Posted on 07/07/2023 1:48:13 PM PDT by Republicans 2016 2020
US President Joe Biden has reportedly made the decision to provide cluster bombs to Ukraine's armed forces to enable troops to target well-entrenched Russian forces on the front lines.
The US administration is expected to formally announce this action on Friday (July 7) as part of a new military aid package valued at $800million.
(Excerpt) Read more at express.co.uk ...
No, I don’t believe I am being “clever” which, if you are going to insult me by comparing me to a Leftist scumbag like Jack Smith, just man up and do it straight up. I’ve been here a while, a lot longer than you, so I understand the lay of the land. If you are a retread and have been here longer than me, there is probably a valid reason you had to change your handle.
That said, I would prefer that if you really want to insult me, be up front abut it, though I admit, I am puzzled as to why you seem inclined to insult me.
I didn’t insult you, and I don’t think I said anything any thinking American, or even any American military person wouldn’t sign on to.
You used Agent Orange as an example. Fair enough. But don’t you believe Agent Orange was just as detrimental to those who used it, handled it, and walked through it? And how is that so much worse than the artillery barrages at battles like Verdun which not only defoliated huge tracts of land, but killed people in real time as it happened, and continued to kill people for decades after?
Point is, in Vietnam, we were trying to fight a war. We never used Long John missiles filled with Sarin. We never used chemical weapons against our foes, as much as some might have thought it justified. And no, we didn’t “give smallpox laden blankets to indigenous people” in an attempt to exterminate them.
Any weapon can be used against a foe can be turned against you, it is the history of warfare, and human nature. You use it, and you know if it can be, it will be used against you. To deny that, accept that, and plan for that is to deny history, human nature, and in the end, reality.
I find your statement “...banned NOW or banned because they should never have been allowed / developed...” to be a specious one, especially in light of your mention of Agent Orange.
Who decides what should be banned and what shouldn’t? Do “the smartest people in the room” get to decide that? And when things get “banned”, who decides not to adhere to the deal even though they are a signatory? Or especially, the ones who are not signatories.
Honestly, what exactly is the point you are trying to make? That we make cluster bombs, and will condemn anyone who uses them against us? Or is it that if we give cluster bombs to an ostensible “friend”, they could “fall into the wrong hands”? That has already happened with weapons like MANPADS, and I am a LOT more concerned about those.
Cluster bombs are not nuclear weapons. You don’t need huge infrastructure to make them, you have to keep them from being used against your military or civilian populations.
I have news for you, if we get into a shooting war against a military peer, they are going to be used against us even if we do our due diligence. Do you think there is a way to stop that, by having people sign a treaty?
Code Pink freaks are crying about it right now. They’re saying the same things Code Ping Freepers say.
She’s an MD now, a Board Certified Medical Doctor. She’s going to do a year in a Fellowship for sports medicine with a Clinic and Hospital in Idaho, I think they grow potatoes up there.
No, actually fought for the USA.
You fight for cluster bombs on the internet.
Long reply. A nerved must have been touched.
--- "I have news for you, if we get into a shooting war against a military peer, they are going to be used against us even if we do our due diligence."
Think we're going to get into a shooting war with a peer? Given MAD, there won't be much discussion about what kind of weapons will be employed. It will be over rather quickly, and on many sides.
--- "Do you think there is a way to stop that, by having people sign a treaty?"
Well, the alternatives are make peace somehow, or make war somehow.
Given President Trump thinks there is an alternative to war, perhaps you should join with him? If not with me. Though I am with him in this. So you face the horns of your own dilemma.
Project Ukraine...
With Joseph Biden as.... Doctor Evil.
That makes zero sense.
What “nerve” was touched was your condescending and insulting reply to my original post.
What makes you think I am for this war or ANY war yet to be fought without the analysis of circumstances to consider?
As a matter of fact, I suspect you have reading comprehension issues, because my post, in the very first sentence, clearly declares my stance on this specific war that is none of our damn business.
So you think I am all in on this damned war? Where do you get that? Because I believe we should be prepared to fight one should it come?
A treaty of ANY kind is only as good (and not even then, as Neville Chamberlain showed us) as the people who signed it and the paper it is signed on.
I do not believe that being prepared to fight and and discussing non-kinetic options are mutually exclusive. Idiots believe that.
Only a fool says there will never be another war because it will be too terrible and lays down their arms.
