Posted on 04/15/2024 5:08:17 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
For people in eastern Ukraine, where nightly barrages of drones from Russia outpace the military’s overwhelmed air defenses, the response by Western allies to Iran’s aerial assault against Israel this weekend produced uncomfortable comparisons.
The militaries of the United States, Britain, France and others stepped in to help Israel defend against the fusillade of more than 300 Iranian drones and missiles, nearly all of which were intercepted. A similar number of aerial weapons are fired at Ukraine on a weekly basis, its officials say, with many of the drones in those attacks designed by Iran and now produced by Russia.
Since the start of this year, Russia has fired 1,000 missiles, 2,800 drones and 7,000 guided aerial bombs at Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya.
While Washington and other allies have provided Kyiv with some powerful air defense weapons, they have not directly confronted Russian forces, and Ukrainian officials have long argued that the supplied weapons are insufficient to counter the threat from Moscow.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ukraine is corrupt to the core.
Is Biden telling Ukraine it must agree to a cease fire?
Hey, button up your lip. People in the USA see this all the time, different kinds of Justice served. YOU there in the Ukraine need to LEARN NOT to trust the people in Washington D.C, like the rest of us whose voice is never heard.
You have a very valid point there. Maybe Z and his fellow corruptocrats would convert some of those offshore millions into weapons if they could here at nut cutting time.
When Russia has destroyed Ukraine’s ability and desire to murder ethnic Russians and Russian citizens, are they then going murder ever man, woman, and child like the “Palestinians” want to do, and like Hamas reveled in doing?
“For as long as it takes” (or sooner if need be)
Ukraine idiots need to go visit their own holocaust mass murder sites.
I have been there. I have seen it.
Holocaust in Kiev and the Tragedy of Babi Yar
https://web.archive.org/web/20190804201343/https://www.yadvashem.org/education/educational-materials/learning-environment/babi-yar/historical-background3.html
And Odessa.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/7243
And he doesn’t demand our unaudited money, while issuing threats and insults like Zelensky does. That dude has all of the integrity and diplomatic finesse of a hyena.
Hilarious hubris
And how much of those unaccounted-for billions of dollars has Ukraine pissed away?
It is a civil war over there between former USSR similar peoples. Both corrupt. We should leave them to work it out. Big difference with Israel, people allied with us and giving aid and technology in return for our help; their arab enemies give little or nothing to us and/or hate America.
.
‘Will Quit Attacking Russia If...': Ukrainian FM Openly 'Blackmails' West |
HESCO barriers. It’s been a minute since I walked among those things.
Why does Ukraine remind me of Not So Royal Meghan Markle?
To be fair, Ukraine IS a mass murder site, ie, rhe Humidor.
[NYT Disinformation] — While Washington and other allies have provided Kyiv with some powerful air defense weapons, they have not directly confronted Russian forces, and Ukrainian officials have long argued that the supplied weapons are insufficient to counter the threat from Moscow.
The United States officially classifies Israel as a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA).
Ukraine is not classified as even a quasi-ally.
https://www.state.gov/major-non-nato-ally-status/
Currently 18 countries are designated as MNNAs under 22 U.S.C. §2321k and 10 U.S.C. §2350a :Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Thailand, and Tunisia.
In addition, Pub. L. 107–228 provides Taiwan shall be treated as an MNNA, without formal designation as such.
https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/who-is-an-ally-and-why-does-it-matter
Who is an ally, and why does it matter?Natalie Armbruster and Benjamin H. Friedman
October 12, 2022An ally is a state that a first state has made a formal defense commitment to defend via treaty, or one it fights alongside in a war, like the Allied Powers in the World Wars. By this definition, the United States is allied with more than one-fourth of the world’s countries. There are a variety of problems with having so many allies, especially maintaining permanent alliances, as opposed to the temporary sort used to fight wars. This paper, however, is about a narrower problem: confusing or broadening the definition of an ally by suggesting that the U.S. might defend states it has no commitment to defend.
Putting states into this ambiguous status, what we call “quasi-allies, is dangerous, both for the United States and those states. By intimating it may defend states it has no official commitment or intention to—and more importantly, has no vital interest in defending U.S. leaders risk entanglement in other nations’ troubles, taking on needless cost and risk, and even fighting pointless wars.
Quasi-allies may also suffer because of their uncertain status they may underestimate their risk because they think the United States will rescue them if they run into trouble. One potential result is policies or negotiating stances that lead to these would-be allies being threatened or attacked. Another consequence of misplaced reliance on U.S support might be underinvestment in defense.
Who are U.S. allies and quasi-allies
The United States has signed and ratified seven defense treaties that remain active today: the Rio Treaty (1947); NATO (1949); and bilateral defense commitments with Australia and New Zealand (ANZUS) (1951), the Philippines (1951), Korea (1953), and Japan (1960). Some of these commitments are more meaningful than others—the Rio Treaty has arguably become moribund—but all create real allies the United States is obligated on paper to defend: 51 countries and more than 1.4 billion people. To these, our definition would add nations the U.S. is now fighting alongside. But, with the U.S. exit from Afghanistan and anti-ISIS fighting essentially over in Iraq and Syria, this category of ally is now empty.
U.S. Treaty Allies
[map images omitted - available at link]
The United States committed to defending more than 1.4 billion people abroad — a number more than four times larger than the U.S. population — in at least 51 countries.
The term quasi-ally describes countries the United States is not committed to defend but that receive some degree of U.S. military and or political support such that the U.S. is clearly on its side against likely adversaries. This is intentionally not a precise definition; quasi-alliances are relevant because they are muddy affairs with blurry edges where leaders may wonder what exactly the U.S. will do for them in duress.
U.S. quasi-allies include the confusingly named “major non-NATO allies,” a legal status that “provides military and economic privileges,” but “does not entail any security commitments to the designated country. Countries designated as MNNAs qualify for certain privileges: expedited approval for certain arms sales, eligibility for loans for joint research projects, authorization to house U.S. military stockpiles, eligibility to bid on contracts to service overseas U.S. forces, and more. Some MNNAs are treaty allies, but most are not: Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Taiwan, Thailand, and Tunisia.
Taiwan is a quasi-ally by policy. Taiwan was once a true U.S. ally, but the United States has, since the normalization of relations with mainland China in 1979, followed a policy of “strategic ambiguity”— never committing to defend Taiwan, or committing not to, in order to avoid escalating tensions with China, while still deterring a prospective attack on Taiwan, and encouraging Taipei to not declare independence. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, largely a congressional response to the derecognition of Taiwan, commits the United States to provide “defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability” but does not obligate the United States to defend Taiwan.
The US government asked the Ukraine to stop attacking Russia’s oil production infrastructure in a shocking case of hypocritical double standards. (It did this because it doesn’t want the international oil price and hence the gasoline/diesel prices in the US to rise in an election year.) The US also forbids Ukraine from attacking Russian military/dual-use targets in Russia (with Western provided weapons) at a time when Russia is destroying civilian targets and causing major loss-of-life all over Ukraine with impunity.
Fossil fuel production is a strategic military asset and it’s Russia’s largest and most profitable industry that brings in most of their foreign income, which ultimately pays for their war machine. Therefore, it is a legitimate target for Ukraine to hit. Expecting Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back when you have neglected to resupply them with much needed ammunition for 7 months is ridiculous.
Israel’s not paying off the drug addicted whore monger sons of DC’s ‘elites’... AND Israel’s a democracy.
And Ukraine? They’re NOT...
Well at least the defense of Ukraine is still a higher priority for America than the defense of the USA’s own borders.
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