(We Will Stand, We Will Win mural by Sasha Korban, image found here)
It’s been a long day, so I’m going to keep tonight’s update as short as possible.
Here’s President Zelenskyy’s address to the UN Security Council from earlier today. There is an English language interpreter translating on the video.
The transcript is after the jump:
From President Zelenskyy’s official website:
Dear Mrs. President!
Dear Mr. Secretary General!
Dear members of the Security Council and other participants of the meeting!
Thank you for the opportunity.
I am sure that all the representatives of the UN member states will hear me today.
Yesterday I returned from our city of Bucha, recently liberated from the troops of the Russian Federation.
It is difficult to find a war crime that the occupiers have not committed there.
The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our state.
They executed women outside the houses when approaching and simply calling someone alive.
They killed whole families – adults and children. And they tried to burn their bodies.
I am addressing you on behalf of the people who honor the memory of the deceased everyday. Everyday, in the morning.
The memory of the killed civilians.
Who were shot in the back of the head or in the eye after being tortured. Who were shot just on the streets.
Who were thrown into the well, so that they die there in suffering.
Who were killed in apartments, houses, blown up by grenades. Who were crushed by tanks in civilian cars in the middle of the road. For fun.
Whose limbs were cut off, whose throat was cut. Who were raped and killed in front of their own children.
Their tongues were torn out only because they did not hear from them what they wanted to hear.
How is this different from what the ISIS terrorists were doing in the occupied territory?
Except that it is done by a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
It destroys the internal unity of states.
Destroys state borders.
Denies the right of more than a dozen peoples on two continents to self-determination and independent state life. Pursues a consistent policy of destroying ethnic and religious diversity.
Inflames wars and deliberately wages them in such a way as to kill as many ordinary civilians as possible. To destroy as many ordinary peaceful cities as possible. To leave in the country where it sends its troops only ruins and mass graves. You’ve seen it all.
Promotes hatred at the state level and seeks to export it to other countries through its system of propaganda and political corruption.
Provokes a global food crisis that could lead to famine in Africa and Asia, and will certainly end in large-scale political chaos in countries where food price stability is a key factor of domestic security.
So where is the security that the Security Council must guarantee? There is no security. Although there is a Security Council, as if nothing happened.
So where is the peace that the United Nations was created to guarantee?
It is obvious that the key institution of the world, which must ensure the coercion of any aggressors to peace, simply cannot work effectively.
Now the world has seen what the Russian military did in Bucha while keeping our city under occupation. But the world has yet to see what they have done in other occupied cities, in other occupied areas of our country.
Geography may be different, but cruelty is the same. Crimes are the same.
And responsibility must be inevitable.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
I would like to remind you of the first article of the first chapter of the UN Charter. What is the purpose of our organization? To maintain peace. And to force to peace. Now the UN Charter is being violated literally from the first article. And if so, what is the point of all other articles?
Today, it is as a result of Russia’s actions on the territory of my state, on the territory of Ukraine, that the most heinous war crimes of all time since the end of World War II are being committed.
Russian troops are deliberately destroying Ukrainian cities to ashes with artillery and air strikes.
They are deliberately blocking cities, creating mass starvation in them. They are deliberately shooting at columns of civilians on the roads who are trying to escape from the territory of hostilities.
They are even deliberately blowing up shelters where civilians are hiding from air strikes. They are deliberately creating conditions in the temporarily occupied territories so that as many civilians as possible are killed there.
The massacre in our city of Bucha is just one, unfortunately, of many examples of what the occupiers have been doing on our land for 41 days.
And there are many other such places that the world has yet to find out the full truth of: Mariupol, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Okhtyrka, Borodyanka and dozens of other Ukrainian communities, each of which is like Bucha.
I know, and you know very well, what the representatives of Russia will say in response to the accusations of these crimes. They have said this many times. The most illustrative was after the downing of a Malaysian Boeing over Donbas by Russian forces with Russian weapons. Or during the war in Syria.
They will blame everyone, just to justify themselves. They will say that there are different versions, and which of them is true is allegedly impossible to establish yet. They will even say that the bodies of those killed were allegedly “planted”, and all the videos are staged.
But. Now is the year 2022. There is conclusive evidence. There are satellite images. It is possible to conduct a full, transparent investigation.
That is what we are interested in.
Maximum access of journalists. Maximum cooperation with international institutions. Involvement of the International Criminal Court. Full truth, full responsibility.
I am sure that every state in the UN system should be interested in this. For what? In order to punish once and for all those who consider themselves privileged, consider themselves unpunished. Hence, to show all other potential war criminals in the world that they will inevitably be punished as well. If the biggest is punished, everyone will be punished.
Why did Russia come to Ukraine, tell me?
I will answer. Russia’s leadership feels like colonizers – as in ancient times. They need our wealth and our people. Russia has already deported tens of thousands of our citizens to its territory. Then there will be hundreds. It abducted more than two thousand children. Simply abducted thousands of children. And continues to do so. Russia wants to turn Ukrainians into silent slaves.
The Russian militaries are openly looting the cities and villages they have captured. This is looting of the highest scale. They steal everything from food to gold earrings they just rip out with blood.
We are dealing with a state that turns the right of veto in the UN Security Council into a right to kill.
Which undermines the whole architecture of global security.
Which allows evil to go unpunished and spread the world. Destroying everything that can work for peace and security.
If this continues, the finale will be that each state will rely only on the power of arms to ensure its security, not on international law, not on international institutions.
Then, the UN can simply be dissolved.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Are you ready for the dissolving of the UN? Do you think that the time of international law has passed?
If your answer is no, you need to act now, act immediately.
The power of the UN Charter must be restored immediately.
The UN system must be reformed immediately so that the right of veto is not a right to kill. So that there is a fair representation of all regions of the world in the Security Council.
The aggressor must be forced to peace immediately. Determination is needed. The chain of mass killings from Syria to Somalia, from Afghanistan to Yemen and Libya should have been stopped a long time ago to be honest.
If tyranny had ever received such a response to the war it had unleashed that it would have ceased to exist and a fair peace would have been guaranteed after it, the world would have changed for sure.
And then, perhaps, we would not have a war, a war in my country. Against our nation, the Ukrainian nation. Against people.
But the world watched and did not want to see the occupation of Crimea, or even before – the war against Georgia, or even earlier – the alienation from Moldova of the entire Transnistrian region. It also didn’t want to see how Russia was preparing the ground for other conflicts and wars near its borders.
How to stop it?
Immediately bring the Russian military and those who gave them orders to justice for war crimes in Ukraine.
Everyone who gave criminal orders and fulfilled them by killing people will face a tribunal similar to the Nuremberg trials.
I want to remind Russian diplomats that a man like von Ribbentrop has not avoided punishment after World War II.
And I also want to remind the architects of Russia’s criminal policy that punishment has reached Adolf Eichmann as well.
None of the culprits will escape. No one.
But the main thing is that today is the time to transform the system, the core of which is the United Nations. To do this, we propose to convene a global conference. And we ask to do it already in peaceful Kyiv – in order to decide.
How we will reform the world security system.
How we will really guarantee the inviolability of universally recognized borders and the integrity of states.
How we will ensure the rule of international law.
It is now clear that the goals set in San Francisco in 1945 during the creation of a global international security organization have not been achieved. And it is impossible to achieve them without reforms.
Therefore, we must do everything in our power to pass on to the next generations an effective UN with the ability to respond preventively to security challenges and thus guarantee peace.
Prevent aggression and force aggressors to peace. Have the determination and ability to punish if the principles of peace are violated.
There can be no more exceptions, privileges. Everyone must be equal. All participants in international relations. Regardless of economic strength, geographical area and individual ambitions.
The power of peace must become dominant. The power of justice and the power of security. As humanity has always dreamed of.
Ukraine is ready to provide a platform for one of the main offices of the updated security system.
Just as the Geneva office specializes in human rights, just as the Nairobi office specializes in the field of environmental protection, the Kyiv U-24 Office can specialize in preventive measures to maintain peace.
I want to remind you of our peaceful mission in Afghanistan. When, at our own expense, we Ukrainians evacuated more than a thousand people from this country. And it was the hottest phase. But people needed help – and Ukraine came. Just like other states.
We evacuated people of different nationalities, different faiths. Afghans, citizens of European countries, USA, Canada. We did not distinguish who needs help, whether these are our people or not. We saved everyone.
If every time there was a need everyone in the world was confident that help would come, the world would be definitely safer.
Therefore, Ukraine has the necessary moral right to propose a reform of the world security system.
We have proven that we help others not only in good times, but also in dark times.
