$120+ billion for Ukraine

Should have skipped games and gone to spelling instead. Uh-oh….it’s the grammar police.

Sorry, got my degree in politics, so I’m used to having a poorly treated unpaid intern do most of my communicating.

Dutchboy wrote:

If you want to see how the government has spent that money 60 minutes is doing a piece on it Sunday. Should prove to be interesting.

BTW, Biden is asking congress for another 20+ billion right now.

Don’t watch if you don’t care how your tax dollars are spent.

I didn’t watch. Was it interesting?

I thought so.

What’s on 60 Minutes this week? Govt shutdown?

A few things worth pointing out:

Most of the aid money we’ve “given” to Ukraine is actually earmarked for replacing the outdated systems we’ve sent them, with brand new tech. At one point it was something like 70% of the total amount set aside was going to go back into the US defense industry, not to Ukraine. That number is a month or two old, though. Keep in mind that the aid takes various forms and involves various programs, and is FAR from a blank check or a suitcase of money flown in to Kiyv. It’d be like if your friend asked you to buy them a beater car, so instead of buying them one, you got yourself something nicer and newer because it was time for that anyway, and gave him your old car. Also there have been several arrests related to corruption since the war started, both related to the aid as well as other issues. Zelensky was elected primarily on an anti-corruption platform, and while we know politicians are politicians, the Ukrainians have made some solid steps towards dealing with that in their government.

Also, what was the majority of our current military arsenal built for? As a whole, it’s mostly older than the 20 years, and who were we preparing to fight before roughly two decades ago? It’s essentially finally being used for the purpose we originally intended. Again, its mostly outdated, and we’d be replacing it at some point in the near future anyway, at least now it’s going to a good cause, and we’re able to replace it through mechanisms that don’t stress the traditional military budget as much.

A quick side note on this being “Europe’s problem so they should step up and deal with it”. One, it’s a world problem simply because it affects the entire world, indirectly at the least. We’ve also stepped into the role as the world’s sole superpower. Being the world’s police is over-rated, but that doesn’t stop Uncle Ben from being right about power and responsibility going hand in hand. Also, Europe IS pulling its weight. Well, some of them are. If you look at percentage of GDP given, we’re currently in 11th place. But because the average European country’s GDP is so much lower than ours, that’s usually forgotten (granted there are several European powers that could step it up, and I’d be happy to see them do so).

I’m not quite sure how NATO has gotten such a bad rap for expanding over the years. I mean I understand the rationalization, but I don’t see how it holds water. If I start a club, and say anyone who wants to join can join (with certian preconditions), and then it turns out to be a popular club, but everyone joining makes some person that can’t be in the club mad, how is that my fault? Russia has been the main aggressor in Europe for the last hundred years. They have a history of authoritarianism, corruption that makes anything in the US (or Ukraine for that matter) pale in comparison, and various war crimes and crimes against humanity. Is it a shock that when given the choice, countries that are otherwise vulnerable to a traditionally aggressive neighbor would choose to protect themselves against it? Are we supposed to feel bad for Russia? They dug the hole and made their bed, these are the results of their actions over the years.

The big problem I have with all the “what if Russia was in Canada or Mexico” arguments is that it really is apples to oranges, like a previous poster mentioned. NATO is a defensive alliance that has zero desire to conduct offensive operations, or gain territory through means other than political. And joining NATO isn’t an easy or simple task. Whereas Putin has repeatedly made statements about reversing the Russian Empire’s decline, that the territory they’ve ceded is still Russian, and that the biggest tragedy of the 20th century was the fall of the USSR, and that it should be again, reversed. For Russia, a NATO neighbor would be like living next to someone you really don’t like, respect, or agree with on anything, so you both primarily keep to yourselves and ignore each other. For a NATO member having Russia as a neighbor, it’d be like living next to a guy that’s always shouting insults and barbs at you whenever you go out in your yard, threatening physical violence if you call him out on it, and worrying that one morning you might wake up to slashed tires or a privacy fence that’s 10′ over the property line.

