Posted on 03/11/2024 11:33:28 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
WARSAW, Poland (AP) – Poland’s president on Monday called on other members of the NATO alliance to raise their spending on defense to 3% of their gross domestic product as Russia puts its economy on a war footing and pushes forward with its invasion of Ukraine.
President Andrzej Duda made his call both in remarks in Warsaw and in a piece published by The Washington Post. His appeal came on the eve of a visit to the White House, where U.S. President Joe Biden will receive both him and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Tuesday.
“Russia´s imperialistic ambitions and aggressive revisionism are pushing Moscow toward a direct confrontation with NATO, with the West and, ultimately, with the whole free world,” Duda said in the op-ed.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
> Time to start making the stuff we buy
I’m completely with you that we ought be making absolutely certain we can produce all things vital to our own safety: for example - antibiotics, certain health products as you alluded to.
But there are a variety of things the USA enjoys that it cannot easily grow or build here. Where it makes economic sense, we shouldn’t overlook those opportunities. And we can still navigate around canals where it makes economic sense to do so.
“But there are a variety of things the USA enjoys that it cannot easily grow or build here. “
Like what ?
Name one thing that can’t be made in North America ?
“But countries in North America would not be involved.”
So US and Canada support Ukraine because NATO exists ?
What really got World War 1 going? Paperwork, called treaties, right?
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You’re correct. IIRC one of treaties was from the 1840’s.
Certain varieties of tea, coffee, and kiwi fruit do not seem to grow well here. The kiwi grown here just does not taste as good, for example.
If USA citizens want to spend their money on that type of stuff, who are we to stop citizens from paying people to ship it here? Ships have been sailing the oceans for thousands of years for trade, well before the Globalist movement.
Why did the DoD get an exemption for F15s to use natural earth magnets from China, for example?
” Why did the DoD get an exemption for F15s to use natural earth magnets from China, for example? “
Because this current Regime is so decayed that they refuse domestic mines for critical materials, while attempting to implement a Global Military Empire against the suppliers of those materials.
The ideal that North America should operate a global navy to keep trade lanes open for the purpose of importing decadent “luxury” foods like Civet coffee has to be the epitome of Elite Insanity, and misallocation of resources.
“Now that these regions are inside the Russian border, I hear you saying you will respect them.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oooooh...
So let me as you this then:
If gang of fine Antifa members invades your house. They kick you out, and then declare that the house is officially theirs. In such scenario, do you really think that it’s THEIR house? Really??
Wouldn’t you, at the very least, call the police to kick out those invaders and take your house back?
Or is your house valid as your own property only as long as no-one is stealing it from you?
Have you ever heard the term “get off my land!”
Some food for thought....
And now this:
When Hitler illegally invaded most of Europe, and when he decided that all the countries he stole were suddenly part of the “Third Reich” borders... it only worked for 5 years. Right?
In 1945 the Western resistance against Hitlers regime dismantled those fictive “borders”.
Same goes for Putin. He is just a guy and a thief. It’s not because he stole parts of Ukraine and later re-invented new fictive borders that it all suddenly becomes reality and lawful. Right? His borders are based fiction, delusion and lawlessness. There is not a single country in the world having recognized the new Putin-invented borders. Why? Because every one knows its a grotesque joke.
Thanks for a collection of false equivalences.
Much appreciated.
Not remotely what I said, but thanks!
At this point I invite you to believe whatever you prefer 🤗
it was simply an observation. Observations are not arguments and consequently cannot be ad hominem attacks.
You definitely aren’t convincing me and I’m a fairly neutral observer.
Observations are not meant to be persuasive, consequently, no one tried to convince you of anything.
Good. Then we can leave and quit supporting the dead beats.
L
I was comparing Russia to us, the US..
But since you mention allies.
Russia’s allies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Security_Treaty_Organization
And this is not a complete picture because MOST of Russia’s allies such as Chechnya, Armenia, and Uzbekistan are mired down with internal struggles, i.e. Islamic based terrorism / threats. These nations are not able to deploy much of their military, Intel or security apparatus outside the country as this risks internal or external (Armenia with the Turks) problems.
The US and our European allies alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO.
Which does NOT include Australia (help us often), South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, or allies in the Middle East like Israel, Jordan (doing some of the work in Syria for us), Saudi Arabia (doing some of the work in Yemen for us) and Egypt (doing some of the work in Libya for us), or allies in South East Asia such as Thailand. And then you have our central and south American resource which while not a formal military ally provides a near unlimited supply of warm bodies as we are using today in Ukraine (many of the mercenaries come from Mexico, Columbia, Brazil).
