It's been presented to you.
You just refuse to accept the evidence presented."
{sigh}...I've seen no evidence because you've presented no evidence, period.
But just to accommodate you, I took the time to watch your video from post #204 above, Brakey's so-called "truth bombs", to the end again, not once, but twice.
It did not improve with rewatching -- he still presents ridiculous accusations without evidence to support them.
- Brakey's accusation #1: We are supporting Ukraine, not to help Ukrainians, or to help ourselves, but only to bleed Russia dry, as in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The truth is we are not bleeding Russia dry, Vlad the Invader is bleeding his own country and can stop the bleeding on the day he decides to withdraw Russian troops from Ukraine.
But Vlad knows Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan contributed to the USSR's collapse, and that is why he has lined up Chinese support to sustain him for the long run.As for our motives, clearly they are multiple and include defeating the old Tsarist-Soviet Russian Empire restorers in Moscow.
- Brakey's accusation #2: We are supporting literal Ukrainian Nazis, the Azov Battalion.
Well, first, any number of political groups, worldwide, favor forms of national socialism, and are NOT called "Nazis" because they are NOT antisemitic.
Antisemitism is the key ideology which, by definition, turns an ordinary socialist into a Nazi.
In the USA we have a number of socialist groups which are also antisemitic and so can rightly be called "Nazis", though seldom are because they claim to be Leftists, and most people just accept the Leftists lie that Nazis are somehow "right wing".The Azov Battalion's roots spring from the Holodomor and WWII, they were anti-Stalin's Soviets, anti-Communists and to some degree, antisemitic.
That changed in 2014 when Azov became a Ukraine national guard unit:- "Since 2017, the official position of the Ukrainian government is that the unit has depoliticized itself.
The then Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov claimed that 'The shameful information campaign about the alleged spread of Nazi ideology (among Azov members) is a deliberate attempt to discredit the 'Azov' unit and the National Guard of Ukraine.'[264]
In March 2022, in an open letter to Russia published through Russian journalist Alexander Nevzorov, Azov Regiment strongly denounced allegations of its neo-Nazi orientation, defining Nazism as a 'tireless need to exterminate those who dared to be free' and noting that the regiment incorporated people of many ethnicities and religions, including Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Muslims, Greeks, Georgians, Crimean Tatars and Belarusians.
According to the letter, Nazism, as well Stalinism, were "despised" by the regiment, since Ukraine greatly suffered from both.[265]"Some commentators concur that the unit has depoliticised.
A 2015 Reuters report noted that after the unit's inclusion in the National Guard and receipt of heavier equipment, Andriy Biletsky toned down his usual rhetoric, while most of the extremist leadership had left to focus on political careers in the National Corps party or the Azov Civil Corps.[69]
An article published by Foreign Affairs in 2017 argued that the unit was relatively depoliticized and deradicalized after it was brought into the fold of the National Guard of Ukraine.
The government started a process with the objective of ferreting out neo-nazis and foreign fighters, with background checks, observations during training, and a law requiring all fighters to accept Ukrainian citizenship.[68]
A former USAID official commented that the real danger was not the original paramilitary group, but the civil movement Azov had spawned.[266]
In the years following its integration into the National Guard a number of experts and commentators have stated that the radical right-wing ideology associated with the battalion has become more marginal, or that it does not make sense to describe it as a "neo-Nazi" regiment.[267][268][269][270][271]"In February 2020, the Atlantic Council published an article by Anton Shekhovtsov, a scholar of right-wing extremism in Europe and expert on Russia's connections to Europe's far-right.
Shekhovtsov argued that Azov should not be designated a foreign terrorist organization, for reasons including that it was a regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard, and therefore was part of official structures and followed orders given by the Interior Ministry, and that some claimed extremist links to Brenton Tarrant, the Rise Above Movement, and American right-wing terrorists in general were poorly evidenced.[272] [no evidence]
He also told the Financial Times that though it was originally formed by leadership of a neo-nazi group, 'It is certain that Azov [the battalion] has depoliticised itself.
Its history linked to the far-right movement is pretty irrelevant today.'[207]
In a 2020 article on the Atlantic Council's website, however, Oleksiy Kuzmenko of Bellingcat argued that "the Regiment has failed in its alleged attempts to 'depoliticize.'"[208]
Shekhovtsov, writing in the Euromaidan Press in 2022 reiterated his view that the Azov Regiment had become largely depoliticized and had lost most of its neo-Nazi and far-right views, describing it as 'a highly professional detachment for specific operations.
Neither a political organization, nor a militia, nor a far-right battalion'.[273]"
It is currently "de-Nazified" and part of Ukraine's national guard. - Brakey's accusation #3: Vlad the Invader will resort to nuclear war to defend Russian annexed Crimea.
Certainly Vlad and his surrogates have threatened nuclear war.
But the cost to Russia of starting nuclear war would be national suicide, and I don't think Vlad the Invader is suicidal, nor would China's Xi-snake be likely to support Vlad in a nuclear war. - Brakey's accusation #4: After 2014, the US sent weapons to support one side in a Ukrainian civil war.
