JoeWeber

My error as the core point I was making is that NGO's have gone short of their defense obligations and it is becoming glaringly obvious now. So you know, €2 Billion likely won't pay for dumpster services during clean-up if Ukraine comes out of this with a country. Weapons from stocks are what they need now, not hopes and prayers later. To be completely jingoistic here, I am proud that America is doing so much and in a timely manner for Ukraine.

Large numbers of people seem unsuited to the vote, it seems. Then, of course, the bigger the game the more opportunity to create a system of favoritism over the best outcome for the most. I'm betting on the crooks.

I laughed my ass off at that. The west is doing it somehow some way. Now. We need to do it now, and apparently we are.

Yep, and at the end of the day it comes down to who is doing what. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/6/pdf/210611-pr-2021-094-en.pdf This chart also tells a tale:

Oh, I know that. I was just being glib.

Well, it was a broadly defined reference to the use of gravity as a motive force and reference to the sorts of things skydivers enjoying doing that often don't play well off of the airport.

I am fully on board about China. They already know they've won and have the patience to let it play out. I am fully persuaded that western democracies are only in the game for the next few hundred years, at best. Of course, if we want that limited time we need to focus now.

Phil, I have no illusions about the power of the US Military Industrial Complex. We have a big problem that keeps getting bigger. Nor do I blame Canada alone for the size of our defense budget. My initial posit that our NATO partners have collectively not met their spending obligations became a dialogue between myself, a well known US apologist, and Ken, a well known Canadian. Until the British anti-waiver, kidney transplant fearing, base jumping community decided to join the parade at an intersection along the way there it resided. Ken was simply, and vigorously, defending Canada's stance and I the position of the US. I was vigorously pointing out that there in fact is an agreement at the Defense Minister level that should have been honored. Apparently not everyone believes that signed agreements between Governments executed at the Minister Level are more than just mildly interesting and nothing to fret over. I disagree as firmly as I disagree that a signed agreement executed at the manifest level is a simple formality, not binding on anyone, and no more than a time consuming inconvenience. I further opined that, and please allow the paraphrase, that we who wish to see less US Defense spending don't have a snowballs chance in hell of achieving that in a world where the US right wing can argue that unless our defense partners stone up it's us or no one. Surely, anyone can argue that may or may not help the cause but doing so as a means of explaining away other internationally formed obligations is disingenuous, in my opinion. As it often, if not invariably does here, the thread drifted causing a perception of a US vs. Canada argument. That's too bad. I have zero enmity towards Canada or Canadians it was simply that I was, so to speak, involved at the time with a Canadian. For example. were it today and my correspondent was a German who made the same arguments I would equally point out that they haven't met their end of the deal either. I would further point out in accordance with the German position, recently stated, that they have no more weapons in stock to send to Ukraine that there might well be a reason for that and, no, sending 2700 moldy, decrepit, former East German Strela's MANPADS that haven't been maintained in 33 years instead is pretty sorry play. So, regardless of who is on a budget too tight to really help when it hits the fan my argument will remain the same. Thank you for accepting the thread hijack.

"There are lots of words in the treaty, but most of it seems to be based on willingness to cooperate." That is the essential element of every contract, including your car, truck, house and each and every credit card you use. It is also why you must sign a waiver at every new place you jump: because you can not be trusted on your word and neither can your family. To me it's just plain laughable that skydivers, posting online, feel just fine laughing off a written agreement.

Easy. Don't use Facebook for personal fun.

Joe, now don't go full Jakee on me, there are 113 points of agreement in the document. Are you proposing that all are ignorable after signing? https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm

I do so love it when Skydivers speak of autonomous transportation and behavior.

I'm thinking that the trolly problem is a brainchild of someone who has never won a fat hand at poker. Bottom line: if there are going to be winners there are certainly going to be losers.

Nonsense. A grammatical tour de force, as usual, but bunk nonetheless. The self styled squad are deluded and without process sense, that's a fact. But they aren't complete, Jewish space laser believing, simpletons as are Greene and her bellicose sidekick.

Now I feel bad.

Sure, and according to the article, WHICH HAS NOT BEEN REFUTED, he's a personal friend of Zelensky. Figures. Tell you what, I'd like to see what's on his laptop. You know, the one he just tricked the Army into blowing up. Seems suspicious to me.

Steel pipe and tube, steel pipe and tube, hmm... Gotta be a connection there somewhere.

Phill, why does it seem we're always getting you back up to speed? The reason he's in Poland is because rich people don't take constant disappointment and the suffering of privations as well as other folks. It disrupts their delicate sensibilities and degrades their sense of wokeness. Have a heart, man, it's really just that simple.

Super good question. Off the cuff I'd say give them the chance to stay as residents with a pathway to Ukrainian Citizenship. For any who, post the date of the Crimean invasion, were granted Russian citizenship without process or the normal procedures one would suffer applying for Russian Citizenship they would need to renounce that citizenship to stay in Ukraine. The big issue would be appearances to the outside world and feeding the right wing media with ostensible evidence of nazism in Ukraine by doing anything that could be said to be a crackdown on innocent civilians. So, for that reason I'd say Kum Ba Yah, Brothers and Sisters and wait it out.

The assault is now underway. They're feinting against the Ukrainian front and preparing to launch the encirclement. No way do I think the Ukrainians aren't prepared for this and no way do I think President Biden isn't committed to the failure of the Russian attack. The weeks ahead will be very interesting.

Look, you went too far. Just acknowledge that and move on. You know with certainty that officials below the level of the Executive are empowered to bind our nation. If the President needed to agree to every deal in person we'd be fucked. Even in small corporations executives make binding decisions. You must know that.

Do tell, Joe, what is your familiarity with responsibilities at the Defense Minister level that gives you that insight?

Because we don't yet have an autocrat who can make it happen with the wave of a Turkey Drum Stick. We just can't win for losing.

If you're hoping that I'd put anything past Trump, hope on. However, I am without your prescience on the matter and so would rely on the normal constraints on Presidential insanity to prevent our withdraw. You're right though that were it not for our NATO Allies giving the baboon the opportunity to point out that they've been cheap on splitting the bill it might never have come up.

Do you happen to recall the context and basis behind the implication?