Pence says there's 'no room' in GOP leadership 'for apologists for Putin'

Washington Examiner ^ | February 24, 2023 05:18 PM | Naomi Lim, White House Reporter |

[conservative98]

Former Vice President Mike Pence condemned "apologists" for Russian President Vladimir Putin within the Republican Party, an indirect dig at former President Donald Trump, during a foreign policy address delivered on the first anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine.

"While some in my party have taken a somewhat different view, let me be clear," he told the University of Texas at Austin's Clements Center for National Security Friday. "There can be no room in the leadership of the Republican Party for apologists for Putin. There can only be room for champions of freedom."

Pence described Russia's war in Ukraine as "unprovoked" and "unconscionable," noting more than 300,000 people have been killed and "millions more" have been forced to flee their homes during the conflict.

"Beyond the courage of the Ukrainian people, we've also seen free nations of the world unite to stand with the Ukrainian people and stand up the Russian aggression," he said. "We will not stop providing [vital military aid] until victory is achieved."

[BroJoeK]

"Peace is not what they want. They Want WAR!"

The only one who wanted war was Vlad the Invader and anybody who's not been drinking Russian propaganda Kool-Aid knows that.

You'd know it too if you ever lay off that mind-poison.

[dforest]

Sounds like usual neocon fear lingo. Yawn

[AndyJackson]

You misunderstand me, utterly, and I pose a serious question. To address the frivoulous distraction your raided about what happens in the normal calculus of nuclear deterrence in Ukraine is really simple. The People of the United States don't have a vital interest at stake in Ukraine.Full Stop. So only a clueless twit like you or Biteme or an utterly corrupt one like Nuland would talk about destroying the world over Putin using a small nuke in Ukraine.

As to the rest of it you didn't address it. What happens when a country that has grossly over-stretched its remit, is bungling everything it does and has been doing so for many decades constitutes a threat to the rest of the world's ability to live and breathe. The usual calculus of nuclear deterrence breaks down their too. Maybe you can enlighten us with what the calculus is - I mean a serious calculus of the kind that a Tom Schelling or Bernard Brodie would postulate, explore and explain to us.

Otherwise, your drivel is less serious than Biden's.

[Rurudyne]

We don’t have to fight that war either.

Why do people buy into this sentimental idea of Russia that never falters or ceases to press forward when faltering in one form or another is what Russia has been doing for a century now?

Look at the mighty Russian army that in only a few decades managed to forget about Ukrainian mud? You know, what they bogged down in early on.

[AndyJackson]

The only one who wanted war was Vlad the Invader

Why did Trump not have a problem? It's because Trump wasn't going to back Z's war with Putin, and that pissed off Nuland et al and we got Turmp impeached, Biden elected and the deep state war that OUR deep state wanted.

[pghoilman]

You have to be laughing your ass off you troll.
You won’t even respond to your well-deserved abuse.
Pathetic.

[BroJoeK]

WinstonSmith1984: "1) Western Elites ran a Color Revolution in 2014 in Ukraine to over throw Putin’s installed regime in Ukraine..."

Whatever help or encouragement Ukrainians may have received from the west simply offset the aid Russia provided its own puppets.
The Color Revolution -- aka Euromaidan -- happened because Ukrainians wanted it, regardless of outside influence.

WinstonSmith1984: "2) Western Elites ran a Color Revolution in 2020 to overthrow Donald Trump"

The truth here is we still don't know exactly what happened.
I remember hearing Trump himself say, during the 2020 campaign, that the Big Tech companies had come to him and offered to help him win the election, but he said he refused the offer, didn't think he needed their help.

Some things are not as simple as you might want to believe.

WinstonSmith1984: "5) A KGB agent faced with a coup does what a KGB agent has been trained to do and invaded Ukraine."

There's no evidence whatever of a western coup attempt in Russia, so that has to be pure fantasy.
What's absolutely true is that no force in the known Universe is more provocative, in inviting attack, than weakness, and Vlad the Invader saw Western weakness, especially in Afghanistan, so he logically concluded that his time had come to act.

[BroJoeK]

Yolanda: "It appears Mike Pence thinks disagreeing with his positive view of V. Zelenskyy and the proxy war against the Russian people Is forbidden."

