Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Bush. I don’t think so but it was 20 years ago and the information landscape was quite different. Plus I was a lot younger then.Okay. I was wrong.
Did the dumbest guy fool you?
NATO is already being strengthened. More troops, aircraft, and weapons are being rushed into Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states. There is time to do this without panicking and it serves the purpose of visibly, blatantly drawing a red line for Putin. He may be nuts and decide he can shove NATO and if so, God help us all, we may watch our world burn like it never has before. Ukraine is not the hill to die on. If the world stands united by crippling his economy and supplying an endless stream of weapons to kill his troops, there will be no need to worry about him beyond Ukraine's borders.What is YOUR view? NATO should let Putin take Ukraine without suffering military consequences?
Maybe tough sanctions will work eventually, but if Putin's Hitler style aggression succeeds soon, maybe Finland will be next, etc.
Uh huh.Bush. I don’t think so but it was 20 years ago and the information landscape was quite different. Plus I was a lot younger then.
The point is that republicans have started a lot of wars. Dems, not as much.
Trump didn't start ww3, as your leaders predicted.It's funny to watch right wingers turn into a hippy drum circle when they aren't running the military.
Of course, our last three major wars were started by - REPUBLICANS.
Which "major wars" would those be? Maybe you should rethink that, eh. And don't try and pull Vietnam as one of those alleged three either.
Duly noted you couldn't refute my points.Right off the bat with BS. LOL There is no "GOP cheering for Putin". Talk about propaganda.
Trump didn't start ww3, as your leaders predicted.
The only person I've seen here supporting Putin is Rigby, a leftist.Iraq
Afghanistan
Gulf War
Last three major wars. All Republican
Duly noted you couldn't refute my points.
Do you actually read the shit your fellow wingnuts post?
No actually he got rid of the freeloaders and tried to get everyone to pay what they originally agreed too.Now, he just gutted NATO and undermined our alliances.
Don’t ask a question if you’re not interested in the answer.Uh huh.
He divided it and denigrated NATO to the point that no one was really sure if it was functional as an alliance.No actually he got rid of the freeloaders and tried to get everyone to pay what they originally agreed too.
Not interested in debating it with you.Don’t ask a question if you’re not interested in the answer.
EXCELLENT post sir EXCALIBUR!!! Your posts are always informing, cover all possible aspects of a given situation, loaded with common sense along with excellent composition & with food for thought to boot! This post of yours just garnered you the 2nd homerun with the bases loaded that I have given out today! Just keep the posts coming for your fellow board members as you possess the unique ability to expand other peoples minds to view a situation from a much broader viewpoint! Again, EXCELLENT post excalibur, simply excellent for sure!!!There is no money in peace. That is why the corrupt swamp hated Trump.
In the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, those warning of the possible dangers of U.S. involvement were assured that such concerns were baseless. The prevailing line insisted that nobody in Washington is even considering let alone advocating that the U.S. become militarily involved in a conflict with Russia. That the concern was based not on the belief that the U.S. would actively seek such a war, but rather on the oft-unintended consequences of being swamped with war propaganda and the high levels of tribalism, jingoism and emotionalism that accompany it, was ignored. It did not matter how many wars one could point to in history that began unintentionally, with unchecked, dangerous tensions spiraling out of control. Anyone warning of this obviously dangerous possibility was met with the “straw man” cliché: you are arguing against a position that literally nobody in D.C. is defending.Less than a week into this war, that can no longer be said. One of the media's most beloved members of Congress, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), on Friday explicitly and emphatically urged that the U.S. military be deployed to Ukraine to establish a “no-fly zone” — i.e., American soldiers would order Russia not to enter Ukrainian airspace and would directly attack any Russian jets or other military units which disobeyed. That would, by definition and design, immediately ensure that the two countries with by far the planet's largest nuclear stockpiles would be fighting one another, all over Ukraine.Kinzinger's fantasy that Russia would instantly obey U.S. orders due to rational calculations is directly at odds with all the prevailing narratives about Putin having now become an irrational madman who has taken leave of his senses — not just metaphorically but medically — and is prepared to risk everything for conquest and legacy. This was not the first time such a deranged proposal has been raised; days before Kinzinger unveiled his plan, a