(Twentieth Maine Regiment, Little Round Top, Gettysburg. Photo taken by me)
Since I’m sure you all are dying to know the latest news of my attempt to get my gmail account fixed, we had a late plot twist after we all went to – our should have gone to – bed. Google cancelled the recovery request process because I’m still logged into the account on my iPad. Supposedly, and supposedly is doing a lot of work here, if I run through the steps and have it send a 2FA code to my old phone # then 48 hours later it will, supposedly – still doing a lot of work here – if I rerun the process it will allow me to enter either an alternate phone # or email to get the code. We’ll see…
Other than this gmail issue, my new computer is AMAZEBALLS!!!! I’m very pleased and I can’t thank IvanX enough for all his assistance in sorting through options, his patience with my questions, and his easy to follow instructions to get it set up and everything moved over from the old one. Remember: IvanX for all your personal and/or professional computing needs!!!! As for my old machine, once I get the drive wiped, I’m going to have the battery replaced and then donate it to either the local organization I’ve volunteered with and they’ll give it to a refugee family so their elementary schooler can do their homework or a local charitable and social services organization that works with families in need so they could do the same.
Now that everyone is caught up on as the gmail turns, you’re probably wondering what Twentieth Maine’s defense of their position at Little Round Top has to do with Ukraine. The answer is simple: Senator Angus King (I-Maine), along with Senator Jack Reed (D-Not Maine) went to Kyiv and met with President Zelenskyy:
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, met with Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services Jack Reed, and a member of this Committee, Senator Angus King, who are visiting Kyiv.
The head of state highly appreciated the support of Ukraine from the US people, the US President and Congress.
“First of all, thank you for helping our troops. We really feel it. The United States is leading the way in this extremely important issue. This brings our victory closer,” Zelenskyy said.
The President of Ukraine particularly noted the results of his December visit to Washington, during which the powerful bicameral and bipartisan support of our country in Congress was demonstrated.
“Thank you very much for the invitation to visit the United States and for the results of this visit. I have seen the attitude of the Americans who are really supporting us. People were on the streets and expressed their support for Ukraine, defending its freedom in the bloody war,” the Head of State said.
Zelenskyy highly praised the approval of the $45 billion aid package for Ukraine by Congress at the end of last year.
“It is important that you provide us not only with financial support but also help Ukraine overcome other serious challenges, such as restoring our energy system,” the President said.
During the meeting, he told the senators about the current situation on the front lines and the risks of a possible escalation. Zelenskyy said that he objectively assesses the Russian proposal for a “ceasefire” as a manipulation by which the aggressor tries to hide its true military plans and intentions.
The head of state briefed Reed and King on the major needs of Ukraine in weapons and military equipment. He emphasized the need to further increase defense assistance, which will contribute to the approaching victory over the Russian aggressor.
Given Russia’s ongoing missile terror against Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure, the President separately addressed the issue of the importance of strengthening Ukrainian missile defense.
Zelenskyy highly appreciated the transfer of the Bradley fighting vehicles to our country announced by the White House and the agreements reached with Germany on supplying one more Patriot air defense system.
Separately, the Head of State emphasized the importance of Ukraine’s political support in the implementation of the Peace Formula and expressed hope for the leadership of the United States in this process.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!
Once again, I wish everyone who celebrates today, on this day, which has already become historic for Ukraine, for the spiritual independence of our people, a Merry Christmas.
I was glad today to see how many people, how many of our soldiers attended the service in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra – in that holy place, which is one of the origins of the Ukrainian cultural tradition.
It’s very important that a sincere prayer for Ukraine was today and will continue to be heard in the Lavra. And that no one will make Ukrainian a stranger in the laurel.
Ukrainian independence must be strong in all its elements. And it will be like that. Forever. We’re bringing it ourselves.
And it’s very important to continue staying in the mood that was felt today. The joy of strengthening Ukraine and achieving historical justice.
I wish all Ukrainian men and women that you and I have this mood more often.
Today, I signed the decrees on the implementation of the decisions of the National Security and Defense Council – a new meeting was held.
First, we approved the general action plan of the National Security and Defense Council for this year. It will certainly be no less forceful than in previous years, and the key priority is to ensure our independence and strengthen our ability to defend ourselves – making all the steps required, using all the means that will work.
Secondly, we have an intermediate result in the work regarding many citizens of Russia and persons associated with it who justify the war, help to wage it, or glorify the terrorist state. Today, there is the first such sanctions list – there will be further decisions on sanctions against such persons.
Everyone whose voice sounds in unison with the roar of Russian artillery will be isolated from the civilized world.
And, by the way, the world was once again able to see today how false any words of any level that sound from Moscow are. They said something there about an alleged ceasefire… But the reality is that Russian rounds hit Bakhmut and other Ukrainian positions again.
It has been confirmed once again: only the expulsion of the Russian occupiers from Ukrainian land and the elimination of any opportunities for Russia to put pressure on Ukraine and the whole of Europe will mean the restoration of the ceasefire, security and peace.
It’s what we are working for, it’s exactly what the help of our partners is aimed at, and it’s exactly what the entire civilized world has now.
And I thank everyone who helps us defend the independence of Ukraine!
Thanks to everyone who fights and works for our country!
Today we are one step closer to our victory.
Glory to Ukraine!
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the situation in Bakhmut:
BAKHMUT/1950 UTC 7 JAN/ Despite a unilateral ‘Christmas’ cease fire’ RU’s 6th Separate Cossack Motor Rifle Reg. & Wagner PMCs attacked UKR troops in the vicinity of the salt mine complex at Soledar. RU units have gained control of the urban area east of the rail right-of-way. pic.twitter.com/tPEN0A2UQK
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) January 7, 2023
#Ukraine army ranked 15th on Global Firepower rating. But we know it’s really number 1
— Lesia Vasylenko (@lesiavasylenko) January 7, 2023
Touch not the cat, bot a glove!
So.
I see we’re moving towards Ukraine being provided with Leopard 2s. Nations seem to have finally decided to put this war to an end.— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) January 7, 2023
Sea Sparrows too!
The U.S. military aid package to Ukraine will for the first time include Sea Sparrow missiles, which can intercept aircraft or cruise missiles. Ukrainian military has managed to tweak Soviet-era BUK launchers to fire the Sea Sparrow. -according to Politicohttps://t.co/wt8nXeCkjT pic.twitter.com/DuWiiqYTJ7
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) January 6, 2023
Politico has the specifics:
The package will for the first time include radar-guided Sea Sparrow anti-air missiles, which can be launched from the sea or on land to intercept aircraft or cruise missiles. In a bit of battlefield innovation, the Ukrainian military has managed to tweak its existing Soviet-era BUK launchers to fire the Sea Sparrow, two people familiar with the matter said. Up to this point, Taiwan has been the only country to operate the ground-launched version of the missiles, while the U.S. and multiple allied navies use the ship-mounted version.
Putin’s unilateral Eastern rite Christmas ceasefire in action:
A 66-year-old man and a 61-year-old woman were killed and 13 other local residents were injured as a result of the russia’s «Christmas shelling» in Bakhmut.#russiaisaterroriststate
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 7, 2023
Putin's cannon fodder: this photo claims to show dead Russian soldiers following one of many recent frontal attacks on Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut – the Kremlin is trying to overwhelm Ukraine's defenses with suicidal attacks pic.twitter.com/AvKb79M0N2
— Business Ukraine mag (@Biz_Ukraine_Mag) January 7, 2023
Well that’s Wagner PMC all over!
Area dentist has thoughts on Putin’s unilateral Eastern rite Christmas ceasefire:
Unsurprisingly, frantic mental gymnastics from Putin apologists https://t.co/SqLqX78fdq
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) January 7, 2023
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
It happened! Watch the first episode of the animated series «Patron The Dog” at the link (enable ENG and PL subtitles)🤩https://t.co/OKSHujHprv
Please write in the comments if you liked it❤️👅 pic.twitter.com/TKuoFgDF76
— Patron (@PatronDsns) January 7, 2023
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok! I bet you can’t guess what it’s about!
@patron__dsns Перша серія вже на моєму YouTube! Посилання у шапці профілю☺️
The caption machine translates as:
The first episode is already on my YouTube! Link in the profile header☺️️
Open thread!
Alison Rose
“Zelenskyy has rejected peace” – I will repeat myself from last night: Blow it out your ass. When “peace” means the complete subjugation and/or destruction of your country and people, it is no kind of peace that anyone who isn’t a russian terrorist or their groupies would recognize. No surprise that Gosar has an Orwellian definition of peace, considering moscow’s similarly twisted definition of “ceasefire”.
Any jackals who live near Gosar’s district wanna go roll him in honey and tie him to a red ant hill?
Adam, I think I asked last night in a vague way but want to be more direct: Regarding the $45B in the omnibus for Ukraine, is that guaranteed no matter what shenanigans the new House gets up to? Are there any mechanisms by which they can fuck with its delivery, or would they only be able to mess with any additional future aid?
The Patron video is so cute, though his voice sounds much more grown-up than I expected :P
Thank you as always, Adam. Wishing you continued luck with the Gmail Saga.
jackmac
Rep. Paul Gosar, unofficial head of the pro-Putin Caucus and pro-Trump 2020 stolen election proponent.
Even his family hates him.
“I consider him a traitor to this country. I consider him a traitor to his family,” Gosar’s brother, Dave, a Wyoming attorney, told NBC News in 2021. “He doesn’t see it. He’s disgraced and dishonored himself.”
Also, Happy Orthodox Christmas!
Adam L Silverman
@Alison Rose: Yes, anything passed in the last Congress and signed into law can only be undone if the new Congress were to pass legislation through both chambers repealing it and then, somehow, getting President Biden to sign that repeal. Or by including a repeal or modification within other legislation, then getting that to pass both chambers, and, finally, somehow convincing President Biden to sign that legislation.
Given the rules package McCarthy agreed to, I think the House is likely to be preoccupied with motions to vacate the chair on a regular basis.
