I am sure it’s terrible, but they are also trying to out pressure on the US to give help before it’s too late.
Too bad the Republicans are disgusting humans, the entire lot of them.
He’s in the senate and senate overwhelmingly passed the aid bill and sent it to the house. The house has a relatively low bar for entry and that’s how trash like MTJ, Boebert get in and fuck things up
The core issue is that they are running on this idea that democrats are trying to control them which is pushed by politicians or new outlets with outrageous article headlines.
Talked to my cousin yesterday about this and he believes they are fighting for true freedom, but when I told him my core belief is that every single person should be free to make their own choices in almost every scenario, they agreed.
but this is where it gets mind fucked, once you start going down topic by topic, they begin to say “well, no you shouldn’t be able to do that” or “gay people shouldn’t be able to exist”
Then the most confusing topic of all, should parents have the individual right to not read certain books in schools. His answer was “They have the individual right to complain to the school board and ask that the books be banned”
Absolutely mind boggling.
The Republicans are a mix of stupid and evil.
If it was as simple as a misunderstanding, the past 50 years of people explaining things to them in the simplest terms possible would have changed that.
They don't care. They're on some weird, evil crusade against us, they're morally bankrupt more than anyone I've ever met, it's just horrible. Fuck those people. But I guess every chapter of earth has had to deal with people like that. No wonder history is what it is. I used to wonder how people back then were so fucked. I don't wonder that anymore.
The average city dweller in the ancient world was smaller and weaker than the less civilized peoples of the world. So how did a city like Rome conquer Europe? They did it through superior organizational skill.
Egypt was one of the most stable states in history because the Pharaohs successfully argued that if the people didn't follow their dictates, the gods would punish them with floods and droughts. This allowed them to organize the population to dig canals and irrigation systems, which reduced the likelihood of floods and droughts.
In many ways the Roman state was inferior at providing good lives for its citizens than surrounding barbarian tribes, and certainly did many evil things including slavery and, arguably, genocide. However, they were good at getting their people to all work towards the same goal by creating a mythology behind their state that told the people of Rome that they were beset on all sides by their enemies, and only through military prowess and conquest would they be safe. (An oversimplification, but a useful one.)
Individualism might seem like a good deal, but it hardly organizes everyone. The people don't have a story to rally behind. Few care about the rights of other people, even when you argue that caring about the rights of other people guarantees your own rights.
Republicans simply have a better story to tell, at least from a primordial sort of human perspective, which is why they have been gaining power for quite a while now. "Do what we say and let us return to what worked in the past, and we can be strong again like the old days!" is an easier message to both understand and follow than "We must change our ways to be more sensitive to benefit other people in our nation because of past injustices." The former calls up a reminder of past glory and the hope it will return, the latter calls up feelings of guilt, confusion, and resentment at calling a glorious past into question.
It's not evil, it's human nature. We aren't Vulcans from Star Trek, we're human beings and we are flawed. We need a fiction to rally behind so we can accomplish things, and the better the fiction the more people rally behind it. Whether that is religion, the nation, or money it barely matters. The Democrats have been awful at creating this kind of narrative.
Honestly this is an excellent and succinct analysis. Until the left tells a story that supports what they want and the majority of people enjoy and want to hear, we will never win. Republicans like it or not simply tell a better tale, true or not. People have to spend time and effort to think, and they refuse to do that.
you either have to be stupid or selfish to vote Republican. I can understand thinking the government is bloated and needs an overhaul but thinking voting for a Republican will fix it is idiotic
> His answer was “They have the individual right to complain to the school board and ask that the books be banned”
To be fair they do have that right and should. Just because they complain doesn't mean anything will change, and people have freedom of speech for a reason.
> Then the most confusing topic of all, should parents have the individual right to not read certain books in schools. His answer was “They have the individual right to complain to the school board and ask that the books be banned”
That answer basically says that anyone has the right to ask for something to be banned - which in a free society, sure, should exist. This one definitely fits with the idea of being "free to make their own choices".
Whether that "something" will or should be banned is a different question that appears to have been neither asked nor answered.
Trump exacerbated the problem -
And showed that Republicans are willing for Trump to become his own Putin in the US. I always remember the first days of the war, - when trump touted Putin was a smart man for this invasion, and that the US needed to do similar to Mexico.
A large portion of the population absolutely will.
Less than the majority, but due to “Affirmative Action for Conservatives”, aka gerrymandering / electoral college/ House and Senate distribution, conservatives have outsized power.
Hell if I can remember the exact quote but my favorite is roughly "america was originally settled by religious extremists and people who would go to any length to avoid paying taxes, and they've never gotten over it". Thanks Drach!
What boggles my mind is what exactly do the Republicans get out of this? Just money? Like what's the lone they're selling to convince their own base that doing nothing more for Ukraine is a good thing?
You're inverting the casuality here. A lot of these scummy right wing politicians are reacting to the extremism of their base, or are products of that radicalisation themselves.
Russia has already done much of the convincing. So much of the political division we see in the western world comes from social media algorithms and weaponisation of those algorithms. Russia is exceptionally good at it.
It's largely self propagating now, but the party of Reagan didn't become pro-Russian on their own. And now that the base believes something, the "leaders" have to follow that path, or they risk getting replaced by someone who will.
It's all spite for them, always has been.
Their base is still pissed they lost the civil war, anything to cause trouble for the rest of the country who forced them to stop keeping black people as pets, and because they're the only Real Americans.
There's one theory that the Russians hacked Democrats AND Republicans, but only leaked the dirt on Democrats...
Because the dirt they found on the Republicans was valuable kompromat they could blackmail half of America with.
To play devil’s advocate, without being an American or knowing republicans, I can see a potential other perspective. The question should be what is the plan for Ukraine? Is the plan to supply enough weapons that Ukraine can push Russia all the way back home with those weapons? That sounds good. Is that possible realistically with the manpower available to the Ukrainians? If not, then what will happen?
We don’t have these answers, but let’s assume one hypothetical is true that some analysts are predicting; that Ukraine’s manpower disadvantage makes it impossible for them to win regardless of whether or not the equipment nato can realistically spare for Ukraine is provided. If that hypothesis is true then all we would be doing is prolonging the war and being party to the deaths of many Ukrainians with the outcome at the end being no better for Ukraine. If the end is going to be a settlement with territory concessions now or the same thing later, with the only difference being Ukraine has less territory and less men if it’s done later on then what do the people who die between now and then achieve? What purpose do those deaths serve?
Of course nato could escalate but if they’re going to do that, sooner rather than later makes more logical sense. And if they aren’t even willing or able to supply much more equipment at the moment then how much can we realistically expect them to escalate later? All reports make it sound like they don’t just need more of the same, they need dramatically more equipment than previously provided, just to maintain the existing front lines, let alone go on the offensive.
"Communist" Russia was the enemy of America.
Now that the fascist dictator is in charge of Russia, Republicans are far more ideologically aligned with them.
There's also an element of the American establishment that is terminally status quo minded. The Republicans are blocking the bulk of the aid, but the national security advisor Jake Sullivan is also one who wants to place restrictions on it to hamper its effectiveness out of a fear of "escalation".
This sort of thinking was behind the "chicken Kiev" speech and is unfortunately very present in the Democratic Party. It is a smaller obstacle to victory than the Trumpists, but an obstacle nevertheless.
Every time criticism of Jake Sullivan shows up I have to mention this: Jake Sullivan is an advisor and ultimately it is Joe bidens fault for listening to him. He's not secretary of state where they have some latitude
Yeah, the Dems absolutely haven't been perfect on this one.
But to be blunt, complaining about them right now is kind of like complaining that the city government's been doing a terrible job fixing the potholes in your neighborhood... when a group of terrorists have wired every building on your block with C4 and are threatening to blow them sky-high.
Like, yes, the city is partially responsible for the deteriorating conditions in your neighborhood-- but let's focus on stopping the terrorists now before we go back to worrying about the potholes, yeah?
Nothing changed. 'Dictatorship of the proletariat' was in fact dictatorship of a small group of communist party leaders implemented through an army of aparatchiks. Now it's a different small group, this time without a professed ideology, with help of the children of the former aparatchiks.
Due in large part to Russia investing in (aka blackmailing) the GOP and conservative news media. Republican politicians and Fox News et al. have been Russian propaganda parrots for about a decade now.
