All Things Russia & Ukraine

[Brooklyn]

It's simply not responsive to this issue...at all.

Yes it is. Unfortunately you like so many others on this forum only have a superficial knowledge of history and have bought into the contrivances and duplicities of others behind closed doors. You see a Hitler or a Bolshevik revolution and you feel that war is the only answer to these problems. I look beyond what your conventional history books teach and get into why or how these historical maladies started. Neither of these evils just happened to drop in from the clouds. Sinister forces were at work behind closed doors and devised evil ways to bring them into political power and into the news. As Professor Sutton pointed out these sinister forces sought ways to bring about war profiteering that would insure perpetual wealth for them. Politicians would be bought off. Newspapers would give calculated stories designed to distract you from the real causes of troubles. People would be assassinated. Colleges and publishing houses would distribute books that whitewash certain people while mischaracterizing those who sought reformation or justices. One need only read Professor Sutton's books to see for themselves whether any of his claims were true. He lost his job in academia for having the boldness to publish what he did. At no point, however, did anyone successfully refute his teachings. It just happens that the evil culprits he mentioned in his well researched documentation were mostly Republican. That is, has always been, and remains a FACT. Disclosing that truth is not partisanship. Just the truth. It may not be what you want to see. But there is nothing you can do to refute its truth. Learn to accept that it was your Republican schemers who brought on Bolshevism, the Great Depression, Hitler, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And, as history shows, they will likely bring on the next mess that befalls us all. If the non partisan Professor Sutton was alive today he would be the first one to endorse that truth.

[MDlaxfan76]

BTW, if we're willing to provide various weaponry and training to Ukrainian insurgents, at what point do we go to drones?

If we were doing so right now, letting Ukrainians operate them, a heck of a lot of tanks could be destroyed.

Weapons carrying drones -- not a capability that can be provided quickly. Requires operator & maintainer training & experience.
They are still combat aircraft.

yup, sit a Ukrainian in the chair next to an operator, let them work the controls and they knock off tanks.

Surely we have such assets near enough...

We'd have to send in US service members &/or contractors. It's a capability that could maybe have been developed starting 6 mos ago, & that's a stretch.

You also need intel & training to maintain situational awareness & to id targets. It is actually more challenging, in that regard, than operating a manned attack aircraft. It's not just plug & play.

You'd probably know better than I do, but I'm not talking about any need to "send in" our guys and gals from anywhere other than whatever base they're currently working from. I don't care if that's in Arizona. Sit the Ukrainian newbie operators in the chair next to them and tell 'em what to do each step of the way.

Maybe there's a need for on the ground intel, but seems to me we can identify Russian tanks and convoys just fine from very far away. Right now that's what's needed to disrupt heavily the assumed easy roll by the Russians.

We're not talking about figuring out which building to hit to kill the enemy terrorist and not the civilians. that'd be a later stage, probably too late.

[MDlaxfan76]

It's simply not responsive to this issue...at all.

Yes it is. Unfortunately you like so many others on this forum only have a superficial knowledge of history and have bought into the contrivances and duplicities of others behind closed doors. You see a Hitler or a Bolshevik revolution and you feel that war is the only answer to these problems. I look beyond what your conventional history books teach and get into why or how these historical maladies started. Neither of these evils just happened to drop in from the clouds. Sinister forces were at work behind closed doors and devised evil ways to bring them into political power and into the news. As Professor Sutton pointed out these sinister forces sought ways to bring about war profiteering that would insure perpetual wealth for them. Politicians would be bought off. Newspapers would give calculated stories designed to distract you from the real causes of troubles. People would be assassinated. Colleges and publishing houses would distribute books that whitewash certain people while mischaracterizing those who sought reformation or justices. One need only read Professor Sutton's books to see for themselves whether any of his claims were true. He lost his job in academia for having the boldness to publish what he did. At no point, however, did anyone successfully refute his teachings. It just happens that the evil culprits he mentioned in his well researched documentation were mostly Republican. That is, has always been, and remains a FACT. Disclosing that truth is not partisanship. Just the truth. It may not be what you want to see. But there is nothing you can do to refute its truth. Learn to accept that it was your Republican schemers who brought on Bolshevism, the Great Depression, Hitler, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And, as history shows, they will likely bring on the next mess that befalls us all. If the non partisan Professor Sutton was alive today he would be the first one to endorse that truth.

