In 9 AD the Roman general Publius Quinctilius Varus led three legions across the Rhine to teach the barbarians a lesson. In what the history books call the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the barbarians ambushed the Romans and wiped them out in what the Romans would call the Varian disaster. This event ended the expansion of the Roman empire into what is now Germany. Other than some retaliatory excursions, the Rhine became the de facto boundary for the empire.
We may be seeing another Varian disaster in Ukraine. This time the empire moving east is the Global American Empire and the battle is the Donbas. This is the disputed region in the east of Ukraine that has historically identified with Russia. They revolted against Kiev in 2014 after the American State Department toppled the Ukrainian government and installed a puppet regime hostile to Russia. The resulting civil war in the east and the south culminated in the Russian invasion in January.
A few months ago, every cable shout show host was festooned with Ukraine flags while spinning tales about the evil Russians. Ukraine was who we were as a people, willing to bear any burden to defend democracy. Every expert assured us that the Russians would revolt against their evil dictator and the Russian army would quit in the field, once they knew the Twitter mob had cancelled them. It was just a matter of time before Zelensky was taking selfies in Moscow.
Like the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the Battle of the Donbas is shaping up to be a humiliating defeat for the empire. The Ukrainian army is now trapped in various pockets with limited supplies and no chance to escape. The Russians have maneuvered them into a position where their artillery, what little remains cannot reach the Russians, but the Russian artillery can reach them. The Russians have a lot of artillery and they are incredibly good at the use of it in siege warfare.
No one knows for sure, but reliable estimates going back a couple of months suggest the Ukrainians have been losing up to one thousand troops a day. These estimates are based on known figures for Ukrainian units at various places like Mariupol and then comparing them to areas that have come under Russian control. The Zelensky government has been slowly raising its own estimates, suggesting they are losing close to five hundred troops per day.
Until the war ends and there is an official effort to count the dead, we are left to guess about the casualties, but what is clear is that this is a one-sided war. For reasons no one has yet to explain, the West instructed the Ukrainians to take up positions in fortified cities rather than go out to meet the Russian army in the field. The Ukrainians had more battle ready troops at the start of the war than the Russians and they had the advantage of working on their own territory.
Choosing to fight a defensive war allowed the Russians to maneuver the Ukrainians into pockets around the east and south. They could then pick and choose their targets, bringing superior fire power to destroy the defenders. The West poured in weapons but it turns out that anti-tank weapons are of little use against an artillery barrage from over the horizon. Once the Russians sorted out what the Ukrainians were doing, it has been a turkey shoot since the spring.
Just from a military perspective, this is a disaster. War doctrine says that an invader needs a significant advantage in men and material. Because of the blunders of the Ukraine’s Western handlers, the smaller invading force will end up obliterating the larger defending force. It is not just about taking territory. The Russians are systematically destroying the army so that it can never regroup. This will be one of those events that military historians study for years to come.
The military aspect is the smallest part of this unfolding disaster. The absurd triumphalism of last winter has now given way to panic in Europe. Their economy is in an inflationary spiral that is only going to get worse. The sanctions on Russia have wreaked havoc on the EU economy. Energy prices are ratcheting up and serious food shortages are on the horizon. Compounding it is the fact that the sanctions are just starting to bite. Things will get worse by autumn.
The scene is not much better in the United States. The added element is that the people in charge look like the day room at a rest home. The economic woes have highlighted the fact that the people in charge are old and stupid. People will suffer bad economic time if they assume the ruling class has people who will eventually rise up and put things in good order. What the unfolding economic crisis is doing in America is revealing the dearth of competence in the ruling class.
Things are about to get worse. At some point this summer, the Ukrainian army will cease to exist as a practical matter. Observers think the Russians will wrap up the Donbas in the coming weeks. They will have achieved most of their goals when the conflict started plus a couple of extra items. They will be free to take control of Odessa, thus turning Ukraine into a landlocked country. It will also be an economic basket case entirely dependent on Western aid.
In other words, the West will be saddled with an exceptionally large humanitarian disaster at a time when the West is facing terrible economic conditions. The West may have no choice but to sit down with the Russians to hammer out a solution. On top of the loss in the field and the economic debacle, Western leaders will have to endure the humiliation of shaking hands with Putin. Whatever credibility Western leaders have left will evaporate at that moment.
In the grand scheme of things, the Varian disaster was more of an inflection point than a disaster for the empire. It was the point at which the empire shifted from expansionism to a defensive posture. For the Global American Empire, the Ukraine disaster may be much more consequential. This debacle undermines the fundamental logic of the global American system. In time it could be the point where the Cold War finally ends for the West and a great retrenchment begins.
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Why are the people in the Ukraine and Russian at war?
After a war the farmer who lost a son or daughter or parent or friend at the hands of a foreign farmer with a different language, who was talked into putting on a helmet and given a gun, are now supposed to shake hands and go on about their business as though nothing happened. The truth is that this war along with most wars and conflicts are about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
So, the talk about who is winning or loosing the ground war doesn’t jive with me. Neither side wins until they point their weapons at the true enemy, those that stared and pushed the war, those that benefit in power and money from the war.
Why is the guy in the trench, in fear of his life, ducking for cover while those starting this war are sitting in safe comfortable chairs drinking vodka and sampling caviar? Not the farmer on either side of some vague line.
One of the most telling aspects of this disaster was the confident expectation, based on that depriving Russia of McDonald’s and OnlyFans would cause the regime to fall to revolution.
This was the classic mistake of ascribing one’s own values to the enemy. Our people are so wrecked that only bread and circuses keep them out of the streets. Russian society has more resilience that the West.
Aaargh sanctioning the hot slim Russians from the Onlyfans gourmet of goods leaves us with more of the slovenly, pierced and tatted fattys of the West. It is not only within the realm of energy and grains that we suffer but we are further punished by the Western sanctions of Onlyfans on Russia.
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Well, we just finished paying off our WWII reparations and the reunification of East Germany a few years ago. Evidently the word is out Germans have a lot of spare coins in their pockets that could be put to good use rebuilding Ukraine.
Guess I won’t be trading in my 7-Series BMW for a new Tesla after all. Seems I’m going to need that down payment just keep the house warm this winter – if Uncle Putin will still sell us the gas.
I always heard you Huns had remarkably efficient furnaces and ovens, that you could bake 3,000 times more with an open air coke oven than us yanks can do with forced air propane. I think the German officials should look into that, maybe have an official inquiry.
Also, clearly your mental faculties are already being impacted by the food shortages: surely no one in his right mind would trade a 7 for a Tesla.
Pickle the Rick: “The sticking point is that Putin and Russia would be fools to believe that AINO and Globohomo would negotiate in good faith or abide by any treaty. So there’s no incentive for Putin to sign any paper that would be as worthless the moment it was signed, if only for the simple fact that the nominal President of the United States is a dementia case, and the Congress will soon be in the hands of the neocons’ lackeys.”
Good thinking and agree with you. And if there is any kind of treaty to be signed, Putin will be doing it for the ceremonial optics of it, only after he’s secured all he wants in the region now and forever. Or he may refuse to sign anything, just to remind the world that American treaties are still as worthless as the ones we signed with the Cherokee.
“Agreement incapable.” An apt description of our leadership on many levels.
Putin has designated the US as the Empire of Lies. How do you negotiate with an Empire of Lies? Maybe, if your Russia, you negotiate with the understanding that the US will not only treat its own population to a smorgasbord of deceptive declarations but it will also treat any non-US populations equally. It’s equity ya know. US and globalist leaders lie to all equally, only Russia has the good sense to call it what it is and plan accordingly
Before the “American” empire was “American” it was called the British Empire. The British Empire was the British East India Company, which segued out of the Dutch East India Company. Earlier, Converso Torquemada had herded his coethnics from Spain into Amsterdam to join the banking industry and into the Caribean to slave trade. Popester Alexander VI invites 1000’s to live in the Vatican.
Where is the Empire’s next host nation? What dumb sheep are going to permit it’s blood and soil to be duped away, used for the bankster’s brutality circus. China was happy to allow the empire to take industry from the Europeans and bring it to China. But… is China going to allow the “American” bignose smallhat empire to take over? Is India? Dunno, Don’t think so.
The last stop on the locust world tour is Jerusalem. Where the Kings of the world come to lick the dust from the feet of the locusts. Even today, we already see a lot of western folk and leaders doing a powerful lot of licking.
“For reasons no one has yet to explain, the West instructed the Ukrainians to take up positions in fortified cities rather than go out to meet the Russian army in the field.”
The answer here is very simple. The Ukrainians are not really fighting a defensive war. The Elensky regime is an occupying force in Ukraine; they are the true aggressors here. Their very ability to exist depends upon them holding a terror-grip over civilian populations. This is why their army cannot abandon the cities, and this is why they indiscriminately shell civilian areas. The fact that they took civilians hostage in Mariupol and Azot is only a more blatant case of their whole general strategy: They have basically taken the whole country hostage. And while we are on this subject, just think once more about the fact that they actually took civilian hostages. I can’t believe we are even talking about this.
So, all the crap that you always hear, even coming from Alt-Media armchair generals about how “the invader usually needs three times the troop levels of the defender” and so forth, only testifies to the fact that even they have somehow missed the signature dynamics of this war. The Elenskys are the invaders, and the Russians are the counterinsurgency.
You would have understood all if you just would have taken proper note of Putin’s term “de-nazification.”
It is not apparent to me why Putin should shake hands with the Euro-puppets.
You’d have to understand how politeness works first.
