Russia and Ukraine

[Sheldon]

There are conflicting reports out of Ukraine today.

One member of the Ukrainian Parliament, the Chairman of the National Defense and Intelligence Committee, says that arms shipments from the US have been halted, pending unspecified "political decisions." But a different member of parliament says that's not true.

https://ukrainetoday.org/some-companies-...kraine-mp/

Zelensky has recently said that "Ukraine has a “very low chance of survival” without U.S. weapons."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cannot-surviv...34924.html

So the pro-war faction must feel themselves in a very precarious position. The ability to continue the war is hanging by a thread, and apparently Elon Musk is holding the scissors.

This is the beauty of having two political parties in the US, both of which work for the military industrial complex. When one party commits to sending billions, the parties switch after a little while and then they can just ignore prior commitments. When somebody decides that enough money has gone to the weapons industry for this particular conflict, they can walk away and -- who cares about "victory" or "defeat." The Taliban knew that if they held on long enough the US would get bored and walk away, and that's what happened. A couple of trillion wasted, a million lives ruined for no good reason -- eh, time to stop. No doubt Putin remembers this, because his memory goes all the way back to 2021.

"The Taliban knew that if they held on long enough the US would get bored and walk away2

You seem to know what everyone thinks, is it a special power you have? I have to look for evidence before I can decide, how lucky you seem to be, to be able to pluck this stuff out of thin air. FWIW whether the US led invasion of Afghanistan was a justifiable war or not, Putin's invasion of Ukraine clearly has no justification, beyond the imperial pretensions of a dictator, it is simply appalling to withdraw support from Ukraine, and make deals with that dictator, and though I don't have your powers to read everyone else's mind, I'd bet my house, that if Trump stabs Ukraine in the back, and gives Putin what he wants, we will have to face off against him again, and he will be much harder to stop.

If only there were some historical precedents, that gave clues on how best to handle ruthless bullying dictators. Sadly we now seem to have just such a man in the Whitehouse.