Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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FoxEye said:
It's easy for politicians to say their support is unwavering, but it's just as easy for that support to dry up in practice. We were committed to helping the Afghans, until we weren't.
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Comical note, the USSR were also committed to helping the Afghans fight insurgents until they weren't. So it's not like Russia's patience with losing is any better than the wests (technically it's worse as they pulled out of Afghan faster).

One thing that Ukraine has in it's favour is the sunk cost fallacy, while a lot of stuff had been donated to Ukraine there has also been a lot of stuff sold to Ukraine on contract which will require future payment. Now say the west cut support tomorrow and Russia rolls over the country and takes Kiev, do we think the Kremlin will honour those contracts? (obviously it's rhetorical). The western military complex now has a vested financial interest in Ukraine winning, and that's good for Ukraine.
 
Another aspect I thought of that makes the Ukrainian offensive much harder than the desert storm blitz is artillery. Previously I spoke about the lack of AirPower which the Americans used to perform 2500 bombing sorties a day for 5 weeks before they sent the tanks and Bradley's to cross minefields.

So by the time the armour had to push through the minefields and the Saddam line, much of the enemy positions had been destroyed and many of the enemies already ran away.

That doesn't mean the US faced no opposition at all, but what also makes this very different is how much more accurate artillery is today than back then. Many US soldiers and officers from desert storm reported that the Iraqis tried to drop shells on their offensive push but the vast majority of shells landed nowhere near the Americans and the reason is because they had no correction, no drones or observation platforms in the air to provide correction coordinates and the Iraqi airforce had been destroyed in the 5 week air campaign so the Iraqi army would fire shells and have absolutely no idea where they landed or if they hit anything. That way of war is gone, artillery has become 10 times more deadly and accurate thanks to the proliferation of cheap drones
 
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ubersonic said:
Comical note, the USSR were also committed to helping the Afghans fight insurgents until they weren't. So it's not like Russia's patience with losing is any better than the wests (technically it's worse as they pulled out of Afghan faster).

One thing that Ukraine has in it's favour is the sunk cost fallacy, while a lot of stuff had been donated to Ukraine there has also been a lot of stuff sold to Ukraine on contract which will require future payment. Now say the west cut support tomorrow and Russia rolls over the country and takes Kiev, do we think the Kremlin will honour those contracts? (obviously it's rhetorical). The western military complex now has a vested financial interest in Ukraine winning, and that's good for Ukraine.
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It's slightly different, the Afghans were given everything they needed, plenty of equipment and all the training required, they chose to give up in a day and allow the Taliban to retake control.

The Ukrainians have shown the will to fight even when they weren't getting Western weapons.
 
Sythe79 said:
It's slightly different, the Afghans were given everything they needed, plenty of equipment and all the training required, they chose to give up in a day and allow the Taliban to retake control.

The Ukrainians have shown the will to fight even when they weren't getting Western weapons.
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It is far more complicated than that, though how the Biden administration wants to spin it.

Albeit probably 75% of the Afghan army which did exist had little to no will to fight - but ultimately they were strung out on the back foot in an untenable position with probably only about 12K strong forces actually willing to fight and they were abandoned by the US - the "300K well equipped Afghan army" simply did not exist for various reasons including rife corruption in the Afghan government/armed forces and US incompetence.
 
I think you're complicating it, the Fact is the US regime change failed, if after 20 years you only had 12k people willing to fight for it even with all the equipment the US had gifted.

It was different in Ukraine, where you had normal citizens with no combat training picking up old outdated weapons to defend themselves even before western weapons arrived
 
Sythe79 said:
I think you're complicating it, the Fact is the US regime change failed, if after 20 years you only had 12k people willing to fight for it even with all the equipment the US had gifted.

It was different in Ukraine, where you had normal citizens with no combat training picking up old outdated weapons to defend themselves even before western weapons arrived
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It is complicated - for example one of many aspects were "ghost soldiers" some didn't even exist at all and were invented by a commander so as to pocket some extra pay, some existed as people but never actually did anything just sat around in the base all day and others who did a couple of weeks training then disappeared but were still being paid long after due to no one giving a **** to chase it up, etc. etc. and that is just scratching the surface of why the situation in Afghan ended so messed up.

The 300K figure should never have been trotted out by the Biden administration - even a child with Google could figure out it was totally false, even the 200+K who melted away at the first sign of trouble that the US seems to be trying to re-write history as is a total fabrication that again basic Googling back when it all kicked off would have shown the real truth of.
 
The thing that makes me, as a US citizen, willing to pay higher taxes to send weapons to Ukraine is their willingness to fight and die for their land.

Even before it sunk in that corruption had left Russia far less effective than they seemed, and I thought Ukraine had very little chance of surviving as a country, I found their will to fight compelling and worthy of support against Russia's aggression.
 
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Sythe79 said:
I think you're complicating it, the Fact is the US regime change failed, if after 20 years you only had 12k people willing to fight for it even with all the equipment the US had gifted.

It was different in Ukraine, where you had normal citizens with no combat training picking up old outdated weapons to defend themselves even before western weapons arrived
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Civilians in Kyiv were making Molotov cocktails to throw from their windows when the Russians came and the civilians were picking up ak47's from the local police station and joining volunteer units

I bet civilians in Kabul were not doing the same when the Taliban were on their way

The difference is one population wanted to fight, the other did not. It doesn't matter how much weapons you have if you don't want to fight
 
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Hagar said:
Many Americans still think that the Ruskies are communist and the only good commie is a dead one.

Useful in this context.
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They've just replaced commie with facist and they still think the only good commie facist is a dead one
 
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Grim5 said:
Civilians in Kyiv were making Molotov cocktails to throw from their windows when the Russians came and the civilians were picking up ak47's from the local police station and joining volunteer units

I bet civilians in Kabul were not doing the same when the Taliban were on their way

The difference is one population wanted to fight, the other did not. It doesn't matter how much weapons you have if you don't want to fight
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The context is different.

The Russians invaded Ukraine.

The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan and installed a puppet government. The Taliban are largely Afghan.

The Afghans were quite willing to fight- just not for the US-installed government.
 
potatolord said:
The context is different.

The Russians invaded Ukraine.

The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan and installed a puppet government. The Taliban are largely Afghan.

The Afghans were quite willing to fight- just not for the US-installed government.
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Russia invaded first and caused the problem in the first place......If Russia had not invaded in the first place we would not have the **** show the world is due to one man and a set of towers.

So yes we can point the finger squarely at RUSSIA they are stain on the earth and deserve everything they get in my eyes... ORCS.
 
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