First paragraph just kind of
But yeah intl law is just pretex for aggression and victor gloating, it has no reason to make any sense.

The only strong solution appears to be: Don’t invade. Respect borders.

Absolutely, but the stumbling block is places like the Donbass, they want the Ukrainians to respect their borders, which the Ukraine doesn’t acknowledge, who is wrong then?

And did NATO respect Serbia’s borders when they ripped a portion off to make Kosovo?

As a wise man once said…

Is Armored Warfare Obsolete

Well of course it is. The only way to prevail in modern warfare is to control social media.

Grow up, Steve. Where do you think borders come from?

Well, what if your neighbour has married your daughter? But now she wants more autonomy so he has started to pummel her.
Might get a bit difficult to respect his borders.

Is Every Civilian a Combatant?

Yes of course, Steve. Have you not been reading my comments? 😐

https://www.unz.com/?s=%22mutual+combat%22&ptype=all&commentsearch=only&commenter=jenner+ickham+errican&sortby=latest&Action=Search

Smartphones make every civilian a spotter and potential target. The Ukrainian government encouraged it. Encouraging people to make and use Molotov cocktails also makes everyone target.

The correct humane response is to detain or quarantine civilians not identified as actively participating instead of targeting them. In the current war with no real rear areas and the Russians having inadequate numbers, training and leadership you’re going to end up shooting people.

In the link below the Russian soldier tells his wife they shot the civilians because it was them or us. Russia started an aggressive war, Ukraine responded with a peoples war. The Russian soldiers are thrown into an impossible situation. I doubt they’re the best people Russia could field. The Chinese had a proverb “Don’t use good iron for nails or good men for soldiers.” General Grant in the US Civil War observed the volunteer regular soldiers were much better than the regular troops once they were trained because no good man became a soldier in peacetime.

https://twitter.com/jane_in_vain/status/1500966785251782657?s=20&t=_zmZJNGeAlgSPfIuGfx_pA

A friend told me this story.

He was serving in the Army as part of an American stabilizing force stationed in a northeastern African country. This was back when fighting against the Communist takeover of Africa was still a big deal. I asked him,”Where that big sword came from that was hanging on the wall?” He told me that it had been fabricated from a car leaf spring by a native and that he had traded a military jerry can for it (sound liquid containers being in big demand in this desert country).

My friend was a gregarious type and fraternized with the local guys whom we were over there to support. In other words, he went drinking with them and the place he was drinking was at a isolated establishment in the border zone between that part of the country which had been pacified and Injun country.

So he’s sitting in this bar with some locals when in walk representatives of the local Military. Things get tense. The locals threaten to kill the military guys. My friend, conscious of his role as representative of American interest in promoting harmony between warring factions in this fractured nation, intervenes and pleads with the Border Brigands to let the military guys go free. Reluctantly, they do so. The military guys leave, unmolested. Ahhh, crisis averted. Now, back to drinking…..

But then, a day or two later is Market day; the day when you want to rise early and get to the outdoor public market because if you’re too late, you miss the best food, the widest selection of goodies etc. Also, it’s the day for public executions; right there in the square before the Market opened. The timing ensured that everyone would see the executions and take away the proper lesson on correct civic comportment.

My friend was horrified to see the very brigands with whom he had been tippling a couple of nights before, the very guys with whom he had pleaded to spare the lives of the Army authorities, now hanging from their necks in the public square.

Is Armored Warfare Obsolete?

Not according to this documentary from Japan:

“The Commando Order was issued by Adolf Hitler on October 18, 1942, stating that all Allied commandos encountered by German forces in Europe and Africa should be killed immediately without trial, even in proper uniforms or if they attempted to surrender. … Shortly after World War II, at the Nuremberg Trials, the Commando Order was found to be a direct breach of the laws of war, and German officers who carried out illegal executions under the Commando Order were found guilty of war crimes.”

Of course, we have to have our obligatory reference to “muh Hilter” within the context of a much broader topic, as if Nazi Germany was the only country engaging in war crimes during WWII (Dresden??), let alone every single war ever fought. The Soviets committed the worst crimes against civilians immediately following the war, and thousands of German soldiers were executed trying to surrender, escape, or hide.

But the Allies! were the Good Guys, and the Germans were the Bad Guys! so making up arbitrary rules of war years after the war took place so we can put more people to death is what Good Guys do. The Nuremberg Trials were less credible than an episode of Judge Judy.

War is the absolute worse thing that humans can bring upon themselves. The same evil elites who start these wars are the same people who try to make rules for the peasants to kill each other by. Maybe we shouldn’t validate their pearl clutching when men they send to war do terrible things. Those men are experiencing the most terrifying levels of fear and anger while their survival instinct is taking over their normal functions.

… the experience of World War II influenced nations occupied by foreign forces to change the law to protect this group.

Yeah, about that: The French Minister of the Interior in 1945 put the number of collaborators summarily executed after liberation at 105,000. The Germans executed considerably fewer, perhaps 30,000 as reprisal for Maquis attacks or failure to work as mandated. IOW, the French were considerably harder on their own than the Germans.

I tend to lean to the side that the massacre at Bucha was more likely than not a series of reprisals undertaken by Ukranian forces (Azov Batallion) a few days after the Russians left. All of the evidence on the groud, “eye witnesses” notwithstanding, point to that conclusion.

Ask yourself: When the Mayor of the town confirmed the Russian withdrawal, why did he not discuss the alleged atrocities? Why did the alleged atrocities not come to light until several days later?

You can wring your hands all you want about the deaths of innocent civilians during war, but you are possibly quite mistaken in who might be perpetrating the atrocities.

That deal was made with a government that had essentially been overthrown twice by forces aligned to Western interests. It was certainly off the table when Ukraine began its campaign of ethnic cleansing of all things and people Russian since Maidan.

Steve, you may get along great with your neighbour, but what happens when your government parks artillery on the outskirts of town and starts dropping shells on your lawn because you complain when the government bans you from using your dialect of English. After eight (!) years I’m betting you would be pretty tired of it.

Francs-tireurs (a term originating in the Franco-Prussian War) are enemy civilians or militia who continue to fight in territory occupied by a warring party and do not wear military uniforms, and may otherwise be known as guerrillas, partisans, insurgents, etc.

The short story by Emile Zola “The Attack on the Mill” deals with the issue of Francs-tireurs:

https://www.berfrois.com/2013/12/the-attack-on-the-mill-emile-zola/

No Hollywood ending here…

Russia was wrong to take the Donbass (and Crimea), NATO was wrong to recognize Kosovar independence. Consistency actually isn’t that difficult. It’s too bad China and India don’t take a stronger position on this issue, but one suspects they have their own borders they want to redraw.

Perhaps it would be helpful to have a clear definition of what constitutes a war crime. For example, is embezzlement ever a war crime? What about patent infringement, such as by using a patented enemy weapons system without paying royalties to the patent owner, which might be a company of a third country?

I well remember ‘Operation Desert Storm’ back in 1991.

American tactics – ironically only given the go ahead by Mikhail Gorbachev, the author of Russia’s present misfortunes and ‘done up like the proverbial kipper’ by the neocons in DC – were to absolutely bomb the living sh!t out of the Iraqi civilian infrastructure, water treatment works, sewage works, bridges, electrical power, roads, telephone exchanges etc etc.
In other words, the Gorbachev ideal was to make the business of living for Iraqi civilians as difficult, dirty and as dangerous as possible.
And all the neocons gave that lunk headed blemished scalp fool in return was a looting by way of leave.

I hadn’t known about Jennie Wade, shot through the heart by a stray bullet on July 3, 1863 while kneading bread dough–or if I had known, I’d forgotten. Anyway I found this sentence from the Wikipedia entry quite moving:

On July 4, her mother baked 15 loaves of bread with the dough Wade had kneaded.

The only strong solution appears to be: Don’t invade. Respect borders.

Is dropping bombs on another sovereign country – as the US and NATO have many times over the last thirty years – is that “respecting borders”?

Is every civilian a combatant?

Apparently so:

Let’s not kid ourselves. When men make war, they become insane and they destroy people and things. No amount of “international law,” or “rules of war” can change this.

This one, current, atrocity of many was started by “our” side when it meddled in other people’s affairs. “We” lit this fire, and now the inevitable killings and maimings of innocent people are occurring.

Are you having fun writing about it? I ask, because to me it is like staring into a toilet bowl full of shit — in other words something I see every day but still find disgusting. I guess that makes it just another ugly part of human life.

Some will Notice that you’ve dodged Gordo’s last question.

Your selective outrage and wool gathering is just another way to amplify Uncle Sam’s narratives.

{whimetric: posted as #10 on April 8, 2022, at 1:15 pm GMT}

Is every civilian a combatant?

Apparently so:

Dresden, Germany 1945
.

Hiroshima, Japan 1945

Let’s not kid ourselves. When men make war, they become insane and they destroy people and things. No amount of “international law,” or “rules of war” can change this.

This one, current, atrocity of many was started by “our” side when it meddled in other people’s affairs. “We” lit this fire, and now the inevitable killings and maimings of innocent people are occurring.

Are you having fun writing about it? I ask, because to me it is like staring into a toilet bowl full of shit — in other words something I see every day but still find disgusting. I guess that makes it just another ugly part of human life.

Here in Norway, during the second world war, the saboteurs moved around “as it was nothing to it” but they were careful to always carry on their person a ID or a patch that identified them as working within a military command structure. That infamous Fuehrerbefehl (“Kill all agents!”) didn’t change it.

Here is a “civilian” — except his armband — acknowledging the German forces surrender in Norway.

Smartphones mess up bigly.
Anyways, if we are invaded it’s Total War immediately. That’s how we roll.

Wow, that reads SO Jack D.!

If your Russian neighbor decides to have Scott Ritter as a guest to shout over the fence about you staying in your HBD lane, you’ll be having an epiphany.

Ukraine is an ungainly mess of a state with a few minority groups that will be source of endless conflict. Russians are the least of the historical problem too.

A related question is the ethics targeting of civilians with economic sanctions. The “free world” is seizing the yachts, Manhattan penthouses, and soccer teams of Russian oligarchs. “Oligarch” in this context is just a wealthy Russian who got wealthy in ways the US deep state disagrees with.

And the sanctioning of oligarchs also crosses paths with the taboo against targeting politicians’ families. You can’t say Chelsea is the horse faced daughter of Webb Hubbell in polite company. But you can place economic sanctions on Putin’s daughters. You can’t talk about Hunter Biden getting jobs in Ukraine that can only be explained by his dad being corrupt. But you can extrajudicially assassinate Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al Qurayshi, taking out 13 members of his immediate family in the process, in the name of GWOT.

The only guiding principle of international relations and war is might makes right.

First of all, cellphones have absolutely no bearing on this question. The nature of life has not changed simply because some people now perform certain tasks with electronic pocket machines that they used to perform in other ways. Cellphones didn’t invent “hooking up,” and they didn’t invent espionage and collaboration, either.

Second of all, the civilian/combatant distinction quickly breaks down in war and becomes more and more meaningless the longer the fighting goes on, especially insofar as it is the civilian population that is primarily tasked with funding, supplying, and accommodating armies. Furthermore, there are always irregular fighters from the military side who blend in and out of the civilian population, and there are always adventurers on the civilian side who try to help the war effort by spying on and terrorizing the enemy. Leaders have to understand that when you take the nation to war, you place the whole nation in harm’s way. It’s a decision they must weigh very carefully.

Moscow agreed to Ukraine’s borders 30 years ago.

And Ukraine agreed to be neutral. If your Russian neighbor was a heavily armed member of an anti-Steve Sailer gang, things might be less comfortable.

For example, my Russian neighbor and I respect our border and don’t feel entitled to unilaterally change the border based on our individual feelings about what the property line ought to be.

What’s your opinion on borders that were changed by precisely that means? Like say Ukraine invading Russia after the war to get the lost territories back? If you don’t feel the border is legitimate you don’t feel the border is legitimate. Plenty of borders were basically stolen even if they didn’t break any laws at the time. Laws aren’t from god, they’re from man and they rely on man feeling like they’re fair.