reporter asked Pentagon spokesman John Kirby why Biden has thus far refused this confrontational posture. The Brookings Institution's Ben Wittes on Sunday demanded: “Regime change: Russia.” The President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, celebrated that “now the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia.”Having the U.S. risk global nuclear annihilation over Ukraine is an indescribably insane view, as one realizes upon a few seconds of sober reflection. We had a reminder of that Sunday morning when “Putin ordered his nuclear forces on high alert, reminding the world he has the power to use weapons of mass destruction, after complaining about the West’s response to his invasion of Ukraine” — but it is completely unsurprising that it is already being suggested....It is genuinely hard to overstate how overwhelming the unity and consensus in U.S. political and media circles is. It is as close to a unanimous and dissent-free discourse as anything in memory, certainly since the days following 9/11. Marco Rubio sounds exactly like Bernie Sanders, and Lindsay Graham has no even minimal divergence from Nancy Pelosi. Every word broadcast on CNN or printed in The New York Times about the conflict perfectly aligns with the CIA and Pentagon's messaging. And U.S. public opinion has consequently undergone a radical and rapid change; while recent polling had shown large majorities of Americans opposed to any major U.S. role in Ukraine, a new Gallup poll released on Friday found that “52% of Americans see the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a critical threat to U.S. vital interests” with almost no partisan division (56% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats), while “85% of Americans now view [Russia] unfavorably while 15% have a positive opinion of it.”...To believe that this is a conflict of pure Good versus pure Evil, that Putin bears all blame for the conflict and the U.S., the West, and Ukraine bear none, and that the only way to understand this conflict is through the prism of war criminality and aggression only takes one so far. Such beliefs have limited utility in deciding optimal U.S. behavior and sorting truth from fiction even if they are entirely correct — just as the belief that 9/11 was a moral atrocity and Saddam (or Gaddafi or Assad) was a barbaric tyrant only took one so far. Even with those moral convictions firmly in place, there are still a wide range of vital geopolitical and factual questions that must be considered and freely debated, including:
- The severe dangers of unintended escalation with greater U.S. involvement and confrontation toward Russia;
- The mammoth instability and risks that would be created by collapsing the Russian economy and/or forcing Putin from power, leaving the world's largest or second-largest nuclear stockpile to a very uncertain fate;
- The ongoing validity of Obama's long-standing view of Ukraine (echoed by Trump), which persisted even after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 following a referendum, that Ukraine is of vital interest only to Russia and not the U.S., and the U.S. should never risk war with Russia over it;
- The bizarre way in which it has become completely taboo and laughable to suggest that NATO expansion to the Russian border and threats to offer Ukraine membership is deeply and genuinely threatening not just to Putin but all Russians, even though that warning has emanated for years from top U.S. officials such as Biden's current CIA Director William Burns as well as scholars across the political spectrum, including the right-wing realist John Mearsheimer and the leftist Noam Chomsky.
- The clearly valid questions regarding actual U.S intentions concerning Ukraine: i.e., that a noble, selfless and benevolent American desire to protect a fledgling democracy against a despotic aggressor may not be the predominant goal. Perhaps it is instead to revitalize support for American imperialism and intervention, as well as faith in and gratitude for the U.S. security and military state (the Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer suggested this week that this is the principal outcome in the West of the current conflict). Or the goal may be the re-elevation of Russia as a vital and grave threat to the U.S. (the above polling data suggests this is already happening) that will feed weapons purchases and defense and intelligence budgets for years to come. Or one might see a desire to harm Russia, as vengeance for the perception that Putin helped defeat Hillary Clinton and elected Donald Trump (that the U.S. is using Ukraine to “fight Russia over there” was explicitly stated by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)).
Or perhaps the goal is not to “save and protect” Ukraine at all, but to sacrifice it by turning that country into a new Afghanistan, where the U.S. arms a Ukrainian insurgency to ensure that Russia remains stuck in Ukraine fighting and destroying it for years (this scenario was very compellingly laid out in one of the best analyses of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, by Niccolo Soldo, which I cannot recommend highly enough)....
