Posted on 02/26/2024 11:04:07 AM PST by Red6
“”””Lloyd Austin Threatens to Deploy Troops if Ukraine Aid is Shut Down””””
That title implies that Austin was talking about deploying troops to Ukraine which isn’t even close to what he said.
But you're dealing with politicians. Most of them lawyers. Some of them with zero business experience.
You're dealing with a government bureaucracy that has no understanding of sound risk management, Return On Investment, a customer, or cutting losses. After all, these people operate on budgets and no matter how bad public schools stink, the US Post Office or the VA are, they get their money from a federal budget and not based on customer satisfaction and meeting their needs, they are very seldom culpable for anything they did (see Covid as an example).
Ukraine is the consequence of bad Presidential leadership, a bureaucracy that is stuck in the past (most the leaders in the CIA, NSA, DoD, had their formative years in the Soviet era), and a MSM that no longer does their job unless Trump is in office, then you better believe they will find ample to criticize.
As I asked this question before: "how does this war make us Americans wealthier, more free, or safer?"
You will always get this make belief pie in the sky response by the wars supporters: democracy, human rights, sovereignty, bla bla bla. Things you cannot measure, things that are understood but hard to define, things where it's questionable if they are truly even applicable to us (were are 2020 elections legit? Do we really have freedom and privacy? Go ask those sitting in prison for J6 about that one. Are we a force for human rights as we overlook the PRC and what they do, back Saudi Arabia, Jordan???).
When you finally corner these people with an actual argument, then come slogans like propaganda and personal attacks.
Do not expect them to apply the concept of cutting our losses, sound reasoning, to this issue.
What exacerbates this issue is that it's someone elses blood. It's easy to be courageous if all we're talking about is money and weapons and even that cost is being hidden now.
.
You make an excellent point and the correlation makes sense.
For those still believing that Ukraine can win, I have vaccines for sale.
IMHO,
It’s hard for Western heads of state, bureaucracy like NATO, our State Department (Blinken), the entire entourage that was behind all of this to admit they were wrong and we have failed.
But it is almost just a matter of fact at this point.
We have (FAILED) to achieve our political objective and cause of this war: NATO expansion into Ukraine.
We have (FAILED) to achieve our military objective in preventing Russia from seizing the Eastern ethnic Russian areas they were obviously going to shoot for.
The counter offensive, Ukraine last chance and gaining the lost territory back was a failure as well. There will be no “next time.”
Folks are now left with moving the goal post in order to pretend Ukraine wasn’t an abject failure. We will pretend as if it was Russia’s goal to take all of Ukraine, which it never was. It’s an abject failure because the losses to us and Ukraine by far exceeded what was predicted.
Ukraine today is a basket case, a nation with a damaged economy (loss of 37% GDP), damaged infrastrutuce, mass exodus of people (population in Ukraine went from 41 to 28 million), a birthrate so bad that it’s not sustainable for one generation (1.16), unable to pay their retirements and federal employees, a massive rise of debt... Who was damaged more, the Euro’s or the Russians with our sanctions? How effective have these sanctions been, considering Russia is still moving their oil and gas and even the Euro’s are now making concessions and buying their energy despite the war and sanction promises???
It’s over. Ukraine has been cooked for a while.
But how to disengage without appearing like we failed? How does any leader touch this issue without appearing weak or as a traitor?
How do you suddenly change a narrative 180 degrees without looking like a total liar or fool? There are hundreds of senior people in the bureaucracy and administration who’s reputations or even their career is pinned to this, example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Sullivan
Yes, we could literally end this war in 24 hours as Trump stated. Ukraine doesn’t even have an option except do what we tell them (Wasn’t this war about “sovereignty?”).
But that’s not going to happen. We will continue to throw good money at a bad problem. We will continue to burn up human lives in order to avoid the immediate political damage. We would rather have an entire region in disarray and turmoil, where there is instability, than end this quickly since there is no pretty way to end it that looks good. Like Afghanistan, this will be another perceived disaster (which it already is), but as long as you drag this out, and maybe even past the elections, you can avoid the black eye.
