As the Republican Party’s blockade of aid to Ukraine drags on, Pres. Joe Biden has found a new way to give Ukraine’s forces the weapons they need to defend their country.

As the Republican Party’s blockade of aid to Ukraine drags into its fourth month, the U.S. government under Pres. Joe Biden has found a clever new way to give Ukraine’s forces the weapons and ammunition they need to defend their country.

It is, in essence, an American version of Germany’s circular weapons trade—the so-called Ringtausch. The United States is gifting older surplus weapons to Greece with the understanding that Greece donates to Ukraine some of its own surplus weapons.

Greek media broke the news last week. According to the newspaper Kathimerini and other media, the Biden administration offered the Greek government three 87-foot Protector-class patrol boats, two Lockheed Martin C-130H airlifters, 10 Allison T56 turboprop engines for Lockheed P-3 patrol planes plus 60 M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles and a consignment of transport trucks.

All this hardware is U.S. military surplus—and is available to Greece, free of charge, under a U.S. legal authority called “excess defense articles.” Federal law allows an American president to declare military systems surplus to need, assign them a value—potentially zero dollars—and give them away on the condition that the recipient transport them.

  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.worldEnglish
    993·
    11 months ago

    Remember when Republicans used to yell “better dead than red!” to show their hostility to the USSR and communism?

    Now too many of them are preoccupied with twerking for the authoritarian roach that emerged from the USSR’s corpse (and which still has a lot in common with it).

    Also, the Republican party is now the red party, which is pretty funny.

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
      343·
      11 months ago

      Nothing surprising for everyone who already knew that what they disliked about the USSR wasn’t really the totalitarianism, just the lower wealth unequality.

      • oatscoop@midwest.socialEnglish
        161·
        11 months ago

        More so that sort loved the USSR: it provided the ultimate boogyman they could use to justify just about anything.

        Accuse your political foes of being commies, and “investigate” them. Advance Christian nationalism by pointing at the “godless Soviets”. Need to get your political donors want some sweet defense contracts? – well we need weapons to fight the reds.

        The USSR did the same thing with the “decadent west”.

    • mochisuki@lemmy.world
      311·
      11 months ago

      And just as it was back then, the red menace was ALWAYS about distracting the masses away from voting against corporate interests

    • Wrrzag@lemmy.ml
      1·
      11 months ago

      I don’t get what’s strange about this. They didn’t like commies, Russia is no longer even calling itself socialist, so why would they still be hostile to the Russians?

      • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
        39·
        11 months ago

        Then I’d call you a complete liar with a weak grasp on reality, and a poor understanding of where and when you ought to open your ill-informed mouth, before I walked off and continued with my day, secure in the knowledge that you’re as wrong about something as it’s physically possible to be.

        That’s what.

            • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
              230·
              11 months ago

              If I am trolling and you keep responding then that means I am winning… Thank you!

              • rusticus@lemm.ee
                101·
                11 months ago

                Like I said: failing miserably. An effective troll foments FUD. You are only receiving ridicule.

                • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
                  114·
                  11 months ago

                  Like I said; if you think I am a troll and you respond then I win. I will take the W!

                  • rusticus@lemm.ee
                    6·
                    11 months ago

                    You must live a pathetic existence to count being called out for being an incompetent troll as a win. It took longer than usual to type this as it’s harder to type while laughing. Thanks for the hilarity imbecile!

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
            16·
            11 months ago

            4 day old account, all but two comments are pro-russian. Guess lemmy is getting popular enough to attract attention from the Russian troll farms.

          • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
            25·
            11 months ago

            It’s almost comical to see “leftists” scream about the lies that Trump and GOP tell - but if you suggest there was a diplomatic solution they explode immediately lol. War propaganda is working incredibly well these days and any pacifist notion is attacked as subversive and downvoted. Vast majority of millennials and gen Z are just as brainwashed and are murderous war mongers the boomers were.

            PS: I’m really missing a fitting word for this. They are not fascists and nationalists or imperialists is too weak. War mongers sounds a bit lame too.

            • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
              28·
              11 months ago

              I think millenials and older know about how the left used to be the party of peace and the right was the war mongers. Now some of the rights is still warmongers but the left is just as bloodthirsty. Its like “Putin must pay!!! Send more Ukrainian young men to their death!!!”

              • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
                1·
                11 months ago

                You mean they don’t know about the left being pro peace? Or that they are overcompensating because they do know?

                There is a documentary by Adam Curtis about how the rhetoric in geopolitics changed to good vs evil, not just Reagan but all the third way leftists. A very successful PR / brainwashing campaign.

                But ever since Ukraine started this has massively changed on reddit which is supposedly “leftist”. Presumably the “science and technology of propaganda” is improving. If the Irak and Afghanistan happened today, there wouldn’t be any major opposition to it online. There wasn’t any in mainstream media either at the time, but back then the internet actually was less… warmongery?

                • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
                  15·
                  11 months ago

                  I dont know if they dont know what the more traditional leftists believed in back in the 90s and earlier, or other interests have taken over their rhetoric, or if they are just using the oppressor - oppressed world view to pick Ukraine and Palestine. Do you think they got co-opted by big business interests or something else?

                  • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
                    2·
                    11 months ago

                    Yeah definitely there is PR push. All the mainstream articles are written in a way that maximizes these viewpoints. I don’t know where exactly it comes from but besides military industrial complex there is still oil and extraction of resources and general empire stuff there are a lot of business interest tied to maintaining hegemony.

                    For Ukraine specifically I also speculate that it’s because Ukraine is a breadbasket. With climate change, food prices are going to become unstable so having control of that region is not just good business, for the empire it’s an important strategic goal. West-Ukraine will mostly be owned by EU and US because of the incredible debt.

                    The other goal here is that we’ll see like a billion climate refugees in a few decades which will lead to wars. And Russia has tons of borders that could be corridors. So it’s good to destabilize and isolate Russia in advance of these climate wars so that the worst chaos isn’t happening in Europe. Similar with China. They’d want to encircle their geopolitical rivals so they don’t have that much room to maneuver.

                    This is all speculation and I’m really not sure if “they” think this strategically. But Nato baiting Ukraine was imho a definite trap to “force” Russia into this conflict. Fuck Stoltenberg for example. Not that I don’t blame Russia!