U.S. spies learned in mid-June Prigozhin was planning armed action in Russia

The Washington Post via MSN ^ | June 24, 2023 | Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris

[BroJoeK]

hardspunned: "It could not be more obvious that the CIA opened up this guy offshore accounts to bring him into the Zelensky fold."

Outside your own personal fever-fantasies, it's not at all obvious that our CIA had anything to do with Yevgeniy Prigozhin or his beef (real or staged) with Vlad the Invader.

hardspunned: "This “Russian Civil War” is just another reckless escalation on the way to a DC started WWIII.
Assuming Putin and Priggy don’t kiss and make up, will Priggy become the West’s latest George Floyd?"

Today it appears more likely than ever, the whole thing was staged for public consumption.
There's certainly no evidence of the CIA et al, and probably much more to do with the old KGB/FSB hands.

[BroJoeK]

kabar: "Where are the hundreds of billions of dollars required to rebuild going to come from?
We have already borrowed almost $200 billion to keep the war in Ukraine going.
Before the war, Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in the world and a poor country with a per capita GDP of $14,300, which is $100 more than Cuba’s.
We can’t afford this endless war.
We have no obligation to defend Ukraine or to rebuild it.
We are weakening ourselves."

I think there's some truth in your arguments, but it's not the whole truth, by a long shot.

The larger picture includes the following:

1. Current US economic conditions -- i.e., higher inflation, lower labor participation rates -- are 100% self-inflicted.
   They are the results of Democrat vote-buying schemes and will end when Democrats are removed from political power.

2. One key to budget-balancing and inflation reduction is increasing labor participation from current levels to levels of 1990 (67%) or 2005 (66%).
   Those were both under Republican administrations, so Republicans know how to do this.

3. Republicans also know how to balance budgets, as we did under Newt Gingrich's leadership in the 1990s.

4. A budget in surplus, inflation under control and more who can work, working, will restore our fiscal house to something more resembling sanity.

5. Accounting gimmicks aside, our aid to Ukraine, so far, is circa $100 billion, not $200 billion.
   We can compare this to the 20 year War on Terror which averaged around $400 billion per year.

6. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are all easily solved, once Democrat vote-buying schemes are reduced or eliminated from the Federal budget.

7. On government corruptions, the standards for least corrupt (dark green below) are set by countries like Denmark (90), New Zealand (87), Finnland (87) and Norway (84).
   In comparison to them, the US (69) looks... well... tarnished.
   The standards for most corrupt (orange to red) are set by countries like Russia (28), Uganda (28) and Somalia (9).
   In comparison to them, Ukraine (30) looks more like a beacon of virtue.
   

8. As to which countries are most religious:
   • 41% of Russians are Christians, 45% have no formal religion.

   • 66% of Americans are Christians, 30% have no formal religion.

   • 85% of Ukrainians are Christians, 15% have no formal religion.

Finally, on the question, does the US have some obligation to defend Ukraine?
The answer is: in that regard, today is very similar to 1938 and 1939 in Europe, when the Brits & French were trying to decide what to do about Hitler's invasions of Austria and Czechoslovakia.

Back then, September 1918, they decided on what Neville Chamberlain notoriously called "Peace in Our Time", while waving a scrap of paper supposedly signed by Adolf Hitler.
Chamberlain's bogus "peace" lasted less than a year, during which time Hitler's military greatly expanded after absorbing the Czech's military-industrial base, using new concepts, sensationalized in the western press as "lightning war", which would soon overrun nearly all of Europe.

It has been believed ever since that had the West stood up to and stopped Hitler early-on, then Germans themselves would have overthrown him.
But, by allowing Hitler to march from one blazing conquest to the next, the West merely guaranteed that, in due time, he would become strong enough to overthrow or existentially threaten all of them.

That is the logic for helping defend Ukraine.
It is the international equivalent of the police "broken windows" philosophy, so despised by Democrats today at home, though perhaps inadvertently practiced by them abroad.

It is the right thing to do.
Or, as some of my favorite movie characters might say, "this is the way."

[BroJoeK]

rxh4n1: "Clean up - we can dream.
What they want is for us to rebuild the whole country.
More than that.
They want us to fight for them."

There is no doubt, Ukrainians will ask for help rebuilding their country.

But there is no evidence "they want us to fight for them."

[BroJoeK]

Candor7: "The putative rebel is in Belarus to organize a strike into Nato,Wagner is signed over to the generals who will use many of the Wagner units to train tye Russian army, and Putin is prtrayed as semi defeated , whichi is what Putin wants US ALL to believe.yed..."

My thoughts exactly.
Nothing else makes sense.

[Oystir]

Now the CIA/ABC agencies can kill Putin by the end of the year and claim he was wiped out internally. Watch out for poisoning, Vlad.

[hardspunned]

You have no idea what happened or who’s involved. What was your immediate take when the Russians blew up Nord Stream? If I go back and check will I find that you correctly called the US and Brits for their total responsibility? I believe nothing that I’m told from either side. Only a fool would immediately dismiss CIA involvement. A fool or an administration shill.

[rxh4n1]

I listen to Zelensky. He’s almost come out and said it.

[BroJoeK]

hardspunned: "You have no idea what happened or who’s involved. "

Nor do you, and yet you instantaneously jump to the assumption that the CIA was somehow responsible?
That's just crazy, and you know it.

hardspunned: "What was your immediate take when the Russians blew up Nord Stream?
If I go back and check will I find that you correctly called the US and Brits for their total responsibility? "

To this day we still don't know for sure who did it, who knew about it ahead of time and who may have paid those who did the actual work.
From Day One there were wise-guys (i.e., Tucker Carlson) who said it had to be Biden himself, who swam down into the Baltic and placed those explosives -- AND THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE.
What never made sense was Vlad the Invader destroying his own pipeline.

But, bottom line: at this point we still don't know for sure.

hardspunned: "I believe nothing that I’m told from either side.
Only a fool would immediately dismiss CIA involvement.
A fool or an administration shill."

Only a fool would instantaneously assume that the CIA was somehow responsible for events at the highest levels of Russian leadership.
Especially when those events seem to result in Vlad the Invader's close personal friend, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, moved to Belarus, near Russia's nukes there and able to threaten Ukraine from the North, or just as likely, to take over Belarus from within.

As of today, the more likely explanation is: last weeks bizarre events were strictly a show for public consumption.

[BroJoeK]

rxh4n1: "I listen to Zelensky.
He’s almost come out and said it."

Then you are simply listening to your own fantasies.

I've heard nothing of the sort.

[BroJoeK]

*** CORRECTION ***

"Back then, September 1918, they decided on what..."

Obviously, a typo, should have said "September 1938", the time of the Chamberlain-Hitler Munich Conference.