Not to mention this is a huge win when it comes to containing China (you do NOT want Taiwan invaded, unless you want the COVID supply chain issues to look like a single Walmart semi that got a flat tire), and showing the rest of the world that Russia isn’t as powerful as everyone thought it was. Also, there’s the whole “right thing to do” part of it.

TMF89 wrote:

The big problem I have with all the “what if Russia was in Canada or Mexico” arguments is that it really is apples to oranges, like a previous poster mentioned

That’s easy for you to say when you are not a member of the country where so many of your enemies want a chance to have direct access to your border. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I agree with, or support what Russia is doing. All I’m saying is they may look at this issue far differently that you or I do. I think sometime people here think that Russia or China are these big evil countries that ever other country hates while the USA is all Good and every other country loves. I got news for you, there are a lot of countries that would love to see the US get knocked down some. Probably the only reason we have not had a war fought on our own soil is the fact of our Geographical location. Being surrounded on three sides by mostly oceans and a large ally on the 4th sure has its advantages.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>TMF89 wrote:</div>
The big problem I have with all the “what if Russia was in Canada or Mexico” arguments is that it really is apples to oranges, like a previous poster mentioned

That’s easy for you to say when you are not a member of the country where so many of your enemies want a chance to have direct access to your border. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I agree with, or support what Russia is doing. All I’m saying is they may look at this issue far differently that you or I do. I think sometime people here think that Russia or China are these big evil countries that ever other country hates while the USA is all Good and every other country loves. I got news for you, there are a lot of countries that would love to see the US get knocked down some. Probably the only reason we have not had a war fought on our own soil is the fact of our Geographical location. Being surrounded on three sides by mostly oceans and a large ally on the 4th sure has its advantages.

How many NATO countries have recently invaded Russia?

How many countries has Russia either invaded, directly threatened, or indirectly threatened in recent years?

…

One side has long been a threat to small countries in the region. The other side has a history of being a strength-in-numbers, defensive group of sovereign nations.

People jumping on the propaganda about the “threat” that NATO poses to Putin and Russia is a textbook example of why propaganda works and why history repeats itself in foreign affairs.

So we have had a war on our own soil. And with Canada at that. The fact that the USA is not considered the “good guys” anymore has nothing to do with the fact that Putin has every intention to return the Northern Asiatic and Eastern European region back under the control of Russia in a redo of the Soviet Union. Any autonomy those nations have achieved in 30 years will be undone if Russia doesn’t have a challenge in the Ukraine. They don’t have to lose, it just has to suck to win.

blank wrote:

Should have skipped games and gone to spelling instead. Uh-oh….it’s the grammar police.

If you aren’t sure whether to use gone or went, remember that gone always needs an auxiliary verb before it (has, have, had, is, am, are, was, were, be), but went doesn’t. I could have gone to the store yesterday. I could have went to the store.

Should have skipped games and HAD/HAVE GONE to spelling instead. Nice try.

big_g wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>blank wrote:</div>
Should have skipped games and gone to spelling instead. Uh-oh….it’s the grammar police.

If you aren’t sure whether to use gone or went, remember that gone always needs an auxiliary verb before it (has, have, had, is, am, are, was, were, be), but went doesn’t. I could have gone to the store yesterday. I could have went to the store.

Should have skipped games and HAD/HAVE GONE to spelling instead. Nice try.

Since I was raised by the grammar police, and it was the only course I passed before dropping out of college, doesn’t the presence of “Should have” at the beginning of the sentence cover that? Why would you need to say have twice?

That’s the rule.

fishthumper wrote:

That’s easy for you to say when you are not a member of the country where so many of your enemies want a chance to have direct access to your border. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I agree with, or support what Russia is doing. All I’m saying is they may look at this issue far differently that you or I do. I think sometime people here think that Russia or China are these big evil countries that ever other country hates while the USA is all Good and every other country loves. I got news for you, there are a lot of countries that would love to see the US get knocked down some. Probably the only reason we have not had a war fought on our own soil is the fact of our Geographical location. Being surrounded on three sides by mostly oceans and a large ally on the 4th sure has its advantages.

