ukraine has all the materials, engineers, and plans to make a nuclear weapon. every day they have less of an incentive to not make one. we try so hard to prevent "weerlld wahhhrrr thhreee!!" that we slid right into it sideways. it's just a matter of time now. this meeting in washington is Trump's Chamberlain moment. Trump thinks he's saving the world, but "peace" just for the sake of it with no steel to back it up is just accelerating the countdown.
every time "america first" is tried, there is a world war in 3-5 years. I think it will be sooner this time around.
I feel so bad about this. Yes, the war can't go on forever, but Ukraine has to feel completely cheated and that they've made a huge mistake in trusting us. We're even crying about their duly elected leader in front of cameras so Russia can see. What a disaster.
As someone smarter than me noted, 'America first ' is rapidly becoming 'America alone' and that's not a good thing either.
Probably treading thin here, but from POTUS, to Nuland, to Schiff the RU-UA was not so much a war to win for them as it was cover for the biggest money laundering to ever be seen by mankind. The People on both sides have suffered greatly and Eurocrats wish it to continue. Insane. Given time the whole scam will be laid bare.
I am sure that our actions in re:Ukraine will have absolutely no effect on our relations with other small countries that rely on our nuclear umbrella like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, and any decisions they may need to make regarding whether to cooperate with us against China or Russia (Japan has a bit of a border dispute with Russia regarding the Sakhalin Islands, IIRC) or acquire nuclear weapons of their own. No effect at all, which is fortunate since we probably need them to deal with China...
That "entangling alliance" was never ratified as a treaty by the Senate. So it was about as trustworthy as Bill Clinton's, who made that promise, wedding vows. We should have left NATO back in 1995. Spending American blood or gold on foreign nations is treason against the American people.
Well, you seemed pretty clear that Russia was and would continue loosing. Are you still saying Russia lost big time, or were you wrong back then. Ps, You should have a public ban list, we know you have a private one.
A lot of people are happy at thought of Ukrainian defeat without giving a single thought to what happens after a Russian victory. The rest of the world will see that aggressive war for conquest is back on the table. An incompetent Europe and indifferent America - maybe not our problem except for our globalized economy entangled with all the countries that might launch stupid wars like Russia did.
Can America disentangle its globalized economy from the world before all those wars around the world break out? Stay tuned.
@Trumpeter, Russia has won nothing. They've pulled their pants down, and exposed their military incompetence for the entire world - particularly China - to see. They've destroyed nearly half their former nominal combat power, and they've set themselves back diplomatically for a century. And just looking at their casualties, they're "winning" about like France "won" either world war. Call me when their flag flies over Kiev, and then tell me how long you figure it'll take them to stomp out partisan activity in the conquered state. I'm figuring only about 100 years, but the Russian state is more likely to fail again before then, and Ukraine will, yet again, declare independence from Moscow. The United States is in the process of demonstrating to every other country that our promises will be abandoned the minute they become inconvenient, and any hope of nuclear non-proliferation went up in flames, forever. I told you both sides could lose this war. Trump is cheerfully adding America to that dogpile.
The rules for comments are posted right on the front page. Engage on the issues, instead of ad hominem, and I tolerate a wide range of thought. For your benefit, and for those with an inability to take the 30 seconds to read them "If one of your comments disappears, YOU fucked up." Chickenshit anonymous commenters get about twice the scrutiny and half the slack as people who sign their work. 80-IQ midwits whose sole m.o. on the internet is to leave flaming bags of dogshit on the front porch are the reason virtually every single blog I know of either has no comments, or moderated comments. They and spammers are literally the reason we cannot have nice things.
There are about three or four commenters who demonstrated repeated inability to abide by the short commenting rules. After literally dozens of attempts to get their attention and suggest they learn to be house-broken, their posts go straight to a spam filter I never see. Best plug-in I ever installed. I haven't looked at it in the last six or eight months, but when last I looked, one serial loser had kept trying almost daily for over a year, and the other two/three had finally gotten the hint, and fucked off to annoy someone else. No one misses them or their carpet-shitting ways. No one. Probably be true IRL when they die too.
You want to run a blog and say whatever you like? They're free for the asking on Blogger. Knock yourself out. I pay $0/yr since ever for this one. Me spending nearly 17 years of my free time to get this one to this point doesn't entitle every jackass with a keyboard to come in and shit all over it simply because they lack the sense God gave a jackass, and can't chin themselves above "moron" on the IQ bar.
Given how Ukraine and Zelensky have behaved, I'm just as happy that they gave up their nukes back in the day. It's probably what keeps the radiation meters from ticking so much.
