Asks Gail Collins, in "The Conversation" at the NYT.
Her interlocutor, Bret Stephens, answers:
Our colleague David French offered what I think is the smartest answer to your question in a recent column. It comes down to this: general nuttiness connected to sundry Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden conspiracy theories, plus a belief that Putin (a former K.G.B. agent) somehow represents manly Christian values in the face of effeminate wokeness, plus a kind of George Costanza 'do the opposite' mentality in which whatever Biden is for, they must be against."
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You mean like Nikki Haley?
At first DeSantis came out against the war, then he waffled. His numbers just went down and down after that.
Conservative voters are no longer loyal to the Republican Party as such. They have genuinely changed their opinion on these endless foreign wars.
And so have Democrat voters, it seems.
"When did liberals get so obsessed with fomenting war. Is it the profits?"
To the degree this is uncharacteristic, since the POTUS overseeing this has been a Democrat. But, it really isn't uncharacteristic. And since when has the Republican Party been a stalwart opponent of US involvement in foreign entanglements--US feet on the ground, US bombs dropped indiscriminately on civilian populations, US tax dollars squandered by the billions in support of our war crimes and support of war crimes, etc.)? It seems the right has become "anti-war," (while the Dems have always been generally "pro-war"). In other words, the opposition is opportunistic, not inspired by sincere convictions and the Dems are cowards who will not oppose their current president (even if they were inclined to do so otherwise).
Truthfully, neither party has historically been visibly opposed to robust US military support and ready insertion of our military into foreign entanglements.
The aid we're providing to Israel is also opportunistic and objectionable, and the right is standing alongside the Dems in their support for it.
This latter day pretense that the Republicans have ever been hippie peace-niks is risible.
Jaime Roberto (2:40pm - last comment on first page):
"In 2020 Ukraine was ranked 117th in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. Russia was 129."
Why do you give the 2020 numbers? Are you trying to make them look worse than they are? The 2023 numbers rank Ukraine as 104th and Russia as 141st. Which means that: a. Ukraine is getting steadily less corrupt, Russia steadily more so. b. In just three years Ukraine went from 12 places better than Russia to 37 places better, that is, they tripled the difference.
This also shows that Butkus51's statement at 8:56am is entirely false: "Ukraine has long been known as one of the top 3 corrupt nations." In fact the top 3 most corrupt nations (bottom 3 on the chart) are Somalia and, tied for 2nd worst, South Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela - the last two being Russian clients.
Similarly, Joe Smith's statement (9:51am) that Ukraine is "the most corrupt government in the region" is simply false. It's not even the more corrupt of the two at war. It's also ahead of Serbia, Bosnia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and four of the five Central Asian 'Stans, and just one point behind Belarus.
Why do people just make shit up to trash Ukraine? All this is very easy to check. It appears that the billions the Russians spend on propaganda are more effective than their weapons.
Blogger Keith said...
I THINK I speak for all rational people in supporting Ukraine against Russia.
To think you're speaking "for all rational people" is completely irrational. Great irony Keith!!
"Conservative voters are no longer loyal to the Republican Party as such."
Cook doesn't understand that. His worldview has ossified.
Primary these bastards: Sen. John Boozman (Ark.)
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.)
Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.)
Sen. Susan Collins (Maine)
Sen. John Cornyn (Texas)
Sen. Kevin Cramer (N.D.)
Sen. Mike Crapo (Idaho)
Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa)
Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa)
Sen. John Hoeven (N.D.)
Sen. John Kennedy (La.)
Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.)
Sen. Jerry Moran (Kan.)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Sen. James Risch (Idaho)
Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah)
Sen. Mike Rounds (S.D.)
Sen. Dan Sullivan (Alaska)
Sen. John Thune (S.D.)
Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.)
Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.)
Sen. Todd Young (Ind.)
Nothing screams "smug elite" like a NYT columnist byline.
David French needed every speck of his Harvard education to come up with the “smartest answer” to a question that no one but a Times columnist would ask🙄
The right is no longer dominated by warmongering neocons, like the idiot David French. The right, post-Trump, is populist America first. We are tired of being the world’s policeman and funding every war fought by our allies or enemies of our enemies. My family came from Ukraine but I think funding this unwinnable war is madness. Even though I acknowledge the evil of Hamas on October 7th, I don’t want my government funding the mass killing of people in Gaza. We are massively in debt and there are concerns about funding social security. Why the fuck are we burning money in Ukraine and Israel?