Jay
Adam,
I wasn’t sure if you would show the Bakhmut drone photo, or if we should show it here,
it seems we are careing less about what happens to Rucists.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Without the description, it is very hard to actually tell what you’re looking at in the picture. I went with that particular tweet because both the Ukrainian MOD’s and the one posted by Ilia Ponomarenko were exceedingly hard to interpret despite having the same picture as the one I posted. Because the text in those tweets didn’t actually explain what the picture is showing.
Ksmiami
@Jay: fuck the Russians and fuck Gosar and his fellow travelers in the House. Time to go for the jugular and destroy them all.
Jay
Alison Rose
@Adam L Silverman: Okay, that’s good to know, at least.
Adam L Silverman
@Ksmiami: Ease up a bit.
PaulB
An interesting article over at TPM about Ukraine’s schools, how they are being deliberately attacked by Russia, and how instrumental they have been, and will continue to be, in the evolution of the nation.
Ivan X
I just would like to say that it was a pleasure to speak with our very own illustrious and essential Adam L. Silverman, and he was very easy to work with!
coin operated
@Alison Rose:
Rolling his entire body in honey would be a waste of good honey. Smearing his balls with honey and staking him over an anthill would be both economical and significantly more satisfying.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: I feel the same Re Russians in Ukraine and traitors like Gosar as I do about Nazis and their sympathizers. Total defeat is the only option.
Jay
Kent
I’m pretty sure it is the case that any member can file a motion, not just GOP members. So, say AOC could file one every week and force McCarthy to round up his 218 votes on a weekly basis in order to stay in power. If he loses a single vote then we are back to square one. Heh….
Jay
@coin operated:
how do you expect to retrieve Gosar’s balls from where Putin keeps them?
Adam L Silverman
@Ivan X: Thank you for the kind words.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ivan X: Suck-up.
Parfigliano
Dead Russian soldiers. Fuck em. Zero sympathy.
Alison Rose
@Jay: LOL!
Mike in NC
I was stationed in Maine (Bath/Brunswick area) in 1982-83 and at that time I had never heard of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, one of the great heroes of Gettysburg. I guess most of us didn’t know about him until the movie came out years later.
lowtechcyclist
One reason why Ukraine needs Western tanks is that, sure, they’ve got plenty of Soviet-era tanks, but they’ve got a limited quantity of ammunition for those tanks, and it’s not like Russia is going to sell them more. If they can get Leopards or some similar tank in time to get familiar with them before they run out of ammo for their Soviet tanks, that would be big.
Cameron
So…more GOP members of the U.S. House were fooled by the Russian ‘ceasefire’ toss than the entire population of Ukraine. As America’s Favorite President would say, “Sad!”
Adam L Silverman
@Ksmiami: That may be, but just ease up a bit. Trust me, I don’t like them any more than you do. But you’ve got to compartmentalize a bit.
zhena gogolia
Ultraconservative anti-vax actor-director Nikita Mikhalkov appears to be dying of Covid.
https://www.svoboda.org/a/v-moskve-gospitalizirovan-rezhissyor-nikita-mihalkov-/32211153.html
Used to be a good actor once upon a time.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
The published HR Rules agreement which may be softened on voting) are a hoot (dangerous, but funny); they are almost designed to promote Republican infighting, among a caucus already numerically on a knife edge.
SFBayAreaGal
@Adam L Silverman: What new computer did you get and what program do you use to wipe clean your old computer?
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: Yep, that was my read of it.
Cameron
@Kent: But that would be so distracting from the Hunter Biden hearings!
Amir Khalid
I don’t see how additional mobilisations will help Russia if they keep throwing untrained mobiks into hopeless suicidal assaults on Ukrainian-held positions. I presume this is coming from Putin; it’s hard to imagine a general, even a Russian one, being for such profligacy with materiél and human lives. Is it that hard to say no to Putin? (he asked innocently)
lowtechcyclist
Thinking of the 20th Maine, I read The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara’s fictional account of the Battle of Gettysburg, ~40 years ago, and have re-read it a few times since. It’s a very well-written book, and largely factual, despite being categorized as fiction. (AFAIK, Buster Kilrain is the only fictional character in the book.)
My main objection to it is that it overstates the role of the 20th Maine in the battle. Shaara makes it seem like the 20th Maine’s right wheel forward saved the day for the Union and turned the tide of the battle, and from then on the rebels were on the run. Reading historian Bruce Catton’s account of the battle in his Army of the Potomac trilogy, there were something like five or six times when the rebels came close to turning or breaking through the Union line, not just that one. There needed to be a lot of heroes to save the Union on that long second day; the 140th New York and particularly the 1st Minnesota come to mind.
Catton’s an amazingly good writer, by the way. Every time I pick up one of his books to refresh my knowledge of a particular incident, I have to remind myself thirty or forty pages later of just what I was doing there in the first place.
ETA: When I visited the Gettysburg battlefield years later, I was struck by how small a place the 20th Maine’s part of the action was in. From their position, you could run to the bottom of that hill in maybe thirty seconds.
Adam L Silverman
@SFBayAreaGal: I got a new MacBook Pro M1Pro. I have to wipe the old one tomorrow. IvanX emailed me the instructions. I think it’s whatever built in program it comes with.
Bill Arnold
@coin operated:
Taking notes. (I feel that bullet ants should be involved, somehow.)
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman: I got a new MacBook Pro Thursday. Setting it up Monday.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Surovikin is known for not placing much value on anyone’s life.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
Angry nihilists are best ignored.
SFBayAreaGal
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you
Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
there are only 71 manufacturers in 43 countries who make 125mm smoothbore ammunition for the D-81 gun, (and later models), much of it of a higher quality, greater lethality, greater sophistication than Russian/Soviet ammo.
During WWI, there was a period in late 1914, often called The Quiet Period, where both the Allies and the Central Powers had burned through their ammo stockpiles, were exceeding the rate that ammo could be produced, and hadn’t ramped up domestic manufacturing to match the burn rate.
While Ukraine and it’s supporters have less issues with obtaining 3rd party End User Certificates to tape into the global supply, both the bureaucracy of obtaining the certificates and the logistics of getting the supply to Ukraine is slowing things down. 3rd party suppliers will also not be too interested in ramping up production with out long term supply contracts.
Adam L Silverman
@lowtechcyclist: Catton is a favorite. You have to remember, though, that Shaara was writing a fictionalized history not the official centennial history of the Civil War, which is what Catton wrote. As a result, Shaara had to pick what he wanted to emphasize and what he didn’t.
Interesting Gettysburg anecdote. Every time I went to the battlefield, either as part of the USAWC staff ride with the students every Fall or on my own/with friends, from 2010 through 2014 there was always a new, small American flag left at the edge of the marker memorializing Confederate Major General Armistead. Someone was constantly replacing the ones worn out by the weather with a new one. And I found the choice of the US flag interesting.
YY_Sima Qian
In case anyone is wondering, Leopard 2s to Ukraine makes a lot of sense, more so than M1 Abrams. Leopard 2s run on diesel, just like the legacy T-80UDs, the modernized T-84s, or the different T-72s models that former Warsaw Pact countries have donated to Ukraine or the Ukrainian Army has captured from the Russians. Introducing the M1 Abrams, w/ its gas turbine engines, very thirty of jet fuel, would greatly complicate Ukrainian logistics & maintenance, for virtually no performance gain.
The model of Leopard 2/ being donated is important. I assume Germany is sending the older Leopard 2A4s in storage, rather than the further modernized A6s in service. The difference in protection, fire control & firepower (not to mention weight) is substantial between the A4s & the A6/7s.
Turkish experience in its intervention into Syria has shown the Leopard 2A4s to be vulnerable to heavy anti-tank guided missiles, even to catastrophic kills (torrents being blown off). Leopard 2A4 should be able to dominate the Cod War era T-62/64s that Russia has been scraping from the bottom of the barrel & refurbishing. They should be competitive against the modernized T-72s, T-80s & T-90s in Russian service, while offering superior crew survivability. Furthermore, there are a lot of countries with Leopard 2A4s that they are looking to retire, which may serve as a continuing source to Ukraine. The countries (out side of the US) that uses the M1 Abrams are either holding on to them (Poland) or have no inclination to help Ukraine (Egypt & the Gulf States).
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: I got the 14 inch. Not really much bigger than my 2013 13 inch.
You’re going to be very pleased.
Adam L Silverman
@SFBayAreaGal: As far as I know it is not a third party app or anything, just the built in by Apple.
Dan B
@Bill Arnold: My partner saw a Bullet Ant on a hike to a river in Costa Rica. He was behind the rest of the group and when the guide heard about it he was horrified. We were at the base of the mountains in the very wet Carrubean side – jungle.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: Things seem to be moving in that direction, but there still seems to be a desire to move slowly in actually announcing real tanks for Ukraine. But there’s little doubt that things are moving that direction.
(Stripping hashtag links)
(via Oryx)
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I read that Germany is also sending more Geppard self propelled anti-air cannon. They seem well-suited for point defense against drones and subsonic cruise missiles.
Jay
@Amir Khalid:
it’s not just Moblik’s getting slaughtered in Bakhmut. Wagnerites, (both prisoners and Contract) and Marines, (contract) are adding their bodies to the pile.
The Wagnerites are complaining of a lack of artillary, drones, air support and armoured support for “sucessful” attacks.
The Rucists are still attacking in a bunch of places where they will not be sucessful, just to “keep the pressure on” and try to not give Ukraine the time and space for a new offensive.
There are also a bunch of places where Ukraine is also keeping “the pressure on”, with combined armour attacks and SOF infiltrations and raids, (with much greater care to minimize losses), to deny the Rucists the opportunity to reorg, resupply and launch a new offensive.
Omnes Omnibus
Speaking of anti-tank weapons…
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman: I got 16 inch, since it’s our entire entertainment center.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Mike in NC: When I read the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (which the movie Gettysburg is based on), I learned about JLC. Remarkable man, and a true war hero. I think that is a picture of him on Angus King’s sweatshirt, appropriately enough.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1TJtfQcGd8&t=35s
BruceJ
@Adam L Silverman: My Christmas present to myself was a new M2 MacBook Air to replace my old 2014 model. it is a sweet system. I have long thought that the MacBook Air is pretty much the perfect laptop and this one is not changing my mind on that…
Went for the M2 over the cheaper M1 based primarily on the presence of the Magsafe connector, which has saved numerous Macs of mine over the years by NOT yanking them to the ground when the power cable gets yanked.
