Open Thread December 17 2023 Re-Arming Ukraine
Open Threads are created for people to have conversations which may not fit in with topical posts . . . a comment which may be off topic. I usually offer up one topic to start a conversation.
Many think it is ok to abandon a nation threatened by a global threat in the form of Russia. Or it could be a threatening China, etc. intimidating other countries. J.P. Jefferson sums it up rather well.
The absurdity of mixing three distinctively different issues into one package demanding an up or down vote is now on display at the D.C. center stage.
“One of the issues, continuing Ukraine funding, holds in the balance the future of democracy in the free world (including the South China Sea) and the potential of WWIII and nuclear holocaust. The other two issues, the Israel-Hamas conflict and the U.S. Border crisis, are very significant on a different scale; but all demand individual debate, deliberation, and decisions that are not related in any way except that the U.S. provides funding to each. Each should be dealt with separately, with full transparency, and Ukraine funding should have the highest priority.”
Open Thread December 11 the “Kelly Parcel,” Utah, Angry Bear,
Perhaps Biden realizes that the border situation is killing him politically. He links the border to Ukraine funding. The R’s then take the issue and demand a wholesale change in the rules. Biden reluctantly agrees, citing the need for Ukraine funding as an existential issue.
For Biden, a win/win, funding Ukraine and taking the issue that is killing him politically off the table. Left wing Dems scream bloody murder, but the rest of the country moves on.
@Jim,
“He links the border to Ukraine funding.”
No, it’s the Republicans who are linking the border to Ukraine funding. It’s not clear to me that they can relinquish the issue, no matter what Biden does. Just like with abortion, the right wing Republicans just escalate.
@Jim; I think that’s basically right although, as Joel contends, it’s the Republicans linking the two. I think Biden simply anticipated that and tried to use it.
I never voted for anyone who advocated that the USA has a duty to protect anything outside the U.S.
A defensive treaty may establish some form of such duty, but must be ratified by congress, and implemented by the CinC with obvious consideration of best for the republic.
I may have missed it but what treaty of mutual defense establishes any duty to Kiev?
The second amendment is infinitely more powerful for my freedom than Kiev, if Kiev is the guarantor of liberty, I will buy more ammunition.
paddy:
Yep, isolationism really worked well in the past too. You buy all the NATO rounds you think you need. It won’t matter. They will turn you into dust and you will never know what hit you as an individual.
If I question neocon adventures and forever war for “democracy” you roll out the 1930’s meme of staying out of foreign intrigues!
What will rearming give for the Kiev regime that the first “round” failed to achieve?
A bit of isolation on LBJ’s part would have saved a couple of kids I grew up with…..
Yep, isolationism really works. This is not Vietnam and I made it extremely clear in the earlier post. This is not an excursion. Smaller country refuses to be rolled by a supposed major. Russians really proved how strong they really are, heh. Ukraine deserves the weapons to win. They proved they can fight.
Neither is it a neocon adventure as hard as you try to make it such. You are playing the Putin card with the word regime. The Kyiv regime is a cynical fiction of Putin’s Russia. Russia calls the government of Ukraine a junta or the Kyiv regime. You have the Russian dialogue down very well.
Ukrainians remember the Holodomor, the Cold War, and realize their freedoms are threatened by a Russian criminal. They have an actual leader who is not going to drain the banks, cut and run. A leader who would rather stand and fight with them and if necessary die with them.
Far different than Vietnam even as you try to make it such. Oh yea, LBJ dictated we go to Vietnam without the consent of Congress. What was that? Two Senators voted no to escalation after the Bay of Tonkin.
Explain US national interests in the territorial integrity of the kluge established by Lenin, added to with western counties by the Red army in 1945, and Krushy in the 60s.
While the scare over Russia moving on Paris is not a neocon scam, how so?
I got it back when, no more Pearl Harbors, and dominoes are the thing.
I became skeptical….
Buying in to the Thucydides trap
Funding for Ukraine will save a lot of kids today. If you didn’t like Viet Nam, you really won’t like WWIII.
What is WW III now?
Years ago when I occasionally did night duty during exercises I had time to read analysis of nuclear weapon test.
Then WW III was “I’d rather be dead than Red”.
In another “life” around the coffee mess we would wonder how many miles in to Fulda would cause the nukes to fly.
Vietnam was for who could not get a deferrment and the money.
I’d rather not end up in a nursing home, war is for kids w/o connections.
