There's already a huge handful of conservative communities and almost every conservative I've ever met is suddenly very upset with our military budget and without any proof think Zelensky is just pocketing the money.
But it has felt like they're still the minority for the time being.
Okay I'll bite. Some people support Ukraine but don't support more weapons spending. In the early days of reddit, a lot of the power users were libertarian leaning programmers, and Lemmy has naturally attracted that cohort. You can see subs like Privacy and Piracy moving here, and there is a staunch anti government position that comes with anti centralization. I don't think these people should be called sad, as some are very well reasoned and thoughtful about their anti government position. What's more, if you don't live in the United States, it's very easy to call out the hypocrisy of US government warmongering e.g. in the middle east.
Yeah. I get being cynical about all of the wars the U.S. has been part of in my lifetime.
But if you can't see how helping the Ukrainians is unequivocally the right thing to do, I don't know what to say. To me it's nice to be the good guys for once and point our defense industry at something worthwhile.
No kidding. Who is honestly against moves like this? I mean very few issues are black and white and defending Ukraine is as close to being on the right side of history as one can get. They were invaded by a much larger country that suppressed them for so long. They are a democracy that is trying really hard to further the will of their people. Russians are committing genocide against the local population. Supporting Ukraine and watching the Ukrainians fight back for their freedom is one of the few great parts of history that inspires.
Who is honestly against moves like this? I mean very few issues are black and white and defending Ukraine is as close to being on the right side of history as one can get.
Says every single chickenhawk in this country every time there's a war. There is always an excuse.
Vietnam: They attacked us in the Gulf of Tonkin (which was false) and we have to fight communism!
Iraq 1983: We have to help Saddam Hussein defeat Iran. It's the right thing to do!
Iraq 2003: They did 9/11 and they have WMD's! (They didn't.) We killed a few hundred thousand Iraqis anyway just to make Halliburton a shit-ton of money.
Afghanistan: The Taliban is evil! (True, but that doesn't mean we should go bankrupt policing them permanently.)
And it's only a matter of time before any justifications for Ukraine blow up in your faces too. There's already been a ton of reporting on the corruption in the Ukrainian government this year. We'll learn more about that as we get even further entrenched into this war.
Except that in this case the situation really is black and white, no grey area. A peaceful sovereign country was invaded by some genocidal fucks and it is our duty to help them. Corruption is not an excuse to stop the support, because Ukraine is actively trying to sort it out too. They know what life is like in the EU and they want more of that.
For the record, I live in EU, some 60 miles from the nearest russian military base. I have personal interest in Ukraine's victory because if it falls, then my country might be next.
Why do you have to bring whataboutism into this? I'm not talking about the past, I'm talking about this current war right now. It's extremely clear who are the good guys here.
You should ask yourself then, why all these wars had insanely large protests, both in the US but especially in Europe. Also why most political parties and many countries in Europe opposed those wars. And why this war in Ukraine is different.
These previous wars were american imperialism, while this Ukraine war is about stopping russian imperialism. Stopping russian imperialism isnt only the moral thing(like it was opposing those previous american wars) but also aligns with our geopolitical interests. Thats why literally everyone but tankies/far right support helping Ukraine.
So let me ask you, what do you think we should do? Should we let Russia invade and take over Ukraine? Should we let Russia invade and take over the Baltic Countries? What about Russia taking over Poland? Are countries sovereign and do they have the right to decide their foreign policy?
In 5 years, Turkey might decide to grab a few greek islands, in order to get some "breathing space" in the Aegean. Should we let Turkey do that? Is it ok for countries to invade other countries and grab whatever they want? I am just trying to understand your logic.
Should we never oppose invaders in order to minimize cost and human casualties?
The money goes to the American military industrial complex. We aren't writing Ukraine a check for them to make/buy the weapons themselves. Ukraine will receive the weapons, while the weapon manufacturers, here in the USA, laugh their way to the bank.
You have a right to be upset at our military budget and how it's spent, but when you are so grossly negligent on how our government functions nobody is going to take you seriously.
