As usual, you have it all 100% backwards. Not surprising since you are a Russian propagandist.
Russia secretly invaded Ukraine in 2014 as pure expansionism, when they finally admitted the invasion their excuse was Russians in Crimea were being poorly treated and a fear extremists would take over Russian military bases, having absolutely nothing to do with NATO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation#:~:text=Russia%20eventually%20admitted%20its%20troops,Russian%20military%
20infrastructure%20by%20extremists%22.

NATO is now “creeping into buffer countries” because Russia started and continues an expansionist policy and threatens its neighbors. Russian expansionism started first. There have been 3 rounds of NATO expansion since Russia started retaking now sovereign lost satellite territories in 2014.
There was never an agreement that NATO wouldn’t accept new members, just as there’s nothing stopping Russia from making allies.
Ukraine was going to be an EU country until Russia’s installed “president” ignored the people and chose Russia over Ukraine and was deposed and expelled so Ukrainians could democratically choose their own leadership which they did. Then Russia invaded.
There was absolutely no chance of them joining NATO until after the invasion, now it’s a near certainty.

Democracy in Europe IS our business. We will be fighting this war at some time, either now while Russia is weak and poor through a proxy or later when we are in a much weaker position fighting them with American soldiers directly…much better to choose now for less money and zero Americans, I know you would prefer to just let Putin re-annex the Balkan states and expand as far as he chooses, returning to socialist communism under his tyrannical leadership, but the free world would prefer to stay free.

And again, it is our business as I clearly explained to you repeatedly because we signed, and actually directed the trilateral disarmament agreement in 92 when we agreed to secure their borders against any incursion and they gave up nuclear weapons the collapsing soviets couldn’t afford to secure themselves. You would make any future agreements, and any current treaties moot and impossible to guarantee because our guarantee is worse than worthless. So shortsighted and not smart. It’s important to keep your word internationally, I know as a MAGgot that doesn’t make sense, just like telling the truth even if it hurts you doesn’t make sense to you…honesty and honor are foreign concepts to your ilk.
It would be nice if you could remember being so wrong so I didn’t have to correct you over and over and over on the exact same topic…but you can’t admit you are wrong so you will forget you were proven wrong, again, and spout the same ignorance, again, forever. So sad and mentally defective….it’s a main feature of MAGA, severe brain damage.

Walk away MAGA policies would hand the world to China, Russia, and N Korea without a word of complaint, then confusion over where our allies are when they come for us.
Ukraine is a war Russia started, one that’s being won by Ukraine with help, and one that has crippled Russia for decades to come WAY cheaper than any American policy could have. Give Joe credit, fine, Joe bankrupted Russia and destroyed their military…I don’t give him that credit, you do.

No, leftists said he would bring us into ruin, and that if he followed trough with his stated intentions he would bring us into war…but he never follows through and caved to China and Russia instead of standing strong for American ideals, interests, and Western democracy. He nearly did start a war by assassinating Iranian government officials and Syrians. I remember when you said ISIS was a nothing burger and not worth paying attention to, right before they took near half of Iraq and Syria, started attacking Americans, and we went to war with them in 2017…who was president then?
We were still at war in Afghanistan when he left office, he had just surrendered unconditionally to the Taliban and Al Qaeda under an agreement they broke repeatedly, but we were still there until Biden (poorly) facilitated the retreat Trump negotiated. Trump/MAGA didn’t avoid or end wars. Nice try at revisionism.

The policy bringing the US near war today is our Israel policy that is the same unthinking blind support for Israel from both parties, same from both presidential candidates. We are in direct military actions endangering American soldiers daily because of THAT conflict, not because of Ukraine. The unbridled ignorance is disappointing even from you. 🤦‍♂️

Ending wars by capitulating like Trump did with Crimea and surrendering unconditionally like Trump did in Afghanistan is not “winning”, it’s losing without even trying and hands the world to dictators.

In short-The small population of Arab natives along with a native Jewish minority welcomed a relatively small number of European Jewish refugees in the (edit:20’s and early) 30’s while under British rule (but with a date set for their independence by the League of Nations, a date that came and went without ever establishing a Palestinian state). Then in the 40’s (even by mid 30’s)the Jewish minority, America, and England ignored their pleas to minimize immigration, ignored immigration laws, and invited a major invasion, so many European Jews came illegally that the Arab natives quickly became the minority, then had all rights stripped by the now well armed invaders that now claimed their land and property…invaders that kept coming by the millions. How is that not an invasion of squatters?
It’s a complete abandonment of the Palestinian Mandate the Brits ruled under, which was allowed internationally after ww1 for the sole purpose of getting Palestine in a position to rule themselves, something the Brits failed to even try then actively sabotaged by supporting the mass immigration of millions of European Jews, and was the biggest possible “fuck off and die” to the Palestinian people that had cooperated fully with the international plan for their independent future that was unceremoniously stripped from them and handed to Israel.
From that point, details don’t matter so much. Invading occupying forces don’t get to whine because the natives won’t just go away and die….at least I’m not listening when they do. Want to stop being attacked, stop murdering innocents and taking land.

