Being invited to is not the same as being invited in, which Zelensky is finding out the hard way. I must say this abrupt turn around must be baffling him.
His dance card, which used to be full of suiters, is empty and he literally doesn’t know what to do with himself.
It looks like this may be the end of the line for our man Z. His green camo/wannabe warrior look appears to be growing thin.
Seriously, his handlers should have told him that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to dress in a tux every now and then when you’re mingling with all the swells.
Especially, if you’re asking them for favors.
I wonder how Bartholomew feels now? If he thought that Z was going to be showered with hosannahs, he was wrong.
“To be enemies with America is dangerous, to be friends with America is deadly”
Z is finding that out about now.
Old Bart is about to find out the same I have to assume. Allowing yourself to be used by the West is never fruitful. They will use you and toss you aside like a sack of potatoes.
I do have to agree with something I recently heard: Russia is going to have to blitz all the way to Poland, destroy whatever is left of the Ukrainian army and be done with it. If he doesn’t:
1) The West will at some point creat a hostile “Ukraine,” whatever that may actually be
2) The UOC will be snuffed out and will lose whatever property it has left.
The biggest mistake Putin could make would be a peace deal. If he does that, he’s a chump.
Agreed.
I will say this however: the Russians were waiting to see what came out of Vilnius before they would proceed. The last thing they wanted was to see F-16s piloted by Americans heading towards the front.
It looks like that’s not going to happen now.
It looks like F-16’s and long-range missals will indeed be finding their way to Ukraine.
I have a picture of them in Ukraine. They’re definitely there. But I’m sure Russia planned for this. Lord have mercy on all the men and women caught up in this crazy mess.
The question is: are they being piloted by Americans?
F16s won’t be flying missions in Ukraine until probably mid-2024, and they’ll be piloted by Ukrainians. It isn’t just the pilot training pipeline that takes time, its training the operations and maintenance and bringing up all the logistics. Jet fighters are way more complicated to stand up than tank platoons.
Also, it’s important to note what those F16s are and aren’t going to do. They’ll be older, likely C/D models pre-AESA. They aren’t going to be used in an air-to-air or flying into enemy territory role. But they open up support for a whole new set of long range strike weapons, and allow for better utilization of things Ukraine is already using, like AGM-88, that aren’t operating at their full capability due having to kludge integration into Soviet era airframes. The Ukrainians have been getting ready for them, doing things like adding Link-16 support to Delta.
2024 eh? That’s what, 7 months from now?
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/07/13/russia-says-f-16-jets-in-ukraine-will-be-seen-as-nuclear-threat-a81823
Lavrov on F-16
The Moscow Times operates out of Amsterdam.
I would not give too much credence to its reports.
A year ago, we were promised no Americans would ever be sent to Ukraine to fight. Yesterday, Biden signed an Executive Order authorizing deployment of 3,450 American active reservists to fight on the side of Ukraine against Russia. Of course Americans will be flying American jets in Ukraine.
The Biden EO does no such thing. If you want an accessible explainer this does a good job:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/what-bidens-troop-call-up-order-to-europe-really-means
You mean this bit?
“Still, it sets a new precedent and could
open the door to further call-ups…”
Think: ‘Camel’s Nose‘
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel%27s_nose
In the spirit of our past president who said “it depends on what the definition of ‘is, is”, in this case it depends on what the definition of “fight” is. Certainly being in a trench and doing hand-to-hand combat with a bayonet is “fighting”. What about being a “military advisor”, like we did in Vietnam? What about flying drones? What about controlling other assets that go boom and do other things? Just staring at a screen and moving a joystick, is that fighting? What if the screen is inside something that is flying at Mach 1? It all depends on how you define “fighting”.
I won’t go into detail but I have a man in church that I’ve known for several years, he is a Reservist. He was gone last year, for about 8 months. I asked him where he was, he said “Ukraine – don’t ask more”. I didn’t. Was he “fighting”? I guess it depends, eh?
Exactly.
Yes, Anon, I foggily recall John F. Kennedy announcing in the early sixties that he would be sending more “military advisors” to South Vietnam. “Military advisors” sounded innocuous enough to me. Then a few years later Walter Cronkite would tell us how many troops we had lost that day and the TV screen would show us short black and white films of body bags being offloaded at stateside bases. After hearing the number of troops, I remember asking my parents, “How many men is a troop?”
If the Desiccant Husk rattling around the White House is allowed to go on mucking up everything he touches, we may be hearing about more U.S. troops being sent to Ukraine. My son recently retired from reserve duty after twenty years including five tours overseas, so I don’t want him called up again. I don’t want any of our servicemen sent there — and certainly not our servicewomen. Enough already! Sue for peace and stop this damned proxy war!
“…Desiccant Husk..” LOL permission to steal shamelessly, please? What a great title for a song… like Eminent Front or something along those lines. Sadly, it’s also a great moniker for a really bad President.
Dear Just, I was quoting a certain cleric who shall remain unnamed. Much to my dismay, I now see that I misquoted him. My apologies. It should read “desiccated husk”. If you promise to make the correction to the phrase, permission is granted to use it freely.
“Dessicant Husk” is just fine, Lawrence.
