"The 1980's are calling to ask for their foreign policy back."

Guns are a right here in America which is why we come out of the uterus with all the arms. Well at least if you are a man which is why I knew I was a woman because I wasn't born with one. I only had a penis.

It is telling that nobody can respond to this bit.

IT'S YOU HE'S TALKING ABOUT.

The opinions of the rest of the board apart from you and FF on social spending are well known.

And if you meant politicians, the Dems have been putting infrastructure and social care bills forward for fucking ever.

Alright, so there's one person on record saying the cash and prizes should stay home for the benefit of taxpayers.

And what makes you think I'm opposed to infrastructure spending? I just have a problem with paying people to do nothing. Could be an opportunity to solve both problems. Can't find work? We've always got bridges in need of repair, concrete to be poured, and ditches to be dug.

That's what you're reduced to griping about now?

Tribalism run amok right here.

I don't like libs. Libs don't like Trump. Trump and Putin are BFFs. Putin is invading Ukraine. Therefore, Ukraine = libs. Therefore, Ukraine bad.

Alternately, Ukraine good because Orange Man Bad.

Tucker moaned about it, but as FF has to wait until Tucker's shit filters down to YouTube, we get the reheated leftovers today.

So you’re now preparing to lay out a case why Putin’s actions were justified, right?

Why would I do that? Might this be a dishonest attempt to limit my options to mindless lockstep support for either Ukraine or Russia, with US cash and prizes being a foregone conclusion regardless?

To prove how clever you are. To have something to throw back in our faces when people call you mindless. To help sharpen your own thoughts on the subject.

Did you forget who started this thread when nobody else was paying attention and what that person said about Ukraine in the very first post?

Well I definitely would not justify Putin or Russia, and I'd be willing to bet a significant portion of the Russian people hold the same position.

Blind faith or none at all.

I guess the Bush era has rubbed off on liberals after all of these years. I thought we had all learned our lesson, but I guess not.

Well ... judging by the thread title, your biggest interest in the topic seemed to be that you thought it was something you could snipe at Obama for.

But also, your attitude seems to have shifted a great deal. I guess Tucker's instructions weren't as clear a year ago.

This whole "Tucker tells you what to do and say" thing is getting old. Find some new material.

Hmm, no, looks like Tucker's not the one who changed, you've just gotten more slavish about following his talking points.

Has it occurred to you that the reason people keep saying it ... is that you keep delivering fresh reasons to do so?

Or maybe I understand nuance. One can support Ukraine's efforts without being in favor of endless runaway spending. But to you it's you're either in full support of Ukraine no matter what or you're sucking Putin/Trump/Tucker's dick. This obsession with dick sucking is quite disturbing.

This means absolutely nothing without you saying what you think the correct response should be.

Okay, so hopefully we all understand how the majority of the ‘money’ going to Ukraine is in fact going into the US industrial base in the form of replacement purchases for donated old weapons systems.

If not, I’m not going to explain it again. You are obviously just too stupid to get it.

So now, what are we getting with that money?

Well first and for most we are protecting the territorial integrity of an ally against a foe.

We are standing up for the Rules Based International Order against the Might Makes Right Order. A fledging Democracy against an Autocracy.

Along those lines with our assistance and that of our allies Ukraine has eliminated over 50% of Russia’s Expeditionary Capacity. OVER FIFTY PERCENT in one year. If you were to ask any military planner if they would give 5.6% (all Ukrainian aid combined comes out to 5.6% of our annual defense budget) of their budget to destroy half of the offensive capacity (for at least 10-15 years) of one of their biggest rivals they would take that deal in a fucking heartbeat. Especially when the majority of said aid is actually just going back to them to buy upgraded systems.

I’ve mentioned our allies a couple times. And for good reason. We haven’t been doing this alone. Atlanticism is the highest it has been since at least the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and pre-Iraq.

As important (IMO) are that Eastern and Western Europe are united like never before. This is important as a shared European Identity and defensive posture is key to the forever planned Pivot to Asia.

Speaking of Eastern Europe a not insignificant of our ‘money to Ukraine’ is going to help our Eastern European allies replace THEIR equipment. They give Ukraine their old Soviet weapons, we give them some of our old stuff, we buy us new stuff.

Combined with their own increased defense spending by the end of the war Eastern Europe will have almost completely transitioned from Warsaw to NATO standards. This has HUGE implications in terms of presenting a credible united front against Russia moving forward.

Speaking of Eastern European rearmament Poland has decided to quadruple the size of their military. Now the vast majority will be reserves but built on the American model (training one weekend a month, two weeks a year) not Soviet style (you served your mandatory enlistment now until you are 55 we consider you a reservist). But they will be adding an additional 80k Active Duty troops taking their total Active to just shy of 200k.

And Poland isn’t just adding troops but buying a shitton of weapons systems. We literally can’t produce them enough F-16s. So they’ve gone to S. Korea and are buying FA-50s in addition to their F-16 order. Side-note the FA-50 has 60% parts commonality with the F-16 including same flight controls so good for logistics/training. So in other words it is half US, just made in Korea. This is good in terms of industrial capacity/future logistics.

On this theme of increased industrial capacity a not insignificant portion of our ‘money to Ukraine’ is going to them to buy new systems for themselves. Now do you think they are buying Russian and Chinese weapons or US/NATO/Ally?

Look at the Polish Krabs they’re buying 154 of. Made in Poland. Using a chassis designed in S Korea, a turret designed in the UK and a barrel made in France. I know I keep coming back to parts commonality but this is huge. Logistics win wars. And this war (and US leadership of it) is really helping push ‘The Free World’ to create a military and industrial base that can not only fight together but can supply together.

More, lots more but gotta go eat.

Maybe I missed it, but I don't seem to recall you being this vocal about how much money we were blowing in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

And this war is unlikely to be endless. Unlike, say, Vietnam, where the causes of war were routed in national ideologies. This war is strictly tied to the cult of Putin, and when he dies, assuming the war's still on, the Russian government is almost certainly going to sue for peace because they have nothing to really gain by trying to take Ukraine. And the Russian military is having a rough go of it as it is, so they may decide that instead of having another general die under mysterious circumstances for failing at an impossible task that they need to shove Pootie-Poot out a window.

In any event, we know that the odds of Putin not moving his forces beyond the borders of Ukraine if he's left alone are pretty small, so it behooves us to do what we can to prevent him from moving past those borders. You know, so the history of Russian military expansionism doesn't continue.

Don’t forget, 10% also goes to the “Big Guy”, whoever that is.

10%? Try less.

Absolutely.

However this kicked off because FF made an absurd claim that the US was spending more on Ukraine than it had on Vietnam and Afghanistan, and when it was pointed out how inaccurate that was he just deflects onto the next far right talking point.

Which costs, though? The ones involved with stopping Putin? Or the ones involved with not stopping Putin? Because while I can't hazard a guess on either, in terms of strict dollar amounts, I don't think that it's a bit unreasonable to say that if one does nothing to stop Putin, the costs will be far higher, both in terms of dollars and human lives.

Head of major Russian shipyard dies suddenly, no cause given

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...r-biden-deals-allegedly-involving-his-father/

I see. So of every $1 billion the U.S. spends on aid to Ukraine, $100 million goes to Joe Biden? How does that work, exactly?