Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

This really is a full service blog.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

No one could have predicted…

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 206: We Must Bear Witness So That Never Again Actually & Finally Means Never Again!

War for Ukraine Day 206: We Must Bear Witness So That Never Again Actually & Finally Means Never Again!

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Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. They haven’t posted the transcript at the presidential website yet, so I’m copying and pasting the partial transcript they’ve posted under the video. Video below, partial English transcript after the jump:

Exhumation work continued today in Izium, Kharkiv region, at the site of the mass burial that had been found. Examinations of the bodies are being conducted. New evidence of the torture used against the people buried there has been found. More than ten torture chambers have already been found in the liberated areas of Kharkiv region – in various cities and towns. As the occupiers fled, they also dropped the devices for torture. Even at the ordinary railway station in Kozacha Lopan, a room for torture and tools for electric torture were found. It’s just a railway station! Torture was a widespread practice in the occupied territory. That’s what the Nazis did. This is what ruscists do. And they will answer in the same way – both on the battlefield and in courtrooms. We will identify all those who tortured, who humiliated, who brought this atrocity from Russia here, to our Ukrainian land.

I’ve seen a lot of the photos and the videos coming out of Izium regarding the mass burials. I’m going to post some here, because it is a moral imperative for those of us who can bear to look to actually look. For the past 77 years we’ve been repeating the mantra “Never Again” as a response to the Holocaust. What we’ve seen repeatedly over those 77 years is that it wasn’t a mantra, it was a largely empty platitude. As the survivors and descendants of the Cambodians who endured the Killing Fields, of the Chinese who endured the Cultural Revolution, of the Rwandans who endured the massacres, of the Bosnian survivors of Srebrenica, of the Yemenis being starved out by the Saudis (with, unfortunately, our support through military sales and training), and many, many others know all too well. We either need to turn this platitude into the mantra and mission statement it was meant to be or we need to retire it for good.

WARNING!!!!! WARNING!!!!!! WARNING!!!!!! GRAPHIC CONTENT!!!!!!

The Ukrainian in the tweet machine translates as:

Today in Izyum, investigators exhumed the body of a civilian man with traces of torture from grave number 91. I had to film a man who was dragged out with his pants down, castrated and with his hands tied behind his back. Photo in the link, but you don’t need it

The cartoon above is referring to this:

And a completely different kind of atrocity:

ALL CLEAR!!!!!

Kyiv:

Zaporizhzhia:

Koktobel, Russian Occupied Crimea:

And now for something a bit lighter:

Hat tip on this one goes to Yarrow:

I could eat…

Your daily Patron!

If you know of a reputable site selling blue and yellow paracord and/or other types of bracelets, especially if the profits are being donated to support Ukraine, please put the link in the comment. If someone here makes these types of things, which given all the different things you all who comment and lurk actually do would not surprise me, and you want to set up “will make for the community here and then donate everything above the costs of the materials to charities that are helping the Ukrainians”, send me an email and I’ll get with Cole and Watergirl about how we’d get that set up.

Here’s a new video from Patron’s official TikTok page!

@patron__dsns

Ти цінуй те, що є. Бо лиш сьогодні життя твоє!.. #песпатрон #патрондснс #славаукраїні

♬ оригінальний звук – motivUAtion

The caption translates as:

You appreciate what you have. Because only today is your life!.. #dogPatron #PatronDSNS #SlavaUkraini

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

78Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Russia.  State that sponsors terrorism, cheered on by Tucker Carlson, Noam Chomsky, J.D. Vance, Glemm Greenwald, Ron Johnson, and the GQp in general.

  5. 5.

    Chetan Murthy

    I would definitely wear one of those blue-and-yellow bracelets, or a necklace (I’ve never worn a necklace, but for this, I would do so).  And would very much like to contribute to a UA charity for the privilege of wearing it.

  6. 6.

    Nelle

    I grew up on meals of varenika and borscht (the spellings always varied).  My dad loved borscht sooo much.  The community center that was renovated in Molanchansk (the current name of my father’s village) by Canadians, mostly, in the early 2000’s, in order to serve the elderly and needy there, was seized by the Russians recently, as well as their food stores.

    My cousin, an infant in 1921, died of starvation in that region in 1921.  My father survived the famine and all his life, he cherished the taste of food.  And now, there are food shortages again there.

  7. 7.

    Tony G

    @Villago Delenda Est: Right.  Add “Medea” Benjamin, Chris Hedges, Ted Rall, Gary Null and others to that disgraceful list.  I predict that they will never apologize.  They will persist with their pro-Russian propaganda for a while and then, perhaps, they’ll change the subject and pretend that they never said those things.  Worthless people, a few of whom (Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges) I once had some respect for.  No more.