When do squatters rights apply to borders? Because otherwise you’re just saying that at this time we agree to the status quo achieved by somebody unilaterally changing the border because a sufficient amount of power laid with people who felt it was for the best. You can see how we get wars of irredentism. Americans don’t understand this since America has never lost any territory and is vast. Because if you say “Well we agree to a border we can live with due to power relations within the terms of what I find convenient from 6km away and will say this is a moral rather than pragmatic standard” then you’ve just to many people said taking territory is fine so long as you can hold it.

Kiev chose to not implement the Minsk Accords and loosed their Azov Brigade on ethnic Russians.

Not justifying the invasion but it’s not black and white.

You don’t have to worry about POWs if your side doesn’t take prisoners. I have read enough books about WWII to know that our side did not always take prisoners in the sense that we kept them alive and shipped them off to some secure location. Some one I loved dearly and respected once told me that in WWII his squad found some Germans hiding under the hay in a barn. He said his squad stripped them naked and threw them out into the cold and snow. He then lapsed into silence follow later by …”They would have done it to us.” Things like that are the seeds of nightmares that haunt the rest of your life.

As far as using smartphones for spotting and spying, you’d think one military or the other might take out (or hijack and monitor) the cell phone towers. It’s kind of like taking over the radio station when you stage a coup — military tactics 101. But I haven’t heard anything about either side targeting cell phone infrastructure.

“Friendly fire” must also be a big issue in this war as both sides use the same equipment and generic camo in place of distinct uniforms. In the old days, armies painted big red or white stars on their tanks. Now, it seems, everyone is trying to be so inconspicuous that they look identical.

Plus the troops mostly speak the same language and look the same. So lots of opportunities for false flags and spying. (In the Battle of the Bulge the Germans deployed a special unit of fluent English speaking Germans to impersonate American troops and wreek havoc behind our lines.)

Killing non-uniformed and apparently unarmed combatants was a pretty routine part of US military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From embedded journalist Evan Wright’s account of attacking Nasiriyah:

Chesterton’s Fence, from a simpler world of almost a century ago, is an evergreen notion. From the LessWrongWiki:

Chesterton’s fence is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. The quotation is from Chesterton’s 1929 book The Thing, in the chapter entitled “The Drift from Domesticity”:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it. 1)

1) “Taking a Fence Down”. American Chesterton Society. Retrieved 21 June 2014.

As far as using smartphones for spotting and spying, you’d think one military or the other might take out (or hijack and monitor) the cell phone towers.

Any first world country has this capability. NATO has this capability. Russia probably has this capability. Heck, your local police department has this capability.

Sorry intellectual excuses for Russia’s war crimes (today a train station bombed with rockets painted with the words, “For the children”) from Mr. Sailer, and whataboutism or downright pro-Russian support from too many commenters. This kind of moral blindness is going to damage our side deeply. Are we so traumatized by our domestic cultural wars that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” becomes an absolute rule? If the NYT says that the Russian state is barbaric, does that automatically mean that it’s worthy of our support? The Daily Mail (UK edition is better) has plenty on what is really happening. Rapes, looting, wanton cruelty. And Sailer is splitting hairs about what it means to be an enemy combatant…

The bigger picture is that China is reaching out for world domination. The West has to break Russia now in order to undermine its alliance with China. We’re not naive about racial and ethnic politics in America. Let’s not be naive here either. Russia and China are evil, and their totalitarian politics compel them outwards toward conflict just as surely as they did Mao and Stalin.

There may be people on earth with the moral standing to complain about civilian deaths. No one in the US government is among them, however.

There’s enough ambiguity in these situations to wish we could simply stay the hell away from it but our leaders just can’t contain themselves.

Also we in the Anglophone world, or the Five Eyes or whatever that entity is called cannot really preach about the wrongness of invading other countries without appearing blatantly, almost comically, hypocritical.

The only strong solution appears to be: Don’t invade. Respect borders.

For example, my Russian neighbor and I respect our border and don’t feel entitled to unilaterally change the border based on our individual feelings about what the property line ought to be.

I have a large mansion on the other side of you and I hate your Russian neighbor. I trespass in your yard to harass your Russian neighbor. You object and I replace you with a new owner of your property. The border between you and your Russian neighbor is now not so secure.

During the U.S. Civil War it was also inevitable that invading armies would pass by and through civilian areas with large populations. Beltways around cities really weren’t a thing at the time. The difference is that the defending armies often dug in for battle not in the very center of town, so the incoming cannon fire and musketry wouldn’t normally hit many civilian bystanders. By the time anyone was marching through the center of a city, the shooting had stopped and the commanding general was making his way to City Hall to establish the terms of occupation with the local authorities. Read Sherman’s memoirs.

If your Russian neighbor decides to have Scott Ritter as a guest to shout over the fence about you staying in your HBD lane, you’ll be having an epiphany.

The guy who is now claiming the Russian advance to and subsequent flight from Kiev is the most brilliant feint in history? His “lane” appears to be limited to pedophilia.

If all your authorities on a topic are idiots or worse, you should reconsider your views on that topic.

The only strong solution appears to be: Don’t invade. Respect borders.

There’s a historical precedent here as a response to Japanese Kwantung Army’s annexation of Manchuria (unauthorized by the civilian government in Tokyo) in 1932:

Stimson Doctrine is the policy of nonrecognition of states created as a result of aggression.[1][2][3] The policy was implemented by the United States federal government, enunciated in a note of January 7, 1932, to the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China, of non-recognition of international territorial changes that were executed by force.

The doctrine was an application of the principle of ex injuria jus non oritur.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimson_Doctrine

The Japanese considered this to be double-standard, and in objection withdrew from League of Nations, because the US had no objection to effective Soviet annexation of Mongolia in 1924,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_intervention_in_Mongolia

And Japanese actions was significantly in part to curtail Soviet expansion.

A good ( but flawed ) primer on the topic is the 1970s book by Michael (Moshie) Walzer

Just and UnJust Wars

Now it’s Zillionth printing. walzer started out as a solid anti-Vietnman War pracenik but sold his soul to the war party later on. Still a very good intro,

Also most anything by Telford Taylor is useful

What does Kosovo have to do with the Czechs and the Slovaks, as the OP asked? I would guess that you were opposed to our disrespect of Serbia’s borders and air space in 1999 anyway.

Next step: a body cam requirement for soldiers.

Really, laws of war are written and interpreted by the victors. Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki? No problemo. But collaboration horizontale? Off with their heads!

The only strong solution appears to be: Don’t invade. Respect borders.

Again, this is the stock answer . . . for the most recent victors.

Borders exist because a group was strong enough to have taken over a certain area and strong enough to maintain that area. Borders are just lines on a map drawn by the most the most recent winners.

The area that Steve lives was once the land of some American Indian tribe. After that, the Spanish. After that, white Americans. Now, a collection of tribes.

Borders are not sacred or magical. They are created by men, usually strong men. There’s no reason that they need to be respected. If Russia takes back the Donbass and reincorporates it, there will be a new border. Then, five generations from now, they’ll be some Russian Steve saying how the border is sacred – and he’ll be just as wrong.

The US is being invaded because we’re not strong enough to defend our border. I hate that, but it’s true. Borders, like the law, only matter if they can be enforced.

And Ukraine agreed to be neutral. If your Russian neighbor was a heavily armed member of an anti-Steve Sailer gang, things might be less comfortable.

Very good analogy. I will add:

If Steve’s neighbor were his almost identical brother who normally was friendly with Steve, even sharing his property from time to time…

and if Steve’s neighbor was knocked out by an American-supported mob and dragged from the property…

and if that neighbor was replaced by an anti-Steve, hostile puppet thug…

and if that thug and America constantly threatened Steve with violence…

and if Steve’s new neighbor beat up Steve’s children on the edge of the property, year after year…

and if Steve’s neighbor was publicly considering joining an anti-Steve militia…

What in the name of God would Steve do?

You see, our dear host, St. Steve, likes to repeat the movie line, “because we live here.” Well, God damn it, Russians live there. They can’t just sell and move away from the hostility the way Steve could if he had more brains. (Sorry, Steve.)

Normally around here we’ve admired Russian balls. We’ve sounded like we know they are men who act like men and take action. But now, oh no! Now some of us have become girly-men who cry “invasion,” as if every military action is the same. Steve himself is applying simply, girl-logic to this: Ooh, they “invaded” somebody else’s territory. What the hell else were they supposed to do in their dilemma?

But in the mud of Ukraine, in which the roads lead from one town to the next, it’s practically impossible to invade without passing by huge numbers of civilians.

The only strong solution appears to be: Don’t invade. Respect borders.

The villagers in Donbas have been/are being killed by direct attack of Ukrainians with no opposing military force (neither Russian nor DLR/LNR) anywhere in targeted area. Civilians are also dying from being used as human shields in cities, both as collateral damage and being shot, i.e. murdered, by Azov Ukros when those human shields attempt to escape.

More directly, Steve Sailer, go stay in whatever lane is supposedly yours and fuck yourself into silence since you have nothing worth adding to this fight. Yes, this is an information war, and apparently you’re in the Imperialist ranks that suppresses information, making democracy – which requires an informed electorate – impossible.

The Russians always draw the opposite lesson because they are not looking for consistency, they are looking for excuses for their own bad behavior. Instead of condemning Western misbehavior (well they do that too) they emulate it on a larger scale. Hey, the West stole an apple – who are they to tell us that car theft is wrong?

There is only one nation in the history of the planet that dropped nuclear weapons on civilians.

Perhaps some “fact-checkers” out there will try to deny it.

The soldiers are carrying smart phones into battle and apparently using them to communicate with one another and call home (although the brass has attempted to squelch the practice). Bizarre!

What the hell else were they supposed to do in their dilemma?

Bullies are always getting into “dilemmas” like this – “I had no choice but to punch that kid in the nose. It’s his fault, he made me do it.” Paranoids always see imaginary threats.

Was Joe Biden really threatening to invade Russia ? Germany with its (up until now) tiny army and the rest of Europe with its nice white lady defense ministers who were concerned with trannie rights in the military? Don’t make me laugh.

The irony of Putin is that he is bringing about the thing that he feared the most. Ukraine would have never dreamed of bombing Russian oil terminals or attacking Russian ships or killing Russian soldiers but now they are doing it. Germany would have never rearmed based upon Biden’s ineffective pleading. But now they are doing it. Sweden and Finland would have never joined NATO but now they are giving strong consideration to it.

This is partly intentional on Putin’s part. He did not invade just to grab some territory. His aim was to discredit the West and show that they are a paper tiger. He wanted to provoke a crisis and then win it. He was supposed to depose Zelensky and install a puppet regime who would permanently cede Crimea and “recognize” the independence of the Donbas and the West was supposed to impose some kind of slap on the wrist meaningless sanctions. China would take courage from the ineffectiveness of the West and do its thing to Taiwan and now there would be a bipolar world between the declining Western powers and the rising autocratic ones. Putin was going to make the world Safe for Autocracy. It has all just gone horribly wrong.

Steve – 100% agree.

NATO should not have invaded Ukraine back in 2014.

“Bullies are always getting into “dilemmas” like this”

By bullies you mean NATO.

Moscow doesn’t get to unilaterally decide to redraw it.

History is a never-ending story of groups unilaterally deciding to redraw borders. Why is this time and this place so very special?

American colonists redrew the map of North America repeatedly, usually through violence. So now that we’re happy with the current situation, we just get to say to the whole world, “Okay, nobody gets to change anything from now on.”

Your increasing attempts at moralizing don’t suit you.

Funny how “The Russians” were the good guys when they were communist allies against nationalist Germany but now they are the bad guys when they are nationalist Russians.

You can’t show who is stealing an apple or a car in this case. It’s war, and it’s not yours, and you know nothing about what is really happening or even why it is happening, so STFU.

This fire was lit by “our” side. Now it burns.

Have your fun speculating and trying to sound smart about it. My suggestion is stick to Philadelphia real estate.

Bullies are always getting into “dilemmas” like this

Kind of like Israel.

