Russia

Open Thread

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Some Russian dissident gets offed in prison and we’re supposed to get all weepy-eyed about it.

Know what? Father Petros Mwale, a parish priest in Malawi (that’s in Africa, for any of you liberals who learned pronouns rather than geography in college), has been asking for our prayers for the farmers of Malawi as they endure a terrible drought. I do hope you will pause for a moment here and offer up those prayers.

The people there make $579.00 per year per capita. You know: your monthly car payment. They’ve got lots of problems, of course, just like the rest of post-colonial Africa and they have struggled to chart a course. Not nearly as bad as some African countries have had it. They work: 80% of the population engages in subsistence agriculture. They are pretty much free though there are abuses and corruption, just like everywhere. But, its mostly ok because they are pretty traditional and most issues are settled by local councils. And here’s the thing: the country borders Lake Malawi; its 11,400 square miles of water area with an average depth of 950 feet; so, big lake. Holds 2,000 cubic miles of water.

What I’m pointing out here is that Malawi has water. In, fact, quite a lot of water. Yes, other countries border the lake so it isn’t all Malawi’s, but they get their fair share right? Now, imagine if for a moment we had spent 10% of the Ukraine budget helping Malawi build a first rate water retention and irrigation system? The poor farmers there would have access to water even when the rains don’t come.

But, hey: nobody in Malawi passes out $50,000 a month no-show jobs to Westerners.

It is crucial to remember that what is a crisis in the world is usually what the Ruling Class wants to be a crisis because they can rake off money or power over it. There’s no rake-off helping hard working dirt farmers feed their families.

But, do get weepy over a dead Russian if that floats your boat.

I guess the latest thing for the Cartels is just to toss the drugs over the border wall where they are immediately picked up and driven off. We’ve talked about this before: you can’t stop a criminal cartel. Here’s a Wikipedia list of them – if you dig through it, you’ll note that Cartel follows Cartel. As soon as we take one down, another immediately steps in…because you can’t take them down. Not really. We might get the boss of a Cartel, but there’s a whole system of moving drugs from production to user. It probably employs hundreds of thousands of people and there are billions of dollars to be made. You can’t stop that by knocking off a boss.

OTOH, if we could catch the driver of the truck that picked up the drugs and hang him, that would stop it.

So, too, hanging the street pusher. The guy who is buying money orders to transmit them south. In short: the small fry. We can stop them because we don’t have to stop all of them: guarantee you the supply of small fry to actually move the drugs and money dries up when you start hanging them. To be sure, it won’t stop it entirely: even Singapore’s draconian laws against drug trafficking don’t stop it. But Singapore arrested a bit more than 3,000 people for drugs in 2023. New York City had that many deaths just from drug overdoses. Additionally: Singapore isn’t plagued by drug addicted zombies defecating on the streets.

Here’s your choice: execute 300 street pushers or have 3,000 addicts die next year. Choose.

How’s the election going? Well, Pudding Brain’s people are now starting to push a ceasefire proposal at the UN to stop Israel from taking the southern part of Gaza. In other words, what they’re trying to do is save Hamas. Why? Michigan: has a large Muslim community which has been rock solid for the Democrats. Plenty of Muslims are upset that Pudding Brain hasn’t taken a forcefully anti-Israel stance. Recent polling shows that Michigan in play, with some polls showing a Trump lead. So, screw the Jews: we need Michigan!

But think about it: Democrats encouraged the migration of a large population of anti-Semites in order to get their votes and now they’re moving to being overtly anti-Israel in order to retain the anti-Semitic votes.

Russia, Russia, Russia

Mark Noonan24 Comments

So, I watched a bit of the Tucker interview of Putin – I wasn’t going to but everyone was ripping on Putin bringing up history back to the 8th century on it and mostly making out that it was ridiculous. It wasn’t.

Whether or not Putin actually believes it I can’t say, but what he is doing is making Russia’s legal claim to Ukraine. This is something alien to the American experience but it is something common to the larger Christian world: this is why dynastic wars used to happen. That is, disputes over who had the legal title to a bit of land. And in such things to lay out the clear succession of title was very important. It wasn’t a matter of people, it was a matter of land: who owned the land? And who did the land legally transfer to over time?

Land is very important in Russia – who has it, who is allowed to use it. The ancient Russian assembly was call the Zemsky Sobor – the assembly of the Russian land. Not the Russian people: the land. For them, it is all about land. What Putin lays out in the interview is the case that Ukraine originated as an integral part of Russia which was unfairly and unjustly taken away from Russia by foreign conquerors. Ukraine’s national identity – in Putin’s thinking – is a false thing manufactured by powers hostile to Russia. This is Putin’s justification for the war – and it is probably why he’s so far been able to sustain support for it, at least to the point of keeping a large army in the field. It is in line with Russian national feeling.