In the interst of fairness, do US leaders ever lose an opportunity to launder money though? This isn't really a Ukraine, it's an America problem and we need to find some way to hold the govt leaders who do it accountable, elected or not.
Be honest all they ever had was plutonium pits, without the launch codes all they ever had was the pits themselves. A great boon to building the finished nuke, but active usable nukes, they never had them..
the problem is we can spend a little now, or a lot later, of both blood and treasure. we can spend a little on security now, or later have to fight the russians and the chinese for our ships to move on the open ocean without being extorted. that gets really expensive.
That only underlines that you haven't paid close attention. What I won't tolerate is a wide variety of abuse, nor an inability to focus on the topic instead of the host. If that's too hard for anyone, they're not tall enough for this part of the internet. 50% of everyone is in the left half of the IQ bell curve, so I'm not particularly surprised this issue keeps coming up. Nor that stupid people don't realize they're stupid. Dunning-Kruger is a thing.
How, exactly, ought one to behave after four successive invasions by a thuggish neighbor? And how has Moscow not getting the nuking they deserved played out for all their neighbors? Has NATO membership grown because Ukraine is the problem, or because Moscow is the problem? Answer at your convenience.
Clintonian word-parsing now will cut no ice with any number of nations, all of whom we have earnestly assured can count on the protection of our nuclear umbrella. Just like we told Ukraine.
Once you dispense with your honor, you can never get it back.
Trump throwing Ukraine under the bus in the name of expediency is going to go down in history as one of the most despicable actions this nation has ever committed, besides which paltry things like slavery or wiping out Indians will pale in comparison.
It's a pity Ukraine wasn't as utilitarian and honesty-sparing in honoring their assurances to give up nukes as we have been to guarantee their borders. It would be hilarious if Kiev announced that they had been exactly as circumspect in their obligations under the Budapest Memorandum as Russia and the US have proven to be, and told Putin he could withdraw his forces immediately to the status quo ante 2014, and give back Crimea, or say goodbye to any ten Russian cities forever.
And if I were Zelensky about now, the second city I'd nuke, given the opportunity, would be D.C. or NYFC.
We're going to pay for our national mendacity, because this sort of thing never goes unanswered.
Which recent NATO member states were brought into the alliance at gunpoint? And btw, NATO has not moved "one inch west", ever. It still ends at the end of the Aleutian Island chain, as it did since its inception. So you should probably acquaint yourself with a map and a compass, and the functioning thereof, if you're going to type nonsense.
Obviously theft is not your line of work. The scam works like this, * Biden provides $120Bn in 'Aid', aka cash or its equivalents. * Before it ever lands in UA that 'Aid' is down to $100Bn, carrying fees and the like, stateside. * UA Treasury disburses the $100Bn. Before a single howitzer is purchased, the 'Aid' is now down to $80Bn as a chunk is given over to administrative overhead, cough, cough bribes, kickbacks and payoffs. In the Soviet era every enterprise had a 'roof', (krysha) to assure 'timely delivery'. Still goes on in the former eastern bloc countries to some degree. * Finally the howitzers arrive.
Whole trains have disappeared in the former USSR because somebody did not get greased. Kind of a tough assignment when there is only a single rail operating company to deal with.
incorrect. they had warheads, delivery systems, and small demolition nukes. the one thing they lacked were the codes to turn them on. but they had the engineers that designed the locks and the drawings/plans, and eventually would have been able to bypass them or replace the system with another one they built.
But wait there’s more! After the howitzers are sent from a US Army unit. Senator Nancy or AOC et al and buy stock in US weapons/howitzer and munitions manufacturers. Insider trading is legal for these people. They’re making millions off this situation. Grifters gonna grift.
no howitzers were purchased. they were taken from existing stocks. we claimed the value of the howitzer as-new, which is not the actual value of the howitzer, then sent the gun.
there are no fees other than transportation, and since we own the rolling stock and the engine, that's just salaries and fuel.
we send a value of equipment, claim it as though we sent cash, but THERE WAS NO CASH in the transaction, ever.
your "scam" wouldn't work, because there is no cash to skim money from. we sent a howitzer. ukraine got a howitzer. we claim whatever the new value of the howitzer was as having sent that value of equipment.
the only "scam" is we claim the as-new value of the equipment, when it was 50 years old or more, and on the fast track to be cut up for scrap.
@Rhea Easy to solve. Stop all foreign aid. BANG no more kickbacks.
