I call this cash for clunkers 2.0 as the US vows to replace forty year old crap with new equipment.
In 2020, Germany couldn’t get enough air assets working to pull their people out of China. Makes me wonder if the list of equipment the varies countries have promised can actually be moved.
Then I wonder who actually is available to operate or service the equipment.
I also wonder how the billions the US has already sent are being used. It’s not to purchase weapons.
Granted, I don’t watch corporate media, but I have yet to see a battalion sized engagement victory from Ukraine. So maybe drones, rocket launchers etc. that can be used in guerrilla warfare may be useful.
I would imagine the EU countries would have more at stake than the US. Yet, their contribution is small relative to the US’s.
I am biased. I think that the US government and large financial institutions and corporations are criminals. Thus, I don’t see a bully so much as an opportunity to run a giant scam.
I don’t believe that it is the role of government to stop bullies. The role isn’t to set up democracies in foreign lands. The role isn’t to mess with Venezuela or Iran or any of the forty countries we have dropped bombs on in the last 40 years.
I will say again. I am not much afraid of Venezuela or Russia being a threat that will destroy the US. I am afraid for myself and fellow citizens of having the authoritarians destroying the US.
Supposing Ukraine has this right, is it the responsibility of the West to intervene on Ukraine’s behalf? Are Western countries obliged to risk nuclear war with Russia to protect Ukraine’s supposed right to self-determination?
If so, why is there no similar duty to the Donbas, which has suffered aggression by Ukrainian nationalists because of its apparent desire to become an independent republic? Don’t they too have a right to self-determination – the right to secede?
And was the United States protecting Ukraine’s right to self-determination when it facilitated a coup d’état in 2014 to install a pro-Western government? Evidently not. Western military intervention in Ukraine is clearly motivated by goals unrelated to sovereignty or rights. Western governments (actually, governments in general) do not even preserve the rights of their own citizens, why would these states care about the rights of people living (in some cases) thousands of miles away?
There is intervening and there is intervening. To date I don’t believe we’ve committed any line units, although I’m sure the SpecOps people are there. But then, that’s there job.
We supplied the mujahadeen with stingers that made Soviet Hind pilots lives short. Wasn’t any nuke blackmail. Russia, the Eastern block, and China all provided aid in weapons, tanks, anti-air guns and missiles, and fighters. Indeed, there were rumors of Russian pilots in some of the Migs. Still no nuke blackmail.That’s the issue that bothers me. Doesn’t matter the circumstances, this is hardly an existential threat to Russia. AND we already know that the Russians supplied both weaponry and supplies to ”those poor Russian-speaking guys” - WHO wanted to rip off the eastern part of Ukraine for Russia. ?Would you guys be OK with La Rasa ripping off southwest America - I wouldn’t. Don’t see the Ukrainians being that thrilled either. And it’s their butts on the line!
The EU gave up defending itself with NATO. Not the right choice, and Trump tried to get them more involved monetarily - which DC today will not attempt to get the scales even - ”their billionaires” require it. And they ARE bought and paid for.
Is it really the case that historically there was no “nuke blackmail” – in the sense of belligerents recognizing Red Lines which they decided not to cross?
Vietnam – the US intervened in a civil war on the other side of the world. The US knew that the USSR was providing weapons and support to the enemy. The logical military action would have been to torpedo the USSR ships transporting those weapons to prevent them getting to the enemy. Instead, the DC Swamp Creature bureaucrats decided to sacrifice American lives (Not their lives! The lives of Americans in the war zone) by allowing the weapons to be delivered and used – because the bureaucrats knew that striking at those USSR weapons before they got to the battlefield involved an escalation which could have gone all the way to nuclear war, thus putting the bureaucrats’ own lives on the line.
Russia has intervened in a civil war on its own border – something they see as much more existential than Vietnam was to the US. US/NATO unfortunately have made themselves active belligerents, financing the KIev regime and supplying weapons and targeting information. Suppose Russia decides to make the logical military decision and starts to intercept those weapons before they reach the Ukraine? Would the US shrug off the losses of ships & planes & US lives? Or would the US escalate in response, putting us on the path to nuclear attacks on the continental US?
“Nuke blackmail” is the wrong term. What we are talking about is belligerents considering the potential consequences of their actions. It pains me that the “leaders” of the US have made us all unwilling participants in their undeclared war on Russia – a war for which none of us ever voted.
Well, it is CNN! Every farmer & rancher I have ever known would have found a way to put those farm vehicles to good use before the sun had risen above the tree-line. That is why farm boys have historically punched above their weight in experimental science.
