I see the conflict as nothing to do with Ukraine and the corrupt politicians there-in, but entirely on stopping the expansionist and war crime committing Kremlin in Moscow. The governments of the world (mostly derelict in their duties to their own people) need to stand up for the sovereignty of nations where those nations are not interfering in the politics of others. Afghanistan and Iraq lost that when they harbored and enabled terrorists, Iran should have lost that (see governments derelict in duty) and North Korea pretty much has nothing because they are such a pariah.
Countries like China need to see the world saying “these are the rules, abide by them or else” and know what that “or else” is… not waffling and indecision and “if you just clip off that part of the country that really likes you” statements. North Korea needs to be reminded that while they have very little, they can lose even that if the powers at the top wish to take from more than just their own people and keep flinging missiles and other things over the border.
A separate question is what we can do when a nation’s unelected leaders brutalize their own people, but that’s shades of grey… just what does “unelected” cover, what does “brutalize” entail, or are cheating and surveil enough to justify action?
Germany correctly knew the French were weak but underestimated the English resolve. The Japanese similarly thought the US could be bloodied successfully and found out that was not the case. Vietnam was an exercise in foggy goals and a lack of resolve that we cannot afford again… though we did with the pullout from Afghanistan last year with the same sort of lack of focus. If the European powers rebuked Hitler in the years before war, if FDR engaged with Japan over their conquests in China and various Pacific islands, if the US administrations responsible for policy were clear on their goals in Vietnam, those conflicts would have been very different. We (well some of us, maybe not as many here) need to learn those lessons of history.
I consider war to be a necessary evil. Something that just cannot be avoided due to human nature and the desire of some to take what others have. Bullies, despots and criminals of several stripes have characteristics in common and all respond to certainty. The bully that is returned blow for blow, the despot that sees the inevitable destruction of his power and the criminal that is certain of capture and prison cease their actions. We owe it to our soldiers, sailors and pilots that if we send them into harm’s way we had no alternative, not that we blundered into a fight through incompetence and lack of will.
At least in Ukraine we are getting good data on the strength of one enemy and plenty of tests of our military hardware without loss of life. The lives that are lost would have been lost due to the actions of the Russian command which we cannot control, at least at this point. More direct words and display of will would have prevented the conflict but now it is too late and hopefully will serve as a lesson for next time, along with the tested hardware.
21 replies on “On Ukraine, corruption, joining the WEF and why we should be there.”
MORAL AND JUST WARS
One of the primary considerations must be what is the cost of supporting a war to the country deciding if they should be involved? Cost covers not just the financial and societal burdens for the people of the assisting country, but for the people of the requesting country as well. It is not limited to whether we personally have boots on the ground.
For example, Germany severed their oil agreements with Russia via economic boycotts. As a result, their people are freezing this winter. Worth it? I’m sure the people that are suffering don’t think so. On the flip side, the Ukrainians are definitely having their fair share of discomfort and it’s not limited to the general population:
https://rumble.com/v23wjr9-ukrainian-soldiers-are-speaking-up.html
Now Israel is supposedly engaged with supplying natural gas to Europe, but I’ve also read where the Biden administration killed the pipeline, so I’m not sure where they’re at today.
https://www.israel365news.com/353623/israel-to-supply-natural-gas-to-europe-and-its-connection-to-a-blessing-from-deuteronomy/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18232/israel-europe-gas-pipeline
For us here in the good ole U.S.A., we’ve now handed Ukraine roughly $100 billion total plus weaponry. This does nothing to solve our inflation issues. When the average consumer is paying $6 for a dozen eggs and upwards of $8 for a box of dry cereal, is it worth it for those that are living on a limited budget? Again, I would think those that are struggling to feed their families don’t think so. How much is enough? According to Biden, the faucet will run ‘for as long as it needs to’.
WHICH MARXIST / COMMUNIST / TOTALITARIAN REGIME IS BETTER – THE WEF, CHINA OR RUSSIA?
All three are vying for world domination, with China playing both sides, (for now). Comparing them is like comparing 3 apples from the same tree. One may have 10 seeds, one may have 8, but in the end they all taste the same.
The WEF lauds China for it’s use of facial recognition technology and attached ESG-like policies, and intends to fully implement them throughout the Western countries. Just look at what they’ve accomplished so far in Australia and Canada. ESG is being implemented not only in our larger corporations, but primarily in our banks. They also have a eugenics agenda, of course using the excuse of Climate Change. Too many people on the planet. If you must have a baby, they’ll grow it in a lab so they can control not only whether it should live or die, but fashion it’s DNA as well. Good little brown shirts.
The WEF also has a goal of placing us all in 15-minute cities to restrict movement. England is already experimenting with this. They are limited to 15 minute excursions up to 100 times per year. All to support the new religion of Climate Change. That way, we won’t need a car that pollutes the environment.
https://wentworthreport.com/2022/12/05/the-15-minute-city-is-here/
Apart from wanting to return to Russia’s original borders, Putin is very aware of the goals of the WEF and is intent on making sure they won’t be subject to them. Sadly, that’s more than we can say for our leaders.
Supposedly, an agreement was made between NATO and Russia in 1991 that indicated that there would be no expansion of NATO countries on Russia’s border. If that agreement exists, it was violated. If that agreement exists, we [NATO member countries] poked the bear.
https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/02/20/has-nato-reneged-on-a-1991-agreement-with-russia/
Of course, NATO denies such an agreement was made, so who is lying and how can we tell?
IS UKRAINE COMPLETELY INNOCENT?
No. The details are still out regarding FTX’s cash-funneling involvement. We know it happened, but we don’t know to what extent and whether money laundering was involved.
