Category Archives: Foreign Policy

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WW3 Watch: Plenty of good Americans are advocating sufficient NATO help for Ukraine for them to win the Russo-Ukrainian War

Patrick Frey, the Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney who runs the blog Patterico’s Pontifications, the site which inspired me to get into blogging, is a very strong supporter of Ukraine and NATO assistance to Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion:

Garry Kasparov Speaks on Ukraine at UCLA

Filed under: General — Patterico | Thursday, March 9, 2023 | 8:21 AM PST

The other day I had the pleasure of attending the Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA. It was given by Garry Kasparov and addressed authoritarianism in general, and Putin and Ukraine specifically. Also in attendance were the lovely Mrs. P. and Dana — not this Dana, of course — and her husband, as well as my old friend David A. (David and Dana’s husband are somewhat less lovely on the outside but very lovely on the inside.) I also saw Eugene Volokh and my old neighbor from Marina del Rey. Everybody wanted to be there.

I wanted to highlight two things Kasparov said that I thought were important.

I responded to Patterico’s original, in a rather long comment, which I wish to use here as well to make my position clear. I have edited my comment slightly, but you can see the original here.

Our esteemed host used a line that he has previously used to criticize my position: Continue reading →

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WWIII Watch: New York Times OpEd says only way for Ukraine to win quickly is for full NATO weapons and troops deployment

My good friend William Teach pointed me to an OpEd in The New York Times. And yes, I stole borrowed the image at the right from him!

America Is In Over Its Head

By Thomas Meaney | Thursday, March 2, 2023

The greatest blunder President Vladimir Putin may have made so far in Ukraine is giving the West the impression that Russia could lose the war. The early Russian strike on Kyiv stumbled and failed. The Russian behemoth seemed not nearly as formidable as it had been made out to be. The war suddenly appeared as a face-off between a mass of disenchanted Russian incompetents and supercharged, savvy Ukrainian patriots.

Such expectations naturally ratcheted up Ukrainian war aims. President Volodymyr Zelensky was once a member of the peace-deal camp in Ukraine. “Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it,” he declared one month into the conflict. Now he calls for complete victory: the reconquering of every inch of Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea. Polls indicate that Ukrainians will settle for nothing less. As battles rage across Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukraine’s leaders and some of their Western backers are already dreaming of Nuremberg-style trials of Mr. Putin and his inner circle in Moscow.

Can we tell the truth here? The only way that there could be “Nuremberg-style trials” of Vladimir Putin and his minions is if Russian forces were not only pushed all the way out of Ukraine, but Vladimir Putin’s government fell, and was completely replaced by, if not Western democrats, strongly anti-Putin forces. This means not just Ukraine retaining its sovereignty, but Russia being wholly defeated. Continue reading →

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WWIII Watch: Will China send weapons to Russia?

William Teach has an article up, WWIII Watch: Former Ukraine President Says They Need Weapons, Sanctions, And NATO Membership:

Well, the US and some EU nations have given them weapons. They’ve invoked sanctions that really aren’t doing much of anything. As for NATO membership, various NATO members have been blocking it for almost a decade, and there are enough to block it now, because that starts WWIII fast. Right now they’re just trying to saunter on up to WWIII. This is Petro Poroshenko, who served as president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019.

Former Ukrainian President: We Need Weapons, Sanctions, and NATO Membership

The winning formula for Ukraine is simple: Supplies of weapons, economic sanctions against Russia, helping to strengthen Ukraine’s resilience, the de-Putinization of Russia, and the accession of Ukraine to the European Union and NATO. Only all the elements of this formula combined would guarantee permanent security for Europe and the whole world.

Napoleon is credited with once saying that to wage war, he needed three things: first, money; second, money; and third, money. Money is the fuel that powers the deadly military machine of Russia that kills Ukrainians. To bring this machine to a stop it will take more than military action. There must be powerful financial punches—indeed an economic crisis—and even social upheaval.

The price for aggression must constantly rise, becoming ever more unbearable. This is the way to change the Russian bear’s behavior, drive it backwards, and spoil its appetite. Putin cannot be stopped by half-steps and half-measures. He will always look for gaps, loopholes, and allies of convenience.

I’ll admit it: I’ve kind of stolen borrowed Mr Teach’s title and the illustration he used. There’s more at his site. But then came this, from The New York Times:

U.S. Warnings to China on Arms Aid for Russia’s War Portend Global Rift

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken says Washington has indications that Beijing is strongly considering giving military aid to Moscow for the war in Ukraine.

by Edward Wong | Sunday, February 19, 2023 | Updated 6:29 PM EST

MADRID — When the top foreign policy officials from the United States and China appeared this weekend at Europe’s premier global security conference, both stressed that their governments were not seeking a new Cold War.

Yet, new warnings by U.S. officials that China may be preparing to give weapons and ammunition to Russia ‌for its war on Ukraine portend the worst of the old Cold War.