Probably has more to do with our defense strategy. Our strategy is to always be able defend against out top two near peers if we were to get in a conflict with them at the same time.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>TMF89 wrote:</div>
The big problem I have with all the “what if Russia was in Canada or Mexico” arguments is that it really is apples to oranges, like a previous poster mentioned

That’s easy for you to say when you are not a member of the country where so many of your enemies want a chance to have direct access to your border. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I agree with, or support what Russia is doing. All I’m saying is they may look at this issue far differently that you or I do. I think sometime people here think that Russia or China are these big evil countries that ever other country hates while the USA is all Good and every other country loves. I got news for you, there are a lot of countries that would love to see the US get knocked down some. Probably the only reason we have not had a war fought on our own soil is the fact of our Geographical location. Being surrounded on three sides by mostly oceans and a large ally on the 4th sure has its advantages.

It’s easy for me to say because I have a full understanding of the geopolitics and the history of the parties involved. Russia’s government has shown time and time again that it can’t be trusted. Not in the least because they constantly lie and manipulate their citizens into believing things very similar to what you’re trying to get across. The average citizen in Russia almost assuredly has a different opinion of the situation than I do. That’s not their fault (to a point), that’s the result of the propaganda they’ve been fed their entire lives. However the people that make decisions in Russia most certainly realize that all their excuses about NATO expansion are completely fabricated, because they’re the ones fabricating them. So I don’t blame the average Russian citizen for thinking differently than I do, but that doesn’t mean Russia gets to do whatever it wants, or that I’m not right about the situation. The fact is that when you look at Russia and NATO, only one has any history of aggressive expansion. NATO literally exists solely as a counter to Russia, because everyone back then saw the writing on the wall.

Also the War of 1812 was and the Mexican American war could arguably have been fought on US soil.

Just curious…..Is Russian propaganda different than United States propaganda?

Dutchboy wrote:

Just curious…..Is Russian propaganda different than United States propaganda?

As Barreiro would say “it depends whose ox is being gored”.

MSM was declaring the impeachment hearings dead, because FOX News interviewed Poroshenko and he said Shokin was not fired because Joe said to fire him… We are sending them billion$, do you think they are gonna rat out Joe ?

Dutchboy wrote:

Just curious…..Is Russian propaganda different than United States propaganda?

American propaganda has more advertising. If you are being told to believe something, while drinking a cool refreshing MT Dew. its US propaganda.

TMF89 wrote:

Russia’s government has shown time and time again that it can’t be trusted. Not in the least because they constantly lie and manipulate their citizens into believing things very similar to what you’re trying to get across.

TMF89 wrote:

The fact is that when you look at Russia and NATO, only one has any history of aggressive expansion.

Now do the USA, which leads Nato. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria all come to mind from recent memory. Sure we didn’t take possession, but we overthrew Dictators, threw these countries into chaos, which would certainly seem concerning to Putin…

TMF89 wrote:

However the people that make decisions in Russia most certainly realize that all their excuses about NATO expansion are completely fabricated, because they’re the ones fabricating them.

Well NATO HAS expanded east up and down Russia’s border. Also, it’s interesting this time Ukraine needs an open check book, but Crimea didn’t, why is that? BC Obama was a Putin puppet? Again not a fan of Putin, but to think the only option is funneling billions and billions to a country known for it’s corruption, that has questionable ties to the Presidents son is bonkers. If Putin is really a threat following Hitler’s precedent, let’s declare war and be prepared for the (nuclear) fallout. Or look for some better options that don’t involve nuclear war, or bankrupting out country. Meanwhile there’s a laundry list of things that our citizens could use a fraction of that money for (Lahaina, the Border, East Palestine Ohio, infrastructure etc.).

https://www.the-express.com/news/world-news/113090/vladimir-putin-squad-north-america-fascism-ukraine-war

The Alaska part isn’t new, but the remove the fascists part sounds pretty familiar to the Ukraine situation.

BigWerm wrote:

Or look for some better options that don’t involve nuclear war, or bankrupting out country. Meanwhile there’s a laundry list of things that our citizens could use a fraction of that money for (Lahaina, the Border, East Palestine Ohio, infrastructure etc.).