The bottom line is that we here in the USA – and the West overall – have to decide if this Russian irredentism is something worth fighting against? Additionally, is Putin’s aim merely the restoration of traditional Russian lands? Or does he have a goal of restoring the Empire of Alexander I? Ukraine and Belarus back under Moscow’s rule would be uncomfortable for Poland and Hungary but not a massive crisis. That can arguably be Russia…but if Putin wants Finland, the Baltics and Poland back? That becomes a bit of a problem.

But, in my view, still not an American problem. The EU outweighs Russia in every measure of potential power. The EU has more people, more money, more production capacity, better communications. On and on like that: Russia has more troops in uniform right now, but if the EU wanted, they could easily raise a military force of 20 million and massively outnumber the Russians with better equipped troops. What I’m saying is that if the EU wants to fight Russia, it will be a very one-sided fight resulting in a crushing Russian defeat.

But if the EU doesn’t want to do this, then why should I? I can see Poland’s concern here. But if Poland doesn’t raise an army and convince their neighbors to also raise armies, then why in heck should an American army be sent? The German army is about 67,000 troops. Out of a population of 84 million. The Polish army is 100,000. Out 30 million people. 118,000 in the French army out of 68 million people. These three nations, based on population and resources, should have standing military forces of 800,000, 300,000 and 600,000 respectively. These would not be large forces relative to population…but they’d have outnumbered the Russian army 3 to 1 on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine. These are not serious people. These are not people determined to defend themselves.

So, why should I?

Why should I send some kid from Kansas to die defending Kiev?

And Putin does propose to build something Christian. Maybe Putin is lying. He wouldn’t be the first Russian leader to do that. But the laws and the policy is still to promote the Christian theology and virtues. Meanwhile, over in the UK kids are being arrested for misgendering while in the Netherlands the government is trying to shut down Dutch farms to appease the weather god. I’m supposed to fight Russia? For Europe? So I can have more European commies come visit? More finger wagging about guns?

Really?

I don’t think so. I do not feel Russians to be my enemies. I feel no threat from Moscow. I do not want us to give another cent to Ukraine and I want us to withdraw from NATO. I’m done with this. World War Two as a long time ago. The world has changed. It is time we changed with it.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan24 Comments

I’ll have it out hopefully very soon – still shooting for a February 14th release date, but that might slip.

If you haven’t started the series, you can easily pick it up with Book VI: Heirs. But even The Crimson Blade is a rather stand-alone part of the Narrative. Anyways, they’re getting better as I go along. The upcoming Home World is very high end, I think. In The Crimson Blade I delve into both the honor and the guilt of the combat veteran, how children can feel about their parents, the stumbling block of bigotry. With lots of love, laughs and battles, of course!

It didn’t really matter but Nevada had a GOP Primary (the delegates are awarded in a week via caucus) and Nikki Haley managed to come in massively behind “None of these candidates” in the vote. Word is that she’s still rolling in campaign money; that’s why she’s staying in. Perhaps with a hope that something, anything will happen to Trump and she’ll be the only alternative. But she’s about to get wiped out in South Carolina and then Super Tuesday is she sticks.

The White House is threatening to reduce deportations if the border deal isn’t passed…which proves conclusively that the border is under the control of the Executive and they can secure it any time they want. They are really garbage people running our country right now. Essentially trying to blackmail Congress.

Tucker did an interview with Putin and heads exploded – from Neocons to Commies, everyone in the USA and the larger West is furious. Why? Because Putin might say something the American people find reasonable. That is, Putin might not come off as Hitler II. Can’t have that! Gotta keep the money rolling in. Sure, 650,000 military-aged Ukranian males have fled rather than serve, but any day now the Glorious Ukrainian Offensive will push the Russians out. Just need $60 billion more!

All of that is jeopardized if people see Putin as someone reasonable. Of course Putin is going to lie…but the Ukrainians lie, too. Perhaps if we bounce lie against lie we might get to truth? That’s why we’re not allowed to talk to Putin…because the truth might not justify $60 billion.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan59 Comments

Texas AG Ken Paxton was acquitted in his impeachment trial. There will be many GOPe tears shed. After all was said and done, it doesn’t look like Paxton even remotely broke a law. The whole thing was absurd.

There’s a video out of Lauren Boebert (R-CO) apparently being felt up by her date at a theater. Who I guess is a long-standing Democrat. The usual suspects on the Right called for the smelling salts. But I have some questions:

  1. Why was there a security camera in a darkened theater?
  2. Why was it pointed pretty much right at Boebert’s boobs?
  3. Why do we have this video but not the Epstein video?
  4. Why are GOPers so entirely stupid all the time as they join Democrats in condemning Boebert?
  5. I mean, for goodness sake, the Democrats have a candidate in Virginia who makes actual pornography for a living and, you know?, Democrats are also in favor of Mengele-like medical mutilation of children. You’d think GOPers would figure that in a target-rich environment we don’t need to spend any time condemning our own.

To be sure, Boebert should have gotten a room. She and her date are not 16. Also: she should have been smart enough not to date a Democrat. There is zero chance he actually supports any aspect of GOP policy and no matter what attachment he might feel to Boebert, loyalty to the Party will trump it…which could even lead the guy into setting her up to be targeted by “security cameras” in a theater.

