Reduce Ukraine Rubble vs. End the War - Preference?

Thistle

Well-known member

Does anyone agree that it would be better not to reduce Ukraine to rubble and kill more people, even if it comes at the expense of fighting this lovely war?
 
I disagree that it is unimportant how this conflict was started and who was the aggressor.

It is loony to claim that Putin has no interest in annexing Ukraine and actually wants Ukrainians to decide if they want their country to remain a separate country.

Sure, Putin does not want Ukraine to join NATO, but Ukraine as a sovereign nation should be able to make that decision, particularly as they live adjacent to a country that has proven to be a threat to them, and they want to ensure their own safety.

Stopping this war could be accomplished only by getting Putin to stop or having Ukraine surrender. Putin will only stop if he is given what he wants (Ukraine) and Ukraine would certainly not agree to that.
 

Does anyone agree that it would be better not to reduce Ukraine to rubble and kill more people, even if it comes at the expense of fighting this lovely war?
Any Ukrainians here, who are after all the only people whose opinion on this actually matters?
 
I disagree that it is unimportant how this conflict was started and who was the aggressor.
So we're not gonna stop until we have our knee in between Putin's shoulder blades and we're rubbing our knuckles on his head? What happens if he doesn't admit fault even then? The concern is that sometime before that happens, he may just launch a nuclear strike.
It is loony to claim that Putin has no interest in annexing Ukraine and actually wants Ukrainians to decide if they want their country to remain a separate country.
It seems reasonable to conclude that Russia is going to secure for itself access to the Black Sea even if that means commandeering Ukrainian territory to do so. That's not exactly the same thing as absorbing the entire country of Ukraine and Russia. Maybe Russia rightly recognizes that absorbing Ukraine would be a little bit like swallowing a porcupine.
Sure, Putin does not want Ukraine to join NATO, but Ukraine as a sovereign nation should be able to make that decision, particularly as they live adjacent to a country that has proven to be a threat to them, and they want to ensure their own safety.
And Russia considers itself to be a great power and it reserves the right to reduce every Ukrainian city to rubble if they make up themselves and existential threat to Russia. And as it turns out when a country considers itself to be a great power the only opinion that counts is the country that considers itself to be a great power.
Stopping this war could be accomplished only by getting Putin to stop
If you can do that go ahead…
or having Ukraine surrender.
I don't see any convincing evidence of that.
Putin will only stop if he is given what he wants (Ukraine) and Ukraine would certainly not agree to that.
There's absolutely no evidence of that. What Putin is willing to do is to reduce all of their cities to rubble and kill every able-bodied potential fighting man in Ukraine until they sue for peace. If that is the case and I believe that it is in the only solution is to go to a peace settlement while a lot of the people who would otherwise be dead are still alive.
 
Any Ukrainians here, who are after all the only people whose opinion on this actually matters?
I don't think so. Seems to me that Western nations do want Zelenskyy to keep fighting and don't want him to end the war because the west wants to defeat Russia within the borders of Ukraine. Mind you the West is not interested in doing any of the dying, that may be involved. We want to Ukrainians to do that part. The question Zelenskyy has to consider is will the West still have my back if I consider an option that slows the production of Ukrainian coffins.
 
If we really cared what Ukrainians think we might've picked up on one of the several overtures that Zelenskyy has made to Russia for peace talks. But the West has been projecting deafening silence on that aspect of this conflict.
 
So we're not gonna stop until we have our knee in between Putin's shoulder blades and we're rubbing our knuckles on his head? What happens if he doesn't admit fault even then? The concern is that sometime before that happens, he may just launch a nuclear strike.

It seems reasonable to conclude that Russia is going to secure for itself access to the Black Sea even if that means commandeering Ukrainian territory to do so. That's not exactly the same thing as absorbing the entire country of Ukraine and Russia. Maybe Russia rightly recognizes that absorbing Ukraine would be a little bit like swallowing a porcupine.

And Russia considers itself to be a great power and it reserves the right to reduce every Ukrainian city to rubble if they make up themselves and existential threat to Russia. And as it turns out when a country considers itself to be a great power the only opinion that counts is the country that considers itself to be a great power.