Additionally, Zelensky passed a resolution that there would be no peace talks. Who encapsulates something like this into law? He then has the audacity to come to the U.S. Congress demanding more money while dressed in military garb like a typical dictator. And like clapping seals, our Congress gave him a standing ovation. Welcome to the uni-party that is easily duped by a former comedian who has no intention of ending the war.
Zelensky is also employing the use of Nazis. Note how the countries supporting him don’t challenge him on this. They are also employing the use of [incognito] ISIS and other underground Muslim fighters serving as paid mercenaries. And since Ukraine has no money, our tax dollars are paying for it. It’s a two-fold deal for them as passports are easy to get within Ukraine that serves as an easy gateway to the U.S. and Europe where they can carry out their jihad.
https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/midst-war-ukraine-becomes-gateway-europe-jihad/
Lastly, the bombing on Donetsk continues. Donetsk is a separatist area that would prefer to rejoin Russia. And because of that, Ukraine is bombing people within their own borders.
https://www.donbass-insider.com/2022/06/14/donbass-ukrainian-army-terror-bombing-of-residential-areas-in-donetsk/
IN THE END
There are way too many back room deals, agendas and self-serving opportunities in play for us to even begin to have a say in what constitutes a moral and just war in any meaningful way.
From a biblical perspective, we are to protect our own people and borders. However, when we go outside of our borders, it becomes much more complicated as the hearts of men are evil continually. From my perspective, there is no answer to the question of what constitutes a moral and just war.
MY CONCLUSION
Our involvement needs to end. It’s only serving as a distraction and who knows what else? In the meantime, we’re ignorantly marching toward losing our own sovereignty while we’re busy ‘helping’ someone else keep theirs. We’ll all lose and there’s nowhere else to go.
Those are all fine arguments and they all ignore the Bear in the room. They are nitty-gritty fine grained small potatoes compared to the real problem which is putting that Russian Bear back in his cage and keeping him there. It doesn’t matter which nations that Bear wants to gobble up, its that he’s actively gobbling anything he thinks he can get and Ukraine just happens to be the nation in question at the moment. The Russian Bear will ALWAYS pick the weakest nation that it can find the best excuses to absorb. He won’t stop with Ukraine once he has it anymore than he stopped with Crimea once he got that. We know this both from a historical perspective as well as Vladimir Putin’s own words.
As for cost, what would the savings have been, no matter how much the initial cost was, if the Japanese Empire’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere had been interdicted early? It was Chinese and Malayan iron ore that made up the steel in Japanese naval vessels and Indonesian oil that fueled those ships. Had it not been for the rape of the territories subjugated under the Imperial Japanese, Mao Zedong might never have come to power. Likewise the war in Vietnam would very likely have been averted if Chiang Kai Shek had come out on top of the power struggle in China after WWII rather than just fleeing to Taiwan and establishing an autonomous government there. That power struggle was a direct result of Japanese conquest of China.
Or what would have been the savings if Germany was thwarted early in its expansionist aspirations and had not gobbled up Poland, most of what later became the Eastern Bloc and the Sudetenland? If Germany’s weapons testing during the Spanish Civil War had proved inadequate to overcome the weaponry of the West? If German aspirations of expansion had been thwarted early and decisively?
Today we all slag on Neville Chamberlain and his idiotic “Peace in our time” appeasement nonsense that led directly to WWII … But many act exactly as Chamberlain did and think they’re being “good conservatives”. Go figure.
Remedying both of those existential threats was expensive as hell. Preventing them in the first place would have been cheaper no matter how much that prevention cost. Cheaper in both blood AND treasure.
All the arguments you present for abandoning the effort to keep the Russian Bear in his cage were made by Republicans, different details but same positions, to keep us out of WWII. That would have been a disaster, not only for our allies but for us as well. It was a very close call as it turned out anyway.
Even Donald Trump saw the big picture clearly. Where Obama and Biden sent blankets and helmets, Trump sent things that go boom to Ukraine.
Those lesser, small potatoes arguments are valid. They are not a reason to allow Russia to piecemeal absorb by force of arms whatever it likes.
I say “small potatoes” but I do not discount those things completely. I.E. I’ll take just one of your points as exemplary: the terrorism implications of Ukraine giving out passports that allow potential terrorists to travel.
There’s more to travelling to the U.S. than just the passport you happen to hold. Ukraine is NOT a ‘visa exempt’ country like Australia or Britain. A Ukrainian passport holder MUST obtain a visa prior to landing in the United States. That means a background check among other things. Ukraine cooperates with the U.S. in the process and we can SEE which passports were issued to what people for what reason. I’m sure the places you’ve studied on the internet utterly failed to mention things like that.
Do I want to see terrorists entering the U.S. under a pretext passport? No I do not. Are there mechanisms in place to prevent that? Yes there absolutely are. Are those mechanisms effective? Well we haven’t had a foreign terrorist attack inside the U.S. since 11 Sept. 2001 so figure it out for yourself. I assure you that the dearth of terrorist attacks hasn’t been due to lack of effort on the part of the terrorists. There have been thousands of terrorists and potential terrorists snared in this web of prophylactic precautions.
So does the issuance of passports by Ukraine to everyone who is willing to fight for Ukraine a sufficient reason to abandon the effort to keep Russia inside Russian borders? Not even close.
There are equally valid counter arguments to all such small potatoes arguments. The problem is that people who want to manipulate you don’t tell you both sides of the argument. This is a problem in today’s media and it isn’t only limited to the Left. The Right does this too, we are not above reproach in this matter. Just because something comes out of a conservatives mouth or off his fingers on a keyboard does not make it gospel. Often this sort of thing can be the opposite of gospel.
