War in Ukraine

Iraq cost 1.5 Trillion over 12 years. We pissed away 3.7 Trillion to hide from Wuhan flu bug for "2 weeks", in a matter of 2 months. Seems rather selective to pretend to be indignant about way less than half the debt incurred over a decade long, while acting as if the hyper-socialist experiment we engaged in in 2020, was no big deal.

But back to Iraq--you seem to have forgotten Kuwait in '91, the circumstances/terms under which we left Iraq, the 10 years of shell games that followed, and the plate-tectonic shift in the global terrain that came about as a result of 9/11.

WMD may not have ever been discovered, but it doesn't mean they were never there, and more importantly, it damn sure doesn't mean Hussein didn't give us plenty of reason to believe that he was hiding shit. Dude begged and doubled dog dared us to invade, and got what he begged for...

BTW, while no nexus was ever established or found between Hussein and 9/11, there was compelling evidence to suggest that he was behind the attack on the WTC in '93, which damn near succeeded. Please note--he actually attempted to do, what OBL succeeded in doing. That he narrowly failed, doesn't mean he wasn't a real ass threat to us, as long as he was in power.

So you might just have a point there--without the invasion, the world might very well be different--bc Hussein might have been successful in a subsequent attack. If only we'd gotten off his damn back, po' feller...

...as for ISIS..... That was Barry's baby...which Trump had to clean up for him...along with Syria, and the red line....

...yawn...just mo' 'scuses...

So many shitty results under dem foreign policy, need'n so much 'scusing...

(shall we introduce Israel/Palestine into the convo?)

 

Biden pulled us out of Afghanistan. So many presidents before him lacked the balls to do it - because newsflash, it was never going to be pretty.

We finally, as a nation, get to say we don't have troops dying in some stupid war, because Biden was the one that pulled them out. Finally.

Was it the best withdrawal of all time? No. Did the Afghanistan government collapse faster than anyone could have projected? Yes, even faster than jaded military people thought it would collapse.

I think it's disgusting that people continue to take shots at him for having the big hairy balls to do the difficult thing and get us out, even if the situation was less than ideal for him politically.

 

Also want to point out that American foreign policy in general, both democrats and republicans, has been abysmal for more than 20 years. ABYSMAL.
To try to blame only democrats and not republicans is just open partisan dipshittery.

 

Concur. Hopefully, you’re implying that the opposite is also true.

 

Wow, this is a veritable smorgasbord of bad takes.

 

Biden and Trump were in alignment on Afghanistan. I thought it was a mistake, but the reality is we’d probably have to have stayed 100 years and maybe even in 100 years it would collapse back to tribalism. So the “rip the bandaid off” approach has plenty of merit. But i think allowing it to just go back to pre 9-11 status quo is no good either. Makes it almost the same “it was all for nothing” as Iraq. But the one differentiator will always be the WMD lie. Almost no American needed to be sold on the reasons for entering Afghanistan. The only debate was the 2nd phase and the exit strategy.

Anyone trying to suggest the Taliban control Afghistan because of Biden is a straight up idiot.

 

How would you rate the information sharing and transitioning job of the Trump administration? A? B? F?

The 2020-21 Presidential Transition: Lessons Learned and Recommendations

The president’s lack of acknowledgement of the election results influenced the agency transition operations even after ascertainment. Many agencies cooperated fully. However, the Biden transition team and news reports suggested some agencies—especially those related to national security and the budget—were not fully forthcoming.

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s incoming national security advisor, said the Pentagon stopped holding meetings with the incoming team on Dec. 18 for the next two weeks and did not answer dozens of written requests.54 Biden himself claimed the Defense Department was not fully cooperating on cybersecurity issues. Defense officials said both sides had agreed to a holiday pause, an assertion disputed by the Biden transition.55

The 2020-21 transition continued the country’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of power, and President Biden was able to begin governing immediately upon taking office. But the Trump-to-Biden transition demonstrated that while the law prescribes many aspects of the presidential transition, key elements are governed by norms and good faith, and that these traditions alone are not enough to provide incoming administrations with the information it needs to be prepared to govern from Day One or guarantee a smooth transfer of power.

 

It’s alarming to me how casual talk of nuclear war has become as if to suggest that it might be “winnable.”

Are we flirting with unimaginable sorrow ?

“It sounds crazy, but if this happens, I want to be at one of the ground zeros. As bad as being vaporized sounds, it would be infinitely better than surviving into the nightmarish existence that would ensue. There will be marauding gangs of survivors, undoubtedly armed, in various stages of hunger, disease, emaciation, and injury. It will probably be a situation where anyone you encounter will be apt to kill you. For one thing, they won’t know whether you are out to kill them too, or maybe you have something they want/need to survive. A can of tuna or a bowl of beans might cost your life.”

