Ukraine Invasion: Part 54

[MagicFox]

We're on 54. Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
Agreed thread guidance:
A. The agreed purpose of the thread is for the sharing of information and commentary on current events
B. If you post a link please tell us where it leads/give a precis of the content
C. Discussion and debate is welcome, but please keep it respectful

@1dayatatime I have already commented way up thread about defense spending and how it should be increased, and how I was prepared to vote in that direction. This does not even come close to addressing your assertion that European opinion is irrelevant which is grossly inaccurate and definitely part of the problem.

Wow. Just wow.

@Llttledrummergirl

"America made promises and pledges under previous administrations, they don't get to change the terms on previous agreements retrospectively and have no claim on Ukraine or its raw materials. Trump is proving untrustworthy, and by extension America."

Ukraine is the front line of defence for Europe against Putin's Russia. Ukraine is paying for this defence of Europe with its soldiers lives and its country's destruction.

It's in the own security interests of Europe to make sure that at the very least Ukrainian soldiers are equipped to carry on this fight. If the European nations want this to happen then they and their taxpayers need to take up the slack.

Meanwhile the US is more concerned about security interests in the Far East.

@WinterMorn

"This does not even come close to addressing your assertion that European opinion is irrelevant which is grossly inaccurate and definitely part of the problem."

What I or you think is irrelevant. The fact is that Putin is not a "nice guy" - he only respects (or fears) strength.

When the European military is so small and weak because of decades of underspending that makes their opinion irrelevant. This is reality- what is fair doesn't come in to it.

The man is a clown

No one is saying that Europe shouldn’t spend more on defence or that our militaries aren’t too small. What we’re saying is it doesn’t give America the right to act like they are.

How many European nations sneered at the US for its lack of free state healthcare - well that was because US taxpayers were paying for Europe's defence.

Utter rot. Though I see this is a line which is being pushed now.

The US ranks very high in the world for per capita spend on US citizens' healthcare.

The problem isn't the nation's total spend: it's the distribution and who the money ends up with. The reaction to the recent murder of a US insurance company executive shows Americans are well aware of that.

The US – if it wanted to – could choose to spend the same amount of money providing free universal healthcare and improving its life expectancy figures. It has largely chosen not to.

This scapegoating of Europe for the US funnelling healthcare spending into making insurance companies rich smacks of the Brexit scapegoating by a UK government which cut taxes and therefore cut services, and then invited people to blame immigrants for said services not being available. (The irony being, many of the immigrants were providing said services.)

I wish I was a cartoonist, Putin has Musk for a puppet, he has Trump and Trump has the Saudis all dancing to his tune.
I thought the Saudis were supposed to be trying to be thought of as world leaders, they seem to have little credibility.

@Igotjelly

"No one is saying that Europe shouldn’t spend more on defence or that our militaries aren’t too small. What we’re saying is it doesn’t give America the right to act like they are."

If the European nations had spent more on defence and ensured stronger militaries then it wouldn't matter what America did or say. Plus it's more in the interests of Europe to be supporting Ukraine than it is for the US.

Guns and ammunition is what matters to Ukrainian soldiers suffering in the front lines not woolly supportive speeches from European politicians.

"Oh of course we'd love to spend US goverment funds on free healthcare for all.

And we would, we would.

If only we weren't tragically being prevented by heroically paying millions of dollars to US arms manufacturers and stationing nuclear weapons pointed at Russia from the convenient aircraft-carrier of Europe, which we're only doing to benefit the people living beside the nuclear bases who will die if our Mutually Assured Distruction (limited Euro version) plays out."

Yeah, nah.

Are you aware that in fact the EU has provided more aid in total? The US has provided more military aid to date, 70% of the cost of which is funneled back into the US. The EU has provided more humanitarian, economic and military aid in all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukraine_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War

Also, it is worth knowing that a lot of that US military aid has been late or not been despatched at all - up to 50%.

The US has also tracked the US military aid to Ukraine and Biden's administration said that there are not more than minor irregularities, although honestly tracking in a war situation seems rather uncertain and that has been acknowledged in some areas. However, it seems likely that the overwhelming vast majority of military equipment that arrives is rather carefully accounted for. It seems some Russians have been capturing that equipment and then selling it and pretending the Ukrainians have been selling it, but that's one of the myriad methods the Russians have used to carry out their hybrid warfare.

I hope this helps clear up some of the misunderstanding.

I haven't looked into it in depth @PerkingFaintly but I had the general impression that in the US the line is pushed that the US is funding the EU's social security systems, while ignoring that there is lower taxation in the US than in the EU. The EU (western in particular) pays higher taxes in order to fund those social securities systems, whereas the US has lower taxes and a greater ratio of poor:rich. Plus, the rich are far better at avoiding paying taxes in both continents.

That doesn't alter the fact that the EU has been bloody irresponsible in terms of funding military spending.

Oh yes, I think we agree that the European countries should have been spending more on defence.

It's the attempt to sell it to the US taxpayer as "You don't have healthcare because them over there are taking all your money. So if we stop supporting Ukraine then... "

Followed the next year by, "Oh but we never promised we actually would spend that money on healthcare."

You could put it on the side of a bus, couldn't you? In fact, I seem to remember someone did...

