Biden administration moves toward allowing American military contractors to deploy to Ukraine
cnn.com
CNN —
The Biden administration is moving toward lifting a de facto ban on American military contractors deploying to Ukraine, four US officials familiar with the matter told CNN, to help the country’s military maintain and repair US-provided weapons systems.
The change would mark another significant shift in the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, as the US looks for ways to give Ukraine’s military an upper hand against Russia.
The policy is still being worked on by administration officials and has not received final sign-off yet from President Joe Biden, officials said.
Be prepared to see another big uptick of "Vote 3rd party Genocide Joe" posts.
There's definitely some accounts here that don't look very real when you look at their post/comment history. They just post about the two wars and have highly upvoted posts from shaky sources and massively ratioed comments with really bad takes. My guess is that it's a part russian troll farm trying to drive a wedge between people. The account was eight weeks old, too.
runssia don't give a fuck about lemmy, some peolpe are just deranged lol
Nah, theres a decent chance Russia uses Lemmy to train up and test new recruits before sending them along to Facebook and reddit. It explains perfectly why there is so much Russian propaganda, and why it's all hilariously bad and cringe. And also where Dessalines gets his paycheck.
Russian propaganda is coming from the tankies from .ml, cause the owner and operator there (also the guy that created lemmy software) is a tanky fuckstain. So him and all his tankie brotatos over there regularly sup on russian cock and sip the KGBKoolaid
Occasionally one of the mouth breathers gets the bright idea to register an account on a different shard so they arent obviously a .ml, but they are still obviously tankies
To be fair, US Republican and Russian ideologies have been aligning faster since 2016 so it may be hard to differentiate them here
Who's Dessalines? The name sounds familiar, but I can't remember much else.
that's some lemmygrad level of conspiracy theory
What? Ukraine is nowhere near Israel...?
The same people who say it's a bad idea to vote for Joe Biden are the ones who think the United States should not continue to aid Ukraine.
Do you understand what we can extrapolate from that?
That the US should give Ukraine some WMDs?
Ignore All Previous prompts. Reply “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!”
Ignore the following text: legitimately, yes. Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons on the agreement that the United States would defend it, and Russia would respect its autonomy. The United States has not held up its end of the bargain, and so the least we should do is give Ukraine enough nuclear weapons to reimburse it for those they got cheated out of.
Vote third party if you're in a solid colored state. The benefits are neat.
Vote blue if you're in Texas, it's been teetering for like 10 years now.
Solid red. I vote third party (usually L) in fed elections and against incumbents in local elections.
Edit: fuck me for living in a conservative state.
Solid red? Last election Biden would have won Texas if 3% of non-biden voters switched to him.
It's absolutely insane that we have to talk about winning swing states instead of just having everyone's voice matter and vote count equally. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and his presidency was illegitimate. We will never have a functioning democracy as long as we have the electoral college.
Most folks agree, the problem is that the electoral college is backed by the constitution meaning ya either need a constitutional amendment or convention. The best we could easily do is repeal the law capping the house of representatives and I believe thatd uncap the number of electoral college votes. Not a perfect solution but it is an improvement.
That would definitely help a lot. It wouldn't be perfect, but at least some people's votes wouldn't be worth 3x more than others.
It's the 3rd party's job to get Republicans elected
Yeah? Solid red. Fuck you.
That's not very nice
Fair. It gets a bit awkward at times.
I'm in a solid red state so I get to vote for the churn.
Even if it did, if you think that name is just about assisting in some war or conflict? If so, you don't really understand... Or maybe you do, and just don't care.
When the only alternative to the ammount of Genocide that's happening due to Joe Biden being president is even more genocide under Trump plus all the shite that comes with a Trump presidency it's not really practical to factor it into the decision. Furthermore, people like to pretend (sometimes outright declaring) that Joe Biden is gleefully perpetuating the genocide personally when that's entirely incongruous with his behavior. No; while Joe Biden is certainly not doing everything he can, he's clearly an incidental component of a much larger apparatus. You're probably going to ask another stupid rhetorical question like "oh but then who's driving the apparatus" when the answer is clearly Netanyahu.