@Allen so you think the most corrupt country in history is not reselling the weapons and ammunition we sent them? Really? I require proof they aren't reselling it.
Where is the proof we have given more equipment than money?
Howitzers are made at the Watervliet Arsenal, a US government facility. The only way to "buy stock" in that is to buy government savings bonds, or invest in T-bills.
The insider trading congressweasels do (and they do plenty) has Jack and Shit to do with these sales. Please, for your own benefit, bone up if you're going to opine on this type of thing.
Neither Russia's nor Ukraine's government has changed. We gave assurances, paid money, and saw to it that nukes were returned to Russian control.
Now that follow-through in is inconvenient for us, and it's Ukraine's literal lifeline for survival, we're going to throw Ukraine under the bus.
America Despicable is the policy you're embracing.
Trump can do any number of great things, but in this, he's nothing but a bully and a scumbag, and he's operating contrary to America's long-term and worldwide national interests. That's not only despicable, it's retarded.
The proof is mountains of Russian equipment burnt, rusted, and scattered in fields all over Ukraine, while the Russian Army is as far from Kiev as it's ever been since the summer of 2022.
"In January 2024, BAE Systems inked a deal with the US Army for the major structures of the M777 lightweight howitzer under an Undefinitised Contract Action, which is limited to $50m."
Yes, it should be hilarious when China sells our debt instruments at fire sale prices, and inflation hits Weimar levels in a month, if not a week. Hope you like soup three meals a day for twenty years.
If that's the case, then why the beef if Ukraine joins? If Russia means no harm to NATO, they have nothing to fear from it. It's a purely defensive alliance, not an empire. NATO has grown by member states' enlightened self-interest. In the same timespan, Russia has grown by invading four neighboring states, and holding them at literal gunpoint, while threatening many more.
The contrast couldn't be more obvious.
If you're not conversant on those realities, you're not tall enough for the discussion on this part of the internet.
@Aesop The russian equipment burned and destroyed in no way proves we gave more equipment than money. Is putin bad, yes. Is ukraine bad, no matter the leader at the moment, yes. We are still finding trails of money that have not been known about. A bunch of social security outlays in 2 to 300,000 batches just turned up day before yesterday.
I fell in no way have we renigged on anything by stepping back. I don't any party to ANY of the treaties have abided by them, why should we? Those bastards on both sides are gonna hate and try to rob us no matter which side we pick, or if we don't pick a side.
I consider it a relic battle of the cold war that ended a long time ago.
The polish guy said it best. 500 million euroPEONs, are wanting 300 million Americans to protect them from 150 million russians. Enough, enough already.
This is truly a 'not my circus, not my monkeys' situation if ever there was one.
The Budapest Memorandum was signed in 1994 after Ukraine's independence in 1991. They didn't form a new country in 2014; they just threw out another Russian puppet.
No. They're howitzer parts built here under license. And you can't make money selling used howitzers, because the party selling them is the DoD.
If you can draw a straight line showing we immediately contracted for additional howitzer parts from the manufacturer, and then show Pelosi et al bought stock in those companies concurrently, then you've got insider trading. But if you could point to that, you would.
The insider trading our congressweasels do is buy or short stock based on reports and hearings, and knowledge of legislation still pending, and making recockulously brilliant trades in advance of the general public.
If you can find anything like that WRT Ukraine arms deals, make your case. A US DoD/Army deal with BAE has fuck-all to do with us sending howitzers to Ukraine except circumstantially, and everything to do with congressweasels who are insider trading based on US defense spending.
I'm not saying they wouldn't or haven't done anything directly based on Ukrainian deals, I'm saying you're spinning tales out of your nethers based on facts not in evidence.
If, for example, it turned out Pelosi or any other congressweasels made insider deals on Georgia Pacific plywood or gasoline for rescue boats because FEMA agreed to purchase relief materials after a hurricane, yes, that's insider trading. By all means, go after them for that.
But what you're arguing is that therefore, FEMA shouldn't help anyone because someone in congress is a total shit, as though FEMA was directly kicking money back to congress every time they buy something.
As much as I may agree with you about Putin and Russia, the fact remains that if pushed into a corner they have one one huge remaining trump card - nuclear weapons. Would Putin dare to use it? Why yes he would. One bomb delivered to Kyiv and it's over. Ukraine is not a NATO member and such action would not trigger an in kind response. At the end point of losing incrementally in a war of attrition that is Putin's final option. Don't think he'd use it? If you believe that you are a fool, and having followed this blog for a long time, I don't think you are. Time to give up the wishful thinking.
"And I cannot figure out why Trump can see Israel was a victim of its neighbors".