Ukrainians fighting to defeat Vlad the Invader's military forces in Ukraine is not a war "against the Russian people"

I'm telling you, you must stop drinking the Russian propaganda Kool-Aid, it'll completely rot your brain.

Yolanda: "Our proxy war against Russia is a fabulous adventure even though Zelenskyy, has banned the Speaking of the Russian Language..."

In the USA, people can speak whatever language they wish in private.
Almost all public business is done in English.
In Ukraine, public business is done in Ukrainian.
And your problem with that is what?

Yolanda: "...banned the Russian Orthodox Church,"

For serving as agents of Russian propaganda.

Yolanda: "persecuted Russian Ukrainians,"

Only those who provide aid and comfort to the Russian forces invading Ukraine.

Yolanda: "banned political parties other than his own, "

Nonsense, there are many different political parties in Ukraine.
Only those providing aid and comfort to Russian invaders are banned.

Yolanda: "shut down all press, only his press is allowed, "

According to Freedom House, Ukraine's press has been considerably freer than Russia's, though not up to western democratic standards.

Yolanda: "and also demands the United States send him billions of dollars."

Obviously, Ukraine "demands" nothing, and they have every right to request what they think they'll need to defeat Vlad the Invader.
The fact is, the US and other countries have been very lackadaisical about providing Ukraine aid.
We give them just barely enough to stave off defeat, but almost never enough to insure victory.

[BroJoeK]

"Sorry - war in Afghanistan"

The US war in Afghanistan cost about $2.26 Trillion over 20 years, or about $113 billion per year, on average.
US aid to Ukraine is around $54 billion for the first year.

Further, both Afghanistan and Iraq were part of the so-called War on Terror which cost us around $8 trillion over 20 years, or $400 billion per year, on average.

Our aid to Ukraine comes nowhere near to those numbers, but if we lose Ukraine, then Vlad the Invader's next invasion will cost us vastly more in our own blood and treasure to defeat.

[fortes fortuna juvat]

So Mr. Pence has now joined the Socialist/Communist/Fascist Democrats, suggesting the suppression of the First Amendment rights of Republicans who say things he doesn’t like?

[BroJoeK]

Skywise: "It’d have been far cheaper if Obama hadn’t orchestrated a coup in Ukraine to expand NATO which we promised we wouldn’t do to the USSR."

First, there's no evidence that Obama had anything to do with the 2013 Euromaidan protests or the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, which overthrew Putin's puppet Yanukovych.
Second, the sequence of events here matters:

"As a result, Yanukovych and the parliamentary opposition signed an agreement on 21 February to bring about an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections.
Police abandoned central Kyiv that afternoon, then Yanukovych and other government ministers fled the city that evening.[96]
The next day, parliament removed Yanukovych from office[97] and installed an interim government.[98]
The Revolution of Dignity was soon followed by the Russian annexation of Crimea and pro-Russian unrest in Eastern Ukraine, eventually escalating into the Russo-Ukrainian War."

Third, none of this had anything to do with NATO.
Indeed, far from opposing NATO, Russia originally planned to join NATO:

"In 1992, Russia and the former USSR countries were offered the opportunity to join NATO's ‘Partnership for Peace’ (PFP), and they all joined, including Russia.
We hoped it would be an entry point into NATO and several PFP members joined.
Russia even sent a brigade to serve under NATO in Bosnia in 1995."

As late as 2000 incoming Russian president Putin discussed NATO membership with outgoing US President Clinton.

So, Russia was not opposed to NATO, but they did not want to meet NATO's standards for admission, beginning with free, fair and open elections.

[lodi90]

Did Obama poison a former president of Ukraine in 2004? Of course not. Why does history always start at 2014? Have you ever asked yourself why most all of Russia’s neighbors want to be NATO members? Could it be because Russia has been raping and murdering its smaller neighbors for centuries?

[BroJoeK]

"I’m as utterly unconcerned with the Ukraine as the globalists are with American sovereignty and enforcement of our borders."

Then you missed the point, the fundamental lesson of history taught to us by Adolf Hitler when:

1. 1936 Hitler occupied the Rhineland breaking the Versailles treaty, France & Britain did nothing when even token opposition could have brought down Hitler's regime.

