This is not news, I know, but here are the concrete numbers:
As of mid-September, when this poll was in the field, Republican support for ongoing military aid to Ukraine had dropped to 50%. This doesn't augur well for "We're on your side, through thick and thin, forever."
Are you saying "let the Commies in Russia" conquer Western Europe to protect us from "Commies in the US' doesn't make sense?
Don't let the Government take away my Social Security and Medicare and replace it with Socialism!
Republicans: Only evergreen support for autocrats.
It's taken time, but Armenia has finally turned on Russia. Against the Kremlin's warnings, Armenia has voted to join the ICC.
Elsewhere, Russia's attempts to foment Serbian violence against Kosovo threatens to leave Serbia all by itself on an island, surrounded by NATO's KFOR.
Meanwhile, Turkiye has gained influence and power in the region at the expense of Russia.
And oh by the way, Russia is wearing down its own strategic bomber fleet and its Black Sea Fleet has been moved out of Sevastopol to avoid/limit further destruction of what's left of its fleet.
And wasn't that fun watching Putin begging North Korea for ammunition and failing to convince China to materially support Russia's war?
With the US spending maybe 5% of its total defense budget to help Ukraine, this has been, thus far, one of the most successful and cost-effective wars the US has supported. If only we hadn't slow-walked ATACMs and jets.
Do you think NATO can force Putin to give up the territory he has gained since he invaded 1 and 1/2 years ago? https://cdn.thetealmango.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/WhatsApp-Image-2022-05-28-at-9.42.10-PM.jpeg That is quite a bit of part.
Or do we force him and Zelenksky to negotiate?
What is our end goal?
I would feel much better about Russia's inability to keep this war going for years if the Ukrainians had regained more territory during the so-called summer counteroffensive. On some maps, it looks like Russia gained more territory over the summer than it lost.
Sometimes, I think the only way to win this war is to use drones and air support to hit targets inside Russia. At least knockout power plants.
The maps reflect what Russia gained by way of the Bakhmut area during 2023, not the "summer". Wagner had been depleted at that point, and with them out of the war, Russia has been at a net loss in occupied territory.
It's not about NATO forcing Russia to give up its seized lands. It's about Russia's military power significantly weakened, its demographics shot, and its influence diminished around the world -- all because of the war.
Russia couldn't intervene in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. If war kicks back up in Syria, what can Russia do? They've drawn down forces in Syria and pulled out air defense systems. All eyes on the Caucasus region, down into the Middle-East.
Even if the war suddenly stopped and froze the lines today, Russia's power has been greatly diminished and Ukraine has shown how effective and easy it is to deploy cheap tools to sabotage Russia's weapons. It seems likely Russia will have an internal "discussion" for years.
I heard that Armenia recently lost territory (territory that has been disputed for years) to Azerbaijan because Russia was not there to help them. So, I see many of your points.
But I really would like an endgame. The Korean War had an endgame, but we did end up ceding the poor people in North Korea to China. South Korea is a success story. When we successfully kicked Sadam out of Kuwait, we had an endgame. Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq were abject failures; one factor was that we had no endgame.
I just finished reading "The Ugly American" and am currently reading "At Least We Tried," I am cynical.
The last time we as a nation actually held to the likes of that was WWII. Perhaps Korea.
Indeed.
Forever is a long time. We don't need Ukraine to outlast eternity; if nothing else, the extremely mortal septegenarian Putin will die soon enough, and then Russia will have new leadership.
Moreover, this country spent nearly $3 trillion on a 30-year engagement in Afganistan without batting an eye. We can spend a tiny fraction of that on providing medicine and outdated surplus military hardware to a besieged democracy indefinitely if we so choose (and, frankly, we get a lot of value from that exchange anyway--you can be damn sure that the US military is learning a *lot* from observing the field-testing of the equipment and through exercising our sigint structures in an actual shooting war with a "big" power like Russia).
If Russia is being weakened as much as you say, that is good. But I sure am glad I don't live in Ukraine.
Support for Ukraine means agreeing with President Biden. An intolerable thing for most Trump Republicans to do.
Exactly right. The Republican worldview is mind-numbingly simple: don't allow anything good to happen while a Democrat is president.
Many of you have that mindset when the opposite is true. I should have paid more attention to this blog before Trump. The hate equalling the heat of thousands of suns that many of you have for Trump meant everything he did was terrible.
If Trump had pulled out of Afganistan in the same disastrous way Biden did, you would not have praised the withdrawal as you did.
