Posts Tagged ‘Ukraine’

No fly, no oil, no kidding

Posted: March 8, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
Tags: ,

By Christopher Harper

Americans may disagree on many things, but it’s clear they take the war in Ukraine seriously.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows an overwhelming majority of Americans (74%) support establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, banning U.S. imports of Russian oil (80%), and imposing further penalties on the Russian economy (81%).

It’s time for Brandon to realize he’s leading from behind. Again.

The Russian invasion poses a significant threat to various countries, including Poland, a NATO member and key American ally.

If Russia had invaded Ukraine 20 years ago, there is little question that the United States would be helping as much as possible. But the disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq have made U.S. leaders reluctant to engage in the world.

It feels a lot like America in the late 1970s and early 1980s after Vietnam when the United States was reluctant to engage in world affairs. America was tentative and fearful; Ronald Reagan changed that.

Although I support Donald Trump and DaTechGuy on most issues, I think they’re wrong about keeping out of this battle. I firmly believe that despite the troubles Putin and his military have faced in Ukraine, they’re likely to keep pushing their weight around in other places, such as the Baltic States.

Here’s what I think we should do:

–Remind Americans that the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances of 1994 pledged that the United States, Russia, and others not to invade Ukraine, in exchange for that country giving up its vast nuclear arsenal. Putin has violated that promise. While America did not commit to defending Ukraine, the United States is morally obligated to do so.

–Impose sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas industry. Even though oil exports have dropped because of nervous shippers and insurers, Putin is still getting the product through to European and U.S. consumers. This move would likely push up gasoline and heating prices, but it will also have Brandon and his minions reconsider the need for American energy independence. [Update: Brandon imposed sanctions. Now he needs to open up U.S. drilling].

–Help to create a no-fly zone with NATO over Ukraine to allow an acceleration of weapons deliveries and humanitarian supplies. Some analysts and government leaders are concerned that such a move would result in battles with Russian aircraft. That is certainly a possibility, but Russians have steered clear of Western fighter jets in places like the former Yugoslavia and Iraq.

Audentes fortuna iuvat. Fortune favors the bold.

How About we establish a Few “No Loot Zones” & “No shoot zones” in the US before we move to No Fly Zones elsewhere?

Posted: March 7, 2022 by datechguy in war
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Pat Wheeler: Son, l asked you over here because the Sheriff’s a friend of mine. He’s got trouble. He can use a good man.

Colorado Ryan: To go against the Burdettes, Sheriff?

Sheriff Chance: That’s right.

Pat Wheeler: I told him you were one of the best.

Colorado Ryan: I’ll tell you what I’m a lot better at, Mr. Wheeler. That’s minding my own business. No offense, Sheriff.

Sheriff Chance: No offense.

Pat Wheeler: I never expected that.

Sheriff Chance: He showed good sense.

Rio Bravo 1959

There has been a lot of talk about a No Fly Zone in Ukraine enforced by NATO. The president of Ukraine lobbied congress for such a think and the Ukrainians have been doing their best to shame the west into this kind of direct confrontation with Russia.

Now the Ukrainians are in the process of being invaded and that being the case I have no problem with them doing all they can to get allies in the fight, in fact they would not be doing their job if they didn’t, but something occurred to me as the echoing gong of intervention has been going out.

Where are the calls for US Intervention in Chicago and Baltimore?

We have people being shot there on a regular basis and innocent bystanders being killed and wounded including children, yet we don’t have anyone talking about sending forces to control the violence there nor are there outcries for intervention in Chicago or people putting the Chicago or Baltimore city flags or seals on their twitter feed.

War is a messy thing. There is shooting, there is violence. And when civil authority breaks down you can see arson, you can see looting which begs the question.

Where are the calls for US intervention in San Francisco, or Portland or even New York City?

We’ve had wholesale arson, we’ve seen people take over streets and threaten others, we’ve seen looting and theft with impunity, yet the very suggestion that Americans should be sent to a part of America to protect Americans from these things in any of these cities is practically beyond the pale and it seems odd to me that so many Americans are all gung ho about getting involved in Ukraine but don’t seem to give a damn about what is going on here, not just ordinary crime which you might say is a local matter but crime and violence of a type that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago.