We’ve also got stories about Noem (R-SD) and Greene (R-GA) having some problems in the area of sexual morality. The Noem thing seems to be entirely gossip at this point but that isn’t important. The entire Establishment has clearly decided that high profile MAGA women are to be exposed ruthlessly. Unfortunately, all three of these women at least in some way voluntarily put themselves at risk. It is crucial to the Left that the rising number of MAGA women doesn’t eventually make it into the suburbs. They are counting on these salacious stories to get upper class urban and suburban women to view MAGA women with contempt.

What can we do about it? Nothing – at least as far as stopping the Establishment. What we can do is refuse to engage. If any of these women – or any woman – is doing something in this area as she shouldn’t, none of our business. Let them work it out for themselves. Do not be deflected into engaging the Democrats on their terms. Another aspect of this is to deflect from the fact that Democrats are in favor of adult perverts twerking in front of children. That whole issue is turning into poison for Democrats and they’d much rather talk about a case of hypocrisy regarding a Christian “family values” woman having an affair.

The Ukraine War continues to be the least-reported war in modern history. Do recall that things being blown up makes for must-watch TV and that’s why starting with Vietnam film crews have been all over war to get great shots of explosions and such. But for some reason, the actual fighting in Ukraine hasn’t produced a lot of video. On both sides, it all seems to be carefully edited video for propaganda purposes…and usually taken at a distance where you can’t see what actually happened. Both sides seem to be keen to prevent battlefield video from getting out. Why?

I suspect because it ain’t pretty. The talk of a grand Ukrainian counter-offensive and chest-thumping predictions of imminent Ukrainian victory are hiding the fact that the front line has barely moved this year. The Russo-Ukrainian war has become positional with armies in close proximity to each other. Don’t know if the Ukrainians are keeping to their old Soviet instruction on military tactics but the Russians clearly are – in a situation like this, the Russians build belt after belt of defensive positions and simply allow their enemies to grind themselves to powder on them. Their first use of this was Kursk-Orel in 1943 and it worked splendidly. The Krauts lost 165,000 dead in six weeks. It has been so far impossible to find any reliable numbers on Ukrainian or Russian casualties. If you go to pro-Ukraine sites its buckets of Russian blood, pro-Russian and its buckets of Ukrainian blood. But a positional struggle against Russian defense in depth tactics is going to be costly. Very costly. Any film of a battlefield is going to have a lot of corpses…and as the battle goes on in the summer heat you can’t actually go out there in no man’s land to collect the bodies and bury them: they rot where they fall. This is why I think we don’t see a lot of close-up video…it would horrify everyone, and that would threaten the flow of money into Ukraine and right back into Western pockets.

My larger worry here is that we’re just slipping into war. We as a people have no real conception of what that it like any longer. We get upset when a dozen or a score of ours are killed in an engagement. Imagine if we got into a situation like the Battle of Tarawa where we lost more than a thousand dead in just three days? I don’t think we can psychologically handle that. But if you’ve got a brigade of Russkies dug in on a ridge and you have to dislodge them for your advance to succeed…you’re going to lose a thousand soldiers doing it. And once you’ve secured that ridge…you’ll just find another brigade holding the next ridge back. How long do you think this American people could sustain that? How long do you think our volunteer military will be able to remain combat effective with that sort of attrition rate? And that’s if we’re winning! Suppose our first and second assaults fail? A couple thousand dead and the Russians are still holding out?

We are not in any way prepared for war…and our leadership may very well bumble us into one.

NATO Must Go

Mark Noonan41 Comments

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. – Article 5, North Atlantic Treaty, 4/4/1949

This is the teeth of NATO – the part where all contracting Parties agree to come to the aid of any Party attacked by a Third Party. But do note the wording: it does not require any NATO member to use military force in support of an attacked NATO member. I think this was put in place to make sure that the Europeans could weasel out of helping the United States if we weren’t attacked by the Soviet Union. The treaty, of course, had the purpose of keeping the USSR out, the USA in and the Germans down. It was built for the very particular circumstances existing in Europe in the immediate aftermath of WWII. I would like to note that WWII ended 78 years ago.

There are hardly any people left alive who can even remember the war.

But here it is, 2023 and NATO is going strong – expanding. There’s talk of even letting Ukraine in. This has caused some comment about it immediately triggering WWIII but as you can see from the text of the treaty, it would only do that if Russia decided to treat it as a de-facto declaration of war by NATO. But if Russia refrained from attacking outside Ukraine it is almost certain that no other NATO member would declare war on Russia in support or Ukraine. In other words, Ukrainian membership in NATO would be symbolic. Kinda like the whole NATO exercise has been since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Ronald Reagan once said there is nothing so akin to immortality as a temporary government program. This has been true ever since government programs were invented. But the newest innovation of this is to keep treaties going eternally, regardless of changed circumstances. And just as we must at last kill off the idea of an eternal government program, so much we kill off the idea of an eternal treaty. Government programs are to be used to deal with a particular need or problem. So, too, are treaties.