Boy, that's some high horse you're on, Brooklyn.

And a pretty darn whack job few of history too. But ok, that's your view.
'cause the good Professor says so...

I wonder why Sutton isn't taken seriously by so many academics still. Must be a conspiracy and everyone's been paid off.

[Brooklyn]

Boy, that's some high horse you're on, Brooklyn.

And a pretty darn whack job few of history too. But ok, that's your view.
'cause the good Professor says so...

I wonder why Sutton isn't taken seriously by so many academics still. Must be a conspiracy and everyone's been paid off.

Obviously, you are all set to believe the next set of fairy tales which say there are WMD and America's enemies hiding in people's closets and under every bed. I'm not willing to believe any of it. I said over and over again that you will never find those imaginary WMD and that there was no valid cause for Bush's imperialist war as you could easily see the same propaganda we saw in previous wars. But if you're going to buy into the next war, go ahead and march off into it. Send us a picture post card when you get there.

[jhu72]

I hadn't noticed this until just now, but Putin threatened Sweden and Finland this morning. Telling them that if they joined NATO, he would have to respond. He can't be this stupid that he doesn't understand it is his actions causing all of this.

Breaking News: Biden has joined the EU in sanctioning Putin personally.. ABFT.

[Farfromgeneva]

It's simply not responsive to this issue...at all.

Yes it is. Unfortunately you like so many others on this forum only have a superficial knowledge of history and have bought into the contrivances and duplicities of others behind closed doors. You see a Hitler or a Bolshevik revolution and you feel that war is the only answer to these problems. I look beyond what your conventional history books teach and get into why or how these historical maladies started. Neither of these evils just happened to drop in from the clouds. Sinister forces were at work behind closed doors and devised evil ways to bring them into political power and into the news. As Professor Sutton pointed out these sinister forces sought ways to bring about war profiteering that would insure perpetual wealth for them. Politicians would be bought off. Newspapers would give calculated stories designed to distract you from the real causes of troubles. People would be assassinated. Colleges and publishing houses would distribute books that whitewash certain people while mischaracterizing those who sought reformation or justices. One need only read Professor Sutton's books to see for themselves whether any of his claims were true. He lost his job in academia for having the boldness to publish what he did. At no point, however, did anyone successfully refute his teachings. It just happens that the evil culprits he mentioned in his well researched documentation were mostly Republican. That is, has always been, and remains a FACT. Disclosing that truth is not partisanship. Just the truth. It may not be what you want to see. But there is nothing you can do to refute its truth. Learn to accept that it was your Republican schemers who brought on Bolshevism, the Great Depression, Hitler, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And, as history shows, they will likely bring on the next mess that befalls us all. If the non partisan Professor Sutton was alive today he would be the first one to endorse that truth.

Boy, that's some high horse you're on, Brooklyn.

And a pretty darn whack job few of history too. But ok, that's your view.
'cause the good Professor says so...

I wonder why Sutton isn't taken seriously by so many academics still. Must be a conspiracy and everyone's been paid off.

Living in ones own world. Not different from some others if from a different angle. I’m sure you wouldn’t agree but probably banging your head against a wall pushing a dialogue with someone who refuses to participate.

[jhu72]

jhu72,
... sorry Obama doesn't get a pass because some people said mean things about him. He had exactly the same problem that Trump had. He didn't have the balls to go up against the generals when push came to shove, as it always does. Biden is the only one who has show any balls in that regard.

Like MD and others, I do not see the current situation in the same light as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanastan, Grenade, etc.

... Vietnam was a Civil War, we had no business there, from day 1.
... Iraq 2 was clearly sold on false pretense and was in the end a Civil War, no reason to be there.
... Afghanastan had a reasonable causa belli, but was mission creeped to death by the usual suspects. Our job was done after clearing out the terrorists and exacting a single pound of flesh from the Taliban and they vacated. Should have been out after 3-6 months max. We have no business nation building in a culture we don't understand and where we are ultimately unwelcome and partnered with a corrupt government and an army that would not fight.
... Ukraine is a young democratic country with a culture we do understand being bullied by a fascist who if he gets away with it we will have to face again, somewhere, sometime. We cannot coexist with this character as a democracy. We will ultimately be forced to fight him or surrender to him. They have shown a willingness to fight for themselves (a prerequisite in my book). We also are fortunate in that we do have a commander in chief that is not going to get caught up in mission creep. He knows how to say no to the generals and partners.

