Tag: Ukraine War

Lawn Football

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I’ve got nothing to write about tonight.  I was on a long errand today and it kept me from looking around or thinking much.  About the only thing I did do was read some of the war headlines.  The Russians continue their slow relentless pummeling of Ukraine.  Currently they’ve cut off the southeastern city of Vuhledar (or Ugledar to the Russians.  These Slavic languages are challenging for a poor Westerner).  And after pounding it with artillery until it looks like the dark side of the Moon, they’ve offered the 1,500 defenders a window of opportunity to surrender.

The Ukrainians (or the Americans) have destroyed several very large ammunition bunkers that were very deep into Russian territory with advanced long-range missile technology.  The story is that the missiles came from the Baltic states.  Russia responded by saying if they are attacked by advanced NATO technology they will respond with up to and including nuclear weapons to even the score.

And today the Israelis pounded the underground headquarters of Hezbollah trying to kill Nasrallah their leader.  It’s probable that Hezbollah and Iran are weighing their options for retaliation.  Some people are saying that Israel is deliberately attempting to provoke Iran into a major attack to draw the United States into a larger war.

Well, where does that leave us?  Is Biden (or whoever actually calls the shots) trying to start a war with Russia and/or Iran?  Are some factions in the government (CIA?  State Department?)  trying to start WW III?  Are other groups (the Pentagon?) trying to prevent it?  Is this wag the dog for the election or is this really start a war for the election?  I have to confess I can’t figure it out.

Obviously, I’m interested, but for the life of me I can’t figure out if this helps Harris or Trump.  All I do know is that there is a more than negligible chance that they will trigger at least a limited nuclear exchange.  Now how crazy is that.  After avoiding nuclear war for eighty years when madmen like Stalin and Mao had their hands on the trigger, we’ll be shepherded into nuclear Armageddon by Dementia Joe Biden and Kamala “Cackles” Harris in order to try and make the country forget just how badly they’ve run the country for the last four years.  It just seems like a terrible joke to play on a country that used to be somewhat sensible and well-run.  The Democrats always claimed that a psychotic Republican, like they pretended Nixon and Reagan and Trump were, would be the one who goaded the Russians into a nuclear exchange because of “cowboy” military posturing.  Instead, the neocons in the State Department pushing their color revolution template into Ukraine seem to have crossed a line in the sand that even a moderate like Putin couldn’t ignore.

Well, what can you do?  All these things are in the hands of the Democrats for at least the next four months and if they imagine that brinksmanship is to their advantage then brinksmanship it will be.  I just didn’t have anything else to think about tonight so I thought about this.

Kamala Harris with the nuclear football.  Might as well hand it over to the guy who cuts the lawn.  If he can survive operating power tools, he’s gotta be smarter than her.

Wednesday’s Child Is Full of Woe

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The horror continues unabated.  Thursday will be a respite, and I will use that day to try to reestablish my sanity (whatever that might be).  We have corroded away the first inch of the First Selectman’s outer scale layer.  This will allow the boiling sulfuric acid to percolate through and diffuse into his circulatory system and act as a revivifying tonic.  This is an especially dangerous part of the procedure.  The effect of the tonic is to pique his appetite.  In years past we have lost several members of the de-lousing team at this point in the procedure.

Of course, he’s always very sorry afterward and apologizes profusely to the surviving members of the crew and speaks very appreciatively of the dearly departed and of all their good qualities; their diligence, their team spirit, their crunchiness and full-bodied flavor.  He never stints on praise.

Because of this unfortunate tendency during this part of the procedure I find myself unconsciously moving toward the First Selectman’s left side.  It’s a little-known fact that he’s blind in that eye and so less likely to reflexively snap his jaws and swallow someone standing near that side of his head.

In the big, beautiful world outside of Dunwich all sorts of unimportant things are going on.  The Olympics grinds on with no detectable interest by most of the population.  Kamala and her new running mate are making the rounds of the friendly news shows and touting their wonderfulness.  But I don’t know.  This guy seems to have a bunch of skeletons rattling around in his closet.  Did he refuse to serve in Iraq?  Did he normalize pedophilia.  This guy may be a disaster waiting to happen.  Well it couldn’t happen to a nicer gal than Kamala!

The Ukrainians have opened up a new front in their war by invading Russia on the northern front to the west of the Kharkiv area.  And some of their new F-16s have been spotted flying in the western Ukrainian skies.  There looks to be a major event in Ukraine very soon.