I wonder why you think Israel is not so dominant seeing as they already proved repeatedly their military dominance even when their neighbors band together. Not one of the countries you mentioned has an advanced military, they are last gen at best, really two or more generations behind, and have third world resources not trillions to spend. Iraq proved that advanced weapons beat numbers hands down every single time. Unless Iran gets a nuke capable of getting through the highest levels of missile defense on the planet, their “neighbors” (Palestines allies) pose no actual threat to Israel and a pretty minor threat to the expansionist settlers invading Palestine.

I never ignored any rolls of the neighbors supporting, arming, and instigating unrest…but those roles are minuscule compared to the actions of Israel. Nothing recruits for Hamas like the Israeli army. Nothing creates more terrorists than murderous settlers. No other factor has 1% the effect that Israel’s own actions do in creating enemies.
Murderous expansionist settlers should be eliminated with prejudice immediately. They are the biggest factor driving Israel’s murderous regime to murder more innocents.
If Israel acted civilly instead of treating the natives like the Nazis treated them, its neighbors couldn’t easily convince angry teens to pick up guns and shoot Israelis. Give the Palestinians something to lose, or they’ll have nothing to lose, a chip on their shoulder, and a clear enemy responsible for their plight. This is the official recipe for a terrorist.

Blaming the neighbors is like claiming N Carolina is RESPONSIBLE for all shootings in N Y because some guns used are procured there…nonsense. They are complicit, but minimally so. It’s the shooters motives you need to look at, not the store they use. Why are they so ready to sacrifice their lives to just shoot or throw rocks AT Israel (99/100 times hitting nothing)? Because they have nothing to lose but life in an ever shrinking ghetto ruled over by a foreign racist regime that wants them just gone and is more than happy to starve children to death and bomb refugee camps to accomplish that goal.
The neighbors didn’t invade, expel, ghettoize, and gleefully murder the Palestinian people, that was Israel.

Blaming the victims is not an argument that will win many over…and no question the Palestinian people are the TRUE and only victims.

Where are the European countries now…the same ones that facilitated the Jewish invasion should be obligated to enforce the borders, and/or take the Palestinian refugees and free them from the ghetto/prison Israel keeps them in….but none are.

Side note- I keep hearing people who support Palestinians described as anti semitic. It bears noting that European Jews, the VAST majority of Israelis, are NOT Semitic…but all Palestinians are. Being pro-Israel is actually and factually anti-Semitic.

If the US had used directed weather as a weapon in Iraq, or breached levies to flood cities it would have been proper to laugh at the ironic disaster in New Orleans. Remember, the support for attacking the wrong country to retaliate for 9/11 was incredibly high (yes, thinly predicated on what are now known to be blatant lies…we didn’t care), we were not a nation of innocents…(I personally supported attacking Saidi Arabia and doing limited but overwhelming “police actions” in Afghanistan to completely destroy the actual perpetrators, then rebuild any collateral damage better and make friends, and never bought the rationale for invading Iraq beyond “they tried to kill my daddy”- GB…but who listens to me?)

I felt it was karma specifically balancing the universe for the Ukrainian dam they blew up in a terrorist action just over 2 months ago, not the continuing invasion of Ukraine that’s been ongoing and expanding continuously since 2014 when Ukrainian Crimea was invaded and “annexed” by Russia, a move seemingly universally applauded in Russia.

I think there’s delicious schadenfreude in the very religious country that continues to support repeated violent genocidal expansionism against peaceful neighbors thinly predicated on blatant lies (but that support is waning slightly as the war and truth comes home), the aggressor nation that among numerous war crimes intentionally destroyed a major dam to sew chaos destruction and death as they retreated from portions of Ukraine and set forest fires for the same reason having to deal with forest fires and dam failures as “acts of god”, not even from military retaliation.

I do feel a bit bad for the individuals and families if reports of 12 dead are true (it’s Russian news, so likely untrue), but that number is dwarfed by those intentionally killed in their names by the dam destruction in Ukraine.

Agreed on the narration…it was the only coverage I found at the time….well, there was this but even I found it in bad taste…

I didn't laugh or celebrate when Katrina hit New Orleans the year after the US invaded Iraq. I won't celebrate a dam bursting in far east Russia the year after they invade Ukraine.

I don't think the people of Ussuriysk deserved wildfires any more than the people of California.

It's not karma. If you want you can call it bad luck, or mankind suffering due to our own effect on the planet.

