Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[Larry]

34 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Is what it is, at least the whole world is on the same page now.

 

Next step, cutting the military budget to focus on investing our tax dollars back into own country and social safety nets. 

 

If we aren't going to be leaders of the free world or world police, why should our military budget stay larger then the next 10 countries combined?  Enough is enough, the military industrial complex charade has to end.

Disagree. 
 

I want us to have the capability. 
 

I might not always agree with when we decide to use it. (Or not to). But I want our nation to have the option. 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

17 minutes ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

Ukraine is in NATO? 🙄

German defense minister just said Germany can’t defend itself.

[Larry]

37 minutes ago, Wildbunny said:

Side note: I watched Joe Biden's speech, the man look really old and I wondered if he's really able to take command of this. Putin might be exploiting this as well. Guy looked feeble to me.

I agree Biden (well, the US) is weak. And Putin is exploiting that. 
 

I don't think it's because of Biden's age. I think it's because of the huge number of Russian sympathizers, and their resulting power in US politics. 
 

But yep. Our weakness is on display. 

[tshile]

25 minutes ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

Well that was one spot where Trump was kinda right.  NATO countries don’t pull their weight.  Each one expects someone else to come bail them out if it comes to that.

You mean they expect us to bail them out. 
 

Nato countries were not funding not supporting things correctly. He was right to go after them. He’s a buffoon and does things in buffoonish ways, but the general idea was not wrong. 

[Captain Wiggles]

13 minutes ago, The Sisko said:

I don't say this often, but I agree with the poster who said Tя☭mp was right about the NATO allies not pulling their weight. Also, Obama scored some major points in the debate with RMoney when he hit him with the one liner about RMoney's contention that Russia was going to be a major adversary but it turns out RMoney was right.

 

Trump wanted to shakedown NATO for money. 😒

 

Mittens was right. I laughed at him during that debate. I immediately asked my brother who's still a bigly Mittens supporter if it's worth sending troops to die for the Ukraine?  I still see zero countries willing to send military forces to fight the Russians. 

 

I always thought more Russians lived in the Ukraine. Turns out they're only like 17% of the population. 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Captain Wiggles

[JamesMadisonSkins]

5 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

German defense minister just said Germany can’t defend itself.

Yeah, wtf is that. I haven't followed along on the geopolitics of Europe and the strength of German defense, but oye.

[Idaho fan]

Sure would be nice if we were energy independent and could actually sell/supply European countries with oil that rely heavily on Russia for their oil.  Would make dropping the sanction hammer on Russia a lot easier and countries like Germany wouldn't be afraid of kicking Russia out of Swift.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Idaho fan

[tshile]

2 minutes ago, Captain Wiggles said:

I always thought more Russians lived in the Ukraine. Turns out they're only like 17% of the population. 

Right but I believe somewhere between 40-45% of Ukrainians are believed to be pro-Russian. 

[Renegade7]

7 minutes ago, Larry said:

Disagree. 
 

I want us to have the capability. 
 

I might not always agree with when we decide to use it. (Or not to). But I want our nation to have the option. 

 

Option to do what? Something we never intend to do? 

 

We are running trillion dollar deficits again right now, the only reason our military budget is capable of being as large as it is is because we can keep getting money from countries like China in order to do it.

 

You think they will keep doing that if we are at war with them?

[CousinsCowgirl84]

You guys are ridiculous @Larry @Wildbunny. Biden doesn’t look weak.  I’m not sure how he could look stronger. He isn’t a strong man invading a country with no justification. Do you really want to put US lives at stake for Ukraine?  Do you want to sacrifice American lives as first resort, or as a last resort?

 

Biden has accomplished something pretty rare, agreement.

Edited February 24, 2022 by CousinsCowgirl84

[JamesMadisonSkins]

Just now, Idaho fan said:

Sure would be nice if we were energy independent and could actually sell/supply European countries with oil that rely heavily on Russia for their oil.  Would make dropping the sanction hammer on Russia a lot easier as those countries especially Germany.

 

Again, far from an expert on energy economics ... but we declared an emergency to have our manufacturers start pumping out protective equipment and ventilators in 2020. Can we make an emergency declaration to have our oil producers start mass producing at all sites?

 

I honestly can't think of anything that would be more politically popular than doing that, lowering our own gas prices, and shipping gas en masse to Europe.

 

Intersting to see a lot of folks on the twittersphere saying that we should be investing heavily in Nuclear Energy to get us closer to being oil independent but that's a 10+ year plan, and I have nearly zero energy economics understandings.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

2 minutes ago, Idaho fan said:

Sure would be nice if we were energy independent and could actually sell/supply European countries with oil that rely heavily on Russia for their oil.  Would make dropping the sanction hammer on Russia a lot easier as those countries especially Germany.

Or move on from oil.

[Captain Wiggles]

Just now, tshile said:

Right but I believe somewhere between 40-45% of Ukrainians are believed to be pro-Russian. 

 

That's prolly why I always thought Ukraines Russian population was closer to 50%

[JamesMadisonSkins]

1 minute ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

You guys are ridiculous @Larry @Wildbunny. Biden doesn’t look weak.  I’m not sure how he could look strong. He isn’t a strong man invading a country with no justification. Do you really want to put US lives at stake for Ukraine?  Do you want to sacrifice American lives as first resort, or as a last resort?

 

Biden has accomplished something pretty rare, agreement.

 

I'm a Biden critic. I think he's looked very weak on foreign policy. But I will give him a pass on this one, as someone that is generally against being an interventionist unless absolutely necessary. Hit them economically, and use our alliances to cripple the Russian economy. But we need to have a plan in place to help out the Russian people on the backend too.