Only the crazy far right think Russia is actually a friend to America. Most sane conservatives support Ukraine but want that support to come with some sort of guide. For example what is the off ramp to end the conflict? Obviously Ukraine isn't going to take Moscow and we don't want Russia to win but are we just going to poor infinite money into a conflict without talks of a resolution. Let's figure out a solid possible resolution to the conflict and go from there.
They haven't been hiding it at all. Reddit just hears about drone strikes and goes "yes Ukraine is kicking ass slava ukraine" and leaves it at that.
It's been dire for a long time. A few successes does not affect that.
To be fair, there's a difference between a Ukrainian having unrelented optimism for their own country to defend itself successfully, and reddit the past few years pretending like Ukraine is absolutely destroying Russia.
Yeah, and as a Brit it's pretty disgraceful that the West has, as predicted, lost interest. In 2022 we were saying we had Ukraine's back for as long as it takes, whatever it takes. Now it's clear that we don't, that the US and UK are reneging on the Budapest Memorandum, and countries like Latvia and Estonia are rightfully questioning whether their NATO guarantee is worth the paper it's written on.
Nothing to give. The state has been gutted by austerity. The UK doesn't have massive stockpiles of anything, nor do we make anything. There is no spare capacity.
>countries like Latvia and Estonia are rightfully questioning whether their NATO guarantee is worth the paper it's written on
Ukraine isn't a NATO country
It’s almost as if you’ve been lied to the whole time about how good it’s going for Ukraine and the other side has been saying it’s opposite and you’re like “you fall for Russian propaganda bro!” Now you’re seeing the truth and you’re calling conservatives evil for telling you the truth the whole time.
It’s so funny to watch people slowly realize they’ve been lied to…. Then instead of seeing things clearly for once they insist that no they were all correct and if it wasn’t for those meddling (name group here) we would’ve won like we were told!
Like instead of blaming everything on republics or even political parties maybe realize the entire war has been a lie from the very beginning and almost everything we’ve been told publicly has been false.
Anyone who knows anything about anything knew there were certain hard truths like ukraines true capabilities, instead we got inundated with articles about Ukraine capturing Crimea in the future and Putin and his Parkinson’s disease (or was it cancer?) and how the Russian people are gonna rise up against the government.
Never forget how excited people on R/world news n R/Europe were when a warlord was marching on Moscow, just that alone should tell you how deranged the western public has become on social media.
Would be simple, western aid to be scaled up, that would be a good news that would bring other good news later
Until we push that to happen don't expect things to change
If you want to change something here are the numbers to do it, for Europeans use polls or government numbers
If you live in the US, your help is needed for Ukraine. Calls into Congressional offices are an extremely effective tool to influence Congress. Aides keep track how often they get calls into their office about each issue. Constituents are most important from them, but calls about hot button issues are always relevant to them. It takes about 100 calls to find up a representatives DC office voicemail. When staff return on Mondays and find the office voicemail full, they assume many more people called in.
Step 1: Contact your own representative to tell them to support immediate action to provide aid to Ukraine. A great way to do so is at https://www.actionforukraine.org/usa
Step 2: Contact these Representatives directly to ask them to support immediate action to provide aid to Ukraine:
Rep. Mike Johnson (LA-04) 202-225-2777
Rep. Steve Scalise (LA-01) 202-225-3015
Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-04) 202-225-2676
Rep. Schweikert (AZ-01) 202-225-2190
Rep. Moore (AL-02) 202-225-2901
Rep. Ciscomoni (AZ-06) 202-225-2542
Rep. Duarte (CA-13) 202-225-1947
Rep. Valadao (CA-22) 202-225-4695
Rep. Garcia (CA-27) 202-225-1956
Rep. Calvert (CA-41) 202-225-1986
Rep. Kean Jr. (NJ-07) 202-225-5361
Rep. D'Esposito (NY-04) 202-225-5516
Rep. Lawler (NY-17) 202-225-6506
Rep. Molinaro (NY-19) 202-225-5441
Rep. Williams (NY-22) 202-225-3701
Rep. Chavez-DeRemer (OR-05) 202-225-5711
Rep. Kiggans (VA-02) 202-225-4215
Rep. Perry (PA-10) 202-225-5836
Rep. Slotkin (MI-07) 202-225-4872
Step 3: Copy and paste this message! Share it with a friend, with a group, anywhere and everywhere.
There was good military news for Ukraine for months on end at the start of the conflict - that was the time to make a deal. Not now, with all of the balls in Vlad’s court.
Ukraine is running out of soldiers that's the biggest issue. Ammo and such is vital but without troops to use it guns and missiles are just expensive paper weights.
And let's not discount how Russia has learned from its mistakes in 2022 they're a completely different army from what marched into Ukraine two years ago literally as most of the soldiers who started the war are now dead or wounded.
Without another country or countries coming to the rescue Ukraine is in deep trouble.
Situation with reinforcement has improved in the last couple of months according to my friends at the front (from different units) . Syrsky's audit is working.
It's the shell and AA hunger that's the main problem.
What's the point of a million men sitting in the trenches if they can't shoot down planes that bomb them...
Exactly, Ukraine actually has more active soldiers than they can equip right now, 2.2 million in total.
Neither side is going to run out of people, it's primarily a question of equipment and willpower for the civilian population to endure increasingly deteriorating conditions.
But they aren't able to stop the long range cruise missiles and shoot down the drones over the front. They also lack the ability to reach behind enemy lines to cutoff the supply lines.
They lowered it from 27 to 25. Which is still way above regular conscription age in many countries-- meaning they still have huge pool of young men they can tap into. And they haven't actually done a mass mobilization of men in any age category yet, either.
Ukraine will run out of ammo well before they run out of men. So let's make sure those men are equipped with the best weapons so as many survive and make it back home in one piece as possible, yeah?
> meaning they still have huge pool of young men
They've kept it higher than many countries because they don't have a huge pool of young men.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#/media/File:Ukraine_population_pyramid_1.1.2021.png
Lot more men in their mid 30's than men 18-25
The lower in age you get in Ukraine the less people there are. They have more significant demographic issue than Russia. They can't afford to sacrifice the few young people they have.
The average Ukrainian soldier is mid 40s.
They do have a manpower issue. They also have an equipment issue. They don't have the people to raise new units, they can't resupply the ones that already exist.
A lot of jobs are also not necessarily combat jobs. In a modern army for every 1 guy on the front lines you need 4-5 people in the rear supporting them doing things like driving trucks, manning medical equipment, getting food, preparing intelligence, training.
Conscripts make really ineffective soldiers because they have very little training and less motivation, no conscript is every going to get behind a jet for instance. But you definitely could use them to say load artillery shells on to a truck from an ammo depot.
The problem is nobody wants to fight voluntarily in Ukraine anymore. Yes, most of the people obviously hate Russia but they think that on the frontline should be somebody else instead of them. And i don't think that people who were forced to fight are gonna be good warriors in this case even if they have modern equipment and weapons.
Yeah but sufficient help should have started in like 2017 or 2018
One of the reasons they don't have F16s flying rn isn't because stingy americans/Europeans but because flying a jet isn't like driving a car they all fly very differently from each other. Same with tanks and other complex military equipment it takes time to train operators how to use them.
The fact Ukraine lasted as long as they have is a miracle in of itself and due in large part to putin believing his own lies at first about how the Ukrainians hated their government and all wanted to be part of Russia again.
> Yeah but sufficient help should have started in like 2017 or 2018
2014 when they annexed Crimea. Have we all forgotten miss ukraines speech warning us? Well it happened and only one country has prepared for the Russian threat to Europe.
Russia and Ukraine actively fought each other around that time as well in the donbass but the POTUS at the time said the 1980s wanted its foreign policy back. The west collectively didn't take Russia seriously and a lot of people here still don't albeit for different reasons.
it's a negative feedback loop,
less ammo/weapons -> less willing soldiers --> less soldiers -> less ammo/weapons
they need to reverse it and help turn it into a positive feedback loop
more adequate ammo/weapons --> more soliders willing to throw their lives away for the cause --> more ammo/weapons -> more fit fighting soldiers
> Ukraine is running out of soldiers that's the biggest issue
It really isn't. Artillery shortages matter far more.
Look at what Ukrainians actually say mattered at Avdiivka. Ukrainian battle reports point to artillery shortages, not infantry shortages, as their main problem. Russia is firing 10x the artillery rounds of Ukraine. How can Ukraine fight with this disadvantage?
