If you think standing up for our allies is expensive..wait to see what happens when you abandon them.
This is the refrain of conservatism. If you think carbon taxes are expensive, wait for climate change, social programs... Crime, healthcare... Death.
They do not actually give a shit about expense.
Conservatives do not see Europe as our allies. The GOP famously despises Europe and would very much like to see Putin take control of it.
The sooner we disabuse ourselves of the foolish idea that republicans work for America, the better off we’ll be.
I just don't understand why Trump is simping so hard for Putin. These Maga fascists are just blindly following that asshole.
They want it. These people are fed up with democracy.
When democracy sees them losing power, rather than adjusting their platform or working toward compromise, their decision has always been to subvert the system. Gerrymandering, voter restrictions, election fraud, insurrection, and openly courting the enemies of the country are all preferable to losing power, to these people.
In a country where democracy makes their kind a minority, it's democracy that must yield to them, not the other way around. They're only American as long as doing so gets them their way.
Dirt.
1930s appeasers thought Hitler was willing to draw a line and stop at some point too.
These aren't just appeasers we're dealing with. These are silver shirts.
Pretty sure most of hardcore Maga and the Freedom Caucus are fine with Hitler. Jan 6th was their Beer Hall Putsch. The ones who find Hitler a bit extreme have no objection to Franco, Pinochet, or Mussolini.
U.S. Congress is not to blame. U.S. conservatives in congress are to blame.
The GOP works hard to support Putin. Delaying/denying any defense of Ukraine is a huge win for them as they support Putin's efforts to invade Europe.
You tell ‘em, corpse of Uncle Sam.
No. The Russian military is to blame for the fall. Not helping someone is not the same as killing them. Helping them can still be good though.
Why couldn't they get "Genocide Joes Discount Bombs Special" like Israel? That didn't need congress approval.
Because Israel paid for these bombs. Due to the war, Ukraine suffers from a serious lack of money. Therefore, they can't just buy the weapons they need. Instead, the US and other NATO countries provide them for free. To do so, Biden needs congressional approval. The only thing he can do on his own is to give arms manufacturers the permission to sell weapons, e.g. to Israel.
They're not actually free, they're being provided under bilateral aid agreements. If Ukraine survives the war it's going to be saddled with an enormous amount of debt.
The screw here is that countries giving can use the debt to fiddle their own books, making their economies look better than they really are (because they know Ukraine will never be able to pay it all back).
They won't be required to pay it back like that, that is a propaganda talking point.
What's your source for saying it's a propaganda talking point?
Do you wish to challenge the definition of "bilateral"?
My goal here isn't to say that Ukraine shouldn't be funded - it absolutely should, and I believe doing so is essential to global security. My goal here is to call out the people who seek to exploit this war as an opportunity to sell more weapons and profit from death.
In that sense, many world leaders are in fact in league with Putin. Putin plays the bad guy, but they all profit, while general people and societies suffer.
But hey, they need to "thin the heard" in order to mitigate the other issues their ramptant exploitation is causing, such that they can continue to profit unabated. So I guess war is inevitable /s.
War is about making money, primarily from selling weapons. There are secondary objectives as well, but the real goal is always money.
Israel gets billions in 'aid', the American people paid for these bombs. The real reason is that Israel has a ridiculously effective lobby group in AIPAC where they control pretty much everyone in Congress. Ukraine doesn't have that.
What about some other NATO country? Don't they have some money to spare for Ukraine? Let them purchase it discount prices for Ukraine.
They do. In fact, Euro zone countries were the greatest direct financial contributor to Ukraine's 2023 budget by a large margin.. However running a war is much more than just dumping in money, as much of the financial support just goes to replacing income that was ultimately lost due to the war and it's depressing effect on their economy. Most of that 77+ billion euro can't necessarily go into purchasing weapons systems- and even if it did, 77 billion euro doesn't even go that far...
Besides, the US by far has the largest military-industrial complex of any of the listed countries. There's a really good chance that most other countries simply don't have that much war materiel to dump into Ukraine compared to the US.
There’s a really good chance that most other countries simply don’t have that much war materiel to dump into Ukraine compared to the US.
Yeah. During the intervention in Libya, our NATO allies ran out of precision munitions after less than a month of bombing.
The US is the only member of NATO which is ready enough and large enough to back Ukraine in the short-term.