And now we need decisions from the Security Council. For peace in Ukraine. If you do not know how to adopt this decision, you can do two things.
Remove Russia as an aggressor and a source of war from blocking decisions about its own aggression, its own war. And then do everything that can establish peace.
Or show how you can reformat and really work for peace.
Or if your current format is unalterable and there is simply no way out, then the only option would be to dissolve yourself altogether.
I am convinced that you can do without the third option.
Ukraine needs peace. We need peace. Europe needs peace. The world needs peace.
And finally, I’m asking you to watch the video. A short one.
A video of what has come to replace your power because someone alone can abuse his rights.
This is what impunity leads to.
If possible – watch this video. Because there is no opportunity for everyone to come to us and see it. So watch it.
Thank you.
Here’s the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s operational update for today:
The operational update regarding the russian invasion on 18.00 on April 5, 2022
2022-04-05 19:00:00 | ID: 67169
The forty-first day of the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people to a russian military invasion continues.
Measures to regroup the troops of the russian federation continue. The enemy did not abandon the purpose of the operation to establish full control over the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russian enemy is trying to improve the position of units in the Tavriya and Pivdennobuzhsky operational districts.
Russian troops, defiantly ignoring the rules of international humanitarian law, continue to use aircraft and artillery to strike at civilian infrastructure and industry. Thus, as a result of the shelling of the city of Rubizhne, Luhansk oblast, the occupiers damaged a tank with nitric acid.
In the western military district of the russian federation, in order to recruit units that have suffered losses on the territory of Ukraine, covert mobilization measures are being carried out. In addition, the command of the armed forces of the russian federation is trying to make up for the loss of personnel by involving representatives of military schools. The Chita Suvorov Military School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia conducted a written survey of teaching staff on their readiness to take part in a “special operation” outside the russian federation. Many teachers have given up on possible involvement in the “performance of tasks” and are ready to be discharged from military service.
The export of military equipment of the armed forces of the russian federation from the territory of the republic of belarus by rail and military transport planes continues in the Siversky direction. At the same time, the movement of certain units of the armed forces of the republic of belarus in the direction of the state border of Ukraine was revealed. The rotation of units involved in strengthening the protection of the state border of belarus is not ruled out.
In the Slobozhansky direction the blockade by the russian enemy of the separate area of the Kharkiv region proceeds. In the settlements of Velykyi Burluk, Prykolotne and Fedorivka, the russain occupiers are searching for pro-Ukrainian residents and illegally detaining them.
In the city of Izyum, the russian occupiers are fabricating evidence on the alleged crimes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. To this end, they are shelling the settlement and creating a kind of “documentation”.
In the Donetsk direction, the enemy, with the support of aircraft and artillery, continues to storm the city of Mariupol.
In the temporarily occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhya oblast, in the city of Berdyansk, local residents are being detained.
In Tokmak, medical staff at local health facilities are being forced to sign so-called “contracts” with the russian Ministry of Health.
Ukraine’s Defence Forces continue to carry out tasks to liberate the occupied territory from russian occupation forces.
Let’s win together! Glory to Ukraine!
There was no DOD background briefing today. Yesterday’s can be found at this link. The UK MOD’s assessment for today focused on satellite imagery showing the war crimes in Bucha.
Here’s an interesting assessment by an Estonian analyst who is a source for journalist Michael Weiss.
?Latest battlefield assessment from "Karl," the Estonian analyst @holger_r and I routinely consult.
1. "The first half of the week will be waiting until both sides reach the eastern front. It should take Russia more time. Ukraine has already started relocating its units."
— Michael Weiss ????? (@michaeldweiss) April 4, 2022
- 2. “Ukraine’s National Guard and Territorial Defense units are mostly doing the cleaning up in the north. Regular units are moving east. Russia has tried to hinder that movement, for example by targeting railway stations. But these hits can be avoided by Ukraine.”
- 3. “Besides the Belgorod fuel and arms depots the railway also allegedly got hit by Ukraine (unconfirmed), meaning Russia now has to move eastwards through a longer route in the north.”
- 4. “The equipment Russia managed to get out of the Kyiv area is to large extent not usable anymore. It’s 260km from Kyiv to Gomel. That equipment won’t be able to manage such a long journey.”
- 5. “Equipment that was withdrawn from Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv areas might be in a little better shape as it’s a much shorter distance from those areas across the border.”
- 6. “Still needs repair work which will take days at minimum. Russia doesn’t have a proper replacements. They have a reserve of equipment that hasn’t been touched for 20-30 yrs. But it’ll fall apart because it hasn’t been maintained at all. Some has been stolen.”
- 7. “So what will happen on the eastern front? Some Ukraine & Russia analysts say Russia might not prepare a massive offense but will try to bolster current borderlines. The logic: if they’d fail with a massive offense, that’d be it and they’d suffer a total defeat…”
- 7. cont’d: “Ukraine would have a chance to liberate areas occupied since 2014.”
- 8. “If they dig in where they are now, they can say that they gained something. I don’t believe such a scenario though. VVP has the вперёд (forwards!) mindset. I just don’t see where they’ll take the units and equipment from.”
- 9. “Regarding Ukraine’s strength: If they manage to get their ranks in order, they can defend well. To go on the offensive, I’m not so sure. For that they lack needed equipment such as armored vehicles, medium and long-range missiles, etc.”
- 10. “Ukraine has armor but it’s considerably less than Russia’s. What the Western allies have promised to send helps to make the deficit shorter but not equal. Also, I can’t see so much additional equipment that could still be promised that would change that balance.”
- 11. “So, in order for Ukraine to liberate all territories, Russian troops need to suffer complete demoralization.”
- 12. “The frontline in the east could become very long. It’s possible that Russia doesn’t plan an all-out attack there but will start from the sides: from Mariupol and moving up from there; from Izium and Kramatorsk moving downwards and get Ukrainian units in a sack.”
- 13. “Russia made progress around Izium last week but after that has been stalled for the last 4-5 days by the Donets river. Strongest battles are currently ongoing there.”
- 14. “No reason to really worry about a new wave of offense coming from the north for now. Clearly the units are moving eastwards inside Belarus. There can be missile strikes on the targets in Kyiv but these will be solitary attempts.”
- 15. “Putin might dream of reaching Kyiv when (if) Russia breaks through from the east, but that’s unrealistic. Distances are huge. Their equipment won’t last.”
- 16. “Ukraine air defense in Kyiv was set up so strong that nothing hit the city center for the last weeks. This allowed the country’s leadership to operate. Now Ukraine is partially taking air defense also farther east…”
- 16′ cont’d: “They need to defend Kramatorsk where the Ukrainian military HQ for the eastern operations is. They also need to bolster Dnipro.” // END
Bucha:
I’m going to go ahead and post all the tweets in this thread as their is imagery in each that provides context.
Three graves sit just opposite his apartment block. Each marked with a wooden plank and a religious icon attached. He wanted to give them whatever dignity he could. ‘But it’s too shallow,’ he says, almost apologetically. ‘I just wanted to protect them from the dogs.’ pic.twitter.com/Z3gl4JVVh0
— James Longman (@JamesAALongman) April 5, 2022
Russians asked for documentation when they got there. Anything in your papers that made them think you were a threat, and you were dead. He said they made the men strip off, looking for tattoos. Perhaps military tattoos. pic.twitter.com/6Gd5bVmr2d
— James Longman (@JamesAALongman) April 5, 2022
We went to the mass grave satellite images have seen near the church. We saw bags of bodies dumped on top of other victims who were either wrapped in sheets or nothing at all. pic.twitter.com/GiL8oyOrdR
— James Longman (@JamesAALongman) April 5, 2022
But a final bit of hope. Aid trucks made it to Bucha today. And residents came out to sing after they made their deliveries. Ludmilla, in blue, is a particular ray of light. Joy. pic.twitter.com/c3FUkCu7p5
— James Longman (@JamesAALongman) April 5, 2022
Bucha and Irpin:
Chief Rabbi Azman visits Irpin and Bucha.