Oh, but wait, they’re just defending themselves. Just innocent souls trying to mind their own business within their borders (borders that seem to keep expanding).

Btw, I have no problem with Israel and no love for the Palestinians, but I do have a problem with Jack’s hypocrisy. Israel is constantly dicking with its neighbors. It’s a tough neighborhood, after all. But for Jack to complain – and moralize – about Russia doing essentially the same thing as Israel – keeping its neighbors in check to protect itself – is incredibly annoying.

Moscow agreed to Ukraine’s borders 30 years ago. Moscow doesn’t get to unilaterally decide to redraw it.

The US unilaterally ripped up the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. That was agreed to 50 years ago (a-roo!)

A more accurate analogy:

Your Russian neighbor asks you never to install an ax-throwing alley in your backyard. You laugh and readily agree (what thoughtless moron would do something like that?). Next year you go ahead and install it. The year after that you install an archery range with the targets right across the fence from his kids’ jungle gym. Fuming, he asks that you now put down in writing you will at least never install a gun range. You scoff at the notion. The idea is ridiculous, so ridiculous in fact that writing down that it will never happen somehow makes it MORE likely to happen than if it were to forever stew in the juices of its own tacit absurdity. Next month he catches someone wandering around his backyard with a shotgun. When confronted, the man with the shotgun innocently asks if this is the way to Steve’s 24-hour skeet shooting range.

His aim was to discredit the West and show that they are a paper tiger. He wanted to provoke a crisis and then win it. He was supposed to depose Zelensky and install a puppet regime who would permanently cede Crimea and “recognize” the independence of the Donbas and the West was supposed to impose some kind of slap on the wrist meaningless sanctions. China would take courage from the ineffectiveness of the West and do its thing to Taiwan and now there would be a bipolar world between the declining Western powers and the rising autocratic ones. Putin was going to make the world Safe for Autocracy.

This description may be partly true, but just needs re-phrasing:
The Russians have given up hope on a rapprochement with the West and are planning on a new Separate World Order with China. They need a wall of defense on their western border to protect them from the machinations, color revolutions, and terror wars the US is known for. The new bipolar world will make the world safe for Russians and Chinamen to have their own countries.
Also, you forgot to mention Putin’s whore in Switzerland and the pole-dancing studio at the Kremlin. When you are demonizing Putin be sure to always include these.

Joe, Sam Fuller said that when he fought in WW2, they’d check to see if the enemy soldier had any bullets left when he said ‘don’t shoot, I surrender!’ If he did, they’d take him prisoner. If not…

Hey, Steve, how about another episode of “will they be…”?

The only strong solution appears to be: Don’t invade. Respect borders.

Another strong solution is don’t poke the bear. Agreements can erode over 30 years, and Ukraine is guilty of serious deal-breakers.

Uniforms are obviously a big deal under laws of war. I remember that when we supported the Northern Alliance in its counterattack to oust the Taliban the first thing we did was airlift them a bunch of uniforms. We are always legalistic (if not always lawful),

I’m not sure if 12 year old Ali Abbas took up arms against out us when we unilaterally violated Iraq’s borders, but if he did we made sure he’d never, ever take up arms against us again.

“As Ali Abbas lay in his hospital bed with both arms blown off and horrifically burnt, doctors gave the youngster aged 12 little chance of survival.”

Shock n Awe, baby! YEAH!!! We kicked Iraq’s ass and we’ll kick yours just as easily, Russkys!!! And in case any of you libtards start feeling bad for that little insurgent bastard, know that he survived and today he has a family of his own. He learned how to give his baby its bottle–with his feet. Awww.

If only those Russkies were as conscientious as these liberators. But, to paraphrase Jack D, some people make mistakes, others commit (war-)crimes.

Regarding Kosovo, I wrote some time ago:

Pro- Kosovo independence: it had clearly defined borders within Serbia prior to 1991. Giving it to Albanians is just the final step in de-colonization, this time in Europe. Kosovo was, in modern history, a Serbia-occupied land. Having in mind that Kenya, Angola, Vietnam… are decolonized, why would Kosovo be an exception? And then- when you lose an existential war, similar to Germany in 1945- you lose some territory. Had the US occupied Serbia, completely, in 1999-2000, similar to Japan in 1945 -there would have been no discussion whatsoever. Finis.

Against-Kosovo independence: Badinter’s commission had established that Yugoslav 6 republics have the right for self-determination- but not autonomous provinces like Kosovo. It truly is a breach of international order.

Neutral-Kosovo independence: Kosovo should be somehow integrated back with Serbia, but with their own police, the military, parliament, school system, financial system,… That would be in accordance with international law- but how would it function?

Whatever you do, you’ll be wrong.

Regarding non-regulars: in my opinion, it would be fine to summarily execute civilians engaged in military activities, AND commandos (Hitler was, in this respect, right).

Just, to avoid all these nuisances – the best thing is: respect the borders.

I think, more to the point, that these things happen in war. Civilians get killed; sometimes deliberately.

Of course whatever can practically be done to curtail such transgressions should be done; but I really don’t have much patience for the ignorant and perhaps hypocritical outrage, the calls for World War Three on this account.

If people don’t like civilians getting killed, really, the thing to do is to end the war — or at least stop promoting it.

When some angry and frightened conscript shoots someone off a bicycle, who’s to blame? The conscript? Putin? Biden, Blinken, and Harris, who in my view did much to push Putin to start this war? How about all those irresponsible loons in the media praising civilians for taking up arms and beating their chests about how we need to join the war ourselves?

War crimes go with the territory. If you don’t want war crimes, don’t have wars. Conversely, if you choose to have the war, don’t burden me with your faux outrage about what inevitably happens. You might as well deplore accidents caused by drunk drivers — while encouraging drinking and driving.

C’mon, man. Get real. Putin wrested Mother Russia from the Jewish Oligarchs who stole it fair and square. And don’t you remember all the Neocon Zionists muttering collectively under their breath after A Clean Break hit a major bump in the road in Syria? “And we would have gotten way with it, if it wasn’t those meddling Russkys!” And, of course, The Cossacks were mean to Bubbeh. Not the Ukrainian Cossacks. Only the Russian ones.

‘You can’t show who is stealing an apple or a car in this case. It’s war, and it’s not yours, and you know nothing about what is really happening or even why it is happening, so STFU.’

I’m largely with you in this, but I don’t see it as a matter of Russia being in the rightso much as of Russia being there — and very likely to act like Russia.

So parties of good will — which we are not — accept that Russia is going to continue to be there, and continue to act like Russia.

So don’t bait it. It was clear — and Russia made it clear — that inviting the Ukraine to join NATO would provoke a violent reaction. We went ahead and invited the Ukraine to join NATO. There was a violent reaction.

This is like going into the yard with the growling pit bull. Yes, the pit bull was a bad dog when it bit you. Are you the innocent? Not precisely…

If Russia started this war, we — or to be precise, our handlers — wanted her to do it. Let’s not play the outraged moral censor here.

The irony of Putin is that he is bringing about the thing that he feared the most.

True. But it’s equally ironic that Ukraine, by seeking NATO membership, triggered the very Russian attack it was seeking protection from. Saying you are going to join NATO, without ever actually joining NATO, is a cosmically stupid strategy. But that was apparently the plan our Deep State foisted on Ukraine.

It’s almost like they wanted war. Just kidding, of course they did. They don’t want a community of nations following rules and living in peace. They want a never-ending Manichaean war with the “Axis of Autocracy,” or whatever their “information war” branding department decides to call it.

Never-ending surveillance, censorship, propaganda, and sky-high defense budgets. They are happy as pigs in shit right now.

Steve’s position is obvious nonsense, and not worth commenting on, guys. save the analogies. something else is going on here with him.

Bullies are always getting into “dilemmas” like this – “I had no choice but to punch that kid in the nose. It’s his fault, he made me do it.” Paranoids always see imaginary threats.

Putin’s not paranoid. He’s just creating an illusion of paranoia. If he said – “I am doing this to become Vladimir the Greater”, he’d be lambasted as an egomaniacal sociopath, even in Russia proper. So he makes up some excuse that will sound somewhat palatable, both to Russians and some of Unz’s denizens.

Think of the way Jussie Smollett came up with his MAGA beatdown fraud. Does anyone expect him to come right out and say that he did it so he could enhance his showbiz appeal and get a leg up on salary negotiations? Not only did he not fess up – he insists he really was beaten up by MAGA-loving Trump supporters.

Absolutely, but the stumbling block is places like the Donbass, they want the Ukrainians to respect their borders, which the Ukraine doesn’t acknowledge, who is wrong then?

This assumes that there is some sort of coherent “they” to the Donbass. This does not seem to be the case.

Again this isn’t my patch. (I probably didn’t know what “the Donbass” was until 2014.) But even just reading the 50,000 ft “executive summary” of the demographics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donbas#Demographics_and_politics
or the 2014 referendums and counter-referendum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Donbas_status_referendums
is sufficient to make it clear that there is no coherent Donbass “they”.

The Donbass is not like Quebec. It is not even Belgium. It is not Crimea. It is more like Northern Ireland–a place i think the Brits would have been wise to sort out with referendums and population exchange. And the Donbass is probably even more muddled than that.

Furthermore, even if you believe all the Russian propaganda about the Donbass/what the people of the Donbass want, Putin “fixed” that on February 22nd by sending Russian army in to occupy the separatist statelets. This war did not start with the Ukrainian army attacking the Russian army in Crimea. So if Donbass is really your issue, let the Russian army sit there and “protect” Donbass Russians. Why invade the rest of Ukraine break stuff and kill people?

OT: The Lancet has published a map of levels of Uranium in drinking water in the US. Guess what the scheming turds writing the paper titled it: “Sociodemographic Inequalities in Uranium and Other Metals in Community Water Systems Across the USA.”

Yes, uranium is deliberately discriminating against blacks and Hispanics. Bad element, bad element. Slap it on the wrist for evil intent.

Well, guess what. If you live in a big US city, or live in a desert area, the watershed you have to draw from is going to be huge, because big cities have millions of people who need water, and because in a desert, you have to cast wide to get any water at all. This means you can get quite a large grab bag of minerals of various concentrations in your water in these areas.

Drawing your water from a massive watershed increases the probability that somewhere in your watershed you may have a spot with a higher concentration of minerals, and that higher concentration will end up in your drinking water particulates.

Whereas, a small town can draw from a much smaller watershed, and if the town happens to be located in an area with a healthy combination of minerals in the soil, it can be safer than water going to a big city or a desert area.

Well, Hispanics do tend to live in desert areas like the Southwest, and blacks in big cities. Boo-hoo, nobody forced them to live there. They chose it. And yet the conniving scum who wrote this paper are pointing at white discrimination against minorities, of course. Oh, so it’s whites’ fault for giving Hispanics and blacks jobs in those areas.

I am really getting tired of this crap from virtue-signalling hyenas. If Lancet’s editors hadn’t been a bunch filthy propaganda-squealing pigs–and also stupid, they would have forced the authors to remove all the editorializing–and made them recognize the obvious points above for causing the problem.

But both the Lancet’s editors, and the paper’s authors, are too DUMB to figure this out. Or too conniving and evil. But it could be both, and likely is.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(22)00043-2/fulltext

Moscow agreed to Ukraine’s borders 30 years ago.

And Ukraine agreed to be neutral.

Did Ukraine and the other ex SSR’s (Baltics, Georgia, etc.) agree to neutrality at the time they left the USSR? Not saying they didn’t but I didn’t know they had.

A Finland like neutral Ukraine without NATO pretensions would’ve made sense. Maybe would’ve been enough to keep Russia at bay. But Russia also did not take kindly to Ukraine looking to the EU instead of being willing to be in Russia’s trading bloc, so even abandoning thoughts of NATO years ago may not have led us to a different place than they are now.

Why invade the rest of Ukraine break stuff and kill people?

Securing The Donbass is one of the two big objectives. The other is no NATO membership for Ukraine. Russia isn’t breaking stuff and killing people for fun. Ukraine has a puppet leader serving masters who want the optics of Russia breaking stuff and killing people. And when Russia actually does kill people, all the better, from their perspective. If the Bucha massacre did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

He did not invade just to grab some territory.