Ukrainians have hated Russians for centuries derisively calling them “moskali”. Ukraine became a separate country for the 1st time in it’s history only in the confusion of the USSR demise in 1992.
About 90% of industries built in previous decades promptly collapsed under Ukrainian rule. To top this intellectual achievement they decided to start shelling a peaceful ethnic Russian population of Donbas all for the sin of clinging to their Russian language and ancestry.
They miscalculated and now get their just rewards from the higher intelligence Russian neighbor. No wonder Russian people overwhelmingly support Putin in this war.
how many dissident-rightist are still pro-Ukraine ?
I have to admit I delete my links of all the pro-ukrainian rightist sites I used to read, so I have no clue of the actual situation.
STEVE
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SAILER
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Steve Sailer has always been a fake and gay, fame-obsessed, aspirational mainstreamer. Covid and Ukraine did no more than reveal him for what he is.
I don’t think Greg Johnson has changed his tune either
I think the real decay of US empire, in a geographical POV, as started in 2008.
Since, it become more and more obvious
-2008 : can’t stop Russia to beat Georgia
-2013 : give up in Syria
-2021 : give up in Afghanistan
-2022 : crushed and autocrushed in Ukraine
-202? : Taiwan
Since we were bankrupted in the bank heist- that makes sense.
LNG blows up and has to go off line in Louisiana. Simultaneously, Germans are stuck in a hole as heavy equipment vital to Nordstream1 is sent to Canada for repair and is STUCK there thanks to sanctions. Thanks to the Louisiana disaster, US can’t send extra gas to Germany.
Germany is headed for a Regime Change whether Washington likes it or not, and they’ll be hostile as hell to the US. GAE is about to lose its grip on Europe. Serious monkey wrenches (largely of their own making) ahead for the State Dept.
Now you’ve done it.
Everyone here is looking at each other and thinking, “food processors?” Hello ration cards
Felix Krull:
I’d suggest “Morgenthau Plan”.
Jake Sullivan, mentored by Blinken “winken’ and nod,” will not be available for June talks. We have Pride parades galore, and his supple leather assless chaps and mask are as out as he is. I’d like to see him attend RF talks in his June pride attire.
Now: Children of Men
Next: Zardoz
It may be just that, a price negotiation.
Ukraine still hasn’t cut off the gas pipelines that run through it, and I imagine is still collecting the toll.
Like Mafia families at war, or drug barons defending their street corners, neither side wants “the bisnis” to end.
(Oh, and, hello, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Cyprus)
Ah shoot, meant for Citizen Silly, about “this might be mainly about a gas pipeline”.
Gangsters play rough, and Putin is, after all, very much a gangster.
Great men are rarely also good men.
We could also argue that by definition, evil men cannot be great men.
On the flip side I cannot see Gandhi, for instance, a great man, being an evil person.
Well, yeah, except for the sleeping nude with young women (including his nieces) to prove his purity.
Everyone has their vices; Gandhi was a “sex addict” (aka: a pervert).
Modern India pretty much acknowledges this. Great man? Yes. Pervert and sexual predator? (even by Indian standards) Yes.
That’s a sign both of youthful vitality, and of fortitude in the face of temptation, so what’s not to like
Then and there, those girls were of marriagable age. The moms- even of the nieces- were probably bringing them over by the busload.
Gandhi was evil, Gandhi was a racist, His first involvement in politics in South Africa was to protest segregation, He thought they needed more. He didn’t want to have to use the same facilities as the Blecks. He thought He and his ilk were entitled to their own, not the White ones of course.
The very definition of evil today..
Why do you say Putin is a gangster?
Say there Olaf… guess who is buying Russian oil and gas while your neighbors are having it out with a gun fight down the street…?
US allows energy transactions with sanctioned Russian banks
https://www.rt.com/business/557161-us-energy-transactions-russian-banks/
An old colleague I knew from my PMC days retired to Eastern Ukraine in the ’90s. I hadn’t heard from him in a few years, but I was hoping he wasn’t still there with all this going on. He is, Russians overran the territory he resides in and they detained him since he possessed firearms. They let him go and from his email, actually told him to write his family sent outside of Russian-held territories to let them know he was still alive. From what he said, the Russians are executing a lot of foreign mercenaries over there. They hauled a few Brits and Euro mercs off to Russia for the obligatory show trials, but a lot of those captured mercs are also summarily executed, or even just shot out of hand in the field. Veracity aside, and I’m sure whatever communication allowed to the outside is screened by Russian counter intelligence, I’d true the Russians aren’t effing around.
After the videos of Russian prisoners being tortured and/or killed emerged, the gloves came off. Mercenaries are fighting in support of the people who did these things, and are not protected under the Geneva Conventions. Get in bed with the Devil, you’d better be ready to fuck. Discourage them.
“Get in bed with the Devil, you’d better be ready to fuck.” Is that a known phrase? If you made that up, slow hand clap..
No, I once heard and appropriated it from some forgotten source, so I claim no credit for its origination. Still, evocative, no?
I believe it’s from the movie “The Usual Suspects”
Is Ukraine a signatory to the Geneva Convention?
Want to know who is winning – look at the economic news. The American and European stock markets are crashing while inflation is dangerously high.
Meanwhile – Russia just cut their interest rate because their economy is recovering faster than expected and the Ruble is stronger than ever. More importantly, they seem to have sane, intelligent adults in charge.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-central-bank-cuts-key-rate-pre-crisis-level-95-2022-06-10/
To be honest since the war started the Russians have won what amounts to three main siege/urban battles: Mariupol, Izium, Popasnaya. They gained the left bank Donets river in the Yampol-Krasny Liman region, but their attempts to cross it were defeated.
Now they have been fighting for about a month in Severodonetsk. With its twin city of Lisichansk on the other bank of the river, they seem not able to encircle these two settlements neither from the West, given the failed Donets crossings, nor from the South-East because advance from Popasnaya was arrested by new Ukrainian lines at nearby Zolote. Bakhmut and Soledar are still firmly in Ukrainian hands, thus supply lines can be harassed but not cut. And this is just the small pincer move available to them, after victory in Popasnaya.
A larger pincer option would have involved using the bridgehead South of Izium to entrap Sloviansk and Kramatorsk (which are said to be the main Ukrainian bases in the Donbass) as well.
All that said, the western outskirts of Donetsk city proper absurdly still remain in Ukrainian hands, whence they are able to periodically shell the city centre totally carefree, apparently behind impregnable fortifications. If the Russians are so overwhelming, they should have been able to tackle this very sensitive spot as first priority.
Overall, if the Ukrainian army does not collapse, at this pace I cannot see the Russians gaining more than Severodonetsk and maybe Bakhmut by the end of the summer. So supposing they know what they are doing, either they are confident the Ukrainians will run into serious ammunition and morale problems, or they are currently in the process of actively training a new batch of volunteers in order to double the ranks of their invasion force.
In any other case they will not be able to conquer the Donbass in an acceptable timeframe, let alone gain Odessa or the whole left side of the Dniepr.
I assumed a while back that the fighting would stop after the Russians took Odessa (leaving it looking worse than Mariupol) but collapse of the Ukrainian army could be close, maybe the Russians take Odessa without a fight
Downvoted for one reason. Hemingway’s quip about bankruptcy: slowly then all at once. This is being set up rather well by the Russian army right now. Having your (Ukie) soldiers fearing bulllets in the back isn’t a viable strategy at any time. They have already resorted to calling up the Volkssturm and are short of everything except delusions. At some point there will be a crack in the front and it will be all done after that. Either that or the repellant comedian is Mussolini’ed by his own then a ceasefire.
You area assuming Ukrainian morale to be very low, but you cannot be certain. I provided for that as well in my post. Probably morale is low amongst territorial forces, but still good among regulars, nationalist and elite airborne troops.
Then also imagine you are fighting the enemy over a vast front, and having some progress here and there. However, the frontline passes just outside the beltway around your capital city, which gets shelled everyday by the enemy and you do nothing about it for months. How can it be interpreted?
You guys tend to be true believers on this. It’s rather obvious from the slow pace of the advance so far. Apart from shelling fixed positions to oblivion, with their current numbers the Russians cannot fight a war of manoeuvre.
This is certainly a sign of things going in favor of the Ukraine:
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-armed-forces-set-call-female-citizens-aged-20-50-new-recruitment-cycle-304276
Then again in the west, perhaps it is. Since everyone here has decided to ignore things that make them unhappy, because if it makes you unhappy it can’t be true
Not much of an argument, the pink draft story is just propaganda to keep the Ukraine drama going for the cat ladies in the West. Doubt it will ever be enforced, would be met with hostility at home, and be detrimental in battle (male Volksturm itself is useless).
You guys seem desperate to cling on anything would make you hope Russia is on the brink of total victory. A dispassionate inspection of maps and internet sources related to the fighting would suggest much more caution.
“total victory”
Please define, i’ve never heard anything from the Russian side mentioning “total victory”
Ah i see, so you have an inside source, boots on the ground information that illuminates your wise viewpoints? Nobody has good information on the Ukraine, i’m basing my viewpoint on the fact that Russia appears to be run by a collection of adults as opposed to the West. I base that on observing both groups of “leadership” over the past 20 years.
The Russian staff in command of operations has been and currently is under constant heavy critique of Russian military analyst, political opponents, and word of mouth from low-ranked officers on the field.
