Ukraine

Open Thread

Mark Noonan76 Comments

We’re approaching the denouement of the Russo-Ukraine War: Trump’s team will be meeting Putin’s team in Saudi Arabia soon in order to work out the preliminary deal. Many people are upset with this because it is clear that the USA will not insist upon Russia evacuating all Ukrainian territory and, further, that we are not interested in Ukraine joining NATO (that is, we’re not interested in committing to Ukraine’s defense and thus endless friction and hostility with Russia). What the final terms are remains to be seen but Zelenskyy and other European leaders have already said they reject whatever deal is made.

And that’s just too darn bad: they don’t get a say.

For the European leaders, the bottom line is that they don’t have significant military forces ready for action and there is a distinct lack of will on committing European youth to war. The European Ruling Class is barely hanging on via increasingly repressive measures against dissidents and telling European youth that its time to ruck up and enter the trenches would be immensely unpopular (can you imagine? “Ok, Nigel from Liverpool – you get to go to Ukraine to die for the Donbas while Abdul from Pakistan gets to stay on welfare here in Blighty grooming your younger sister!”. Not gonna work out). If you don’t have force on the table, you don’t get to decide how a war goes.

As for Ukraine: they’ve been bled white (those who stayed: looked like a couple million Ukrainian youths bailed out early) and they simply lack the power to expel the Russians. At this point, it doesn’t matter what weapons we give them: there just aren’t enough Ukrainians in uniform to get through what are by now multiple layers of Russian defensive positions against a Russian army which hasn’t even begun to really call on Russia’s manpower reserves. Ukraine’s chance to have a say in the war was the 8 years between Russian invasions – they could have built up a powerful, mobile army to strike at Russia just as (or, better, just before) the Russians came on. They didn’t. Zelenskyy staked his country on the moral character of the European leadership and Joe Biden. Bad call. While Ukraine retains sufficient force to make total Russian conquest prohibitively expensive, they don’t have enough to go beyond that. Exhausted military forces also don’t get much of a say in how a war ends.

And both the USA and Russia have bigger fish to fry. Our challenge is in China, Russia’s challenge is to rebuild their military force and industrial base as quickly as possible to keep China from getting froggy about Siberia (people forget that large parts of Russian Siberia were Chinese until the mid-19th century). Bottom line: there’s no will for the war to continue, and so it will end. And if by some chance Ukraine and Europe reject the deal and decide to fight on? Then it is no skin off our nose – and we’ll have no reason to help Ukraine further.

CBS News had the day yesterday – making some of the most stupid statements ever made by an alleged news organization. One thing they highlighted as how cool it is that Europe oppresses free speech…with the capper being a CBS news actor telling Rubio that the Nazis used free speech to create the Holocaust. We all had a good laugh at that but I used the opportunity to remind everyone that only one nation on Earth actually secures the rights of the people: the USA. It is only our Constitution which has the phrase “Congress shall make no law”. All other Constitutions, no matter how wonderfully written or how much they talk about human rights has that – and all of them have provisions which allow the government to suspend every human right when the government decides it needs to. There is only one free nation on Earth: the USA. There only ever has been one, and only ever will be one – no other nation’s Ruling Class is ever going to allow the people to write it into basic law “Parliament shall make no law”. Our Constitution kinda slipped into being almost by accident…nobody was paying attention to what we were doing and the powers that would want to stop us were too far away. The whole thrust of the Progressive Left in the USA, by the way, has been to annul “Congress shall make no law”. Via bureaucratic and judicial fiat the Left has tried everything it can to get around that…and they never will stop trying to. It is the final bulwark of human liberty.

Our Useless Alliances

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Why are we in NATO and the UN?

It is a question ever more Americans are asking themselves and it is time we really think this one over. The official justification for NATO, UN and all the rest of the international organizations is that collective security is the solution to the World Wars. That is, if everyone was banded together against the aggressor(s) then the aggression would never occur. It is considered axiomatic that if the USA had been part of the League of Nations in the interwar years, WWII would have been prevented. Our absence from the organization, it is said, sabotaged it and left it incapable of standing up to the aggressor. Really?

Suppose we were in the League in, say, 1938…just what would our understrength and obsolescent 100,000 man Army do in the face of Germany’s territorial demands on the Czechs? Given them something to laugh at?