Kent
Abrams tanks can run on diesel as well as jet fuel.
In any event, jet fuel is not anything exotic. It is just kerosine. The main reason why kerosine is used for aviation fuel is because it is cheaper, has a lower freezing point which is necessary for high-altitude flight, and it has lower viscosity. https://monroeaerospace.com/blog/why-airplanes-use-kerosene-rather-than-plain-gasoline-for-fuel/
Grumpy Old Railroader
There are a couple of commenters tonight that have posted some opinions about what they want to happen to Russian soldiers. I was a child in a man’s body when I ended up in the infantry in Vietnam. Yes I did some things I regret (everyday I regret). Yes I am sure a great many Vietnamese wished for my death in a horrible manner.
I believe not a few Russian soldiers are likewise a child in a man’s body and have no idea why they are fighting or who is right or whether they are being lied to. I’m not wrong to predict that many soldiers in any present or future war will live afterwards regretting things done. War is hell in more than one way and has life long consequences.
I want Ukraine to win but I will not celebrate the death and dismemberment of anybody, including Russians. I also have no respect for those who wish death on others.
Okay then. Let the verbal slings and arrows toward me commence
Omnes Omnibus
@Grumpy Old Railroader: No slings and arrows from me. Things like this need to be said.
Chetan Murthy
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Two questions:
Bill Arnold
Good ISW backgrounder today. I particularly appreciate their regular sections on information operations; whoever writes them has a diligent eye. (Should assign estimated truth probabilities to speculations, but that’s a quibble.)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JANUARY 7, 2023
Ksmiami
@Grumpy Old Railroader: I’m not sure you have a handle on the baseline behavior of Russian soldiers- my extended family does. Torturers and rapists deserve no compassion.
MagdaInBlack
@Adam L Silverman: Every time this person posts those thoughts, I find myself thinking about ” Be careful that when you fight monsters, you do not yourself become one….” etc.
Alison Rose
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Except the majority of russians sure seem gleeful about wishing death on Ukrainians (and not only them). And while maybe they didn’t have much choice of being shoveled onto the front lines, the torturing and raping and abusing of children is most definitely choices they are making. War doesn’t turn a genuinely good person into a monster–it only gives monsters an excuse and an avenue to let their evil come to the surface.
Grumpy Old Railroader
@Chetan Murthy:
I didn’t have an opinion. I was drafted and just did what I was told. It didn’t take long after I was in country to realize how fucked up things were and I began to question everything
I was fighting for the survival of my unit, the same as every other soldier in my unit. Our goal was to survive until our term was up and we could rotate out of there and go home
Geminid
@Chetan Murthy: I don’t think this person needs to justify himself to you. Instead of asking questions you would do better to state your own conclusions. That’s not so hard.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: Makes sense.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: I am guessing that someone who was on the front lines in Vietnam has some clue about what war does to people.
Chetan Murthy
@Geminid: Unlike Ksmiami, I don’t want all Russians dead. What I want, is for all Russian soldiers on the territory of Ukraine to surrender, and for those who do not surrender, to be dead as quickly as possible. So that Ukraine may live. BUT ALSO because Putin’s victory is a blow against our country, against our Republic, and thus against the only place I can call home. And likewise, Putin’s defeat is a victory for our country, for our Republic, and means that there’s a chance I will not need to become an exile.
So I have a very concrete and personal reason for wanting Ukraine to kick every Russian soldier out of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, and as quickly as possible.
Especially with the goddamn Putinist traitors in charge of the House of Representatives, this becomes even more urgent than it was before.
Alison Rose
@Omnes Omnibus: Of course, and certainly knows it better than me. But I am not okay with trying to whitewash the barbarism and evil of the russians by acting like these are just poor scared boys in a bad situation and making it seem as though they don’t bear any responsibility for what they’re doing. No, they didn’t choose to start this war, and in a place like russia, I imagine evading a mobilization is incredibly difficult, especially if you don’t have money or connections. But again, the horrific war crimes we’ve seen are choices these people made, and I have no sympathy whatsoever for people who choose to rape and torture children just because they can.
Grumpy Old Railroader
Change the majority to some and I will agree with you
Combat changes people. Some people change in a bad way. Do not broad brush all Russians with the actions of some
zhena gogolia
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Thank you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: What did Grumpy say that made you think he didn’t want every Russian kicked out of Ukraine and that he did not recognize the necessity of doing so with the force of arms?
Adam L Silverman
@BruceJ: I’m a big fan of the MagSafe connectors.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose:
If you think he was whitewashing, then you are missing the point of what he wrote.
Skepticat
@lowtechcyclist:
There indeed needed to be a lot of heroes to save the Union on that long second day, but please don’t downplay the 20th Maine—and not only because a couple of my family members died there—and certainly not Joshua Chamberlain. Their position may have been small but was crucial. However, all the other Union forces deserve credit too. I stood on that land and tried to imagine what it was like, and I’m almost grateful it was beyond my comprehension. I really am grateful to have Angus King as my senator, and he even looks somewhat like Chamberlain.
Grumpy Old Railroader
I’m sure the survivors of the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam or the survivors at Wounded Knee also had some handle on the behavior of U.S. Soldiers. My point is not to broad brush paint all Russians with the actions of some Russians
Adam L Silverman
@Grumpy Old Railroader: What @Omnes Omnibus: said!
Rocks
Something which might benefit from more attention is the reason that the behavior of Russian soldiers is so horrible. They are raised in a society based on lies and where cruelty (both given and received) is the norm.
It’s not just Russians who would turn out this way. Any human beings raised on such a poisonous diet would be the same. The question is how to replace lies with truth and cruelty with kindness across an entire society which is used to the opposite. We would do well to apply that to our own domestic fascists as well.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: Do you think Americans didn’t celebrate the Allied victories of WWII? And do you think they weren’t celebrating the deaths of Nazi soldiers? Of course they were.
Again: Every Russian soldier has a choice in Ukraine: they can risk their lives to murder innocent Ukrainians, or they can risk their lives to find a way to surrender.
It’s their choice. It’s a *choice* to murder innocent Ukrainians.
And again, these Russians, their victory, is an attack against my country. An attack against my *family*.
I was gleeful when I heard of the mass deaths at Makiivka of Ruscist soldiers listening to Putler’s NYE address. I thought *nothing* when I saw those Russian soldiers down (injured, dead, fuck if I care) in that Kraken video. And I was physically affected when I saw that Ukrainian soldier injured in that same video.
Ukraine fights for me and my family, Omnes. B/c if the Fascists take over here, we’re going to be the ones they come for. Maybe not *first*, but pretty soon.
We’re unmistakably *brown*.
Alison Rose
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Every article I’ve seen shows that it is indeed a majority. People might say that some of them are lying because they’re afraid to be truthful, but when we see videos or hear recordings of phone calls and such, it comes through pretty clearly. I’m not saying it’s all of them, but it’s more than some.
So your stance is that a totally normal healthy person can become a child-rapist because they’re in battle? If that is indeed a belief here, then I am 100% bowing out of this conversation. If we’re going to defend child molesters, you all can do that without me. Fucking hell.
Adam L Silverman
@MagdaInBlack: Yep.
Omnes Omnibus
Jesus Fucking Christ.
billcinsd
@lowtechcyclist: yeah, 1st Minnesota’s charge at 2 brigades was a much bigger deal at the time, but wasn’t eastern. Also 82% of them were killed or wounded
Jay
Grumpy Old Railroader
@Rocks:
Well said. And that goes a long way in explaining how the culture in Russia translates into their armed forces
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, after reading The Killer Angels, and then reading about the battle in Bruce Catton’s book, I was amazed to find the Little Round Top battle was not exactly a footnote, but didn’t deserve more than a page or two, as far as Catton was concerned.
Kent
Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers during WW2 and every other war were traumatized by what they were asked to do and the death and destruction they were expected to rain down on their fellow humans.
War is sometimes necessary. But killing is never good.
Jay
Ruckus
@Grumpy Old Railroader:
I spent 2 months in a Navy hospital in 1973, which of course meant that most of the patients were Marines. Some had physical wounds, quite a few rather massive, and many had mental wounds, either to go along with the physical, or as their only wounds. That war, like any war, does damage to both sides of any fighting. There are men, as you very likely know, who are still suffering the effects of that war, and the ones we’ve been in since.
wombat probabilty cloud
@Bill Arnold: For the real connoisseur, trap-jawed ants would provide a more leisurely option* and even a huge swarm of garden-variety leaf-cutter soldiers would do.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-trap-jaw-ant-odontomachus-sp-in-costa-rica-rainforest-58601279.html
Chetan Murthy
@Rocks: This is a great idea, and I would point out that we and the Western Alliance succeeded in this with both Germany and Japan, to the point where now we’re somewhat miffed that they’re so pacifist sometimes. But to get there, we had to *first* eliminate their ability to harm others. Eliminate that ability *completely*.
You can’t get to the second part — the “turn them into a decent society” — without first eliminating their ability to harm others.
Grumpy Old Railroader
Therein lies the problem. Media only reports what makes money for them. Hard to find reporting about everyday indigenous people in greater Russia. Can’t make money off boring stories
Jay
Jay
@Jay:
stuck in moderation, hashtags again.
Chetan Murthy
@Grumpy Old Railroader: If this were true, then we would find large numbers of emigre Russians demonstrating for support of Ukraine in Western countries. Instead, we find large numbers of emigre Russians demonstrating in support of Russia. Russia, not Ukraine.
Jay
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: I was kinda waiting for someone to post musks latest “genius” observation.
zhena gogolia
@Chetan Murthy: where do you see that?
Chetan Murthy
@zhena gogolia: There have been large demonstrations in Germany, Czechia, even IIRC in Poland. Well-documented attacks against Ukrainian refugees by Russian emigres in Germany. Probably elsewhere.