In that decades-long shadow struggle, the United States, the Soviet Union and occasionally China poured military resources into protracted wars around the globe, engaging in bloody proxy conflicts from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan.

American officials say that China, unlike Iran and North Korea, has over the year of the war in Ukraine refrained from giving material aid to Russia. President Biden has stressed to Xi Jinping, China’s leader, that any such move would have far-reaching consequences.

There is no doubt that China’s entry into the war in that manner would transform the nature of the conflict, turning it into an epochal struggle involving all three of the world’s largest superpowers and their partners on opposing sides: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea aligned against the United States, Ukraine and their European and Asian allies and partners, including Japan and South Korea.

Warnings to China from Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state — made in multiple settings on Saturday and Sunday, including on television — revealed that the Biden administration believes Beijing is close to crossing the line. And the fact Mr. Blinken spoke out publicly shows the desperation of the United States as it tries to dissuade Mr. Xi and his aides from doing so.

Officials in Washington and European capitals, including here in Madrid, one of the staunchest aid providers to Kyiv, say that they are bracing for a new Russian offensive in Ukraine this spring, and that they need to do everything they can this winter to blunt Russia’s chances of breaking through Ukrainian defenses.

There’s more at the original, but the whole idea of the United States and NATO giving more money and war materiel assistance to Ukraine seems to fall apart if China is going to do the same for Russia.

Ukraine has already suffered major housing, industrial, and infrastructure damage; if NATO keeps pouring supplies into Ukraine, and China starts shipping war supplies to Russia, what can this yield but even more devastation for that benighted country? It could, I suppose, actually reduce the probability of Russia crossing the nuclear threshold, something that could be considered if NATO supplies were actually giving Ukraine an advantage; I doubt — but of, course, do not know — that Vladimir Putin would use ‘tactical’ or ‘battlefield’ nuclear weapons against Ukrainian troop concentrations or supply bases if the war was not going that badly for Russia; crossing the nuclear threshold would be a desperation move if Russia was clearly losing the war, something at least possible given Russia’s unexpectedly poor performance militarily, and a Ukraine being propped up by NATO supplies.

If China counterbalances that with war materiel supplies to Russia, it could keep Russia from reaching a desperation point, but it would also seem to prolong the war without any decision. Given that the war is being fought on Ukrainian soil, that’s where the damage will be.

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Is the “spy balloon’s” mission just to make President Biden look bad? If so, mission accomplished!

I will admit it: I have been reluctant to comment on the purported Chinese spy balloon story, because it seemed like so much of a set-up. Really? A nation with the capacity to launch its own spy satellites, needing to send an easily-shot-down spy balloon over Montana? But, with even the Grey Lady treating it as something serious, I suppose that I should as well. From The New York Times:

Suspected Spy Balloon Hampers China’s Efforts to Ease Tensions With U.S.

Beijing said it was looking into reports about an object seen flying over Montana. “Speculation and hype will not help,” a Chinese government spokeswoman said.

by Chris Buckley | Friday, February 3, 2023 | 8:39 AM EST

A balloon suspected to have come from China and seen floating over Montana has suddenly upstaged a long-anticipated visit to Beijing by the American secretary of state and threatens to undercut efforts to reduce the simmering antagonism between Beijing and Washington.

Pentagon officials disclosed on Thursday that they had detected the “intelligence-gathering balloon, most certainly launched by the People’s Republic of China,” over the state that is home to about 150 intercontinental ballistic missile silos.

While the Pentagon played down the potential value of the balloon for acquiring intelligence, the public reaction by Biden administration officials underscored how brittle and delicate relations with Beijing have become, even over one balloon. The defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, held a meeting about the balloon with senior U.S. defense officials while he was in the Philippines, and President Biden “was briefed and asked for military options,” a Pentagon official told reporters.

The balloon threatens to become a very public irritant looming over the planned two-day visit to Beijing starting Sunday by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. Drew Thompson, a former Pentagon official who is now a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said the timing of the balloon flight was at least maladroit.

Guffaws! “(M)aladroit“? It could actually be very clever. Secretary Blinken has now cancelled his trip. That’ll show them commies how tough we are!

Also see: William Teach, “China Sends Spy Balloon Over U.S., Biden Admin Doesn’t Shoot It Down“

Consider just what has been happening over the past couple of years. The negotiated withdrawal from Afghanistan — and the negotiations began under President Trump — was handled, at the very end, in a wholly FUBARed way, a way which made President Biden and the top military leaders look incompetent. Thirteen Marines and around a hundred Afghanis were killed by a terrorist bomb at the very end of the pullout, and the US did nothing about it. Then, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Biden has decided, in fits and starts, to send over $100 billion in assistance to Ukraine, much of it the form of existing American weapons and munitions, which draws down from our stockpiles. Mr Biden reversed President Trump’s order, and is now allowing openly ‘transgender’ persons to serve in the military.