So, you latch onto % GDP for our allies as a last straw argument since you have nothing else, albeit even there the US and Russia are about equal. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re ignorant and not a liar, so I’ll attempt to explain the error in that thinking. When a nation like France with an economy ~ $3 Trillion and a population of 56 million spends 2% of their GDP on defense, they still spend more on defense than ANY of Russia’s allies, they still have more people in uniform than ANY of Russia’s allies. Belarus is Russia’s most potent military ally and they have a GDP of ~ 70 billion and a population of 9.4 million.
What does this actually mean? France has Rafael fighters, Leclerc tanks, and ~200,000 active duty personal; Belarus has uses junk for tanks, junk for fighters and has 63,000 men in uniform.
well, what WAS the deal that Russia/Ukraine had worked out and Boris queered?
There was no deal. There were some agreements on broad topics but the Russians were demanding that the Ukrainians limit the size of their armed forces to 85,000 men. This was something that the Ukrainians were never going to agree to. Despite the claims made by the pro-Russian side, Boris Johnson did not scuttle a deal because there was no deal.
Biden in his first months in office made sure every special interest (which pay for his party, personally enrich him or his family, paid for his campaign and helped pay for the last elections), got what they wanted.
1. Big tech does not need to worry about being broken up because of their monopolistic position (Meta, Google, Amazon): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_v._Meta_Platforms,_Inc. This is all fading away now. Do you think it is a mere coincidence that Mr. Zuckerberg gave liberally (>$419 million in the last elections) to the election system? https://nypost.com/2021/10/14/zuckerberg-election-spending-was-orchestrated-to-influence-2020-vote/
2. The Unions have an easier time to organize, and all larger federal construction contracts go to union based firms (blatant discrimination against non-union firms - even if they are the lowest cost which means “F” the tax payer): https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/biden-cements-labor-agreement-requirements-for-federal-projects
3. Trade with China got stabilized and some of the restrictions dropped, some of the folks involved in major violations of the law were let go: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58690974
4. Of course the oil pipeline gets canceled, for the environment (who actually believes that shipping it via train is cleaner?): https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/09/tc-energy-terminates-keystone-xl-pipeline-project.html And Buffet's (a big Democrat donor) railroad which ships this oil is doing very well.
5. Big pharma can go back to price gouging since the restriction placed on them to control costs were immediately lifted, as in the first week: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/01/politics/biden-trump-drug-prices/index.html or https://www.policymed.com/2021/10/biden-administration-rescinds-trump-administration-insulin-pricing-rule.html Under Trump, medication produced in the US, could not be sold for more in the US than what was being charged in foreign markets. However, Biden replaced this policy with his own convoluted policy in order to seize the headlines and not be criticized, and our moron MSM played along.
EVERYONE that paid, got to play.
Ukraine is another such scenario.
Ukraine was an economic gem not because of resources like Libya, Syria, Venezuela and Iraq (all Russian aligned which we are trying to strip from them), but because of an educated labor pool, preexisting industry, infrastructure... Ukraine was a nation where 40% of their electricity was nuclear, a literacy rate that is >99%. They have a better literacy rate than the US, they are a time sensitive culture, fairly stable, without excessive crime... Leading Western manufacturers were interested in producing there, our own government was conducting a lot of research and work there...
NATO provides the physical security and stability which our big corporations and financial institutions seek. The EU provides the regulatory stability, market access, and harmonization of policies. Together these organizations create an environment where big business feels comfortable investing billions. Furthermore, for the US, EU without NATO membership is a bad proposition since this diminishes our influence/role in Europe. It is through NATO that we (the US) have a lot of influence. That is why Minsk was NOT very appealing to us, even though that was a way to lasting peace. Minsk would have undermined our role and importance, so we never supported it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements (Where does this include us? It ultimately undermined our role and importance so we never supported it.)
Biden gave everyone that can “pay to play” and has a political value to him and his party what they wanted.
This war in Ukraine was unnecessary, predictable in that it would happen especially post Ukraine 2014 and Georgia 2008 (Russia wasn't putting up with our BS along their border anymore), and finally predictable in outcome. I tend to believe that we knew this war would likely ensue (no one can be that stupid - our folks get intel briefs etc.) but just didn't give a $hit and were maybe even hoping for it. For us, it was a “win-win situation.” Either Russia acquiescence regards Ukraine in which case we win with little cost, or Russia invades and even if Ukraine loses parts of Eastern Ukraine, Russia gets depleted which makes our efforts in Syria, Venezuela, Libya, Iraq, Niger and Nigeria easier (all places where we are butting heads with the Russians). ***The loser here is of course Ukraine whom we are pretending to help.***
The idea that this is about democracy is ridiculous, since Ukraine is not a democracy. The idea that this is about sovereignty is absurd, since Ukraine is a US satellite state (under our control post 2014). Finally, the notion that human rights are a consideration is nearly ironic, since Ukraine has a horrible human rights record.
