[BobL]

“None of these numbers make sense in light of highly aggressive dictatorships — Russia, China, Iran and others — moving to achieve their dreams of empire through military conquest. “

Good numbers in your posting - people in the West are ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS as to how degraded their militaries have become, and that INCLUDES political leaders - as they’re now learning that Walmart doesn’t stock 155mm shells and so it will be YEARS before their emptied stockpiles (much of which was left for them by men) can be replenished.

So that leads to the simple question: Why pick fights with Russia and China when our militaries have degraded to such decrepit levels - even Hitler and FDR first built up their militaries before starting wars.

Answer - sheer stupidity, and I, for one, would not mind seeing these leaders get SPANKED, probably for the first time in their sordid lives.

[BroJoeK]

"So that leads to the simple question: Why pick fights with Russia and China when our militaries have degraded to such decrepit levels - even Hitler and FDR first built up their militaries before starting wars.
Answer - sheer stupidity, and I, for one, would not mind seeing these leaders get SPANKED, probably for the first time in their sordid lives."

And therein you touch on one fundamental insanity of those opposing our support for Ukraine -- they say: since we are not perfect as human beings, or as a political ideal, therefore we cannot legitimately defend our interests and help Ukraine against Russian aggression.

That kind of thinking is literally suicidal, and we see it often these days.
George Soros elected district attorneys tell is they cannot prosecute proportionately more perps of one race (i.e., black) than they do of another race (i.e., white).
So "excess" black crime has to be ignored until they've prosecuted enough white criminals to justify more prosecutions of blacks.
It's utterly insane, socially suicidal and guaranteed to produce injustice in the name "equity".

And the core of it is the argument that unless we are perfect, we cannot legitimately defend our vital interests against those who wish to destroy them.

For sure, we should clean up our act and defeat the George Soros Democrats, but it's pure suicidal insanity to argue that Soros Democrats mean we can't defend our vital national interests.