The idea of collective security is based upon an assumption that everyone thinks pretty much the same way. That is, they weigh up the plusses and minuses and make their decisions accordingly. I have no idea how anyone started to believe this because all of history makes a mockery of it. Especially the history just before NATO and the UN were created. Collective security was never going to stop Hitler. It wouldn’t even have stopped a Germany absent Hitler. There was collective security against German aggression in 1914 where the Anglo-French-Russian alliance was overwhelmingly more powerful than the German-Austrian combination. It didn’t work then. It didn’t work in 1939. It never has worked. It never can work. Its a dumb idea.

The Germans attacked – in both 1914 and 1939 – not because they didn’t face a collective alliance against aggression, but because they thought they could win quick and cheap. In 1914, the German ambitions included essentially annexation for Belgium and Luxembourg, slicing off northern France, Poland and Finland to become German vassals and all of central Africa from the Sahara to South Africa. They really thought that if they could get to Paris in six weeks, they’d gain all of this. To put it bluntly, they figured that for 100,000 dead Germans, they’d gain mastery of Europe and a much larger position in the world. In 1939 it was the same thing – Hitler and his Germans thought they could win a quick victory…annul the 1918 results and gain what they wanted in 1914. It was stupid both times – and collective security stopped none of it. They were being unreasonable. Greedy and wicked. You can’t actually stop such people – you can only kill them when they try.

But now lets go forward – we need NATO, it is said, because we have to defend Europe from Russia. Ok. We’ll leave aside whether Europe is worth defending (in my view, it isn’t) and just concentrate on the claim. Did NATO stop Russia from invading Ukraine? Twice?

No.

NATO is overwhelmingly more powerful than Russia. If NATO wants, it could raise a military force large enough to make mincemeat of Russia in short order.

Did this stop Russia from attacking Ukraine?

No.

Of course not. Because Russia knows full well the situation and the bottom line here is that no NATO country is going to actually send an army to fight and die in the Donbas on the debatable issue of it being actually Ukrainian. The only thing that might have stopped Putin from invading wasn’t the existence of an alliance much more powerful than he…but an army in Ukraine either before or right after the Russian attack. Putin might have listened to, say, two German armored corps stationed outside Kiev in February of 2022. Might. He still may have gone right ahead if he felt confident that the Russian army was stronger. People who start wars aren’t noted for their rational thoughts. Even great conquerors like Napoleon get caught up in their own desires; never fully understanding the folly of what they’re doing. If they did understand the folly, they never would attack. Someone who attacks is someone who left off at least most of sanity some time before (even if attacking a much weaker enemy – like say the USSR against the Finns in 1939…no way Russia was going to lose but Stalin still sent men to die – to die – for what was at best a modest convenience for Soviet strategic needs; that’s just nuts). And here’s the real kicker: suppose two German armored corps outside Kiev would have stopped him? Nice. One small problem: Germany doesn’t have two armored corps. The Germans only have two panzer divisions plus one panzergrenadier. That’s pretty much it. Hard to deter anyone if you don’t have any force to deter them with.

And that gets us to the really fatal flaw behind NATO and the UN – they are predicated upon having a force immediately available to be unquestioningly used against aggression. There was a time when NATO had this – but after the Cold War ended, it all atrophied very rapidly. Everyone kept saying that NATO provides collective security – repeating it like an incantation as division after division, wing after wing, task force after task force was cut from NATO’s military inventory. Even if the theory of collective security was true, it doesn’t work without military force. Only the USA still maintains a sizeable military force…and our current force is run down, demoralized and understrength after two rounds (Obama and Biden) of imposing Woke ideology on it while equipment and training went by the board. I doubt our ability to field even a complete division for ground combat right now – and the streaks of rust I see on our ships makes me doubt heavily that we’ve even got a Navy at the moment. But we’re Patton ready to fight compared to the European military forces…did you know that Gibraltar, the gateway to the Mediterranean, is currently protected by 235 British soldiers and two patrol boats? You hold Gibraltar and you control one of the most vital trade routes in the world…and it is currently defenseless. Makes ya feel safe, doesn’t it?

As we enter Trump II, it is time we really started to think again about what we want? And I am certain that NATO isn’t it – there’s nothing in Europe I’d ever send an American kid to defend and if I’m concerned about our global position than alliance with Japan, India and Vietnam seems far more useful than what we have now. But I also think we have to abandon this concept of permanent alliances. NATO and the UN have proved not just useless, but malevolent – actually undermining our power and position in the world. An alliance is a thing for the moment – to do a particular task. I want an alliance with India not so that 50 years from now we’re still allied with India, but because the USA and India share a common need to deter China’s power grabs. Once the China issue is settled, then there will be no need for a USA/India alliance and it can lapse.