Sean Hannity mistreating Lauren Bobert on national TV a few nights ago is a very good example. I don’t really care what you think of Hannity or Bobert, the point is that Hannity tried to ambush Bobert to sway people to his own viewpoint and that effort was obvious. Apparently to everyone but Hannity. That doesn’t mean I’ll never again listen to anything Hannity says or unquestioningly back Bobert no matter what she says. I don’t toss babies out with the bathwater. I’ll look at what they’re saying and doing and decide if I think they’re right or wrong based on merit. There is NO conservative voice that is ‘dead to me’.
There is one and only one Big Problem involved here. That problem is do we allow Russian expansion by force or not? Russia would love for us to find lots of small potatoes reasons to allow Russia to take over more territory. As long as Russia accomplishes that, Russia doesn’t give a fig about what reasons we use as an excuse to allow it.
In fact, Russia will gleefully and vigorously supply us with any reason they can come up with to let them do what they want to do anyway. I do not know for a fact nor care but I bet if I had a way to trace the source of most of this stuff we’d see the bulk of it comes out of Russia somewhere. This is the real world application of Russia using our system of government against us. It is also a fact that our system of government, much as I adore the principles therein, is vulnerable to this sort of attack and always will be. Being informed is an aspect of the Eternal Vigilance required to maintain our way of life. Wisdom and discretion in what information someone is willing to accept and apply is up to the individual. It is a component of individual liberty.
All Russia needs to do to take territory by force is to convince enough good people like you that for whatever reasons you like to cite, it should be allowed to accomplish that goal. Russia doesn’t care about your reasons for allowing it to take territory by force, it cares about if its goals are successful or not. Full stop.
Russia can say it’s invading to stop a bunch of despicable Nazis but Russia will take their land and absorb them even so. Why on Earth would Russia want to absorb a bunch of despicable Nazis? Russia can say that they’re ‘returning’ Russian speaking people to Russia but Russia will still seize the land and sovereignty of Ukrainians who don’t want to be Russian and happen to be living in those areas just the same as it will ‘repatriate’ Russians whom it claims want back into the Rodina.
There’s a lot of complications and nuances in this situation but taking territory by force is the foundation everything is built upon.
Everything else is not only just background noise, it’s very likely to be Russian plausible propaganda too. Even if it’s not, even if every single point you make is genuine and 100% infallible, it’s still small potatoes compared to the actual Big Picture problem we are now facing. We can address those smaller problems piecemeal and effectively without abandoning our global leadership in keeping that damnable Russian Bear in his cage.
The problem is not how corrupt Ukraine is, it is not that we are trying to help Ukraine maintain its borders while neglecting our own, it is none of those other things.
The blame needs to be placed squarely where it belongs. The problem is in American leadership at this moment in time. The problem is weakness in our Oval Office. The problem is a Commander in Chief who is more worried about his afternoon nap than foreign policy. The solution is strong, decisive Conservative leadership and if we had that we would not be facing the effort to put that damn Bear back in his cage right now.
If Donald Trump were still in office this war would never have happened. That’s the real problem. If wishes and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a Merry Christmas and that doesn’t change a bit where the real blame lies.
That said, I encourage Conservatives to not make the mistake of the Left and be reactionary. “Reactionary” means whatever the other side does, you want the opposite. This is a mistake, it’s not who calls the play it’s how far down the field the ball is moved. The Democrats could have quietly allowed most of Donald Trump’s border policies to remain in place by simply ignoring them and letting them continue. They could even have claimed their hands were tied and were trying to do something constructive without bringing on disaster. They are being reactionary in whatever Trump did, they do the opposite no matter what the consequences.
If somehow by miraculous accident the Democrats do something right it’s a mistake to oppose them just because a Democrat does that thing. That position isn’t patriotic and it’s not wise. Being reactionary is nothing more than the flip side of the Democrat coin in their quest for power at the expense of liberty and prosperity.
I’m not saying you’re being reactionary and I’m not picking on you personally. I like you, you’ve said things I agree with and appreciate. I admire both your intellect and your candor in conversations. I disagree with you strongly on this topic because my worldview and my experiences are very, very different from yours. That’s OK for both of us. You said what you think is true and I said what I think is true and why that to me completely countermands your position on this one particular topic. I’m not slagging on you, I’m simply stating my reasons for seeing things differently than you do.
I have to say the above because I’m not even a little bit considerate, not at all politically correct, am outspoken and opinionated (though my opinions are arrived at through considerable experience, thought and examination), am likely nothing anyone would consider a ‘gentleman’ … And so I often offend people in conversations in text without meaning to. I have plenty of real enemies without making even more unintentionally. It is not my intent to belittle you and if I came across that way I apologize and assure you that was not done on purpose.
So let me get this right. First you admit you’re a jerk which means you’re fully aware of it, then you proclaim that your belittling was not on purpose. Not quite sure where to go with that.
That said, I don’t hold grudges, so your apology is accepted. But you’re a smart man so I’m sure you can learn to choose your words in a less insulting manner while still getting your points across.
I, too, arrive at my conclusions after much thought. I’ve been on this planet a long time, and if given a choice, will always side with peace vs. war.
The Russian Bear will not be put back into his cage. He might hibernate for a bit here and there, but he’ll come back out.
Russia will ally itself with Iran and Turkey. Most of those alliances are either well-established or close to it as of this writing. This alliance will come against Israel, most likely for the oil and natural gas. Israel’s oil is cleaner than Russia’s and it would certainly give them the ultimate hold over the world’s need for power. So why does Russia need only select parts of Ukraine? Water access.
Does this scenario ring any bells?
No need to respond. Let’s give it 6 months to a year and see how close we are.
I hope I can make this reply quick. I read your post last night and was going to respond but ACTS made many of the points I could have made.
