they don’t care that it was a disaster for Ukraine

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5687528&forum_id=2Elisa#48705286)

Are they volunteering to form battalions to fight against Putin's army?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5687528&forum_id=2Elisa#48705291)

by "support" they mean "endless billions for the human meat grinder with no end goal defined or achievable."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5687528&forum_id=2Elisa#48705297)

The fundamental problem is that the admin doesn’t necessarily subscribe to this. Vance and trump and the new right have an affinity for Orban, the AFD, and Putin. They repeat Russian talking points from Twitter. It’s not crazy to assume trump and Vance have their finger on the scale for Russia.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5687528&forum_id=2Elisa#48705441)

I'd concede that the US made mistakes in handling Ukraine in the past and if someone were to say hubris and arrogance among midwit diplomats encouraged Ukraine to believe they could join Nato down the road plus other actions that upset the Russians, yes, I'd say there's some fault here. But this is not tantamount to justifying Russia's invasion of Ukraine by any stretch of the imagination.

Your going on the record accusing Trump and now Vance of being Putin puppets is bizarre. As Trump said yesterday, it was he who gave Ukraine javelins while Obama gave Ukraine sheets. And part of the deal Trump had lined up was going to continue giving Ukraine weapons. And Trump is right you're not going to bring Putin to the table and get a good deal out of him if you force Trump to badmouth Putin on live TV.

I'm aware people hate Trump for refusing to call Putin a dictator and badmouthing Putin, but "grown up" diplomacy utterly failed under the Biden administration and from the Europeans so when people shout about Trump, just remember they also did diddly squat to bring the war to an end and there is still no plan from them after three years of a brutal invasion and warfare in which hundreds of thousands have died. "Supporting" Ukraine at this point means giving them billions for hundreds of thousands more to die while you get to pat yourself in the back and sleep easily in your safe bedroom in the US, assured you're doing the morally right thing. But is it really morally right? I'm not sure it is, even if it is ostensibly about pushing back Putin, an indisputably evil man. Because if there's one thing life definitely tells us it's that you can never come back from death. Ever. Urging warfare and deaths in the name of morals makes me queasy.

I'm actually now envisioning a situation where because of the rush to defend and justify Zelensky, the Europeans double down on their aid and begin to send peacekeeper forces to support Ukrainians, and next thing you know the whole continent slides into a WWIII that is a parallel to WWI, endless slaughter over inches of land and bankrupting everyone in the process. Everyone is focused on Putin as the next Hitler but it's really WWI with its grand alliances suckering everyone into a disastrous quagmire that is really the better comparison.

Meanwhile China laughs all the way to the bank.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5687528&forum_id=2Elisa#48705514)

Trump is a complicated figure and between you and me I'd like to have seen stronger language from him about Putin and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But I am not going to fall into the trap of believing it means Moscow has some stranglehold over him (after a decade of this belief along the left there's still no evidence whatsoever this is anything more than a left wing conspiracy theory). And especially not Vance.

I can see that both Trump and Vance aren't concerned whether other countries are nice democracies or not, they see the world strictly in transactional terms, US first and what the rest of the world can do for the US. They have seen other "nice democracies" not be very nice to the US and even to the concept of democratic liberalism (thus Vance's speech in Munich a few weeks ago) so they are not interested in playing the game of lots of agreements but no action EU style except the assumption that the US pays the bill every time.

Trump has said many times, many, many times in fact, he wants the war to end. That has always been a clear goal for him. In his ego he sees himself as the ultimate dealmaker (note, not diplomat). His language has always been strongly tinged about the pointlessness of deaths. He is much more realistic and sincere about the actual reality of deaths and bloodshed than you or any nice talking diplomats. He has a valid point that Putin behaved himself under a Trump presidency. He also has a valid point that Putin will remain a regional player in that part of the world and we need to be strategic about it. According to all sources, Trump and Zelenski were very close to signing a deal till the last 10 minutes of the press conference, and ironically enough, it was a deal lambasted by the "grown ups" as having a farcical rare earths component but it would have given Ukraine continued aid and support and a greater American role as a deterrent against Putin in exchange for a mirage Trump could have sold to the skeptics in the US. Now that seems gone (for now).

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5687528&forum_id=2Elisa#48705836)

This matters because we can’t trust these two to be good negotiators for UKR. Ending the war in a way that encourages Russia to continue its violence on the continent is not a good deal. If you were pursuing a divorce and you walked in to arbitrator’s office and saw her dressed in a tshirt that said “fuck men. Gurl power!” would you be confident that the resulting decision was going to be a good one for you? You might get finality but certainly not a determination that would be good for your future. The sad part is that a good deal is obtainable now but I think trump and Vance are all too happy to fuck over UKR and stick it to Europe. That’s in line with their rhetoric on the issue.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5687528&forum_id=2Elisa#48705871)

Anyone with a brain has an affinity for them

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5687528&forum_id=2Elisa#48705847)