If you'd been paying attention you'd notice that since 2014 the Ukrainians have been modernising their political and military. The previous governments were infamously corrupt and were dislodged by a popular uprising. This government has made great strides to uproot systemic corruption. It's not perfect but they are certainly improving and need to be encouraged in this and their efforts to dislodge the Russian invaders. Simply parroting Russian talking points (eg: corruption) will not do.
You're right, what excuses do the Russian invaders have for Ukraine? It sure blew up in their faces. And I hope it continues to until the invaders return to their miserable little circle of hell thry built for themselves.
Except if you actually lived in Russia in the 80-90's moved to the west, saw the life here and look where putler is going towards with his so called "rule of law", you would actually understand why it matters to stop that idiot. Out of the two clearly both evil, self serving entities of Nato or Russia, I know under which I would much rather live, even if neither is perfect.
Corruption happens everywhere, look at a UK, scandal after scandal, after scandal, do those involved in scandals resign? You wish they did, no those cocks cling on to power like a bad std. Only recently we had a string of relatively high profile resignation which had to be forced.
Sorry ranted on, but really the problem is that putlers regime is actually evil, Ukranians are dying to protect the rest of Europe from them. So paying for sending weapons to them is the least that I think I can personally do. For America it is better to stop putler before he attacks a Nato country and you would have to send your soldiers on the ground here.
(By the way, I agree with your Iraq statement, it was always about resources, and so is this war for putler, just look where "conveniently" gas deposits were found in 2012....)
America will always fight wars because their interests in resources, political alliances, and ideological stability. It's for the money. It's always the money at the end.
America is the cultural and military hegemon due to the proliferation of free trade enforced through an unmatched navy. America becomes more powerful by maintaining this status quo. It's why dangers to the oil supply have driven 3 out of the 4 examples you rightfully point out. Sadly the Middle East is the oilbasket of the world with the worst borders ever designed. If you want energy, you spread influence there.
However, there is one instance where the interests of the USA align with the general interest of the average Westerner.
People don't like democracies getting invaded. And potential democratic trade partners getting invaded is bad for business. You can have both at the same time. I will not defend the Gulf War under this banner, but the faster that we can prove that land grabs are nonnegotiable in this Pax Americana, the better.
And also, you don't have to convince me that war is inefficient. I've read Catch-22. But you do have to convince me that the destabilization of the breadbasket of Europe (and the world) is less important than the opportunity cost of a couple million lost to a few hundred corrupt officials.
What I see are some dissenting opinions and then people parroting US government talking points browbeating and downvoting them. Russia is absolutely wrong for invading Ukraine, but let's not overlook the US government using Ukraine as a pawn to advance its own geopolitical ambitions, similar to how it benefited from arming groups in Afghanistan when Russia invaded there.
I'm hoping Lemmy provides for more nuanced and diverse discussion instead of brigading and shouting down of opinions simply for going against the officially-approved narrative of the US government.
The fact that you were downvoted so heavily for saying "two-sided discussion is good", presumably because Americans got uncomfortable with the accusation that their government is writing their narrative for them, tells me that on this specific issue it's most likely going to be an echo chamber
People have been hearing one side of this debate for so long that it feels kind of like a lost cause, to me. I've more faith that productive discussion can be had re: China than this war
International injustices like the US helping the Saudis genocide Yemenis? The problem is that the US is self-serving in its self-appointed role of world police. They don't care about injustices and only use (or even create) them as excuses to carry out selfish geopolitical objectives.
no like north korea threating to glass its neighbor, or russia threatening to glass europe, or china claiming that taiwan belongs to them, or ISIS saying that all non-muslims deserve death, but yeah cherry pick all ya want
North Korea is all bark and no bite. North Korea benefits China by acting as a buffer and benefits the US by strengthening ties between the US and South Korea and Japan. There is no interest in changing this arrangement.
