this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.

Exact full quote from CNN:

“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063

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[–] [email protected] 163 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Russia invades a neighbour who dares to attempt to have stronger ties to the west.

West supplies neighbour with weapons to defend itself.

Tankies on Lemmy: "oh no, Russia is being oppressed"

[–] EmptySlime 31 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Even some otherwise good regular leftists have absolute dogshit takes on Ukraine. It's like they're allergic to even being coincidentally on the same side as the US State Department that they start falling all over themselves to be like "Remember guys, US Bad," and start like saying that we should be pushing Ukraine to give up territory to appease Russia so they don't use nukes. When we already know because of Crimea that Putin will almost certainly just regroup and try again if they give him anything.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's amazing how much they support imperialism when it's "their people" doing it.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I hope we can keep supporting Ukraine. This is one of the few times in history when the scenario is so clear cut good vs evil. The Ukrainians fought hard to get out from under the thumb of Russia and the Russians just couldn’t have that so they invaded. The support the world provides to Ukraine is support provided for all Democracies.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought 'tankie' came from a video game. Turns out it's been around since the USSR decided to roll into Hungary.

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[–] diffuselight 94 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (26 children)

That’s what a win win looks like. No need to be quiet around it. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Now everyone gets to replenish and modernize their weapons, test them in real conditions while making sure Russia gets enough of a bloody nose to not fucking try this shit ever again.

Russia did the ‘fuck around and find out thing’. It was their choice and the only way they can win is by tankies convincing every other country that just saw rape, murder, pillaging and terrorism getting used on another country in Europe by a rabid bear that somehow Russia was justified and should be allowed a free pass. But it’s not working. The rabid bear is rabid, but there’s ways to deal with that.

Because now they makes sure that every country around them is joining the anti rabid bear alliance.

The way the OP framed the article is to create the idea that somehow Russia is good because US military is bad. But that’s a fallacy. The US military is perfectly capable of doing bad shit on behalf of the US, but that does not mean everyone else is good. Sometimes clobbering Nazis is win win and Russia should have know that. Their feeble at reframing may work on Fox brainwashed Republicans who are reduced to “Putins kills gays and is strong so Putin is good”, but it turns out Putin is a cuck taking it into the ass by his own chef.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

Yep, but could you please edit out the "cuck taking it in the ass" business? "Humiliated" works and doesn't make you sound like a "homophobic trumptard". We're managing to have a civilized discussion here and I don't want to see this devolve more into reddit.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Even worse than that, it's a misrepresentation of the cuck/bull relationship dynamic!

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[–] EchoesInOverdrive 14 points 1 year ago (12 children)

What exactly is a tankie? I wanted to upvote this post when I saw its content, but I found the tag from the OP about the "quiet part" to be off-putting as though this quote from McConnell is a negative thing. I don't like or think McConnell is a good person, but to me this quote reads as a way to sell continued support for Ukraine to the crazier parts of our government. Like a "oh, you don't want to spend money on Ukraine because it's the right thing to do? Well here, how about because it's making money for Americans." Sure, maybe not the reason I support funding and arming Ukraine, but if it convinces people who aren't already in support, then I'm for it. If anything, it seems shrewd.

I've seen a lot of posts/comments on Lemmy about tankies recently and I'm confused about what that means. Haven't quite been able to determine from context since the context seems different depending on the post. Sorry if it's a dumb question.

[–] diffuselight 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

A subsection of people who are so far right they ended up on the left again, strongly aroused by military (tanks) symbols, manliness and strength while simultaneously being convinced that Russia is the good guys and therefore whatever they do must be good because US is bad.

There’s a few varieties here. Roger Waters and Noam Chomsky for example who basically are the US is bad so anything is the opposite of what US says (down to denying russian genocide in syria because, well, they are against the US).

There’s the cosplay section of milbloggers and western cosplay russian twitter specialists who usually are Canadian or German or Alabama white males in their basement cosplaying to be in Ukraine fighting for Russia

And of course plenty of russian males who actually buy the narratives.

Most of them have one thing in common - they just can’t handle reality and therefore escape into increasingly insane contortion.. basically Republicans meet Covid again.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago

Oof. Ruskie shills all up in these comments.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This. Is. An. Investment. In. Democracy.