A dessicant sucks up all available moisture
leaving everything around as dry as itself.
Water brings life, dessicants bring death.
It is an appropriate metaphor
for the Biden Presidency.
Yes, the dessicant is the drying agent – a small packet of which is always found in a bag of rice crackers in humid Japan.
That brings to my mind the ultimate dessicant – the crematorium furnace. Cremation of the deceased is mandatory in Japan, where there isn’t enough level land to bury everybody horizontally. The beloved’s corpse is rolled into the fiery furnace and a while later it is rolled out again, the dry bones glowing white and red as they cool. Prayers are said at this point, after which select bones of the skeleton are inserted into a plain, ceramic urn in order from the feet to the crown of the head.
Once you’ve witnessed that part of the elaborate burial process, you can’t unsee it. Although I may be mixing metaphors here, in my experience nothing resembles a desiccated husk like a freshly cremated corpse.
Our geriatric president won’t live much longer. His body may not be cremated once he’s gone, but his death won’t be any less final for the lack of that method of dispatch. He and we also had best keep in mind that sobering fact. Hope to God he has a moment of lucidity to reflect upon what he has done to our nation and to the world and undo some of the damage before it’s too late for him and for us all.
You say tomato, I say tomato… You say potato, I say potato… You can give me a link, I can give you links that say otherwise. Now in going back and reading through the EO itself again, I totally admit to being wrong about the number of American reservists being sent to support Ukraine against Russia. It’s a total of 3,000 American reservists, as 450 will come from the Individual Ready Reserve and are included in the total of 3,000 soldiers and not in addition to the others.
As our hosts wisely wrote here recently, we are already in WWIII. While these American reservists are supposedly not going there for combat, they are still going there to be an active part of the war effort. It’s all just semantics and smoke and mirrors. One year ago, I think we all were skeptical that the US would ever consider giving $78 BILLION dollars to Ukraine and yet looking back, that is exactly what has happened. Go ahead and dust off your rearview mirror, Nate, and in exactly one year from now, let’s come back and revisit this thread and see where we are. That will be the real test to see who has accurately interpreted Biden’s EO authorizing 3,000 American reservists to support Ukraine. Deal?
Toward the end, the article relates that this is designed to show strength but actually shows weakness due to the number of IRR that are part of the call up. It is, however, greeted with earned suspicion given the US’s habit of first sending “advisors” and the gradually building up an army in the proxy country.
However, this conflict is not against N. Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq. This is what many forget. The Russians are a peer, if not superior, military force. They need not wait for a buildup and, in fact, this would be counterproductive. I doubt they would even allow an unambiguous buildup in countries surrounding the Ukraine in anticipation of an invasion. Article 5 simply does not intimidate them. They won’t go attacking a NATO country just for the hell of widening the party. However, they won’t hesitate if it becomes strategically necessary either.
America has never fought a proxy war like this where the only enemy is a superpower. The closest thing was Chechnya, which the US lost and which was a much smaller scale.
I am more than happy to revisit a year from now, what perhaps we could agree is the key question: “Are serving US military personnel dying in Ukraine?”
I want to be clear on two points. First is at any given time there are a tiny handful of active duty US military in Ukraine. They are either A) Marines performing guard duty at diplomatic installations or B) administrative personnel (think clerks) performing the bureaucratic duties involved with the handoff and oversight of major weapon system deliveries. These are not trigger pullers, and it is highly unlikely, although not impossible that any of them might die at some point, incidentally, as a consequence of the inaccuracy of Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine.
The second is that contrary to how many people here may feel, the majority of the American public still supports sending military aid and supplies to Ukraine. But this support does not extend to sending American service men and women to die fighting in Ukraine, regardless of the nuclear escalation risks. The Biden Administration knows this. Even ignoring the nuclear angle, which you can’t, it would be political malpractice of the highest order to do something that would be so wildly unpopular in the run up to an election. Not going to happen.
I will reiterate what I have stated before: short of the staggeringly unlikely scenarios of Russia directly attacking a NATO country or using tactical nuclear weapons on Ukraine, the US will remain limited to providing arms, intelligence, and training Ukrainians outside Ukraine.
Nate, I hate to say it, but we’re talking past each other. Already American servicemen (as well as mercenaries) have died in the Ukraine. At the end of the day, I choose not to polish a turd but to call it what it is.
There has been a certain low level presence of American military in the Ukraine, probably since before the beginning of the war. I’m not sure how directly involved in the fighting they are but they are certainly involved in officer support roles and have been targeted by Russian missiles repeatedly. We need not go into how many have died as a result since this is controversial and is not discussed openly by either side.
Such “little green men” are not a casus belli but considered by both sides to be deniable sneakery best overlooked in its geopolitical implications. They are targets, but usually not a cause for outrage/consequences by the other side. Of course, when they become official or obvious, that is another matter.
PS: The minds of the American people are enslaved by the MSM and liberal Borg. There is no real republican government where almost all of the information is so skewed as to allow only a narrow spectrum of belief and political expression. It is no different than Soviet Russia except that we have a mixed market economy and they had a socialist one.
