Posted on 02/18/2022 5:15:25 AM PST by Kaslin
When NBC's Lester Holt asked resident Joe Biden what might prompt him to send U.S. troops to rescue Americans fleeing Ukraine, Biden replied: "There's not. That's a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another."
It's not like we're dealing with a terrorist organization. We're dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. ... Things could go crazy quickly."
Biden was saying Americans are not going to fight Russians in Ukraine, even to protect or extract imperiled U.S. troops, diplomats or citizens.
Speaking last week on the Senate floor, Sen. Ted Cruz echoed Biden: "I want to be clear and unequivocal. ... Under no circumstances should we send our sons and daughters to die to defend Ukraine from Russia."
The question the Biden and Cruz comments immediately raise?
Has not Russian President Vladimir Putin pretty much already realized his principal goal in this crisis -- that Ukraine never become a member of NATO?
For if Biden and Cruz are unwilling to send U.S. troops to Ukraine to repel Russian invaders, how could the U.S. bring Ukraine into NATO, where, under Article 5, it would be both our moral and legal obligation to do so?
After meeting with Putin, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said of Ukraine's admission to NATO: "Everyone must step back a bit here and make it clear to themselves that we just can't have a possible military conflict over a question that is not on the agenda."
The Germans seem to be saying Ukraine's membership in NATO is not even on the table for discussion and decision. It is a nonissue.
Again, if Putin has been given private assurances that Ukraine will never be a member of NATO, he would appear to have gotten his nonnegotiable demand, as long as he does not crow about his victory.
And if Ukraine is not going to be a member of NATO, Georgia, a far smaller and far less populous nation, even farther east than Ukraine, is not going to become a NATO member either.
Who in the West, outside of Kyiv, is now demanding it?
The next items on Putin's menu appear to be the rebellious provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
Tuesday, the Duma, the Russian parliament, voted to ask Putin to recognize the breakaway regions as "sovereign and independent states."
Thursday, artillery fire was reported from the pro-Russian rebel side.
Recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent republics would end the Minsk peace process that foresees their reunification with Ukraine, but with Kyiv granting the two regions greater autonomy.
But if Putin has gotten assurances Ukraine will not be a member of NATO, and if he is about to make his next move, with 160,000 Russian troops still on the borders of Ukraine, it seems premature to declare Biden the victor in the crisis.
For who is demanding that Ukraine be brought into NATO now?
Who is calling for military action to keep Ukraine a de facto ally?
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has challenged Russia's announcement that it was returning some troops to their bases, saying satellite imagery suggested the opposite was happening.
"They have increased the number of troops and more troops are on their way. So, so far, no de-escalation," Stoltenberg said.
"The new normal is that Russia has demonstrated that it ... is willing to contest some of the fundamental principles for our security, the right for every nation to choose its own path."
Putin does not threaten any vital interest of the United States and does not want war with the United States. But, as a great power, Russia claims a right to secure, peaceful and friendly borders, free of military alliances designed to circumscribe, contain and control it.
And the protests Moscow is making are not without validity?
Now that the Soviet Empire is dead, the Soviet Union is dead. Communism is dormant, and the USSR has devolved into 15 nations; why did we move our Cold War alliance onto Moscow's front porch?
Would we tolerate this?
For what is "NATO enlargement," other than a lengthening series of U.S. war guarantees to fight Russia on behalf of nations farther and farther away from us, and of ever-diminishing importance to the United States?
On March 1, 1917, the story broke of a secret cable from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to his minister in Mexico City, to make an offer to the government.
If war erupted between Germany and the U.S., the Zimmermann Telegram read, and Mexico sided with Germany, a victorious Second Reich would support the return of "the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona."
Enraged at Germany's offer to make Mexico its ally and to support the breakup of our country, the U.S., five weeks later, declared war on Germany.
Can we not understand the rising rage in Moscow as we convert all its former Warsaw Pact allies and ex-republics of the USSR into member states of a military alliance established to contain and control Russia?
Agree.
Yes, we did “promise” and we followed this for many years. A document doesn’t need to exist for something to be promised or understood, for it to be a rule that people go by. Was there a formal agreement to which specifically forbade them to base missiles in Cuba?
Yes, we agreed to not building a missile defense system in Europe, and that was one of the reasons why for example the Germans resisted as they did - and they mentioned it many times over and over again that we had an agreement with the Russians and are violating this... It was a gross violation of the promises made to them.