Chief of operation was changed a month of 2 ago, they let in a general with commanding experience from the Russian contingent in Syria. Other than that you can google Strelkov online, he is a Donetsk-Russian figure who has become renown for his critical stance to the whole operation, but by no means he is the only one, just you may find some of his analyses translated into English. Shoigu, the commanding cadre, even Putin have been thoroughly roasted and grilled for the slow pace of advance and the numerous military setbacks, that could have been largely avoided according to critics (and common sense).
Just to quote one episode, the victory in Popasnaya was an exploit of dissenting Wagner Group troopers that got to do things their way.
The slow pace of advance is easy to check for anyone, just have a look at the evolution of frontline maps. To infer from that as an obvious fact that Russian involvement atm is insufficient with present numbers, perhaps some military insight is needed. That I gave for granted.
The maps show the Ukrainians in the Donbas getting slowly squeezed by the Russians. They are taking huge casualties – by their own admission – and have no answer for Russian artillery.
It’s a bloodbath for no purpose.
The Russian staff in command of operations has been and currently is under constant heavy critique from Russian military analyst, political opponents, and word of mouth from low-ranked officers on the field.
Chief of operation was changed a month or 2 ago, they let in a general with commanding
experience from the Russian contingent in Syria. Other than that you can google Strelkov
online, he is a Donetsk-Russian figure who has become renown for his critical stance to the whole operation, but by no means he is the only one, just you may find some of his analyses translated into English. Shoigu, the commanding cadre, even Putin have been thoroughly grilled and seared for the slow pace of advance and the numerous military setbacks, that could have been largely avoided according to critics (and common sense).
Just to quote one episode, the victory in Popasnaya was an exploit of dissenting Wagner Group troops that got to do things their way.
The slow pace of advance is easy to check for anyone, just have a look at the evolution of frontline maps. From that, perhaps some military insight (that I gave for granted educated people possess) is needed to infer as obvious that Russian involvement, with present numbers, at the moment is insufficient.
Don’t know, and frankly don’t care (except to the extent our crap leaders get us involved) whether Russia is on the brink of total victory or not. Russia has a lot more arms and troops, so will eventually reach its objectives if it so chooses. At some point, it may decide the cost outweighs any further benefit, but until Russia makes that determination (or Ukraine capitulates) this doesn’t end.
Since none of us know what Russia’s calculations are at this point, all we can do is observe that Russia is moving towards a position that appears favorable to it. Ukraine, not so much.
All the Ukraine has to do is just pass a law banning Russia from attacking. You know, like we are going to do with gun bans to solve crime.
It will be a morale booster for sure!
Yes to your comment above, Russia needs to commit more troops or else it will be a forever war, which they will eventually win.
Besides, I don’t know why if you are not a total cheerleader, you are taken to root for the other team.
It’s just that I can read the situation and don’t need to rely too much on the opinion of the everpresent experts, I suppose.
All you need to do is look at a map to see what’s going on. The Russians are grinding the Ukrainians and slowly, methodically moving forward using their artillery.
This guy has done a very nice job on the war from the beginning, including his call that the Ukrainians would be a much tougher foe than most Western experts thought. That said, he shows clearly how things are going in the Donbas – and it’s not good for the Ukrainians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWg-VGRv_HY
Not sure what you’re trying to do here, but it’s pretty easy to show with evidence that you’re simply wrong.
I watch the guy and consistently agree with his takes. Interestingly he speculates bridges on the Dniepr have not been bombed because the Russians plan to use them in the future. Bombing them would hamper the supply influx to Ukrainian lines in Donbass. I hadn’t thought about that.
I don’t really see your collective problem with my comments here. You said yourself that Russians are slowly marching down the Donbass. I simply qualified what “slowly” here means: at this pace it will take years.
I wrote another reply here about an hour ago, further explaining, but didn’t get published.
So I figure, anything that is not cheerleading for the Russians being unstoppable gets ratioed here, in spite of evidence of the contrary (slowness of advance, tactical defeats, absence of manoeuvre, Donetsk situation).
Definitely upvoting M for the alternate view
I disagree, but appreciate the depth and contrast..
Thank you Alzaebo. What’s there to disagree, if I may ask? I don’t deny the Ukrainians are getting shelled, but they have been for a while, and the frontlines have been the same for a couple of weeks: the last Russian gain was Liman.
I’d say there is no particular reason to believe the Ukrainians are giving up any more now than a month ago. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are the two biggest fortresses they have in the region, and have not even been reached by the Russians yet. Let’s not even talk about Donetsk that has accumulated civilian casualties from shelling everyday for 8 years, because the Ukrainians are still there in the outskirts. And in addition, this is the good season when it is possible to move tracked vehicles in the fields. What are the Russians waiting for, if they are so overwhelming, general Winter?
Since you asked, thank you back, I don’t have enough knowledge to judge, and am going with our host and the crowd, whom I trust.
I haven’t downvoted you. No need.
But you’re assertion that the Russian offensive in the Donbas will take months at this pace is simply incorrect.
First, while slow, the Russians are making progress. Look at where they were a month ago compared to today.
Second, and much more importantly, you seem to not understand the Russian strategy. Their goal isn’t the quick capture of territory. Their goal is to destroy the Ukrainian army’s ability to operate.
The Russians’ primary goal is to kill people, not take territory. (The Russians are also trying to protect their troops.) The Russians are doing the boxing equivalent of hitting the Ukrainians with body blow after body blow, figuring that eventually the Ukrainians will collapse.
It’s quite obvious that this is their plan and that it’s working. You keep focusing on speed and territory. That’s not the right metric for success. Dead and maimed Ukrainians are the right metrics and the Russians getting an A+ on those metrics.
But we’ll see. If I’m right, the Donbas will fall over the next month or two. If you’re right, they’ll still be slugging it out in September.
You can shell entrenched units and cities only so much, otherwise WW1 wouldn’t have lasted 4 and more years, and the Ukrainians would not still brazenly be in the suburbs of Donetsk…
Popasnaya itself was occupied by breaking through the lines at one side of the town and then investing the Ukrainian positions there from two sides. That is, maneuvering, and that was the best Russian success so far.
It’s not like you can shell places and then walk in because the enemy will be all dead. The enemy is going to take cover. Superior firepower forces the enemy on the defensive and gives you initiative to maneuver, but won’t cause the physical extermination you seem to convey. The most it can do is sap the will to fight, the morale. But mainly of the territorial units, the worse troops that are forced in the more exposed positions, and have the last pick on the weaponry imported from the West, after the regulars, nationalists, and elites.
A month ago the situation was the same as now, minus Liman. Or perhaps that was even more than a month ago. Russians started besieging Severodonetsk then, and are still there now. They cannot advance on Lisichansk from the rear because they are blocked by the Ukrainian positions in Zolote, Soledar, and on the river to the West. No matter their artillery, they cannot dislodge the Ukies. Even at Zolote, which is surrounded by Russian positions on three sides. Without a direct ground assault they are not going to retreat. They even launch sorties, in fact. Just shelling trenches in Zolote with artillery won’t leave all Ukries dead, it is not that simple. Rather, it’s probably leaving 0 Ukries dead, now that they have learned the melody.
How can the Russians take Lisinchansk once they get Severodonetsk? There is a river inbetween with no intact bridge. They are currently not able to advance from Zolote, so only from the West could do, which too is protected by the river. Or, the Russians can hope to sever the supply line and force a surrender. Rinse and repeat for many, some even more impregnable Ukrainian fortresses down to the South, and to win your bet you’d have to hope in a general collapse of the AFU.
But again that was in the premise of my OP comment, “Overall, if the Ukrainian army does not collapse, at this pace I cannot see the Russians gaining more than Severodonetsk and maybe Bakhmut by the end of the summer. ..” so I feel you are inviting me to bet against something I had already accounted for?
And just who made you the decider on what “an acceptable timeframe is” ?
Fuck-off back to National Review.
I agree it’s going very badly for the Russians. Their airforce has been neutralised – there has hardly been sight of it since earlier in the war when their planes and copters were seen being easily shot down. Without air power, this war is turning out very different from the way the Russians would have planned.
In Donbas, they are now up against the river with no bridges. I do not see how they can take Lysychansk with the current strategy.
With Ukraine now being armed by the west (we may never know the full extent of this) the battle for Donbas will drag on for years.
Russia will eventually give up pushing further and an uneasy status quo will take hold indefinitely.
Russia will eventually use the return of the southern provinces (though not Crimea of course) as a bargaining chip to get Ukraine to accept independence of Donbas (like the Israelis gave back Sinai in return for Egypt recognising their statehood). That will work when all the people involved are different – I guess by the end of this century.
Varus was tricked by a German scout who had conspired with tribal leaders. Varus stupidly marched his men through the forest on a tiny, winding trail where men marched at best in twos side by side. Led deep into the forest and in a line that stretched for a long way the tribes descended on the legions in segments who were cut off from any means of rallying and reforming. They were slaughtered. The film, “Centurion”, was a fast and loose play on this but took place in Scotland. It is a good film from I think 2012. It is a beautiful juxtaposition of valor, honor, duty and sacrifice on the front lines while treachory, sabotage and dishonor surrounds the valor at the top and bottom. There is also a short series, ‘Barbaren’, that depicts the story of the Teutoberg Forest disaster. It is decent and the Romans speak Latin if you want a chance to hear spoken Latin.
This Ukrainian episode highlights the intersection of the Davos project and how untenable it is.
1. The US Oligarchy is waging a race war against its own native population and standing down its military to root out its greatest patriots and most lethal warriors (mostly southern and midwestern white males), to institute the new racial caste system and politically purge the military.
