bombs in Afghanistan, which killed civilians too. Just no one cares because they killed brown civilians, and now we have a white vs white war to cry about, all of a sudden civilian casualties and feelings are front and center, rather than an afterthought for the general public. 

 

[Cicero]

The Ghost of Kyiv. 
 

What a fucking legend. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

10 minutes ago, Cicero said:

The Ghost of Kyiv. 
 

What a fucking legend. 

Completely made up. 

[RandoEFC+]

7 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

I agree. I have no doubt that they won't do that however. My initial reaction is that I'm just as sick of fuckwits like orange crush posting right wing bullshit from people like that glossy eyed inbred incel PJW, as I am of people misrepresenting this war. Videos like that Ukrainian vehicle crushing that car and hearsay predictions like this one create a very false narrative.  

No one is sitting in Russias war rooms tweeting accurately their feelings and strategies. So don't tell me about your 'mad source bro trust me' I'll cry for the people of Kyiv being indiscriminately MOABed when it happens, not before. The US used their version of those very same bombs in Afghanistan, which killed civilians too. Just no one cares because they killed brown civilians, and now we have a white vs white war to cry about, all of a sudden civilian casualties and feelings are front and center, rather than an afterthought for the general public. 

 

Right on cue, here comes the "America did this too" angle. I'm not arguing with you but this is a thread about Russia and Ukraine so I won't get sucked into it. I don't think anyone defends the war crimes committed by the West either, but there are countless cans of worms you can open. Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction. Selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Etc. It just draws everyone away from the discussion about what's happening now and what this thread is about. If you want to talk about all that stuff then feel free, but use the Middle East thread for it, or whichever one is relevant.

I don't see how you can have any actual rational problem with me or anyone posting reports on what's potentially about to happen from reliable sources. I've already addressed, in good faith, your point about trustworthy reporting and people misrepresenting the war by explaining where I got it from so park all this "bro" nonsense. It sounds like you're trying to make out it's coming from some dark corner of Reddit that I've found after a couple spliffs or something. The whole raison d'etre of Bellingcat is exactly because of the rise in disinformation driven by Russian bots and other nefarious actors and propagandists on the Internet. If you choose to believe that you know more than me about the reliability of this organisation that I think you're admitting you've never heard of, then be my guest.

As for the "I'll cry about it when it happens" comment, if you've got a problem with people posting about stuff before it's happened then I suppose we best get onto the staff and get all of those prediction leagues and transfer rumours forums shut down. Maybe you're upset that other people are posting stuff which is "misrepresenting the war" but the actual leader of Ukraine seems to be expecting something pretty much along those lines himself:

Or does this count as another "mad source bro" misrepresentation too?

For the record, I'll happily see all of these sources be proven wrong and look completely stupid for arguing with you if it means less civilian deaths, that should go without saying.

[Cicero]

9 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Completely made up. 

Was it? Thought the Ukrainian president confirmed it?

[Spike]

‘War crimes’ are such a joke. They are only crimes when it is the loser.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

Just now, Spike said:

‘War crimes’ are such a joke. They are only crimes when it is the loser.

Bingo. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

18 minutes ago, RondónEFC said:

Right on cue, here comes the "America did this too" angle. I'm not arguing with you but this is a thread about Russia and Ukraine so I won't get sucked into it. I don't think anyone defends the war crimes committed by the West either, but there are countless cans of worms you can open. Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction. Selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Etc. It just draws everyone away from the discussion about what's happening now and what this thread is about. If you want to talk about all that stuff then feel free, but use the Middle East thread for it, or whichever one is relevant.

I don't see how you can have any actual rational problem with me or anyone posting reports on what's potentially about to happen from reliable sources. I've already addressed, in good faith, your point about trustworthy reporting and people misrepresenting the war by explaining where I got it from so park all this "bro" nonsense. It sounds like you're trying to make out it's coming from some dark corner of Reddit that I've found after a couple spliffs or something. The whole raison d'etre of Bellingcat is exactly because of the rise in disinformation driven by Russian bots and other nefarious actors and propagandists on the Internet. If you choose to believe that you know more than me about the reliability of this organisation that I think you're admitting you've never heard of, then be my guest.

