Archive for the ‘war’ Category

Five Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora: Russia Unmasked, A Tough Call for Ukraine, Woke Winners, The coming tech pivot, and My Paypal Plans

Posted: October 12, 2022 by datechguy in culture, DaTechGuy's Quick Thoughts, education, politics, tech, under the fedora, war
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One of the things that has really been revealed by the war in Ukraine is just how weak and unready the Russian Army is. Moreover a lot of Russians were in favor of the war in Ukraine when it looked like it would be a cakewalk to retake the territory that until the breakup of the Soviet Union was part of Russia proper since the days of Napoleon, but once it became clear that it would involve actually fighting, actual causalities and a mobilization the whole pride thing went out the window.

It’s amazing how much harder war is when people are willing to shoot back rather than roll over. I would not be surprised if this lesions the fear of China’s untested military as well.

It’s a tough call for Ukraine when it comes to how the war ends.

They have a good point that they don’t want to reward Russia with any gains but the longer the war goes on the more likely Putin decides to play the tactical nuke game. Ukraine can likely get the best deal it could get right now but in the words of Lincoln if they consider this war for a purpose they see no reason to end it before that purpose is achieved.

Since it’s their blood that being spilled it’s their call, as long as I don’t have to keep paying for it.

This story via Gateway Pundit made me smile:

I predict that in the woke sweepstakes Muslims trump gays, drag queens and transsexuals’ for two reasons:

  1. The Muslim population of the US continues to grow
  2. There have been unfortunate and unhealthy consequences for those who defy those communities

One of the reasons why Sicilian American’s like myself don’t mind people associating us with the mob is it make people less likely to try to mess with us (also we don’t give a damn what others think). With the reputation of Islam backed up by 30 years of shall we call them “incidents” I suspect school committees are going to think twice before they mess with them.

Sometime in the next month we are likely going to see a pivot in tech companies.

Once they decide they can not stop the GOP from winning the House and perhaps the Senate they are going to be a lot more hesitant to oppress members of the GOP when there is a prospect of lawmakers striking back.

Now of course as long as they control the White House and the Justice Department they have a modicum of protection and I’m sure they’ll go all in no matter who the GOP nominee is but most companies don’t want grief and don’t want scrutiny and when it becomes clear who is going to win I suspect these firms will decide to be on the winning side.

Finally a lot of people I know have dropped Paypal like a hot potato. Being a person who is a tad more deliberate I’ve decided to wait till after the first of the year.

This will give me time to decide what I’m replacing it with, to contact donors to see if they wish to switch to whatever service I go over to and to evaluate my opitions.

Also in terms of taxes and their preparation it will be easier to have the account active through at least January.

This does involve some risk but if I’m right about the tech pivot that should give me enough leeway to move deliberately without a lot of worry. If I’m wrong, then it’s on me.

Five Russia/Ukraine Thoughts Under the Fedora: Russia Historically as a Military power, A glimpse of our Future, Something the media wants us to forget, Shades of Talleyrand and the endgame

Posted: October 4, 2022 by datechguy in war
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One of the reasons why Russia has as feared a reputation as a military power is their victories over Hitler’s Germany & Napoleon’s France in invasions whose failures changed the course of history.

Of of the things overlooked about both of these events is that they had a lot of help in the sense that England was supporting them financially vs Napoleon while fighting a 2nd front in Spain and at Sea while the US was supplying them with millions of dollars of supplies to keep them going.

In Short with help and allies Russia is a terror when something is trying to invade their homeland, against decent militaries Poland 1920’s, Japan 1890’s Finland 1939 and not Ukraine 2022 not so much.

One of the things that has really hurt Russia in this sense has been the unreality of their military. When you have a one man kleptocracy that puts contracts to friends the idea of actually doing what you claim to be doing with the money doesn’t happen, particularly when if anyone complains they might disappear and the media will back up the powers that be.

I suspect that a lot of the Russian logistical support that they thought they had in terms of supplies and other things actually went into the back pockets of Putin and his allies and has gone there for years so now that they actually need these things they only exist on paper.

I suspect even Putin didn’t realize the full extent of it and nobody had the balls to tell him.

Given that more and more the media and tech are shielding Democrats here at home from this kind of thing don’t be surprised if this becomes the end result for us both in terms of Military and in terms of civilian infastructure. We’re becoming a big Chicago where it’s all graft all the time.

