Ukraine 21: On the Attack with a Giant Phallic Spear

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, A True Kaniggit said:

So it is a matter  of scale?

More like complexity, which is partly about scale. The Belarus situation as an example. Most people will acknowledge that Belarus would almost certainly stay at home if Putin didn't have a bayonet shoved in its back compelling it to cross the border. But it won't be Russians who will be dying if the incursion goes ahead. If it's US and British cruise missiles and bombers that decimate parts of Belarus, is that a manifestation of courage?

Let's hope the courage we can rely on is the Belarusian military turning around and telling Lukashenko and Putin to piss off. That way the virtue of courage can be manifest without any more Ukranians being killed. Though a good chance some courageous Belarusians will find themselves a mite shorter than they were before they refused to fight.

[Jace, Extat]

Yo I'm not trying to come down hard on someone whose heart seems to be kindly inclined, but what is this quibbling but an opportunity to record your superior moral hair-splitting capabilities? 

I try to use frank speech when discussing events measured per tragedy, even when I'm being sarcastic. I'm frankly sarcastic. 

And I don't really have the emotional patience to take moral stances I don't have to live up to when discussing the survivability of others who have been wronged.

[Wilbur]

8 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Russia has been forcibly putting up Ukrainian kids for adoption, lying about their relatives being dead and converting them to Russian. That is literally one of the definitions of genocide.

 

Reading about things like that seriously endangers my own health, it makes me so angry.

The US wasted so much blood and treasure on stupid military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past few decades.  In truth, the absolute pinnacle of American armed achievement could and should have been instead to send the USMC after these evil shit-breathers who are stealing children from their parents in Ukraine.

My cousin, who served as an active Marine for a decade and would happily punch a nun for $1.75, actively weeps over this sort of news and our lack of action in response to this specific evil.

[Political Rant On]  As a result, every time Uncle Joe sends more cash and arms to Ukraine, another Republican in our social circle commits to voting straight ticket Democrat next month.  Joe Biden's reaction to the Russian invasion has been, to some of us, Righteous War in a way that we haven't been able to see Americans pursue in many, many decades.  I know that a lot of Republicans are all about winning the political game and seeking and holding power, or else having purity tests on specific planks of the political platform.  But by God, some of us just want to see America Do the Right Thing for once, fully leveraging our national core competency (blowing foreigners' stuff up efficiently and effectively).  [Rant Off.]

Anyways, every so often recently a day will come around when we spend hours driving Ukrainian kids to and from local sports practices and filling out or correcting more forms for their parents, and it was inefficient all day long because of communication barriers and lack of cultural fit.  And as a result I get home and see a growing pile of my own stuff I should have accomplished today and yesterday, and it frustrates me.

Then I read something like that news article, and I am reminded to be thankful that these kids are here in the States with their folks and not sold off into Siberia thinking their parents don't want them.  And it renews me mentally to drive them again tomorrow, maybe once more to the wrong pool or gym, or to explain to their parents again that they shouldn't use their new Social Security number as a Google username, etc.  And my cousin just traded his beautiful truck in for a massive SUV that can hold the entire family in a pinch.  And he got the Ukrainian dad's electrician license activated here in Arizona.

So fuck you with a wooden spoon, Putin.

[Jace, Extat]

22 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

More like complexity, which is partly about scale. The Belarus situation as an example. Most people will acknowledge that Belarus would almost certainly stay at home if Putin didn't have a bayonet shoved in its back compelling it to cross the border. But it won't be Russians who will be dying if the incursion goes ahead. If it's US and British cruise missiles and bombers that decimate parts of Belarus, is that a manifestation of courage?

Let's hope the courage we can rely on is the Belarusian military turning around and telling Lukashenko and Putin to piss off. That way the virtue of courage can be manifest without any more Ukranians being killed. Though a good chance some courageous Belarusians will find themselves a mite shorter than they were before they refused to fight.

I agree with this. 

I don't think US should intervene over Belarus except more aid.

Nukes is a world security issue. Stances must be maintained for like the literal survival of the planet. There is no wiggle room there. 

Belarus isn't that.

[Varysblackfyre321]

4 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Lt. General Ben Hodges (retired) on the last perun episode said that he expects Ukraine to recapture all of Ukraine up to the Feb 24 borders by the end of the year, and recapture Crimea by midsummer.  That is a pretty fast timeline.