It is time for us to stop doing things just because it is what we’ve been doing. I realize that a huge number of people have invested their whole lives – and make their money – off the current system, but the system is to serve the country, not the country the system. What we have now serves no purpose; not even a bad purpose. Dispense with it and look for new ways.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

Rumor is that Team Biden is working with the Israeli Left to oust Netanyahu so a new, Leftist Israeli government can agree to a ceasefire which will save Hamas. For the Israeli Left, this is how to get back into office – and without the tedious need for an election that Likud might well win. For Biden, it gets Gaza off the table before the Convention so the Democrats don’t have to deal with Hamas rioters in Chicago. The primary thing here is the illustration that for the Left it is always about power – Team Biden and the Israeli Left don’t care about those who have died, nor about those who will die if Hamas is allowed to survive. They have no human feelings at all – just appetite for power (and wealth, sex and the things that go with power).

Will it work? Don’t know. Depends, in the end, how firm the Israeli people are and how much courage Netanyahu’s coalition has. We’ll see about that. But I will lay a lot of blame on Netanyahu: as I’ve been saying from Day One: celerity is crucial. Israel could never afford to drag this thing out. Unless the goal was to let Hamas survive after some severe punishment – and Netanyahu said it was about destroying Hamas – then the only way to do that was a maximum application of Israeli firepower on a tightly besieged Gaza. No supplies or people in or out; systemic, block by block destruction of every person and building in Gaza until the people of Gaza surrender unconditionally. And make no mistake about it: they would have surrendered. Probably after no more than a few weeks of that. Nobody was ever braver than the Poles in World War Two – but both in the initial invasion and during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, the Poles eventually quit after being hammered quite mercilessly by the Germans. People can endure a lot. Courage can make up for a lot of things…but after a while all you’re doing is dying with no hope of success and it is time to call it quits.

The Great Debate: far too many rumors about why now – and why it is being set for June, prior to the Convention. The only things we know for certain is that Trump has accepted and Biden will be in a soft, cuddly cocoon of MSM when it happens. I think it is a high risk gamble by a Team Biden that knows its losing.

Russia launched a surprise offensive north of Kharkov – that is, a surprise to everyone but those who can read a map.

They keep saying the offensive north of Kharkov is a feint…but I gotta say it looks to me like the Russians are going for a pretty classic double-envelopment of Ukrainian forces east of the Kharkov-Donetsk line. We’ll get a better idea as time goes on. But the problem seems to be that the Ukrainians had very limited forces up north…and apparently have a severe manpower shortage in general. In other words, if this “feint” in the north is the real thing, the Russians might find they’re punching into an empty bag. The Ukrainian forces in the east would have to retreat, or be cut off and destroyed – and if Ukraine loses a significant portion of its army, that’s game-over…it would be abject surrender. This is probably the time for the Ukrainians to ask Putin his price for a peace treaty. If it mostly entails giving up what the Russians already have, take the deal. If it is a demand for Ukraine’s destruction, then fight on and probably with more help from the West.

Peru has apparently decreed that being non-binary and the rest of that drivel is a mental illness…mostly because it is.

As I’ve said all along: live your life! Let your freak flag fly if that is what gets you through the day. As in all things, I’ll diligently work to ensure that there is no unjust discrimination against anyone for what they are or what they do. But, a guy in a dress is still a guy. Nobody is born in the wrong body. There are no trans children. Gender is immutable and it is binary. I don’t care what you do – but don’t do it to kids and don’t demand that I participate, even a little bit, in your weird, little world.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

I have this friend whom I’ve known since 1971. When we were kids, we liked science fiction (heck, we both still do) and so we’d ponder in, say, 1978 what the future might hold. We came up with some pretty fantastic ideas of what humanity might achieve but among the possibilities, cannibalism wasn’t one of them. Now we’ve got alleged cannibal gangs in Haiti and there was this train accident in California the other day where a leg was thrown clear and a guy apparently picked it up and started snacking on it. We seem to be devolving at an increasing pace.