In the aftermath of WWII with that horrendously bloody conflict and its shameful origins fresh in mind, what the leaders of the free world wanted was some assurance that they wouldn’t have that problem again: that is, a megalomaniac launching wars of conquest and extermination. In retrospect: figure the odds. Hitler was unique: never had been one like him, can’t imagine a set of circumstances where we get another. But you can at least see the logic of the people who signed the NATO treaty in 1949. Stalin was also a megalomaniac and the USSR was committed to carrying Communism all over the world. It was felt – reasonably – that a bit of collective security by the non-Communist powers would guarantee against the USSR launching a war of conquest.

We should have been paying a little more attention to Stalin’s history on that – it was Stalin who shut down the Leninist/Trotskyite project of using direct force to spread Communism. Stalin – correctly – felt the USSR lacked the power to do that and, also, that direct conflict had incalculable possibilities which could easily end in disaster for the USSR. Stalin would grab what he could, subvert as much as possible: but he was never going to launch a direct attack on the West…and his successors, sitting pretty with swell lives, were even less inclined for any direct conflict. And if they had been a bit frisky, the fact that it was the mid 1960s before the USSR recovered from WWII was also a restraining factor.

Be that as it may, the NATO treaty was signed and we had our collective security against the remote possibility of the USSR launching an attack through the Fulda Gap. NATO provided zero security against internal subversion by the USSR of NATO States and as this was the primary means of Soviet attack that is…kinda strange that it wasn’t integral to NATO. Almost like, just maybe, some of the people in charge of crafting NATO put together something only useful at stopping what wasn’t going to happen but did nothing to stop what was already happening in spades. Weird, huh? But, the Cambridge Five were still active as NATO was created – as were various spy networks in the US State Department…and it isn’t like even to this day we’ve uncovered everyone who was working for the USSR at the time. Interesting thing to look into, but it need not detain us here for long. Though I would like to point out that the Cold War would have been over in a few years if NATO was a replacement for the UN with all NATO members breaking off relations with the USSR and allies and refusing to have any dealings with them. But, such was not seen as the thing to do at the time.

At all events, we had our defense against the 8th Guards Army – we were definitely ready at a moment’s notice to stop it from driving to the Rhine. But just FYI, the 8th Guards Army – currently constituted as Russia’s 8th Guards Combined Arms Army – isn’t in the Fulda Gap preparing to drive to the Rhine. It is, in fact, in Ukraine. It is, then, nothing we need to be too concerned about. It would take a rather stunning bit of Russian military success to bring the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army into a position threatening NATO. And yet we still have NATO as if the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army were an imminent threat (which is never really was, even way back when). So, why are we keeping NATO?

Same reason we are keeping the government programs: vested interests. Financial and political powers obtain a great deal of their money and political influence via NATO. They will keep it going forever if they can – and just like the government bureaucrats inventing new problems for bureaucrats to solve, so NATO keeps finding new security threats to guard against. But still nothing about the internal subversion of the West. NATO didn’t care about that then, doesn’t care about it now. We’ve got Marxist nimrods destroying our nations but NATO isn’t fighting against that! Nope: gotta worry about the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army trying to conquer the Donbas. As if that matters when domestic threats are trying to destroy family, faith and property.

It is time for a bit of a reality check.

59% of the world’s population lives in Asia. 17% lives in Africa. Only 9% lives in Europe. It is just a fact that Europe is not remotely the most important region on Earth. By far it is Asia with Africa coming in second. American political, trade and military thought should be geared towards dealing with the risks and rewards of Asia and Africa. Europe is a backwater. Declining share of global GDP. Declining population. Militarily nearly impotent. There is absolutely zero chance that Europe would send an army to help us fight a major war in Asia or Africa, let alone help defend American territory here in North America. There is nothing we need in Europe. World War Two was a long time ago. There will not rise in Europe a Hitlerian monster to threaten the world…no matter how much NATO propagandists try to make out Putin to be Hitler’s mini-me. And even if Putin were a Hitler…Russia’s GDP is along the size of South Korea’s. They simply don’t have the physical power to threaten the USA.

Whatever use NATO ever had for the United States is long past now. We don’t need NATO. In fact, by remaining in NATO and keeping significant military resources in Europe we actively weaken our ability to influence the course of policy in Asia and Africa. To put it bluntly: remaining in NATO is tailor-made to help China flex muscle in Asia and Africa. And the Chinese are flexing that muscle. Just look up how deeply Chinese money and influence have penetrated Africa (and now moving into South America) and you can see how downright asinine our concentration on Europe has been. If our foreign policy was directly controlled from Beijing they wouldn’t do it any different than we are right now. It is time to move in a new direction.

