Posted on 10/16/2022 9:34:36 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
Those are complete lies, because:
Still more lying propaganda -- worthy of a Goebbels or Hillary Clinton (but I repeat myself).
You turn the reality of an unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine into a justified defensive response by Russia to Ukrainian "aggression".
In your delusional world it's Russia playing the role of peace-seeking Chamberlain at Munich, and Ukrainians who are unjustly threatening to invade their neighbors.
Just goes to prove that not all the American delusional insanity is among Democrats.
But... maybe I'm assuming to much here?
The odd thing about giving your word as a person or a country is that people expect you to keep it even when it is not “legally binding.” The US and the UK and NATO correctly regard their various security promises to Ukraine as both morally and strategically compelling. Putin is an untrustworthy, dangerous thug and it is in the interest of the US and NATO to stop him and Russia.
Yeah, you are assuming too much. Try to keep up.
Each thing I said is documented and I don’t care too much about changing your backwards mind, but no, they wouldn’t be invading themselves. They had been shelling the Donbass areas for 8 years and were massing forces to assault them and reconquer them. They had opted out of the 2014 coup and have been under ethnic cleansing and nazi artillery attacks since that time.
And yes, in April of 2021 Zelinsky announced they were exploring getting nukes.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/16/ukraine-may-seek-nuclear-weapons-if-left-out-of-nato-diplomat
They announced they intended to attack Crimea, and we and the Brits sailed warships 3 miles off of Sevastopol claiming Ukraine gave us permission.
Last fall when Putin we pushing hard for negotiations, the centerpiece was the implementation of Minsk II, and an assurance that Ukraine was not going to be admitted to NATO. Blinken responded the intent was to support ukraine militarily and that the NATO door was open.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60145159
And no, the Munich analogy was DC and the EU as the aggressive expansionist empire. The Ukes are just useful idiot pawns. Put learned the lesson of Munch that you cannot appease such people and knew it was true with is after all the appeasing he tried with us. So he chose the military option.
You’re living in the past.
Yet, the US didn’t feel it needed to keep it’s word about not moving NATO one inch east after German reunification.
Keeping our word, even when not legally binding, only matters when it suits a DC or London strategic goal.
Declassified in 2017, yes, Baker said “not one inch eastward”.
Secure OUR border - build our infrastructure not Ukraine's - defend our borders from the invasion that's happening......and even if all these didn't need to be addressed Ukraine's milked every country it can get it's fangs in - so no I don't support this conflict even a little......and they've never done a dang thing for us!
Efforts by Russia and the US to resolve the issue have been made impossible by Putin's thuggery and maximalist demands that Russia be accorded a sphere of influence roughly equivalent to what the Soviet Union had. Accepting Putin's demands would negate the independence and sovereignty of half of Europe.
And -- as surprising as it may seem -- we have the resources to aid Ukraine and to protect out borders and enforce our immigration laws. Indeed, with the threat from Russia diminished, the US enjoys a net improvement in our security.
We’re just going to disagree as “menacing” as Russia might at times be to us we’ve got bigger problms to contend with left unaddressed because our money is funding not just Ukraines military but their teachers, police and a host of other daily responsibilities of their government for them. ....Further I don’t see our funds doing what your saying they should be doing right here in the US.
I will also add I don’t see Russia doing anything our goverrnment and Eu governments don’t also do....or have done in the past. This is why other countries see the US as equally meanacing if not in some cases moreso than Russia.
What we’re doing in Ukraine has not made me have any sense of being more secure as you stated, quite the opposite as it also has Europe and other countries.
At the strategic level, Russia regards the United States as its principal enemy. After all, without US backing, NATO would be hard pressed to block Russian expansion.
Since Europe in the aggregate is a massive economic and technological power and the cultural heartland of Western civilization, we fought two World Wars and the Cold War and formed NATO for the sake of Europe's freedom and security. And with NATO and Europe's security at stake in Ukraine's fight against Russian invasion, our interests are also at stake in that fight. If the Russian invasion of Ukraine fails, Europe's security and freedom and ours improve considerably.
You are, of course, not obliged to agree with any of that, but I hope that I have made a clear enough case to allow you to understand why and NATO we are helping Ukraine.
Sure, if by "they" you mean Russians.
DesertRhino: "They had opted out of the 2014 coup and have been under ethnic cleansing and nazi artillery attacks since that time."
