Althouse: "We tell the Ukrainians, 'You've got to come to the table, and if you don't come to the table, support from the United States will dry up.'"

June 25, 2024

"We tell the Ukrainians, 'You've got to come to the table, and if you don't come to the table, support from the United States will dry up.'"

"And you tell Putin, 'He's got to come to the table and if you don't come to the table, then we'll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.'"

Said retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, one of Trump's national security advisers, quoted in "Exclusive: Trump handed plan to halt US military aid to Kyiv unless it talks peace with Moscow" (Reuters)("The core elements of the plan were outlined in a publicly available research paper published by the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-friendly think tank....").

129 comments:

Meade said...: Good.; 6/25/24, 6:28 AM
Dave Begley said...: This is very smart by the Trump campaign. Trump is offering to bring peace to the slaughter in Ukraine. Trump is the peace candidate. Who wants more war other than the military-industrial complex which supports Biden.

Watch for this in the debate.; 6/25/24, 6:29 AM
Mr Wibble said...: Not unexpected, but the reality is that Russia won't agree to a cease-fire that allows Ukraine to rearm and further integrate itself into the West, and Ukraine won't agree to any "peace" deal which disarms it and leaves it vulnerable for a renewed Russian offensive in five to ten years.; 6/25/24, 6:32 AM
R C Belaire said...: Tough love.; 6/25/24, 6:32 AM
Mica said...: This is so disappointingly unoriginal, not much different from what is being done now (except for a more open pressure on Ukraine) and that train, of us dictating to Russia-China-North Korea-Iran-Houthi alliance, left some years ago. Trump might consider firing some people. It could be even a set-up for him to look more war-like, while at the same time less-supporting of Ukraine, than Biden. Similar to this new narrative that Trump indicted Assange, while Biden let him free.

Also, it is quite obvious staring down. Does anyone else remember Trump saying how he told Putin in a face-to-face meeting that he could destroy Kremlin, and Putin asked him "Would you really do that?"? And, then, two days after their meeting, how RT published a drawing of Mar del Lago being in the crosshairs of a Satan missile (since then quite improved), with everyone in the news being puzzled by that, while subsequently unable to connect the dots?

Like the whole NATO article 5 is bluffing, of course. Does anyone believe for a millisecond that we will risk Washington being nuked because of Ramstein or Bondsteel, let-alone some military airport in Romania or Poland, being nuked?; 6/25/24, 6:33 AM
Mark said...: Would Trump or any of his sycophants ever countenance the United States agreeing to give up part of the country's territory that an aggressor had taken?; 6/25/24, 6:40 AM
gilbar said...: meanwhile..
Biden is providing Long Range Missiles to the Ukraine, to attack civilian targets in russia..
Nato is talking about sending NATO troops into the Ukraine
even Hungary is opposed
Hungary will not participate in the military alliance's deepening support for Ukraine.
"when it comes to the Russian-Ukrainian war..
Hungary will not provide funds or personnel for this war, nor will the territory of Hungary be used for any involvement in this war," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.

WHY is the United States government STARTING WORLD WAR III?; 6/25/24, 6:44 AM
gilbar said...: Mark said...
Would Trump or any of his sycophants ever countenance the United States agreeing to give up part of the country's territory that an aggressor had taken?

you mean like Kosovo? which the aggressor NATO took out of Serbia?; 6/25/24, 6:45 AM
rhhardin said...: Trump is the deal guy, unlike this general, and Trump makes deals that are good for both sides, which is what the deep state lacks.; 6/25/24, 6:46 AM
doctrev said...: Ask the Iranians if President Trump bluffs. It took them years to recover from the death of General Suleimani. At the same time, Zelenky's position is based on idiot lies, and it's going to collapse very quickly if President Trump chooses to give it any scrutiny at all.

And yet even a total realistic capitulation from Russia would mean disaster for Zelensky. They have a strong land connection between Russia and Crimea, along with a considerable amount of Ukraine's coastline and resources. Meanwhile the EU has tens of millions of refugees to send back to the rump state, and possibly a Nazi government dealing with a $100 billion debt. Russia wants a failed Ukrainian state much more than total annexation, and the President knows it.; 6/25/24, 6:46 AM
Christopher B said...: @Mark,

Would Biden or any of his sycophants ever countenance the United States losing young (and not so young) men at the rate Ukraine is in attempts to get back territory they haven't controlled for over a decade? (and which their biggest current 'ally' allowed the aggressor to take without giving them any assistance at all?); 6/25/24, 6:51 AM
imTay said...: Maybe Mark can tell me the legal basis for our invasion of Syria.

Maybe Mark is not old enough to remember what happened when the Soviets put nukes in that sovereign country 90 miles from Miami. Blinken provoked the invasion by telling Lavrov that NATO was going to put nukes in Ukraine, five minutes flight time from Moscow, and that the matter was non negotiable.

Negotiation is what needs to happen, sooner rather than later, Ukraine already was forced by the Us to back out of deal they had agreed to, which would have kept Ukraine intact, there is a second deal on the table right now that’s nowhere near as good, but Ukraine survives as a state, just not as a military power determined to destroy Russia.

Ukraine says that if they are forced into an unfavorable peace, they are going to unleash a terror war on Russia, but they haven’t even managed this in Crimea.; 6/25/24, 7:07 AM
Christopher B said...: @Mica, while I get that the proposal sounds like what is being done now, the implementation could bring about a very different situation. Remember that Trump reversed the Obama policy of providing only get non-lethal aid and shipped the Javelin ATGMs that helped Ukraine blunt the Russian offensive. The Biden administration has dithered and dealt in half-measures with almost all of the weapons systems sent to Ukraine, publicly because of concerns about Russia expanding the war geographically but I think privately because they're following the discredited Vietnam-era policy of gradualism because they need Putin's support for their Iran deals. We could have been sending F16s (or replacing high-performance WarPac jets in the inventory of former WarPac members) two years ago which would have made a big difference in the recent Ukraine offensives. Threatening Putin with more rapid deployment of Western aid could convince him to make a deal. Biden lacks that leverage because of his past performance.; 6/25/24, 7:08 AM
MartyH said...: Ukraine’s NATO membership is the root of the wider conflict. The war will continue until Ukraine’s membership in NATO is resolved in one of three ways: the destruction of Ukraine, the collapse of Russia, or a negotiated peace in which Ukraine agreed not to join NATO.

The current path ends with Ukraine’s destruction; the only way to stop this outcome is to defend Kiev with NATO troops, resulting in WWIII.; 6/25/24, 7:16 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Ukraine won't agree to any "peace" deal which disarms it and leaves it vulnerable for a renewed Russian offensive in five to ten years

Ukraine would wind up disarmed either way and they already rely on the US for protection from Russian aggression now and in the future. They aren't really in a position to dictate terms.; 6/25/24, 7:17 AM
imTay said...: After the Russians took over Crimea without firing a shot, most of Ukraine’s navy simply defected to Russia. Why we view it as some kind of atrocity that Ukraine should have the same kind of divorce that we all rightly celebrated, the “Velvet Divorce,” that took place in Czechoslovakia is kind of interesting, isn’t it.

Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser wrote a book called The Grand Chessboard, which envisioned the destruction of Russia by using Ukraine as the final piece, and the endless wars we have “innocently stumbled into” follow his plan pretty closely. Well, Russians and the Chinese can read English. Is a foreign policy whose only goal is complete world domination a wise one? Where does our strategy end?; 6/25/24, 7:21 AM
Achilles said...: Mr Wibble said...

Not unexpected, but the reality is that Russia won't agree to a cease-fire that allows Ukraine to rearm and further integrate itself into the West, and Ukraine won't agree to any "peace" deal which disarms it and leaves it vulnerable for a renewed Russian offensive in five to ten years.

Russia needed a land bridge to some of it's south western provinces. If you look at a map they occupy what they really wanted. There are many honest analyses of this out there.

An honest person would recognize Russia has legitimate concerns but is also willing to kill people on a large scale for less than stellar reasons. Kinda like the US Regime. They would then build a foreign policy that maintained peace in the area like Trump did.