  8. 8.

    Lyrebird

    @Gin & Tonic: That’s amazing, thank you for posting that.

    This video with interviews in liberated Izyum is a little more like US TV interviews, including some pointless questions like “where are you going next” to soldiers on active duty.

    I wonder if some other BJ readers would like it though for the local color.  I haven’t finished watching the whole thing, but there is this point where a shop keeper asks the reporter whether she prefers coffee or tea, to give her some.  Reporter is all “oh no we gotta go” and shop keeper lady is all “of course not! If you won’t take tea well then we have just baked some snacks, eat them…”  Wow.

  9. 9.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    Human beings ability to inflict atrocities upon one another is never ending. Religion hasn’t put a stop to it. Laws haven’t put a stop to it. Nor have government bodies using international treaties been able to curtail it. History repeats itself is the mantra that survives.

  10. 10.

    trollhattan

    Love this. Feeling it.

    The official civilian death tallies seem significantly low, understandable considering what occurs unseen behind the line of occupation, plus the vast numbers of Ukrainians who have fled the country and encountering who knows what on the way.

    Frustrating is the likelihood there are no repercussions for Russia, for their ghoulish crimes.

  11. 11.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    Oh, but for the bracelet – I actually just ordered this one a few days ago. Hasn’t gotten here yet of course, but it is from a Ukrainian seller and in the description it says “Buying this bracelet, you help the economy of Ukraine. I also transfer part of the proceeds from sales to our army and those affected by the war.” Nothing specific but supporting individual Ukrainians is also worth it, IMO.

  12. 12.

    Chetan Murthy

    Thinking about Adam’s title.  I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make sure that countries top fighting wars of aggression.  And it seems like we have to establish a norm, and prosecute it vigorously, until we can turn that norm against …. our own malefactors.  I’m pointing specifically at Shrubya and his horde.  We have to get that norm to be robust enough, that the rest of the civilized world will be ready to prosecute it against *us*.  And right now, from what we see of Germany and France (Italy coming up fast), they’re not ready for that.

    It’s vexing.

    And I hasten to add that none of this is anywhere near the urgency of ensuring that Ukraine beats the living tar out of Putin’s armies.  Living.  Tar.  They need to beat him like a drum, while liberating all their lands and taking enoug POWs to exchange for ALL their kidnapped civilians and captured soldiers.

    Beat him like a drum.

  14. 14.

    Another Scott

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: Angry_Staffer speculated that Biden was holding back on the russia = Terrorist State listing as part of the negotiations to get Griner and Whelan home.

    True?  No idea.

    International relations are complicated.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    Gary K

    Just to say: I lurk here a lot, and don’t comment much. These daily reports on Ukraine are invaluable, even when what they report is enraging or horrifying. Thanks, Adam!

  16. 16.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Urza: He believes (and stated so clearly) that UA needs to surrender to RU in order to end the slaughter.  He condemn’s RU’s aggression, but puts the onus on UA to end the war.

    In this, he’s no different than Mearsheimer, believing that RU must have its way.

  18. 18.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Urza: Here you go: ”
    Henry Kissinger, Noam Chomsky Find Rare Common Ground Over Ukraine War”
    https://www.newsweek.com/henry-kissinger-noam-chomsky-find-rare-common-ground-over-ukraine-war-1709733

    And a rebuttal from UA academics: https://www.e-flux.com/notes/470005/open-letter-to-noam-chomsky-and-other-like-minded-intellectuals-on-the-russia-ukraine-war

    We are a group of Ukrainian academic economists who were grieved by a series of your recent interviews and commentaries on the Russian war on Ukraine. We believe that your public opinion on this matter is counter-productive to bringing an end to the unjustified Russian invasion of Ukraine and all the deaths and suffering it has brought into our home country.

    Having familiarized ourselves with the body of your interviews on this matter, we noticed several recurring fallacies in your line of argument. In what follows, we wish to point out these patterns to you, alongside our brief response:

    Pattern #1: Denying Ukraine’s sovereign integrity

    Pattern #2: Treating Ukraine as an American pawn on a geo-political chessboard

    Pattern #3. Suggesting that Russia was threatened by NATO

    Pattern #4. Stating that the US isn’t any better than Russia

    Pattern #5. Whitewashing Putin’s goals for invading Ukraine

    Pattern #6. Assuming that Putin is interested in a diplomatic solution

    Pattern #7. Advocating that yielding to Russian demands is the way to avert the nuclear war

    It’s fair to say, when you’re on the same page as Kissinger, you ought to consider your life choices.  That, and …. Chomsky blotted his copybook, jesus h christ.

