Are you invited? If so, then I'm impressed. My invitation must have been lost somehow in the mail.
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Are you invited? If so, then I'm impressed. My invitation must have been lost somehow in the mail.
It's over with. Note the date. I wore my long purple gown and tennis shoes. It was potluck, so I brought a wonderful Corn Casserole and Teriyaki Chicken Wings. The best part of the event was the display and adoption of shelter animals. I now share my life with a beautiful Golden Retriever!
Uhm...no, you weren't there. But I have no doubt you can make a killer corn casserole.
Want the recipe? Mrs. Markarova couldn't wait to duplicate it at home for Christmas dinner!
I'd be happy to give it to my wife. Wisely, we let her do the cooking around here.
haven't made corn casserole but I whip up casseroles with tuna or other left overs . I grill all types of chicken wings recipes . One of the best things about being in SC is that I can fire up the grill almost year round .
20 years in Afghanistan . But in the end the people of Afhanistan are free at last Right ?
Afghanistan: Taliban closes universities to women - BBC News
Another great big vote of thanks to the Biden admin.
Yeah, Clueless screwed up the withdrawal. But it became a failed mission when we did not chase OBL into Pakistan and destroy him and anyone who got in the way. When we decided to try to turn this pedophile ;woman hating ;goat fornicating culture into a liberal democracy the mission was doomed to failure.
This is all retrospect because I bought into the narrative that people yearn for liberty. But in truth many people in this world are content with serfdom (including in the good ole USA) .
We should've left and told them we would destroy any terror camp but otherwise if they want to live in the stone age it isn't our concern.
Just about right. If it was just a matter of a few bucks, then different story, but when it becomes a matter of blood then that's too much.Quote:
We should've left and told them we would destroy any terror camp but otherwise if they want to live in the stone age it isn't our concern.
Navy leaders are sounding the alarm . Soon we will have a choice ;arm Ukraine or arm the US. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro ,and James G. Stavridis; retired U.S. Navy admiral who formerly served as the NATO supreme allied commander for Europe from 2009 to 2013,both raised concerns .
Navy Secretary Warns: If Defense Industry Can’t Boost Production, Arming Both Ukraine and the US May Become ‘Challenging’ - Defense One
Starvis predicted a stalemate for some time with Ukraine having the advantage on the ground and Russia owning the sky . Curious then that the next big push by the West is to give tanks to Ukraine. The battlefield is littered with the carcass of tanks . The Russians were not able to gain an advantage on the ground with tanks and neither did Ukraine . Drones,mobile anti-tank equipment,IEDs,attack helicopters and precision artillery have laid them to waste. Tanks are no longer adequately defended.
The arsenal is being depleted and production has not been ramped up sufficently to replace the arms we are sending . Given costs and supply chain challenges and $$$$$$$costs it will not happen soon.
Part of the air defense concerns will be addressed when Patriot systems get deployed . That will mean extensive training of Ukraine personnel.
They are coming to America for that purpose. Why don't we just declare war and get it over with ?
Ukrainian Troops Headed to U.S. for Patriot Missile Training > U.S. Department of Defense > Defense Department News
btw ;350,000 Russian conscripts have been concentrated on the Ukraine Belarus border ;and are waiting for the ground to freeze to open a new front in the war. The Belarusian defense ministry confirmed the arrival of the contingent last week . This force will be combined with troops from Belarus .
The fact is that fighting in the areas in the south and east that have seen the heavy concentration of WWI style combat is slowly bleeding Ukraine's ability to conduct the war .
'In this war, the ordinary infantryman is nothing': Ukrainian soldiers in Donbas feel abandoned and outgunned | CBC NewsQuote:
But in the country's east, where Russian forces are intensifying efforts on the embattled Donbas region, weeks of brutal combat have pushed the defenders to a breaking point.
Now, under ceaseless bombardment and after immense casualties, some Ukrainian troops say they are feeling abandoned by their leadership — left to die in hopeless conditions.
Ukraine succeeded in fighting a force of 160,000 poorly led Russians to a standstill in the 1st year of the war. Russia has adapted and reinforced. Ukraine just does not have the manpower to reinforce in kind.