“Traces of mass war crimes of the Russian army were discovered with our own eyes,” he wrote on Telegram. “My heart breaks at what I see.” pic.twitter.com/Z1mzKzJ5cU
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) April 5, 2022
Mariupol:
Imagine giving birth in sieged Mariupol, under constant bombardment. Imagine singing to your newborn like this in a bomb shelter. Imagine escaping the blockaded city with him in your arms, risking your life at every single step. Ukrainians don’t have to imagine. This is our life. pic.twitter.com/NqOsROwL2b
— Anastasiia Lapatina (@lapatina_) April 5, 2022
Vyshorod:
This little boy, who everyone was looking for after the shelling, was found dead. His mom informed everyone on her Instagram. pic.twitter.com/EnOh5R8wSw
— Melaniya Podolyak (@MelaniePodolyak) April 5, 2022
Trotsyanets:
When I visited the #Oreo factory in #Trostyanets a few years back, it was operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, exporting Oreo cookies to 47 countries
Then the Russians came
This is what’s left @MDLZ pic.twitter.com/crKwWlpIEM— Andy Hunder (@AndyHunder) April 5, 2022
A statement from Alexey Navalny regarding the Russian misinformation and agitprop being used to try to cover up the Russian war crimes in Bucha:
1/14 How an ordinary Russian TV viewer (one of whom I currently am) sees it.
I learned about the monstrous events in Bucha yesterday morning from the news that Russia was convening the UN Security Council in connection with the massacre by Ukrainian Nazis in Bucha.
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) April 5, 2022
- 2/14 In the evening, the Channel One anchor explained everything. And I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears:
- 3/14 “NATO has been preparing he provocation in Bucha for a long time and at the highest level. It is also confirmed by the fact that President Biden called Putin a “butcher” not long ago”.
- 4/14 “Listen how consonant the English word “butcher” and the name of the city “Bucha” are. This is how the Western audience was subconsciously prepared for this provocation.”
- 5/14 I’m telling you, the monstrosity of lies on federal channels is unimaginable. And, unfortunately, so is its persuasiveness for those who have no access to alternative information.
- 6/14 My point is that Putin’s propaganda has long ceased to be a tool. They are actual warmongers and have become a party in their own right.
- 7/14 The endlessly squealing anchors and their “experts” are revving up their fury and have long since surpassed the military in their aggressiveness.
- 8/14 They demand a war to the bitter end, storming Kyiv, bombing Lviv. Even the prospect of a nuclear war does not scare them. They mop up the floor with their fellow Putinists on live television if they as much as hint at the fact that peace talks are a good thing.
- 9/14 It’s such a disgusting uroboros. Politics is a propaganda snake biting its own tail. Propagandists create the kind of public opinion that no longer simply allows Putin to commit war crimes, but demands them of him.
- 10/14 Warmongers should be treated as war criminals. From the editors-in-chief to the talk show hosts to the news editors, all of this Thousand Hills Radio should be sanctioned now and tried someday.
- 11/14 I would also like to remind you that the National Media Group, which owns the lion’s share of this lie machine, no doubt belongs to Putin personally, which is why it is even formally headed by Putin’s mistress Alina Kabaeva (see our investigation “Palace for Putin”).
- 12/14 Most drastic measures should be taken to make the work of these Goebbels heirs more difficult. From a complete ban on the supply and service of equipment, to searching for their assets in the West (which undoubtedly exist) and putting them on visa blacklists.
- 13/14 The monstrous atrocities in Bucha, Irpin and other Ukraininan cities were committed not only by those who tied the hands of peaceful people behind their backs, not only by those who shot them in the back of the head.
- 14/14 But also by those who stood by and whispered: “Come on, shoot, give us some nice material for our late-night TV show”.
And we’ll end with this good boy!
Remember the dog in #Bucha who lost his owner? Good news: he found him! This dog sounds human! #dogsofukraine #StandWithUkraine #ArmUkraineNow pic.twitter.com/wjpRuBxKZD
— olexander scherba?? (@olex_scherba) April 5, 2022
Open thread!
Martin
I have a difficult question, that you may or may not feel qualified to answer.
We are seeing a domestic rise in fascist ideology against the backdrop of the Russia/Ukraine conflict. We had the very same thing happen leading into WWII. My take had always been that the domestic rise was feeling emboldened by a greater willingness to project fascist ideologies globally. That take could be completely wrong.
But I also felt that the observed need to fight those fascist forces domestically may have contributed to the US leadership at the time wanting to fight them abroad. Since this is a growing problem not just in the US, but also UK, France, Germany, Hungary (obviously), do you think that will push NATO countries further into Ukraine?
Today I got this really strong feeling that all of these different things are pulling us unavoidably into a larger conflict.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
(via CherylRofer)
Grr…,
Scott.
Martin
@Another Scott: Wouldn’t want to be breaking the law while doing a genocide. Imagine how much trouble you could get in.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Martin:
In short, yes.
Ohio Mom
@Martin: I’ve been finding myself making little jokes about World War III. I guess I am trying the idea on, steeling myself, maybe I’m trying some kind of reverse jinx. Definitely feeling the dread you are.
Ksmiami
Welp. Humanity had an interesting run- at least we will smash Russia before we get hit…
NotMax
FYI. Strife breeds ingenuity.
oldster
Thanks for posting the transcript of Zhelensky’s address. Powerful words.I hope they have a powerful effect.
Calouste
@Martin: The fascists in Germany lost seats in last year’s general election, and the country now has a center left coalition government for the first time in 16 years, hardly a sign of turn to the right.
phdesmond
Navalny’s testimony was appalling.
but that dog was so happy to be reunited with their human!
Mallard Filmore
Tomi T Ahonen has a twitter thread on the battle for Kyiv here:
https://twitter.com/tomiahonen/status/1510276474175115281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
West of the Rockies
So I heard that the response from UN delegates to Zelenskyy’s speech was positive. What were the responses to the Russian response? I hope it was sneering derision.
debbie
Were they ever able to show that video at the UN? I know they were having technical issues.
West of the Cascades
Is it a breach of UN decorum to urinate on a delegate?
dimmsdale
The thing I’m wondering is: Thanks to Anonymous providing hacked personal details on every Russian soldier in Ukraine, plus cell phone data and even footage of Russian soldiers mailing looted goods back to Russia, there are fairly easy to follow pathways for black-ops style vengeance squads to follow, if they were interested in exacting rough justice from Russian war criminals just returned home (see also: Nokmim, Hebrew for avengers, who implemented death sentences among ex-SS men who failed to be brought to justice after WWII). I wonder how deep the taste for justice will run, among Ukrainian citizens, once the Russians have departed?
Adam L Silverman
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: We’ve been in World War III since at least 2014.
Adam L Silverman
@dimmsdale: It will run deeply. Whether they’ll have or be able to develop the capability to mete it out will be the question.
TheflipPsyd
This evening there was an emergency test done at the Salem Hope Creek nuclear power plant. Everyone in the house got one of those emergency texts on their cell phones — really loud, saying that it was just a test, no emergency. We’ve lived here over 10 years and never have gotten one of those texts before. My 11-year old son completely panicked, screaming there was a nuclear war and went hiding under his bed. His twin sister started panicking and crying and worrying that it was the end. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and remember that fear. I must admit that I believed we had matured as a species to the point that the possibility of someone using nukes was no longer a probabilty.
My kids are old enough to be aware of what is happening in Ukraine — they talk about it in school apparently every day. I so desperately want something to be done to stop Putin, to stop this evil. My 13 year old son’s social studies teacher isUkranian and they talk about Ukraine each class and he shares updates about his family members still in Ukraine. I don’t know if I have a point beyond thanking you Adam for these posts. I feel so helpless, and at the very least, want to, need to, be a witness to what is happening. And also to thank you because these posts give me the information needed to explain things to my kids and answer their questions.
Chetan Murthy
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, I know I’ve said this before, but
Adam L Silverman
@TheflipPsyd: You’re most welcome.
Renie
I wish there was more outrage at the pro Putin puppets in this country starting with Tucker Carlson. He is despicable.
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Adam L Silverman
@Chetan Murthy: Thanks for the kind words. As for a book, every time I’ve tried I get about 20 pages in and decide that if I tighten things up I can get everything in in under 35 pages.
Adam L Silverman
@Renie: Or the one third of the House Republican caucus who did this earlier today.
Carlo Graziani
I got the Bucha part of my story wrong yesterday.
eddie blake
@Adam L Silverman: wow… just. just wow.
Craig
@Adam L Silverman: I’m still able to be shocked at just how anti American the GOP is today. I’ve been watching this since Reagan, but todays republicans really believe the crazy stuff they babble.