In light of the fact that the Epstein list will be redacted on National Security grounds; you might want to ask Pam Bondi that question. The second would be "On what grounds is the NS claim being made? Ours or somebody elses?"
I don't really care who joins nato as long as we leave it. I don't really care if russia grows nor how. They are not coming over here and bothering us are they? Why should we be going over there to bother them. Those times are behind us.
We need to take care of our own problems and stop creating and/or participating in fights that have been going on for centuries.
"There is nothing so dangerous as being an ally of the USA" (Rep. Larry McDonald, victim, KAL Flight 007). CF: Chiang Kai-shek, Anastasio Somoza, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. and many others. Sadly, we've seen this before many times.
The only thing keeping Ukraine from constructing nuclear weapons is a brief time span, and the national will.
Trump pissing on Zelensky's head is liable to ensure that once they build two, the second one is delivered to the U.S., and probably set to detonate in DC or NYFC about 5 minutes after the one that drops on the Kremlin.
Then Putin's "special military action" becomes a moot approach to things, and Ukraine has nothing left to lose. Russia had the wit to back away from MAD once.
And in any event, Russia knows what happens when nukes start popping off, so at 1000:1 for, if Putin reaches for the nuclear launch codes, he gets retired by a loud pop from a Makarov pistol, just behind the ear, before he finishes that sentence on the telephone, and TASS announces his unfortunate stroke* a day or two later, once the coup dust settles.
*(Which is pedantically true, as a gaping head wound gushing blood is technically a cerebrovascular accident.)
You're ignoring how this becomes totally our problem, the minute we let it be known that nuclear non-proliferation as a policy is dead and foolishly ill-advised, and that our promises regarding any other nation's security, including NATO members, is subject to unilateral cancellation on a whim. Which will trigger a run on US debt instruments, and Weimar inflation, in about 0.2 seconds.
Overnight, the world is in 1933 again, ready for a Depression followed by a global conflagration, except with the helpful addition of nuclear weapons for the next (inevitable) world war.
Any nation which attempts to ignore that by sticking its head in the sand can count its remaining years on the fingers of one or two hands.
I know Conservatives have caught the vapors real hard over thay damn list, but you don’t have a microscope with enough power to see the amount of care I give about it. I remember the rabid, insane, Pizzagaters, for whom the evidence is always in the next batch of wikileaks emails, and by the time the pizzagate crazies were done, no one knew if there was a crime committed or not, but it was ok - the right was going to give us a mob that would deliver justice anyway.
Except that mobs never give anyone justice.
I do not care about that stupid list. This country has way bigger problems, and right proved during pizzagate that they can’t be trusted.
The list might be worth something, but I lived through the pizzagate hysteria. Once was enough.
Not counting the news outlets or websites along the full range of accuracy and veracity, I follow multiple actual individuals' handwritten blogs. (Bot news aggregators don't thrill me.) Looking them over, many are current serving or former military and a couple are some variation of high-speed low-drag elite forces ninjas. Or just funny as all. Because life without humor is just despair. So in other words, the same folks I trusted in the military not to wet the bed, sh*t themselves, or otherwise run around like headless Nancys, are the same folks I trust on the interwebz, for demonstrating pretty much the same trustworthiness and circumspectly responsible behavior. Color me shocked.
Comments are fully moderated, due to idiots and trolls. Grown up discussion here will appear just as soon as I have the time to push it through. ANONYMOUS UNSIGNED COMMENTS WILL BE AUTO-DELETED WITHOUT MERCY, and the url added to the spam filter, or mercilessly mocked at the bloghost's sole discretion. If you're too chickensh*t to come up with an alias for online purposes, you're not tall enough for this blog. Pick a name, and stick with it, and you're good. Get cute, and you're wasting your time and my electrons, and your masterpiece will never see the light of day. No warning shots will be fired. If you can't maintain decorum and polite behavior, I won't toy with you, I'll squash you. If one of your comments disappears, YOU f**ked up. If all of them do, it's time for you to go. Disagree with the points made, on the merits, and you're good. Go after me personally, or other commenters, and your comment will never see daylight here. My tolerance for skirting the line is at absolute zero, and will remain there. Don't f**k up.
56 comments:
ukraine has all the materials, engineers, and plans to make a nuclear weapon. every day they have less of an incentive to not make one. we try so hard to prevent "weerlld wahhhrrr thhreee!!" that we slid right into it sideways. it's just a matter of time now. this meeting in washington is Trump's Chamberlain moment. Trump thinks he's saving the world, but "peace" just for the sake of it with no steel to back it up is just accelerating the countdown.
every time "america first" is tried, there is a world war in 3-5 years. I think it will be sooner this time around.
