I'll bite...
How exactly are you informed? what are your sources of information? and why exactly does your opinion on anything matter?
You discount the value of commentary offered by a retired flag officer of the US military when the discussion is about military strategy... you poo-poo the offerings of a retired senior executive from the ag industry when the discussion is agriculture... there are multiple career oil and gas folks on the board, but you seem to think you know more about the global oil and gas industry than anyone else... there are multiple career defense sector folks here.. but you appear to believe you know more about the defense industry than others... there are also people that have spent their entire adult lives dealing with global geo-politics.. but you appear to believe you know more about geo-politics than anyone else here as well...
Are you a subject matter expert in any of these fields? experienced in any of these fields? educated in any of these fields?
please explain why anyone on AH should care about your positions and opinions? why do you think you bring value to any of these conversations?
I listed facts. We were buying Russian goods and imo will do that again. The biggest import we get from Ukraine is ferrous metals, we can get them from other places (and likely produce at home). Thus, I'm not seeing any direct threat to the USA that requires our military involvement. If it is that dire you would think the NATO "allies" would be ramped up and ready to go vs buy all their energy from Russia. Using a minor detail to discredit an argument is child's play to me. It tells me you have lost as does name calling.
I have respect for our military, especially the grunt soldier. I have less respect for the higher ups as they are politicians and thus act exactly the same way out polks do.
"More than 1,700 former acquisition officials, general officers and other senior employees who left the Defense Department in recent years have gone on to work for major defense contractors, the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, found."
"A
report released Monday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Brave New Foundation found that 70 percent of retired three-and-four star generals took jobs with defense contractors or consultants, a figure that has actually declined in recent years."
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Nothing to see here! Again, I want a strong military but to not admit it's out of hand is lol. They approved bilaterally MORE than biden wanted last time around. In the meantime, we are 30 trillion in debt and imo about to go into aserious recession. Raising rates is gonna burden the debt payments on that to a level we can not literally pay at some point per the CBO. But yeah., 40B here and 40B there, what's the big deal? I mean things are great at home, right?
"In the U.S., many airports are more than 40 years old. In fact, Denver International Airport (DEN) was the last new major airport built … in
1995.Mar 13, 2020"
That measily 40B likely builds 4 new major airports, maybe some bridges, roads. I'm not asking yu to do anything with my comments other than allow unpopular opinions to be stated. Those same military "experts" had us in Afghanistan for 20 years at a cost of thousands of lives and trillion s of dollars we don't have. How'd that work out? How about Iraq? Ya know, the country we can't get any oil from even though we liberated them and stopped a "bad guy". Maybe Vietnam? Maybe Somalia where my friend was one of the guys in Blackhawk Down and is still not right.
It's just my opinion and you do not have to agree with it or anything else. I don't buy the official narrative on Russia-Ukraine and never will. There are lots of deals going down and people getting rich. Especially the defense contractors, getting rich on the blood of mostly poor kids and the US taxpayer. Read about Haliburton back 20 years ago, tell me that was fair. Tell me why leaving the Taliban 80B in weapons is smart?