John Revolta
@Adam L Silverman: The roll call
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2022115
Carlo Graziani
Karl the Estonian analyst appears to have a read on the question I had yesterday — whether the Ukrainian Army still has a usable interior road and rail net. Apparently so, and they can move stuff East faster than Russia can. Which is good to know.
terry chay
A couple weeks ago, I linked an article in the Atlantic about Ukraine’s 3-to-1 advantage. The author of the article was interviewed by Walter Isaacson on PBS. There’s a lot of insight there beyond that (about Russia as a whole), so it’s worth a watch: https://youtu.be/7INXXYKr-fk
YY_Sima Qian
@Calouste: I think it will depend on the economic situation. The world is heading into quite a bit of economic turmoil in the short, medium & long terms. If Germany rapidly transitions from energy reliance on Russia, leading to an economic recession, the far right could easily take advantage. The most significant historical precedents are the rise of fascism & communism during the Great Depression, as well as the rise of right wing populism following the Great Financial Crisis. This applies everywhere.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Greatly appreciate your daily updates on the Ukrainian Crisis, your insights & the expertise you have linked to! In all my years of lurking I have also enjoyed your analyses on other topics over the years. I don’t always agree, even now I am not sure framing the developments since 2014 as “WW III” is the most productive or illuminating, but you have been absolutely right on Putin! I had known ultranationalist like Alexander Dugin existed in Russia, but I figured him to be on the fringe w/ limited influence in the corridors of the Kremlin. I had figured Putin to be a unsentimental hardline nationalist & cynical opportunist, not a Stalin-like figure in his cruelty & megalomania. This war has been most illuminating in the most horrifying ways. (I supposed all wars are.)
Adam L Silverman
@terry chay: It was an excellent article. Thank you for posting it.
ian
@John Revolta:
Well the nays include Boebert, Cawthorne, Gosar, Gohmert, Gaetz, Green
Interesting that Cheney and Hice both didn’t vote. They both have competitive primaries coming up.
sab
@John Revolta: Thanks for that link.
ETA: Ohio had three nays. Wenstrup, Davidson and of course Gym Jordan. Wenstrup and Davidson are from the Southwest corner of the state.
Adam L Silverman
@John Revolta: The usual suspects.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: Thank you for the kind words. And you’re quite welcome. I greatly appreciate your comments, especially regarding events in the PRC and other parts of Asia.
As to WWIII: My argument is that war is not always kinetic, nor is it evenly distributed. I have a professional publication about this at The Cipher Brief from July 2020. My thesis is that in the 21st century we are seeing new characteristics of warfare that often deemphasize military power and emphasize the other elements of national power as the weapon systems to achieve national objectives.
Chetan Murthy
@Adam L Silverman: I could swear that several years ago, someone (you?) posted about how the Nazis sent a veritable army of spies to the US in the prewar years, to attempt to drum up support for their cause among Americans. The idea of using “other forms of national power” isn’t so novel: heck, isn’t that what the Marshall Plan was? Isn’t that what NATO is?
Mike in DC
I think that if Ukraine can retake Kherson and put pressure on Melitopol, it tends to undermine Russian efforts in Mariupol, since the effect of taking it would be reduced and they’d then have to resecure the South to have their land bridge to Crimea. The intermediate strategic goal of Ukraine should be, imo,
to:
If they can do this, it sets up an endgame where they withstand the final Russian offensive and then drive them out of Donestk and Luhansk. They then can slowly pressure Crimea until they are either susceptible to invasion or Russia concedes the territory.
Kent
Today I was trying to visualize exactly how large Ukraine is. Here is what I came up with:
Ukraine: 233,062 square miles
New York 54,555 square miles
Pennsylvania 46,054 square miles
Ohio 44,826 square miles
Virginia 42,775 square miles
Maine 35,380 square miles
Vermont 9,616 square miles
Combined total: 233,206 square miles
Ukraine is exactly the same size as NY, PA, OH, VA, ME, and VT COMBINED
Those states have a somewhat higher combined population. But take away NYC and that multi-state region has essentially the same population and same number of cities and towns as Ukraine.
And the Russians thought they could take and hold that vast of an area and that large of a population with what? 150,000 troops?
By contrast, the combined allied armies on the western front (US, British, Canadian, French, etc.) numbered 4.5 million and the US initial occupation force of just its sector of Germany was 1.5 million men. The Soviets, of course had millions more on their side of Germany.
The US deployed 110,000 combined troops in the invasion of Iwo Jima which is 8 square miles.
Adam L Silverman
@Chetan Murthy: Yes, but… Every state uses its national power. However, what we’ve seen in the 21st century is that the technological advances have finally caught up to ambitious thinkers allowing for their previously unworkable suggestions of how to achieve effects and objectives that were previously only achievable using military power.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
You always ask such good questions.
Coming out of deep lurking here, going back a decade or so, but this is such an important question I can’t help myself.
I don’t know. My gut feeling is yes, we are being drawn deeper and deeper into this and out of necessity and compulsion under the force of events, and the parallel you draw with the 1930s is a good one.
Here are a couple of intellectual resources that I’m currently drawing upon for looking back at that period to see what lessons it holds for us. Both of them books unfortunately, and one of those very long and difficult.
The Long Shadow by David Reynolds – about the legacy of the First World War, how it was understood, interpreted and refracted thru subsequent years and from differing POVs. This tells me that there was much else going on during the period you reference in addition to the rise of Fascism and pressure on the democracies to respond to it. Our time now is very similar in that regard.
The Shield of Achilles by Philip Bobbitt. This is a very long, complicated and problematic book. Overly ambitious and schematic in character and floundering at the end where the author attempts something notoriously difficult which is making future predictions.
But it does have some merits in drawing attention to the way that the 3-way contest between parliamentary democracy, Fascism and Communism was at core about radically different sources of state legitimacy in an era of mass politics, and that wars in which such deeply ideological issues are contested (the author calls them Epochal Wars) are more bitter and destructive and less amenable to settlement thru negotiation and compromise than wars which merely dispute control over territory & resources, because the stakes are existential for the states in question.
One of the ideas which comes out in Bobbitt’s account is that democracy was ultimately and after a long struggle successful in overcoming the two other opposing ideologies because it contested their core claims to legitimacy on their own terms, and defeated them in those terms.
Fascism’s claim lay in expressing the biological superiority of one ethnic group vs. the rest of humanity, especially as expressed in the form of organized, armed violence.
Communism on other hand claimed to be a superior system for producing economic & social justice.
Thus Nazi Germany and allies had to be defeated militarily, its armed forces destroyed and territory physically occupied. Communism on the other hand was contained rather than invaded, and its claims contested in social & economic terms in competition with the West.
A quick thought experiment is in order – how well would it have worked if these Western strategies had been reversed, if containment had been applied to Germany and we had tried to invade and occupy the USSR? Even if successful, would the latter have discredited Communism as an idea? Whatever economic difficulties they might have encountered, would merely blockading and containing Germany have discredited the idea of Fascism? Probably not, I think.
The relevance of these question to today lies in the transition which Russia has made under Putin to full fledged Fascism. Armed violence as an expression of ethno-nationalist superiority is now the source of state legitimacy in Russia.
A strategy of containment may weaken them, it may make it harder for them to make war on their neighbors, but it will not defeat the idea of Fascism which has taken root in Russia and which is alluring to people in other states, much as it was back in the 1930s. At best it will only displace that idea to other countries which are better led and better prepared for conflict with the democracies, ones with a larger (as measured in population & GDP), more diverse and more resilient resource base than Russia’s.
The crux of the problem we now face is: how does one defeat a fascist state in a convincing way, in a way which discredits the idea of Fascism, in a world with nuclear weapons? How do we get to something similar to Potsdam 1945 or signing surrender papers on the deck of the battleship Missouri, when the fascists have nukes? And if we cannot get there, then how do we effectively discredit the neo-fascist idea so that we and our children & grandchildren aren’t spending the rest of the century playing a very deadly game of global whack-a-mole with it, and probably at some point succumbing to it ourselves?
I don’t have a good answer for that question. I don’t know if anybody does.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: A few days ago you thought there was a chance that the Russian Army could mess up the fighting withdrawal & turn the retreat from Kyiv into a rout. Does not seemed to have happened. I thought the Russian Army would leave behind a force to hold a stabilized front in the Kyiv theater while shift the bulk of freed up forces to SE of Sumy (because of the relative shorter distance on Russia’s otherwise much longer exterior lines of communication). Instead, the Russians basically vacated Ukraine in the area, & is moving the forces all the way to Donbass (& pulling formations from Chernihiv, Sumy & Kharkiv, too). Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Army in the Kyiv theater appears to be content to recover the formerly occupied territories as they are vacated by the Russian Army. Perhaps both sides have been exhausted by the weeks of intense fighting in the theater?
It will also be important to see if Russian air power can interdict & attrit Ukrainian formations as they are shifted to the east. So far in the war Russian air power does not seem to have had that much of an impact (certainly not relatively to the way NATO tends to prosecute wars). I have see footages on Chinese social media purportedly showing columns of Ukrainian vehicles destroyed by Russian air attacks while on transit to the east, but I have no way to judge if they are reliable (may not even be from this war) or representative.