It is time to leave NATO. Pull out of it: give our notice and leave. Our risks and rewards are in Africa and Asia. But cutting our ties to Europe we’ll no longer have the political disadvantage of ties with those Powers who colonized Africa and Asia. We’ll be able to craft policy based entirely on identified mutual needs with Asian and African nations. Rely on it, India doesn’t want a powerful China. Russia doesn’t, either, but we’ve burned so many bridges there it will be a while before we can sensibly talk to the Russians. But not being in NATO would be an immense relief to Russo-American relations. If you look at a map of the globe, the USA and Russia are natural allies. It was a shame we came into conflict with Russia. Well past time to bury the hatchet. But even absent that – Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia and a host of other Asian nations have a vested interest in curbing Chinese ambitions. An alliance with the USA – with our absolute pledge to remain out of their internal affairs – is just what they need…just as what we need is a collection of powers bordering or near China tying down Chinese power which would otherwise be directed against us. Meanwhile, over in Africa and freed from our connections to the former colonial overlords, we’ll be able to work deals with Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, etc to build up their economies and tie them to us rather than to China (much more valuable to us to build an Interstate quality highway in Nigeria than to spend money on NATO). A China directly challenged by the USA and allies in Asia and Africa will have no resources to spend on penetrating South America. It is all win. If we change with the times.

Or we can hang on to the antique NATO alliance, be tied down uselessly in Europe while China builds alliances with India and Russia against us.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

I guess there is some coup-like activity going on in Russia at the moment – nobody really knows what is going on but it appears that Putin’s Wagner mercenaries are angry and they are claiming they are heading to Moscow to wipe out the Ministry of Defense. Could be a host of things running from a fake coup set up by Putin to consolidate power and eliminate enemies all the way to a real coup attempt. In a few days, we’ll know. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians should be attacking all along the line right now with whatever they’ve got – if it is a real coup attempt. Because if it is, they’d likely find a demoralized enemy in front of them who might collapse at a blow. But if they keep just slogging it out with the Russian army in their counter-offensive as for the past couple weeks, then it means at least Ukrainian intel doesn’t think its a real coup.

I retain my standard position: don’t care. Not our problem.

So that jury-rigged sub apparently imploded pretty much right away after it got down to the ocean floor. It was made at least partially with carbon fiber material and from what I understand, never make a sub out of carbon fiber material. Something to do with the nature of carbon fiber that makes it unsuitable for submersibles. The nimrod zillionaire who built the thing was warned about this but he wasn’t going to let experts who know what they’re talking about stop him! The event is an exemplar of modern life: narcissists who don’t know anything wasting money doing things which don’t need to be done but which give an ego boost. I’ve no sympathy for anyone on that sub – even going down there in a properly constructed sub is horribly dangerous and unless you are a scientific researcher you’ve no business going there. To go down in a rich guy’s vanity boat is simply stupid.

The release of all that Hunter Biden info pretty conclusively shows that Hunter has been running a scam based on his father’s name for years. Naturally, Never Trump’s reaction is: “well, we’re still not sure there was a crime”. They assert this because they are so filled with hatred of Trump it has made them stupid. You see, they can’t admit that the DOJ is letting Hunter skate because if they do, it calls into question the indictment of Trump. After all, if the DOJ is so corrupt as to let obvious law-breaking slide for political reasons, what’s to stop them from prosecuting an innocent man for political reasons? On the other hand, you do have to give Hunter credit for trying to write off the sex club membership fees on his taxes – that takes some guts. On the other, other hand, it let me know there are “elite sex clubs” in the USA…which makes me want to burn the system down to the ground, twice.

Garland is now claiming that if we complain about his corrupt DOJ, we’re a threat to Democracy. Don’t take this lightly: he is threatening you. The FBI has become a de-facto secret police along the lines of the NKVD.

Isolationism is Best

Mark Noonan44 Comments

David Frum took Senator Lee to task over his refusal to back the war in Ukraine – stating that failure to back the Administration when its helping a NATO effort is tantamount to backing Russia. So it has been in our foreign affairs since WWI – failure to enthusiastically back Administration foreign and war policy is treason.

To my shame, I used to sign on to this. I am glad I’m past it now.

To be sure, there is such a thing as treason – we define it directly in our Constitution. One of the few definitions of crime in it.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. – Article III, section 3

Now, you can make an argument that refusing to condemn Russia over Ukraine is some sort of adherence to our enemies, but I do believe that stretches it far beyond the breaking point. Adhering to our enemies in the Founder’s minds would have been what Benedict Arnold did: taking an officer’s commission in the Royal Army to fight against us. It is true that after the Revolution many Loyalists were mistreated and forced to flee the new nation – and good riddance to them. As Samuel Adams put it, I hope their chains sat lightly upon them and we have very much forgotten they were ever our countrymen. But nothing was done with that very large segment of the population which was neither Patriot nor Loyalist. The bottom line is that a great number of Americans didn’t care one way or the other about the outcome of the war. And after the war, they simply became citizens along with the Patriots and proceeded to play their role as citizens in the formation of our Republic. Given this, I don’t think that anyone refusing to back Ukraine can in any reasonable definition be considered a traitor.