To the Chinese, all of this demonstrates a real weakening of our armed forces.

That we could shoot down this stupid balloon is obvious. What flows from that is that, if this truly is what it has been claimed, the Chinese would not have included any truly revolutionary technology that could fall into the hands of the United States if it is shot down, and whatever is in this thing is probably booby-trapped.

China is also smarting over the United States’ announcement on Thursday that it would expand its military presence in the Philippines, gaining access to four more sites that potentially could be used to marshal forces to deter or respond to Chinese military threats to Taiwan.

“This balloon surveillance mission really demonstrates that even when Xi is trying to improve the tone of the relationship and the rhetoric softens,” Mr. Thompson said of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, “there is no interest on Beijing’s part to act with restraint or amend its behavior in ways that actually contribute to genuinely improving the condition of the relationship.”

But it just might be gathering intelligence in a different manner. No, not technical intelligence, but intelligence on President Biden’s strength of will and resolve. If we didn’t shoot the thing down when it was over sparsely-populated Montana, there isn’t any less populated area of the US which it might overfly that would be safer.

The first official reaction from Beijing to the Pentagon’s accusations about the balloon was muted. Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, did not confirm that the balloon was China’s.

“We’ve noted the reports and are checking the situation,” she said, “and I want to emphasize that before the facts are clear, speculation and hype will not help to bring about an appropriate solution to the issues.” Asked again about the balloon, Ms. Mao said that both the U.S. and Chinese governments should stay calm and “handle this with prudence.”

“China is a responsible country, always strictly abides by international law, and has no intention of violating any sovereign country’s territory or airspace,” she said.

Oh, well, yeah, I certainly believe her! https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_wacko.gif

There’s more at the Times original.

If the balloon is truly from China, it’s purpose could simply be to make President Biden look bad. If that was part of its mission, it has already accomplished that! Even if he orders the thing shot down, his hesitance in doing so has already made him look weak. And if air currents push it out of American airspace and over Canada, we’ll lose the opportunity to shoot it down.

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The Arabs are all butthurt because an Israeli government minister went to the Temple Mount

The Temple Mount. Photo by D R Pico, which may be freely used, with proper attribution. Click to enlarge.

On Sunday, November 13, 2022, my older daughter and I had the privilege of visiting the Temple Mount in the Old City in Jerusalem. Yes, we had to go through security, but it wasn’t all that tight. We were not asked about our nationality or our religion — we’re Catholic — and the visit was perfectly pleasant. The al Aqsa Mosque itself was closed at the time, but the elevated plaza — is plaza the right word here? — on which it sits is far larger than the mosque itself.

Formerly under Jordanian control, Israel captured the eastern half of previously divided Jerusalem in the Six Day War, including the Old City, the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount has been under the control of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf in one form or another since the Islamic reconquest of Jerusalem by Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi, commonly referred to as Saladin, from the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187. Israel returned control of the site to the Waqf shortly after its capture in 1967, and the Waqf is under the custodianship of the Hashemite Kings of Jordan.

The Muslims appear to have no problem with non-Muslims visiting the Temple Mount — they certainly did not stop two American Catholics, Catholics who went to Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcre — but when it comes to Jews, well they wax apoplectic over that! Naturally, President Joe Biden, perhaps taking a clue from former President Barack Hussein Obama’s attempts to restrict American policy toward Israel just a few weeks before he left office, didn’t like it.

Israel’s new far-right government draws an early rebuke from the U.S.

Story by Haley Ott | Wednesday, January 4, 2023

The U.S. spoke out Tuesday against “any unilateral actions that undercut the historic status quo” in the heart of the Middle East after a member of Israel’s new ultranationalist cabinet visited a sensitive Jerusalem holy site sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

Note how the CBS News report used the inflammatory “ultranationalist cabinet” to describe the Israeli government. That’s what the left have been doing ever since Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party and its conservative coalition members won the recent elections.

Such moves “are unacceptable,” said State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

Israel’s new far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has previously been convicted of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist group, visited the site known by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as Al-Aqsa Mosque. He was surrounded by security guards.

It should be noted that Mr Ben-Gvir made his visit to the Temple Mount after sunrise but nevertheless in the early morning, when the sahn was, if not deserted, fairly empty.

Tension has mounted in the Israel-occupied West Bank for months, with 2022 being the deadliest year for Palestinians in the territory in nearly two decades, according to the United Nations.

Really? Guess who was not Prime Minister of Israel for all but the last three days of 2022. Benjamin Netanyahu was not Prime Minister, but Neftali Bennett to begin the year, followed by Yair Lapid on July 1st. Elections on November 1st gave Likud the plurality, and the ability for Mr Netanyahu to negotiate a coalition. It was the Israeli voters who chose the conservative coalition. Apparently, what then-Prime Minister Lapid was doing wasn’t seen as all that good by those voters.

Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority Muhammad Shtayyeh called Ben-Gvir’s visit to the Jerusalem holy site “a violation of all norms, values, international agreements and laws, and Israel’s pledges to the American president,” BBC News reported.

The Mount of Olives, as viewed from the Temple Mount. Photo by D R Pico, which may be used freely with proper attribution. Click to enlarge.

I have to ask: why should a Jew visiting the plaza around the al Aqsa Mosque be a violation of anything? While there is security in visiting the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, there is nothing prohibiting Muslims from doing so. And if there is ever to be peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the kind of tolerance the Jews show to non-Jewish visitors to the Western Wall must also be shown to Jews who wish to visit the Temple Mount.

I am a bit surprised that President Biden didn’t call this off:

Signal to Iran? Israel, US air forces conduct joint drills

Israel’s F-35 fighter jets and six F-15s from the US Air Forces Central Command took part in multi-day joint drills in souther Israel on Wednesday.

By Yonah Jeremy Bob | Wednesday, January 4, 2023 | 18:58 Jerusalem Time

Israel’s F-35 fighter jets and six F-15 fighter jets from the US Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT) took part in multi-day joint drills at the Nevatim air force base in southern Israel on Wednesday in what could be a signal to Iran in the ongoing nuclear standoff.

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, F-35 Squadron 140 commander Lt. Col. “M” and Capt. “I,” who ran the drill from the Israeli side, both stayed away from getting too specific about the F-35s capabilities regarding any specific country but made it clear that they were ready and capable to strike anywhere that the IDF high command ordered them to go.

Further, the goal of the joint flights and simulated attacks was to train for hitting targets in “deep” enemy territory, often a euphemism for Iran and other countries who do not have immediate borders with Israel.

At a recent graduation ceremony of air force personnel, then-defense minister Benny Gantz said that the graduates would need to be ready to potentially attack Iran in “two to three years.”

There’s more at the original, and The Jerusalem Post does not appear to be behind a paywall.

So, there’s an adult at least somewhere in the Biden Administration, albeit possibly deeply hidden. He’ll probably be gone soon.

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The American left go full neo-con!

I always expect the neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin, none of whom ever met a war in which they did not want American involvement, to be pushing to fight, fight, fight, but I’ll admit to some to surprise in seeing Salon’s Amanda Marcotte going full-neocon!

Zelenskyy visit exposes a GOP rift — between actual fascists and everyone else

Too many Republicans still refuse to stand up for Ukraine — and for democracy — against their MAGA brethren

by Amanda Marcotte | Friday, December 23, 2022 | 6:00 AM EST

It’s perhaps telling that Amanda Marcotte’s Twitter biography photo was taken in a bar.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is widely popular, both in the U.S. and around the world. You’d have to be the most churlish asshole alive not to feel moved by his resolve to protect his nation’s sovereignty against the egomanaical supervillain impulses of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been waging an unprovoked war against Ukraine for nearly a year. Zelenskyy’s Wednesday night speech before a joint session of Congress wasn’t just moving. It was also persuasive on the brass tacks arguments. Military aid to Ukraine is “not charity,” he argued, but “an investment in global security and democracy.”

I’ll admit it: I checked Miss Marcotte’s Salon archive on December 26th to see if she’d written yet another “I hate Christmas” screed. When she wrote, in 2019:

For me, it’s personal. My family is mostly a bunch of Trump voters, sucked up into a vortex of propaganda and lies, unable even to admit basic facts about the world that run contrary to what their tribal politics dictate. That sort of thing is stressful on a normal day, but makes a mockery of the idea of familial love and harmony.

I just shook my head, because the idea that I’d simply give up my family over politics is simply beyond my understanding.

Oh, well, back to the original:

As Fred Kaplan at Slate argued, the speech “was a resounding success” that circumvented Republicans who previously had made noises about cutting aid to Ukraine. The Senate approved $44.9 billion in military, humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine on Thursday afternoon, as part of a $1.7 trillion government spending bill that passed 68-29, and is expected to pass the House as well.

Zelenskyy’s argument that Ukraine’s victory is necessary to protect global democracy is hard to argue against. Especially in recent years, Putin has not hidden his contempt for Western-style democracy or desire to see it collapse around the globe. Even with all the caveats and nuances one could possibly inject into this, the “bad guys” and “good guys” are crystal clear in this scenario.

Winston Churchill famously said, “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” But perhaps, just perhaps, a ‘favourable’ reference is all the difference.

Except, that is, to some Republicans in Congress and a number right-wing pundits. That world is not just anti-Zelenskyy, but imbued with such vicious sentiments that even the most jaded political watchers were shocked. This isn’t just about arguments over whether aid to Ukraine is being well spent, or about whether Ukraine is strategically crucial to U.S. interests. This was about full-on vitriol, to the point where even Republicans who are open to cutting aid to Ukraine were made uncomfortable.