2. 1938 Hitler annexed Austria, the West still did nothing.

3. 1939 Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia and Neville Chamberlain negotiated "peace in our time".

So World War Two came because Hitler was convinced the West had no backbone to oppose his invasions.

For today's equivalent to the 1936 Rhineland we have Putin's invasion of Chechnya.
For today's equivalent to Austria we have Putin's invasion of Georgia.
For today's equivalent to Czechoslovakia, we have Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

So, it just doesn't take a genius to see where this could lead.

As for our open borders, that is Democrat party policy to "flood the zone" with new Democrat voters.
It will only stop if or when Americans vote Democrats out of power in Washington.
It has nothing to do with Ukraine.

[BroJoeK]

"Sounds like usual neocon fear lingo. Yawn"

If I remember correctly, those are the same words Neville Chamberlain used to justify his "peace in our time" with Adolf Hitler.

So there really is nothing new under the sun.

[fortes fortuna juvat]

So Mr. Pence has now joined the Socialist/Communist/Fascist Democrats, suggesting the suppression of the First Amendment rights of Republicans who say things he doesn’t like?

[WinstonSmith1984]

WinstonSmith1984: “1) Western Elites ran a Color Revolution in 2014 in Ukraine to over throw Putin’s installed regime in Ukraine...”
Whatever help or encouragement Ukrainians may have received from the west simply offset the aid Russia provided its own puppets.
The Color Revolution — aka Euromaidan — happened because Ukrainians wanted it, regardless of outside influence.
BROJOEK- Even NPR explains it... https://www.npr.org/2014/06/12/321392873/are-color-revolutions-a-new-front-in-u-s-russia-tensions

WinstonSmith1984: “2) Western Elites ran a Color Revolution in 2020 to overthrow Donald Trump”

The truth here is we still don’t know exactly what happened.
I remember hearing Trump himself say, during the 2020 campaign, that the Big Tech companies had come to him and offered to help him win the election, but he said he refused the offer, didn’t think he needed their help.

Some things are not as simple as you might want to believe.

BROJOEK- There were more votes than voters in PA and NV. The truth is out there and in the data... All this went down with the help of the DOJ with Bill Bar at the Top who knew it, had balls, but not the balls to take on the the entire National Security Establishment (who we now know are a bunch of psychopaths who have us on the verge of WW3). Also, if Trump had said anything to the Tech Oligarchs other than “stay out of it,” it would be what they needed to hang him. So instead of staying out of it... the deep state operatives who we now know buried themselves into the tech sector went after him. (Thanks James Baker and the others! Well done, you are responsible for all the Fentanyl overdoses and the deaths in Ukraine for the last 2 years.)

WinstonSmith1984: “5) A KGB agent faced with a coup does what a KGB agent has been trained to do and invaded Ukraine.”

There’s no evidence whatever of a western coup attempt in Russia, so that has to be pure fantasy.
What’s absolutely true is that no force in the known Universe is more provocative, in inviting attack, than weakness, and Vlad the Invader saw Western weakness, especially in Afghanistan, so he logically concluded that his time had come to act.

BROJOEK- Putins version of a coup is not one of palace intrigue but one where he sees Russia losing its agency in the world. He was looking a couple years down the road and acting rationally according to his own perception. He saw the psychopaths running US national security, knows that Biden is a DOG KING (Scandinavian puppy put in place over the regency of a conquered kingdom) and made his play when he thought he needed to. He literally lays it all out in his speeches but western media is so corrupt it can’t even take time to listen to what the man says before they get back to narrative manipulation.

Regardless BroJoeK- If the cartels running this country wouldn’t have rigged our elections, we wouldn’t be staring at the abyss. Stop rigging elections and we can figure out what the truth is. Right now...with rigged elections... the only thing that matters is violence, because there is no accountability. The Government can do what ever it wants because it is a self licking ice cream cone.

BROJOEK, And all that said, I do appreciate your perspective. Thanks!

[BroJoeK]

AndyJakson: "You misunderstand me, utterly, and I pose a serious question."

No I think I understood you perfectly, and your question is not serious, it's the product of an addled brain.

