As you can see on the list, only one Patriot system has been delivered and that one is from 2022, if I remember correctly. Biden announced another patriot system in June 2024, but it seems that that's exactly one of those AA systems Ukraine is still waiting for.
: America, can you give us that Patriot system we talked about? We could really use it right now.
: Nope, sorry Ukraine. I'm too busy sending another THAAD to Israel, you understand of course.
: Oh...
Interesting bit of news from a month(ish) ago - the EU promised Ukraine 1 million shells in March '23 but as of September 30th, has only been able to deliver ~30% of it 🙃
: Is anyone actually making that munition we promised to give to Ukraine?
: Lol, no.
Lots of angry comments here
Dude needs to keep down the whinging for a week or so unless he wants all the aid stopped.
And here
Who cares. They should fight strategically not with so much volume of consumption.
I have vague memories of a pumpkin faced man telling Europe they need to up their military spending and be laughed at for it back in 2016
You mean when he tried to claim the increased spending by European nations as his own work while it was exactly on the schedule Obama negotiated?
Nato's military doctrine is to gain aerial superiority and subsequently crush opponents through a combined arms means. It's fundamentally not designed for prolonged artillery satuation like we are seeing in ukraine, as such nato countries have not had much reason to manufacture artillery at scale prior to this war since it was not how nato planned to fight any war its directly involved in.
: Wtf are you people even doing at this point?
If the race really is as close as it is or Trump does win it, Bidens last act needs to be donating all the US's aircraft carriers, Tomahawks and F35s to Ukraine.
Democracy will fail either way but at least this way we go down fighting.
How is giving up all your shit and doing nothing else going down fighting?
So, the Federal Government is shelling out the money to defense contractors and the Pentagon but only 10% of the actual hardware is getting delivered?
So who is stealing the remaining 90%?
This is the kind of thing firing squads were invented for.
Didn't pack the rockets to Ukraine fast enough? Straight to firing squad you go
That's a bit of a reach. The items just haven't been delivered yet. I placed an order online 2 days ago, 0% of my order has been delivered today, it looks like it's en route and when UPS drops it off 100% of my order will be delivered.
That doesn't mean 100% of my order has currently been stolen.
We can certainly talk about lead times, delays, etc. which can be a problem, but what reason do we have to assume 90% has been stolen?
I want to see the Amazon tracking for billions in military hardware en-route to Ukraine.
Especially the photo of all of it sitting on Zelensky's doorstep.
Consider this, the shortest route is off the east coast of the US. Shipping was shut down for a while. Then also take into consideration that Customs can take a REALLY FREAKING LONG TIME for non-military shipments and requires detailed information. Now if it goes through an anti-Ukranian country then they can make the process take over a year for customs to clear it to pass. Now add the other countries en route. What does that mean? Shipping is a -b-word- when it comes to moving military equipment.
Why the shit would America's weapons go through an anti-Ukraine country?
youre assuming things
Yep. And I will continue to assume them while the evidence appears to support the assumption.
I will un-assume them when the missing 90% of aid winds up where it is supposed to be.
Yeah, imagine assuming defense contracts are bloated sham deals where many individuals line their pockets.
You could just check the GAO's high risk list and associated assessments and see the US gov confirm, with research, the vulnerabilities of DOD contracting to boated sham deals and individual enrichment, across seven broad DOD-related entries.
That's not what it's reporting, and you darn well know that... Why blatantly lie? The GAO's report is on high risk projects and programs, such as ambitious programs that are likely too demanding on technology, or a way too low ball deal.
The willingness of people to blatantly lie when their own sources call them a liar is baffling, yet here you are... Pathetic and shameful
I actually don't think OP is lying he's just really dumb lol
Just reddit things
??? they are just slow at transferring the material to Ukraine, nobody is stealing it
The argument goes on if you're curious
The U.S. military has noted repeatedly that readiness stocks have been dangerously depleted and that manufacturing is not keeping pace with replacements necessary before releasing further stocks. Add in Israeli requirements and this is no surprise. The US is not going to jeopardize its own defense for Ukraine, no matter what
: Look Ukraine, not sending weapons to Israel is a threat to America, ok?
: But America...
Defending Ukraine is defending the US.
Lmao
LMAO. Yall are wild with your takes. What makes you think that Russia could do anything to the US?
The political experts on /r/worldnews have tried to answer this but they used too many and I'm too lazy to copypaste everything
Right - just like Vietnam was defending the US. What's NATO membership if you get all the benefits without all the costs and don't even have to join? The Pentagon gave up on the domino theory 4 decades ago, old timer
if they were in NATO there would be F22s and 35s flying over Ukraine carrying out fire missions and the Russian fleet would have been sunk 2 years earlier.
also, pentagon doesn't determine policy. they enact it.