Not to call you out inn particular but anyone who cares about those things you should probably call your representative and ask them to pass the bipartisan senate govt funding bill to prevent a government shutdown. Funding for those things is included.

biggill wrote:

ask them to pass the bipartisan senate govt funding bill to prevent a government shutdown

The Senate hasn’t even passed that. They did a procedural vote yesterday, and they will be voting for it on Friday (tentatively).

gim wrote:

The Senate hasn’t even passed that. They did a procedural vote yesterday, and they will be voting for it on Friday (tentatively).

Correct. Still, pressuring you rep now is important considering they have nothing in the works that will even make it out of the house.

Unfortunately there’s no sign it will even go to a vote in the house. They need to be pressured.

https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/09/how-do-the-house-and-senate-appropriation-bills-differ

In case anybody actually would communicate with their elected representatives, this is a pretty good simple breakdown of the actual things preventing the passage of the appropriations.

First off, apologies for not just quoting your post Werm, and for the novel-length response. I don’t come on here enough to know how to pick and choose parts of a post, and I don’t want to copy the whole thing and wasting a bunch of screen space with my original post. And I’m a Poli Sci major who has always had a passion for geopolitics, which I don’t get to express all that often.

To your first point, that’s why I chose the wording that I did. NATO has interfered with other countries (i.e. Libya, Bosnia/Serbia, I won’t include Afghanistan, because that was the entire point of NATO as an entity), but they never had any intention of expanding into them (territorially, gaining soft power and influence is a different story). I would have a hard time equating an internationally-backed peacekeeping mission (and I’m not saying that those missions don’t have their own whole host of issues and problems) with what Russia did in Chechnya (twice) or is doing in Ukraine right now. As far as throwing countries into chaos, winning the peace is absolutely more important than winning the war, and I do wish that the West as a whole had a better track record there. When it comes to overthrowing dictators being concerning to Putin…I guess I don’t really care? If cracking down on bad guys makes bad guys nervous, maybe they shouldn’t be bad guys. Being fearful that they might lose their power doesn’t give them the right to be authoritative, gynocidal, megalomaniacal D-bags. To me, that argument seems fairly close to the idea of feeling bad for gangbangers who flee from cops, or assault or shoot them, because the police’s history of arresting people who break the law made them nervous?

As far as NATO expanding in Eastern Europe, I’d just go back to my original post. It’s not NATO’s fault that they’re a better choice than Russia. Each country should have the freedom to choose the alliances and partners that it wants, without fear of reprisals from other countries. The fact is, as far as Russia is concerned, NATO is and has always been next to no threat. Do you really think that if an individual country chose to invade Russia, the rest of NATO would go along with it? Or that NATO would ever be able to convince Hungary or Turkey that offensive action against Russia is a good idea? Heck, the main powers in NATO would never even think of attacking Russia, because it makes no logical sense, and has many, many drawbacks. Russia is just mad because through its own choices over the decades, its sphere of influence has shrunk again and again. That’s not NATO’s fault, that’s Russia’s. I’m not sure if you’ve been following what’s been going on in Armenia and Azerbaijan, let alone what else the Russian version of NATO (the CSTO) has(n’t) been able to accomplish over the years, but if any country were to weigh that against the pros and cons of NATO membership, I can’t imagine the CSTO looks that appealing.

When it comes to the difference between 2014 and now, there are almost assuredly plenty of political differences, and probably plenty we aren’t aware of. Rather than speculating on that, I’ll discuss what we do know. In 2014, compared to now, the Ukrainian government showed very little interest in seriously opposing Russia’s occupation. Now they’re treating it like an existential threat, and much more willing to fight. Also, it IS an existential threat. In 2014 it was a territorial dispute, and a bit of a land grab. In 2022/2023, Putin has stated one of the official goals of the invasion is to overthrow the Ukrainian government, and essentially occupy the country. Yes NATO has conducted similar actions, but I would love to see someone try to argue that Zelensky is on the level of Hussein or Gaddafi, as far as evil dictators go. Again, comparing Russia’s actions in places like Georgia and Ukraine to NATO’s actions in Libya or Bosnia is very much apples to oranges. Also, if anything, NATO’s actions in 2014 are evidence of how little of a threat Russia actually faces from them. Russia got away with Crimea essentially scott-free, and even after fully invading and decimating a sovereign country, NATO can’t agree on what weapons to send or who Ukraine’s grain should be shipped through. It’s obvious that the last thing NATO wants to do is get into a shooting war with Russia.

