salmonchaser
Ammo Smith
- Dec 13, 2013
- 5,247
- 5,921
I’m reminded of this story anytime I see Zelensky on the news. Looks like he still won’t be bullied.
The battle at Thermopylae
- Thread starter salmonchaser
- Start date
I’m at the point that I need to see something good for America in any foreign dealings.
Let Europe deal with Europe. I’m pretty big on isolationism. America has been the rich uncle bailing out every nephew that gets in trouble and it has to stop. We’re broke. Why are we giving money to other countries when we should be reducing our debt? In fact we borrow money to give to other nations that then actively work against American interests.
Since WWII we haven’t fought any war or battle with the goal of “unconditional surrender.” Until we do I will not support any foreign military engagement. I’m reticent to engage our military in anything because we, as a nation, are wimps afraid of fighting our enemies the way they need to be fought.
I’m not condemning the fighting men and women but rather our vacillating elected “leaders.” They, our military, do a spectacular job for an ungrateful nation against unrealistic and unreasonable ROE’s.
I always had a rule when I got in a fight. I will do whatever I have to do to be victorious. I’m winning. I don’t care what happens to my opponent.
Sorry for the rant.
Vince
Let Europe deal with Europe. I’m pretty big on isolationism. America has been the rich uncle bailing out every nephew that gets in trouble and it has to stop. We’re broke. Why are we giving money to other countries when we should be reducing our debt? In fact we borrow money to give to other nations that then actively work against American interests.
Since WWII we haven’t fought any war or battle with the goal of “unconditional surrender.” Until we do I will not support any foreign military engagement. I’m reticent to engage our military in anything because we, as a nation, are wimps afraid of fighting our enemies the way they need to be fought.
I’m not condemning the fighting men and women but rather our vacillating elected “leaders.” They, our military, do a spectacular job for an ungrateful nation against unrealistic and unreasonable ROE’s.
I always had a rule when I got in a fight. I will do whatever I have to do to be victorious. I’m winning. I don’t care what happens to my opponent.
Sorry for the rant.
Vince
clearwater
Handloader
- Feb 5, 2005
- 550
- 391
Pretty sure Zelensky could take both those punks at the same time.
No.
Him and Vance would be pretty evenly matched in a fight involving fisticuffs, knees, and elbows. Then you add President Trump and Z’s odds go way down.
Ever fought two on one? I have. It doesn’t take much from the second opponent to swing the odds in their favor. It’s that little extra that they bring to the fight that can make fisticuffs turn into a gunfight.
You do realize that the situation in Ukraine is the Kenyan In Chief’s, obama, mess, right?
Vince
3 Meter Para Bellum
Handloader
- Apr 17, 2020
- 340
- 459
While I don't believe that the U.S. can continue to expend rescources in the fashion we have over the past so many years, Trump's handling of Zelensky was bullying. Trump is trying to use Ukraine's poor situation as a way to make them cave into the U.S. demands, which seems to include mineral rights in Ukraine as way to pay for costs we have incurred so far. Trump blames those costs on other administrations other than his own, which may well be true, but the fact of the matter is that the country incurred these costs under our own country's system. Like it or not it is possible for us to inherit huge problems from bad previous administrations, but it seems Trump wants to make sure that Ukraine will pay for Biden's mistakes. To be clear I am not certain how the U.S. should have handled the situation in Ukraine to begin with, that is another question, but what Trump was lauding as diplomacy had no appearance of such.
It would be one thing for the U.S. to say that it is not in our interest to continue supporting Ukraine, if that is the case, but even if it is, Trump knows that that would not only look bad to the entire world, but also would be a contridiction to his statement that his biggest concern is the preservation of life. Instead he is claiming that a piece of paper will be enough to stop Russia and that the U.S. is just very happy to get it's hands on Ukrainian mineral rescources. Zelensky has justifiably no reason to believe that Putin will respect an agreement, but Trump currently assumes that it will be respected without suplying any reason other than that Putin is making the deal with Trump. This sounds like a case of "speak softly and don't bother carrying a stick." I believe Zelensky would rather keep fighting until Ukraine falls than sign another treaty he has no confidence in, that simultaneously gives the U.S. rights to mine their rescources. From his perspective that would only put him at the mercy of two super powers rather than one.
It would be one thing for the U.S. to say that it is not in our interest to continue supporting Ukraine, if that is the case, but even if it is, Trump knows that that would not only look bad to the entire world, but also would be a contridiction to his statement that his biggest concern is the preservation of life. Instead he is claiming that a piece of paper will be enough to stop Russia and that the U.S. is just very happy to get it's hands on Ukrainian mineral rescources. Zelensky has justifiably no reason to believe that Putin will respect an agreement, but Trump currently assumes that it will be respected without suplying any reason other than that Putin is making the deal with Trump. This sounds like a case of "speak softly and don't bother carrying a stick." I believe Zelensky would rather keep fighting until Ukraine falls than sign another treaty he has no confidence in, that simultaneously gives the U.S. rights to mine their rescources. From his perspective that would only put him at the mercy of two super powers rather than one.
wvbuckbuster
Handloader
- Nov 5, 2015
- 2,832
- 2,820
Where did all the money go? Bet it wasn't for weapons.
Many are quick to say most of the aid we give to Ukraine is stolen but with no prove. If money is the major point maybe we should start by looking at our congress and finding out they become multi millionaires on their salary. Pretty darn hard to live in one of the most expensive cities in America and become rich on 200K a year. If they are that good at managing money how did they let the nation get in dept???