Read what you're writing. It's lawyer talk. It's where you mince words and try to create some new meaning in order to make some point which isn't. Just polemics/rhetoric alone is no argument. Tell me if you want the sources and I'll post them, it's public info if you were to look into it and especially if you go beyond the US MSM which is junk. In Europe especially, this was a big deal and much talked about already in 2004 when we began pushing for missile defense under G.W.B.
Russia is not an ally.
We have mutually exclusive interests and we are on the global statge the only two energy giants that are competing with one another (us being the big guy with roughtly 2/3rds of the worlds production).
That said, the Russians are pretty pragmatic, predictable and consistant. What they want is known (no suprises). It is “us” that have shoved this dog into a corner over several years and incidents that have spoiled what was a brief period of warming up to one another in the (90s). Heck, there is actually security cooperation between our two nations (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-explosions-boston-congress/russia-warned-u-s-about-boston-marathon-bomb-suspect-tsarnaev-report-idUSBREA2P02Q20140326) and in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 they did help out. We are only in Kyrgystan (which supported the Afgahistan mission for years) because the Russians blessed off on that. We’ve beat on them and at some point, when you push a dog and beat on him, he’ll show his teeth.
-The incident in Serbia (airport)
-Chechnya where we shot our mouth off about independence and freedom (C. Rice), bla bla bla until 9-11 happened at which point we shut up. No kidding, there were even Muslim Chechen volunteer fighters in Iraq when we were there. Not like they were even secretive about it, I personally saw their flag flying on buildings in Baghdad 2004.
-Republic of Georgia.
-Lithuania
-Latvia
-Estonia
-Syria
-Missile Defense
-Ukraine
I make no illusions that they are an advesary and competitor, but the souring of relations between our two nations has laregy been because of ***our*** opportinistic over reach for economic gain. What do you think Ukraine is about? Freedom? Democracy? Human rights? Hahaha
The Yeltsin era is over. The era of do whatever you want, breaking promises, aggressive behaviors that go beyond the normal scope (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-agent-claims-ryan-fogle-is-not-the-first-cia-agent-caught-this-year-8617901.html) is over. But when you have a good thing going for yourself, when has anyone ever not wanted to keep it that way? Putin is basically “educating” the West on where the boudaries are, and when you have no boundaries or limits, you don’t voluntarily agree to this. I just hope that 41,000,000 Ukrainians and our kids don’t pay the price for our games (because whatever we do, they can do back to us). We’re not going to war over Ukraine, but if we provide them with real hardware, SAMs, AT systems... If we give them weapons that are serious, the Russians will return the favor and we won’t have anyone to blame but ourselves, even though we’ll forget this moment.
Tucker Carlson has this 100% right. https://video.foxnews.com/v/6297987716001#sp=show-clips
We need to back off.
You never asked.
Because you have zero interest in the truth.
But for your information (written documents):
The Budapest Memorandum that was signed between Russia and NATO in (I think 1996) by which Russia withdrew its forces from Eastern Europe in exchange for a few conditions, ***one of which was Ukraine to never be part of NATO.***
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances (Wiki is not a good source since it’s heavily modified and not always accurate - but it’s a good starting point for you since you obviously didn’t know there were agreements)
The Minsk Accord that was signed between Russia and the West by which the West promised not to penetrate the ex soviet countries with Western alliances and/or arms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements
Easy to find if you search, but no one in the MSM or our political leaders are speaking about it. It doesn’t fit the current mood and narrative and in America we just rewrite history however it suits us in the moment.
Our retort is to outright ignore the documents or claim we never signed such an agreement where oral agreements were made (a legalistic BS argument). Some of the agreed upon things were not documented albeit oral and we institutionally followed these standards from about 1991 - 2001. We just don’t talk about it and pretend it away. Starting in 2001 (missile defense) we began to break our agreements and in 2004 (Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia) we took it even further.
We are not the good guys here.
We are flat our liars that broke multiple agreements, multiple times, and then just ignore what we did and talk about “soveriegty, human rights, democracy, freedom” anytime we want to rationalize our actions.
In other words, you have no evidence that Nato or the US promised Russia anything about NATO expansion.