Russia didn't get this way over night. The USSR collapsed and the US capitalized on the situation by enforcing markets in a way to grab wealth. There were many opportunities to rehabilitate and allow Russia to participate in the world as a peer but that went against the US need for an enemy and to dominate them, as evidenced by the Wolfowitz doctrine. Russia's economy was terrible and Putin did well for himself betting on oil which gave the Russian economy some stability and which is how he got popular. You'll find that the price of oil collapsed in 2014 and the protests were happening in Ukraine around that time threatening the puppet he had there.
There were many opportunities to rehabilitate and allow Russia to participate in the world as a peer but that went against the US need for an enemy and to dominate them
Germany was actively buying and expanding their gas imports from Russia, Russia's largest export good. Germany was quite happy with this arrangement until Russia invaded Ukraine, cut gas exports, and started actively bragging about how they would freeze Europe. Russia could have continued raking in the piles of cash from their gas exports to Europe, but, that isn't what Russia wanted. Russia didn't want to participate on the world stage as an equal, they wanted to dominate Ukraine and take what Ukraine had for themselves.
A decent chunk of Russia's gas runs through Ukraine and Russia had their puppet in Ukraine overthrown in 2014. Their gas business was already in danger from a long time ago and was constantly being attacked on all fronts, including sanctions and fearmongering campaigns against the nord stream pipelines. You can point to the current situation and say the fear was justified, but it took a lot to get to this point.
Shutting off their largest export is a move of desperation which they made while smugly pretending they were more indispensable than they actually are. Heck, invading Ukraine was a move of desperation itself. As you can see from the Gideon Rose interview I posted, the US was actively moving to isolate Russia for a long while. It doesn't justify Russia's actions, but also these actions didn't crop up out of nowhere. The US has overthrown governments over oil (even when they have plenty of other countries to get oil from) and here is Russia having its main export threatened.
Nobody in their right mind is hating on the USA for not being world police. It’s just White Man’s Burden in disguise. Oh dear me you’re so burdened by having to civilize the rest of the world, boohoo. Nobody asked them to, people even push back against it, and yet they do it anyway and then have the gall to complain about how much doing so is inconvenient. Then, two minutes later, the USA will complain about “sovereignty” and pretend they aren’t encroaching on sovereignty every time they pretend to be world police.
What's sad is how little our country knows of war outside of the US propaganda machine. We spend more on war in one year than the next ten countries combined, and those countries mostly have health care systems that don't bankrupt their people. Canada, for instance, spends a mere 23 billion a year on war.
We on the other hand don't have health care so our country can involve itself in eight or nine wars at once, and our people think it's a good thing because they can't form a coherent thought outside of what they're being told on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.
The US would actually spend less on healthcare if we had a single-payer or other "socialist" system instead of the mess we currently have. So that line of reasoning doesn't make sense. We don't make war instead of spending on health care. We make war and spend on health care.
To have people still spouting the same old ignorant argument you are replying to... it never stops, does it? Always with VERY strong opinions on things they don't understand, seeing a 3D world with their 2D glasses on.
Oh, and bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRitE. wHy BoThEr VoTiNg.
“Our” that’s one big assumption there brother not everyone here is American. I don’t know why you assume the U.S military budget is stopping Universal credit being a thing over there it’s a far more deeply rooted issue than just the military budget. Look how contentious even something like the Obama care was never mind a full blow universal care system.
US spends about as much per capita on healthcare as many other developed countries. The issue is that your insurance companies pocket a lot of it. Be angry at them, not at Ukraine or the weapons going to Ukraine.
I gotta say, the tankie infestation of the fediverse is giving me serious second thoughts about this place. I get that it will get better over time as more people join and dilute the crazies, but I currently have a very hard time suggesting lemmy to people because of this.
So what, am I going to defederate from lemmy.world which is like the most generic possible instance but posts there still attract these loonies? At that point I can just ditch the fediverse because it's useless as a reddit replacement.
No, that doesn't "say a lot about me" at all. I keep having to block tankies and similar shit bubbling up from lemmygrad. I've not seen an open nazi post here yet but if I see one be assured it gets the banhammer as well and "nazis" gets added to my growing list of "insane fringe groups prominent on lemmy which I never had to interact with on reddit".