In the first year?? Do you mean the war that was supposed to be a walkover for Russia in THREE DAYS?Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Why are you supporting Russia with your posts?
Evidently telling the truth now amounts to supporting Russia.
I ask you why you favor the wholesale slaughter of Ukraine . They can't win this war . Yes Russian ineptitude and massive western arms have prolonged the war , So far all it has done is destroy a generation of Ukrainians
Show me where I have supported Russia unless you mean I do not swallow the government line since the fall of the Soviet Union
I am a realist, I am quite sure that the REAL reason for the war was NATO and EU expansion towards the Russian border .U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border ;and the Ukrainians are paying the price.
This is not new starting with Putin. Before him Yeltzin warned about NATO expansion during NATO's air campaign against their ally Serbia.
Yeltsin Lashes Out at NATO Strikes in Bosnia - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)Quote:
Yeltsin pointed to the NATO attacks as evidence that Russia has much to fear from Western plans to broaden the alliance to include former Soviet republics and former Communist countries in Eastern Europe.
“It would be a major political error on the part of those who are now insisting on expanding NATO,” Yeltsin warned. “It will mean a conflagration of war throughout all Europe.”
With its bombing raids aimed at forcing the Serbian rebels to the negotiating table, “NATO is already showing what it is capable of,” Yeltsin stated--"only of bombing, and then counting the trophies of how many are killed among the civilian population.”
But the Russians were too weak at the time to stop NATO’s eastward movement.
After incorporating most former eastern block nations that did not border Russia (except the Baltic States )into NATO , NATO all but gave an invitation to Georgia and Ukraine to join. in 2008
Russia invaded Georgia to protect Russian ethnic regions . That should've been a warning that we had pushed Russia as far as Russia would go . We were willing to have a world war in 1963 for less than what we have done to threaten their national security .
But there was more .
2014 the US not so covertly assisted in the overthrow of the Russia friendly duly elected President of Ukraine ( according to international observers ) Viktor Yanukovych He rejected the European Union’s terms for an association agreement in late 2013, in favor of a Russian offer. That was enough to oust him.
John McCain went to Kiev to dine with opposition leaders and demonstrate US support for their cause . Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs under the emperor traveled to Ukraine three times in the weeks following the start of the demonstrations to demonstrate US support for them.Russian intelligence intercepted and leaked to the international media a Nuland phone call in which she and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffey Pyatt discussed in detail their preferences for specific personnel in a post‐Yanukovych government. In other words ;the US was planning a post coup government while Yanukovych was still the country's President . So much for respecting the democratic process.,
The so called Euromaidan Revolution toppled him .The emperor's regime and the compliant press called it a popular uprising against a brutal regime without stating their own meddling
Russia reacted by seizing control of Crimea for fear Russia would lose it's naval base there .
Russia was pushed into a corner and we were ,shocked , shocked that they pushed back
The REAL reason for the war was Russia invading Ukraine! Duh.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Your reasons are the same as Russian propaganda.Quote:
Show me where I have supported Russia
Maybe but there are plenty foreign policy experts in the country that agree with my POV.
Some are
John Mearsheimer ;the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago
The author of America's policy of containment and former US Ambassador to Russia,the late George Kennan was a long time critic of US post Cold War policies .
The late profesor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University, Stephen F Cohen (husband of Katrina vanden Heuvel ) was very critical of NATO expansion ;and predicted it would lead to war.
None of tbese and many others in the realist school of American foreign policy can be truthfully charged with being Russian propagandists .
Apologists for an indefensible US post cold war policy accuse critics of being propagandists to shut them up
None of those mentioned support Putin's policy of invading his neighbors to create a new Russian Empire.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
They all predicted that would be the result . Did we come to the brink in 1963 because the Russian were threatening us from Cuba ? It was only good luck that prevented it .
That is where we are today except now there is no back door diplomacy occurring that I know of . All there is is escalation.
You don't back down in the face of a bully. You confront the bully whether it's a person or a nation.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Lack of confrontation in 1939 led to WW2 and 50+ million dead.