There’s one major reason things got so ugly so fast. The debate over Ukraine, at least among Republicans, is a stand-in for the largely unspoken but very real debate that’s roiling the party: Do they still believe in democracy? A faction in the GOP has decided that they don’t, and now supports authoritarianism, or the F-word. Many other Republicans feel uneasy about this direction, but don’t seem able to stand up to the fascist faction.

It has to be remembered: Mr Zelenskyy is President of Ukraine only because legitimately-elected President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed in the so-called Революція гідності, “Revolution of Dignity,” in 2014, in large part because he opposed joining the European Union and NATO. But, for Miss Marcotte, it’s the evil reich-wing Republicans who don’t believe in democracy, and who now support authoritarianism.

There follows another several paragraphs of mixed and questionable assertions, which you can read for yourself; I cannot simply quote every one of Miss Marcotte’s 1,370 words.

Most Americans support Ukraine, with 65% agreeing that the U.S. should send arms to Ukraine and 75% supporting sanctions against Russia, even as those have driven up oil prices around the world. This onslaught of pro-Putin propaganda on the right has softened conservative support for Ukraine, but even so 55% of Republican voters are in favor of military aid.

This tension between America’s overwhelming pro-Ukraine sentiment and the far right’s caustic hatred was reflected in the behavior of congressional Republicans at Zelenskyy’s speech Wednesday night. Most Republicans, even those who have expressed doubt about more funding, at least showed moral support for Zelenskyy, standing to applaud his speech and telling reporters they believe in his cause.

There has been a whole lot of World War II thinking applied to the Russo-Ukraine War — or perhaps I should call it Russo-Ukraine War 2.0, considering Russia’s seizure and annexation of part of Ukraine in 2014 — with the logic that pushed the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Nazi Germany two days after the Wehrmacht rolled into Poland, but that is such superficial thinking that I am amazed no one has realized it. In that event, the UK and France could not and did not actually do anything to liberate Poland; the liberation of Poland came in 1944, when the Red Army pushed out the Germans, and ‘liberation’ by the Soviet Union hardly freed the Poles.

And there’s that biggest of differences: no one in Europe, or anywhere in the world, had in 1939 what Russia has now: a strategic and tactical nuclear arsenal. As he was losing the war, Adolf Hitler tried everything he could, used every weapon he had, but, other than the V-1 and V-2 terror rockets, had no power to strike at his enemies. We do not and cannot know what Vladimir Putin will do if, in the end, he sees Russia really losing RUW 2.0, but we do know that he could cross that nuclear threshold, and use tactical nukes against Ukrainian troop concentrations and other targets. And once that nuclear threshold is crossed, who can know when things will stop? And if the United States and NATO nations are supplying Ukraine from bases in Poland, how are those bases not legitimate targets if Russia has the weapons to reach them . . . and Russia does.

We have had proxy wars with the Communists since the 1950s, in Korea, in Vietnam, and in Afghanistan, but in none of those wars were we fighting Russian troops, nor was there any danger of strikes into the USSR itself; Ukraine has already struck inside Russia during this war. The New York Times reported, “The United States and Ukraine have agreed that Kyiv will not strike targets in Russia with American-provided weapons,” but that does not mean that Vladimir Putin will care about that distinction. If Ukraine can strike targets inside Russia, than Russia can strike targets outside Ukraine which are supplying the Ukrainians. War and escalation have their own logic.

Skipping to the end of Miss Marcotte’s article, we find:

One could quibble over whether supporting Ukraine and believing in democracy are the same thing, although Putin’s behavior tends to override any effort at nuanced debate. But within Republican ranks, there’s no doubt that the issue of Ukraine’s independence and self-determination has become is a proxy for the party’s internal debate over American democracy. Even the most stalwart authoritarians in the GOP know better than to come right out and say they’re against democracy and it’s time to do away with it. So they gaslight the nation instead, clumsily repackaging Donald Trump’s desire to be installed as a dictator as a narrative about a “stolen” or “rigged” election, and concerted efforts to undermine democracy as measures to ensure “election security.” Rooting against Ukraine is a way to advance the anti-democracy agenda, without quite openly embracing it.

Ironically, all the Republican game-playing on Ukraine only ends up reinforcing the argument Zelenskyy made in his speech on Wednesday: Protecting his country against Russian tyranny is ultimately about protecting democracy. Whatever criticisms could be made of his leadership or his imperfect nation, Zelenskyy’s biggest opponents in Congress hate him because they hate democracy.