Again, "they" means Russians living in Ukraine who, we're told, invited Putin to invade Ukraine in 2014 and ever since showered their non-Russian neighbors with artillery attacks.
The number of civilians killed in Donbas attacks -- from 2016 to 2021 -- averaged about one per week.
In 2021 the number of civilians killed in the Donbas averaged two per month -- not exactly "ethnic cleansing" among a population of circa 8 million ethnic Russians (17%) living in Ukraine.
As for alleged "nazis", it's a meaningless word but typical of communist propagandists who claim their fellow socialists fascists are "right wing".
DesertRhino: "And yes, in April of 2021 Zelinsky announced they were exploring getting nukes."
There's no reason to doubt that every country which is non-nuclear has "explored getting nukes."
"Explored" means nothing more than studied the question.
Here's what's really going on:
On April 15, 2021, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Yaroslavovych Melnyk told Deutschlandfunk radio that if Ukraine was not allowed to become a NATO member, his country might have to reconsider its status as a non-nuclear weapon state to guarantee its defense.[25][26]
In February 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky renewed such sentiments, suggesting that Ukraine would potentially view the [1994] Budapest Memorandum as invalid should its security guarantees not be met.[27]"
DesertRhino: "And no, the Munich analogy was DC and the EU as the aggressive expansionist empire.
The Ukes are just useful idiot pawns. "
A Ukrainian decision to voluntarily join NATO does not make them part of anybody's "empire".
It does make Ukrainians fellow European allies under the protection of NATO's security guarantees of sovereignty against the threats & aggressions of rabid dictators like madman-Putin.
DesertRhino: "You’re living in the past."
In trying to restore the old Russian Empire, Putin & you are living in the past.
It won't happen, not now, not ever again.
Get used to that.
Baker made no such promise.
The issue in 1990!! was stationing foreign NATO troops in East Germany, which US Secretary of State Baker seems to have said would not happen.
There was no discussion about Eastern European countries joining NATO, period.
"Ten years later, [2009] in an interview with the German newspaper Bild, Gorbachev complained that the West had tricked Moscow.
'Many people in the West were secretly rubbing their hands and felt something like a flush of victory -- including those who had promised us: 'We will not move 1 centimeter further east,' ' he was quoted as saying.
Gorbachev later appeared to reverse himself, saying the subject of enlargement in fact never came up in 1989 or 1990.
'The topic of "NATO expansion" was never discussed; it was not raised in those years.
I am saying this with a full sense of responsibility.
Not a single Eastern European country brought up the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact had ceased to exist in 1991,' he told the newspaper Kommersant in October 2014."
I understand the sides of the equation but I don’t agree how they’re going about settling matters because there’s far too many parties entangled with Ukraines mess....and it is Ukraines mess regardless who they allow to manage their affairs. They certainly don’t handle their own affairs without being in constant conflict within and without...and because they don’t they suck in and create problems for the world.
Ukraine also reformed its military over the last several years by following the US and Western military model of a strong NCO corps, professional soldiers instead of conscripts, flexible, decentralized decision-making and nimble tactics, and better weapons. That is a major reason why Russia got such a nasty surprise when Putin ordered an invasion.
I am confident that when Ukraine wins, reforms will progress even more rapidly. Like the US after WW II, an entire generation will try to make sense of their struggle and sacrifice by making a better country.
Unfortunately they did not make any advances without enormous amounts of funding from other countries and great loans from the IMF etc. Not to mention how much of that went into the pockts of their politicians and oligarchs. Which is “the familiar pattern” for Ukraine. It’s not surprising that everything in Ukraine still runs on bribes and theft....and perfectly acceptable as the way things work in Ukraine for most there.
As for their military it’s “foreign” built - they have not done that on their own. You make it sound like Ukraine is nothing more than an extension of the US. - which actually isn’t too far from the truth. And that I would never sign up to support. It’s not our responsibility to build nations.
As for weapons, although Ukraine now looks to the US and NATO for weapons, they like to adapt them to local practices and conditions. During the Soviet era, Ukraine developed a significant technical and industrial base. Indeed, until the current conflict with Russia, Ukraine supplied a lot of essential components to Russia's arms industry.
As for nation building, Ukraine is already a nation in the European model and looks to European neighbors for examples of what they want to become. Ukraine is not Afghanistan.
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