I am not sure Karl the Estonian is correct in suggesting that Russian mechanized formations will still be viable after the 280 km march to the east. If the Russian Army is conducting the shift in position via road march, then yes a lot of the already war torn equipment will fail. I recall the rule of thumb is 15% fall out rate / 100 km for tracked vehicles (undamaged & well maintained). However, I am seeing footages on Chinese social media that Russia is moving these formation by rail for most of the distance.
By the way, this is also the likely explanation for the common sightings of inexplicably abandoned equipment on the roads of Russian advance early in the war. Soviet doctrine was always to employ masses cheap but relatively effective equipment that are easy to repair or replace (applied to the men, too), & broken down equipment are readily abandoned in the interest of maximizing speed of advance, to disrupt the opponent’s OODA cycle. So, in the headlong rush to Kyiv & other key cities at the onset of war, a lot of equipment (especially tracked) broke down. Due to the high levels of corruption pervading Russian society & military, much of the equipment was likely poorly maintained (thus more fell out than expected). Due to the massive overconfidence of the Russian campaign commanders, there were not enough follow on forces after the 1st echelon to guard the lines of communication & collect the broken down equipment for repairs. Thus the comedic scenes of Ukrainian farmers towing away the abandoned Russian equipment.
Modern Russia no longer has the resources to fight the way the USSR did, treating men & material as expendable consumables (all in service of achieving the breakthrough & running wild into the other side’s rear), not against a credible opponent. OTOH, it’s not equipped & organized to fight any other way.
Kent
@Mike in DC: Also take out the new bridge between Crimea and Russia. That has to be somewhat vulnerable to a surgical strike of some sort. That will prevent backdoor Russian resupply via land through Crimea
James E Powell
@Kent:
I did this the other day. For those of us on the left half of the country, Ukraine, 233,062 square miles, is about the size of Arizona & New Mexico combined, 235,581 square miles.
Ukraine population ~41 million. Close to California & Nevada combined ~42 million.
Chetan Murthy
@James E Powell: Also a little smaller than CA+OR (== 164k + 98k sqmi)
Kent
@YY_Sima Qian: Even the USSR didn’t have the resources to fight the way they did either. Much of their Army was equipped by the US through Lend-Lease. And many of their factories involved in the domestic production of armaments were designed and built by US industry
The USSR in WW2 and the Russian Empire in the Napoleonic wars accomplished what they did with multiple powerful allies. Historically they haven’t ever accomplished much on their own.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kent: I’ve also seen Ukraine described as the equivalent land area/population of California + Nevada. With the land mass being tilted 90 degrees.
So yes, Putin and others were high on their supply in thinking that they only needed to depose a thin layer of elites, and that the masses would greet them with candy and flowers. That’s about the only way 150,000 troops could occupy that amount of territory/that amount of population.
Steeplejack
@Kent:
Helpful map: Ukraine is almost as big as Texas (87%).
Adam L Silverman
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Welcome to commenting!
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
what I have been seeing and reading is that the UA and TDU have been attacking the Russian “withdrawal” north of Kyiv,
but it’s small unit engagements, not a full “Army”,
Ukraine has as far as I know, 3 full “combined” Armies, that as far as I can tell, have either been deployed piecemeal, or have been held back with the idea of striking a crippling blow.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks! Huge fan of your work here.
I was actively commenting on this blog back during the GWB admin and Obama’s 1st term, but had to take a break (let’s call it a very extended sabbatical) from political blogging for personal mental health reasons.
I won’t say it is good to be back, given current circumstances. But we don’t get to choose the times we live in.
piratedan
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: and in return, how do we root them out without turning ourselves into them…..
in a supposedly free society, where thought and discourse are supposed to vie on a equal footing to allow people to make an informed choice, a supposedly educated choice; how do we counter a threat that controls a hefty portion of the means of disseminating ideas and are on the march against education as well?
I don’t have a wand to wave to make this go away
piratedan
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: and in return, how do we root them out without turning ourselves into them…..
in a supposedly free society, where thought and discourse are supposed to vie on a equal footing to allow people to make an informed choice, a supposedly educated choice; how do we counter a threat that controls a hefty portion of the means of disseminating ideas and are on the march against education as well?
I don’t have a wand to wave to make this go away
YY_Sima Qian
@Kent: The trucks & winter clothing that the US/UK supplied were critical, but I think the Soviets were underwhelmed by the less than state of the art tanks & fighter planes they received.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: I’m not a historian, but Galeev makes a forceful case that the USSR’s industrialization was borne of American industrialists.
gene108
@Adam L Silverman:
On the vote about NATO, Republicans developed contempt to hatred for multilateral organizations during the 1990’s. When Jesse Helms became chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, he held up U.S. “dues” (for lack of better term) that fund the U.N. There was then a significant minority of Republicans who wanted to “get us out of the U.N.”.
Bush, Jr. & Co. demonstrated their contempt for the U.N., when the U.N. refused to support his claims of Iraq’s WMD program, and invaded Iraq anyway.
Since the 1990’s enough Senate Republicans refuse to ratify any multi-party international treaty, the U.S.A. can no longer enter into any international treaty and there’s little point in us actually pushing for treaties anymore.
Then Trump expands Republicans hatred of international organizations to include NATO. So I’m not surprised one-third of House Republicans voted against this resolution.
They’ve been heading down the path of isolationism and militarism for awhile now.
Mallard Filmore
@Chetan Murthy:
That was that before WW2, yes? Ford built a factory in the USSR and sent quite a few factory workers over there. Then Stalin would not let them go home.
Stuart Frasier
@Mallard Filmore: My father did work in the Soviet Union in the 1970s for a US company contracted to solve production issues in Russian car factories.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: I understand your argument, & your logic is certainly coherent. However, I am not sure most people will understand the usage of the terms in the way. Calling non-kinetic actions/campaigns “war” will encourage the militarists (& there are plenty in the US) to promote kinetic solutions. I am very leery of of expanding or diluting meanings of powerful words until they become meaningless & vulnerable to manipulation by the unscrupulous. Same applies to “genocide”. (I am not talking about Ukraine, by the way, where the Putin regime & his media outlets have helpfully documented their intent, which is generally the most difficult to prove. They ability to carry out their program has been hobbled by their incompetence in the military campaign.)
Jay
@Mallard Filmore:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Herman
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@YY_Sima Qian: I’ve heard comments on both sides of that argument, especially about the Bell P-39 Airacobras that didn’t pass muster for the US Army Air Force but were supplied in large quantities to the USSR under Lend-Lease – apparently a lot of Russian pilots fell in love with the “Kobrushka”, and if Wikipedia is to be believed, Russian-flown P-39s achieved more air-to-air victories than any other US fighter type in any air force in any conflict in history.
oldster
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I clearly remember your nym from the old days. Welcome back!
egorelick
What has struck me in recent years (maybe it was always this way) is the malleability of reality. The creators of reality seem to be winning over the discerners of reality whether it be twitter trolls or anti-vax or crypto. It f*cks with my brain; I know it is happening, but I can’t telly you exactly what is happening. I can tell it is creating an army of zombies in Russia, obviously, but throughout the world.
Jay
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
the air war over Russia was flown at lower altitudes than Western Europe or Asia.
Aircobra’s lacked a second stage supercharger, seriously limiting their performance at altitude. Worked fine over the Eastern Front, left them ground support aircraft every where else.
J R in WV
Thanks again for your help following this European War. The russian attacks on civilians and infrastructure are right out of WW II — but with high quality video devices in the hands of the victims, providing quality video evidence of the criminal record of the russian military!
I wish I could believe that the evidence of the genocidal actions of the invading russians will be used in international courts to convict putin and all his minions– putting them all in prison for the rest of their lives, but I’m not really able to believe in that outcome.
Thanks for your hard work building these daily posts! Chapters in The Ukrainian War, by A. Silverman…
Geminid
@sab: Virginia’ four Republicans split: Wittman (1st District) and Griffith (9th) voted “Yea,” Cline (6th) and Good (5th, who “represents” me) voted “Nay.” It looks like the “Freedom Caucus” supplied most of the Nays.
YY_Sima Qian
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
@Jay:
You are right on the Air Cobras. I think the model also did well in the hands of the Flying Tigers.
wetzel
Still around. Thought I’d recommend Country Roads. To play and sing it. I play this one, especially, to nourish the soul which is needing it. You could play Country Roads if you had some time and were willing to give yourself only positive feedback.