My problem is not with a dominant party controlling the public consciousness. My problem is with this evil, dominant Uniparty controlling the public consciousness. Or, to make an analogy, my problem is not with monarchy but rather with this particular apostate despot.
The mythical US or “NATO” soldiers fighting in Ukraine make Bigfoot blush at this point. Canadian general has replaced the girlfriend from Canada. Have Americans, including former military members gone to Ukraine to volunteer to fight? Yes. Have some of them died? Also yes. But that’s an entirely different thing. Personally, if somebody tells me serving US military are dying in Ukraine and can’t give me any names/ranks/units, I think you can understand why I’m not going to give it a lot of credence.
Also, if US servicemembers were actually dying in Ukraine, the Kremlin wing of the House GOP would absolutely find out about it and raise hell.
“Kremlin wing of the GOP”? One could only wish.
No, dear one, the GOP and the Dems are hell-bent on bringing us to the brink of nuclear war. Or beyond.
But hey: no mean tweets, amiright?
Whether or not US soldiers are dying is not the only way, nor should be the only way, to measure the involvement of the US in this proxy war with Mother Russia.
It’s crap like this that gives phariseeism a bad name.
Promises, promises…
Politicians’ promises…
I’m not sure where the reservists are going, to be frank. I don’t think 3000 troops can do much, to begin with. Also, I don’t think they will constitute a trip wire if deployed into the Ukraine. My guess is that the Russians would kill them off systematically without a second thought. They have already targeted NATO advisors there a number of times in the past.
The Russians simply will not allow a buildup of such troops in the Ukraine, small or large. The bluff would be immediately called. The Russian buildup has been partially in anticipation of NATO or the US stepping in. The Russians have no fear of this. The fact that the US and NATO still have not directly intervened means that the West is afraid of doing so.
It may be some empty gesture by America or it may be a bluff. Either way, no matter.
Petros, lest we forget America’s good friend Saddam, ditto all the other dictators American administrations empowered for mammon. (Shah of Iran) etc.
Petros,
Yes, I agree. It is hard to see any other way that real demilitarization and real denazification could occur. Eventually the Russians will have to march to L’vov. But they would rather do so unopposed by any Ukrainian or Western force, hence the war of attrition.
I suspect that after the Ukrainian army has lost the will and/or the ability to go on, the Russian army will simply close ranks with them as they retreat or surrender across the country. It could all happen quickly when it breaks. No big arrow offenses are needed if the enemy does not resist. You just move forward occupying what has been abandoned.
After losing the will to fight, the Ukrainians may simply keep retreating beyond the apparent reach of Russian artillery. That is, unless or until there is a formal surrender.
I can’t disagree however we must remember what Russia’s aims were:
1. Neutralizing the Ukraine (not a bad idea, ask Austria and Switzerland and Finland during the Cold War)
2. Demilitarization, i.e. the destruction of the Ukrainian Navy and Air Force plus a rump Ukrainian Army
3. DeNazification. That’s going to be a toughie. I expect the Nazi elements to retreat to Galicia
I would add the following:
1. Let the Poles, Hungarians and Romanians take their little slices of the western Ukraine
2. Restore all church properties to Metropolitan Onuphry. Any clerics, monastics or bishops that sided with Bartholomew’s pseudo-church should be given the opportunity to repent.
3. Restore Ukrainian army units who surrendered and/or ceded territory to reconstitute as the official army of the Ukraine and have them march on Kiev and take out the traitors who rule that junta
4. Let an officially recognized Ukraine, which will be actively deNazified and whose border are from the Dnieper in the east all the way west to the border of Galicia with Kiev as its capital exist
My thoughts.
Odessa and the Black Sea coast?
ie: All the way to Transdnistria?
Yes, that is a very possible final outcome, George. It will come after the Russians have taken control over the whole country though. I see no other way of achieving it. In order to get rid of the Kiev regime and denazify the Western lands, you have to go in.
Now I could see placing a client regime in Kiev and letting them do it, with Russian supervision. But Western Ukraine is not-z central. It will have to be forced.
I’m sure the Russians would prefer not to have to do it themselves. Likely the West will force them by continued support for the worst elements there.
The Russians need to find a Ukrainian Kadyrov, willing to subdue his own people for the common good.
Make no mistake, the G-7 communique is significant news out of Vilnius. It is significant heartburn for a Kremlin that has to pin its hopes on outlasting Western support. I think some are simply refusing to entertain the notion that the West will go the distance for Ukraine and help it rebuild post-war, because the implications are just too troubling.
https://www.state.gov/joint-declaration-of-support-for-ukraine
I see a lot of promises in that text. Kind of like the promises we gave the South Vietnamese and the Afghans.
You would think he would be able to afford a decent suit with all the money that the United States has given him.
He should have topped his greens with a Fidel Cap.
Then they might have considered him as Fidel 2.0
and invested money to win him away from Russia!
Ohh…wait a minute….
I am wondering if the photo is a fake?
I found this quick rundown interesting.