How quaint that so few posters consider that the USA might be the corrupter.
"Surely every American supports sending weaponry to Ukraine."
Um, no.
" If our supplies of money and other aid to Ukraine were being provided by a Republican POTUS, and especially by Trump,"
You are sniffing your own glue there. Trump is the first president in a long time to not start any new wars, and he made an effort to end our illegal occupation of Syria, however lame it was.
And interesting statistic is that the Republican Senators under the age of 55 all voted against funding this disastrous war. This is Trump's party now.
NMObjectivist: "I used to like Bret Stephens but he's completely lost it."
Bret is well paid by his lefty masters to grind out leftist-supporting pap with a patina of faux conservatism.
"Why do people just make shit up to trash Ukraine? "
You are the guy who just makes shit up. You make Joe Biden look like Abraham Lincoln.
My favorite quote from this guy so far came yesterday where he said that Ukrainians didn't consider themselves the "master race" but the Russians were "subhuman" and "orcs." I bet he can't even see the irony.
Let's say Kiev did recover all of the territory handed over to them by Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Krushchev, none of whom ever asked a single person living in within the boundaries they drew, what do we think Kiev's plans for the ethnic Russians who live there are? The ethnic Russians that have been fighting to keep the Kiev regime from ruling over them ever since the coup in 2014? Especially when that regime idolizes Holocaust collaborators like Bandera, whose organization sent hundreds of thousands to death camps, or just murdered the Poles, Jews, etc, where they found them? What could their plans be?
Steven Bandera, the Nazi's grandson, lives in Canada, along with the Canadian children and grandchildren of many Ukrainian Nazis who "escaped persecution" in Europe. He said in an interview that when he goes to Ukraine, he is treated "like a god." This is why some of the worst posts on X will have both a Canadian flag, and a Ukrainian one.
Re the European wars and US enthusiasm:
In 1917, the administration of President Woodrow Wilson decided to rely primarily on conscription, rather than voluntary enlistment, to raise military manpower for World War I when only 73,000 volunteers enlisted out of the initial 1 million target in the first six weeks of the war.
In wwii we didn't even pretend to look for volunteers. Everyone in the army was a draftees. About 10,000,000 us men.
Brandon and the ds will promise with straight faces not to.send US troops to Europe. Just like Wilson in 16 and fdr in 40 Just like lbj in 64 for that matter.
That promise expires on 2 January 25 if Brandon or a dem is reelected.
"be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box" vote dem. Vote early, vote ofyen
John Henry
Cook,
It was democrats who lied us into, through and about all 3 major us wars in the 20th century. Ww, fdr and lbj.
Not Republicans
US feet on the ground, US bombs dropped indiscriminately on civilian populations, US tax dollars squandered by the billions in support of our war crimes and support of war crimes, etc.)?
All dems. All dems who ran for reelection promising not to.
John Henry
The political right is hostile to our government shoveling billions of dollars to Ukraine in what looks like a money laundering operation for (mostly) Democrats, while leaving our southern border wide open for ten million illegal aliens to invade our country and gobble up resources that should be going to American citizens whose taxes are being stolen for the interests of foreigners.
Because the hard right is unserious, has no defining principles, and is ignorant of geopolitical realities, the general geography of Europe, and history. - Joe
Then why don't you educate us, Joe?
If we're so fucking stupid, here's your chance to tell us the whatfors.
"NMObjectivist: "I used to like Bret Stephens but he's completely lost it.""
I've despised Stephens since he defended Jordan Eason's charge that US troops were deliberately shooting journalists. A long time ago, now.
Idiotic analysis of the type of people who are concerned about the Ukraine spending. The simplest answer is we are people who read thoroughly about an issue and have critical thinking skills. That most people who read thoroughly and have critical thinking skills are apparently right leaning is a coincidence, of course.
