No, I would not. If the Nazis gain power I'd be much more concerned about Nazis killing our citizens and raping my wife and family seeing as how I'm not a white man myself. Our military does not employ known Nazis. Any Nazi within our military that's outed as a Nazi will be gotten rid of, so I do trust our military. If I ever see someone working for our military with a swastika on his charging handle, and he's celebrated as a hero rather than being dishonorably discharged, then I'd lost my trust. Draining troops and equipment isn't happening only to the Russians. The Afghan war certainly didn't help the USSR any, but they were spending about <0.5% of their GDP on that war each year. Too many silly assertions about that war leading to the USSR's downfall are made due to the temporal relationship, but as I've said many times before, great nations fall from within. The rot within the USSR is what did it in, our proxy war in Afghanistan only contributed a small amount to it. The legacy of that war also did in fact come back to bite us in the butt as well, as we all know quite well. Your argument that it's our abandonment of the Mujahedeen that ended up causing us pain is also ridiculous. We just spent 20 years nation-building in Afghanistan, with boots on the ground, and the Afghanistan that arose out of that hate us no less than before 9/11. We have neither the resources/ability to nation-build everywhere (or anywhere, if recent evidence holds) we're militarily involved in, nor do we have the political stomach to support a radical Islamic government that doesn't allow girls to go to school.
Helping Saddam at the time, as dangerous as he was, was a much smarter decision than letting Iran take over the middle east. Or do you not agree with that? Sometimes you have to select the least horrible option. Nicaragua was just a lot of bad intelligence leading to some really bad decisions.
The U.S. hasn't been in a fight with another country for its existence since, what, 1781? 1812? Maybe we would loosen the rules a bit if we were invaded and the nation's existence was seriously threatened. By the time the U.S. started nation-building in Afghanistan, the damage was already done. The Taliban had taken power, they had instituted their version of Shariah law, and they were ready for a fight. Had we helped with nation building in the early 1990's, it probably would have been a totally different story. Just preventing starvation and providing medical care would have gone a long way to placating the Afghans. I don't know how much investment it would have taken to prevent the Taliban from taking over, but zero clearly wasn't the correct answer. We made no effort to convert Afghanistan from a war-based mindset to a peace- (and economic-) based mindset. This was one place, in my mind, that would have clearly benefited from U.S. financial aid. You never, never abandon the people who fight your battles for you. We had no gratitude, period. I find it a little disturbing that anyone would be selfish enough to argue against those points. And no, most of Afghanistan does not "hate the U.S." The Taliban is fighting for control of their country, because they want to be in power. The rest of Afghanistan is terrified of the Taliban. They cooperate with the Taliban because not doing so is typically fatal.
What exactly do you mean the "damage was already done"? The Taliban had taken power? Didn't we oust them from power? Do you really think the Taliban can stay alive for so many years being hunted by the most powerful military in the world and yet was ready to take over as soon as we left without popular support? Such naivete.
There was a point early on Ukraine wanted a settlement. They were told no repeatedly by NATO. So the idea Ukraine is fighting on their own volition and we are just standing by to assist with weapons shipments as long as they are willing to fight is not really true. It may have been in the very early stages of the war, but that quickly changed. Basically, NATO said “if we’re sending you these weapons, you’re going to be expected to wage full-scale war with Russia in an attempt to try to regain lost territory.” Not many people know this, because we aren’t being told, but if you search hard enough, you’ll find the truthfulness of this. With respect to showing China we mean business, I would love to agree with you, but I’m not so sure. The US funding a proxy war thousands of miles away isn’t really proof we mean business on Taiwan. It may help a little, but it could also hurt. It could be seen as cowardice, since we’re not risking American lives. Also, as we have already seen, this situation pushes Russia towards closer ties with China. So once again, our proxy war could have unintended consequences by creating an adversarial alliance we will have to contend with in a larger way down the road. I’m not going to give away too many personal details, but if you knew me in real life, you would know my sympathies for Ukraine run pretty deep. I see a country and a people being ripped to shreds. I also see a country whose fate isn’t truly in their hands. I’m talking about the people, specifically. I’m also aware of recent history of their country’s leadership. So far, Zelenskyy seems like a pretty straight up dude, but his predecessors were all either highly corrupt or Kremlin puppets. I understand the need to proceed with caution.