The majority of my response was going to be: A war isn’t moral if you can afford it. When one country attacks another without provocation it is moral and just to respond to that violence with violence. Whether you can afford to fight the war, if your government has so botched domestic policy that you have people starving on the streets, inflation at decades’ high rates or anything else, the war is just.
Whether you can afford to prosecute the war or not would fall under “doing what we can to not waste the lives of our soldiers” by preventing the wars we can and being able and willing to prosecute a war to the fullest to finish it fastest with fewest casualties… on both sides.
Our weakness, Ukraine’s weakness, or other factors do not make this a less just war. Russia could have made a variety of claims in a variety of courts related to NATO encroachment. If they were turned away, denied their day, they could have then made various red lines and only after those lines were crossed could they justly attack. Their various claims have nothing to do with that, and that makes them morally wrong.
Julieann means well but she’s a victim of information bias and manipulation. Not a surprise, she’s got a lot of company. There’s a ton of biased bullshit out there on the internet.
I checked a couple links she posted. The one about “Biden killed the Israeli – European natural gas pipeline” is a prime example. Biden did no such thing. He might want to, he might try to, he might do so if he is able to pull that off sometime in the future, but Gatestone makes a mountain out of a molehill over an unofficial email sent by someone somewhere in the Biden Administration.
Biden has no say over that pipeline, because of a little thing called the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). A major aspect of that Law of the Sea agreement is free access regarding laying pipelines and cables in non-territorial seas. If Biden wants to stop that pipeline he can go hat-in-hand to the UN and ask them to change international doctrine on the freedom of the high seas and … Good luck with that Potato Joe.
Another thing mentioned in that Gatestone article is a graphic showing a linked corridor all the way across the Med claimed jointly by Libya and Turkey. It’s ridiculous. Oh, they might make a claim but Turkey and Libya can claim whatever they want to. Making it stick is a whole ‘nother critter. There’s no way Turkey and Libya control a wide swath completely across the Med as their own territorial waters. Territorial waters end at TWELVE MILES from the shore line with certain military or economic exclusion zone exceptions and that corridor ain’t one of ’em. If Turkey and Libya can do that then the whole eastern Med is choked off and maritime traffic either direction across that zone requires approval from and is subject to tariffs by Turkey and Libya. Does anyone really believe we’re going to beg Turkey and Libya to sail across their ‘claim’ with an Aircraft Carrier Group? That we can’t send any subs to the eastern Med without permission or Turkey and/or Libya can blow them out of the water? That all the traffic through the Suez bound for either side of that line is purely at the whim of what Turkey and Libya will allow?
To paraphrase some of my Brit and Aussie friends — “Not fookin’ likely mate”.
Yet it says all these things about the pipeline and Turkey/Libya claims to territorial waters right there on a Hard Right Wing website hosted by an institution that used to be headed by John Bolton — So it must be so, right?
No, those things are there because Gatestone knows that a lot of people are going to heed what they say as gospel not only because they say it, but because there’s so much more that most people don’t know. Gatestone knows if it ‘arms’ conservatives who don’t know any better with this ‘information’ those conservatives will consider themselves well informed and knowledgeable because they don’t know what they don’t know.
They don’t know things …
Like the specifics of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was simply a codification and UN recognition of a far, far older international law called “Freedom of the High Seas”.
Like if Turkey wants to mess with the vessels of other nations carrying out their lawful business peacefully on the High Seas … That’s PIRACY.
Like the fact that someone can’t just go to Ukraine, get a Ukrainian passport then jump on any convenient airliner landing in the US to wander America at will sewing mayhem and murder.* Visa denied chump, we’re terribly sorry ol’ bean but you may not board this aircraft. See ya wouldn’t wanna be ya.
(* That whole concept is so absurd it jumped off the page at me. Only Americans who have never been abroad, or have been abroad but are spoiled and ignorant because you can go nearly anywhere on an American passport — Could have come up with something that ridiculous. Remember when Bill’s wife Natasha got her U.S. Passport and said to Bill “Now I can go anywhere!”? That’s because Americans CAN go pretty much anywhere but people from other countries, say Russia or Ukraine, must go through the visa process to even get on a plane bound for the US. If you are not authorized to be in the country of destination most of the time you can’t even get on a plane that’s going there. To be authorized you must apply for a visa well ahead of your travel date. Because the destination country is going to check you out pretty thoroughly before letting you in. If you do manage to get on a plane somehow you will be arrested the minute your status becomes known. In the customs line. At the airport. At the destination country you don’t have a visa to allow you to be in. Where you will be held in jail until you can be deported. The situation is pretty lopsided favoring American passport holders. The idea that just because some terrorist manages to get a Ukrainian passport he can just sashay into the US any time he wants is more than laughable.)
Like the fact that an unsigned email from anyone in the US administration to a single government agency in Greece is in no way something that can kill stone dead, without any other real force brought to bear, a SIX BILLION DOLLAR international pipeline scheduled to be completed in two years.
Like if we were that powerful all we’d need to do is have a courier deliver a signed and sealed honest-to-god official letter from Joe to Vlad ordering him to get the hell out of Ukraine.
Etc.
Think about this a minute. If an official Memorandum of Understanding (an MOU, it’s the next step down from an official treaty) meant nothing to the Obama Administration who subsequently let Crimea just fall into the hands of Vladimir Putin — Then how much weight does an unofficial, unsigned, freakin’ EMAIL actually carry?
If America wanted to make a policy that stuck then America needs to do a little more than fire off an email. Diplomatically that’s nothing but flatulence. It’s a “Gee, guys, this is sort of maybe kinda the thing we’d like to see you do but hey, don’t mind us.” form of diplomacy.
