Europe preps huge defense package in boost to Ukraine: "Never been seen"
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Personally I’d go if they just let me. I’m a reserve sergeant with strong will to actually do something, knowing full well I will perish there, and cry for mommy in a ditch, or something else entirely, as of yet unimaginable to me.
Defense is something I accept and will always help with if I just can, if the cause is right. Other kinds of war or violence? I’d rather go to jail than participate. In defense of gender minorities, people with mental health issues struggling as it is, when we now have great support networks and financial help guaranteeing housing, food, electricity, everything necessary, I would face the horrifying prospect of unimaginable pain and fear, desperation, so that those that do not wish to, or can’t, do not have to.
I have strength and vitality some do not have. And if the only thing standing between the peaceful, at least good enough life they (we!) now have, is the sacrifice of those just selfless enough to face horrors, I’d feel bad letting them do it without me, if and when I am capable to help.
But this is only as long as the thing we’d defend is worth defending. Our current state definitely is. I’m openly pan-sexual enby, and nobody looks at me twice. I get to work, study, participate in society just like most everyone do. If that is in danger, I won’t sit down and wait for them to come for me and my kin.
But I also don’t think anyone else should be forced to do that, unless they really do want to and understand the horrors of what it will be.
I have the benefit of military training and familiarity with guns and warfare in general (in theoretical level, though, which is still better than nothing), so I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t put those to use in defense of my fellow minorities often persecuted elsewhere.
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Putin always had designs to re-create the Russian empire, with Europe included, and the US as a puppet state.
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So, the US and Russia are the aggressors, so, they need to be repelled, right?
Which costs money.
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Finally Ukraine is getting the help they need!
This might actually be the silver lining of it all.
There has been an uncomfortable disparity between words of support and actual support. I heard many times that the ultimate goal the Pentagon wants to achieve is Russia not losing the war. Out of (comprehensible) fear a falling dictator might throw a last Tantrum235. Germany has also been firmly sitting on the brakes from the start. Remember 5000 helmets? And the (for some Ukrainians literally) gut-tearing discussions at each and every step, wether this is Putins red line, or that is Putins red line, wether this or that might escalate the war, all while Putin escalates the war.
Now that the DSA have kissed themselves goodbye, Europe seems to finally realize what's at stake and oops they can do something about it. So there is hope Germany might get it's fat ass off the track. There is even talk about Germany taking a leadership role, though given the context, this must be dark humour. Gotta love that.
Fingers crossed Europe unites in action and Ukraine is getting the help they need! Doing otherwise would send a strong signal to the new Imperialists in east and west that you can pick and chew at our borders, be it the Baltics or Greenland.
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Them not being involved in the peace talks underlines again how indispensable nuclear weapons are, sadly.
The DSA playing hopscotch with whose ally they are underlines how worthless a shared nuclear umbrella can be.
So a grim lesson for Ukraine, Europe, Taiwan and pretty much any country with any border tensions, or anything another aspiring imperialist might find desireable: Get nukes, own them yourselfes, or risk being thrown aside or being steamrolled. Trump undoing decades of existential anti-proliferation work in mere days.
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Hah, strong reply.
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Peace is not achieved by spending trillions in war. Look around yourself what's happening there's no peace.
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We either stop them and oppose their military spending
You notice that's a luxury exclusive to one side in that conflict? This freedom of speech, even forming a vocal political opposition.
There have been people trying to do exactly that in Russia, but they all have died, vanished or gone silent.If the dictatorship takes over (for example, due to a lack of resistance), you lose these privileges and are then sent to the grinder anyways.
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Nobody should help authoritarian governments and nobody should sell weapons to them. Ukranian people and the ukranian government are two different things, same goes for every country.
Standing up to bullies is worse than being a bully?
Nobody is standing up to shit, russians are chilling in saudi arabia docked next to americans yachts bought with money from the military industry.
