McConnell on Ukraine proxy war: "We haven’t lost a single American in this war. Most of the money that we spend, is spent on replenishing weapons, so it’s actually employing people here."[paraphrased]
McConnell on Ukraine proxy war: "We haven’t lost a single American in this war. Most of the money that we spend, is spent on replenishing weapons, so it’s actually employing people here."[paraphrased]
The White House on Wednesday downplayed CNN polling showing most Americans oppose Congress providing additional funding to support Ukraine in its war with Russia ahead of a reported administration request for more aid.
Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.
Exact full quote from CNN:
“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063
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That’s what a win win looks like. No need to be quiet around it. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Now everyone gets to replenish and modernize their weapons, test them in real conditions while making sure Russia gets enough of a bloody nose to not fucking try this shit ever again.
Russia did the ‘fuck around and find out thing’. It was their choice and the only way they can win is by tankies convincing every other country that just saw rape, murder, pillaging and terrorism getting used on another country in Europe by a rabid bear that somehow Russia was justified and should be allowed a free pass. But it’s not working. The rabid bear is rabid, but there’s ways to deal with that.
Because now they makes sure that every country around them is joining the anti rabid bear alliance.
The way the OP framed the article is to create the idea that somehow Russia is good because US military is bad. But that’s a fallacy. The US military is perfectly capable of doing bad shit on behalf of the US, but that does not mean everyone else is good. Sometimes clobbering Nazis is win win and Russia should have know that. Their feeble at reframing may work on Fox brainwashed Republicans who are reduced to “Putins kills gays and is strong so Putin is good”, but it turns out Putin is a cuck taking it into the ass by his own chef.
Yep, but could you please edit out the "cuck taking it in the ass" business? "Humiliated" works and doesn't make you sound like a "homophobic trumptard". We're managing to have a civilized discussion here and I don't want to see this devolve more into reddit.
Even worse than that, it's a misrepresentation of the cuck/bull relationship dynamic!
Thank you for pointing that out.
It's funny because inane corrections of a good post is exactly what happens on Reddit
It's not inane, maybe I'm a cuck who likes to take it in the ass. Now what? How are you supposed to offend anyone with that? In what way is putin like me?
PS: I'm not trying to be hostile, btw, I just think it's filthy language that we absorb and then becomes mainstream and all of a sudden we're like "cuck this, that cuck that" and we already have enough of that around. :/
PPS: back again. I'm not trying to stop anyone swearing or to police speech, if you wanna say it, whatever. Swearing is a healthy practice that helps vent and we have plenty of shit, dick, fuck and assholes to go around, I just don't see how that is a good offense, does it help you vent to see putin be fucked in the ass? Maybe he likes it, lol (ew), it just gives me 4chan PTSD :)
“maybe im a cuck …now what?” touché! 👍🤣
Well you are not supposed to feel insulted. Context matters. Why would you be insulted, you enjoy cuckolding, good on you, love and let love. No issues with that, we all have our fetishes and one man’s insult is another’s climax - imagine you have a degradation fetish, man /r/the_donald would be so hot. The insult wasn’t aimed at you. You didn’t feel offended. So working as intended.
That’s the point - it’s insulting for tankies because they love strong macho Putin image whose definitely not a bottom. never, totally ever, ok, only a bit if you ask nicely with a coup.
What is annoying on the internet is that everyone thinks it’s about them and every statement has to be minimally offensive to everyone because of this, main character syndrome. It’s not nonsensical, it’s actually giving the right wing it’s power.
So no, I think I won’t be doing that. I’ll continue dishing out highly targeted insults and everyone else can learn that they are not meant to be offended because - as you say, there’s nothing offensive about it unless you are a right wing schmuck with a masculinity complex.
Look, it's just trashy 4chan+r/the_Donald talk, but ok, use it to your heart's content if it means that much to you and holds such expressive value to you, we're all adults here and I'll just stop reading :) have a nice day.
I agree with you, it undermines his position and makes him look childish, but you tried.
Ones gotta insult tankies in the way they understand. Doesn’t make me homophobic. Cuckolding is a specific fetish that tankies are fascinated with, it’s not a blanket judgement about anyone gay.
Wtf where did you pull that from? Tankies like to cuck? Hahahaha.
You have some good takes, so I can't block you, but I have no idea where this is coming from, lolRule of projection. Read up on Roger Stone’s stones activities. It’s deep man.
https://medium.com/queertheory/the-right-faces-its-cuckholding-sex-fantasies-1351ed88a8ae
reddit
Maybe go back
Maybe fuck yourself or block me if you feel offended by something that’s not an insult to a reasonable person.
