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There are some fairly good reasons in favor of Russia’s decision to intervene in Syria, which is why I have always been modestly if unenthusiastically supportive of it:
- It is basically a giant and continuous live training exercise for Russian pilots and generals, making it almost “free” in financial terms.
- The value of the Khmeimim base is modest, but not entirely negligible.
- It supported Russian weapons sales.
- Fighting Islamic State made for good PR.
- Could potentially be used as a bargaining chip for concessions elsewhere (e.g. the Ukraine).
- One commonly cited but fake reason: Supporting an ally. As I have long been pointing out, it was Vladimir Putin himself who pointed out that prior to the war, Assad had visited Paris more frequently than Moscow.
However, there were always a couple of major downsides:
- Supporting Assad placed Russia at odds with all of the powerful players in the region – the US, its European allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs, and Turkey. The only exception was Iran, and even its interests are far from synonymous with Russia’s.
- The modest Russian expeditionary force in Syria there is completely overawed by, and surrounded by, military assets belonging to states that don’t really want them there. This makes it highly vulnerable.
With the defeat of Islamic State, Russia’s continued presence in Syria has become much more dangerous, since neoliberalism.txt could now revert to its old mantras about Assad “killing his own people” without the superlative evil of Islamic State spoiling the optics.
Indeed, as I speculated at the start of this year, the drone attacks on Khmeimim could have been a message to Russia that it was time to pack up its bags.
Recent developments over the Douma false flag gas attacks have basically proved that my gloomy presentiments were correct, e.g. see this from February:
And the Russian air presence in Khmeimim remains absolutely overawed by the resources at CENTCOM’s disposal.
Hopefully Syria doesn’t launch any more large-scale chemical weapons attacks, false flag or otherwise (admittedly, controlling for false flags is hard). Because while the kremlins might be forced to swallow the deaths of a few dozens “They’re Not There” mercenaries, explaining away RuAF hunkering down in Khmeimim as Turkish/Israeli/US-backed jihadists overrun Syria – or worse, getting themselves wiped off the face of the earth in a futile attempt to fight back – will be orders of magnitude harder.
Indeed, this is a theme that I have been noting since the very start of Russia’s intervention in Syria, in both my posts and many comments on the Unz Review, in the face of persistent and often vicious naysaying – no matter that this is a rather obvious geopolitical reality.
I do know know the immediate outcome of the immediate crisis. Most likely, it will be a much larger-scale repetition of the mostly symbolic strike on Shayrat AFB in April 2017. Maybe a miracle will happen and it is called off entirely.
But maybe things will go in a much more disastrous direction, in a scenario that will be the subject of this post.
However, even if the outcome for now is relatively “good”, the underlying issues that got us where we are will not go away. As I noted in the aftermath of the 2017 strikes – indeed, as Putin himself pointed out – the Syrian rebels, and/or their sponsors, now have a perverse incentive to stage further false flag attacks, in the sure knowledge that Trump will no longer have any option but to respond with ever greater force. As this cycle of escalation increases, the chances of Russian soldiers getting hit by US/coalition strikes rises to unity.
I do not know if the present crisis will culminate in conciliation or catastrophe.
I do think that the probability of catastrophic outcomes will continue increasing so long as the Assad government remains in power. Contra the trolls who will bloviate about hasbara troll Karlin’s defeatism in the comments, this is not an argument for Russia bailing out of Syria. Nor, for that matter, is it an argument that Russia should stay. To the contrary, it is just a reality that needs to be confronted, in the eventuality that the Americans start going beyond the limited, one-off strike that they committed in 2017.
1. The Khmeimim Crisis
I hope it goes without saying that Russia has absolutely no way to win in Syria should its forces enter into a full scale regional conflict with CENTCOM.
It is not going to be a trivial fight by any stretch of the imagination:
- There are two S-400 complexes guarding Khmeimim, and several Pantsir systems.
- Though composition varies from month to month, there are usually around a dozen air superiority fighters (Su-35, Su-35) and a dozen other fighters, as well as a few military helicopters.