But that is what the Frums of the world consider them to be. They are so committed to the global order that they cannot allow any dissenting view from it. We must be involved. Isolationism must be wrong. And so on like that. It is very useful for them to take such a line as it excuses them from having to argue in favor of the war or the policy. It allows them to merely slander those who disagree with it.

The only war we’ve had since the Civil War which wasn’t a war of choice was the war against Japan. One can argue that various policies of the USA provoked Japan into attacking and I will agree…but the choice still lay with Japan. They did commit the overt act against a Power which was not in any way threatening offensive military action against Japan. But other than that war, everything has been a choice. Sure, a lesser argument can be made that the war against Hitler’s Germany also wasn’t a choice as Hitler declared war on us. But our sending by far the largest part of our military force to Europe was a choice. We didn’t have to do it. Backed by American aid, the Anglo-Russian combine in Europe could never be defeated by Germany. Open question whether this combine absent an American Army and Air Force could have beat down the Germans as was in fact done…but the bottom line is that we didn’t have to be there. And neither have we had to be anywhere else.

But everywhere else we have been, right? And now think about it: in each case the justification for action was Hitler. Because Hitler managed to get rolling against people who didn’t want to put up a fight it became necessary for us to put up a fight for everyone else, forever. And by one means or another (though lately explicitly) each enemy we’re told to go fight is another Hitler who, if not stopped right now and by us, will grow to a Hitlerian threat to the world. It is really rather crude – indeed, cartoonish – propaganda once you see through it, but it has worked very well. And so they keep doing it – and now Senator Lee is a Hitler-appeasing traitor…for not wanting an open-ended commitment to Ukraine’s government (which is getting to be m ore unsavory in action all the time).

It is good to point out that it was only in hindsight that Hitler had to be stopped regardless of cost. Anyone telling you that the leaders of the world knew what Hitler was up to in the death camps is lying or misinformed. Sure, plenty of word did get out but it was like all other word out of an occupied territory…you couldn’t be sure. It was only when the camps were opened that we knew for certain what was happening…and everyone was shocked because nobody, not even the strongest opponents of Hitlerism, thought that an advanced people like the Germans could really round up men, women and children and exterminate them. So, it was good that we got deep into Europe. Had we not, many more millions of innocents would have died. But that was happenstance. It wasn’t intended. We didn’t invade Europe to shut down Auschwitz; it was shut down as a merciful byproduct of the main desire. But this hindsight is now transformed into foresight for the globalist propagandists and everyone they hate has to be Hitler and we all have to jump aboard or we’re allowing another Holocaust to occur.

Drivel.

Hitler was a unique thing. What he did and how he was able to accomplish it will never be repeated. This is not to say that we won’t come across people willing to murder millions. Heck, some of our own leaders are willing to murder millions to appease the weather god. But there won’t ever again be a racial supremacist like Hitler determined to conquer territory for his people and exterminate a group identified as the sole enemy of humanity. It just won’t happen again. Putin not only isn’t a Hitler, he can’t be a Hitler. He might be twenty different versions of SOB, but he’s not an existential threat to Europe or the world. He’s a problem. But is he our problem?

I say, no. Europe is collectively far more powerful than Russia. Just between Poland, Germany, France and Britain a military, naval and air force can be raised sufficient to make Russia back down. And with France and Britain having nuclear weapons, there’s a complete stand off on that level. I can see why Poland doesn’t want the Russian Bear to take Ukraine and once again hold land bordering a Poland which for centuries has been seen by Russia as a sort of redoubt to be held by Russia against Europe. But this tells me the Poles better build a first rate military force and make alliance with Germany and, also, Romania and Hungary who also don’t want a Russian army camped on their borders. And if the Poles or the Europeans in general don’t do this?

Well, how does that become an American problem? People who won’t defend themselves are to be defended by us? For what purpose? If the Poles don’t want to work to keep the Russkies away, why should a kid from Ohio have to do it?

And why is it our problem if the Syrians are having a civil war? Did the Syrians intervene in ours? Sudan descends into chaos. Why is that our problem? I can see keeping foreigners out of the Americas, but what interest do I as an American have in African, European and Asian affairs?

Oh, you can talk me into having an interest. But this would require truly reciprocal alliances and allies who maintain powerful military forces. I don’t think I should have to send an American army to defend Poland unless, say, a Polish army is pledged to come to east Asia to help us fight the Chinese. And that Polish army better be first rate. Well trained. Best possible equipment. Ready at a moment’s notice to fight. See where I’m going? It isn’t an alliance if I’ve got an unlimited obligation to my ally and he has no obligation to me. If he’s allowed to be slack in preparedness and doesn’t have to bleed with us when we’re attacked, then it isn’t an alliance. That is a client relationship – and if Poland is our client, fine. They can pay us 3% of their GDP every year. Same as everyone else in the NATO “alliance”. We’re the first global empire to be the sugar-daddy and its just stupid.