Roughly 1/3 were drafted and the others volunteered for military service. “On paper, this is true. While 2.2 million men were drafted between 1964 and 1973, a total of 8.7 million men enlisted. However, numbers alone can’t tell the whole story.”
@McJefferson,
Exactly. Well said.
Heather Cox Richardson eye opener…
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-11-2023
Read that one too.
She covers all the key words
The imagery!
J.P.
You are up tomorrow at 7:00AM. Give people time to absorb it.
This isn’t VietNam. Though for some it never will be that war is over. Apples and onions
There is a more apt metaphor, ripped from today’s headlines: a foreign invading occupier perpetrating genocide upon the local population, with American support and encouragement
Must be nice to be able to just give up; things get too tough just lay down and die
Go ahead on it ~ lol ~ point your pop-gun at the US Army …
Of course it is not Vietnam, Zelenski has not been eliminated yet, and we don’t have the sea lanes to Ukraine like VN.
BTW Russia is not the occupier in Donbas, and the units withdrawn from Kharkov last year were Donetz militia, same who pushed the Ukraine out and precipitated Minsk I in 2015.
Since the two Minsk agreements purposefully failed, who will negotiate with the white knights?
You really believe the “little green men” weren’t Russians?
The Debt Problem Is Enormous. Experts Say the System for Fixing It Is Broken
NY Times – Dec 16
Economists offer alternatives to financial safeguards created when the U.S. was the pre-eminent superpower and climate change wasn’t on the agenda.
Kevin Drum thinks it’s time to kill off the IMF and the World Bank:
https://jabberwocking.com/time-to-kill-off-the-imf-and-the-world-bank/
Wall Street’s ‘Bond Vigilantes’ Are at Battle as US Debt Soars
NY Times – Dec 18
The financial world has been debating if market appetite for U.S. debt is near a limit. Not everyone agrees this is something to panic about, but the ramifications for funding government priorities are immense.
Economic Policy Institute:
Congress and President Biden should not trade away human rights and asylum protections for temporary defense funding
excerpt:
If Congress passes the one-time defense supplemental, the money will likely run out in just a few months. But the major anti-immigrant policy changes that Congress and the White House are reportedly considering will be permanent. These policies include an updated version of Trump’s Title 42 policy, mandatory detention of migrants and asylum seekers while they adjudicate their claims (likely including children), increased power to deport people encountered beyond the border areas of the United States with little to no due process (known as “expedited removal”), and changing the legal standard for asylum to make it more difficult to prove an initial claim.
If passed, the measures under consideration would go even further than some of the Trump administration’s harsh and brutal actions—and because they will carry statutory weight, it’s unlikely that immigrant rights advocates will have a path to challenge them in court. Further, it should be apparent to any reasonable legislator or administration official that these policy changes will not improve the situation at the southern border and will have harmful impacts on migrant and U.S. workers alike.
Republicans are pushing a Sophia’s choice. Perhaps Hobson’s choice would be the better solution putting the blame on Republicans and their supporters who advocate for such choices.
Thom Hartmann covers the Ukraine/migration combination:
Should Democrats Trade the Southern Border for Ukraine? (hartmannreport.com)
If you read the Wikipedia article about ‘Little Russia’, you get a sense of how Vlad Putin must look at the relationship between Russia & Ukraine. In much of the period of the last thousand years Ukraine was considered Little Russia, a dependency. Especially by ‘Great Russia’ apparently, which explains how it is that ‘Great Russia’ under Putin feels that ‘a decent respect to the opinions of mankind’ means that they are entitled to remain closely tied.
We are just betting that Putin will not initiate a thermonuclear war over this. Time will tell.
Trump & Constitutional Amendment 14, Section 3
Should Donald Trump be on the ballot in 2024? Now before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), appealed from the recent 4-3 decision of the Colorado Supreme Court. I’m pretty sure that the Trump-loaded SCOTUS will find some bizarre interpretation of the obvious and allow the 4-time indicted, twice-impeached former President, with 91 criminal charges to run again. I also think it is fascinating that the two leading challengers to Trump’s GOP campaign — Haley & DeSantis — are both saying that we should let the people decide, rather than following the law. What a new and innovative way to handle high-level legal matters in this country. . .
Bill, I just posted a new article on this at: https://jpmcjefferson.blogspot.com/2023/12/
You are free to repost if you wish.
thank you