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Originally posted by PASig:
Holy Shit


'Black Hole' - White House Doesn't Know Where US Weapons Go After Entering Ukraine

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Mark Ames
@MarkAmesExiled

There are countless markets & battlefields around the world where all these tens of thousands of guns, Stingers & Javelins could wind up. Ukraine was already one of the world’s most corrupt countries (and Europe’s poorest). Every war is a golden opportunity for traffickers.

8:13 PM · Apr 16, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

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jonstokes.(com|eth)
@jonst0kes

Had a fascinating chat with a well-placed friend who tipped me to something Eurocrats are quietly freaking out about: there’s now a place in Europe where the world is handing guns to randos by the millions w/ zero tracking or oversight. Guns that’ll make their way back EU cities

6:58 PM · Apr 15, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

Link

What about that eighty billion+ dollar in military equipment biden left in Ukraine? Including fighter aircraft!

And how in blazes did it all get there, in the first place?!?!?!

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Originally posted by David Lee:

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Originally posted by Creeping_Death:

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Originally posted by SevenPlusOne:
What oversight was there for the stingers we gave the the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the '80s?

It was in the book Charlie Wilson’s War - the Stingers were issued to the Muj, and they had to return the control or firing mechanism in order to get a replacement. I don’t recall if it was mentioned what happened to the fielded units when Western personnel left…

I recall something about those was perishable.

Correct.
The Stinger missile-system requires a cooling unit (argon) to be inserted & activated for the seeker head to track the target. Once that's pop'd in, the shooter has less than a minute to aim and fire before that cooling unit needs to be replaced. This was the so-called 'saving grace' after invading Afghanistan as the likelihood of those Stinger's 20+ years after getting sent, coming back to shoot down US aircraft.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0c21w3d

Short but, interesting interview of the mindset of a mid-level Russian government functionary. Their grievances have legs but, their actions tell a different story.

Col Douglas Macgregor Delivers Truth Bombs Surrounding Ukraine Conflict and Status of $4.7 Billion Spent Sending U.S. Equipment and Aid

Colonel Douglas Macgregor appeared on Tucker Carlson to give a brutally honest assessment of the conflict in Ukraine. Regarding the transfer of heavy weapons and artillery, Macgregor notes something many have discussed.

The logistics of sending in those weapons from western Ukraine (Poland border) to the eastern Ukraine battle encompasses a thousand-mile trek. Russia can easily hit those convoys en route, negating the supply line. Additionally, the U.S. has sent $4.7 billion in military equipment and financial aid so far (see graphic below), and we have no idea who is in control of those weapons. WATCH:



To give scale for the proxy war the U.S. government is waging in Ukraine, check out the extreme ratio of who in NATO is sending support, and how much.



https://theconservativetreehou...s-equipment-and-aid/

The "no control" issue is one we've already discussed here (FWTW); it seems to simply be the nature of war. As for the 1,000 mile trek, Russia should be able to hit the convoys easily but hasn't really demonstrated the ability to do so yet. Even with what they have been able to do, the Russians seem to be running low on guided missiles these days. One might reasonably wonder whether all of those helicopters and low-flying bombers can actually accomplish their missions "easily". At the same time, anti-air defense weapons are a part of the aid package to Ukraine and a lot of weapons, like the Switchblade drones, don't necessarily have to be moved in big, easy-to-hit convoys.

One other thought, and one that (in my layman's opinion) might mean a great deal: even with the renewed offensive, the Russians simply don't seem to operate all that much - whether in the air or on the ground - at night.

Like always (before and after Trump) WE are the ones who pay in dollars, blood and treasure!

^^^ Unlike anyone since Reagan, Trump understands the concept of 'Peace through Strength'.
Trump is the only President not to needlessly sacrifice blood and treasure!

Biden is getting us sucked into a proxy war with Russia, and as the chart above shows, the rest of Europe doesn't really even care.

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Originally posted by chellim1:
Colonel Douglas Macgregor appeared on Tucker Carlson to give a brutally honest assessment of the conflict in Ukraine.

Brutally honest? The man is a clown selling Russian propaganda. Nothing more.

He fully supports the Russians here. No sane person thinks that what they've done and are doing is OK.

Estonia’s contribution is roughly 50% of their annual defense budget. The US contribution is roughly .5% of its annual defense budget.

American weapons going to other countries with no idea what happens to them. Sounds kind of familiar.

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Originally posted by Gustofer:
No sane person thinks that what they've done and are doing is OK.

And that right there is where I think the disconnect is. I doubt anyone on this board (myself included) believes what Putin and Russia is doing is right, or support his efforts in any way. That said, I have huge issues with what Biden and his administration are doing in this conflict. Simply put, every purchase I make personally is based on the perceived value that purchase will afford me and/or my family. I'm not overly concerned about the value or lack thereof my personal purchases affords my neighbors or others around me. Day by day I see less and less US value coming out of this conflict while Biden and crew pour billions more into it while the US economy slides into recession.