Philadelphia’s transplanted Texan is honest enough to tell us her real message: the left must attack Republicans, and RUW 2.0 is just a vehicle with which to do that. Honestly, I expect no wider-range thinking from her. But in doing so, she has made arguments pretty much indistinguishable from those of Mr Boot.[1]Mr Boot, whose parents fled a strongly antisemitic regime in the USSR under Leonid Brezhnev, once said, “I would sooner vote for Josef Stalin than I would vote for Donald Trump,” even though the … Continue reading Mr Boot, who dearly loves having American troops all over the globe and has been a student of military history and strategic studies but has never served in the military himself, fretted that it would be a disaster for the United States to pull out of Afghanistan, though what more could be accomplished in that fetid and festering sewer that we hadn’t been able to accomplish in the 19½ years we had already been there he could not articulate.

Even the Editorial Board of The Washington Post went full neo-con on Ukraine. But, as is the case with Miss Marcotte, all I see is a tremendous desire to be anti-Trump in all of this. President Trump raised the legitimate question of European participation in NATO, and how the European nations were not paying their fair share of the burden of maintaining the alliance. I went further, and asked if Americans really like the idea that the North Atlantic Treaty would require us to go to war with Russia if Russia sent the tanks rolling into Riga. Just how many American cities are worth defending the Baltic States? And Ukraine isn’t even a NATO member.

Miss Marcotte was very much opposed to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though we were actually attacked by al Qaeda, which was hiding in Afghanistan. Those wars, of course, were started under George W Bush, a Republican President, so there’s that. But today, she’s conflating an attack by Russia, on a non-NATO nation, with Republicans in the United States, and telling us we have to fight, fight, fight Vladimir Putin and Russia, to preserve democracy in the United States. #TrumpDerangementSyndrome has managed turn so much of the American left into the new neo-cons.

References

References
↑1 Mr Boot, whose parents fled a strongly antisemitic regime in the USSR under Leonid Brezhnev, once said, “I would sooner vote for Josef Stalin than I would vote for Donald Trump,” even though the USSR under Comrade Stalin might well have sent Mr Boot and his family to a concentration camp; the Soviet leaders really didn’t like Jews very much.
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Have we learned nothing?

At what point do we ask: why are we doing this?

Perhaps you haven’t heard of this, because it only rarely makes the credentialed media, but The Wall Street Journal finally covered it.

U.S. Builds New Firewall to Stop Spread of Militant Islamists

Hundreds of American troops join Western allies in Niger to block al Qaeda and Islamic State from advancing violence and influence in West Africa

by Michael M Phillips | Sunday, December 11, 2022 | 10:15 AM EST

OUALLAM, Niger—The front lines in the war between the West and militant Islamists have shifted to Africa, from Somalia on the continent’s eastern tip to the West African Sahel, a semidesert strip south of the Sahara.

In the Sahel, the U.S. and its allies are betting that Niger, the worst-off country in the world by a U.N. measure, offers the best hope of stopping the seemingly inexorable spread of al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Here’s where the Journal’s paywall begins. I’d say that I subscribe so that you don’t have to, but really, it’s the best newspaper in the world, and you should subscribe!

In the heart of the region, the nations of Mali and Burkina Faso are losing ground, roiled by militant attacks and military coups. In contrast, the elected civilian government in neighboring Niger is making slow headway against insurgents with the help of Western forces, U.S. and Nigerien officials said. Mali’s ruling junta has hired Kremlin-linked mercenaries to provide security, while Niger has shunned Russian intervention and welcomed U.S. and French forces.

“We’ve invested a lot with the Nigeriens, and we’re seeing a payoff from that,” said Lt. Col. Chris Couch, commander of U.S. special-operations troops in West Africa. Niger, he said, is emerging as a cornerstone of regional security.

The next few paragraphs describe how Nigerien — as opposed to Nigerian, which would mean troops from Nigeria, not from Niger — troops have been trained by United States Army Special Forces troops, are deployed from French aircraft, but our troops monitor from a “safe distance”.

U.S. commandos accompanied Nigerien forces on combat missions until a 2017 Islamic State ambush killed four American soldiers from the Special Forces outpost in Ouallam. The Green Berets now supervise from a safe distance, while local commandos they train carry out the raids.

I will admit it: it was after reading the previous paragraph that I decided to write about this. Am I the only one who has a difficult time believing that our most highly trained soldiers would actually stand by, monitoring, but not getting involved in the fighting?

Niger is proving a test ground for the U.S. strategy of deploying relatively small numbers of American troops—there are around 800 now in the country—to train local forces.

Historically, the strategy has yielded uneven results. U.S.-trained militaries in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea overthrew civilian governments. After U.S. troops left Afghanistan in 2020, local forces collapsed under Taliban offensives, despite U.S.-supplied weapons and two decades of training.

“Uneven results,” huh?

Who knows, perhaps the US wanted those civilian governments overthrown. It’s not like we wouldn’t have ever supported military coup d’etat’s before.