- Around 4o Pantsir systems total in Syria
- Two Kilo submarines are currently in the region, though not the formidable Moskva cruiser, with its S-300 system
- Two Bastion anti-ship coastal defense systems
- Stand-off cruise missiles (Kh-32, Kh-50, Kalibrs) can be fired from deep within Russia, or from Caspian/Iranian airspace
But here are the forces ranged against them:
- A single carrier such as the USS Harry S. Truman has around four to five dozen F-18s
- Hundreds of F-15s and F-16s in US bases in Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, and the UAE
- Hundreds of Tomahawks can be fired from US Navy ships
- The air forces of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and Britain, and possibly that of Israel and Turkey
- B-52 bombers from half a world away
This is a totally lopsided match, which even the optimistic Russian military analyst Andrey Martyanov acknowledges:
Of course, US can unleash whatever it has at its conventional disposal at Khmeimim and it will eventually overwhelm whatever the Russians have there, from several SU-35s to S-300s and S-400s and, possibly, make Peters’ wet dream of keeping the whole ordeal confined to Syria very real. This would work, say against anyone’s military contingent except Russia.
The true extent of Russia’s defeat will depend on the precise composition of its forces and enemy forces come the day, as well as on the specific circumstances in which the showdown happens.
(a) If Russia is able to strike first, for instance, during a US attack on Syrian units when they are not expecting Russian interference, it’s plausible that it could down a few dozen fighters and two to half a dozen frigates and destroyers.
(b) If on the other hand it is the US that attacks without warning – for instance, including Khmeimim in its upcoming Tomahawk barrage – then Russia would be lucky to get even just a dozen kills. The Kilos and Bastions might still be able to sink a few a ships.
(c) A third scenario, and I suspect the likeliest one, is a mistake or “mistake” in which Russian air assets or air defenses gets targeted by a sweep of Syria by coalition air forces after the initial Tomahawk barrage – perhaps by an incompetent Saudi airman, or Israelis seeking to provoke a major escalation that would lay the groundwork to finish off Assad once and for all.
In this scenario, Russia’s air defense systems will be partially depleted from knocking down the initial Tomahawk barrage, and its responses will be confused rather than planned. However, a majority of the attacking force will not be expecting the Russians to turn hostile either. Consequently, the damage inflicted on the US in this scenario is somewhere between that of (a) and (b).
I doubt that Russia will manage to sink or even disable an aircraft carrier in either of the latter two scenarios. Contra the War Nerd’s fantasies about suicide motorboats taking them out, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is a 100,000 ton metallic honeycomb with hundreds of watertight compartments, protected by a screen of smaller ships, submarines, and fighters. Sinking these leviathans is really, really hard.
Of course it would be trivial to do so by launching a couple of ICBMs that disperse nuclear warheads in a grid pattern around the carrier’s general location. However, the US will treat this as a full-fledged nuclear attack. In any case it’s not even clear what such a cardinal violation of ethical and military norms would change in the big picture. The US would still have 10 aircraft carriers left.
In any case, the ultimate outcome is clear and near certain: The Russian military presence in Syria will be eradicated within a week (mostly within the first two days).
Furthermore, US and EU sanctions will be drastically stepped up in the following weeks. In particular, I expect the latest US sanctions against the companies of Deripaska, which bar US nationals from any dealings with them, compel US nationals to sell any shares they have in them, and freeze their US based assets, to be extended to all the major Russian corporations – with their consequent expulsion from the wider Western financial system. And I also expect this to be the point at which Russia gets cut off from SWIFT.
2. Retreat or Escalation?
Putin will now have to make some hard choices between dishonor, war, or some combination of the two. These constitute a number of non-exclusive options.
2.b. Hunkering Down
Militarily, this is the least risky option. However, Putin will face rising domestic discontent as Western attempts to strangle the Russian economy transition to a new and far more intensive phase, and living standards collapse.
How long will the “buffer” of 80% approval ratings hold up? People don’t like losers, as the Argentine junta discovered.
And it’s not only internal affairs that people will Russia will have to worry about. Not only does nobody like losers, but this period will see secular trends in the post-Soviet space coming to their logical conclusions. The ageing post-sovok rulers of Central Asia are getting replaced by nationalists and Islamists. The overthrow of Lukashenko by the Belorussian nationalists (zmagars) his regime has been quietly cultivating. The Ukraine will continue to recover economically and consolidate politically. By the early 2020s, oil prices may start to collapse due to the exponential rise in adoptions of electric vehicles.