War Propaganda About Ukraine Becoming More Militaristic, Authoritarian, and Reckless
Every useful or pleasing claim about the war, no matter how unverified or subsequently debunked, rapidly spreads, while dissenters are vilified as traitors or Kremlin agents.greenwald.substack.com
Brilliant, and so true.There is no money in peace. That is why the corrupt swamp hated Trump.
In the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, those warning of the possible dangers of U.S. involvement were assured that such concerns were baseless. The prevailing line insisted that nobody in Washington is even considering let alone advocating that the U.S. become militarily involved in a conflict with Russia. That the concern was based not on the belief that the U.S. would actively seek such a war, but rather on the oft-unintended consequences of being swamped with war propaganda and the high levels of tribalism, jingoism and emotionalism that accompany it, was ignored. It did not matter how many wars one could point to in history that began unintentionally, with unchecked, dangerous tensions spiraling out of control. Anyone warning of this obviously dangerous possibility was met with the “straw man” cliché: you are arguing against a position that literally nobody in D.C. is defending.Less than a week into this war, that can no longer be said. One of the media's most beloved members of Congress, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), on Friday explicitly and emphatically urged that the U.S. military be deployed to Ukraine to establish a “no-fly zone” — i.e., American soldiers would order Russia not to enter Ukrainian airspace and would directly attack any Russian jets or other military units which disobeyed. That would, by definition and design, immediately ensure that the two countries with by far the planet's largest nuclear stockpiles would be fighting one another, all over Ukraine.Kinzinger's fantasy that Russia would instantly obey U.S. orders due to rational calculations is directly at odds with all the prevailing narratives about Putin having now become an irrational madman who has taken leave of his senses — not just metaphorically but medically — and is prepared to risk everything for conquest and legacy. This was not the first time such a deranged proposal has been raised; days before Kinzinger unveiled his plan, a reporter asked Pentagon spokesman John Kirby why Biden has thus far refused this confrontational posture. The Brookings Institution's Ben Wittes on Sunday demanded: “Regime change: Russia.” The President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, celebrated that “now the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia.”Having the U.S. risk global nuclear annihilation over Ukraine is an indescribably insane view, as one realizes upon a few seconds of sober reflection. We had a reminder of that Sunday morning when “Putin ordered his nuclear forces on high alert, reminding the world he has the power to use weapons of mass destruction, after complaining about the West’s response to his invasion of Ukraine” — but it is completely unsurprising that it is already being suggested....It is genuinely hard to overstate how overwhelming the unity and consensus in U.S. political and media circles is. It is as close to a unanimous and dissent-free discourse as anything in memory, certainly since the days following 9/11. Marco Rubio sounds exactly like Bernie Sanders, and Lindsay Graham has no even minimal divergence from Nancy Pelosi. Every word broadcast on CNN or printed in The New York Times about the conflict perfectly aligns with the CIA and Pentagon's messaging. And U.S. public opinion has consequently undergone a radical and rapid change; while recent polling had shown large majorities of Americans opposed to any major U.S. role in Ukraine, a new Gallup poll released on Friday found that “52% of Americans see the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a critical threat to U.S. vital interests” with almost no partisan division (56% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats), while “85% of Americans now view [Russia] unfavorably while 15% have a positive opinion of it.”...To believe that this is a conflict of pure Good versus pure Evil, that Putin bears all blame for the conflict and the U.S., the West, and Ukraine bear none, and that the only way to understand this conflict is through the prism of war criminality and aggression only takes one so far. Such beliefs have limited utility in deciding optimal U.S. behavior and sorting truth from fiction even if they are entirely correct — just as the belief that 9/11 was a moral atrocity and Saddam (or Gaddafi or Assad) was a barbaric tyrant only took one so far. Even with those moral convictions firmly in place, there are still a wide range of vital geopolitical and factual questions that must be considered and freely debated, including:
- The severe dangers of unintended escalation with greater U.S. involvement and confrontation toward Russia;
- The mammoth instability and risks that would be created by collapsing the Russian economy and/or forcing Putin from power, leaving the world's largest or second-largest nuclear stockpile to a very uncertain fate;
- The ongoing validity of Obama's long-standing view of Ukraine (echoed by Trump), which persisted even after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 following a referendum, that Ukraine is of vital interest only to Russia and not the U.S., and the U.S. should never risk war with Russia over it;
- The bizarre way in which it has become completely taboo and laughable to suggest that NATO expansion to the Russian border and threats to offer Ukraine membership is deeply and genuinely threatening not just to Putin but all Russians, even though that warning has emanated for years from top U.S. officials such as Biden's current CIA Director William Burns as well as scholars across the political spectrum, including the right-wing realist John Mearsheimer and the leftist Noam Chomsky.