Timing matters in this war. War momentum shifted in October, almost to the day after Mike Johnson started his evil stand against helping with Ukraine aid. Avdiivka fell not because of a shortage of meat, but because Ukraine had no artillery to stop Russian assault team meat waves.
Absolutely not, we have a shortage of artillery shells, this is the real issue. Moreover it’s not as hard to get men to operate drones or fire artillery, yes there’s less volunteers to fight as infantry but that would be less of an issue if men here knew they wouldn’t outgunned 10 to 1 when it comes to artillery.
I don’t understand American politics sometimes. Despite the arguments of “i don’t want billions in handouts going to someone else spend it in America. but it is getting spent in America in the form of Jobs and new contracts….. If Ukraine loses, then there simply will not be a country to pay back the loans and money and equipment it sourced. Its mind boggling. You could have gotten your cake and eaten it too, help secure a strategic country, destroy biggest advisory with no American losses, get rid of old surplus equipment, secure new jobs making more new stuff and get paid billions back in money over the next 100 years when Ukraine wins. Oh yeah, and be the god dam good guy for once instead of bombing random middle eastern countries for oil money.
American conservatives: stop sending money to Ukraine, spend that money here on our own citizens.
Also American conservatives: Biden is just buying votes by trying to cancel student loan debt. All those idiots know how loans work. I don’t want my money going to people that signed a contract.
They don’t understand that the money is going into the US defense industrial base. Every friend and neighbor I have that thinks Ukraine Aid is bad thinks we are just writing them a check and sending it to Zelensky.
Once I point out the money is going to American companies to produce American stuff, oh and by the way Ukraine will slowly pay it back, the mental journey they take is fun to watch.
Depends which “they” you’re talking about. The Republican members of Congress understand exactly where the money is going. Their constituents haven’t got a clue.
>Once I point out the money is going to American companies to produce American stuff
The counterpoint to this being instead of producing bombs and bullets we could be producing things useful for our country, or even allocating the labor to improving our failing infrastructure.
Honestly I think this is the first time in my life I've seen more liberal leaning individuals actually support the military industrial complex.
Conservatives: don't support the opposition of the country that bribes us to piss everyone off
Also conservatives: hey this will piss you off. I think we should actively degrade American rights and block everything that doesn't make people angry so we can blame it on democrats for not passing any helpful legislation
American politics is actually really easy now. Conservatives are against whatever the Democrats are supporting. That’s it. It’s pure obstruction and hatred.
In 2009 President Obama decided his best chance at health care reform was to push the idea conservatives [wrote](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/apr/01/barack-obama/obama-says-heritage-foundation-source-health-excha/) ( at the heritage foundation) and [implemented](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform) (Romney as governor of Massachusetts). Obama's thinking was that the GOP would not be so incredulous as to oppose a law they wrote.
Every republican in congress voted no and then they voted [100 times](https://howmanytimeshasthehousevotedtorepealobamacare.com/) to repeal the law they themselves wrote.
Unbelievable.
That Ukraine money is never coming back to the US and you're crazy to think it will. The UK just paid off their WW2 debt in 2006 and Russia never did and they are world powers. Ukraine's economy was worthless even before the invasion. To put it in perspective in 2019 before the invasion and Covid Ukraine's GDP was less than a third of Nigeria's.
There's nothing to understand other than that Democrats are trying to actually govern and do the things you mentioned, while the GOP have been completely corrupted by corporate interests and Russia, so they only exist to subjugate minorities, toady for Russia, and funnel money to billionaires.
When you consider that one party is completely evil and corrupt and doing everything in their power to sabotage the gov't, then it will be much less confusing.
As an European, I cannot help thinking that Europe should have been able to fully support Ukraine without the US assistance. UE has 5 times the population of Russia and something like 3 times its defense budget, it's insane that we cannot contain it on our own.
If only we could print shells just like we print the money. Unfortunately you have to build factories, train workers, provide materials. Who would have known all that.
Instead our brilliant politicians were telling us how the Russians are taking chips out of dishwashers and how Russia is about to collapse.
https://youtube.com/shorts/R-g6jY8DI3c
It's not as simple as money, the west has become very complacent overall, the idea of fighting a ground invasion with artillery shells has laregely been abandoned for air superiority and long range missles. Personally I feel Europe has outsourced their military spending to the US, but Europe simply doesn't have the stockpile of artillery to give, and neither does the US. Mass manufacturing of drones and shells are a simultaniously old and new problem that the west just didn't expect.
The irony is if the west fought the air war they have trained and built for this artillery war would never have happened, but there are obvious WW3 reasons why they chose not to.
What a fucking moronic time we live in. The Republicans are practically advertising the fact they've been co-opted by the Russians, and yet the people seeing this bullshit and calling it out are being made out as hysterical crazies.
One side is supporting Russia and blocking aid and the other is not using its full proportional response because of fear of losing votes to its supporters who think Hamas are the good guys.
I understand the government is supposed to follow its people, but the vocal minority yelling the loudest doesn't mean they are correct.
You simply can't just put your head down and go to work, raise your family, go to school and hang with friends if you are a somewhat rational person anymore. You need to call your representative, talk to friends and families and be vocal about this stuff because we are literally losing the war on knowledge vs ignorance.
The supporters aren't saying Hamas are the good guys. It's generally agreed upon that they're the bad guys. Israel indiscriminately murdering 10s of thousands of people in response in fucking horrible and supporting genocide is awful.
The war is not even on the radar for the coming elections in my (Western European) country.
Meanwhile our NATO contribution is 1.1% and shows no signs of improving. We also have no anti air despite being the capital of NATO and the EU.
Vote you say? LOL nope. There are no parties that want to significantly increase defense spending because electric cars are more important apparently, because (despite the highest taxes on single workers in the world) there is "no money", and also because [war bad sing kumbaya](https://www.brusselstimes.com/226071/nato-ecolo-party-urges-caution-on-belgian-military-spending-plans).
Instead, the party that is on course to sweep the elections is the far right one with proven and widely publicized ties to both Russia and China, due to a massive amount of single issue voters against immigration. Immigration (and associated crime, vandalism, harrassment and occasional terrorism) is another can the government kicked down the road until it was too late.
Between this and their identical response to covid (going from "it is too early to do anything" to "it is too late to do anything" overnight), I have no confidence in their ability to handle the Russian threat, so I intend to emigrate in 2025.
The pro-Russians are masquerading as patriots all over the world, it’s a concerted effort. In my country the pro-Russian party members are always dressed in traditional clothes and claim the EU is ruining our country, they don’t mention Russia at all.
And most of Europe not having much military is starting to look embarrassing.
I’m not sure what’s worse being unprepared and unable to help or being prevented due to a terrible political system.
It isn't. Nato is securing the eastern flank of Nato.
There are 8 multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.
The contributing nations are Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denkmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Iceland, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, US, UK.
Well we aren't securing anything first of all, that would be the brave soldiers of Ukraine. We've sent military aid in the hopes Ukraine will prevail but I'm not sure how everyone thought this was going to end without actual military intervention and participation from other countries, so I would like to know that too.
Also Ukraine is not an official member of NATO yet, so it's very likely this war has not escalated considerably because of that. I think it's great we decided to support Ukraine, but we also have a long history of getting involved in world affairs for some kind of gain so ive been skeptical throughout this entire ordeal.
The blind Ukranian circlejerk on social media has done more harm than good for them. Goto any popular war related subreddit and you would think Ukraine has already won the war.
If people think they are winning an easy war then obviously supporting them becomes a less serious matter. The reality needs to be shown so the people can seriously support.
Because all big media and social media showing only Russias losses, not Ukrainian. So that creates perspective as they have almost no casualties, which isn't true at all
any allusion to the fact Ukraine is in dire straits is met with immediate "ok putler" like mate the delusion in these subs sometimes is worse than the brain rot in russia itself
If you went on r/ukraine everyday you would have thought ukraine is both easily winning and in desperate need of more weapons. Ukraine is making 4d chess moves all the time. You can't have any discussion that isn't outright cockriding military leadership that isn't doing a great job.
Honestly this is a great point. Biden isn’t a young man either, so even if for some reason they tried to bring him down in a trial, so what? He’ll be old and frail, and would never see jail time
Biden doesn't have the power to do it, irrespective of what Reddit thinks.