A warmonger would insist despite decades of evidence that Russia wants to rebuild it's old soviet empire and take over the world and push for regime change.; 6/25/24, 7:26 AM
Oh Yea said...: Sounds great. It will reward Putin with the new land taken 3022-24, added to the land taken in 2014, allow him to rebuild his military for 5-8 years and then take another bite and repeat. Bonus, Trump will be out of office by then and it won't be his problem.; 6/25/24, 7:27 AM
Drago said...: Virginia Lawyer Mark: "Would Trump or any of his sycophants ever countenance the United States agreeing to give up part of the country's territory that an aggressor had taken?"

Ever since Virginia Lawyer Mark's preferred candidate (DeSantis) lost in the primary, Mark has gone around the bend and now sounds like a daily dose of whatever is playing on MSNBC....like AMDG.; 6/25/24, 7:28 AM
Bob Boyd said...: It's beyond sad and outrageous that the US told Ukraine that they would not come to the table last year when they wanted to and now, after the death of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians soldiers, the US will demand Ukraine come to the table.
The US will not be seen as a reliable ally by other nations because we are not reliable. We are at war with ourselves and our promises are only good for 4 years if they are good for anything at all.

If you boil it down, the installation of Joe Biden doomed hundreds of thousands of people on the other side of the world because rich Americans want cheap domestic servants.; 6/25/24, 7:32 AM
Achilles said...: If Joe Biden was a Chinese agent what would he be doing differently?

It isn't just a stupid war in Ukraine. It is a stupid war in Ukraine being fought the same way Vietnam was fought. Stupidly and with rules and purposely draining and weakening US armed readiness. And we are guaranteed to lose the way this is proceeding.

You cannot honestly talk about the war in Ukraine without talking about what happened in the Sahel Region of Africa. The US and France have been completely routed without firing a shot. All those people in those countries hate the US.

The US proxies in Crimea defected and Russia took over without a shot because the people of Crimea hate the US.

The US and Europe are fighting more than one proxy war against Russia and we are losing badly.

The only question now is will the Biden administration drag us to a humiliating defeat before or after the election.; 6/25/24, 7:34 AM
doctrev said...: Achilles said...
A warmonger would insist despite decades of evidence that Russia wants to rebuild it's old soviet empire and take over the world and push for regime change.

6/25/24, 7:26 AM

It's not the worst policy, but the main problem is the Biden cabinet is staffed primarily by retards afflicted with Tay-Sachs disease. The recent terrorist attacks on Russia are galvanizing popular opinion behind Putin instead of strengthening the Navalny movement. Russia has zero difficulty recruiting people for its army, unlike Ukraine, partly thanks to similar attacks by Zelensky/ Budanov. And Russia knows America is over-extended, which means they can hit America's remaining allies more than the US can possibly defend them while maintaining a position in Ukraine.; 6/25/24, 7:35 AM
imTay said...: Just to answer my own question, the "legal basis" for our invasion of Syria is a National Security Letter written by the Obama White House, and based on this "finding" the US has seized Syria's grain fields and oil fields, and has embarked on a campaign of starvation of the Syrian people. remember when there was an earthquake there and the neocons were writing editorials that the Syrian people should be denied even disaster relief.

Obama signed this letter after having been swept into office partly based on revulsion towards regime change wars in the Middle East, specifically Iraq. But remember! We would never do regime change in Kiev, even if that regime change could put us in a position to destroy a rival power that the neocons hate!

And Putin is a bad guy because he doesn't want NATO nukes deployed five minutes from Moscow. I just don't understand why the leaders of other countries are our business, I mean really understand, I know the justifications that the neocons give, but I don't buy them. I think that we need to muddle along, rather than try to create some kind of utopian world utterly and completely dominated by the US. After all, these same people have no undermined our freedom of assembly, by deploying troops to DC to prevent demonstrations over the last crooked election, they did a false flag against us on J6, and they have imprisoned dissidents, and have greatly undermined freedom of speech by control of social media.

We need to get our own house in order before trying to tell the rest of the world how to live.; 6/25/24, 7:35 AM
Drago said...: Oh Yea: "Sounds great. It will reward Putin with the new land taken 3022-24, added to the land taken in 2014, allow him to rebuild his military for 5-8 years and then take another bite and repeat. Bonus, Trump will be out of office by then and it won't be his problem."

Please outline, specifically, the steps and time needed to actually expel the russkis from Ukraine (as opposed to conducting another Forever War for money laundering and eventual US directed breakup of Russia into feifdoms for Blackrock et al) and the cost in lives and resources and where those lives and resources will come from.; 6/25/24, 7:36 AM
Achilles said...: Oh Yea said...

Sounds great. It will reward Putin with the new land taken 3022-24, added to the land taken in 2014, allow him to rebuild his military for 5-8 years and then take another bite and repeat. Bonus, Trump will be out of office by then and it won't be his problem.

This is stupid garbage propaganda.; 6/25/24, 7:36 AM
imTay said...: BTW, Ukraine annexed Crimea, which had also voted to be a free and independent republic after the fall of the USSR, they annexed it in 1995 by force. So the "1992 borders" don't even include Crimea.; 6/25/24, 7:37 AM
Leland said...: Oddly, I just heard a similar stance discussed by Triggernometry when they interviewed Brianna Wu. Wu claimed Biden was better on Ukraine than Republicans. KK corrected and both KK and FF described this tactic as what was needed. Tell then Ukrainians to accept reality rather than just continue a drawn out war, but also tell Russia not one more inch or face escalation.

There is flaws here, but so is there in any other solution. The status quo is costly to everyone and is just killing more Ukrainians and Russians. Escalation could be horrific. Total victory by Russia is a reward that shouldn’t be allowed. Unfortunately, Biden blurted out the US position before the war. Russia could take a little bit of land but that’s it. And that’s where we are today to end the war.; 6/25/24, 7:37 AM
Alexander said...: The tyranny of geography:

The Northern European plain continues eastward through Belarus and Russia, and south down to the Carpathians. There is a line that runs from the Baltic to the Black Sea which marks the closest thing to a defensive line, being the 'bottleneck' between east and west.

There is no long term peace with Russia that sees significant, non-Russian militaries established east of that line, already over the bottleneck.

There are Russian leaders that are more aggressive/greedy/tyrannical/opportunistic take your pick - who throughout history have determined the best way to ensure this is to push as far over the line in the other direction as they can. But ultimately, even the most diplomatic, live-and-let-live, reasonable Russian leader is never going to tolerate a meaningful foreign military force east of it.

This sucks for Lithuanians, Poles, Ukrainians et al, and it always has. Being in a cauldron for the past millennia surrounded by Germans, Russians, and Turks has not traditionally been the recipe for 'a good time'. But that doesn't negate the cold, hard tyranny of the facts on the ground: either Russia occupies everything east of the line, the countries that straddle the line are demilitarized, or are hedgehogs that can be relied upon to maintain armed neutrality, or there is peace only for as long as one side can keep a boot at the other's throat, and then there is war.

Trump's offer is unfortunately going to be three years to late and a few trillion short. Fake elections have consequences. Ukraine is running out of bodies. Ukraine is running out of energy, figuratively as well as literally. Europe's political situation is in turmoil. Russia (backed by China and North Korea) is outproducing the west in every relevant category of war-making materiel. What, precisely, are we going to "give" Ukraine that is going to win them the war?; 6/25/24, 7:39 AM
Tacitus said...: While not the basis for a deal, this is pretty sensible as a starting point for a deal. In the next step each side has to give up something.

Ukraine needs to put a ten year pause on application to NATO. And this insistence on their getting Crimea back needs to stop. Russia will fight to the bitter end to prevent this.

Russia is the aggressor and on a simplistic basis is in the wrong. Most of what they would give up in a retreat from the Donbass is ruined land full of mines.

The alternative to a deal? Hoping that the Bleed the Bear option from our playbook works better this time than it did in Afghanistan. That ended up toppling the old USSR....giving us an unstable Eastern Europe and Al Queda to boot.; 6/25/24, 7:48 AM
Achilles said...: doctrev said...

