What's the pulse of the American people, concerning aid to Ukraine?

[XnavyHMCS]

I fully agree with what Samson said, concerning the ulterior motives to get involved over there. We must be helping them for a reason and again I agree with him; whatever that is, it is way above my paygrade. My thoughts on what this / these reasons may be are as follows. (1) We want / need to protect the eastern flank from Rus. incursion and expansion. Through ensuring eastern security, we gain greater strategic advantage by the building of bases in these nations (Poland has already signed agreements for construction of US military bases.), and at the same time, we maintain continuation of the cash cow / military industrial complex. (2) We would like to beat the Bear down several notches militarily. Which would keep us on top of the heap, in this category.

I wholeheartedly concur with forum members who have touched on the historical precedence of WW II and how Europe sat on their hands and turned a blind eye to the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Austrian Anschluss, the Sudetenland seizure and the swallowing up of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. History believes that had they acted earlier, to stop Hitler, when the Nazi regime was less prepared and far less practiced; they could perhaps have averted the bloodbath which we call The Second World War. Perhaps there is some justification to employ prophylactic measures in Ukraine, to stave off possible further and further Putin conquests (I believe that his govt. has launched, Second Chechen war 1999-2000, invasion of Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014, Syria 2015 – present, Kazakhstan 2022 (Rus. forces sent to prop up the govt.) and finally the full scale "Special Military Operation" (I fucking love that term; it just reeks of obfuscation.) which we see today. My two questions here are, "are we any better" and "is this a legitimate fear". My response to the first is that we are quite hypocritical in our criticism; look what we did in Iraq (A sovereign nation that never "intentionally" -see USS Stark tragedy- targeted Americans.) on the preposterous premise of WMDs. If we delve deeper into American involvement abroad; I firmly believe that one would rapidly conclude that we, in our foreign policy, but not the prosecution of our incursions, are no better than the Russians. My response to the second touches again on WW II. If you are one of the unfortunate nations which found themselves under the yoke of communism, at the end of the conflagration; you feel great fear towards the invasion in Ukraine. They certainly don't want a repeat of past events to unfold in the near future. But for America; Ukraine, a nation which most likely a high percentage of US citizens couldn't find on a map, is a million miles away from us; way on the outside to influence us, to a greater degree. Yet here again, as in the past century's conflicts (WW I, WW II, the Balkans), Europe needed Uncle Sam to step in, redress the balance, right the wrongs, clean our brothers house for him. This is undoubtedly the case here, if we consider their lukewarm response since 2014. As an example I give you the Germans; on the very brink of hostilities, when pressured by the Biden govt., they contributed like 5000 helmets and lots and lots of bandages (because Ukraine was certainly going to need those). It is obvious, not to take anything away from the ******* Uk. warriors, who are doing more than the lion's share of the fighting, killing and dying (Hey, they should be; it's their country.), that they would all have been speaking Russian 9 and a 1/2 months ago, without US support.

Thanks again, gents...!!!
Always a pleasure to engage in the mental masturbation here on the forum...

[Honkey_Kong]

I fully agree with what Samson said, concerning the ulterior motives to get involved over there. We must be helping them for a reason and again I agree with him; whatever that is, it is way above my paygrade. My thoughts on what this / these reasons may be are as follows. (1) We want / need to protect the eastern flank from Rus. incursion and expansion. Through ensuring eastern security, we gain greater strategic advantage by the building of bases in these nations (Poland has already signed agreements for construction of US military bases.), and at the same time, we maintain continuation of the cash cow / military industrial complex. (2) We would like to beat the Bear down several notches militarily. Which would keep us on top of the heap, in this category.