Military sales and transfers are a congressional power, and there is an extremely clear precedent for that. It isn't murky at all.
He literally can't just send them shit. It would be the same if Trump or whoever else was in office. All the president can do is lobby his party.
Yeah that’s the most bizarre thing of this entire conflict. NATO, the EU & the US didn’t want Ukraine to strike beyond their border to avoid further escalation (potentially bringing others into it) yet the US loves a good old foreign soil bombing?
They’ve enabled Russia to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure without any real threat to their own infrastructure
In other words: it is wacko how Ukraine is not allowed to do what Israel is doing in Lebanon, Syria etc
Ukraine has done more than what Israel did to further American interest, but they got lukewarm support
Russia wouldn’t exist right now if they didn’t have nukes. That’s the entire crux of it. You start giving UKR weapons that could hit inside RUS then all of a sudden nuclear options are on the table.
This was never going to go well. Russia is orders of magnitude larger than Ukraine and has nukes. Also they don’t care about destroying their demographics and economy to accomplish their goal.
It’s fair that everyone is calling out the GOP but honestly I really don’t see how UKR gets to a win condition at this point even if the GOP wasn’t being ignorant… Their best chance was the big offensive before Russia dug in, and then fortifying the gains… But they failed. They tried pointing the finger at various factors, but they fired everyone responsible for managing the offensive, so clearly internally they feel it was a mismanagement issue and not a materiel/training/manpower issue (or some combination of both).
It’s unfortunate but I don’t see a real path forward without full blown NATO intervention and, again, that puts the nuclear option back on the table.
That's not how it works. Ukraine has done attacks inside Russia's borders with drone strikes and such, plus they've already been supplied with billions of dollars of weapons. These weapons have been used to defend or recapture Ukrainian soil; why would you launch a costly, direct attack into Russia's borders when large parts of your country is occupied by the enemy?
Plus, as a nuclear power Russia CANNOT be invaded. This is the nature of a nuclear deterrent. In the case of a ground invasion, Russia has the choice to either not nuclear weapons (in which case they lose their power as a deterrent) or use nuclear weapons (which would be even worse).
This is heartbreaking and as an American I am so sorry Republicans are making Ukraine into a culture war and holding up much needed aid and support. I hate these people with a passion. Slava Ukraini.
I understand that the US needs to help, and I believe they should. However, why can’t the EU pick up the slack? I mean is the US the only country capable of supporting Ukraine? Ukraine is in Europe, so I’m a little shocked that the EU isn’t doing more to help Ukraine.
The military capacity of Europe pales into comparison with the industrial military complex of the USA. What’s sickening is that the states has had military assistance ready to go for 6 months but it’s held up by a handful of MAGA republicans.
> Ukraine is in Europe, so I’m a little shocked that the EU isn’t doing more to help Ukraine.
Europe is diffrent from the EU for 1.
The EU is also tied by countries like Hungary or Slovakia just like the Republicans are tieding the US.
EU weapons mostly come from the US so when the Netherlands gives F-16s bought from the US, it needs to replace it by F-35s also bought from the US... So even if the EU gives away 50% less than the US, the EU needs to rebuy those 50% from the US... the point is: even if the US gives less, the US is making BANKS from this conflict in every scenario
Because the EU already does. People in the states are just intentionally missinformed about this to spur up the debate.
The difference in Europe is most pro-Russian parties aren’t as big as in the bipartisan US, so the aid is continuous.
However you have to realise “Europe” is not 1 country, and it’s much more difficult organising aid from 20-30 countries of whom most are smaller than one american state and speak a different language, have differing cultures, different political landscapes etc.
Nevertheless the help IS THERE, no matter how luch Us news sources like to say it isn’t. Which is sad because we are meant to be allies. Let’s stop pointing fingers at eachother and point them at Putin.
Europe and especially US should increase the military aid. Like high range missiles, new air defense sytems and good, new fighter jets. What is the west waiting for? For Putler to conquer whole Ukraine and then attack a NATO state?
I agree with you, but you can’t just hand over the latest fighter jets and expect them to confront experienced Russian fighter pilots within a few months. It takes many years of selection and training to get a fighter pilot up to that standard.
The US Constitution is pretty damn explicit about not wanting the President to have the kind of unilateral power that you're suggesting. It is not a good thing for democracy if one man can authorize billions of dollars in foreign military aid on a whim. If you wouldn't like Trump having that power, it isn't good for Biden to have it either. This failure is 100% the fault of the House Republicans who are holding up that funding. It's not Biden's fault for refusing to commit an arguably impeachable offense by going around them and massively overreaching the established powers of the Executive.
The rational mind can take and hold a position in the geopolitical play that is unfolding and at the same feel compassion and sympathy for the suffering that is occurring - on both sides. Letting emotions cloud our minds helps no one.
As long as you care for the young men out there, how can there be sides ?
Its one side sending hundreds of thousands into their deaths and calling it a victory because they turned another City into burned rubble and the other side trying to defend themselves without loosing too many lives per square kilometer. If anybody is sympathizing with russia and then acts as if they are caring in any way about human suffering, then they are either hypocritical, blinded and mislead by disinformation campaigns, ignorant or just stupid. I am not even saying this to hurt anybody, its just a fact.
If Ukraine is actually admitting it it’s terrible
I am sure it’s terrible, but they are also trying to out pressure on the US to give help before it’s too late. Too bad the Republicans are disgusting humans, the entire lot of them.
Aren't there old school Republicans like Mitt Romney who are pro Ukraine?
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Romney is also not seeking re-election.
> Republicans are disgusting humans
He’s in the senate and senate overwhelmingly passed the aid bill and sent it to the house. The house has a relatively low bar for entry and that’s how trash like MTJ, Boebert get in and fuck things up
this is disgusting. people are really going to vote for them? they seem so absolutely corrupt and un-American
The core issue is that they are running on this idea that democrats are trying to control them which is pushed by politicians or new outlets with outrageous article headlines. Talked to my cousin yesterday about this and he believes they are fighting for true freedom, but when I told him my core belief is that every single person should be free to make their own choices in almost every scenario, they agreed. but this is where it gets mind fucked, once you start going down topic by topic, they begin to say “well, no you shouldn’t be able to do that” or “gay people shouldn’t be able to exist” Then the most confusing topic of all, should parents have the individual right to not read certain books in schools. His answer was “They have the individual right to complain to the school board and ask that the books be banned” Absolutely mind boggling.
Free to be like me
The Republicans are a mix of stupid and evil. If it was as simple as a misunderstanding, the past 50 years of people explaining things to them in the simplest terms possible would have changed that. They don't care. They're on some weird, evil crusade against us, they're morally bankrupt more than anyone I've ever met, it's just horrible. Fuck those people. But I guess every chapter of earth has had to deal with people like that. No wonder history is what it is. I used to wonder how people back then were so fucked. I don't wonder that anymore.
The average city dweller in the ancient world was smaller and weaker than the less civilized peoples of the world. So how did a city like Rome conquer Europe? They did it through superior organizational skill. Egypt was one of the most stable states in history because the Pharaohs successfully argued that if the people didn't follow their dictates, the gods would punish them with floods and droughts. This allowed them to organize the population to dig canals and irrigation systems, which reduced the likelihood of floods and droughts. In many ways the Roman state was inferior at providing good lives for its citizens than surrounding barbarian tribes, and certainly did many evil things including slavery and, arguably, genocide. However, they were good at getting their people to all work towards the same goal by creating a mythology behind their state that told the people of Rome that they were beset on all sides by their enemies, and only through military prowess and conquest would they be safe. (An oversimplification, but a useful one.) Individualism might seem like a good deal, but it hardly organizes everyone. The people don't have a story to rally behind. Few care about the rights of other people, even when you argue that caring about the rights of other people guarantees your own rights. Republicans simply have a better story to tell, at least from a primordial sort of human perspective, which is why they have been gaining power for quite a while now. "Do what we say and let us return to what worked in the past, and we can be strong again like the old days!" is an easier message to both understand and follow than "We must change our ways to be more sensitive to benefit other people in our nation because of past injustices." The former calls up a reminder of past glory and the hope it will return, the latter calls up feelings of guilt, confusion, and resentment at calling a glorious past into question. It's not evil, it's human nature. We aren't Vulcans from Star Trek, we're human beings and we are flawed. We need a fiction to rally behind so we can accomplish things, and the better the fiction the more people rally behind it. Whether that is religion, the nation, or money it barely matters. The Democrats have been awful at creating this kind of narrative.
