U.S. rejects Poland's offer to give it Russian-made fighter jets for Ukraine

[nvflash]

What did you want American policy to be in 2014?

To hire my son to sit one the board of a Ukraine gas company.

 

[MTAtech]

To hire my son to sit one the board of a Ukraine gas company.

Hunter Biden got that job and there is no evidence his father had anything to do with it. Berisma's head, Zlochevsky, might have thought he could ingratiate himself with the Obama administration by buying an association with the vice president. All available evidence suggests he was wrong.

 

[EnigmaO01]

What did you want American policy to be in 2014?

The president before Zelinskyy was a corrupt puppet of Moscow and wasn’t interested in accepting U.S. arms to defend against Moscow. Zelinskyy was only elected in 2019.

BINGO! 20/20 hindsight is so easy when you ignore the facts.

 

[nvflash]

BINGO! 20/20 hindsight is so easy when you ignore the facts.

So what is the excuse for the lack of an effective plan between 2019-2022?

Three years is more than enough time to ship dollars from the US to buy weapons from the US and our allies, and to train Ukraine soldiers how to use them.

Anyway, even if the Ukraine President was a not friendly to us in 2014 we still had the sanction card to play, and we did, but those sanctions were not effective. Why? because they were weak, Obama was weak, Congress was weak, and later Trump was weak.

None of them wanted to level with the American people about the true costs of cheap gas, so what else is new. Now we have a Russia regime fat on oil and gas profits on the doorstep of our allies in Europe waging a war in the Ukraine under the guise that Putin is only reuniting "ethnic Russians".

Well that is exactly what Hitler claimed, that he was only reuniting "ethnic Germans".

One would have had to be a fool to not see this coming, and one has to be a fool to not see what comes next should we fail to stop Russia now. No 20/20 hindsight needed.

 

[MTAtech]

So what is the excuse for the lack of an effective plan between 2019-2022?

Three years is more than enough time to ship dollars from the US to buy weapons from the US and our allies, and to train Ukraine soldiers how to use them.

Anyway, even if the Ukraine President was a not friendly to us in 2014 we still had the sanction card to play, and we did, but those sanctions were not effective. Why? because they were weak, Obama was weak, Congress was weak, and later Trump was weak.

None of them wanted to level with the American people about the true costs of cheap gas, so what else is new. Now we have a Russia regime fat on oil and gas profits on the doorstep of our allies in Europe waging a war in the Ukraine under the guise that Putin is only reuniting "ethnic Russians".

Well that is exactly what Hitler claimed, that he was only reuniting "ethnic Germans".

One would have had to be a fool to not see this coming, and one has to be a fool to not see what comes next should we fail to stop Russia now. No 20/20 hindsight needed.

Obama did place sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Crimea. Later, Trump tried to remove those sanctions. Then, Trump tried to link military assistance to bogus investigations on Joe Biden. The famous "perfect call" comes to mind.

 

[nvflash]

Obama did place sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Crimea. Later, Trump tried to remove those sanctions. Then, Trump tried to link military assistance to bogus investigations on Joe Biden. The famous "perfect call" comes to mind.

we still had the sanction card to play, and we did, but those sanctions were not effective. Why? because they were weak, Obama was weak, Congress was weak, and later Trump was weak.

Please read and at least try and understand everything that is written.

 

[HennyBogan]

We're "cowards" for not wanting another world war? That'll be me then; advocating NATO involvement is exactly the type of provocation Putin needs to give him an excuse to escalate. You want to live in a country devastated by a nuclear exchange-if you even survive, because that's what your attitude is inviting. There is nothing cowardly about doing everything humanly possible to avoid a global conflict.

That’s rich coming from a guy who resides in Mother England dragging all of us into their stupid wars

 

[MTAtech]

Please read and at least try and understand everything that is written.

That’s a tall order, reading everything that has ever been written. Many many libraries.

 

[Athanasius68]

LOL NATO and the US are not at war with Russia and do not plan to be . Trust me on that. You would know if we were.

But Western officials worry that if Ukrainian pilots go to a NATO country to pick up fighter jets and then fly them back into contested Ukrainian airspace, where they might have to engage with Russian fighters, Moscow will view the country they left from as a combatant and therefore fair game.
And NATO’s core tenet, spelled out in Article 5 of its charter, is that an attack on any member country is an attack on all, meaning all 30 member states would be obligated to join the fight.

“The intelligence community has assessed the transfer of MiG-29s to Ukraine may be mistaken as escalatory and could result in Russian reaction that could increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/na...ive-ukraine-soviet-era-fighter-jets-rcna19396

So... Drive them across the border.
Then fly them from Ukraine airbases.

The objection here is how Biden made the decision-- he swings all over the place.
The USA standing up to a "bully" (Biden's early description of the invasion) doesn't mean WW III.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Actually Ukraine did not pay for the arms we sent and are not paying for those we have sent since the invasion. They are gifts of the American people. Trump sold billions in arms to the Saudi's which they used to murder innocent yemen women and children mostly. But he still bragged about how big the sales were.

So the US taxpayers are (in effect) subsidizing the American armaments industry by buying military goods that the industry couldn't otherwise sell in order for the US government to give them away - right?

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Who said refining is running at maximum output? Capacity fluctuates as refineries are shutdown when capacity isn’t needed.

In 2020, oil refinery capacity in the United States amounted to approximately 18 million barrels per day. Although refineries are operating at full capacity, they may still have difficulties in meeting daily energy demands.