Additionally, it is apparently of no concern to media types that this country cannot afford this spending. Our government has enslaved us with their corrupt malfeasance and I hope I am wrong but believe we are about to find out how thoroughly screwed we are really soon.
People like Gail and Bret of course will disagree.
“It is, of course. If our supplies of money and other aid to Ukraine were being provided by a Republican POTUS, and especially by Trump, the right would be frothing at the mouth in support of the "righteous war for Ukraine's liberty!", calling any naysayers as cowards, unAmerican, Commie- and Putin-lovers, etc., etc.“
That seems quite naive, even for you, Cook. It’s Biden blatant and even boastful corruption which sickens me. Also the whole notion of caring more for the Ukraine’s borders than for our own. Joe Biden deserves a special place in hell for his level of corruption
Looks like this touched a nerve.
My reasons not to accept the bien-pensant framing of this war at face value:
1) I'm suspicious any time there is an obviously orchestrated effort to herd American public opinion into a narrow consensus that supports the political and financial interests of the Cloud People who regard half or more of the public with outright hatred and contempt.
2) The war was not unprovoked. For more than a decade, Ukraine badly mistreated the predominantly Russian-speaking citizens of Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporzhzhia, and the other oblasts in the eastern portion of the country. However, this was never explained to the American public in any depth by our "mainstream media" propaganda mouthpieces, either before or after the war broke out.
3) Ukraine is one of the most corrupt places on the planet, and since 2000 at the latest it has been used by politicians of both parties (but predominantly Democrats) to launder American taxpayer dollars back into their political organizations and their own pockets.
4) I believe the corrupt fool Joe Biden is susceptible to blackmail by the Ukrainians and their henchmen in the West. I have never trusted him to place America's interests before those of his cronies, but that goes quadruple when it comes to Ukraine.
5) It is a pointless waste of blood and treasure that will never be resolved except by diplomacy and negotiation, but those in a position to bring the parties to the bargaining table have gone out of their way to sabotage any hint of a peaceful settlement. The leftists who have posed as the world's foremost lovers of peace since the Vietnam era are proving themselves to be among the most bloodthirsty warmongers this country has ever produced. As the politicization of the Nobel Peace Prize also bears witness, "peace" to the Left means nothing more or less than the absence of opposition to leftist hegemony and tyranny.
6) Our military-industrial-intelligence complex has grown quite large enough already. We need to be dismantling our domestic Stasi apparatus, not showering it with money and personnel and power to enable meddling overseas and snooping at home.
7) Vindman is a pile of shit and must pay for his crimes.
If only I had not paid attention as we performed our wonders in Iraq and Afghanistan!
Oso Negro said...
"How quaint that so few posters consider that the USA might be the corrupter."
Our elite like to make money playing both sides. Corrupt as hell.
Of course Cook. Egypt gets more of our money than israel. Let's stop funding both of them. Let's quit funding the UN while we're at it. No greater gathering of war mongers exist than the UN.
A few years ago you were here lecturing us how morally wrong it is for us to reneg on our treaties and commitments. Now it's OK?
“If Zelensky had agreed to Trump’s request to announce that Ukraine was investigating Hunter Biden, today the MAGA right would be solidly behind supporting Ukraine. The only principle at stake for them is loyalty to Trump. That’s all that matters.”
Meh. That’s your opinion. Here’s mine: if monkeys STOPPED flying out of your derrière, you’d still have a circus act, Doug Levene.
I don't consider myself part of the political "right," but the people I respect who are, and who know a LOT more about military and defense industry matters than I do, point out (in addition to many of the arguments given above by so many different people):
1. We have spent more than 100 billion dollars and the Ukrainians have not taken back ANY significant territory despite all the "summer offensive" rhetoric that was thrown around. Just look at the map: what was Russian-controlled before we spent all that money is Russian-controlled now.
THEREFORE: There is no reasonable amount of money or arms that will enable the Ukrainians to eject the Russians from the captured territory.
2. Since the Russian advance had been halted long BEFORE we spent the 100 billion dollars, it was not necessary to spend that much money and that many Ukrainian lives to prevent further incursions.
THEREFORE: The Ukrainians can defend the rest of their territory against Russian advances without massive additional U.S. spending.