Absolutely true. What I find puzzling is the hesitation to support Ukraine. If the US wants to pivot to Asia, it will need to ramp up its war industry. No better way to do that than to sell or give lots and lots of war materiel to Ukraine. A war for Taiwan and/or an expansion of war in the Middle East will require a huge build-up of industrial capacity to mass manufacture ammunition, missiles, computer components, tanks, trucks, artillery guns, combat aircraft, surface ships, and submarines, plus the primary industries needed to produce all of the raw materials required. Also, where are we going to get business and consumer products if we support Taiwan in a war with China?
If people give it more than a minute of thought, they'll realize that we are utterly unprepared to defend Taiwan. I'm not sure if NATO could even handle a war with Iran right now, but it would certainly be much easier if Russia were first defeated in Ukraine.
All that is to say that any pre-Trump iteration of the Republican Party would have jumped at the chance to help Ukraine as a way of reducing Russia, supporting the military industrial complex, and readying for great power competition. Apparently, the Republicans don't care about foreign affairs anymore.
Im not talking about weapon systems. If Adviivka was lost because they had to ration munitions like artillery shells, and Biden does not need congress approval to sell bombs at wholesale price, then why doesnt he sell it to some other NATO country that can give it to Ukraine.
Ukraine is purchasing the weapons though, they're being provided under bilateral aid agreements. As is typical with bilateral aid, the terms heavily favour the country giving, because the country receiving is desperate. The US is selling weapons to Ukraine at a premium, albeit in a long term loan, yet you're saying we should sell them at a reduced price.
I don't think you really know what you're talking about.
Im aware of how it has been done, apparently it isn't enough. So, why, if there really isn't a profit motive behind the ukraine war, doesn't some other country purchase the munitions required and gift it to ukraine? I dont think you can lend-lease munitions.
Denmark have literally just agreed to donate all of their weapons to Ukraine. I imagine they intend to resupply primarily through US infrastructure.
Why do you think that the US should sell to allies at a discount rather than sell to Ukraine for a massive uptick? Have you suddenly abandoned that position?
Are you just being argumentative for the sake of it? Are you completely full of shit??
Because Republicans like Israel. They also like Russia, which is why they don't like Ukraine; Russia's paying them, Ukraine isn't.
Israels munitions aid wasnt contingent on the republicans, because it didn't need congress approval since it technically was a sale. My qustion is, why isn't this done for Ukraine. Even if they didn't have any money, some other ally could purchase the munitions for them and give the aid to them.
European countries have been spending that money on building out their own munitions factories instead of buying shells from outside the EU. There are various posts about this on here. That'll lead to a better situation in the medium term but in the short term few shells are being supplied.
They can do both, especially if biden gives then a discount as well.
Money doesn't just appear out of nowhere in Europe either. And spending it on US shells might not be the top priority.
And yet everyone still makes a big humdrum about how "Democracy itself is at stake!". Why aren't you giving them the munitions they need then? Biggest defeat since bakhmut, their need is urgent, but no, gotta build the factories that will supply munitions sometime in the future first.
Yes the hypocrisy and showmanship here is out of control. Of course Biden could send aid to Ukraine without Congress, but I guess it's better for him to make the Republicans look bad before the election. Pure evil stuff
It's shady shit like this that is a constant reminder, that we are being painted a false dichotomy by the ruling parties. And people eat it up, chanting "Republicans bad" and downplaying the genocide. Of course Palestinians don't have nukes so America & Israel can just go hog wild and bathe in the charred bodies of children with no awkward escalation problems
So you're saying the Republicans aren't actively voting against it?
We're saying he helped israel in a way that didn't need approval from congress, why isn't he doing the same for Ukraine?
Care to expand on how exactly he can send aid without congress?
150 million USD worth of equipment sold for 106 million.
The article math linked lays it out but it's always the same formula. Someone declares an emergency (like Blinken just did for Israel) and then just goes ahead and appropriates the funds
But broadly, presidents may issue executive orders for just about anything. The way this works is congress reviews them after the fact, and new presidents tend to review them when they come into office
Read the wiki page on Executive Orders, history, and constitutionality if you think I'm lying. And yes, Trump even declared an emergency and took privilege to build the wall in recent memory. But there's been literally wars, desegregation, ordering all mined gold to be given to the treasury... by executive order
The big picture is that American presidents have extremely broad powers and the only real recourse is impeachment. This is generally a good thing, it makes the government tremendously more efficient
The other big picture is that the Pentagon refuses to explain where they use 1-2 trillion dollars per year. This is dark money that runs the world, and that's not a secret. They don't pass audits, and they barely try. So most of the country's money is used for military spending, and frankly it's hard to imagine they can't find some cash for key nato borders
If you think standing up for our allies is expensive..wait to see what happens when you abandon them.