2. The, “Green Energy”, transition makes Europe fully dependent upon Russian natural gas and coal for reliable energy.
3. The US Ponzi scheme of economic sanctions is a bluff that is called and the majority of the world walks away and/or undermines the sanctions letting the EU continue to buy energy from Russia to fund its territorial war
4. The US/Israel Political Oligarchy is caught compromised with a client state where they have been engaged in deep corruption after fomenting a coup where they have installed a buffoon as president, who is unable to summon loyalty and inspire his nation and unable to lead a war on his own.
5. The US governs domestically by dialing up the race war, putting on show trials, instituting a war against the population by indoctrinating their children in lies about their history and trying to confuse them sexually … and embracing the energy crisis to hasten the, “Green Energy”, transition.
6. The mistakes and stumbles hasten the onset of the collapse of the largest ponzi scheme in the history of mankind.
Varus was tricked and a lot of good men died. Rome was governed by greatness as Augustus cried, “Where are my legions!?!?” Rome was able to recover and transition the Republic to a dictatorship as the leadership of the military and the government was one of the most competent in human history at that point and for another 100 plus years.
The GAE on the other hand is a clown show. The Vietnam draft dodging, Imagine singing degenerates are being exposed as the spoiled and ignorant brats who never grew up and faced reality.
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” – Karl Rove
Yep. The history will be studied. It will be summarized in two words: incompetent buffoons.
Seen at VIP club in American ballpark:
“Yes, I think I will have another one of the giant chocolate chip cookies (grabs three)” – Karl Rove
Actually, Centurion was based on an actual incident where a Roman legion was destroyed in Scotland.
Russia has no reason to stop at this point. The US president is a dementia case, the US ruling class are insane and stupid. The West have sanctioned themselves into a recessions, while Russia is developing closer ties with Asia. Everybody is offended by Biden’s arrogance, haughtiness and incompetence, even the Mexican pres, India, and Saudi Arabia.
Western men are either demoralized, on drugs, or against the regime and in some cases even cheering for the other side out of spite. A solid 10-25% of the West (and more in the USA) has been frozen out of the economy for refusing the take the jab. That’s an immediate 20-35% of young men who will refuse to fight for their country. The ruling elites are too stupid and hateful to realize how many people they’ve alienated.
Just like you can’t just turn the economy & supply chain on and off, you can’t turn loyalty and patriotism on and off on a whim either. Nobody will fight for the pansy Twitter warrior wine moms.
There’s never been a better time for Russia to be on the offensive. They’re making hay while the sun shines, and are smart to do so before even a semi-competent ruler comes back in a Western country.
I doubt Russia would want the rump welfare state the would comprise the unoccupied portion of Ukraine. Germany and France would love Russia to bear that financial burden, but the Paper Eagle needs to retain some portion to maintain the pretense of victory.
Everyone knew at the outset how the war itself would end and what would happen to Ukraine despite the vapid 24/7 propaganda. The only surprise has been the complete buffoonery of the West and its self-inflicted wounds. Maybe this was intended as a Davos-inspired murder/suicide but it just cut to the suicide part.
Russia will stop when it achieves its goals, conducts war crimes trials, and decides what is and what is not acceptable to it. This is the most pathetic defeat the United States has suffered to date and that includes Afghanistan.
What’s completely baffling is Germany’s strategy here. The German elite for the last 10 years obviously wanted better relations with Russia. FFS, Gerhard Schroeder joined the Gazprom Board of Directors and Nordstream (1 and 2) got built for a reason.
So what changed? And why? Nobody seems to know and nobody is talking about this change. It’s mind-boggling to me that the Germans and the French would go along with something so obviously stupid as this Ukraine episode after watching us in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.
What do y’all think about this mystery?
Gazprom gave free cocaine to its board of directors?
Correction… that should be…
Burisma Holdings Limited not Gazprom.
One possible answer is they have a praetorian guard problem like we have in the US. Their politicians are not always made aware of what their intelligence operations are doing. Remember that General Milley bragged about lying to Trump with regards to overseas operations.
“Remember that General Milley bragged about lying to Trump with regards to overseas operations.”
Yeah, prior to celebrating Pride Month as a so-called ‘bottom’. Guess who was the ‘top’?
In Libya the French were main perpetrators of the debacle, in order to stop Qaddafi and his project to launch a new currency backed by Libyan oil that would have been a serious contender to the CFA Franc covertly imposed to West Africa.
The Germans are a vassal state of the USA, they cannot act in their own interest if their overlord does not want them to, or else.
Do you really think European states don’t want to increase their Defense budget because they find it more expedient to have United States foreign troops on their soil?
Germany is the central node, the thumping heart of the interconnected economy of the EU. Other nations there are then basically dependent upon German decisions, which are in essence dictated from Washington.
My general thinking on matters like this now is that folks who do sudden and strange turnabouts do so because somewhere along the line they are compromised. Someone has the goods on them and has now summoned them to pay the piper. Yep, it’s just that bad with our political class—and the same goes for Europe.
At this point, politicians are seen as such vile creatures what good would disclosing the “goods” do? Other than confirm what we already know, maybe with some details.
This is not a mystery. They are following orders from on-high whose spokesmen appear at the WEF.
“So what changed?”
Desperation, can’t ignore that nobody likes them anymore. Money printing is having less bang for every new fake buck then before. A perfect storm really, but all of it was predictable if you understood the ramifications of 2008 and the response to it. We went from having an ideology of worshiping markets, to fake markets, to fake genders, and now a fake country.
The chancellor is stalling and doing as little as he can. First German military aid was 5000 helmets. Some that didn’t change the military picture. Then some small arms from the East German Army had been promised – stuff that been in storage for 40 years or so- some of it might have been delivered. When the chancellor was pressured to provide more aid, he promised sending Gepard “tanks”. By coincidence no ammunition was available for those Gepards. Moreover, Gepards are apparently difficult to operate. When German army still used them some 10 years ago, soldiers had to be trained for a year before they were considered proficient.
Western European leaders are cut from the same cloth as AINO’s, and they are just as stupid.
Bankerkike told them what to do, like the war before that, and the war before that, and the war before that, with recessions and depressions, starvation and agony in between. Nothin new under the sun…same old shit.
The GAE jerked some wayward province back to heel.
It is reasonable to project that Zelensky will end up in…
A) Tel Aviv
B) London then Tel Aviv
C) Switzerland then Tel Aviv
D) Tel Aviv
E) Six feet under
I wouldn’t be surprised if the West tries to turn him into a martyr.
It would also keep him from spilling any of the dirt he knows.
I have wondered if he is smart enough to have taken any contingencies to prevent getting killed by the people propping him up. About the only thing that could resurrect public interest in this war is turning him into a martyr.
Ukraine doesn’t allow dual-citizenship. The oligarch who installed Zelensky, Ihor Kolomoyskyi, got around this by acquiring “triple” citizenship: In Israel and Cyprus in addition to Ukraine. It’s likely that he secured similar exit strategies/protections for his protégé.
Zelensky can’t get an Israeli citizenship as he converted to Christianity.
Like Tim Roth he manages to be a Jew and crypto Jew at the same time, well done
Curiously Tim Roth’s first role was as a young naziskin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyTS7vLYpqs
12th line, “culminated in the Russian invasion in January.”
Should be February.
Tens of thousands of good men (almost all of them white) have died needlessly in the Ukraine War. Most were honorable patriots who fought hard for a cause they believed to be noble and just. Future historians will record that their sacrifice was manufactured by an evil elite (what we call Cloud People) for the specific purpose of eliminating as many alphas as possible and paving the way for the entry of the Jackboots (Asov Battalion Nazis) to enslave the people of Ukraine in a new techo-tyranny and rape the country of it natural resources. Putin put a stop to that.
But that same model is coming right here to River City USA. The Cloud People need our alphas to be dead too because they represents the only real threat to their final ascendancy. So they will manufacture a war of white guys against white guys here as well. But we can learn the lessons of Ukraine and not play along. Don’t join the Jackboot Corp here. Don’t join civilian militias. As was just shown in Coer d’Alene, the Stasi will entrap any idiots foolish enough to assemble as a group. What they fear most is the nobody that nobody notices. That is how you beat them. That and 4S & focus.
A million acts of random kindness, as the blacks and Muslims do.
Technology has advanced to the point where the Cloud People now believe that they can track everyone all the time, and that this capability somehow ensures that they can never be blindsided. But if you think outside the box, it really doesn’t matter if they track you or not. The end result is still the end result. And they will never give up on entrapment. Just like they think they can win the Ukraine War with an internet meme campaign, they believe that they can intimidate everyone by setting up a few patsies for easy roundup and persecution.
Everything solely within the confines of your cranium.
The tracking is also self-defeating. Every time something happens they’ll feel the need to squeeze harder until they end up harassing normies just for clicking the wrong youtube video or buying too much milk. It won’t lead to revolution since normies are cowardly sheep, but you do get Soviet Union levels of productivity.
I wish people on our side of the great divide would stop using the word … western “leaders” … or even “Our”. Those rulers have had a generation of unresisted supremacy and gone soft. They don’t yet realize “governance” itself = Rule = Slavery has had it’s chance and failed. Even if it is disguised as the Rothschild (Central) Banking Slave State.
It’s time for them to descend. Their Master is waiting.
The US ruling elite is probably so stupid and ignorant it doesn’t realize the gravity of the defeat or its long-term implications. It seems to be ignorant of history, of geopolitics and of real political economy. The foundations of US hegemony have been increasingly wobbly the last several years and now it has arguably vanished for good. There’s a good piece by Kirkpatrick on the “Summit of the Americas” farce that drives the point home. But I keep harkening back to Wallerstein’s essay of six years back:
https://iwallerstein.com/the-increasingly-unstable-united-states/
Seems?
