Flashlightboy,we're running out of uniform supplies for the USMC and you think we're taking down Russia without cost, Russia isn't being taken anywhere and Putin is crazier and has more resolve than Biden could ever muster.

Russia (then the Soviet Union) was "taken down" in 1991. Since then they have only been a nuisance from time to time. The real "cold war" is, or soon will be, with China.

quote:

Originally posted by Carpentermaass84:
Doesn't matter much to me. That's 50 cents I could spend on coffee. Anything that hurts Biden's (or whoever fills his shoes) chances of re-election is a victory for us. Biden staked a big part of his foreign policy platform on defending Ukraine and we can undermine that if we cut the purse strings.

This is sad. In the past the "politics stop at the water's edge" was the rule, but now some people are ready to argue that reneging on our international obligations is worth it as long as it harms one president's chances of re-election... This is so shor-sighted I'm not even sure if serious. You are ready to completely dismantle the NNPT because Biden is upholding it, which, btw, is literally in his job description? Cutting your nose off to spite your face...

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
Russia (then the Soviet Union) was "taken down" in 1991. Since then they have only been a nuisance from time to time. The real "cold war" is, or soon will be, with China.

Does this mean that we should just abandon all the treaties we signed because something something was "taken down in 1991"? We and Russia has signed on the dotted line and they are the ones in violation and the aid to Ukraine in case of attack on their sovereignty and territorial integrity is there in plain English (and Russian) - I've posted the whole text and even hightligted the important parts.

How is (long gone) USSR or China relevant to this?

Good grief! Ukraine hasn't been 'abandoned'. They have been given billions of dollars we don't have in assistance. Our obligations have been met. Make a peace and wrap this up for the benefit of everyone.

quote:

Originally posted by echidna:

quote:

Originally posted by Carpentermaass84:
Doesn't matter much to me. That's 50 cents I could spend on coffee. Anything that hurts Biden's (or whoever fills his shoes) chances of re-election is a victory for us. Biden staked a big part of his foreign policy platform on defending Ukraine and we can undermine that if we cut the purse strings.

This is sad. In the past the "politics stop at the water's edge" was the rule, but now some people are ready to argue that reneging on our international obligations is worth it as long as it harms one president's chances of re-election... This is so shor-sighted I'm not even sure if serious. You are ready to completely dismantle the NNPT because Biden is upholding it, which, btw, is literally in his job description? Cutting your nose off to spite your face...

Maybe Biden could uphold his duty to Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States...And while he's at it, perhaps he could defend OUR Border from Invasion! Both of those ARE literally in the job description!

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Maybe Biden could uphold his duty to Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States...And while he's at it, perhaps he could defend OUR Border from Invasion! Both of those ARE literally in the job description!

The President is the Commander in Chief...

HOWEVER, since he is not acting as such, the Congress has the following Constitutional powers:

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

Congress could do so much more.

I politely, and respectfully disagree with you Para. We can discuss if you like, but I believe your mind is quite set.

2023-10-05 12.25.09 by Dave Steier, on Flickr

Not a single American soldier has died. Not one.

The cost is great. But the money is money well spent. Ukraine, with the help of the west, has destroyed 50% of Russia's army and equipment.

This war will be studied for decades. This is good for us as we like to study and learn and adapt.

This war proves the importance of air superiority and the importance of drone warfare.

The next big war, 20 years in the future, will probably be won by the country that has the most drones and has the largest ability to build and fly drones.

I think we should support Ukraine for as long as they are willing to fight.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
I think we should support Ukraine for as long as they are willing to fight.

Ukraine is quickly running out of military aged males to "put up the good fight". You can see it in their changing draft requirements. When they run low on that military inventory item do you think we should then put boots on the ground or should we just call it a day and pull back our involvement? I'm sure Ukraine will be willing to fight to the last American GI.

Human beings die every day in Ukraine. Any speculation on the impact of this war on Russia is worthless and wildly inaccurate if provided by western media. It's a classic quagmire and we'll lose billions with no positive results for US taxpayers. It's pointless, though. This sells too easily to a coalition of leftist, neocons, and old cold warriors. Besides, it's not real money...hasn't been for some time now.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Not a single American soldier has died. Not one.

The cost is great. But the money is money well spent. Ukraine, with the help of the west, has destroyed 50% of Russia's army and equipment.

This war will be studied for decades. This is good for us as we like to study and learn and adapt.

This war proves the importance of air superiority and the importance of drone warfare.

The next big war, 20 years in the future, will probably be won by the country that has the most drones and has the largest ability to build and fly drones.

I think we should support Ukraine for as long as they are willing to fight.

Yeah. March right on up and let’s BANKRUPT this friggin’ country to save one half-way around the globe. A country, incidentally, that provides absolutely DICK to the welfare and well-being of Americans.

Money well spent, my big, fat, Dago, Guinea-WOP ass! Seems you’ve swallowed the Leftarded bullshit bait hook, line, and sinker. Just sayin’…

bubbatime, once again, your argument is a gigantic helium balloon. It gives the appearance of being so big, but it's essentially nothing; a thin envelope filled with gas which weighs less than air itself.

Opinion and speculation. Come back when you have something- anything- substantive.

Oh, yes, "studying, learning and adapting". Uh huh. Do it on your own dime, von Clausewitz. It's lost on you that we haven't learned a thing, as evidenced by the fact that we are repeating mistakes of the past.

bubbatime, look up the meaning 'War by Proxy'. Then think how much it is costing us...money, respect,etc...

