Replies to post #471529 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

So Vance is yet another Putin apologist. His editorial is from 4/12/24, plenty of time for his Sen. colleagues and GOP House members to have read or at least heard about it. I found it as unpersuasive as most of those who voted for the aid packages found it.

So did most of those who commented on his opinion piece in the NYT. One such.....

Afghanistan won against the USSR and USSR had more men and equipment.

The facts are, not only will Western tech and training defeat the Russian terrorist war criminal, it's the right thing to do.

The US has a massive stockpile of equipment they could be sending to UA; much of which is due to be decommissioned. Apart from that the US has massive stockpiles and they are not at war.

The allies of the US in Europe i.e. NATO countries have been sounding the alarm and meeting with congress and the senate.

The MAGA crowd have blocking the aid package have caused UA to lose men, material and ground. Their inaction has been a gift to the Russians and a major hindrance to Ukraine's defense.

At best, MAGA are appeasers and at worst they are literally supporting Putin.

I can imagine Trump would love to install a putin like government here, controlling the judiciary and assassinating or imprisoning any and all dissenters and enemies.

Is this where the USA is heading?

The companies on this list would no doubt be surprised by 'Remember we do not make most of our own weapons any longer and we outsource them to other Countries', a statement which is not in Vance's editorial.

List of modern armament manufacturers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_armament_manufacturers
U.S.

AeroVironment
American Derringer
AM General
ArmaLite
Axon
Barrett Firearms Manufacturing
Beemiller Inc. (trading name as Hi-Point Firearms)
Black Hills Ammunition
Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS)
Bollinger Shipyards
Bond Arms Inc.
Brunswick Boat Group
Calico Light Weapons Systems (CLWS)
Charter Arms
CheyTac
Colt's Manufacturing Company
Combined Systems
Cooper Firearms (trading name as Cooper Firearms)
Day & Zimmermann
Daniel Defense
Dead Air Silencers
Derecktor Shipyards
Desert Tech
Freedom Arms
General Atomics
General Dynamics
Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding
GM Defense
Gravois Aluminum Boats (trading as Metal Shark Boats)
Harris Gunworks
Henry Repeating Arms
Hodgdon Yachts
Honeywell
Hornady Manufacturing Company
Huntington Ingalls Industries
Ithaca Gun Company
Kahr Arms
Kaman Aerospace
Kel-Tec
Kimber Manufacturing
Knight's Armament Company
L3Harris Technologies
Lehigh Defense
Les Baer
Lewis Machine & Tool Company
Lockheed Martin
LWRC International
MD Helicopters
Navistar International
North American Arms
Northrop Grumman
Nosler
Noveske Rifleworks
OF Mossberg & Sons
Olin Corporation
Olympic Arms
Oshkosh Corporation
Palmetto State Armory
Patriot Ordnance Factory
Polaris Industries
Raytheon Technologies
Rock River Arms
Safariland
SAFE Boats International
Savage Arms
Science Applications International Corporation
Serbu Firearms
Sierra Bullets
Sierra Nevada Corporation
SilencerCo
Smith & Wesson
Springfield Armory
Strategic Armory Corps
Strayer Voigt Inc (brand name Infinity Firearms)
Sturm, Ruger
Swiftships
Textron
Troy Industries
U.S. Ordnance
Vista Outdoor
Weatherby

[brooklyn13]

And yet, Afghanistan was able to defeat "this (same) enemy".

[SoxFan]

Did you know or did Vance know that since January Ukraine has been attacking Russian oil refineries all over Russia? Well the last few months Russia has not been exporting oil but actually importing it. Don’t know how long it will last but the longer this goes on the worse it is for Russia.

[fuagf]

livefree_ordie - Most simply it's about support of a sovereign democratic country and the international order.

And because it's the right thing to do.

DOD Official Restates Why Supporting Ukraine Is in U.S. Interest

Feb. 9, 2024 | By Jim Garamone, DOD News |

As Congress once again addresses U.S. military aid to Ukraine, a DOD official said helping Ukraine defeat Russian aggression is in the United States' interest.



Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, that U.S. aid to Ukraine has global impacts.

Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2021. Russian forces were larger and better equipped, but Ukrainian forces stopped them from capturing the capital of Kyiv and decapitating the government and installing a puppet regime that answered to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Ukrainians also held Kharkiv, the country's second largest city, and fought Russian forces to a standstill in the south and east.

The United States has provided $43 billion in support to Ukraine, covering everything from Javelin missiles to tanks to ambulances to long-range strike missiles to air defense capabilities and much, much more. U.S. service members are training Ukrainian forces in Europe and the United States. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III formed and still leads the Ukraine Defense Security Group which now has 50 nations that contribute to Ukraine's defense.

This aid is key to helping Ukrainian forces take on and, in many areas, push back the Russians. U.S. government officials said in January that more than 300,000 Russians have been killed or wounded in Ukraine.

Wallander said the United States wants a Ukraine that is sovereign, independent and secure, adding that the Ukrainian people do not want Russian overlords and are fighting for their freedom. "We want the Ukrainian people to be able to live the European life they have chosen," she said during the discussion.

While supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do, U.S. support is about more than just Ukraine, Wallander said. "[Our support] is about the international order that keeps all countries and all populations safe, including Russia," she said.

Putin is seeking to "shred" the international order, the assistant secretary said. Putin wants the ability for large countries to intimidate and dominate smaller neighbors.

And Russian actions have implications around the world, she said. "It's not just a European security issue, it is a global security issue," Wallander said.

Built into the fabric of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is the agreement that nuclear powers will respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries and agree to support the peaceful use of nuclear energy for their prosperity. "All of that is at stake in Russia's invasion and occupation of Ukraine," she said.

Further afield, Chinese leaders are watching the war in Ukraine closely and have "a huge stake in Russia['s] success," Wallander said.



If Putin is successful in shredding the United Nations Charter and benefiting from the use of force in Europe, "What's to stop China from following that path when it is ready?" she asked.

China has supported Russia in its illegal invasion, and the Asian nation has benefited from Russia's increasing isolation. "The Chinese leadership doesn't want Putin to lose, because of what that would mean about the strength of the international community in pushing back against a bully," she said.

Beyond the geopolitical reasons for supporting Ukraine, there are very human reasons, as well. The Russian invasion has been incredibly brutal, with indiscriminate attacks on civilians throughout the country. Wallander noted that Russian brutality has not been limited to Ukraine. The Russian military has used the same tactics in Chechnya and Georgia.

But in Ukraine, Russia has gone beyond merely targeting civilian infrastructure. Russia has been taking Ukrainian children from their families or taking orphans and sending them to Russia. It is an almost "Nazi-like idea of ethnic purity that they need to be educated as Russians and that they are somehow going to be re-educated and brought back to benefit the Russian Federation," Wallander said. "It is just astonishing to think that a Europe, which faced the horror of such a leadership doing that to populations in the 1940s, is now confronted with another leadership that is doing that … in the 2020s."

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3671938/dod-official-restates-why-supporting-ukraine-is-in-us-interest/

[janice shell]

Ordie:

1. J. D. Vance is a creep. He was taught better, but... I guess you can take the hills out of the hillbilly, but...

2. If we'd been able to get aid to Ukraine last year, they might already have won the war. I think they'd at least been able to drive back the Russians.

3. Paragraphs are our friends.