  19. 19.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Another Scott: I hadn’t thought of that.  I figured it was to keep Turkey, India, and a few other countries, …. well, not “onside”, but at least, not “on the other side”.  Esp. India is sufficiently important to global trade, that he can’t really afford to force Modi to choose.  We saw that at the recent SCO meeting, both Erdogan and Modi were pretty unkind (ha) to Putin.  I’d guess Biden is hoping that that sort of thing works better than ostracizing Modi — which a “terrorist state” designation would force him to do.

    We citizens don’t have to take morally unpleasant decisions: that’s why we hire our elected officials.  In the best case, their hands are covered with blood, but they act in the long-term best interest of our people.  In the worst case, they’re just covered with blood.  I hope and believe that Biden is acting in our long-term best interest.

    ETA: Oh, and then there’s Xi’s China.  The last thing we want, is to label China as trading with a terrorist state, and then force our allies to choose between trading with China, and trading with us.  It’s all terrible.  All terrible.

  20. 20.

    Chetan Murthy

    Some kind of craziness (as in bang, bang, boom boom) in Kherson last night (UA time).  Lots of theories: RU-on-RU fratricide (huzzah!) ?  partisan uprising ?  false-flag RU provocation ?  RU murdering all the young men they can find, before the pull out (*ugh, nooooo*).

    I guess we’ll find out more in coming days.  Scary times.

  22. 22.

    Lyrebird

    @Chetan Murthy: Here is one other link from when Chomsky said that Trump was the only Western statesman putting forward a sensible plan for dealing with Putin.

     

    @tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): I appreciate how you put this:

    Human beings ability to inflict atrocities upon one another is never ending.

    Massive props to Adam for his incredible work here, I am not arguing with that, and I understand some of the reasons Pres. Zel. has pushed this same message, asking what about “Never Again”.  For instance, getting W Europe to wake up and take action.  Some of the US discussion about this rings hollow to me.  Like, when was there unanimous support anyhow?  It sounds like we’re faulting, let’s say, Tom Lantos for being less powerful than the NYT the Bush family the Cheneys Haliburton and the white supremacists here, all put together.

    I need to “rack out”.

  23. 23.

    Urza

    @Chetan Murthy: Shouldn’t Chomsky be smart enough to know that if you’re on the same side as Kissinger you’re automatically wrong?  Be like being on the same side as Ann Coulter or Limbaugh.  Soon as it happens question everything leading to that choice.

  24. 24.

    Sebastian

    @Chetan Murthy:

    What I am hearing is that the Russians are putting on a show hunting partisans to calm the jumpy collaborateurs, after many of them have met an early demise in other regions.

  25. 25.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Urza: I had two thoughts:

    1. You’d think, wouldn’t you?  And yet ….. [the mind boggles; OTOH, maybe he’s just going senile]
    2. [1/2 j/k] We have our own version of this in a way: on Ukraine, Bloody Bill Kristol is making more sense than Noam Chomsky!  A quick scan of his Twitter timeline makes you think he’s been body-snatched and replaced by AOC in a skinsuit!  (ok, ok, joking, but still …..)
  26. 26.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Tony G:

    Aww geez, not Ted Rall.

    Wait, looking him up now, he’s an asshole.

    Look at this:

    President Biden delivered a primetime speech that was marketed as an appeal to protect American democracy but directly targeted President Trump and his Republican supporters as the main threat to that noble institution. Gravely undermining his antiauthoritarian message was the stagecraft of the event in Philadelphia, which featured dystopian lighting and the ominous sight of two US Marines standing at attention.

    And this, entitled, “How to Feel Lonely”

    In this politically polarized environment, Americans who dislike both major parties are excluded from the dialogue.

    The characters in the cartoon says, “I think Trump is a corrupt, lying turd coup-plotting racist and Biden is a corrupt lying bank-whore coot.”

    Boy, somebody get a cross so Saint Rall can nail himself to it. Must be so nice to be so perfect and as pure as the undriven snow.

    He also has to this say on student loan forgiveness in two different strips:

    Middle-class Americans don’t have a lot of government programs directed at helping them. So it’s not surprising that one criticism of student loan forgiveness by Biden two months before an election is catching on: that it feels like the government is trying to buy votes. Only in an electorate accustomed to getting nothing back from its political class would such a statement resonate as well as this one.

     

    The most effective Republican talking point against Joe Biden’s attempt to forgive outstanding student loans is that people who didn’t go to college shouldn’t have to pay for those who did. But in a country as big as the United States, everyone inevitably has to pay for other people’s choices and politics.

