7 minutes ago, Alphagrand said:

Well, now that Putin and Russia are flexing their muscles and will try to annex all sorts of territories, we just need to hope they haven't gained access to any highly classified intelligence somehow that could put the West at a disadvantage .....

Check under your bed, Nancy.

17 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Well, Ukraine is gone. The west's reaction was lacking, to put it mildly. You really have to call this a win for Putin -- he gambled that NATO/the west wouldn't be unified enough for a strong response, and he's been proven right. 

Romney 2024. That's all I got.

 

just so happens the useful idiot in charge from 2016-2020 spent much of that time chipping away at our relationships with our nato allies.  nbd though. 

5 minutes ago, Mike31mt said:

We had a hard liner and you dimwits voted him out for a clown

could you point the hard line tactics trump used when it came to russia ? 

1 minute ago, Abracadabra said:

Check under your bed, Nancy.

Follow the money ..... 

2 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

Oh I forgot he said some stuff.... while maintaining global peace and stability throughout his term...

But he said some stuff. And I read an MSNBC article that said our democracy was in great danger

 

 

Hopefully it dawns on all of you very soon that by far the biggest actual, real threat to our democracy comes from non Americans and not Trump

5 minutes ago, Mike31mt said:

We had a hard liner and you dimwits voted him out for a clown

I'll take it you mean Jr., doing hard white lines off the Oval Office Desk.

Just now, mr_hunt said:

 

just so happens the useful idiot in charge from 2016-2020 spent much of that time chipping away at our relationships with our nato allies.  nbd though. 

While that's true, Biden doesn't get a pass. It was exhausting when Obama kept blaming everything on Bush, and it was ridiculous when Trump kept blaming Obama. Part of Biden's appeal was supposed to be his commitment to international diplomacy and security, and his long experience with our allies. He pitched himself as someone who could repair and lead the western alliance, and he failed here. 

You don't get to constantly blame the last guy.

3 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

could you point the hard line tactics trump used when it came to russia ? 

No thanks, Ive done it before, it wont matter and you wont read it

You guys have to learn the hard way, unfortunately. 

4 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

 

just so happens the useful idiot in charge from 2016-2020 spent much of that time chipping away at our relationships with our nato allies.  nbd though. 

Yeah this is Trump's fault!

Even Crimea

🤣

 

1 minute ago, vikas83 said:

While that's true, Biden doesn't get a pass. It was exhausting when Obama kept blaming everything on Bush, and it was ridiculous when Trump kept blaming Obama. Part of Biden's appeal was supposed to be his commitment to international diplomacy and security, and his long experience with our allies. He pitched himself as someone who could repair and lead the western alliance, and he failed here. 

You don't get to constantly blame the last guy.

i agree. uncle joe hasn't been able to rebuild those relationships yet.

 

and i may or may not have posted that to get west virgina mike riled up again. i mean......

The clowns pivot.

1 hour ago, vikas83 said:

Not going after energy or aluminum

Not banning them from SWIFT

This isn't enough. Biden deserves criticism here.

Agree. Cigarettes' too.

Swift was not agreed to by the EU members. Biden can't order it unilaterally. 

It's the most severe sanctions ever. Criticism fine. More can be done sure. But Sanctions take time to have an effect. 

1 minute ago, jsdarkstar said:

Agree. Cigarettes' too.

Swift was not agreed to by the EU members. Biden can't order it unilaterally. 

It's the most severe sanctions ever. Criticism fine. More can be done sure. But Sanctions take time to have an effect. 

hopefully biden is still working on germany, etc. to get them to agree to swift & more...maybe bring in jared kusher to talk to them since he cured the middle east. hopefully joe can get this done to make the sanctions even more severe.  

 

 

6 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

While that's true, Biden doesn't get a pass. It was exhausting when Obama kept blaming everything on Bush, and it was ridiculous when Trump kept blaming Obama. Part of Biden's appeal was supposed to be his commitment to international diplomacy and security, and his long experience with our allies. He pitched himself as someone who could repair and lead the western alliance, and he failed here. 

You don't get to constantly blame the last guy.

Yep.  Stopping the spread of fascism in America and abroad is the most important job of the President and Biden's failed in this instance.  He needed to find a way to convince Europe to hit them with the full sanctions.  We have plenty of leverage over them and we should've used it.  There's still time to implement them, but holding out makes no sense, accomplishes nothing and sends the absolute wrong message.

Just now, mr_hunt said:

hopefully biden is still working on germany, etc. to get them to agree to swift & more...maybe bring in jared kusher to talk to them since he cured the middle east. hopefully joe can get this done to make the sanctions even more severe.  