Edited February 24, 2022 by JamesMadisonSkins

[tshile]

Just now, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I’m not sure how he could look strong

He’s not a strong public speaker anymore. 
 

between his speech issue, his age, the recognition he’s only there because we needed someone to defeat trump… I’m ok with it. 
 

But damn if he’s just not coming across as a strong public speaker at the moment. 
 

(and I generally agree with the tactic he’s taking here. Just commenting on the “look”) 

24 minutes ago, TradeTheBeal! said:

Go ahead and cyber-strike Belarus back to 1995 and get the resistance against Lukashenko up and running.

Whatever we’re doing to Russia, Belarus should be included. 
 

it needs to be made clear that when we know you’re assisting, you get the punishment too. 

[visionary]

9 minutes ago, tshile said:

Right but I believe somewhere between 40-45% of Ukrainians are believed to be pro-Russian. 

I don't think so. Unless maybe we're counting areas that were already taken over by Russia or seperatists.  Also depends on what you mean by pro-Russian.  Are they fond of the country and the people, or supportive of having their area taken over by Russia and potentially turned into a battlefield?  

Edited February 24, 2022 by visionary

[skinsmarydu]

I doubt that Joe has gotten much sleep lately.  Just sayin. 

[tshile]

I thought bush was a strong public speaker when it came to the wars and 9/11. So. That tells you what that means. 
 

i don’t think “strong public speaker” is actually anywhere near as valuable as we often make it. 
 

It doesn’t bother me with Biden. At all. 
 

but it’s definitely there. I voted for him. I’m glad he’s the president and not trump. I don’t have an issue with how he’s handling this. But I can definitely see public speaking isn’t a strong point for him anymore. (Was it ever really? Until he ran for president he was known for gaffs…)

Edited February 24, 2022 by tshile

[Dan T.]

5 hours ago, Dan T. said:

Heartbreaking to watch interviews of ordinary Ukrainians huddled with their children in subway stations.

 

Can I ****-slap anybody griping now about paying more to fill up their F-250?

 

And right on cue, at the press conference discussing this dangerous war and the U.S. and world response, Fox's Steve Doofus asks Biden about . . .

 

rising gas prices.

 

 

 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Dan T.

[visionary]

 

[NickyJ]

5 minutes ago, visionary said:

 

When your national defense plan is to give Boris, who has never held a gun in his hands for his entire life, an assault rifle for when the helicopters show up, you know your national defense plan is ****ed.

Edited February 24, 2022 by NickyJ

[Wildbunny]

8 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

You guys are ridiculous @Larry @Wildbunny. Biden doesn’t look weak.  I’m not sure how he could look stronger. He isn’t a strong man invading a country with no justification. Do you really want to put US lives at stake for Ukraine?  Do you want to sacrifice American lives as first resort, or as a last resort?

 

Biden has accomplished something pretty rare, agreement.

I don't really care if I'm ridiculous or not.

I just didn't find Joe Biden inspiring confidence or anything like that in his speech. He wasn't even close to it.

As soon as he talks "no US soldiers there", means "Putin has won". Putin doesn't care about economic sanctions at all. Russia has enough ressources to live by itself for ten years. They can perfectly live in autarcy, not as good as US or European people, sure, but Putin doesn't care about that at all. Ukraine is not part of NATO, I get that. But you still have your part of responsibilities in this as well in not being clear if Ukraine would enter NATO one day or not (and a few others too that I don't feel like debating as of now).

 

My polish colleague is more than fired up and ready to go there to kick some Russian's butts. If we ever go to war against them, I'd rather go there myself than send my stepson if you want to really know about it.

What you don't seem to get is that the longer we all stay out of it military speaking, the more we are bowing to Putin, and the more the problem will get bigger in the end. Europe by itself cannot face Russia all alone. But if we lose this one, you guys will be on your own and will have an even bigger problem.

 

We've been playing with our pants down for decades on the diplomacy department thinking we're cool and we're at peace, and now we're like: "Oh ****! There's guys out there that still think diplomacy can be run with tanks and bombs..." Now, US can do whatever they want, I'm just telling you how it's gonna go if nobody moves, because I sure doubt Putin will stop here if nobody moves. It's not about NATO or whatever, it's more about stopping an expansionist dictator from his madness. Axis of evil, stuff like that...

[Momma There Goes That Man]

15 minutes ago, skinsmarydu said:

I doubt that Joe has gotten much sleep lately.  Just sayin. 

“no-sleepy joe”

[EmirOfShmo]

2 minutes ago, tshile said:

but it’s definitely there. I voted for him. I’m glad he’s the president and not trump. I don’t have an issue with how he’s handling this. But I can definitely see public speaking isn’t a strong point for him anymore. (Was it ever really? Until he ran for president he was known for gaffs…)

I only learned of his stuttering during his Presidential run. I never payed too much attention to actually watching him speak when he was in the Senate or VP. Now  I find myself watching the words roll out of his mouth as he speaks. Today, I saw him stutter (or misspeak) a few times but he caught his errors and continued his speech. I have to believe the level of concentration to speak without stuttering is huge. However, I thought he projected the right image today. Spoke from his heart (as he always has) and showed his feisty demeanor interacting with the reporters. He's always been a bit of a smartass and he caught himself a couple of times and backed off while answering questions. That's something not-President Joe wouldn't do.

Last, it's apparent his hearing is not the best. I can relate & I'm 24 years younger than him. Trying to hear questions from masked reporters didn't help. 

I was proud of Joe today. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

55 minutes ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

Ukraine is in NATO? 🙄

 

No.  That is why Ukraine has some level of a military.  Germany just said they pretty much don’t have a military.  Excluding France and Britain, look at the state of the rest of NATO’s militaries.  @tshileis right, they are just relying on our military.