This is indeed Obama’s 3rd term.

A lot of people have forgotten this but remember when this war had not started yet the Biden administration was busy trying to get Ukraine to cede the territory that Russia wanted and was ready to fly out their president to a comfortable exile. It was as if the deal with the US was already made to Putin to take over.

The biggest surprise to everyone still remains that the Ukrainian President decided to fight rather than just take the money and run and it likely remains along with the attack of 9/11/01 the biggest single pivot point in world history in the 21st century.

As I recall at the time nobody called it and everyone expected him to die in Ukraine or in exile. His “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” is going rank in history with Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”

Of course the big thing is that while both Churchill and Zelensky stood for defending their country to the last the big difference is Churchill wasn’t a thief in charge of a kleptocracy and Zelensky is. A lot of people are going to get immensely rich off of Zelensky Ukraine being saved and he’s going to do pretty well himself. In that sense he is more comparable to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, prince de Bénévent the French Diplomat who managed to be a part of government from the French Monarchy to the revolution to Napoleon and back to Monarchy without losing his head or wealth or influence.

Of course to the Ukrainian people fighting for the survival of their country the whole question of graft if moot. Their primary goal is survival an victory and it it means a bunch of people and companies both foreign and domestic lining their pockets in the process they’re not going to care all that much as long as they win.

Elon Musk is getting a lot of pushback for his suggested settlement of the war:

If this was offered the 2nd week the west would have pushed Ukraine to sign on the dotted line and a lot of folks in Ukraine would have gone along, now with Russia in retreat the Ukrainians aren’t all that keen to give an inch, even with Putin mobilizing and rattling the nuclear cage.

Also the pool of graft money is smaller in peace than in war as rebuilding requires actual structures, you can’t claim to have shot away the concrete for a building.

I don’t blame the Ukrainians for balking but Petraeus not withstanding I’m not in favor of a nuclear war for the sake of Ukraine taking back those last two Russian occupied areas.

The real question mark here is Putin. Right now are the Russians willing or able to dump him and if so what replaces him? Does Putin go nuclear to win the war? Does Russia back up such an order? Does Putin make a deal and “declare victory”.

And what about the Russian people? Ukraine was historically part of Russia for a very long time and a lot of Russians likely backed the war seeing it restoring a part of Russia back to Russia but as soon as it proved to be not a romp but a disaster and a killing ground for their sons likely decided it wasn’t worth it, after all World War 2 was about survival, this is just about pride.

Frankly this would be the best time for Ukraine to make some kind of deal. They are more likely to get the max advantage without the threat of a nuclear war while the Russians are running scared then when the mobilization is complete and a weakened Putin is likely less of threat than an unknown successor.

In once sense the west already has more than it hoped for in terms of neutralizing the Russian military as a threat in the end those its Ukraine’s call as they bear the primary cost in lives and the primary risk of being nuked. My thought is if Ukrainian people want to fight on and bear the costs of it, it’s a just cause and it’s on them, but it’s their war not ours.

Now that Ukraine is taking back territory from Russia, now is the time for the New York Times to return Walter Duranty’s tainted Pulitzer

Posted: September 11, 2022 by John Ruberry in media, News/opinion, war
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Pro-Ukraine protest in downtown Chicago this spring

By John Ruberry

There is good news out of Ukraine, its forces have made gains in the Kharkiv region and they are near Russian border. There is much ground still to liberate, not only land that Russia has seized in the war that began early this year, but also the area that have been controlled by Russian separatists in the Donetsk region since 2014, as well as Crimea, which Vladimir Putin annexed the same year.

Ukraine has endured an unhappy history. World War II and the Holocaust devastated Ukraine. And in order to impose communism on wealthier peasants in Ukraine, Josef Stalin engineered a famine in the early 1930s, known there as the Holodomor, translating roughly into “man-made starvation.” Roughly four million people perished as a result of Stalin’s atrocities against the kulaks in Ukraine.

Even in a closed society, it’s difficult to coverup a famine. And news trickled out of Ukraine about the Holodomor. But a New York Times reporter, based in Moscow, Walter Duranty, dismissed such stories, instead of “famine” he wrote of “malnutrition” in Ukraine, for instance. 