This is a review of the various situations we have been in. I am not making an argument for going to war. I am making an argument that Ukraine deserves a chance and is not an obviously bad wagon to hitch too. Their national interest is the same as OUR NATIONAL INTEREST. I am willing to cut the administration a break, in supporting Ukraine so long as these things remain true, recognizing we may be drawn in to the fight.

As you saw above, NEVER once have I ever given Obama a free pass. I have REPEATEDLY called for the dissolution of the military industrial complex and forum right wingers have commented on that repeatedly as well.


Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan ~ Johnson, Nixon, and Bush deserved Nuremberg tribunals for their treasonous crimes and imperialistic wars of colonialist terrorism.


Ukraine was not welcomed into NATO because it is undemocratic, or so they say. Biggest hypocrisy anywhere since Falangist Spain is a member, invaded Catalonia, and imposed fascist depredations. European nations actually helped those fascists track down President Puigdemont - nobody commented here last year when I mentioned it. -- Ukraine has had a spotted history for sure. I think it is impossible however to look at them today and not see a huge democratic spirit in the people of Ukraine and Zelansky himself.


"{Ukraine's} national interest is the same as OUR NATIONAL INTEREST" -- take it you don't agree, taking Putin down is in our national interest??

Which ones?

We have no interest in that country, the Caucasus region, or the Middle East. -- agree we have no interest or designs on Ukraine



"am willing to cut the administration a break, in supporting Ukraine so long as these things remain "true", recognizing we may be drawn in to the fight"


The USA's interests were not jeopardized in any way when Russia invaded the Chechan Republic of Ichkeria (Chechnya), Georgia, or Dagestan. We were not drawn into their fights nor should we have been. Give us proof that your claims are "true". -- said nothing about any of those conflicts

[MDlaxfan76]

Boy, that's some high horse you're on, Brooklyn.

And a pretty darn whack job few of history too. But ok, that's your view.
'cause the good Professor says so...

I wonder why Sutton isn't taken seriously by so many academics still. Must be a conspiracy and everyone's been paid off.

Obviously, you are all set to believe the next set of fairy tales which say there are WMD and America's enemies hiding in people's closets and under every bed. I'm not willing to believe any of it. I said over and over again that you will never find those imaginary WMD and that there was no valid cause for Bush's imperialist war as you could easily see the same propaganda we saw in previous wars. But if you're going to buy into the next war, go ahead and march off into it. Send us a picture post card when you get there.

I'm not saying that there isn't ANY truth to your claims, much less that it's not important to have a healthy degree of skepticism about motivations.

But you paint everything as a conspiracy to profiteer, as if that's the only possible explanation for taking action.

I don't buy it, nor do the vast majority of academics.

[MDlaxfan76]

I hadn't noticed this until just now, but Putin threatened Sweden and Finland this morning. Telling them that if they joined NATO, he would have to respond. He can't be this stupid that he doesn't understand it is his actions causing all of this.

Breaking News: Biden has joined the EU in sanctioning Putin personally.. ABFT.

He understands. He's simply saying things out loud.

And yeah, when he threatens, we should take that literally.

[DocBarrister]

I hadn't noticed this until just now, but Putin threatened Sweden and Finland this morning. Telling them that if they joined NATO, he would have to respond. He can't be this stupid that he doesn't understand it is his actions causing all of this.

Breaking News: Biden has joined the EU in sanctioning Putin personally.. ABFT.

He understands. He's simply saying things out loud.

And yeah, when he threatens, we should take that literally.

There is a serious risk that the violence may spread, whether intentionally or not, to NATO nations. One mistake and NATO could find itself in a shooting conflict with Russian forces.

All of this is so dangerous.

DocBarrister

[jhu72]

US Ukranian Catholic Church calls out Tucker Carlson.

[Brooklyn]

I'm not saying that there isn't ANY truth to your claims, much less that it's not important to have a healthy degree of skepticism about motivations.

