Ted Rall for January 01, 2024

Both Afghanistan and South Vietnam were corrupt and would not fight.

Ukraine is fighting hard and needs our help.

Flawed Yes, Corrupt no. And really, what government isn’t Corrupt?

We are fighting MAGA here at home

Happy New Year, Ted.

Russia’s plan is to cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea & connect with Transnistria, That puts them in a much better position to influence Balkan politics, & ultimately pry Turkey away from NATO.

Imo, that’s a real step towards WW3.

And the Sudetenland was always Deutschland!

Look where that got us, Mr. Rall.

fusilier

James 2:24

The military-industrial-prison-education-intelligence alliance never gives up trying to sell us a bill of goods to enrich themselves and the political elite at taxpayer expense and we keep believing their BS.

In Vietnam we didn’t fight to win, we were seen as invaders, and the government was corrupt

In Afghanistan the Taliban outlasted us, we were seen as Infidels to the local population, and the government was corrupt

In Ukraine the people want our values, are fighting for their freedom from and invading army, and the government is slightly corrupt

The Domino Theory holds more water in Ukraine since the Czar of Russia wants to rebuild the Empire

Ok Ted, how about this reason…

What Russia is doing is wrong. Invading a sovereign nation, attacking and killing, bombing the citizens, is just wrong.

We can’t simply allow them to freely attack Ukraine. Ukraine was no threat to them.

There was no acceptable reason for the invasion. None. It cannot be justified.

Our support of the Ukrainian people is justifiable. It is simply the right thing to do.

I place what Russia is doing in Ukraine right alongside what we did in Iraq. We were wrong, we should have been stopped. The world should have turned its back on us. Our shame knows no bounds.

Russia under Putin is NOT the Soviet Union under the Communists. Do not confuse them. Where the Soviets merely threatened Putin will deliver.

Why do I say this? The Soviets believed our threats were real. Putin has no fear of our threats. He has no respect for us. He believes we are a weak, soft, divided nation leading a weak, divided NATO.

He believes he can beat us. He will go as far as he likes. Poland. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Germany.

Happy New Year.

Wrong historical reference on that last one, Theodore, let’s go with Germany/Poland 1939.

Did the usa buy the Vietnam war from France?

Roosevelt had died in April. OSS chief William Donovan wrote that US “should realize also its interest in the maintenance of the British, French and Dutch colonial empires”. President Truman did not reply to HCM’s offers of cooperation. The French retook Hanoi and kicked out the Viet Minh, and the Indochina war started in December 1946. In 1950, HCM obtained military aid from China and an official recognition from the USSR. As there was little doubt now that HCM was a communist, Washington agreed to provide military assistance to France. In March 1950, Truman approved a grant of $15 million. The US kept increasing its support and ended up footing the bill for the Indochina War. Up to some point: when the French asked to US to intervene in Dien Bien Phu (Operation Vulture), the Americans refused, both for political and military reasons.

From then, the US never ceased to get involved themselves in the Vietnamese civil war that opposed for 30 years Vietnamese nationalists, Communist vs non-Communist. I’ll follow below historian Pierre Journoud, who wrote a monumental PhD dissertation about Franco-American relations about Vietnam (Journoud, 2007).

I resent the idea that Ted shows here that the US military is looking for a war, trying to sell a war to the American people.

I’m not saying that it isn’t being done. I’m just saying that it isn’t our military doing it.

Ted, Last year I read a book “Stalin’s War” by Sean McMeeken. (A very thick tome!) Firstly, it radically altered my impression and opinion of FDR, but in this work, I read about what occupation by the Russians entails, in detail. When Stalin made his temporary deal with Hitler, and sent his troops into the 3 Baltic states, absolute brutality reigned over all the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, and the eastern Poles got it too. Putin is a Stalinist holdover. The West did not stop Hitler early, when they could have. After Munich, it was too late. Do you see what I am getting at? EVENTUALLY, we will have to deal with Russian expansion. I don’t like it, but sometimes conditions will impose dire challenges. Biden is not a good leader, but trump would guide us into an area no one, not even many MagaHats, would like to live under. If the U.S. sits back and abandons Ukraine, then what?

we did lose in afghanistan, we won. but biden decided was better to give it back to the talibán no question asked!

War is a lucrative enterprise for the Department of Defense and the arms industry.

If Russian military forces defeat Ukrainian defense forces, Putin will depose existing Ukrainian government members and replace them with Russians or native Ukrainians loyal to Russia.

Should Putin then be encouraged to attack, defeat, occupy, and absorb adjacent neighboring countries under absolute Russian control Ukraine-style, NATO treaties will oblige the US to support NATO retaliation.

There are two nations which have not been permitted to join NATO, almost entirely due to Russian threats of war against NATO if membership is granted, but the chances of NATO launching a full-scale counterattack against such a Russian move are 100% — although it is 100% certain that if elected President, tRumpy would 100% oppose any such involvement. tRumpy will, I expect, attempt to remove the US from all existing NATO treaties. I’m not sure if there would be a sufficient number of GOP Senators who oppose such an action to prevent it.

The American fascist (and Libertarian isolationist) Christian nationalist faction may at long last achieve their post-WWl goal of going it all alone as a nation. I can’t see that lasting for very long or ending any way other than catclysmically.

Russia supports Iran and therefore Hamas. They want a war in the Middle East to divide Western support and to prop up oil prices. If Ukraine loses, the USA has NATO commitments to defend Europe. History shows that early intervention in WW I and WW II might have saved millions of lives including many Americans. Remember 9/11? Well if Russia wins and Israel loses, you will see many more attacks on America by despots and terrorists.

It’s really about doing the right thing and stopping a near genocide.

The U.S. didn’t lose Vietnam, we left. Southeast Asia did all go communist. The U.S. didn’t lose Afghanistan. We went into Afghanistan because they were giving safe haven and harboring al Qaeda. We killed bin Laden and destroyed al Qaeda. tRump surrendered Afghanistan back to the Taliban. The U.S. should help Ukraine defeat Russia not only to help the people of Ukraine keep their freedom, but to contain Putin’s aggression. The U.S. must maintain our commitments to defend Israel’s right to exist and defend Taiwan. Biden is striving to keep Israel limited to Israel, and reminded Xi that Taiwan is protected.

We may have lost in Vietnam and in Afghanistan but we did keep them occupied for years and in many ways reduced their ability and dampened their desire to initiate attacks against their neighbors. But I agree with Mr. Rall that neither the Taliban nor the North Vietnamese really ever wanted to fight us in North America. The idea that Putin would attack Poland, or even the Baltic States was alway a bit far fetched and is out of the question now at least for the immediate or even near or mid term future

Ukraine is a good cause on its own. But if you think Russian hegemony stops there, you haven’t paid attention to the past 79 years.

Ted is quite OK with Putin rebuilding the USSR.

Does anyone remember how well appeasement worked with Hitler?

mmm, Did not the USA agree that half of Europe would be in control of Russia by the Potsdam Conference?