But at some point, it has to be asked why we are doing this. Rule by Islamic State is a pretty horrible thing, but is it really any of our business if the Muslim fundamentalists rule in resource-starved Niger?

The Nigeriens will wind up like every other client state we’ve supported: doing things their own way, in accordance with their own culture. They won’t be somehow transformed into Americans or Westerners; they will develop their own society and culture based on how they think, not how we think.

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In which a ‘transgender’ supportive CNN piece proves the opposite 'Transgender man' proves that 'he' really isn't

The Russo-Ukrainian War has seen hundreds of thousands of casualties, according to The New York Times:

Russia’s war in Ukraine has left more than 100,000 of Moscow’s troops dead or wounded, and Ukraine has probably suffered a similar number of casualties, the United States’ most senior general said this week.

“You’re looking at well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded,” Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in remarks at the Economic Club of New York on Wednesday. “Same thing probably on the Ukrainian side.”

General Milley said that Russia’s invasion had also killed about 40,000 Ukrainian civilians and displaced 15 million to 30 million.

That’s “a lot of human suffering,” he said.

He described the coming cold months, when many military experts expect a lull in the fighting, as an opportunity for both sides to consider peace talks. However, the prevailing U.S. opinion is that the two countries are far from such talks.

Well, leave it to CNN to find a much, much worse problem:

‘I wanted to resume my transition at all costs.’ Trans Ukrainians uprooted by war struggle to continue treatment

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN | Saturday, December 3, 2022 | 12:51 AM EST

Chisinau, Moldova and London — The best day of Eric’s life came just days before the worst.

After years of waiting, dozens of tests and a two-week stay on a psychiatric ward, Eric was finally getting his first testosterone shot. Eric is a 23-year-old transgender man from Ukraine. Assigned female at birth, he says starting hormone therapy was a major step in his quest to become his true self.

OK, let’s stop right there: “Eric” was not assigned female at birth, but recognized as being a girl when she was born. “Assignment” as being male or female is determined not by who looks at a newborn’s genitals, but by whether the sperm cell which fertilizes the egg is carrying an X or a Y chromosome, at conception. This is something our science has known for a hundred years now, but the ‘transgender’ activists word it as if there is actually a choice at birth.

“Eric”, as photographed by Ivana Kottasová, CNN. Click to enlarge.

“It was utter happiness. I was euphoric, it was the moment that I’ve been waiting for for so long,” Eric, who asked for his last name to not be used because he is concerned for his safety, told CNN in Chisinau, Moldova, in July.But just days after Eric had what should have been the first in a series of testosterone injections administered at a clinic in Kyiv, Russia invaded Ukraine. Everything changed.

“The clinic had closed because of the danger of airstrikes. I had the testosterone, but no way of getting [it administered]. I didn’t have the needles and there were huge shortages of everything in pharmacies, even the most basic stuff, because obviously, during the war, there’s a big need for things like syringes,” Eric said.

Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine has upended the lives of millions of Ukrainians. But for Eric and many other trans people, the war has also made it much more difficult to be who they are.

Hundreds of thousands of people killed or wounded, and 15 to 30 million people displaced from their homes, but “Eric” and others are suffering because they can’t try to change their sex?

Article author Ivana Kottasová took a picture of “Eric” for the article, and you know what I noticed? She was standing on a sidewalk, in a nice, urban street in Chisinau, Moldova, an independent country which borders Ukraine but is not part of Ukraine. Moldova is not at war with Russia. If “Eric” really, really thinks she’s a man, shouldn’t she be out doing the manly thing of defending her country against the invading Russians? But no, instead she fled her homeland, and is safe in Moldova.

In a Council of Europe article linked in the original, it is noted:

In the course of my recent visit to Ukraine, I was also informed that some transgender persons are experiencing difficulties in leaving the country. For example, this is the case for several transgender women who are blocked in Ukraine because they have not completed the legal gender recognition process and consequently the gender markers in their identity documents remain male at a time when all men between 18 and 60 are required by martial law to stay in Ukraine.

In other words, “Eric” disobeyed the martial law edict that all men between 18 and 60 stay in Ukraine, to fight the invaders. She claims that she’s a man, but sure used her female identity to get the heck out of the country! Time magazine reported that “scores of foreign women” have gone to Ukraine to help fight the Russians, including some in direct combat, but “Eric” used her female identity to flee that fight. Ukraine’s military was 16% female before the war, and many have been directly fighting the Russians, but “Eric” fled nevertheless.

Miss Kottasová’s article was meant to portray the ‘transgendered’ as a special class of victims in the war, but it had the unintentional effect of highlighting that ‘trangender man’ “Eric” is not a man, and does not think like a man. Perhaps, after the war is over, she’ll be lucky enough to get the hormones she wants, and maybe even a quack plastic surgeon to build her a fake penis, but in the part of her she already claims is male, she has proven that she isn’t.