If you can do that go ahead…

I don't see any convincing evidence of that.

There's absolutely no evidence of that. What Putin is willing to do is to reduce all of their cities to rubble and kill every able-bodied potential fighting man in Ukraine until they sue for peace. If that is the case and I believe that it is in the only solution is to go to a peace settlement while a lot of the people who would otherwise be dead are still alive.
Are you saying we should have let Hitler take over Europe? After all, he was not likely to admit fault, right?

If Russia secures access to the Black Sea, then Ukraine will become an even more impoverished landlocked country. Why is it A-OK with you, to let an aggressor like Russia demolish another country with no cause other than to take its resources?

Ukrainian membership in NATO is not an existential threat to Russian any more than the fact that multiple other bordering nations have NATO membership, soon to be followed by Finland and Sweden. Would you be OK with Russia invading those countries as "existential threats"?

It is clear from how this war has progressed that Putin planned to take the capital and the whole country.
 
I don't think so. Seems to me that Western nations do want Zelenskyy to keep fighting and don't want him to end the war because the west wants to defeat Russia within the borders of Ukraine. Mind you the West is not interested in doing any of the dying, that may be involved. We want to Ukrainians to do that part. The question Zelenskyy has to consider is will the West still have my back if I consider an option that slows the production of Ukrainian coffins.
Yes there are Ukrainians here.
And yes, we want Zelenski to keep fighting with our help with weapons and not allow Russia to take over any part of Ukraine.
If the west sends troops, that would be a declaration of war and lead to further escalation outside Ukraine's borders. This war should be contained.
 
Are you saying we should have let Hitler take over Europe?
We should be very clear about this. Germany declared war on the United States of America. That's why we fought Germany in World War II. We fought Japan because they attacked Pearl Harbor, which was an act of war, so Congress declared war on Japan.
After all, he was not likely to admit fault, right?
We didn't fight Germany because of anything that Adolf Hitler did except declare war on the United States.
If Russia secures access to the Black Sea, then Ukraine will become an even more impoverished landlocked country.
This really depends on whether or not Ukraine still has access to the Black Sea somewhere. When two countries in active hostilities sit down to make peace these are the issues to get hashed out.
Why is it A-OK with you, to let an aggressor like Russia demolish another country with no cause other than to take its resources?
This has nothing to do with what is okay with me. And Russia demolishing Ukraine is what is happening now, under the policy that you were advocating. Under the policy I am advocating that would stop. And if you would like the demolition of Ukraine to start rather than continue, I would think that a change in policy would be in order.
Ukrainian membership in NATO is not an existential threat to Russian
Do you think Vladimir Putin is just waiting for a letter signed by you and me to that effect and then this will all be over? If that's the case send me a draft and I'll put my signature on it immediately. I'm so glad you have this all figured out. It's a wonder that you've not been asked to be secretary of state by now.
any more than the fact that multiple other bordering nations have NATO membership, soon to be followed by Finland and Sweden.
Russia said there was a red line at Georgia and Ukraine in 2008 after the Bucharest declaration. Nothing that has happened from that moment until today has done anything except reinforce that Russia was as serious as a heart attack about that conviction. Russia is also sending an extremely clear signal by moving to the highest level of nuclear alert. We need to be certain not to be as tone deaf to Russia moving to a high level of nuclear alert as we have been about Russia telling us that they are going to invade Ukraine continually for the last 14 years. Complaining that Russia is a bully after they launch their ICBMs at us is going to do us precious little good.
Would you be OK with Russia invading those countries as "existential threats"?
We have started seven wars since the fall of the Soviet Union. I cannot tell that the world is a better place by virtue of the fact that we have fought those seven wars. So when I contemplate the perfection of an argument to justify the eighth war I have to ask myself, is the world going to be in a better place if the United States fights this eighth war? I come to the conclusion probably not, so why not try and think of ways to try and avoid an eighth war.
It is clear from how this war has progressed that Putin planned to take the capital and the whole country.
No, actually not. It is true at the beginning of the war Russia attempted to take Kyiv. They clearly have moved on from that objective. It would've been an elegant solution (from their apparent perspective) if they could've collapsed the government all at once, and installed a puppet, but obviously that was not the primary objective because they moved on from that.
 
