What nonsense. Since when does losing American lives give us authority over another country? We ruled Japan and Germany because we won the war, plain and simple. And if Ukraine wins, it will be largely because of our support and weapons. We should expect some minimal level of influence because of that. If we want a lot of influence, then we have to provide money to rebuild Ukraine. If Ukraine wants that money, they will have to meet whatever conditions we place on providing that money. We may not NEED to partner with Ukraine, but it would be wise to do so. They have proven themselves one of the most capable militaries in the world, and certainly, if and when they win this war, more than capable of keeping Russian expansionism in check. Iraq was actually a reasonably good case for nation-building. GWB screwed it up as only an idiot can. All we had to do was: 1) Secure the gigantic weapons caches in Iraq, especially the ones with high-explosives. We were too stupid to do that, and we provided Iraqi insurgents with hundreds of tons of high-explosives for IED's. We guarded the biggest weapons cache (a couple of square miles) with only 12 soldiers, who had to choose between a firefight in which they were greatly out-numbered, and letting the insurgents take what they wanted. About half of U.S. troops (2600 out of 5400) killed in Iraq were killed by IED's, which were provided by the idiocy of Donald "Rummy the Dummy" Rumsfeld, who was too busy imagining flowers being tossed at the troops to prepare for any other scenarios. 2) Discourage Iran from interfering in Iraq. Again, too stupid to do that. Day 1: "Mr. Bremer, do you have any message for Iran?" "No." 3) Manage Iraq as three separate countries for at least a generation, until the hatred and resentment between the three religious sects was greatly reduced. Nope. Too stupid. Had to have national elections as soon as possible to spike the football and claim democracy has taken hold, even as extremists were killing each other. 4) Have the Iraqi army guard the border with Iran. Instead we basically made them unemployed and let them slip away into Iraqi society, and hoped that they wouldn't turn into the killers they were trained to be. Just stupid. Overall, it's a bad comparison (Iraq and Ukraine). With Iraq, we were trying to put pro-western policies and candidates into a nation that was hostile towards those things (and towards the other religious sects in the country), and under the influence of Iran, who just wanted to kill as many Americans as possible. Ukraine has nothing but gratitude towards the U.S. for providing weapons to defeat Russia.
I suspect that military families are probably better versed on history and the dangers of communist countries like Russia. My family has no one in the military that I can think of (my father worked as a civilian for the Navy), but I guess I've always had an interest in historical wars, a respect for people in the military, and a distrust of communist countries and dictators. I travel internationally a fair amount for work, so I have to understand what kind of country I am going to.
And you're o.k. with that? You're o.k. with Russia getting control of Ukraine's metals/steel production? That will only cause Russia to expand their production of military equipment. You're o.k. with Russia getting control over the world's breadbasket? Because Russia has demonstrated a willingness to let people around the world starve if they don't do what Putin says. Russia gaining Ukraine's natural resources makes them stronger, without question. Ukraine, even if it does have corruption, has no history of invading other countries, but Russia does. Supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine means that you are likely willing to accept future Russian invasions of other neighbors. Beyond the foolishness of your statement, I would have to ask, who made you the decider of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Yes, Ukraine has some corruption in its past. Zelenskyy has shown a willingness to arrest people for corruption. Sounds like a good first step to me. Or is perfection the only acceptable condition? Or are you waiting for Tucker Carlson to tell you that Ukraine has become one of the good guys?
I would say most conservatives are against funding a proxy war in Ukraine, at this point. Of the three major candidates in the presidential election, the two candidates conservatives are most likely to vote for are both signaling we need to get out. I don't think that's something they talk about if it's going to grate the base. And then the one candidate conservatives are less likely to vote for seems to have a blank check for Ukraine to keep fighting. Neo-conservatives are definitely on board with fighting it out in Ukraine, but the conservative base, if you look at the polling numbers by and large, oppose funding a war in Ukraine.