Are you one of those people? Because you sure sound like you are with your “Oh, we will never have a war, and if we do, everyone will lose so we might as well stop being prepared to defend ourselves”.
Drawbacks on cluster munitions:
Cluster munitions are dropped from aircraft or fired from the ground or sea, opening up in mid-air to release hundreds of submunitions, which can saturate an area up to the size of several football fields. Anybody within the strike area of the cluster munition, be they military or civilian, is very likely to be killed or seriously injured.
Which means anyone, friendlies or charlie, goes at the same time. Letting the Zman have this type of open end is like giving him a play toy he can find the words to justify anyone that goes down with it.
The fuze of each submunition is generally activated as it falls so that it will explode above or on the ground. But often large numbers of the submunitions fail to function as designed, and instead land on the ground without exploding, where they remain as very dangerous duds.
This is has been a major problem with them. Munitions are on the ground hot and can detonate with anything from animals to children finding them. Not much control. Might as well send in covid.
wy69
Well, the alternatives are make peace somehow, or make war somehow.
Given President Trump thinks there is an alternative to war, perhaps you should join with him? If not with me. Though I am with him in this. So you STILL face the horns of your own dilemma.
I don’t face any kind of dilemma. Nothing personal, but I don’t think you have the foggiest notion of what “the horns of a dilemma” are.
As for Trump, I am, and have been a broken-glass Trump supporter.
Your words, Verbatim.
I'd venture to say that President Trump would negotiate something people might sign and people might sign on to.
It is a different context. That was specifically in the context of your odd off topic issue of weapons we make being used against us.
It has nothing to do with the current conflict. Why you brought it up and made such a big deal of it is a mystery. Had nothing to do with the topic at hand. That is on you.
These are artillery-fired munitions with a dud rate of only 2.35%. Ukraine needs these to clear entrenched Russian troops. There are no civilians there and these areas are already heavily mined.
Yup. Verbatim. The conservatives in my circle don't play "taken out of context."
--- "I have news for you, if we get into a shooting war against a military peer, they are going to be used against us even if we do our due diligence. Do you think there is a way to stop that, by having people sign a treaty?"
If that’s the case, the “the conservatives” in your circle jerk wouldn’t understand context. That is apparently the form of “play” your conservative “circle” apparently engages in, since you reject context.
You grab onto the “out of context” trope as a drowning man grabs onto a life preserver which is why you repeat it, because that is all you have. I have to assume you simply don’t have enough rigor in your intellectual analysis to incorporate context. Shallow and one dimensional.
I’ll try to educate you.
The context is that is the discussion is about an arms control treaty and adherence to it. THAT was the discussion and the point of the thread.
You want to conflate that with a peace treaty, which is not even part of the discussion, and an entirely different thing.
That you don’t see that there is a significant difference in context between two different things which are NOT the same, shows how vapid and shallow your intellectual reasoning is.
Just as your understanding of the “horns of a dilemma” is based on your desire to come across as more intelligent than you are rather than the desire to properly frame a situation to increase the understanding of it.
A clue for you: the horns of a dilemma involve two choices that are equally undesirable. Peace is always desirable depending on how you define “peace”, while fighting a war, unless you are a twisted piece of filth (or totally ignorant) is undesirable.
You don’t have to pursue one or the other. You can fight a war while pursuing peace and vice versa, but the two options are not equally bad (again, depending on the definition of “peace”. And the same intellectual hinge on the definition of “peace” also applies to the definition of “war”. We are engaged in “war” with Communist China and have been for decades, but there is that oh-so-difficult nagging issue of context, since it isn’t a kinetic war, that may escape people in “your conservative circle”.
The fundamental point for rational people is, you fight if you must, and pursue peace if you can. That is the reality, not “the horns of a dilemma”.
And in that, you are right in one very narrow way-that Trump is the lone candidate who we know will fight if he must, but will pursue peace if he can.
And yet, you write, "And in that, you are right in one very narrow way-that Trump is the lone candidate who we know will fight if he must, but will pursue peace if he can."
What a novelty in these threads. "Pursue peace."
Russia has already used cluster munitions.
You have no reason to believe that will happen unless you are steeped in Russian propaganda.
The Ukrainian government and thousands of volunteers take extraordinary measures to evacuate civilians from front line areas, and to protect civilians.
The Russians just launch artillery and missile barrages at cities and villages without any effort to protect civilians.
Best save our strength for a near future war here in CONUS.
Think Madrid, 1936.
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