Which Gatestone turned into the killer blow slaying forever a crucial pipeline vital for the delivery of energy to Europe. In the process betraying not only Israel who we all know the Left hates, but all of our European NATO allies equally as much.
With an email.
Yeah, right, pull the other leg while you’re down there.
That stuff is all obvious bullshit to my eyes, it might be coming from the Right but the Right has liars and manipulators every bit as virulent as the Left’s.
There’s just so terribly much that the normal (and I’m certainly not normal), average, well meaning, honestly interested and diligent person surfing the internet for information doesn’t know.
Nearly all the arguments of this sort can be picked apart and either partially or wholly nullified by someone who does know and knows where to find the information that proves they know.
Sadly too many Conservatives fall victim to their own information bias, the people who want badly to manipulate them, and the unfortunate phenomena of Right Wing Doom Scrolling.
Worse yet, this sort of bunkum and hokum makes it nearly impossible for a normal, average, intelligent person to get any real information because there’s no way for them to know which is which. I’m trained in information gathering and my profession is Information Technology yet I have a hell of a hard time figuring out what I can place a reasonable certainty upon. As it is, it still takes considerable effort to do that but I know which questions to ask and where to find the answers. I really want to know so I make that effort.
Questions like …
Is Ukraine an open visa nation to the United States or is prior application for and approval of a visa required before landing in the U.S. for Ukrainian passport holders?
Is there a law, set of laws, or international agreement regarding who can lay pipe and cable where on the floor of the oceans?
How much weight does a non-paper, unofficial email from the American administration really carry? (Hint: Less weight than the load in Joe’s Depends underwear at the end of an ice cream binge.)
What are laws regarding territorial waters and economic exclusion zones and how do they apply to a given instance?
Etc.
People mean well and they honestly try to do the right thing, but the liars and manipulators are everywhere. Dunning-Kruger idiots presenting sophistry as though it were fact, vein-popping artery-hardened apoplectic angry old farts and fartesses, and shallow minded limited scope internet intellectuals make the problem that much worse for those who are really trying to figure out what’s going on and what to do about it. Those types add quite a lot to the background noise and there’s no shortage of them at all.
On top of which there is such a cacophony of background noise emanating from so many sources it’s fatiguing as hell to argue every single point which I may know is nonsensical — But I am still required to type all this out and that only works until the next stupid nonsensical point someone believes is Truth crops up.
None of these things are Juliann’s fault. What will be her fault is if she fails to keep an open mind and disregards sound counsel because she’s too much in love with what she thinks she knows. It’s also not her fault if she’s not able to wrap her mind around the Big Picture Threat. Not everyone is capable of that. I have nothing but kindness and compassion for people who can’t get there. I despise people who claim to see that picture yet do not because pride makes their anal cytoplasm override their intracranial neurons. There are plenty of those in here too.
I wonder, having read your reply because I hadn’t thought of this before, with the number of NeverTrump conservatives who have come out as lefties over the last couple years and are opening shilling for Demos now, how many people in the consulting class, truly favoring neither side but whoever has the best cocktail party this week, might still be running various rags with grey skinned animal mascots on the header and laughing about all of the normies and rubes that read their crap?
And having written that, how many English teachers would try to diagram that sentence and just flunk me.
Your lengthy and insulting diatribes add nothing to the conversation. Your points, no matter how valid they might be, are lost amongst the insults.
OK – so let’s say it is a just war just so we can remove that from the table. That does not mean we should be involved to the tune of billions indefinitely. Originally, we were to just supply weaponry and I was fine with that. I was also fine with the first couple of times we sent them money. I’m no longer fine as it has gotten way out of control. There’s more going on here than the war.
Billions, possibly, but indefinitely, no. That is usually the result of not having clear goals or the motivation to achieve them.
Not according to Biden. According to him, we’ll continue to fund and arm them “for as long as it takes”. Hopefully, the Freedom Caucus is successful at putting an end to it.
Are you arguing against me because of what a politician said? Whether we should be there, and whether we are doing any good there with our current mismanagement are two separate issues.
You could make a case that we should not provide the recently announced tank battalion because the Ukrainians have not had the training to make the most use of them, and I could agree with you.
I don’t agree with waffling around “for as long as it takes” but I am also against announcing that we’ll only provide support for 6 months, and if the Russians haven’t left then we will (as in Afghanistan).
There isn’t an easy end to this war since it has become an existential matter on both sides. The Ukrainians cannot give in otherwise they’ll cease being a country and end up just a puppet (from their point of view) and Russia cannot give in because Putin wrote checks he cannot cash and if he renegs he will either be out of a job or (and?) in a box in the ground.
That is where the US, NATO and the rest have to decide what their goal is. That is also why I said in the original blog post that we owe it to our military personnel, and some to the citizens of the West, to decide what we will do in the face of evil and how hard we are willing to punch a bully in the nose. Do we give the Germans the Sudetenland or wait until they invade Poland? If Obama lets the Russians take the Crimea, Trump backs them down and then Biden is vague about the rest of Ukraine and Putin invades, will we overreact by reacting as far as we should have before, or just give a token response? If we had issued an ultimatum to Russia to leave Ukraine in 3 days or we start bombing military bases this would have been all over in a week. Instead we offer to get a couple politicians out of the country and prepare to hand it over to the Russians. If we had a UN that had any morals, it would have stepped in and not let this war atrocity continue. That should be a wake up call to anyone paying attention
I haven’t read everything you have written Julieann, so I’m curious and wouldn’t want to make an accusation when I don’t know the answer… have you called for the US to leave the UN and stop wasting our money on their boondoggles?
Has anyone stopped him up to this point? No. Both sides continue to support sending whatever Zelensky asks for whenever he asks for it. Now we’re sending tanks that we know will require our own folks to go over there.
