Originally Posted by Lowslung

Have you ever been to the Baltics? Poland? Anywhere in the former Soviet empire? Do you understand that the reason there are large numbers of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in many of those places is because of deliberate and concerted Soviet policies that encouraged ethnically Russian men to take local wives & have children in these countries in an attempt to Russianize the population? These policies were largely reviled by the occupied populations. And make no mistake, an occupation is exactly what Soviet rule was to these people. In many cases, the Russian overlords simply moved into the very same buildings, offices, and torture chambers that their Nazi predecessors had been in during the war. Frankly, I couldn't care less what "promises" were made to Gorbachev by the west. The Soviet experiment failed & the Russians were in no position to be making demands or declaring ultimatums. Eastern Europe found itself free of the shackles of occupation and understandably desired to guarantee their newfound freedom by joining NATO. They are some of the best allies we have. The populations are happy when they encounter American service personnel, they meet their defense spending goals, and they don't balk at shouldering their share of the work when they deploy with us, which they are generally happy to do. It is exciting to be in places like Prague, Warsaw, Riga, and Bratislava and see people who don't take western freedoms for granted. If the Russians were truly concerned about buffering their own borders against perceived Western aggression, they would've offered their former subjects a better deal than NATO could. They didn't & they won't because in Russian eyes the only purpose that those populations ever served was to act as a human speed bump when they went to war. It's hard to think of better allies than the Eastern Europeans in today's world & that's one of the places on the planet that we absolutely should care about defending. The Russians have no plans to stop at Ukraine, but that particular battlefield represents a unique opportunity in that by helping the Ukrainians fight, we can halt Russian expansionism before it reaches NATO's borders and turns into a hot war that ruins Europe or worse.

Originally Posted by Excargodog

Indeed. Or for those incapable of universal compassion, even the 70,000 dead the Ukrainians have admitted to is TWENTY-THREE TIMES the number we lost on 911. No one knows for sure the road not taken, but I firmly believe if our European allies had not underfunded their military for the last fifty - and especially the last thirty - years, the deterrence that contained Russian paranoia and expansionism throughout the Cold War may well have avoided this tragedy.

For damn sure our NATO allies at least wouldn't be scrounging around so hard trying to find ammunition.
Nor would a surprising number of the "war fighting" equipment they did furnish turn out to be poorly maintained junk.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/w...ine-tanks.html

There may have been many ways to avoid all these tragic deaths - our NATO allies not being 'free riders' is almost certainly one of them.

Originally Posted by Lowslung

Please explain how you are not (perhaps unwittingly) furthering the Russian narrative with every line you write.

Originally Posted by ReluctantEskimo

30 years of being taught to hate America has taken hold of poor Excargodog. It's not that he's a Russian agitprop, it's just that Russian goals against the West align with the programming he's received for decades.

Originally Posted by Excargodog

Must have been my twenty years in the military that did it - with tours to bases in Germany and Italy and all those local Salty Nation and NATO TAC EVALs I participated in. No doubt the Chem Defense Warfare Ensembles had little speakers quietly whispering Putin's speeches into my ear.

Or perhaps it was just seeing how feckless our NATO allies were and how poorly they were equipped and how few there were of them. You ever served?

Originally Posted by Lowslung

More regurgitated Russian rhetoric from you. Place the blame on NATO's "fecklessness" and never mention Vladimir Putin's vileness. Suggest that we should all somehow feel a sense of responsibility for the massive amounts of death, sorrow, and suffering emanating from this war.

Sorry, no.

Vladimir Putin started this war. No one but Vladimir Putin is responsible for its stench. Every single death, every weeping mother, every crippled child, ALL. OF. IT. is on his hands. Your position is no different than blaming a victim of violence for the abuse. I have no problem at all with criticizing our allies for not pulling their fair share (although the actual accounting is debatable & all European members tend get lumped together unfairly). What I take issue with is advocating that we should throw up our hands & walk away from it, just as Europe begins heating up again.

Please explain how that is not handing a massive win to an evil dictator.

Please explain how what you continually argue here is not the exact outcome Russia is looking for.

Please explain how you are not (perhaps unwittingly) furthering the Russian narrative with every line you write.

Originally Posted by ReluctantEskimo

Feckless NATO allies. Treaties that have no value. The excuses are endless.

But the reality is that all of your posting originates from a place of self-loathing. That America is too damaged, too divided, too weak, too overwhelmed, too broke to be the leaders of the free world anymore.

Your programming: 30 years of trash talking America to win elections has had unintended consequences.

Originally Posted by Excargodog

You didn't answer my question:

You ever served?

Originally Posted by ReluctantEskimo

Abandoning allies in their time of need would be a scar that this country will carry for longer than both our lives. Let's hope that never happens.

Originally Posted by Hubcapped

spare me your ridiculous outrage as you have been here supporting letting ukraine get steamrolled for “reasons”. Give me a break dude, this is the internet, get a grip.