U mad bro?
What exactly is a tankie? I wanted to upvote this post when I saw its content, but I found the tag from the OP about the "quiet part" to be off-putting as though this quote from McConnell is a negative thing. I don't like or think McConnell is a good person, but to me this quote reads as a way to sell continued support for Ukraine to the crazier parts of our government. Like a "oh, you don't want to spend money on Ukraine because it's the right thing to do? Well here, how about because it's making money for Americans." Sure, maybe not the reason I support funding and arming Ukraine, but if it convinces people who aren't already in support, then I'm for it. If anything, it seems shrewd.
I've seen a lot of posts/comments on Lemmy about tankies recently and I'm confused about what that means. Haven't quite been able to determine from context since the context seems different depending on the post. Sorry if it's a dumb question.
A subsection of people who are so far right they ended up on the left again, strongly aroused by military (tanks) symbols, manliness and strength while simultaneously being convinced that Russia is the good guys and therefore whatever they do must be good because US is bad.
There’s a few varieties here. Roger Waters and Noam Chomsky for example who basically are the US is bad so anything is the opposite of what US says (down to denying russian genocide in syria because, well, they are against the US).
There’s the cosplay section of milbloggers and western cosplay russian twitter specialists who usually are Canadian or German or Alabama white males in their basement cosplaying to be in Ukraine fighting for Russia
And of course plenty of russian males who actually buy the narratives.
Most of them have one thing in common - they just can’t handle reality and therefore escape into increasingly insane contortion.. basically Republicans meet Covid again.
Thanks! Appreciate the in depth response
This is hilarious to read lol. Stop using words you don't know the meaning of.
You're right that this war is partially about the US attempting to test and modernize weapons, but the US spending more money on it's already bloated military isn't a 'win' for anybody except for neo-cons.
You should ask Ukrainians about their opinion on that. They love sending your tankie friends some good old American Himars
I think this Wikipedia quote is more informational
The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.[7][8]
The term is also used to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny the crimes committed by communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin,[9][10] Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Kim il-Sung. In modern times, the term is used across the political spectrum to describe those who have a bias in favor of illiberal or authoritarian states with a socialist legacy or a nominally left-wing government, such as the Republic of Belarus, People's Republic of China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Serbia, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Additionally, tankies have a tendency to support non-socialist states with no socialist legacy if they are opposed to the United States and the Western world in general, regardless of their ideology,[4][11] such as the Islamic Republic of Iran. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
Basically it means someone who supports Russia - usually Communists (which is fine) who - for some reason think Russia is still communist (which is dumb)
Literally no communist thinks Russia is still communist
There seems to be a startling overlap on lemmy between Communists and Russia supporters. Can't say I've ever seen a comment either from hexbear or lemmy grad in favor of Ukraine over Russia.
If it's not because they think Russia is on the side of communism, then what the hell is going on in their heads?
Support as in they enjoy the prospect of Russia winning? That they like Putin and want him to conquer Ukraine?
They mostly consider this war to be a proxy war between Russia and United States + its wards in the EU who wish to needlessly prolong the war at the cost of Ukranian lives in order to deplete the Russian economy and military. Within this group, you can further break them down into: those who disagree with the invasion and those who believe it is justified.
For the latter, they would point to the secession crisis in the Donbass after the Maidan and subsequent intentional blockading of fresh water to Crimea as justification for intervention, with the prospects of Ukraine joining NATO being the trigger.
For the group that disavows the invasion, you need to understand that it is difficult for communists to cheerleader their own state pumping weapons into a country whose government heralds bold-faced Nazis as righteous warriors of freedom. This does not necessarily mean they believe that Putin is genuinely concerned about Nazis since the Wagner PMC itself has a notorious far right and neo-Nazi presence.
Simply not supporting the Ukrainian state nor NATO does not mean supporting Russia. On the other hand, those who do support Russia aren't always necessarily communists, but will flock to spaces that have that overlap in interests.
Support as in they enjoy the prospect of Russia winning? That they like Putin and want him to conquer Ukraine?
I mean, yes - as a matter of fact. Just look in this thread at the numerous comments from those two instances of users saying that Ukraine should have just surrendered, and that it's their fault for not agreeing to Putin's "peace" proposal.
You're definitely not going to hear me argue in favor of NATO's actions, but none of that (with the exception of Ukraine joining NATO) excuses an invasion of Ukraine - and regarding Ukraine joining NATO - they're a sovereign state, it's not Russias right to invade their neighbors because they don't like Ukraines international policy. If the US decided to invade Mexico because they were thinking about signing a mutual defense agreement with China, you can bet your ass I'd be out in the street protesting the war.