This is the refrain of conservatism. If you think carbon taxes are expensive, wait for climate change, social programs... Crime, healthcare... Death. They do not actually give a shit about expense.
Conservatives do not see Europe as our allies. The GOP famously despises Europe and would very much like to see Putin take control of it.
The sooner we disabuse ourselves of the foolish idea that republicans work for America, the better off we’ll be.
I just don't understand why Trump is simping so hard for Putin. These Maga fascists are just blindly following that asshole.
We have trump and his ties to Russia, seven republicans being the first delegation to visit Russia since it illegally annexed Crimea, Russian oligarch investment in McConnell's state, NRA facilitating contact between Russia and republicans, and the list goes on. It just doesn't seem to matter to enough people.
They want it. These people are fed up with democracy.
When democracy sees them losing power, rather than adjusting their platform or working toward compromise, their decision has always been to subvert the system. Gerrymandering, voter restrictions, election fraud, insurrection, and openly courting the enemies of the country are all preferable to losing power, to these people.
In a country where democracy makes their kind a minority, it's democracy that must yield to them, not the other way around. They're only American as long as doing so gets them their way.
Dirt.
1930s appeasers thought Hitler was willing to draw a line and stop at some point too.
These aren't just appeasers we're dealing with. These are silver shirts.
Pretty sure most of hardcore Maga and the Freedom Caucus are fine with Hitler. Jan 6th was their Beer Hall Putsch. The ones who find Hitler a bit extreme have no objection to Franco, Pinochet, or Mussolini.
U.S. Congress is not to blame. U.S. conservatives in congress are to blame.
The GOP works hard to support Putin. Delaying/denying any defense of Ukraine is a huge win for them as they support Putin's efforts to invade Europe.
You tell ‘em, corpse of Uncle Sam.
No. The Russian military is to blame for the fall. Not helping someone is not the same as killing them. Helping them can still be good though.
Why couldn't they get "Genocide Joes Discount Bombs Special" like Israel? That didn't need congress approval.
Because Israel paid for these bombs. Due to the war, Ukraine suffers from a serious lack of money. Therefore, they can't just buy the weapons they need. Instead, the US and other NATO countries provide them for free. To do so, Biden needs congressional approval. The only thing he can do on his own is to give arms manufacturers the permission to sell weapons, e.g. to Israel.
They're not actually free, they're being provided under bilateral aid agreements. If Ukraine survives the war it's going to be saddled with an enormous amount of debt.
The screw here is that countries giving can use the debt to fiddle their own books, making their economies look better than they really are (because they know Ukraine will never be able to pay it all back).
They won't be required to pay it back like that, that is a propaganda talking point.
What's your source for saying it's a propaganda talking point?
Here is my source for it all being bilateral aid: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/
Do you wish to challenge the definition of "bilateral"?
My goal here isn't to say that Ukraine shouldn't be funded - it absolutely should, and I believe doing so is essential to global security. My goal here is to call out the people who seek to exploit this war as an opportunity to sell more weapons and profit from death.
In that sense, many world leaders are in fact in league with Putin. Putin plays the bad guy, but they all profit, while general people and societies suffer.
But hey, they need to "thin the heard" in order to mitigate the other issues their ramptant exploitation is causing, such that they can continue to profit unabated. So I guess war is inevitable /s.
War is about making money, primarily from selling weapons. There are secondary objectives as well, but the real goal is always money.
Israel gets billions in 'aid', the American people paid for these bombs. The real reason is that Israel has a ridiculously effective lobby group in AIPAC where they control pretty much everyone in Congress. Ukraine doesn't have that.
What about some other NATO country? Don't they have some money to spare for Ukraine? Let them purchase it discount prices for Ukraine.
They do. In fact, Euro zone countries were the greatest direct financial contributor to Ukraine's 2023 budget by a large margin.. However running a war is much more than just dumping in money, as much of the financial support just goes to replacing income that was ultimately lost due to the war and it's depressing effect on their economy. Most of that 77+ billion euro can't necessarily go into purchasing weapons systems- and even if it did, 77 billion euro doesn't even go that far... Besides, the US by far has the largest military-industrial complex of any of the listed countries. There's a really good chance that most other countries simply don't have that much war materiel to dump into Ukraine compared to the US.
Yeah. During the intervention in Libya, our NATO allies ran out of precision munitions after less than a month of bombing.
The US is the only member of NATO which is ready enough and large enough to back Ukraine in the short-term.