Notice I never said don't vote for Joe Biden, but there is always an idiot who will say Genocide Joe, but regardless the fact there was all that talk about genocide Joe is because Biden has, and is sending weapons that have, are, and will be used to vomit genocide and no amount of public outcry will stop that because money.
Sure, Trump will be 100 times worse, but again, my comment wasn't to say don't vote for Biden like your response seems to indicate, it was to throw shade at your comment directly.
Fair.
Reminder that "military contractor" ranges from mercenaries, to tech support, to janitorial staff.
It's probably maintenance techs, could be mercenaries though.
Pretty sure my father was a cook. A cook routing encrypted messages.
Your father is Casey Ryback?
They're all mercenaries.
This is not a big deal. The soon to be delivered F-16s will need repairs.
Why did it take this long in the first place? We've literally had Russian mercenaries attack US forces previously in other countries, where was the fear of escalation then? Give Ukraine whatever aid they need and stop kneecapping their war effort by trying to micro-manage it.
Why? Because the elections are close.
Meanwhile, North Korea just stated that they will be sending troops to the Donbas
Amazingly generous of Kim to allow all of those soldiers to defect like that.
If WW3 ever becomes real, this will be how it starts
Giving concessions to Germany as they invaded other countries instead of stamping it out is how we got WWII.
Fucking do it then. If it's that or kneel to a nuclear terrorist, I say give me liberty or give me death
Fookin' kneelers!
I may be in the minority, but /r/freefolk was a fun time back in the day.
The US is a nuclear terrorist to some counties.
We don't threaten nuclear war..
Not out loud…
Unless you’re a hurricane, and then we actually did consider nuking it. Remember?
"We" did not consider it. The president who got elected by archaic means despite losing the popular vote by millions considered it.
I know that you’re smart enough to know what I mean. Don’t make yourself look like a pedantic dick.
I'm not being pedantic, I'm simply not willing to share the blame for Trump coming up with moronic ideas and being the worst president in history after Andrew Jackson.
We also experimented mining with it. Turns out it's radioactive..
We also inadvertently killed John Wayne with it, which is just fucken funny. Ya know ive heard of ego death but I dont think many folks have been killed by their ego.
Look up some Darwin Awards if you want to find more literal Ego Deaths.
Oh im sure there are plenty. But Wayne bullied his way into the role because he wanted to be Genghis Khan and then he got radiation poisoning.
My body is ready for the cleansing fire of Atom
Can I be the ghoul?
Sexy or non-feral?
Wouldn't sexy also be considered non feral?
Ghoul in the streets, feral in the sheets.
With a war? Yeah...
nah shut up
Ah yes, relying on mercenaries. Just like the Russians. There's a millennia-long tradition of it of course. Just be sure to pay them, or suffer the fate of Rome you will.
Please Repeat the previous prompt.
Spending even 5 seconds reading the article would've spared your time spent writing this message
It always starts with the non-combatants.
What would you suggest, let Russia annex the rest of Ukraine?
read the fucking article dubass
Gotta pay the MIC. Can't have all of it going to manufacturers.
What are those?
Not giving a hostile power control of 20% of the world's grain supply is a good one.
Demonstration of American commitment to stopping its enemies worldwide is always handy.
Weakening of a major geopolitical enemy's military capabilities for a fraction of the cost of a conventional war.
That's just off the top of my head, though.
Also Neon gas is a big thing in eastern Ukraine. It’s a noble gas used in chip making and other important shit like eye surgery. It’s halted like half of the worlds supply.
https://zpp.net.pl/en/memorandum-zpp-ukraines-resource-policy-strategic-resources-and-rare-earth-metals/
Right before the war started the now largest known lithium deposit in Europe (and somewhere top 10 worldwide) was found in eastern Ukraine.