If the Americans supported Chechen rebels even under “Boris and Bill” in the 1990s, it goes without saying that Western efforts to stir up separatism and color revolution will be doubled and redoubled.
Russia may partially mitigate this by intensifying its reorientation to the East, especially China. But this will not be a silver bullet that solves all its problems.
In my assessment, in this scenario there is a significant chance that Russia will eventually be forced or manipulated into acceding to Western terms, if not capitulating entirely.
2.b. Syria
1. The most obvious option, and the one pushed most energetically by The Saker, would be to continue the struggle in the Middle East, especially Syria.
Obvious objection: Using what, to do what? At this point, shorn of Russian air support, incredibly demoralized, and getting swept up by continuing air strikes – Israel in particular will use the opportunity to wipe the Iranian presence from the Syrian map – the Syrian Arab Army, which has never been a very functional fighting force, will collapse once again as jihadis take the initiative.
Within months, they will overrun much of the country, with perhaps only Latakia and Tartus continuing to hold out (and even that’s not certain, considering the extent to which those regions of core Assad support have been bled out since 2011).
There will also probably be a genocide of Alawites and the remaining Christians in Syria, which the Western media will most certainly not televise.
As for Turkey, here is what I wrote about it at the start of the year:
Erdogan would prefer an Islamist Syria to Assad, but would prefer a unitary Syria even under Assad to a powerful Rojava occupying half the country’s territory. This largely explains his heel turn in Syria. Even so, there is nothing stopping him from doubling back should circumstances on the ground change yet again.
It will be largely immaterial whether or not Turkey closes the Bosphorus to Russian shipping (which would be a formal act of war). By this point, the Mediterranean will be a completely American lake anyway.
This in turn makes the logistics of supplying any further expeditions to Syria untenable.
On the off chance that the infamously deceptive Erdogan actually refrains from placing yet another “knife in Putin’s back”, the best that could be hoped for from him is providing cover for Russia to evacuate what remains of its shattered forces in Syria.
2.c. The Persian Gulf
The American victory in Syria will be an even greater defeat for Iran in terms of both geopolitics (unlike Russia, Iran really does have a vital interest in breaking out into the Mediterranean) and legitimacy (its pretensions to leadership of the global Shiite community).
Just like Russia, Iran too will have a choice between hunkering down/capitulating or carrying on the fight.
If it chooses the latter, its best bet would be to close the Strait of Hormuz and hold it in place long enough for the ensuing oil price spike and ensuing recession to force the US to the negotiating table.
The best ways of doing that at Iran’s disposal are:
- Anti-ship missiles
- Mines
Anti-ship missiles: The bulk of the Iranian arsenal is based on Chinese C-802 missiles, which are similar to Harpoons and Exocets. Unless fired in salvoes, the USN can probably deal with them, though they would pose a credible threat to passing oil tankers – enough of a risk, possibly, to get insurers to stop covering the Strait of Hormuz route (which is ultimately what really matters). Ironically, at this point, many of them might start using the Northern Sea Route.
Mines: Iran’s naval mine stockpile is opaque, though its possible that it would be even more of a threat to shipping. It would be helpful to begin mine-laying operations before open outbreak of hostilities if at all possible, since doing so would become far harder afterwards. (However, since the US will be very much on the watch out for this in the wake of its destruction of Syria, a covert mine-laying operation will not stay secret for long).
One solid option would be to keep most of the anti-ship missiles in reserve, and use them primarily to attack US mine-clearing ships (which are less well defended than its capital ships, and far more fragile than double-hulled, multi-compartment oil supertankers). This might even force the US into launching ground operations on the Iranian coast, which will add body-bags to economic pain and possibly plunge it into political crisis.
Iran might also consider launching IRBMs at Saudi oil installations, which are very densely clustered on its east coast, or sabotaging them with special forces. However, oil and gas pipelines can be easily repaired, and Iranian missiles aren’t all that accurate, so I don’t see this having much of an impact.
Without Russian intervention – for instance, if Russia goes down the Capitulation route – Iran’s attempts to strike back are likely doomed to failure. But its prospects improve cardinally with Russian help.
Bastions can proliferate on the mountainous coasts of southern Iran, and Russia can launch long-range cruise missiles from Tu-22M3 bombers to shut down sea traffic through the Persian Gulf (at least so long as China acquiesces). The success prospects of any US landing operations also decrease drastically.