Black Rock, Goldman Sachs and others are standing in line to ‘rebuild’ Ukraine. No one involved gives a rats patootie about the Ukranian people or Russia for that matter (otherwise, Biden wouldn’t have opened up Nordstream II). It’s all about how much money they can make from it. $$$
So we should not try to stop Russia because there are corrupt people on our side? We should not try to stop the brutality and signal to any other dictator that we will sit by and let them do what they want?
As I said in my original post, there is a moral question of whether we should be involved. You seem to ignore that question entirely. There is another question of whether we can be involved and I would agree with you that we don’t have a lot of excess cash lying around. The corruption and profits by warmongers aside, can we afford not to be involved? You can look into the past of human history or you can look at your own house or apartment. A little problem like a leak can turn into a giant problem like mold or rot.
Yes, I think Biden’s puppet masters are part of the cabal that is looking to make a lot of money rebuilding Ukraine. Their reasons for being involved are not my reasons. Sometimes someone can do the right thing for the wrong reasons. The fact that it got this far and this bad is a disservice to our military members and civilians around the world that will suffer in the next similar conflict.
We should have done more to prevent this conflict. Since we did not (because we are ruled by corrupt kleptocrats) we have a conflict and we (and the rest of Europe and the rest of the West) should end it. We should be looking at ways to end it as quickly and decisively as possible. Since we have immoral rulers they are not doing that either. Neither of these realities mean we are morally released and they are at great fault for their actions or lack thereof. Their actions do not negate the moral case.
There are lots of indications that Zelenskyy has ended most of the worst corruption. Corrupt people have been jailed, though some were released on court order, others were released as the Russians approached the prison. The judges in that release have since been fired but that was on other issues.
Some say money sent to Ukraine has been corruptly diverted but in each case it points to corruption in Brussels and Washington. Ukraine has little choice in allies. It has to deal with Biden’s White House, the EU, WEF and other. Trump lost the election.
If you are corrupt you do not win wars. Russia is proving that. Ukraine is spending billions on weapons, training, troops, medical, and even feeding POWs. For every 3 to 6 Russians killed (or POW) they loose 1 Ukrainian. They are fighting smart not recklessly. There is not much room in all that for any corruption.
They have a range advantage in weapons which is ever increasing. They have all the free world intelligence assets feeding them intelligence on the Russian positions down to the meter. They are killing Russian ammo dumps and command centers and leaving the poor bloody infantry alone where they are not a threat.
However Ukraine may now be a trap for more than just the Russians. The global left still sees Ukraine as corrupt. Even some Republicans don’t know the difference, politically or ideologically, between Zelenskyy and Poroshenko, the man Zelenskyy defeated in the 2019 election. Its Poroshenko that was Biden buddy. Poroshenko and his people are still there in parliament but not in power.
We know Ukraine worked with Bankman-Fried’s bitcoin companies under the recommendation/ orders of the Biden White House. It also unclear if the whistle blowers that blew up FTX and it scams were Ukrainian. The people that took down FTX know a lot about the Ukrainian deal.
Is the WEF, Blackrock, Fink, etc walking into the same trap? Zelenskyy worked a lot with Trump when the latter was president. He literally owed his life to Trump. All the US weapons that saved Kiev in the first week came from Trump not Obama or Biden. Obama sent blankets. Biden sent nothing in the first week.
Trump does some strange things to trap his foes. He gets others to join in. Does Zelenskyy have people setting up a giant police sting on the lefts financial giants. How else do you take them down? Don’t tell Biden.
That may all be true, but it wasn’t on my mind much when writing. This post started as a reply to another post here and just went too long and into other territory I thought wasn’t part of that post. I re-read my thoughts, pulled out the essence of the idea and re-wrote it a bit into this post. I was trying to focus on the moral argument for war and less on the other side shows that seem to always come up, especially with Ukraine’s situation.
The things that happened after the war started, the corruption of the government there and the messages of other governments are not why Russia should have gone to war, only why they thought they could.
“Moral War” or “Just War” are often tough concepts to pin down and can be highly subjective. A lot depends on where a person draws his lines of morality and justice.
For me with my point of view the much larger threat to the United States of America is by far Russian aggression over anything else that might be happening in Ukraine or anything America is doing in Ukraine at the moment. Arguments against opposing Russia are to me lesser considerations.
The big picture is that the Bear has left his cage and he needs to be put back in that cage emphatically and at any cost short of global war. Anything else is just encouraging Russia to more aggressive behavior in the future. This started years ago during the Obama administration and if Russia had been decisively repulsed back then there wouldn’t be any war in Ukraine today. The war in Ukraine today is a direct result of letting Russia get its way previously.
During the Obama administration the Left adopted the position that letting Russia take Crimea by force was the only alternative to global nuclear war. That was a false dichotomy. We can see clearly now that they were totally wrong about that as we are much more involved against Russia now than we would have needed to be then … And still no global nuclear war has happened.
It is an historic fact that Russia doesn’t really care about reasons, reasons are just pretexts to get what it wants. Russia only cares about results. If Russia gets the results it wants Russia will continue doing the things that brought about those results.
I do not see global war as a realistic menace under the existing parameters. Anything is possible but the degree of probability is very low. Especially as we are learning so much about Russian warfighting capabilities by observing the effect our weapons and technology have against Russia.
If people are going to wring their hands and clutch their pearls over any and all possibilities disregarding probabilities that is de facto the same as surrendering to every menace of any degree that comes along.
Which is what the Left did during the Crimean event and a result Russia would love to see come about.
Personally, I appreciate that you brought this subject up in its own post. You never know where a conversation will lead until you start one.