Zelensky was probably told not to bring his retirement package into question. They rather expected “gratitude”. It all wreaks of imperial pretension. Of course, I don’t feel sorry for the little POS. But it makes it that much more likely that the Ukrainians will turn on their American masters much like the Chechens did. Some in the Ukrainian military are already flipping the switch to understand that they have been used and abused. Ritter was on Garland’s show this morning and shared a story about an elite Ukrainian unit whose commander has turned on the war effort.
Vilnius, in the context of Western shortages, has deal a fatal blow to the whole Western effort in the Ukraine.
As usual, Larry Johnson sees things clearly:
https://sonar21.com/the-war-in-ukraine-shifts-decisively-in-russias-favor/
“We have reached the point in this war where the West is struggling to come to grips with the fact that its gift of tanks and weapons to Ukraine have been a total bust and panic is setting in.
“I encourage you to view the Wall Street Journal video that Andrei Martyanov posted (I can’t figure out how to post it in Word Press). At least two American Generals (retired) who have been some of the most ardent cheerleaders and spinmeisters for the Ukrainian offensive are admitting grudgingly that the operation is a bust. That is putting it mildly. The Ukrainian troops, along with their equipment, are being smashed.”
Meanwhile, on planet Earth, things are going so well that the commander of the 58th CAA just got sacked for complaining about the attrition being suffered, lack of support and lack of rotation. His replacement has some tough choices to make given the dwindling reserves and the hazards of redeploying other units to back up Robotyne. The usual suspects (shall we call them Larry, Curly and Moe?) are wildly overestimating Ukrainian attrition and underestimating Russian, as expected. To do this they have to avoid accurately explaining what Ukraine has been doing for the past several weeks and characterize it as mindless zerg rushing. Tsk-tsk.
As an aside, I’d observe again that given the difficulties Russia has had in interdicting even a small trickle of modern ALCM strikes with minimal decoy and EW support, how well it would actually cope if it had to deal with a real pedal to the metal USAF/USN joint strike package with doorkickers and EW to 11. Sometimes it pays to be a nuclear power.
But make no mistake, Ukraine is having to do this the hard way compared to how the West would actually do it supported by air superiority. Some good writeups on the process are out there, this is one of them:
https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/07/09/sappers-risk-their-lives-to-win-ukraine-back-inch-by-inch
Nate, are you aware how many flag-rank American officers were sacked, sidelined or otherwise removed during WWII (the last war we actually won?)
The invasion of Grenada was a success, I think.
True, so was Panama, but let’s be honest, neither of those wars were worth writing home to Mother about.
Anyway, I just listened to Col MacGregor yesterday. He put the blame for the degradation of the military on Rainbow Marxism. He dared to speak the truth in that he named the name that cannot be spoken.
Yes, but the invasion of Grenada upset Her Majesty The Queen,
who caused Mrs Thatcher to shout down the telephone
into the ear of President Ronald Reagan.
Talk about unintended consequences…!!!
HOLD ON! How are we not addressing the real issue here??….Z is short! He looks like a dwarf next to everyone. Heck, I’m only 5’8 and he looks like he’s a foot shorter than me. 😆
Yeah! He is short, isn’t he? Short and crazy. LOL
Napoleon wasn’t that tall either. But he dressed much better. Also, he had the Grande Armee. Still, it didn’t work out for him.
This idiot will be lucky to survive.
I’m waging 50/50 his ending will be similar to that of Al Pacino in Scarface or “car accident”
Yeah, I’ve thought about the Scarface scenario too. He’s made some nasty friends over there and when they realize the West has played them, they will turn on the lone Jew among them.
But that was his choice. They will probably always believe they were betrayed by the cabal. Perhaps they will end up as part of the Ukrainian fascist community in North America, if they have the sense to flee.
Yeah, I’ve been saying that for almost a year now. The Ukronazi types will not stop the Ukronormies from going after St Zelensky when the Ukronormies realize that they could have had an intact country last April.
Perhaps the Ukronormies might be better
blaming the Ukronazis for their plight
than the scared puppet Zelensky[yyy…etc]
My guess is that the Ukronormies will blame America; the Ukro not z’s will blame Zelensky. Consequently, he may not be safe anywhere if he jumps ship. In fact, the US actually has no interest in keeping him alive other than as a puppet in the Ukraine. He knows too much. Should he turn and start granting interviews, it could get ugly.
His future is, at best, under a dark cloud.
Then his best bet would be for him to bug out to Israel.
He may be too dumb to leave. Historically he’s not made the best decisions. Does another line or more when he gets too down. Gulps some more samogon when he gets too edgy. Just tries to keep a balance in his substances and act fearless. Til the bitter end comes upon him, which he may only barely feel.
This is the worst gig he’s ever had. He just may not realize it yet.
Napoleon was short.
Hitler was short.
Attila was short.
And William Wallace was tall. Alba gu breath!
But Mel Gibson is not,
though he can act it…
The least the little b*stard could do is to wear a suit like a civilized leader. It reminds me of Castro. Except Castro wore the full uniform. He looks like a guy who sits around all day guzzling vodka and hoovering coke while making bad decisions and just getting more strung out. At least he goes to the barber. There, I found something nice to say.
Fidel Castro was far more charismatic and far more inspiring than Ukraine’s Z. Simply put — regardless of his lack of virtue — Castro was much more of real masculine leader (a classic Latin American “caudillo”).