Gas prices are starting to rise again and this is putting downward pressure on Biden’s poll numbers. In response to this, Team Pudding Brain has asked Ukraine to not blow up Russian oil facilities which would put even more upward pressure on gas prices. So, we’re paying for Ukraine to fight the Russians while also doing what we can to ensure Russia has money to fight the Ukrainians. Got a call from Zombie Kafka and he asked that we knock it off.

That terrorist attack in Moscow was of the quite horrific variety. Moscow is, of course, tightly protected and gun control is universal in Russia but this terrorist squad managed to get there and accessed a pre-positioned cache of some pretty heavy weapons. You can’t stop determined lunatics. Aside from that, what’s it all about?

Nobody knows. Very good chance that nobody will ever really know. US government word is that ISIS took responsibility and that is a possibility: ISIS has a gripe against Russia over the Syrian Civil War where the Russian- and Iranian-back Syrian regime fought ISIS. The Russian government is clearly indicating a Ukrainian connection and even if that wasn’t true, the Russian government would be keen to make it true. If any element of the Ukrainian government was involved – even rogue – the US will do all it can to suppress that information. We’re in for a raft of conspiracy theories on this one, guys.

Could Ukraine have had a hand in it? That is a distinct possibility. The Russians are advancing again; not very fast or far, but definitely moving the line westwards. There was a massive Russian missile strike against Ukrainian electricity production a couple days ago. Ukraine is having ever more trouble filling its depleted ranks (there are stories that French combat units are moving into Western Ukraine; don’t guess wrong here…this is probably more to prevent Russia from moving too far west in the event of a Ukrainian collapse; the French don’t want a shooting war with Russia; they don’t have the army for it). Could desperate times in Kiev lead to desperate, even foolish, measures? They could.

Bottom line: a messy situation just go messier – and if the Russian government can pin this on Ukraine, even with bogus evidence, it will strongly motivate the Russian people to take a pound of flesh from Ukraine.

Biden’s people are pushing very hard to stop Israel from hitting the southern part of Gaza. This is because of polling in Michigan and Minnesota with their large Muslim populations. But it is also rather disgusting that our government is increasingly aligned with Hamas against Israel. I don’t think the Democrats really come back from this – once you start down that road, it ends at Der Sturmer; they’ll be repeating blood libels by 2028.

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.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan43 Comments

Now that the whole football thing is over with, we can fully concentrate on the sport that matters: Hockey!

We here in Vegas fell in love with our Golden Knights during the inaugural season 7 years ago and the love affair has just grown since then. Going from Misfits to Champions in 6 years just cemented it. I had never watched more than a couple minutes of hockey in my life until that first season…but as the Knights started to shock the world by winning and getting into playoff contention, I started to watch. It took a little while to grasp the rules and tactics of the game but I’m pretty well grounded now…periodically shouting at the TV “shoot, dammit, there’s a lane open” and “for crying out loud, don’t turn it over at the blue line” and other such hocky-fan things. It is the last, remaining un-woke sport, anyways. And I like the element of luck in it. In all major sports the worst can beat the best but in hockey just a little more so…because you’re trying to get a little black thing to go into a net off ice. The skills are there, the shot is there and its perfect…but it hits a post or goes just slightly wide. You never know how a game can go…how at times you’ll go 40 minutes of play without anyone scoring, and then in five minutes 4 goals are scored collectively. So, hoping my Knights repeat! To make up for the national humiliation of the Chiefs repeating.

Everyone in Pudding Brain’s world is out there asserting that Biden is vigorous and sharp as a tack…while he’s got no official actions scheduled for the next three days. You know: the middle of the work week. That presser he gave was a catastrophe…and his Super Bowl rant about potato chips didn’t help. Everyone knows: he’s senile. He’s probably lucid no more than a few hours a day and can’t possibly map out a strategy. We’re now governed by a collection of West Wing staffers and Jill who try to work the Joe Oracle to get a decision…its why everything is a mess right now. The only way out, now, is a Trump vote in November.