Grumpy Old Railroader
I never said that. Besides, how do you know who is normal and who isn’t? One thing that the movie Full Metal Jacket gets right is everybody seems normal. Until they aren’t. By the end of the movie, some soldiers are obviously having mental problems. Others not so much. (Yet – give them a few years to stew about and then boy howdy)
Another Scott
Yup, they want the salt mines. And “underground cities”!!
KyivIndependent.com:
So, I guess, they can still claim it’s worth it even if the fighting levels everything above ground. They’ll have the underground cities and the salt mines!!
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Grr…,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: I released it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: Thanks for the video link! Interesting discussion, & I agree w/ most of the comments made by the 2.
lowtechcyclist
@Grumpy Old Railroader:
Seconded.
NutmegAgain
@Grumpy Old Railroader: I appreciate the perspective.
One of the (many) things that angers me about the Russian conduct in this terrible war is how it makes it so, so easy to hate and want to rip and tear. I’d rather not have to choose between degrees of acting out my basic moral principles, and degrees of feeling that any kind of violent punishment for members of the Russian military is a good idea.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
I have yet to see any “large” rally’s in support of Russia in The West or even most of the ROW.
In the links yesterday, there was report of an investigation into the “German” Rucist demonstration organizers, and while their “protest” garnered maybe 200 people in a city of quite a few millions, many Russian expats and tourists/students of expedience,
the Organizers were all either German Neo Nazi’s who had sucked at Putin’s teat for decades, or “Russian Illegals”, with either a past history or current unproven history of working for Russian State Security Orgs.
We also had the informative article on Russian societal disfunction and the value of normalizing the inhumanity or just keeping one’s head down and surviving.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
thanks,
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
Had a feeling that Darth’s link went to Emo and his comment about tanks.
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
I didn’t serve in combat in Vietnam but I know many that did and what I can say from hearing the stories, both in that 2 month hospital visit I mentioned above and at the VA which I use regularly, is that survival often means doing things that many humans can not imagine a rational human doing. But war is not rational, not for most military members. For the few it is rational for, they are monsters and likely would be monsters at any time. I’ve sat with men who saw and participated in combat in that war. And if you think they enjoyed it or were/are being rational about it, you are wrong. It is pure survival, at it’s most basic level, and for the most part whatever works is what is. I still hear men’s voices in my head telling me about their experiences in combat. Please don’t think that combat is rational or that expected norms are anything like civilian life. We may say we try to be better but the reality is that humans die in war and often in ways that would make someone not used to at least hearing it from a participant unable to understand at all. I’ve experienced it second hand and that is far closer than I ever wanted to be. But I heard it often enough and from people I trust/trusted that I know that they did what they did because they HAD to, not because they had any desire whatsoever. It’s been 50+ yrs since I first heard direct war horrors second hand, and I still can’t forget them. War kills people, violently, messy, often in numbers, and people trying to stop a war may be on the good side, but killing humans is how war works. It is never, ever pretty or good. It is what it is.
planetjanet
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Thank you for your wise words. It is sad that they are apparently needed here tonight.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
#2 is The Chieftain, ex-Irish Dragoon, current US Cavalry Officer, Bradleys in Iraq and Afghanistan, Abrams post wars, armoured warfare researcher for World of Warfare, and host of The Chieftains Hatch on Youtube, where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about tanks and armoured vehicles, including how to set track tension and how fast an over 6 foot tanker can get out of a particular vehicle, and with how many “tank bites” when somebody shout’s “the tank is on fire!”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Hell, serving in the army and knowing that you are training to kill people and often in large numbers changes a person. And that’s without actually doing any killing.
Aussie Sheila
@lowtechcyclist:
Thirded.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: https://www.rferl.org/a/germany-pro-russia-rallies-discrimination/31795983.html (this is April 10)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-diaspora-germany-holds-rare-rally-against-sanctions-2022-09-04/
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: Meanwhile, [ETA: *emigre*] Russian-speakers staging pro-Ukraine rallies seem to be about as rare as Sasquatch, even though they’d be quite newsworthy.
Bill Arnold
@Grumpy Old Railroader:
Also, the Russian press is not free/is actively managed by the government. It’s not just money influencing reporting.
YY_Sima Qian
@Rocks: The Russian soldiers, contract & conscript, often suffer brutalization at the hands of older soldiers, w/ minimal supervision/protection from the junior officers. That may also contribute to their willingness to brutalize others.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
535,000 plus people in Hanover, and like Trump Rallies, how many were part of the travelling circus?
We get more than that every weekend in front of the Chinese Embassy, and those are just Falun Gong members.
Anti-sanctions protests will of course, gather larger numbers, because sanctions bite hard on both many German incomes and many ex-pat Russian incomes.
Shit Head managed to get 8,000 to march up the mall.
NotoriousJRT
I have to say that from time to time I find pronouncements made in these comments to be quite chilling. I try to consider that I do not know most of the back stories that may account for those points of view. But if you don’t understand how actual participation as a soldier in the horrors of fighting in a war can transform a some individuals into bloodthirsty mutations of themselves, , perhaps you can understand that I’m perplexed by the apparent blood thirst provoked by what appears to be reading about and seeing images of the horrors in Ukraine. To be sure, I believe Russian forces must be vanquished and driven out of Ukraine as soon as possible. If I ruled the world, all the MANY war crimes would be prosecuted. But, I don’t pretend to know the motivations and character of every Russian soldier. I admire the Ukrainian people and want Ukraine to have peace and the ability to chart a course free of the malevolent influence of the Russian auto/kleptocracy. That said, I also want the war to be over to stop the cruelty and carnage of it ALL.
Redshift
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t know if it’s accurate, but we’re hearing about this the most in the Wagner-run area, so it’s a Russian mercenary commander trying to raise his own status, rather than a Russian general “just following orders.”
But I agree it’s hard to understand what they think it will accomplish. Some of the assessments I’ve seen (ISW, maybe?) are that not all of the mobiks are cannon fodder; some of them are actually being trained, and will be a more effective fighting force in the months to come. So it seems strange to begin again, dragooning more who will not be effective until late summer or fall. But maybe the pace is dictated by what Putin calculates he can do without provoking instability.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: I put that in the actual update the other night.
Chetan Murthy
@NotoriousJRT: That “bloodthirstiness” ends the day Russia stops waging war against Ukraine and against my country. I’m with Kamil Galeev an (IIRC Kazan) Tatar, who wrote something like “for the subject peoples of the Russian Empire to have a chance at freedom, at a decent chance at life, the Russian
EmpireFederation must end”. I *want* good things for the peoples of the Russian Federation. But those good things cannot come except after their soldiers leave the soil of Ukraine.Andrya
@Alison Rose: I can’t imagine that anyone could get meaningful statistics about the proportion of russians who rejoice in atrocities in Ukraine, given the level of fear in russia. The fact that news agencies and websites mostly show such people is not evidence that they are a majority. “The plural of anecdote is not data.”
To add to what Grumpy Old Railroader said: a close friend of mine, now unfortunately deceased, served as a lieutenant in combat in Vietnam. In the area/timeframe that he served, discipline had badly broken down, and fragging was not unheard of. Some guys in his platoon had cornered a teenage girl- he estimated 14 years old- and planned to gang rape her. Only a minority were planning to be in on the rape, but the non-rapists were not planning to prevent it. My friend was able to prevent it- barely- by making an emotional speech about the fact she was a child, and talking about his little sister back home. He told me sadly “if she had been an adult, I doubt that I could have saved her”. (In case I wasn’t clear, these were American soldiers.)
I suspect that in Ukraine, also, many russian soldiers have not committed torture or rape, although they are fighting in an evil cause, and haven’t tried to prevent these war crimes.
A very large minority of Americans supported Trump’s pardon of Eddie Gallagher, who had been convicted of one war crime and probably committed others. Other men in his unit said that he would “kill anything that moved”.
I hope, if I had lived in Nazi Germany, that I would have had the courage to shelter Jews, but I can’t know for sure as I have not been tried.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, the line between good and evil cuts through every human heart.
Don’t get me wrong- russia must be stopped, no matter how many russian soldiers have to be killed to make that happen. But I think it’s a mistake to give in to hatred.
Among other things, historically that has tempted victims of atrocities to channel their rage against new targets- and not necessarily against the original aggressors. (Example: the Serbs in WW2 suffered horrible Nazi atrocities, and two generations later they were committing atrocities against the Bosnians and the Kosovars.)
Omnes Omnibus
This right here.
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy: Google tells me that “russians fighting for ukraine” gives 14,600 hits.
Ukraine’s goal is to get VVP’s troops to leave her lands and to ensure that she doesn’t get invaded again. Killing conscripts is not the goal, though it may be part of the means…
Eyes on the prize.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Andrya:
That’s why it’s so telling to me that there have been no anti-Russian protests specificaly among Russian emigres in Western Europe. Unless you’re saying that Putin’s secret police are so skilled, that they’ve managed to cow all the 3.5m ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Germany ) into silence on this issue. And why it’s so telling that we’ve seen numerous news reports of pro-Russian demonstrations specifically by Russian emigre groups, in Germany and other Western European countries.
Sure, maybe they’re cowed into silence in Russia. But how could they be silenced in the EU, when they’d be expressing an opinion consistent with the rest of the population ?
wombat probabilty cloud
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes.
zhena gogolia
@Chetan Murthy: I think they’re busy trying to make a living in a strange country, having been uprooted from their homes and careers. Organizing demonstrations is probably not high on their list.
Chetan Murthy
@zhena gogolia: these are Russian emigres who have been living in Germany for decades. And again: lots of them are clearly able to take time out from their busy schedules to protest in favor of Putin.
Ruckus
@Grumpy Old Railroader:
In my 2 months in that navy hospital there was a marine who was on his way home, did the stop in Guam, where he grabbed an M16 and a case of ammo and ran into the hills. Anyone that came near he shot at, he thought he was being attacked. They waited till he was out of ammo and went up and got him, took him to the US and put him in hospital. That man was seriously fucked up. I wonder if he ever made it out in any way near sane. He was the worst I ran across but there were a lot of guys with stories that made me sometimes wonder if real sanity is a actual possibility in a war zone.