Castro had many attractive girlfriends to boot, something that Z does not (I’ve heard that real women think that Z is completely ridiculous).
Heck, Castro even left an international legacy, including fathering the current Prime Minister of Canada.
I’m no Castro fan, but comparing Z with Castro is probably insulting to Fidel !!
I’m thinking either Fidel or Ron Wood, former bassist for the Rolling Stones.
Col. Macgregor: Ukraine is being ANNIHILATED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtXpKYJ3tI8
[Video – 28:14]
A bleak, but [I think] accurate analysis…
Very good video from The Duran.
Looks like this may be Z’s last stand as he heads back to Ukraine. How much longer are the Ukrainian people going to take it? Me thinks not much longer.
On a separate note, the picture of Z standing by himself might as well be extrapolated onto Bartholomew. Now that the West/NATO has clearly dumped Zelensky and Ukraine, I can almost guarantee they will be dumping Bart.
Zelensky, the tyrant murderer, is not the head of the snake. He is a cartoon character used by the snake. Who will cut off the head of the snake? This will not end. It will continue one way or another.
Let us pray for those who died in agony, screaming, with their guts blown out. Let us say thousands of prayers for young people all around the world who fought for the head of the snake. Youth was deceived. Let us fall on our knees.
So, while we discuss Mr. Z’s height and attire, we learn that “The main aim of the CBDC, according to the Bank of Russia, is to serve as a payment and transfer method. Hence, its users won’t be able to open savings accounts.As the BoR emphasizes, payments and transfers would be free for individual customers and cost 0.3% of the payment amount for corporate clients.
In a recent interview, the deputy chairman of the central bank, Olga Skorobogatova, announced the mass rollout of the digital ruble for all Russian citizens by 2027. The CBDC will be tested in a pilot program between 2023 and 2024.“
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/russian-parliament-passes-digital-ruble-bill
Russia is not the moral fortress that it is made out to be when she takes the same damned steps as the west in moving toward forcing it’s citizens out of wealth, freedom and security and that is what the device of CBDC will do. North, South, East, and West…the entire world will be forced to use CBDC. We stand on the precipice.
The head of the snake says so.
Jane, Russia is no moral paragon (no nation is). It is however a much saner, more moral country than anything that obtains in the West. One of my Russian sources told me that yesterday, the Duma outlawed sex-change surgery. And it was about 10 years ago that they outlawed the adoption of Russian children by Western homosexuals.
You fight with the army you got.
Personally, I’m hoping that the whole CBDC scheme will collapse by then.
My best friends are Russian. Correct. No nation is a moral paragon. Agree!
Paul Craig Roberts posted this quote today on his blog:
I think he might have been referring to the head of the snake. Russia is trapped by the snake also.
America’s Real Ruler
“Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” – Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001
BTW, today is Bastille Day.
Is Macron worried about a repeat? Zerohedge says “yes”:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/france-deploys-130000-officers-bastille-day-following-riots
Scott Ritter Investigation: ‘Agent Zelensky’ – Part 1
https://21stcenturywire.com/2023/07/13/scott-ritter-investigation-agent-zelensky-part-1/
Part 1 of a highly revealing investigative series exploring the unlikely rise to power of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, by American author, military analyst, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, and former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector, Scott Ritter.
Scott Ritter:
‘ As a former intelligence officer, I’ve been wondering why has no one done an investigation about Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine? His rise to power, in my opinion, represents an incredible manipulation of world opinion that will go down in history as a classic case study in social psychological engineering: an ordinary comedian who came to power because he promised a long-awaited peace, who then dragged his fellow citizens into a bloody war that can only be described as a massacre. With the help of colleagues and experts with first-hand insights into Zelensky, I have poured over documents and video to produce a film that captures this investigation. This story has so many twists and turns that I had to break it into two parts. In the first episode, presented here, I will answer the question about Zelensky’s improbable rise to power, and how the Ukrainian President accumulated his vast wealth, a sum that has only become larger since the war with Russia began. And, perhaps most importantly, why I decided to call this film “Agent Zelensky.” ‘
https://rumble.com/v2zs3r0-a-scott-ritter-investigation-agent-zelensky-part-1.html
[Video – 36:05]
MI6…? Who’da thunk it…?
Thank you for putting this out. I just listened to it. Fascinating.
Yes, Brendan, thanks for posting this video!!
Z’s rise to power was no accident…. it’s insulting how in our Western popular press these things are stupidly portrayed as “democratic uprisings”…. as if Z’s meteoric rise to power from TV actor to fearless national leader was a popular uprising.
Z’s rise to power was planned (by the British and the Americans) 100%.
It looks like Russia is going to be dropping out of the grain deal. This could be a tit-for-tat payback against Erdogan and him stabbing Putin in the back.
Turkey was making $$ off of the grain deal so will be interesting to see what happens.
I believe Putin will be heading to Ankara soon. Wonder how that’s gonna go.
Mark my words: there is less to Erdogan’s “betrayal” than meets the eye.