Of course not, some of the so far known reasons are:
– protection of the new republics,
– elimination of the Azov battalion/regiment/brigade identified by the Russians as detrimental to their national security, and
– impressing on the US they will not accept further NATO encroachment their borders.

Wildly speculating, the Russians will probably also try to correct territorial arrangements they had to suffer on account of their military weakness in 1991. The conditions Ukraine agreed to, including but not exhausting neutrality, have been superseded since 2004. Before the ‘Orange Revolution’ there was the ‘Chestnut Revolution’.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa

Lacking the ability to read Putin’s mind, I do not assume the Russians came to their decision out of malevolence but rather because they concluded it was their least bad option given the circumstances. Of course, YMMV.

You might find this of interest:

Rules of Engagement and
Abusive Citizens1
BY AMITAI ETZIONI
Amitai Etzioni is University Professor and Professor of International Affairs; Director, Institute for
Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University.

The time has come to draw lessons from the war in Afghanistan. One major concern is how
the U.S. military ought to deal with civilians who are sporadic combatants, and civilians
who act, part of the time, as support forces for combatants (by serving as intelligence
agents, manufacturing ammunition and bombs, supplying provisions and transportation, and so
on). Discussion of this topic has often focused on ways to deal with those civilians after they have
been caught fighting us and whether they should be treated as soldiers or as criminals, a matter
that has not been resolved. (My own position is that they should be treated as a third category:
as terrorists, subject to distinct rules and authority.)2 This article focuses on an earlier phase: when
these civilians are still acting as combatants or supporting them….

https://cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/prism/prism_4-4/Rules_Of_Engagement_and_Abusive_Citizens_corrected_II.pdf

And also:

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS
LAW OF WAR/
INTRODUCTION TO RULES
OF ENGAGEMENT

https://www.trngcmd.marines.mil/Portals/207/Docs/TBS/B130936%20Law%20of%20War%20and%20Rules%20Of%20Engagement.pdf

This one, current, atrocity of many was started by “our” side when it meddled in other people’s affairs.

Buzz, it might have happened no matter what. The world can be a “tough neighborhood”. The Pale is no exception, obviously.

I guess that makes it just another ugly part of human life.

Keep calm and practice your Civilian Combatant skills. You may need them in the future.

Also, sign your wife up for tactical Pilates.

Hilariously the articles on Wikipedia touching on Holocaust collaboration- Hiwi, Trawniki men- have already been edited to downplay the huge Ukrainian involvement with awkward, sticking-out-like-sore thumb traducements- “I heard Ukrainian Holocaust collaborators are always cruel or mean. What’s their problem?” “Whoever told you that is a total liar! Just like other mammals, Ukrainian Holocaust collaborators can be mean OR totally awesome!’ Next week- “John Demjanjuk, a totally Russian-Ukrainian Nazi Holocaust death camp guard…”

I detect insufficient bloodlust and a disturbing lack of moral clarity, citizen. I’m calling Homeland Security.

Buzz, what sickens me is this is a region of the world where people don’t have a lot of kids. These are people’s only sons–only children–fighting and dying.

How do I know Ukraine is a corrupt pit being used to harbor all sorts of skullduggery by Western elites? Because these same elites, who despise nationalism and want to replace Western nationalists, are suddenly urging me to be an Ukrainian nationalist.

And this sums up why I’m simultaneously repulsed by this awful fratricide and also wish Putin could bring it to a swift, successful conclusion and stick our elites in the eye with it. But we’re not going to be so fortunate.

Imagine a bully that starts acting nice, and the kids he thought would let bygones be bygones start walking all over him, that bully would go back to being the way he was. In 1991 there was widespread surprise that the Russian government of President Yeltsin had actually let Ukraine go. Ukraine’s declaration of independence and constitution said they would align with no block and be neutral; within a couple of years they backtracked of what the clear meaning was. By the early oughties there were Nato exercises in Ukraine, including Crimea. In 2004 an ethic Russian won the presidency and was prevented from taking office. There can be argument about how fair that election was but there is no doubt that the same ethnic Russian won the 2010 presidential election fair and square. In 2014 he was overthrown by demonstrations.

And as for the idea that Putin thought nothing much would happen, this is ludicrous, Russia has never not been under sanctions, the Jackson ones dating from the Cold War and relating to prevention of Jewish emigration to Israel were kept on long after the ostensible reason for them had gone. Yet they were only repealed by the same act that introduced the Magnitsky ones. Russian is not left alone even for internal matters of one mans death, so no Russians could have been in any doubt that the sanction for invading Ukraine (instantly the Russian invasion began there were missile strikes that killed hundreds of people) would be extreme. Even bad people can be courageous in following a course of action they believe in. Putin has a very weak hand to pay, his country has a relative paucity of wealth and population. In 2008 Merkel opposed the announcement that Ukraine would join NATO, she knew it would cause trouble but America supplies free defence so Germany has to do what they say. Do American strategists actually want to cause trouble with Russia because they are happier with having it as a rival because it is fundamentally too weak to do anything serious (they think). Russia did nothing whatsoever about two rounds of Nato expansion, but that was a blip rather than a new normal. Historically, Russia would not stand for such things, German and France understood that very well.

This is partly intentional on Putin’s part. He did not invade just to grab some territory. His aim was to discredit the West and show that they are a paper tiger

Russia compared to the Warsaw Pact era URRS is a ‘Paper Bear’, and was regarded with contempt as a thirde rate country that no one cared what it thought, as a diplomat of Clinton’s administration remembered. Before his meeting with Putin , President Biden was publicly mocking Russia as an ‘Upper Volta’. Enormous disparities in military force and sophistication, international influence and financial power, population and many other things that mean Putin could not possibly have miscalculated about Europe’s–still less the West’s–formidable capabilities or the Americans running the West’s hostility to Russia. Putin must have thought he had to invade Ukraine no matter what.

The irony of Putin is that he is bringing about the thing that he feared the most.

Putin said jut before he invaded Ukraine (Jan 2022)that Russia would not allow any more governments allied with Moscow to be toppled in so-called “color revolutions . Russian has nuclear weapons, but remember the 2011-13 anti Putin protests. Kissinger said the Communists entering the Italian government was a grave threat to the West. Putin saw Ukraine as a similar type of threat. Ukraine and its borders being recognized as a country by Russia merely meant that the Ukrainian government is understood to be in control of its claimed territory, and responsible for what happened on it.

Russian chauvinists sound like teenagers who just discovered Noam Chomsky when talking about the US and then morph into Ragnar Redbeardovich when talking about Russia.

I don’t know who or how or why the Wikis are being edited – anyone can edit them. If you don’t like the edits go and revert them and see what happens (you can look at the history page to see when and how things changed).

But personally (and my mother and her family were from Galicia) that was then and this was now. When I went back my shtetl I met some really old and hunched over people. When I was younger and I met people like that I would think to myself, hmmm what were you doing in 1942? But I did the math in my head and I realized that even these toothless old dudes would have been no more than children at the time of the Holocaust. AFAIK, 99.9% of the people in Ukraine who took part in the Holocaust are either dead or close to dead. Demjanjuk, who was 22 when he became a camp guard, died a decade ago at age 91. So even if every single Ukrainian was a Nazi collaborator back in the day, no one alive today is responsible for their misdeeds.

Germany has been a good friend of the US since shortly after the end of the war. No one in America says that we shouldn’t support Germany or allow it to be in NATO, even though Germany bears even more responsibility for the Holocaust that Ukraine.

If the people in Ukraine today are “Nazis” they are a funny kind of Nazi who elected a Jewish president and where the right wing parties didn’t break 3% of the vote and hold no seats in the parliament. Hungary is a lot more “Nazi” than Ukraine. The Soviets did a lot of evil stuff but you can’t say that they didn’t thoroughly denazify Ukraine after the war, such that it really isn’t in need of further denazification by Putin. If you want to look for Ukrainians to denazify, you’ll have a lot better luck in Canada or the US because dudes like Demjanjuk didn’t make it in the post war USSR.

Yeah, even the Jewish Daily Forward is in on the whitewashing. Here’s a piece with the transparently misleading title, “In Ukraine, a long history of Russian crimes against Jews”.

And this doozy of a sentence:

“Just over a century ago, between 1918 and 1921, tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews were murdered, tortured and raped in hundreds of pogroms by marauders, some of them Russian.”

https://forward.com/culture/483101/ukraine-russian-antisemitism-pogrom-odessa-lviv-putin

Kissinger said the Communists entering the Italian government was a grave threat to the West.

I remember when that happened, and then the American tanks surrounded Rome and they leveled Naples with rockets and artillery.

No wait, that didn’t happen.

“Whataboutism” is a term massmen use to distract from their own moral inconsistencies.

Everything you say is true, but as a response to Abe this is straw-manning. All I see Abe objecting to is the motivated rewriting of history.

There are no laws of war. The bs that there are just virtue signaling the US govt uses against other nations but ignore when it wants to kill whoever it wants.

OT FBI BRUTALLY BEATEN IN PUBLIC LIKE AN FBI WIFE AT A SWINGERS’ CLUB
AAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The federal government is constantly trying to entrap and defame innocent white people to substantiate its fantasy of militias and Phantom Nazis being the “real enemy.” The biggest recent attempts of this have been the incoherent Michigan Governor Whitmer kidnapping trial and the January 6th debacle. Yesterday a January 6th defendant untrammelled by lawyers got off and just now the incoherent Whitmer kidnapping plot just fell apart, two not guilty and two mistrials.
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2022/04/08/2-men-found-not-guilty-mistrial-declared-for-2-others-in-whitmer-kidnap-plot-trial/

I wish Putin could bring it to a swift, successful conclusion and stick our elites in the eye with it.

This in essence is why the alt.right is advocating for Putin and repeating his lies with such great enthusiasm. He hates the American elites and globohomoism and so do you. He wants to cut the globohomos down a notch and this is something that you would welcome.

There are a couple of problems with this:

1. To the extent that he is a patriot (it’s mostly for show anyway) he is a Russian patriot and would want ANY America, even the nonglobohomo America of your dreams, cut down to size. He is not really your friend. Even if you told him, hey, I’m not in favor of that globohomo stuff and I’m with you on the white Christian civilization thing, he would just as soon put a bullet in the back of your head anyway if he thought that you were interfering with Russia’s goals.

2. His whole morality shtick is an act. He couldn’t really give a shit about Christian morality. Elites in Russia, of whom he is the #1 elite, have a BOTTOMLESS contempt for their own people. They live like royalty with palaces and yachts and the folks in the provinces regard a washing machine as a luxury good. Our elites treat poor whites like dogs but in Russia they treat them like shit. Putin sends young Russian (and Kalmyk and Chechen and whatever) boys from the provinces to be cannon meat in Ukraine and he can’t even be bothered to scrape up the pieces and send them back to their mamas.

Ritter and Sailer have a Twatter history. Do try to keep up.

Did Ukraine and the other ex SSR’s (Baltics, Georgia, etc.) agree to neutrality at the time they left the USSR? Not saying they didn’t but I didn’t know they had.

Like everything involving Ukraine, the situation is FUBAR. Ukraine apparently started out (quite sensibly) with a Constitutional pledge of neutrality:

The basis for neutrality can be found in the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, passed on July 1, 1990, which declares that the country has the “intention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three nuclear free principles…” (Declaration of State Sovereignty 1990: Art. IX). Furthermore, the Ukrainian Constitution, which bases itself on the Declaration of Independence of August 24, 1991, contains these basic principles of non-coalition and future neutrality. However, the questions of how and when these are to be implemented remain unanswered and are subject to much debate. (Spillmann, Wenger and Müller 1999: 36).

But then . . .

The problem, however, came in 2003 with the adoption of a law concerning principles of national security which sets as the country’s priority the complete and rightful participation in European and regional systems of collective security further indicating the goals of accession into the European Union and NATO (Закон України 2003-2006). From a legislative point of view, the two discussed laws contradict each other. Theoretically, during the adoption of the former law it was necessary to cancel the earlier one; this, however, did not happen. Consequently, Ukraine is still heading in two, quite different directions simultaneously.

