Maybe we can send a Palestinians there they’re used to living in rubble?

You people that think Trump is being harsh towards Zelenskyy need to remember that as President he has access to information we don’t.

I think who started the Three Stooges' pie fights would be easier. Ukraine does have things Russia wants - farmland (it was once a "breadbasket") strategic minerals, an ice-free port.

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:

quote:

Originally posted by Loswsmith:
If only there was a historical analogy to this situation we could compare the actions of what the US would do. But I checked TikTok, Instagram and MyFace and apparently there just isn't. But if there was, I'm 100% certain if that happened we would have invaded just like Russia did.

Your sarcasm is awesome.
I’ll take what is the Cuban Missile Crisis for 100 Alex.

Yes, but maybe one of those eyes-rolling emoji would have helped younger members who weren't alive then think about their history lessons. For those of us who were around, it is indelibly imprinted on our memories.

It’s really not hard to understand if you remember that Ukraine is the reason for Trump’s first impeachment.

Trump called Zelensky and asked him for dirt on Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was appointed to the Board of Directors for Ukraine’s national oil company even though he had absolutely zero experience in the oil industry. (Remember how far back his Biden pardoned his son.)

Remember the story of the little bird flying through the snow storm. Not everyone that shits on your is your enemy and not everyone that pulls you out of a pile of shit is your friend.

Trump has only one Trump card to play in order to get inflation under control and that is to drive energy prices down by flooding the market with oil. Russia has it.

Historically, countries have gone into recessions after wars have ended. Russians actually support the war because it has been helping their economy. Take away the war and you’ll likely see an economic collapse of Russia.

Russia will be desperate for money to pay off its debts and will pump as much oil as possible. It will also produce as much lithium as it can. You know what lithium is used for?

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
There's no "good guy" in this scenario. Both Russia and Ukraine are hopelessly corrupt. There has been conflict between ethnic Russians and Ukranians in the eastern regions of Ukraine for a long time, and there have been documented atrocities committed against civilians on both sides.

Paramilitary groups like the Azov Battalion have neo-Nazi affiliation and follow ultra-nationalist and racist ideology. They were operating in the east long before the Russians tried to take Kiev. Putin tried to justify his invasion as an effort to protect ethnic Russians from persecution at the hands of Neo-Nazi Ukranian groups, and there was likely some truth to this claim.

On the other hand, Russia invaded a sovereign country and has been responsible for all manner of atrocities themselves. And I'm also sure their motivation is not simply to protect the innocent and oppressed.

At this point I don't have much sympathy for either side and believe we should do what we can to end it before it gets any worse.

This is my impression as well, although much more articulately summarized than I could have provided. I will add that the US has unclean hands here too after it basically installed Zelensky and has laundered countless dollars through Ukraine. There are also those that believe the US uses Ukraine as a location for bioweapon development, although I don’t know if this is true. Add to this the concern that, if Ukraine is admitted to NATO, the Russian “enemy” would literally be in their back yard. We would certainly take action if the reverse were true. We need only look at the Cuban missile crisis for evidence of that.

All in all, I think Zelensky is a coke addled corrupt grifter who has cancelled elections, suppressed opposition and religion, so the notion we are “protecting democracy” by supporting them is a lie. Adding to this is credible evidence of kickbacks to US politicians on both sides, Zelensky and his cronies’ new found wealth, evidence of US and western weapons being sold on the black market, and the fact we are paying their government workers’ salaries and pensions, etc, has convinced me we need not give them one more dollar and we should demand a full accounting. Unless Trump stops it by any means, it will be an endless money pit. I am sick of being rhe world’s piggy bank while inflation and the national debt soar uncontrollably. The DOGE revealed wast and fraud further infuriates me.

I might be in the minority, and certainly don’t believe Russia is innocent in Ukraine or the rest of the world, but they don’t do anything the US doesn’t do, albeit our interests are not always aligned. Furthermore, some of Russia’s interests, like family values, are more traditionally western values than many of our current friends and allies. I certainly don’t believe Russia is aa binary, good or bad, but then again neither is the US. They have been vilified as the bogeyman, in my opinion, to distract brainless Americans from the Leftist’s takeover from within. See the Russia collusion hoax manufactured by Obama, Hillary, and the Dems by way of example only as evidence.