    Are his claims that this point of view is “catching on” and is the most effective GOP talking point true?

  27. 27.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Think Chomksy or Kissinger will ever acknowledge or respond to those UKR academics? I’ve never been able to find any reactions of John Mearsheimer, a supposed eminent scholar of IR theory, to being placed on a list of individuals promoting Russian propaganda by the Ukrainian government.

    A common thread among all of these guys? They never factor in what the people of Ukraine want. It’s as if they have no agency at all to them

  28. 28.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s disappointing to realize that guys like Rall, Chomsky, Hedges, et al, believe that “America is bad, and there’s nothing that can be done about it — *nothing*”.  If that ain’t nihilism, I don’t know what is.

  31. 31.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Still, doesn’t Rall kind of have a point about the background to Biden’s speech undermining his message though? He also seems to implicitly criticize Biden for directly targeting Trump and Republicans

  33. 33.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Jesus Christ, that tweet with the two hands with the bracelets side by side really got to me, too. This was a person who was just living their life and then they were murdered by undisciplined thugs masquerading as soldiers

  34. 34.

    Anoniminous

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I have tremendous respect for Chomsky for what he did and what he was. Now?  Back in January I tried to watch a one of his YouTube videos and it was painful.  He … just … isn’t … there.

  35. 35.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): From your quote, one might think that Rall’s saying “it’s so rare for an American politician to deliver for the middle class!  One can imagine they’re surprised, given that they’re shat on so often!  Isn’t this great?”  But instead, Rall shits on Biden for it.

    See what I mean?  I mean, EVERY POL buys off bits of the electorate: what, was Rall born *yesterday*?  Biden is buying off one of the *largest* parts of the electorate!  And besides, from every analysis I’ve seen (and that Rall should have seen, the fucking git) this loan forgiveness is aimed at the *poorest* of borrowers, many of whom didn’t actually make it into the middle class.  Many of whom didn’t actually get their degrees.  But they got the debt, yeah, that they got.

    It’s as if Rall didn’t actually care about the facts, but just wanted to beat on Biden.

    ETA: like I said: nihilism.

  36. 36.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Anoniminous: Everyone has a responsibility to know when to hang  up the spurs.  A surgeon who continues to operate on patients when they’re no longer able to do so safely, is at fault.  And so is a public intellectual who’s no longer all there, not able to process the world correctly.  So I cannot absolve Chomsky of blame for his faulty reasoning and faulty interventions in public discourse.

    The man needs to STFU.

  38. 38.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Another Scott: As I read this article on the legal ramifications of a designation of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, the risk is that it may actually turn into an own-goal, in that it can jeopardize the objective of ultimately turning frozen Russian financial assets into seized war reparations for Ukraine. The reason is that once the designation is made, anyone with a claim to have been a victim of Russian terror may sue Russia in a US court, and take a shot at getting a jury to award them a slice of those assets. If the objective is to protect those assets from any opportunist with a sharp lawyer (or even legitimate, but lower-priority grievances against Russia) until the time for reparations is at hand, then, SSoT designation now is awkward.

    That’s the thing. SSoT status not just a scarlet letter — it’s intended as a stripping away of legal protections normally accorded to foreign nations in US courts. It also comes with economic sanctions that, if anything, pale in comparison to what has already been leveled at Russia.

    While I get — and share — the loathing of what the Russians are doing, and how they fight, I really don’t see how calling their actions “terrorism” is helpful. Terrorism has a specific meaning that is not this.  Terrorist acts are political and purposeful and intelligible, even when they despicable. The Russian crimes are pure nihilistic violence, apparently committed because among Ukrainians they can only see the “liberated” and the “nazis”, and it really pisses them off that the country’s population appears to be dominated by tthe latter category, despite what they were led to expect. They are killing people with reckless abandon and merciless cruelty to express that disappointed expectation.

    But don’t call it “terrorism”. That cheapens the act and makes it seem like a more retail affair. This is still business for the docket at The Hague: the term is War Crime.

  39. 39.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Carlo Graziani: I agree with you for …. instrumental reasons (making that designation is not likely to aid us in reaching the end-goal we want to reach as the leaders of the West).  But I disagree with your definitions.  Terrorism, as I remember it, is the deliberate targeting of civilian populations with violence, as a means to achieve a political end.  And that definitely fits what RU is doing to UA cities, hospitals, schools, infrastructure, etc.

    Sure, it’s also a war crime, but that doesn’t mean it’s not terrorism.  Regardless, I don’t think it serves our ends, to make the designation.