Not sure how you got that out of what I said. My post was in reply to a different conversation point. I hope Ukraine wins. I’m fine with giving them equipment and training. I’m not okay with sending billions to them with no mechanism for oversight or accounting. I’m not okay with their glorification as some bastion of democracy as has been done for the last 15 months. Lumping me in with Tucker? I don’t believe in giving negative ratings, so Come On Man.
I’m with you. I’d like them to win. But if I’m being honest, this is about like me rooting for Auburn when they play Georgia. Not because I like Ukraine, but because I want Russia to lose.
I was using the simplicity of language that has been driven home by the media these last months. Democracy vs Tyranny. Good guys vs bad guys. Of course Ukraine should stay sovereign. Of course the citizens are victims. Of course I hope they win. But damn, this board and the public in general is holding them up as some sort of beacon of light in a darkened world. So yes “the really evil guys vs the not very good guys” would have been a better way of saying it. But my point came across
I think you just explained why there is not a lot of enthusiasm for republican candidates right now. I don't consider myself a neo-conservative (I never voted for GWB, for example), and I support helping Ukraine. Actually, in the House of Representatives, I believe it's the pro-Trump idiots in the Republican Party (MTG, Boebert, Santos, and Gaetz) who are most vocal about not spending money on Ukraine. They may be loud idiots, but I don't think they speak for the entire party. Spending money on Ukraine is the smartest defense money we can spend, period. Ukraine is reducing Russia's military AND economy (with help from sanctions) to ashes. When we spend money on the latest defense technology, there is a good chance that it will be obsolete before we can even use it (ever heard of littoral ships?). That does little to hurt our adversaries or advance world peace. What Ukraine is doing is hurting Russia and helping world peace. By providing older weapons to Ukraine, it amplifies their destructive power against the Russian military. We've seen it happen before, as our support for Afghan fighters destroyed the Russian military and helped precipitate the collapse of the USSR. Why are you against that outcome? Why would you rather spend trillions on weapons that may become obsolete before they are needed than on something that actually hurts one of our main adversaries? And in many cases, we are sending weapons out of warehouses, not from our active military or from a production line somewhere. We have a total of 10,000 Abrams tanks, and half of them are in storage. Why do we need 5,000 tanks in storage? How does that hurt our enemies more than what Ukraine is doing right now? Listen closely. Every dollar we spend on Ukraine right now will, if Ukraine wins the war, save us $10-100 down the road (within a decade). Look at what happened to our defense spending in the 1990's--it was nearly cut in half. Why could we afford to do that? Because Russia was defeated and bankrupted. This is exactly what led Bill Clinton (a poor excuse for a president by any definition) to be able to reduce our budget deficit to nearly zero, in combination with the internet economy. All because we sent some Stinger missiles to Afghanistan and made some broad claims about Star Wars defenses. We should try to avoid being penny-wise and pound-foolish, as the British saying goes.
An interesting story about how Putin is cannibalizing the Russian economy in a desperate attempt to win the war. How Putin Cannibalizes Russian Economy to Survive Personally
I was raised in a military family but am liberal. I wonder if this is a military thing? Like if were raised hearing about it or living it you understand the bigger picture better? Idk.
again sanctimonious. And wrong. Par for the course. And stop telling people to be objective when you have failed to do so yourself. I am not required to be “objective” about a war of conquest against a free country.
Most of the people on this thread have you on ignore. I have been nominated by the few who don't have you on ignore to ridicule the absurdity of your posts mercilessly. I only ridicule your absurd posts, of course. Which is practically all of them.
No, it's a liberal thing. I see articles in liberal media all the time calling for us to double-down on military aid to Ukraine. You would have never seen that 15 or 20 years ago. Trump flipped the script and sold Republicans on isolationism. Meanwhile, Democrats think Russia stole the 2016 election and so there's no end to their support for military aid to Ukraine and they would probably go further if allowed. After all, Putin is responsible for the 3 SCOTUS justices and all of the other tragedies of the Trump administration. Gotta get him!
I think if you polled the House of Representatives or MAGA Nation, you'd get a very different result.