During a particularly slow point in the work, I was talking to a co-worker and he was talking about raising a family in the early 1980s.  A lot of what he said rang true for me too.  There were major financial problems like the very high mortgage rates but people went ahead with their lives taking risks and betting on their luck.  That’s how I remember it too.  The first time I got laid off with a mortgage to cover it was pretty scary.  But if you looked around, something would turn up even if it was only contract work.  The difference between then and now is there is a culture that discourages optimism.  Nothing can be done and nothing is anyone’s fault.  The default assumption is that it’s society’s fault and it’s not worth trying.

This attitude is a death sentence.  The world is the same as it ever was.  Effort and extending your reach beyond the minimum are rewarded.  Regardless of recessions and inflation, striving for what you want isn’t an extraordinary idea.  It’s the normal circumstance for Americans.  This has always been the land of opportunity because it’s the land of hard work that rewards the achiever.  So let the young ones you talk to know this.  Struggle and survive is the order of the day.  And they come from ancestors that did just that.

Now back to the vat.  By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.  Oh well.

Pools and Fools

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Just to let me know what she thinks of my July as the end of New England summer theory, Mother Nature has been laying on the torrid heat and drenching humidity.  ¡Ay, Chihuahua!

Fine.  I glory in the heat.  Although it did make a moving job, I was stuck with a wonderful excuse to sweat like a pig.  Well, that’s what showers are for anyway.  Today I got the swimming pool back in line.  We’ve spent the last two months trying to find a leak that has been draining about 700 gallons of water a day.  I was getting ready to switch pool companies when they sent their heavy hitter back with a mandate “to make the crazy old guy happy.”  Well, whine bitterly enough and you get some action.  So, after convincing myself that the leak is at least 80% fixed I refilled the pool from my poor abused well and adjusted pH, chlorine and added the algaecide and voila, Princess Sack of Potatoes has a cool place to splash around in for the week.

Camera Girl will be in full charge next week because I will be incommunicado.  Tonight, I will load up the photos and quotes needed to get me through the next week and a half.  Then tomorrow I’ll try to get a couple of posts done ahead of time to minimize the dead air on the site.  If I’m lucky World War III will break out and spare me the annoyance (bad joke).  But maybe they’ll be some really big news that will make it easy for me to generate copy.

I read that Trump is talking about debating Kamala on Fox News.  Now wouldn’t that be a hoot!  If there weren’t any ringers in the moderators to protect her, I imagine Kamala would come off sounding like a mental patient.  I mean she is a mental patient and without a teleprompter or someone to keep Trump from attacking all her weak spots she just might run off the stage screaming by the ten-minute mark.

As I posted on earlier, Zelensky is now preparing his countrymen for the reality that they will have to come to terms with Moscow.  Putin is laying claim to all the areas with majority Russophone populations which I think is about 30% of the Ukrainian land area.  And he is demanding the neutering of the Ukrainian army, along with a constitutional amendment forbidding NATO membership.

Along with Zelensky’s fear that Donald Trump will cut off his weapons supply, the recent Russian success along the combat line in Donetsk and the difficulty his army is having locating and keeping recruits is bringing home to Zelensky that pretty soon the current terms that Putin wants may look like a bargain a year from now if his military collapses and the Russians can walk into Kiev.

Well, you never know how a war will turn out but it is starting to look like Joe Biden’s war is coming to a disastrous end.  But naturally, for Biden that would be par for the course.

What a shame that the Democrats have made home ownership an impossibility for millions of young couples who want to start a family.  You’d think for that reason alone, the Zoomers would all vote for Trump.  Well, time will tell.  For their sake I hope Trump wins and actually has the smarts to fix the economy.  I don’t assume it’s guaranteed that he can fix it.  Our economy and the government’s finances have been tricked up by the geniuses in Washington for a couple of decades now.  Things may be so fouled up that fixing will take a decade to accomplish.  Well, Donald, good luck.

Zelensky Admits Land May Be Traded for Peace

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For the first time Zelensky admits that he may run a referendum to see if Ukrainians are willing to trade land for peace.

“Volodymyr Zelensky has said that territorial concessions to end the war started by Vladimir Putin would require the backing of a referendum in Ukraine.

However, the Ukrainian president told French media that such a move “is not the best option because we are dealing with Putin and it will be a victory for him if he takes part of our territory.””

So Zelensky is preparing the people for the reality of surrender.  It’s not like he has much choice.  The question I have is whether they will hand over any of the land they currently still hold.  I think they might have to.

Guest Contributor – TomD – 31JUL2024 – Lessons of War

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Tom | Flickr

TomD

I would have thought that the main lesson of the Viet Nam and succeeding regional wars was or should have been: Don’t initiate or enter wars unless you intend to win and pay whatever price necessary to do so. WWII would be a prime example.