Retired generals say all kinds of crazy things for attention.

[Jace, Extat]

25 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

 

 

So fuck you with a wooden spoon, Putin.

You're like a fucking hero and shit man. 

And I gotta say I've heard similar sentiment, and played on it, at work. 

People like being the good guy. People like treating Russia as an enemy (WHICH IT IS).

I shut motherfuckers down with their "I did that!" shit at work over the summer. Throwing the patriotism/freedom card back in their smug coup-deferring faces was so fucking satisfying that I imagine that's what men walk around feeling like 24/7. 

[a free shadow]

9 hours ago, Maithanet said:

it's quite possible the army would get crushed, Belarus would revolt against Lukashenko and suddenly Ukraine doesn't need to defend the northern border at all, freeing up tens of thousands of troops for offensives elsewhere. 

Russian army is in Belarus, invited and not unlikely to try protecting Belarusian people from themselves.

[SeanF]

This is a word salad from Dominic Cummings entitled "Hundreds of Auschwitz's [sic] in a hour":

"It’s roughly 100% irrelevant to UK/US interests whether eastern UKR is controlled by the Putin-oligarchs-KGB-mafia or the Zelensky-oligarchs-KGB-mafia.

‘International law and the rules based order’? You mean the ‘rules based order’ that applied to us invading Iraq?

‘Humanitarian concern’? You mean the ‘concern’ we showed when millions got slaughtered in the middle of Africa, and we sat on our asses watching TV?

‘His tanks will keep going across Europe’? You mean the army that has failed so badly in Ukraine is going to defeat the whole of Europe and America using conventional weapons?

(...)

Every Deep State person I ask says the same thing: there is no fucking plan, the idiots in No10 just keep saying Putin must fail, Truss wants us to recapture Crimea starting World War III, the MoD has got even shitter than ever in 2022.

(...)

But now Professors at Oxbridge and Harvard are happy to tweet gloatingly drone footage of Russian ‘orcs’ being blown to pieces, resembling the 4chan Nazi teens they’re normally so down on. Before the war, Congress defined Azov as a neo-Nazi organisation and banned funds going to it — now our 4chan Profs retweet their propaganda while we shovel zillions to them and rebrand them as … anti-Putin so … anti-Nazi!

People who suggest that threatening hundreds of Auschwitz’s in an hour is justified only by the most existential of interests are denounced as KGB agents and insufficiently full of hate for the enemy, sometimes by the same crowd who called me ‘mad’ for saying Putin may have blown up the Moscow flats himself to justify the Chechnya war.

(...)

I’ve been called mad for 20 years. My warnings, year after year, that our Idiocracy could blunder into pandemics and nuclear escalation was seen as so mad it wasn’t worth arguing with. I didn’t expect that the evidence finally convincing elite media and academia that I’m insane and/or a Putin-agent, would be my suggestion that JFK’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis (including rejecting military advice to escalate and bomb) is highly relevant to avoiding hundreds of Auschwitz’s, and that I would finally be seen as ‘beyond the pale’ for saying things like ‘welcome Russians fleeing Putin, don’t ban them from sports and arts, aren’t we supposed to oppose inflicting punishments on ethnic/national groups simply for belonging to such a group?’."

I truly have no real clue what he's trying to say, save that he's somehow pro-Russian.  The words "Deep State" in any article, are like the terms "Judaeo-Masonic", and "Zionazi".  They mark the writer down as a nutter.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

This is a word salad from Dominic Cummings entitled "Hundreds of Auschwitz's [sic] in a hour":

Cummings is a fucking idiot and has swallowed the Kremlin's propaganda hook, line and sinker. Whatever relevant points he circles and might be worthwhile of further discussion are overwhelmed by the idiocy elsewhere.

He also disallows for the possibility that Ukraine is not serious about retaking Crimea and is merely threatening it as a point for discussion in an eventual peace treaty, which even the Ukrainians are hinting is the case.

He does, as is depressingly common, once again makes no mention of Ukraine's sovereignty and applies cliches to the country that were outdated five years ago, let alone now.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

He also disallows for the possibility that Ukraine is not serious about retaking Crimea and is merely threatening it as a point for discussion in an eventual peace treaty, which even the Ukrainians are hinting is the case.

