Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 12:31     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I want to say that Ukraine is far from innocent here. They have camps where they train kids to shoot, become skinheads and hate Russians, and fight for Ukraine.
That doesn't mean they should be invaded,but they are no angels at all.


Source?

NBC.


NGL that looks fun.
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 12:26     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I want to say that Ukraine is far from innocent here. They have camps where they train kids to shoot, become skinheads and hate Russians, and fight for Ukraine.
That doesn't mean they should be invaded,but they are no angels at all.


Source?

NBC.
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 12:17     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:I want to say that Ukraine is far from innocent here. They have camps where they train kids to shoot, become skinheads and hate Russians, and fight for Ukraine.
That doesn't mean they should be invaded,but they are no angels at all.


Source?
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 12:14     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:I mean one news said "Russian troops are beginning to uncoil and are poised to strike." Were they not saying the same two weeks ago? How are they more uncoiled now?
It's like the media wants the war and the invasion. Are they attacking or not, it's like reading a sudoku!


Media always wants conflict, in any form. So they do whatever they can to foment it. At home, abroad, doesn’t matter.
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 12:10     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
I want to say that Ukraine is far from innocent here. They have camps where they train kids to shoot, become skinheads and hate Russians, and fight for Ukraine.
That doesn't mean they should be invaded,but they are no angels at all.
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 12:01     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Austria, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland are not nato members either

Ukraine wants membership to freeride.


How would they be more of a freerider than other countries?


Ukraine wants explicit 5 protections but without doing the hard work of improving wuality of governance and self sufficiency first.

My point was If states who are much better governed and are more self sufficient are willing to not be under explicit article 5 protection, then Ukraine should give it up.

Macron and Scholz pretty much made this point in a roundabout way.



Ukraine has been fighting 8 years and rebuilt its army from almost scratch. If you look at 2014 photos, the whole country was donating money, food, socks, weaving camouflage nets, and literally feeding the army. So no, they are not free riding. And 3 revolutions to demand improvement in governance and this war is about revisiting being drawn back into the Russian corruption swamp.
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 11:51     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Ok, you all, what about the trope that Putin promotes? The USSR agreed to end the Cold War and NATO agreed not to expand its sphere of influence and countries?
What is that about? Is that what really happened in the 80s?
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 11:45     Subject: Re:US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I still can't believe this is happening. I can't believe we're just going to let them invade and not do anything beyond sanctions and sending supplies.


And what do you want us to do? Fight against Russia? Start World War III? Everyone loses under that scenario. Frankly, Ukraine isn't worth it.


I'm sure that's exactly what people said about Poland when Hitler invaded.


The hitler comparisons are shallow.

Putin is not hitler or napoleon.

The latter two did not operate in an era of nuclear weapons.

Anyone comparing this situation to hitler has lost all credibility from the jump


Uh, no. Putin's use of propaganda, false claims of genocide, and false flag attacks are very similar to what Hitler did before invading Poland. It's a valid comparison.
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 11:42     Subject: Re:US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I still can't believe this is happening. I can't believe we're just going to let them invade and not do anything beyond sanctions and sending supplies.


And what do you want us to do? Fight against Russia? Start World War III? Everyone loses under that scenario. Frankly, Ukraine isn't worth it.


I'm sure that's exactly what people said about Poland when Hitler invaded.


The hitler comparisons are shallow.

Putin is not hitler or napoleon.

The latter two did not operate in an era of nuclear weapons.

Anyone comparing this situation to hitler has lost all credibility from the jump
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 11:38     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
I’m getting really tired of Putin’s dick-waving. It’s time for a war. Can’t wait for Joe to wipe that smug smile off that little cretin’s face.
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 11:35     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Austria, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland are not nato members either

Ukraine wants membership to freeride.


How would they be more of a freerider than other countries?


Ukraine wants explicit 5 protections but without doing the hard work of improving wuality of governance and self sufficiency first.

My point was If states who are much better governed and are more self sufficient are willing to not be under explicit article 5 protection, then Ukraine should give it up.