Plus, I would have thought an AI wrote that script except I think it would have done a better job. Am I missing context when it comes to 'the flood'? Badly written, badly voiced, but not quite enough for me to downvote.

*dead
Short version…

Can't judge without knowing more details, but I'll give him benefit of the doubt and assume the women and children were unintended casualties or bystanders, perhaps from long range attack or grenades thrown blindly. "military precision" is a dumb phrase because there have been so many civilian casualties (estimates > 500k in Iraq)

A find it interesting that after correcting himself and saying Ukraine, he then says Iraq too.

The U.S. doesn't fight hand to hand ground wars against governments.
China won't be fighting a guerilla war.

China has men, not current equipment. Remember Saddam...he had WAY more tanks, we hardly lost one because ours are infinitely better. Same goes for Chinese, rifles don't beat high altitude bombers.

Kuwait. Iraq.

Everyone loses to those goat farmers, they're called the graveyard of empires for a reason. Russia lost big time, and are so dumb they're poised to try again. We lost the day we went in with troops instead of an assassination squad.

yes, that is all too true. can be very successful yet be oblivious to the realities around them.

- remember an interview w/Ted Turner, while he was on top in the cable world (CNN was king). when speaking about business matters; very insightful. But when the questions about current affairs came around; he gave his opinion then changed it or said IDK anytime the interview offered a counterpoint.

- in an interview w/Colin Powell, as Sec of State, when the interviewer tried to corner him on how, looking at his GPA in HS and college, he ever made it to a 4-star general? all Colin would do was smile and say (something like) "It's good to be American. It offers many great opportunities to many people." That line of questioning ending in both parties smiling and chuckling.

- had to show our valedictorian how to put air into a tire. watching them struggle was hilarious but made one empathic.

also the belief anyone can become the president of the U.S.A. is both inspiring and terrifying. (as we all know now)

****

seeing this video, and the truth of the above sentence is a reason why education should become one of the top three, if not top, priorities, and quests of this nation. paired w/a universal form of national service* should provide all citizens will the skills to perceive wtf is actually going on.

*a former military serviceman, back from Iraq, noticed that Congress has far fewer former service members in their ranks since the early '80s. he noted in the military there are many ilks of service personnel, but they all work toward one goal. they have to - or they fail. reading this, have to believe - like Bush, Sr and Clinton both agreed on - that all Americans should put in some form of national service . since it'd foster a better understanding of other Americans: how they lived, how they were raised, their beliefs, the challenges they must face...i.e. see more than what's outside your 'bubble'.

this idea and a couple of other GREAT bipartisan ideas have waned since 9/11 but it'd be a hell of a fix.

* * * * realizing have wandered off the trail * * * *

or more concisely; to your point...

a body might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but any tool can become useful.

Good thing Biden stopped nearly another $10 Billion from being available to them through banking and the IMF, now they’re just left with the enormous piles of cash and weapons Trump shipped to the region for bribing locals to be on our side and other unethical spending he wanted off the books.

@bobknight33 doesn’t seem to know where this cash and weapons came from….it wasn’t Biden, he’s not been sending more weapons and more pallets of cash during the draw down/retreat. These were in the hands of the Afghanistan government, put there by the previous administration, largely as bribe money.

Reminds me of when Bush sent $12 billion in cash to Iraq with similar intentions and $9 billion of it went missing.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had fled the country with four cars and a helicopter full of cash and had to leave huge piles of cash behind on the tarmac as it would not all fit in, the RIA news agency reported.

I'm just glad he didn't start an Iraq type war with Iran. Hoping the new administration won't either. Fingers crossed.

the Lincon Project is old neo-cons. You might like the Iraq war they gave us. over one million dead and several million displaced.

Remember, the ACA was barely passed and had to be watered down so red state democrats would vote for it, then the states had the option to opt in or out of federal assistance. Those that opted out all had terrible experiences with higher insurance costs, states that opted in had relatively stable costs and millions insured, lowering medical costs across the board (because they didn't have to eat 30% of bills and pass the cost to the rest of their patients). Should have been universal single payer. (Side note, my insurance went up 5-10% before Trump, and more than doubled under Trump. I've had the same policy since 08.)

Funny, the people I recall claiming Daesh was a nothing burger were all Republicans, Democrats were pushing to take them on immediately when they emerged in northern Iraq. You do remember who took us into Iraq with no plan to leave, right? Not Obama.
Wasn't it Bush who decided the rules for war in Iraq, like everyone's a combatant? Obama failed to fix them and that's why he lost my second vote, not doing enough...granted he had a pure obstructionist Senate so was stimied, but I expected more.

I feel like people's political memories only go back through Obama now, and that's just dumb. Our history is much longer, our memories should be too.

TLDW: Iraq was trounced, America and friends had fun swinging their explosive dicks around.