I wholeheartedly concur with forum members who have touched on the historical precedence of WW II and how Europe sat on their hands and turned a blind eye to the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Austrian Anschluss, the Sudetenland seizure and the swallowing up of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. History believes that had they acted earlier, to stop Hitler, when the Nazi regime was less prepared and far less practiced; they could perhaps have averted the bloodbath which we call The Second World War. Perhaps there is some justification to employ prophylactic measures in Ukraine, to stave off possible further and further Putin conquests (I believe that his govt. has launched, Second Chechen war 1999-2000, invasion of Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014, Syria 2015 – present, Kazakhstan 2022 (Rus. forces sent to prop up the govt.) and finally the full scale "Special Military Operation" (I fucking love that term; it just reeks of obfuscation.) which we see today. My two questions here are, "are we any better" and "is this a legitimate fear". My response to the first is that we are quite hypocritical in our criticism; look what we did in Iraq (A sovereign nation that never "intentionally" -see USS Stark tragedy- targeted Americans.) on the preposterous premise of WMDs. If we delve deeper into American involvement abroad; I firmly believe that one would rapidly conclude that we, in our foreign policy, but not the prosecution of our incursions, are no better than the Russians. My response to the second touches again on WW II. If you are one of the unfortunate nations which found themselves under the yoke of communism, at the end of the conflagration; you feel great fear towards the invasion in Ukraine. They certainly don't want a repeat of past events to unfold in the near future. But for America; Ukraine, a nation which most likely a high percentage of US citizens couldn't find on a map, is a million miles away from us; way on the outside to influence us, to a greater degree. Yet here again, as in the past century's conflicts (WW I, WW II, the Balkans), Europe needed Uncle Sam to step in, redress the balance, right the wrongs, clean our brothers house for him. This is undoubtedly the case here, if we consider their lukewarm response since 2014. As an example I give you the Germans; on the very brink of hostilities, when pressured by the Biden govt., they contributed like 5000 helmets and lots and lots of bandages (because Ukraine was certainly going to need those). It is obvious, not to take anything away from the ******* Uk. warriors, who are doing more than the lion's share of the fighting, killing and dying (Hey, they should be; it's their country.), that they would all have been speaking Russian 9 and a 1/2 months ago, without US support.

Thanks again, gents...!!!
Always a pleasure to engage in the mental masturbation here on the forum...

I wouldn't draw any parallels at all between Hitler's Germany and Putin's Russia. Hitler took the Sudetenland and later invaded Poland, because both countries had regions that had higher populations and the Czechoslovakian and Polish governments were allowing the persecution of Germans that were living there. In fact, Hitler did write letters to both countries asking them to stop the persecution of those German people multiple times. So by that, he had justification to take back those lands (which were lost in the Treaty of Versailles).

In Russia's case. I've heard some spokesman for Putin's government saying they're trying to fight the Ukrainian Nazis. Which is kind of ironic since Ukraine's president is jewish and a lot of their government (much like Russia's too) is run by Jewish people. So that's obviously not the reason. Most likely, it's got a lot to do with the pipelines that run through Ukraine and all the bio labs that are there. And is that worth billions of our tax dollars? Is that worth any of our lives? I don't think so.

America needs to focus on closing the borders from all foreign invaders and to bring back manufacturing to the country. They need more skill tradesmen and more engineers and scientists of their own. This importation of foreigners because "we don't have enough homegrown workers" is bullshit. They intentionally will refuse to hire people of certain demographics and then complain that jobs are going unfilled so they need to bring in more H1B's

America needs to get rid of its "wokeness" problem.

[Cuz]

I wouldn't draw any parallels at all between Hitler's Germany and Putin's Russia. Hitler took the Sudetenland and later invaded Poland, because both countries had regions that had higher populations and the Czechoslovakian and Polish governments were allowing the persecution of Germans that were living there. In fact, Hitler did write letters to both countries asking them to stop the persecution of those German people multiple times. So by that, he had justification to take back those lands (which were lost in the Treaty of Versailles).

In Russia's case. I've heard some spokesman for Putin's government saying they're trying to fight the Ukrainian Nazis. Which is kind of ironic since Ukraine's president is jewish and a lot of their government (much like Russia's too) is run by Jewish people. So that's obviously not the reason. Most likely, it's got a lot to do with the pipelines that run through Ukraine and all the bio labs that are there. And is that worth billions of our tax dollars? Is that worth any of our lives? I don't think so.

America needs to focus on closing the borders from all foreign invaders and to bring back manufacturing to the country. They need more skill tradesmen and more engineers and scientists of their own. This importation of foreigners because "we don't have enough homegrown workers" is bullshit. They intentionally will refuse to hire people of certain demographics and then complain that jobs are going unfilled so they need to bring in more H1B's

America needs to get rid of its "wokeness" problem.

Couldnt agree more. “Everything woke turns to shit” hate him or love him this is true. America isnt the America i grew up in. Biden and his son have ties to Ukraine long before he was elected president as well. I mean its pretty hopeless at this point Im just doing what I can to manage with this nonsense. Hopefully a better candidate can fix this mess in 24’. Idk doubtfull.