As far as gearing up for WWIII, I think that’s a pretty big overreaction. We’re essentially in the 1939-1941 phase of WWII, where we’re sending everything to our allies and letting them fight for us. That didn’t work in WWII, but Nazi Germany was a much more powerful foe that Putin’s Russia. I highly doubt we would need boots on the ground to finish the fight in Ukraine, if we outfited the Ukrainians properly. But if we use halfway measures and drag our feet, we very well could have another Vietnam on our hands.

You’re not wrong about the benefits of spending the money elsewhere. But I’d again bring up the fact that a lot of this money is going into revitalizing our defense industry and our armed forces, not just a blank check to line corrupt politicians’ pocketbooks. I’d also point out the ridiculous “bang for the buck”, no pun intended, of hamstringing Russia and potentially catalyzing a regime change, for what in the grand scheme of things is a miniscule amount of our GDP. Also, doing this is a huge wake up call to China, as far as their intentions towards Taiwan. And if anyone is unclear on why a China-Taiwan (let alone China-Taiwan-US) war would be the most devastating global event since WWII, and honestly potentially the most devastating event in the history of the modern world, think about the COVID supply chain issues, multiplied by about a thousand. Stopping that from happening is worth quite a lot, in my opinion. And again, Ukraine has been quite public about their desire and progress in tamping down corruption. I’d argue that the fact that they’ve fought this war as well as they have proves, to a point, that they’re succeeding. If corruption was such a problem, they wouldn’t be getting all these supplies to fight with, which means they wouldn’t be as successful as they have been.

Oh and as far as propaganda goes, only an idiot would say that the US doesn’t have any, and that what we do have isn’t very dangerous to small-minded people. One way to take care of that would be looking into something called Ground News, it’s an app that collates news articles that cover the same story from different viewpoints, as well as gives the reader an idea of what biases the reporting agency may have, and allows the reader to view coverage of an event from agencies that have opposing viewpoints to their own. I don’t have any stake in it, but it’s a great way to makes sure you get the whole picture. It’s a lot faster than trying to cruise through FOX, CNN, and the BBC’s websites, trust me.

But to your point, Dutchboy, last time I checked, the US hasn’t codified laws that make reporting on certain subjects or certain viewpoints illegal and punishable by a decade or more in prison, and I can’t remember the last time a US reporter or media figure happened to fall out a window or die of painfully obvious mysterious circumstances. Oh, and as much as I dislike Kamala Harris, she isn’t on FOX or CNN explaining how easy it would be for our ICBMs to annihilate Russia, complete with CGI diagrams. Or regularly threatening or calling for nuclear war in general. Feel free to do the research on how many times Russia’s MOD and that cheerful guy Dimtri Medvedev have done stuff like that. So yeah, I’d say there’s a pretty big difference between our levels of propaganda.

Well written TMF89.

Great job TMF89.

I think we need to look within our own borders first. 10,000 undocumented, unvaccinated migrants from all over the world per day scattering to all corners of the US, rampant crime with no punishment from lib judges, California used to be the jewel of America and now it is Americas septic tank. Teachers telling your kid kid it’s ok to go tranny without telling your parents,etc. We are destroying ourself from within and China only needs to sit back and wait until the time is right to waltz in and take it all!

wkw wrote:

I think we need to look within our own borders first. 10,000 undocumented, unvaccinated migrants from all over the world per day scattering to all corners of the US, rampant crime with no punishment from lib judges, California used to be the jewel of America and now it is Americas septic tank. Teachers telling your kid kid it’s ok to go tranny without telling your parents,etc. We are destroying ourself from within and China only needs to sit back and wait until the time is right to waltz in and take it all!

Building back better

wkw wrote:

California used to be the jewel of America

When was this jewel of America time period you speak of in Cali? Hasn’t happened in my lifetime.