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They all looked scared

I wish I could more fully remember the scene from the movie The Right Stuff in which Scott Glenn, playing Alan Shepard is describing some people and says, in a normal tone of voice, “they all look” and then changes his tone to a sinister “scared.” Why? Because all of a sudden the people who have been pushing more and more support for Ukraine just started defecating in their pants. From The Wall Street Journal:

Missile Blast in Poland Risked Russia-NATO Clash Before Both Sides Dialed Back

Ukraine air-defense likely fired the missile, officials said, and responses from Biden and the Kremlin showed a shared wish to avoid escalation

By Daniel Michaels, Laurence Norman and Drew Hinshaw | Wednesday, Nov 16, 2022 | 12:54 PM EST

BRUSSELS—The explosion of a stray air-defense missile in Poland on Tuesday offers an unsettling reminder of how close Russia’s war in Ukraine is to NATO territory, and with that the risk of confrontation between nuclear powers.

But fast efforts by both sides to ease rising tensions indicate that despite the conflict’s brutality and mounting toll, neither Russia nor NATO countries want fighting to spill west of Ukraine.

The first sign of efforts to prevent escalation came hours after the missile crashed in Poland and killed two people, when President Biden said that preliminary information indicated that the missile strike was unlikely to have been fired from Russia and pledged to investigate the incident.

Hours later, top officials from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said the missile was likely a Soviet-made weapon fired by a Ukrainian air-defense system, and that there was no evidence it was directed there intentionally.

The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, as the Western democracies were worried that the huge Red Army could roll right in and conquer what was then the Federal Republic of Germany, West Germany more colloquially, and the Europeans hadn’t the strength to stop it. NATO’s guarantee was that an attack on one was an attack on all, which was, in effect, a guarantee that the United States, with its large forces and its nuclear weapons, would come to West Germany’s defense.

The USSR detonated its first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949, far earlier than it was estimated they could.

NATO was a military alliance, including the nuclear-armed United States, against the wholly conventionally-armed Soviet Union; that lasted for 4½ months.

Of course, the Soviets had no way of delivering atomic bombs to targets at the time, and only a few of the devices, but they kept building, and building, and building. By 1951, the USSR tested an air-dropped atomic bomb, which meant that the USSR now had deliverable nuclear weapons.

If NATO had kept to itself, and not expanded following the fall of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, NATO might still be a credible deterrent. But NATO expanded into Poland, and the Baltic States, right on Russia’s doorstep. Russia now has the nuclear arsenal to completely destroy the United States; does anyone seriously believe that Joe Biden, or any American President, would put the lives of 330 million Americans in danger of nuclear incineration to defend Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia?

And now we’ve seen that first military “accident” from the Russo-Ukrainian War spill into a NATO country, and the policy-makers are all looking scared. They should look scared. They should look scared fecesless.

Further down:

(NATO Secretary-General Jens) Stoltenberg — a relentless critic of Russian aggression — sought to stress that events never got out of hand.

“NATO is prepared for situations like this,” he said, first by trying to prevent them, and if that fails, by working “to ensure they don’t spiral out of control.”

Russia also demonstrated a desire to contain the incident. Its Defense Ministry said Wednesday that precision strikes were carried out on targets only on Ukrainian territory and no closer than about 20 miles from the Ukraine-Poland border.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday offered some rare praise for the U.S. — while criticizing some Europeans — in his comments welcoming what he described as the “restrained and much more professional reaction of the American side and the American president” to the news.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Peskov dismissed European and Ukrainian comments Tuesday blaming Russia as “another hysterical and frenzied Russophobic reaction,” which he said wasn’t based on any solid data.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on Twitter on Wednesday that Kyiv was ready to participate in a joint investigation into the incident and requested immediate access to the site.

NATO ambassadors on Wednesday held an emergency meeting in Brussels to discuss the missile incident and to coordinate the alliance’s next moves. The incident also dominated a meeting of European Union ambassadors, who unanimously agreed “that Russia bears direct responsibility for yesterday’s tragedy, for the death of two Polish citizens,” said Poland’s ambassador to the European Union, Andrzej Sadoś.

The “alliance’s next moves” need to be to resist the pressure to increase military and economic aid to Ukraine. We’re going to see that pressure coming, from those who are stuck in World War II conventional thinking, to resist Russia more strongly, forgetting that the lessons of a war which ended 77 years ago among parties which were still limited in what they could do militarily by weaponry and geography might not be all that applicable to a situation in which Russia has the capability to rain down nuclear fire on every NATO country in 30 minutes after taking a decision to do so.

It’s no fun, no fun at all, to think that Russia could just start a war like this, could get away with killing thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians, could get away with devastating that benighted country, but at some point people have to consider that all of the rules and old ideas have changed with the development of strategic nuclear arsenals.