[–] Crashumbc 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If Europe got involved and stopped Germany in Poland, world war 2 may never have happened...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why no one ever mentions Czechia? They literally had a summit about our country where we kinda weren't invited and decided that yeah, Hitler can take huge parts of Czechia, because that will surely stop him from expanding. Because it's usually the case - when something is very easy and costs you close to nothing, you immediately stop because you've had enough, right?

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[–] iquanyin 46 points 1 year ago

it’s not “the quiet part” as you imply. your insinuating that we made this war happen for the reasons he gives. no, context is king. he is merely trying to justify our involvement in the face of criticism. russia has long wanted to grab more countries. putin is a dictator, have you heard? he poisons opponents and attacks other countries to smash them back into his idea of what russia should be.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's interesting how the republicans believe in Keynesian economics, but exclusively when it's applied for feeding the military industrial complex.

In this situation I agree with the need to support Ukraine, but I wish they would make the same realization about infrastructure investments as well.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

A broken clock is right twice a day, as long as it makes them money, they don't give a shit who benefits and who loses.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (3 children)

To all the people not wanting to extend the proxy war against the war crime committing Russians: what do you expect will happen if you stop funding Ukraine defense against war crimes? You think Russians just go home? You think China and North Korea don't look around at adjacent territories licking their lips? Do you understand what deterrence means?

Before you respond like a tankie that America is an imperialist shithole, America is not the one (this time) committing war crimes, RUSSIA is.

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[–] atticus88th 28 points 1 year ago (25 children)

Seriously though, where would Ukraine be right now if it didnt have the U.S. right now or even all the other nations donating?

[–] c0mbatbag3l 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They'd have been fucked.

Everyone wants to joke about Russian military tech but the Ukrainian forces were operating on outdated technology prior to massive NATO overhauls.

The US likely wanted to field modern weapons against Russia so we could 1. Clear out our back stock of older inventory (which Mitch just admitted, basically) and 2. See how said inventory stacked up in a real war against Russia, since we have basically just been fighting rebel insurgents for the last 30 years of warfare and don't have a good representation of what our modern equipment would be capable of against an actual standing army.

[–] Ryumast3r 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ukrainian soldiers in 2014 vs 2022.

The U.S. and allies, despite what a lot of people say (usually something like "why haven't they helped since the war actually started in 2014") helped transform the Ukranian military into the capable fighting force it is today, and the work started years ago.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Americans have died in that war. Just not sent there by force like imperialists like to do and purely out of the instinct to help their brothers in danger.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure that it's as "quiet" as OP thinks it is.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I wonder if there was a more efficient way of employing people without having executives from the MIC getting almost all the benefit?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Whilst not suffering a series of mini-strokes on national television, Mitch is as always razor sharp and the epitome of giving zero fucks about any human lives/hides other than his own. May the Sweet Lord Above see fit to drown this nearly calcified ghoul in a bed of his own shit, like real soon. Tomorrow morning would be cool

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Mitch may be crap, but here he is just trying to get ahead of Republicans who would rather leave Ukraine high and dry. He may give zero fucks about human lives but not as bad as the Russians who have no problem committing war crimes on a daily basis.

Fact is that for less than 3% of the DOD budget we get the result of the loss of over 50% of the military strength of one of our top geopolitical foes. Plus, it will take them at least a decade to rebuild it.

No one asked Russia to invade Ukraine and disrupt world order. Russia doesn't seem to want to negotiate. Why would you want Ukraine to give up?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Someone from my state recently died fighting for Ukraine. I live in New England. I guess we aren't American?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can understand other arguments as to why we should be funding the war. But this one is a parable of the broken window. We could have been paying Americans to make more useful things than weapons; it's still a net loss.

[–] Palkom 9 points 1 year ago

I agree and disagree, I guess. It's sad that so much money is invested in the military industrial complex, but since those weapons are used to fight an opressive and dictatorial regime in favor of democracy, I guess its better. Both Sun Tzu and Clausewitz refer to the use of an army as the continuation of the political process, and democratization of Ukraine is to many a worthy goal, as opposed to the growth of the Russian sphere of influence. Opposing Russia now might lead to a lower overall negative impact than if the same figth is had after Ukraine is annexed and Poland is next in line, but that's just a hypothetical.

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