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Russia & Ukraine War

tyrgineer said:
My opinion about Russia and Ukraine might be less then popular in this thread, but here I go.
Russia(Putin) was pressured into acting by the US and other NATO nations pushing all his buttons, doing nothing would have been political suicide for him with his own people eventually.
Why do I need to pay for a pointless war that was essentially started by my own politicians?
Ukraine has always been corrupt and anyone who denies this is ignorant, so how much of the aid being sent to Ukraine is even staying there and how much of the aid is being sold to the highest bidder to line someone's pockets?
No one actually knows where anything is going because the US government refused to track anything stating that it would slow down the support.
This war is horrible for all the people involved, but the people who benefit are no where near the front line. I am not convinced western life is best.
When will politicians (yes i mean US politicians) start caring about the people involved in their crusades?
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Corruption has been an issue both for Ukraine and Russia over the years, but the best thing that has happened to Ukraine has been its EU application which is tied to addressing that issue. The US has been demanding and getting auditing of all military aid by Ukraine (Independent Senator Angus King has made that his key issue, and I saw him interviewed last week from Kiev and declaring his satisfaction that all US aid has gone to its intended military purposes) and it would be suicidal for Ukraine NOT to do so. While I agree that no informed person can deny the historical existence of that issue in Ukraine, nor would any informed person ignore the progress that has been made either. Russia has declared its goal to regain its former imperial and possibly Cold War Russian controlled territories. That would include first non NATO member Ukraine and then NATO members Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria and soon to be NATO member Finland. Under Article 7 of the NATO treaty any attack on one NATO country LEGALLY OBLIGES the other NATO allies to enter the war. Ever wonder why NATO countries had armed forces next to US forces in Afghanistan? The answer is because the 9/11 attacks on the US were deemed to be attacks on the US by the Taliban government of Afghanistan triggering Article 7 of the NATO Treaty. This is why is in the national security interest of the US for Ukraine to repel the invasion, because it is being done with NO American troops fighting and Ukraine doing all the fighting for us. If Ukraine does not win, Russia has already said it is going after NATO countries formerly under imperial Russian control, and that would mandate far greater costs to the US, the involvement of American troops and start World War III. One can argue as you do the wisdom of NATO expanding after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Republican Secretary of State James Baker went so far as to encourage Russia to join NATO as well. Russia thought about it during the Yeltsin years, but ultimately it was Russian inability to rein in its corruption that apparently caused its return to imperialism instead. But the bottom line is that the US is currently legally bound by Article 7 of the NATO treaty to enter WWIII if Russia attacks a NATO country, and a Ukrainian win spares us all of that loss of far greater amounts of money with losses of American military lives as well. One very important point from 1994. With the strong encouragement of the US, Ukraine entered into a treaty with Russia for Ukraine to surrender voluntarily its stock of nukes in exchange for Russia's agreement to recognize the entire territorial sovereignty of Ukraine and never ever question it. Ukraine lived up to this treaty, Russia clearly did not. That is what legally wipes out Russia's spheres of influence and questioning NATO expansion arguments because Russia itself in 1994 legally bargained those arguments away. P.S. to illustrate the gravity of Russia's threat, the former Russian imperial controlled Baltic country of Latvia has a larger percentage of ethnic Russians in its country than does Ukraine! The NATO protected new world order of the sovereignty of national borders has worked well to prevent a future World War III, and Russia cannot be permitted to do what is doing and to go on to start World War III.
 
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I may have more to add later that would be in agreement with, or at least comiserate with Tyrgineer's complaints about the costs to us taxpayers and citizens. In Ukraine though we are really fighting Russia on the cheap for what it would cost us in both money and American lives if we let him go after Poland or the Baltics like he wants to.

I hated it that we spent so much money on the Iraq War. And that was all based on a well known lie about WMD's. Some online sources say we spent $2 Trillion on the Iraq War. We also sent home 4,000 body bags of U.S. troops. Not to mention all the wounded with life-long and life altering injuries that the V.A. is on the hook to pay for for several decades to come. I also didn't like the Trump tax cuts that were gifts to multi-millionaires and billionaires and multi-national corporations. That cost about $2.3 Trillion. (Not paid for. Just money borrowed and added to the deficit and the national debt.) But of course when it comes to things that would actually help millions of ordinary citizens like lowering the price of prescription drugs, or helping citizens get affordable and quality healthcare... Republican politicians in particular feign outrage at the very suggestion, cry poverty on behalf of the federal government and say we're being totally unreasonable and foolish for even suggesting something so expensive.