Actually if you check North Korea is not actually firing things over the border. The treaty of Panmunjom between south Korean President Moon and Kim Jong Un does not ban Missile tests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panmunjom_Declaration
It talks about cooperation including bans on shooting over the border into south Korea. “…Cease all hostile acts.”
“Establishment of military mutual guarantee measures through high-rank military-level talks.
Kim is still keeping to that agreement. With one exception all the missiles have been fired north up both coasts splashing down in North Korean waters just short of Chinese and Russian waters. Several have been fired across the Hokkaido straits into the Pacific but there was little chance of them hitting land. It passes over only a few square miles of farmland. The strait is not straight.
The one exception was a north Korean navy missile fired into a south Korean waters and retrieved by the south Koreas. Was that intentional? There was also a south Korean government officer that tried to defect to north Korea in a boat, that’s suspicious, he was shot before reaching land. I doubt anyone authorized that on either side.
The only other air incursion was the drones flying over the DMZ. This followed south Korean calls for the country to up grade its drone and anti-drone systems, this call was ignored so Kim appears to have poked the border to get the lead out of the South Korean Parliament.
Why would a dictator do this. There is one possibility. Kim Accepted Moon and Trumps reunification offer but it was always going to be secret. Russia reformed in the 1990’s- 2000 but that’s reversed. People died in the process. Things went wrong with German reunification with most parts of east Germany still poor and hard right political parties dominating the cities. Again people died.
The advisors of Kim, Trump and Moon are all reported to have discussed and responded to this problem. A covert transition period is the solution. Kim stays in power. He implements reform without changing the rhetoric. Communism and Marxism are now banned in North Korea. An Australian Korean landed in jail for trying; he’s back in Australia and says reunification will be complete by 2024.
Persecution of Christians is illegal. Dissidents from the gulags have been elected to the new north Koran parliament, a week after the Hanoi meeting with Trump, walking away from Trump got Kim a political victory at home.
There are no Christian or anticommunist refugees coming out. There are some communist’s defecting to China. Free markets are allowed in the country. This lead to a famine scare two years in a row that don’t seem to occur. If all the food goes though the government granaries then yields can be known, If food goes though the village free market there are no public statistics. It looks like a famine but mysteriously people are not dying.
Kim has sent people to help Russia in the war with Ukraine. These according to Russian reports are not dissidents. They are also not fighting. They are clearing mines, disarming unexploded munitions, and finding bodies and burring them. If you really want to wreck someone’s faith in communism sending them to the two communist Republics in the Donbass to do the shit jobs for a population of Slavic nationalist communists would be perfect. They are getting fed, barely. Kim has also sent people to aid and embassy postings around the world but I can’t find out if they are communist holdouts, getting them out of the way, or dissident reformers studying how the rest of the world works.
I may be wrong but if you read the treaties he does seem to be in compliance with what they say not what the fake news said they say. Everything we see may be the product of real military cooperation between the military of both Koreas to keep the Chinese and Russians at bay. A unified Korea needs those missiles. Remember the treaty was with Trump not Biden. It was with Moon and the New right wing President in south Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, is still talking about the nuclear program the Trump and Pompeo said was shut down. He has not met Kim yet publicly. Some of us think the nuclear program blew itself up September 2017 killing all the researchers.
Could the preparations for reunification, ending communism, ever be public?
I am not sure I really had current Korean politics in mind, and was mostly thinking of the missiles over Japan more than toward the South. It sounds like Trump and Moon did impress on Kim some of the concepts I had in mind, with carrot and stick diplomacy.
I agree with you 100%. Republicans need to learn the lessons you are pointing out and they are failing to do that in large part. Shortsighted, shallow views of the world are at best naïve and at worst existentially dangerous.
There is a premise that most people opposing our involvement fail to grasp. That premise is that this is no longer the 18th or even 19th century. The globe has ‘shrunk’ with major powers having global economic, social and military reach. What took a sailing ship a year to reach its destination and project force now takes minutes with aircraft and missiles and days with a distributed Naval presence around the globe.
The “good ol’ days” are gone. They’re not coming back short of a catastrophe that knocks the world back technologically to the days of sails and black powder cannons. That catastrophe would be a complete disaster for humanity and is not something to which a sane person would aspire.
The simple premise that many seem to miss completely is that —
SOMEBODY IS GOING TO MAKE THE RULES
There are three candidates for that rule making body. There is Russia, there is China, and there is the Industrialized Free West.
Russia sides with, supports and coddles thugs around the world purely because we in The West oppose those thugs. It’s not that the thugs share an ideology with Russia, often the ideologies are wholly opposites. It’s that the only opportunity for influence, the only avenue to global power, the only chance to become the rule maker, for Russia lies through places like Iran and Syria. The power that flows out of Russia is disastrous for mankind. Russia doesn’t care.
Likewise China supports the thugs that are either out of reach or competing with Russia for dominance. China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative is the exercise of power intended to put China in a position to make the global rules. China could bring about positive change in North Korea fairly rapidly and easily if it wanted to. It does not want to, the Hermit Kingdom serves China’s needs more than it threatens China so China will continue to use North Korea as a menace to the civilized, peaceful world. Etc.
The Industrialized Free West is by no means completely innocent nor ideologically pure as the driven snow but — Of the three major blocs of power the Industrialized Free West is the most preferable by far as the choice to become the global rule maker. The Industrialized Free West alone stands as an adaptable, conscientious system that the people can have the greatest control over of the three. The other two are tyrannies looking to expand their tyrannical rule and the Industrialized Free West is not. At least not for now and assuming the idiotic nonsense we see coming from our government and allies is a short term, remediable phenomena.
Thus the Industrialized Free West, of which the United States holds nominal leadership, stands alone against Global Evil.
