Pence: ‘Biden has done a terrible job explaining our national interest in Ukraine’

The Hill via Yahoo ^ | July 23rd, 2023 | Miranda Nazzaro

[Mariner]

Former Vice President Pence, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, said Sunday President Biden has done a “terrible job” explaining America’s interest in Ukraine.

“I know he said we’re there as long as it takes, but, frankly, it shouldn’t take that long,” Pence told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” “This administration has been, not surprisingly, dragging their feet on providing military support from early on. They cut off the military aid that we had been providing to Ukraine under the Trump/Pence administration in the early going.”

Biden said earlier this month that the United States would “not waver,” on support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia. While the president said Ukraine is not ready for membership into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), he announced a long-term security plan for Kyiv at this month’s NATO summit.

“Even after the initiation of hostilities and the unconscionable Russian invasion, the administration has been slow in delivering armor and delivering munitions and still hasn’t given permission to provide aircraft and F-16s for our allies,” Pence said on Sunday, noting the United States invested 3 percent of its defense budget in Ukraine.

“Joe Biden gives these gauzy speeches about democracy in Ukraine,” Pence continued. “We’re there supporting them on a military basis and supporting their soldiers for the reason that I believe, if [Russian President] Vladimir Putin overran Ukraine, it wouldn’t be long before the Russia military crossed the border, where our men and women in uniform would be called upon to go and fight and defend,” noting that the United States has a national interest in the Russia-Ukraine war.

[bray]

Judas Mike’s only concern is the Global masters.

[MinorityRepublican]

Maybe we have no national interest in Ukraine. What did we get for 55,000 dead in Vietnam? (It took me nearly 50 years to say that.)

Yeah Vietnam was a mistake. Not many wars are like WWII. That was necessary and just.

We should have gotten out of Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden was killed.

With Iraq, we should have handled it the way we did with Panama where we were able to capture Manuel Antonio Noriega.

We need to be more like what we did in Operation Desert Storm. The objective needed to be clear. After we are able to meet our objective, then we need to leave. None of that nation building in Afghanistan or Vietnam.

[Parmy]

Trying to get back into good graces with the people after his obnoxious statement with Tucker Carlson. Guess the polling didn’t go well after he said that American cities wasn’t his concern.

[AnthonySoprano]

.
It took Pence about six years to criticize Biden.

His staff had to dig deep.

His staff is a bunch of Trump Haters.

I bet he did the follow up DC Call, you know I didn’t mean it.

[mass55th]

"You have to look at how the millions of people that have lived in South Korea sine 1953, versus those millions who have lived in North Korea. Was it worth thousands of US lives?"

Was the Vietnam War, based on the same U.S. containment of communism policy worth thousands of U.S. lives? It wasn't. Communism/Socialism/Fascism is alive and well, in one form or another in the world, and very active in this country.

[McCarthysGhost]

The ironic part is the more NATO escalates the war and dumps weapons on Ukraine and attacks Crimea, the more likely it is that the domino theory will occur. NATO will actually bring about that which they say they fear. Poland has already stated that they want to get directly involved. There’s a domino.

Stop funding the war and open peace talks. Get NATO off of Russia’s borders and out of Ukraine. Russia wants this war to end too but it won’t end until NATO withdrawals from Russia’s borders.

[alternatives?]

I didn’t say Vietnam was worth it.

[mass55th]

"I didn’t say Vietnam was worth it."

I never said you did, did I? I said the Vietnam War was based on the same premises as the Korean War, to stop the spread of communism in Asia, which neither of them did. The only people who gain from war today are the people who have money invested in the military complex, and the companies that will go in afterwards, to rebuild the countries that were blown up with our money and war machinery. And nobody in Washington wants to admit that because they're making money off of making wars possible.

[alternatives?]

I thought the results of the Korean war turned out to be worth it. I think the results of the Vietnam war would have been likely worth it if the US was the same in 1963-70 as the US in 1950-53. It wasn’t.

You are correct about who gains from today’s wars. I would add Washington gains power from war today. I think the power, even if it is relative power, is more important to them than the money.

[Hyman Roth]

Race Bannon speaks

[MurphsLaw]

May I add the needless deaths in Afganistan and Iraq.
Dead soldiers for nothing.
What a joke that is now.
Spill American blood over there for what??
These corrupt politicians?

1,2,3,4... what in the hell are we fighting for?

[RetiredTexasVet]

Actually he has done a good job ... we have no national interest on line in the Ukraine. The only US interest is the Big Guy’s 10% and the Military Industrial Complexes riches.

[Socon-Econ]

Can’t be explained— because Putin isn’t the one who is trying to ram LGBT, electric cars, and affirmative-action airline pilots down our throats.

[cuz1961]

Pence: ‘Biden has done a terrible job explaining our national interest in Ukraine’
/\

Funny, I don’t recall Joe ever explaining squat about squat.

Unless

” come on man im not joking my son is the smartest man I know so where’s my money “

can be considered an explanation.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

mikey doesn’t have a clue. mikey and pedojoe are two pedos in the pod

For a minute there I thought you were talking about Mikey Obama.