And then . . .

In June of 2004, President Leonid Kuchma issued a new presidential decree concerning the military doctrine, based on the new law. In July of the same year he officially proclaimed that the statement about Ukraine’s definitive preparation for accession into NATO was removed from the military and security doctrines and policies.

But then . . .

However, following the Orange Revolution and the election of a new president, the situation changed once again, with President Viktor Yushchenko amending the doctrine further and stating that the country’s final security goal is accession into NATO. (Pavlenko 2006). This leads to obvious problems for the country and further projects an outward image of incoherent and unstable policies. https://www.e-ir.info/2010/11/30/ukraine%E2%80%99s-neutrality-a-myth-or-reality/

“Moscow agreed to Ukraine’s borders 30 years ago.”

That was 30 years ago. Things change. The US agreed to certain borders with the Indians in the late 1700s and then changed their minds in the late 1800s after Democrat Andrew Jackson and congress’s “Indian Extermination Act.”

This is about as intelligent as a Russian or Chinese saying that ‘ The USA is evil ‘ and so must be destroyed.

Objectivity and decency.

Spider-Man was based on a true story 🕷 pic.twitter.com/6kDcLbJoBD

— Morissa Schwartz 📚 (Dr. Rissy) (@MorissaSchwartz) April 8, 2022

Indeed.

On this very note is one of the myriad reasons why the massive uncontrolled third world immigration into the west – fomented, in the main, by the same forces which wish to destroy Russia and the Russian people (Economist) – absolutely infuriates me.
All homelands were delineated by human blood of heroic warriors sacrificing their lives for kin folk.
This must be respected.

And then one last development that happened after the 2010 article article cited above . . .

Over the past 20 years, however, the goal of joining NATO has become deeply ingrained in Ukraine’s foreign policy narrative and strategic culture. If, before, the reasons for this were largely political, they have now also become legal: In February 2019, just two months before Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidency, parliament enshrined Ukraine’s NATO aspirations in the country’s constitution. Now, the president must serve as a “guarantor of the country’s strategic course to acquire membership in the EU and NATO,” and any attempts by the head of state to consider alternative security policies for Ukraine would be unconstitutional—a far cry from Kyiv’s intention to “become a permanently neutral state” as articulated in its 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty. https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/nato-or-bust-why-do-ukraines-leaders-dismiss-neutrality-security-strategy

Back in the old days, we worried that we’d get spied on by surveillance cameras, satellites, tracking devices, phone taps, miniature recorders, and government informants.

Now, we walk around 24/7 with a monitoring device that has constant access to our coordinates, purchases, contacts, conversations, passwords, financial information, images, etc. Almost every aspect of our lives is willingly imputed into this device, for reasons of “convenience.” This device is monitored by corporate oligarchs, who have close ties to our govt. In addition to that, our govt collects “metadata” (whatever the hell that is) from our high-tech tracker.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/nsa-collects-only-about-20-percent-of-phone-metadata/

The rules are very open to interpretation. My friend’s uncle went north and joined the RCAF prior to the US entering WW2. He blew the engine in his Spitfire and bailed out over France. While the French Underground was trying to get him out, he decided to keep wearing his blue trousers instead of going to all civilian clothes so if captured he could claim that he was not an intelligence operative out of uniform.

Anyway, Steve, your ‘neighbor and fence’ analogy just doesn’t stand up.

A truer analogy is this:

A complete and utter madman, a lunatic, a man with an IQ lower than a Down’s patient – but nasty and extremely vain and conceited, somehow gets absolute control of the family estate. The rabid madman then immediately proceeds to hand over the entire cash value of the estate, gratis, to his very worst sworn enemy. He then kicks out the family who were living there for generations and puts in a gang of the vilest, meanest filthiest crooks and villains you can imagine to subdivide the estate, again for gratis.
The prodigal son sees this and weeps. “Someday, I will set this injustice to rights”, he thinks to himself.

You’re a Ukrainian and partisan. You’re genuinely incapable of impersonal debate on this; you cannot believe that people refuse to see how the Russians are the bad guys and the Ukrainians are the good guys when it’s so clear! (Here, let me lay it all out for you in hundreds of comments.)

I’m not arguing what a great guy Putin is. I have no illusions that he’s my friend, but he’s definitely the enemy of my enemies.

No wait, that didn’t happen.

You know what also did not happen? The commies never entered the Italian government.
In Chile they had.

consequences of communist accession to power in italy – CIA
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000258367.pdf

It ‘predicts’ Civil War. Hmm, is that not what happened in Ukraine?

Ever heard of Guatemala? Nicaragua? El Salvador?

One of the things that you have to understand is that in most countries (not just shitty 3rd world places) the Constitution is not as sacred and difficult to amend or replace as the American constitution (which BTW is the world’s oldest written constitution that remains in effect – so much for America being the New World). A lot of countries change their constitutions as often as they change their underwear. For example, since 1789, France has had 14 constitutions. The current French Constitution dates all the way back to 1958.

It’s also common for a lot of modern constitutions to be a lot more detailed (and therefore less timeless) than the American Constitution. For example, the US Constitution has nothing to say about the subject of neutrality. It leaves the making of treaties up to the President with the approval of 2/3 of the Senate. By leaving things vague and general, it’s not necessary to amend the Constitution very often. If we had neutrality in our constitution and then took it out, that would be a really big deal but in Ukraine it’s more like changing an ordinary law or policy.

The Constitution of France, for example, enshrines a lot of “rights” that we cover with legislation and aren’t mentioned at all in our Constitution.

Right to culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Right to form political parties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Right to health care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Right to join trade unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Right to own property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 32, 33
Right to renounce citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Right to rest and leisure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Right to self determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 35
Right to strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Right to transfer property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Right to work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

The US has 3 general principles, which frequently conflict.

1. Human Rights. To the nth degree where it is desired by the government.
2. Sovereign borders.
3. Self determination within sovereign borders.

1 seems to justify 2, when it is convenient. 3 would seem to settle the Crimea issue, if anyone in the US cared to enforce it there.

The typical US move is to violate #1 based on their view of 2 and 3.

Go down the list. Why did we invade Iraq? Libya. Syria. Afghanistan? Venezuela? We decided an election was unfair, and promoted a coup, then declared economic war.

The US determines what a “rules based international order” consists of and makes it up as they go.

The strong do what they can. The weak what they must.

And in closing: Democracy, except where Elites decide that it violates Human Rights, which then becomes the dreaded populism. There is nothing they like more that thwarting democracy when it is overwhelming popular to advance some other principle. And will invent the zeroth amendment if they desire.

“You might find this of interest:

Rules of Engagement and
Abusive Citizens1
BY AMITAI ETZIONI”

LOL.. yeah… FUCK no.

Castro created a full blown Russian allied Communist dictatorship 90 miles from the US and we still didn’t invade. Cuba was MUCH more in Russia’s pocket than Ukraine was ever in the US’s. Cuba’s “color revolution” (red) was apparently OK with us.

Twitter accounts featuring hot chix avatars next to the Ukrainian colours are definitely a source of reliable information.

That ‘leak’ is meaningless without externals.

Ukraine has 6-8 million refugees, maybe a million young people who will never return in a nation that already can’t replace its population. A dirt poor country with entire cities leveled, But hey it can join Nato!

Enoch Powell fsmously said “The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils.” By that standard for all their admirable leadership in preparing and fighting this war Ukraine’s leadership has failed. In truth we will never know if that is true but as Zelensky wanders the streets gazing at the death, destruction and completely predictable civilian deaths under his leadership you have to wonder if he thinks he could have avoided this.

We and he will never know but one thing is for certain, Zelensky and Washington made no effort to try.

Trolls are out in force on this one.

One tell is that they are usually new posters who haven’t been seen here before. Or post as some “Anon.”

Historical analogies often obscure facts. Neither WWII Japan or the USSR signed or adhered to the Geneva Conventions worked out in the earlier decades. So both of these committed “war crimes” willy-nilly. The Germans did respect those Conventions (not sure if they were signatories) since the Allies also did and Hitler, a former soldier, believed in reciprocity. Germans didn’t respect the Conventions with respect to the USSR, since Stalin didn’t.

Neither the Japanese or the Soviets (Russians) approved of their military personnel surrendering so their fate was of no concern. Fewer than one in 20 captured Germans on the eastern front made it back to Germany, ever. Most Soviet POWs also died; those that didn’t were gulaged by Stalin after the war. Self inflicted war crime by Soviets (Russians).

Yes, there are many hypocritical cases where “rules” of war have been disregarded by the US and others. But no one can honestly claim that the Soviets/Russians ever have shown much respect for any rules of any kind. Though despite the normal lack of top leadership concern, many military officers did uphold them.

Savage behavior begets the same in your enemies. “Mercy” is not a common Russian attribute.

Claims of “Nazis” running Ukraine or committing atrocities against other Ukrainians is pure fiction. Zelensky is Jewish and were this true, we’d be hearing about this for decades from the usual sources. Israel recognizes Ukraine. A handful of Nazi styled militia types is very useful for Russian propaganda. Suspicious minds might wonder who’s been financing them for all these years?

Ukes put out their own propaganda and some have probably shot Russian POWs and have done other bad things to collaborators. But since all the fighting so far has been on Uke territory, you can be sure that nearly all of the war crimes come from the Russians. They treat their own soldiers pretty badly too, from most accounts.

Fortunately, other than trolls, most Russian propaganda is so absurd few believe it.

In the Age of the Smartphone, Is Every Civilian a Combatant?

In the Age of [Democracy], Is Every [Voter] a Combatant?

Weimar Republic, 1919

“That deal was made with a government that had essentially been overthrown twice by forces aligned to Western interests“

No, it was the citizens of Ukraine who, of their own volition, choose to remove a leader they felt no longer represented their interests.

But let’s assume for a moment that the Ukraine did get help from the outside. Again, is it not ultimately their own decision?

Well, we did support a half-a**ed invasion, and then blockaded the island, the we invaded Grenada and engaged in proxy wars in El Salvidor and Nicaragua. And invaded Panama.

Except those things didn’t happen in the first place.

Castro created a full blown Russian allied Communist dictatorship 90 miles from the US and we still didn’t invade.

LOL!

“We” invaded at the Bay of Pigs. Somehow you conveniently forget that, but this is how you operate, man.

Cuba was MUCH more in Russia’s pocket than Ukraine was ever in the US’s. Cuba’s “color revolution” (red) was apparently OK with us.

More disinformation and convenient forgetfulness on your part. For one thing, The Ukraine (and other Eastern European nations, I can tell you) IS very deep in the pocket of the US.

More than that, though, Cuba’s revolution was in fact VERY NOT OK with “us.” Seriously, man, are you kidding me right now? Castro’s communist, Soviet-aligned Cuba was a HUGE story in those days, and our deep government was hard at work to try to stop it.

You are disingenuous to the max. I only hope other readers can see it and laugh out loud at you as hard as I am right now.

LOL!

There’s plenty of video of Yukes shooting military aged men fleeing cities under attack (particularly from the Southern front). There is plenty of interviews of civilians evacuated from Mariupol to Russia telling about being held at gunpoint by Azov fighters, being used as human shields. Try looking at some Telegram channels that aren’t completely coopted by Ukrainian/Western propaganda.

Of course it helps to understand Russian (which, despite the ‘evidence’ of Ukranian linguistic censuses, seems to be by far the most common langauge spoken in the south of the ‘Ukraine’.

“American colonists redrew the map of North America repeatedly, usually through violence. So now that we’re happy with the current situation, we just get to say to the whole world, “Okay, nobody gets to change anything from now on.”“

Exactly. Because it was patently immoral in the first place. Otherwise, you are simply debasing yourself. Might as well refer to yourself as a pavement ape and call it a day.

The 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état, code-named Operation PBSuccess, was a covert operation carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954. It installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala.