I feel so bad about this. Yes, the war can't go on forever, but Ukraine has to feel completely cheated and that they've made a huge mistake in trusting us. We're even crying about their duly elected leader in front of cameras so Russia can see. What a disaster.
As someone smarter than me noted, 'America first ' is rapidly becoming 'America alone' and that's not a good thing either.
~Rhea
Probably treading thin here, but from POTUS, to Nuland, to Schiff the RU-UA was not so much a war to win for them as it was cover for the biggest money laundering to ever be seen by mankind. The People on both sides have suffered greatly and Eurocrats wish it to continue. Insane. Given time the whole scam will be laid bare.
It’s quite the sight to see supposed right-wing westerners repeating the same bullshit slogans used by FDR-era communists and 70s peaceniks.
“Hey, country X is, like, sooo corrupt! We should let them be conquered by the Red Army!”
Hopefully this will result in the rest of Europe rearming after 35 years of complacency.
I am sure that our actions in re:Ukraine will have absolutely no effect on our relations with other small countries that rely on our nuclear umbrella like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, and any decisions they may need to make regarding whether to cooperate with us against China or Russia (Japan has a bit of a border dispute with Russia regarding the Sakhalin Islands, IIRC) or acquire nuclear weapons of their own. No effect at all, which is fortunate since we probably need them to deal with China...
-Grey Fox
That "entangling alliance" was never ratified as a treaty by the Senate. So it was about as trustworthy as Bill Clinton's, who made that promise, wedding vows. We should have left NATO back in 1995. Spending American blood or gold on foreign nations is treason against the American people.
I can hardly wait until this evening for DJT to use that famous phrase "There will be piece (intentional spelling error) in our time".
Well, you seemed pretty clear that Russia was and would continue loosing. Are you still saying Russia lost big time, or were you wrong back then.
Ps, You should have a public ban list, we know you have a private one.
A lot of people are happy at thought of Ukrainian defeat without giving a single thought to what happens after a Russian victory. The rest of the world will see that aggressive war for conquest is back on the table. An incompetent Europe and indifferent America - maybe not our problem except for our globalized economy entangled with all the countries that might launch stupid wars like Russia did.
Can America disentangle its globalized economy from the world before all those wars around the world break out? Stay tuned.
@Trumpeter,
Russia has won nothing. They've pulled their pants down, and exposed their military incompetence for the entire world - particularly China - to see. They've destroyed nearly half their former nominal combat power, and they've set themselves back diplomatically for a century. And just looking at their casualties, they're "winning" about like France "won" either world war. Call me when their flag flies over Kiev, and then tell me how long you figure it'll take them to stomp out partisan activity in the conquered state.
I'm figuring only about 100 years, but the Russian state is more likely to fail again before then, and Ukraine will, yet again, declare independence from Moscow.
The United States is in the process of demonstrating to every other country that our promises will be abandoned the minute they become inconvenient, and any hope of nuclear non-proliferation went up in flames, forever.
I told you both sides could lose this war.
Trump is cheerfully adding America to that dogpile.
The rules for comments are posted right on the front page.
Engage on the issues, instead of ad hominem, and I tolerate a wide range of thought.
For your benefit, and for those with an inability to take the 30 seconds to read them "If one of your comments disappears, YOU fucked up." Chickenshit anonymous commenters get about twice the scrutiny and half the slack as people who sign their work. 80-IQ midwits whose sole m.o. on the internet is to leave flaming bags of dogshit on the front porch are the reason virtually every single blog I know of either has no comments, or moderated comments. They and spammers are literally the reason we cannot have nice things.
There are about three or four commenters who demonstrated repeated inability to abide by the short commenting rules. After literally dozens of attempts to get their attention and suggest they learn to be house-broken, their posts go straight to a spam filter I never see. Best plug-in I ever installed. I haven't looked at it in the last six or eight months, but when last I looked, one serial loser had kept trying almost daily for over a year, and the other two/three had finally gotten the hint, and fucked off to annoy someone else. No one misses them or their carpet-shitting ways. No one. Probably be true IRL when they die too.
You want to run a blog and say whatever you like? They're free for the asking on Blogger. Knock yourself out.
I pay $0/yr since ever for this one.
Me spending nearly 17 years of my free time to get this one to this point doesn't entitle every jackass with a keyboard to come in and shit all over it simply because they lack the sense God gave a jackass, and can't chin themselves above "moron" on the IQ bar.