Macron and Scholz pretty much made this point in a roundabout way.

Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 11:31     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:Austria, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland are not nato members either

Ukraine wants membership to freeride.


How would they be more of a freerider than other countries?
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 11:22     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Austria, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland are not nato members either

Ukraine wants membership to freeride.
Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 11:18     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Pp that said, where does it stop? I mean, isn't that how the Second World War came about? The powers allowed concessions to Germany, a little bit of Austria, of Czechoslovakia. Till Poland?


It stops when a NATO ally is attacked.

Remember when Trump was questioning the US being in NATO and the strength of our commitment to Article 5 (which says that NATO allies will militarily support each other is attacked)?

Remember when Trump supporters like Newt Gingrich were saying things like Estonia (a NATO ally) was "the suburbs of St Petersburg" and we shouldn't come to their defense and risk nuclear war if Russia attacked them?

From July 2016, during the election:

The Republican presidential nominee re-emphasized his isolationist instincts in an interview last week with the New York Times, when he refused to answer “yes” to the question of whether NATO members could “count on the United States to come to their military aid if they were attacked by Russia?”

Mr. Trump resorted to his favorite trope that many NATO states “are not making payments” and that “you can’t forget the bills.” That would be a useful argument if his point was merely to spur Europeans to spend more on defense.

But Mr. Trump seems to mean that any country that doesn’t meet the alliance’s defense-spending target of 2% of gross domestic product will forfeit NATO’s security guarantees. This is an invitation to Vladimir Putin to invade any NATO country not currently meeting its requirement—such as the Baltic states of Latvia and Lithuania.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-die-for-tallinn-1469459693

This is why I support Democrats for President. They will honor our commitments to our European allies. NATO has been a success which is why there hasn't been a major war in Europe in almost 80 years.


Part of being an ally is being self sufficient if needed and not a ward.

Obama in his second term started being more forceful about freeriders in nato but a real concentrated American policy towards freeriding that has teeth has to be executed.

Middle American voters will not continue to underwrite european security by shouldering the vast majority of the burden.

Anonymous
Post 02/19/2022 11:11     Subject: US has no good options in Ukraine
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Pp that said, where does it stop? I mean, isn't that how the Second World War came about? The powers allowed concessions to Germany, a little bit of Austria, of Czechoslovakia. Till Poland?


It stops when a NATO ally is attacked.

Remember when Trump was questioning the US being in NATO and the strength of our commitment to Article 5 (which says that NATO allies will militarily support each other is attacked)?

Remember when Trump supporters like Newt Gingrich were saying things like Estonia (a NATO ally) was "the suburbs of St Petersburg" and we shouldn't come to their defense and risk nuclear war if Russia attacked them?

From July 2016, during the election:

The Republican presidential nominee re-emphasized his isolationist instincts in an interview last week with the New York Times, when he refused to answer “yes” to the question of whether NATO members could “count on the United States to come to their military aid if they were attacked by Russia?”

Mr. Trump resorted to his favorite trope that many NATO states “are not making payments” and that “you can’t forget the bills.” That would be a useful argument if his point was merely to spur Europeans to spend more on defense.

But Mr. Trump seems to mean that any country that doesn’t meet the alliance’s defense-spending target of 2% of gross domestic product will forfeit NATO’s security guarantees. This is an invitation to Vladimir Putin to invade any NATO country not currently meeting its requirement—such as the Baltic states of Latvia and Lithuania.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-die-for-tallinn-1469459693

This is why I support Democrats for President. They will honor our commitments to our European allies. NATO has been a success which is why there hasn't been a major war in Europe in almost 80 years.

I agree with most of what you said but Ukraine wasn't allowed to join NATO or become official allies with any Western nations in order to appease Russia. It's a bit cold to refuse to let them join the club because Russia will get mad and then when Russia invades, just shrug our shoulders and say they're not in the club so we don't have to do anything. We basically left them with no options and now we're just running our mouths about sanctions while Russia shells civilian targets and prepares to take their capital.