I assume they reopen when needed.

Obviously you have no idea what you are talking about.

For one thing, where is a refinery that has been closed for over a year going to get the trained personnel needed to operate and maintain it?

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

That’s rich coming from a guy who resides in Mother England dragging all of us into their stupid wars

Indeed, the US should have let the Nazis conquer Europe (if they could) and let the Russians drive right on through to the English Channel if they could.

 

[iguanaman]

So... Drive them across the border.
Then fly them from Ukraine airbases.

The objection here is how Biden made the decision-- he swings all over the place.
The USA standing up to a "bully" (Biden's early description of the invasion) doesn't mean WW III.

Poland refused to give them to Ukraine themselves after initially proposing that they would. They are the one that swing all over the place.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Poland refused to give them to Ukraine themselves after initially proposing that they would. They are the one that swing all over the place.

The proposal was "IF you (the US) will supply us with replacement aircraft, THEN we will give Ukraine our MiG-27s.".

The US government response was "We will not supply you with replacement aircraft.".

You do know what a "conditional" is, don't you?

They work like this:

IF "A" THEN "B";

and

IF "Not A" THEN "Not B".
(typographical emphasis added for the benefit of the logic impaired)
​

In this situation it was "NOT A" so why would you think that the other half of the equation would be "B"

 

[iguanaman]

The proposal was "IF you (the US) will supply us with replacement aircraft, THEN we will give Ukraine our MiG-27s.".

The US government response was "We will not supply you with replacement aircraft.".

You do know what a "conditional" is, don't you?

They work like this:

IF "A" THEN "B";

and

IF "Not A" THEN "Not B".
(typographical emphasis added for the benefit of the logic impaired)
​

In this situation it was "NOT A" so why would you think that the other half of the equation would be "B"

The U.S response was HELL NO we cannot fly aircraft from a NATO base in Germany to Ukraine. That would be a dangerous escalation we cannot risk. So the deal is off. We originally offered the replacements ONLY if Poland wanted to give the Migs on their own without NATO involvement. When pressed by us to make the exchange they then decided it was too risky to them and would not be party to the exchange and we deployed Patriot anti-missile systems in Poland to ease their worries. Surely you don't think any of this was about replacement aircraft. We are giving billions in military aid to Ukraine and a few planes are a drop in the bucket to us.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

The U.S response was no we cannot fly aircraft from a NATO base in Germany to Ukraine. That would be a dangerous escalation we cannot risk. So the deal is off. We originally offered the replacements ONLY if Poland wanted to give the Migs on their own without NATO involvement. When pressed by us to make the exchange they then decided it was too risky to them and would not be party to the exchange and we deployed Patriot anti-missile systems in Poland to ease their worries.

An "interesting" situation would arise if the Ukrainian Air Force sent a number of pilots to Poland for "Joint Operational Training". Obviously, in the current situation, those Ukrainian pilots could not bring Ukrainian aircraft with them so they'd have to use Polish Air Force aircraft. Naturally, since those Ukrainian pilots were most familiar with the MiG-27s, they would be assigned Polish Air Force MiG-27s to use for that training.

Why the government of Poland would be HIGHLY incensed when those Ukrainian pilots "stole" the Polish MiG-27s and fled with them to Ukraine. The Poles would demand that the aircraft be returned. The Ukrainian government would promise to do so as soon as they could be found and would also promise to ensure that the "guilty" pilots would be tried by a Ukrainian military tribunal "as soon as the current situation stabilizes enough for a return to normal operating conditions".

Those military tribunals would have a great deal of difficulty in deciding if the pilot's should receive the "Order of the Gold Star" or the "Order of Liberty" at the same time as they were handed their "Nastygram" for "borrowing" the Polish aircraft without having first completed all requisite paperwork.

 

[iguanaman]

An "interesting" situation would arise if the Ukrainian Air Force sent a number of pilots to Poland for "Joint Operational Training". Obviously, in the current situation, those Ukrainian pilots could not bring Ukrainian aircraft with them so they'd have to use Polish Air Force aircraft. Naturally, since those Ukrainian pilots were most familiar with the MiG-27s, they would be assigned Polish Air Force MiG-27s to use for that training.

Why the government of Poland would be HIGHLY incensed when those Ukrainian pilots "stole" the Polish MiG-27s and fled with them to Ukraine. The Poles would demand that the aircraft be returned. The Ukrainian government would promise to do so as soon as they could be found and would also promise to ensure that the "guilty" pilots would be tried by a Ukrainian military tribunal "as soon as the current situation stabilizes enough for a return to normal operating conditions".

Those military tribunals would have a great deal of difficulty in deciding if the pilot's should receive the "Order of the Gold Star" or the "Order of Liberty" at the same time as they were handed their "Nastygram" for "borrowing" the Polish aircraft without having first completed all requisite paperwork.

That is exactly the scenario that we would have embraced but Poland chickened out and I'm not sure I blame them. They felt that might cause them to get nuked by Putin hence the Patriots were deployed.

 

[neil]

I haven't been following this issue closely, so there may be an answer to my question: why does the US have to provide "backfill" jets? Don't England, France, etc. have jets? Why is the US on the spot for this?

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

I haven't been following this issue closely, so there may be an answer to my question: why does the US have to provide "backfill" jets? Don't England, France, etc. have jets? Why is the US on the spot for this?

Because the US has a fairly large number of "spare" jets that it can provide (and because the Poles cannot purchase American made jets from the UK, France, etc.).