But you paint everything as a conspiracy to profiteer, as if that's the only possible explanation for taking action.

I don't buy it, nor do the vast majority of academics.

Academia is owned by the same interests who own every war profiteering business in the USA. It's not that academicians do not believe his writings, it's that they will not openly endorse them because it will mean a loss of employment.

[Brooklyn]

-- Ukraine has had a spotted history for sure. I think it is impossible however to look at them today and not see a huge democratic spirit in the people of Ukraine and Zelansky himself.

-- agree we have no interest or designs on Ukraine

-- said nothing about any of those conflicts

Catalonians have a spirit of freedom and democracy but nobody bothered to help them from Madrid's fascism. Therefore, stay out of Ukraine's problems and solve our own.

[Farfromgeneva]

This seemed like a decent piece to share

How the West Misread Vladimir Putin

The former KGB officer spent years assailing the post-Cold War order and sent repeated signals he intended to widen Russia’s sphere of influence

By Michael R. Gordon in Washington, Stephen Fidler in London and Alan Cullison in Kyiv, Ukraine
Feb. 25, 2022 5:48 pm ET
Western powers and their allies have lined up to oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They can’t say he didn’t warn them.

Fifteen years ago, the former KGB officer railed against U.S. domination of global affairs and assailed the post-Cold War security order as a threat to his country. In the years that followed, he grabbed portions of Georgia, annexed Crimea and sent troops in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Mr. Putin sent repeated signals that he intended to widen Russia’s sphere of influence and cast the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to Moscow’s security. He made plain he viewed Ukraine as part of Russia.

Yet until recently few Western leaders imagined Mr. Putin would go through with a full-scale invasion, having miscalculated his determination to use force—on a scale that recalls the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968—to restore Russian control over the nations on its periphery.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

How do you think the West should have handled Putin from the start? Join the conversation below.

Russian forces moved by air and land to attack Kyiv on Friday after launching an invasion Wednesday. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Russia was ready for negotiations, but the goals of its combat operation to “demilitarize” Ukraine remained.

“It was strategic narcissism and an associated failure to consider the emotion, ideology, and aspiration that drives Putin and the Siloviki around him,” said H.R. McMaster, the retired three-star Army general who served as former U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, referring to the small circle of hard-line advisers around the Russian president.

Mr. Putin’s all-out assault on Ukraine has put the West on its back foot, where it is now struggling to find ways to deter the Kremlin’s aggression and to influence a Russian leader who has openly expressed disdain for the West and called into doubt its willingness to take decisive action.

Explosions, Airstrikes, Disbelief: Russia’s Attack on Ukraine

Russian forces advance toward Kyiv, while inhabitants of the capital city flee or brace for onslaught


Ukrainian defense fighters received weapons and ammunition in Kyiv on Friday.

mikhail palinchak/EPA/Shutterstock

•••••

The costs of the West’s failure to deter Russia is now being borne by Ukraine, which for 14 years has existed in a strategic purgatory: marked for potential membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but never admitted into the alliance and the security guarantees that it provided.

Longer term, the invasion has ruptured the already chilly relations between the Western alliance and Moscow.

When Mr. Putin’s forces invaded Georgia in 2008 after it was promised eventual NATO membership, and recognized two breakaway areas, the West reacted by temporarily suspending dialogue, before returning to business as usual. Sanctions imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 also didn’t bite.

In recent months, senior U.S. officials have laid out Mr. Putin’s invasion plans. The misreading of Mr. Putin, however, cuts across multiple U.S. administrations.


President Biden thought initially he could build a ‘stable, predictable’ relationship with Mr. Putin. The two are seen here at a 2021 summit.
Photo: SAUL LOEB/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Former President George W. Bush said he had looked into Mr. Putin’s eyes and found him trustworthy. Former President Barack Obama dismissed Mr. Putin’s Russia as a “regional power” threatening its neighbors out of weakness. Former President Donald Trump saw the U.S.’s European allies, and their reluctance to assume more of the burden for defense, as a bigger problem than putting the Kremlin on notice. President Biden sought to build a “stable, predictable” relationship with Mr. Putin with a summit meeting in June.