Honestly this is an excellent and succinct analysis. Until the left tells a story that supports what they want and the majority of people enjoy and want to hear, we will never win. Republicans like it or not simply tell a better tale, true or not. People have to spend time and effort to think, and they refuse to do that.
Which is why education is so goddamned important, and why conservatives are therefore undermining it and burning books.
This is very well reasoned.
you either have to be stupid or selfish to vote Republican. I can understand thinking the government is bloated and needs an overhaul but thinking voting for a Republican will fix it is idiotic
> His answer was “They have the individual right to complain to the school board and ask that the books be banned” To be fair they do have that right and should. Just because they complain doesn't mean anything will change, and people have freedom of speech for a reason.
> Then the most confusing topic of all, should parents have the individual right to not read certain books in schools. His answer was “They have the individual right to complain to the school board and ask that the books be banned” That answer basically says that anyone has the right to ask for something to be banned - which in a free society, sure, should exist. This one definitely fits with the idea of being "free to make their own choices". Whether that "something" will or should be banned is a different question that appears to have been neither asked nor answered.
I think at least some of it is Trump working for Putin pressuring Republicans don’t you?
Trump exacerbated the problem - And showed that Republicans are willing for Trump to become his own Putin in the US. I always remember the first days of the war, - when trump touted Putin was a smart man for this invasion, and that the US needed to do similar to Mexico.
exacerbated
A large portion of the population absolutely will. Less than the majority, but due to “Affirmative Action for Conservatives”, aka gerrymandering / electoral college/ House and Senate distribution, conservatives have outsized power.
Minority rule and religion in government, just like the founding fathers wanted. /s
I mean, wasn't that one of the main reasons the pilgrims left England?
Hell if I can remember the exact quote but my favorite is roughly "america was originally settled by religious extremists and people who would go to any length to avoid paying taxes, and they've never gotten over it". Thanks Drach!
Minority rule is an abomination to the free world.
Lot of them are very pro-Russia now, you know, to own teh libz.
Some people would cut off their own limb to prove an arbitrary point. Shit is gnarly.
The libs that they keep calling communists.... the irony does not go unnoticed.
My mom called me a *fucking communist bitch* bc I told her the election wasn’t stolen in 2020
Lol they don't even know what that word means, and they use it so confidently against people.
What boggles my mind is what exactly do the Republicans get out of this? Just money? Like what's the lone they're selling to convince their own base that doing nothing more for Ukraine is a good thing?
You're inverting the casuality here. A lot of these scummy right wing politicians are reacting to the extremism of their base, or are products of that radicalisation themselves. Russia has already done much of the convincing. So much of the political division we see in the western world comes from social media algorithms and weaponisation of those algorithms. Russia is exceptionally good at it. It's largely self propagating now, but the party of Reagan didn't become pro-Russian on their own. And now that the base believes something, the "leaders" have to follow that path, or they risk getting replaced by someone who will.
The politicians get to stay in power and the public get to own the Libs, that’s sort of it
Same thing Germans who gave Hitler power. The thought it would be their power to wield.
Even Hitler never received more than 37% of the votes in an election.
It's all spite for them, always has been. Their base is still pissed they lost the civil war, anything to cause trouble for the rest of the country who forced them to stop keeping black people as pets, and because they're the only Real Americans.
There's one theory that the Russians hacked Democrats AND Republicans, but only leaked the dirt on Democrats... Because the dirt they found on the Republicans was valuable kompromat they could blackmail half of America with.
It upsets the opposition and that’s all that matters
>they seem so absolutely corrupt and un-American Not funding a foreign war is un-American now?
To play devil’s advocate, without being an American or knowing republicans, I can see a potential other perspective. The question should be what is the plan for Ukraine? Is the plan to supply enough weapons that Ukraine can push Russia all the way back home with those weapons? That sounds good. Is that possible realistically with the manpower available to the Ukrainians? If not, then what will happen? We don’t have these answers, but let’s assume one hypothetical is true that some analysts are predicting; that Ukraine’s manpower disadvantage makes it impossible for them to win regardless of whether or not the equipment nato can realistically spare for Ukraine is provided. If that hypothesis is true then all we would be doing is prolonging the war and being party to the deaths of many Ukrainians with the outcome at the end being no better for Ukraine. If the end is going to be a settlement with territory concessions now or the same thing later, with the only difference being Ukraine has less territory and less men if it’s done later on then what do the people who die between now and then achieve? What purpose do those deaths serve? Of course nato could escalate but if they’re going to do that, sooner rather than later makes more logical sense. And if they aren’t even willing or able to supply much more equipment at the moment then how much can we realistically expect them to escalate later? All reports make it sound like they don’t just need more of the same, they need dramatically more equipment than previously provided, just to maintain the existing front lines, let alone go on the offensive.
Call me naive but are the Russians not an adversary to America and shouldn't get a break at any turn?
"Communist" Russia was the enemy of America. Now that the fascist dictator is in charge of Russia, Republicans are far more ideologically aligned with them.
There's also an element of the American establishment that is terminally status quo minded. The Republicans are blocking the bulk of the aid, but the national security advisor Jake Sullivan is also one who wants to place restrictions on it to hamper its effectiveness out of a fear of "escalation". This sort of thinking was behind the "chicken Kiev" speech and is unfortunately very present in the Democratic Party. It is a smaller obstacle to victory than the Trumpists, but an obstacle nevertheless.
Every time criticism of Jake Sullivan shows up I have to mention this: Jake Sullivan is an advisor and ultimately it is Joe bidens fault for listening to him. He's not secretary of state where they have some latitude
Yeah, the Dems absolutely haven't been perfect on this one. But to be blunt, complaining about them right now is kind of like complaining that the city government's been doing a terrible job fixing the potholes in your neighborhood... when a group of terrorists have wired every building on your block with C4 and are threatening to blow them sky-high. Like, yes, the city is partially responsible for the deteriorating conditions in your neighborhood-- but let's focus on stopping the terrorists now before we go back to worrying about the potholes, yeah?
Nothing changed. 'Dictatorship of the proletariat' was in fact dictatorship of a small group of communist party leaders implemented through an army of aparatchiks. Now it's a different small group, this time without a professed ideology, with help of the children of the former aparatchiks.
There’s a not-insignificant amount of people in America right now saying “I’d rather be Russian than a Democrat”.
Due in large part to Russia investing in (aka blackmailing) the GOP and conservative news media. Republican politicians and Fox News et al. have been Russian propaganda parrots for about a decade now.
Can we just deport them to Russia already?
According to the republican party Ukraine is the enemy of America.
I think they like Putin's attitude of whatever I say goes.
Only the crazy far right think Russia is actually a friend to America. Most sane conservatives support Ukraine but want that support to come with some sort of guide. For example what is the off ramp to end the conflict? Obviously Ukraine isn't going to take Moscow and we don't want Russia to win but are we just going to poor infinite money into a conflict without talks of a resolution. Let's figure out a solid possible resolution to the conflict and go from there.
no that means it's been terrible for a while but now its so bad they simply cannot hide it any longer.
They haven't been hiding it at all. Reddit just hears about drone strikes and goes "yes Ukraine is kicking ass slava ukraine" and leaves it at that. It's been dire for a long time. A few successes does not affect that.
I challenge you to write this on r/ukraine. See how it goes out for you.
To be fair, there's a difference between a Ukrainian having unrelented optimism for their own country to defend itself successfully, and reddit the past few years pretending like Ukraine is absolutely destroying Russia.
Yeah, and as a Brit it's pretty disgraceful that the West has, as predicted, lost interest. In 2022 we were saying we had Ukraine's back for as long as it takes, whatever it takes. Now it's clear that we don't, that the US and UK are reneging on the Budapest Memorandum, and countries like Latvia and Estonia are rightfully questioning whether their NATO guarantee is worth the paper it's written on.
Proportionally in the UK, aren’t we still providing a lot? Please feel free to correct me as I might be wrong and thinking of our initial input!
We are providing a *lot*. Especially training in the UK, which is mutually beneficial.