But, apparently, that lesson is too esoteric or functionally difficult to be put into practice by our masters. Just what has been accomplished by the US providing Ukraine with just enough weaponry and resources to prolong the war and kill millions on both sides? Not to mention waste God knows how many $100’s of billions of dollars. What was the point? Anyone? Send a message, perhaps?

 

Update:

Comments

photog in reply to TomD

If I had to guess what lesson they think they learned from Vietnam, it was to emulate what the Soviets did in that war. Find a proxy to fight your enemy for you. So Russia had the North Vietnamese. The neo-cons in the State Department have the Ukrainian Azov faction who are willing to burn Ukraine down to punish the Russo-Ukrainians who make up 25% of the population. The fact that millions will die and Russia will become our implacable foe forever is neither here nor there.

 

Chemist in reply to TomD.

Tom D asked: “What was the point?”
10% for the big guy.
Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but this has always been about graft.
At least is has from the US side.
I think the Poles genuinely wanted to get their licks into the Russians but the US congress, State dept and POTUS were all in for their cut.

 

photog in reply to Chemist.

I wonder where they’ll play the game next after Ukraine dries up? Iran?

 

War Pig commented

We leared the lesson of Vietnam when a Vietnam officer, General Schwarzkopf, refused to play Vietnam rules and insisted on using maximum effort to win-the-frigging-war.
It was LBJ who insisted that he knew better than generals how to fight a war. Ditto Biden.

The US won all the battles in both Vietnam and Afghanistan, but lost due to crooked and cowardly politicians. The lesson is that you do not face the US military head on, you nibble at the edges. Be prepared to take a horrible kill to death ratio because you will lose virtually every battle, and outlast American politicians.

 

 

Kiev and NATO Begin Preparing the West for Eventual Capitulation

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All of the various media outlets in the West are beginning to admit that not only are the Russians making significant gains along the length of the war front but that the size of the Russian army is beginning to overwhelm the ability of the Ukrainian armed forces to hold it back.

 

As War Gets Bleaker, More Ukrainians Appear Open to a Peace Deal

“The Gloomy Ukraine Reality That NATO Insiders Only Want to Talk About Anonymously”

“In Brussels, almost no one expects Ukraine to regain its lost areas. Only nobody wants to talk about it – at least officially. WELT has spoken to a number of insiders who justify their bleak outlook with a fact that Europe itself is indebted to.”

Russia has been ramping up the number of soldiers it fields while the Ukrainians have hit a wall.  Recruitment is being resisted by flight, concealment and lately by attacks on the recruiters.  One tactic being used is to burn the vehicles that the recruiters use as they travel around the country, dragging “recruits” out of their homes.

Russia opened up a new front in the north (Kharkiv) that many believe is a feint to draw away resources from the main areas of advance in the east.

All along the Donetsk front slow but steady advance has been the experience ever since the breakthrough at Avdiivka in the spring.  Of late the exhaustion of the Ukrainian soldiers is beginning to show.  It will probably accelerate as the retreat moves into areas that do not have the extensive tunnels and reinforced bunkers that were provided in places like Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar.

Of course nothing is assured in war but it seems increasingly likely that Kiev will be looking for a peace settlement after November.

One of the Ways Drones Have Changed the Battlefield

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FPV (first person view) drones have become ubiquitous over the battlefields of Ukraine.  And they’ve changed the way war is fought there.  These cheap and numerous devices can destroy a main battle tank or drop a munition in a trench without any reliable way of preventing these attacks.

So what’s a tank commander to do?  Well, so far the answer is to cover your tank with sheet metal and chicken cages (see photo below).

These ad hoc modifications sort of remind me of what was done to the Striker vehicles with wire additions used to catch RPG’s before they reached the armor.  The other change in tactics I’ve heard about is outrunning the drones.  Now we have infantrymen riding motorcycles and even golf carts in order to avoid the drones while crossing open fields.  So speed trumps armor for protection for now.

At a higher level what we are seeing is the beginning of automated weapon systems fighting each other on the battle field.  As soon as we have drones attacking drones we have to wonder where the humble foot soldier stands in this rapidly escalating clutter of deadly devices.

Update:

War Pig:

Infantry will be necessary for the foreseeable future. Urban fighting is still beyond drones. Furthermore, you do not own or control territory unless you have a soldier standing on it with a rifle and fixed bayonet.