The Guatemalan Revolution began in 1944, after a popular uprising toppled the military dictatorship of Jorge Ubico. Juan José Arévalo was elected president in Guatemala’s first democratic election. He introduced a minimum wage and near-universal suffrage, and turned Guatemala into a democracy. Arévalo was succeeded in 1951 by Árbenz, who instituted land reforms which granted property to landless peasants.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

That’s the way a hard-core Commie works. How fortunate General Montt was able to mount his “guns and beans” campaign, which offered “If you are with us, we’ll feed you, if not, we’ll kill you”.

Did you just fart?

Putin sponsored his own “local uprising” in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014 which was equivalent to the Bay of Pigs. The US sent not one American soldier to Cuba. If you see the Bay of Pigs as being equivalent to Putin sending a full blown Russian Army invasion force then I’m the one who’s laughing at your clear obtuseness.

Putin had every chance to undermine the Ukrainian government with bribery, poison, local collaborators, etc. and his efforts were about as successful as our efforts in Cuba. However, he wasn’t willing to concede defeat and sent a full blown Russian Army invasion force, thereby crossing the line of invading another sovereign country.

Russia invaded by Napoleon France, Russia invaded by Kaiser Germany, Russia invaded by Hitler Germany, Warsaw Pact long deceased, NATO still in existence and expanding. Vlad is making prudent national integrity decisions.

Putin had every chance…

LOL. Yeah, but what tires does he prefer?

All seriousness aside, you and I know nothing about this matter; we don’t belong in it at all, and I refuse to expend more breath discussing it with you.

they concluded it was their least bad option given the circumstances.

Well if that is what Putin concluded (and I doubt it – it was more like “I can get away with this because I have the stronger army and the West will not effectively interfere because they are weak and the Germans want my gas and when I succeed I will go down in history as a great Czar who re-enlarged Russia’s empire”) then he concluded wrong, badly wrong. The gains to Russia, if any, will be much smaller than he imagined and the losses, in men and materiel and international respectability and dollars are proving to much more painful than anyone, including Putin, even conceived.

Yeah yeah yeah, let’s hear more about this FBI wife at a swingers club!

Bro, is she hot?

Seriously bro, how hot is she?

Moscow doesn’t get to unilaterally decide to redraw it.

I’m sure “moral law” will come down from the sky and correct them someday real soon.

Will the borders that neanderthals had also be restored? Our ancestors immorally took their land!

You need to see a shrink.

Although I generally don’t pay attention to argumentum ad hominem (it’s not worth it), in this case..

Our Jack is a Jew & initially not too supportive of the Ukrainian cause for historical reasons. But, as far as I can see, typically of many ethnic Jews who possess developed conscience, a sense of justice & are emotionally-mentally mature enough to see through the media manipulation: he sees what is right, what is wrong, where is justice and what is injustice- having taken all into account.

Most of Putin’s cheerleaders fall into two-three camps: they are rooting for bullies because that’s how they function in the world; they hate the Globohomo agenda & are delusional that Putin, who in some aspects is against it too, is their “natural ally” (perhaps “leader”); they despise Ukrainians because they are, to them, insignificant people somewhere in the east- and fail to see that contemporary Ukrainian heroic fight is a true birth of a nation, whichever has been the state of Ukrainian society before that (corruption, prostitution,…).

All they see is what they fear & loathe: Zionist conspiracy (fiction), Biden’s mumbling “leadership” (mostly true), immigration inundation & anti-white CRT threat (true), “deep state” hubris (elements of truth, but generally false), Putin as the leader of the proud white world (fiction), ….

Essentially, Putin’s cheerleaders are betrayers of what is the essential West. Orwell wrote somewhere about Jack the Giant killer as the central myth of the Western world. It is basically being on the side of the underdog.

Putinists betrayed that.

Jack’s people don’t quit. Arguing to them isn’t about getting to the truth. It’s breathing to them.

You’re (we’re) wasting your time. Time to create a world outside of their lies.

Playing Devil’s.Advocate?

Is this 4-d chess you’re playing against those who weren’t bothered to pay attention to the first impeachment of Trump and haven’t been bothered to read Putin’s pre-invasion speech?

…you’d think one military or the other might take out (or hijack and monitor) the cell phone towers

In general, I’m both confused and surprised that Russia hasn’t used its supposed expertise in EW and hacking to blind the Ukrainians and intimidate the West.

Suppose the invasion had been preceded by 48 hours of cyber attacks on NATO countries by unidentified hackers and blackmailers? Nothing deadly. Just unsettling enough to let US population understand it has skin in the game.

No, it was the citizens of Ukraine who, of their own volition, choose to remove a leader they felt no longer represented their interests.

Yes, that’s why the election where one group of citizens voluntarily chose Yanukovic et al as the government had to be overturned with force by the own volition of those who had lost said election.

This kind of moral blindness is going to damage our side deeply

.

Who died and left you in charge of “our side’s”morality?

(The excessive use of the first-person plural is a very feminine trait.)

Maybe they can’t do that. They’re not that good. Also two can play this game.

Putinists are rooting for the giant.

Thanks for this comment. A very perceptive analysis.

I read a paper a while back about the US practice of executing surrendering German soldiers in the last months of WW2. It seems that the two armies fundamentally misunderstood the other side’s surrendering etiquette.

The Americans tried to give the Germans the opportunity to surrender before a fight. If the Germans chose to fight even though their war was lost, the GIs were unlikely to take prisoners. But the Germans believed soldiers should fight “until the last bullet” before it was honorable to surrender.

If all your authorities on a topic are idiots or worse, you should reconsider your views on that topic.

Dear Steve,

I’ve got an idea for your next book, man. I even have a title and the epigraph!

Your (genuine) fan,

Jim Dandy

The Infallibility of Borders
By Steve Sailer

“with a stroke of a pen, one Sunday afternoon.”
–Winston Churchill

No, just calling out your obvious falsehoods

The excessive use of the first-person plural is a very feminine trait.

Sure is. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Then again, “We shall fight on the beaches…” is pretty butch, isn’t it?

What the hell else were they supposed to do in their dilemma?

We didn’t invade Cuba in 1962.

The scenario described in the leak may or may not be true but it is very plausible. Note, they did not kill the civilians gratuitously but to protect themselves. Opponents would call it a war crime, others necessity. Many of the civilian deaths may have occurred in circumstances like this.

When you send people to war, when you go to war, situations like this are predictable. Everyone should try to avoid war. Putin is a bad actor but peacemakers were scarce.

“ I’m sure “moral law” will come down from the sky and correct them someday real soon.”

Is “moral law” the Ukrainian word for the missiles that sent the far larger Russian invading army into its cowardly, humiliating, ignominious retreat from Kiev?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10698995/amp/More-7-000-unclaimed-Russian-soldiers-bodies-Ukrainian-morgues-claims-Kyiv.html

I am so sick and tired of all this legalistic baloney.

Every non-little, public school district employs a small army of full-time licensed-lawyers. Even so, when the district needs more exotic legal work, it still calls in (on speed dial) a few of its politically connected, $2,000 per hour lawyers that it keeps on retainer.

Big government. Great news for lawyers.

25 civilians a year from both sides. Not all from shelling. Mines, unexploded bombs, hearta attacks and strokes waiting at checkpoints. Sad but not genocide you viscious propagandist.

2021 ended at 15 dead. pic.twitter.com/y9RzNTFcce

— 🛰♻️ (@PCOwen_a) March 26, 2022

15 was a typo. It should have been 25. 2014 includes MH17 usually attributed to deaths in the occupied zone because of where they fell, although of course killed by the Russian insurgents.

We tried and JFK said, “no.”

Again, I simply do not share the intensely personalized view of Ellis Island-Americans of a conflict in another hemisphere between peoples alien to me. I know American political elites who hate me and want me replaced–Irish scum like Biden– have made millions off whatever goes on in shitty Ukraine. I know Russia and Ukraine are ruled by Slavic oligarchs with whom I have very little in common. Finally, I know the people who hate me hate Putin. If he can weaken them, great. That doesn’t mean I’m pledging him my fealty. The entanglement in Eurasia is further proof that if you invite the world you will perforce invade the world.

Twitter accounts featuring hot chix avatars next to the Ukrainian colours

“I loik me yellow, me blue, and me jubblies, simple as.”

“Ukraine apparently started out (quite sensibly) with a Constitutional pledge of neutrality:”

In other words, you’re claiming they agreed AMONG THEMSELVES their intention to be neutral (at the time). It wasn’t a promise to anyone else, and there’s no mention about it extending into perpetuity even if Russia should start swiping sections of the country and setting up seperatist zones.

Neutrality wasn’t ever mentioned in the Budapest Memorandum Steve originally referred to.

According to the memorandum, Russia, the US and the UK confirmed their recognition of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine becoming parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and effectively abandoning their nuclear arsenal to Russia and that they agreed to the following:

Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.

Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan or Ukraine.

Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan or Ukraine to influence their politics.

Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan or Ukraine if they “should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used”.

Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan or Ukraine.

Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.

It stand to reason that the Ukrainians, whether army regulars, paramilitary, or irregular/civilian combatants, who appear to be ruthlessly fighting for their country would use every method, including subterfuge, to resist the Russian military.

Painting “Children” outside a building where Ukrainian combatants take advantageous cover would be an elementary precaution to take.

Of course, that’s probably in contravention of the “rules of war” but I don’t get the sense that the rules are being followed particularly scrupulously in this intra-ethnic war between Slavs.

Regarding the reported atrocities, I haven’t seen anyone raise the possibility that these might not be solely killings of collaborators by Ukrainian fighters such as the Azov Regiment, but also, that they could be revenge killing by the Russians, for heinous acts by Ukrainians against captured Russians.

As almost all the footage and reportage seems to be coming from the Ukrainian side, we would, quite naturally, not be hearing anything about, say, Russian POWs being massacred and buried quietly in the forest, en masse.

All wars are brutal, and in this war, it’s pretty obvious the Ukrainians are eloi, as the press makes them out to be. Even a casual knowledge of the history of WWII tells us that they are nothing of the sort.

Kadyrov’s troops shooting rockets and automatic rifles into an empty apartment complex for a tiktok video.

Such a humiliation for the Putinists to keep defending them.

Kadyrov's men dumping ammunition and rockets into empty homes simply to look cool. You'll even see one guy dump rounds into the building 10 feet from him that he was using at cover from the incoming rounds that don't exist. pic.twitter.com/6sB4sOWVgm

— doge (@IntelDoge) April 8, 2022

1. There’s no connection between the USA borders being protected and what happens in the Ukraine.

2. Why would white conservatives care whatever borders exist for their racial replacements?

3. Where is this massive army ready to invade the USA? Not gonna happen.

4. White conservatives have been disenfranchised and targeted for harm so who’s to say they wouldn’t be better off if a change were possible?

Just, What you said is true. I understood the reasoning behind the first bomb, but not the second. However, MacArthur was bound and determined to invade Japan and losses for the US would be extremely high. The war ended and my my father to be came home. My dad was in the Navy, in the Pacific. He ship was at Okinawa. Stay safe.

“I have no illusions that he’s my friend, but he’s definitely the enemy of my enemies”.

Based on the typical fanboy posting I see here, he would certainly agree with your enemies that you’re a bunch of filthy racists. This is from RT.com:

Ferguson protests: lack of justice at the very fabric of US society’: The lack of civil rights, the lack of equality, the ‘ghettoization’, the institutionalization of racism are fundamental and making what is called ‘America in the 21st century’,…

Also from RT.com::

Ferguson violence: When riots are the answer: “Unfortunately, from my perspective you’re not going to solve this in a top down fashion, there needs to be social vibrant social movements that refuses to be suppressed by the media and by the police. Those social movements need to continue doing what they have been doing, THEY NEED TO GROW…

Also from RT.com::

The Ferguson riots are a confluence of circumstances, including the ghastly economics of the African American community that are driving rage into the open and triggering a larger movement in the US, … this undercurrent of rage and anger in the US, at the government and at the institutions of the US for many, many years. There is a long and rich history of this sort of fighting back against police brutality,…over the murders of young black and brown people for decades.

Guess where this one’s from?