I’m still not convinced.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: Okay, let’s say the majority of Russians believe that Ukraine is a Russian province and support the invasion. Now what? Does that justify what those of us who have objected to as an eliminationist vibe that pops up the comments to many of Adam’s Ukraine threads?
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: When have I argued that we should kill all Russians? I’ve always argued that the better course is for Russian *soldiers on the territory of Ukraine* to surrender, get three hots and a cot, live out the war in safety and comfort. Always.
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy: I assume that most public protests don’t have surveys of participants’ nationality.
But I did find this (from April):
The police separating the protesting groups by large distances may make it easier for the VVP supporters to look like a larger faction in the news reports.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Another Scott: The news reports from this summer identified the pro-Russian demonstrators at several of these marches (specifically the ones staged using cars) as being Germans of Russian origin. Viz, they came from Russia long ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Not Russian citizens, by and large.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
because as the explainer pointed out the other day, Russian/Soviet/Russian societal disfunction has for generation upon generation been built on lawlessness, cruelty and power.
Proud nails get hammered hard.
That is not a culture/conditioning that in most cases, will not be changed by simply moving to Europe.
Many ex-pat Russians keep their heads down because they still have family in Russia.
NotoriousJRT
@Chetan Murthy: Sometimes “leaving the soil of Ukraine” comes across to me more like a wish for extermination. There are times when I feel vengeful about what I learn. But, it makes me feel like I’m giving up a piece of my humanity when I give in too much to that in my reactions. Because those visions of vengeance can sometimes are so strong, I am quite uncertain of how my own character would survive stresses like those to which a combat soldier might be exposed. So I try to avoid broader judgements. That’s just me.
Chetan Murthy
@NotoriousJRT: I’ve repeatedly name-checked Kamil Galeev and his position that the Russian Federation must end, so that the Buryats, Tatars, and other subject peoples of the Russian Empire can have their chance to live full lives. Repeatedly. I’ve repeatedly called the Russian Empire a “prison of nations”.
If you want to read into that an eliminationist position against Russians, I can’t stop you.
The Pale Scot
I’m not wishing death on all Russians, but to paraphrase an Irish curse, I wish Jah would turn the ankles of all the malevolent ones, so we’d know them by their limping.
“May those who love us, love us;
And for those who don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts;
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts,
May He turn their ankles,
So we will know them by their limping.”
The Pale Scot
There’s a thingy you can buy that rigs a magsafe to a usb C
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy: I think Galeev’s threads are interesting, but we non-experts have to recognize that he’s giving his opinion. IIRC, and I think I do, zhena gogolia is not a fan because, IIRC, he uses far too broad a brush.
And even if one were to agree with his diagnosis, that doesn’t mean that he knows how to make things better.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
and as the info on the organizers and members pointed out, many were neo-Nazi’s, ex-GRU and KGB, ex-Russians who stayed in East Germany upon the Soviet collapse, and many, (like in Israel) were economic refugees using their “get out of Russia’s economic collapse” on the basis of German ethnicity.
I have over the years, known more than a few American’s who came to Canada for “reasons”, many going back to the 1960’s, whom despite their Canadian citizenship, still arn’t “Canadian”, nor are their children, they are Americans in Exile, with no plans on going back. They seem to fit in best, in Alberta, (aka, Texas North), but still stand out.
Gin & Tonic
@Grumpy Old Railroader: The russians are engaged in a war of genocide. Their explicit aim is the extermination of my people and the erasure of my language and culture. In addition to their brutality toward the civilian population, they loot museums, burn textbooks and forbid the teaching of my language in areas they occupy. So you will have to excuse my lack of concern for the well-being of their soldiers.
Ivan X
@SFBayAreaGal: the preferred way to “wipe” most Macs from around 2018 or later is to make sure it’s on macOS 12 Monterey or later, then choose “Erase All Contents and Settings” from System Preferences.
The preferred way for earlier Macs that don’t support this feature, and which have an SSD/Flash/Fusion drive, is to enable FileVault from System Preferences, wait until it’s done encrypting (between two and 48 hours, typically), then boot into Recovery mode, erase the drive with Disk Utility, and then, if the computer is to be re-used, reinstall macOS.
The preferred way to wipe a Mac with a hard drive is to boot into Recovery mode, and erase the drive, first selecting Security Options with one of its wipe modes. If the computer is to be re-used, then reinstall macOS.
And to whomever mentioned (sorry, I’m typing on my phone) that they got an M2 Air over an M1 Air for the MagSafe connector, good call. The M1 Air is probably the best general purpose laptop for the price on the market, especially when on sale from Amazon/Best Buy/Target/Costco/etc, but the many improvements to the M2 model are well worth the premium. Beware the M2 13-inch Pro, which has none of those improvements and is inferior to the M2 Air by almost every measure, including lack of MagSafe, despite costing more. (The 14” and 16” Pros have no relationship to the 13” besides their name, and are excellent machines.)
Also be aware that the M2 Air and 13-inch Pro in their 256 GB configurations, while perfectly fine, are somewhat slower performers than the 512 GB and up configurations, though this is not mentioned by Apple.
Andrya
@Chetan Murthy: The European pro-russian protests that I’m aware of have been small- hundreds to low thousands. In a populous country, you can get that many for almost any cause, including the most vile.
Timill
Gmail accounts: what works for me in PC environment is to log into a Gmail account in a browser (Chrome here). Then, if I click on the userpic top right, I have the option to open any of my other gmail accounts without verification (as I’m already verified on the first account).
I suspect I set something up ages ago so this probably won’t work for you…
Grumpy Old Railroader
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ayup. Nailed it
Gin & Tonic
@Andrya: Anecdotes are indeed not data, but I could regale you with stories of Ukrainian friends in Germany or Spain who are regularly harassed and verbally attacked by russians living in those countries when they converse in Ukrainian in public or otherwise demonstrate their Ukrainianness.
SFAW
Re: Little Round Top:
A number of years ago, the Maine National Guard, was deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan (for some “clean up” work, so to speak), they had a sendoff in Portland. If my memory is correct, one of the speakers was Angus King. He made the (seemingly) bold statement that Joshua Chamberlain may have been responsible for the defeat of Germany in World War II. His chain of logic: Chamberlain was the officer at Little Round Top. Had the Union lost it to the Traitors, it’s likely they would not have won Gettysburg. [No, I don’t want to argue Civil War battles/history, and yes I realize Culp’s Hill was perhaps as — or more — important. Just work with me here.] Had the Union not won Gettysburg, they would not have defeated the Traitors. Had they not defeated the Traitors, there would be no United States of America to enter WW2. Without the USA in WW2, Germany would likely have won. And we’d all be speaking German, instead of Russian. [Oops, I forgot, the Partei of Traitors hasn’t won yet.]Yes, I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but I still like it.
Chetan Murthy
@Andrya: If America turns Fascist and I escape with my family to a host country that is actively resisting America, I would certainly want to add my voice and efforts to my host country’s efforts, if nothing else out of gratitude for their sheltering me.
And yet, Russians in Europe demonstrating against Putin are like the Sasquatch
ETA: and also out of fear that America might win, and overrun my host country also.
Another Scott
@Timill: That’s the way it works for me too. But I don’t have 2-factor authentication (2FA) turned on. Adam did. When that’s turned on, Google insists on talking to the second device before letting you in to your account.
At least I assume that’s the difference…
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Timill: 1. I have 2FA enabled on my google account
2. I have several gmail accounts
3. on each different device, I have added my other accounts as you describe, so I can login to them by just clicking on that big letter at the top right.
4. But I had to do it on each device, and when I get a new device, I have to do it afresh on that device.
5. the process for adding the account consists pretty much in logging into the account — so if I have 2FA enabled, I need to be able to login using that.
Grumpy Old Railroader
My super power is recognizing when my words have been twisted. I really don’t care about your concern and you do not need to be excused for any perceived vitriol
frosty
Since it’s an Open Thread, here’s a computer related problem. My Lenovo Yoga13, ordered from Lenovo, quit on me overnight. It won’t power on, it won’t charge. I got the 1-year onsite service warranty and I’ve put in repair ticket.
I bought it in August. In late November it quit charging. I tried troubleshooting and calling and finally put in the repair ticket. The tech replaced the system board and it’s been fine for (checks calendar) 41 days. Ridiculous.
This computer is the British car of laptops. When it works, I love it. But it doesn’t appear to be any more reliable than my Triumph was. I don’t want to carry a backup everywhere I go. I wonder if they’ll give me my money back.
I’m not looking for advice or troubleshooting help; just wanted to vent. Now back to reading other comments.
ETA: Oh heck, @Ivan X: if you see this and have any ideas WG has my email addy.
Ixnay
@The Pale Scot: Thats a favorite. When I taught music in HS I found an arrangement of that and had the kids sing it. They seemed to like it.
Dan B
@Kent: Russians live in an ocean of propaganda. It’s as though the devotees of FOX and Newsmax were 80% of Americans. In addition they are in a toxic stew of corruption, toxic masculinity, and prejudice. The result is they are beasts when under the stress of war. I feel fir them but in a similar way to how I feel about American RWNJ’s. They have been brainwashed and abused. However we can’t have civilization if they have power. They would destroy everything that makes life sweet
And, what CM said at 87.
MomSense
We have a family from Rwanda that just moved into our neighborhood. They won a visa lottery and have been in the country for a month waiting to be placed in a community.
The owner of the house is a snowbird and has opened her home to this family of 8 (6 kids ages 3-16) until they can be set up with more permanent housing. They will be here in our neighborhood for six months.
The six kids experienced snow for the first time today! So sweet.
They have a social worker who is helping them with arrangements. Maybe I could put you in touch about your laptop. The 16 year old will get one through school, but I’m sure the younger children would love one.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not really any difference in the navy. I served on a medium sized warship and we could do a hell of a lot of damage. 2 – 5 inch guns, guided missiles, rocket powered torpedos, faster than most ships on the sea and that boat was launched in 1961. A then modern aircraft carrier was 1000 ft long and could easily destroy a decent sized city or sink a ship the size of the one I lived on. I watched missile launches and was once the only person on the main deck, standing fire watch over one of the 5 in guns in case it misfired I was the person that was supposed to cool the gun so that it didn’t blow up from the heat and pressure of a misfire. Of course than meant that I had to get up close to the barrel with an unstable load and a bullet lodged inside holding pressure and heat. Did get to sit there and watch it fire up close though.