Thankfully, 47 and his team are shining the light where the Establishment doesn’t want us to see. I remain hopeful that the more that is found, the more oeople will cone around to realizing just how poorly our government had managed our hard earned tax dollars. The notion that Dems are fighting for our data privacy and to protect us from Elon is ludicrous, given the amount of outsourcing to India and other countries. Anyone who works in banking or finance can confirm that our SSN’s and other “confidential data” is shared, unencrypted, with foreign vendors and providers on a daily basis. Dems know this, but “privacy” is their only crutch in their fight to oppose disclosure of wasteful and fraudulent spending that is rampant and has contributed to our crippling debt. To say 47 is an agent of change is a gross understatement. What he and his administration are doing is nothing short of revolutionary, and it terrifies the powers that be. I pray for their safety, because JFK was murdered for much less.

Then again, this is all just ine dude’s opinions.

Trump Cannot Allow a Declining Europe to Drag the US Down

Last week, leaders of European governments got very upset with the new Trump administration. First, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said a return to pre-2014 Ukraine-Russia borders was an “unrealistic objective” in the coming peace negotiations and that European leaders shouldn’t assume American troops would be present on the continent forever.

Then, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech at a security conference in Germany in which he admonished European governments for repeatedly violating the liberal democratic principles they loudly proclaim to defend. He cited the recent reversal of an election in Romania after the result went against what the ruling regime and its Western European allies wanted, as well as a plethora of crackdowns on political dissent from some of Washington’s closest allies on the continent.

Finally, President Trump announced that the US government would begin direct talks with the Russian government to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. Those talks began on Tuesday without any involvement from other European governments, including Ukraine.

Needless to say, these statements and developments greatly angered European leaders who were evidently convinced the US would continue to station troops, send weapons, and provide funding for the continent’s security while letting the governments act however they wanted and while treating them as the primary parties in the proxy war we’ve been bankrolling.

By all indications, the Trump administration’s goal here is to pressure European governments to spend more of their own taxpayers’ money to fund NATO. Which is unfortunate, because Europe is deep in a self-inflicted decline right now, and US taxpayers should not be forced to take part in it at all.

From an American perspective, the decline of Europe is tragic as some of the best aspects of our institutions and culture can be drawn back to the period of Europe’s rise.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Western Europe splintered into many small political units. The relatively small territories of these states, along with the presence of strong non-state institutions like the Church and an international merchant class, meant power was highly decentralized.

As scholars like Ralph Raico, Nathan Rosenberg, and L.E. Birdzel Jr. have demonstrated, the highly decentralized set-up of Europe in the Middle Ages was the primary factor in generating the prosperity that went on to give the West more power and a safer, more comfortable standard of living than any other civilization in history. A respect for private property rights virtually unseen up to that point helped to create a justice system that only compounded the West’s success.

Unfortunately, the immense amount of wealth also allowed governments to siphon some of it off and grow very powerful. Chief among them was the British government, which used its people’s wealth to build the first truly globe-spanning empire. The British and other European ruling classes presented their lavish governments and foreign expansionism as a sign of national glory. But the rise of these large, powerful states represented the steady abandonment of the very institutions that had fueled Europe’s growth.

The astonishing productivity of the Industrial Revolution kept the party going through the 1800s. But, famously, a series of war guarantees pulled nearly all of Europe into the largest, bloodiest war the world had seen in 1914. The sheer brutality of the war and the decisive defeat of the Central Powers—brought about by the US’s unnecessary entrance—set the stage for the rise of the Nazis and the second world war. And WWII obliterated what remained of European power.

In the decades since, much of Western Europe has sunk to the level of becoming de facto vassals of Washington, DC while moving even further away from decentralized institutions and a respect for private property rights. Which brings us to the European situation that Trump, Vance, and Hegseth confronted last week as they took the reins of the American government.

Western European governments have instituted totalitarianism in the name of averting the rise of totalitarianism and built up another large network of war guarantees in the name of preventing another world war. The European establishment is seemingly still so traumatized from WWII that it acts like history began in 1933 and ignores all the important lessons from before that date.

After Vance’s comments last week, European officials went in front of the media and mounted a passionate defense of their totalitarian crackdown on dissent. And, as Trump finally moves to end US involvement in the war in Ukraine, European leaders are scrambling to find ways to independently double down on the same security set-up that helped bring the war about in the first place.

The decline of Europe is a sad thing to watch. But the reaction from European officials to Vance calling them out on some aspects of that decline confirms that the people currently in charge over there will not be changing direction any time soon.

If Europe is really set on shrinking back into obscurity through domestic totalitarianism, economic stagnation, or by setting off a new continent-wide war, American taxpayers should not be forced to help.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...935/m/3010057315/p/2