Stand up against useless wars and military spending
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-preparedness-the-road-to-universal-slaughter
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Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning got persecuted for exposing war crimes. The west is as much corrupted as russia, just take a look at the news reporting on the latest US oligarch
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I don't get why the EU still wants to maintain its confrontation mode? Wouldn't it be better to just find peaceful solutions for the future?
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Are you a Russian bot
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But this is only as long as the thing we’d defend is worth defending.
What are you defending that is so precious to throw your live over like that? The orange man country and its mega corps oligarchs?
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-preparedness-the-road-to-universal-slaughter
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No. Are u an EU bot?
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I think the reason is: because the EU has seen nothing good coming recently from Trump's or Putin's mouth.
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Putin's previous record is that he poisons opposition figures, attacks countries and attempts to conquer them. He has not resigned from the goal of controlling Ukraine yet, so there is no reason to come out of war mode - and indeed, perhaps going deeper into war mode will make him willing to let go.
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Trump's previous record is that he makes a mess where he goes, has previously obstructed military assistance to Ukraine multiple times. On his best days, he behaves like a protection racket.
Those two are currently negotiating "behind the shed" somewhere.
What EU is doing, is putting together a contingency plan for a possible outcome: Trump helping reach an agreement which Ukraine cannot accept, and US support to Ukraine ceasing to flow.
In that case, the EU must move enough military resources to replace the US. The package volume (0.7 US defense budgets, in addition to EU countries' individual defense budgets) indicates that it's a "replace the US" package.
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Germany has also been firmly sitting on the brakes from the start. Remember 5000 helmets?
Remember how it took like two days to overturn 70 years of precedence of "no weapons delivery into crisis regions"? Without us actually having a debate about it because there was an overwhelming majority for it from the get-go? Those 5000 helmets were part of the initial "find what we have and what we can legally send" order, which then arrived in Ukraine in the same shipment as the first actual weapons.
The, say, tank situation is ambiguous, I don't have enough insider information to actually make a judgement. Either Germany said "only if the US says it's ok" or Germany said "let's put some political pressure on the US to get into the game, to commit". Ultimately, Germany shipped everything but Taurus. I think we should -- and much of the parliament agrees. Majority, actually, but not the governing majority so as is tradition parties voted against their own actual position. I guess that it's being held back so something is being held back so that certain peacenik SPD parliamentarians can be assuaged.
So there is hope Germany might get it’s fat ass off the track.
FDP is probably out and with that ideological (instead of merely populist) sentiment against spending money, Black-Green looks quite likely and in case anyone is confused yes the Greens are hawkish AF about this one. The discussions around Yugoslavia turned them from singing kumba ya into liberal interventionists and I haven't heard "olive-green" used as an insult in quite a while.
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Truly a shame, but does not lead to your conclusion. If you cannot get the irony about you publicly complaining that you cannot publicly complain much like in Russia, then I'm afraid I cannot help you further.
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Si vis pacem, para bellum
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The west is as much corrupted as russia
You did not check. Go and find some sources to confirm your claim.
- I also suggest counting how many opposition leaders sit in prison or have been recently killed in the west, preferably per capita (for about a billion people). Then I suggest comparing that to Russian figures (for 140 million people).
- After that, I suggest checking out how longer the ruling politicians have been ruling.
I claim that the west is considerably less corrupt than Russia. I offer a source too (below). I also claim that the west is an incredibly safe place to be in opposition, and that power changes hands frequently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
"Both sides bad" is running like a disease among some leftist circles. Mostly Western leftists who have never seen Russia up close. It's a nice false excuse to do nothing.
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Remember how it took like two days to overturn 70 years of precedence of “no weapons delivery into crisis regions”?
Oh, thanks. Yeah, now I remember making that jump, too, although it took me more than two days. Wild times.
Hofreiter (Greens) put it quite well ... something like ... not our ideals have changed, but the world has changed, brutally so.
I think you did well in dialing back my comment and adding more context, although I still think there was truth in it.