  40. 40.

    glc

    @Chetan Murthy: In cases where there is cognitive decline  one can’t expect the party concerned to have any awareness of it.  And it’s not that easy for those close to them to recognize it, or gauge its severity. There are coping mechanisms that come into play.

    I have no idea whether this applies in Chomsky’s case. I stopped concerning myself with his ideas on politics after a lecture in 1970, while respecting his views on a number of other subjects.

    I once heard Claude Lévi-Strauss respond to a question on politics by saying, “Given my views before World War II, I’ve  concluded there is no value in offering my opinions on matters of politics.” That’s unusual …

  41. 41.

    eddie blake

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  “only republicans are allowed to have marines on station.”

    only the gop are patriots? only the gop can use the military as a prop?

    the thing is though, this wasn’t like the bullshit “mission accomplished” stunt, the oath the marines swear is to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic…

    the marines there aren’t props, they’re reminders, imo.

    and rall, like all the rest have lost the ability to make a point without lying with every word.

  42. 42.

    Chetan Murthy

    @glc: Sure, which is what I meant by “one must know when to hang up one’s spurs”.  As in: Chomsky should have known to stop with this “public intellectual stuff” when he turned 80, or 75.  I mean, I’m still a pretty fast programmer, but I know better than to think I’m as fast as I was in my 30s.  Or 40s.  And I know I’ll only get slower.  That my working memory will decrease.  And that within a decade, I need to plan for no longer earning money as a programmer.

    It requires extraordinary hubris to think that one can continue to function at the level required to be a major public intellectual, into one’s 80s.

    ETA: of course he might be “all there”.  In which case his pronouncements are even worse: they’re a sign of moral decay.

  43. 43.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Chetan Murthy:

    You’re right, he did take every chance he could to take a shit on Biden. Dude could learn a thing or two from his idol, Sanders, who has been a team player the last two years

  44. 44.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Sanders: man, my mind boggles.  His political positions are mine, more-or-less.  But his taste in friends/surrogates/aides?  Abysmal.  And disqualifying for anyone who will hold a major executive position!  Disqualifying in a President, who will staff a few thousand positions.  But with all that: his actual policy positions are pretty much the ones I desire.

  45. 45.

    Carlo Graziani

    @glc: Yeah. Chomsky’s case is sad. He’s not a famous academic for no reason. Even given things that he’s been shown to be wrong about specifically, he was one of those thinkers who turned his field upside-down, and left the paradigm shifted in his wake.

    On politics he was always an idiot, though.

  46. 46.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Carlo Graziani: I have read a number of well-established linguistics researchers who would disagree with you about Chomsky’s chops in that field.  And ditto computer science.  Sure, he named a bunch of things we use, but aside from that, his impact was minimal.  And …. getting there early was enough to be able to put your name on things

    ETA: should have added that in any case, in CS he’s ancient history: nothing he did is relevant to anything we’ve studied or researched in the last …. 40 years.

  47. 47.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    @Carlo Graziani: Like Chetan Murthy, I will respectfully disagree with your very limited definitions here, and point out that the narrowness with which you choose, from a very safe distance, to define terrorism gives a lot of cover to a lot of horrible people. I would also ask: Would you feel righteous and comfortable offering this explanation to Zelenskyy’s face? To the faces of any Ukrainians living under russian occupation, to those who have been tortured and raped and seen their loved ones murdered?

    I would hope your answer would be no. If it’s yes, you need to do some serious self-reflection.

  48. 48.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Chetan Murthy: I’m referring more specifically to Izyum. That is nihilism, not politics.

    Referring to bombing of “cities, hospitals, schools, infrastructure, etc.” as “terrorism” is fair game if the US firebombing of Dresden and of Japanese cities was also “terrorism”. And also Coventry etc.

    I try not to get into definitional pissing contests, on the “life-too-short” principle. “Terrorism”, however, does have a somewhat useful, relevant, urgent, specific modern meaning that is evoked by terms such as “counterterrorism”. The concept of “State-sponsored terrorism” was brought into being to describe national intelligence services (such as those of Iran, or of Pakistan) who fund and direct the activities of deniable terrorist networks. It was not intended to cover the case of national armies carrying out war crimes in broad daylight. I simply don’t see the usefulness of broadening the category to cover this case: there isn’t enough similarity between the two to justify the assimilation.

  50. 50.