War sucks, and most veterans and their families know it. But when forced to fight Ukraine is standing, and I hope that Western support doesn’t waiver. I’m sure Putin is hoping to interfere in moar elections as an out.
Could you imagine if his lil orange minion was in power?
My other tidbit is always research the Board of Education, you would not believe the policies some want to put in place. Texas didn’t want to teach higher order thinking skills because they encourage teen rebellion. The book banning we are seeing start up again etc.
The moment I realised that the USA was unavoidably moving towards fascism was when the so called political left collectively decided that the problem wasn't anything internal, it was just that evil, perfidious foreigners had corrupted the innate goodness of America.
Well, with Putin suddenly deciding to unveil his newest intercontinental dildos, I doubt even the orange rapey puffball could have stood against the urges of the military industrial complex. This is it folks, we're once again comparing explosive rage boners for sport, what fun!
Humans are interesting, a little disappointing, but interesting nonetheless...
I keep reading that. Does one need to get actively registered to be allowed to vote in the US? That completely contradicts that people say you can even vote without any personal ID card (both sound ridiculous to me)
Yes, you have to be registered to vote in the US. It's typically an easy process, although some areas do try to complicate it to limit one side or the other.
I believe there is a process that allows someone to vote if they don't have an ID, but it does involve verification. Contrary to what some extrmists would tell you, It's not like anyone can just walk up and vote a bunch of times. The voters and votes are verified at multiple points along the way.
States govern the election process, so the details are going to vary but that's all true for the couple states I've voted in during my lifetime.
It is dependent on the state, and there has been registry fuckery especially among minority populations so it’s good to check like that person said. We are still having to actively fight for our democracy, it’s not the time to be lackadaisical
Honestly, a cool billion for missiles that have promptly embarrassed one of the armies of the world is a fucking bargain compared to the future I watched get squandered in Iraq.
I kind of don’t even understand how, in the age of missles, we still have tanks and soldiers at all. I guess I don’t understand how missles work. My assumption is that they’re able to just erase anything that is in a spot you indicate in some kind of Google maps interface. If they’re not that smart, I don’t understand why not. How do armies still march and drive around in tanks when the enemy can just push a button on their phone and cause explosions where they are?
Because long-range missiles flying at 500mph will take 3 or 4 minutes to hit their target. The target can move, hide, or otherwise escape the missile
Because bullets near instantly hit their target (within 5 seconds) in battlefield conditions. Tanks in particular fire hypersonic 3000mph shells, you're dead in 2 seconds (at 3000m range), though the soundwave hits you at the 10-second mark.
Because bullets are extremely cheap. Artillery shells, such as the 155m are famously like ~$500
Tank shells are likely under $2000 IIRC. So you can fire lots of tank-bullet for the same price as missile. More accurately (due to speed an information). And firepower: 40 shots of a tank can affect a battlefield more immediately than a missile. A tank can fire and near instantly kill targets it can see out to 3km ranges (~2 second travel time). A missile or rocket taking 60, 90, 120+ seconds to reach long-range targets just cannot affect the battlefield in the same manner.> How do armies still march and drive around in tanks when the enemy can just push a button on their phone and cause explosions where they are?
How do armies still march and drive around in tanks when the enemy can just push a button on their phone and cause explosions where they are?
Because missiles take a long time to fly. Even at modest 50km ranges, you ain't affecting the battlefield in time (~500mph missile will take over 3 minutes to reach 50km).
If you shoot a missile costing millions to hundreds of millions at everything, your country will be bankrupt very quickly.
Long range missiles roughly do work the way you described, but if you press the "erase this spot" button and then the tank or soldier moves, you just wasted a missile. You also first need to find the tank, and your missile can be shot down.
Of course there are missiles that are able to track moving targets, but that gets even more expensive, less reliable, etc.
Missiles also have a hard time dealing with heavily reinforced/underground targets, and missiles can't occupy territory.
