WW3 Please SAY NO!

[earlywynnfan]

Originally Posted by KMayUSA6060

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-...table-n1290831

"The fact that the NATO status question was not put on the table as Putin signaled that he was serious about an invasion — so plainly that the U.S. government was spelling it out with day-by-day updates — was an error, and potentially a catastrophic one. It may sound cruel to suggest that Ukraine could be barred, either temporarily or permanently, from entering a military alliance it wants to be in. But what’s more cruel is that Ukrainians might be paying with their lives for the United States’ reckless flirtation with Ukraine as a future NATO member without ever committing to its defense.

Analysts say it’s widely known that Ukraine had no prospect of entering NATO for many years, possibly decades, because of its need for major democracy and anti-corruption reforms and because NATO has no interest in going to war with Russia over Ukraine’s Donbas region, where Russia has meddled and backed armed conflict for years. But by dangling the possibility of Ukraine’s NATO membership for years but never fulfilling it, NATO created a scenario that emboldened Ukraine to act tough and buck Russia — without any intention of directly defending Ukraine with its firepower if Moscow decided Ukraine had gone too far."
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https://reason.com/2022/02/28/ukrain...urope-clinton/

"Let's start with the Clinton administration in the 1990s. As Reason's Eric Boehm pointed out, Clinton was the first U.S. president in decades to inherit a world that did not include the Soviet Union. Clinton could have completely revamped NATO now that its purpose—defending member nations against the expansion of the Soviet Union—was no longer applicable. Instead, Clinton, with the Republican Party's support, oversaw an expansion of NATO. Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland all joined. Years later, Putin would cite this enlargement of NATO as one of the West's "broken promises" that justified his Ukraine policy.

Again, Putin is dead wrong. Nothing justifies his Ukraine policy. But the purpose of NATO was defensive: to protect the world from Russian aggression. If NATO policy is antagonizing Russia and being used as a pretext for invasion, it clearly isn't serving that goal.

With the Clinton administration's backing, NATO also intervened in Yugoslavia in 1999 to ensure an independent Kosovo. That military action never had the backing of the United Nations; it was a violation of international law, just like Putin's attack on Ukraine.

George Bush's foreign policy has not held up well, due to the U.S.'s horrendous misadventures in the Middle East, but Bush blundered in Europe as well. At a 2008 NATO summit—one attended by Putin—Bush staunchly supported Ukraine's eventual admittance to NATO, over the objections of France, the U.K., and Germany.

The Obama administration, of course, inflamed tensions with Russia when the U.S. took sides in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. And then came Donald Trump. Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media ceaselessly accused Trump of being a Russian stooge, even a pro-Putin plant, installed by Russia as president of the U.S. due to a subtle influence campaign on Facebook. This was of course ridiculous—and as evidence of how ridiculous the claims are, Trump's actual administration was just as foolishly tough on Russia as his predecessors. In 2017, Vice President Mike Pence even reiterated the 2008 Bucharest declaration.

The Biden administration maintained that same fiction. A clear declaration that the Ukraine would not be joining NATO might have deprived Putin of the intellectual ammo he required to move forward with this invasion. We don't know for sure. But it was incumbent on the U.S. to try. NATO is a means to an end—a more safe and secure Europe—not an end unto itself. If expansion is creating the very conditions that NATO's existence is supposed to prevent, it's not working. Yet every single U.S. president since the end of the Cold War has misunderstood this. And now here we are."
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...year_2000.html

"VLADIMIR PUTIN: I will say one thing that I have never said before in public. I will say for the first time that in 2000 when President Bill Clinton was visiting Moscow at the end of his term, I asked him how would America see Russia joining NATO. I would not give you all the details of that conversation, but the reaction to my conversation -- look, well, let me put it this way. How did Americans really look at this possibility? You can see it in their practical stance. Open support of the terrorists in North Caucusus, ignoring our demands and concerns, withdrawing from the arms limitation treaties, and so on."
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I don't think I'm a f'ing idiot, Leon. I'm 27. My first votable election was in 2012 between two POS. Maybe the generations before me can explain how they let the US government go unchecked with so much corruption for decades. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Maybe, just maybe, if we can expose the corruption within our own government and clean it up, my kids/my grandkids/my great grankids/etc. won't grow up in a world with constant war involving the US.

I actually read this twice. I will set aside the fact that, over a span of 30 years, global dynamics have ebbed and flowed and are constantly changing. I will set aside the fact that you point out all of the "missteps" made by the corrupt US but nothing Russia has done over those 30 years, which tends to lead us to think we have been corrupt alone. Remember, your knowledge of the Clinton and Bush years comes from reading, and if your reading selections all stem from a common slant, your view will be slanted. (Very common in today's society.)

But I still don't see how "We teased you about Ukraine." or "We're using Ukraine as a tool against you." or even "We lied about Ukraine entering NATO." is EQUAL to bombing whole cities full of civilians.

KS

PS: Totally off topic, but why were both candidates in 2012 "SOB's?" I can understand not liking their politics or perhaps some decisions from their pasts, but SOB's? I didn't love the choice, but I thought both were decent human beings.