Russia, not Ukraine, decided to settle the matter by force of arms. So here we are. It was supposed to be an easy demonstration of force that allowed Russia to achieve its follow-on national objectives with little or no fighting by intimidating former vassal states into surrendering their sovereignty. China was supposed to achieve a relatively bloodless annexation of Taiwan by the end of summer 2022, under this normalization of conquest. None of that happened. Ukrainians fought harder for their land and rights than expected. Russian prowess at arms in all levels of war was grossly incompetent. Western resolve to support did not fold as expected. And, most alarmingly, especially for China, Western technology was far more lethal than expected. So where are we now? We have a war only Russia wanted and that it is losing operationally, on the battlefield, as well as strategically, on its home front. All Russia seems to have now is this information campaign to convince the West that the Ukrainian position is hopeless and to stop supplying Ukraine now. But if it’s so hopeless for Ukraine, then why can’t Russia just win on the battlefield in its own right? Hard question to answer for those pushing Ukraine to surrender half of its territory, isn’t it?
Not sure the point in attempting to point out fallacies with that poster any more. He's not much different than the other one - which I blocked - just more words and nonsensical proclamations of supporting Ukraine. He argues from the historical perspective/ mythology of a Russian. I used to think he was just contrarian, but that belief is becoming harder to maintain.
I am starting to agree. And I now remember that DD started out in this thread posing as the “reasonable man,” pointing out the futility of resisting the Russians. The Russian IADS could not be penetrated. Russian armor was impregnable by our Javelins. The hypersonic missile could not be shot down. And if all of that is true, then why waste the money supporting Ukraine if Russian victory was inevitable? You’ll just make them mad, and they do have quite the historic claim to the Ukraine and the Black Sea. The logic for that argument might have been sound at one point. This is what I do for a living, and I would have told you in early 2022 that total Russian victory was probably going to happen within months, no matter how valiantly Ukraine resisted. But then new evidence came to light: our weapons in the hands of trained Ukrainians were performing magnificently; the Russian operational design, logistics, and tactics were embarrassingly poor. Instead of adapting his thinking to the new evidence (as most of us did), he merely adapted his excuses: Russia can’t achieve air superiority, because air superiority is no longer a thing; the failed assault to encircle Kyiv was just a feint; Moscow just let Ukrainian counteroffensives succeed to straighten its lines. Oh, and of course, despite all of the physical evidence to the contrary, the Javelins weren’t working, the MLRS weren’t working, the Patriots weren’t working, and so on. My favorite, of course, was the minimization of Russian casualties coupled with the gross exaggeration of Ukrainian casualties. This, even with all that has come to light about Russia deliberately (and poorly) trying to hide its number of dead from its people. To me, that’s when you reveal yourself as a Russian useful idiot, by continuing to parrot the tropes that Russian victory is inevitable even a year and a half into thing, while the disastrous Russian comedy of errors has continued uninterrupted.
Yes, you do seem to have a lot of naivete. I will agree with that. "The damage was already done" means: a) Afghans did not trust America after we left them to starve. They knew when our troops arrived that we would only be there for a brief period of time, and then leave. b) We allowed the warlords to stop fighting with each other long enough to form a government and start governing in their own brutal way for nearly a decade before U.S. troops showed up on the scene. c) The people outside of Kabul came to accept that the Taliban was in charge, regardless of what was happening in Kabul. Again, their family would be killed if they did not cooperate with the Taliban. When the U.S. worked on road and infrastructure projects, it was the Taliban who was providing security for the project. If they didn't like the project, the local workers would be threatened with the deaths of their families, and they disappeared. So we ousted the Taliban from the official trappings of power in Kabul, but they remained a very powerful force in Afghanistan, and people were definitely afraid of them. Even when we thought we had the upper hand with the Taliban, they had spies within all of our Forward Operating Bases. When one was caught and sent to the rear bases for prosecution, the spy would be set free to change his identity and go to work at another F.O.B. We didn't want to upset the locals by prosecuting Afghans for "minor" offenses such as calling in artillery strikes on our bases. You could compare the situation to New York in the 1920's and 30's. The mafia was not officially in charge of any part of New York, but the people on the street knew who was in charge at the street level, and it wasn't the cops. And if the cops and people in charge of New York had left the city, the mafia would take control of the city, even though they would not have the support of the population.