And if we're going to say that a country deserves to be ravaged because a small portion of their population espouses white supremacist policies, then I guess the U.S., Italy, Germany, Russia itself, and a whole shitload others should start getting shelled as well. Unfortunately, for very complex reasons, a huge chunk of the world has a neonazi problem right now, using it as an excuse for an invasion is absolute bull shit.
Simply not supporting the Ukrainian state nor NATO does not mean supporting Russia
Except that it does. Russia invaded Ukraine - and so far they haven't given a single signal that they'd be willing to any peace agreement that leaves Ukraine with it's original borders. Ultimately if Ukraine loses, it'll mean that it will be annexed. It would be a very different situation if Russia was offering a real peace (one that doesn't involve Ukraine giving up it's own territory) and Ukraine was being obstinate, but there is no realistic pacifist position to be taken here
I'm not debating. The original conversation was that you said communists supported Russia because they think it's communist, and I clarified that they really don't.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
This is not true. I've talked with people in person at socialist organizations that were claiming that putin was secretly Marxist at the beginning of the invasion. There def are campists who will double down on nonsense.
What organization?
A local marxist-leninist org I know through activist circles. They aren't big or influential and I wouldn't take them to be representative of most self identified socialist political orgs in America. They're fringe.
Anti Rabid Bear Alliance. I'd like to petition to change NATO to ARBA.
No, a win-win would be no war and all this money being spent on helping people in need instead of funding the MIC.
Ya, that’s be a win win for Russia alright, getting away with rape and pillaging. You tankies would love that.
Why are you calling me a tankie?
If there's no war, then russia doesn't get to engage in those things. They can focus on helping their people in need and so can we.
That's what makes it a win-win.
You are right, you’re not a tankie, you are an idiot.
Russia decided to have the war. Russia can end it any time and “take care of their people 😂😂😂😂”
It's not a win win for the Ukrainians, who are losing lives. The article shows what's been said all along: the US doesn't gaf about Ukraine or it's people. The US is only involved to make money and to prop up the US's dying empire.
Without the US more ukrainians would die and Russia would have overrun them by now and subjugated them into the shitshow they call motherland.
So it’s a win win.
Ask Ukrainians which version they prefer - US involvement or not. Oh wait, it’s pretty clear they prefer the kill rabid bear with Himars version.
The only version they’d like even more is killing bear with ATACMS and F16.
So fuck off tankie.
Ok, and? Are they doing something wrong? Aren't we supposed to scold someone when they're doing bads things, and praise them for doing good things, not just shit on them no matter what?
US involvement is unambiguously a good thing morally and for the people of Ukraine. Any other take would lunacy. So why are you taking time to shit on the US and not the ethnonationalist dictatorship invading a democratic neighbor of theirs? Are your priorities that messed up? America bad? Certainly, but it hurts YOU to have a such narrow minded view geopolitics. The US isn't always the bad guy.
The US has spent 30+ years shit stirring, dismantling Ukraine, running coups, and undermining Ukraine's relationships with it's closest neighbours. Now it's provoked a war and all gullible liberals can say is the same thing they said about the US contemporaneously with all its other wars.
The article in the OP demonstrates exactly what I and others like me have been saying from the start: the US is not involved to be the good guy, it has no moral high ground; it is only involved to make money, and no number of Ukrainian lives is too great a price to pay for US prosperity. The US is involved to steal as much Ukrainian wealth as possible.
It's not just the 'profit' from selling the weapons (which Ukraine will pay for, not the US, so there's no benevolence in it but self-interest). Every aid package is another tranche of the same kind of loans that the US has used to loot and privatise the country's assets for decades. The same thing the US does everywhere. The only difference now is the novelty of trying to physically destroy Russia's military at the same time.
It's a bit rich to say that I'm the one with a narrow minded view of geopolitics when you've reduced a 30+ year conflict to it's surface details. Events like this cannot be separated from the political economy or their historical context. It's clear that liberals still haven't learned to correct a flaw in their framework that was identified 150 years ago (source otherwise only indirectly relevant):
Some people have dug beneath the appearance of things, whereas others accept them in their inverted form.
Without aid Ukraine would lose more lives.
Do you honestly believe that? You honestly think that US aid has saved lives in Ukraine? Some surely has but the weapons? Ig it's not your family and friends in the cross hairs, your fields poisoned with depleted uranium, or your kids' cross country tracks littered with cluster munitions. You really think the country responsible for embargoes of medical supplies to Palestine, Yemen, and Cuba, to name a few, is sending aid to save lives?