Achilles said...
A warmonger would insist despite decades of evidence that Russia wants to rebuild it's old soviet empire and take over the world and push for regime change.

6/25/24, 7:26 AM

It's not the worst policy, but the main problem is the Biden cabinet is staffed primarily by retards afflicted with Tay-Sachs disease. The recent terrorist attacks on Russia are galvanizing popular opinion behind Putin instead of strengthening the Navalny movement. Russia has zero difficulty recruiting people for its army, unlike Ukraine, partly thanks to similar attacks by Zelensky/ Budanov. And Russia knows America is over-extended, which means they can hit America's remaining allies more than the US can possibly defend them while maintaining a position in Ukraine.

The US Fomented a coup in Ukraine in 2014.

It is pretty obvious the US is behind the current round of terrorist attacks. We bombed the pipeline, civilian bridges, damns.

The US has been supporting the repression and cleansing of eastern Ukraine since 2014.

Everyone in Eastern Ukraine hates the US.

Hates.

When Russia took over Crimea they defected. Russia didn't have to invade at all.

Just like the people of the Sahel region in Africa hate the US because we are associated with France. We have been bombing people in support of France for decades. We just got kicked out of billions of dollars of installations in Africa without firing a shot because the people of the region hate us and they are embracing Russia as saviors.

People in the US need to realize what is actually happening in the world right now.; 6/25/24, 7:50 AM
Achilles said...: Tacitus said...

Russia is the aggressor and on a simplistic basis is in the wrong. Most of what they would give up in a retreat from the Donbass is ruined land full of mines.

They want that area to have land access to southern areas. It is strategically important to them.; 6/25/24, 7:53 AM
imTay said...: "Trump's offer is unfortunately going to be three years to late and a few trillion short"

Yep. That's why impeaching him was so important, and why destroying the norms of our elections was so important. This take on Ukraine is the reason that they could not allow him to be President one day longer. Nixon made peace with China, greatly complicating our planned war over Taiwan by recognizing China's claim to it, Kennedy tried to make peace with the USSR after looking over the brink in the Cuban Missile Crisis, we know how they handle presidents who think that we live in a real democracy.

But Biden is happy to spend trillions defending the borders of countries on the other side of the world, even fake countries like Kosovo, as was mentioned upthread, and soon to be Taiwan, while gnawing away at the borders of real sovereign countries like Syria, while he has obliterated our own southern border.

It's too nice a day to spend it arguing with CTIL (Google it with Matt Taibbi) sock puppets, though.; 6/25/24, 7:56 AM
imTay said...: The missile attack over a crowded beach in Crimea by US targeted and controlled ATACMS missiles, don't get me wrong, I don't think that the US specifically targeted the beach with those cluster munitions, but it did send the missiles at an airbase, and crossed the beach area knowing that this was where they would likely be intercepted, hoping maybe that the Russians would balk at the casualties involved in shooting the missiles down, well, it was stupid, and just gave Putin a bloody shirt to wave, and probably sent thousands more young Russian men to recruiting stations.; 6/25/24, 8:07 AM
Big Mike said...: Ukraine needs to put a ten year pause on application to NATO. And this insistence on their getting Crimea back needs to stop. Russia will fight to the bitter end to prevent this.

It may be worth noting that in the middle of the 19th century Russia went to war with France, England, and the Ottomans to try to wrest the Crimea from the Ottoman Empire (c.f., the Charge of the Light Brigade). This is a strategic goal that the Russians have had since Russia first became a country. Would they fight NATO for it with nukes? Who wants to find out?

IMAO, a lot of the blame lies with Clinton for promising US military support in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nukes.; 6/25/24, 8:08 AM
doctrev said...: Achilles said...

People in the US need to realize what is actually happening in the world right now.

6/25/24, 7:50 AM

Everything else you said was true, perhaps even obvious. But this is not likely to happen. Americans have their own problems, and most regime policy is completely disconnected from anything normal Americans are likely to do.

Ideally President Trump will make sure every "American" involved in this idiot farce pays a heavy price, out of the mere political benefits for doing so, but that's as likely to spark a civil war as anything else going.; 6/25/24, 8:13 AM
Big Mike said...: And for the record, I doubt that Trump’s negotiating position would be anything like as rude and crude as outlined by General Kellogg. It will be a lot less public and a lot more subtle than that, and be crafted so that both sides believe they have a win.; 6/25/24, 8:17 AM
Bob Boyd said...: The most important lesson to be learned from WW2 is not, Don't appease a dictator.

The most important lesson is, Military strength is downstream from industrial strength.

The war in Ukraine is a glaring example.; 6/25/24, 8:17 AM
Witness said...: ok, you got them at the table, now what?; 6/25/24, 8:18 AM
Temujin said...: If elected, Trump is going go upend the 'regular routine' of the deep state, or as we used to call them, the Military-Industrial Complex.
But they are not going to just sit back and take it. It will be interesting.

Also- what Bob Boyd said is spot on. We're not the industrial giant we were in the 40s and 50s. We make nothing these days. And so, our asses are bare to the world if it comes down to it.; 6/25/24, 8:28 AM
Rusty said...: gilbar. That is a very good question.
Maybe the powers in charge believe sincerely that Russia would never use nuclear weapons. Until he does.
I suppose we can keep pushing and find out.; 6/25/24, 8:29 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "The most important lesson to be learned from WW2 is not, Don't appease a dictator.

The most important lesson is, Military strength is downstream from industrial strength.

The war in Ukraine is a glaring example."

Very true, except many of our leaders don't care about that lesson anymore because they believe industrial strength is downstream from digital, electronic, and chip fabrication capacity. It's one of the reasons the USA is spending billions trying to reshore nano-processor production, and why TSMC has installed self-destruct devices on the fabrication machinery in Taiwan.

The MIC and the NIC are convinced that military strength can be augmented or in some cases replaced entirely by unmanned and automated systems. This is only partly true, and their theory is going to be tested soon. Their hypothesis is wrong on many levels, and that is already being revealed on the battlefield of Ukraine.

Fun fact: In the last year of the Ukraine war the effectiveness of drones has gone from 90% to 20% due to intensive jamming on both sides, 4 out of 5 drone are not 'completing' their missions. Those FPV drone videos some of you might have seen? Recent ones represent an ever-shrinking success rate of those that made it...most aren't anymore.

The electronic warfare environment of WWIII is going to be something never seen before in the history of conflict. It is wrong to think return to meat-grinder-mindsets won't happen in parts or throughout theaters of operation. And if you doubt that, just take a look at the WWI-style trench warfare occurring in the Donbass.; 6/25/24, 8:34 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Ukraine should have just surrendered to Russia right at the start- handed the Russians the keys to the government offices and told them to run things. Nothing would have changed for Ukrainians not working for the government- they would have just been governed by people just as corrupt and incompetent as the Zelensky government but at least a million young Ukrainian men wouldn't be dead and/or disabled, and there wouldn't be millions more young Ukrainian men in hiding or emigrated to avoid being drafted for the abattoir, and the country wouldn't be a smoking ruin without power 20-24 hours a day. And if the Ukrainians really didn't want to be ruled by Russians, a guerilla campaign can always be run against what would be much easier targets to hit.

The West's moral choices here were, at the beginning of this conflict, to counsel the option I gave above or to commit full actual NATO forces to help Ukraine fight the war directly as if Ukraine were a NATO member. What we did, instead, is to help destroy them by encouraging them to fight a war against an opponent they can't defeat and will destroy utterly should the war continue.; 6/25/24, 8:38 AM
Yancey Ward said...: "Would Trump or any of his sycophants ever countenance the United States agreeing to give up part of the country's territory that an aggressor had taken?"