As for the "I'll cry about it when it happens" comment, if you've got a problem with people posting about stuff before it's happened then I suppose we best get onto the staff and get all of those prediction leagues and transfer rumours forums shut down. Maybe you're upset that other people are posting stuff which is "misrepresenting the war" but the actual leader of Ukraine seems to be expecting something pretty much along those lines himself:

Or does this count as another "mad source bro" misrepresentation too?

For the record, I'll happily see all of these sources be proven wrong and look completely stupid for arguing with you if it means less civilian deaths, that should go without saying.

If you were this shocked and outraged at the war crimes, lack of due process and destruction of civil liberty and way of life when any western nation invaded any poor sod, African, Asian, Middle Eastern or otherwise, I'll give you full credit. I really will. I'm just cynical because all of a sudden now it's a European nation at risk, and European blood being shed all of a sudden everything is so fucking sad, reprehensible and shocking all of a sudden, whereas historically no one has given a wet shit about the wars fought so far this century. Now that it's 'the other guy' doing the invading the tunes being sung have turned. 


Spike is correct, War crimes are the justifications of the bloodthirsty actions of history's winners against history's losers. How many millions of people have died as a result of 'human rights interventions' from the west? 

[Rick]

I don’t think it’s too hard to understand why European’s would give more attention to an invasion happening in Europe. Especially when the aggressor is one who has made threats by way of nuclear warheads being used.  

Edited February 26, 2022 by Rick

[Spike]

11 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Bingo. 

Allies win WW2
The nuking of Japan was perfectly justifiable. We saved them from destroying themselves and Asia!

Axis win WW2
The holocaust was perfectly justifiable. We saved Europe from them, they were all war criminals and radicals, we saved Europe!
 

It is oh so evil what people do to eachother, it is very tiresome 

[RandoEFC+]

3 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

If you were this shocked and outraged at the war crimes, lack of due process and destruction of civil liberty and way of life when any western nation invaded any poor sod, African, Asian, Middle Eastern or otherwise, I'll give you full credit. I really will. I'm just cynical because all of a sudden now it's a European nation at risk, and European blood being shed all of a sudden everything is so fucking sad, reprehensible and shocking all of a sudden, whereas historically no one has given a wet shit about the wars fought so far this century. Now that it's 'the other guy' doing the invading the tunes being sung have turned. 


Spike is correct, War crimes are the justifications of the bloodthirsty actions of history's winners against history's losers. How many millions of people have died as a result of 'human rights interventions' from the west? 

So you're essentially admitting that you have no rational opposition to what I posted in the first place. As I suspected, we're back to "nobody cared when America did this to brown people" even though literally every person I've ever met who isn't ignorant or racist would whole heartedly condemn the same crimes on those occasions too.

As Rick has said, this war is an immediate security concern to Europe, because of its proximity to our borders, and the world's other superpowers, because Putin has a massive fucking nuclear armoury at his disposal and he appears to have ripped up the rulebook on what has and hasn't been agreed as "fair play" since the Cold War. These are the reasons why it gets more coverage in the Western world. I'm sure if you went to Palestine or Hong Kong they'd be talking about their own conflicts more than Ukraine as well. It doesn't make them hypocrites.

The whole "double standards" rhetoric is just so tiresome because most people just aren't informed enough to know the comparable shit that's going on all over the world. It isn't their fault, they're reacting to what's on their televisions. You can't expect people to have such a thirst for bad news to spend their spare time educating themselves on every conflict in every corner of the world.

23 minutes ago, Spike said:

‘War crimes’ are such a joke. They are only crimes when it is the loser.

I know it's fashionable to take a cynical, aloof stance on this, but the whole point of defining 'war crimes' is an attempt to draw a line with military on military action on one side, where at least the person you're targeting has (in theory) at least signed up for potentially being involved in a war, and inhumane acts such as bombing hospitals, schools and orphanages on the other.

If that's not something worth at least fucking trying to cling on to instead of shrugging it off then I really do despair.

And God help either of you if your response is "yeah but Obama's air strikes nyer nyer nyer" or "yeah but Blair nyer nyer nyer weapons of mass destruction nyer nyer nyer" because, and I can't emphasise this enough, nobody is fucking suggesting that any of that shit was alright because those were only brown people, and I'm personally in the Russia and Putin thread to talk about Russia and Putin.