Yes there are Ukrainians here.
And yes, we want Zelenski to keep fighting with our help with weapons and not allow Russia to take over any part of Ukraine.
If the west sends troops, that would be a declaration of war and lead to further escalation outside Ukraine's borders. This war should be contained.
Do you think that Putin does not understand that the West is trying to defeat the entire Russian army within the borders of Ukraine? You understand that, and I understand that, and neither one of us have a security clearances as high as Vladimir Putin. Obviously Vladimir Putin does not want the entire Russian army destroyed within the borders of Ukraine can we agree about that?

That's why Putin is likely to launch a tactical nuclear strike on a NATO country like Poland in order to change the facts on the ground vis-à-vis NATO. If Poland is hit with a nuclear weapon by Russia, which of the other NATO countries wants to be Ground Zero for launching an expedition into Russia? Honestly, I don't think you have given this a seconds worth of thought.
 

Does anyone agree that it would be better not to reduce Ukraine to rubble and kill more people, even if it comes at the expense of fighting this lovely war?
I have been saying all alone Russia will not accept Ukraine and NATO membership but it bounces off their heads. It is not that complicated and it is obvious this thing could be solved without extension which increases the chances for WW3. Yet the US is now sending 40 bil or our dollars earmarked for Ukraine and who knows where that money will go of how many pockets, including Americans, that cash will end up in. There is always fraud in them type of spending and esp when it involves Democrats. Ukraine has been preparing and planning for war and now they got it in spades and we are supposed to get out the crying towels for these ancient Euro blood feuds where peace is just a prep for war or war by other means.
 
I have been saying all alone Russia will not accept Ukraine and NATO membership but it bounces off their heads. It is not that complicated and it is obvious this thing could be solved without extension which increases the chances for WW3. Yet the US is now sending 40 bil or our dollars earmarked for Ukraine and who knows where that money will go of how many pockets, including Americans, that cash will end up in. There is always fraud in them type of spending and esp when it involves Democrats. Ukraine has been preparing and planning for war and now they got it in spades and we are supposed to get out the crying towels for these ancient Euro blood feuds where peace is just a prep for war or war by other means.
I'm sure when that 40 billion arrives that some Ukrainian oligarch will have a message into Hunter Biden's office with some kind of proposal or other. This $40 billion is the most foolish spending I have ever seen in my life.
 
The Vietnam war, the Afghan war, and the Iraq war each cost the United States around $1 trillion.
That's a neat factoid. I have no real reason to doubt it, but I'm now curious about the specifics. Thanks for giving me something to Google...
 
That's a neat factoid. I have no real reason to doubt it, but I'm now curious about the specifics. Thanks for giving me something to Google...
I came across that claim a week or two ago. I just did some google searches to confirm, and it looks like the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan were more like $2 trillion each.

My source for the $1 trillion cost of each of the three wars is given below. I'm not sure if $1 trillion or $2 trillion is more accurate for the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars.

What were the 13 most expensive wars in U.S. history?
 

US has a history of providing military assistance to corrupt causes, all of which have failed to achieve their desired objectives.​

.
.
.
.
.
While it seems unthinkable that the members of Congress could forget the lessons of Afghanistan so quickly when it comes to providing billions of dollars of poorly managed money to a deeply corrupt political regime in Ukraine, the reality is that the US has a history of providing military assistance to corrupt causes, all of which have failed to achieve their desired objectives.

This was not always the case. In March 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt helped put meaning behind the phrase ‘the arsenal of democracy’ when describing the mobilization of American industry for the purpose of arming allies to defeat fascism. Under the so-called ‘Lend-Lease Act’, the US provided billions of dollars of military aid to the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The program’s impact was undeniable, and it played a critical role in enabling America’s wartime allies to survive and ultimately defeat the threat posed by a common foe.