I have no real idea what the navy is like today. I imagine that it hasn’t changed in any dramatic fashion though, because it really hadn’t changed much in the 25 yrs after WWII.
Chetan Murthy
@frosty: Oy. that’s not good. I’ve bought Lenovo laptops for years (and before, that IBM laptops). All Thinkpads, all with full warranty terms. They’ve always been good with service. This isn’t good. I’d push them hard to fix the damn thing, and I’d also be very aggressive about not accepting *any* subpar function at all. I’m really sorry you’re having this experience: I had problems with the laptop I had before my current one — repeated problems — but eventually they fixed ’em all. I had to be pretty aggressive about it, but they did fix it all.
I hope you can get resolution. I don’t have any good answers other than being aggressive in demanding that they fix the damn thing.
frosty
@lowtechcyclist: I read Shaara’s book when it came out. Ms F and I went to the battlefield to see what it was like. Started on Little Round Top and started walking down the line. Passed NY and MN when we thought we were on the end but they were kind of in the middle. Our reaction when we saw the 20th Maine monument was “Wow, these guys were way out here on their own.”
BTW, the monument we saw was smaller and there was no paved path to the location. All of that came after the movie, I’m sure.
Another Scott
@frosty: Power connector?
Do you leave it plugged into the charger all the time, or do you plug and unplug it frequently?
If it looks dead when you plug in the charger, and you’re sure the charger is good, then I would suspect the connector to the motherboard is getting stressed and the solder joints are failing. It might be a bad design.
Can you try a different charger, or do you have a voltmeter to check the output of the charger?
Electronics usually fail at joints / connections / etc.
This is a real advantage of the Apple MagSafe connector over other connections…
Just a guess.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
JanieM
@frosty:
I bought a Mac in 1984, almost the first day they came on the market. (A friend of mine wanted me to go into partnership with him, writing software for Macs. I didn’t end up doing that, but I fell in love with the machine.) The computer died within a week or two. The store/Apple replaced the motherboard and I used that computer for 11 years, with some upgrades in terms of more memory and hard drive space as the years went by.
I’ve used Lenovo laptops for at least 20 years, because when I was still working that’s what my company provided me with. They were reliable workhorses, so I’ve kept using them for my personal laptops as well.
My immediate reaction to your story is that they ought to just replace your machine.
NotoriousJRT
@Chetan Murthy: Your first response to my original comment seemed to assume my words were directed specifically at you. They were not, and I should have said so. You know all you have written and meant to say in this forum; I do not. My comment did not call out anyone specifically; you self-selected as the audience. I only know how some commentary comes across to me. At times some comments veer into a land of moral certainty that I do not possess, and I expressed my discomfort with that. That expression of discomfort stands for me.
I went back and note your comment: “What I want, is for all Russian soldiers on the territory of Ukraine to surrender, and for those who do not surrender, to be dead as quickly as possible.” I see no allowance in that comment for the possibility that a soldier may not see surrender as an option because of a family to whom he desperately wants to return. Perhaps in a similar circumstance, you know that you would surrender regardless of those you might leave behind. That is a certainty that I do not possess about myself. That expectation of surrender or death seemed unrealistic and therefore a tad bit like extermination rather than expulsion. Thus, my response to yours.
Freemark
@Kent: Funny fact; people almost always think of ‘jet fuel’ as having more power than diesel where it actually has significantly less. But as you pointed out its freezing point and flow is much better at low temperatures. My first diesel car could run on ‘jet fuel’ in winter but with a significant reduction in hp; and it was already only 52hp with high grade diesel.
Chetan Murthy
@NotoriousJRT:
A Russian soldier participating in the murder of innocent Ukrainians because he wants to desperately return to his family is *also* still participating in the murder of innocent Ukrainians. The A.R. Moxon quote is relevant here:
“Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives anymore.” — A R Moxon
What somebody’s motivations are for murdering innocent people is irrelevant: they’re still murdering innocent people. Surrender is an expeditious way to stop the murder. So is killing the murderer
ETA: obviously the second course is worse. But when the first is not open, the second suffices.
Lums Better Half
#notallmobiks
frosty
@Another Scott: I only plug it in when the battery gets low. I’m sure the charger is good. I tried a different charger (my son’s Mac), no change. I have a voltmeter but I don’t think it can read the USB-C connector. The 120V cable is good.
It could be the connector to the motherboard, but that was just replaced 41 days ago. This is beyond frustrating.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I got the impression the Russians Army had whole units like the Orcs Adam mentioned that had been specialized in do doing war crimes against defenseless civilians since like the late 90s, that most of these contract soldiers died in the fighting last summer (and the rumor was, that was deliberate on the Russians part to hide these crimes) Now it’s all conscripts all the time, who are just mostly just country bumpkins the Russian police grabbed and are being herded into the combat so the Russians can pretend they are doing,… something (live fire WWI re-enactment, maybe)
Anyway, the atrocities that going on it’s mostly remote stuff with artillery and drones. So basically dead conscripts have nothing to do with it, which is why when the UA blows up a Russian air force base, that’s a cool thing, because the people who are dying or getting injured are the ones who deserve it.
frosty
That seems like a reasonable answer to me, too. I’ll see if I can persuade them.
Although it’s a custom build – AMD processor and various ports, which is why I got it from Lenovo in the first place.
Chetan Murthy
@frosty: You have “onsite support”. That means deskside, not “mail it into the depot”, right? How fast are you getting turnaround on getting a tech out to your office/home to repair the machine? Also, gotta suggest it: if you cannot convince Lenovo to replace the machine or refund your purchase, you might want to purchase more warranty coverage, so that when and if it dies after Aug 2023 ….. I routinely purchase the 5yr warranty for this reason, and 3 laptops ago, it died literally a week-or-so after the warranty expired. If I’d bought a 1yr extension ….
Dan B
@Chetan Murthy: I have little doubt that Putin’s goons in Germany are intimidating to emigres. They may even pressure long term emigres to demonstrate in favor of Russia. There are many tangible and intangible pressures that may be applied.
JanieM
@frosty:
You paid good money for a custom build……… :-)
Chetan Murthy
@Dan B: And yet, we see no reports of this, no uproar in Germany about this pressure. You’d think it would be widely-reported in the press.
What I see is Murc’s Law for Ukraine and Ukrainians. Only they have agency, and Russians have none at all.
ETA: Russians are just hapless innocents, awash in a sea of conflicting currents, blown this way and that, with no culpability for their action at all.
frosty
@Chetan Murthy: Yes, deskside (or dining room table side, actually). Turnaround from when I put the ticket in was 12 calendar days. The warranty advice is good, I’ll look into it.
My backup is a Lenovo Yoga 2, probably 10 years old, that actually does everything I want. The only problem is the battery that only holds 2 hours charge. I figured if I fixed the battery something else would crap out immediately and decided a new computer would be best. That’s been my experience with other stuff.
Chetan Murthy
@frosty: TWELVE DAYS? I’d complain about that! You paid for deskside support, you should get it in a few days. Where do you live? rural Montana? In any decent-sized urban region they should be able to do better than that. Here in SF, it isn’t a Lenovo tech: they subcontract to a local firm. Geez … twelve days. Insane. That’s not what I paid for deskside support for.
Yeah, I’d start pushing for a replacement unit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: You are completely missing the point that was being made.
frosty
@Chetan Murthy: I can drive to one of their repair contractors in 30 minutes. That was my first choice and after dealing with Voicemail Hell they said they couldn’t do warranty work until I filed the ticket, so that’s what I did.
I’m learning. File the ticket first…. on a Saturday morning. They won’t even see it until Monday and they give themselves 24 hours to get back to me. So that will be three days already. I expect that’s what happened last time too.
ETA: And remember, five business days can stretch to nine calendar days.
Chetan Murthy
@frosty: Last time I needed service, I called the nationwide ph#, went thru the VRU tree to get to a human, etc. And then called back, again and again, until I got a firm date for my service.
Gotta bird-dog ’em, sadly.
ETA: that is to say, I called thru until I got a human, and had them open a ticket.
Hoppie
@Kent: May be a dead thread, but wanted to say my dad was in WWII. He tried to volunteer after Pearl Harbor and was rejected for poor eyesight, then drafted six months later.
Assigned to an Army anti-aircraft unit, he was in the North African invasion, Sicily invasion, Salerno and Anzio landings, the southern France landing, and Battle of the Bulge. Ended with three purple hearts.
He often had nightmares and was terrified of thunderstorms.
However necessary combat may be, it is still hell.
BTW, they were the only anti-aircraft unit in history to sink a submarine, in Naples Harbor. The poor Germans had surrendered and been granted safe passage, but nobody thought to tell the anti-aircraft folks.
Jay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
one of the Wagner Orc’s recently killed in a HIMAR’s strike was a Major, (Contract Soldier), veteran of Wagner in Syria and Africa. So no, it’s not a Moblik “army”, and many, some, the quantities are unknown, are Moblik’s “conscripted” from Russian prisons and hardened criminals.
Yes, a bunch of the Moblik’s are Russian Minorities, “press ganged”, some arn’t even Russians, but instead, Foreign Workers.
A bunch of the “atrocities” arn’t from shelling or drone attacks, they are the continued kidnapping of children, the disappearance of Ukrainians in Occupied Ukraine, the brutalization of Ukrainians in Occupied Ukraine and the continual discovery of even more expansive torture chambers and mass graves in newly liberated villages.
Lyrebird
Tell me you don’t know much about totalitarian regimes without telling me…
I am not trying to be sarcastic. I am surprised, though. There’s this thing many expats have called extended family.
Lyrebird
@NotoriousJRT:
@Grumpy Old Railroader:
Thanks for speaking up so eloquently.