AndyJakson: "The People of the United States don't have a vital interest at stake in Ukraine.Full Stop. "

The US vital interest in Ukraine is the exact same vital interest the western powers had in 1936 Rhineland, 1938 Austria and 1939 Czechoslovakia but utterly ignored until only Hitler's invasion of Poland causing World War II could stop a madman bent on conquest.

For Rhineland read Chechnya.
For Austria read Georgia.
For Czechoslovakia read Ukraine.
For Poland read... Poland?

AndyJakson: "So only a clueless twit like you or Biteme or an utterly corrupt one like Nuland would talk about destroying the world over Putin using a small nuke in Ukraine."

Only a raving anti-American lunatic like yourself would contemplate Putin nuking Ukraine with impunity.

AndyJakson: "What happens when a country that has grossly over-stretched its remit, is bungling everything it does and has been doing so for many decades constitutes a threat to the rest of the world's ability to live and breathe."

And so you go from one anti-American insanity to the next, where did you learn this garbage?
Here's the truth: the US is the economic and military foundation on which the world as we know it is built. Full Stop.
We are also the keystone holding up the structure which without us will soon collapse on the 195 mostly small countries around the world.

Without us, the world quickly becomes: Big Dogs eat up the Little Dogs, and we are returned, in essence, to the empires of January 1914.
That world will not be friendly to us and we will not like it.

AndyJakson: "The usual calculus of nuclear deterrence breaks down their too.
Maybe you can enlighten us with what the calculus is - I mean a serious calculus of the kind that a Tom Schelling or Bernard Brodie would postulate, explore and explain to us."

Nuclear deterrence only fails if the world's aggressor nations -- Vlad the Invader, the Xi-snake, Little Kim, the Mula Mullahs -- come to believe they are immune to retaliation due to weak western leaders or technological advantages.
When deterrence fails the first time, the second and subsequent failures will follow very soon.

As for your Schelling or Brodie, feel free to quote them as much as you wish.

[BroJoeK]

Rurudyne: "We don’t have to fight that war either."

You're exactly right, just as the French didn't have to go to war over the Rhineland in 1936.
And Western powers didn't have to fight over Austria in 1939.
And, of course, Neville Chamberlain famously found "peace in our time" over Czechoslovakia in 1939.
So, no, a small, inexpensive war was not necessary in those years when that alone could have stopped Hitler's plans.
Yes, small wars were totally unnecessary... until a huge World War became necessary in Poland.

Rurudyne: "Why do people buy into this sentimental idea of Russia that never falters or ceases to press forward when faltering in one form or another is what Russia has been doing for a century now?"

Whatever else Russians are, or are not, they are not stupid and they learn as fast as anybody else what works and doesn't work.
Their fundamental, root military problem is that they've never fought a major war since 1945.
Their people don't know the difference between their doctrines and reality, but they will learn in Ukraine, and it will not take them long.

If Russia is victorious in Ukraine, then they will soon enough employ their newfound military skills to "correct" all the many other "wrongs" inflicted in the fall of the old Soviet Union.
Putin has made no secret of his long term visions.

Rurudyne: "Look at the mighty Russian army that in only a few decades managed to forget about Ukrainian mud? You know, what they bogged down in early on."

Just as we today have suddenly forgotten all the lessons of 1936, 1938 and 1939.
It's a generational thing, and will be unbelievably costly in our own blood and treasure to relearn.

[BroJoeK]

AndyJackson: "Why did Trump not have a problem?
It's because Trump wasn't going to back Z's war with Putin,"

Do you not realize how insane your claim is?
You just said, in effect: Putin did not invade Ukraine because he knew Trump would not support Zelenskyy, but Putin did invade Ukraine when he knew OBiden would support Zelenskyy.

Seriously, FRiend, you've been drinking the Russian propaganda Kool-Aid way, way too long.
GET OFF IT, it's addling your brain.
When you start thinking Americans are the world's evil power , while Vlad & Xi are the good guys, then you are a mentally sick puppy. You'll need help with that.

[DoughtyOne]

While I disagree with Putin supporters, any Republican presidential candidate that says he doesn’t need a segment of the party should be put on political suicide watch.

This guy is politically DOA.