The way things are looking right now is Democratic control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency as far as the eye can see. So, I may not get tested on my theory.
This is a pretty ignorant take.
The disaster was in trump's deliberate undermining the Afghan government by not including it in his "deal" & having to be dissuaded by his staff from inviting the Taliban to celebrate the conclusion of another example of his much-vaunted "art of the deal" by inviting them to Camp David (!).
And he also deliberately failed to follow through by withdrawing our troops himself by the deadline. He left what he knew would be problematic to Biden, ef ensuring that his successor would be blamed for the debacle.
You really need to stop projecting about hatred. Diehard trump supporters are the ones sowing every form of open bigotry & hate, encouraged by his vile speech & behavior. People encouraged by his raging against Blacks, 'Mexicans" (anyone from south of Texas, apparently), Muslims (one of his ignorant fans murdered a Hindu In my home state out of his hatred), anyone of Chinese heritage or appearing to be China adjacent, such as citizens of Korean heritage, have harassed, harmed or killed as a result of his instigation.
I believe that those of us who see the damage done by trump to our society, not just during his administration, but as a dishonest NYC businessman, do not share the blind hatred of his MSGA crowd. We simply despise his failure to be a decent human being or president; our "hate" is of the consequences of his behavior, emulating Hitler in his raving speeches, like those in the book he studied
And yes, when autocorrect accepted his name without an initial capital, I did let it go as a deliberate sign of disrespect the man deserves. - loathing, maybe, but it should not be characterized as hatred, which is best used as a term for something unjustified - often referred to as "unreasoning hatred,."
While you reference "the heat of a thousand suns," that more accurately describes the words & deeds not only of the demagogue & stochastic terrorist who comported himself in such a dangerous manner before his White House years, as well as during & after them. I don't expect you to see the light & agree, but you really need to evaluate the hatred demonstrated by the man & so many of his supporters instead of denigrating anyone who has been shown many excellent reasons he is not deserving of the respect he never shoes to others - except tyrants such as Putin, MbS & Kim!
Thank you for your polite, measured, and well-written reply.
The Orange Excresence has plaited his everlasting troth to Vlad The Impaler, and so the hateful sheep of the MAGA Minions must shuffle along. [Yes, I know "hateful sheep"? WTF???]
I would be more interested in what independents think. About half of Republicans pretty much believe whatever their propaganda networks tell them to believe so who cares what they 'think'.
Its quite simple, Faux News has been pushing Ukraine skepticism in support of all things Trump, a huge Putin supporter and Russa apologist. And which group watches Faux News incessantly?
They can't wait until 2025, when Orange Jesus will fly to Moscow and come back with a "peace in our time" agreement signed by Putin.
Reading a blog from Cathy Young, I came across a quote, regarding spending taxpayer dollars on “a quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing.”
It was a quote from Neville Chamberlain in 1938, following Hitler's invasion of Poland.
Robert Harris wrote a historical novel called (surprise) "Munich," set against the backdrop of the Munich Conference of September 1938. England was very wrong to think Hitler could be appeased, but the novel shows the complicated backdrop (remember, WW1 was not that distant from 1938) in which the agreement was negotiated.
But, if we want to win this war, we cannot let it go on for years. I would have more hope if the vaunted summer of the Ukrainian counteroffensive had made more gains. Hell, they are still fighting in Bakhmut. If we want Russia to withdraw from the territorial gains they have made since the invasion in February of 2022, we will have to start hitting targets inside Russia. At least shutting the power plants down. A dangerous gambit. But we have been soft-peddling Putin since the Bush the Younger years. Say what you will about Trump, but Putin did not gain territory during his administration, and they did during the Bush and Obama administrations.
Putin didn't have to gain any territory when Orange Jesus was in the Oval, since he was doing a splendid job ratfucking NATO and our allies, and sucking up to Putin and other dictators.
Still remember Trump siding with Putin on stage in Helsinki.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812
This is a "person" who believes that US soldiers who sacrificed their lives and their bodies where all "suckers" and losers"? What a great, patriotic Commander in Chief he was.
Just saw that July was the hottest month in 120,000 years.
Well done, conservatives! You are the smart people!
Oh, I know what to do about it, let's shut down the government, impeach the president and give billionaires another huge tax break!
That'll fix it.
Civilizational collapse will lead to sharply lower carbon emissions, maybe that's their plan.
Traveling thru northwest KY and Southern IL I fumbled thru the AM radio. Heard a steady stream of why we should stop Ukraine aid. Trump will be running on it soon.