You just need to give yourself positive feedback with something like this. If you give yourself positive feedback in artistic experience, you will become an artist soon. After two weeks, the art will have started making changes in Broca’s area in the frontal lobe and Wernicke’s in the temporal lobe and it will install its methods. Country music is the best art because you don’t need to fear failure. You’re not going to get on the radio!!! Our best artifact will be the country songs on our hard drives. You will be a star in thousands of years when they get to yours!
John Cleese talks about this big discovery in his comic writing. He would start a skit at night. He would always get stuck and it wasn’t funny. He learned that he could go to sleep and his brain would fix it while he was sleeping, because when he started back with his morning coffee it would just unfold.
What happens at night isn’t dreaming, another function that is carried out by your brain besides cognition. This is unconscious. Your hippocampus and cerebral cortex are talking, and fractal flowers of connections of neurons touch each other, a trillion trillion like God and Adam, reaching out to each other, at their tip membranes with little protein adhesion molecule bridges connecting to each other to form electrical synapse their ganglioside sialic acid residues holding each other like little bitty hands.Try it out!!
John Denver’s Country Roads is a perfect country song. Buck Owens Act Naturally or Waylon Jennings Dreaming My Dreams. Today on the radio I think ERNEST Flower Shops, Kelsei Ballerini’s Half of My Home Town and Cole Swindell’s Last Single Saturday Night are all three perfect country songs. Kris Kristofferson is the greatest country lyricist of them all, though his greatest songs have never been played on country radio.
Modern country songs can have lots of complicated suspended and diminished chords, but they don’t have to. Country Roads only has four chords. They are the easiest four chords on the guitar: G, D, C and Em. (1 5 4 6m). Typing is 500 times harder to learn than playing Country Roads alternating bass style on the guitar.
I think cello could be as good a country instrument as guitar. Guitar, cello or piano are all fine to accompany country singing because they can do melody, bass or rhythm playing. It’s hard to accompany singing with a fiddle. That’s because you’re both singing, you and the fiddle. In country the music, the instrumentation frames the vocal performance. It’s all about the song.
I’m not a very good player or singer, I know, but I give myself positive feedback. I never play for anybody else unless it’s camping or jamboree. Listen to the radio! Sometimes I imagine some neighbor is secretly listening to me, so there you go. This is for that person!
https://soundcloud.com/john-wetzel-267082125/country-roads?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
I’m like the seed pods the farmer has pushed into the ditch the birds are pecking at. Here are Molly and Blue at football practice yesterday. This could be video accompaniment is you want a multimedia show.
https://youtu.be/cu8AvjGmwi8
Thanks for listening!
HeartlandLiberal
That was one powerful, in your face address Zelenskyy made to the UN. Either put up or shut down.
The report on the news media inside Russia, and the lengths of propaganda and disinformation fed the Russian people show us what a Republican victory would do to end democracy here in America. Faux Noise Network, or $DEITY forbid, Newsmax or OAN would become the official channels of American version of Pravda.
How anyone can watch the pictures and read the reports of the war crimes committed by the Russian army daily in Ukraine, and not do anything but condemn Russia to what Zelenskyy demanded, Nuremberg war crimes trial, is an agent of Russia. Heres looking at you Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald.
debbie
@Chetan Murthy:
Churchill sent even more people over to influence politics and “grow” support for the U.S. entering the war.
wetzel
@YY_Sima Qian:
Words mean in different ways.. War is not an entity excluding other things from its volume. The difference between ‘war’ and ‘armed conflict’ is in the sociological dimension. The difference is mythological and propagandistic, so can only obscure the plain field of empirical, verifiable facts where you find evidence to take into the Hague.
Within its pragmatics a word has referential, expressive or (commanding?) dimensions. ‘Armed conflict’ became popular in post-Vietnam to be the refuge of moral cowards. ‘war’ is promoted instead as a propagandistic tool.
I think ‘genocide’ is the only suitable word to describe the programmatic killing a totalitarian state carries out to install terror and constitute its formation. The totalitarian mode of outward genocide is the pornographic spectacle of violence. The inward mode is disappearance. Total war is the sociological production mechanism for docile bodies where the destruction of symbolic meaning is the contrast dye to highlight individuals, families and social groups for purgation.
Soprano2
Good God, my awful rep voted “no” on the NATO thing. That merits a phone call to ask why he’s on the side of Russia.
Soprano2
@wetzel: Uh sir, this is a Wendy’s. LOL
Betty
@NotMax: This brings to mind the recent story about Amazon banning the use of numerous words on the company’s chat forum. It is so easy to develop a code to circumvent these efforts. Made me reconsider the nature of Amazon’s rule. A hint of fascism?
wetzel
@wetzel: That’s not good writing. Why was the mass-grave in Bucha located at a church? That is atrocious! What’s sacred anymore? Russians know their army did this. Yet we ‘poll’ the Russians! It is disgusting. We prime the idea that ‘Russians have opinions’ where the difference now between public compliance and private opinions is only relevant in Russia to the torturer. Their ‘society’ is disappearing into terror. Bucha was to establish terror in Russia. Russia doesn’t want to win this war. In their model, I think the war must continue not only until Russia is fully totalitarian. FSB knows the Russian state will be metastable no matter how many purges until the West is totalitarian too. They will try to draw us into a cycle of violence to produce crisis of degree which will produce that result in time in their models.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@YY_Sima Qian: Flying Tigers were equipped with P-40 Warhawks during the Battle of Burma.
There was stuff the Soviets disliked; the Valentine (to cranky) the P-40 (guns mounted odd) Hurricane (machine guns too light) Spitfire (obsolete model), stuff the Soviets did like like A-20, M4 Sherman (reliable and good range) and stuff that weirded the Soviets out P-47 (who uses something this complex in ground attack?)
Another Scott
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Good to see you posting again.
The fight against the hard right is never-ending. If I were a strong conspiracy theorist, I could pretty easily construct an argument that they know that the path to greater political power is via economic destruction and that’s why they work so very hard to steal national output and weaken the poor and middle classes.
The S&L Collapse -> The Housing Bubble -> The Great Recession (and the strangling of the recovery under Obama) -> TFG’s Kleptocracy (and the Covid Megacide) -> …
Whenever they have power, they use every lever to break the commonweal to gain more.
We’ve been here before, and we know the dangers. We in the US seemingly haven’t yet been willing to see the dangers of the mass media concentrated in the hands of a few giant corporations being an unfiltered conduit for RW propaganda.
I don’t know the answers, but you raise difficult questions that need to be grappled with, because they won’t stop pushing…
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I don’t know, the stuff Navalny is listing in the Russian news sounds like terrified people trying to pretend they aren’t with bluster.
the pollyanna from hell
@wetzel: I would join yy sima in reluctance to describe application of soft power as war, expecting war on russia or war on fascism to be just as badly misused as war on drugs or war on terror, but class-war should be frankly named and engaged, so maybe war on war-crimes has some possibility.
Professor Bigfoot
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It wasn’t the tanks, planes or guns— it was the *trucks.*
By the time of the Red Army’s advance westward against the Germans, they were a highly mobile, *fully mechanized* force while the Germans were still using animal drawn logistics.
It’s said that the Soviets truly loved the Studebaker truck.
wetzel
@the pollyanna from hell:
Class war looks appealing, a war for human dignity, but dignity, or symbolic value, also applies to the projection of a person’s world as objects ‘at hand’ or ‘to hand’. Things attach to us in their privacy. Possessions arrayed with a body ceremonially is the first sign of culture in paleoanthropology. Consciousness of this or that thing is ‘ours’ seems primordially linked to human burial and how we self-symbolize, so I would be concerned ‘class war’ as an idea is inimical to dignity. I could get on board with a ‘war on economic injustice’ where we don’t have to view this or that nice thing as prima facia evidence of injustice. I can say this because I’m a basket case in business, lol.
As much as possible society should get along without feeling the need there has to be any ‘wars’. Maybe we can start today!
When you picture any ‘war’ in your mind, you will imagine some enemy, and if you can’t get at them, you will find a surrogate victim.
Soprano2
I found this short article about Ukraine and our history with them since 2014 on TPM interesting. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-thread-of-ukraine-through-the-fabric-of-a-decade I had forgotten about Russia posting that conversation between Nuland and Pyatt online to embarass us. There are probably a lot of similar things that have been forgotten by us.
Bupalos
We all need to be talking to our Trumpist relations and connections now. I’ve said it too, “no, I need to separate for my own mental health…etc”
Fuck that. Fuck my mental health. Fuck my perfect safety. Its unfair that the responsible ones have all the responsibility but thats how it is and always has been. It’s gross that we have to try and cajole spoiled children out of their tantrum. But that’s how it is. They’re glugging from the poisoned bottle of ethnic division, and if no one can manage to slap it from their hands and remind them what America was always intended to be, we will lose democracy.