Who will win: a country that has 100 long range missiles, or a country that has 10000 soldiers spread out in more than 100 groups, with rifles and a couple hundred short range missiles (think Javelin) for good measure?
I’ve learned a lot by these replies so thank you. I really can’t answer that scenario you laid out though. We’d need to define “win” and “lose.” The side with only a conventional army is going to take a lot of casualties, while the side with missles only spends money. Really I don’t think missles only was ever in my head but just having them in the mix.
Because anti-air deletes missiles. Also you can't hold territory with just missiles. You need land presence, and for that you need soldiers. And since soldiers are more useful alive than dead, we built thick metal boxes that can roll around the battlefield so they can be protected while being transported to important locations. The metal boxes themselves also have big ass cannons attached that will utterly destroy any other vehicle or building an enemy might be using as cover. These are just some of the reasons soldiers and tanks are still used.
the missile is coming and radar computer guy sees it and does some calculus to figure out where the missile will be in X minutes and then tells another computer to shoot a missile at where the first missile will be in X minutes. and this second missile (the anti air missile) is specially designed to sort of shotgun a bunch of metal at the first missile to make sure it gets the hit. yep.
Because military people got really good at not dying unless they are hit directly. You can nuclear nuke an entrenched frontline and you and you only create a couple of kilometers of breach in the front. You advance and very angry mobile reserves cut you off and destroy your ass.
That's one of the reasons tactical nukes are no longer a thing.
That and the fact that AA systems got really good - even against hypersonic maneuvering missiles.
So you realistically you now only use them on poorly protected targets of strategic importants (open air weapons stockpiles, command centers, troop concentrations, ...). But you still need infantry and tanks to take and hold terrain.
If your chief concern really is grain supply, maybe you should oppose the country who invaded the Breadbasket of Europe and is actively fucking with that supply.
Most of the hardware and financial aid is donated. As far as I know the Biden administration even expressly rejected a lend-lease program so there is no pressure for Ukraine to pay it back.
Investment is a fun thing. You give people your money, and then they spend it on things that allow them to make money. Then they take some of the money they've made, and pay back your money, with interest.
If Ukraine continues on the expected path, then it will be as wealthy as Germany in a few decades. It has the resources and the human capital to do so, all it needs is peace and a bit of help to get started.
Unlike russia, which paid fuck all after WW2 lend-lease and stayed a shithole to this day.
I wish we didn’t need to do this but honestly this is some of the best spent military funds I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s all hardware, manufactured by the US. So that’s jobs. None of it is death payouts to American families like we had to do in Desert Storm. Russia richly deserves the fight. We’re getting a lot of help from other countries.
I wish we didn’t need to do this but since we do, fine.
Oh you’re right, also when there is oil involved. I mean really, did you consider Kuwait a humanitarian crusade? Kuwait only exists to landlock Iraq in the first place. The entire country is a concept from white people to keep brown people weak. Exactly like Iraq, which was deliberately made up of 3 groups that hate each other. We’re into British sins now but you get the point.
I recall the west coming together to liberate Kuwait from Iraq's invasion. In fact, the day-one air war was one of the best choreographed strikes in history.
I dunno man. If we don’t stop Putin from taking Ukraine, he’ll roll straight into Washington DC after. And then that shiny new school you wanted to spend $10 million on will look pretty dumb, won’t it? /s
If you think that allowing an effective dictatorship to annex a neighbouring country through war with no pushback isn't going to result in that same dictatorship continuing that behaviour with their new "neighbours" then I don't know what to tell you.
Warmongers being... the country currently undergoing a genocide from a global superpower? If you come to my home and shoot my kid, I'm not a warmonger for returning fire.
And the idea that the reason our programs at home are underfunded is a result of foreign aid is complete bullshit. They could fund those programs in a heartbeat at any time with or without a war. We could absolutely do both, the reason we don't is because none of your politicians give a shit about you, unrelated to what's going on in the world.
Warmongers being… the country currently undergoing a genocide from a global superpower? If you come to my home and shoot my kid, I’m not a warmonger for returning fire.