Given how Ukraine and Zelensky have behaved, I'm just as happy that they gave up their nukes back in the day. It's probably what keeps the radiation meters from ticking so much.
In the interst of fairness, do US leaders ever lose an opportunity to launder money though? This isn't really a Ukraine, it's an America problem and we need to find some way to hold the govt leaders who do it accountable, elected or not.
~Rhea
Be honest all they ever had was plutonium pits, without the launch codes all they ever had was the pits themselves. A great boon to building the finished nuke, but active usable nukes, they never had them..
A promise worth as much as "not one inch west" for nato...
since most of what we have given is equipment, for the record, how does one launder a howitzer?
and no "well they sell it to the cartels in mexico" requires proof, and none exists. try again. tucker carlson is not proof, he is a moron.
go look at the "america first" during woodrow wilson. you'd swear trump was using woodrow wilson as a template, only with more personality.
the problem is we can spend a little now, or a lot later, of both blood and treasure. we can spend a little on security now, or later have to fight the russians and the chinese for our ships to move on the open ocean without being extorted. that gets really expensive.
invest in donkeys. I hear the russians are buying, because they're out of trucks.
Looks like moving the goalpost to me. And I can't believe you would say you tolerate a wide variety of thought.
That only underlines that you haven't paid close attention.
What I won't tolerate is a wide variety of abuse, nor an inability to focus on the topic instead of the host. If that's too hard for anyone, they're not tall enough for this part of the internet.
50% of everyone is in the left half of the IQ bell curve, so I'm not particularly surprised this issue keeps coming up.
Nor that stupid people don't realize they're stupid.
Dunning-Kruger is a thing.
How, exactly, ought one to behave after four successive invasions by a thuggish neighbor?
And how has Moscow not getting the nuking they deserved played out for all their neighbors?
Has NATO membership grown because Ukraine is the problem, or because Moscow is the problem?
Answer at your convenience.
Clintonian word-parsing now will cut no ice with any number of nations, all of whom we have earnestly assured can count on the protection of our nuclear umbrella. Just like we told Ukraine.
Once you dispense with your honor, you can never get it back.
Trump throwing Ukraine under the bus in the name of expediency is going to go down in history as one of the most despicable actions this nation has ever committed, besides which paltry things like slavery or wiping out Indians will pale in comparison.
It's a pity Ukraine wasn't as utilitarian and honesty-sparing in honoring their assurances to give up nukes as we have been to guarantee their borders.
It would be hilarious if Kiev announced that they had been exactly as circumspect in their obligations under the Budapest Memorandum as Russia and the US have proven to be, and told Putin he could withdraw his forces immediately to the status quo ante 2014, and give back Crimea, or say goodbye to any ten Russian cities forever.
And if I were Zelensky about now, the second city I'd nuke, given the opportunity, would be D.C. or NYFC.
We're going to pay for our national mendacity, because this sort of thing never goes unanswered.
Which recent NATO member states were brought into the alliance at gunpoint?
And btw, NATO has not moved "one inch west", ever. It still ends at the end of the Aleutian Island chain, as it did since its inception.
So you should probably acquaint yourself with a map and a compass, and the functioning thereof, if you're going to type nonsense.
please point to the treaty that promised "not one inch". go on. find it.
there was never any such promise.
@Allen 11:22,
Obviously theft is not your line of work. The scam works like this,
* Biden provides $120Bn in 'Aid', aka cash or its equivalents.
* Before it ever lands in UA that 'Aid' is down to $100Bn, carrying fees and the like, stateside.
* UA Treasury disburses the $100Bn. Before a single howitzer is purchased, the 'Aid' is now down to $80Bn as a chunk is given over to administrative overhead, cough, cough bribes, kickbacks and payoffs. In the Soviet era every enterprise had a 'roof', (krysha) to assure 'timely delivery'. Still goes on in the former eastern bloc countries to some degree.
* Finally the howitzers arrive.
Whole trains have disappeared in the former USSR because somebody did not get greased. Kind of a tough assignment when there is only a single rail operating company to deal with.
NATO didn't promise to move one inch EAST in 1991 then?
incorrect. they had warheads, delivery systems, and small demolition nukes. the one thing they lacked were the codes to turn them on. but they had the engineers that designed the locks and the drawings/plans, and eventually would have been able to bypass them or replace the system with another one they built.
But wait there’s more! After the howitzers are sent from a US Army unit. Senator Nancy or AOC et al and buy stock in US weapons/howitzer and munitions manufacturers. Insider trading is legal for these people. They’re making millions off this situation. Grifters gonna grift.
