Month: March 2022

The Outcome of the Ukraine War

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Predicting the future in a war is a fool’s errand.  So many things can happen to change the situation on the ground that even a few days of almost random occurrences can undermine the basis for a prediction.  But general principles can be used to guess what is likely to happen if the difference in strength between the two sides is lopsided enough.  So let me be foolish.

My first assumption is that Biden won’t risk military intervention.  He won’t declare a no-fly zone and he won’t shelter an openly operating insurgent force in a NATO country.  I think Biden is truly afraid of Putin.  Even the embargo against Russian oil and gas is probably more risk than he’s comfortable with.  Bottom line, I don’t think he’ll step into the war because he believes that Putin would as a last resort use nuclear weapons if the West interferes on the Ukraine battlefield.

The Russians have fought several wars in the last thirty years.  Some larger, some smaller.  The most difficult one was the Chechen insurgency.   Initially when the Russians attempted to occupy Chechnya the Chechens fought a brutal guerilla war that the Russians basically lost.  But in the second phase of the war the Russians figured out how to deal with guerilla fighters.  They surrounded them and then reduced the cities to rubble without engaging.  This limited the Russian casualties but increased Chechen civilian casualties.  I think that’s what they intend to do with the Ukrainian militias.  They’ll empty the cities of anyone who wants to get out and then starve the fighters out or blast them out.  This will tear the Ukraine to pieces and make it more likely that the Ukraine government will surrender.  But it’s not just the government that counts. Even if the Ukraine government surrenders guerilla fighters could extend the war indefinitely.

I guess the biggest unknown is just how committed the militia fighters are.  The Chechens were fearless and full of hate.  We’re about to find out what these Ukrainian militiamen are all about.  If they’re like the Chechens this thing won’t be over for years.  And that may exhaust the Russians ability to sustain the war while the West maintains sanctions and provides material aid.  If that happens Putin may decide to do something drastic and that could be disastrous for everyone including us.

But if the militias aren’t prepared to fight for every square inch of ground, then this thing will be over in a matter of months.  The Russians will be methodical and brutal.  They’ll reduce the cities to rubble and reclaim the country piece by piece until the militias have to surrender.  Putin has decided what he wants done and he will go about it in a determined fashion.  When the Ukrainian government surrenders, Putin will tie them up in a peace treaty to keep the West at arm’s length.

So that’s my read.  The only variable that matters at all is the fire in the rebels.  If they’re willing to fight to the death, they can hold up the war long enough to exhaust the Russians’ patience and resources.  If not, then the Russians will win.  It’s as simple as that.

11MAR2022 – OCF Update – It’s a Blooming Miracle?

photog Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner , ,

Today Camera Girl excitedly announced that one of her bulbs had bloomed in front of the house.  She said it was yellow and I couldn’t miss it.  But it was so small that I passed it three times before I finally saw it.

I tried to be as upbeat as I could be but I don’t know. I’m going to have to buy a magnifying glass and install it on top of this flower along with some signage.

It’s pretty enough.  But it’s not exactly eye-catching.  Well, it was covered by snow yesterday so maybe it’ll increase in size later on.  But I doubt it.  From now on I’ll have her read the descritions on the flowers she buys and specifically avoid ones described as microscopic.

On a different note we got our tax papers finished today and the accountant showed that we’ll get something less than three thousand dollars back from Uncle Sam and the rest of the thieves.  I intend to plow the money directly into some get rich quick scheme that involves a time machine and oil futures.  Right now the details are still coming into focus.  Or we might get the snow-blower fixed for next year.  Right now it could go either way.

Firing the Deep State

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After reading about the color revolution in the Ukraine back in 2014 I am now convinced that unless a United States president puts a maximal effort into defanging the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department, we will never get our country back.  These federal agencies have unfettered power to pretty much do whatever they want around the world and in the United States.  Reading the techniques used in the Ukraine; the street riots, the use of martyrs; I can see the George Floyd riots for exactly what they were.  2020 was our color revolution.  BLM and Antifa were the shock troops that goaded on the violence and chaos.  George Floyd was the martyr to the cause of social justice.  And the Justice Department and the FBI made sure no one interfered.  The flip side of this was January 6th.  Here was the FBI entrapping normal people who thought the BLM “protestors” proved that protesting and occupying government buildings was legitimate.