And that's the most polite reaction. The right-wingers are likely to call any of us socialist pinko commies (or worse) for having the temerity to even suggest the government find the money for such reforms. (When they seem to have no problem at all finding huge sums of money for their own pet projects.) It's quite the spectacle to say the least. The Republicans had to be pushed so hard to even get just enough Republican votes for major infrastructure repair. Republicans would only talk about infrastructure and give lip service to it. It took a Democratic president and Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate before anything would ever get done. If ever there was an issue where money justifiably should have been shifted away from senseless wars and foolish domestic spending on taking care of the super wealthy, it's infrastructure.
 
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tampa24 said:
I may have more to add later that would be in agreement with, or at least comiserate with Tyrgineer's complaints about the costs to us taxpayers and citizens. In Ukraine though we are really fighting Russia on the cheap for what it would cost us in both money and American lives if we let him go after Poland or the Baltics like he wants to.

I hated it that we spent so much money on the Iraq War. And that was all based on a well known lie about WMD's. Some online sources say we spent $2 Trillion on the Iraq War. We also sent home 4,000 body bags of U.S. troops. Not to mention all the wounded with life-long and life altering injuries that the V.A. is on the hook to pay for for several decades to come. I also didn't like the Trump tax cuts that were gifts to multi-millionaires and billionaires and multi-national corporations. That cost about $2.3 Trillion. (Not paid for. Just money borrowed and added to the deficit and the national debt.) But of course when it comes to things that would actually help millions of ordinary citizens like lowering the price of prescription drugs, or helping citizens get affordable and quality healthcare... Republican politicians in particular feign outrage at the very suggestion, cry poverty on behalf of the federal government and say we're being totally unreasonable and foolish for even suggesting something so expensive.

And that's the most polite reaction. The right-wingers are likely to call any of us socialist pinko commies (or worse) for having the temerity to even suggest the government find the money for such reforms. (When they seem to have no problem at all finding huge sums of money for their own pet projects.) It's quite the spectacle to say the least. The Republicans had to be pushed so hard to even get just enough Republican votes for major infrastructure repair. Republicans would only talk about infrastructure and give lip service to it. It took a Democratic president and Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate before anything would ever get done. If ever there was an issue where money justifiably should have been shifted away from senseless wars and foolish domestic spending on taking care of the super wealthy, it's infrastructure.
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I was actually a trump fan until his tax changes and all his efforts to change the medical insurance stuff, he promised to be something different then did the same shit as the rest of the career politicians. More recently the republicans spread all sorts of lies about the student debt forgiveness. That forgiveness might not be the best way to tackle the issue, but I think the republicans are more mad that the money wont be helping the rich and just want to make Biden look dumb for making promises.
I didn't really think about the savings due to not getting directly involved, but now we are using Ukrainan lives to save money which doesn't make me feel any better. I'm glad that china has decided to stay out of this conflict, that would have been a whole different thing.
 
How sad the Republicans were the party of Lincoln. Of course the Dumbocrats (intensional spelling) were descended from the rich.
 
tyrgineer said:
I was actually a trump fan until his tax changes and all his efforts to change the medical insurance stuff, he promised to be something different then did the same shit as the rest of the career politicians. More recently the republicans spread all sorts of lies about the student debt forgiveness. That forgiveness might not be the best way to tackle the issue, but I think the republicans are more mad that the money wont be helping the rich and just want to make Biden look dumb for making promises.
I didn't really think about the savings due to not getting directly involved, but now we are using Ukrainan lives to save money which doesn't make me feel any better.
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You've said a mouthful there Tyr. (I hope you don't mind the abbreviation of your profile name.)

As I've stated outright to conservative relatives, friends and acquaintances over the years who want to go after the Dems with the lable of "Those dam* tax and spend liberals..." I come back with, "Which is worse? A tax and spend liberal? Or a borrow and spend conservative? Which one is worse for the annual deficit? Which one is worse for the national debt? At least if you're raising taxes for specific spending purposes, you're paying your way as you go. And not putting the country farther in debt."

When Republicans had majorities in the House, Senate and a Republican president in the White House with Trump, there was no concern at all for the debt or the deficit. They didn't tax (or pay their way for new spending projects with spending cuts elsewhere) but instead spent borrowed money like drunken sailors. They did the exact same thing under George W. Bush. Bush when they turned around a annual government budget surplus from Clinton into a huge deficit again. All on borrowed money. It's only when Republicans are in the minority that miraculousy and very conveniently the amnesia clears and they suddenly remember that conservative phiolosphy is supposed to care about fiscal discipline, not overpsending, seeking balanced budgets, deficit reduction and even paying down the national debt if possible.