Africans in the USA never got a slice of the pie, and now Blacks in poor communities are expected to remain calm while the very same state which exploited them, now guns down Black people in the street with complete impunity. Black Americans have every right to resist, defend themselves and fight what is quite simply, the ongoing colonization and social control of Black people in America.

Whaddya know, another one from RT.com:

Today, as we see Ferguson we see African-Americans coming out to the street saying “We are not going to the back of the bus on this police brutality issue.” A recent study has shown that every 28 hours a black male in the US is killed by the police somewhere.

You people seriously haven’t figured out that TinyDuck is a Russian troll?

I don’t know about smartphones, but from what I see in WorldStar videos, anyone with white skin is in uniform and therefore fair game as an enemy combatant in the War on Whiteness.

Scott Ritter is a flaming idiot right now about Russia and Ukraine. That’s all I need to know about him. And you think he’s an expert. That’a all I need to know about you.

Well said.

So, because you like America’s current borders – that are not being defended due to the moral relativism of your beloved colorblind civic nationalism – the rest of the world has to stand still forever.

The narcissism of Boomers truly knows no bounds.

During WWII, it was allowable, under international law, to execute civilian hostages if the occupying forces had suffered a “terrorist” outrage.

The rules were: No P.O.W.s to be killed; No women or children to be killed; Notice must have been given warning the local population that such reprisals would be taken. The allowable number of victims was not specified, but it’s reckoned you could get away with executing ten hostages for each of your officers that had been assassinated.

The Collini Case, a novel by Ferdinand von Schirach, unpicks the niceties.

He went against even those who put him into office when he refused to acknowledge their desire to join the EU.

Interesting reading of Putin’s horoscope, Jack. Where’s his Moon? His Mars?

What about your Mexican and Spanish neighbor? You didn’t get along?

Donbas decided to leave. Ukraine disagreed and killed 13 thousands of Russians. Russia disagreed with Ukraine just like the US disagreed with Serbia. What’s so hard to understand?

How did it work out for civilians in Dresden?

Russia is only a giant considering land mass and having nukes. The tens of thousands of modern portable antitank weapons (basically they soon will have one for every single Russian soldier) etc. (drones, 8 years of intense training with NATO special forces by some units) pretty much match their obsolescent armor, the number of their soldiers committed is lower than that fielded by the Ukies (at least if counting territorial defense units). The Ukie side also has the advantages of real time intelligence provided by the West.
I did mention nukes, and don’t take that lightly, Russia’s only way to save face will soon be to deescalate by escalating. Then we’ll find out if the west is willing to go MAD for Ukraine or not.
Poland is the most likely target, as they are really frothing at the mouth atm. If NATO doesn’t respond in kind, then Artice 5 is dead. If they respond, it will be interesting. Putin may back down or may be toppled before full exchange. The other possibility is that he will keep his promise, and is ready to go down in a nuclear apocalypse.

American conservatives who have some really nice borders to conserve

Conserve? Our borders are failing to keep out boarders.

Your neighbor analogy isn’t any good because you and your neighbor are both the sovereign of your property and the sole people living there. In countries, the sovereign and the people are different. In addition, there are a bunch of other considerations like natural resources that break your analogy. Your Russian neighbor can’t restrict your access to water, gas, electric, and telephone lines. If he could, you might find it expedient to go over to his house with a baseball bat.

In politics, whether domestic or international, G.K. Chesterton had the right perspective–conservatives should be loath to just tear down a stone wall in a field without asking whether there may be some unknown reason it was raised. This is different from the perspective that whatever exists should simply be preserved and respected. In some cases, we know with certainty why the stone wall was raised, and in those cases, we need not be loath to tear it down.

There are lots of places in the world where the existing borders are not very conducive to the best outcomes for people, and also where we know 100% how those borders came about. Pretending that we have to preserve these borders because if we don’t we can’t make an argument against renegotiating with Mexico or Canada is silly.

I think Steve’s perspective on civilians vs soldiers has it backwards. He is asking which civilians should or shouldn’t have the protections of soldiers. The question is why soldiers have protections. The reasons are twofold–soldiers by their nature can’t choose to be in conflict or not and so receive protections based on their lack of agency; also, the laws of war protecting soldiers make “civilized war” possible–if there were no laws protecting captured soldiers, no one could ever surrender and every war would simply be a fight unto the death of every man on the losing side.

Of course, if “civilians” are in some way engaged in hostilities in any way, they are undertaking those on their own, not due to coercement from officers and the threat of corporal or capital military justice, and so they should be fair game, the same way anyone who engages in crime in peacetime may be subject to death from self-defense or punishment by the authorities.

LOL. Good one.

LOL, every one of those RT quotes could be matched by something from CNN or WaPo, the sources you seem to lap up when it comes to the war on the Borderlands of Russia.

If we went by that standard, pretty much every government of the world, particularly the Western world, would be open to overthrow.

Speaking of not wanting to join the EU, what about the several EU countries where the people voted to not sign up to the Lisbon Treaty, were told to vote again, and having failed to vote correctly once again, ended up with their governments overriding them?their legislato

then he concluded wrong

This may very well turn out to be the case. After all, part of strategy is to create situations in which your opponent must choose between unfavorable options. There are a number of people who argue that the putsch of 2014 was a missed opportunity for the Russians to sort out the Ukraine situation. According to these people, Putin was too trusting of the collective West until the continued suffering of the population of the DPR & LPR in the face of Ukrainian, i.e., US, intransigence forced Putin’s decision.

Concerning the gains or lack thereof for Russia, it confronts an existential threat, so its continued existence is a rather significant gain.

Total conflict-related casualties in Ukraine in 2014-20217
OHCHR estimates the total number of conflict-related casualties in Ukraine from 14 April 2014 to 31 December 2021 to be 51,000–54,0008: 14,200-14,400 killed (at least 3,404 civilians, estimated 4,400 Ukrainian forces9, and estimated 6,500 members of armed groups10), and 37-39,000 injured (7,000–9,000 civilians, 13,800–14,200 Ukrainian forces11 and 15,800-16,200 members of armed groups12).

Source:
https://tinyurl.com/4sn9w4h4

Was there anything in my original comment defining Ritter as anyone but a person Steve has a beef with?

Try reading it again.

“But you are lynching Negroes” was the standard comeback during the Soviet period whenever any American brought up the massive human rights abuses going on in Russia.

As crazy as Putin has been acting, I don’t think he is really nuts. This was (despite what the Putinists are saying) a war of choice and not of necessity for him. He is still going to give it the old college try for a few more rounds and if that doesn’t work he will seek some face saving exit. He’s not going to (at least I hope) risk nuclear annihilation for battlefield gains. He can see now that the West is a lot more determined than he imagined.

China and russia see the proliferation of small countries and their borders only as a symptom of the Wilsonian world order. You see, those tiny countries can’t really be independent, they are just being manipulated by the US to prevent rival geopolitical blocks from forming. They are quite explicit about it when addressing home audiences.

Just as chamber of commerce has no concept of a nation as the home and property of a distinct people, as a thing of value to be accounted for, for the imperialists there is no legitimate cause to oppose central rule. Only “nazism”. There are no victims: Uygurs, Cherkessians, what are those?

They probably needed the cellular grid for their own communications. Battle Group Comms System 3.0, as we used to call it.

I really hate to be asking this, but do you guys find the Geneva conventions too non-inclusive towards eastern Slavs and Türkics? Should we make some new allowances for disadvantaged countries, after the war?

Serious question, seeing as on twitter A. Karlin is now calling out SWPLs in Nevanlinna for their racism towards the more ethnic confederates.

No star charts or mind reading required. It’s common and appropriate to predict leader’s future actions based upon past behavior, interests, etc. Such predictions could be wrong but they couldn’t be any more wrong than the fanbois who kept predicting that Putin would never invade and that Zelensky would be on the first helicopter to Poland if he wasn’t there already.

“Normally around here we’ve admired Russian balls. We’ve sounded like we know they are men who act like men and take action. But now, oh no! Now some of us have become girly-men…”

Is that what all this fanboy nonsense is about? Macho posturing in a failed effort to cover up some inadequacy “down there”?

Dude, I know you’re way better than that. Just go out and get yourself a bigger truck, or maybe get a Rottweiler down at the shelter, or else find a better toupee. Maybe order one of those baseball caps with the plastic shanks like the survivalists wear. Or how about some hair spray, and then just do what Trump does with that thing on his head? There are plenty of other ways to address those issues. Leave the Russians out of it. It’s not gonna help. It’s becoming way too obvious.

And let’s remember, the one person who is raking it in at this point is Victoria Nuland. She’s swinging a way bigger pair than Putin and all his Chiefs of the General Staff put together. She didn’t need a single tank rolling into Kiev and didn’t need to swipe one acre of Ukrainian land to get the Ukrainians to snap to her fingers. Now THAT is some genuine macho action — it’s either that, or that magic basket of pastries she lugs around. Pick one. But let me tell you, don’t get into any kind of measuring contest with her — I’m betting you’re gonna lose.

And the Russians had her office bugged — they even released the tapes! They could have swiped that pastry recipe, but no, that was too “girly-man” for them.

And so what happened? So far, she has managed to outplay Putin just a stone’s toss away from his own backyard. Despite the home-field advantage, despite the millions of Russian speakers in Ukraine, despite all the bribery/blackmail/extortion/Kompromat opportunities that an ex-Soviet state like Ukraine offers to a deep-state ex-KGB stooge like Putin. She still outplayed him. Either the Ukrainians are just too pure and too incorruptible to be bribed, or else Putin is not fit to run a dog pound, let alone a nuclear state, and he needs to take that “L” and go home. Either way, something is deeply flawed in that fanboy narrative. It doesn’t add up.

Nuland even had to take a 4-year timeout when Trump fired her. It didn’t faze her. THAT is how you play the long game. THAT is what tells you she’s packing way more down there than little Gollum (though maybe that’s just from the steroids in his chemo).

So come on. If you’re feeling insecure down there, I hear they make little blue pills for that nowadays (though the just-a-flu-bros who go that route are going to need to make their peace with Pfizer or else go generic). Or maybe just stuff another sock in your briefs. Leave Ukraine out of this, or else you, too, are gonna be shown up by a mid-level bureaucrat wearing heels (and I’m not talking about that admiral with the Botticelli wig and the Spanx girdle). How desperate is that?

Ha! Spoken like a true psychopath. Did you have fun writing that?

Here you are, holding up a Jewish woman as your hero. I need say no more.

From Wikipedia, you font of all approved knowledge:

Victoria Nuland was born in 1961 to Sherwin B. Nuland, a surgeon born to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants…

This isn’t my war, dude, but is sure as hell looks like it’s yours (and hers.)

“LOL, every one of those RT quotes could be matched by something from CNN or WaPo,”

Look, Mo’Mac, I know that according to your handle (as was previously discussed), you’re a self-professed decrepit Slavic geezer, but come on. That was exactly my point. I was replying to someone idiotically claiming that Putin is the “enemy of his enemy” when he obviously isn’t. He’s just your enemy, saying the exact same things whenever it suits him. Deal with it.

Was that really so hard? Do try and keep up. I’m cutting you some slack due all your other issues, but seriously, get a grip.

“holding up a Jewish woman as your hero.”

No, yet again, you got that wrong. I’ve been saying since ever since Crimea and her pastry stunt that she’s a vile provocateur — my comment history is, again, open to all, if any of you want to prove I’m lying.

But once Putin started rolling tanks around, I did realize she was by far the lesser of two evils, and adjusted my bearings accordingly. And clearly, she’s gotten everything she wanted out of Ukraine while little Vladimir is still sweating bullets at the edge of his curiously long, long conference table (another inadequacy issue, perhaps? — hey, maybe you could just buy yourself one of those?)

There endeth the lesson.

Everything is a condescending lesson with people like you. Do you know that is one of the biggest parts of the stereotype for thinking people. Hint: Don’t go around giving “lessons” to people.

I suspect your circumcision is causing you pain right now. (It certainly reduced your sensitivity.) You pay far too much attention to dick issues. You must have had a clumsy mohel.