And that is why with very few exceptions I’m getting harsh with Never Trump. To be fair, I know a few who have consistently opposed Trump on policy grounds since 2015. That’s fine. I disagree but if someone is giving me an honest opinion based on facts and their interpretation of same, I can’t really complain. But the broad mass of Never Trump are just mind-numbed Orange Man Bad cretins. There is no moral or intellectual world where Biden is better than Trump. Getting Biden out is crucial to the basic safety of the United States. And these Never Trump guys are on and on about how they have to keep Biden in because Trump is worse. That isn’t just dishonest, it is stupid. It isn’t about Trump. It is not even about Republican or Democrat – it is about getting a clearly, mentally incompetent man out of office. Even Kamala would be better in that at least she’s not senile (other than that: disaster). Right now, if the 3 am call comes, we have no idea who will make the actual decision…and we might get no decision (which is vastly worse than even a bad decision) because nobody wants to take responsibility for it. Biden must go.

The Senate GOP is backing the Ukraine aid bill (naturally) but Senator Vance (R-OH) found within the text a requirement that the money remain available for Ukraine until September, 2025. Meaning that if Trump wins and carries out his pledge to end US support for the Ukraine war, he can be impeached. Rely on it, the Ruling Class knows it is at least even money that Trump wins in November and they’re trying to hamstring him in advance. The border bill was like that, too; all sorts of provisions which would de-facto tie Trump’s hands on border security.

Of course, poison pill or no, I think Trump should go for it. It is unlikely that there are 67 Senate votes to remove Trump. Just let impeachment after impeachment fail, if that is what it takes. Trump’s main task, if he wins, is to clear out the bureaucracy, anyways – that is where the danger really lies to himself and to any future GOP President. We now know that various officials of the Executive branch were not only refusing direct, legal Presidential orders, they were actively breaking the law to take down Trump. Massive housecleaning is necessary. An end to Civil Service protections, at least in all senior Executive Branch positions. Executive Branch people have no power – the President is the only person vested by the Constitution with Executive power. Anyone who exercises Executive power does so at the discretion of the President and simply cannot, except in cases of obviously illegal orders, refuse a Presidential order.

Canadian Leftist groups in cooperation with the Canadian government cooked up a story about how Catholic Church schools in Canada had mass graves for Native children murdered by Catholic Church schools. It was quite a big issue in Canada and they even got the Pope to issue an apology about it. Trouble is, there were and are no mass graves. Of course there weren’t: hey, the Church has a lot of faults but they don’t mass murder people. It was just a ridiculous accusation…but the Ruling Class ran with it because it was an attack on the Church and they’ll always go for that. It has all been exposed as a hoax but that doesn’t matter: to the Leftist, to original, flaming headline is always the dogma. “Hands up, don’t shoot”, “was just buying skittles” and “I can’t breath” are obligatory beliefs even though there isn’t the least bit of truth to them. So, too, with the “Church mass graves” story – the Left still asserts it is true, and so very often these days Leftist terrorists are burning down Catholic churches. Naturally, the police don’t get them: they’re busy looking for people who are misgendering.

So a perhaps-trans shooter with “free Palestine” on Xir gun tried to do a mass shooting, fortunately stopped. But you’ll be pleased to know the shooter is an illegal immigrant in country for 19 years and voted in the 2020 election.

Volkswagon has their Super Bowl ad and it was pretty good…left out something, though.

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 Noonan55 Comments

Congressional GOPers are getting set to approve the latest NDAA which fixes the government spying problem by making it easier for government to spy on us.

I wish I was kidding.

They are such useless twits, aren’t they? Gotta be that they are on the take. At least, I hope they are on the take or being blackmailed. I hope they aren’t consciously this stupid and evil. There is no reason for the GOP to do anything right now. Sure, we can’t enact a single law because the Democrat Senate and Pudding Brain will not agree. But this doesn’t mean we have to do anything. Let them stew and complain. Nobody gives a darn about Ukraine or any of the other things the Establishment is on about. All people care about is gas, groceries and our increasingly chaotic border. Just say no. But, they can’t. They have to “do something” or someone who hates them will hate them even more.

Harvard’s President is being kept on. They have to: she is the definition of the Diversity Hire and if they boot her then it will start the whole system crashing down. Do keep in mind that all of the major institutions of the Western world are now run by people just like her: mindless ideologues promoted because they check boxes and obey orders. Start pulling at even one thread of it and it’ll unravel…that is, the rank incompetence of these people will be revealed. So, she gets to stay. Though given that she booted people from Harvard for plagiarism in the past the coming lawsuits will be enormously funny. As will the lawsuits soon to hit CVS as they were just caught on tape talking about how to exclude white people from the hiring process.

Side note: all our laws about civil rights? No longer in effect. They are just there to beat you down. If your rights are violated, nobody is going to do anything about it. You won’t find the DOJ going after CVS.