The US comes and goes, Russia will remain and even folks in Ukraine know this. Russia and Belarus are 80% of Ukraine's gas and 1/2 of all their exports. Ukraine is not a homogeneous block and there are actually a lot of ethnic Russians there that are welcoming the Russian advance (eastern parts). We are not willing to escalate the issue to the point the Russians are, since for them (Russia) this is a major security concern whereas for us it's just economics.
No one wants Ukraine destroyed/damaged.
It's a place where much of the worlds grain supplies come from (25 million tons of wheat come from there per year!). 30% of their economy is industrial. They have a 40% higher per capita income than in Mexico. It's a partially nuclear powered nation with some high tech, solid infrastructure, a functioning government...
The Russians are proceeding actually with extreme caution/restraint in order to prevent damaging Ukraine to much. The Russians have the firepower to roll the place up through brute force, but that would cause enormous destruction.
However, if need be, because this is a Russian security concern of the highest value, they would be willing to turn Ukraine into a basket case. Orphanages are full of children with mental and physical retardation. Once the Russians screw that place up (and we cannot prevent that), we would lose all interest since we want an asset, not a liability.
The real question is if the West causes Ukraine to be turned into a heap of smoldering trash. It may. Why? Imagine going gambling in Vegas, but using another mans credit card to pay for it all. Would some maybe risk more than they would if it were their own money? Sure. The West isn't paying for this (only peanuts). The West stands to gain a diamond in the rough if they can get Ukraine, but it's not the West that will get shot up, bleed, or have thousands flee as refugees. If we win, we get to keep some of the winnings, but if we lose the bet, another man pays. So we're not risk averse!
Finally, in the West, for some, this will become an opposition political rallying cry (For Republicans in the US), no different than Iraq was for the the Democrats in their antiwar opposition politics after they decided to go against it in 2004. Foreign policies are driven by internal national politics, and that is often the case. For example, that was the reason for Germany going anti-Iraq war in 2002 under G. Schroeder. It was an election year and he managed to tap into the antiwar (left) and nationalist (conservative) spirit of Germans. In 2002 Germany was plagued with high unemployment, high inflation, high crime... and the politicization of Iraq was G. Schroeder's ONLY saving grace in the elections.
This could lead us to go further than we really should, and the consequences (if we go to far) are as follows:
1. The Russians will win this, but they can win with Ukraine in tact, or a basket case. If we don't back off, we are basically ensuring more damage to Ukraine, because Russia will ensure they do not become a NATO and EU member.
2. If we send lethal weapons to Ukraine and Russians actually take damage from this, they will reciprocate (they are very predictable). Do not be surprised if there are arms sales to Iran or other places that will put our troops at risk in the future.
3. The harder we push, the more we are congealing the formation of a Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) financial counterweight to our economic hegemony.
There are spheres of influence for the US, Russia and China. Neither of them want the other playing in their back yard. We are crossing the line and playing in the Russians back yard (which they actually tolerated). Worse yet, we are claiming this as ours now! We are violating agreements made. If it were us, and the Chinese were making military/security agreements with Mexico, even basing troops there ultimately, we would shit a cow. We can pretend that we're the good guys here, but that's a far reach.
We need to back off before something stupid ends up happening.
Maybe for now. Nothing is permanent.
This is Russia's back yard and they actually let us play there (US businesses, trade, NGOs, intel services). We promised them that Ukraine would never become a NATO member (Budapest Memorandum from 1994).
What is the need and urgency in pushing the Russians into a corner, and then declaring them the offender and aggressor, taking active steps that escalate the conflict and cause damage to them (the Russians)?
This is the cause of the conflict: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-zelenskiy-holding-talks-with-biden-adviser-says-2021-12-09/
The Russians did not go to war because of trade between Ukraine and the US/Europe, or to curb the free movement of people and ideas, or to stop the movement of money, or to prevent elections...
***This is “us” declaring Ukraine as ours, after we said it wouldn't be and even with them allowing us to play there economically.***
Let's see how far we take this.
He has one Ace in the hole. If he can get the Left to rally to his side, he goes from zero to hero.
I don’t think the left has many pro-Putin types. From what I’ve seen the right has been a lot easier on him overall. Really a sad state of affairs when it comes to dealing with one of the worst countries in history.
They would be pro-Putin if not for being brainwashed into believing that Putin stole the election from Hillary, which I believe really is charge that was first put forth by GOP NeoCon Never Trumpers.
Extremists go for opposite sides no matter what. They’re moral relativistic, left or right when it comes down to it.