Corruption Is Driving the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Who knows who is pulling Zelenskyy’s strings? Are there oligarchs telling him “Do diss,Volodymyr, or you vill vake up dead.” Stop thinking of oligarchs as though they are simply overaggressive lobbyists. No. They are mobsters. And we know that Hunter, and most likely our President, had dealings with these people.

Consider Hunter Biden as he sat on the board of Burisma. He was obviously corrupt. He was paid for his connection to his father, and Tony Bobulinski already told Tucker Carlson that Biden’s brother told him that they could do this because of plausible deniability. All that means is that with the network of over 15 companies set up in Biden family members’ names, a specific payoff to Joe for a particular policy decision or moneys to Ukraine could not be proven or tracked. That’s the way of oligarchs, and Joe essentially became part of the Ukrainian oligarchal setup. He was bought and paid for, body and soul. The corruption of Ukraine and of Russia and the Bidens is the main story here.

Hopefully the above commentary and reflection on history is beginning to open our eyes to the reality that we are sending a fortune to Ukraine not because of its higher moral standing. There is no higher moral standing there, any more than in Russia, regarding ethical conduct or attitudes and practices of government and “business.” And both countries have a reprehensible history related to Jews. Rather, the multiple LLCs in the names of Biden family members as well as conversations with Bobulinski and Devon Archer suggest that our President was the “big guy” in a brilliant but illegal scheme of influence peddling.

It seems likely that Joe Biden was on the receiving end of so many bribes from Ukraine, he must now pay off his “owners.” They are calling in the years of payoffs. Give us support or we will out you. Give us support because we supported you. We bought your services and you willingly promised to supply the needed services at a time of need. This is that time, and we are calling in what we bought! That demand coming from the oligarch class in Ukraine is probably why we are throwing so much support to Ukraine, and this writer is also assuming that there are also corrupt dealings between the Bidens and Russia, which is why the President has not taken an even tougher line against Russia.

https://www.americanthinker.co...kraine_conflict.html

Ukraine "Corrupt At All Levels" - Says Former EU Commission Chief Juncker

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...ission-chief-juncker

Ukraine is not ready to join the EU due to its being "corrupt at all levels of society," Jean-Claude Juncker, the former European Commission president, said in unusually blunt statements to Germany’s Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper this week.

He also chastised current European officials for giving Ukrainians "false promises" over the future of their EU candidacy, saying that being admitted to the bloc would be "neither good for the EU nor for Ukraine."

"Anyone who has had anything to do with Ukraine knows that this is a country that is corrupt at all levels of society. Despite its efforts, it is not ready for accession; it needs massive internal reform processes," he said.

"You shouldn’t make false promises to the people in Ukraine who are up to their necks in suffering," he explained. Juncker further emphasized, "I am very angry about some voices in Europe who are telling Ukrainians that they can become members immediately."

The reform process and waves of European law packages countries are expected to adopt before they can hope to enter typically takes years or realistically over a decade.

Ukraine has long ranked as the most corrupt country in Europe and among the top in the world. US and European media have increasingly acknowledged this of late, and Juncker's sudden boldness could be due to the general increase in press coverage of the issue.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak, first deputy chairman of the parliament committee on finance, admitted that corruption is a major issue which has played a part in the withholding of external aid, also in the wake of successful GOP-led efforts in Congress to strip Ukraine defense aid out of the stopgap bill.

"The biggest (public) complaint about us is corruption," Zheleznyak conceded in a Sunday social media post. "We have to go through these 45 days without a major corruption scandal," he stated. This comes even after Zelensky in the last two months fired a range of top officials, including his longtime defense minister and a half-dozen other top defense officials.



Ukrainian corruption has been featured as a talking point among those Republicans saying "no more" blank checks or continually flowing aid to Ukraine, especially at a moment Americans are struggling with inflation, rising grocery costs, and affordable housing.

Given outside aid threatens to dry up at this point, Ukraine has said it is "ambitiously" working to pass reforms. "We have conducted these reforms initiated by Ukraine with the help and support from the US, EU and other friends," a government statement given to CNN this week said. "And their practical support to our Cabinet of ministers as well as our (National Bank of Ukraine), General Prosecutors office and anticorruption agencies is appreciated and valued…In all our obligations with IMF, EU and other international donors as well as USA, Ukraine delivers on this front."

Nah, it's cool. We've dumped billions of dollars into one of the most corrupt countries on the planet, depleted essential armament to dangerously low levels, all to no end, and now, our greatest (only?) ally in the Middle East has been attacked and has declared war on Iranian-backed psychopaths and on top of that, the batshit Biden administration has given Iran billions of dollars, too.

It's plain as day, isn't it, that everything we've dumped into an unwinnable East European border conflict has been completely worth it, right?

Yeah, it's cool. We've been playing fuck-the-evil-russkies, and now the real shit has broken out in Israel and we are in no position to help our ally, not that the Israel-hating Biden administration would lift a finger to do the right thing.

Fucking brilliant. Go ahead- tell me you don't now see the folly of our involvement in Ukraine's border conflict.

Shit the corruption in Ukraine is so vast, even the Clintons have decided to get in on it.

Let's just waste a few more billion, because, you know, Russia is "evil".

Just utterly astonishing, how blind some of my countrymen are.