The attack exposes complacency in Europe, which allowed its military to shrink and did little to reduce its energy dependency on Russia, despite Moscow’s increasingly aggressive behavior, which included cyberattacks on Western targets. Even as the West imposes sanctions on Russia, it is sending hundreds of millions of dollars daily to pay for Russian gas.

Energy Exporter
Despite Moscow’s increasingly aggressive posture toward the West,​Europe remained reliant on Russia for energy.
Russian natural gas exports, by destination
Source: Russia's Customs Service via CEIC Data

2005
'10
'15
'20
0
20
40
60
80
100
%
All others
Italy
Turkey
Germany
China

Western leaders took comfort in the limited nature of Mr. Putin’s earlier military interventions. Those were considered deniable, smaller-scale operations that sought to mask the extent of Russia’s role. Russian actions also included hacks on the Democratic National Committee in 2016 and cyber attacks on its neighbors. The U.S. and its allies neither marshaled the military and economic leverage to forestall his invasion of Ukraine nor presented a major diplomatic concession, such as halting NATO expansion.

“The West did not underestimate Russia’s military capabilities. It watched the determined military modernization program since the Georgian war in 2008, and saw some of its fruits in the militarily successful intervention in Syria in 2015,” said William Courtney, the former U.S. ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan during the Clinton administration. “But the West may have underestimated the Kremlin’s willingness to use force in Europe, and against a people which Putin claims are one with Russians.”

Mr. Putin’s early cooperation with the West morphed into animosity over his two decades in power. The Russia he inherited had a broken bureaucracy and an economy the size of Belgium. Now he oversees a government and military fueled by years of high energy prices.


President Trump saw pushing European countries to fulfill their NATO budget commitments as a bigger priority than the Kremlin.
Photo: SAUL LOEB/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
When Mr. Putin became president in 1999, he cut a very different figure from his predecessor, Boris Yelstin. Mr. Yeltsin had a jovial, backslapping relationship in public with former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Putin was a closed book.

By the time Mr. Putin came to power—via the KGB and local politics in his native Saint Petersburg—Russia was inside the Group of Eight and was being consulted by NATO although staying outside the alliance.

In his early exchanges with Western leaders and new on the international scene, Mr. Putin appeared respectful.

Mr. Bush attempted to build a personal relationship with him. In their first meeting at a summit in Slovenia in June 2001, Mr. Bush said: “I looked the man in the eye and found him very straightforward and trustworthy… I was able to get a sense of his soul. He’s a man who’s deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Putin was the first foreign leader to call Mr. Bush to offer condolences and cooperation in fighting terrorism.


President Bush, seen here in 2005, said he saw into Mr. Putin’s soul.
Photo: Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
He offered intelligence and logistical support to the U.S. as it invaded Afghanistan, over the heads of some in Russia’s military establishment. Michael McFaul, who would later become an adviser to the Obama administration at the time praised the relationship as “another chance to really end the Cold War.”

Thomas Graham, the senior National Security Council official for Russia affairs in the Bush administration, said that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was the first of several events that Mr. Putin would have objected to if Russia carried more sway.

“Putin didn’t believe in these things but didn’t see much point in opposing them because the West was going to do them anyway,” Mr. Graham said. “He told people that he was not going to oppose them publicly because it would just make him look bad.”

Mr. Putin’s suspicions toward the West became more pronounced with the so-called colored revolutions beginning in 2004 that toppled leaders of former Soviet states, and later with the Arab Spring.

NATO had meanwhile continued its expansion to Eastern European countries that had been in the Soviet-aligned Warsaw Pact in 1999 and then in 2004, when the alliance was also enlarged to cover the three Baltic states that had been part of the Soviet Union. The U.S. and its allies saw enlargement as a way to encourage reform in the newly emerging democracies. NATO’s new members were looking to sit under the U.S. security umbrella should Russia threaten to absorb them again.


Joined between 1949 and 1990

Seeking membership

Multinational NATO battlegroups deployed

Note: Ukraine includes disputed territory in Crimea and Donbas *Former Soviet countries

Source: NATO
Mr. Putin’s anger over enlargement became clear in a speech he made at the annual Munich Security Conference in 2007, where he surprised his audience as he railed against the unipolar world dominated by the U.S. There he laid out his grievances against NATO expansion, leveling allegations of broken promises from the West that NATO wouldn’t shift eastward and depicting enlargement as a threat to Russia.