[RandoEFC+]

 

 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

12 minutes ago, RondónEFC said:

So you're essentially admitting that you have no rational opposition to what I posted in the first place. As I suspected, we're back to "nobody cared when America did this to brown people" even though literally every person I've ever met who isn't ignorant or racist would whole heartedly condemn the same crimes on those occasions too.

As Rick has said, this war is an immediate security concern to Europe, because of its proximity to our borders, and the world's other superpowers, because Putin has a massive fucking nuclear armoury at his disposal and he appears to have ripped up the rulebook on what has and hasn't been agreed as "fair play" since the Cold War. These are the reasons why it gets more coverage in the Western world. I'm sure if you went to Palestine or Hong Kong they'd be talking about their own conflicts more than Ukraine as well. It doesn't make them hypocrites.

The whole "double standards" rhetoric is just so tiresome because most people just aren't informed enough to know the comparable shit that's going on all over the world. It isn't their fault, they're reacting to what's on their televisions. You can't expect people to have such a thirst for bad news to spend their spare time educating themselves on every conflict in every corner of the world.

I know it's fashionable to take a cynical, aloof stance on this, but the whole point of defining 'war crimes' is an attempt to draw a line with military on military action on one side, where at least the person you're targeting has (in theory) at least signed up for potentially being involved in a war, and inhumane acts such as bombing hospitals, schools and orphanages on the other.

If that's not something worth at least fucking trying to cling on to instead of shrugging it off then I really do despair.

And God help either of you if your response is "yeah but Obama's air strikes nyer nyer nyer" or "yeah but Blair nyer nyer nyer weapons of mass destruction nyer nyer nyer" because, and I can't emphasise this enough, nobody is fucking suggesting that any of that shit was alright because those were only brown people, and I'm personally in the Russia and Putin thread to talk about Russia and Putin.

My focus is on your actions, not those in the conflict. I grew up listening to midnight oil and System of a down. Being told by my stepfather to question the motives of any war, and to watch the responses of the world with a critical eye. I've always despised war, the politicians who herd their people into it, and the justifications provided. I don't need to change my profile picture, be active on twitter or provide any other virtue signals to prove it. You clearly do for whatever reason and I'm just being critical of that. You actions are alien to me, and you likening prediction football transfers to predicting civilian casualties shows how far apart I feel we are in this. 

[Spike]

I'm anti-war and I think that war by its very definition is a war crime. That isn't aloof or cynical. The arbitrary line in the sand of war that people promise to 'not cross' is quite frankly bizarre to me because there is no way that any sort of armed conflict is anything but crossing the line. People are going to die.

5 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

My focus is on your actions, not those in the conflict. I grew up listening to midnight oil and System of a down. Being told by my stepfather to question the motives of any war, and to watch the responses of the world with a critical eye. I've always despised war, the politicians who herd their people into it, and the justifications provided. I don't need to change my profile picture, be active on twitter or provide any other virtue signals to prove it. You clearly do for whatever reason and I'm just being critical of that. You actions are alien to me, and you likening prediction football transfers to predicting civilian casualties shows how far apart I feel we are in this. 

I just bought 'Diesel and Heat' 1st print on vinyl.

[Spike]

'Intentionally killing civilians is a war crime but unintentionally isn't.' - That is madness.

https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/336923d8-a6ad-40ec-ad7b-45bf9de73d56/0/elementsofcrimeseng.pdf
 

According to the international criminal court these are war crimes, and as far as I'm concerned the moment war happens, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 and are going to happen regardless. We all agree these things are awful, terrible things, but they are going to happen, and are happening right now.

1. Willful killing
2. Torture
3. Inhumane treatment
4. Biological experiments
5. Willfully causing great suffering
6. Destruction and appropriation of property
7. Compelling service in hostile forces
8. Denying a fair trial
9. Unlawful deportation and transfer
10. Unlawful confinement
11. Taking hostages

[RandoEFC+]

56 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

I don't need to change my profile picture, be active on twitter or provide any other virtue signals to prove it. You clearly do for whatever reason and I'm just being critical of that. You actions are alien to me

You're now literally making stuff up left, right and centre. I haven't made a single post on Twitter about this conflict, it's just a place to get news from, and it happens to be easy to transfer said news in Tweet form to this forum, where I am talking about it.

As for my actions. They are as follows: talking about this conflict in this thread on an Internet forum.

And your actions: talking about this conflict in this thread on an Internet forum.