A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us

 

Blame should go to the Democrats, RINO's and never-Trumpers. So why do you hate MAGA so much? Because ?hey want to control the borders? Avoid wars? They didn't want to make Russia the big enemy when Russia wanted to be our friend?

 

Who was the bat**** crazy Virginia congressman who bellowed that the Russia-Ukraine border is “our border!” ?

 

Gerald Connolly ol nuddy

 

That’s the wingnut.

 

Neo-Nazi says no Nazis here …

Azov's Neo-Nazi Claims No Nazis Here

 

Probably an unintended poor choice of the words. Doesn't come remotely close to the crazy wing nut who referred to taking of airports by the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, the same guy who referred to Vladimir Putin as a genius for his decision to invade Ukraine.
President Trump Said Revolutionary War Troops 'Took Over the Airports' in Fourth of July Speech

 

tick tock, the kerch bridge is coming down...just a matter of time

the air base was a test for the long range atacms and the russian defense system. now they are probing the defense system again...tick tock..might want to take the ferry...

Ukraine Decoy Missiles Spark Crimea Attack Fears (msn.com)

Ukrainian forces are preparing to attack the Kerch Strait Bridge, which connects Russia with the annexed Crimean peninsula, the Rybar Telegram channel, which has links to Russia's defense ministry, said this week.

Kyiv may have used U.S.-made ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD) missiles this week to detect air defense systems and radars in preparation for another attack on the Black Sea peninsula, which was annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014, the military blogger said. The missiles, which are designed to distract and confuse enemy air defenses, are capable of mimicking a number of aircraft on radar screens.

The Kerch Strait Bridge serves as a key supply route for Russia's forces. Ukraine struck the 19-kilometer (12-mile) road and rail bridge in October 2022 and again in July 2023. The bridge is crucial to sustaining Moscow's military offensives in southern Ukraine, and Kyiv has vowed future strikes on the structure as it seeks to recapture the peninsula.
......................

During an appearance on Full Contact with Vladimir Solovyov, Shurygin said that a Ukrainian strike on a large Russian airfield in Dzhankoy, Crimea, on April 17, served as a rehearsal for a future Ukrainian attack on the bridge. Shurygin claimed Kyiv used seven ATACMS missiles in the attack, and that the strike was a rehearsal to test how Russia's air defense works.

 

Interesting article on how modern tanks are vulnerable to drone attacks from above. Ukraine has lost five Abrams tanks to enemy attack, and they pulled the remaining tanks away from the front lines. They had been using them as stationary artillery pieces. The top of most tanks (including Abrams) is a weak point, as it is only designed to stop machine gun fire. Plus, the U.S. had to remove some of the additional armor from the tanks before they were sent to Ukraine, to make sure the secret technology did not fall into Russian hands. Tanks are generally designed to take advantage of mobility and firepower during a blitzkrieg-type attack, and not be stationary artillery pieces. Of course, losing five tanks in 9-10 months of war is not that terrible. We should be sending Ukraine 100 tanks a year, considering the fact that we have about 5,000 of them in warehouses.

Once Ukraine gets enough ammunition to put Russia on the defensive and is able to mount a counterattack, the tanks will likely be more useful.

Russia has found the critical vulnerability in Nato’s American tanks

It is probably a good opportunity for the U.S. to come up with some (low-tech) upgrades to the top armor on tanks, and see what will help the tank survive drone attacks, and then let the Ukrainians test it in battle. Something to send with the next batch of Abrams tanks.

 

Saw pics of a Russian tank with an exoskeleton that looked like a barn. Fools used new metal which probably stood out to the drone operators more than the tank did

 

Macron breaking bad. not sure wha tpart of this the US wouldn't like to hear. I'm liking it


Macron just laid out his plan for 'dying' EU and it will infuriate the US (msn.com)

While he described Brexit as one of the "unprecedented crises" Europe has faced in recent years, President Macron insisted the importance of the EU staying separate from the US. He added that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine poses the biggest risk to the security in Europe.

Macron said: "[Europe] must show that it is never a vassal of the United States and that it also knows how to talk to all the other regions of the world. "There is no defence without a defence industry. We’ve had decades of under-investment. We must produce more, we must produce faster, and we must produce as Europeans.

"We must strengthen European action on immigration, terrorism, organised crime, drug trafficking, hate, and online crime...we must put an end to complicated Europe.

"There is a risk Europe could die...The principal danger for European security is the war in Ukraine, the sine qua non for our security is that Russia does not win this war of aggression."

 

When the French are wrong, they’re wrong. But when they’re right (and in this case, they are), they’re right as can be.