One possible way this ends. The pressure by some of the Euro nations mounts. It is costing them more, they are closer to the issue, with more refugees, there is less acceptance of war, etc.
The people there do not really support the war anymore: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1312216/umfrage/umfrage-deutsche-ukraine-politik/ Only about 1/4 still beleive we’re winning (despite our one sided media barage) or can win: https://www.ipsos.com/de-de/nur-jeder-vierte-halt-sieg-der-ukraine-noch-fur-realistisch-waffenlieferungen-bei-deutschen The point being that the empitus to end this might come from overseas.
First, all the reports say the briefing was 1) classified, and 2) private. So you don't know more than you read, any more than does another. Second....
Austin Warns Congress Failing to Pass Ukraine Aid ‘Very Likely’ Leads to US Troops on the Ground In Europe MS / Messnger, 5 December 2023."...'And then the idea that we’ll have to put troops on the ground, in Austin’s word, was very likely'.""...Austin warned that failing to back Ukraine could lead to direct U.S. involvement elsewhere in Europe in the future. Last week, The Messenger reported that during the briefing, Austin warned Congress about the likelihood of further Russian aggression should it be victorious in Ukraine, including instigating territorial disputes in neighboring NATO member states. 'If Putin takes over Ukraine, he’ll get Moldova, Georgia, then maybe the Baltics,' House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul told The Messenger. 'And then the idea that we’ll have to put troops on the ground, in Austin’s word, was very likely'.”
Fact Checking Claims that Lloyd Austin ‘Threatened’ to Send American Troops to Fight Russia Dispatch via Yahoo, 12 December 2023.
Classified and private. You're not in the loop any more than anyone else. The articles and their titles are the responsibility of the organizations presenting them.
Post a link.
Russia understands that you have to create a price to pay for not ending this.
So, as the war continues, Ukraine will slowly lose more and more territory, one small town and area at a time.
How is that achieveing a betterment of ones position?
Maybe, just possibly, invoke the idea that this war is NOT continuing for Ukraines sake, but rather the political reputation and survival of all those involved in this disaster.
We covered this at FR long ago, and your post is sufficient in pointing out how misleading your first link’s title was.
Austin gave the same old warning that is the focus of most everything since Russia started invading.
If Ukraine falls then it is likely Russia will keep going and eventually Americans and NATO will be fighting within NATO.
“Austin warned that failing to back Ukraine could lead to direct U.S. involvement elsewhere in Europe in the future.”
Yup. I cited the source. You repeated the same from the source.
Post 34 which implied Americans could be sent to Ukraine
“””Lloyd Austin Threatens to Deploy Troops if Ukraine Aid is Shut Down”””
Versus post 67 which doesn’t imply that.
“””Austin warned that failing to back Ukraine could lead to direct U.S. involvement elsewhere in Europe in the future.”””
Nice ad hominem you got there.
Still, not a peep about negotiation or any sort of peaceful settlement to a war that we, the USA ginned up our own selves.
“Global citizen”
Doesnt that make her Globohomo?
I'll quote what there is to be quoted.
I know how you make your choices.
The link you posted in 67-—”Fact Checking Claims that Lloyd Austin ‘Threatened’ to Send American Troops to Fight Russia”
https://news.yahoo.com/fact-checking-claims-lloyd-austin-175208190.html
Was a fact check created because of misleading titles from sources such as the one you chose for posting in 34.
I would believe 10 times that amount lost by Russia. Russia has lost 14.500 pieces of equipment. each one of those probably has a man or three to have died with it.
“Who????”
A Kremlin paid hack.
The Russians lost more than 37,000 just trying to take that pile of rubble known as Avdiivka.
We have an army , literally thousands of military age males from Latin America, The Middle East and China pouring in here and who are already killing Americans and destroying the fabric of our economy, society, infrastructure, health care systems and schools. They're pugnacious arrogant beggars and thieves who have NO RIGHT to be here, have no legal standing and are sucking up welfare benefits they're not entitled to and didn't pay for. I could care less in fact I HATE them and Eastern European thugs like Zelensky who thinks we're some vassal state he's entitled to drain of money. And Putin is a thug and former KGB killer. Let them both kill each other off.
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