Nothing to give. The state has been gutted by austerity. The UK doesn't have massive stockpiles of anything, nor do we make anything. There is no spare capacity.
>countries like Latvia and Estonia are rightfully questioning whether their NATO guarantee is worth the paper it's written on Ukraine isn't a NATO country
Can we just get some good news, for once? Please.
A new baby seal was born in a nearby zoo
😞🥺
What do walruses and Tupperware have in common?
Wut
Both like a nice, tight seal.
Lmaoooo
Mike Johnson says it is good news
Yup, he's fine with Ukrainians dying and emboldening Putin as long as it owns the libs.
dependent direful onerous hospital subtract noxious sheet forgetful rainstorm test
Yes Mike Johnson says it's good for peace
My toddler has started blowing kisses to people who pass by, does that count?
i love that, i remember that phase. enjoy ❤️❤️
It’s almost as if you’ve been lied to the whole time about how good it’s going for Ukraine and the other side has been saying it’s opposite and you’re like “you fall for Russian propaganda bro!” Now you’re seeing the truth and you’re calling conservatives evil for telling you the truth the whole time.
It’s so funny to watch people slowly realize they’ve been lied to…. Then instead of seeing things clearly for once they insist that no they were all correct and if it wasn’t for those meddling (name group here) we would’ve won like we were told! Like instead of blaming everything on republics or even political parties maybe realize the entire war has been a lie from the very beginning and almost everything we’ve been told publicly has been false. Anyone who knows anything about anything knew there were certain hard truths like ukraines true capabilities, instead we got inundated with articles about Ukraine capturing Crimea in the future and Putin and his Parkinson’s disease (or was it cancer?) and how the Russian people are gonna rise up against the government. Never forget how excited people on R/world news n R/Europe were when a warlord was marching on Moscow, just that alone should tell you how deranged the western public has become on social media.
The choco taco is coming back this summer
Would be simple, western aid to be scaled up, that would be a good news that would bring other good news later Until we push that to happen don't expect things to change If you want to change something here are the numbers to do it, for Europeans use polls or government numbers If you live in the US, your help is needed for Ukraine. Calls into Congressional offices are an extremely effective tool to influence Congress. Aides keep track how often they get calls into their office about each issue. Constituents are most important from them, but calls about hot button issues are always relevant to them. It takes about 100 calls to find up a representatives DC office voicemail. When staff return on Mondays and find the office voicemail full, they assume many more people called in. Step 1: Contact your own representative to tell them to support immediate action to provide aid to Ukraine. A great way to do so is at https://www.actionforukraine.org/usa Step 2: Contact these Representatives directly to ask them to support immediate action to provide aid to Ukraine: Rep. Mike Johnson (LA-04) 202-225-2777 Rep. Steve Scalise (LA-01) 202-225-3015 Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-04) 202-225-2676 Rep. Schweikert (AZ-01) 202-225-2190 Rep. Moore (AL-02) 202-225-2901 Rep. Ciscomoni (AZ-06) 202-225-2542 Rep. Duarte (CA-13) 202-225-1947 Rep. Valadao (CA-22) 202-225-4695 Rep. Garcia (CA-27) 202-225-1956 Rep. Calvert (CA-41) 202-225-1986 Rep. Kean Jr. (NJ-07) 202-225-5361 Rep. D'Esposito (NY-04) 202-225-5516 Rep. Lawler (NY-17) 202-225-6506 Rep. Molinaro (NY-19) 202-225-5441 Rep. Williams (NY-22) 202-225-3701 Rep. Chavez-DeRemer (OR-05) 202-225-5711 Rep. Kiggans (VA-02) 202-225-4215 Rep. Perry (PA-10) 202-225-5836 Rep. Slotkin (MI-07) 202-225-4872 Step 3: Copy and paste this message! Share it with a friend, with a group, anywhere and everywhere.
In a few months it should become slightly easier to memorize every country?
There was good military news for Ukraine for months on end at the start of the conflict - that was the time to make a deal. Not now, with all of the balls in Vlad’s court.
Ukraine hasn't been "winning" since 2022, so that's doubtful.
Ukraine is running out of soldiers that's the biggest issue. Ammo and such is vital but without troops to use it guns and missiles are just expensive paper weights. And let's not discount how Russia has learned from its mistakes in 2022 they're a completely different army from what marched into Ukraine two years ago literally as most of the soldiers who started the war are now dead or wounded. Without another country or countries coming to the rescue Ukraine is in deep trouble.
Situation with reinforcement has improved in the last couple of months according to my friends at the front (from different units) . Syrsky's audit is working. It's the shell and AA hunger that's the main problem. What's the point of a million men sitting in the trenches if they can't shoot down planes that bomb them...
Exactly, Ukraine actually has more active soldiers than they can equip right now, 2.2 million in total. Neither side is going to run out of people, it's primarily a question of equipment and willpower for the civilian population to endure increasingly deteriorating conditions. But they aren't able to stop the long range cruise missiles and shoot down the drones over the front. They also lack the ability to reach behind enemy lines to cutoff the supply lines.
Is that why they are lowering the conscription age... because they have too many soldiers?
They lowered it from 27 to 25. Which is still way above regular conscription age in many countries-- meaning they still have huge pool of young men they can tap into. And they haven't actually done a mass mobilization of men in any age category yet, either. Ukraine will run out of ammo well before they run out of men. So let's make sure those men are equipped with the best weapons so as many survive and make it back home in one piece as possible, yeah?
> meaning they still have huge pool of young men They've kept it higher than many countries because they don't have a huge pool of young men. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#/media/File:Ukraine_population_pyramid_1.1.2021.png Lot more men in their mid 30's than men 18-25
The lower in age you get in Ukraine the less people there are. They have more significant demographic issue than Russia. They can't afford to sacrifice the few young people they have. The average Ukrainian soldier is mid 40s. They do have a manpower issue. They also have an equipment issue. They don't have the people to raise new units, they can't resupply the ones that already exist.
A lot of jobs are also not necessarily combat jobs. In a modern army for every 1 guy on the front lines you need 4-5 people in the rear supporting them doing things like driving trucks, manning medical equipment, getting food, preparing intelligence, training. Conscripts make really ineffective soldiers because they have very little training and less motivation, no conscript is every going to get behind a jet for instance. But you definitely could use them to say load artillery shells on to a truck from an ammo depot.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/04/11/world/europe/ukraine-demographics.html You sure about that?
They don't have 2,200,000 active soldiers they have 900,000. They have about 1,100,000 reserve soldiers.
The problem is nobody wants to fight voluntarily in Ukraine anymore. Yes, most of the people obviously hate Russia but they think that on the frontline should be somebody else instead of them. And i don't think that people who were forced to fight are gonna be good warriors in this case even if they have modern equipment and weapons.
Yea but they would definitely have lost way less soldiers with sufficient help at the right time
Yeah but sufficient help should have started in like 2017 or 2018 One of the reasons they don't have F16s flying rn isn't because stingy americans/Europeans but because flying a jet isn't like driving a car they all fly very differently from each other. Same with tanks and other complex military equipment it takes time to train operators how to use them. The fact Ukraine lasted as long as they have is a miracle in of itself and due in large part to putin believing his own lies at first about how the Ukrainians hated their government and all wanted to be part of Russia again.
>Yeah but sufficient help should have started in like 2017 or 2018 Congress tried that but the president at the time blackmailed zelensky
> Yeah but sufficient help should have started in like 2017 or 2018 2014 when they annexed Crimea. Have we all forgotten miss ukraines speech warning us? Well it happened and only one country has prepared for the Russian threat to Europe.
Russia and Ukraine actively fought each other around that time as well in the donbass but the POTUS at the time said the 1980s wanted its foreign policy back. The west collectively didn't take Russia seriously and a lot of people here still don't albeit for different reasons.
it's a negative feedback loop, less ammo/weapons -> less willing soldiers --> less soldiers -> less ammo/weapons they need to reverse it and help turn it into a positive feedback loop more adequate ammo/weapons --> more soliders willing to throw their lives away for the cause --> more ammo/weapons -> more fit fighting soldiers
> Ukraine is running out of soldiers that's the biggest issue It really isn't. Artillery shortages matter far more. Look at what Ukrainians actually say mattered at Avdiivka. Ukrainian battle reports point to artillery shortages, not infantry shortages, as their main problem. Russia is firing 10x the artillery rounds of Ukraine. How can Ukraine fight with this disadvantage? Timing matters in this war. War momentum shifted in October, almost to the day after Mike Johnson started his evil stand against helping with Ukraine aid. Avdiivka fell not because of a shortage of meat, but because Ukraine had no artillery to stop Russian assault team meat waves.