It's still hard to imagine that Ukraine isn't serious about Crimea anymore. A Russian Crimea is effectively a dagger pointed at the soft underside of Ukraine's southern border that also projects out into Ukraine's ability to conduct maritime affairs in the Black Sea. 

[SeanF]

3 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

It's still hard to imagine that Ukraine isn't serious about Crimea anymore. A Russian Crimea is effectively a dagger pointed at the soft underside of Ukraine's southern border that also projects out into Ukraine's ability to conduct maritime affairs in the Black Sea. 

The danger is in ruling a hostile population.

[Werthead]

6 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

It's still hard to imagine that Ukraine isn't serious about Crimea anymore. A Russian Crimea is effectively a dagger pointed at the soft underside of Ukraine's southern border that also projects out into Ukraine's ability to conduct maritime affairs in the Black Sea. 

True. But also the people of Crimea are apparently genuinely interested in being part of Russia (maybe less so now than they were), and Crimea is not a historical part of Ukrainian territory (unlike the Donbas). Ukraine basically saying "fuck that," forcing the Russian-favouring population out and claiming the land because they want to or they find it strategically necessary, is essentially what Russia has done with the rest of Ukraine, which everyone objects to. I don't think it's a sustainable idea. The terrain in Crimea also does not favour the kind of offensives that Ukraine has carried out until now.

Putin also has a seriously irrational historical hard-on for Crimea, and that might really be the thing that pushes him to hitting the button (retaking Crimea also means retaking Sevastapol and probably destroying the naval base there, and either sinking the Black Sea Fleet or denying it a home base, which threatens Russia's entire naval geopolitical standing). Crimea is also highly divisive for Ukraine's support: just about everyone agrees Ukraine should retake its borders up until 23 February lines, most agree retaking the Donbas as well back to 2014 lines, but Crimea is a much bigger sticking point.

Retaking Crimea also adds a very large, pro-Russian voting pool to Ukraine's demographic again, possibly with a negative impact on the country's long-term prospects.

Ideally, yes, Ukraine should retake Crimea and address any democratic debate about what its people want to do after the war through a properly-monitored referendum afterwards.

[mormont]

My sense on Crimea is that the Ukrainian position changed when it became clear Russia would not negotiate seriously for peace and continued to commit atrocities. Now, they do genuinely want to get Crimea back: if Russia want to play hardball, Ukraine will play hardball. It's maybe not a top priority strategic objective, but it's an objective.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The danger is in ruling a hostile population.

The colonizers can go back to Russia if they feel Russian. 

[Werthead]

1 minute ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

The colonizers can go back to Russia if they feel Russian. 

The Crimean Tatars, who appear to genuinely favour being part of Russia (or at least they did in 2014), have been there since the 13th Century (despite enforced genocides and deportations along the way). They didn't just show up there eight years ago, although there are some signs they do have buyer's remorse since the Russian attempts to woo them by investing in infrastructure lasted about five minutes and have long ceased.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The Crimean Tatars, who appear to genuinely favour being part of Russia (or at least they did in 2014), have been there since the 13th Century (despite enforced genocides and deportations along the way). They didn't just show up there eight years ago, although there are some signs they do have buyer's remorse since the Russian attempts to woo them by investing in infrastructure lasted about five minutes and have long ceased.

And the Ukrainians and Tatars who were ejected from Crimea following 2014? And the Russians who colonized Crimea since 2014? 

[Werthead]

2 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

And the Ukrainians and Tatars who were ejected from Crimea following 2014? And the Russians who colonized Crimea since 2014? 

Oh yeah, agreed, that would all need to be accounted for in a later referendum on the status of Crimea. Many of the Russians who showed up since 2014 do seem to have left recently, for some reason.

[Which Tyler]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/14/elon-musk-spacex-no-longer-fund-starlink-internet-ukraine

Quote

Elon Musk’s SpaceX says it can no longer fund Starlink internet in Ukraine

What a twunt

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Is the Russian dictator offering Musk a principality or something?

[Corvinus85]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is the Russian dictator offering Musk a principality or something?

He doesn't want to dip in his escape-to-Mars fund.