[almostgone]

I can draw one parallel between Afghanistan and the current situation in the Ukraine that I feel passes the litmus test.

One point that many people miss is :

When we provide arms to support other nations we often pay double for the equipment provided. We paid for it once when we initially purchased the systems and then we give it away. Then we have to replace that equipment, so we just bought those items again. No matter how you slice it, that's paying double.

Again, I'm fully in favor of providing support, but let's not create a situation where we leave an ass load of equipment for an adversary to scoop up.

We need to do this, but we need to do it with a strong stance....that includes NATO members.

It's a very fine line, so I hope they have one hell of a fishbone diagram that covers all of the contingencies. (That's one hell of a task).

[tarmyg]

I can draw one parallel between Afghanistan and the current situation in the Ukraine that I feel passes the litmus test.

One point that many people miss is :

When we provide arms to support other nations we often pay double for the equipment provided. We paid for it once when we initially purchased the systems and then we give it away. Then we have to replace that equipment, so we just bought those items again. No matter how you slice it, that's paying double.

Again, I'm fully in favor of providing support, but let's not create a situation where we leave an ass load of equipment for an adversary to scoop up.

We need to do this, but we need to do it with a strong stance....that includes NATO members.

It's a very fine line, so I hope they have one hell of a fishbone diagram that covers all of the contingencies. (That's one hell of a task).

I agree with all what you wrote here AG. I think it is worth every penny.

[XnavyHMCS]

I can draw one parallel between Afghanistan and the current situation in the Ukraine that I feel passes the litmus test.

One point that many people miss is :

When we provide arms to support other nations we often pay double for the equipment provided. We paid for it once when we initially purchased the systems and then we give it away. Then we have to replace that equipment, so we just bought those items again. No matter how you slice it, that's paying double.

Again, I'm fully in favor of providing support, but let's not create a situation where we leave an ass load of equipment for an adversary to scoop up.

We need to do this, but we need to do it with a strong stance....that includes NATO members.

It's a very fine line, so I hope they have one hell of a fishbone diagram that covers all of the contingencies. (That's one hell of a task).

Fully agree with AG, here. Only, I have way less confidence (Like AG) in any "fishbone diagrams" that will prove to be effective. My hypothesis is that Europe will be awash with weapons of war, for sale to the highest bidder (Can you say, "terrorists"? I knew you could.) As evidence I offer the fact that the Kalashnikovs employed by the November 13 terrorists, were traced back to Serbian / Balkan armories. It stands to reason. I know that currently, for the moment, at least the Polish frontier is "tighter than a bulls ass at fly time" right now; but this won't last forever. I don't believe that MANPADS, HIMARMS, etc will be on the menu for anyone, but small arms, grenades *in abundance) and explosives; why not.

[almostgone]

Fully agree with AG, here. Only, I have way less confidence (Like AG) in any "fishbone diagrams" that will prove to be effective. My hypothesis is that Europe will be awash with weapons of war, for sale to the highest bidder (Can you say, "terrorists"? I knew you could.) As evidence I offer the fact that the Kalashnikovs employed by the November 13 terrorists, were traced back to Serbian / Balkan armories. It stands to reason. I know that currently, for the moment, at least the Polish frontier is "tighter than a bulls ass at fly time" right now; but this won't last forever. I don't believe that MANPADS, HIMARMS, etc will be on the menu for anyone, but small arms, grenades *in abundance) and explosives; why not.

Yes sir,......and UAVs, NODs, possibly some of the high tech gear like radar will be stripped and sold to the highest bidder ( cough...cough...NoKo), other sensitive electronic gear. Just doesn't seem to be enough oversight/accountability. Forensic accountants are either pulling their hair out or happily flogging away at themselves.

[XnavyHMCS]

Yes sir,......and UAVs, NODs, possibly some of the high tech gear like radar will be stripped and sold to the highest bidder ( cough...cough...NoKo), other sensitive electronic gear. Just doesn't seem to be enough oversight/accountability. Forensic accountants are either pulling their hair out or happily flogging away at themselves.

Hey BROTHER (And to think, that we started off our "virtual friendship" by me criticizing your judgement and authority in policing the forum. I will venture to add; it takes two real men to do that.),

DON"T call me sir, I worked for a living. Ha Ha Ha...!!!
You knew that was coming.

I agree with you, on the other "tools of the trade" which will be up for grabs on the world market.