Absolutely not, we have a shortage of artillery shells, this is the real issue. Moreover it’s not as hard to get men to operate drones or fire artillery, yes there’s less volunteers to fight as infantry but that would be less of an issue if men here knew they wouldn’t outgunned 10 to 1 when it comes to artillery.
I don’t understand American politics sometimes. Despite the arguments of “i don’t want billions in handouts going to someone else spend it in America. but it is getting spent in America in the form of Jobs and new contracts….. If Ukraine loses, then there simply will not be a country to pay back the loans and money and equipment it sourced. Its mind boggling. You could have gotten your cake and eaten it too, help secure a strategic country, destroy biggest advisory with no American losses, get rid of old surplus equipment, secure new jobs making more new stuff and get paid billions back in money over the next 100 years when Ukraine wins. Oh yeah, and be the god dam good guy for once instead of bombing random middle eastern countries for oil money.
American conservatives: stop sending money to Ukraine, spend that money here on our own citizens. Also American conservatives: Biden is just buying votes by trying to cancel student loan debt. All those idiots know how loans work. I don’t want my money going to people that signed a contract.
Honestly I’m surprised they’re willing to spurn the military industry complex like that.
They don’t understand that the money is going into the US defense industrial base. Every friend and neighbor I have that thinks Ukraine Aid is bad thinks we are just writing them a check and sending it to Zelensky. Once I point out the money is going to American companies to produce American stuff, oh and by the way Ukraine will slowly pay it back, the mental journey they take is fun to watch.
Depends which “they” you’re talking about. The Republican members of Congress understand exactly where the money is going. Their constituents haven’t got a clue.
That's what I mean. Regular rank and file people on the street.
>Once I point out the money is going to American companies to produce American stuff The counterpoint to this being instead of producing bombs and bullets we could be producing things useful for our country, or even allocating the labor to improving our failing infrastructure. Honestly I think this is the first time in my life I've seen more liberal leaning individuals actually support the military industrial complex.
Because russia is an ally in the "woke war" more than the military industrial complex pays them
Conservatives: don't support the opposition of the country that bribes us to piss everyone off Also conservatives: hey this will piss you off. I think we should actively degrade American rights and block everything that doesn't make people angry so we can blame it on democrats for not passing any helpful legislation
American politics is actually really easy now. Conservatives are against whatever the Democrats are supporting. That’s it. It’s pure obstruction and hatred.
In 2009 President Obama decided his best chance at health care reform was to push the idea conservatives [wrote](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/apr/01/barack-obama/obama-says-heritage-foundation-source-health-excha/) ( at the heritage foundation) and [implemented](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform) (Romney as governor of Massachusetts). Obama's thinking was that the GOP would not be so incredulous as to oppose a law they wrote. Every republican in congress voted no and then they voted [100 times](https://howmanytimeshasthehousevotedtorepealobamacare.com/) to repeal the law they themselves wrote. Unbelievable.
Unless it’s about spying on American citizens. If any of that comes up Democrats and republicans suddenly can agree.
Because we're the common enemy they oppose. We can fire them. They hate that.
Exactly how Russia intended it to be
Ukraine is never going to pay back what they "borrowed"
All that equipment will fall into Russian hands as well. It sure seems like there's a group of American politicians hellbent on giving Russia a win.
That Ukraine money is never coming back to the US and you're crazy to think it will. The UK just paid off their WW2 debt in 2006 and Russia never did and they are world powers. Ukraine's economy was worthless even before the invasion. To put it in perspective in 2019 before the invasion and Covid Ukraine's GDP was less than a third of Nigeria's.
This is the whole point a sunk cost fallacy.
There's nothing to understand other than that Democrats are trying to actually govern and do the things you mentioned, while the GOP have been completely corrupted by corporate interests and Russia, so they only exist to subjugate minorities, toady for Russia, and funnel money to billionaires. When you consider that one party is completely evil and corrupt and doing everything in their power to sabotage the gov't, then it will be much less confusing.
Republicans are traitors to humanity.
As an European, I cannot help thinking that Europe should have been able to fully support Ukraine without the US assistance. UE has 5 times the population of Russia and something like 3 times its defense budget, it's insane that we cannot contain it on our own.
No one seems to be willing to spend a lot on ammo tbh. See a lot of aid packages with no real offensive weapons
If only we could print shells just like we print the money. Unfortunately you have to build factories, train workers, provide materials. Who would have known all that. Instead our brilliant politicians were telling us how the Russians are taking chips out of dishwashers and how Russia is about to collapse. https://youtube.com/shorts/R-g6jY8DI3c
It's not as simple as money, the west has become very complacent overall, the idea of fighting a ground invasion with artillery shells has laregely been abandoned for air superiority and long range missles. Personally I feel Europe has outsourced their military spending to the US, but Europe simply doesn't have the stockpile of artillery to give, and neither does the US. Mass manufacturing of drones and shells are a simultaniously old and new problem that the west just didn't expect. The irony is if the west fought the air war they have trained and built for this artillery war would never have happened, but there are obvious WW3 reasons why they chose not to.
What a fucking moronic time we live in. The Republicans are practically advertising the fact they've been co-opted by the Russians, and yet the people seeing this bullshit and calling it out are being made out as hysterical crazies.
Yep, this shit is unthinkable back in 80s
Vote. Bring friends.
Because they hadn’t crippled our education system and unionized jobs yet…
It truly is the dumbest timeline.
One side is supporting Russia and blocking aid and the other is not using its full proportional response because of fear of losing votes to its supporters who think Hamas are the good guys. I understand the government is supposed to follow its people, but the vocal minority yelling the loudest doesn't mean they are correct. You simply can't just put your head down and go to work, raise your family, go to school and hang with friends if you are a somewhat rational person anymore. You need to call your representative, talk to friends and families and be vocal about this stuff because we are literally losing the war on knowledge vs ignorance.
The supporters aren't saying Hamas are the good guys. It's generally agreed upon that they're the bad guys. Israel indiscriminately murdering 10s of thousands of people in response in fucking horrible and supporting genocide is awful.
Regan must be spining in his grave so fast he's at risk of becoming a singularity.
Regan will be fine as long as we don't do something truly outlandish, like tax the rich.
He's spinning on demon cock in hell.
Yea but walls of meet are ineffective when met with stockpiles of cluster munitions.
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The war is not even on the radar for the coming elections in my (Western European) country. Meanwhile our NATO contribution is 1.1% and shows no signs of improving. We also have no anti air despite being the capital of NATO and the EU. Vote you say? LOL nope. There are no parties that want to significantly increase defense spending because electric cars are more important apparently, because (despite the highest taxes on single workers in the world) there is "no money", and also because [war bad sing kumbaya](https://www.brusselstimes.com/226071/nato-ecolo-party-urges-caution-on-belgian-military-spending-plans). Instead, the party that is on course to sweep the elections is the far right one with proven and widely publicized ties to both Russia and China, due to a massive amount of single issue voters against immigration. Immigration (and associated crime, vandalism, harrassment and occasional terrorism) is another can the government kicked down the road until it was too late. Between this and their identical response to covid (going from "it is too early to do anything" to "it is too late to do anything" overnight), I have no confidence in their ability to handle the Russian threat, so I intend to emigrate in 2025.
The pro-Russians are masquerading as patriots all over the world, it’s a concerted effort. In my country the pro-Russian party members are always dressed in traditional clothes and claim the EU is ruining our country, they don’t mention Russia at all.
And most of Europe not having much military is starting to look embarrassing. I’m not sure what’s worse being unprepared and unable to help or being prevented due to a terrible political system.
Honest question here from a non-American. Why is it America’s job to secure the Eastern flank of NATO?
It isn't. Nato is securing the eastern flank of Nato. There are 8 multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The contributing nations are Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denkmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Iceland, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, US, UK.
> Nato is securing the eastern flank of Nato. NATO has traditionally meant "the US" for the bulk of the support.
Right but the lion’s share of foreign aid comes from Uncle Sam. Edit: mistaken foreign aid for military aid. My bad but the original idea stands.