Absolutely true. What I find puzzling is the hesitation to support Ukraine. If the US wants to pivot to Asia, it will need to ramp up its war industry. No better way to do that than to sell or give lots and lots of war materiel to Ukraine. A war for Taiwan and/or an expansion of war in the Middle East will require a huge build-up of industrial capacity to mass manufacture ammunition, missiles, computer components, tanks, trucks, artillery guns, combat aircraft, surface ships, and submarines, plus the primary industries needed to produce all of the raw materials required. Also, where are we going to get business and consumer products if we support Taiwan in a war with China?
If people give it more than a minute of thought, they'll realize that we are utterly unprepared to defend Taiwan. I'm not sure if NATO could even handle a war with Iran right now, but it would certainly be much easier if Russia were first defeated in Ukraine.
All that is to say that any pre-Trump iteration of the Republican Party would have jumped at the chance to help Ukraine as a way of reducing Russia, supporting the military industrial complex, and readying for great power competition. Apparently, the Republicans don't care about foreign affairs anymore.
Im not talking about weapon systems. If Adviivka was lost because they had to ration munitions like artillery shells, and Biden does not need congress approval to sell bombs at wholesale price, then why doesnt he sell it to some other NATO country that can give it to Ukraine.
Ukraine is purchasing the weapons though, they're being provided under bilateral aid agreements. As is typical with bilateral aid, the terms heavily favour the country giving, because the country receiving is desperate. The US is selling weapons to Ukraine at a premium, albeit in a long term loan, yet you're saying we should sell them at a reduced price.
I don't think you really know what you're talking about.
Im aware of how it has been done, apparently it isn't enough. So, why, if there really isn't a profit motive behind the ukraine war, doesn't some other country purchase the munitions required and gift it to ukraine? I dont think you can lend-lease munitions.
Denmark have literally just agreed to donate all of their weapons to Ukraine. I imagine they intend to resupply primarily through US infrastructure.
Why do you think that the US should sell to allies at a discount rather than sell to Ukraine for a massive uptick? Have you suddenly abandoned that position?
Are you just being argumentative for the sake of it? Are you completely full of shit??
Because Republicans like Israel. They also like Russia, which is why they don't like Ukraine; Russia's paying them, Ukraine isn't.
Israels munitions aid wasnt contingent on the republicans, because it didn't need congress approval since it technically was a sale. My qustion is, why isn't this done for Ukraine. Even if they didn't have any money, some other ally could purchase the munitions for them and give the aid to them.
European countries have been spending that money on building out their own munitions factories instead of buying shells from outside the EU. There are various posts about this on here. That'll lead to a better situation in the medium term but in the short term few shells are being supplied.
They can do both, especially if biden gives then a discount as well.
Money doesn't just appear out of nowhere in Europe either. And spending it on US shells might not be the top priority.
And yet everyone still makes a big humdrum about how "Democracy itself is at stake!". Why aren't you giving them the munitions they need then? Biggest defeat since bakhmut, their need is urgent, but no, gotta build the factories that will supply munitions sometime in the future first.
Yes the hypocrisy and showmanship here is out of control. Of course Biden could send aid to Ukraine without Congress, but I guess it's better for him to make the Republicans look bad before the election. Pure evil stuff
It's shady shit like this that is a constant reminder, that we are being painted a false dichotomy by the ruling parties. And people eat it up, chanting "Republicans bad" and downplaying the genocide. Of course Palestinians don't have nukes so America & Israel can just go hog wild and bathe in the charred bodies of children with no awkward escalation problems
So you're saying the Republicans aren't actively voting against it?
We're saying he helped israel in a way that didn't need approval from congress, why isn't he doing the same for Ukraine?
Care to expand on how exactly he can send aid without congress?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/29/politics/biden-congress-israel-military-aid/index.html
150 million USD worth of equipment sold for 106 million.
The article math linked lays it out but it's always the same formula. Someone declares an emergency (like Blinken just did for Israel) and then just goes ahead and appropriates the funds
But broadly, presidents may issue executive orders for just about anything. The way this works is congress reviews them after the fact, and new presidents tend to review them when they come into office
Read the wiki page on Executive Orders, history, and constitutionality if you think I'm lying. And yes, Trump even declared an emergency and took privilege to build the wall in recent memory. But there's been literally wars, desegregation, ordering all mined gold to be given to the treasury... by executive order
The big picture is that American presidents have extremely broad powers and the only real recourse is impeachment. This is generally a good thing, it makes the government tremendously more efficient
The other big picture is that the Pentagon refuses to explain where they use 1-2 trillion dollars per year. This is dark money that runs the world, and that's not a secret. They don't pass audits, and they barely try. So most of the country's money is used for military spending, and frankly it's hard to imagine they can't find some cash for key nato borders