"[The P]entagon doesn't determine policy" - that's a good one, I'll tell that one the next time I get together with my DOD colleagues -ex military, DOD
who controls the pentagon/DOD? who controls their funding?
do they have their own policies? sure. but they answer to the President and Congress. They can't just on their own decide (legally) "hey lets start giving weapons to Thailand and do strikes into Zimbabwe." only the CIA is allowed to do that (/j).
You really are clueless, aren't you? Start with Eisenhower and his warnings about the military industrial complex; move on to the Pentagon Papers… I love you armchair warriors who have never even been inside the Pentagon, where the birds are making the coffee
Although I will grant you that the president gets to choose which Pentagon-formulated policies to implement. That is why the generals didn't like Trump, btw, because he would always choose the craziest and most belligerent policy. After a while, they stopped giving him choices. As for Congress, they don't get squat, other than appropriating funds (which never, never are opposed because "not supporting the troops" is a political death sentence.)
Does the Pentagon control the White House? Or vice versa?
Seems the US don't think so. China is the pivot and war is coming with Taiwan being the hot spot.
: But after you're done sending weapons to Israel can you give me some too?
: Nope, I plan to go bully China next.
The US must be intentionally sandbagging then. There is no reason the US military, of all organizations on earth, should have any problem moving vast amounts of war material around the globe.
And when the war first started, they was little delay on sending aid, too. Why would there be a bunch of bureaucratic red tape getting in the way now? Frick all that overhead, just put it on a darn ship and send it.
I mean, we failed to move out of Afghanistan effectively despite a year's warning. We pulled out the troops last second, leaving everyone else and all the equipment high and dry.
I think this shows that our military leadership is woefully incompetent right now, either because of red tape or because of extreme stupidity. I don't think they are sandbagging aid.
The US military cold be incompetent - but not because of what happened in Afghanistan. The US went there with the intent to create a new Afghanistan and much of the equipment was to maintain that. What was left in the country was mostly because of practicality and cost, or already given to the Afghan government - although still arguably wasteful.
This particular problem in Ukraine has less to do with military competence and more to do with sand-bagging, or red tape, from bureaucracy.
I guess you could say that could be interpreted as incompetence. I would consider someone mailing a bullet on friday when they should've sent it on monday but got lazy as incompetence. And someone wanting to mail a bullet on monday but can't until friday because contract changes, procurement, or a politician as red tape.
The issue isn't the equipment that would have cost more to ship home than to write off, it was the fact that a small presence could have safeguarded against a resurgent taliban, once it became apparent they were not honoring their part of the deal, and mainly the fact that we pulled out so fast that we left 10s of thousands of interpreters and "collaborators" behind to be murdered. Yes, Afghanistan failed when karzai was chosen and inadvertently overly favored by the us for too long, but the people that were left to fall prey to taliban retribution is the national shame that we carry. But honestly, only a small number of troops could have held off a taliban government being re established, biden and Trump just really wanted entirely out.
Don't feel the least bit of shame. A country that can't prop it self up after 2 decades is their own problem.
: You know what? I'm sick of this shit and I'm leaving. The Taliban can have all the equipment for all I care, unlike you they earned it I guess.
: Wait, America, please!
: Gib America's weapons!
They don't have any logistics problems supplying Israel though.
No
At least there is no parts supply chain to keep those vehicles and such running well. Much of it was disabled before leaving
Now the equipment left by the ANA? Most was likely not disabled.
Imo the only thing it shows is that the pull out should have been properly negotiated and prepared for by the person who negotiated it. It also shows the US will still honor it's agreements.
Who's to blame for the embarrassing Afghanistan pull out? Trump or Biden?
Israel, they have used up all the US's missile interceptors, artillery shells, etc for their greater Israel campaign.
Like fighting a war with somebody else's weapons is a bad thing
The West has proven itself to be both unwilling and unprepared to respond appropriately to the threat posed by Russia and Putin has been able to run rings around both the US and the EU. Will the larger NATO partners actually defend smaller states like the Baltic States with more than words if and when Russia decides that it's time to chance its arm.
I keep seeing this take, but I was actually impressed at how fast NATO reacted to this war despite owning Ukraine nothing. If anything it proved that if NATO is willing to go this far out for a non-NATO country then it's willing to rain heck for an actual member
If the Ukraine soldiers arent trained for all the new weapons. Its a waste to send them now. Just like the F16 fighters they are getting. It takes time to train personel to maintain and fly those things.