So your assertion that Ukraine doesn’t really want to continue the war and would prefer a negotiated settlement involving giving up territory goes against every piece of reported evidence I’ve seen and heard.
Agreed, but let’s just go with it. They certainly don’t want a negotiated settlement now, do they? Why is that? Pressure from NATO? What’s the theory on that one?
Previously the narrative I was hearing from the isolationist right is that even though Ukraine wants to fight, we are the world superpower and are calling the shots and should essentially force Ukraine to the table against their wishes. So this narrative that Ukraine secretly wants to give up is completely new and something I’d expect to hear from Russia propaganda sources.
I can't speak to what Ukraine specifically wants today. There was a time they were willing to come to the table with Russia and work out a settlement early on in the war and they were told no. Perhaps their position has shifted, I simply do not know. I suspect you're at least as old as me, so if you look back to history with a lot of these situations, we don't find out all the gorey details until after the fighting stops, years later. I will say the delayed counteroffensive is noteworthy. Does that prove Ukrainian hesitancy to explode a new chapter in this war? No, not necessarily. But I do know Zelenskyy hasn't stopped pleading for more weapons, which tells me they're not convinced they have enough to make a meaningful push to liberate all their territory. It's pretty much sink or swim with this counteroffensive for Ukraine, so I can't blame Zelenskyy for wanting to make sure or being patient, but the delay and the constant request for more weapons is noteworthy. Just don't become like some here and rely solely on Ukrainian propaganda as your news source. There is a person in this thread who's quoting Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin as if he can be trusted, yet said poster is supposed to be "pro-Ukrainian." He's just being duped by the Ukrainian propaganda. Wagner chief told us the Ukrainian counteroffensive had already started 3 weeks ago, lol. Supposedly being very critical of Russia, yet Putin has not touched him. What does that tell you? Prigozhin probably still works for the bad guys, so anything he says shouldn't be trusted - at all. Though, I can't completely blame Ukrainian propaganda sources for using his words against him, as it's their job to whip up support for the war. It's just not intellectually honest and they know that. Too bad some here can't wrap their heads around that one.
Whoa, I didn't say Ukraine wanted to "give up." They simply wanted an opportunity to sit down at the table with Russia early in the war, which would have inevitably involved some concessions from both sides. It's called diplomacy. They were told no dice. Let me ask you a question, if they called a ceasefire today and Ukraine/Russia agreed to keep the borders as they currently stand, would the US be any less safe than it was in 2021 when Biden opened Nordstream 2? Does Ukraine really need to be in NATO's orbit for the US to be safe? We managed for nearly 70 years with a lot more than Ukraine in Russia's orbit and now have several NATO member states bordering Russia itself that we didn't have most of that time. If you can't make a case that the current territorial lines represent an existential threat to the US or NATO for that matter, we probably shouldn't be spending billions of dollars and creating a human catastrophe over there. We will never be able to cure all of the world's evil and injustice. There are tons of examples of things happening in the world that are way worse than Ukrainians living in a Russian sphere of influence that are being ignored. We are not the world's police force, nor are we the world's handymen.
And specific to this, I am not pushing any narrative from anybody. And I'll remind you there was a time not too long ago when most of the "isolationists" were considered to be on the left. Unlike a lot of folks, I speak for myself and nobody else, but it is interesting to see how many Democrats have suddenly become war hawks.
As to your first post, like I said earlier, your information is opposite everything I’ve read or heard. I can’t disprove it because I don’t know, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. As to if Ukraine wanted to negotiate, which would likely involve some loss of territory, that’s up to them. If that’s what they want I’d support it. I would greatly prefer that part of the deal be that the remaining Ukraine would be more integrated into Europe, both economically and geopolitically, in order to prevent future invasions and constant Russian meddling.
It’s not uncommon for people to reverse their positions based upon partisan and tribal affiliations. The difference here is nobody is supporting direct troop involvement and our efforts are in conjunction with most of Europe.