Am I saying that what Putin has done isn’t wrong, not at all. Putin should turn his armies around, head back to Russia and stay there.

But we’re not Poland, or Finland or the Baltic states, all of who have a history with Russia and have a legitimate worry about an aggressive Russia in their neighborhood and might decide it’s in their interest to get deeply involved . I submit and suggest it would show a lot of good sense to think long and hard before we go and get ourselves deeply involved in a war in eastern Europe that doesn’t involve a NATO ally that’s we’re committed to defend.

I’m VERY iffy About the Use of Guilt By Association Business to Counter Russia

Posted: March 4, 2022 by datechguy in war
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Let’s stipulate two things at the start of this post:

It is my opinion, even after hearing Lee Stranahan case for it, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is wrong and they should pull out of the country at once.

It is my opinion that the sudden unity (which frankly I find suspicious but that’s a post for another day) in the world in punishing ordinary Russians in general and wealthy Russians in particular, is, short of actual military intervention, the most likely method to succeed in at the very worst bringing Putin to the table and at best causing him to rethink the invasion.

Nevertheless, I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit for a couple of reasons:

It sets a terrible precedent or rather revives one:

The idea that any group of people can be targeted collectively for actions (real or imagined) that are disliked by either leaders or prominent leaders of such a group is an easy way to get abuses. Three examples instantly come to mind. During the settlement of North America it was not uncommon for settlers who had been raided or various tribes for that matter) , to retaliate with little discrimination against the surrounding Indian Tribes, or other white settlers. This cycle of collective guilt was used to justify all kinds of violence not to mention ignoring various treaties protecting tribal rights. In Germany’s Jews were collectively blamed for the nations defeat in world war 1 and the grief afterwards (what the basis for that claim was still alludes me) but the basis for that claim directly took us to the death camps, in fact even today many Arab nations use collective guilt against Jews for any action by the state of Israel that they dislike or even actions taken decades ago. Look at the Jim Crow south and you’ll see this in play. (In fact CRT is the same thing on steroids’ not just guilt by association for people actions but for people’s actions centuries ago) This type of thing doesn’t end well.

Russia is not as “free” as it pretends

You could make the case that the people of the Confederacy could be held responsible for their acts because their representatives were freely elected and you could make the case that the white population of South Africa could be held responsible for their abuses as they elected the leaders who maintained apartheid but Russia is a different matter:

Russia’s parliamentary elections in less than two weeks’ time are shaping up to be the least free since Vladimir Putin came to power 21 years ago, warn opposition leaders and independent election observers.

The details are not a big surprise to anyone who pays attention:

Nonetheless few Putin opponents doubt United Russia will win the elections handsomely, thanks to ballot-rigging, the silencing of Putin critics, the barring of independent candidates, voter intimidation and cash handouts to voters.

“The thinly veiled bribery of voters, all sorts of manipulations, mobilizing administrative [resources] and persecution of the critics of the regime — these are the election tactics of Putin and his party in 2021,” according to Fyodor Krashennikov, an opposition political commentator.

Krashennikov recently left Russia for Europe, joining an exodus of opposition figures who say they’re being chased out by a crackdown on dissent, which has seen dozens of independent media outlets and civic groups forced to shut after being designated “foreign agents” or extremist organizations in a ramping up of repression up ahead of the elections.

Given that Putin is Ex KGB none of this is a big surprise, but this is why the wave of making not the Russian Nation but making individual Russians pariahs who are not connected to the government, that’s just wrong.

And don’t think the precedent of confiscating of their private propriety will end with them, just as the freezing of donors to the Truckers bank accounts in Canada will be the end of it.

I understand the desire to be seen to do something but there seems to be a virtue signaling race (like banning Russian Cats from cat shows, yes you’re reading that right) to be seen to do so and as I’ve already said, doing something, particularly the wrong thing that creates a bad precedent for the sake of doing or being seen to do something is a lot worse than doing nothing.