Remember the Republican sponsored "Bridge to Nowhere" where they voted in favor of spending $398 million for a bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska to reach Gravina Island? The $398 million was before any possible "cost overruns", "weather delays", "permit approval delays", "environmental study delays", etc, might have allowed construction companies to push up the final price tag. And it's an island that had an airport, but with only 50 residents actually living there at the time. It was only after the spending was approved (on borrowed money with no new taxes to offset the cost) that the national public uproar forced them to back down and cancel the project. But that's just the kind of double standards and moral bankruptcy we see at play today.

But anyway... To bring this back on topic I sadly join you in agreeing with your summation here about Ukraine.

"I didn't really think about the savings due to not getting directly involved, but now we are using Ukrainan lives to save money which doesn't make me feel any better."

No. That fact doesn't make me feel any better about the situation either. It's a cold truth though that if you do the heartless bean-counting logic of cost/benefit analysis, it's cheaper in money and American lives to pay at a discount to let the Ukrainians fight and die using our weapons. Better than us having to go in and do it for them.

After all, if Putin's army gets close enough through Ukraine that he decides to invade NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and/or Poland and Estonia to create a land bridge with Russian held Kalinigrad in the east, Then the U.S. is All In. U.S. and NATO troops, with mostly U.S. troops, money and arms.... And World War III. A WWIII would be VERY expensive. As expensive as aid to Ukraine sounds like and IS... We're still getting to do this on the cheap.


map.jpg
 
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tyrgineer said:
I was actually a trump fan until his tax changes and all his efforts to change the medical insurance stuff, he promised to be something different then did the same shit as the rest of the career politicians. More recently the republicans spread all sorts of lies about the student debt forgiveness. That forgiveness might not be the best way to tackle the issue, but I think the republicans are more mad that the money wont be helping the rich and just want to make Biden look dumb for making promises.
I didn't really think about the savings due to not getting directly involved, but now we are using Ukrainan lives to save money which doesn't make me feel any better. I'm glad that china has decided to stay out of this conflict, that would have been a whole different thing.
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Fair point, but consider this analogy: When Hitler came to power he wanted to relitigate the Treaty of Versailles which ended World War I. When he threatened to seize the German populated Sudadenland from Czechoslovakia, when many feared this was the first of many more territorial demands, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain took Hitler at his word and gave him Sudadenland in a peace treaty, and, as predicted Hitler went on to invade Poland and start World War II. Fast forward to the present: Putin wants to relitigate the treaty between Russia and Ukraine in 1994 where Ukraine gave up its nukes in exchange for Russia's perpetual recognition of its territorial borders. To cut off our aid to Ukraine now would be to pull a Neville Chamberlain, cause Ukraine to lose and then we have to go into World War III when Putin invades either Poland again in imitation of Hitler or more likely first the smaller Baltic States and then Poland and so on and off to World War III, where we have to go in at far greater expense and loss of American lives than we have now. And don't forget that heroic Ukraine wants to fight to keep their independence and is pleading with its allies for continued military assistance and right now appears to be winning. I understand your concerns, but I don't think that we are as far apart as it first seemed.
 
tampa24 said:
You make soem very good points KG. Thank you.
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Thanks to you as well. We both have strong feelings about this modern day David versus Goliath morality play and have done lots of research.
 
The topics in this video are a little bit oversimplified in some areas. And yes, the graphics are rather juvenile. That said though, it makes some great points and informed me on several things I wasn't yet aware of.


 
Yes. Western media reports have started calling the murders with Putin's fingerprints on them, "defenestrations". From the Latin word "fenestra", meaning window. As in, all of these seemingly healthy people suddenly have this clumsy unlucky habit of falling to their deaths out of highrise windows.
 
This one could just as well have been put on the politics thread. But I feel it does fit here also as it alludes to the war and unfortunately some harrowing famines likely to come as a result of it. It's a long one. But I found the predictions about the future state of global affairs to be very very interesting.


 
It looks like the city of Bahkmut is ready to fall to the Russians after an intense and bloody 6+ month battle. The capture of Bahkmut in itself doesn't hold a huge amount of strategic importance. It's close to a highway that can lead farther into Ukraine. But it's far from a game-changing or war-changing piece of property.

On other matters... From the rumors I'm hearing of the thinking of people higher up in the State Department and the U.S. military, the concern is that United States must not allow Russia to appear to win this war. Must NOT. (We have no idea now how much Ukrainian territory will remain in Russian hands through final negotiations at the end of the conflict. And that's regardless as to who is percieved as having won or lost.) But here's the calculus going on in D.C.

While a Russian defeat in Ukraine will not in itself conclusively prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan... A Russian victory in Ukraine will all but guarantee a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. We don't want to go there. And for reasons that are too endless to try to list here. That means direct U.S. military involvement and American lives on the line if that happens. With a nuclear armed China. If we think that supporting and arming Ukraine is too expensive now.... The costs of a war with China over Taiwan (in both lives and treasure) would be exponentially worse.
 
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