Here your kids are getting shot to death in schools, but as far as oppressive global superpowers go, read up on how the US has been helping Saudi Arabia starve and decimate Yemen for the last eight years. But, to be clearer, the warmongers I refer to are the ones taking a trillion of our tax dollars every year and funneling them into their own companies and the other eight wars we're already hopelessly entangled in.
I'm all for Ukraine fighting this war... on their own. I just don't appreciate seeing our people impoverished and neglected because of it.
And the idea that the reason our programs at home are underfunded is a result of foreign aid is complete bullshit.
False. Canada spends $23 billion a year on war. They have universal health care. We 100% lack universal health care because we're spending over a trillion a year on war, and now, another $1,015,000,000 billion on another country's war. (On top of the tens of billions we already gave them in charity.)
Universal health care would be cheaper than what we're currently spending on our inefficient, greedy healthcare system. It's got nothing to do with how much we spend on war.
I'm in favor of moving us to universal health care, and then taking the savings and spending it on more bombs and bullets that we can send to Ukraine. What do you think about that plan? I'm going to guess you won't like it, because you don't give a shit about healthcare, you Putin-sucking tankie.
We're not talking about Saudi Arabia and Yemen, we're talking about Ukraine.
I'm all for Ukraine fighting this war... on their own.
So you're in favor of them being conquered and ethnically clensed. That's what happens without material support from western powers.
I just don't appreciate seeing our people impoverished and neglected because of it.
The American people were impoverished and neglected before the war in Ukraine, and they will be after. Letting Russia wipe out a vulnerable ethic group won't get you free healthcare.
Regardless, we could fund a universal healthcare system half a dozen different ways, and the American people would still save money not having to pay subsidies. The idea that it's a hard thing to fund in the richest country in the world is one of the biggest lies i government. The reason we don't have one isnt because we can't come up with the funds, it's that your politicians hate you and love pharma money.
The American people were impoverished and neglected before the war in Ukraine, and they will be after. Letting Russia wipe out a vulnerable ethic group won’t get you free healthcare.
You all said the same thing about Afghanistan. 20 years and several trillion dollars later, and it was 100% a waste.
So you’re in favor of them being conquered and ethnically clensed. That’s what happens without material support from western powers.
I'm in favor of my tax dollars going to keeping Americans alive for once, instead of being spent on yet another war we shouldn't be involved in in the first place.
Regardless, we could fund a universal healthcare system half a dozen different ways
Agreed, and chief among would be spending hundreds of billions less on other countries' wars, and also not being involved in eight of them at the same time.
The only thing you should be pushing for is the war to stop, but I think not helping is worse. Letting Russia take over Ukraine would be awful. At the same time, not pushing for peace 100% of the time is sad.
It's also awful that tens of millions of Americans can't afford to go to a doctor, but I don't see you calling for us to spend less on war in order to bolster the welfare of our own people.
It’s also awful that tens of millions of Americans can’t afford to go to a doctor, but I don’t see you calling for us to spend less on war in order to bolster the welfare of our own people.
Yes, it's such a shame that countries can't fund two things at the same time. 🙄
The difference between this and Afghanistan being that we don't have boots on the ground, we're just supporting a geopolitical ally avoid GENOCIDE via a geopolitical enemy.
I’m in favor of my tax dollars going to keeping Americans alive for once, instead of being spent on yet another war we shouldn’t be involved in in the first place.
Okay, from that perspective allowing Russia to grind itself into nothing prevents future proxy wars where Americans will die. Russia is an enemy of the United States. They fund anti-american terrorist groups, the interfere with our election, they attempt assassinations on US soil. Allow Russia to operate unchallenged does not result in a safer world for the American people.
Also, maybe I'm the asshole here, but I feel like America SHOULD get involved to stop literal, capital G genocide. I think the fact that you're happy to watch Russia exterminate Ukrainian towns just because it saves us a couple bucks pretty despicable. I mean, honestly, not to make that same worn out comparison, but if the Japanese hadn't attacked us, would you have happily sat out of World War II because it "wasn't our fight"?
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