Two Miscalculations The Biden Admin on Putin and the Biden Administration and Putin on Zelensky

Posted: March 3, 2022 by datechguy in war
Tags: , ,

Lt Columbo: You know for a while there I thought: I’ll never get her. All those little details they just didn’t make it, there was nothing conclusive, and then I thought, It’s gotta be the money.

Mrs. Williams: What money?

Lt. Columbo: The ransom money. When a person engineers a false kidnapping they have to have the money hidden somewhere. Now it cleaned you out to raise the ransom. So I thought I gotta find a way to force her to use the ransom money. [to man bringing suitcase] thank you very much. You know seemed like a nutty idea to everyone, it did to my wife. But I believed in it because Mrs. Williams you have no conscience and that’s your weakness. Did it ever occur to you that there are very few people that would take money to forget about a murder? It’s didn’t did it? I knew it wouldn’t. No conscience, limits your imagination you can’t conceive of anybody being any different then what you are, and you’re greedy. And that’s why, bright as you are, and you’re bright, you believed Margaret could be bought.

Columbo: Ransom for a dead man 1971

If you want to know how we got to the point where we might actually be on the brink of a World War and a dramatic change in how countries choose to defend themselves its origin comes from two miscalculations.

As we’ve mentioned before the Biden administration practically invited the Russians to go into the eastern sections of Ukraine that have been fighting since the 2014 coup that put in the current government, they calculated they would recognize those areas, maybe move in some troops. the Biden Administration would say a few words and then take credit for preventing an invasion of Ukraine proper and it would be business as usual.

It didn’t work out that way.

Putin took one look at the American response and figured these pigeons were ripe for the plucking and decided to go all in. It made sense, a weak America, a Europe completely dependent on Russia for fuel and retaking Ukraine becomes a piece of cake, particularly when he figured that Ukraine would not be able to resist him very long.

That’s where the 2nd miscalculation came in for Both Putin & the Biden Administration.

With Putin moving in the Biden Admin figured the jig was up and the best move would be to get the president Zelensky out. They and the Obama folks had had years of good pickings in the region and they figured they would set him up somewhere comfortable he would keep his mouth shut about the various dealing that had gone on while occasionally putting in a good word for the good folks of the Biden Admin that got him and his out. They saw him as they saw themselves, just another grifter.

That’s where they’re both wrong.

The Ukrainian government is corrupt and Ukrainian companies have been involved in some shady dealings with the US left in general and the Biden family in particular but personal corruption and greed and bravery and love for one’s country are not mutually exclusive. It’s one thing to skim things from the top to enrich yourself, it’s another to leave your country and let it die at the hands of a traditional enemy. This was a shock to the Biden Administration and those running it

You see the Biden family the Biden administration and the folks who have been profiting from Ukraine are a bunch of amoral grifters who only care about themselves. They would never risk their lives in a seemingly hopeless cause when the could go off and live like a king and they could not conceive of the idea that Zelensky would decide to stay and fight. It wasn’t on their radar. Putin how deep the grift in Ukraine was might have figured the same but frankly should have known better.

When Zelensky bravely decided to not only stay but do so publicly in order to inspire his countrymen in their time of need every calculation of the Davos class went out the window and now the west is in pickle.

For the Biden Administration it’s the worst of all possible worlds. He looks weak no matter what happens and every day that Ukraine is the center of the world’s attention is a day that people might start asking uncomfortable questions that even the US media can’t protect him from.

For their media allies it’s a mixed bag, it’s a great story but they need it to end soon, both to protect the image of Biden and to keep people from asking too many questions.

For Europe it’s a defining moment. They don’t want world war three but they also don’t want to reward Russia, furthermore seeing that the US isn’t going to defend them they are going to have to decide to defend themselves and that means the assets of the elites are not immune.

For Russia it’s become a pretty bad situation. Even victory in Ukraine now comes at a high price because you have Germany rearming, Finland suddenly looking to join NATO and the west and the media seemingly united against him.

All of this comes from two miscalculations. What’s next? I’m not sure. If Putin was looking for a bright spot the STOU speech certainly was one, If the west was looking for a bright spot the seemingly mediocre performance of the Russian Army sure looks like one, but I think it’s going to be a couple of months before we really know what the score is over there.

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