Enlargement “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: Against whom is this expansion intended?” he said.

Tensions ratcheted up further a year later. Mr. Putin was invited to a NATO summit in Bucharest, where leaders were discussing a route into the alliance for Georgia and Ukraine. While Mr. Bush wanted the countries to be admitted in short order, France and Germany opposed the move.

In the end, a compromise allowed Georgia and Ukraine to eventually be admitted but with no date set.


In a precursor to the Ukrainian invasion, Russian troops moved into neighboring Georgia in 2008.
Photo: Uriel Sinai/Getty Images
The outcome turned out to be the worst of both worlds for the two countries. Hard-liners in Moscow had identified them as potential future adversaries—but ones that weren’t yet protected by the alliance’s security guarantees. “They got the hot breath of Russia on their necks while they didn’t get NATO membership,” said Jamie Shea, a senior NATO official at the time.

While in Bucharest, in a meeting with Mr. Bush, Mr. Putin told him that Ukraine wasn’t a real country, according to Western officials.

In August that year, Mr. Putin invaded Georgia, routing a U.S.-trained Georgian military. Western experts say the Russia learned from the military mishaps in that incursion and subsequently upgraded its equipment and shifted toward a professional, rather than a conscript, army.

When Mr. Obama visited Russia in 2009, he met Mr. Putin at his dacha. There, according to a memoir by the U.S. president, he received an “animated and seemingly endless monologue” on the slights Mr. Putin felt the U.S. had made, including expanding NATO and invading Iraq.

After Russian forces seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Mr. Obama dismissed the development as the actions of a “regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness.” The following year, after Russian forces intervened in Syria on President Bashar al-Assad’s behalf, U.S. officials played down the significance, saying it might even lead to a Russian quagmire.


President Obama sought to marginalize Russia by referring to it as a regional power. Above, with Mr. Putin at a 2013 summit.
Photo: kevin lamarque/Reuters
Successive U.S. presidents sought to keep the possibility for cooperation amid the differences. Mr. Shea, the former NATO official, said in retrospect that the West should have acted earlier and more firmly.

“We should have imposed in my opinion the sanctions on Russia that we are imposing today either in 2008 or 2014, because then Putin might have got the message that the West would react vigorously and might have been deterred,” Mr. Shea said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, days before Russia launched war on his country, likened the West’s posture toward Russia to the mistakes of appeasement in the 20th century. He criticized Western nations for not imposing sanctions earlier. “What are you waiting for?” he said. “We don’t need sanctions after the bombardment begins.”

Write to Michael R. Gordon at [email protected], Stephen Fidler at [email protected] and Alan Cullison at [email protected]

[Peter Brown]

Amazing bravery of Zelensky, who is likely to be killed soon.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/149 ... 33252?s=21

Compare this guys bravery with the bottomless weakness of Justin Trudeau. Like two different species.

I truly despise Trudeau. As should you.

Nobody wants to talk about Trudeau-especially on a Russia/Ukraine theres when there’s a war. Cut the s**t-its either pathetic and/or intentionally subversive and selfish. Take your pick.

He selling. Don't know for whom and why, but he's selling.

He’s selling for attention and winning big.

Lauding Zelensky isn’t relevant?! Or did you miss that part?

topic shaming......the first retort when you have nothing, the last when you are.

some posters seem to excell at it, all the while, contributing to it........and yet "topic shame" those that.....geez.

Indeed

[Peter Brown]

Let’s check in with Adam Kinzinger:

https://twitter.com/adamkinzinger/statu ... 75364?s=21

A no fly zone means American forces fighting Russian forces. There isn’t a middle ground here. This is a call for war against a nuclear power. It is irresponsible and reprehensible. Adam Kinzinger would see tens of thousands dead if it would get him an inch closer to a cable news contributorship at CNN. He’s a terrible human being.


Let’s now check in with Eric Swalwell:

https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/1496 ... 75266?s=21

Eric Swalwell represents California, you'd expect he's read about FDR's internment of Japanese-Americans but it looks like he took the wrong lessons. Eric Swalwell thinks Russian college students should be told to Go Back To Where They Came From. He’s literally suggesting a Russian Ban! Xenophobia has no home here, I thought.

Dems, man, they are pure comedy gold.