    Torrey

    @Chetan Murthy: ​  I understand that it’s tempting to ascribe error to age, but aside from being problematic for several reasons, it lets people off the hook for being just plain wrong. Chomsky’s objections to US actions weren’t based on any empathy for the people affected, as I recall, but rather on what seemed to be a general antipathy to imperialism, focused on U.S. imperialism, with the customary assumption that opponents of the U.S. were more virtuous. I’m not sure his views have changed that much. I grant you that one does need to try to keep track of one’s abilities as one gets older, but one can be silly at any age.
    And did you just tell Jane Goodall (88) and Robert Bullard (75) to shut up already about the environment?
    I agree that people need to keep track of how age changes them, and we can all think of people who would make us all happier by retiring. But mere age isn’t the only factor. Kissinger and Chomsky are who they always were, only more so and more stubbornly so.​​​

  51. 51.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Carlo Graziani:

    Referring to bombing of “cities, hospitals, schools, infrastructure, etc.” as “terrorism” is fair game if the US firebombing of Dresden and of Japanese cities was also “terrorism”. And also Coventry etc.

    Why, yes indeed!  I was about to comment noting this very thing.  And there’s even a term for it: “state terrorism”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_terrorism

    And going further, it seems pretty hairsplitting, to argue that Iran is a sponsor of terrorism when it attacks civilian targets in Western countries, but Russia is not one, simply because Russia does so on a greater scale: both countries’ aims are precisely the same: to extinguish opposition to their national governments.

    Look: regardless, we *do* agree about the correct reasoning for the US government not making the designation.

  52. 52.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Torrey: As i hope I made clear, ascribing his error to his age, to me is the more exculpatory explanation.

    The other explanation, is that he’s lost his moral compass, and …. well, that’s pretty damning.  To find himself on the same page as Kissinger is pretty damning.

    So I was imagining a less-awful reason.  I’m fine with giving that up.

  53. 53.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Torrey: Yeah, I think you have Chomsky’s number there. His views on foreign policy took shape during the Vietnam war, and ossified soon thereafter. He’s been entirely predictable ever since.

  54. 54.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Torrey:

    And did you just tell Jane Goodall (88) and Robert Bullard (75) to shut up already about the environment?

    Everyone is free to continue doing what they want as long as they want.  And they may pay a price in finding that they’ve be-shitted their reputations for all time, if they’re not careful.  As Chomsky is finding out.  I was simply noting that for someone who’s spent a lifetime building up a body of work, and a reputation to go with it, retiring before their mind and body deserts them, might be a wise course.

    And I’d also say that adducing the few exceptions to this rule isn’t very useful as advice: I think more people could profitably benefit from remembering that outliers are rare, and just b/c someone is an outlier in one area, doesn’t mean they’re an outlier in other areas.  That is to say, just because you’re a famous linguist doesn’t mean you’re immune to senility.  [and again, this is the exculpatory explanation]

    But yeah, it’s possible that Chomsky was just a shitty shitty political analyst, and got lucky enough to have formed a position in an era that didn’t require much thought.

  55. 55.

    Carlo Graziani

    Apropos of nothing, I wanted to report something that I found in researching my latest obsession on Russian train logistics and the Kharkiv offensive.

    It turns out that there is a second, somewhat longer rail route that connects Belgorod with Luhansk Oblast, running farther east from the one that the Ukrainians cut at Izyum and Kupyansk.

    The railroad map site at the University of Michigan has this map of Ukrainian lines, and from the Russian collection, this Belgorod section map. The Ukraine map shows the cut line (thin green line Belgorod-Kupyansk-Lysychansk-points south) and another line farther east (thin green line Urazovo-Starobilsk).

    The Belgorod map shows that the latter line can be reached from the Belgorod depot  by means of a detour north, east to Novy Oskol (for me Cyrilic present a decryption problem, Google Maps helps), south to Valyuki and Urazovo, probably 200 km. From Urazovo to Starobilsk in Ukraine is maybe a little over 100 km.

    So, the Russians, probably still have a supply line. However, I think that the Ukrainians at Kupyansk may be within HIMARS range of that line if they can get it under observation by forward spotters — I can’t quite tell with these maps.

    Anyway, maybe this is why the Ukrainians are still pushing East.

  56. 56.

    ColoradoGuy

    Both Republicans and Russians are kidnapping children, putting them on busses and jets, transporting them thousands of miles, and bragging about it on propaganda TV channels. They are going for maximum depravity, and expecting they will never face a Nuremberg court for their crimes.

  57. 57.

    Ruckus

    @Ivan X:

    Why are you being so nice to them?

    They are far, far worse than just assholes. Infinitely worse.

    They would have been Hitler’s chorus line, not just mere assholes. They have no morals, they have only contempt at best for anyone they can’t control and use. They have no use for democracy, they only respect getting their shitty way and fucking over, at least verbally anyone who doesn’t support them. I have not idea what to call them but asshole is a way too kind epitaph for them.

  58. 58.

