“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063

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[–] mim@lemmy.sdf.org -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You seem to be ignoring the fact that after the fall of the USSR, Russia didn't want their assets to be sold or leased to western companies (understandably), so they let corrupt officials take them for pennies of what they were actually worth. Those officials became the oligarchs.

Russians cannibalised Russia.

[–] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 30 points 1 year ago

the word you are striving not to say is capitalism. capitalists did this to russians, using the playbook developed and advocated for by western institutions.

[–] ThereRisesARedStar@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

God you're just... so fucking close to getting it.

What would have happened if instead of the Russian capitalists privatizing all the people's assets the western capitalists did?

Do you think it wouldn't just be western oligarchs cannibalizing Russia?

[–] mim@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

And yet, tankies still defend this corrupt capitalist state just because it's not the US.

Nevermind political persecution, assassinations, repression of LGBT people, invasion of neighbouring countries, etc. As long as it's not the US, it's all good.

[–] ThereRisesARedStar@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No, it isnt. We at hexbear say "the illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the Soviet Union was the largest humanitarian disaster of the latter half of the twentieth century" and bemoan the loss for human rights(more notably for women, lgbt people, and ethnic minorities) caused by the destruction of the Eastern block.

What we say is that you have to look at the outcomes of weapon distribution by NATO to Ukraine.

Ukraine just wasted a lot of material on one last big push and they didn't do squat. The Ukrainian state has exhausted its ability to conduct offensive operations, and attrition in both absolute quantity and in percentage has been on the Russian's side since the second stage of the war, so what's going to happen now is that Russia will slowly encroach on the rest of Ukraine until they meet their military and political objectives.

So, do we give them more weapons, make their losing war even bloodier for them and the Russians, or do we accept that they've lost, and stop giving the government more time to keep killing conscripts?

[–] silent_water@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

yes, capitalism is marked by class war, between the class who own things, and the class who labor. liberalizing the Soviet bloc destroyed the prospects of the working class.