We have so much more privilege and ease in the fight in front of us than and eastern Europe. We better use that privilege while we have it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I thought Flying Tigers piloted Air Cobras when it was still Claire Chennault’s “private” volunteer unit fighting in China, before official US entry into the war? I could be wrong
PS: Looked up on Wiki, you are right, the flying tigers always had P-40s.
Bupalos
@wetzel: thanks for this, this is powerfully true.
Michael Cain
@Geminid:
Colorado’s Republicans also split. Boebert and Buck, representing the vast rural regions to the east and west were nays. Lamborn, from Colorado Springs, which has a very large military population, was an aye.
wetzel
@Soprano2:
Dude, if one of my songs was playing in a Wendy’s, I’d get a hot rod Tesla!
I’d take my two dollar bills to the beach in San Tropez!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@piratedan:
Yes, this is rather a key point isn’t it, especially given that we have our own home grown fascist movement operating inside the house as it were.
I think for starters we need to very clearly and effectively state our core values, what we are fighting for. Some people within our countries will dissent of course, but it still needs to be done. We need a 21st Cen. equivalent of the Atlantic Charter declared by FDR and Churchill.
Formulating this is hard. I cannot myself state in such simple and direct terms what the democracies stand for, what the core source of state legitimacy is on our side, in the simple manner that I did for the totalitarian ideologies above using just a few words. Our concepts are complex and there is the problem that growing up with these values I’m like a fish which finds it hard to describe the water it always swims in.
But to start with I think our values are respect for the autonomy and dignity of the individual, and that our governing institutions should be public stewards of the common good, the servants rather than the masters of the people.
Historically speaking we’ve used the word “Freedom” to describe these concepts in a very simple, direct way. Our problem today is that this word has been so abused, so twisted around and put to use serving wildly divergent ideas and agendas in a frankly Orwellian manner, that it seems to have lost much of its rhetorical power.
I think we need to recapture the magic of that word, which requires a very high order of leadership and rhetorical talent to do. Zelensky is showing us the way here. Freedom really means something when the only alternative is slavery.
wetzel
@Soprano2:
I changed my dog song to honor of your comment, and also Wendy’s delicious hamburgers and nuggets.
Country music gold is my Spanish Pipe Dream.
Here’s Blue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu8AvjGmwi8
I’m teaching him to be a wide receiver. Molly is a good linebacker! He is Georgia and she is Alabama when I can get the jerseys.
My Dog’s Too Good Lookin’ To Be My Wingman
V1
I was at the Wendy’s drive-thru, getting me and Blue some nuggets
When the hottie in the window said sweetie you want a hug?
Smiling like a big fool. I raised my arms up to the window
But she just laughed and said ‘silly boy I meant your dog’
She wanted to give that Blue a hug. What a nice surprise.
He looks like a lab, but with his border collie eyes
His Ice blue eyes cause a woman to feel a fire
She takes one look at Blue and is overcome with desire
Pre
Now I love my dog Blue. Don’t get me wrong
I’m crying in my beer to sing you this country song
Ch
No matter how much I’m hoping to find
A woman who appreciates my love
It’s my boy Blue they have in mind
Not the man on the leash above
It’s Blue’s fault I get no lovin’
No backrubs at night, no roast in the oven
No pets, no hugs, not a single kiss for me
Like Robinson Crusoe. It’s as bad as it can be
It’s like I’m walking across the Westminster ring, man
My dog’s too good lookin’ to be my wingman
V2
Last week I finally got the courage to ask that Deborah out
I’ve been crushing on her forever, really like her style
Really like her laugh. Really like her smile
I asked her out she said okay see you in a while
We got in my Silverado, and we drove out to the Grotto
We had dinner and dessert and drank a pricey bordeaux
Talking about which Netflix to chill as we went inside the house
Blue shows up and down she goes on the floor in front of the couch
Pre
Ch
guitar player 1 – wait wait hold up hold up I just got to say something. I know Blue. He’s a good looking dog and all, but listen, man, it’s not his fault. Dude, why don’t you just brush your hair guitar player 2 And don’t get something with a lot of garlic like at the grotto – she might have been worried about her own breath guitar player 2 No, no, no, no don’t say that about Deborah. He just needs to hit use that weight set he bought last year, the one that’s got his laundry basket on it. He need to hit the gym and get a real haircut. Vocalist – now fellows I don’t know what you’re talking about . . ‘
Br
And you don’t worry about a thing now, Blue
This ain’t been nothing but a song
I’m right here with you. Got the tennis ball.
I’ll never do you wrong
You’re the best dang dog in the whole wide world
Though it’s your fault I’m alone
It’s not your concern. I love you so much
Hey let’s go get you a bone
Ch
O. Felix Culpa
@Carlo Graziani: Yes, I’m afraid you did. That said, I appreciate your thoughtful analysis as well as the capacity to acknowledge error. Please continue commenting!
ETA: I also appreciate and support the effort to tone down the eliminationist rhetoric deployed by some commenters.
wetzel
If we all teach our dogs to play football, it can be a safer alternative. I’ve managed to get up a pretty good team. I don’t know how it would work Blue vs. another linebacker or Molly vs. another wide receiver. You aren’t seeing Molly’s best form because it’s wet. She just plays zone.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes, first P-40cs and then P-40Es, why do do I know this? I can also tell the difference between various Bf-109s, talk about trivia.lol
But the reason why Chennault liked P-40s was part of the reason the Soviet VVS disliked it. The Flying Tigers would get above the Japanese bomber formations and dive on them. P-40s being heavily built fighters would gain a lot energy so they would shoot what they can and climb away. The Japanese fighters which were all light and nimble Ki-27s, Ki-43s and Ki-44s couldn’t follow that. Of course if a P-40 pilot made the mistake of getting into a traditional dogfight he was in a lot trouble.
The Eastern front was all Mud Wrestling so big heavy P-40 didn’t work in that (neither did the Soviet LAGG-3 for the same reasons) P-39 was designed for that.
Oddly related note to this war; the Japanese air force during WW2 was odd – their bombers would fly at 9,000 meters and drop these tinny bombs that the wind would usually scatter, so they ended up doing area attacks on China’s cities because they had a hard time hitting anything smaller. Talk about doctrine can only be failed, it can never fail.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I grew up believing the Soviet Union was some 1984 style police state and after it fell it came out the Soviet Union was more of one giant factory town; borning for almost everyone as long as you were fat, dumb and happy but if you didn’t fit in you were screwed because there was only one employer.
Now, Putin turned Russia into the dystopian nightmare state the West was imagining. How long before human animal hybrids and other cyber punk nonsense become a thing in Russia? There seems to be no humanity there now.
Ancient Atheist
@Ohio Mom: I too have had your feelings. I recognized my passive/aggressive tendencies bubbling to the surface. I am old and taken aback by some younger people’s casual approach to nuclear war. This is the war I trained for and when “tactical nukes” were introduced it never ended well. You are a good person. Embrace your values. Bring joy. Offer compassion. Seek enlightenment.
dr. luba
Meant to write this last night, but was recovering from my second COVID booster.
I have a long relationship with Trostianets, although i’ve never been there. I’ve been volunteering in Ukraine since 1998, most of that at a summer camp for orphans/foster kids. (I’ve also visited numerous internats, residential schools over the years to deliver supplies).
Trostianets had a forward-looking administration, and they implemented foster care well ahead of much of Ukraine. They also had a Kraft factory–the one pictured in the photos. It was a Soviet era facility which Kraft bought and turned into a state fo the art factory. They made Oreos, and brought good paying jobs to Trostianets, a historical city.
The CEO/director of Kraft Ukraine was a Ukrainian-American, and was interested in more than just business. He noted that there did not appear to be a true culture of volunteerism in post-Soviet Ukraine. In fact, people looked with suspicion on any charitable organizations (with some justification–many were scams, and there wasn’t any real regulation of them). He decided to do two things–help the foster children of Trostianets, where a major Kraft factory was located, by sending them to summer camp (which he sponsored to a great degree), and to send his workers to volunteer at the camp. He also sent huge quantities of Kraft potato chips, chocolates and Oreos…..
It was a great success. The kids loved the camp, and his workers enjoyed volunteering–several became quite active in our organization and came back on their own dime year after year. And we made ties with he kids, a few of whom came back year after year, and many of whom entered our scholarship program after leaving school. Several became volunteers at camp in later years.
And we became friends with the Trostianets social services staff who arranged things from their end, came to camp and helped run it.
The workers were amazing–not only did they love working with the kids, but they were so proud of their company and their factories. The did presentations about Kraft foods to the kids, and I’ve seen slide shows of the Trostianets factory.
