Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
Happened during OIF, so not surprising.
"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (8 Viewers)
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syscom3
Pacific Historian
Why are we poking the bear in the eye? No NATO expansion and those countries bordering Russia, just stay neutral. It worked for decades during the Cold War.
Yeah, well if you guys would not drive me insane babysitting you all maybe I could.
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What happened during OIF?
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
I guess if you're a bear you're too dumb to realize when you're not being threatened!
Or better yet, ask yourself, why did those countries bordering Russia want to join NATO in the first place?
Admiral Beez
Major
Why can't Russia behave like pretty much every other European country in 2022? You know, pursue democracy, capitalist economics, and reduced corruption, freedom of speech, freedom of press, etc. It's not perfect everywhere in Europe, but even former dictatorships like Romania are getting it together. Meanwhile Russia terrorizes its own people and neighbours?
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syscom3
Pacific Historian
Why provoke a nuclear war? The stakes are too high. We have no business putting US troops on Russia's border. Nor risking US troops on countries that were not part of the initial group of treaty nations.
MiTasol
1st Lieutenant
Thinks............................. Mmmmmm. Ukraine was effectively neutral too and that worked really really well for them didn't it.
Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
American troops were having family send body armor over because there wasn't enough to go around.
Around here if a bear starts killing people, we don't ask if the dead built their homes too close to the bear's dens or let it get used to eating our trash.
The bear gets put down. Period.
Like this: Grizzly bear shot dead after killing woman in Montana Published10 July 2021
Other murderous, if metaphorical, bears need to be treated the same way.
syscom3
Pacific Historian
At the cost of nuclear war? No thanks.
buffnut453
Captain
As others have pointed out, Ukraine was non-aligned. The Budapest Memorandum, signed in 1994 by the US, UK and Russia, provided that none of the signatories would threaten or use military force against Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. France and China didn't sign the memorandum but later signed other, albeit weaker, agreements with the 3 nations. As a result of these guarantees, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed to give up their nuclear weapons.
Given Russia's actions against Ukraine, why would any sensible-minded national leader believe a word that comes out of the Kremlin? Remember back in February how Putin and his cronies kept saying that the forces on Ukraine's borders were just conducting exercises and they had no intention of invading Ukraine?
Nobody wants nuclear war but, at the same time, we can't just stand by and let Putin get his way, particularly when it involves sacrificing Ukraine or other independent nations. Failure to confront Putin will simply encourage him to do the same again, and again, and again.
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It seems the Russian Federation doesn't have a monopoly on cold war mindset. The times they are a-changin' and we're relearning the lessons of 1938-39 on the backs of the Ukrainian people. Time hurries on, but some playbooks repeat themselves with tragic regularity. The actors may change, but the script stays eternal.
buffnut453
Captain
Nope. We have every business putting troops in any NATO nation that wants our troops there. All the NATO member nations agreed to expansion to bring in other eastern European nations. Since we agreed to those additions, we (the US) are obligated by treaty to abide by them. We can't back out now just because Putin is waving his willy around. Again, weakness only encourages him. Putin has been trying for decades to divide NATO. What you propose plays right into his hands.
Since we can't selectively expel NATO members from the organization, the alternative is for the US to pull out of NATO itself. Can you imagine the party in the Kremlin if that were to happen? Are you recommending that course of action?
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- #6,275
POTUS45 would jump for joy! Fiddling while Rome burns.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
buffnut453
Captain
Frankly, I don't give 2 hoots whether Russia adopts Western norms of democracy, personal freedoms, and capitalism. Russia can and should decide for themselves what type of government they want. What they CANNOT do is start imposing their will on other nations by military force. Invading another sovereign nation just because you're trying to relive the glory days of the USSR is not an adequate justification.
If Ukraine was attacking Russia, then that's one thing...but it wasn't. The whole "but the people of Donbas are ethnic Russians" stuff is straight out of Hitler's playbook. I've driven from Germany into Poland and the closer you get to the latter, the more signs you see in both German and Polish. Of course there's bleedover at borders but that didn't justify Hitler's actions in 1938 onwards nor does it justify Putin's actions in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia or anywhere else outside of the legally-recognized boundary of Russia.
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- #6,279
Democracy, personal freedom, and capitalism are learned skills, difficult to instill in a culture that doesn't have the history and traditions to allow the appropriate social, economic, and political reflexes to develop. They all depend on trust, a rare commodity in people that have been downtrodden and oppressed since time immemorial.
buffnut453
Captain
I don't disagree. That's my whole point though. Democracy and capitalism aren't necessarily good. But they're the least worst of the options available. Russians can have whatever form of government they're comfortable with...just stop trying to export it at the pointy-end of a bayonet.