[Pining_4_TX]

Pence, like all the other warmongers, are getting big bucks from the military-industrial complex. They give big, sweaty wads of cash to politicians and politicians vote for perpetual war, interventions, and bases all over the world. Of course, this is all for freedom and democracy, don’t you know.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

The people are among the most pro-Capitalist on the planet, and for the most part, the government stays out of the way, as long as folks don’t make too many waves.

I ate at Alice's Restaurant in Saigon. Remember Arlo Guthrie? A lot of people there hated the commies but that was 23 years ago. Many of the old commies have died by now.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Leaders say we need to cut Social Security

Biden: It’s going to allow pensions and social support to be paid to the Ukrainian people so they have something — something in their pocket.

Evidently Europe doesn't want to pay Ukraine pensions.

[daniel1212]

They cut off the military aid that we had been providing to Ukraine under the Trump/Pence administration in the early going.”

Which is never mentioned by the Left, who saw that as a problem when Trump was president. Both sides of the aisle on aid to Ukraine should recognize that:

"When you actually look at the substance of what this administration has done, not the rhetoric but the substance, this administration has been much tougher on Russia than any in the post-Cold War era," said Daniel Vajdich, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Take military spending: Trump sought to add $1.4 billion for fiscal year 2018 to the European Deterrence Initiative — a military effort to deter Russian aggression that was initially known as the European Reassurance Initiative. That's a 41 percent increase from the last year of the Obama administration.
The president also agreed to send lethal weapons to Ukraine — a step that Obama resisted.
And Trump gave U.S. forces in Syria more leeway to engage with Russian troops... "Those loosened rules of engagement have resulted in direct military clashes with Russian militants and mercenaries on the ground, actually resulting in one incident in hundreds of casualties on the Russian side," Vajdich said.
The administration has also imposed sanctions on dozens of Russian oligarchs and government officials... tough policies...have to be weighed against Trump's rhetoric, which is consistently friendly to Putin. ."There's a real disconnect between the president's words and the underlying policy," said Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security. - https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/630659379/is-trump-the-toughest-ever-on-russia

And rather than being a pawn of Putin, from from 12/26/17 there is

Trump Sends Tank-Killing Missile To Fight Russia in Ukraine, But What Can It Do? By John Haltiwanger On 12/26/17 at 5:53 PM EST The decision to sell the Javelin missiles also comes not long after the Trump administration approved a limited weapons sale between American manufacturers and Ukraine of Model M107A1 sniper systems, ammunition and associated equipment...It's fired from the shoulder and tracks targets via infrared (heat signature). Instead of targeting the front or sides of tanks, which are thick with armor, the missile flies in an arc and hits the top of tank where the armor is weak..

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko defended the move in a Facebook post, thanking President Donald Trump for his support. Poroshenko further described the arms sale as "a transatlantic vaccination against the Russian virus of aggression." - https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tank-killing-missile-fight-russia-ukraine-759745

And as reported by abcnews.go.com om Dec. 23, 2020,

"Previously, as reported by ABC News – Breaking News, Latest News, Headlines & Videos om Dec. 23, 2020, "Trump admin approves new sale of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.." The new package included Javelin anti-tank weapons, 150 missiles and two launchers, which came after a first sale, completed in March 2018, which included 210 Javelin missiles and 37 launch units.. "The Trump administration first approved the sale of Javelins to Ukraine in December 2017 -- a step that former President Barack Obama never took.... ..

Before that, "Russia's Putin praises Obama's missile defense decision" to "cancel a radar installation in the Czech Republic and ground-based interceptors planned for Poland," LA Times Sep 19, 2009

And those who protest NATO's overall spending of only about 3% of its GDP are opposing Trump. For contrary to being a Putin puppet as the Left prevaricates - and who were blaming him in Feb. 2020 for this invasion,

July 11, 2018 U.S. President Donald Trump told NATO leaders on Wednesday they should increase their defense spending to 4 percent of their country’s economic output, double the group’s current goal of two percent/

4/3/19
..nearly all 29 NATO members have increased their defense spending since Trump came to office, and at least 16 of the 29 are on track to meet their 2024 defense spending goals. Defense spending among 27 NATO allies has increased consistently between 2016 and 2018, with Hungary, Norway, Romania and Turkey making some of the biggest increases.

October 21, 2020 NATO spending has increased for the sixth consecutive year thanks to new contributions from allies, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in prepared remarks Wednesday...Canada and European countries' spending increased this year at a rate of 4.3 percent...Russia and China's aggressive behavior during Trump's term is one reason for the allies' increased spending.

Meanwhile, when procurement costs are taken into consideration (how much it cost for training and materials in respective countries relative to what they spend), then despite having far less to defend, the US military budget in 2019 was not larger than the next eleven countries. Rather it was smaller than the next three.

https://www.eurasiareview.com/11102021-debating-defense-budgets-why-military-purchasing-power-parity-matters-analysis/

[Captain Jack Aubrey]

Well, it is hard to explain. That’s because we have no national interest in Ukraine.