Rand Paul and Blinken spar over Putin invading countries that ‘were part of Russia’

thehill ^ | - 04/26/22 5:05 PM ET | BY KELSEY CAROLAN

[Red6]

Iraq (not saying this war was a good idea) had more legitimacy than Ukraine.

Ukraine has zero national defense aspects to it for us. Anything stated as an argument to that extent is an overreach that departs from reality.

In Iraq you had violations of range limits of missiles, no fly, no wheel zones, WMD, meddling with terrorism.

Examples: https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9704a/05bush2.htm

https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=129914&page=1 (families of suicide bombers in Israel got ~$25,000.

The way the MSM spun it is that there was no “AQ” in Iraq, i.e. they created a fallacy by being specific to the point where it excludes something so that they can claim no terrorism nexus.

Likewise, few in the MSM mentioned where the WMD used in Syria came from, which is highly, extremely likely from Iraq. Both were Ba’athist regimes with close ties and shuffling stuff across the border was common practice. Syria was the staging area where many of the insurgents in Iraq were coming from or heading back to...

In Ukraine it is “us” that is breaking promises made and where the motive is 100% economic. From a moral/Just war concept, we cannot make an argument. That is why all our arguments are touchy feely nonsense, some conceptual rambling about democracy, human rights and sovereignty. We avoid any discussion of concrete topics like the violation of treaties because literally NOTHING is on our side.

I find it ironic that today the MSM (highly critical of the Iraq war) is lockstep and near 100% in support of our meddling in Ukraine, Mr. Z, and a Ukrainian nationalist position. This by a MSM that is overwhelmingly Democrat and liberal that today is supporting a far right nationalist leader, where you have entire units like the Azov battalion (Hahaha).

The MSM support is without being able to articulate one argument that pertains to our national security. That support is for a nation that is highly corrupt and has its own long list of human rights abuses and is hardly a democracy. One can claim this was a civil war, that Russia has a legitimate argument for the lands seized. These lands were Russian pre-1922, ethnically these people are Russian. Even a self defense or national security argument goes to the Russians, not us. No world power wants another playing on their border and we almost went to nuclear war over that: Cuban missile crisis. Look at China today and Taiwan.

***There are a lot of points/issues where various arguments can be made, but you do not hear anything that goes against the one sided support Ukraine narrative by Western MSM. I’m not even saying that the narrative should be one sided the other way, rather that it would be nice to at least hear both sides of the story.***

Propaganda: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

When our MSM only prints one side of the story, labels any whispers that go against the prescribed narrative as “propaganda” and false, but much of that turns out to be true (the steel mill, casualty reports, etc)... then the real propaganda is our MSM. Our MSM today is like Pravda was in the Cold War. Heck, you get more factually accurate information from RT (censored in the free West) than from CNN and MSNBC that have to retract and edit much of the trash they publish as news.

As to your point. I am beginning to see the wisdom in a form of isolationism. Not complete isolationism, but where trade is conducted only with a few that share our cultural values and political/economic system. Trying to conduct trade with despots, authoritarian single party communist regimes, societies still stuck in the sixth century, or Muslim whack jobs long term does not pan out. It’s big corporate interests that got us into China and got us tangled up in Ukraine... That need to change. We today have become a whore, a nasty and filthy whore willing to do anything for a buck.

As we transitioned to an expeditionary all volunteer force which represents economic interests more so than the defense and security of our nation (sort of like the British Red Coats in their empire), our moral high-ground was lost. As tanks drove over pro-democracy protesters on Tienanmen square (1989), our administrations at the time pushed for most favored trade status and WTO membership. Why? Greed. Look who our best friend is in the Middle East, a despot regime which tortures, murders, hacks people apart to include a US resident and journalist Kashoggi: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399 (and our political leadership tries really hard not to talk about this).

Imagine this scenario, US troops guarding poppy fields in Afghanistan (Awesome images!): https://www.google.com/search?q=us+troops+protecting+poppy+fields&newwindow=1&sxsrf=ALiCzsacxxfNxQ70-jSoOv9wVOF0T5Mp0w:1660077862490&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj266v6z7r5AhX1r4QIHTUHC0EQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1600&bih=781&dpr=1

There is no way to do business with scumbags and stay clean. Trade is possible, but it needs restricted to those that are like us.

[robowombat]

Thanks very much