A friend of mine posted this on another site.
Back in 1990, the world went to war, literally, when Kuwait, with a population of 4 million people was invaded by Iraq. With the USA leading, 35 nations banded together and attacked Iraq, and returned Kuwait to its independent nation status.
So fast forward to today and my question is this; how would the USA, indeed the rest of the world, respond if, say Canada (@ 37 mil) or Australia (@ 26 mil) or Italy (@ 59 mil) came under attack from an outside nation??? Would they stand back and literally, do nothing meaningful to help??
Here's where I am going with this. The Ukraine has 44 million people - yet the world has, basically, thrown them to the wolves in terms of helping them fend off an attack by Russia.
Here are some interesting facts about Ukraine that will REALLY piss you off:
At the time of the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had a 780,000-man military force. (in perspective, that’s more than half of the size of the current US military). Ukraine had the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world - they controlled some 5,000 nuclear weapons including long-range missiles that carried up to 10 thermonuclear warheads, each far stronger than the bomb that leveled Hiroshima. Despite the fact that Ukraine declared itself as independent after the fall of the USSR, the Clinton administration pushed hard for the nuclear disarmament of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Parliament resisted - citing a concern about being vulnerable if attacked. The Clinton administration rejected that and applied pressure threatening international isolation if Ukraine didn’t go along. As a final carrot, in return for relinquishing ALL of its nuclear weapons, the USA, United Kingdom and Russian Federation promised to protect Ukraine - it’s a document called the Budapest Accord (I'll post a link to it later). Shortly thereafter, Ukraine handed over its entire nuclear inventory to Russia (yeah, I know, go figure).
But that wasn’t enough for the USA. In August of 2005, freshman Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) having served a grand total of 7 months as a US Senator, traveled with Richard Lugar (R-IN) to Donesk, Ukraine. The two met in Kiev with Putin's puppet, Ukraine's President Victor Yushchenko, insisting that the "Cooperative Threat Reduction Program" which covered the destruction of nuclear weapons, should be expanded to include artillery, small arms, anti-aircraft weapons, and conventional ammunition of all kinds.
After that meeting, Obama in his true narcissistic fashion, provided his expert opinion as a community organizer (with 7 months of experience as a US Senator) in the following statement; "Vast stocks of conventional munitions and military supplies have accumulated in Ukraine" ... 'We need to eliminate these stockpiles for the safety of the Ukrainian people and people around world, by keeping them out of conflicts around the world." Yeah, I know - read that last line again...
Then he and Lugar went back to DC, sponsored a bill for calling for $48 million in US funds to eliminated Ukraine's stockpile of small arms, weapons and ammunition, which Bush signed into law in late 2006. Ukraine then disposed of 400,000 small arms, 1,000 anti-aircraft missiles, and more than 15,000 tons of ammunition. Through the end of 2007, the UN reported that Ukraine disposed of over 700,000 small arms and missles.
In 2008, Putin invaded and absorbed Georgia, a close ally of Ukraine. The world did nothing ...
In 2010, Obama reassured Ukraine that it would stand behind them, referring to the Budapest Accord. He even sent his Vice President, Joe Biden, to Ukraine to comfort them when Putin attacked Crimea. Oh yeah, and he also sent them meal packets and blankets.
In 2014, when Ukrainian voters finally force Putin's puppet, Yushchenko, out of office and voted in the current President, Putin attacked and absorbed Crimea, which was a part of Ukraine. But it was too late for Ukraine - once again, the US, UK, and NATO did, literally, nothing. So much for the promises made in the Budapest Accord.
And Russia?? Putin declared the Budapest Accord as non-binding in 2014 - and again, nobody did a damn thing about that.
And that is how Ukraine, once a nuclear superpower with a huge military machine that could have easily defeated Putin and his Russian military organization, was methodically stripped of its ability to defend itself by outside, "pro democracy" forces who were hell bent on ridding Ukraine of its arms "for the safety of the Ukrainian people ... by keeping them out of conflicts around the world."
Other than the fact that this is why the Ukraine thing bothers the hell out of me, still there is another relatively simple lesson to draw from this and its this:
I am not a gun nut - I own one shotgun I used to hunt with as a kid which hasnt been fired in years - but this is a good example of why you will have to pry that gun out of my cold dead hands before I ever relinquish it to anyone pushing gun control.
God bless the Ukrainians ...
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