Damnit, Russia just bombed a Maternity ward and killed women and children, maybe it is time to punch evil in the face.......we can't hold moral high ground if we are not willing to stand up for those in need. NATO should consider a no fly zone, we can't keep appeasing an evil asshat like Putin..... DD
I actually think at this point Putin is trying to bait the US and NATO at this point. Bombing hospitals, and killing children is his way of doing that. Very little strategy from Ukraine's perspective changes with brutality. He wants a "See I told you... NATO is a threat" message both at home in Russia, and as a way to align a military ally in China who is sitting on the sideline mostly at this point, but he knows could be in play. Early on I think Putin thought he could roll through, Zelensky would flee, a puppet would be installed, and Ukraine would just go back to 2012 as a corrupt pro-Russia controlled state, and he'd occupy everything East of the Dnieper River so he could use Crimea as a flourishing port state for Russian exports. Now I think he is pissed off, backed into a corner, and thinks his only way out is make this a multi-country global affair so everyone forgets what he's done, and he can blame the US so he can stay in power. I don't think the guy really knows what he's doing beyond survival, but I do think his instinct is that the US and NATO shooting down Russian jets and sinking boats would help his prospects of getting help at home and with China.
I totally agree, it is the only way he can win the will of his people, but we can't let him destroy cities and people.......some things are just too terrible to sit idly by. DD
Which is it? Should the USA be allies with Saudi Arabia or not? I remember many years ago you criticizing the Obama administration for attempting to have friendly relations with the Saudi's. Poland was supposed to give the planes directly to the Ukrainians.
Call them out for WHAT? Poland was supposed to get the planes to the Ukraine. If the USA is to fly the planes to the Ukraine, then the USA should just directly send in out own air force as that will likely be viewed as an escalation of war. What should have happened is no one should have said anything and Poland should have gotten them into the Ukraine by land on their border.
Then neither of us should be surprised that the Saudi's have responded the way they are. From what I have read, it appears that the US in the short term may go through Venezuela anyway. While I do not like Maduro, he is an idiot and he is incompetent, he likely will benefit in the short term from all of this.
This. I am not sure why a lot of very bright people are not getting this. I continue to read "Russia said no NATO for the Balkans", "Russia said that the Ukraine was part of Russia", "Russia said for Finland not to join NATO".... "Russia said no fly zone".... Russia under Putin says many, many things.... but he is not the final authority and he does not decide what the rest of Europe and the USA are and are not going to do.
This is the stupid part of all this. We are continuously just reacting to whatever Putin does. We need to start dictating terms on this war instead of him knowing he always has control of when anything escalates, and in the meantime, destroying Ukraine slowly.
I mean this fact just highlights the point that Biden has little to do with gas prices and the supply issues that are coupled with it. What policies did President Joe Biden put into place the day he was elected two months before he was inaugurated?? The fact is the pandemic is the issue at the heart of the current economics globally... not just here in the US. It disrupted marketed and drove down demand for certain things like gas for two years, and starting around that time that Biden was elected is when the world was finally figuring out how to deal with the pandemic, and the market was pricing in a huge spike in increases for demand of things like oil going into 21 and 22. As for the increase in the recent days: -Yes part of it is a decrease of supply due to the Russia ban which OPEC saw coming, and adjusted price for. But you know what probably a bigger part of it was.... SPRING BREAK, and travel in the US increasing... again due to the pandemic declining and OPEC pricing for a major increase in demand over the coming month when people are going on the road. I understand politics is everything, but I don't understand why people are THIS stupid to fail to understand economics 101. My daughter's 1st grade class the other day brought home an exercise about toys at the toy shop to explain supply and demand to a 1st grader. Yet idiots out there who are in their 60's don't get what a 1st grader does.
So, be clear. It's not a no-fly zone. It's war (WW3). A no-fly zone does not solve the bombing of innocents. We entering the war wouldn't either (might be much worse) - but at least we get to feel better in the immediate short term - I know I would but we need to have a level head and think longer term if WW3 is what we want.