Looks like those F-16s aren’t going to be as speedily delivered as we were led to believe:
Pentagon Dragging Its Feet Over F-16 Gifts To Ukraine
Pushed by the weapon industry the U.S. Defense Department is dragging its feet over the delivery of F-16 airplanes to Ukraine:
Pentagon: Ukraine battlefield situation currently ‘not ideal’ for F-16 deployment
The battlefield conditions in Ukraine are currently “not ideal” for the employment of F-16 fighter jets, said Lieutenant General Douglas Sims, the director of operations of the Joint Staff, on July 13.
“The conditions right now for the employment of the F-16s are probably not – they’re probably not ideal,” the general said at a press briefing.
“I mean, the Russians still possess some air defense capability. They have air capability. And the number of F-16s that would be provided may not be perfect for what’s going on right now,” he clarified.
Lockheed-Martin, which still builds and sells the F-16 to various countries, is obviously not happy that the markets will soon learn that the F-16 have no fu**ing chance against modern Russian fighter planes and air-defenses.
Their coming destruction will scream “Buy Russian!” to the world and several countries will probably switch their provider and do so.
(Courtesy of Moon of Alabama)
Yes, this is a key issue. Much of what has been poured into Black Hole 404 so far has been destroyed and very few systems have had much success in the interim. The original plan was to get rid of Western stocks so that the American MIC could replace whatever was sent over.
Good business.
But a funny thing happened on the way to preserving world hegemony. These weapons have proven largely ineffective against the Russian military.
That was not part of the plan. Lying about it only gets you so far. Buyers have more reliable sources for what really has been going on.
So another dynamic has arisen. Some British tanks (Challengers) are being held back from the front because of the bad optics of them burning on camera. And though America sells F 35’s as well as the older F 16’s, they have no interest in seeing the F 16’s reduced to burning wreckage either.
So you need to do some math to get to the bottom of it; however, it is safe to say that when the war becomes a liability to American defense contractors, they will seek an offramp. From their perspective, this whole war is a large product demonstration event in competition with the Russian MIC.
A huge cultural difference as well, which is important to point out in how each country’s industry is designed to operate:
American defense contractors are globalists… the American defense industry is designed to make money, not necessarily to benefit “American interests,” however one defines that (lately, it’s been defined as “American interests” = that which supports globalism and financial profit…. which is not how most American patriots would define it). American industrialists do not put American patriotism first.
Russian defense industry leaders are Russian patriots; their industry is designed to benefit Russia.
FTS, I heard one of the Alexanders say (or was it Col MacGregor?), “Americans design weapons to sell, Russians design weapons to kill”.
FTS,
This is actually the real difference. Russia has overcome its oligarchy, America has not. Perhaps that is Trump’s mission, who can say? But here in America, MNC’s still run the show. And they call it “democracy”. But the corporations control the media and thus the public consciousness.
In Russia, the government overcame and broke the power of the oligarchs, the equivalent of their MNC’s. Capitalism is a good servant but a merciless master. It displays a logic all its own if it is not managed by govt. Its invisible hand will create globalism to maximize profits at the expense of the interests of the nation and of its people.
Inside a country, this can be overcome by unions, corporate taxes and regulations, and public welfare. But outsourcing and the MNC phenomenon breaks the control of the nation state that would put national prosperity above the corporate bottom line.
This is just the same struggle as occurred in the thirties except at the level of the world rather than the nation. It can’t be resolved by one world govt but instead will be resolved by a reinvigoration of the authority of the nation state over business.
“Capitalism is a good servant but a merciless master. It displays a logic all its own if it is not managed by govt. Its invisible hand will create globalism to maximize profits at the expense of the interests of the nation and of its people.”
So very well put, Misha!!!
St Paul was on to something when he wrote to Timothy:
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (1 Tim 6:10)
I’m an American patriot but one of the things I struggle with most as an American is our country’s relationship to money and capitalism. Capitalism is not “holy” – indeed, there is tremendous temptation within capitalism to make an idol out of money for those who have no tools to exercise restraint.
As Orthodox Americans, our Orthodox Christian faith helps us keep capitalism’s temptation in check, I think. But for those who run our country and our economy, they don’t share a similar perspective with respect to money/capitalism.
Doestoevsky was 100% correct…. unbridled capitalism is as evil as unbridled communism. This is why Trump (and Tucker Carlson) are such American phenoms and why so many eggheads on cable “news shows” seem to not get it (or pretend to not get it, in order to please their bosses).
Trump and Carlson are very effective at tapping into the very profound reality that being American means more than making money – they are, in essence, American patriots, regardless of however crass they make come across at times. (Some of the crassness is their overt (and yes, sometimes immature) masculinity…. masculinity is, after all, often rough around the edges… our predominantly feminized culture has forgotten this reality).
But it’s not that money is evil, it’s that loving it and making an idol out of it is evil. American oligarchs (and so many of our politicians by and large) love their money, and they are not ashamed to publicize this fact. Heck, they hail and publicize it as a virtue!
They are also not ashamed to allow tens of thousands (or more?) Ukrainians to die (and also possibly Americans to die….. are we deploying thousands of Americans to Ukraine soon, as the dessicated husk in the White House recently said?) in this ongoing stupid war which, at root, is about their love of money and power…. it all seems so demonic.