In 2014 it was a Russian invasion, nothing "civil war" about it, except that some Ukrainians joined forces with Russian invaders to wage war against their own country.
Beginning in 2014, the Obama administration sent blankets and other non-lethal aid to help Ukraine against Russia.
Beginning in 2017, Pres. Trump sent anti-tank Javelins and other lethal weapons. - Brakey's accusation #5: Vlad the Invader's actions are justified by NATO's expansion since 1991.
This we've covered at length before -- beginning in 1994, Russia and other eastern European countries planned to join NATO, so "NATO expansion" was not an issue for Russia then.
As late as 2000 Putin discussed Russian NATO membership with US Pres. Slick Willie, who strongly supported it.
And Russia's relations with NATO remained very friendly up until Vlad's 2008 invasion of Georgia, after which relations cooled dramatically, though not necessarily irreversibly, had that been Vlad's intentions.It was Vlad's choice to move from pro-NATO to anti-NATO.
- Brakey's accusation #6: In 2014, pro-Russian Ukrainian President Yanukovych was removed from office by a US supported "coup".
The truth is Yanukovych was removed by a 328-0 vote of the Ukrainian parliament after he fled to Russian and invited Vlad to Invade Ukraine.
That was not a "coup", but rather the lawful removal of a traitor.As for Victoria Nuland's role, Brakey claims to have heard tapes of her discussing which Ukrainians would, or would not, be acceptable in their new government.
I'm not at all certain such tapes, if they exist, "prove" she or any Americans were instrumental in the impeachment or the elections which followed.The key facts here have nothing to do with Nuland, but with Yanukovych, who was a treasonous traitor and invited Russia to wage war against his own country.
- Brakey's other accusations: Brakey made other vague accusations regarding nuclear treaties and anti-Russia propaganda, which I don't think are material to this particular discussion.
Means that you will learn the truth at some point in time, but you currently do not see your folly."
I'm an old man, my days here are not unlimited and in due time I expect to learn much more about everything.
But the truth about Ukraine is very simple and straight forward -- Vlad invaded without just cause and therefore must be defeated, period, end of discussion.
If Vlad is not defeated in Ukraine, then his evil with grow and expand to other countries in other regions and we will not like those results.
Robert DeLong: "In the meantime, you are assisting with the destruction of our nation, and you are not helping the Ukrainian people whatsoever. "
That is simply a straight-out lie.
If the USA is being "destroyed" it is not because of Ukraine.
Ukrainians have manifested their overwhelming desire to remain free of Russian rule, their willingness to fight and die for liberty, and we have helped them in a big way.
Robert DeLong: "You aren't paying attention to the fact, that we are weakening the European countries, NATO, and the U.S., while creating a geopolitical shift away from the U.S. to China & Russia. "
We have not "weakened" anybody!
The Ukraine war has consumed stocks of weapons and ammunition that were left over from the last century, thus forcing European and other countries (including us) to ramp up production of more modern weapons & ammo.
This is precisely what Pres. Trump was talking about when he lectured Europeans on increasing their military budgets, which for some were in the range of a pathetic 1% of their GDPs.
Now they are being forced to do what they promised and failed to do previously.
That is not "weakening", it's strengthening.
As for the shift towards China and Russia, that is Vlad the Invader's choice, not ours.
Vlad chose to become a client of the Xi-snake's China, it will make them a very powerful alliance and nothing we said or did could stop that.
In essence, we are now in Cold War II.
I served in the US Army during Cold War I, near Germany's Fulda Gap, and know something about that.
Today we are the largest contributor to Ukraine, roughly equal to all of Europe combined, and that makes us still the leader of the western alliance.
Robert DeLong: "You remain clueless because you think with your heart instead of with your brain. "
Nonsense, and the truth is you've divorced your heart from your brain and therefore your words make no sense logically or emotionally.
Robert DeLong: "Furthermore, you are helping those who stole the 2020 election to enrich themselves while delivering this nation to the elites who desire total control."
That is a 100% baseless accusation, in every respect.
First of all, there's no evidence our Democrats are enriching themselves on aid to Ukraine.
Indeed, why bother when the amounts are so relatively small, and there have been multiple $trillions in wasteful Democrat spending whose main function is to enrich Democrats?
Ukraine is a drop in the bucket compared to that.
Second, Ukraine aid does nothing to help Democrats increase their control over US elections and laws, and Republicans will not benefit in any way if Ukraine is defeated.
Robert DeLong: "Why do you think they want to weaken Russia.
It's not because they are good people.
It's because they are evil people."
Only an insane pro-Russian Kool-Aid drinker would say such nonsense.
Vlad the Invader needs to be decisively defeated because he invaded Ukraine, that makes him uniquely evil and in need of destruction.
And if you can't see that, it means something very wrong is going on inside your own brain, FRiend.
So I'll say it again: you need to fix that.