To repeat, it is not all just business and pure deal making.
I would say list of countries that get trusted with US drones and missiles is shorter than 96 (as relative equivalent for what Iran is providing for Putin). I'm not sure what the point of all this is really? It kind of started with EU hypocrisy.
Tell me why should the EU/EU member states continue breaking their back trying to keep that nuclear agreement alive as they did in face of US opposition when Iran is now busy arming their enemy?
How stupid do you think they or we are (pretty stupid I suppose!)? It's self preservation at this stage.
Did you ever notice that a lot of pro-kremlin stooges like posting up evidence of "Ukrainian nazis" showing a symbol, or maybe some soldiers singing a song or doing the nazi salute?
Yet they will not say much about some of the most heinous crimes commited by the Russians, rapes, torture, the forced removal of Ukrainian children, filtration camps, I can keep giing on but you get the picture. This is the kind of horrific acts that really need to be condemned.
But the trolls and bots will zone in on any little thing they can link Ukraine to nazi symbolism as a way to show some kind of justification or both sideism to prove their point. Some will even say they condemn the invasions and will then always follow the "but"
Not quite, the last civilian airlines to be shot down were by Ethiopia and Iran, but I get your point, both by national forces rather than terrorists.
Ah yes, the CIA made the religious police murder dozens of Iranians for the heinous crime of women showing their hair in public.
The devious bastards....
I think the timing of all the revolts/protests in Iran is very telling. USA want to disrupt their Government and give them problems at home to worry about, so as to restrict the level of their co-operation with Russia. Pure hearsay but not unlike the CIA at all.
So basically his "ditty" means the whole planet has been taken over by russia, when in actual reality russia has shown itself on the world stage to be nothing but a rag tag 3rd world country with an equally rag tag 3rd world military, who have gotten the sh*t kicked out of them by their much smaller neighbour.
So how in the hell this performing monkey can make such a fool of himself in public is beyond me.
The only thing russia could take over now would be a kids scout camp and even then the kids would probably defend it successfully using their slingshots.
This cringeworthy video is comparable to the school yard bully having had his teeth knocked out by the little guy, trying to save face by pretending he wasnt hurt by laughing and walking away
Sad sad sad.
My GDP number (should have been 24 trillion, as fly agaric correctly noted)is for the USA, seeing as that is what you quoted.
So using the numbers you provided above, US arms sales = 0.4% of GDP. That does not equate to 'heavily dependent'.
@Run Forest Run The Soviets lost possibly as much as 32 million people because of the Nazis in ww2...
Mostly lies like everything else that comes out of Russia
Every time Ukraine taken another town, and the Russian Ministry of Defence releases a statement, I always think of this:
Did you forget which account you signed in with????
The last people to shoot down a civilian airliner Flight MH17 was the Russian army ......
As you well know but deny it ever happened
You are right, nothing to see there:
When Ukrainians today commemorate Bandera and the “Banderists,” they honor their fight for the independence and against the Soviets rather than their collaboration with the Nazis. As Ukraine becomes more integrated with European Union countries, a majority of its population according to polls is in favor of reassessing the role of Bandera and his followers, and of eliminating monuments and other tributes to those who acted as Nazi collaborators. Friends of Ukraine should encourage it in this necessary endeavor. However, pressures by Russia, which brands as “Nazis” all those who fought against the Soviets, makes the purification of historical memory not easier, but more difficult.
https://bitterwinter.org/nazism-in-ukraine-separating-facts-from-fiction/
There's 193 countries in the UN. So the's as many countries they don't sell arms to as they do.
You seem to be missing the main current topic of this thread, which is that The Orcs invaded Ukraine and are murdering, raping and torturing so extensively that over 50,000 war crimes have been noted. Perhaps you should focus on what is actually happening rather some improbably fantasy about the future that is irrelevant.
Typical Putinbot post....
@cnocbui , would you mind sending me a pm, thanks.
The US sells arms to 96 countries so has a lot of allies. It's just business to them.
Actually, I very much doubt your assertions. Care to tell me how many nazis there were in Ukraine in 2021 out of the 41 million population? By 'massive' I assume you to mean more than 50%.
Even if every single Azov batallion member had been a nazi - all 2,500 of them, that would be 0.006 % of the population, but as Wibss pointed out, only a small fraction were actually neo-nazis. So a tiny, miniscule problem, amplified by various media and political forces to make it seem vastly more than it actually is.
But you are right about Putin having no justification or right.
Haven't Iran been allies of Russia for decades though?
Got you, thanks. That explains it.
Being a pedant but it is $24,000bn I think which just enhances your point. Am sure the foreign sales are not that important in context of what the US military itself purchases.
....
Going back to the other post, US sells weapons to its allies (some of whom are nasty people to be sure), not to anyone with the money to put up to buy them. It also restricts what weapons it will sell or provide to these allies, who is in certain circles of trust etc.
If Iran wants to be Russia's main ally and friend in this war that's fair enough + their choice to make (however revolting it is).
Should be the end of that faltering nuclear agreement + European countries going gamely to bat for them to ease/avoid sanctions + trying to pour oil on troubled waters when the US president decides to go after them (in the way Trump did). That engagement policy with Iran looks kind of foolish in hindsight now.
In this particular instance Iranian weapons are being supplied to the Russian military and used to bomb & attempt to terrorise Ukrainian civilian populations.
'The West' is certainly supplying weaponry and munitions to Ukraine, but the rather critical difference is that these are not being used to bomb & terrorise Russian civilians. But against the Russian military who have invaded their state.
That's a very substantial difference.
If Iran wants to get into bed with Russia, they should face the full set of sanctions that will cripple their production and economy.
Look, it's a fair point and personally it's something I find inexcusable. The most glaring example is Saudi Arabia but there are many others.
Your GDP number is for where?
Lockheed Martin 45 billion sales, 100k employees, market cap 116 billion.
Boeing 27 billion
Raytheon 24 billion
Many many more in USA alone. UK/France/Italy/Germany are also big players and growing fast.
The USA sells to customers in 96 different countries. I imagine some are terrorists.
They're Iranian but definitely not Iranian.
I have in the distant past, sung more hymns than I could count, but I have never been anything other than a complete atheist.
Easily the best nuclear related thing I have ever seen is the late 80's TV series Edge of Darkness. Utterly groundbreaking in style that I think has set the tone for many TV series since, like the Swedish White Wall and the Icelandic Katla - in fact so many dark scandinavian things I have seen seem to riff off of it.
Yeah. I think the US should arm Iran and Russia to the hilt in order to level the playing field.
You can read my post again. I followed the run-up and war on a daily almost hourly basis, it was hugely divisive in the UK. The BBC, ITV, Ch4 and radio discussions were heavily debated, certainly were not systematically "pro-war". Likewise the media was split, some tabloids traditionally for, but several outlets were openly against, e.g. the Guardian. The establishment? Blair was Labour and the Conservatives supported, but Lib Dems were against, Labour members quit and quite a few took part in the protests. The public? polls showed splits and also relatively high anti-war sentiment, up to 2 million turned out in London (the largest in it's history).
Autocrats (and their unwitting supporters) endlessly drag up Iraq so they can claim that modern leaders are "just as bad" as dictators because twenty years ago Bush and Blair took part in an unpopular war (ironically to remove a dictatorship).
Yeah worked well with Bin Laden in fairness.
Sometimes it is best to arm the friendly loon that is much less likely to cause you harm than the extreme loon that tries to kill you.
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