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To: Phoenix8
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61742736

This corroborates that, but who knows, since it's often one or the same source and all the MSM copies and paste from that.

At this point it appears a war of attrition, where Ukraine will be at a serious disadvantage.

The lines are already fairly drawn albeit I am sure the Russians would like to take a bit more of the ethnic Russian areas.

NEVER was this a war of complete destruction or complete conquest of Ukraine. It was apparent the Russian objective would be to seize ethnic and historic Russian lands and these will be easy to hold once cleared of the nationalist minority fighters in that area. The Russians had no intent in taking land which will require them to fight an endless campaign where the locals reject you.

The point of all this appears illogical/irrational, immoral, senseless.

Lets make this into a Las Vegas scenario:

If you are Ukraine, betting on NATO membership means there is a >90% chance you will be attacked.

If the 10% chance happens and you win, you stand to gain $500. There are some benefits to NATO membership, but they are by far underwhelming since you already have a special status with the EU, you are already de facto sovereign in near all ways, NATO is already conducting training with you, you are already being trained and equipped by NATO forces under the table (2015 -2022, now open and obvious)...

If you get attacked (>90% probability) you will de facto lose no matter what and that will be a $5,000 loss. Which begs the question, why would you bet on something with a marginal gain compared to the likely loss when the loss scenario is extremely high?

What were these geniuses thinking?

I am sure we will spin this as some great victory, we already are... But the fact is, Ukraine lost much of it's land ~20%, a major industrial area and port city. Their economy is in shambles, they have millions displaced, thousands dead, damage to infrastructure and after this war you will not see what happened after 2014. Ironically, the same economic interests that pushed for this war will now not want to invest big there.

What did they gain? What will Ukraine walk away with?

What did we gain? Other than secretly claiming we were successful because we depleted the Russians... A BS argument. What did we really gain? We now have US citizens facing the death penalty in Russia (where we didn't try to stop their movement there) which we don't want to talk much about. We spent billions and billions. We will face a backlash (once the dust settles, the Russians WILL return the favor - and I can already read the idiotic headlines of our MSM that will call it a war crime, that the folks they are arming are bad while we ignore and forget what sort of in part thugs we were arming in Ukraine).

This was a stupid war.

We live in times where you have consolidation and censorship of information, communications, etc. You have massive government control over what the people hear, see and read, only a few major media conglomerates which control over 90% of what people hear, read and see which are essentially owned by the same big corporations and folks that are behind the scene advocating for this war.

Because the Euros and US wanted this, there was no one standing in the way screaming “Stop, what the f are you doing?” Western economic interests wanted NATO and EU membership for Ukraine, it makes sense to them, and our political leadership bows down to these interests. However, these interests are not concerned about the risks, cost benefit analysis, or even the morality and contractual agreements made with the Russians. They simply see dollars and sense, and for them if Ukraine is in NATO and the EU they can make a lot more money.

As I stated before elsewhere, sadly Biden will not get a black eye from this. The MSM will be on his side and spin it no matter what. However, even the Republicans that are near automatic “Russia is bad” and “support the war” will not exploit this to their advantage and to Biden's disadvantage. What is an epic failure and where there is nothing to show for other than billions spent and a colossal loss for us, isn't explained to the American people as just that “a huge loss for us.”

Did this war help inflationary pressures?

Besides using up our stores of expensive high tech weapons that are in limited supply (as we talk about the Russians being depleted and using up cheaper and lower cost systems), what did we achieve? Will Ukraine be a NATO member?

This war falls 100% on the shoulders of one man: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-zelenskiy-holding-talks-with-biden-adviser-says-2021-12-09/

Ukraine can't force their way into NATO. They can't demand to be accepted. The Euro's don't run NATO, we do. We are the big boy and it's our club, even if some Euro dweeb is the figure head in charge for a day. We (i.e. Biden) gave the green light for NATO membership and in doing so he started a war. No ands, buts, or if's... We crossed a line which the Russians already defined in 1994 as a “red line” (sorry for the cliche but it's applicable here) for them. The war in 2014 was about that. The invasion of the Republic of Georgia was about that. Russia does not want US/NATO troops on their border (period). They want that about as much as we want Chinese troops in Mexico.

So Biden made a foolish, a dumb, gamble which makes no sense. Having armed and trained Ukraine over many years (several administrations), the pain threshold would be very high for Russia if they do invade. Surely if we just pull a fast one like we did in 2004 with Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, by the time they wake up, Ukraine will already be in NATO and we will get our way (the likely reasoning on our side). No, the Russians learned in 2004 and rightfully so, that we are NOT to be trusted. Past agreements/promisses mean little to nothing when a new administration comes (Iraq and Obama /Afghanistan and Biden/Vietnam and Nixon /ABM and Bush / Minsk Memorandum and Obama...). So when Biden in October 2021 gave the green light for NATO membership in a flash, the time until the shock-wave hits us from the bang would not be long.

So what did all these people really die for?

A bad gamble by Biden.

37 posted on 06/27/2022 11:40:10 AM PDT by Red6
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To: Red6

I posted once that we might have considered sending humanitarian aide to Ukraine and acted as an intermediary. We might have had more success with that 1st route and negotiated some deal with a lot less loss of life. Who knows maybe Ukraine will pull off a stunning counterattack and defeat Russia on its own, doesn’t look that way. It now looks like Russia will gain the Donbas AND hate us as an enemy in the process.

However I guess Biden is improving.
Not too long ago the old senile fool thought withdrawing our military BEFORE our assets and people was a solid strategy in Afghanistan.

I still can’t believe he did that.


39 posted on 06/27/2022 12:24:39 PM PDT by Phoenix8
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