Cool... but maybe take off the signals intelligence target on your wrist before getting frisky with the Russians...
If you are a woman over there you might as well pick up a rifle, the Russians are not treating women well at all. DD
Peace? There's no money in peace. Look how quick our govt is to approve billions of dollars for Ukraine but so hesitant to use money to fix domestic problems. The reason is those billions are going to be paid back in the form of interest payments and lucrative re-construction contracts for US companies. Until the country is totally leveled, we're going to ship as many weapons as we can over there to help pad the bottom line for our military industrial complex.
The problem is Ukraine needs 4-5 billion a month, US and EU are tired of black hole that is Ukraine. A deal will be made where Ukraine loses land along the lines of actual control. The Ukrainians will vote out the current government for signing such a deal and that will be the end of our actor president, He might not even survive after that.
Short term vs long term. I imagine we will get better at detecting those workarounds but it will probably still be whack a mole. Russia now has to spend a bunch more money on replenishing their military and they won't have the same access to technology to do so. We've seen how well they were supplied by their inefficient and corrupt military industry leading up to the invasion. Russia now has to spend a bunch of money turning it's export infrastructure around to Asia. Lastly, they've lost the trust of their largest trading partner, Europe.
We've only committed like $54B to Ukraine so far. We spent $2.3 TRILLION in Afghanistan. There's plenty of room to keep the money printer going, not that our govt needs a proxy war to justify doing so anyway.
The US government has spent upwards of $6 trillion in the last two years domestically through COVID relief bills and in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. The US government doesn't have a problem approving money domestically.
And you're basing Zelensky is done on? He's still overwhelmingly popular both in Ukraine and outside. He's likely more popular in the US than Biden and in the UK than Johnson. Zelensky had offered to negotiate with Putin and hasn't completely ruled them out. It seems unlikely that he would be lose his position. Also by "our actor president" yes he was an actor before but he wasn't a US actor or president. Unless you're implying something more.
Aggh, the overpowering drive to be contented or be moderate to the point of missing major points. Re the contented moderates. The Gerontocracy of the Democratic Party Doesn’t Understand That We’re at the Brink Excerpts from the NYT of all places. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/opinion/beware-the-ruinous-optimism-of-democratic-leaders.html "What’s missing from party leaders, an absence that is endlessly frustrating to younger liberals, is any sense of urgency and crisis — any sense that our system is on the brink. Despite mounting threats to the right to vote, the right to an abortion and the ability of the federal government to act proactively in the public interest, senior Democrats continue to act as if American politics is back to business as usual"
I am predicting how the conflict will be resolved. Zelensky is popular because he said Ukraine will win and take back Crimea . If he is not able to deliver and Ukraine actually lose part of Eastern Ukraine, I think his government will fall. If Ukraine is able to defeat Russia and take back Crimea, of course he will be the most popular person in his country as well as western countries.
Regarding news coverage of the war in Donbas, I blame the stupid editors. I get headlines like "What we know on Day 107 of the War in Ukraine." In other words, no new news, but here's some words we strung together in case you want to compulsively read about Ukraine. Might be for the best. Or else maybe I'm part of the gerontocracy. But young people, like my teenagers, feel like our system is on the brink of collapse. I feel like we've been on the brink of collapse since I was a teenager at least. The Evil Empire, destruction of the unions, stagflation, the new world order, illegal migrants, climate change, the rise of China, the dot com boom, the dot com bust, Bush's wars, the Great Recession, opioid abuse, the return of authoritarianism, the return of white supremacy, the twilight of Pax Americana, pandemic, and now inflation. You can't run a country in a state of perpetual crisis. Have a little perspective and appreciate that crisis is standard operating procedure. Old people see that. Young people are going to wear themselves out thinking the existential problems they face are more existential than the existential problems every previous generation has faced.