Pat, the perineal crepe hanger. He is so uplifting....NOT
There are certain things that Putin can do to pull the Left towards him. Examine what motivates the Left:
1. Hurting Trump is Priority #1
2. Protecting Obama’s boy in the WH
3. Global Climate Control
4. Election Fraud
Also keep in mind that the Left was always the biggest fanboys of America’s enemies.
“For what is “NATO enlargement,” other than a lengthening series of U.S. war guarantees to fight Russia on behalf of nations farther and farther away from us, and of ever-diminishing importance to the United States?”
HEAR HEAR
“The Russians will win this (winning defined as no EU/NATO membership for Ukraine).”
Russia cannot win as they cannot hold Ukraine.
1. There credibility as a military is gone.
2. There credibility as a civilized nation is gone.
3. Putin has limited the Russian economy already and now sanctions will further that decline.
4. If Russia keeps up the bombing of civilian areas, they will be furthelr isolated and the EU may give Ukraine EU status on an emergency basis.
Now that the Soviet Empire is dead, the Soviet Union is dead. Communism is dormant, and the USSR has devolved into 15 nations; why did we move our Cold War alliance onto Moscow’s front porch?
Would we tolerate this?
For what is “NATO enlargement,” other than a lengthening series of U.S. war guarantees to fight Russia on behalf of nations farther and farther away from us, and of ever-diminishing importance to the United States
The U.S should have pulled the NATO membership off the table long ago. I seem to remember Biden threatening Putin with NATO membership for Ukraine? I could be wrong
Their goal is to block EU and NATO membership and not to take and hold the entire Ukraine.
The only area they will hold (high probability) is in the East where you have a lot of ethnic Russians. They won’t encounter resistance there.
As to the West Ukraine, they will penetrate to disrupt the government, communications, command and control of Ukraine’s armed forces, show dominance, but have no long term interest to hold any ground as they will face resistance.
What you’re seeing in Ukraine is a very limited conflict not unlike what we did in Iraq. They are trying to achieve a political end, not the destruction of Ukraine which is one of their bigger trade partners. Russia has the capability to roll up the Ukraine quickly, but that would be very destructive.
A fight like the Russians are fighting is very complex and difficult. It actually shows an ability to flight an asymmetric conflict, in urban environments, trying to minimize collateral damage, using combined, joint and national assets all synchronized, and that’s not something any of our NATO allies would be able to do to that scale (the French and UK- but to a smaller scale).
But keep talking... Because the longer this lasts, the more Ukraine will get screwed up, the more the Russians will ratchet up the pain, until eventually Ukraine will be a basket case.
I’m an American. I fought for this country. I’m a patriot and believe in the US Constitution second only to the Bible. I’m not an isolationist nor a pacifist.
But I will be the first to tell you that we are not a consistent and reliable long term ally (consequence of our political system and high turn over buerocracy that isn’t rooted in doctrine and policies but rather chases political fads).
We will talk a big game, but when the China shop gets smashed up form a brawl we started or were part of, we won’t know you when the bill comes for the damages.
Our political process allows issues like this to be used in opposition politics and it almost always happens. Republicans bad mouth Clinton in the Balkans. Democrats bad mouthed Republicans in Iraq...
Internal national politics define our external political positions and it’s often NOT based on that is rational, consistent, thinking in terms of risk and return on investment. It’s merely based on political expediency (what sounds good in a campaign): i.e. Obama’s Iraq withdraw in 2011 a year before the elections. Biden’s withdraw from Afghanistan.
We’re not paying for this. The Ukrainians will, and we’re merely someone gambling with really high stakes using their credit card.
When push comes to shove, we will not go to war for your Ukraine. We would for the existing NATO countries, but not Ukraine. Once the Ukraine gets really screwed up, we’ll lose interest because let’s face it, it’s pure economic interests that are motivating us.
We (the USA) are a nation with PhDs, think tanks, people that have decades of experience in the various issues... But our decision making comes down to what a speech writer and campaign can meld together, which is usually shallow and short sighted but appealing to the masses looking for immediate gratification and entirely ignorant on the topic.
Now, think rationally, calmly, and what’s best for even Ukraine. Do you really think it’s best to keep going down this road?
The Ukrainians are fighting and will continue to fight because it is their country. The same way we would fight if we were invaded.
The Russians will either leave or they will continue to die. Once the occupation starts, the real pain begins.
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