The Second Term of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America

sear said:
The U.S. has earned a reputation as being a prolific arms dealer.
Is the "profit" you disclose in #4,179 all that unusual?

Some have suggested the U.S. War in Vietnam was perpetuated so Howard Hughes could sell more of his helicopters to the Pentagon.

iirc this argument goes all the way back to the U.S. Revolution, and no doubt, beyond that.

note: the VP Cheney / Halliburton connection?

Aren't you concerned that these Iraqi WMD were never found?
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I am against the US arming the Ukraine, regardless of whether it is direct or through Sweden or Finland.
A practical reason for that is simply that Russia never can and never will ever let the Ukraine join NATO.
Before that, they would be forced to nuke the US.
So I do not understand why anyone in the US would risk nuclear destruction like that over the Ukraine?
It is trivial to the US, but life/death to Russia.
Zelensky has tried to join NATO many times, so there is no question he has to go.
That would be like Russia putting nukes in Canada or Mexico.
 
Rigby5 said:
"I am against the US arming the Ukraine, regardless of whether it is direct or through Sweden or Finland.
A practical reason for that is simply that Russia never can and never will ever let the Ukraine join NATO." R5 #4,181
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That's a bizarrely false, fantasy binary.
a) Ukraine has never been a NATO member nation.
b) The arms sales you seem to take issue with apparently didn't begin until AFTER Russia massed its invasion force on Ukraine's border,
and then invaded and occupy.
c) Wasn't the removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from Ukraine agreed to in exchange for Western assurance Ukraine would be militarily defended?

If so, then rather than being negative, aren't these arms to Ukraine required by international agreement?
The deficiency is that the arms supplies are being provided only at stalemate level, a bloodletting betrayal.

Rigby5 said:
"That would be like Russia putting nukes in Canada or Mexico." R5 #4,181
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So they may allege, in the bowels of the Kremlin.
The undeniable disproof is that the U.S. had ABSOLUTE nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union immediately after WWII, and took little if any advantage.

Pretending in the new millennium that somehow miraculously contrary to character the West has suddenly become desirous of Russia is bat spit insane.
Trump has already made his expansionist intentions clear, Canada and Greenland are / were on the list. Russia never was.

If for no other reason the west has no need of shedding blood for that.
Put it to a LEGITIMATE vote. See how the Russian People feel about joining the E.U.
 
sear said:
That's a bizarrely false, fantasy binary.
a) Ukraine has never been a NATO member nation.
b) The arms sales you seem to take issue with apparently didn't begin until AFTER Russia massed its invasion force on Ukraine's border,
and then invaded and occupy.
c) Wasn't the removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from Ukraine agreed to in exchange for Western assurance Ukraine would be militarily defended?

If so, then rather than being negative, aren't these arms to Ukraine required by international agreement?
The deficiency is that the arms supplies are being provided only at stalemate level, a bloodletting betrayal.


So they may allege, in the bowels of the Kremlin.
The undeniable disproof is that the U.S. had ABSOLUTE nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union immediately after WWII, and took little if any advantage.

Pretending in the new millennium that somehow miraculously contrary to character the West has suddenly become desirous of Russia is bat spit insane.
Trump has already made his expansionist intentions clear, Canada and Greenland are / were on the list. Russia never was.

If for no other reason the west has no need of shedding blood for that.
Put it to a LEGITIMATE vote. See how the Russian People feel about joining the E.U.
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I disagree.
The Ukraine has now tried to join NATO at least 4 times, and if Russia stops attacking, NATO will likely let them join.
The only reason NATO is not letting the Ukraine join is that it would cause an immediate state of war with Russia.

And the US weapons shipment to the Ukraine are well documented to have started in 2013.

The removal of the Soviet nuclear missiles from the UKraine that Russia agreed to was in exchange for Western assurances to not attack Russia.
They were never controlled by the Ukraine, so the Ukraine was owed nothing.
It was Russia who was giving up part of its defense grid.