But it is past time that in our Red States we enact Civil Rights laws and start vigorously enforcing them. We do control some major powerhouses – notably Texas and Florida. We can make corporate and education America feel quite a lot of heat. And all it will be is just enforcing the notion that we are all equal under the law. Nothing radical or new. Nothing hard to explain. Fairness; that’s all we’ll be enforcing.

Word is that Ukraine will raise the age of conscription up to 40 because that’s what all nations on the road to victory do.

What a mess that is turning into. From what I’ve read up to a couple million military-aged males have fled Ukraine. And if they’re getting ready to conscript 40 year olds it means they are at the bottom of the manpower barrel. Today Zelensky was in DC trying to drum up support for even more money. He’ll probably get it but, seriously, what point is it if there’s nobody to give the arms to? It is way past time to wind this up – ask Putin to name his price and then try to make him back off 10 percent of it.

The Hamas apologists have raised the death toll in Gaza to 18,000. Keep in mind that back in 2002 the Palestinians said that the IDF had killed thousands in Jenin. Turns out it was about 50. They’re lying now as much as then. My guesstimate is about 500 dead…this based upon word that about 100 IDF soldiers have been killed. Figure firepower differential means about 3 Hamas dead to each IDF and then add some more because Hamas uses human shields.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan65 Comments

I watched an Estonian moving called 1944; highly recommend. It is in Estonian and so has subtitles but it is just a good movie. It involves Estonians who have been forced by circumstances to fight in both the German and Soviet armies in WWII, naturally ending up fighting each other. Aside from some good acting and direction, it is worthwhile to watch because it does get into that moral dilemma of just what is the right thing to do? You feel for the soldiers on both sides; caught in a web, a small nation between overwhelming neighbors. The Estonians in the Waffen SS mostly despising Hitler but hating the Soviets for deporting their families in 1940…the Estonians in the Red Army mostly despising Stalin and his regime but wanting the Germans out of their nation. Give it a watch.

Pudding Brain and his people are all-in on open borders. Actually saying it out loud and on the cameras, though absurdly claiming that Trump is responsible for a broken immigration system that they’re fixing. They’re also all-in on medical mutilation of minors. Keeping prices high. I think what we’ve really got is a senile Executive and all the little Commies lower down have nobody to stop them…and so they’re pushing Left on the long-help Leftist theory that the reason the American people haven’t embraced Communism is lack of Leftist policy. This may not work out as they hoped.

On the other hand, the GOP is also all-in on helping out Pudding Brain in Ukraine. I just don’t understand it. I mean, outside of bribery. There is zero political downside for the GOP standing aside here – don’t even have to actively oppose the Ukraine war…but for goodness sake don’t be out there being a booster for it. It is bound to end in failure…and all they’re doing is ensuring that the blame for the loss sits on the GOP. The Base doesn’t want this war.

Polls says this and that – and some special elections have gone against us. How will 2024 come out? Beats the heck out of me. But some Leftists are sounding the alarm just as they did in 2016: on the ground, there does appear to be a shift to the GOP. Pennsylvania voter registration continues to favor the GOP. Looks like there won’t be unlimited drop boxes in Wisconsin for 2024. I do think the GOP can win – if it can unite.

That unity will be hard to gain because the Democrats will pay for “GOPers” to sow division. They’re already doing it. There are two equally stupid positions to hold: Never Trump and Only Trump. I don’t care how much a RINO the person is: better than any Democrat. I don’t care how Trumpy a candidate is: still better than any Democrat. Time for everyone to grow up and just do the right thing.

Menedez gets indicted again. Don’t for a minute think this is because the Ruling Class is opposed to corruption. If the charges are true – and remember DOJ does just make things up – then his problem was either stealing above his station or not sharing out properly. Also, could be a back door to force Pudding Brain out: apparently, there is at least some connection between what Menendez is accused of doing and Hunter’s dealings. And keep in mind what they’re charging Menedez with: profiting off of his wife’s actions. Sound familiar?

Couple of minority kids deliberately ran over a retired cop here in Vegas. They were booked as “white”. Not the first time I’ve seen this; and it is clearly deliberate. They are fudging crime stats right in front of us. Trying to lower the amount of POC crime and make out white men to be far more dangerous than they are. All part of a program designed to eventually arrest every troublesome MAGA person as a terrorist.

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.