Western rulers take an unbelievable amount of arrogant pride in their utter ignorance of all the topics you mentioned.
Just read the Tablet interview with grand strategist nome and security state intellectual Edward Littwak on Putin, Xi & Biden. Don’t know whether to laugh, or cry.
Those interviews are usually amusing, but Tablet editorial really outdid themselves with that one (no sarcasm). The closing comment from Luttwak is priceless; I LOL’d.
You and your buddy are out drinking at a bar, when Mike Tyson walks in. Somehow, you convince your buddy to walk over and pick a fight with him. “Start by throwing a beer in his face. Call him a stupid worthless nigger. Spit on him. Tell him you just came from running a train on his mother.” And somehow, your buddy is dumb enough to do it.
Of course, he immediately starts getting mauled. But every time Iron Mike knocks him down, you cheer him on. “Get up again! Keep hitting him! He’s getting weaker! You can do it, buddy! I’m with you all the way! Don’t give up! Tyson is just about to collapse! Think what a hero you’ll be!”
That is what this Ukraine debacle has been like. Once it became clear that no other nation was going to join Ukraine in the fight, the outcome was clear.
Yet— while the “experts” continued to predict a Ukrainian victory, the collapse of the Russian economy due to the devastating effect of western sanctions, and the inevitability of Putin getting driven from office— some people have been calling it right all along.
Could the “experts” really have been that clueless? Were they really unable to predict what the outcome would be?
Or is something else going on?
Is it the *real* goal of whoever’s calling the shots in the west *to prolong the conflict*?
To make Russia look as bad as possible?
To try and create a permanent breach between Europe and Russia?
And what has Zelensky been smoking, that he can’t see the writing on the wall?
(Or is he just stashing money away in a Swiss account, counting-down to the day when he can skedaddle; to live out his life as the exiled “hero” of the Ukraine?)
Its to smash Europe to build it back as a de-industrialized economy (not sure what to word to use s there certainly will not be an economy remaining).
Ukraine is a means not an end.
And then Europe can “reset,” or “build back better.”
Here it is called a “service economy,” to denote post-industrial, post-manufacturing. That’s close to “servant economy,” which is what it actually is.
Will Germany go along with this? That’s the biggest question to me.
Heil yes they will. They seem to go along with whatever der fuhrer at the time demands. Right down to the last child on the last street in Berlin.
German industrialists are complaining to the government, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears as the Greens are firmly in control.
not sure what to word to use
I’d suggest “Morgenthau Plan”.
Nice reference.
I’m not a state actor, so I’ll just focus on the Mozambique Drill instead.
Agreed, the sanctions are aimed at harming Europe and the US, can’t let ’em get off the plantation.
“For reasons no one has yet to explain, the West instructed the Ukrainians to take up positions in fortified cities”-
To defend the biolabs? Maybe this is why the eastern oblasts were so important.
In that vein, Zelenskyy has eliminated democracy and installed a total dictatorship, so of course Mark Levin is in full throat defending both him and promoting Operation Tehran.*
*(Big tip o’ the hat to Jack Dobson)
Starving and freezing in the dark is as green as it gets!
Best of all, no more mean tweets!
C’mon man!
What strikes me in your shrewd analogy of the bar fight is that the more typical scenario would have a *woman* egging on the poor sap to pick a fight with Tyson. When you write, “somehow you convince him to fight…”—THAT’s how: a woman’s strategy to set men fighting over her, a story as old as Homer. “La belle dame sans merci.”
Now look at the pathetic “leadership” of the West: either explicitly female, feminized, or otherwise emasculated. So no wonder they use the same strategy.
I should add that the thing about the West’s feminocracy (as with the pitiless ladies of old) is that it represents all the destructive feminine vices (manipulation, etc.), divorced (often literally) from the productive feminine virtues that are a bedrock of civilization. It’s telling that during other recent wars, the anti-war Left would trot out military moms to lament the loss of their sons in combat. Not so this time: a thousand Ukraine men being lost per day, but not a tear shed. Instead, they browbeat the Americans who routinely send their sons into the military, yet who refuse to expend their precious lives in so foolish a venture, as “cowards” or as “tools of Putin.”
“Look, there’s Mike Tyson: If you cared for me you’d pick a fight with him!”
What strikes me in your shrewd analogy…
Just so. Zelensky is not up there himself, punching Big Mike in the face, and he will end this war with a fat pension and not a scratch on his person, chilling out with the other rent-a-crooks on the French Riviera or in Palm Beach.
Maybe he can marry Suha Arafat, who lives in the Riviera and whose first husband was also as gay as a French bicycle.
gay as a French bicycle.
Thanks – consider that one stolen!
Yes. (Insert meme graphic here.) There are probably folks here who remember the “Panama Papers.” But I doubt there are many who have heard of the “Pandora Papers.” https://tinyurl.com/3cb4s7k2 https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/ It’s the same-old, same-old. Except this time there’s been zero coverage by the corporate media. In the before times they’d at least call out their opponents who participated in the scams.
” For reasons no one has yet to explain, the West instructed the Ukrainians to take up positions in fortified cities rather than go out to meet the Russian army in the field. ”
As if the Russians don’t know a thing or two about drawing armies into fortified cities and fighting street by street, and what happens therein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad
“This city… is not Kursk, nor is it Kiev, nor Minsk. This city… is Stalingrad. Stalingrad! This city bears the name of the Boss. It’s more than a city, it’s a symbol. If the Germans… capture this city… the entire country will collapse.”
“The Ukrainians had more battle ready troops at the start of the war than the Russians and they had the advantage of working on their own territory.”
How many of those units were flesh and blood troops, and how many of those were “soldiers”? Paper units or “reservists” we could call up but take time to mobilize?
“Ukraine was who we were as a people, willing to bear any burden to defend democracy. Every expert assured us that the Russians would revolt against their evil dictator and the Russian army would quit in the field, once they knew the Twitter mob had cancelled them. It was just a matter of time before Zelensky was taking selfies in Moscow.”
The thought that was always in my mind whenever I’d read breathless stories that came out about the Russians (Old equipment, underfed troops, vulnerable tanks, killed generals, etc.) was “Yes, but the Russians are still in Ukraine. They held or are holding ground. It takes time to push an army out of a country (Ask the Russians how long it took to get the Germans out of Russia proper during The Great Patriotic War after the Germans were soundly defeated at Stalingrad and Kursk. And that’s with Ivan and Olga hammering and riveting together T-34s round the clock, and Joe and Rosie stamping out trucks, Jeeps, and everything else we Americans loaded on Liberty Ships and sent to the USSR.) Think The Ukes were gonna push the Russians out in a week?
At this point, if you’re a country that thought you could rely on Uncle Sugar for arms and support, well, I’d be raising my percentage of GDP for defense, just sayin’.
The Ukrainians have been fighting in the Donbas for close to a decade. They had been cycling their units in an out to give battle experience to a large number of their men. Russia’s initial struggles in the Donbas was due to sending in green troops with zero battle experience. Once they switched to using LPR and DPR troops as the tip of the spear, they regained their footing. Now, of course, they have 100K men with combat experience.
This is the real threat to my mind. Russia has now has a massive, tested army. They know what worked and what didnt. They’ve been cycling too so a baby boom is in the cards God willing. Even better for them, the West’s Russophobia has hardened their country to the West’s madness and unified it in some respect.
Its funny I was watching some of the walking tours of Moscow and you know what stood out.
Lots of multiple children families walking around the city. It was certainly quite different than other large western cities.
trumpton: I haven’t watched those, but if true (i.e. lots of multiple children families) that’s wonderful news. Back when I was there (early ’80s) it was almost always one child, or occasionally two.
Well, the Ukrainians may have been cycling men in and out for 8 years but, as they had the local Russian secessionists back on their heels, I don’t think this gave their men credible combat experience, rather largely experience in shelling and mortaring the secessionist areas who were mostly trying just to hold on.
But when a real army capable of powerful offensives showed up, namely the Russian army and ancillary forces such as the Chechens (think “veins in their teeth”), then the Ukrainians were getting some real combat training. But after 8 years of largely static siege warfare, they had built up a reserve of munitions and constructed fortifications (but who is to say that these fortifications were any good against an encirclement in a war of manuever…), so they had something to fall back upon. Hence the slow pace of their extirpation in Donbas, but extirpated they will be through attrition, lack of logistic support, or by the failure to mount sustainable counteroffensives. The Russians lay back beyond the range of the Ukrainian artillery, and paste them with longer range artillery supported by drone and aerial surveillance for targeting purposes. Sucks to be them.
I wonder if Russia will keep/slow the grain shipments from reaching the Middle East and Africa to trigger food shortages and political instability which will probably cause a huge migration toward Europe. It would be a nice revenge on the Europeans.
It doesn’t help that Puddin’head just upped the ethanol count in gas from 10% to 15% which will exacerbate the shortages. The stupidity is staggering.
Apparently some of the Middle Eastern countries are thinking and acting on that very assumption. A few weeks ago, Egypt was pulling out all the stops to increase domestic food production for some reason.
MikeCLT: It’s unclear if/when that 15% ethanol crap will be at the pumps. Or am I confused (highly possible) and it’s all already there sans specific labeling? I know that ethanol is horrible for smaller engines (lawn and power tools, generators, etc.) and I’ve read it’s bad for older (say pre 2015?) vehicles. And, if I understand correctly, that 15% is the same regardless of the gasoline’s octane (reg vs high). So ought we all start filling halfway with the regular ethanol and halfway with ethanol free? The logistics and $$ make me wonder.