It's the attempt to sell it to the US taxpayer as "You don't have healthcare because them over there are taking all your money. So if we stop supporting Ukraine then... "

No one in the US thinks that more defense spending by Europe will mean less defense spending or more social spending in the US. Our defense spending post-COVID has been flat to slightly down when you account for inflation. The hope is that more defense spending by Europe will allow the US to reallocate resources to what we need to deter China in the Indo-Pacific. What we need now is more submarines, aircraft and anti-ship missiles.

@DucklingSwimmingInstructress

"That doesn't alter the fact that the EU has been bloody irresponsible in terms of funding military spending."

Except it will be Ukraine paying the price for that irresponsibility by Europe in lost lives and lost lands.

But hey let's all blame the orange man and the US, have Macron organise some more conferences , make some great supportive speeches for Ukraine but make bugger all difference because we've got an insignificant military that couldn't hold off a horde of angry Guinea Pigs.

@1dayatatime you are either spectacularly or intentionally missing the point.

@1dayatatime genuine question. If you really believe the bullshit coming from Trump and Putin that Euope and Ukraine are irrelevant, why are you trying desperately to argue against Europe starting to pull together? If we are wrong and Trump is right, then our posts, our letters to our government's, the actions they take are meaningless, so why waste your time here?

The answer is that they are not. It's gaslighting by Trump and a desperate attempt to make him seem correct. Keep arguing his case, the more I see it, the more empowered I feel.

Of course if the European nations don't like this they could always spend more on defence to be a credible alternative in say 10 or 20 years.

It is certainly true that Europeans must pay for their own defence.

Let’s put that right, and remember too though to never again do anything so ill advised, as it was, to go to war in Iraq in the so called war against terror because of loyalty to the USA and what was for so long felt to be “Our special relationship” with the them even when so many in our country were against that war.

@MissConductUS . I'm always grateful for your knowledge and insight. I'm sure we will disagree occasionally, but I really value that you take the trouble to post here. Thank you.

Yes, there's no reason to think the poster above who claimed that "lack of free state healthcare [...] was because US taxpayers were paying for Europe's defence" is in the US.

But it is a line that it seems several of us have spotted being pushed, to scapegoat US spending in Europe for lack of US healthcare & social security.

It's been lifted pretty much straight from the Brexit bus:
"We send the EU £350 million a week - let's fund our NHS instead. Vote Leave."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42698981

The real joke being that, immediately they'd won the vote, Brexit campaigners switched to, "But we never promised we actually would spend it on the NHS," and "Why are you even asking us to: we're political lobbyists, not a government. We can't do stuff like that."

@1dayatatime you are a broken record, one trick pony and hardly part of the solution. You fear the solution and so try to make it seem like it is impossible.

You are not acting in good faith here.

@MissConductUS . I'm always grateful for your knowledge and insight. I'm sure we will disagree occasionally, but I really value that you take the trouble to post here. Thank you.

agreed!

It needs to be said that regarding Germany, there have been very good historical reasons why Europe was not keen on them rearming. That time is gone now, but it was a real factor until relatively recently.

Also, all this talk of Europe needs to pay more is avoiding a central point here:

Russia and the US both guaranteed Ukrainian independence.

I think there’s some massive missing the point going on here by our new posters.

Can I ask how many Ukranians have fled to the US in the last 3 years, with all the healthcare and services etc that that has entailed? Poland in particular has punched above its weight here, but also following on from Duck’s point about the amount of support given by Europe to Ukraine which far outweighs US support.

i was always led to believe that you can’t negotiate with a terrorist, and Putin is proving that theory bang on. Putin’s demands are growing more outlandish, meanwhile the focus of US negotiators sitting at a table with Putin’s reps does the US the biggest disservice. Let’s face it, Trump appears not to give a flying fuck about Ukraine, he’s been rude and dismissive to Zelensky for years. The man, judging by his criminal record, clearly finds it hard to determine right from wrong, and his ego demands that he sorts this war within a day to support his ridiculous election pledge (too late!), and damn the real life consequences for ordinary Ukranians, and one of the best leaders of our time.

The mineral proposal is immoral, as stated Europe has contributed more than the US but I would be horrified if we tried to stringarm a country at war in this way.

if you’d taken the time to follow these threads you’d have seen that the majority of posters have for a long time supported more defence spending in Europe. It’s important to us. I think on thread 2 or 3 I was calling out for the west to go further and faster, and I still wish we had. But a lot of this come downs to politics, and many of Europe’s electoral issues are down to propaganda from Putin, and the way that US tech giants have been allowed to perpetuate that propaganda unchecked on social media. Thanks for that US.

What is happening is a breaking of the world order, and it’s frightening. We want more defence spending, you don’t need to ram the point home; but after the UK supporting the US in countless issues- many of which we didn’t need to, to be so disrespected by Trump and his minions is fucking hard to swallow.

So aside from your assertion that Europe should invest more in defence- which will take time, what else exactly do you support about the way that Trump has approached any of this? Do you like seeing Russia be allowed a seat at the negotiating table? Are you happy with the idea of dropping sanctions against Russia- suggested on the same day that Russia again bombed Kyiv? Do you really think that Ukraine stands any chance of remaining as a sovereign nation long term without being part of NATO? And are you happy for the horrific crimes against humanity inflicted by Russia on Ukraine to go unpunished?

No one in the US thinks that more defense spending by Europe will mean less defense spending or more social spending in the US

Lots of Americans do believe that though, its a line I've seen countless times, increasingly so in the last couple of years.