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Regarding my own opinion about the Ukraine/Russia conflict, while there's no defending the wholesale slaughter of children, hospitals, and other Ukrainian civilians, I agree with what Pat Buchanan wrote back in 2006-2007: That the U.S should have ended all its mutual defense agreements at the end of the Cold War in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. That we could always have chosen to come to a nation's defense after, if we wanted to after that, but would no longer have been obligated by treaty to enter a war.
That the era of Soviet global expansion was no longer a threat., and the basis for NATO no longer existed after Dec 1991.
And that such mutual defense pact treaties are what caused the first and second world wars.
So since Russia had completely collapsed at that point (1991) it was pointless to continue those defense agreements, and was actually provocative against Russia, alienating a country we could have possibly made into an ally.
Further, beyond keeping the NATO alliance, NATO was expanded into former Warsaw Pact countries, such as Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Rumania.
And even further beyond that in recent years, expanding NATO membership even further into territories of the former Soviet Union itself: Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and more recently, proposed membership for former-Soviet Georgia, and within the last month before the invasion... Ukraine.
The U.S. further has U.S. troops training military forces in places like Armenia, Georgia, a war nearby in Iraq and Syria, U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 for 20 years, and since the World War II era have U.S. military presence in Turkey, in Japan, in South Korea.
And that's not even a complete list. I posted an article here 20 years ago citing that the Russians even at that time already voiced concern over being encircled by the U.S. militarily, and that the noose was being further tightened.
I see very little information in George Orwell's news media here in the U.S., Fox included, regarding the motivation for Putin invading Ukraine when he did. You see a lot of B.S. such as "Putin is Hitler!", or "Putin hates freedom!" or just "Putin is evil", but astonishingly virtually no attempt to explain logically why Putin invaded at this time.
In the two weeks prior to the invasion, President Biden at a press conference answered a question about Ukraine possibly being given NATO membership, and Biden said he was all for it, and we should fast track it.
I don't endorse or overlook massacre of Ukranian civilians by the thousands, bombing of hospitals, the Russians pointlessly levelling entire metropolitan cities, children almost gleefully targeted for killing (painted on an exploded missile: "For the children of Ukraine"), or mass rape of Ukrainian women by Russian soldiers or mercenary forces, all deliberate terror campaigns.
But it would be delusion not to acknowledge that the U.S. over several decades has taken advantage of Russian weakness, and provoked Russia by expanding into their former territories, and specifically Biden urging a "fast track" of Ukraine NATO membership. The invasion of Ukraine began about 2 weeks after that.
I think I've seen two U.S. news media discussions that acknowledge Ukraine NATO membership was a red line the Russians would go to war over, and would never tolerate.
Any more than we would tolerate Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba, or a Russian military base on the U.S./Mexico border. And where it goes from here, no one can say. But it showcases the incompetence of President Biden and everyone in his White House, to ignore Russia's obvious and clearly stated red line (NATO membership for Ukraine), and push the Russians this far. Ignoring months of military build-up on the Ukraine border.
The consequences of a rigged November 2020 election, and people who should never have gained power, but were given power. God help us all.
