You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Ukraine Now news piece
2022-03-08
Liveblog. Lots there, updates with new posts every few minutes.
Posted by:Besoeker

#24  A distillation of what I’ve learnt here from you all, Woodrow. :-)
Posted by: trailing wife   2022-03-08 21:55  

#23  #17

TW hitting all the nails right on the head.
Posted by: Woodrow   2022-03-08 19:29  

#22  How does helping Zelensky help Americans?

I heard the term Elephant trap used by folks to describe the US getting entangled in a painful war in Vietnam. There is value to the Russians using up their military assets and showing they aren't the fearful war machine everyone thought they were. If we can manage that by supplying Zelensky we should.
Posted by: ruprecht   2022-03-08 14:51  

#21  Most of the money is controlled by people who are in thrall of marketing consultants and shadowy gurus. The want to change the world, but they don't know what to do...
Posted by: M. Murcek    2022-03-08 14:49  

#20  That means no moral posturing

That's what they do. Support for "Black Lives Matter" was 100% about moral posturing with no regard at all for actual evidence or second-order effects.

Ditto for the climate change insanity.
Ditto for the COVID insanity.
Ditto for the Ukraine insanity.

Same playbook in every case:
1 Preen, posture, ignore logic and evidence.
2 Fuck things up beyond all recognition.
3 Rinse
4 Repeat

Posted by: No Fortunate Son   2022-03-08 14:43  

#19  "Why should we spend money to kill you when we can make you wish you were dead by not spending?"

Think about it.
Posted by: M. Murcek    2022-03-08 14:37  

#18  Yes. We can do much more damage by selectively opening and closing the still biggest-on-the-planet American wallet in a sensible way. That means no moral posturing and a willingness to show people we disagree with what devastating poverty actually is.
Posted by: M. Murcek    2022-03-08 14:35  

#17  What would makes sense is pumping enough oil domestically that we supply our own needs while dropping the price worldwide. Simultaneously, balance the budget so we don’t need to borrow from China. If we cut those purse strings they lose half their power over us. If we finish moving our manufacturing out of China and find or develop alternate sources for all the stuff and manufacturing feedstocks we buy from them, they would lose the other half of their power over us, it seems to me.
Posted by: trailing wife   2022-03-08 14:31  

#16  Oh ok. So we're kinda-sorta (but not really) fighting Russia by forcing them to ship all of their huge natural resource wealth to China. Because ...China's our ally?

Because we want to build up China -- at our own expense?

Because we fondly hope and fervently pray that China will emerge as the dominant power in the world?

Does this make any FUCKING sense?

#FuckNeoconShitheads
Posted by: No Fortunate Son   2022-03-08 13:28  

#15  LRSO is nearly ready. More faster please.
Posted by: M. Murcek    2022-03-08 13:27  

#14  How bout this: B21 is nearing first flight. Columbia class SSBNs about to lay down first keel. Instead od sending Ukraine used fighter jets, let's announce we are boosting our spending on strategic weapons by the same amount.
Posted by: M. Murcek    2022-03-08 13:26  

#13  The slippery slope argument. If we don't act tough now we will have to fight later.

It's called bluster.
Posted by: M. Murcek    2022-03-08 13:19  

#12  ^ False analogy. The resolution to this is simple: it's no NATO expansion plus the Minsk II agreement that Zelensky ignored.

Which we could easily have had if our leaders were not out to destroy us by building up China and destroying our wealth and our freedoms at home.
Posted by: No Fortunate Son   2022-03-08 13:17  

#11  M.M. While I agree with you on most things, it IS our fight. I don't like the "Peace in Our Time" crowd. They don't have a good track record. The world is too small to ignore Hitlerian thinking. That said, a shooting war will probably be the final curtain on our little civilization story. So no.
All means to convince Russians that Putin will get them and us killed, yes.
Posted by: Mercutio   2022-03-08 12:56  

#10  Not. Our. Problem.

You wouldn't think so but it seems we have a lot of war mongering fuckers in Washington DC and New York City who are working overtime to make it our problem. I don't believe they are insane...just evil.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2022-03-08 12:45  

#9  WTF explains their insanity?
Many are people that have 'No skin in the Game' -- they work for public schools (or other 'guaranteed income' jobs) and can emote without any fear of the consequences. If they could be drafted, or their children, things might seem more 'Real"...
Posted by: magpie   2022-03-08 11:58  

#8  Not. Our. Problem. Call me when The Russ AF starts flying close air support for the cartels and the "migrants" from central America.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2022-03-08 11:33  

#7  WTF explains their insanity?

Power. They're not stuck on cultural things like classical religion. They've made themselves their own gods.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2022-03-08 11:16  

#6  The enormous screeching now about the collapse of the wheat supply. Hasn't the media spent years telling us how bad carbs and gluten are?
Posted by: M. Murcek    2022-03-08 11:10  

#5  The neocons and the MIC relish conflict. As per usual, follow the money.
Posted by: Besoeker   2022-03-08 11:06  

#4  Why are our leaders doing this?

Not our leaders. Klaus Schwalbe's droids running us proles towards the wood chippers.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2022-03-08 11:03  

#3  How does helping Zelensky help Americans?

Leave out the Trump interregnum. Can anyone explain how the W-Obama-Biden policy toward Ukraine and Russia made us...
stronger?
more secure?
freer and wealthier?

Now ordinary Americans are becoming little slaves to China, jerked around by global commodities markets.

Why are our leaders doing this?
WTF explains their insanity?
Posted by: No Fortunate Son   2022-03-08 10:52  

#2  Not. Our. Problem.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2022-03-08 10:43  

#1  Besoeker, when I clicked on the link, it landed on the following post. Did you intend to highlight this one?

Ukraine NOW [English]
⚡️Russian losses equal the number they suffered during Afghan war. Key points of the speech of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov:

🔻 In 13 days of the war, Russian soldiers killed 38 Ukrainian children and wounded more than 70. The data on more than 400 civilians killed and more than 800 wounded have been confirmed.

🔻 400,000 Ukrainians were taken hostage in Mariupol. They are constantly shelled by aircraft, rocket artillery, and missiles.

🔻 In 11 days, the Russian occupiers destroyed more than 200 Ukrainian schools, 34 hospitals, and more than 1,500 residential buildings.

🔻 Where are your values and ideals? Where is the work of international organizations that cost billions of dollars? Where is the UN, the Red Cross, the OSCE? They are not here.

🔻 A few more days, and Russia's losses of the killed and wounded will outweigh the losses of 10 years of war in Afghanistan.

🔻 Today, Europe has a chance to defeat a tyrant who has intimidated everyone for decades. This requires Ukraine to persevere.

🔻 I urge everyone to show that the free world is not afraid of a single tyrant hiding in a bunker.

Posted by: trailing wife   2022-03-08 10:39  

00:00