- The clearly valid questions regarding actual U.S intentions concerning Ukraine: i.e., that a noble, selfless and benevolent American desire to protect a fledgling democracy against a despotic aggressor may not be the predominant goal. Perhaps it is instead to revitalize support for American imperialism and intervention, as well as faith in and gratitude for the U.S. security and military state (the Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer suggested this week that this is the principal outcome in the West of the current conflict). Or the goal may be the re-elevation of Russia as a vital and grave threat to the U.S. (the above polling data suggests this is already happening) that will feed weapons purchases and defense and intelligence budgets for years to come. Or one might see a desire to harm Russia, as vengeance for the perception that Putin helped defeat Hillary Clinton and elected Donald Trump (that the U.S. is using Ukraine to “fight Russia over there” was explicitly stated by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)).
Or perhaps the goal is not to “save and protect” Ukraine at all, but to sacrifice it by turning that country into a new Afghanistan, where the U.S. arms a Ukrainian insurgency to ensure that Russia remains stuck in Ukraine fighting and destroying it for years (this scenario was very compellingly laid out in one of the best analyses of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, by Niccolo Soldo, which I cannot recommend highly enough)....
War Propaganda About Ukraine Becoming More Militaristic, Authoritarian, and Reckless
Every useful or pleasing claim about the war, no matter how unverified or subsequently debunked, rapidly spreads, while dissenters are vilified as traitors or Kremlin agents.
^ Thread win.While I am retired U.S. Army and fiercely love America, what about the US led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq 2003? Would Russia have been justified in attacking US forces in those theatres of operation? Was the world united against America in solidarity for war deaths of Afghan and Iraqi people? The double standard here is as breathtaking as it is hypocritical. The Ukrainians are not close cultural friends of the average American citizen, nor are they a closely bordering state. The Russians are not America's enemies. Comparing them to 1940's Nazis is ridiculous on high. America is not the world fucking police. Further, any hot war between the US and Russia will consume the globe. Failing that, millions could still die in any such conflict, even if kept conventional in nature. Putin invades one neighboring nation and suddenly he's Hitler? People need to get a grip.
No, we were getting screwed. We paid the majority for NATO. Trump took care of it and Biden, has us getting screwed again.He divided it and denigrated NATO to the point that no one was really sure if it was functional as an alliance.
Which is what Putin wanted.
The only person I've seen here supporting Putin is Rigby, a leftist.
No actually he got rid of the freeloaders and tried to get everyone to pay what they originally agreed too.
The US didnt try to "take" any nations to expand their territory.. Thats the difference.While I am retired U.S. Army and fiercely love America, what about the US led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq 2003? Would Russia have been justified in attacking US forces in those theatres of operation? Was the world united against America in solidarity for war deaths of Afghan and Iraqi people? The double standard here is as breathtaking as it is hypocritical. The Ukrainians are not close cultural friends of the average American citizen, nor are they a closely bordering state. The Russians are not America's enemies. Comparing them to 1940's Nazis is ridiculous on high. America is not the world fucking police. Further, any hot war between the US and Russia will consume the globe. Failing that, millions could still die in any such conflict, even if kept conventional in nature. Putin invades one neighboring nation and suddenly he's Hitler? People need to get a grip.
Biden's disaster in Afghanistan undermined NATO in ways Trump never could.Then you aren't paying attention.
So he undermined trust in NATO. Got it.
You know that doesn’t really make sense, right?No, we were getting screwed. We paid the majority for NATO. Trump took care of it and Biden, has us getting screwed again.
Other countries don't pay what they are suppose to. We make up the difference. Trump wanted them to pay what they agreed to.You know that doesn’t really make sense, right?
I’ve heard a lot of Trump supports say this, but when I ask what that means, no one really ever answers.
Maybe you know. What does it mean that we “paid the majority for NATO”?