- Nov 4, 2004
- 25,733
- 10,163
Trump didnt bully him. The deal was supposed to be done and the press conference was just to discuss it prior to signing. Zelensky wanted to relidigate the agreement in public instead of signing the deal and working on the rest in private afterwards. He is hung up on the US providing security assurance and Trump wont do it because its Europe's backyard and they have been slacking for 80 years. He also knows if we have businesses and people working in Ukraine Putin wouldn't attack again but Zelensky is too dumb to realize that. What is even worse is if we pull out, basically what Trump announced tonight by cutting off military funding, the whole country will eventually fall to Russia. Europe cant supply them enough weapons to keep Russia at bay. Ukraine is also running out of people to fight. If we gave them our top weapons they would have a chance to drive them back out but if not Russia will grind them into the ground with conventional artillery. Much of that is the fault of Biden baby stepping weapons. Russia is making more artillery rounds per day then all of the EU and the US combined. Why is that? The price of oil is keeping them in it. If Biden didnt push the green new deal, cutting back on our oil production early in his admin, we would of never seen 100.00/barrel oil. When did oil start spiking? About the same time Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia has very little to export besides oil that will make them a lot of money. Trump knows driving down oil prices hurts Iran and Russia and helps the people in the US. Drill baby drill takes care of 2 of our enemies by making them poorer. Even better is we can supply Europe, decoupling them from Russia. Reagan did the same thing to the USSR before it fell. My bet is he will make a deal with Putin over rare earth minerals also while trying to bankrupt him with oil. Nothing like dangling a carrot while you stab him in the back.
He will handle China by drawing businesses back to the US and out of China. Tarrif's on Chinease imports and 15% corporate tax for companies that make goods in the US will bring manufacturers back to the US hand over fist. China has a people problem as well. Their one child policy favored male children for several decades and heavily distorted the male to female ratio. They are paying women to have children but many women dont want children. The same problem happens with most advanced economies, including ours. Our reproduction rate is below our death rate and without immigration our economy and population would constantly shrink. If China doesnt allow immigration it will take 40-50 years to correct their one child policy and by then they will have a aged population. If the US and the EU work to decouple from China its toast. North Korea isnt a big dog but Trump already gets along with Kim. A Tiawan chip maker even announced plans for a plant in AZ today. They are hedging their bets against a China invasion. China realizes their short comings and will try hard to take Taiwan soon. If Trumps tarrif's work as planned China will have to focus more on their people as their economy faulters and less on the take over of Taiwan.
Sleeping at the wheel over rare earth minerals was probably one of the biggest blunders by previous admins. Trump is trying to rectify that with Ukraine. I wouldnt be surprised if he allows mining for the rare earths we have here that the greenies have basically shut down.
Trump is thinking big picture. Everyone criticizes the billonaires in his admin but those people are smart and understand how things work in business and in geopolitics. The same cant be said of the previous admin. That was a perfect example of DEI failing.
Excellent comment and very to the point!!
Calling our President and Vice President punks?
Geez!
I’ll give him a pass because I refuse to capitalize obama’s name and call him the Kenyan In Chief.
Vince
- Oct 30, 2004
- 24,505
- 3,715
And this is why I hate political forums. Now what are we going to go reload for????
3 Meter Para Bellum
Handloader
- Apr 17, 2020
- 340
- 459
I am not aware of any certainty that the deal was going to be signed, although that would add some context if it is actually true. However I can understand the want to work out details before signing the deal and it is strange to me that Trump made the decision to televise the situation before working out those details in private. Usually when it comes to diplomatic meetings, the country's leaders work out the ugly stuff privately first, then when decisions have been made, come to the public with the conclusions to those deliberations. I could attribute this to just a mistake deciding to televise the situation too early, or a deliberate attempt to put more pressure on Zelenski to sign it without raising any objections. Either way, I don't think it turned out favoring any parties involved and deffinitely leaves the European nations feeling uncertain about how the U.S. President feels towards them.
As for whether Putin would violate a treaty while the U.S. is in Ukraine, this is the big question for me, and I can understand why Zelenski might believe otherwise considering how things have panned out so far. If Trump believed U.S. presence would prevent farther aggression by Putin, it didn't seem like that was the point Trump was trying to make clear, his only assurance was that Putin respects him, and I don't imagine that Putin respects anybody. If Putin fears Trump enough, then maybe it would turn out as Trump says, but Trump's stated guarantees come off as very fragile. Ukraine also has to consider what happens when Trump's term in office ends. Will Putin respect our next President?
As for the business people in the administration, I personally don't have criticism for them because they are business people, it's just dangerous decisions that make me nervous. Musk is smart on one side, and ambitious and a nut on the other. There are so many reasons that what he is trying to do with government technology infrastructure could end in epic disaster. We do not want AI in there. My brother was telling me about how the AI does not even know how to interact with that technology so things could just grind to a halt if they do something wrong. For all I know, that might be what Musk is after.
I would like to say that your thoughtful post is appreciated. I like to understand a situation from as many angles as possible and you brought some good detail into your post.
It also came out that prior to the meeting with Trump and Vance Zalenski was talking with Democrats (he was caught talking to them) and I'm sure they screwed his head up pretty good prior to the Trump meeting. Now I see that Zalensky (by letter) agrees with Trump and wants to get back down to business and sign off on the Minerals plus the cease fire and peace with Russia.