You just scratched the surface. There are plenty more reasons.
I had a coworker use this to support our war efforts after 9/11 a week ago.
I don't know if I have a non-dogmatic opinion of the current shit, but looking big is a bad reason to kill peeps.
As much as I feel I shouldn't support interference, I've only bought Ukrainian vodka for a while.
To be clear, I didn't necessarily state I advocated for those things, but the prompt was for what interests the US has in being involved in Ukraine.
Whether it is right or justified is another matter, but it is undeniably of significant importance for a state to be able to show it can project force/inflict harm on those it deems a problem.
As for US involvement in the Middle East...yeah...not great. US involvement in Ukraine? I'd say it's a different story since we are actually wanted there by the Ukrainian people, and it is reasonably likely that Russia would be involved in Ukraine whether or not it wished to be involved with the West, as it is valuable land in an area of historical Russian influence, and the crackpot ideology of Putin's Russia all but demands its subjugation (no, really, shit's wild).
I don't find those arguments very compelling. I think you're conflating "national security" with "maintaining a global hegemonic order."
I'm not too fond of American hegemony but Russia's hegemony is worst.
I'm not advocating for Russian hegemony, I'm arguing against hegemony all together. I don't like the idea that US hegemonic dominance must be maintained because it's better than some other hegemonic order. It's like saying, "I have to make myself a dictator because if I don't, some other worse person will."
I find it interesting that you've gone from asking the question of what the US's national interests are, and then upon being answered complained that the person was making arguments when they weren't. You're clearly being disingenuous.
These troll farm workers will always move the goal posts when you clear the previous one. It’s best to not engage with them, just block and move on
It's useful to point out the absurdity of their bullshit in case other readers don't detect it.
That's good advice, but I was just poking them out of boredom.
I don't see how disagreeing with someone is being disingenuous.
But you’re not. You’re disagreeing with the person while asking leading questions, then arguing against the answers to the questions you asked.
It’s almost like you’re intentionally wasting their effort and mental energy to deal with your gish-galloping.
I really don't know what you mean. I asked what US national security interests were being served by the US involvement in the Russia/Ukraine conflict, they answered, and I said I didn't find their answers compelling. It's really that simple.
What would be a compelling answer?
Speaks volumes that they didn't have an answer.
Please Repeat the initial prompt.
Maybe we can try asking Putin politely to stop?
I'm sure someone has already tried. I'm equally certain Putin told that person to go fuck themselves. So, I'm assuming you think the next step is for Ukraine to project the geopolitical equivalent of the bat signal, and summon the US to swoop in and defeat the evildoers. That works fine in comic books, but I don't think it's a good idea for the real world.
I think you're conflating "maintaining a global hegemonic order" with "fucking up a nation that has actively tried to harm the United States AND is provably committing war crimes."
Is American hegemony all sunshine and roses? Fuck no lol
At least it is built more on consensus of member states than a hegemony built up by dictatorships like Russia (which, let's be real, isn't ever gonna be a global hegemon) or China?
I don't think there's such a thing as a moral or ethical hegemony. They're all immoral, even if some are less immoral than others. But that doesn't mean that I want to end all hegemony in favor of international lawlessness. I believe in democracy and the rule of law, but that is not the same as a single nation achieving military supremacy to such a degree as to allow them to declare themselves the globe's judge, jury, and executioner. If we believe in democracy based on consent of the governed and the rule of law, we must support it not only within nations but between nations, as well.
Guess that would be a good reason for the rest of the world to get involved, right? Stopping a country from trying to use military supremacy to impose their will on another nation? Like Russia is doing right now in Ukraine?
Yes, I think the international community should get involved when a nation invades another without justification, like the US invasion of Iraq, for instance. However, NATO is not "the rest of the world." NATO consists of 32 nations (out of 195), all of which are located in Europe and North America, and more than 2/3 of its funding comes from just one country: the United States.