Ukraine is another Kurdistan to the US. The only question is whether it will take the Ukrainians as long as it took the Kurds to learn that the US is nobody's friend.
Russia has been using cluster munitions the entire war, and their bomblets have a 40% failure rate. US-made ones have a >3% failure rate. Point your criticism where it belongs
Yes, the US is making money helping Ukraine uphold international law and russia is losing money committing war crimes to the last Ukrainian.
If Russia's aims are 'imperialistsic', is it losing money?
Yes, you spend blood and treasure to conquer land and then brag about it in history books.
You impose your rule on that land and your peasants rejoice at your statesmanship and feel blessed to join such a great nation, or else...
My point is that nobody doing that would be doing it for free. This applies the apologia for all other empires to Russia. I.e. that empire builders do it sometimes by accident but always for benevolent reasons. That's incorrect. Empires are built by extracting wealth and to extract wealth.
I think you agree with this as I'm reading your second paragraph as sarcasm. If you do agree, then it's not possible to conclude that Russia will lose money. It may do, if it loses, although even that is questionable. If it wins, it will gain wealth. Or it's capitalists will do so. There's a contradiction between your two paragraphs.
If Russia's motivations are imperialistic (I haven't seen evidence for that, myself, but it depends on one's definition of imperialism), there would be no point if it cost more money to achieve than would be recouped after. Until it's over, it's not possible to say that it's already lost money. It's costly, but that's different, and doesn't answer, 'Costly for whom?'
(Please don't misunderstand me – I'm not saying that Russia will not exploit whatever parts of Ukraine it keeps hold of. It's capitalist. Of course it will. I'm suggesting that this war doesn't amount to a land grab simpliciter.)
One counter to this is that the US is spending money to ensure that Russia does lose money. Time will tell whether I'm right or wrong but I think this drastically overestimates the strength of the US. It doesn't have an industrial base (except in vassal and puppet states). So it cannot match Russia's military output.
And the industries the US does possess are governed by the logic of finance capital not industrial capital. Money spent does not indicate how much has been bought. $10bn spent on weapons, for instance, doesn't mean you get $10bn worth of weapons by the time you factor in all the sales teams, admin, embezzlement, and middle managers, etc.
The US seems incapable of providing Ukraine with the arms that the Ukrainian military is asking for. It's publications have started to admit this more and more. Due to the above-mentioned logics, the US doesn't have the intellectual-ideological or industrial capacity to ramp up manufacturing. The US certainly has people bright enough to figure it out but they're inconsequential in the face of a military-industrial complex designed to make as much money as possible rather than to 'win' wars.
Oh look, the “NATO is anything I don’t like” Russian apologist tankie guy is back at pulling out fake shit out of their ass.
The US is the second largest manufacturer on the planet, and insources its military production.
Ukraine is complaining that we can’t send them Soviet era military structure compatible weaponry. The US had largely phased out “dig a trench and use artillery to make a breakthrough” back in the late 80s, because we could attain air superiority against Soviet tech.
I see you're coming at me with another semantic argument. This one based on the notion that by 'doesn't have an industrial base' I can only mean 'doesn't have any industrial base'. That's a rather strange reading as it assumes I have zero grasp of logic. The existence of the tiniest fragment of industry would render my argument incorrect. It's acting in bad faith to assume I meant that.
Which leaves the search for an alternative interpretation. Such as the US doesn't have a sufficient industrial base to achieve its goals militarily in the Ukraine. The figures are hard to come by as there are lots of definitional issues. Still, trade publications and Congress are worried.
“U.S. policies and financial investments are not currently oriented to support a defense ecosystem built for peer conflict,” the report read. “This was a troubling truth during the last 20 years of asymmetric conflict against non-state actors. In the return of great power competition, this gap is an unsustainable indictment.”
US manufacturing can be as large as it likes but if it can't join up it's thinking and produce what fighters on the front line need, it doesn't count for much. It's DIB is not set up for wars against industrialised countries that are determined to fight back. It doesn't matter what weapons and compatible ammunition the US does produce, either, if it isn't working to supply them to the people doing the fighting and isn't willing to use them itself for (rightly) being at least a little bit reluctant to start a nuclear third world war.
I'm a little skeptical of the extent of the claims about the weaknesses of the DIB and more so of the framing of the solution. The details are coming from people who want to increase the military budget (without otherwise wanting to change the underlying political economic system). Still, there does seem to be some movement to use the Ukraine war to justify costly improvements to the US DIB.
