The US shouldn't be the 3rd biggest player in this war. There's plenty of European military powers that should be taking responsibility if they don't want what's happening in their back yard to happen.
But because they know the US will immediately step into the role of "world police" and take the lead, they let that happen.
The US then foots most of the bill, paying for corruption, deception, and maybe what's left trickles into the war itself.
It's all a joke.
The US has the best weapons.
But should Europe pay more for it's defence, no argument there from me.
But don't let a side issue cloud your judgement on the fundamentals. Look at the bigger picture. If you signal weakness now, China writes you a huge bill in few years time.
And your secret non KYC BTC stash won't save you. You can't exit it for anything serious (cars, property), without having to dox yourself to the Gvt.
It's not a side issue if it's:
1) Expensive
2) Ineffective
The US has donated more to the cause than both Ukraine and Russia's entire military budgets COMBINED. For what? This isn't over.
The US is already showing weakness through it's current level of involvement. It's shown weakness before Russia even invaded with how it handled pulling out of Afghanistan.
If the US was in a position of projecting actual strength via action, Russia would have never invaded. They knew this pussy foot response would be what the US does. It was telegraphed.
It's a side issue because it's not directly related.
The US fucked up in Afganistan. But to be fair, EVERY country that has ever tried to control Afganistan has had their butts kicked. Inc the UK and Russia. The exit was worse than it should have been, but that was Trump, and Trumop was such an outlier idiot that, luckily, what he did isn't viewed as typical of what the US will do in the future. Unless you re-elect him, or someone like him. Do that and the only way the US will be able to draw lines in and sand or water anywhere in the future will be with American blood.
Actually, the exit was Biden.
The original point, is: the US involvement isn't projecting strength. It's just donating far more than both countries spend on their military for this to not even be over.
Honestly, projecting strength, from what I've seen, would involve direct involvement and this thing should have been over in a weekend.
Trump signed a deal with the Taleban in February 2020. It involved a timeline. Biden simply inherited it when he became President.
And dropped the ball hard
No one forced Biden to go along with anything.
None of this is the original point.
The US involvement has projected weakness, has been ineffective, expensive, and shouldn't scare China at all without direct involvement.
It's a joke to fund corruption. It's fiat bull shit.
Trump was not in charge of the Afghanistan withdrawal.... Biden was...
Trump did a deal with the Taliban in Feb 2020 that came with a timeline.
The original plan called for two residual units to be left in Afghanistan. Biden made the unilateral decision to pullout completely and botched the execution. Not a Trumper but you can't blame the guy for everything
Whatever the plans that wasn't signed said, I don't know. But the oner that was signed, I refer you to section Part One, B
Part one was never fully negotiated...
Interesting. Reference. Because it's my understanding that this is the great exit deal that Trump signed and much trumpeted at the time.
It was trumpeted but it was still an ongoing negotiation. Look at line item 1. and the highlighted portion. There are responsibilities on behalf of the Taliban in order for the withdrawal to be approved.
#[4]
Yeah, don't let mass govt corruption, unauditable billions of dollars in support, and the lives of your sons and daughters get in the way of the big picture that stopping Russia from taking over a country no one could find on a map a year ago is the most important issue in America today.
The fact that Americans are, in popular culture, famous for being unable to find places on the map, doesn't mean that it's safe to ignore what happens in such places.
Also, I didn't say it was the most important issue in America today. I'm sure America can multi task.
And the only sons and daughters dying are those of the Ukrainain and Russian victims of Putin.
Point is, even if you don't give a shit about what happens in Ukraine, failing to act will lead to huge costs for you, a US taxpayer, later. If you want to minimise costs, and even if that is the ONLY reason, you should support Ukraine.
... let's save money in the future by giving a notoriously corrupt government billions in untraceable taxpayer money for a war in which we refuse to negotiate for a peaceable resolution.
Russia invaded. What kind of peaceable solution do you think exists?
It's as if the USA invaded Mexico and the world wondered why Mexico didn't negotiate a peace, while US troops were on it's territory.
