A Pox On Both Your Houses

Close to 100 years ago, Major General Smedley Butler observed "“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

The US overthrew the elected government of Ukraine in 2014, put in a handpicked government, and commenced to making war on the rebels in eastern Ukraine, killing 14,000 of them before Russia stepped in to stop the slaughter in 2022.

Then it was the US and the UK who told Zelensky to tear up the peace deal and carry on the war, ramping up the killings.

And now Trump and the rest are demanding "gratitude"??? What incredible gall!

IMO, Americans should show Ukraine some gratitude, for waging this proxy war against Russia for Blackrock and Bayer/Monsanto. Instead, they openly brag about what a great deal they are getting, trading Ukrainian lives for US money and outdated weapons. (Cue: Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, Mitt Romney, etc.)

I am on Team Donbass, but if I were Ukrainian, faced with the loss of 800,000 men, sold for US dollars which went mostly to the US war machine and Ukrainian grifters, and the US not only never expressed gratitude, but suddenly announced that the country's entire wealth had to be given to the US in payment for what was originally given freely......I'd be angry also. Zelensky offered to trade Ukrainian minerals so that the US would keep the war going, but Trump said "No, we're done with the war. But we'll go ahead and take your minerals, and while we're at it, we're going to take your infrastructure also, including fees from your Odessa port." Total mafia shakedown vs total war monger. And people are taking sides here?

Sure, Zelensky was part of the scam from the time he was told to tear up the peace deal in April 2022, but for Trump to demand payment for a deal that was never contracted as a loan.....I see why he's mad. This is retroactive contract making, which is part of the rules-based order the US favors, not contract or international law. The US makes the rules, then bullies other countries to comply.

I notice that neither America nor the UK nor France expressed appreciation for the dead Ukie soldiers, who obviously died for the west, since Ukrainians themselves voted for peace in Donbass back in 2019. Zelensky ran on a Peace With Donbass platform and won by over 80%, even though the people of the Donbass were not allowed to vote. (In that shining example of democracy the west holds up.)

I see ingratitude, all right. But I see it on the part of the west. They get the profits, the Ukrainians lose the lives.