Which equipment ? It's been 2 years, they have been trained on most pledged equipment.
: We trained you to fight in modern planes, what more do you want?
: The actual planes too?
: Oh yea sure, just give us another year or so! We promise!
(we don't have a NATO marsey unfortunately )
Funny that you mentioned it. USA also restricted the number of Ukrainian pilots it trained. https://kyivindependent.com/delays-to-f-16-training-ukrainian-mp-says/
That's a very old article and misleading. The US didn't 'restrict' Ukrainians from training. The US didn't have slots in the foreign pilot training programs because they are booked far in advance by other nations. Also Ukraine did not have enough English fluent pilots advanced enough to go straight into F-16 training. The training is only done in English.
Therefore, the US opened another F-16 training program in Romania to accommodate more pilots and they began training Ukrainian pilots from scratch. Training from scratch adds an extra year onto the training. But there weren't any more Ukrainian candidates that could start at the B-Course level, which is the course where you start actually flying the F-16.
: Right, look what we're gonna do. You'll train alongside one of your neighbours.
: Sure! Do we get more american soldiers in our country is we do this?
: You'll have to pay for all of this...
: No problem! I'll mooch the money back from the EU at some point.
: But what about the actual planes?
Because the pipeline is already tight as most us allies train their fighter pilots in the us. I mean I take your point, but when you state it like that it sounds like some sabotage campaign.
: We can train them too now! EU gib money!
: Really?
: It's for the safety of us all!
The pattern I noticed is the entire war effort is dependant on US and Europe doesn't care
US gives guns, Europe gives money. US aid is govt funding to buy stuff from US-based companies to then send to Ukraine. If the US govt pledges weapon packages in the form of pledge to buy from local aka US suppliers, but the guns do not end up in Ukraine, how is this Europe's problem?
The clearly end up in Ukraine, that list of what's been delivered by the US is massive. Something your country can't say.
Unpopular opinion - these delays exist for the same reason the Justice Department has done frick-all about domestic terrorism and Republican sedition for four years. Biden is a gutless do-nothing kitty that is soft on real crime that threatens our national security and that of our would-be allies. He is so old, feeble, senile, and out of touch he won't lift a finger to challenge those who are attacking our democracy and sandbagging/obstructing aid to Ukraine.
Our only hope is that Harris successfully stops the steal, fires Garland, rolls heads at the corrupt DOJ, FBI, and Pentagon and starts the real work of purging Federal power structures of traitors who have for too long aligned with Trump, Putin and other agents actively destroying our country.
Kamala will save America!
I wish my country just surrendered and gave green corridor for Russia to attack Europe. All we get is words of encouragement and pressure to lower our conscription age to send more of our men to die. I just read that North Korea handed over to Russia 6 million shells. FRICK THIS SHIT.
I live close to the frontline. I am so fking tired. My life was good. Better than most americans and europeans. Living standards were pretty high. I refuse to be a refugee, life in europe is a downgrade. I think we chose wrong allies. North Korea and Iran have no problems delivering what's needed.
You can always surrender
In-depth breakdown of the EU/US contribution
This shit is just getting pathetic. Has been pathetic.
Frick the GOP, frick the Putin sycophants, frick the authoritarian enablers stealing Ukrainian lives for votes.
Does he know that Biden is president?
Can supply the genocidal israelis but not Ukraine. This is deliberate and if Ukraine falls then NATO is done. Who is going to trust the Americans and I guarantee every NATO country, except maybe Canada, will drop out. America will be isolated and the world will be at war. I'm not keen in dying in atomic hellfire and I hope the Americans get their heads out of their asses and are honest to their word for once.
The US maintains stockpiles in Israel.
Lol what? Ukraine is not part of NATO, so Ukraine falling isn't going to affect it.
You can't help this non-NATO country! You need to help this other non-NATO country or NATO is finished!
Meanwhile, another 100 billion to Israel!
: Problem?
England has given over 1.6 BILLION, and a lot of that money has been misplaced according to Ukraine
Hmm. Lies.
Google it also you've got a few weird things on your profile libertarian
Look, copious amounts of alcohol is a human right, chud
Wrong! They should have much more by now!
Probably using those funds for some other shady shit
This article is about military equipment pledged but not delivered, not funds.
Like an eastern european country couldn't find a way to do shady shit with equipment. This is an insult at this point!
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Classic Sphereserf heyahoya/ !linguistics comment.