Fact is, we have no problem making deals with warlords, recruiting radical Islamist types (if they are the enemy of our enemy), forging alliances with opiate producers that oppose the Taliban... Our #1 trade partner is a single party communist regime in China, which occupies Tibet and threatens Taiwan, runs internment camps, oppresses religion, makes dissidents disappear, executes more people than any other country on this planet, has questionable organ harvesting policies, forced abortions and a one child policy until not to long ago. Our true center of gravity in the Middle East and what we have our entire Middle East strategy built around is Saudi Arabia, a kingdom which still chops people up by the sword and from where some of the more radical strains of Islam come from and financed, example: Wahhabi movement, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism
Point being, when folks throw these feel good concepts like democracy, human rights and sovereignty around, it's just a bunch of junk. We don't really give a $hit about that and are willing to install a dictator as long as he does what we want, and Mr. Z is exactly that, even though no one in the West calls him such: https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/12/07/time-zelenskyy-d49b22ce606e3d91d7b557e47df61e664072190e.jpg Our man of the year, the champion of human rights, democracy and sovereignty is involved in political assignations, closing down radio stations and news papers that dare say something derogatory, banning all opposition parties, censoring the news media in Ukraine, classifying pretty much anything which doesn't agree with their agenda, banning HAM radios so you don't dare listen to something he don't want you to hear, and canceled future the elections (and we don't even talk much about that).
Correct,
Because as I even stated in my post, that was a list early on. I figured pictures would help you understand, so that you could see the names and an image of the type of system we are talking about.
But I should have known. Some people don’t understand even if you use crayons to draw pictures for them in order to explain what is going on.
If you want a more comprehensive but STILL not complete roll up, wikipedia can provide that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukraine_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War (next to each nation you can scroll down - the visible list isn’t complete)
That is just the military hardware and some of the money, the loans, logistics (transportation but also repairing equipment), intel, training, free medical care, State Department resources (that includes a fleet of armored vehicles), paying for Ukraine’s personnel on our bases in Europe and the US... and as mentioned many times access to a large pool of warm bodies: https://www.facebook.com/memorialildu/ (Columbia, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina have lost quite a few men there - this is far from all inclusive).
Example of logistics: https://mil.in.ua/en/news/us-deploys-repair-base-for-ukrainian-artillery-in-poland-media/
The true cost of this war in military hardware and money is far greater than we advertise presently because after the initial bragging about it and everyone wanting to show off what they did to help, now public is beginning to question the validity of this war and its cost. So now we continue to give Ukraine a lot of assistance but it’s gotten a lot more quiet.
As to NATO troops being on the ground, that is just a matter of fact at this point even if our honorable, transparent, and always ethical leaders don’t entirely state what is true. It has been known and even admitted by some of our other allies (in particular Poland) that they had deployed various folks into Ukraine to provide assistance, example: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/02/23/polish-police-return-from-secret-mission-in-ukraine-demining-former-russian-occupied-territory/ (last year) What is funny today is how some in the West still deny or downplay it, while others that are more aggressive and forward leaning, openly admit it: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/polish-fm-acknowledges-nato-presence-in-ukraine-kremlin-responds/
I assume that’s a typo and you meant “own”. No matter; Do you understand how incredibly dangerous that is in the long run? Russia not even necessarily being a determinative factor...
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Well.....it wasn’t a typo...........more like a brain fart.
Now, the whole subject of possible WAR in Europe is “dangerous”. But, it IS “incredibly dangerous” and “determinative” to my grandson, and millions of grandpas like me, for him to go fight for a bunch of worthless socialist’s which most of us know are one baby step away from full blown communists.
So, perhaps if you would be a little more specific I might understand your point?
Wondrfully ACCURATE SUMMARY.
I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT RINOS FEED AT THE SAME SPIGOT AND OFTEN WERE BOUGHT LOCK STOCK AND BARREL IN THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE. THAT HAS TO STOP.
LOOK AT BUCK, A RINO THROUGH AND THROUGH WHO HATES HIS PEOPLE.
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