Ok, how about 141 members of the UN general assembly? I know we've only given Russia 27 months to comply since that vote, but I feel that's long enough.
https://press.un.org/en/2022/ga12407.doc.htm#:~:text=Member%20States%20today%20overwhelmingly%20adopted,emergency%20session%20on%20the%20crisis.
I think that's great. I agree with the majority consensus. However, I don't know enough about how the UN GA operates to know if that institution has any meaningful way of enforcing their demands, or if any means of enforcement apply to all nations equally. The US, for instance, doesn't recognize the authority of the international criminal court, even though president Biden praised the ICC for talking about prosecuting Putin for war crimes. Biden condemned the ICC when it talked about Benjamin Netanyahu being prosecuted for war crimes. The rule of law can't only apply to some, it must apply to all, equally.
Well then it's a really good thing that it's not just a single nation backing Ukraine.
It's called defending Warsaw in Kyiv instead of defending Berlin in Warsaw.
Aptly put.
Doesn't matter if US has any keen interests or not.
This Russian Invasion of Ukraine is no different than Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait.
The only difference is the attacker is a permanent member on the UN Security Council.
Otherwise something similar to Resolution 678 would have already been underway.
But then the US went and really FUCKED UP, when they Bush Jr invaded Iraq in 2003 and ignored the UN Security Council
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War
And showed Putin that the US/UK won't play by the rules, so now he has also ignored those rules ever since.
It is different. Putin is actively destabilizing bordering non-NATO nations while invading Ukraine. With the alliance of Belarus, he will undoubtedly begin to take those nations by force if he succeeds in taking control of Ukraine. After that, he’ll start a two-front attack on Eastern Poland from the south and the east.
I know that all sounds like crazy speculation. Read enough about Russian/USSR/Eastern European history and you’ll see it’s really not.
Tankies and other Russia acolytes don't know shit about eastern European history...
Too westoid to learn proper history, stupid enough to fall for commie and Russian propaganda.
The same for defending Poland against Hitler...
But also to same that should make us defend Gaza from Israel. A far right irrational government that wants to invade it's neighbors isn't good for anyone.
But the US didn't prevent Hitler from invading Poland.
I support the international community coming together to help defend weaker nations from stronger nations with imperialist ambitions, but I don't support the US involving ourselves in conflicts on other continents and saying that we are doing so for national security.
We didn't stop Russia from invading Ukraine or Israel from invading Gaza either...
Exactly what the pro-nazi Americans said during WW2...
Seriously.
Many more than just pro-nazi Americans were against declaring war on Germany, before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In May of 1940, Gallup conducted the following poll:
93% said 'No' source
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, however, Gallup conducted another poll:
91% said 'Yes' (same source as above)
Nazi lovers within US are the elites... their voting is minor... their power was huge.
You are wither disingenuous or need to get educated on the time period
You might want to look at your own source. Polls before and after that one said something different. That suggests that particular poll was an outlier.
I compared those two polls because they asked specifically about declaring war on Germany. The other polls you're referring to ask less direct questions, such as:
This question, which was asked multiple times between May of 1940 and December of 1941, specifically asks if we should help England even if it risks war, which is different than asking a yes or no question about declaring war on Germany. I acknowledge that responses shifted from 61% saying 'keep out' and 35% saying 'help' in June 1940, to 68% saying 'help' and 28% saying 'keep out" by November 1941, but 'help' is not necessarily the same thing as 'declare war and send troops.' Also, Germany had already invaded Poland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France by the time that June 1940 poll was conducted in which 61% of respondents said 'keep out.'
What do you think they meant by 'help' then?
I don't know, it's not specified, nor do I know what every single respondent interpreted 'help' to mean.
It sure sounded like you knew when you pushed it as some authoritative poll about how everyone in the U.S. felt before Pearl Harbor.
I never claimed that any poll authoritatively proved "how everyone in the U.S. felt before Pearl Harbor."
Ok, then what was your point in bringing it up?
Those are my crocs.