It is now an inescapable foundational principle of geopolitics that Americans are a cowardly and faithless people.
I have never been so ashamed. Or so furious.
no howitzers were purchased. they were taken from existing stocks. we claimed the value of the howitzer as-new, which is not the actual value of the howitzer, then sent the gun.
there are no fees other than transportation, and since we own the rolling stock and the engine, that's just salaries and fuel.
we send a value of equipment, claim it as though we sent cash, but THERE WAS NO CASH in the transaction, ever.
your "scam" wouldn't work, because there is no cash to skim money from. we sent a howitzer. ukraine got a howitzer. we claim whatever the new value of the howitzer was as having sent that value of equipment.
the only "scam" is we claim the as-new value of the equipment, when it was 50 years old or more, and on the fast track to be cut up for scrap.
I call bs. Since that so called treaty and agreement their govt has changed a few times, so just who did we make a deal with?
America First, America Only
@Rhea Easy to solve. Stop all foreign aid. BANG no more kickbacks.
@Allen so you think the most corrupt country in history is not reselling the weapons and ammunition we sent them? Really? I require proof they aren't reselling it.
Where is the proof we have given more equipment than money?
I think we an disentangle ourselves quite rapidly.
I think nato has grown because we pay for it.
We should have left nato when the ussr fell
Howitzers are made at the Watervliet Arsenal, a US government facility.
The only way to "buy stock" in that is to buy government savings bonds, or invest in T-bills.
The insider trading congressweasels do (and they do plenty) has Jack and Shit to do with these sales.
Please, for your own benefit, bone up if you're going to opine on this type of thing.
Neither Russia's nor Ukraine's government has changed. We gave assurances, paid money, and saw to it that nukes were returned to Russian control.
Now that follow-through in is inconvenient for us, and it's Ukraine's literal lifeline for survival, we're going to throw Ukraine under the bus.
America Despicable is the policy you're embracing.
Trump can do any number of great things, but in this, he's nothing but a bully and a scumbag, and he's operating contrary to America's long-term and worldwide national interests. That's not only despicable, it's retarded.
The proof is mountains of Russian equipment burnt, rusted, and scattered in fields all over Ukraine, while the Russian Army is as far from Kiev as it's ever been since the summer of 2022.
"In January 2024, BAE Systems inked a deal with the US Army for the major structures of the M777 lightweight howitzer under an Undefinitised Contract Action, which is limited to $50m."
Are these different howitzers?
Yes, it should be hilarious when China sells our debt instruments at fire sale prices, and inflation hits Weimar levels in a month, if not a week.
Hope you like soup three meals a day for twenty years.
If that's the case, then why the beef if Ukraine joins?
If Russia means no harm to NATO, they have nothing to fear from it.
It's a purely defensive alliance, not an empire.
NATO has grown by member states' enlightened self-interest.
In the same timespan, Russia has grown by invading four neighboring states, and holding them at literal gunpoint, while threatening many more.
The contrast couldn't be more obvious.
If you're not conversant on those realities, you're not tall enough for the discussion on this part of the internet.
@Aesop I seem to recall a couple of revolutions since 1991
@Aesop The russian equipment burned and destroyed in no way proves we gave more equipment than money. Is putin bad, yes. Is ukraine bad, no matter the leader at the moment, yes.
We are still finding trails of money that have not been known about. A bunch of social security outlays in 2 to 300,000 batches just turned up day before yesterday.
I fell in no way have we renigged on anything by stepping back. I don't any party to ANY of the treaties have abided by them, why should we? Those bastards on both sides are gonna hate and try to rob us no matter which side we pick, or if we don't pick a side.
I consider it a relic battle of the cold war that ended a long time ago.
The polish guy said it best. 500 million euroPEONs, are wanting 300 million Americans to protect them from 150 million russians. Enough, enough already.
This is truly a 'not my circus, not my monkeys' situation if ever there was one.
The Budapest Memorandum was signed in 1994 after Ukraine's independence in 1991. They didn't form a new country in 2014; they just threw out another Russian puppet.
Conflating SS checks with money to Ukraine is a stretch to which you cannot connect the dots.
No. They're howitzer parts built here under license.
And you can't make money selling used howitzers, because the party selling them is the DoD.
If you can draw a straight line showing we immediately contracted for additional howitzer parts from the manufacturer, and then show Pelosi et al bought stock in those companies concurrently, then you've got insider trading. But if you could point to that, you would.