Chetan Murthy
@Lyrebird: Yeah, like I said: Murc’s Law. They’re innocents, buffeted by the winds, with no moral agency of their own. They’re so afraid of what this outlaw regime can do to their family, they’re scared into silence (or even public utterances of support). Even when they see other countries getting attacked, victims of genocidal violence from that same regime.
Right.
So I read about Russians in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Germany#Soviet_and_post-Soviet_emigration_from_Russia
It seems they’ve been arriving since the 80s, and many of them are of German descent.
But hey, I’m sure they’re all petrified of Putin’s wrath. Couldn’t be they actually like that shit.
Ksmiami
@Gin & Tonic: this right here. The destruction of Russian invaders in Ukraine is a necessary and moral imperative. This is not giving into evil, but recognizing the stakes.
Carlo Graziani
@Alison Rose: This is absolutely not true.
Carlo Graziani
@Alison Rose:
This is absolutely not true.
Ksmiami
@Grumpy Old Railroader: not all, but most. Russia is a cruel, sick and practically medieval society that is a unique danger to itself and the larger world. The sooner the West recognizes this and the faster we arm Ukraine, the better.
Nelle
@Hoppie: My dad was serving on a hospital ship, anchored just off of Anzio, during the battle. I’ve often found it …hmmm, what is the word…interesting? uncanny? about our fathers who intersected at various points in Europe and the Pacific during that war. My father was cryptic about what he saw, for the most part. I would love to see more writing, more observations of the effect of so many fathers who were in the war on their children.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
Helps to read the article.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: You’re making my point for me. To wit, they don’t consider themselves Germans, they consider themselves Russians, and as Russians, even though they’re living in a free country, they support Russian genocide in Ukraine.
Thank you for making my point for me.
Hoppie
@Nelle: The effect was my dad didn’t want me anywhere near the military. When my draft number in 1971 was 296, I dropped the student deferment to take the year of eligibility and end draftability (if that is a word). It was a calculated gamble, but a safe one, and unlike certain politicians, I actually can count.
billcinsd
@SFAW: It’s part of King’s job to fluff people from his home state, not that the 20th Maine’s charge wasn’t important. OTOH, the 1st Minnesota’s charge was so fierce, the two brigades they faced (~1200 men) felt they needed reinforcements to push through the 262 Minnesotans. They, when reinforcements finally arrived, fell back fighting, got reinforced and went back into the line and were at the heart of where Pickett’s Charge fell.
Carlo Graziani
@Grumpy Old Railroader: First of all, thank you. Periodically, this kind of reality check needs to be brought forward in this forum for the benefit of people who think of warfare in very stark, abstract, black-and-white morality tale terms, and apparently have never gone through the exercise of honestly asking themselves what they themselves would have done in the same circumstances, had they been put in the same morally impossible position as young adults. The results are never pretty.
Many people here delivering themselves of swift and severe moral condemnations of the bestiality of an entire population continue to have no comprehension whatever of the near-instantaneous and near-total brutal transformation that war can have on human nature—not just on Russians, but on anyone who is called upon to legally engage in killing people for his or her country. There is no such thing as noble warfare, only better-controlled brutality by armies with institutions that are serious about keeping their warriors from becoming mass-murderers. And if you think for a moment that American soldiers could not, given an excuse to engage in gratuitous violence, become Russian-style mass-murderers, then you haven’t been paying attention to the kind of murderous violence that Americans are capable of inflicting upon each other, given abundant weapons and helpless targets. What prevents US Armed Forces on foreign missions from (usually) committing outrages is not the conspicuous virtue of the American character compared to an average Russian, but rather the iron discipline of the Code of Military Justice, which relentlessly enforces the Laws of War.
I don’t care how virtuous you think you are. Statistically speaking, you, random Balloon Juice commenter who have not been in service under fire, are an excellent candidate for committing a war crime under the appropriate circumstances, or at least would have been as an adolescent, because, historically speaking most people are. They go to war, some of them do unspeakable things, then they go back to society and their jobs as bankers, or auto mechanics, and no accounting is ever requested of what they did, and they may never speak of it to anyone. Vietnam was full of such stories. And if you think that WWII, the good war was also not equally full of them, then you are an idiot.
This is the inner nature of war. It makes murder into rational computation. It makes nonsense of morality. It turns humans into beasts. And if you think it couldn’t do so, or have done so, to you, you are probably delusional.
Ksmiami
@Carlo Graziani: which is why war is stupid, pointless and shouldn’t be started especially today when territory isn’t as important as developing ppl and in attacking it’s neighbor, Russia deserves to lose everything. The 20th century called -it wants their bloody trenches back…
Ivan X
@Carlo Graziani: thank you. Please repost this tomorrow night as this thread seems shot.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: Carlo, surely you’ve seen one of the several videos the Ukrainian info ops follks have put out, addressed to Russian soldiers, where they’re very clear in offering Russian soldiers one of three choices:
I mean, it’s very clear and very unambiguous. I don’t see what the problem is with this. Clearly you, Omnes, and others have some problem with it. Maybe you can explain.
Ruckus
@Carlo Graziani:
This is the inner nature of war. It makes murder into rational computation. It makes nonsense of morality. It turns humans into beasts. And if you think it couldn’t do so, or have done so, to you, you are probably delusional.
You speak truth. And very well.
And it’s very, very, very probably because it takes an extremely strong person to fight for the right to not be in a position to kill. I wasn’t strong enough. I was lucky though, to never have to make that decision. I carried a loaded weapon at times though, and that thought that I might have to use it……
I joined the navy when I was 20, during Vietnam because I could not take the pressure of possibly being drafted and becoming a soldier and have to go to war and kill people for no good reason, or have them kill me for the reason that I was there to kill them.
It wasn’t so much serving my country it was that I thought my country was wrong. I wasn’t alone in that thought.
And 2 days after I enlisted they announced the draft lottery. I figured that as I’d joined my number would be in the top 10% and I wouldn’t have had to go. It turned out to be #15. I was 1A after a physical that was so fake as to be laughable if it wasn’t for the people who died after being drafted. They wanted bodies. They didn’t care who, they just wanted bodies. I know a man who got drafted with his brother and they both ended up in Vietnam. His brother died in the VA hospital and it almost broke this man. They weren’t supposed to take 2 men from the same family, but the thing I left out above was that they were black.
This country isn’t any better than most, but it is better than Russia. We train people, we make sure they have the tools to wage war, as long as we were going to do that. 58,220 still died in Vietnam, and if you want to see what war does to survivors, stop by your local VA hospital some day. I’m an old geezer and we’ve been at war for about half my lifetime, which is about 4 generations of the vast majority of people in the age range of most people that war kills.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
I can explain.
vlad is waging an ego war. It isn’t a war because a country attacked his country ( and yes he absolutely thinks he owns it ), it is a war because he thinks the world has to bow down to his magnificence, that he OWNS them and whatever he wants to claim, take, steal, destroy and no one has the right to tell him to fuck off. He is, at the very least, an asshole of epic proportions. Someone up thread noticed that the world is sort of seeing the point that war over bullshit really, really isn’t OK. And no not everyone in this country gets that yet. But in a world estimated to have 8 billion humans living in it, warfare based on one person’s ego really, really has zero business happening, especially when that one person thinks that if he can’t have it, no one can.
Geminid
@Chetan Murthy: It seems to me that for most of these conscripts option #1 is to try to leave Ukraine, and almost certainly be caught and shot for desertion; and option #2 is to try to surrender and be shot down from behind. There have been successful surrenders by individuals, small units and larger ones, but Russian forces guarding conscripts are fairly vigilant and ruthless now.
livewyre
@Chetan Murthy: I’m not sure it’s quite getting across what the actual objection is to what you’re saying. To be fair, war is a hard thing to understand, especially from not having been in it. But I’ll give it a try from principle.
We are unanimous here that Ukraine must win by repelling the invaders, prosecuting the invaders’ crimes, and re-establishing internationally-recognized borders, according to their own stated policy. Some of us aren’t convinced that’s all it will take – maybe some form of containment of the aggressor or broader policies aimed towards stabilization. I don’t know. I’m not a foreign policy expert.
But the problem with war isn’t just who gets killed in the process; rather, what it does to the rest of us. It shows us demons. They’re from over there. They’re not like us, their lives don’t have the same meaning. Something must be wrong with them. Something must be done to them. If they get to, why can’t we? They’ll do it first, if we let them. They already did it to us, it’s only fair.
It’s a stunningly easy pattern to fall into. Maybe no one is immune. I particularly find it instructive that the ones who are cautioning us most firmly about this are the ones with experience in that area. From that I gather that this is not a domain where we can afford to obey our thirst. The laws of war must constrain everyone. Our duty is to apply them, not to cash in our circumstantial moral advantage on spoils or vengeance.
It’s apparent that this duty is being strained in just such a way as is all too often used to excuse such acts in return, and that’s what some of us are pushing back on. The laws of war aren’t there to let us pat ourselves on the back for being born in the right place or with the right values. They are to remind us of where we can easily go if we let ourselves slip – as we already have, this very century. If we can change, we’ll have to prove it.
Ruckus
@livewyre:
You’ve got it.
I learned from being in daily contact with people who learned the very hard way and discussed it, trying to learn all over again how to live with what they learned, how to control those demons. I can tell you for some people it is an almost impossible task to learn how to be a human allowed in public again. Others seemed to have worked that out as they went along. But no one is unfazed by war. Even if you were just on the periphery.
You are right, absolutely no one is immune.
As the saying goes “War is Fucking Hell.” And no that’s not just this not casual observer and participant during.
jlowe
The other thing to like about Sen. King’s sweater is that it’s a poke in the eye to the Lost Causers who are also a bunch of Putin-lovers.
livewyre
To elaborate a bit on the previous, for whoever happens along this late in the thread: I think there’s still something going unsaid that keeps this misunderstanding at a slow boil. Or rather, said a lot more than done.
It should go without saying, but goes with quite a bit of saying and maybe not so much understanding, that there is and can be no such thing as an inferior culture. We take it for granted as a diplomatic nicety, something to say while smiling and shaking hands, but don’t quite square its implications with what’s going on.