As you astutely put, capitalism needs to be the servant, not the master.
The Greek actually means something like, “The love of money is the root of many evils (or much evil).” And it refers to greed rather than a simple desire for profit, which is natural. But, yes, anything in excess is a passion. And you put your finger on it when you observe that some have no higher god than Mammon. That is the problem.
It is interesting that the Democratic Party acted as the brakes in the 30’s but now the roles have flipped and it is an unconventional wing of the Republican Party that seeks to curb globalism.
The F-16s Ukraine is likely to receive in 10-12 months from now are almost certainly going to be old European C/Ds that are in the process of being replaced by F-35 moderization efforts. They aren’t coming from US inventory. It’s not like Ukraine is getting new Block 70s fresh off the line from Greenville. Pilot training is starting next month in Europe and is expected to take 6-8 months.
The DoD is pointing out, when asked for the umpteenth time about F-16s, that they aren’t some kind of silver bullet that could be handed over right now and be used effectively in isolation. There are far higher priority things Ukraine needs right now. Ukraine is getting a lot of additional GBAD systems next year, including multiple new Patriot and IRIS-T batteries that will help protect Ukrainian fixed wing on ground and in the air. I do expect to see Ukrainian F-16s operating effectively in the second half of next year launching long range strike and doing cruise missile interdiction. They’ll be operated carefully to minimize risk, but it’s entirely possible Russia will down a few anyway, especially if they use them for JDAM delivery.
Two Bastille Days…
La France de Mimi [1989]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MQ-SC9bmp4&t=255s
[Video – 04:15]
La France de Macron [2023]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H9lxD5Qu9M
[Video – 02:01]
2 Samuel 1:19
How are the mighty fallen…
Dmitry {Orlov} arrives to the same conclusion as I do in terms of NATO weapons’ “performance”.
So, what did the Ukrainians do to raise the ire of the Pentagon so suddenly, and as a direct consequence, fall into disfavor with NATO? In short, the Ukrainians demonstrated that NATO’s weapons are crap. Evidence of this built up slowly over time. First, it turned out that various bits of US-made shoulder-fired junk — anti-aircraft Stingers, anti-tank Javelins, etc — are rather worse than useless in modern combat. Next, it turned out that the M777 howitzer and the HIMARS rocket complex are rather fragile and aren’t field-maintainable. The next wonder-weapon thrown at the Ukrainian problem was the Patriot missile battery. It was deployed near Kiev and the Russians quickly made a joke of it. They attacked it with their super-cheap Geranium 5 “flying moped” drones, causing it to turn on its active radar, thereby unmasking its position, and then fire off its entire load of rockets — a million dollars’ worth! — after which point it just sat there, unmasked and defenseless, and was taken out by a single Russian precision rocket strike. This was sure to have seriously pissed off US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, whose major personal cash cow happens to be Raytheon, the maker of the Patriot. Yes, the Patriot proved useless using the First Gulf War, where it failed to protect Israel against ancient Iraqi Scud missiles; and it proved useless later on when it failed to protect Saudi oil installation against ancient Yemeni Scud missiles… but you aren’t supposed to advertise that fact. And now this!
And to top it all off, the German-donated Leopard 2 tanks and the US-donated Bradley infantry vehicles, not to mention the silly French wheeled non-tanks, performed absolutely miserably during the recent Ukrainian efforts to approach, never mind penetrate, Russia’s first line of defense. Rubbing salt into the wounds, Putin remarked off-the-cuff that Western armor burns rather more easily than the old Soviet-made stuff.
Speaking of no longer being the “belle of the ball,” looks like Elpidophoros is continuing is disaster tour across America:
I haven’t seen any positives from his trips to the different Metropolises he’s been to so far.
Looks like the CIA is leaking like a sieve: https://sonar21.com/cia-leaking-like-a-sieve-as-it-blames-ukraine-for-impending-debacle/
Here’s the kill-shot:
“I’m guessing that the CIA guys and gals talking to Arkin are a different crowd from those talking to Sy Hersh. Let me make this simple — if Ukraine, thanks to CIA help, was kicking the stuffing out of the Russians and the CIA was confident of an impending Ukrainian victory, then this piece would never have been written. This smacks of major “ass covering” and blame shifting. CIA people only do these types of leaks when they learn that reservations are being made for seats on the helicopters that will be landing on the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Kiev when evacuation day comes. We did it before in Saigon and Kabul. By God, we can do it again.”
This explanation by Scott Ritter is one of the best rundowns of what actually occurred around the NATO bombing of Serbia. It’s around the 22:00-26:00 minute mark and he gives some historical background.
So, it looks like Erdogan & NATO made “promises” to each other regarding Sweden’s entry into NATO:
https://www.helleniscope.com/2023/07/19/it-is-now-clear-turkey-and-the-west-just-exchanged-promises/
Is Sweden going to be allowed entry into NATO at the end of the day? Probably. Is Turkey going to be pushed further into the BRICS orbit? I think it’s inevitable. Read Stamatakis’ piece: Erdogan’s three top advisors are all Islamists.