I want us to stop this. To give up the Wilsonian demand that the world be made safe for Democracy. I don’t care what the world is: I only care what America is. And I don’t like being called a traitor – with all that implies – because I don’t want Americans to bleed for the Donbas. We’ve poisoned ourselves with alliances. It is time to bring them to an end. The war is over. Come on home, America. Let the foreigners fight. Advise them carefully that attacking us is suicidal, but leave them alone. It isn’t our world.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

I guess the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine has fallen and the Russians are hailing their victory while the Ukrainians are saying they never really wanted to hold it. The bottom line, for me, is that Russia has definitely resumed advancing and the Ukrainians aren’t able to stop it so far. No breakthrough, but a war of attrition where the Russians are just grinding the Ukrainians down…though such eventually does lead to a breakthrough as the weaker side can never sustain this kind of fight forever. Meanwhile, everyone on the Ukraine side gets ever more hysterical about how we have to support Ukraine. I think it is time for negotiations. Unless Zelensky has something big up his sleeve, offensive-wise, better to quit now rather than wait until there’s nothing left between the Russians and Kiev.

Argentina has ripped up its Falklands agreement with Britain and is demanding negotiations over sovereignty. This is what I mean about just staying the heck out of foreign problems: most of them are stupid. The bottom line is that whatever theoretical legal right Argentina received from Spain to the Islands, there never was a permanent, indigenous population of the Falklands until the Brits showed up in the 1830’s. The people who live there going back nearly two centuries have never had any connection to Argentina. They consider themselves British. The speak English. When asked in a plebiscite what they preferred, more than 98% voted to stay under British rule. But Argentina likes to get all fussy about it – and they are getting fussy about it shortly after HMS Queen Elizabeth became operational which means if they decide to start shooting over it, they’ll lose (the Royal Navy is a shadow of her formal self, but most of Argentina’s navy is laid up in port; and they don’t have a naval air arm to speak of). Amazing how stupid people can be, and for all the wrong reasons.

Kellyanne and George Conway have called it quits – which is kinda sad but very understandable. George acted like an a** during the Trump years and Kellyanne has allowed herself to be squired around by the likes of Cuomo recently. Really its all rather pathetic.

The Left is still trying to sell the notion that the Second Amendment only secured a right to bear arms to the Militia, which is now the National Guard. Of course it is absurd, but lots of people are fierce in their faith about the Militia having the right. It isn’t just propaganda doing this – it is propaganda directed a population which is barely literate and almost entirely ignorant of American history. We can’t get control of the schools fast enough. This is a terrible problem and it will harm us politically…but if we control the schools it is literally just a few years before the problem is fixed.

RDS has put out a video which is “I’m running” without saying the actual words, “I’m running”.

I’m increasingly positive that the Left overstepped on the trans issue – and it is women leading the backlash. Which is proper as women are being erased to accommodate trans women. It is very irritating, isn’t it? What is clearly a man winning women’s sporting contests, Hershey and other woke corporations using trans women as spokespeople for women’s issues. I mean, seriously: who thought this would be a good idea? Oh, yeah: Progressives did. Never forget that as ruthless and cruel as they are, they are also monumentally stupid.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan31 Comments

Supposedly General Miley a little while back advised that Ukraine is as strong as she’s gonna get, is not strong enough to defeat Russia, so it is time for a diplomatic solution. If this story is true, my respect for Miley goes up a notch.

Of late, Zelensky has been talking big not just about pushing Russia out of what they’ve taken in the last year, but out of all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. Well, hey, if he can do that, more power to him: but I don’t think Ukraine has the sheer power to do that. Absent a complete Russian collapse, the Russians will pretty much hold on to what they’ve got. As I said at the start – Ukraine’s job since 2014 was to build a mobile strike force capable of immediately going on the offense either right at the time the Russians attacked, or just before that. I like to call this The Israeli Option: what to do with enemies who vastly outnumber you and have far greater strategic depth? You attack and turn their dream of marching on Tel Aviv (Kiev) into a nightmare defending Cairo and Damascus (Rostov and Voronezh). Ukraine had plenty of time and plenty of money – and even plenty of factories and material to produce this force with only very limited support from anyone outside Ukraine. They didn’t do it. They decided that bribing foreign pols as a means of securing their support against Russia was a better idea (and this tells you right there that there’s at least a huge part of the Ukrainian population uninterested in fighting for Ukraine – that the Ukrainian government, unlike the Israeli government, could not rely on the population to make the sacrifices in blood and treasure). And, fundamentally, that is why I was against giving aid from the start – if they can’t sacrifice for themselves, why should I sacrifice for them? Now is the time to make peace – before more blood is shed and before the Russians do put forth their full power.

So, now they’re admitting that masks don’t work and there’s a good chance the Chinese flu came from the lab – whether accidentally or intentionally we don’t know, and likely never can know. Just as the repeated assertions of 2020 being clean are our best proof it was dirty, the assertion that Covid didn’t come from the lab was our best proof that it came from the lab. We just know – if we’ve any sense at all – that whatever it is they’re saying is a lie…or if by some miracle the truth, only partial and designed to deflect attention from something else even worse. Why they’re dribbling this out now remains to be seen – but is certainly isn’t to enlighten us. They’re hiding something else.