But let’s not miss the main information in CNN’s story – Chechens are allied with Russians in fighting against those murderous Azov Ukrainians. Chechens who were at war with Russia not much more than a decade ago. The analogy might be if the Taliban sent troops to the US southern border to rescue Joe Biden from the ongoing invasion of “irregular” immigrants. This world is a much more complicated place than CNN understands – or conveys to its declining audience.
Still, let’s hope that no-one points out to CNN honchos that Chechens are devout Muslims. For a CNN correspondent to state that a follower of Islam would steal anything is probably a firing offence in CNN’s cosy litlle version of the world.
In Escape the City, Travis Corcoran notes that on the used market, older tractors often sell for more than recent models that have electronic engine controllers, microprocessor based controls, and other “improvements” that require proprietary parts from the manufacturer to repair and may be designed to discourage or prevent field service by the owner.
There does not appear to be any confirmation. Some have asserted the footage comes from a video game – rather as some of the videos of the “Ghost of Kiev’s” asserted 40 shoot-downs of Russian planes turned out to be. It is a measure of how successful the Ukrainian/US propaganda campaign is that, even when the Ukrainians admitted the “Ghost of Kiev” was made up out of whole cloth, that revelation was not considered news-worthy.
The issue for us in the West – who are as concerned about our own governments as we are about the Russian government and the admittedly corrupt Ukrainian leadership – is the absence of reliable information. It may be that the organizers of the propaganda campaign feel the need to crank the lies up to 11 in an attempt to recapture the short attention span of fickle Westerners who are moving on to other topics.
I have posted links to Vladimir Putin’s speech (English translation and original Russian) at the 2022-05-09 Victory Day celebration in Red Square over at the Victory Day post.
Yesterday, 2022-05-11, the U.S. Department of Defense released a “Fact Sheet on U.S. Security Assistance for Ukraine” detailing “United States security assistance committed to Ukraine…”. The following is the list given. The press release does not specify whether this equipment has been delivered or is “committed” for future delivery.
Note that this covers only “assistance” from the US$ 4.5 billion spent so far, and not the additional US$ 40 billion just passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;
Over 5,500 Javelin anti-armor systems;
Over 14,000 other anti-armor systems;
Over 700 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;
90 155mm Howitzers and over 200,000 155mm artillery rounds;
72 Tactical Vehicles to tow 155mm Howitzers;
16 Mi-17 helicopters;
Hundreds of Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles;
You are missing the point. This is Biden’s unilateral disarmament program. Most of this is not replaceable. Before this is over, the US will have at best the world’s fifth largest inventory of Javelins, Stingers, etc. after: Russia (due to diversion by sympathizers in Ukraine); Ukraine; the Taliban; and whoever buys the most on the black market from Ukraine.
Right now would be a good time to invest in whatever JP, SG, or KR companies have access to chips and can make competitive systems.
Not just chips – advanced weapons need advanced materials and exquisitely manufactured components.
Some of us might reasonably suspect that a de-industrialized US which requires imported metals from Russia and imported computer chips from Asia to build a military jet may come up short of some essential imported components. Perhaps Biden’s crew should be asking themselves which of those essential components are now unobtainable because of China’s strange sudden supposedly “Covid-related” shutdowns?
It has always been the way. “Biden’s” administration is NOT interested in national interests but instead of regime change - to join the other idiot countries (like China) who have failing economies because of lack of market incentives. Being the kleptocracy it is, Biden. favours his insiders making a bazillion dollars while the country goes broke.
Take away our strength and Europe stands little chance of standing alone. They’re already half socialist - because they can afford to be. When we go down, the latest Dark Ages arrives and one can wonder just how long that will go on.
Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus managed to trick former president George W. Bush into believing he was on a phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The pranksters elicited some embarrassing statements from the former president. A few quotes:
Prankster (as Zelenskyy): “…but you always wanted to take Ukraine into NATO, not Russia, but Ukraine, always, as I remember.”
Bush: “That’s right, I felt Ukraine needed to be in the EU and NATO.”
Prankster: “I mean it doesn’t matter what Baker promised Gorbachev [about restricting NATO expansion] in the past, we have to see what is going on now.”
Bush: “That’s right.”
Bush: “Your mission is to destroy as many Russian troops as you can.”
Near the end of the phone call, Vovan and Lexus come on camera, identifying themselves as Ukrainian pilots. Bush salutes them. They proclaim “slava Rossii” (“glory to Russia”), and Bush raises his fist in solidarity.
Edit: YouTube censored it, so I link to the same video hosted on Rumble.