(12-22-2022 04:03 PM)Todor Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 03:20 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 02:55 PM)TIGERCITY Wrote:  Oh it certainly does affect us because it affects our NATO allies. I mean if you believe one of Putin's reasons for invasion it's about NATO. So, we have been able to degrade the Russian military by fighting a proxy war. Putin's past actions and words have shown that he has big plans, or *had* big plans. "Had"... that's a plus. He has stated - in the past- that he draws where the red line is drawn. Which is no surprise considering his shown disregard for sovereign states and his assassinations around the world. Yet *now* his war machine is in such a degraded state that he's not the threat he was. This also sets an example to other alike-minded despots that actions like Putin's - attacks on a weaker neighbor- may come with heavy costs. All this is still ignoring the ethical and moral argument... But I guess that has little value here so I won't make it. Anyway I think cougattack made a pretty good argument above... Check that out. This isn't an argument for a endless war but to say we have no interest is really shortsighted and misses the point in my opinion. Both over here and over there - ****where our NATO allies live***- we have an interest in seeing Putin's criminal ambition curbed and example set.

Im beginning to think this NATO schit is just a way for Europe to bilk the US out of more cash to protect it. Im getting quite tired of this scam. Its high time the other members start paying their fair share. We gave at the door.

If we’re not paying for it, they aren’t going to just follow our orders for no reason. We would have no leverage over them. It’s a trade off. And we provide the money. That’s always been the arrangement, no matter what it says on paper.

Im not interested in them following our orders. Id much rather they handle their own damn security without our help constantly. European NATO members are like the rich kids that expect Daddy to prop up their lifestyles. It's time this "arrangement" to not be so one sided and the kids go get a fking job.

(12-22-2022 05:12 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 04:03 PM)Todor Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 03:20 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 02:55 PM)TIGERCITY Wrote:  Oh it certainly does affect us because it affects our NATO allies. I mean if you believe one of Putin's reasons for invasion it's about NATO. So, we have been able to degrade the Russian military by fighting a proxy war. Putin's past actions and words have shown that he has big plans, or *had* big plans. "Had"... that's a plus. He has stated - in the past- that he draws where the red line is drawn. Which is no surprise considering his shown disregard for sovereign states and his assassinations around the world. Yet *now* his war machine is in such a degraded state that he's not the threat he was. This also sets an example to other alike-minded despots that actions like Putin's - attacks on a weaker neighbor- may come with heavy costs. All this is still ignoring the ethical and moral argument... But I guess that has little value here so I won't make it. Anyway I think cougattack made a pretty good argument above... Check that out. This isn't an argument for a endless war but to say we have no interest is really shortsighted and misses the point in my opinion. Both over here and over there - ****where our NATO allies live***- we have an interest in seeing Putin's criminal ambition curbed and example set.

Im beginning to think this NATO schit is just a way for Europe to bilk the US out of more cash to protect it. Im getting quite tired of this scam. Its high time the other members start paying their fair share. We gave at the door.

If we’re not paying for it, they aren’t going to just follow our orders for no reason. We would have no leverage over them. It’s a trade off. And we provide the money. That’s always been the arrangement, no matter what it says on paper.

Im not interested in them following our orders. Id much rather they handle their own damn security without our help constantly. European NATO members are like the rich kids that expect Daddy to prop up their lifestyles. It's time this "arrangement" to not be so one sided and the kids go get a fking job.

I get what you are saying, and agree. But if we didn’t buy allies, we wouldn’t have very many. The US paying for their defense is what gives us control of their foreign policy, which means that they are pretty much forced to side with us. Without that leverage, our foreign policy would be a lot harder to enforce.

The misunderstanding is that we are not there to protect them, but to control and inhibit them.

“The now-infamous draft of the Pentagon's defense plan, or the Defense Planning Guidance, which was leaked to The New York Times in 1992, gave the public an unprecedented glimpse of the thinking that informs Washington's security strategy, merely stating in somewhat undiplomatic language the logic behind America's Cold War strategy. The United States, it argued, must continue to dominate the international system and thus "discourage" the "advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or . . . even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."

The US “must not only dominate regions composed of wealthy and technologically sophisticated states but also take care of such nuisances as Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, and North Korea's dictator Kim Jong Il, to protect the interests of virtually all potential great powers so that they need not acquire the capability to protect themselves--that is, so that those powers need not act like great powers. Thus, for instance, Washington must protect Germany's and Japan's access to Persian Gulf oil, because if these countries were to protect their own interests in the Gulf, they would develop military forces capable of global "power projection." No wonder the United States must spend more on its "national security"than the rest of the world's countries combined. This post­Cold War strategy reflects what the historian Melvyn Leffler defined as an imperative of America's Cold War national-security policy: that "neither an integrated Europe nor a united Germany nor an independent Japan must be permitted to emerge as a third force."

Some of the references are old because the quotes are from 25 years ago, but nothing has changed.

Every time I hear the WH or a politicians on either side say we are defending democracy I want to throw something at the TV.

Zelensky is an authoritarian throwing all his political opposition in prison and jailing church leaders and priests. God only knows the level of money laundering and child sex trade he has engage in with our leaders over there.

Of course simple stupid people like TC hear that and think its a defense of Putin. There are no good guys involved here in Russia, Ukraine or in our government. They are all bad guys and corrupt, evil scumbags.

(12-22-2022 07:09 PM)ericsrevenge76 Wrote:  There are no good guys involved here in Russia, Ukraine or in our government. They are all bad guys and corrupt, evil scumbags.