Will the changes come? And will they come in time to defeat Russia in Ukraine within a reasonable time frame? The plan will struggle against the existing contradictions unless there's a change in logic, which doesn't seem to be on the cards. So it's unlikely to be a complete success even if some fixes are implemented.
It's irrelevant whether you accept what I'm saying. I'm only summarising what the US military is saying. This is public information. If you're interested, search for 'us defense industrial base'. What I've explained is such a hot topic, you don't even need to add e.g. 'problems' to the search terms for articles about the problems to be returned.
Additionally, as you say, words have meanings. When people criticise NATO it is as a stand-in for the imperialist world order. It includes the IMF, World Bank, the WTO, the 'international' courts and rules, and all their elements and capitalist lackeys. You're making a semantic argument, which misses the crucial point: that NATO and its member states are concerned only with the wealth and power of their bourgeoisie, regardless of Russia.
I'm not trying to hide the fact that I have an agenda, that we can't have world peace until there are no more imperialists, which includes and is often, in ordinary language, represented by NATO. If you interpret that as support for Russia, there's not much left for us to discuss.
Your position literally is the NATO is all the imperial capitalists in the world, and somehow Russia is not involved in either of those definitions and deserves to be apologized for. It’s internally inconsistent and is shill behavior.
You have an agenda, and it’s pro imperialist, as long as the imperialist is not the US. Congrats; If you were in the US, you’re dumb enough that you’d be shilling for Trump because “He’s gonna drain the swamp!”
I’m only summarising what the US military is saying.
You're only summarizing what the US Military Industrial Complex is saying, which isn't the US Military. National Defense Industrial Association != US Military, again going back to the "NATO is whatever I define it as" that you keep insisting.
Mark Milley is the mouthpiece of the US Military as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and he's not mincing words: Russia will lose militarily in Ukraine. It will take time and blood, but the US is responsible for 34% of the world's military industrial output and claiming
It’s DIB is not set up for wars against industrialised countries that are determined to fight back.
Is not reality. We've only faced off once, and the Battle of Khasham did not go well for the "industrialized country determined to fight back"
Eh, we're not in there for a couple reasons and they all make sense. It would preclude NATO from ever entering because of the non-aggression portion of the agreement, and it would put Russia in a corner where they have to either admit defeat (which putin won't do) or go nuclear which is bad for everyone but especially bad for Ukraine.
The article in the OP is explicitly talking about US involvement. The US and NATO are 'in there'. If NATO isn't in Ukraine, it was hardly ever anywhere.
Arguing that NATO isn't involved seems to be either disingenuous or naive. It accepts NATO's PR at face value and in opposition to the practical reality. NATO/the US tends not announce it's clandestine work in the tabloids or the broadsheets, especially as it happens but it does admit it sometimes, if you know what you're looking for. In the case of Ukraine, it's not even hidden. They've been bragging about how much weaponry they've been sending and how much they've been involved in training and instructing Ukrainians how to fight.
Was the US involved when it trained and funded Saddam, Bin Laden, or the Contras? Of course it was. Ukraine is another example of how the US gets involved without 'getting it's hands dirty'; although I've yet to meet anyone IRL who doesn't think the US has the bloodiest, grimiest hands of all. The only question is whether people think it's a good thing or a bad thing. The fact of it is not open to dispute.
I'll struggle to accept any argument that splits hairs over what counts as involvement, I'm afraid. It boils down to semantics without addressing the crux of the issue.
I'm also struggling to see why more visible NATO/US involvement would require Russia to admit defeat until it's been defeated. Unless you're implying that NATO would wipe the floor with Russia. That doesn't seem right for two reasons:
- The best minds and the resources of NATO have been demonstrably unable to stop Russia so far and
- If Russia looks like losing, it has the nuclear option and shit gets real messy real quick and it's lose-lose for everyone
3rd party involvement and direct engagement are two very different things. The non-aggression agreement, the one that protects and constrains nato members, only cares about engagement, training and arms are a-ok. What member states agreed to is concrete and well defined, not whatever amorphous definition you're going by here.
The “loose definition” redtea came up with is bonkers.
Additionally, as you say, words have meanings. When people criticise NATO it is as a stand-in for the imperialist world order. It includes the IMF, World Bank, the WTO, the 'international' courts and rules, and all their elements and capitalist lackeys. You're making a semantic argument, which misses the crucial point: that NATO and its member states are concerned only with the wealth and power of their bourgeoisie, regardless of Russia.
I'm not trying to hide the fact that I have an agenda, that we can't have world peace until there are no more imperialists, which includes and is often, in ordinary language, represented by NATO. If you interpret that as support for Russia, there's not much left for us to discuss.
The nutbag’s definition of NATO includes Russia.