3. The theory that Ukraine is bleeding Russia dry of soldiers and munitions at a low cost to us is faulty in multiple ways. First, Russia is so much larger than Ukraine that even at high ratios of Ukraine to Russian losses (which, despite the propaganda, we have not seen), Ukraine runs out of people long before Russia does. Second, Russia is losing conscript troops and mercenaries and people released from prison to fight. This helps Putin, as he can dispose of elements of his population that are expensive, inconvenient, or resistant to his rule. Third, Russia is buys cheap munitions from China and North Korea, while we are giving Ukraine expensive, high-tech munitions. Russia can trade oil and minerals for weapons essentially forever, while we have blown through 10 years of stockpiles without sufficient skilled workers and engineers to speed up production in any substantial way.
THEREFORE: In a "bleeding dry" competition, the Ukraine will run out of people and we will run out of high-quality munitions long before Russia will.
My personal reasons for opposing more funding for Ukraine is that I don't think anything at all will be improved by more dead Ukrainians (or dead Russians, for that matter), and I don't believe that we can afford to deplete our weapons stockpiles and our treasury any more given the overall geopolitical situation.
If 'tim in vermont' (5:04pm) wants to quote supposedly stupid things I wrote on other threads, he needs to quote them honestly. Here is what I wrote:
"As for 'master race', no Ukrainian has ever claimed any such thing. They do think Russians are subhuman, because people who murder, torture, rape, bomb civilians with cluster bombs and missiles, cut off heads of prisoners, castrate prisoners, and steal washing machines and toilets are acting subhuman. But Ukrainians have shown no sign that they think they are any better than Romanians or Poles or Czechs or Lithuanians or Americans or Swedes or any other nation, as members of a 'master race' obviously would. Saying that they do is a contemptible slur. And another case of projection: if you watch RT, you know that Russians do think of themselves as a master race." I could have added that they film themselves laughing as they behead or castrate prisoners, laugh about slaughtering civilians in their beds, and those who complain about the war never mention the killing, raping, and looting, they only complain that their own fellow Russians are being killed.
Here is what Greg the Class Traitor wrote later on the same thread:
"Are you really so pathetically pig ignorant that you are unaware that the 'narrative' referred to in 'Putin's obsession with history is genuine, as is his belief in a narrative that justifies, indeed makes inevitable, Russia's war against Ukraine.' is the Russian belief that they are the master race granted the right to rule everyone in their vicinity?
"The Ukrainians quite rationally hate the Russians. Go look up the Holodomor if you're unclear on why that is."
The fact is that modern-day Russians, like Germans and Japanese in the '30s and '40s, think of themselves as a superhuman 'master race' entitled to rule over other nations. And like Russians today, their belief in their own superhuman status has led them to do subhuman things. Ukrainians don't pretend to be better than other nations, they just want to be free, and equal, and alive. 'tim in vermont' lies again.
JaimeRoberto said...
To start: Both countries are corrupt.
So what?
Ukraine doesn't try to enslave their neighbors, Russia does.
Furthermore, we've been meddling in their internal politics for a couple decades now in a way we would never accept if Russia were meddling in Mexico
Sure! We all know that Putin, and all his communist predecessors, NEVER meddled in any country's internal affairs.
Esp. not in, say, Cuba, a country 90 miles off the US shore.
Or all of South and Central America. There's never been any Communist backed revolutionaries anywhere down the!
/sarc
Are you starting to realize how stupid you sound when you babble those pro-Russia lies?
Blogger Prof. M. Drout said...
1. We have spent more than 100 billion dollars and the Ukrainians have not taken back ANY significant territory despite all the "summer offensive" rhetoric that was thrown around. Just look at the map: what was Russian-controlled before we spent all that money is Russian-controlled now.
THEREFORE: There is no reasonable amount of money or arms that will enable the Ukrainians to eject the Russians from the captured territory.
Bzzt, wrong.
First of all, that's like saying "all this Lend Lease money we're spending on the UK, and they haven't accomplished anything with it!"
