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.

    • ForestOrca@kbin.social
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      5 months ago

      Pro-any other country than your own, and that you were elected to serve is traitorous. I’m not big on nation-states and all that stuff personally. And these folks very much are, so by their own definitions they are traitors. I am kind of amused by Sister City agreements, where cities share solutions, without any way to force the other to comply. It’s down right friendly anarchism.

        • Danquebec@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          The first 3 sentences are actually coherent. The last 2 too. But the first 3 don’t belong with the last 2. It’s like they’re 2 different posts.

          • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            Calling it a schitzo-post may have been a bit off, but I legit have no other words in my vocabulary to describe how weirdly off kilter their comment is. They went from some type of criticism of elected officials working with other countries only to skip over to an entirely different thing about sister city agreements. It just kinda is bizzare overall.

            Though I sometimes pull the same shit, sleep deprivation and autism are a terrible combination when it comes to coherence.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              5 months ago

              Schizo stuff tends to be coherent, it’s just that it’s coherent in a frame of reference that exactly one person in the world gets. On the far end of the spectrum people just don’t have enough computation capacity to take your frame of reference into account – not because of lower capacity, but because there’s too much shit on their plate at the same time: Effort is focussed on keeping one’s own thoughts at least half-way straight while the external world is secondary. Whereas on the functioning (yes I’m going to use that word) end of the spectrum you probably learn somewhere in school age that you need to slow your mind down and sprinkle in a couple of useful metaphors so the normies can understand. Dunno if my subconscious is less bubbly than that of full-on schizophrenics, or I have natural talent processing things better, or a knack acquired by sheer luck, or just better at not giving a fuck about some things, but it’s definitely also a skill that can and absolutely should be honed.

              For the curious, the EASE scale should give a good impression of how it looks from the inside.

        • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Fuck the republican traitor filth.

          Pro-any other country than your own, and that you were elected to serve is traitorous. I’m not big on nation-states and all that stuff personally. And these folks very much are, so by their own definitions they are traitors. I am kind of amused by Sister City agreements, where cities share solutions, without any way to force the other to comply. It’s down right friendly anarchism.

          Looks like schizo-posting is back on the menu!

          That’s got to be a bad AI bot in training, right?

  • Ekybio@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Biden: Does something good again

    Repblicans, unable to stop him: “Sorry Putin, we failed you. This time.”

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I hope Putin does the, “don’t fail me again… Republicans (mechanical breathing noises)” thing, and then they fail him again.

      • bean@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Putin: Also, you are to wear these clown shoes and refer to yourself as “Mary”.

        Putin: I have altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.

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    5 months ago

    Great news!

    Apropos nothing:

    The Republicans are falling in line with disgraced ex-president Donald Trump’s personal hatred of Ukraine—and equally personal fondness for authoritarian Russia. The Republicans’ allegiance to Trump—and therefore to dictators and military aggressors—wasn’t an issue for Ukraine until they narrowly gained control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 2022 elections. When earlier funding for Ukraine ran out in late December, Rep. Mike Johnson—the extremist House speaker—refused to put additional aid to a vote.

    The direct language is a pleasant surprise, and honestly more than I expected from FORBES. Have they always been this willing to call out Trump and his enablers?

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Technically Reagan did use an ally first: Israel. The Iranians were a little pissed when they saw the Israeli customs stamps on their weapons.

  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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    5 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.

      • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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        5 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.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    5 months ago

    Isn’t that at risk of pissing Turkey off?

    Not sure how their relations are with Greece these days.

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      5 months ago

      US also just sold a bunch of F16 to Turkey and a whole bunch of upgrades to their existing F16s. It was part of a deal (blackmail) when turkey didn’t want to allow Sweden into nato. After they agreed, they got their planes and upgrades.

      The sale to Turkey includes 40 Lockheed Martin F-16s and equipment to modernise 79 of its existing F-16 fleet. Greece will get 40 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters and related equipment.

  • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The Democrats outsmart Republicans yet again.

    Next up: border secured just in time to win the November elections.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      You think Biden closing the border as soon as he’s able is a good thing?

      Like, you understand that wouldn’t just be a one time thing right? Future presidents could do it to, and Republicans actually do out things in motion in their first days.

      I mean, Biden went from saying the border wasn’t an issue to saying we need that literally over night.

      That doesn’t concern you?

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    At least this time it’s for a good cause…

    But wouldn’t this be the second time in six months Biden is doing arms deals without congressional approval?

    I just don’t see why everyone is excited to see Biden acting like a Republican on this stuff, but when it’s time for Biden to help Americans, he still can’t do anything without Congress

    It’s like people honestly believe Dems only have to aim a smidge higher than the current Republican.

    There’s no standards other than that, and that’s a huge danger to America, we can’t let whatever idiot Republicans run dictating what kind of president we’ll have for half a decade.

        • BassTurd@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Follow the bread crumbs. Every Republican policy benefits Russia. There was the team of traitors that went over and met with Putin on the 4th of July. It was proven that Russia aided the Trump campaign. No Republicans stood up against it or called it out for what it is. Knowing all of that and then supporting and actively still trying to write policy that hurts America and helps Russia man’s all Republicans are Russian supporting traitors.

        • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
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          5 months ago

          I’m sure some sites have a list, they have not been very secretive about it.

          I’ve been following this from around 2018, you don’t need to read many articles about the gop to see the pattern between the politicians and their handlers.

          Yes you don’t trust anecdotal evidence and all that, so if you can be bothered go and find the real dirt on gop, or don’t I’m not your boss.

            • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Fair enough, but it’s hard to present clear evidence when dealing with kompromized individuals. And pootin is an expert in keeping things hidden.

              Please play some role reversal here - given the above, what evidence could be presented to make a convincing case?

              I’ll give a starter: an FBI investigation of the presumably kompromized.

              • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
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                5 months ago

                I’m sorry, this reads like maccarthyist russophobia through and through. if someone supports Russia, they can just say that. none of them did.

          • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
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            5 months ago

            the list is just one step. once there is a list of accused, i’d want to see the evidence.

            of course i can be swayed by evidence, but the ukraine quotes you provided are not very convincing, and many of them aren’t even from people in government.

      • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
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        5 months ago

        I don’t care what the talking head have to say. as for the elected people, I think it’s hard to call their statements pro-russia. at least, if these are the most damning, I would not conclude they are pro-russia.

        I’d like to hear what they have to say about Russia, not just Russia’s relationship with Ukraine.