Imagine if someone broke into your home and started taking things out of your home. When you confronted them, they said that promised not to break into your home ever again if you would let them have what they stole from your home..... only to have the same person break back into your home a short time later and tell you that they are going to steal more of your stuff, but if you don't protest - they promise to never do it again. No one would agree to that - no one would believe that the home would not be burglarized again. The words of Russia and Putin are actually worth LESS than nothing, because when Putin promises to not do something - he is already doing it. Hell - at least Hitler briefly considered slowing down. Okay? That has very little to do with Russia invading Ukraine.
It's certainly seems like it's in an odd phase, but it kind of makes sense what you step back and look at it. In hindsight, we waited too long to give Ukraine the big boy weapons which they need to be trained on which allowed Russia to massively dig in and plant mines everywhere. Russia is certainly hurting economically but it's still resilient and has levers it can pull and "allies" to get aid from. Russia successfully implemented a coup in Niger which is resource heavy and also where the US stations its counterterrorism troops for the region. Russia certainly is making moves to suggest it is planning past 2030.
Biden just announced new drone strike policies which will pretty much eliminate the 99% of them. Under biden they've already stopped over 90% of drone strikes that were occuring under Trump. You lefties entire narrative is america is bad and nothing ever gets better. Disingenuous https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/...C.I.A.,injured, newly declassified rules show.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised but I still find it depressing the moral equivalents being made here. Ukraine is a gang, Virginia Nuland is as bad as Russia? Most of the World isn’t back or white but shades of grey. In this situation between Russia and Ukraine the contrast is pretty stark. Russia invaded Ukraine and continues to occupy parts of Ukraine. The mental and moral gymnastics to somehow blame Ukraine, NATO, the West, Neocons etc.. doesn’t change that fact.
Lynchburg hates war, but war is necessary at times and this is one of those times. We are destroying Russia as a threat, and we should continue to do so…. DD
I suppose you think that if Mexico joined a Chinese military alliance and put nukes and forces along the US Mexican border the United States would see no threat and do nothing.
One should think realistically about the fate of the average Ukrainian not just ideologically freedom vs authoritarianism or simplistically (e.g Russia attacked so therefore we should support Ukraine virtually unlimitedly. We should do this even if they are losing militarily no matter how much it is destroyed and how much additional folks and territory they are likely to lose before a negotiated " frozen peace" BTW I realize Zelensky was a comedian and actor before becoming president, and is probably not a billionaire, but no matter what he will do better than the average Ukrainian will do in a wrecked country.
You didn't answer my question about moral equivalency but you are under no obligation to respond to it. To respond to this post though you continue to ignore what the Ukrainians might actually feel through their actions. Yes they are the ones suffering from attacks from Russia and they seem more than willing to continue to fight for that. In fact the more Russia attacks them the more they are willing to fight. You seem to have this very paternalistic attitude that it's somehow up to us (the West) to just decide for them what is best. We should just stop supporting them and they will surrender and the Ukranians will be safe. There's nothing to say that if just stop supporting them that they won't continue fighting. They will most likely engage in guerilla tactics and given Russia's history of collective punishment things likely end up much worse for them. If they want to surrender to Russia they can. They can just quit fighting like the Afghan military did and we can't do a thing about it. They aren't. This isn't the West driving this war. This is Ukraine and Russia and neither appear willing to stop fighting.
Interesting question. 1) I would much rather live in the West where in person both online I can take unpopular positions that I can believe in 2). Morally the average person in China and the US are morally equivalent. 3)Now the leaders are pretty equivalent, too. Cheney, and Bush deserve to be in the Hague. Some of the Chinese leaders too, for Tibet and it seems the treatment of the Ughyrs, too. 4). Frankly the US has started many evil wars and more violent coups than China in the last two hundred years. If China becomes more powerful they may start to catch up with us. 5) Diplomacy not just wasting money on wars and weapons will be necessary if we are to save the planets. 6) Our military industrial complex and bi-partisan drive to control the whole world will ruin us as we are very far from post WW II when our GDP was equal or greater than that of the rest of the world. Britain almost bankrupted itself trying to hang on to this sort of thing. Unlike in the Cold War we will not have the advantage of being to just overwhelm China by spending more on weapons. 90% of the world does not live in Western Europe or Canada or the US. Overall they are growing at a faster rate economically than the West and the few Asian allies. 7). Many international relations folks think a major geo-strategic goal of NATO expansion was to pry Western Europe from a relationship with Russia. Not likely to accomplish much except suffering for the lower class in Europe and the US. For the most part after all of our wars and coups except for Australia Taiwan, S Korea and Japan are not very supportive of our efforts or see us as so concerned about democracy in Ukraine.
Why is the war necessary for the United States? I understand that a number of our leaders claim weakening Russia as one of the main goals to be achieved in the Ukraine War, but are you really sure that Russia is becoming so much weakened? They seem to be selling as much oil an gas, just to other customers. Just like us as they greatly expand their war industries it helps the economy.
This was better said when then-President Donald J Trump said it in February 2017 after subjugating himself to Putin in Helsinki ' "But he’s a killer,” O’Reilly said to Trump. “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” Trump replied. https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/04/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin/index.html Learn some showmanship from your fellow peacenik @glynch
Because it's part of a larger war brewing against the US led "Liberal World order" vs the China led "Illiberal World Order" (Russia, Iran, NK, and a growing list of smaller authoritarian states). Another Ukraine aid package is going to go to Congress so we are looking at around ~$120 billion through about 1.5 years and no US troops fighting on the battlefield. Pretty sure Russia is being weakened, but that doesn't mean it won't recover. Post Soviet Russia relied a lot more on western technology and expertise than it's predecessor which it used to modernize. Now Russia is relying on Iranian, NK, and Chinese technology to fuel the war effort. Yes, Russia is still shipping petro products and it is also building out a network of pipelines connecting Russia to China, but that will take time and be without the Western technology and expertise that played a major role in building the network of post Soviet pipelines between Russia and Europe. Lastly, the profit margins to selling in Europe was much higher so even if Russia is sending as much discounted oil to India as possible on tankers, they are making far less per barrel than when it piped to Europe.