And then the CEO retired, Kraft became Mondelez, and their priorities no longer included funding for our endeavors. We found alternative sources of funding (including a Go Fund Me I ran one year), and kept bringing the Trostianets kids.
Camp was paused when COVID hit.
And now the war. Trostianets has been leveled. I have no idea of the status of many of our kids–alive, refugees or dead. Those I stay in contact with via FB appear to be safe. The social worker we worked with for many years is in Czechia–she escaped, but her husband stayed behind. He’s died of medical complications due to the siege.
Such destruction, such misery, and for what?
As always, fuck Putin and fuck Russia.
dr. luba
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That may have been true, to some extent, in the late USSR (70s and 80s).
But the millions of dead, repressed, and exiled to labor camps would disagree with your description.
Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov and other dissidents were being repressed well into the late stages of soviet rule.
YY_Sima Qian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Thanks on the interesting tidbit on Imperial Japanese bombers. Both ROC & PRC textbooks emphasized Japanese bombing of Chinese cities throughout the course of the Anti-Japanese War (1937 – 1945), w/ the aim of maximizing terror. I am sure that was the aim, but I did not realize that was all they were capable of, either. Of course, the way RAF & USAAF were employed against German & Japanese cities were only marginally less indiscriminate (maybe) & much more destructive.
Another Scott
@dr. luba: I’m sorry. It’s so senseless and horrible.
Thank you for all you’ve done for those kids.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You obviously don’t know what “Company Town” means in the US; the corporation owns the entire town, there are no jobs, but working for the company, all the stores are own by the company which will only accept money the company issues. The police are contractors hired by the Company, you know the Pinkertons. If someone gets mouthy the Pinkertons beat heads in. If workers strike the Pinkersons come shoot them. If someone tries to leave, well their saving is worthless because it’s all in Company script.
Any of this sound familiar?
wetzel
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
By that time you visited the Soviet Union, there was no need for public execution, displays of atrocious spectacular violence. Genocide had previously constituted terror. The cold war was sufficiently metastable.
I think it is true that FSB is where Russia will put their geniuses because it doesn’t want them outside of FSB. They would have interpreted state violence as sufficiently premised in the analytical sense.
Historical fascisms have a folk death mechanism, such as the noose. In totalitarian fascism the mechanism of death is disappearance. Life may appear outwardly normal but there isn’t the distinction between public compliance and private conformity you think there must be. In Foucault’s Panopticon, because you don’t know whether the guard is behind the glass, the guard is always behind the glass. It’s not conformity, but, still, the presence of terror alongside panoptic surveillance is not sufficient. It is missing one thing. The subjects must feel complicit in the genocide as revolutionary participants, which makes traditional human symbolic consciousness impossible because it is not reconcilable. The subject is drawn into genocide’s moral universe which is atrocity and spectacular violence.
The mechanisms which lead to resolution of cognitive dissonance are seeking to conserve psychic energy, which will reduce identification. Emotional pain has the same underlying neurological processes as physical pain. Escape and avoidance leads to a healthy, stable, functioning psyche in a totalitarian society that loves Big Brother.
Think of how we have ‘The Constitution’. How does a society establish authority in law. In fascism, the Roman bundle of rods, the fasces, is its own argument. The constitution of a totalitarian fascist society was the genocide that formed it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s worth noting the Japanese air force did the same thing against the Allies in the South Pacific, fly high and drop bombs that missed the airfields a lot and when they did, didn’t do much damage. So is was the Japanese doing terror bombing because they didn’t want to admit their doctrine sucked or did they do terror bombing and didn’t know how to do anything else?
The Japanese Naval Air Force was much better because they had to hit ships, so Japanese certainly had the technology.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@wetzel: Am I being too Yinzer for you all when I use the term “company town?”. Where I come from that is something that makes people’s skin crawl.
Let me trying again; Putin’s Russia there is huge male suicide problem because of the FSB policy of rapping male prisoners. There is something really slimy and wrong about Putin’s Russia. It’s like Putin read all the fantasys the West was having about the Soviet Union in the Cold War and said “by cracky, that’s the way to do it” I am not saying the Soviet Union was a paradise with sand paper for everyone’s bums, I am saying Putin took the bad parts of the Soviet Union and turned it up to 11.
wetzel
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I am saying Putin took the bad parts of the Soviet Union and turned it up to 11.
I think the evidence is coming clear. The group at FSB where Putin was mentored felt the Soviet Union skipped a purge. I believe FSB thinks of it like a biologist conceives of ubiquitination and subsequent proteolysis of malformed proteins within a cell. There is no attachment to malformed proteins. They form inclusion bodies. They must be destroyed in the catalytic core of proteosome. The totalitarian state is an open dynamic system that needs purges to maintain its constitution. Genocide in Ukraine is meant to establish terror for a purge to begin in Russia so that it can reconstitute itself as a totalitarian government.
FSB approves of the protestor in Moscow who laid down as one of the victims of Bucha. They are happy for everyone to see that. Now everybody knows what will happen to them.
Gravenstone
Always reminded of a line from Greg “Pappy” Boyington’s autobiography, that “nothing could out dive a P-40”. They used that ability to great effect both to attack and to break from contact.
terry chay
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: wow!
wetzel
I took Molly to the vet earlier today. Blue is Georgia. The vet is a Georgia fan. Molly is Alabama.
I decided to make a few more videos and give them to Dekalb Humane Society. That’s where these two come from! I hope people want to play dog football. You have to adopt two dogs.
Blue and Molly both represent a very common phenotype in Atlanta shelters, the borador and the lab-pit. Boradors are perfect wide receivers. Lab-pits make perfect linebackers. You adopt two and you have a whole football team if they take to it.
Blue plays offense and Molly plays defense on our team. I am the quarterback. We found the game together from Molly learning how to ambush Blue in his fetch routine. They want me to play all the time.
I don’t have anything to do. I will see if people want to try to do a football league here in Dekalb. People can adopt two dogs. If you do that, Blue and Molly can take your team on. I’m just going to give this to the Humane Society to give a place to make something outside the scope of Ukraine. Maybe play out at Mason Mill or Dunwoody. They get better at football together.
You’ll see Molly. Because it’s wet, she only wants to play zone defense. In dry weather she’ll stick Blue at the line! I’m talking about the dogs and country music because making the posts I am doing here is causing a kind of distress that feels out of the scope of my role in society. I wrote to somebody to ask to advise me in an MD PhD at 55 who is not affiliated with Emory University. I’ve been working on ideas for philosophy of scientific perception for a long time, but I’m thinking there is something to what I am saying about totalitarianism and democratic law. That’s the other Spanish pipedream. It feels like gravity is gone and I’m just floating. Oh well, hope’s a sorry supper!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu8AvjGmwi8
wetzel
I’ve been working on a philosophy of scientific perception for a long time. I had wanted it to justify a test-prep science curriculum prima facia. Trying to make sense of this war, this philosophy has developed into an existentialist humanism that has usefulness for political science and anthropology. The ‘Putin’ figure is an illusion. Processes will arise as reality socially constructs within Russia to drive the fulfillment of totalitarian constitution in genocide and terror. It is better to think of the opponent, FSB, as a bureau of catastrophic phenomenology. FSB is driving a sacrificial crisis to construct the West in its totalitarian image through reciprocal violence and spectacles of atrocity. That is its desired global end-state, to transcend meta-stability.
Ixnay
@wetzel: It rained the night my mom got out of prison,
She was stinkin’ drunk and standing in the rain,
Before I could go and get her in my pickup truck
She got runned over by the damned old train.
Now, that is the perfect country song.
wetzel
@Ixnay:
There’s a straight line to a goal
Hanging from the end of a fishing pole
You follow it down and there’s the hook
And there you’ll see the worm is stuck
Shuffling off its mortal coil
Maybe the fish will eat it all
And leave you with an empty pail
Nothing to say no story to tell
the pollyanna from hell
@wetzel: This is a metaphor that brings some illumination; thanks.
the pollyanna from hell
Scientific metaphors are not always better, but often newer. Axiomitization was a revolution when first applied to philosophy. After a couple of millennia it was a drag, when people forgot it was just a metaphor. I wish I could help you port this microbiology metaphor out of the laboratory context to reach a wider audience. I see you are making some progress on that yourself; keep it up.
BR
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Ukraine spelled a good starting list in a tweet a few weeks ago:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1500603169868595202
The Pale Scot
The Cock bros father built the Soviet oil industry for Stalin. Which is a really fucking amazing for a rabid anti communist libertarian to be doing.
Hanged with the rope we sold them and all that