2.d. The Ukraine
Options here range from formal recognition of the LDNR to a resurrection of the Novorossiya project.
1. Recognizing the LDNR, or even incorporating them into Russia, will temporarily assuage dissatisfied nationalists and send a signal that Russia is not backing down before the West.
However, this will come at the cost of even more sanctions from the West and what is sure to be even greater support of the Ukraine in the wake of the Syria imbroglio. In particular, it seems likely that NATO will start pushing through expedited membership for the Ukraine. It is also unlikely to add all that much to Putin’s approval ratings.
2. A full-scale invasion and occupation of Eastern Ukraine and/or Novorossiya is still plausible, but it will be an order of magnitude more difficult than in 2014. The Ukrainian Army is more experienced, better funded, has been purged of its pro-Russian elements, and its disposition is no longer concentrated in the west of the country.
Here is what I wrote about Ukrainian military developments a few months ago:
If there was a time and a place for a Russian invasion of the Ukraine – in reality, not in Western/Ukrainian propagandist fantasy – it was either in April 2014, or August 2014 at the very latest.
Since then, the Ukrainian Army has gotten much stronger. Since 2014, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have grown from no more than 100,000 troops (almost none of them combat-worthy) to around 250,000. It can now carry out complex tactical operations: In an August 2017 report at Colonel Cassad, Vladimir Orlov noted how night vision equipped Ukrainian spec ops used highly technical means to kidnap a Russian citizen serving with the NAF.
It has been purged of its “Russophile” elements, and even though it has lost a substantial percentage of its remnant Soviet-era military capital in the war of attrition with the LDNR, it has more than made up for it with wartime XP gain and the banal fact of a quintupling in military spending as a percentage of GDP from 1% to 2.5%-5%.
This translates to an effective doubling to quadrupling in absolute military spending, even when accounting for Ukraine’s post-Maidan depression. Russia can still crush Ukraine in a full-scale conventional conflict, and that will remain the case for the foreseeable future, but it will no longer be the happy cruise to the Dnepr that it would have been two years earlier.
Of even greater import is that the Ukrainian military now completely overshadows the Novorossiya Armed Forces.
The latter have no more than 40,000 troops, and with the exit of the more “idealistic” warriors in 2014-15, it has succumbed to low morale. Alexander Zhuchkovsky, a Russian directly involved in the NAF, estimated that they would be unable to hold out for longer than a week against a full-fledged Ukrainian assault without help from Russia. The Maidanists dream of a repetition of Operation Storm and – absent serious Russian intervention – they are probably already capable of it.
In reality, fighting the Ukraine in the wake of a debacle in Syria will be even more difficult.
In 2014, the US geopolitical analysis website Stratfor war gamed three scenarios of a Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
The maximal one involved an advance to the Dnieper, which they estimated would require 91,000-135,000 troops and could have been accomplished in 11-14 days. They also estimated that Russia would need counter-insurgency forces of 28,000-260,000 to secure the area, depending on the intensity of partisan resistance. Since considerable percentages of people throughout putative Novorossiya supported joining Russia in 2013-14, I would have leaned towards the lower end of those estimates at that time – especially considering that “Russophile sentiment” went up by about a standard deviation in Crimea after its annexation, with support for joining Russia going up from ~40% to ~90%. However, in the rest of the Ukraine, “Russophile sentiment” collapsed by a standard deviation in the course of 2014; support for joining Russia in Novorossiya collapsed from ~25% to ~5%. Consequently, assuming this collapse was “deep” as opposed to temporary, the garrisoning forces required now might be much larger than four years ago.
Nonetheless, it could probably still be accomplished – the Ukrainians still have no counter to Russian air power and advanced EW capabilities – although there would now be thousands of Russian military deaths, as opposed to hundreds in 2o14. Even if NATO were to have decided to mount a major air intervention, Stratfor estimated that the deployment of 22 fighter squadrons to forward areas in Eastern Europe would take 11 days – that’s around the time at which Russian spearheads would be reaching the natural defense line that is the Dnieper, along with their mobile air defenses.
A huge NATO ground mobilization would still be able to overwhelm and push Russia out of the Ukraine in the long-term. However, it is very unlikely that even the Americans – let alone Germans – would want to do that for the sake of a non-NATO member, especially since Russia would likely still not be formally at war with them.
