War Propaganda About Ukraine Becoming More Militaristic, Authoritarian, and Reckless

[colfax_m]

Other countries don't pay what they are suppose to. We make up the difference. Trump wanted them to pay what they agreed to.

How do we “make up the difference”?

Who are we paying?

 

[daveman]

Then you aren't paying attention.

I see a lot of leftist useful idiots mindlessly repeating their asinine talking point of the day, but that's about it.

So he undermined trust in NATO. Got it.

Can you explain your hypocrisy here? You oppose American intervention in international affairs, but support America paying for NATO.

Take your time. I can tell you haven't given this any thought. At all.

 

[jknowgood]

How do we “make up the difference”?

Who are we paying?

For the world's problems. Trump was reversing that.

 

[ViewFromAbove]

Actually, the first country he invaded was Czechoslovakia in 1938.

And, despite what you read here, everything in the world isn't related to Hitler and not everyone who disagrees with you is Hitler.

I never said everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler. That is ridiculous.
What's your real beef?

 

[ViewFromAbove]

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.

The free world hopes you are right!

 

[JoeB131]

Biden's disaster in Afghanistan undermined NATO in ways Trump never could.

Not really. NATO said "Peace Out" in Afghanistan long before we did.

NATO withdrew their forces after Trump signed the Doha accords.

 

[JoeB131]

Can you explain your hypocrisy here? You oppose American intervention in international affairs, but support America paying for NATO.

Take your time. I can tell you haven't given this any thought. At all.

NATO is a defensive alliance. Iraq and Afghanistan were offensive operations.

See, that was easy. Or did you need someone to explain the big words to you?

 

[daveman]

NATO is a defensive alliance. Iraq and Afghanistan were offensive operations.

See, that was easy. Or did you need someone to explain the big words to you?

NATO for formed to defend against your heroes, the Soviet Bloc. And of course your objection to war against Islamic terrorism is obvious -- any enemy of Jews is a friend of yours.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

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 demonstrates why he is a dangerous lunatic with a whole bunch of loose screws.

Nothing would start a major war more quickly than shooting down Russian airplanes.
And nothing would oblige a unhinged authoritarian leader like Putin to respond in kind than this sort of
provocative act.

Stick to dreaming up your next impeachment show, Adam. Let the real leaders deal with Putin's air force.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Right off the bat with BS. LOL There is no "GOP cheering for Putin". Talk about propaganda.

A big serving of drivel from the troll contingent on the left.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Hitler invaded ONE country in 1939, then what?
We were "America First" until December 1941.
Perhaps if we were PROACTIVE, most of the 73,000,000 people who died would not have.

We should not have invaded Iraq after 9/11; Osama was operating with the Taliban in AFGHANISTAN. Invading THAT country was justified.

Proactive with what? The US army was tiny in 1939, our most modern tank was armed with machine guns, the Seversky P-35 was our front-line fighter, I believe we were still operating Boeing P-26 Peashooters in some squadrons.

 

[Esdraelon]

Now, he just gutted NATO and undermined our alliances.

BS... his actions caused most of them to spend more on their militaries. You people can't seem to think outside the droning that comes from your 5th columnists. He was sick of U.S. taxpayers being on the hook for DECADES to pay for the defense of Euro-trash who were spending their defense budgets on social programs, THEN mocking the U.S. Fook them! WWII was a long time ago and if they want to deal with Putin as a trade partner yet still want US to be their cops, they need to wake up.

 

[PinktheFloyd88]

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.​

​

...​

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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:​

​

1. The severe dangers of unintended escalation with greater U.S. involvement and confrontation toward Russia;
2. 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;
3. 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;
4. 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.
5. 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

*Opens topic*

*eyes bleed*

 

[ding]

*Opens topic*

*eyes bleed*

If you don't have your stock of Potassium Iodide pills yet, you might want to get those ordered.

 

[ding]

PinktheFloyd88 did you know that potassium iodide is a homeland security recommendation? They don't specifically say you should have a stock just in case but it seems implied to me. Just try getting it if you need it and don't have it. They don't specifically call out nuclear war as the threat - in fact they intentionally refer to it as a nuclear "incident" - but c'mon. Anyhoo.. if my memory serves me correctly 90% of the radiation sicknesses from past nuclear "incidents" (Chernobyl, Nagasaki and Hiroshima) were due to the thyroid. I hear it's not a pleasant medicine to take but there it is. If you are still reading this then that's good on you as I already know this so it's not for my benefit. It's for yours. Hopefully the "blue wall of text" didn't keep you from being informed.

Potassium Iodide KI

www.nationalterroralert.com

 

[JoeB131]

NATO for formed to defend against your heroes, the Soviet Bloc. And of course your objection to war against Islamic terrorism is obvious -- any enemy of Jews is a friend of yours.

How do you declare war on a tactic? Terrorism isn't a nation, it's a tactic.

BS... his actions caused most of them to spend more on their militaries. You people can't seem to think outside the droning that comes from your 5th columnists. He was sick of U.S. taxpayers being on the hook for DECADES to pay for the defense of Euro-trash who were spending their defense budgets on social programs, THEN mocking the U.S. Fook them! WWII was a long time ago and if they want to deal with Putin as a trade partner yet still want US to be their cops, they need to wake up.

Yes, Trump acted like a petulant child and offended our allies while praising Putin. Thankfully, Biden has turned that around and the world is presenting a united front against Putin's aggression.

 

[daveman]

How do you declare war on a tactic? Terrorism isn't a nation, it's a tactic.

Yes, that's what people who support Islamic terrorism say.

 

[JoeB131]

Yes, that's what people who support Islamic terrorism say.

That's what anyone with a brain says, guy.

We just finished a 20 year war against an emotional state, and we are probably in a worse position than when we started. It was about two years of serious fighting and 18 years of figuring out how to untangle ourselves while saving face.

And the terrifying thing is, we probably didn't learn anything. We didn't learn this lesson 50 years ago in Vietnam or 120 years ago in the Philippines. People don't like it when you invade their countries.

 

[daveman]

That's what anyone with a brain says, guy.

We just finished a 20 year war against an emotional state, and we are probably in a worse position than when we started. It was about two years of serious fighting and 18 years of figuring out how to untangle ourselves while saving face.

And the terrifying thing is, we probably didn't learn anything. We didn't learn this lesson 50 years ago in Vietnam or 120 years ago in the Philippines. People don't like it when you invade their countries.

And yet you're still here in this awful, evil country. Are just lazy?

 

[JoeB131]

And yet you're still here in this awful, evil country. Are just lazy?

Nope, I still think this country can be fixed.

We just have to stop letting the Greedy Manipulate the Stupid.