 

 

LOL. Yeah, I think once the Government is toppled in Kyiv, Swift and other sanctions will follow, if Germany etc. get on board.  

Just now, jsdarkstar said:

LOL. Yeah, I think once the Government is toppled in Kyiv, Swift and other sanctions will follow, if Germany etc. get on board.  

Nothing is gained from waiting.  It's not like holding them is going to deter Putin.

9 minutes ago, jsdarkstar said:

Agree. Cigarettes' too.

Swift was not agreed to by the EU members. Biden can't order it unilaterally. 

It's the most severe sanctions ever. Criticism fine. More can be done sure. But Sanctions take time to have an effect. 

And that is a failure of leadership by Biden. The POTUS is the leader of NATO, and good leaders can shape and move consensus. 

1 minute ago, VanHammersly said:

Nothing is gained from waiting.  It's not like holding them is going to deter Putin.

Nothing is gained from full force sanctions now as well, given it may take months before any impact is felt. And Sanctions are not going to deter Putin anyway. Just sayin. 

At least the President said that if one inch of NATO soil is attacked, the full force of the U.S. Military and Nato allies will be used to defend it. That's somewhat reassuring given Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could be next. 

Did he tell them about the great **** Satchel Paige, though?

 

That would have won them over.  

 

Lol the EMB bans words that our POTUS used

40 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Well, Ukraine is gone. The west's reaction was lacking, to put it mildly. You really have to call this a win for Putin -- he gambled that NATO/the west wouldn't be unified enough for a strong response, and he's been proven right. 

Would you say the move was... genius? 

Quote

Romney 2024. That's all I got.

lmfao hard pass.

2 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

And that is a failure of leadership by Biden. The POTUS is the leader of NATO, and good leaders can shape and move consensus. 

It's also a failure of leadership by EU leaders as well to form a consensus. Maybe they couldn't agree because the impact on the EU will be greater than in America. But yes, it's a failure to build a consensus. 

1 minute ago, jsdarkstar said:

Nothing is gained from full force sanctions now as well, given it may take months before any impact is felt. And Sanctions are not going to deter Putin anyway. Just sayin. 

At least the President said that if one inch of NATO soil is attacked, the full force of the U.S. Military and Nato allies will be used to defend it. That's somewhat reassuring given Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could be next. 

Credibility. Credibility is gained. The point now is to show that we mean what we say in order to deter future actions. You can't go on for weeks about crippling, unprecedented sanctions and then do this. Sure, he's saying NATO will honor its Article 5 obligations, but...will Putin believe him. Had we at least sanctioned energy and metals, he'd take us much more seriously.

1 minute ago, jsdarkstar said:

It's also a failure of leadership by EU leaders as well to form a consensus. Maybe they couldn't agree because the impact on the EU will be greater than in America. But yes, it's a failure to build a consensus. 

The EU is not the USA. We are the hegemonic power in the world and the one that basically supports all of NATO. We're supposed to lead NATO and overcome the usual bickering among EU members. 

What are we going to do? Let the French lead? We'd all be speaking Russian by now.

3 minutes ago, jsdarkstar said:

Nothing is gained from full force sanctions now as well, given it may take months before any impact is felt. And Sanctions are not going to deter Putin anyway. Just sayin. 

At least the President said that if one inch of NATO soil is attacked, the full force of the U.S. Military and Nato allies will be used to defend it. That's somewhat reassuring given Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could be next. 

Agree on this.  That's great.  He needed to say that.  I don't have a lot of hope that Europe would agree to go along with it though, especially after this.

But again, it's about the message.  Hit him with everything at once.  There's no downside to it, except for the fact that Germany, etc, isn't willing to pay any price to stop fascism, which is kind of weird since they know the effects of it better than anyone.

Just now, vikas83 said:

Credibility. Credibility is gained. The point now is to show that we mean what we say in order to deter future actions. You can't go on for weeks about crippling, unprecedented sanctions and then do this. Sure, he's saying NATO will honor its Article 5 obligations, but...will Putin believe him. Had we at least sanctioned energy and metals, he'd take us much more seriously.

Agree. It's a valid point. 

Yes we should sanction, energy, metals, cigarettes, etc. I agree the hammer should have been dropped on all sectors. 

Putin better believe as we move troops, Jets and weapons system into Eastern Europe. 

The sanctions will bite for awhile but Russia has about 700B in reserves. They'll ride it out.

SWIFT will be a problem short term but like with all the other sanctions, after some time Russia develops their own version and becomes hardened to future threats. 

If Russia really wants to play hardball, shut down NSI and watch those **** squirm.