The insider trading our congressweasels do is buy or short stock based on reports and hearings, and knowledge of legislation still pending, and making recockulously brilliant trades in advance of the general public.
If you can find anything like that WRT Ukraine arms deals, make your case. A US DoD/Army deal with BAE has fuck-all to do with us sending howitzers to Ukraine except circumstantially, and everything to do with congressweasels who are insider trading based on US defense spending.
I'm not saying they wouldn't or haven't done anything directly based on Ukrainian deals, I'm saying you're spinning tales out of your nethers based on facts not in evidence.
If, for example, it turned out Pelosi or any other congressweasels made insider deals on Georgia Pacific plywood or gasoline for rescue boats because FEMA agreed to purchase relief materials after a hurricane, yes, that's insider trading. By all means, go after them for that.
But what you're arguing is that therefore, FEMA shouldn't help anyone because someone in congress is a total shit, as though FEMA was directly kicking money back to congress every time they buy something.
One of these things is not like the other.
Your logic loop is broken.
^ This. A million times, this.
And I cannot figure out why Trump can see Israel was a victim of its neighbors, but is completely blind when Ukraine is in the exact same boat.
~Rhea
Not looping anything. You said howitzers were built by dod. I just questioned that.
As much as I may agree with you about Putin and Russia, the fact remains that if pushed into a corner they have one one huge remaining trump card - nuclear weapons. Would Putin dare to use it? Why yes he would. One bomb delivered to Kyiv and it's over. Ukraine is not a NATO member and such action would not trigger an in kind response. At the end point of losing incrementally in a war of attrition that is Putin's final option. Don't think he'd use it? If you believe that you are a fool, and having followed this blog for a long time, I don't think you are. Time to give up the wishful thinking.
"And I cannot figure out why Trump can see Israel was a victim of its neighbors".
In light of the fact that the Epstein list will be redacted on National Security grounds; you might want to ask Pam Bondi that question. The second would be "On what grounds is the NS claim being made? Ours or somebody elses?"
I don't really care who joins nato as long as we leave it.
I don't really care if russia grows nor how. They are not coming over here and bothering us are they? Why should we be going over there to bother them. Those times are behind us.
We need to take care of our own problems and stop creating and/or participating in fights that have been going on for centuries.
"There is nothing so dangerous as being an ally of the USA" (Rep. Larry McDonald, victim, KAL Flight 007). CF: Chiang Kai-shek, Anastasio Somoza, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. and many others. Sadly, we've seen this before many times.
They are. In the case of the 777, apparently with BAE parts, among others.
The only thing keeping Ukraine from constructing nuclear weapons is a brief time span, and the national will.
Trump pissing on Zelensky's head is liable to ensure that once they build two, the second one is delivered to the U.S., and probably set to detonate in DC or NYFC about 5 minutes after the one that drops on the Kremlin.
Then Putin's "special military action" becomes a moot approach to things, and Ukraine has nothing left to lose.
Russia had the wit to back away from MAD once.
And in any event, Russia knows what happens when nukes start popping off, so at 1000:1 for, if Putin reaches for the nuclear launch codes, he gets retired by a loud pop from a Makarov pistol, just behind the ear, before he finishes that sentence on the telephone, and TASS announces his unfortunate stroke* a day or two later, once the coup dust settles.
*(Which is pedantically true, as a gaping head wound gushing blood is technically a cerebrovascular accident.)
You're ignoring how this becomes totally our problem, the minute we let it be known that nuclear non-proliferation as a policy is dead and foolishly ill-advised, and that our promises regarding any other nation's security, including NATO members, is subject to unilateral cancellation on a whim. Which will trigger a run on US debt instruments, and Weimar inflation, in about 0.2 seconds.
Overnight, the world is in 1933 again, ready for a Depression followed by a global conflagration, except with the helpful addition of nuclear weapons for the next (inevitable) world war.
Any nation which attempts to ignore that by sticking its head in the sand can count its remaining years on the fingers of one or two hands.
I know Conservatives have caught the vapors real hard over thay damn list, but you don’t have a microscope with enough power to see the amount of care I give about it. I remember the rabid, insane, Pizzagaters, for whom the evidence is always in the next batch of wikileaks emails, and by the time the pizzagate crazies were done, no one knew if there was a crime committed or not, but it was ok - the right was going to give us a mob that would deliver justice anyway.
Except that mobs never give anyone justice.
I do not care about that stupid list. This country has way bigger problems, and right proved during pizzagate that they can’t be trusted.
The list might be worth something, but I lived through the pizzagate hysteria. Once was enough.
~Rhea
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