But tell me more about how my actions are "alien to you". Fucking hell mate. All I've tried to do is understand what your problem was in the first place with me posting about an intelligence report and suggesting the bombing of civilians is a war crime. All you've done is start piping up about America and deflecting onto other conflicts which, whilst also tragic, have nothing to do with the matter at hand, and that's all I've said.

I haven't disagreed with anything you've said about other conflicts. You could probably write a 10,000 word essay on the hypocrisy of Western media when it comes to international conflict and war crimes, and on people changing their profile pictures on social media only doing so because it's the only thing they can or will do to make themselves sleep a bit easier while humans elsewhere commit atrocities against each other, and I probably wouldn't disagree with a single word of it.

But now you're taking behaviour you've seen from other people and projecting it onto me. First it was "I'm fed up of people misrepresenting this war" which I haven't fucking done. Then it was "I'm fed up of people only caring about wars because it's white people getting killed" which I haven't fucking done. And now you're directly accusing me specifically of virtue signalling by changing my profile picture or something, which I very explicitly, you guessed it, haven't fucking done.

We've been knocking around on this forum on and off for a frighteningly long time, and I've never thought you were a bellend, but I've now put a fairly reasonable portion of my Friday night trying to have this conversation with you in good faith. As far as I can see at this point, we are yet to actually disagree on anything apart from possibly the war crimes bit and me using the admittedly stupid example of prediction leagues to make a point about talking about things that might happen before they actually happen. You'll have to forgive me when I grow even more frustrated if you choose to continue quoting my posts back and either misrepresenting them, arguing with points I haven't made as if I have, or flat out making things up that I very clearly haven't said or done.

And by the way, I was listening to SOAD yesterday so if you were in any doubt, that should prove that I'm actually sound and we can be at peace here. While listening to Prison Song's lyrics I actually thought wow, what the fuck, this song is from 21 years ago and none of it has got any better.

Anyway...

44 minutes ago, Spike said:

I'm anti-war and I think that war by its very definition is a war crime. That isn't aloof or cynical. The arbitrary line in the sand of war that people promise to 'not cross' is quite frankly bizarre to me because there is no way that any sort of armed conflict is anything but crossing the line. People are going to die.

I just bought 'Diesel and Heat' 1st print on vinyl.

I'm also anti-war. It's astonishing to me that we've been around for thousands of years yet still kill the shit out of each other over which scientifically debunked ancient story book we believe in, or the imaginary lines that corrupt ancestors we've never met drew between two pieces of land.

However, if you can't stop wars from happening (and you can't), the next step is to at least try and and draw a distinction between different acts that can be carried out at war. If you kill 20 soldiers in order to secure an airfield that provides a strategic advantage in your campaign, well then that's horrific because you just killed a bunch of people, and your war is illegal anyway. But if you blow up a school bus or set fire to a hospital just to terrify the civilians on the other side, then that's also horrific, but it isn't the same as the first one, it's just wanton violence against humanity for the sake of it. It's worth investing some time and energy into the 'second best' outcome where, even if you can't prevent war and loss of life itself, you at least create a consensus where certain behaviour, even within wartime, is out of bounds. Of course it doesn't always work. Putin has blown up schools, the US blew up schools in the Middle East not long ago I'm sure. But if we don't make the effort to create the consensus that it's beyond the pale to target the young, elderly and vulnerable who pose your military operation no threat or obstacle, well that's a whole lot more blown up schools and hospitals right there, each of which is a travesty in its own right.

We'll never live in a perfect world but if we really care about right and wrong we shouldn't sneer at people who are fighting for every inch between the world we live in and the fantasy utopia where war isn't a thing that exists.

Edited February 26, 2022 by RondónEFC

[Devil-Dick Willie]

2 minutes ago, RondónEFC said:

You're now literally making stuff up left, right and centre. I haven't made a single post on Twitter about this conflict, it's just a place to get news from, and it happens to be easy to transfer said news in Tweet form to this forum, where I am talking about it.

As for my actions. They are as follows: talking about this conflict in this thread on an Internet forum.

And your actions: talking about this conflict in this thread on an Internet forum

 

You've broadened our actions to meet your agenda. My and the Artful Dodger both probably ate breakfast today. Damn, we're so alike. 
I explicitly said that if you had these feelings and this energy around the other wars of your lifetime, then big ups to you, and I meant it. 