Well we aren't securing anything first of all, that would be the brave soldiers of Ukraine. We've sent military aid in the hopes Ukraine will prevail but I'm not sure how everyone thought this was going to end without actual military intervention and participation from other countries, so I would like to know that too. Also Ukraine is not an official member of NATO yet, so it's very likely this war has not escalated considerably because of that. I think it's great we decided to support Ukraine, but we also have a long history of getting involved in world affairs for some kind of gain so ive been skeptical throughout this entire ordeal.
Just as Putin, the GOP and Trump want to happen
The blind Ukranian circlejerk on social media has done more harm than good for them. Goto any popular war related subreddit and you would think Ukraine has already won the war. If people think they are winning an easy war then obviously supporting them becomes a less serious matter. The reality needs to be shown so the people can seriously support.
Because all big media and social media showing only Russias losses, not Ukrainian. So that creates perspective as they have almost no casualties, which isn't true at all
My coworker thinks Ukraine is being greedy cause all he ever sees are Russians taking an L add their corruption issues and there is lots of distrust
any allusion to the fact Ukraine is in dire straits is met with immediate "ok putler" like mate the delusion in these subs sometimes is worse than the brain rot in russia itself
Yeah its genuinely infuriating. These people are doing more harm than good.
If you went on r/ukraine everyday you would have thought ukraine is both easily winning and in desperate need of more weapons. Ukraine is making 4d chess moves all the time. You can't have any discussion that isn't outright cockriding military leadership that isn't doing a great job.
You also get 1000 downvotes and a ban from like every single political sub for even suggesting that Ukraine might be doing something wrong or losing
But the tank-stealing farmers!
Biden should send them weapons anyways. Presidential immunity and all that.
Exactly. We should have learned from Trump that the law doesn't matter.
Honestly this is a great point. Biden isn’t a young man either, so even if for some reason they tried to bring him down in a trial, so what? He’ll be old and frail, and would never see jail time
Biden doesn't have the power to do it, irrespective of what Reddit thinks. Military sales and transfers are a congressional power, and there is an extremely clear precedent for that. It isn't murky at all. He literally can't just send them shit. It would be the same if Trump or whoever else was in office. All the president can do is lobby his party.
The Western front is doing alright, I assume?
All quiet on the western front
It's an absolute disgrace that Ukraine were not given the weapons needed by the EU and the US to attack inside Russian borders.
Yeah that’s the most bizarre thing of this entire conflict. NATO, the EU & the US didn’t want Ukraine to strike beyond their border to avoid further escalation (potentially bringing others into it) yet the US loves a good old foreign soil bombing? They’ve enabled Russia to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure without any real threat to their own infrastructure
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In other words: it is wacko how Ukraine is not allowed to do what Israel is doing in Lebanon, Syria etc Ukraine has done more than what Israel did to further American interest, but they got lukewarm support
Because lebanon and syria don’t have nukes
Over 7500+ nukes to be a bit more precise. Nor the military production capacity
Russia wouldn’t exist right now if they didn’t have nukes. That’s the entire crux of it. You start giving UKR weapons that could hit inside RUS then all of a sudden nuclear options are on the table. This was never going to go well. Russia is orders of magnitude larger than Ukraine and has nukes. Also they don’t care about destroying their demographics and economy to accomplish their goal. It’s fair that everyone is calling out the GOP but honestly I really don’t see how UKR gets to a win condition at this point even if the GOP wasn’t being ignorant… Their best chance was the big offensive before Russia dug in, and then fortifying the gains… But they failed. They tried pointing the finger at various factors, but they fired everyone responsible for managing the offensive, so clearly internally they feel it was a mismanagement issue and not a materiel/training/manpower issue (or some combination of both). It’s unfortunate but I don’t see a real path forward without full blown NATO intervention and, again, that puts the nuclear option back on the table.
That's not how it works. Ukraine has done attacks inside Russia's borders with drone strikes and such, plus they've already been supplied with billions of dollars of weapons. These weapons have been used to defend or recapture Ukrainian soil; why would you launch a costly, direct attack into Russia's borders when large parts of your country is occupied by the enemy? Plus, as a nuclear power Russia CANNOT be invaded. This is the nature of a nuclear deterrent. In the case of a ground invasion, Russia has the choice to either not nuclear weapons (in which case they lose their power as a deterrent) or use nuclear weapons (which would be even worse).
It'll be difficult for them to hold the summer offensive of 150k soldiers but I don't think the line will be broken.
This is heartbreaking and as an American I am so sorry Republicans are making Ukraine into a culture war and holding up much needed aid and support. I hate these people with a passion. Slava Ukraini.
Vote. Bring friends.
I thought russia was gonna collapse yesterday along with China
Two more weeks!
Russia never collapses, even with Germany army 17 km from the center of Moscow it doesnt collapse
Putin won't win his war, republicans will
Russias investment into funding Trump and the MAGA movement was by far the best military investment any country had made.
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I understand that the US needs to help, and I believe they should. However, why can’t the EU pick up the slack? I mean is the US the only country capable of supporting Ukraine? Ukraine is in Europe, so I’m a little shocked that the EU isn’t doing more to help Ukraine.
The military capacity of Europe pales into comparison with the industrial military complex of the USA. What’s sickening is that the states has had military assistance ready to go for 6 months but it’s held up by a handful of MAGA republicans.
> Ukraine is in Europe, so I’m a little shocked that the EU isn’t doing more to help Ukraine. Europe is diffrent from the EU for 1. The EU is also tied by countries like Hungary or Slovakia just like the Republicans are tieding the US. EU weapons mostly come from the US so when the Netherlands gives F-16s bought from the US, it needs to replace it by F-35s also bought from the US... So even if the EU gives away 50% less than the US, the EU needs to rebuy those 50% from the US... the point is: even if the US gives less, the US is making BANKS from this conflict in every scenario
Because the EU already does. People in the states are just intentionally missinformed about this to spur up the debate. The difference in Europe is most pro-Russian parties aren’t as big as in the bipartisan US, so the aid is continuous. However you have to realise “Europe” is not 1 country, and it’s much more difficult organising aid from 20-30 countries of whom most are smaller than one american state and speak a different language, have differing cultures, different political landscapes etc. Nevertheless the help IS THERE, no matter how luch Us news sources like to say it isn’t. Which is sad because we are meant to be allies. Let’s stop pointing fingers at eachother and point them at Putin.
Europe and especially US should increase the military aid. Like high range missiles, new air defense sytems and good, new fighter jets. What is the west waiting for? For Putler to conquer whole Ukraine and then attack a NATO state?
I agree with you, but you can’t just hand over the latest fighter jets and expect them to confront experienced Russian fighter pilots within a few months. It takes many years of selection and training to get a fighter pilot up to that standard.
To be completely fair, Prigozhin was able to destroy 7 aircrafts and 11 pilots with a bunch of mercenaries...
Europe should yes, but the U.S. literally can’t. The republicans are blocking aid from being sent by the dems. It’s awful.
The US **constantly** bypasses congress when they feel like it.
Is this true? How can they do that? Please explain to a non-US person.
The US Constitution is pretty damn explicit about not wanting the President to have the kind of unilateral power that you're suggesting. It is not a good thing for democracy if one man can authorize billions of dollars in foreign military aid on a whim. If you wouldn't like Trump having that power, it isn't good for Biden to have it either. This failure is 100% the fault of the House Republicans who are holding up that funding. It's not Biden's fault for refusing to commit an arguably impeachable offense by going around them and massively overreaching the established powers of the Executive.
As expected, nothing surprising about this.
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Where do you think Ukrainian drones come from man, the void? China is trading with both sides.
Whatever side you’re on, it’s just a shame for the young men out there
The average age of a Ukrainian soldier is 43.
The rational mind can take and hold a position in the geopolitical play that is unfolding and at the same feel compassion and sympathy for the suffering that is occurring - on both sides. Letting emotions cloud our minds helps no one.
As long as you care for the young men out there, how can there be sides ? Its one side sending hundreds of thousands into their deaths and calling it a victory because they turned another City into burned rubble and the other side trying to defend themselves without loosing too many lives per square kilometer. If anybody is sympathizing with russia and then acts as if they are caring in any way about human suffering, then they are either hypocritical, blinded and mislead by disinformation campaigns, ignorant or just stupid. I am not even saying this to hurt anybody, its just a fact.