In my truck and motorcycle, I only put ethanol free. Yes, it is about 50 cents more a gallon. That is about 300 dollars a year extra based on my driving needs. But, in my mind, it gives me some (probably solely psychological) comfort that it will make my engines last long – and I felt vindicated when I saw that 15 percent crap. Who knows how that damages the engine just upon combustion? Obviously, we know what it does when stored without stabilizer.
For what it’s worth, a lot of high performance racing vehicles use pure ethanol because it performs better than gas.
Ethanol was a concession to the corn lobby during the fat times. If you’re adding a fuel stabilizer to most any engine (all the small ones you mentioned) don’t do the ones containing ethanol. Where I live there is no “ethanol free” option at the pumps, so I’m not sure what to tell you. You can buy fuel stabilizers/enhancers at most gas stations as well as box/automotive stores. It probably wouldn’t hurt to add an ethanol-free one every so many tank-fulls depending on your driving habits and if the life of the engine is what you’re interested in preserving.
RoBG: Check out pure-gas.org to see the closest location where you can purchase ethanol free. They’ve eliminated the maps they used to have, but there’s still an alphabetical listing of cities/towns by state. There’s a place about 20 miles from me; haven’t been there in a bit so not sure what there current price is.
Ethanol is an interesting fuel, to say the least. Prior to WWII, it was used as much as gas, particularly in farm vehicles (apparently farmers would use corn stalks to make ethanol, and use the ethanol to run their tractors). Ethanol really helps fix the issues with gasoline because it a) is way less prone to pre-ignition and b) absorbs water. It’s almost always been used as an additive in fuel for that reason. However, it’s corrosive, so to run it through an engine as a fuel, you need a stainless steel tank and fuel lines, instead of rubber or plastic. It’s also a richer fuel, so you need to adjust the throttle to burn it efficiently.
Most of the problems with ethanol are older carbureted engines that have rubber hoses, diaphrams, etc. Actual rubber is embrittled and then falls apart when in contact with ethanol. Most modern engines use viton or epdm or a rubber replacement, not actual rubber like ye olden days, and anything obd1 or newer can adjust to the different burning characteristics of the etoh blend.
It’s the storage thing, I think. They are trying to get a Holodomor going, but there is not yet enough control. Once they have everyone dependant on a 1 week supply of rationed food and fuel and electricity, then the mask will drop. Or so the conspiracy theory runs.
With the cultural revolution still going full steam in the west our empire may be turning inward to fight those pesky white supremest’s. The military may get smaller but more tyrannical against its own deplorables. Tucker has a guy on his streaming channel discussing the Ukraine, the entire government is controlled by Jewish oligarchs and the Ukraine is essentially a laundering operation to run operations back here. The FBI even has a prescience in the Ukraine.
My daughter was in DC during the 2020 riots and she commented to me that some of the Antifa guys she saw sure looked Eastern European?
That’s because they were.
Soros and the other oligarchs bring in Ukrainians and foreigners to help man the Antifa brigades.
The American people have no idea how derp the corruption goes.
I’m guessing ‘derp’ is a typo, but a perfect one in this case.
‘Welcome to Costco, I love you.’
Yes, should have been deep
Here you go!
https://sonar21.com/why-were-ukrainian-nazis-in-the-u-s-capitol-on-january-6/
Holy schmidt!
In return, from the comments:
“The real question is were the FBI in Maidan, 2014”
So, when do we see bozos like this dropping the Taliban’s new toys in places like Christchurch and Uvalde?
Eloi,
This is good stuff from Larry Johnson’s blog. Here is a link to a later piece that really lays bare the pernicious Ukrainian influence and subversion of our politics.
https://sonar21.com/why-are-democrats-rinos-and-the-fbi-hanging-out-with-ukrainians/
It also peels back the fraud of “fact checking” that works to undermine any whose views run counter to or question “The Narrative” in the second part of the post (well documented and sourced). Highly recommended reading.
The question now is how this all ends. If the Ukrainians had any brains, they’d negotiate quickly to try and keep Odessa. If they keep fighting, it’s likely Russia will take Odessa and possibly all the land east of the Dnieper River, which makes for a nice, natural defense against the West.
Ukraine should sue for peace and ask to keep its access to the sea. I don’t know if the Russians will take that deal, but it’s the best that they can hope for.
No chance Putin will allow them access to the sea, he will take everything he wants and leave a rump state for anyone not happy to live in greater Russia
The Neocons and the MIC will murder Zelensky if he enters into peace negotiations. The only hope for the Ukraine is the direct intervention by Germany and France over the objections of the United States and the United Kingdom. That may happen.
Europe is in serious trouble. A fire at the Freeport LNG terminal meant that a huge chunk of the nat gas that the US was supposed to export to Europe wasn’t going to happen.
I don’t know how much gas Europe has stored, but it better be a lot because they’re not going to get enough from us.
Besides Ukraine, Europe is the big loser in this whole affair.
One almost has to wonder if the fire at Freeport was carried out by Russian sleeper assets because of the incredibly perfect timing for Russia.
It would require the German and French globalists to somehow be removed from power first.
Until that happens there is no way the French or German traitors will look after their own nation first.
It is an interesting puzzle. If it were up to the Ukrainian military, they would have ended this months ago. I suspect Zelensky would take any deal as long as he gets to remain alive. That seems to be the rub. The Brits have issued he and his performers British passports, as long as they follow orders, which for now is stand and fight.
I suspect the Russians would take a deal where they keep what they have, Ukraine is demilitarized and excluded from NATO by treaty agreement signed by Washington. Maybe they agree to help Ukraine rebuild its economy. I suspect the Germans and French would not mind fobbing Ukraine off on the Russians entirely in exchange for normalized relations.
The holdup is Washington and London. Biden and Johnson cannot afford the political fallout from a defeat, so they will fight until something comes along they can use as cover. It is an incredibly cynical strategy and it will probably end in a spectacular failure.
Johnson is a just another version of Zelensky — a marionette and yes-man to the USA. A thrall. If the US does a volte-face, so will the Brits. With alacrity.
Perhaps people in Europe and the US will begin to realize how nearly all of the so-called elected politicians are puppets, placed into position and have zero alignment with the countries they are put in place to use the resources of.
However, I can’t see that happening.
When your tummy rumbles and you’re shivering in the dark, you start to reassess the situation. A lot of Europeans are going to be hungry and cold this coming winter.
@arshad
95% of Europeans are emasculated to the point of learned helplessness. Misery will just be that. No pushback will come as it requires a dumping of everything they are programmed to follow.
@trumpton
You’re probably right. I’ve seen the same phenomenon with birds and small animals born into captivity: the learnt helplessness is shackles enough of its own
The Germans and French are definitely looking for a way out of this. They’re likely already in recession. Producer inflation is out of control. The US won’t be able to supply them with enough nat gas. This whole thing is a disaster for them.
The Europeans also don’t want Ukraine in the EU, especially a Ukraine without Odessa. It would be an economic basket case.
Regardless, I’m with you, I think that the Russians would accept a deal where they get the Donbas and the land they’ve taken in the south if Ukraine and US agree to a neutral, demilitarized Ukraine. But I’m not sure what would give Biden the cover to do that. (Johnson looks to be on his way out anyway.)
I suspect that when the Donbas falls, it will be rapidly since the Ukrainian army is disintegrating from within as opposed to slowly retreating. A spectacular fall of the Ukrainians in Donbas could be the cover needed as Biden could blame Zelensky as being incompetent and thus there’s no reason to keep supporting him.
Why do people think the political class cares what happens to the European nations?
They have spent decades flooding millions of third worlders into nations, exporting its manufacturing, creating self-hatred in the populations and degrading the culture.
Its just more of the same. They are not worried about anything.
It is also possible that the West stays the course until Kiev collapses into mayhem and Europe is faced with an energy shortage just and temps begin to fall. I think the mistake we tend to make is that the people stupid enough to create this disaster are smart enough to find an off-ramp. I am beginning to think they are simply too dumb to cut their losses.
Remember the neocon nutters were still selling the Iraq war in 2006, when it was a clear failure. They wanted to expand the crusade to Iran. The same idiots who gave us the Bush crusades are behind this debacle. Read their sites and they are still selling the “Russian is losing” narrative.
True. Our leaders really are stupid and even their handlers seem to be getting high on their own supply.
Many of them believe that Ukraine could become Russia’s Afghanistan. We’d support a long, grinding insurgency that bleed Russia white.
But I just can’t see the Europeans going along with that, at least if Russia starts reducing their nat gas. The Germans and the French are the wild cards here.
Actually, if you want a true Varian disaster for the US, it’d be the Russian helping to create an alternative to dollar system and the Europeans breaking with the US and forcing a Ukrainian deal. Losing complete dollar dominance and creating a semi-independent Europe would be historic.
Probably won’t happen, but not completely crazy.
It’s pretty clear that Johnson survived his “no confidence” vote so the insiders could pin this Ukraine sh*tshow on him. Nobody else would bite the sandwich….
That and the other options are colossal idiots like Liz Truss. Britain has the same problem we see in Washington. Boris really is the best they can muster. A couple of generations selecting form carny weirdos has totted out the political class.
Truss is amazing, the UK version of the undemented Biden. Every time she is in the news it’s for something incredibly stupid, getting the Balkans and the Baltic wrong, calling the Irish PM tea-sock and who knows what else. These are things that a UK foreign minister should never do and yet she keeps her job.