War is an area where it pays to be silent in my experience. People make misinformed leaps and opinions, as I've stated earlier outside of our discussion. Posting the video of a car being crushed, millions have cried foul at Russia, yet it was a Ukrainian tank. The ghost of Kiev is celebrated, without ever existing, and that lady using her status as a non combatant to bully Russian troops was absolutely vile to me, yet she is widely being praised as heroic. Cos she's on 'our' side. I also think speculating on the futures of either army or the people caught between is vile, hence my initial remarks, and later remarks on you likening it to transfer rumors. 

 

[Beelzebub]

The point mainly is that hopefully after seeing war close to them, people in West/Europe aren't that naive like in Iraq 2003 when their governments try to create 'consent' for war in far off places.

[CaaC (John)+]

I think we should all calm down on this guys and not fall out over war and who said this and who said that war is evil, Putin and despots like him are evil, all that moron is thinking about is a greater USSR what it was when he was in the KGB, he wants that again.

I shudder when I see conflicts like this on the media, men, women and children suffering over one man and a country's greed in wanting more, I have seen things in my army days that would make your skin crawl and I still get flashbacks to this day but not as bad when I first left the army many moons ago.

Peace brothers on here and forevermore, please. 

[RandoEFC+]

3 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

You've broadened our actions to meet your agenda. My and the Artful Dodger both probably ate breakfast today. Damn, we're so alike. 

Christ alive. I'm trying to offer a light-hearted olive branch to try and put a stop to this tedious exchange. You're the one who used "I listened to System of a Down when I grew up" as some sort of evidence of how sceptical and street-smart you are in the first place for fucks sake. 

4 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

I explicitly said that if you had these feelings and this energy around the other wars of your lifetime, then big ups to you, and I meant it. 

You can't expect people to live up to this unless you want everyone to quit their jobs and spend the rest of their lives reading up on the rights and wrongs of every conflict going on in the world right now until they die of sleep deprivation.

What's your actual point here? Is it unacceptable for me to be upset about this conflict unless I go out of my way to acquire an equally informed understanding of every war that's happened in my lifetime and upset myself about all of those as well?

I'm not going to feel bad for only having an emotional response to what I actually know about because of what news gets reported where I am. At no point have I given you any reason to believe that I'd deem this stuff to be alright if other countries or brown people or whatever were the ones involved.

28 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

I also think speculating on the futures of either army or the people caught between is vile, hence my initial remarks, and later remarks on you likening it to transfer rumors. 

I wasn't speculating though, I posted a tweet relaying information from a verified journalist on what they'd heard from an intelligence briefing. It's news, not speculation. At worst, it's speculation by the intelligence services and therefore still not me doing the speculating. But I'm sorry if this still goes down as vile in your book.

I've already admitted the transfer rumours/prediction leagues comment was stupid, but it was also kind of stupid on purpose. The intended comparison was about talking about things before they happen. It's a bad example but this is a football forum not the UN Security Council. You can't expect impeccable standards of debate at all times.

But perhaps now that I've admitted (twice) that comparison was a bad one, you can try one last time to acknowledge the shite that you've chatted yourself in this exchange. First, you lumped me in with people misrepresenting the war when I wasn't, and haven't taken it back despite me taking the time to explain to you in two different posts that it was verified from a source I know to have bullet proof reliability. Secondly you made that comment about people, seemingly including me, only caring about this war or at least being somewhat hypocritical because it's white people being killed instead of brown people, which is adjacent to accusing me of racism. Thirdly, you made a demonstrably false direct accusation that I found the need to virtue signal by changing my profile picture, which seems like a stupid, small thing to get hung up on, but is something I would never do, and don't appreciate being accused of against the backdrop of these other opinions you've been projecting onto me for the last page or so.

I've genuinely tried to have this debate in good faith despite not actually knowing for much of it what the fuck I'm supposed to have said for you to argue with. This is only the Internet but I've still given you my time here. I don’t mind having a thorough debate with conflicting views, but I'm a bit fed up now of you arguing with me mostly using things other people have done, said or posted. The first two of these three things that I'm still taking issue with may be a misunderstanding of what you've meant, so although I feel that you've misrepresented or made false assumptions about my views in a way that does genuinely offend me, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and move on. The third one, though, was just completely false, so I'm hoping you can at least take that part back.