However, since the end of the Second World War, the US has embarked on a series of misadventures where the ‘arsenal of democracy’ was engaged to support causes which, despite the infusion of American money and arms, ultimately failed. From 1961 until the fall of Saigon in April 1975,

Washington spent more than $141 billion supporting the South Vietnamese government in its war against communism, including tens of billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment supplied as part of the so-called ‘Vietnamization’ program, which was designed to give the South Vietnamese military the ability to fight and win without direct US military assistance. When Saigon fell, it is estimated that North Vietnam captured some $5 billion in US military equipment, nearly half of which the North Vietnamese army was able to integrate into its force structure.

In the aftermath of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, the US spent some $25 billion rebuilding an Iraqi military capable of standing on its own two feet. And yet, less than three years after the US withdrew its combat forces from Iraq, the Iraqi army, in the summer of 2014, collapsed against the forces of the Islamic State, abandoning not only the city of Mosul and vast swaths of territory to the Islamist movement, but also billions of dollars of US military equipment, including heavy tanks and artillery.

Similarly, between 2005 and 2021, the Afghan military received more than $18 billion worth of weapons from the US ‘arsenal of democracy’; but when the Afghan government collapsed in August 2021, more than $7 billion worth of advanced US military equipment fell into the hands of the Taliban.

What connects these three historical failures of American military assistance is the common theme of hubris-driven ambition, where the on-the-ground political realities were ignored by military professionals who placed all of their faith in the preeminence of US military equipment, doctrine, and training. In supporting a corrupt, ideologically unsavory government in Ukraine with billions of dollars of US military equipment, the Biden administration appears to be falling into the same trap as its predecessors who stoked the fires of US-supported conflict in South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

By signing new ‘Lend-Lease Act’ legislation intended to fast-track US military assistance to Ukraine along the lines of the original act during the Second World War, the Biden administration ignores the lessons of history when it comes to providing military aid, namely that the cause being supported must be a just one. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were both odious regimes deserving of the justice that the allies meted out, armed in part by the ‘arsenal of democracy.’

Over time, the US has ignored the critical predicate of having a cause worthy of the sacrifice asked by those opposing it, focusing instead on sustaining through force of arms alone regimes which, in many ways, were more corrupt and unworthy of support than the forces they were arrayed against. (This is saying a lot, given that in two of these conflicts – Iraq and Afghanistan – the forces of the Islamic State and the Taliban would normally be easily classified as an enemy worth confronting.)

By supporting a Ukrainian military that has been thoroughly infiltrated by the odious ideology of neo-Nazism, the US is setting itself up for failure by once again aligning itself with a cause which, in the long run, is not worthy of the sacrifice being asked of those called upon to defend it. Allowing this military assistance to go forward devoid of the kind of mandated oversight that a SIGAR-like organization would provide all but assures that not only will US taxpayer dollars be squandered in a losing cause, but that any chance of detecting the shortcomings of the aid program early on and making the kind of critical policy adjustments necessary to stave off catastrophe will be lost.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION KING: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

 
So we're not gonna stop until we have our knee in between Putin's shoulder blades and we're rubbing our knuckles on his head? What happens if he doesn't admit fault even then? The concern is that sometime before that happens, he may just launch a nuclear strike.

It seems reasonable to conclude that Russia is going to secure for itself access to the Black Sea even if that means commandeering Ukrainian territory to do so. That's not exactly the same thing as absorbing the entire country of Ukraine and Russia. Maybe Russia rightly recognizes that absorbing Ukraine would be a little bit like swallowing a porcupine.

And Russia considers itself to be a great power and it reserves the right to reduce every Ukrainian city to rubble if they make up themselves and existential threat to Russia. And as it turns out when a country considers itself to be a great power the only opinion that counts is the country that considers itself to be a great power.

If you can do that go ahead…

I don't see any convincing evidence of that.

There's absolutely no evidence of that. What Putin is willing to do is to reduce all of their cities to rubble and kill every able-bodied potential fighting man in Ukraine until they sue for peace. If that is the case and I believe that it is in the only solution is to go to a peace settlement while a lot of the people who would otherwise be dead are still alive.
They will kill Putin before there is a nuclear launch....book it.
 
Back
Top