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Originally posted by TXJIM:
Estonia’s contribution is roughly 50% of their annual defense budget. The US contribution is roughly .5% of its annual defense budget.

Looking at a map it becomes really clear why Estonia would have an acute personal interest in this conflict. The US, not so much.

Yes, bigdeal, agree and I think the relative contribution shows that reality much better than the Fox News chart meant to outrage viewers over the “disproportional” spending by the US.

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Originally posted by Gustofer:

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Originally posted by chellim1:
Colonel Douglas Macgregor appeared on Tucker Carlson to give a brutally honest assessment of the conflict in Ukraine.

Brutally honest? The man is a clown selling Russian propaganda. Nothing more.
He fully supports the Russians here. No sane person thinks that what they've done and are doing is OK.

I have heard nothing supportive of Russia from the man.

See my post on the previous page.

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Originally posted by Gustofer:
See my post on the previous page.

OK...

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Macgregor said he believed Russia should be allowed to seize whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted. After one of his appearances, Macgregor's comments were characterized by veteran Fox News Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin as "appeasement" and that he was being an "apologist" for Putin. After Griffin's remarks, Tucker Carlson — who hosted Macgregor on two successive nights — remarked, "Unlike many of the so-called reporters you see on television, he is not acting secretly as a flack for Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon. No, Doug Macgregor is an honest man." Trey Gowdy, another Fox News host who interviewed Macgregor, said his viewpoint was "stunning and disappointing."[35][36][37][38] U.S. representative Liz Cheney said of Macgregor "This is the Putin wing of the GOP."[39]

Well, I didn't hear Macgregor say he believed Russia should be allowed to seize whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted.
Do you have a source for that quote?

Also, If Liz Cheney said of Macgregor "This is the Putin wing of the GOP" I'm not likely to believe it. Liz Cheney has no credibility with me.

Anyway, I think Macgregor is trying to keep the US from getting sucked further into this and I agree with that.

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Originally posted by bigdeal:
Looking at a map it becomes really clear why Estonia would have an acute personal interest in this conflict. The US, not so much.

Well, that's the thing. Both Estonia and the US are members of NATO; if Russia goes after Estonia then all of NATO, including the US, has a problem.

Maybe it's a better idea to deal with the problem in Ukraine than in Estonia.

I don’t know what I’d do if I had the responsibility for deciding how to respond to Putin’s aggression, and fortunately I don’t.

That said, if you believe we have no business opposing brutal aggression as is occurring in Ukraine, do you believe we have no business opposing any future aggression? Would the danger of doing so be any less if another victim country were involved? We can assume that Putin wouldn’t go further, but that’s all it is—an assumption. If he’s successful in scaring us into ignoring Ukraine because he could respond to any serious resistance by us with nuclear weapons, would the likelihood of that be any less later?

I’m rereading about Hitler’s aggression against Czechoslovakia and as I’ve pointed out before, some of the parallels are striking. The other European powers, primarily France and Britain, were so afraid of a general war that they didn’t take the action that at the time could have almost certainly ended him and the Nazi threat then and there. They accepted Hitler’s promise that “taking back” the Sudetenland was the end of his territorial ambitions, and of course all that did was allow the Germans more time to become stronger. As far as I know, Putin hasn’t even bothered to make any promises about future aggression.

So I’m curious: If we’re afraid to do more to help stop this aggression by the Russians, what do we believe the results will be? What’s coming next? As a friend put it: sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns frolicking?

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1. if you believe we have no business opposing brutal aggression as is occurring in Ukraine,
2. do you believe we have no business opposing any future aggression?
3. Would the danger of doing so be any less if another victim country were involved?
4. We can assume that Putin wouldn’t go further, but that’s all it is—an assumption.

1. Opposing is one thing, going to war is another.
2. We can oppose aggression, but we cannot be the world cop. It's another story where we have an alliance.
3. Yes. We have a formal alliance with NATO and Putin is officially on notice. So there is less danger to the US because we would act through NATO, not unilaterally.
4. Right. It's an assumption. We don't know.

NATO should never have been expanded. We are going to be sucked into a conflict when one of these countries with "little man syndrome" tries to be a tough guy

On a related note. Look how fast the world's governments joined together to lock down their freedoms. It was even faster collaborating against Russia. New world order.

As I mentioned before, Putin will go into Moldova. He'll take it and sit right on Nato's border (Romania). We'll shit a brick over that and send a boatload of stuff there.

Bucharest has a nice fairly new, large American Embassy there now. I imagine the Defense Attache's Office in Bucharest is quite busy these days.