    Jesse

    @Chetan Murthy: agree about public intellectuals hanging up their hats. That said, when I look at that list above, of Ukrainian academics, that’s looks to me like just straight Chomsky. In my mind, he’s always been like that. There may have been moments when he was perceived by the many as OK, such as in his opposition to the Vietnam War or the Iraq Wat, 2003 editition. But the content of his arguments then was the same as what he’s saying here, namely, the US is a uniquely evil imperial force in the world.

  60. 60.

    Geminid

    @Jesse: Chomsky has a particular animus towards Israel, and the US’s support for that nation. A lot of people do, and there is justification for this viewpoint.

    That could account for how Chomsky and some like minded people gloss over Iran’s terrible human rights record. For them, Iran is “the enemy of my enemy.”

  63. 63.

    LiminalOwl

    Adam, I’ve never worked with paracord but will buy some today and have bookmarked videos on how to make bracelets. If I am able to learn quickly (and if it doesn’t overly aggravate wrist/hand RSI), I’ll be happy to make some for the community and to support Ukraine.

     

    I do beadwork and have some ideas for relevant jewelry too.  Will let you know.

  64. 64.

    LiminalOwl

    @Amir Khalid: yes (and a belated Happy Malaysia Day to you, I didn’t get to that thread in time).

    The item about shelling papal reps, and yesterday my spouse’s comment to me (probably from BJ sources) about Pope Francis saying it’s OK to fight for Ukraine, made me think about the Russian Orthodox community I used to know.

    It may be a minor point, but I think it’s significant: the role of Russian Orthodoxy in this doesn’t always get enough attention. Russian ethno-nationalism is intimately tied to the Russian Orthodox church. Yes, we know about the Metropolitan’s closeness to Putin and his support for the war.  Ukrainians are (besides the minority groups of Jews, Muslims, and others) mostly split between Catholics and Orthodox, and one of the Orthodox goals is enforced Orthodoxy for all.

    Many of the Russian believers see Roman Catholics as not-quite-Christian. (And, in my personal experience, they are still virulently anti-Semitic.)  There is a certain amount of turf war in the Pope’s response, but mostly protective—the Catholic church, except for a few ultra-right believers, does accept Orthodox as fully Christian and shows no interest in eliminating them.  And so on.

  65. 65.

    Tony G

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I read Ted Rall’s crummy cartoons and essays from time to time, in the same way that I read other stuff from writers that I disagree with.  He makes some good points occasionally, but, from my point of view he’s pretty bad about 90% of the time.  (America bad!  Democratic Party bad!). Recently he’s posted essays stating that the invasion of Ukraine is nobody else’s business, and should be ignored, and then he spent a week or so vacationing in Moscow and Saint Petersburg (to my knowledge, the two wealthiest parts of Russia, and the places where people are most likely to speak English).  He cited the facts that upper income people were shopping, and were buying him drinks, and that nobody volunteered to talk to him about Ukraine, as evidence that Real Russians supported Putin’s invasion.  Apparently he didn’t get a chance to visit the nearby nation of Ukraine during his vacation, so he didn’t report on how people feel there.  I imagine that Berlin in 1940 had plenty of wealthy people buying drinks.  Politics aside — it was just a pathetically obsequious display.

  66. 66.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Chetan Murthy: Numb Chumpsky needs to return his C, H, O, N and trace elements to the environment ASAP, since he’s long since ceased doing anything sensible with them.

  67. 67.

    Gin & Tonic

    @LiminalOwl: I don’t have the time now to go into them, but there are vast political differences between the Ukrainian and russian Orthodox churches. The Ukrainian patriarch, Epifaniy, is the polar opposite of the bloodthirsty Kirill.

  68. 68.

    Tony G

    @Tony G: Rall has also taken the opportunity to state his opinion that Britney Griner got what was coming to her, now that she’s imprisoned in Russia.

  69. 69.

    LiminalOwl

    @LiminalOwl: Breakfast intervened, so I didn’t get to edit, but apropos of the terrorism discussion:  I would like to see greater awareness of the religious element in ethno-nationalist terrorism, because of the spiritual/moral justification it gives the terrorists.

    (In the USA, we do talk about this re: Islam, of course.  Not enough about Christianity and Judaism  And I’d like to learn more, if someone can provide reliable references, about ethnic Hinduism and terrorism in modern India. Others? I don’t even know what questions to ask.)

    FWIW, this is a double-edged sword for me.  I consider myself a moderately religious person, not at all anti-religious. And the violence of Orthodox terrorism in Israel, or of Catholic anti-abortion zealots in the US, hurts my heart.