Supposedly the J6 footage was all turned over to Tucker Carlson and people are starting to wonder when we get to see it. Rely on it, folks: it was given to Carlson to ensure the most Narrative-Destroying parts never see the light of day. I dig that Carlson has a lot of fans and he does, indeed, say some useful things…but he’s MSM. He’s Establishment. He’ll never jeopardize his meal ticket and while his boss is testifying that Trump was lying about 2020 election fraud, you can bet any money that Carlson won’t piss the boss off by showing that J6 was a setup to ensure the truth about 2020 never came out.

Pudding Brain’s illegal order to cancel student debt was heard before the Supreme Court today – it ain’t looking good for Pudding Brain. But there is a very worrisome thing going – all over the Democrats and MSMers (but I repeat myself) was the assertion that the Court should rule in favor of cancellation regardless of what the law says…with an unstated subtext that if the Court doesn’t rule the way the Democrats want, then it is “out of control”…and so in need of being brought under control. We need not say who’s control is needs to be brought under. This is terrible for our system of government – essentially, the Democrats are saying that any Court ruling going against their desires is illegitimate.

Looks like Lori Lightfoot didn’t pass the graft around enough and she didn’t get into the runoff for Chicago Mayor. The winner will be whichever candidate seems most likely to correctly pass around the graft. Lightfoot will, of course, claim that her loss was because of racism, sexism and homophobia. This would mean the Democrat party is packed full of racists, sexists and homophobes.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan30 Comments

I had mentioned before Aleste and the Ice Crystal Dragons – the story is hooked into my Mirrors series but it came about after I was explaining the series to my granddaughter and she observed that it was an utter fail because it didn’t have any dragons in it. So, I told her to come up with a story that had dragons in it. With her talking and me writing, the book was made. And we’ve got some reviews over at Amazon:

I read this book to my 3rd grade class and they absolutely loved it! The cliff hangers left them begging for me to read more each day. We feel in love with the character Aleste and her bravery throughout the book. The details, descriptive language, and great vocabulary used throughout this book made it a great book to share with my students. Awesome job!

Got a kid or a grandkid? Get the book. It is a heck of a lot of fun.

Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell of Los Angeles was shot and killed on Saturday. It is in the news but it isn’t really making the news, if you know what I mean. The increasing collapse of civilization in Los Angeles does not support any Democrat Narrative, nor will it help Newsom when he runs for President in 2024 or 2028, so what would have been a huge story 20 years ago, is pretty much nothing these days. Nor are any other stories highlighting the end of civilization – the re-barbarization of the West which gains speed day by day. You know – things like mass brawls at fast food joints and stores. Nobody ever even knows why the fights start but a score of people at times are just pounding on each other…or one poor body is being beaten mercilessly by a gang of thugs and everyone is just standing around filming it.

This is not normal and it is not sustainable. Eventually everything falls apart and the reaction sets in – a very violent reaction as the few remaining civilized people decide that the barbarians have to die.

Former Governor Larry Hogan is giving a class these days called, “Why You Got Trump”. At any event, he may as well be doing that. He’s rumbling about running for President but what he’s really doing is auditioning for an MSM gig…which a failed Presidential run and then complaining about the eventual GOP nominee will get him. His most recent absurdity was to claim that DeSantis pushing back against woke ideology in public schools is “big government”…you know what all True Conservatives with Muh Principles oppose. It is just a stupid thing to say – the schools are government and all RDS is doing is making them bend to the will of the people of Florida…you know, like a government is supposed to do. It is stupid – but it is wowing the Left, and that’s the point of the exercise. But for us, what he’s doing is providing the perfect foil for the new, populist GOP…an example of what we cannot go back to. Maybe it is time to move on from Donald Trump, but it isn’t time to move on from Trumpism.

There’s a news report about how to survive a nuclear blast. I did not have this on my 2023 bingo card – but, kiddies, let us oldsters clue you in, because we learned this stuff when we were kids. If there’s a nuclear attack, get under your desk, put your head between your knees and kiss you a** goodbye.

Speaking of which, the global Ruling Class is really pushing for Ukraine victory…but I’ve yet to see how Ukraine destroys the Russian army. That is a kind of a crucial First Step here…a plan and the means to do that. I think that our leaders are so divorced from reality and so ignorant of history that they just don’t know this. That they think high tech weapons will just do the trick, somehow. But unless Ukraine builds a military force which is capable of sustained offensive operations, its all just a waste of blood and treasure. Keep in mind that since the initial Russian invasion there hasn’t even been a battle. Oh, sure, there’s been lots of fighting and dying, but no battles once you understand that a battle is a event whereby your principle military power is directed against the enemy’s principle military power and decisive results are achieved one way or the other. Attrition warfare isn’t a battle…and its a sort of warfare Ukraine can never win given the population disparities. Meanwhile, the Russkies seem to be calling up half a million…and not to just hold the line, but to provide a powerful strike force which will be launched against the Ukrainians with a mind towards destroying the Ukrainian army.