That’s far from the right way of saying it. You’re just contributing to the polarization. Not funding foreign wars isn’t treason, regardless of the lack of merit of Putin’s assault on Ukraine. We can all disagree with each others stances without getting into vitriolic Us vs Them flame wars.
It’s not polarization, it’s true.
It is possible to oppose funding for reasons other than being controlled by Putin. There is no evidence that anyone who voted this way hold opinions to that effect. There is substantial evidence that they are funded and supported by Russia.
Being upset people use a shorthand phrase for a politician being influenced by a foreign power is just another way of defending compromised politicians.
In the time of active war I don’t think not supporting Ukraine is an option. Don’t cherry pick their vote on the matter as a whole. The people who voted against supporting Ukraine have done a lot of work to convince US citizens that supporting Ukraine is wrong. Which is then fundamentally flawed because if they don’t support Ukraine then Putin are certainly going to take over Ukraine, and all the biggest allies of US in the Europe are under direct threat of Putin. Unless they are acting on behalf of pure evil, pure hate against Ukraine, or perhaps on behalf of Putin himself, I don’t see why they would want US to be out of the game.
Firstly, thanks for the thoughtful response rather than just making a false insinuations about my stance on the matter. There’s, in my opinion, solid arguments for the Monroe Doctrine and Roosevelt Corollary. If we took a more passive role on the global stage we might not have been at war as much the past few decades. But the more interventionist approach has lead us to being a global power and allowed for the spread of American ideals.
As for Putin’s odds, personally I think his ability to actualize victory over most of our NATO allies is curbed by our mutual defense pacts. I don’t see Russia having the capacity to challenge America in peer to peer conflict, let alone all of NATO’s nations. Ukraine alone without the support nets likely would see greater troubles defending itself. But I wouldn’t say Russia would be at to great of an advantage then given the quality of their military.
If those 70 subscribe to the idea that inaction isn’t in itself an action, I would attribute that to evil but rather a difference in what they value from you. Perhaps support to Ukraine by other means might be more palatable to them (like tarrifs on Russia and it’s trade partners).
and all the biggest allies of US in the Europe are under direct threat of Putin.
In what fucking universe does Russia’s military pose any credible threat to western Europe?
Good point.
Russia has a substantial number of nuclear weapons.
Before their failure in taking the Ukraine it was widely believed they had the second most powerful army in the world.
Russia would lose a war against the west, but it would cause significant damage, to state otherwise is being naive.
Ukraine is right between NATO countries and Russia. So if Russia takes Ukraine, they are in direct contact with NATO countries. With Putin’s conquerer approach to retake former soviet land, I would say he is certainly going to attack former soviet separated countries if he is successful in Ukraine, and next step the NATO countries. Putin is ruthless and non capitalist in a sense that his ultimate goal is not to make the most money in the world, but rather to conquer as much as possible land in his life and make Russia the fearless kingdom in the Europe once again, which makes him unpredictable and dangerous. He does not value sanctions from the west as much as the other countries that rely on foreign trading to the west to stay afloat, the Russians have plenty of connection to mid east countries, China, India , turkey to keep trading. They produce oil as well so they will not collapse like Nazis since they have a constant supply of fuel and energy.
Don’t be disingenous. This is just the most recent thing in a long line of pro-Putin actions that these Russian assets have carried out the last many years.
Just here to point out that the USA has sent about $71B to Ukraine. We’ve sent more than the next 7 countries combined. Further the military allotment of that (43B) dwarfs the next country (which I’m now reading is EU Institutions) by 10B.
The conservative party’s job is to reduce spending and make sure we aren’t moving too far into debt. They’re wrong in a HUGE number of cases, and I don’t know what I think about this case. It’s a bit unfair though, to call them traitors when the next country down the list would have to DOUBLE their contribution to this war to even be in the same conversation as us. We’ve paid a lot.
Adding complexity to this conversation, part of what we’re wanting to send is cluster munitions. Am extremely controversial move and one which I believe we should rethink.
We’ve only sent $71B by DOD accounting. We’re giving them our old stuff that we would have disposed of and buying new stockpiles. In most cases we would have done this anyway.
Even if it were the case that we’ve spent $71B we otherwise would not have, that’s a damn good deal. We’re defeating our greatest geopolitical adversary for 5% of our military budget while hardly lifting a finger. Now that’s cost cutting!
Cluster munitions are normally controversial but in this case I don’t think they are. Cluster munitions are controversial because they leave tons of unexploded ordinance sitting around like landmines waiting for someone to die later, but that doesn’t matter in this war in my opinion for two reasons. Number 1 it’s Ukraine’s land and if they think saturating it with little explosives they’ll need to clean up later is a good thing to do that’s their business. Number 2 Ukraine is covered in all sorts of UXO right now, including the somehow non-controversial literal land mines.
In the cluster munitions argument (which I put in but I don’t believe is core to this argument) I believe we leave behind something like 15% of bomblets to the average 40%. I’m not sure that’s good enough for me, personally… but then again the fact that it’s Ukrainian land does make me think that it’s not quite so black and white as cluster munitions normally are. I’m still not convinced but I think it’s a worthwhile argument either way.
To the rest of the argument. Great points and I hadn’t considered the DOD budget being the primary source of data. As it stands though we’ve still sent something like 30B (a tie with the remaining EU) and yes we’re sending old gear (a wise choice imo) but it’s still not nothing. Even supposing it’s only worth 50% of what it’s billed, we’re still something like 40% above the next largest contributor to the war.
Im still not necessarily passing judgement on it being a good idea (I don’t know what I think) but I just think that it’s a bit unfair to say any opinions against sending more money over is “traitorous” I also think that is a worthwhile debate.
I unequivocally do not support the annexation of Ukraine, or the totalitarian Russian government in general. This is literally what I am talking about. You can have civil disagreements with others without attempting to label them as a part of some group, and then using that brand to discredit their points.