Sad but unfortunately true.

I feel for the Ukranian people, being used by their government just to get money. I'm not a bad person, but it's looking more and more like we're getting ripped off, and the left is happy to take part in the grift. We'd be better off just stepping back and letting them fight it out, whereas we accept refugees from both sides.

(12-22-2022 02:55 PM)TIGERCITY Wrote:  Oh it certainly does affect us because it affects our NATO allies. I mean if you believe one of Putin's reasons for invasion it's about NATO. So, we have been able to degrade the Russian military by fighting a proxy war... That's pretty f****** low cost us but not Putin. The now degraded Putin's past actions and words have shown that he has big plans, or *had* big plans. "Had"... that's a plus. He has stated - again in the past- that 'he draws where the red line is drawn.' Which is no surprise considering his shown disregard for sovereign states, his war crimes and crimes against humanity, is callous disregard for the taking of innocent lives, and his assassinations around the world. Yet *now* his war machine is in such a degraded state that he's not the threat he was. This also sets an example to other alike-minded despots that actions like Putin's - attacks on a weaker neighbor- may come with heavy costs. All this is still ignoring the ethical and moral argument... But I guess that has little value here so I won't make it. Anyway I think cougattack made a pretty good argument above... Check that out. This isn't an argument for a endless war but to say we have no interest is really shortsighted and misses the point in my opinion. Both over here and over there - ****where our NATO allies live***- we have an interest in seeing Putin's criminal ambition curbed and example set.

F NATO.

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(12-22-2022 08:47 PM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  I feel for the Ukranian people, being used by their government just to get money. I'm not a bad person, but it's looking more and more like we're getting ripped off, and the left is happy to take part in the grift. We'd be better off just stepping back and letting them fight it out, whereas we accept refugees from both sides.

Why does it take y'all so long to figure this out?

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(12-22-2022 07:09 PM)ericsrevenge76 Wrote:  Every time I hear the WH or a politicians on either side say we are defending democracy I want to throw something at the TV.

Zelensky is an authoritarian throwing all his political opposition in prison and jailing church leaders and priests. God only knows the level of money laundering and child sex trade he has engage in with our leaders over there.

Of course simple stupid people like TC hear that and think its a defense of Putin. There are no good guys involved here in Russia, Ukraine or in our government. They are all bad guys and corrupt, evil scumbags.

Not to mention the fact that Ukraines parliament changed organ “donation” laws just before the start of the Special Military Operation, ditching any sort of permission required. It’s now up to authorities. If you die they can carve you up all they want. What’s the worst that could happen?

It may merely be a coincidence, but I doubt it. Odd time to worry about passing something like that just out of the blue, just as all the talk there was the preparations for the new Donetsk operation, and watching what Russia was doing on the border. If you think it’s not true, you can check for yourselves.

Thank God they can’t get their hands on Donbas residents who the law was probably intended to be used on. If the others want to allow themselves to be sold for parts, that’s their problem for choosing this government. But at least they can’t get many Russians. The west will never report it, but the depths of depravity possible when you have carte blanche in every imaginable way are astounding.

(12-22-2022 09:02 PM)b2b Wrote:  

(12-22-2022 08:47 PM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  I feel for the Ukranian people, being used by their government just to get money. I'm not a bad person, but it's looking more and more like we're getting ripped off, and the left is happy to take part in the grift. We'd be better off just stepping back and letting them fight it out, whereas we accept refugees from both sides.

Why does it take y'all so long to figure this out?

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I'm actually conservative; I just thought -- and still think -- that Ukraine has the right to defend itself from foreign invaders. That and I've never been able to stand Vladimir Putin. At all. I know both of those factors blinded me.

If the USA really wanted to make a difference, why not start exerting considerable influence on both sides to get a negotiated settlement? Putin's problem is that he no longer has the defensible borders that the Iron Curtain provided, and his population of 20-somethings is diminishing, and with it the potential strength of the Russian army. So he faces some significant potential threats that are existential. Add to that the historic Russian paranoia about invasion--from the west (Napoleon, Hitler) or from the east (Mongol hordes, Cossacks). So he's got real problems.

I think this was an attempted first move toward more defensible borders, but what the world--including Putin--is finding out is that the decline of the Russian army is already further along than had been expected. Putin is not going to get to anchor in the Carpathian Alps to the south and the Baltic to the north and defend only a few hundred miles in between, as in the Soviet days. Instead, his western border is now a couple of thousand miles across the northern European plain, with virtually no natural defensive boundaries. If anything this has been a major setback to his defense problem--increased border width to defend with Sweden and Finland moving toward NATO, particularly threatening the Russian naval and military concentration on the Kola Peninsula, along with the now general knowledge that his army ain't what it used to be.

Putin is in a position of weakness. I first heard this explained on a Rice alumni cruise to the Baltic in 2015, by none other than guest speaker Lech Walesa. I didn't really comprehend fully at the time, but this Ukraine misadventure has laid it bare for all to see.

This is what it looks like when you are ruled by the CoC's and the CoW's.

(Cucks of Congress and Cucks of the Whitehouse.)

If you want to see how a real man handled this, check this out.

Ukrainian bots blamed for mass Twitter suspension of accounts criticizing Zelensky's visit to Congress


Gaetz on Zelensky Address to Congress: ‘At Least We Found a Flag that Democrats Are Willing to Stand For’