Drones are a fine tool for some fighting and reconnaissance. They make good suicide weapons and you save casualties by using them. Our 6th generation fighters will have in-cockpit pilots as an option, not standard. But because of the reasons you stated about quantum mechanics and the human mind, drones/robots will not replace infantry/special ops/guerrillas. Humans can be darned unpredictable. In fact we can be crazier than a squirrel on methamphetamine. One way Bobby Fisher beat the supercomputer at chess was to make wildly unorthodox and apparently random moves. Confused the computer and he won.

Having worked on the ground where making life miserable for the other side by misdirection, dirty tricks and random acts of sabotage, I can say that the more random you go, the more the other side tries to analyze your acts and tactics until it takes up more and more of his resources and drives him to distraction. If humans have problems with that, given we’ve had a couple million years to improve our internal programming; what chance does an inflexible machine have?

Ukrainian Brigades Have Begun to Fail On the Line

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West of the recently occupied city of Avdiivka the failure of one Ukrainian brigade to relieve another exhausted brigade allowed the Russians to charge forward and take a number or towns on the opposite side of a Ukrainian defensive line.

As the 47th Mechanized Brigade was pulling back from the front line east of the village of Ocheretyne this weekend, the Russians attacked—and very nearly broke through Ukrainian lines into the 20-mile-wide ribbon of undefended terrain separating the free city of Pokrovsk from the front line.

The Ukrainian army’s 115th Mechanized Brigade was supposed to take the 47th Mechanized Brigade’s place along the front line. But something went wrong. According to Mykola Melnyk, the famed 47th Mechanized Brigade company commander who lost a leg during the summer counteroffensive, “certain units just fucked off.”

The Russians have since occupied Ocheretyne and spilled over into the surrounding countryside along tree-lines and railroad lines.  They seem poised to flank the next Ukrainian defensive line west of Avdiivka and also fight their way west and north along the rail line that leads into the Ukrainian held territory.

The worse news for Ukraine is that whatever went wrong with the 115th Mechanized Brigade appears to be somewhat systemic. It’s the second Ukrainian unit to fail to follow its orders on the eastern front in just the last few weeks.

“The first unit to fail was the 67th Mechanized Brigade, which was defending the most vulnerable district of Ukraine’s most vulnerable city—Chasiv Yar, 20 miles north of Avdiivka—until internal squabbling within the brigade’s command staff, many of them members of a far-right political group, compelled the defense ministry in Kyiv to liquidate the brigade.”

Even pro-Ukrainian sources are pointing to exhaustion as the probable cause of these failures.  It could be a very bad time for the Ukraine army in the near term.

So Much for Speaker Johnson

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Well, let’s see how the extreme right-wing Mike Johnson did this week.

With the help of his friends in the Democrat party he passed the Ukraine funding and reauthorized warrantless spying on Americans in the FISA courts.

https://rollcall.com/2024/04/19/rule-for-emergency-aid-bill-adopted-with-democratic-support/

https://rollcall.com/2024/04/20/senate-sends-surveillance-reauthorization-bill-to-bidens-desk/

Oh well done Mr. Johnson.

All I can say is the Republicans are hopeless.  I don’t know if they blackmailed or bribed or fooled him into doing these things but he did their will and so we can expect more of the same from now on.

Might as well have been Pelosi.  The horror continues.

The Western Alliance Begins to Plan for the Ukraine’s Collapse

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Politico published an article that confirms that Ukraine admits that the Russian offensive will force the Ukrainians to yield large swaths of their country wherever the assault comes.

“Ukraine is at great risk of its front lines collapsing

According to high-ranking Ukrainian officers, the military picture is grim and Russian generals could find success wherever they decide to focus their upcoming offensive.

Essentially, everything now depends on where Russia will decide to target its strength in an offensive that’s expected to launch this summer. In a pre-offensive pummeling — stretching from Kharkiv and Sumy in the north to Odesa in the south — Russia’s missile and drone strikes have widely surged in recent weeks, targeting infrastructure and making it hard to guess where it will mount its major push.

And according to high-ranking Ukrainian military officers who served under General Valery Zaluzhny — the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces until he was replaced in February — the military picture is grim.”

And there don’t seem to be any optimistic dissenting opinions either

“There’s nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us. We don’t have those technologies, and the West doesn’t have them as well in sufficient numbers,” one of the top-ranking military sources told POLITICO.

“Don’t believe the hype about them (the Russians) just throwing troops into the meat grinder to be slaughtered,” he added. “They do that too, of course — maximizing even more the impact of their superior numbers — but they also learn and refine.””

The latest rumors are that the West is advising Ukraine to re-brand itself as a smaller country where the western areas are ceded to Poland and the eastern to Russia.  These sound like desperate attempts to make disaster appear as strategy.  What a horrible blunder the Ukrainians made listening to Washington.