What’s happening in Ukraine has little to nothing to do with the issues being forwarded as excuses. A lot of short sighted, small picture Conservatives are buying into and wrestling with those shallow, obviously invented excuses. That’s exactly the intention of Global Evil and those people are serving that faction unawares. Russia doesn’t give a fig for the reasons you let it gobble up Ukraine, as long as you let it do that. If you do that, more gobbling is unequivocally in store for the future.
I don’t give a flying rat’s distal alimentary vent about Ukraine as a country. I do care a lot about Russia as a dangerous, existential threat to the future of mankind. If Russia had invaded any other country my position would be exactly the same. It’s not a matter of the merits of the country invaded, it’s a matter of the intentions and capabilities of the Russian invaders.
Ukraine is like the Iowa or Kansas of Europe in that it is a major food producer for the area it serves with its food markets. No matter what else, if that food production is captured by Russia it will be used to feed Russians and not available on the global food market.
That fact alone, and there are many other factors involved, is sufficient to deny Russia possession of Ukraine. Again.
P.S. Some coward clicked 1 star without explaining the reasons for doing so. I clicked 5 stars which brought you up to 3. Not explaining their position allows them the luxury of condemning what you say without providing counter argument that can be criticised and that’s what makes them cowardly. It’s a chickenshit thing to do and it is chickenshit no matter who chimes in on the opposing side now. I can’t abide cowardice.
As for lessons … If Republicans had their way with WWII then Britain would eventually have fallen and Nazi Germany would have turned all its attention to America. With the resources to effectively focus that attention. The Nazis would have eventually gotten nuclear weapons, it was a close thing even as it turned out. New York and Washington D.C. would have gone the way of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America, standing alone, would have been forced to either capitulate or suffer the mass slaughter of a nuclear holocaust. Don’t think for a minute that the Nazis would not have gleefully bombed us back to the stone age.
Republicans were virtually unanimously opposed to ‘becoming involved in another European war’ and were it not for Pearl Harbor (which there is some discussion over whether or not FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to happen to get us into the war) we would today stand alone against the evil of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. We would eventually have lost that confrontation had we not stopped Nazi Germany when we did.
The point is that sometimes the Democrats are right, even though they can be counted on to do the right thing badly. Which is what they’re doing in Ukraine.
This is more of a general ramble response for the visitor than an actual direct reply to your comment, though it mostly spins off of it.
The globe has certainly shrunk, along with all of the divisions and sections within it. States compete for jobs, we had a debate over SALT tax deductions, timber from Canada dried up and the house building and remodeling industries went into tailspins. Fertilizer from Ukraine (really, just one country?) shortages are pushing various food prices way up and people are getting a very rude wake up call about just how much is trucked, shipped or moved via train from one place to another and their fragile house of cards is wobbling. Logistics and inventory people are finding Just-In-Time might save warehouse costs until it costs you a warehouse.
The “good ol’ days” had letters that took a week to arrive instead of high def video conferencing with people around the world. They had a 5 and dime with a few goods from near by but no cheap gadgets of any description. Sit down restaurants served the same kind of food you could make at home and maybe something vaguely Italian if you were German or German if you were English maybe… but nothing like our current different ethnic on every corner selection.
Of course, we have our “no blood for oil” types that would decry military intervention, but on the flip side that also means that sabre-rattling can hold hostage all of those international trade connections and try to leverage that disruption into political action where they would not succeed militarily. Then again, if they find enough countries willing to let money overcome sense, the French traded with Iraq’s Hussein, as you mention Putin deals with Syria, and China is trying to build their own version of the Eastern Block and Iron Curtain.
There is the cliche “nature abhors a vacuum” but also the reality shown in elections… someone is going to win. You can whine all you want about “choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil” but the seat needs to be filled and no angels ran. One of the candidates will win, so you might as well choose the one you think will do the least damage. Countries in the second tier of power will seek to ally themselves with a stronger one to protect themselves from others in that first tier and their rivals in the second tier. That patron could be us, the US, the Anglosphere, the Industrialized West, by whatever name, or they can pick one of the strongarms. When the West appears weak with waffling or rotten with corruption, untrustworthy as we break our promises or let down our allies the thug seems the better pick, as least for the shorter term.
If we want to try to withdraw from the world, we can expect any allies we might have to withdraw from us as well. When, not if, some belligerent starts making trouble we cannot expect them to come to our help unless they are affected in the same way and work toward their own benefit. Depending on the corruption in our (former) allies some might find the strongman to their liking as well. If we cannot help our allies or if they cannot accept our help (different I think from refusing it) the web of international interconnections will strengthen our enemies instead of us. Whether we see or acknowledge them as enemies or not. (Obama’s comment to Mittens: “The 90s called and want their foreign policy back” but then, the Russians were not Obama‘s enemy, were they?) Germany picked Russia for their natural gas over a more stable nuclear power due to their green rot and the US’ green rot over our own natural gas.
I never pay attention to the star ratings. I either interact through or with comments or not.
You and I are both coming at this issue with our own, often different insights but the root is all the same vine.
As for star ratings, yeah I didn’t mean to imply they made or broke your day. My point was to be sure that the coward who clicked one star without providing any reason or discussion knew that I know he’s a coward. If he wants to disagree let him state his case and defend it or else just ignore the post and go away. If he wants to do the internet forum equivalent of a drive-by shooting he’s chickenshit and afraid to stand on his own ground. I was calling that behavior out not saying you care about star ratings. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
P.S. I almost forgot to congratulate you on standing YOUR ground and posting this topic to begin with. You had to know it wouldn’t be universally agreeable to everyone here and you did it anyway. Which as it turned out generated a fairly lively discussion and allowed both of us to amplify the ideas we hold. Well done.