“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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[+] gnuhaut@lemmy.ml -6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili blamed for starting Russian war

EU investigation says Tbilisi launched indiscriminate assault on South Ossetia Inquiry accuses both sides in five-day conflict of breaking laws of war

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attacks-unjustifiable-eu

The EU-commissioned report, by a fact-finding mission of more than 20 political, military, human rights and international law experts led by the Swiss diplomat, Heidi Tagliavini, was unveiled in Brussels today after nine months of work.

Flatly dismissing Saakashvili's version, the report said: "There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation ... Georgian claims of a large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive could not be substantiated ... It could also not be verified that Russia was on the verge of such a major attack."

[–] protist@mander.xyz 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Russians had moved mercenaries and paramilitary forces into South Ossetia in apparent preparation for armed hostilities before Saakashvili's disastrous offensive, which triggered a Russian invasion and left his country partitioned. But the proper Russian reponse to the artillery barrage came – by land, sea and air – 12 hours after the Georgian action.

I guess Russian mercenaries and paramilitary forces don't count as an invasion, according to this report.

Russian claims of Georgian "genocide" in South Ossetia were dismissed and Russian claims that Georgians had killed 2,000 civilians were found to be wildly exaggerated. The report put the figure of civilian dead at 162 on the South Ossetian side.

The secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia was branded illegal and Russian recognition of the two "states" in breach of international law. The report found that Moscow had been assiduously preparing the secession by, among other things, a policy of "passportification", illegally distributing Russian passports on a mass scale among the breakaway populations.

[–] gnuhaut@lemmy.ml -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They looked at all that and still concluded that Georgia attacked first, and did not attack preemptively because they were threatened.

It's a EU report, it's not pro-Russian. If anything, I'd be biased against Russia. Yet they still conclude that.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

If the US sends Blackwater across the Rio Grande to occupy Coahuila, then Mexico fights back to push them out, Mexico started it, right