What if the actual choice were to fight and lose utterly anyway? You fight battles you can win, not those you know you will lose. An opponent trying to take territory from the U.S. is one we could defeat so fighting makes sense. There also has to be a real qualitative difference between the governance you are going to get from one side or the other to make the fight worth it even against long odds. In the case of Russia vs Ukrainian government- I don't see that qualitative difference and I don't think the Ukrainian people really see it either given the opposition to the mobilization efforts. If the cause of fighting the Russians really were so strong there would be no need to draft young men into the fight- they would volunteer without having to be asked.; 6/25/24, 8:48 AM
Leland said...: Big Mike @8:17. +1

No matter the merits of Kellogg’s proposal, it isn’t Trump’s style. Also, no matter how much people deny it, Putin has admitted he didn’t act when Trump was President because he feared Trump’s response would be irrational. People see that as looking bad for Trumo rather than being the right approach for keeping Putin in check. I doubt Trump would destroy Moscow for Ukraine, but if Putin thinks that is a possibility then he doesn’t t invade, which is what happened for 4 years.; 6/25/24, 8:55 AM
Kate said...: Achilles said: "Just like the people of the Sahel region in Africa hate the US because we are associated with France. We have been bombing people in support of France for decades. We just got kicked out of billions of dollars of installations in Africa without firing a shot because the people of the region hate us and they are embracing Russia as saviors."

I'd never heard of the Sahel region until just this week when I read this. https://im1776.com/2024/06/12/west-africa-strategy/; 6/25/24, 9:08 AM
FleetUSA said...: Trump is a masterclass in leveraging negotiations.; 6/25/24, 9:08 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: This is an incentive for Zelensky to talk peace before Trump get in. He'll get a better deal than later with Trump as Presdient.

Personally, I think the only way you'll have peace is when the Ukrainians get smart and mount a coup against Zelensky. A new regime could then make peace. The Crimea and Donbas are gone forever. Both have been incorporated into Russia and they aint going back. The war in only going on because as Miss Lindsey stated "We want to kill Russians".

Further, Its absurd that a Nuclear armed great power like Russia is going to tolerate Ukraine in NATO complete with bases and airfields that can use for nuclear armed rockets and aircraft. We wouldn't tolerate that in Mexico, and they aint going to tolerate it UKraine

Of course the real question is: "What does Ukraine have to do with the defense of the USA?" and the answer is nothing. Its all just our power elite playing games with our money and ukrainian lives.; 6/25/24, 9:12 AM
Tacitus said...: Achilles said: "They want that area to have land access to southern areas. It is strategically important to them."

This is true. But if a negotiated deal is possible Russia will have to give up something that they want. What is it?

TBD.; 6/25/24, 9:15 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "I think the only way you'll have peace is when the Ukrainians get smart and mount a coup against Zelensky."

From some of the things I've read, that might not be far off.; 6/25/24, 9:26 AM
Tom T. said...: The obstacle is the same that it's always been: can Putin survive making a deal? The war has been a complete disaster for him. The Russian army has been exposed as incompetent and primitive. It's been stalled out for two years and can't even take Kharkiv, right across the border. The world now knows that the idea of a Russian ground offensive against NATO is a nonstarter. Angry wounded veterans will be destabilizing Russian society for years to come. Diplomatically, Putin's war has driven the previously neutral Finland and Sweden into NATO. It's hard to imagine how this could have gone worse.

After all of that, if all he comes home with is Donetsk, he has to seriously worry that his internal support will disappear, and some rival will arrest him and kill him. What peace terms can insulate him against that?; 6/25/24, 9:27 AM
narciso said...: you've enabled the deaths of 150,000 Russian troops, yuu think any of the other siloviki will he more lenient on the issue,; 6/25/24, 9:48 AM
chuck said...: Won't work. That said, Trump hasn't said much about the Russia-Ukraine war, I suspect he is keeping his options open. And it isn't like Biden hasn't been dragging his feet for the last three years. I suspect it was a shock to the Biden team when Russia didn't win the war in the first couple of weeks, as expected. What an inconvenient outcome.; 6/25/24, 9:54 AM
narciso said...: actually he has said, he wants to prevent world war 3, that when the lawfare engine was dialed up to eleven

so we now know, that Western proxies bombed the Nordstream pipeline, I'm sure Putin hasn't forgotten, in Jay Newman's Undermoney, a very risque update on Michael Thomas's potboiler
a Russian opertive, Repin, has planned a revenge strike because of the unnamed strike against forces in Eastern Syria, that had serious consequences,

that said, the Khozayin a new name I heard for Putin, probably embarked on this expedition at the wrong time, see events in Machkala and Moscow proper in the last few months,; 6/25/24, 10:07 AM
Prof. M. Drout said...: Temujin wrote: "We're not the industrial giant we were in the 40s and 50s. We make nothing these days. And so, our asses are bare to the world if it comes down to it."

Which is why what we have been doing in Ukraine is both immoral (sacrificing thousands of Ukrainian lives with zero chance of success) and amazingly stupid. We've blown through pretty much our entire stockpile of munitions and systems, and we do not have the skilled workers, the facilities, or the spare parts to rebuild that stockpile in any reasonable time frame: we'd need 10 years of peace, much greater appropriations than we can afford, and we'd have to conjure skilled workers out of the air, since the average worker in the defense manufacturing sector is 56 years old, and you can't build state-of-the-art airframes or radar systems or anti-tank munitions by handing tools to barely literate migrants who can't do simple math.

Our own units have been deprived of weapons and systems for training and readiness: people just show up on bases, crate stuff up, and send it off to Ukraine. Our entire command structure is dysfunctional due to the same top-down groupthink that has made every other part of the government dysfunctional. In the past, regional commanders would say "No! You can't take that! I'd have nothing to train my people on!" and the top would listen and compromise, but now there is no balancing of priorities or figuring out the trade-offs: we go rushing 100% towards whatever the "current thing" is regardless of how much damage that does elsewhere.

The Ukraine war has been the biggest gift ever to China: while people are bragging about bleeding Putin dry, we been bleeding ourselves dry and they trade weapons for natural resources AND watch us destroy our own preparedness after having hollowed out our industrial capacity.

What would the Biden administration have done differently if it was bought and paid for by China?; 6/25/24, 10:08 AM
Original Mike said...: Blogger Drago said...
"Virginia Lawyer Mark: "Would Trump or any of his sycophants ever countenance the United States agreeing to give up part of the country's territory that an aggressor had taken?""

Fooled me. I assumed it was Madison Mark commenting.

The difference, Mark, is Ukraine is asking for our a support. A lot of support, especially with the talk of NATO troops. We have a say. We're morally bound to have our say.; 6/25/24, 10:10 AM
narciso said...: why is soros and fink and schwab, all in on Ukraine, because they give a tinker about territorial integrity, dream on,

once upon a time, burisma was as much an energy company, which specialized in extractive industries but sold Western Europe on the 'green energy mirage'
the former was why Cofer Black was on the board, for oil concessions in Africa,
but their big expose was a conference in Monaco sponsored by the Royals, which involved all sorts of Western officials former foreign ministers, governors of louisiana et al,

the head of Burisma was Kolomoisky who also owned Ukraine's largest bank privat, that was the Laundry for the West, at leasr from 2014 on, that bank went belly up to he tune of 6 billion dollars including US tax dollars around the time of the time of the Trump transition this was the source of the reports that George Kent and the rest of the Country team suppressed on corruption inciuding Colonel Vindman, this was why the prosecutor was fired he got too close 'too many wallets were getting light'; 6/25/24, 10:28 AM
narciso said...: repeat Larry Fink the man who owns 10 trillions in Western Companies is all in on Ukraine,; 6/25/24, 10:29 AM
Original Mike said...: Temujin wrote: "We're not the industrial giant we were in the 40s and 50s. We make nothing these days. And so, our asses are bare to the world if it comes down to it."

Yep. We are in a scary place.; 6/25/24, 10:32 AM
narciso said...: he cares about Borders no, whether they be on the lsland approaches to Greece, the island of Sicily, the Calais crossing, or the border with Mexico,; 6/25/24, 10:34 AM
Narayanan said...: IMAO, a lot of the blame lies with Clinton for promising US military support in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nukes.
==========================
would Russia have even agreed to separation with a Ukraine with nukes; 6/25/24, 11:10 AM
Kakistocracy said...: Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress paused for six months on aid to Ukraine, turning their back on courageous Ukrainians, defending democracy, and the legacy of D-Day.