Second, the Crimea is a place that will fall all at once, or probably not at all. The Ukrainians are using Western support to chip away at the Russia support structure in the Crimea (sinking boats in harbor, so that the Russians have to pull all their boats out. Shooting down Russian AWACS planes. Bombing the bridge that is the only land connection between Russia and the Crimea)
If the Ukrainians can get it so Crimea is cut off from Russian re-supply (bridge down, ships unwilling to enter harbor), Crimea will fall all at once.
And then you'll be saying "I saw it coming all along"
2. Since the Russian advance had been halted long BEFORE we spent the 100 billion dollars, it was not necessary to spend that much money and that many Ukrainian lives to prevent further incursions.
THEREFORE: The Ukrainians can defend the rest of their territory against Russian advances without massive additional U.S. spending.
3. The theory that Ukraine is bleeding Russia dry of soldiers and munitions at a low cost to us is faulty in multiple ways. First, Russia is so much larger than Ukraine that even at high ratios of Ukraine to Russian losses (which, despite the propaganda, we have not seen), Ukraine runs out of people long before Russia does. Second, Russia is losing conscript troops and mercenaries and people released from prison to fight. This helps Putin, as he can dispose of elements of his population that are expensive, inconvenient, or resistant to his rule. Third, Russia is buys cheap munitions from China and North Korea, while we are giving Ukraine expensive, high-tech munitions. Russia can trade oil and minerals for weapons essentially forever, while we have blown through 10 years of stockpiles without sufficient skilled workers and engineers to speed up production in any substantial way.
THEREFORE: In a "bleeding dry" competition, the Ukraine will run out of people and we will run out of high-quality munitions long before Russia will.
Your #2 and #3 are in direct conflict with each other. That's quite the delusional magical claim, that Russia can always just bring on more resources to keep the Ukrainians for taking back any of their land, but of course Russia can't draw on those resources to take more Ukrainian land.
That's some world class stupid there
My personal reasons for opposing more funding for Ukraine is that I don't think anything at all will be improved by more dead Ukrainians (or dead Russians, for that matter), and I don't believe that we can afford to deplete our weapons stockpiles and our treasury any more given the overall geopolitical situation.
And you're such an arrogant piece of shit that your'e not willing to give the Ukrainians a vote on that? That's very special of you
Not hostile - but there comes a point where it's clear that we're being used as a No-Repay ATM and you wonder where's it's going to stop. The great Russian War Machine's damned near empty, it would seem, and we've tossed a whole lot of materiel and money at the problem so far - to our own detriment if something heats up between China and Taiwan.
And as others have pointed out, the corruption in Ukraine means that likely a good bit of the money that went there was siphoned off to other 'purposes'. How much? We'll never know - it's not like there's some auditing board in place to make sure all the money marked for X actually gets to X, instead of two thirds being parceled out to fifteen different accounts in Switzerland.
And you really gotta wonder just how much is being offered back to our politicians in kickbacks, 'donations', and 'gifts'.
Collins and Stephens conversation made me look back a few postings, to this:
"The business models that will sustain journalism in the future won’t be perfect."
"They’ll leave people out who need good-quality news the most. They will probably cater to older, wealthier men who (for now) make up the demographic most likely to pay for news. There will be idiocy and the enablement of rich idiots"
Those two dolts are exhibit A.
Robert Cook: I know a lot of conservatives. Many who saw combat in war zones. Don't be so sure the majority of the Party isn't now opposed to foreign interventions that are not directly necessary for the protection of America. Maybe those at the top whom we have yet to depose. But the people back home aren't buying it -- or eager to send their sons and some daughters to die overseas anymore. This is a good thing for America, and in the long term, the military itself. There will always be conservatives (far fewer liberals) willing to defend America, if they can trust they aren't being killed to stuff some congresscritter's junky son's pockets.
"My personal reasons for opposing more funding for Ukraine is that I don't think anything at all will be improved by more dead Ukrainians (or dead Russians, for that matter), and I don't believe that we can afford to deplete our weapons stockpiles and our treasury any more given the overall geopolitical situation."
Which gains us nothing and costs us a lot of money and influence.
"And you're such an arrogant piece of shit that your'e not willing to give the Ukrainians a vote on that?"