[NattyBohChamps04]

BTW, if we're willing to provide various weaponry and training to Ukrainian insurgents, at what point do we go to drones?

If we were doing so right now, letting Ukrainians operate them, a heck of a lot of tanks could be destroyed.

Weapons carrying drones -- not a capability that can be provided quickly. Requires operator & maintainer training & experience.
They are still combat aircraft.

yup, sit a Ukrainian in the chair next to an operator, let them work the controls and they knock off tanks.

Surely we have such assets near enough...

We'd have to send in US service members &/or contractors. It's a capability that could maybe have been developed starting 6 mos ago, & that's a stretch.

You also need intel & training to maintain situational awareness & to id targets. It is actually more challenging, in that regard, than operating a manned attack aircraft. It's not just plug & play.

You'd probably know better than I do, but I'm not talking about any need to "send in" our guys and gals from anywhere other than whatever base they're currently working from. I don't care if that's in Arizona. Sit the Ukrainian newbie operators in the chair next to them and tell 'em what to do each step of the way.

Maybe there's a need for on the ground intel, but seems to me we can identify Russian tanks and convoys just fine from very far away. Right now that's what's needed to disrupt heavily the assumed easy roll by the Russians.

We're not talking about figuring out which building to hit to kill the enemy terrorist and not the civilians. that'd be a later stage, probably too late.

Ukraine purchased a number of Turkish drones & weapons systems over the past year or so and are allegedly using them to good effect. If the combat footage is real, they're doing some decent damage to Russian forces & armor with them.

[NattyBohChamps04]

Lauding Zelenskyy is nice. Fox was calling him pathetic just a couple of days ago for his statement asking for a peaceful solution. The same show also had the guy on who got impeached for trying to extort Zelenskyy to interfere in our election. The whole withholding security aid to Ukraine thing unless Zelenskyy announced a fake investigation into his presidential opponent.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Lauding Zelenskyy is nice. Fox was calling him pathetic just a couple of days ago for his statement asking for a peaceful solution. The same show also had the guy on who got impeached for trying to extort Zelenskyy to interfere in our election. The whole withholding security aid to Ukraine thing unless Zelenskyy announced a fake investigation into his presidential opponent.

This day was about 5 or 6 years in the making. Back when we told Russia to ignore Barry.



Russia Russia Russia!…….Russian Hoax! TDS!!

[old salt]

BTW, if we're willing to provide various weaponry and training to Ukrainian insurgents, at what point do we go to drones?

If we were doing so right now, letting Ukrainians operate them, a heck of a lot of tanks could be destroyed.

Weapons carrying drones -- not a capability that can be provided quickly. Requires operator & maintainer training & experience.
They are still combat aircraft.

yup, sit a Ukrainian in the chair next to an operator, let them work the controls and they knock off tanks.

Surely we have such assets near enough...

We'd have to send in US service members &/or contractors. It's a capability that could maybe have been developed starting 6 mos ago, & that's a stretch.

You also need intel & training to maintain situational awareness & to id targets. It is actually more challenging, in that regard, than operating a manned attack aircraft. It's not just plug & play.

You'd probably know better than I do, but I'm not talking about any need to "send in" our guys and gals from anywhere other than whatever base they're currently working from. I don't care if that's in Arizona. Sit the Ukrainian newbie operators in the chair next to them and tell 'em what to do each step of the way.

Maybe there's a need for on the ground intel, but seems to me we can identify Russian tanks and convoys just fine from very far away. Right now that's what's needed to disrupt heavily the assumed easy roll by the Russians.

We're not talking about figuring out which building to hit to kill the enemy terrorist and not the civilians. that'd be a later stage, probably too late.

Ukraine purchased a number of Turkish drones & weapons systems over the past year or so and are allegedly using them to good effect. If the combat footage is real, they're doing some decent damage to Russian forces & armor with them.

I don't know if Ukraine has enough of the Turkish designed drones to make a difference. They made a deal with Turkey a few months ago to produce them in Ukraine. They've employed them in the fighting in the Donbass & they took out 1 artillery position. They're smaller, fly lower & slower, are more vulnerable & carry a less lethal weapon that the Hellfire missile fired by US made drones, which the US has been hesitant to supply for fear of proliferation.