Biden made promises, but won’t guarantee
that the US Congress will keep them…
Erdogan made promises, but won’t guarantee
that the Turkish Parliament will keep them…
Well, it looks like I owe the late Zbig Brzezinski an apology. He wrote the following words a few years before his death:
“Brzezinski’s Warning
“Washington’s grandiose plan to confront Russia and China at the same time illustrates the shortcomings of a policy-making body that has eliminated anyone whose views veer even slightly from the warmongering consensus. (“Groupthink” writ large) It’s interesting to note that the main architect of Washington’s plan to rule the world, Zbigniew Brzezinski, eventually abandoned the idea altogether and called for forging ties with Russia and China. In an article that was written shortly before his death, Brzezinski said the following:
“As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture…
“the United States is still the world’s politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power….
“the United States must take the lead in realigning the global power architecture in such a way that the violence …can be contained without destroying the global order.…
“a long and painful road toward an initially limited regional accommodation is the only viable option for the United States, Russia, China, and the pertinent Middle Eastern entities. For the United States, that will require patient persistence in forging cooperative relationships with some new partners (particularly Russia and China)…”
It must have been hard for him to swallow his Russophobia. Better late than never.
I’ve been wondering about The Thucicydes Trap, whether China was really in our crosshairs. Here’s Pepe Escobar’s analysis:
https://www.unz.com/pescobar/neocons-want-war-with-china/
It seems the not-completely-insane wing of the neocon establishment is looking for an off-ramp from the Ukraine because the last thing they want is a fractured, defeated Russia (I know, this sounds insane) to serve as a bulwark against a resurgent China.
Perhaps in order to avoid this (possible) outcome, the 100 year old Henry Kissinger, flew to China to meet with President Xi. It was an unofficial visit but the Chinese were punctilious in their observance of every detail, no matter how minute.
Which raises an important question: does Kissinger represent another, less bellicose wing of the Deep State? The one that is actively trying to get rid of Biden?
Or they have lost their minds in the process of losing the war in the Ukraine.
First of all, Russia will not give them an offramp that is palatable. Russia will control all of Ukraine, either directly or by proxy. It’s a done deal because nothing can stop them. Russia was open to negotiation last year. But that ship sailed. It’s victory or bust at this point.
But pivot toward what? Does the US really want to start a war over Taiwan in a bid to “weaken” China? How’d that work out in Eastern Europe? Besides, China’s hypersonic weapons would destroy any US surface fleet. Moreover, the alliance that China and Russia concluded before the commencement of the Ukraine adventure likely included a security guarantee of a Russian nuclear umbrella if a serious crisis arose around Taiwan. That would cure China’s only weakness in the conflict.
I’m not convinced the US really wants to fight China. I think rather they want “rumors of war” to abound because the host of US agencies, MIC, NATO, etc., need enemies like Russia and China to justify their existence. They’ve lost enough equipment in the Ukraine to make them think twice about jumping in again too soon and against another peer. Better to pick on some little defenseless Third World country like in the good ole days.
This is from Sonar21. It sounds like Putin is telling the Poles that they can have some part of Western Ukraine so long as they don’t dare attack Belarus.
I hope not. All of historical Rus’ must be integrated with Russia: Galicia, Volhynia—even those areas that are today part of Poland.
I don’t see why. I wouldn’t want to rule the Banderists.
This was eye-opening from Lukashenko:
“They [i.e. the Wagner people] are asking to go West, ask me for permission… to go on a trip to Warsaw, to Rzeszow. But of course, I am keeping them in central Belarus, like we agreed. We are controlling what is happening.”
P.S. Actually, it looks like Lukashenko’s quote has already been edited within the article that I just copy-pasted it from. Huh. Maybe the reference to Rzeszów hits a little too close to home…the city is, after all, the capital of Subcarpathia.
I thought what Putin said about the western borders of Poland was extremely based. And correct.
“I would also like to remind you what Poland’s aggressive policy led to. It led to the national tragedy of 1939, when Poland’s Western allies threw it to the German wolf, the German miliary machine. Poland actually lost its independence and statehood, which were only restored thanks in a large measure to the Soviet Union. It was also thanks to the Soviet Union and thanks to Stalin’s position that Poland acquired substantial territory in the west, German territory. It is a fact that Poland’s western lands are a gift from Stalin.”
Germany, are you listening?
And of course, what Stalin gave with one hand, he took away with the other… Poland’s eastern lands (as they had been between the World Wars, from Vilnius in the north to Lvov in the south) were given to the Soviet Union and are still part of post-Soviet states today: Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine.
Then Stalin also took a wide slice out of Germany and gave it to Poland, as a sort of compensation.
Yes he did, didn’t he?
Yes, exactly. Putin gave a talk early in the conflict about how he did not even see some sections of Western Ukraine as being an integral part of “Rus'”.
Scott Ritter: “Agent Zelensky – Part 2”
https://rumble.com/v30nd8w-a-scott-ritter-investigation-agent-zelensky-part-2.html
[Video – 44:53]
A riveting exposé
Brendan, thank you for posting this video. It’s excellent.
The climax for me is at minute 20, “the Biolabs”, Explosive.