Who does—and doesn’t—support sending U.S. troops to Ukraine

Sounds like you are gaslighting me.
If YOU are in Ukraine and you have to take sides - Ukraine or Russia - who do YOU chose?

 

That's not what is being discussed ... you lost the thread somewhere along the way - first time you asked this question.. the answer to which is obvious .. but relates not to anything discussed previously.

 

If the 'obvious' answer is yes, you would support Ukraine then we are on the same page.
And had we not defended Georgia, for instance, we wouldn't be here talking about Ukraine.

 

Yes to the Ukraine Team .. but .. We didn't defend Georgia ?

 

And we didn't defend Belarus, Sth Ossetia, Crimea, Donbas etc..
These places had large majorities of Russians.

 

The poll that Mike showed is about the what if scarerio that would happen here, aka an invasion by a foreign military force. As I pointed out, I could not find the actual question or questions being used and there was another poll about using "Red Dawn" style tactics if they do. The numbers are completely different between the two sets of polls.

That being said, a number of conservatives on this board, in the media, and a few congresspersons have showed support for Russia, dimissed Russia, or even said Russia was all justified. Also, all in the name that Biden is the true evil person and not Putin. That is the summary.

 

Most notably trump, after calling Putin's strategy genius, still has not denounced Putin.

He has denounced the parents of fallen soldiers, war heroes, people who have devoted to or given their lives for public service, people with incapacitating diseases... he even got up at 3 AM to denounce a former Miss America. But he won't say one bad thing about war criminals like Putin, or his love Kim Jong Un.

And trump is still the clear leader of the republican party.

 

Well, he did joke about bombing Russia after putting Chinese signs on our planes.

 

He certainly has not denounced Putin as the war criminal he has proven himself to be beyond any doubt.

The trump GOP is essentially an arm of the Russian Government at this point.

Did you see where Tucker Carlson is a favorite with the Kremlin?

At least most people have stopped laughing when you talk about a threat from Russia. I guess Putin threatening to go nuclear adjusted some attitudes.

 

You said "had we not defended Georgia" . Putin would not be doing Ukraine.

Now you say is because we didn't defend these places ? Not sure what you are trying to say here.

 

The two statements are correct.
1 - we didn't defend Georgia (mostly 'cos we don't want a fight, and Georgia being mostly Russian is a handy excuse)
2 - Putin was encouraged to think we wouldn't defend Ukraine either

 

And, that is a clear indication of his total childishness when it comes to issues that require serious thought and leadership.

He leads the Republican party. And, THAT is what he contributes, along with praise for Putin.

 

I'm not sure what you think we should have done in the case of Georgia.

But, the idea that we should declare war on Russia due to its invasion and likely conquest of Ukraine is ridiculous.

We're providing both military and aid as well as contributing to the leadership and execution of sanctions.

Are you really hoping for war?

 

I love what Napoleon said, 'Don' interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.'
And Russia has made a serious mistake with Ukraine.
To set up a no-fly zone, or send in NATO troops for instance, interrupts Putin's mistake
and gives him a new lease of life to expand the war into a European one. That's not
smart.

 

OK, but I think it starts earlier than that.

Consider for a moment that Putin ISN'T making a mistake.

It would still be a major mistake on OUR part to go to war against Russia, especially as an us v them war where we obviously declare ourselves the "good guys" as we move the entire world toward WWIII without so much as their consent.

So, I'm glad you came to the right conclusion. But, ...

 

With Georgia you should have raised the cost for Putin to take the country.
Same for Crimea.
Economists give the West 3/10 for the Crimean sanctions, and Putin was able to work around these.
Same economists give the West 8/10 for the Ukraine sanctions - this should have applied to Crimea,
at the very least. This way Putin would never have set foot in Ukraine.

Australia just sued Russia for the downed airliner. America should have taken the step, when it was
cleared that Putin had lied to Australia about fully co-operating in the enquiry, to shut down Russian
air travel to all member states of the airline federation.

 

This smacks of moral equivalency.
Putin's Russia is a pretty bad place. The CEO of IKEA had to pay Putin three million dollars US just
to interview him in his 'anti corruption' years, just so the CEO could highlight on-going corruption
against his franchise.
See that girl on state TV with the placard? What will she get, 15 years? Disappear forever like many
journalists?

 

It's good to watch history and see what worked and what didn't.

But, there are differences in each situation. Blaming people for mistakes in history is not a great approach.

I'm all for harsh sanctions today. Harsher if possible.

There still are cases where places in Europe depend on Russia for important products. There are places where countries depend on Ukraine, too. So, there are complexities.

 

I missed your "moral equivalency" argument.

I think we can agree that Putin is an absolutely horrible human being in all respects.

But, what does that mean in terms of US policy?

 

It's when you say the West can't stand up to so and so tyrant/general/fascist/thug/Communist/Jihadi
'because we are no better.'
When clearly.... we are better.

 

OK, first of all I was commenting on going to war, NOT on sanctions, NOT on holding off on giving aid including weapons.

The issue with going to war is that leading Earth to WWIII without the consent of the rest of Earth is not something we have a moral right to do, no matter how good we think we are.

I don't see a legit way to pitch that as moral equivalency. In fact, I'm saying it is not about equivalency.

 

Logistics personnel to manage the military aid flow and training personnel to optimize use.

 

Please turn that into a sentence and identify who you're talking about.

I may agree with you, but it's hard to tell.

 

We should send logistics personnel to manage the military aid flow and training personnel to optimize use.