The sticking point is that Putin and Russia would be fools to believe that AINO and Globohomo would negotiate in good faith or abide by any treaty. So there’s no incentive for Putin to sign any paper that would be as worthless the moment it was signed, if only for the simple fact that the nominal President of the United States is a dementia case, and the Congress will soon be in the hands of the neocons’ lackeys.
my gut says london takes a few russian missiles as a warning to DC. johnson is like a yappy little dog that is begging to be kicked.
I doubt that. Putin is focused on winning this war, on a single front, in his front yard. Unlike our benevolent overlords, he understands limited war, and will not repeat the mistakes of overextension. Also unlike our overlords, he doesn’t react to provocations like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
“… like a toddler throwing a tantrum …”
It really highlights the central aspect of a successful ruling class: a self-aware and perpetuating culture of emotional discipline. Emotion always hamstrings threat assessment. The chickens of the feminization of our culture are coming home to roost.
No way that the Russians do not take the entire Black Sea coast, thereby grabbing the Ukrainian nut sack and giving it a squeeze and a vigorous twist. Also, they will gain direct access to Transnistria and put the fear of God into the Romanians and their mini-me of Moldova. “So, you think that emplacing NATO’s offensive missiles on your territory is a good idea? Ponder how we Russians viewed this same strategy with regard to Ukraine. Oh, by the way, Poland, you, too, might wish to reflect on the wisdom of your current fulminations in similar wise. Our stand-off weaponry should be borne in mind; we would not even have to invade your countries to neutralize this threat, or ratchet up the pain. Riddle us this; given what you have recently seen, do you really think that the US will come to your aid should we feel it nexessary to implement these hard measures? Climb down off of the curtains, and think clearly.”
Nope, they have had enough of the bullshit, and they have gauged the resources, weaknesses, and supposed mettle of the EuroPoodles and their ostensible “protector” in the US quite well, and made a calculated move.
1. America starts a proxy war
2. Proxy country population dies by the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.
3. America loses proxy war and retreats, taking all the highly placed proxy country “top men” back to the US lets them keep whatever they looted from their own nation on the way out.
This has been the American way of war for 70 years. I understand why Ukraine “leaders” enjoy this fight; the miracle is that the local populous doesn’t immediately pull a Mussolini Neck Stretcher on their ruling class when the US offers to “help”.
The most amusing part was as soon as the $54 billion was appropriated and Mitch and Chuck handed out the envelops, the first hints that peace negotiations should begin were made.
The United States fights proxy wars just as incompetently as it does direct ones, but the cash keeps flowing so who cares at this point?
The local Quislings are protected by top-notch American forces. They don’t expose themselves except for orchestrated media events. The Americans aren’t the only ones who do this — so do (or at least did) the French in Africa: the newly liberated country would have a rigged election in which France’s preferred candidate would come into power as “president-for-life”, and he would be protected by French special forces. And the pretense of “democracy” is maintained.
So… ancient Rome never made it into Germany and they had to wait 1900 years for an invitation to Mussolini.
None the less a Quadriga sits atop the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin with Victoria the Roman goddess of victory driving it for the last 230 years.
Another historical note is that the Rus (Russians) have been in Crimea for 500 years before Columbus discovered the Western Hemisphere. Even Churchill called it “Russian Crimea”.
As the Ukraine quagmire is revealed and the imbecility seeks refuge in a dead conscience western press… none today will ask… so… How did Hunter Biden make it onto the board of an Ukrainian gas company awhile back?
Questions and observations are dangerous in the Kingdom of Lies, Bribery and Mass Murder pretending to be a day room at a convalescent home with a puppet show.
As for “Zelensky’s troops”… a few battalions of them are now getting kicked out of their welfare rooms at hotels in Spain to make room for the summer tourists.
Upon hearing of the defeat, the Emperor Augustus, according to the Roman historian Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars, was so shaken that he stood butting his head against the walls of his palace, repeatedly shouting:
Quintili Vare, legiones redde! (Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!)
imagine a battle that is being discussed a full two millenia later!
Augustus’ response to the Varian disaster is portrayed in “I, Claudius,” for which Robert Graves drew heavily from Suetonius. It happens early in the drama, and it’s the point when the ambitious spirit that had built the empire now turns inward, to focus on controlling and ultimately looting Rome and its territories.
Zman seems to never consider the possibility that these events are occurring largely or entirely in accordance with what the masters of the universe intend. Might we be witnessing a globalist-orchestrated “controlled demolition” of the West? Maybe so, maybe not. It’s at least worth pondering.
I just don’t see any evidence for that at all. My belief for a while has been Western elites think they are the smartest people to ever live. That they are the only ones who can solve the immense problems left to them by previous, selfish generations. They think they will go down as the saviors of the world.
Have you never heard of “the great reset”? The World Economic Forum talks about it quite a bit. Perhaps the fiasco in Ukraine is part of that reset. Notice my wording there: PERHAPS. I’m not stating anything definitive here. I just find it interesting that a billionaire-funded organization such as the WEF consistently claims that there is a need for the West to rearrange itself economically. Perhaps we’re being destroyed on purpose. Again . . . PERHAPS.
You are postulating a reverse Q-anon plan, 4D chess stuff.
So, tell me what thousands of top notch engineers did at the Skunk Works.
——-
It’s not a conspiracy.
It’s an industry.
I think there is a lot to be said that America is undergoing its own version of a Bolshevik revolution.
Dissidents today are in much the same boat as were fascists then, both seeking to hold onto what is largely a Christian order and worldview. The bolsheviks are the anti-civilization types we see in antifa and in blacks and in all those people promoting everything homo and fake.
Now I know a man like Gottfried came at fascism from a theoretical framing, and I know our beloved host has a lot of respect for the man, yet for me, especially having family who lived through the period, it was never that complicated. It was always basically Catholics versus the juice. And then you had a lot of northern Protestants who didn’t want to be in the middle and more or less looked down their noses on both sides. And then the Brit’s and the Americans seeing great financial opportunities and ultimately siding with the juice b.c they needed the financing.
I don’t see much difference today. I think now we will at least have a real and emotional connection to and understanding of what was going on in Europe at that time because we are reliving it today. Not saying the facts on the ground are perfectly identical, but the emotions and feelings and longing for what we think is right are the same.
So if I had to categorize, I would say the dissidents are the Catholics who would become the fascists, the blue haired freaks and antifa and the blacks and the juice are the Bolsheviks, the professional class are the northern Protestants looking down their noses at all this low class stuff, and the Brits and America’s vestigial wasp elite are exactly the same. Lucky them lol. But I guess looking at it that way, they haven’t much changed at all, and it still may be their world and why Putin is such a threat to their interests. We may all be along just for the ride.
Except that the Bolshevik revolution was more or less the revolutionaries against the conservative, monarch ruling elites. The elites were the ones trying to hang on to the conservative, Christian-based society. Minorities had restrictions placed against them which gave them more impetus to overthrow the Tsar.
It’s the opposite today, our ruling elites are the ones trying to impose their own Bolshevik revolution on an unwilling heritage population.
If anything we may undergo a reverse Bolshevik revolution soon. Things are normal until they aren’t. Several events (J6, trucker convoy, etc.) were actually coup d’etat situations, they were just being run by Boomers who don’t understand politics.
Yes, the depopulation agenda is proceeding smoothly. The powers behind the GAE throne tapped into the geriatric Cold Warriors’ animosity for Russia to commit national self-sabotage.
Killing Russia would have been a nice bonus for them, and inciting WW3 still would speed up their timeline, but they were first and always a death cult.
Aliens. (Insert “aliens meme guy” here)
Or maybe lizard people.
Is it worth pointing out that some forty years after the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest the Romans invaded Britain and stayed there for the next three hundred years. I can’t see the Global American Empire, or the Collective West, or whatever lasting that long!
The Roman experience in Britain was a meaningless and expensive exercise in futility. They left because they were accomplishing zero there and their mercenaries were desperately needed on the continent. The population of a small city-state used their legions to conscript the soldiers needed to conquer and administer their far-flung empire. Even their generals and eventual caesars came from the populations of foreign conquests. Rome was more of an idea than a reality for the rest of Europe and north Africa.
> In what the history books call the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the barbarians ambushed the Romans and wiped them out in what the Romans would call the Varian disaster.
Varus at least had the honor to fall on his sword after getting completely annihilated.
Arminius is also a good case study. He had the best of Roman training, but at the end sided with his own people.
“ Arminius is also a good case study. He had the best of Roman training, but at the end sided with his own people.”
Yep, and note that his “people” were “barbarians” of poor stock, yet the riches of Rome meant nothing to him when faced with that choice. We might learn this as well. Without a people, we are nothing.
Good lord, Compsci, epic.
I give the deepest bow.
Bravo, Chet and Compsci!
Ye have perced to the Roote. This is the burden of the song.
Much as I dislike the old folk song, couldn’t help but recall (with some modification)
Q: Where have all the (Uke) soldiers gone, long time passing?
A: Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Q: Oh, when will they ever learn?
A: Oh, they will never learn.
The twisting of the Russian bear’s tail that commenced after 1991 means that socialist ideology was never the impetus for the cold war. Their capitulation to the “oligarchs”, carbon copies of the hyper-capitalist thieves of the west, negated their adoption of the alien concept of “democracy” demanded by the Empire, that couldn’t be satisfied by anything less than the colonization of Muscovy and its satellites. Fortunately, it appears that saner minds in Russia have taken control and the world will be spared a deluge of nuclear weapons, at least for the immediate future.