Your first mistake this time was inserting your own inadequacy issues and assuming that someone like me is a “fanboy” of Putin. I don’t even like Russians. Putin is an old apparatchik like Merkel and Biden. I dislike them all.

Projection. Look it up Mr. Smart Lecturer.

You are way too invested in this conflict.

Speaking of checking out the comment history, here’s a taste of BuzzMohawk:

I don’t even like Russians. Putin is an old apparatchik like Merkel and Biden. I dislike them all.

Also Buzz Mohawk:

Normally around here we’ve admired Russian balls… we know they are men who act like men and take action.

Hmmm. Rest easy, Buzz — chill, even. Like I said — I know you’re better than this. Believe in yourself like I believe in you, and I think you can wriggle out of this just fine. And if that doesn’t suit you, well, there’s always that handy “Ignore” button.

(And how do you know it’s the circumcision giving me issues? For all you know, it could also be the Spanx. Ever think of that? Didn’t you just finish telling me you shouldn’t assume too much? Again, my comment history is open — if the fanboys’ AI’s can’t figure me out from everything I’ve laid out, their spycraft mojo is — like some of their body parts — weak indeed.)

LOL. Don’t get your enormous balls squeezed in those Spanx! I generally go commando because there simply isn’t enough room.

We can admire Russian balls without liking Russians. I have faith in you just as you have faith in me, professor. I know you have the brain capacity to hold two thoughts in mind at the same time: e.g. 1)Russians have admirable balls, but 2) I don’t particularly like Russians, but I admire their balls.

See? It’s easy. It’s sort of like: 1)HA is an intelligent and clever commenter and I read his stuff, but 2) HA is insufferably annoying and problematic.

See how easy it is? You go well now.

BTW is that Steve?

What about the people of Donetsk and Lushank? Do they not have a say in the affairs of their own countries? Why are you ignoring them like so many MSM commentators?

“You are way too invested in this conflict.”

No, I’m just paying enough attention to where I’m not fool enough to believe anything as idiotic as “Putin is the enemy of my enemy”. If you’re going to bother posting at all about this topic — which you’re clearly invested enough to do — then you should at least pay enough attention to where you can avoid gaffes like that. But hey, I guess that’ll go a way towards explaining anything else you have to say about this topic.

“What about the people of Donetsk and Lushank? Do they not have a say in the affairs of their own countries? Why are you ignoring them like so many MSM commentators?”

Because even their collaborations parties have condemned this invasion. How about that? Even one of the fanboys blurted this out inadvertently. Let me repeat that: Even the formerly pro-Putin pro-Russian collaborator parties like “Open Platform” have condemned this invasion. Admittedly, Medvedchuk, the leader of the party, didn’t stick around in Ukraine himself, like Zelensky or Poroshenko or the Klitschko brothers. No, he high-tailed off to his mega-yacht in the Adriatic to ride out the heat. But the little people he left behind to do his PR have condemned this invasion.

So you fanboys can keep crying about the poor shelled children of Donbass, or whatever, but at this point, you’re the only people buying it. Did Putin mention the poor shelled children of Donbass when he explained that Ukraine was a non-existent country that he was justified in invading? Did the collaborator parties who are condemning (at least publicly) Putin’s invasion mention anything about how the poor shelled children of Donbass don’t really need saving all that much in their condemnations? Not that I can recall. They just kind of dropped out of the conversation. In other words, none of this is about the poor shelled children of Donbass. That’s just another lie the fanboys keep telling themselves.

You know, when the mayor of Bucha didn’t mention the corpses in the street during his liberation announcement, the fanboys were up in arms about that. It was proof, they assured us, that there were no bodies at all. Proof! And so everyone else had to go through the trouble of providing the satellite reports and get a whiff of the stench emanating from those decomposing bodies to make sure that, yes, the bodies had been there quite a while. The mayor was just trying to put a positive spin on that liberation.

But when the “poor shelled children of Donbass” seems to drop out of Putin’s laundry list of invasion rationalizations, and his own collaborators who are condemning his invasion decide to let that one slide, it’s no big deal. What gives, fanboys? Can’t you at least try to keep your stories straight?

Or, we have an honest difference of opinion without you having a manic episode and going into Shia LaBoeuf meltdown mode over a war that doesn’t involve your people. (Or maybe it does).

That’s what people with a conscious do. This component of the human psyche is clearly missing in you.

Your own ancestors invaded the U.S. and likely had intensely personalized views and relationships with “people who were alien” to you now, and you have the audacity to call out others.

You have to go back.

Yes, the 2014 crisis was triggered by the prospect of EU membership, not NATO. Ukrainians see the prosperity of Poland, Lithuania, Czechia, etc. and want that for themselves as well. They don’t want to be tied economically to Russia.

No star charts or mind reading required. It’s common and appropriate to predict leader’s future actions based upon past behavior, interests, etc.

At the common level of free expression, it’s entirely appropriate, though not always well supported. You know that the interpretation of internal mental states carries a burden of proof. But heck, we’re not in court, nor in exclusive peer review. Pour another.

BTW, HA, are you a woman? I guess you are, but I won’t bother to check your comment history. If you are, I am glad, because we need more women around here, and I love them.

The Spanx lady became a billionaire with her invention. That’s fantastic!

This is kinda tangential and I think I’ve mentioned at this site once, but at the beginning of February US ‘special operators’ engaged in an hours long firefight with an alleged terrorist leader, knowing that there were women and children in the compound they were attacking. The result was, IIRC, ten dead civilians (3 women, 7 kids). The ‘special operators’ were acting in a country we are not at war with, against a target which may have committed a crime but not an act of war. Yet obviously there was zero consideration of the life of those in the vicinity of the US target. They were, woman and children included, just collateral damage.

A couple of things just blow my mind about this event. First, that the ‘special operators’ would choose to carry out the ‘mission’ under the circumstances (no doubt with backing very high up in the chain of command, perhaps all the way to civilian authorities). I have a bit of experience from two decades ago with this sort of thing (from a very low level and REMF perspective, yet on the ‘virtual front line’ as it were). If anything, anything at all was ‘hincky’, if anything could interfere with a clean capture or at worst a clean kill, missions would be canx for the next opportunity. Apparently this isn’t the case now.

Second, there was virtually no discussion of the event after the fact in the US media. The US chose to engage in an operation virtually certain to kill women and children, kept at it until they were all dead, and no one said ‘boo’.

Obviously a large number of those in Ukraine did want to tie themselves to Russia, or indeed had existing familial, economic and cultural ties to Russia, and wanted to maintain them. Those folks say the president of the country they voted for ousted by extra legal action, including covert and overt action by the United States. They then chose to leave Ukraine. If there had been no local support for a Russian linked Donbas, no amount of Russian intervention could have created it. As it is, the people of the eastern part of the Donbas have waged a heroic war against the Kievan state for 8 years. It’s not surprising that their units have had success in the operations in Mariupol and elsewhere.

There was no existential threat except in Putin’s head. Biden was going to invade Russia and it would cease to exist? The people who are saying that this was “existential” are just trying to excuse Putin’s waging of aggressive war.

Russia could have continued to exist with the status quo and it would have been fine, and, now that the results of this war are becoming clear, not only fine but much richer and better off than it will be now, regardless of whether he still gets a chunk of E. Ukraine as a consolation prize. Even if Russia gains this, it’s not going to be permanent. It could be 50 years or whatever but they are going to have to give it back in the end.

Putin was too trusting of the collective West

Another laughable idea. KGB agent Putin wouldn’t trust his own mother.

the continued suffering of the population of the DPR & LPR

Most of the suffering was due to the thugs that Putin put in charge of his “republics”. Not just the usual thugs like in Russia but actual literal criminals who would extort businesses, etc.

Whatever suffering was going on there pales next to the suffering that Putin has created in Ukraine, much of it among the very Russia speakers he was supposedly trying to protect. There are literally millions of refugees and they are digging up new mass graves every day.

Before the invasion, there were articles in the mainstream western press quoting Borderland zealots who were proud of their lists of possible Russian sympathizers who were to be neutralized (IIRC that was the term used several times) in the event of a Russian invasion. So yes, of course pro-Russian people in Borderland territory controlled by the Kievan regime are mostly gonna not want to get shot. Meanwhile, it is, as usual, hard to find images of Borland forces who don’t bear some homage to their glorious Third Reich supporting past.

Jesus Christ

There was no existential threat except in Putin’s head. Biden was going to invade Russia and it would cease to exist?

You got it, Jack. There’s no such thing as an “existential threat.”

Except in Putin’s head. With the right co-author, you’ve got an article in Psychology Today.

Jackie boy really seems to be able to read Putin’s mind. Big shame our intelligence services haven’t hired him yet.

Sophomoric, Jack. Talk of an existential threat is boilerplate rhetoric. Completely legitimate in the big leagues.

The result was, IIRC, ten dead civilians (3 women, 7 kids).

I love the passive construction. The women and children died because the terrorist detonated a suicide bomb, taking out himself and a bunch of his wives/children. So I guess the guy really was a terrorist after all.

There was no certainty at all. It was foreseeable that al-Qurayshi was not coming out of this alive but only a madman kills his own family. Even in the raid to take out bin Laden only one woman (not his wife) and one adult son of bin Laden was killed, which was ok because he had 18 more by 4 wives.

No matter how Russia bobs and weaves to excuse its war crimes, what they are doing is quantitatively and qualitatively different than a raid on a terrorist.

Vicky Nuland hands out some cookies and it’s an American sponsored “color revolution”. But Putin sends in the little green men and tons of armaments and it’s an authentic expression of the will of the people of the Donbas.

As HA keeps saying, Putin is not getting good value for his money if distant America, with no language skills and no local ties, can outmaneuver Russia with plenty of both. It would be like the Russians somehow installing a pro-Russian government in Canada. The truth is that the only way this could be possible is if the Americans had massively pissed off the Canadians.

Clearly there was, at the beginning, some pro-Russia sentiment in the Donbas. But the shitty corrupt puppet government there has long since exhausted whatever goodwill existed at the beginning and Putin’s war has extinguished most of the rest.

You obviously don’t feel the need to tikkun the olam like Minnie-Ha-Ha and Corvie, which I admire. The fundamental American trait that the Tribe will never understand is the desire to be left, and to leave other things that don’t concern you, the Hell alone.

I never said that there is no such thing as an existential threat, just that NATO with Biden at its head and a bunch of nice white lady “defense ministers” who were concerned with things like the right of trannies in the military, didn’t constitute one. Of course, by his idiotic actions Putin has TURNED NATO into a threat, but that’s on him, not on NATO. Whatever Putin feared the most is happening and it’s happening because of what HE did.

If you really want to thing of long term existential threats to Russia, China, with its billions of people and growing economic strength that is not based upon pulling hydrocarbons from the ground, is going to be the #1 threat regardless of any Hitler-Stalin type temporary truce that exists today. The Russian far east is sparsely populated (mainly by Asiatic people who are more similar to Chinese than to Russians) and China could easily make the same type of “sphere of influence” and historical claims that Russia is making in Ukraine against Russia someday. At a minimum if I was Chinese I would want the area from the Amur River to the coast. The Aigun Treaty was one of the 19th century “unequal treaties” that were forced upon a weakened China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Aigun

At the very least, in any Chinese-Russian “partnership” against the West, the Russians are going to end up as the junior partners. China supposedly has Russia’s back in the current conflict but it’s Russian boys who are dying and the Russian economy that is getting a beating while the Chinese have not lifted a finger for their good buddies. So far the price of this war, while aimed at weakening their mutual enemy the West, has been paid 100% by Russia and at the end of it Russia is going to come out weaker.

The real fundamental American trait is to pretend everything is fine and whatever is happening is none of our business until the problem becomes too big to ignore. Putin went after Georgia and that was none of our goddam business so we ignored it. Then he went after Crimea and Donetsk but that was none of our goddam business so we ignored it. Etc. By the time that he goes after Alaska it’s too goddam late – you have to nip things like this in the bud.

The problem in question could be Russia or immigration or Imperial Japan or slavery or national debt or whatever, but our political system ensures that the people in charge are going to try to kick the can down the road until the next administration.