To be fair, there is no partisan issues in the US over helping Ukraine either. People unite against a common enemy -- it's like that old wisdom, the worst thing to happen to the US was winning the cold war.
> To be fair, there is no partisan issues in the US over helping Ukraine either.
One of Trump's impeachments was over extorting stuff from Zelensky - "I would like you to do us a favor, though", all 57 House "no" votes to the latest aid bill are Republican, and Rand Paul just held it up in the Senate today.
There isn't a US-Russia conflict over Ukraine. US had no part of Ukraine's uprising. Late in the Trump presidency long after issues had settled, the US started getting involved with selling supplies.
It's not about Ukraine alone, it's about defending the ideals which America and the west at large has prospered greatly from and it's about messaging. There is absolutely no way US ally's are watching this favorably. Is America out of money and weapons, so they can't afford to help? I doubt it. Seems like the actual problem is a cultural shift with the US leadership towards favoring autocrats over those who want to defend democracy.
You don't get to be in charge of the global world currency by ignoring those who want to partner with you while they are being destroyed by an autocrat. It will erode trust.
Nothing is free, especially being the top dog.
I also don't see people complaining so much about the ridiculous amount of aid going to Israel, even though I don't really have a problem with that either because I personally think it's for a good cause. But this really seems to be about votes, and here, I'll say it, US politics being hijacked by nut jobs and conspiracy theorists.
I personally think the US at large is currently the victim of Russian propaganda efforts. I just can't imagine how the US would've ended up helping out Russia so much again it's European allies all on it's own.
No significant faction supports going to war with Russia (which would actually be the WW2-Era American choice, sans nuclear weapons, to just assist Ukraine in recovering its sovereign territory and maintain a peaceful global order.)
Whether or not the US has done bad things isn't a factor in whether Ukraine deserves support against illegal invasion and war crimes by Russia.
Yes it would be much better if countries like USA has perfect track records, and hopefully they'll get better at not harming other countries, but that doesn't change the fact that they're on the right side in this situation.
Let's return to a Cold War era. Supporting Ukraine in a proxy war allows us to bleed Russia to death with zero US casualties and fairly minimal expense. We're not sending them any of the really secret stuff anyway.
You’d think everyone in the US can align with Ukraine on this.
Peaceful orientation: Russia started it
Warlike orientation: Ukraine winning this thing would defeat a major US rival
Budget conscious: sending $1 to Ukraine does more to cement US hegemony than sending it to the DoD
Social justice types: Russia has a horrific record on the human rights of anyone who isn’t Putin
Conservatives: Ukraine, formerly part of the USSR, is trying to align itself more with the Western way of doing things and Russia is violently trying to stop them
The current argument against US Aid to Ukraine is over the current foreign aid package of $5B, which has turned into a culture war issue. I never heard similar arguments in 2016, 2019, or 2021.
Does it matter why the US is supporting Ukraine? its still the right thing to do, even if you do it for the wrong reason (which I don't think they are).
Defending an ally from an enemy is not something the US government punishes people for. If you want to help the people of Ukraine then #standwithukraine.
Americans don’t necessarily love an underdog, they love anyone opposed to their geopolitical enemies. The US doesn’t support Ukraine because it’s invaded, they support Ukraine because it’s invaded by Russia.
I think that we agree. The US is not helping Ukraine because they are weak, they are helping Ukraine because Russia is a large threat to our allies, trade partners, energy markets, etc.
I brought up the other conflict as a way of showing that we don't prioritize helping the weak. Other factors are more important.
The US isn't at war in Ukraine, we're not fighting there. Nobody who's actually anti-war looks at Russia's invasion and says "oh that's fine let it happen", everyone supports the right to defend yourself.
I believe no other country is individually spending tens of billions of dollars helping Ukraine. So if the US found a way to make a profit to recover some of the costs of preventing the expanse of communism and brutal killing of innocent people, while weakening a nation threatening the world with nuclear war, kudos to them.
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