For a series of 1931 articles about the Soviet Union, Duranty, for his “dispassionate interpretive reporting,” he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. 

While in Moscow, Duranty, was granted a rarity, interviews with Stalin; he also enjoyed another rarity, a luxury apartment in the Soviet capital. During the entire history of the USSR, housing of any kind was scarce. In Moscow Duranty had a mistress, whom he impregnated, and a chauffeur. Automobiles were also rare in Russia in the 1930s. 

In 1933, another journalist, or I should say, a real one, Gareth Jones, visited Ukraine and he was horrified by what he found. “If it is grave now and if millions are dying in the villages, as they are, for I did not visit a single village where many had not died, what will it be like in a month’s time?” Jones wrote for the London Evening Standard. “The potatoes left are being counted one by one, but in so many homes the potatoes have long run out.” 

Duranty’s response to Jones was a New York Times article, “Russians Hungry, But Not Starving.” That same year, Duranty wrote to a friend, “The famine is mostly bunk.”

Another shameful sentence from Duranty, about Stalin’s brutal policies as the Holodomor continued, “To put it brutally,” Duranty wrote for the Times, “you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

Since the war began attention has been brought to Duranty’s undeserved Pulitzer. Even NPR took notice. “He is the personification of evil in journalism,” Oksana Piaseckyj told NPR earlier this year of Duranty. She is a Ukrainian-American activist who emigrated here as a child over 70 years ago. “We think he was like the originator of fake news,” Piaseckyj added.

The New York Times admitted on its corporate website about Duranty’s work, “Since the 1980’s, the [Times] has been publicly acknowledging his failures.” But it has not returned the tainted Pulitzer. It also notes that twice, most recently in 2003, the Pulitzer board has decided not to revoke its award to Duranty. 

It’s time for them to reconsider.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Righteous Among the Nations

Posted: May 31, 2022 by chrisharper in Israel, war
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By Christopher Harper

Master Sergeant Roderick “Roddie” Edmonds didn’t talk about his heroism in World War II, including his actions to save hundreds of his fellow soldiers, including several hundred Jews.

Edmonds served in the 106th Infantry Division, 422nd Infantry Regiment in the United States Army. He was captured and became the ranking U.S. non-commissioned officer at the Stalag IX-A POW camp in Germany, where – at risk to his life – he saved an estimated 200-300 Jews from being singled out from the camp for Nazi persecution and possible death. 

Edmonds arrived in the combat zone in December 1944, only five days before Germany launched a massive counteroffensive, the Battle of the Bulge. During the battle, on December 19, 1944, Edmonds was captured and sent to a German POW camp: Stalag IX-B. Shortly after that, he was transferred, with other enlisted personnel, to another POW camp near Ziegenhain, Germany: Stalag IX-A. 

As the senior noncommissioned officer at the new camp, Edmonds was responsible for the camp’s 1,275 American POWs.

On their first day in Stalag IX-A, on January 27, 1945—as Germany’s defeat was approaching—the commandant ordered Edmonds to tell only the Jewish-American soldiers to present themselves at the next morning’s assembly so they could be separated from the other prisoners. 

Instead, Edmonds ordered all 1,275 POWs to assemble outside their barracks. The German commandant rushed up to Edmonds in a fury, placed his pistol against Edmonds’s head, and demanded that he identify the Jewish soldiers under his command. Instead, Edmonds responded, “We are all Jews here.” 

He told the commandant that if he wanted to shoot the Jews, he would have to kill all of the prisoners.

The commandant backed down.

After 100 days of captivity, Edmonds returned home after the war but kept the events at the POW camp to himself.

After Roddie died in 1985, Edmonds’ wife gave his son Chris some of the diaries his father had kept. Chris, a Baptist minister, began researching his story and stumbled upon a mention of the event at the POW camp. He located several Jewish soldiers his father saved, who spoke about Roddie’s heroism. 

The interviews resulted in the 2019 book, No Surrender. See https://www.amazon.com/No-Surrender-Young-Readers-Extraordinary/dp/0062966170/

For his defense of Jewish servicemen at the POW camp, Edmonds, a Christian, was awarded the title “Righteous Among the Nations,” Israel’s highest award for non-Jews who risked their own lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

h/t to dawife Elizabeth

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