And you seem to miss the point.
The only thing preventing US expansion all over the globe, like in China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, etc., is Russia.
The US does not want to invade Russia, but everywhere else.
And Russia is the only thing preventing this US colonial imperialism expansionism.

Russia and the ethnic Russians in the Ukraine have already voted, and they hate the EU.
The EU is a secret oligarchy that even Great Britain hates.
It is very suspect.
It is pretty clear Germany is on control of the EU.
 
sear said:
note: the VP Cheney / Halliburton connection?
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Cheney had purchased an insurance policy that guaranteed that no matter how well (or poorly) Halliburton did his results would be unchanged.

Kerry Ad Falsely Accuses Cheney on Halliburton - FactCheck.org

A Kerry ad implies Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton and is profiting from the company's contracts in Iraq. The fact is, Cheney doesn't gain a penny from Halliburton's contracts, and almost certainly won't lose even if Halliburton goes bankrupt.
www.factcheck.org www.factcheck.org
 
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Shiftless2 said:
"Cheney had purchased an insurance policy " S2 #4,185
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"Purchased"?
iirc Governor Bush [R-"TX"*] needed a running-mate, and put former congressman Richard Cheney in charge of finding one.
Cheney chose himself.

Meticulous detailed analysis pays dividends in the future.
The "benefit" (if any) of sloth and haste are immediate.

$728 billion: The Defense Department’s estimate of how much the U.S. spent directly on the war in Iraq from the 2003 through 2012 fiscal years (the official withdrawal happened at the end of 2011, a few months into the 2012 fiscal year).

4,492: The number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq.

32,292: The number of U.S. service members wounded in Iraq.

Approximately 200,000: The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the war.
www.nbcnews.com

The Iraq war — by the numbers

Some key statistics on this 20th anniversary of the war’s beginning.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com

for what ? :cry:



$1.6 trillion: The estimated amount spent — combined — on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria from fiscal years 2001 through 2021.

* GWB a "Texan" from Connecticut
 
sear said:
Starting when?


And therefore the peace and non-aggression of Ukraine up through the time Russia invaded demonstrates,
corroborates Ukraine's relative purity in the matter.
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The attempts by the Ukraine to join NATO started in 2014, right after the US bribed Maidan Coup that murdered, imprisoned, or exiles tens of thousands of ethnic Russian natives.
Violating the treaties by trying to put NATO nukes on Russia's border, trying to prevent Russian use of Sevastopol, and murdering tens of thousands of politicians and citizens who had a Russian accent, is not at all peaceful, pure, or lacking aggression.
And it was the Ukraine who cut off all communications with Moscow in 2022, who forced Russia to resort to violent retaliation.
 
Shiftless2 said:
Cheney had purchased an insurance policy that guaranteed that no matter how well (or poorly) Halliburton did his results would be unchanged.

Kerry Ad Falsely Accuses Cheney on Halliburton - FactCheck.org

A Kerry ad implies Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton and is profiting from the company's contracts in Iraq. The fact is, Cheney doesn't gain a penny from Halliburton's contracts, and almost certainly won't lose even if Halliburton goes bankrupt.
www.factcheck.org www.factcheck.org
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I don't get it.
The FactCheck article admits, "To start, the $2 million figure is wrong. It is true that Cheney has received just under $2 million from Halliburton since his election, but nearly $1.6 million of that total was paid before Cheney actually took office on Jan. 20, 2001. Saying Cheney got that much “as vice president” is simply false."
That still means Haliburton paid Cheney and Cheney was on the take.
The fact they seem to have per-paid Cheney for what he had not even done yet, changes nothing.
 
Rigby5 said:
The fact they seem to have per-paid Cheney for what he had not even done yet, changes nothing.
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Deferred compensation is common practice or senior executives - typically part of the "golden handcuffs" that companies employ.

But the important point is that no matter what Cheney did and how well (or poorly) Halliburton stock performed Cheney would receive exactly the same amount of money.
 
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