Originally Posted by Bull_Dawg
Originally Posted by PitDAWG
It's appalling how many people have no understanding that abandoning Ukraine is supporting Putin.

It's "appalling" how many people act like "support" is an infinite, costless supply. Okay... that's probably a little harsh. In theory, what you say makes sense. The way we've been going about it, not so much to me. There are plenty of petty dictators doing Putin-like things all over the world. Supplying arms honestly only makes conflicts worse.

I dunno, I kind of see it like Iraq. Instead of dumping more money into it, maybe it's time to look at diplomatic solutions. That region of the world doesn't really need more weapons. More weapons don't seem to deter Putin. Just gonna end up with more death and waste of human life. Plus, we're probably making a breeding ground of future extremists with an abundance of military hardware for them to get their hands on.

Need to figure out how to get rid of Putin rather than grinding up soldiers that don't want to be there.

Iraq and Ukraine are apples and oranges. I think that I would agree with you that perhaps there has to be more transparent auditing procedures and anti-corruption, and actually there is, but it doesn't get publicized as much as "We ArE WaSTinG MonEY!" I do agree it could perhaps still go further. I also think we can offset money spent on Ukraine by reducing defense pork $.

As far as the tactics though, Putin is not a petty dictator. He already has meddled in election and plans on doing the same now to break us away from Ukraine. His level of dictatorship is far beyond "petty." Despite the repeated L's he has taken, he still does maintain a first world military.

It is also not us expending paramount resources and American lives to invade a place that we have no business invading. We already spend an enormous portion of our defense budget specifically garnered to countering Russia. Diverting that into upholding Ukraine accomplishes this goal. It economically also leverages us to other countries because they are seeing a B team beat the hell out of an A team with our weapons. They are thinking twice about buying Russian now and the line for our platforms, like the F-16 is now out the door.