Reckless talk about nuclear war emanating from the United States put the world on notice that the dying empire is very dangerous. We are lucky, at least so far, not to have been vaporized.
It is hard to see the old Soviet Union as anything short of evil, but it is telling that the United States acted in the very manner the Marxists predicted it would after the USSR imploded. What wasn’t seen was that the United States itself would become an evil totalitarian monstrosity every bit as bad and even more deranged than the Soviet Union.
The world is watching Drag Queen Story Hour and acting accordingly.
Never understood the constant demonization of all things Russian post-Soviet collapse. When the Red Army had 40-odd armored divisions poised to plunge thru the Fulda Gap in a blitzkrieg to the English Channel I get it, but that hasn’t been reality for some time. As a Christian country we should have more in common with them than not, but our embrace of all things Globalhomo in nature & “making the world safe for transgenderism” they probably look @ us as freaks & rightfully so.
We are a country with Christians, but we haven’t been a Christian country in a long time.
all those ukes who were so boldly committing war crimes against russian POWs must be sweating bullets about now. payback’s a bitch, i hear….
No doubt there will be war crime trials either in Moscow or the Donetsk, which will be censored and never mentioned in the United States because it all leads back to D.C.
Always leery of war crimes trials in any form. Most already have a preconceived conclusion everyone knows and seems to only be used because no one has the gumption to just take the guys out back and shoot them, so they need legal cover to do what’s already been predetermined.
Many in the West have made this argument regarding the Nuremberg trials, and they were right.
War crime show trials against foreign mercenaries serve a useful purpose, particularly since the GAE loves using “retired, private firm” US military personnel in their proxy wars.
Most captured WILL be shot in the field. A few will have the very public show trial as a warning.
It’s what the US does. Death in the field or 20+ years without a trial in Gitmo…then a federal prison for life (or return to the Middle East for summary execution by the local satraps)
Trial already ended in Donetsk, British mercenary sentenced to death by firing squad. Britain is appealing to Russia, Moscow says negotiate directly with the DNR, we can’t do anything. They are trying to humiliate Britain into recognizing the Donetsk People’s Republic, the death penalty seems a draconian measure otherwise.
https://southfront.org/london-is-yet-to-stop-talking-and-start-acting-to-safe-mercenaries-from-death-penalty-in-dpr/
Hardly draconian, someone who kills for money deserves far worse than a quick death.
https://southfront.org/ivan-zaliznyak-is-one-of-ukrainian-nazis-symbols-photos-videos/
judging from the last video, Ivan has lost some weight and his hair turned grey, while in hiding.
But how much of it is just war propaganda? When it was Ukraine saying Russians were murdering Ukrainians, presumably for fun and sport, I blew it off as war propaganda. Now that the Russians are claiming it, I again blow it off as war propaganda. The easiest way to dehumanize the enemy is to paint them as monsters.
Speaking of “war propaganda”:
“Putin is sick! He’s shaking uncontrollably! He’s lost his marbles! He’s using a double!”
US ran the same playbook with Kim Jong-Ill for years. Had to knock it off when tubby lost weight and exploded a few nukes.
If you read it in a US newsfeed, it’s probably a lie. That so many normal Americans buy into it is perplexing.
Not perplexing. Depressing.
The Varian Disaster is an excellent analogy. I think a similar one is the Suez crisis, with the United States as Great Britain and NATO as Israel and France but this is indeed a European debacle.
Initially, the United States attained its primary mission, which was to divorce Europe, primarily Germany, from Russia. A wobbly Pax Americana at best, the dying empire at least could cling to its glory days in Europe. For a while, except:
“The absurd triumphalism of last winter has now given way to panic in Europe. Their economy is in an inflationary spiral that is only going to get worse. The sanctions on Russia have wreaked havoc on the EU economy. Energy prices are ratcheting up and serious food shortages are on the horizon. Compounding it is the fact that the sanctions are just starting to bite. Things will get worse by autumn.
My guess is this will start a long overdue rift between the United States and several European countries, primarily Germany and France. NATO is about to transition from dinosaur to fossil. As cold weather gathers and war crimes trials begin in Moscow and the mid-terms start, the question will be “who lost Europe?” Odd yet appropriate that both the Varian Disaster and the end of Pax Americana took place in the European heartland of Germany.
The logic of NATO was always to keep American in, Germany down and Russia out of Europe. I think this has become so ingrained in Western thinking that it is second nature. Nordstream 2 triggered this impulse to make war on Russia. Of course, this all comes to the sound of hoofbeats. At this point, the neocon cult exists only as a seething hatred for their old enemy on the steppe.
seems like uncle vlad would be well served by eliminating these pesky neocons. it’s not like anyone will miss them…
How many lost Neocon wars does this represent? Four? Five? No nation, and deracinated as it is the United States remains a shadow of a country, rewards failure as much. No doubt the Neocons are putting together Operation Tehran now.
It really does seem that Nordstream 2 will the impetus for all of this. It would have cemented Germany and Russia’s economic relationship and extended a non-dollar energy deal.
The sound of hoof-beats was certainly a bonus, but my bet is that this whole slaughter was about a nat gas pipeline.
Old themes, right? What is it about Russia and Germany? Maybe a tenuous connection, but to my mind it’s the ancient dynamic of the forces of ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism’. Barbarians want in, civilization spends itself dealing with them and collapses. Even the current suicide seems to me began with Germany aspiring to be a European nation-state like the cool kids, continued with the Soviet invasion from the steppe. Again, maybe tenuous, but lots of echoes if you ask me.
Maybe should mention, at this point I’m having a hard time not thinking civilization is satanic and the barbarism on offer would be preferable lol.
“Civilization” as currently constituted seems, indeed, to indicate Satanism lies at the base.
Tacitus, a quintessential Roman, found admirable characteristics among his day’s Germanic barbarians. It is an ancient observation.
Adam and Eve realized they were naked when they ate the fruit, just sayin’ 🙂
By all logic, NATO shouldn’t even exist anymore. The Warsaw Pact has been gone for over 30 years. NATO has become just another racket. You give a bunch of bureaucrats a bunch of money to justify their existence and they will find a reason to exist. Now it has gone from an institution meant to prevent war to one that causes war.
When the war finally ends, instead of all of the people staffing NATO being forced into early retirement, they will the use the outcome to justify its continued existence and probably significant expansion.
They keep shoving useless NATO ever eastward, only deliberately provoking the Russian bear.
Always thought geopolitics was about “getting along”, establishing a “give a little here/get a little there” as well as “not doing stupid sh**”? On the contrary it’s become “ram thru whatever we want all be damned & use Putin/Russia as a punching bag”.
The West: stupid, shortsighted & egotistical.
Suez is more appropriate, especially the economic fall-out in relation to the pound in the UK, but still very imperfect.
The Teutoberg makes little sense to me as a comparison on any level, except maybe in reverse and as a failed plan: “Zelensky” as would-be Arminius, trying to lead the Russians into a trap.
I think what we are seeing is something new something that could only happen in a globalized world system.
Happily, most of our people seem to sense that what matters is not what happens on the ground in the Ukraine, but what it means for us in relation to our respective discredited globalist governing cliques.
Mustache Man’s expansionist dreams died on the Russian Steppes too. But at least he had competent generals. Can’t say the same for the GAE.
God bless Vladimir Putin 🙂
It is a shame that the Ukrainians put their faith on an American Empire whos only accomplishment after 20 years in Afghanistan was a George Floyd mural and rainbow flags. But you know, democracy and stuff.
My son has a few friends with long lines of military service in their families. Whenever they speak about interest in joining after high school. my son asks why they’d even consider such a thing and says “they wouldn’t want you. You aren’t gay.”
At least the Sacred Band of Thebes was an effective fighting force.
Because the point of “defending democracy” abroad is to learn how to kill innocent people in their own home while crushing resistance, and to then bring that skillset home to the only institution that will hire it.
Defend the border?
“Posse comitatus!”
Vigilantes and swift justice?
“That’s the Klan!”
“Defending democracy!”
Ezra Pound’s definition of Democracy: Any country run by Jews.
Ezra Pound; a “noticer” from an earlier time. I guess being deeply versed in history and culture, and having the poor judgment to articulate his conclusions, wound up landing him in prison.
for me, the ukraine episode is when i became fully alienated from the mass of the AINO population. their mindless jingoism in favor of ukraine was disgusting, and marked them as irredeemable. it is satisfying to see the “experts” a PJewmedia as they make the inevitable 180 degree reversal on their previous cheerleading. why anyone would listen to those klowns is a mystery to me…
Yeah. “Space lawyer” Reynolds is just beyond pathetic. It is nice that a lot of the commentators are calling out his moronic bullshit.
The Ukranians, and their paymasters/armorers have no Erich von Manstein poring over maps in his HQ in Zaporozhye as the Red Army, on the march since their pincers closed on the Kessel of Stalingrad, approached.
There will be no backhand blow.
Manstein inflicted several million casualties on the commies. They must have breathed a sigh of relief when Hitler cashiered him.
I bet Patton would have loved to share an HQ with the genius of the 1940 Manstein Plan. Too bad that ‘car accident’ left us wondering what the period before the Cold War might have included.
Patton was/is overrated
Nothing but a glorified traffic cop.
Patton would be an average German General but he was one of the best American General. Though I think the German Staff was overrated. Didn’t even take Leningrad.
Third battle of Kharkov, a classic
And just think of the first battle at Kiev, er, in soyspeak, “keev”. What would VW have done without all those valuable workers after they were shipped from the POW pens to Germany?