There are 8 billion people in the world, many of them suffering terrible fates, far worse than being denied the right to rule over provinces that don't want then and have been fighting them for a decade. Ukrainians don't get to vote in US elections, though they do interfere. If Ukraine has a beef with Russia, fine, you guys fight it out.
"Ukraine doesn't try to enslave their neighbors, Russia does."
You know what? The Crimeans don't feel enslaved. They felt more enslaved when for 19 years, the only time out of the past couple of centuries that they weren't ruled out of Moscow, that they were ruled by Kiev.
Ukraine annexed The Republic of Crimea by force in 1995. so I'm calling bullshit on your claim.
All the commenters who say Ukraine has no chance of winning will be glad to hear that Matt Wallace agrees with you. He tweeted "Anyone who believes Ukraine can beat Russia is clinically insane" with a video of five major Russian warships of the Black Sea Fleet sailing together. A community note added (link) "Of the 5 large surface vessels in this video, 4 have been sunk. The Moskva along with 3 ropucha-class landing ships."
Ukraine has now sunk 4 of the 6 Ropucha-class landing ships in the Black Sea Fleet, and 1 of the 3 Alligator-class: that's 56% of them. I'll save 'tim in vermont' the trouble of repeating Russian propaganda by saying "Ropuchas were built in the 1980s! They're obsolete! And they're only landing ships, not combat ships!" They are very large ships designed to transport even the largest tanks, or hundreds of men, or hundreds of tons of ammunition. They're like American LSTs but better: they have double doors front and back, so tanks can roll on in back and roll off on a beach in front. The one sunk last night, the 81st anniversary of the death of the man it was named for, was undoubtedly carrying ammunition: it sank very fast after a huge secondary explosion.
More important, Ropuchas (=Toads) and Alligators are the only way Russia can move large amounts of ammunition to Crimea and Kherson other than the Kerch bridge, which has already been seriously damaged twice and will undoubtedly be destroyed in the next year or two. If Germany had delivered a few Taurus missiles, it would already be gone.
tim in vermont said...
"Ukraine doesn't try to enslave their neighbors, Russia does."
You know what? The Crimeans don't feel enslaved.
Which "Crimeans" are those? The children and grandchildren of Russia settlers who were moved in while teh communists moved the natives out?
(Note, unlike the Palestinians, the natives didn't voluntarily leave so they could come back in with a raping and pillaging army, they were forced out)
And how do you know how they "feel"? Are you really so stupid you think you can get honest information about people under Putin's military control?
Reality check: Russia signed the Budapest Accords, which guaranteed that the Crimea was part of Ukraine, in exchange for which Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons.
Anyone living in the Crimea who wanted to be part of Russia was more than free to move to Russia.
Demanding, however, that their neighbors be forced to become part of Russia is an entirely different, and horribly evil, thing to do.
It would be evil ethnic cleansing to say "you have Russian heritage, therefore we're going to force you to move to Russia and leave where you were born.
it is NOT evil ANYTHING to say "if you want to be part of Russia, move to Russia. If you dont' want to move to Russia, then you will damn well be part of this non-Russian country, and you will NOT ever have any grounds to call. on Russia to "save" you.
Russia is a shithole. Anyone who tries to expand Russia's power or influence anywhere is a worthless piece of shit. If they're living anyplace other than Russia, the attempt should be proper grounds for expelling them to Russia, where they can be "Russian".
If they want to live in Ukraine / Baltic States / anyplace else, then they can damn well be Ukrainian / Lithuanian / whatever.
And if they dont' want that?
Then they can movback to Russia.
What they can't do is take anyone else with them
Weevil: "Ukraine has now sunk 4 of the 6 Ropucha-class landing ships in the Black Sea Fleet, and 1 of the 3 Alligator-class: that's 56% of them."
Ukraine did no such thing.
The US and the Brits did that...as with Nordstream.
Drago said...
Weevil: "Ukraine has now sunk 4 of the 6 Ropucha-class landing ships in the Black Sea Fleet, and 1 of the 3 Alligator-class: that's 56% of them."
Ukraine did no such thing.
The US and the Brits did that...as with Nordstream.
So Drago really does believe that only "Westerners" have agency, that everyone else is just a puppet moved by us.
That's a really sad outlook you have on life
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