There are atrocities being perpetrated by Russian occupation forces and officials at this very moment. There have been for much longer than the full-scale invasion, and there remain many left to uncover before the occupation is fully reversed. This is what makes it so difficult to reconcile this diplomatic ideal with actual practice. The fog of war is bright red. It feels not only naïve or cowardly but offensive in itself to suggest that it could hold true in such circumstances.
But it still has to, because that’s the conceit that allows us to formulate and enforce such a thing as laws of war. We have to hold every nation and ourselves to the same standard. We cannot expect less, and we have to respond in the exact measure of the violation. Not for our own sake, and not out of some inherent superiority. By imposing such a standard, we demand that human cultures participate with equal responsibility for the state of our mutual habitat rather than according to some universal moral ranking. Calling others inferior, even for their crimes, both lets them off easy and makes a lie of the laws we presume to enforce – never mind the ones we aspire to.
Holger
@Grumpy Old Railroader: i agree with you whole heartedly. I am profoundly sad to see the demise of soldiers from both sides. I dont enjoy the flippant nihilism by commenters here and elsewhere. I do understand the dehumanization of the Russians by the Ukrainians but I dont share it.
Alison Rose
@Carlo Graziani: Okay. Then I am out. If numerous people here are of the belief that torturing and raping children is something any single person will do just because they are at war, and we’re the bad ones if we say bad things should happen to them, then I am out. Fuck every single one of you.
ian
@Alison Rose: Literally no one here has advocating doing that to children. We all want the people who did that caught and prosecuted.
You are raising a strawman that those who object to eliminationist rhetoric are OK with child molestation. That position is not accurate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine. Ukraine has every right to fight against this invasion with everything that they have. Other countries should be providing Ukraine the means to fight for as longs as needed. Russia should be subject to severe sanctions until troops are withdrawn behind the 2014 borders.
Russians are committing war crimes even as we speak. Every one of those war crimes should be prosecuted by an international court. Russia agreeing to this and turning people over to the court should be a condition of sanctions being lifted.
Hating all Russians and/or regarding them as less than human is not a helpful response. Actually, thinking of Russians as orcs, etc., diminishes their responsibility. After all, if they are less than human, human decency isn’t something we can expect from them. The fact that they are as human as the rest of us is what makes the crimes horrific.
In addition, thinking of anyone as less than human is the start of a very dark road. It is one I don’t want to go down. It is one I hope that no one here goes down. That’s why people raise this issue here every once in a while.
Bill Arnold
@Alison Rose:
There were no defenses of rapists of children in this thread.
Quoted here is a milder excerpt from some WWII memoirs written much later in life by my late father. Setting is a German town being re-captured by the American 94th division under Patton. The “farm house” was stone. The German sniper(s) in the tower was(were) doing accurate groin and head shots, defending their homeland. Russians were doing their massive invasion to destroy Nazi Germany in their brutal war-criming style well to the east.
Elsewhere, my father parenthetically described a minor war crime, execution of German prisoners because it was easier than guarding them or transporting them away from the front line. He named the culprit, who is now also deceased. That and a few other similar war crimes, mostly in retaliation for prisoner-killing by German SS, got their division (94th; see wikipedia) a reputation for war criming among the Germans, and decreased German willingness to surrender, which meant death or non-fatal injury for more American soldiers.
Chetan Murthy
@livewyre: [insert yet another reference to longtime reading of Window on Eurasia, references to the way Muscovy treats is imperial subjects] [insert yet another reference to Kamil Galeev saying the same goddamn thing] [insert yet another reference to Russia being “the prison of nations”]
Where in all of that did you miss that I want good things for Russian subjects *in Russia* and that the only way they can come is for Russian imperial power to end?
And btw, I cited one of those well-known videos from *The Ukrainian Armed Forces* because I’m not arguing something beyond-the-pale. And something more: your argument boils down to “we cannot celebrate victories in war, we must only celebrate avoiding defeats”. I mean, FFS *the Ukrainian government put out a postage stamp celebrating killing hundreds of sailors on the Moskva*. Ukrainians lined up to get their pictures taken with a life-sized painting of the stamp! Are you saying that all these people are objectively wrong and despicable for these emotions?
I’ve been name-checking Window on Eurasia since the depths of the covid pandemic, repeatedly bringing content here that describes how Muscovy left the people of its regions to rot with no help, during the pandemic.
But hey, what you’re saying is, if we’re going to rejoice in Russian defeats, we need to put a finely-crafted disclaimer at the top, carefully outlining how we’re only rejoicing in sorrow, not in glee, how every Russian soldier’s death a tragedy, yadda yadda yadda.
Bullshit.
And something else: There’s been lots of evidence that Muscovy and *Russian elite culture* is *shit*. That they continue to have an Imperial culture that is unable to do anything other than rule. And this has nothing to do with Ukraine, and everything to do with the way they treat their imperial subjects *inside* Russia.
But hey, keep on with the cultural relativism, really. Keep on.
livewyre
@Chetan Murthy: See what I mean by misunderstanding? In all those words, it didn’t seem to get across that victory in Ukraine, by Ukraine, is necessary in order to uphold the rule of law worldwide. That’s why they’re going above and beyond to comply with laws of war as well as preparing to enforce them. But the idea that cultures be held to the same standard is simply too offensive to grasp offhand in a conversation among bystanders – it has to be done systematically.
Note also above a more drastic response: adopting child abuse rhetoric and applying it with a brush broom. That’s real toxic stuff that does no one any favors, but war wrenches it out of us all the same. The seed of atrocity (“they did it first”) is right here with us and mutual observation of law is what prevents it from taking root.
The funny thing is, my notion of law is a lot more idealistic than what’s commonly practiced at home. Enforcement is rife with its own atrocities. But I surmise that the ideal is strong enough that it still restrains them more than it allows them on a systemic level. At least, we’d better hope so, and be ready to fix it either way. More than our national ego is at stake.
Carlo Graziani
@Alison Rose: Peace, Alison. This thread comes up periodically, and it’s always upsetting. But it is important to discuss these things, for the reasons Omnes gives.
You yourself have often expressed misgivings about your feelings of satisfaction when some battlefield mishap causes the deaths of hundreds of Russians, especially new conscripts. That vague feeling of guilt is very human. It’s also extremely easy for the rage that war gifts us with every day to strip that guilty feeling away, leaving only smugness over every enemy death. That process renders us less empathetic, and less human. We ought to resist it. At bottom that’s what the pushback is about.
The people who write here who have actually been to war (I am not one of them) also typically know from personal experience how close to the surface the bestial nature of humanity is, because of the tension of military culture, one part of which is undeniably and necessarily about preparing to engage in near-unimaginable violence. This violence has always exerted fascination on many young, impressionable (mostly) men the world over. Restraining and disciplining that violent tendency is a major occupation of Western militaries, which supplies the other end of the tension of military culture.
The US military has its share of psychopaths, violent fantasists, and moral simpletons, and periodically it takes them on heavily-armed outings to foreign nations where they can be surrounded by people who hate them and attempt to harm them. I guarantee you that the fact that those outings don’t produce constant streams of crimes against civilians, including women and children, is not because of reliance on the superior moral character of Americans. If that were true, the same types of psychopaths would not be shooting up our schools several times per year.
In an army where the UCMJ equivalent is not a Sword of Damocles over every serviceperson’s head, that violent fascination becomes the dominant culture, and “civilized” people in civilian life become accultured to it, some for survival or protective coloration, some because they discover an unexpected enjoyment in violent dominance, some because they find they are actually genuinely good at it and earn respect for it. Moral and ethical argument loses all force and validity. In some sense, the discussion that Adam raised the other evening about differential socialization becomes relevant, since criminological models of learned behavior would certainly apply (such a model seems relevant to the Russian practice of Dedovshchina, the violent and occasionally fatal hazing of new recruits by more senior recruits, which officers and NCOs promoted from the ranks are powerless to stop).
I believe that knowing all this first-hand, our resident ex-warriors are more than a little troubled at the glibness, or, at least, excessive comfort, with which folks sometimes discuss the management of human violence in war. It’s a bit like bomb-disposal experts shaking their heads at opinions expressed about safe handling of unexploded munitions based on information from movies, and sincerely hoping that nobody ever tries that, for real.
Russian society is alienating and oppressive. The Russian military is a machine for eliciting bestial behavior from its servicemen. We can believe these things to be true without losing our sense of pity for the human beings who are caught up in that machine. And we should remember to be grateful that we are not caught up by such a machine ourselves.
J R in WV
@Kent:
In the long ago I took our heifer cow to a neighbors farm to meet his bull, wound up spending several hours from day to day chatting with Don Watts, who was an interesting conversationalist, willing to argue scripture, history, politics, and cattle habits… anything really.
He was a front line combat infantryman in WW II, and was part of a unit which came upon a concentration camp, well ahead of any medic unit intended to attempt to treat concentration camp victims. Bodies stacked like cordwood…
His first hand description of prisoners dying as the soldiers attempted to feed them with soup make from rations was horrible. He saved us from the worst details, but anyone who denies the Nazi “final solution” is a vile Nazi beyond comprehension.
He was an old farmer back in the late 70s and early 80s, and so is almost certainly passed on now, it was an honor to know him. He went to live with his kids down south somewhere, went to the bank and left his deed on a banker’s desk on his way out of here — my kind of guy.
During the Vietnam war I joined the USN to avoid being drafted into a combat role, which worked as well as expected. Red neck POs made my service time pretty hard, as I was obviously against that particular war. I think history has justified my position. It was a shame that anti-communist political fear led our nation to support French colonialism as we did, for decades.
Glory and honor is being served by Ukraine and their whole nation as well as the actual troops. Different wars in different times.
Chetan Murthy
David Patrikarakos: New Year in a Ukrainian trench
https://unherd.com/2023/01/new-year-in-a-ukrainian-trench/
PBK
@Carlo Graziani: Thank you for this. People also seem to forget the survival instinct, active in situations much less stressful than war, which of course amplifies that instinct to an extreme level. Everyone knows how they would hope to behave in a life or death situation, but no one can be certain of what they would actually do.