It's the same over here in the Philippines but a few hundred years later (and with mostly Mexican priests rather than Spanish by then); friars were the original anthropologists and wrote extensive ethnographies of the various indigenous peoples in order to better understand them in their efforts to evangelize. Accuracy was important because the texts were being used to prepare other missionaries and the "bias" is consistent and easy enough to read through.
FUN FACT FROM ONE SUCH ETHNOGRAPHY: The Cebuanos invented the "prince albert" piercing. Men wore metallic ribbed peepee extensions that they fixed to themselves through a bar. For some reason !Catholics priests were not a fan of the loincloth and peepee extender look.
The practice goes back further, here's a random blog you can read about it on.
I kept meaning to do an OP about this !pinoypride social convention but I'm lazy so I'll just drop this here. Imagine getting lead poisoning from your peepee piercing.
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But then again I've read about missionaries and explorers to other places in the Indo-pacific like Papua and this is pretty tame by comparison.
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!followers a few of you aren't in those pings and you all need to hear about this.
Don't get any ideas
@QuadNarca. 
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Me too, I'm not Protestant tho, I don't believe in God.
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I'm on so many levels of loving you and my Bicolanos.
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It's cool when it happens, but retroactively finding those in the sea of I-don't-get-it's seems like challange.
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Maybe if you made comments that were easier to understand he would get it?
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What is?
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It's true.
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Really?
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Throughout human history there is a drive to mutilate our peepeees and that seems really weird.
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Does the church have an idea why God mandated the circumcision thing? Kind of a weird move.
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https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/circumcision
Fairly comprehensive overview of the practice since it appears in many disparate cultures around the world, worth a read in full but:
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Great read, thanks. I didn't even know it was that common across cultures.
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I'm asking because I legitimately don't know, but what special/spiritual significance are rainbows supposed to have? I mean they're obviously pretty to look at, and it's also obviously nice when it rains and then stops raining which is when they're most prevalent so I can see how they'd be associated with something positive. I wasn't aware of any religious meaning granted to them though.
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https://cbn.com/news/us/new-noahs-ark-lights-christians-need-take-back-rainbow
hope that helps
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The rainbow is a symbol of God's fidelity and mercy towards creation from Genesis 9:
Jewish Tradition has always identified this covenant with what they call the "Noahide Law" which is binding to all humanity, gentile and Jew alike, regardless of culture. These are featured (though had been previously passed down through oral tradition) in the Talmud Sanhedrin track 56a:
This is significant inasmuch as it points to the origins of "natural law theory" in pre-Temple Jewish culture, as it implies humans have some kind of inherent capacity for moral awareness reached through reason alone that is independent of God's explicit commands. In addition to the flood narrative, Cain would be another example of this as he is expected to simply know that murder is immoral without having been told so.
Natural law theory isn't just Christian woo-woo, btw, it's the basis for all modern jurisprudence and concepts of human rights.
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Thanks for the reply bb.
So basically in that first passage, God is saying "when I see a rainbow I'll remember my promise to take care of you guys"?
Maybe I just need to do more reading but what specifically do you mean by "natural law theory"? I think even Native Americans had social systems that forbid things like murder and they obviously developed their social systems entirely independently from the middle east area where judaism and later christianity and islam developed. Of course they also often disregarded such rules at times when it must have seemed convenient (just as Christians did, ie during the atrocities they committed during the crusades).
Seems reasonable to me, definitely something I'd agree with. I think humans are fundamentally a social species and thus it makes sense that we'd be inclined towards cooperation. Thinking back to very early human bands, survival alone would have been nearly impossible, so it makes sense the evolution would "nudge" us to be instinctually cooperative.
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That's how it's written literally but the spirit of the message would obviously be that the symbol is for us since God doesn't need reminders.
Occasionally I come across old art/devotional materials that featured the rainbow in ways modern Christians avoid because of the Pride association, if I find pics again I'll share them sometime.
Which is what you'd expect if it's ingrained in human nature, yeah. The natural inclination of humans to achieve their proper end through reason and free will is the natural law.
We diverge on what perceived goods are the proper end. Reddit tier hysteria that social conservatives are purposefully evil strikes me as a strange view to hold. I don't think anyone functions that way, most day-to-day immorality seems to be about selfish/disordered prioritization of what is "good".
Assuming you mean the sack and pillaging of Constantinople you do know they were excommunicated from the Church when they returned, right? They weren't acting on orders from Rome at that point. AFAIK once the Ottomans offered reasonable protections to Christian pilgrims/communities there weren't any late medieval/early modern attempts to get the boys back in town.
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