We now live in a country run by the Deep State.  And if they don’t approve of a president then they ignore his orders and cancel him out with phony investigations and worse.  In order to eliminate the Deep State a president will need to have the cooperation of the Congress and the Supreme Court.  He will have to have signed legislation that authorizes him to dismiss any bureaucrat that he deems stands in defiance of the presidency and he’ll need the Supreme Court to over rule the inevitable lower court rulings and injunctions when the president attempts to use this legislation to drain the swamp.  The real test of all this will be if the FBI and the NSA attempts to defy authority and refuse to vacate the premises.  At that point it would be necessary to call in the military to force obedience.

And then the question has to be asked, is this even possible?  The bureaucrats have successfully stiff armed one president who intended to run things his own way.  They wasted half his term in office with phony investigations and completely ignored most of his orders to change their behavior.  Would a more government savvy man with a cadre of seasoned managers be able to push back and effectively clean house in these powerful government satrapies.  Could Donald Trump succeed where he previously failed?  Could Ron DeSantis, do it?  Could anyone?

I admit that I just don’t know.  But I will say that if it isn’t attempted then any hope of restoring republican government to this country is doomed to failure.  Leaving the people in charge who allowed the BLM riots and set up the January 6th victims for prosecution is tantamount to admitting that equal protection under the law is a laughable absurdity.  Allowing those who set up the Russia-gate fraud to escape serious prosecution proves that President of the United States is not running the US federal government.  It’s run by a cabal of bureaucrats who run the FBI, the Justice Department, the CIA, the NSA, the DHS and the rest of the alphabet agencies that spy on us and make sure we can’t interfere with how they run their global empire.

I would like to believe that we can win back this country.  But as I’ve repeatedly said before, it’s going to take an incredibly smart and a remarkably brave man to do it.  Let’s hope God provides a man like that for us.

H/T to the Conservative Treehouse for Primer on Ukraine Politics

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Sundance at the conservative Treehouse has many great links.  I never thought I’d be linking to a documentary made by Oliver Stone, the grandfather of the conspiracy theorists but I found this long (90 minutes) video very informative. Now without a doubt we are getting the Russian take on what happened in Ukraine but it looks like it describes pretty closely what happened in a “color revolution” staged by the CIA and the State Department.

And of course, the neocons and Joe Biden make their appearances.  I think Vladimir Putin is now my favorite evil dictator.  Maybe I looked into his eyes and saw his soul (or something).

What Passes for Logic in Academia

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I read an article entitled “Down With Primaries!” by some genius named Kevin D. Vallier who is an associate professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University who wrote a book called “Trust in a Polarized Age.”

This learned scholar wrote the following:

“Most democracies don’t have democratic primaries. By and large, party elites choose candidates, and the people then vote for the parties or the candidates. American democracy, by contrast, relies on popular primaries: Ordinary party members select the candidates, or we have open primaries, in which voters can select candidates from either party.

Why do we do this? American anti-elitism. We see party elites selecting candidates as corrupt backroom dealing. We don’t trust parties to evaluate candidates themselves, to help us make a better democratic choice.

Americans are wrong about this. We should abolish democratic primaries.“

You see the party elites are the ones we should trust to look after our interests.  Think of the last few presidents before Trump and ask yourself how that worked out.  George W. Bush and Barack Obama are the shining examples.

And then he gives examples to “prove” his point:

“Consider some recent illustrations. In 2016, GOP party elders would have blocked Donald Trump from the outset. I’m sure that many people reading this are still happy that Trump broke through as he did. But for most Republicans, and most of the country, this proved to be a bad outcome.

If Republican Party elders had had their way in 2016, Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush would have been the nominee. I have no love for Rubio or Bush: They are too hawkish for my tastes. But Trump damaged the country’s democratic system in ways that Bush or Rubio would not have done. Conversely, had Democratic Party elders not gotten their way four years later, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren might have been the nominee in 2020. If a strong left-wing candidate had become president, instead of Biden, most Americans would have regretted it.”

So from the author’s point of view Jeb Bush instead of Donald Trump would have been a win for democracy.  And Joe Biden instead of Bernie Sanders was also democracy in action.  Even though in each choice he is advocating for the less popular candidate.

Finally he sums it up:

“Backroom deals? They’re the stuff of democracies around the world – and of American democracy before the advent of the primary system. We should bring them back.”

It’s amazing what passes for political thought in universities.  So his thesis is that letting the parties give us the choices for president will make it more “democratic.”  Of course, what if the two parties are just two sides of the same coin; heads I win, tails you lose.”  Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle Dee work for the same masters and just act out parts that reinforce the script that we can change the conditions we live under.

Well, I have to assume “Professor” Vallier represents the pragmatic reality based side of academia and is considered a radical by the Bernie Sanders majority at his university.  All that tells me is that subcontracting to BLM to burn down the universities is a noble idea.