That has cost the Ukrainians the initiative and allowed Russia to fortify, gain the initiative, and make gains.

Hopefully now that aid is once again flowing to Ukrainian forces, they will be able to regroup and regain the initiative and regain all of their land that has been occupied illegally by a tyrant in Putin bent on conquest.; 6/25/24, 11:12 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "repeat Larry Fink the man who owns 10 trillions in Western Companies is all in on Ukraine,"

The whole Ukraine Rah-Rah Rambo-fantasy can be summed up thusly:

Will you give your life for McDonalds?
Will you take the lives of others for BlackRock?
Will you die for Ukrainian children's right to transition?
Will you or will you not commit yourself to this fight so Goldman Sachs can devalue the hryvnia?
Will you sacrifice your social security withholdings to prop up Ukrainian pensions?

If said “no” on any of these questions you are a pathetic worthless piece of shit! McDonald’s and Goldman Sachs and BlackRock doesn’t need you anyway!! YOU’RE NEVER WELCOME IN MCDONALDS OR GOLDMAN SACHS OR BLACKROCK EVER AGAIN YOU COWARD!; 6/25/24, 11:14 AM
Joe Smith said...: Wait, you're saying somebody is recommending that the two conflicting parties communicate?

Inconceivable!; 6/25/24, 11:19 AM
imTay said...: " The Russian army has been exposed as incompetent and primitive."

Spoken by somebody who gets all of his information on the state of the battlefield from Ukrainian propaganda outlets. The Russians have destroyed multiple Patriot batteries, why do we have to keep sending them more? And you know what other fresh hell just arose for the Western militaries? The Russians are now claiming that they have shot down Patriot interceptors in-flight that had been launched against them. For two years we have allowed the country, a country that graduates STEM students in large quantities, whose coursework does not include pronouns, BTW, such a country to observe our Patriot missile system close up, and now they can shoot down our interceptor missiles and protect their aircraft from even forward deployed Patriot systems, forward deployed systems which, if recent history is any guide, they will find and destroy with hypersonic missiles that the Patriot system has extremely limited success in shooting down.

The Russians claim that after adding an Israeli radar system, and some new software, the Patriots are able to estimate the position of hypersonic missiles and intercept them 10% of the time. 10%? Of course the Ukrainians claim 100% success rate, and fired a spokesman who was too embarrassed to repeat these lies in the face of video of missile impacts. And remember that these hypersonic missies are actually cheap to manufacture for the Russians. The Russians are generally acknowledged to be the world leader in air defense missiles, and have had little trouble shooting down British and French cruise missiles, which we don't see much anymore, because the Russians have shot down almost every last one of the planes that Ukraine was using to launch them, and the ground launched ATACMS seem to be shot down at a rate, I am estimating here, of about 80%.

Regarding those fighter jets that launched the missiles for Ukraine? Their whole bomber wing was almost completely wiped out within a single month, and one of the pilots claimed that his early warning system never went off until seconds before he was hit. Good luck to the F-16s, which can't operate without a squeaky clean airfield and massive maintenance and logistics, think Concorde.

Primitive? Yeah, it will be a cakewalk, I am sure.; 6/25/24, 11:35 AM
Tom T. said...: And yet they can't advance.; 6/25/24, 11:55 AM
Dr Weevil said...: Poor imTay thinks Ukraine needs more Patriot batteries because Russia has destroyed the ones they had. Apparently he doesn't know that Ukraine is a very large country, and that a battery that can protect Kyiv and its suburbs cannot protect Kharkiv or Lviv. The fact that we provided enough Patriots to protect Kyiv is exactly why the Russians have been slaughtering civilians in Kharkiv and other cities every night. I've read that the number needed to cover the whole country would be 12-14 and that they are finally going to get some number approximating that: better late than never.

As for the mighty 'hypersonic' missiles, imTay apparently hasn't heard that the designers of those missiles have all been arrested for treason, because they spent tens of billions of rubles to come up with missiles that are not in fact hypersonic and that Ukraine has in fact been shooting down. (I just typed 'hypersonic' into DuckDuckGo and the first suggestion was "Putin arrest hypersonic" with lots of pertinent stories.) Anyone who doesn't know that is far too ignorant to write about Ukraine, but that's our imTay: gullibly repeating Russian propaganda.

Does anyone else find it amusing, in a sick sort of way, that after all the complaints about the supposed 'coup' that overthrew Yanukovych in 2014, here are RC OCEAN II (9:12am) and RideSpaceMountain (9:26am) openly suggesting that Zelenskyy be removed by a coup, as if that would be a good thing? And imTay has no objection. Apparently coups are just fine as long as they remove popular and democratically-elected leaders to help Putin.; 6/25/24, 12:13 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/25/24, 12:24 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "Apparently coups are just fine as long as they remove popular and democratically-elected leaders to help Putin."

Would that be the person that just suspended elections giving himself another term and banned every other political party in Ukraine or are you speaking about someone else?

Are you willing to give your life for McDonalds?; 6/25/24, 12:27 PM
imTay said...: Thanks for checking in with the Ukrainian propaganda talking points. The amazing success of the Ukrainian defenses is why anyone who is caught distributing video that contradicts these talking points is arrested. A more convincing approach, if you are right, would be to taunt the Russians with videos proving Russian failures.

Even, for the sake of argument, we say that the missiles are not hypersonic, well that’s even worse for the Patriot system. And it’s well known that the information space is dominated by the West, lots of things that happened are all but impossible to find, and Western propaganda is pushed to the top.; 6/25/24, 12:28 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Lying imTay writes "for the sake of the argument"! Russia arrested the designers of the 'hypersonic' missiles because they're not hypersonic. That's a fact. The Russians certainly don't deny it. Did imTay even bother to check? The fact is that Russian claims to have destroyed Patriot batteries are lying propaganda, repeated only by gullible morons.; 6/25/24, 12:39 PM
Dr Weevil said...: RideSpaceMountain is apparently too damned stupid to check whether Zelenskyy has in fact "banned every other political party in Ukraine" before writing that he did. It would have taken less than a minute to check.

There's a Wikipedia article on the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada), which currently has 8 parties represented - at least 5 more than our Congress. Three pro-Zelenskyy parties have 235 + 17 + 19 = 271 members, three opposition parties have 27 + 24 + 20 = 71 members, and two independent parties have 22 + 17 = 39 members, plus there are 24 independents. A couple of blatantly pro-Russian parties were banned, but most of their members are still there after starting new parties with less openly traitorous policies.

Of course, Zelenskyy did not in fact 'give himself another term'. The Ukrainian constitution does not permit elections in wartime, for obvious reasons (polling places are easy targets for an enemy who likes to bomb civilians). He is doing exactly what Churchill did from 1940-45 - staying on as acting leader until elections can be held. The sooner the war ends the sooner they can have an election.; 6/25/24, 12:51 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: Dr. Weevil hath no freedom to fight for at home,
So he'll fight for the corrupt doing favors;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
He loves getting taxed out the ass for his labors.
To do good for NAFO is his secretive plan,
And his talking points deplorably requited;
So he'll shill for more war in fucking Ukraine,
And when it all goes tits up, he'll be spited.; 6/25/24, 12:55 PM
Dr Weevil said...: An honest man would admit that he was wrong about Zelenskyy banning all other political parties. An absolute asshole would write a stupid poem instead.; 6/25/24, 1:00 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: An honest man would've told me whether or not he's willing to die for McDonald's.; 6/25/24, 1:04 PM
Dr Weevil said...: doctrev (7:35am):
"Russia has zero difficulty recruiting people for its army".