    My forebears fled religiously justified terrorism in Lithuania and Poland; I don’t know anything about the Transylvanian/Romanian branch of the family…

  70. 70.

    LiminalOwl

    @Gin & Tonic: Thank you. I will need to learn more about the Ukrainian Orthodox; that adds to my mental picture of why the Russians want to eliminate/subjugate them. (And OTOH the few Ukrainian/Eastern Rite Catholics I met were… not tolerant, IIRC.)

  72. 72.

    AnonPhenom

    What’s the real deal with the ‘Iranian Kamikaze Drones’ Russia is said to be using? Are they really doing significant damage?

  73. 73.

    Carlo Graziani

    Another dangling thread: Since the Russians appear to be doggedly, robotically ptosecuting their strategically now-futile assault on Bakhmut using forces that might be better-employed protecting their rear-area supply lines, it is clear that their Donbas grouping is not retreating.  The question arose in the context of the previous Ukraine War Update, in which one of Chuck Pfarrer’s  customary high-graphics and highly-annotated maps displayed an arrow purporting to show Ukrainian forces approaching Sieverodonetsk from the south, where they would evidently have to get Russian permission to transit the roads.

    I think this shows that Pfarrer is one of those sources whose reporting, while potentially useful, needs to be independently verified, especially with respect to more consequential claims.

  74. 74.

    J R in WV

    There is a big long piece in the Washington Post about people falling away from evangelical christianity. I visited the article too late to have a chance to comment, and so will comment here. Evangelical patriarchal “christianity” is not actually Christian at all. No more than Southern Baptists were anti-slavery; in fact the schism between Southern Baptists and American Baptists was about accepting slave owners as acceptable as missionaries. Guess which side was in favor of slave owner missionaries!

    Many evangelicals don’t actually read the Bible, they rely on a “pastor” to guide their beliefs, and are blissfully unaware of the actual words and parables of Jesus Christ and how those are contradicted weekly by their pastor from his pulpit. Many of these patriarchal churches won’t allow women to become pastors, their most senior role is teaching Sunday school according to the published viewpoint of the intolerant pastors, who are mostly interested in power. Which is why so many of these calvinist church leaders wind up prosecuted for sexual assaults, often against children.

    Actual Christian churches seem to be doing pretty well, at least when compared to the holy-roller patriarchal churches, who have a lot of trouble holding on to the congregation in the face of hate-filled sermons.

    Just my $0.02 on modern religion in America.

  75. 75.

    Bill Arnold

    @Gin & Tonic:

    The Ukrainian patriarch, Epifaniy, is the polar opposite of the bloodthirsty Kirill.

    The Russian Orthodox Blessing of the Russian Nuclear Weapons was in the news again a couple of months ago”
    Blessing Bombs, Putin’s Altar Boy, and Twisting Russian Orthodoxy to Sanctify Nuclear War – Why the Russian Orthodox Church is blessing nuclear weapons in a once-atheistic society (Cathleen Falsani, July 6, 2022)

    My opinion on the matter, distilled down to one word: Evil

  76. 76.

    Geminid

    @AnonPhenom: A Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman has said the Iranian supplied drones have done damage. Artillery pieces seem to be targets, and the drones are sometimes launched in pairs.

    When Russia began the war they fielded a lot of surveillance drones, but had lagged in armed drones. Iran by contrast has leaned heavily into drone development and production. An attack on the Saudi Arabia oil processing facilities at Alquauq and Khuraish on September 14, 2019 was the most noteworthy use thus far.

    The Wikipedia on these attacks is quite interesting. About 40 drones were launched in two waves from Yemeni territory. Most of them hit the targets they  were aimed at fairly precisely.

  77. 77.

    Tony G

    @Jinchi: My own two-cents (speaking as an agnostic who had been raised as a Catholic when I was a kid) — there are both very good and very bad people (by my own standards of “good” and “bad”) who consider themselves to be religious.  I suspect that those people would be no different if they (like me) had abandoned religion.  I think that religion can act like an accelerant of bad behavior (like gasoline on a fire) by convincing the bad actors that “God is on their side”.  But other ideologies that are not explicitly religious can have that same effect.   In the current context of Ukraine, many Russian soldiers are all too eager to torture and kill civilians, with or without the justification of religion.   Humans are apes with weapons.

  78. 78.

    Ixnay

    @LiminalOwl: Paracord and other sythetic kernmantle rope, climbing ropes and slings need to be cut with a hot knife. I’ve always used broken pocket knives and the like with a propane torch or the gas range in the kitchen. Keeps them whipped and you can shape them a bit, pointy or flat. Cut them on a piece of scrap wood. Good luck, looking forward to the finished product.

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