So you want us to send troops in to fight ? Because that is the ONLY way Ukraine can win. The Russians have been sloppy ;replacing Generals as often as Lincoln had to until he found Grant . Grant basically bludgeoned the South into submission. The Union had fodder to spare .The South didn't .
Russia has not even committed to full mobilization while Ukraine is losing a generation and the Ukraine diaspora grows .
We talk of sending offensive weapons like tanks . I already mentioned that they have outlived their purpose in modern warfare . It is like the Brits sending the Light Brigade into a cannon formation during the at the Battle of Balaclava Crimea .
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
There's unconfirmed talk about sending a handful of Abram tanks that would make no difference; or some old German Leopard II tanks (which reportedly would take a year to renovate ) The Brits talk about sending 10 Challenger II tanks(bulky huge slow and a complicated tank to operate _)
Ukraine needs at least a thousand to make any difference. What have they gotten in armored vehicles from us ? Dribs and drabs.
50 Bradley's about as many to equip a company or 2 .
U.S. weapons package for Ukraine includes 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles -officials | Reuters
We don't have any more to give without seriously depleting our own stock .
The M777 howitzers we sent are being destroyed by Russian drones and .Ukrainian mishandling . The barrels have to be swapped out in Poland ,not close to the battlefield .
Artillery Is Breaking in Ukraine. It’s Becoming a Problem for the Pentagon. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
In less than a year we have sent them over a million rounds of artillery shells .
Ukraine Has Received Over A Million Artillery Rounds From The U.S. (thedrive.com)
At the start of the war Ukraine had over a thousand tanks ;missile systems armored carriers . They have all been destroyed . All the weapons sent by former Warsaw pact nations like Poland have all been destroyed .At least they could operate those . All the NATO weapons being sent cannot be used without extensive training .
Even if properly trained it just is not enough to make a difference . But we can go on with a clear conscience that 'oh well ;we tried '
Western propaganda feeds on wishful thinking fantasy that Ukraine can win and Russia that big boogieman threat from the mid 20th century will be destroyed .
What is our real bottom line ? How far will we commit before we do our typical cut and run ? No one challenges the premise so instead we go on suspending disbelief .
Ukraine's army is bleeding out and we keep sending them false hope. Once the war became a Verdun like war of attrition their fate was sealed . US Grant sent waves of Union troops at the Confederates .He was willing to take the losses . The Confederates fought nobly but could not replace their losses . This is what is happening in Ukraine .
Unless NATO troops enter into the conflict ;or something domestically happens in Russia that changes leadership and policy ,then the end is a fait accompli .
It gives me no pleasure to say it . But I see it as the way it is instead of a fanciful way it should be .
The Confederates fought on in 64 and 65 in the hope (vain, as it turned out) that Lincoln would be defeated because of the enormous casualties being suffered by the North. That didn't pan out, and so defeat became inevitable. I think the Ukes are trying the same tactic. If they can make Putin look foolish enough, then perhaps he'll be deposed, and his successor might be more open to an equitable peace agreement. I'm afraid Tom's scenario is the one most likely to pan out, and it will be a tragedy for Ukraine.
The world needs to make it clear that it will not forget this savage violation of international peace by the Russkies. They should be made to pay in the long run.
Rarely mentioned is that Dem candidate General McClellan did not support ending the war. He was just opposed to abolition . He wanted to continue the fight and restore the Union.
In that he ran counter to the Dem platform of a settled and negotiated peace with an independent Confederacy. He actually divided the Dems . I am not sure that history is accurate when it contends that Lincoln's fate was dependent on battlefield victories .
The South was not going to accept a peace that forced them back into the Union .The war was existential to them . So they fought the 'Lost Cause' to it's conclusion.
Ukraine victory looks increasingly doubtful. A more likely scenario is a repeat of Putin's Chechnya campaign . He left both Chechnya (and Syria )moonscapes before the war ended (which no one in the west gave too sh+ts about ....so much for 'You don't back down in the face of a bully. You confront the bully whether it's a person or a nation.' )
The best outcome I see is a negotiated peace. The sooner the better .
I'm afraid you're right. It's a somewhat bitter pill to swallow, but it's how the world operates. I'm not sure we're doing them a big favor by enabling them to fight on.
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