This does not seem to be true. This Twitter thread for instance (link) shows that the Russians are forcing the severely wounded back into battle, locking reluctant warriors in basements to force them to fight, constantly increasing enlistment bonuses, and recruiting Nepalis and other foreigners by the tens of thousands to fill the ranks. They are in fact running out of (willing) troops. And the number killed so far is not "150,000" (narciso, 9:48am) but around 530,000.; 6/25/24, 1:09 PM
Dr Weevil said...: No one in Ukraine is being asked to die for McDonald's, and no one in Ukraine is asking Americans to die for them, either, just to please provide the weapons they need to defend themselves, weapons we have vast surplus supplies of.; 6/25/24, 1:11 PM
Dr Weevil said...: No one in Ukraine is asking anyone to die for McDonald's, and no one in Ukraine is asking me, or you, or anyone else in America, to die for Ukraine. They're just asking for the weapons they need to defend themselves, weapons we have vast surplus supplies of that we're not using. Weapons that we are obligated to provide them, since Bill Clinton promised to guarantee their 1991 borders in return for giving up their nuclear deterrent.

Now, will RideSpaceMountain admit to lying about Zelenskyy, or will s/he keep trying to change the subject like a goddamned weasel?; 6/25/24, 1:22 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Weapons that we are obligated to provide them, since Bill Clinton promised to guarantee their 1991 borders in return for giving up their nuclear deterrent.

You are mistaken. We recognized Ukraine as an independent nation. We made no promise to defend it. There was no Article 5 in that agreement. That is why Ukraine wants to be in NATO.
Ukraine didn't give up a nuclear deterrent. They had the Russian missiles with humongous nuclear warheads, but no launch codes. Nor did they have strategic bombers to deliver those warheads since the missiles were useless to them. Even if they did, the nukes were not tactical, they were city killers. If Ukraine ever used one, it would be suicide. They knew that. The nukes were nothing but a liability for them. They sold the missiles back to Russia for the value of the fissile material.
Maybe they kept some of it and now have some nuclear weapons stashed somewhere. Maybe they sold some suitcase nukes or some dirty bomb material to Al Qaeda. Who knows?
Anyway, we're not obligated by treaty to defend Ukraine or it's borders. We can do whatever we judge to be in our own best interest. Are we doing that?; 6/25/24, 1:51 PM
doctrev said...: Dr Weevil said...
And the number killed so far is not "150,000" (narciso, 9:48am) but around 530,000.

6/25/24, 1:09 PM

If every fool citing Twitter and Reddit as reliable military sources was strangled, it would go a long way towards recognizing an accurate perspective on the Ukraine conflict.

In reality, the notion that Ukraine has suffered 31k casualties (?!) while inflicting 500k (?!?!) on Russia is the work product of desert tribals fantasizing about Drang Nacht Osten. The Russian army is nowhere near the levels of collapse needed for a NATO intervention to succeed. It's much more likely that Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem are flash-fried by nuclear-tipped missiles as a warning: if NATO keeps pressing, Berlin, Paris, and London are next.; 6/25/24, 2:02 PM
Bob Boyd said...: If we are obligated to provide Ukraine with weapons to guarantee its borders, then we are obligated to provide troops as well. If you disagree with that statement, where do our obligations end and why?; 6/25/24, 2:04 PM
Dr Weevil said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/25/24, 2:08 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Bob Boyd:
Ukraine not only gave up their nuclear warheads, they also gave up 30 or so strategic bombers, Tu-22s and Tu-95s. The same kind of bombers Russia is using every night to launch long-range missiles at civilian targets in Ukraine from over the Caspian Sea. They would be a lot better off if they'd kept them.

And the Ukranians aren't asking for American troops, just weapons that we have an enormous surplus of. And yes, we certainly have a moral (at least) obligation to provide the goddamned weapons they can use to defend themselves. How hard is that to understand?; 6/25/24, 2:11 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Is doctrev some kind of disgusting anti-Semitic loon? It certainly looks like it! The phrase "desert tribals fantasizing about Drang Nacht Osten" seems to imply that Ukraine is being defended by Jewish Nazis, and doctrev seems to like the idea of someone (Russia? Iran?) obliterating Israel and western Europe with nuclear bombs.; 6/25/24, 2:15 PM
Bob Boyd said...: they also gave up 30 or so strategic bombers

Which they couldn't operate or maintain or get parts for or use.

But your main contention was that the US is obligated by treaty to defend Ukraine militarily. I don't think you are correct. I think we are free to act in our own best interest. We probably disagree about what that is with respect to Ukraine right now.; 6/25/24, 2:15 PM
imTay said...: "o launch long-range missiles at civilian targets in Ukraine"

Ukraine just used US supplied cluster munitions against a crowded beach on a hot Sunday afternoon in June, and a senior official, close advisor to Zelensky, according to the Daily Telegraph just bragged about it. He called the beach goers "civilian occupiers" So we have to wonder what Kiev's plans are for Crimea, should they ever regain control of it. If you listen to what they actually say, it's ethnic cleansing.; 6/25/24, 2:23 PM
narciso said...: I would tend to doubt that, I know why Ukraine has to fight, because those who surrender Bandera, Petlura, Mazeppa get the set of steak knives in the back, the Azov battalion and the Swoboda party get too much attention, they had much more influence under Poroshenko, now we shouldn't pretend they don't exist, thats silly, their diminished support is largely a function of admiration for Bandera, and the way he fought the Nazis eventually the Soviet and he Poles, specially in the early 50s, with almost no support from the West, in the Carpathian mountains,; 6/25/24, 2:24 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Evidence that Ukrainians couldn't operate Tu-22s and Tu-95s? They have no trouble operating other models of Soviet-designed aircraft.

The phrase "defend Ukraine militarily" is ambiguous. Yes, we are obligated to provide them with the weapons they need to defend themselves. Not doing so is in fact NOT acting in our own best interest. Biden keeps promising F-16s, M-1s, and more, but then Jake Sullivan doesn't deliver. Why should any other country trust us in the future?; 6/25/24, 2:25 PM
doctrev said...: Dr Weevil said...
The phrase "desert tribals fantasizing about Drang Nacht Osten" seems to imply that Ukraine is being defended by Jewish Nazis

6/25/24, 2:15 PM

I don't have to cower like a toad. I say things outright. Zelensky and Kolomoisky are both Ukrainian Jews who have appointed Banderite Nazis to the highest points of the Ukrainian military. Ukraine will suffer for years due to this, assuming it survives as a state at all.

If that makes you uncomfortable, tough. I look forward to your much bigger discomfort this summer.; 6/25/24, 2:28 PM
paulr said...: Sounds like a plan that treats the perpetrator and the victim the same. Appeasement and treating your ally like shit is not a sign of strength, nor a path to lasting peace.

BTW, there will be no lasting peace unless Ukraine is able to join NATO. If that’s not part of the plan, it’s not a good plan.; 6/25/24, 2:29 PM
paulr said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/25/24, 2:29 PM
Dr Weevil said...: imTay lies again. The beachgoers were killed by their fellow Russians, hit by fragments of a Russian anti-aircraft weapon. Ukraine does not in fact target civilians, though Russia does exactly that every day of the week. They hit a Home Depot type store in Kharkiv a couple of weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon when it was most crowded, and killed 18 people, I think it was. Many had to be identified by DNA.

Does imTay object to Russia slaughtering civilians? No, he does not! But if he can find a single instance of something that looks like Ukraine doing that, then oh my god, it's a gigantic war crime! But it's not: it's a lie and a fraud, like lying fraud imTay.; 6/25/24, 2:30 PM
imTay said...: "or anyone else in America, to die for Ukraine."

Until we push Russia too far and the nukes come flying over the Arctic, and the nuclear powered torpedos tipped with mega warheads come swimming for us from anywhere on the planet's oceans that they choose to launch them from. Then we all get to die for who rules over some ethnic Russians on Russia's border. That's what Ukraine means, in English it translates to "The Borderlands." What goes on there is none of our business.

