Streamer,

I'm partly old school anti-war hippy, but studying the ways of the world has hopefully made me a bit wiser. I opposed Bush jr's war in Iraq because it was undeniably a direct invastion by the US of a sovereign nation. The fact that we dislike Saddam is irrelevant; we dislike (usually, except that Trump idolizes them) all tyrant dictators. And now we have Russia, a dictatorship, invading the sovereign democratic nation of Ukraine. Color me opposed to the invasion of sovereign nations. That is why I favor supporting Ukraine's defense. When you factor in the human cost of 60 million free Ukrainians becoming subjects of totalitarian Russia, worth becomes a more complicated term.

I agree that war isn't necessary for free trade and commerce. I don't agree that NATO is nothing more than a guarantee for the military industrial complex, although it does help the MIC. IMO, NATO exists to keep free countries free, mainly free from Russian aggression since that was considered the primary threat to freedom when it was chartered. And here we are with Russian aggression against Ukraine. I don't see how having Russia retake former Soviet states makes the world either a better or safer place. I think a world with fewer democracies makes the world less safe for remaining democracies, including the US.

After the Soviet Union broke up, Ukraine shipped all its nukes to Russia because of the agreement by Russia, the US, and I think maybe UK, agreed to protect Ukraine. Silly Ukraine and US to think Russia wouldn't double cross. I'm thinking we have failed our word to help protect Ukraine, since we're giving them weaponry to defend itself, but not enough to "win" this war. This gets me to thinking we should ship a bunch of nukes to Ukraine to improve its self defense posture and let Putin ponder that over breakfast. How's that for a RichG-esque sequence?