This is not our war, and it's not worth the 1% chance of nuclear war for us to back up Kiev in their dream of creating an ethnically pure Ukraine from the lands gifted to them, in addition to their own historic territories, by Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and Khrushchev, although when Krushchev, who was half Ukrainian, and married to a Ukrainian woman, and was born in Ukraine, gifted Ukraine Crimea by diktat, without asking a single Crimean, there was a hitch. Crimea voted for Independence at the fall of the USSR, creating the Republic of Crimea, and Ukraine had to forcibly annex it in 1995. So much for sacrosanct borders and the sacred will of the people of a region.; 6/25/24, 2:33 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Remember when the far right made huge electoral gains in France, Germany, and other countries a few weeks ago? Ukrainians found it hilarious that so many in those same countries call them 'Nazis', when actual far-right parties in Ukraine have never gotten more than 2.5% in any election.; 6/25/24, 2:41 PM
imTay said...: "hit by fragments of a Russian anti-aircraft weapon. "

The missile attack by cluster munitions flew over a crowded beach on a hot summer Sunday, through an area where the Ukrainians knew full well that the interception of it, and the resulting spillage of the cluster munitions that the missile contained had an extremely high probably of killing large numbers of civilians.

Do you think that the time of the attack, not doing it at night, for example, and the flight path over the beach was just some kind of random accident, and that there weren't very detailed discussions of how this missile attack was going to be carried out?; 6/25/24, 2:43 PM
Bob Boyd said...: The beachgoers were killed by their fellow Russians, hit by fragments of a Russian anti-aircraft weapon.

Which were fired at incoming Ukrainian missiles. Who knows what fragments went where after that.; 6/25/24, 2:46 PM
imTay said...: Notice how he calls the beach goers, Crimeans, "fellow Russians"? Well, Crimea has been Russian for longer than Alaska has been American, but Kiev disowns these residents of Crimea. Which, once again prompts the question, what is Kiev's plan for these "fellow Russians" if they regain control of Crimea?; 6/25/24, 2:49 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "If you disagree with that statement, where do our obligations end and why?"

The answer many people and many here would give is until we ensure the Kremlin burns to the ground. There are no stops on their pain train. They're stuck in a pre-Berlin Wall anti-Soviet mindset that never died, never evolved with changing geopolitical realities, and inherited from the Empire that never ended (Britain).

There is no fact on the ground that could make them pause and say, "whoa, maybe we're miscalculating!" They want all in, to the last Ukrainian, then the last Pole, then the last American soldier etc etc until Moscow is burning.

Why? Well that's a little more complicated. It's hard to ascertain why in an environment that has been teaching people to be virulently anti-Russian for almost a century, all the way back to the Red Scare of the 20s. In such an environment could anyone receive an honest answer? Probably not.; 6/25/24, 2:53 PM
Joe Smith said...: 'They're just asking for the weapons they need to defend themselves, weapons we have vast surplus supplies of that we're not using. Weapons that we are obligated to provide them, since Bill Clinton promised to guarantee their 1991 borders in return for giving up their nuclear deterrent.'

We're running low on weapons ourselves.

Did Bill sign something? You know, a treaty? No?

Their mistake was trusting a Clinton.

Fuck Ukraine.; 6/25/24, 2:56 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "Which were fired at incoming Ukrainian missiles."

Fired with:

NATO intel
NATO targeting
NATO maintenance and operations
NATO guidance
NATO training
NATO damage assessment...then they say, "here Ukraine, push this button!"; 6/25/24, 2:57 PM
doctrev said...: RideSpaceMountain said...
There is no fact on the ground that could make them pause and say, "whoa, maybe we're miscalculating!" They want all in, to the last Ukrainian, then the last Pole, then the last American soldier etc etc until Moscow is burning.

6/25/24, 2:53 PM

In theory, the people in charge of this don't care about Europeans, or even their "fellow" Americans. But there are things they care about, and Russia/ China have noticed.

So it's not going to be hard for the global south to slam those pressure points, as they have been for less than a year, until the combined West either experiences broad regime change or starts having serious losses.; 6/25/24, 3:05 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Stupid imTay doesn't know that tens of thousands of Russians moved to Crimea after 2014, took the houses and apartments of Ukrainians, and have been enjoying living in other people's homes without paying rent ever since. When Ukraine recaptures Crimea, all those colonizing occupying squatting assholes can bugger off back to Russia, and be damned grateful if they're not forced to pay back rent plus damages for the property they stole. No doubt they'll take the washing machines when they flee.

Vile imTay cares more about 4 Russians accidentally killed by their incompetent fellow-Russians firing anti-missile defenses over a crowded beach than he cares about the Ukrainians who are murdered every fucking night by Russian cluster bombs and missiles aimed at civilian neighborhoods. They hit the Home Depot type store on a Saturday afternoon, when it was most crowded, but they always hit the apartment blocks at night, to multiply the casualties. Every night another 2 or 4 or 10 or 20 Ukrainians are murdered, and imTay doesn't care. He thinks 4 Russian squatters accidentally killed while ocean bathing right next to a military target count for more than the thousands of Ukrainian civilians intentionally murdered by the Russians. Why is that? Are Ukrainians somehow not human? Or is it imTay that's not human?; 6/25/24, 3:12 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: @doctrev

The global south already is testing those pressure points. It will escalate too. And the "serious losses" won't be something familiar to most armchair generals either. This is 5th generation warfare. It involves everything from economics to internal politics to psychological warfare to fucking memes passed around on Instapundit.

It is everything, everywhere, all at once. I believe the serious losses will be in treasure, not blood to start with. Blood comes later. The USA and its allies have a massive fiscal nightmare coming in the not too distant future. The Chinese see this especially, and others are catching on to the fact that we've been using the Dollar as a weapon to get our way worldwide since before the Berlin Wall came down.

A day is coming, this century, when the Dollar will have a reckoning, and DC won't be able to buy a $40,000 USAF coffee mug from Lockheed Martin to piss in.; 6/25/24, 3:20 PM
Bob Boyd said...: If the US has a moral obligation to Ukraine it stems from the fact that our government provoked the Russian invasion deliberately and later prevented cease fire negotiations when Ukraine was in a much stronger bargaining position.

If we have a moral obligation to Ukraine, it is first and foremost to face the fact that this was a huge miscalculation and to stop the killing and destruction as soon as possible.; 6/25/24, 3:20 PM
Bob Boyd said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/25/24, 3:20 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: Careful @Bob, more talk like that and they're gonna make you stand against the wall with the likes of Nigel Farage and RFK Jr!; 6/25/24, 3:24 PM
doctrev said...: RideSpaceMountain said...
@doctrev

The global south already is testing those pressure points. It will escalate too. And the "serious losses" won't be something familiar to most armchair generals either. This is 5th generation warfare.
6/25/24, 3:20 PM

I getcha. I would personally argue that blood was already drawn on October 7th. Not terribly much, by global standards, but the shrieks of "several 9/11s" means it did the job all right. Nonetheless, you're right that a financial reckoning is coming. If China decides to sanction America by refraining to deliver diapers, clothing, and construction supplies, there will be Weevils hanging on every street in the country.; 6/25/24, 3:36 PM
Narayanan said...: USA [in loco parentais/suzerain] and moral responsibility for Ukraine [vassal/ward]

I see parallel here to !eastern Ukrainian Russians as the school students!
"The parents of the teenager who killed four students in the 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison Tuesday, weeks after being convicted of manslaughter."; 6/25/24, 3:54 PM
Dr Weevil said...: When you start fantasizing about the violent death of someone you've been arguing with on the internet, it's an excellent sign that (a) you've lost the argument, and (b) you should seek professional help.

Of course, the person here most likely to die by hanging is 'doctrev', in his closet, from autoerotic asphyxiation. His mother should probably check up on him.; 6/25/24, 4:10 PM
imTay said...: "all those colonizing occupying squatting assholes can bugger off back to Russia"

Ethnic cleansing it is. whatever fairy tale you make up to justify it. Basically a Ukrainian apologist says whatever they think you need to believe for them to get their way. No wonder they are natural allies with Joe Biden.; 6/25/24, 4:13 PM
imTay said...: ".then they say, "here Ukraine, push this button!"

Voice activated weapons.; 6/25/24, 4:14 PM
doctrev said...: imTay said...
Ethnic cleansing it is. whatever fairy tale you make up to justify it.

6/25/24, 4:13 PM

You can't possibly be surprised that the vermin is an ethnic cleansing enthusiast.

I hope the summer proves to be sufficiently entertaining for him.; 6/25/24, 4:18 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Stupid imTay thinks not allowing squatters to keep houses they've illegally occupied is 'ethnic cleansing'. Of course, anyone of any ethnicity - Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar, whatever - who was a legal resident of Crimea before the Russian coup and invasion in 2014 would be able to stay after Ukraine recovers the peninsula, and would also be able to expel any squatters from the land and buildings they owned there in 2014. The rest need to go home, and that's not 'ethnic cleansing'.

Of course, imTay wants to imply that the Ukraininians will kill the squatters - the usual implication of 'ethnic cleansing' - rather than just sending them back home. As usual, he lies.; 6/25/24, 4:22 PM
Dr Weevil said...: When you start fantasizing about the violent death of someone you're arguing with on the internet, as 'doctrev' does at 3:36pm, it's a sure sign that (a) you've lost the argument, and know it, though perhaps not consciously, and (b) you need to seek professional help.

Of course, the person here most likely to die from hanging is 'doctrev' himself, in his closet, from autoerotic asphyxiation.; 6/25/24, 4:26 PM
Dr Weevil said...: When you start fantasizing about the violent death of someone you're arguing with on the internet, as 'doctrev' does at 3:36pm, it's a sure sign that (a) you've lost the argument, and know it, though perhaps not consciously, and (b) you need to seek professional help.; 6/25/24, 4:30 PM
gilbar said...: it's important to remember,
that EVERYONE (and ANY ONE) that disagrees with Dr We Evil is STUPID! and LYING!

we KNOW This Is TRUE.. Because Dr We Evil TOLD US SO.
And if you don't trust a paid shill for the CIA.. Then you're not Trusting the Federal Government!; 6/25/24, 4:40 PM
doctrev said...: gilbar said...
it's important to remember,
that EVERYONE (and ANY ONE) that disagrees with Dr We Evil is STUPID! and LYING!
6/25/24, 4:40 PM

I really thought the collective West could afford better staff. I'd wrangle a troll farm for the right wage. But I'm sure that their cupboards are going increasingly bare, so they're cutting back on important services. Israel in particular is having serious economic contractions.; 6/25/24, 4:44 PM
imTay said...: Whatever. If Ukraine could not protect Crimea, which they had only annexed by force in 1995, from the Russians waltzing in without firing a shot, they never had established sovereignty over it. Or were those ethnic Russians, who have been living there for centuries, traitors to Ukraine?

By Dr Weevil's logic, the US should be righting wrongs that took place centuries ago, we should be spending those hundreds of billions we are sending out of concern for the Tartar's loss of land way back when, to compensate the Sioux for the loss of the Great Plains, and oh yeah, the "Holdomor," where we killed off the buffalo to starve them into submission, and that's just one claim.

We could return to Mexico the land we took from them, righting wrongs begins at home! Oh, I forgot, Mexico attacked us! But why? Because we made a captured Mexican general sign a document, which he had no authorization to do, ceding Texas to the US, and when the Mexican Army tried to enforce their rights, we claimed, and continue to claim, that they attacked us! See how easy it is to get the other side to attack first?; 6/25/24, 4:45 PM
Dr Weevil said...: 'gilbar' and 'doctrev' haven't noticed that I have disagreed with Bob Boyd and narciso on this very thread without calling either of them stupid or a liar, because in fact neither of them told any lies or said anything stupid here. Which means of course that they have lied again, and their accusations of being a paid shill are obvious cases of projection.; 6/25/24, 4:57 PM
doctrev said...: Psycho Weevil is now at 17 comments on a thread with 110 of them. In case anyone forgot, he's picked fights with just about anyone who doesn't share his genocidal views or idiotic lies about Ukraine, including imTay, gilbar, and RideSpaceMountain. There's a non-zero chance that he's actually a collective paid by a Western government instead of a mentally unhealthy obsessive. It doesn't really matter. Even fans of his causes are going to be repulsed by increasingly desperate fanaticism. Ukraine isn't going to "win," and the Ukrainians thinking that Western aid/ Russians assets have been earmarked for them are about to be bitterly disappointed.; 6/25/24, 5:15 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Antisemitic loon 'doctrev' just can't stop lying.

I've been commenting at Althouse for around 15 years, and have left 10,000+ comments here on a wide range of topics. Anyone who says I'm a bot or a paid shill is an obvious liar or an obvious fool, or a bit of each.

I picked no fight with 'gilbar'. I ignored his several stupid comments on this thread and then he attacked me out of the blue at 4:40pm. He does that a lot: on threads where I have made no comments at all, 'gilbar' will pop up to put words in my mouth and claim to know what I would say if I were there. He's never even close.

And it hardly counts as 'picking a fight' if I offer reasons why someone's confident statement about Ukraine or any other topic is wrong. Does it bother 'doctrev' that RideSpaceMountain still can't bring himself to admit that Zelenskyy has not in fact banned all opposition parties, and that imTay can't bring himself to even pretend to care about the thousands of Ukrainian civilians murdered by Russian cluster bombs and missiles that arrive every night, even as he denounces us for caring insufficiently about four Russians killed by falling debris? Why can't 'doctrev' tell the truth? Is he a paid shill?; 6/25/24, 6:24 PM
imTay said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/25/24, 6:53 PM
Christopher B said...: Dr Weevil said...
Evidence that Ukrainians couldn't operate Tu-22s and Tu-95s? They have no trouble operating other models of Soviet-designed aircraft.

From Wikipedia ...

The Ukrainian Air Force inherited 23–29 Tu-95MS aircraft after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and subsequently handed 3 Tu-95MS and 581 Kh-55 cruise missiles to Russia as exchange for gas debt relief in 2000; the remainder were scrapped under the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement led by the US.

The Ukrainian Air Force and Navy inherited a large number of Tu-22M2/M3 bombers. 60 Tu-22Ms (17 Tu-22M2 and 43 Tu-22M3) and 423 Kh-22 cruise missiles were scrapped under the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement led by the US. The last bombers were scrapped in January 2006.

***

Since the only air force currently operating these models is Russia, it's pretty unlikely that Ukraine could get the spares necessary to keep the operational even if they had retained ownership.

I used to think you were a pretty reasonable commenter on the Russia-Ukraine conflict but the more crap you post, the more it looks like you just get your rocks off waving blue and yellow pom-poms.; 6/25/24, 6:55 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Ukraine inherited the world's largest airplane, the one and only An-225, and kept it flying for years, until the Russians destroyed it when they attacked Kyiv in 2022. It seems bold to assume that they could not have kept any bombers flying if they'd had the chance. Spares are not always needed: air forces have been known to cannibalize planes, turning two non-functional planes into one functional one.

If you want to convince me I'm posting crap, you're going to have to do a better job than just calling it crap and asserting the opposite.; 6/25/24, 7:08 PM
Original Mike said...: "I used to think you were a pretty reasonable commenter on the Russia-Ukraine conflict but the more crap you post, the more it looks like you just get your rocks off waving blue and yellow pom-poms."

That's not all that gets his rocks off. Here are his posted thoughts on the Baltimore Bridge collapse:

"Good. This country is a shithole, and Baltimore is the worse. They deserve it."
and
"I'm just disappointed that it didn't happen during rush hour."

That may not have anything to say about his knowledge of the Ukraine war, but it does provide insight into who your talking to.; 6/25/24, 7:20 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Original Mike:
You have a link for the words you quote? Because I certainly never wrote any such thing. Put up or shut up.; 6/25/24, 7:31 PM
Original Mike said...: Dr Weevil - My apologies. I confused you with commenter Mr Wibble. I will delete my comment or leave it up as a testament to my stupidity, as you wish.; 6/25/24, 7:36 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Thank you. As you please. I'm almost as offended by the accusation that I wrote something as subliterate as "Baltimore is the worse" instead of "worst" as by the thought. And I have relatives in Baltimore, so I do not wish the city ill.; 6/25/24, 7:43 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Not that I would wish the city ill if I didn't have relatives there, . . . .; 6/25/24, 7:45 PM
Original Mike said...: I'm glad I can start reading your comments again.

Again, my apologies.; 6/25/24, 7:49 PM