Meanwhile, even the maximal estimate of the needed numbers of occupation troops – 260,000 for Eastern Ukraine – could be matched by the 340,000 troops at the disposal of Russia’s National Guard.
This “regathering of the Russian lands” would restore the legitimacy of the Putin government.
Nor would the financial cost be unduly high.
For instance, out of Novorossiya’s eight oblasts, Donetsk (mining) and Kharkov (science, heavy industry) would be net contributors to the budget immediately or almost immediately. Donetsk has coal, and generated something like 25% of the Ukraine’s foreign currency earnings and as well as a disproportionate share of gov’t revenue. Kharkov is the Ukraine’s second hi-tech/science city after Kiev, as well as a major industrial center. Odessa (main Ukrainian port), Zaporozhye (Motor Sich), Nikolaev (shipbuilding), and Dnepropetrovsk (industrial) would have started off as recipients but could have been expected to transition to net donors after a few years of convergence. Only Lugansk and Kherson would likely remain net recipients indefinitely.
Still, 6/8 is a great deal. Much better, say, than the North Caucasus ethnic minority republics (0/7). If anything, it would be Kharkov subsidizing, say, Pskov, as opposed to “Russia” subsidizing Kharkov.
This demonstration of force would also rescue Russia’s much diminished authority amongst countries such as Belarus and Kazakhstan, which in the wake of its humiliation in Syria would otherwise be rushing to disassociate themselves from Putin’s Russia.
Nonetheless, it’s pointless to pretend that this strategy will be without its risks.
First, Russia will be injected with a certain demographic highly hostile to it, especially if this project was to extend beyond Novorossiya. Second, Moldova might join up with Romania, making Transnistria officially part of a NATO country with all its attendant consequences. Third, sanctions will be ramped up to a near total level, and the prospects of reconciliation with the West, including the EU, will go from minimal to effectively zero.
2.e. The Baltics
By far the riskiest but highest potential pay-off strategy would be to invade the Baltics immediately after the Syria debacle, perhaps after giving them a 24 hour ultimatum to denounce NATO (which will certainly be declined).
In the first days of the war, the residents of Saint-Petersburg will see their Internet speeds slow down to a crawl, as NATO trawlers cut the submarine fiber-optic cable linking Western Russia to the global Internet. The Unz Review and other alt media sites that host Russian propaganda will also be shut down right about this time. In general, communications and trade links between the two blocs will be rapidly severed, while traditional wartime mechanisms of authoritarian control reappear.
The main advantage of this strategy is that a fast and relatively bloodless victory is all but assured, as Russian armored spearheads sever the Suwalki gap to connect Kaliningrad to the mainland, while others race towards Tallinn and Riga.
This is not just my opinion, but that of the RAND Corporation in its 2016 report Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank: Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics:
In a series of wargames conducted between summer 2014 and spring 2015, the RAND Corporation examined the shape and probable outcome of a near-term Russian invasion of the Baltic states. The games’ findings are unambiguous: As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members. Across multiple games using a wide range of expert participants in and out of uniform playing both sides, the longest it has taken Russian forces to reach the outskirts of the Estonian and/or Latvian capitals of Tallinn and Riga, respectively, is 60 hours. Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad: a bloody counteroffensive, fraught with escalatory risk, to liberate the Baltics; to escalate itself, as it threatened to do to avert defeat during the Cold War; or to concede at least temporary defeat, with uncertain but predictably disastrous consequences for the Alliance and, not incidentally, the people of the Baltics.
The obvious downside is that Russia will now likely be formally at war with much of NATO, assuming that most of its members choose to honor Article V, at least in words.
The upside is that retaking the Baltics would be prohibitively expensive – Kaliningrad represents one of the greatest concentrations of military power on the planet, while the Baltic Sea itself would become a death zone under Russia’s A2/AD bubble. Western nuclear escalation is unlikely to be credible, since it’s hard to imagine the US trading New York for Riga. Meanwhile, a failure to mount a credible intervention risks demoralizing and cracking NATO itself.
My guess is that the likeliest outcome is (1) a consolidation, rather than cracking, of NATO; (2) a long and possibly permanent “phoney war”, such as the one that prevailed between France and Germany for the first eight months of World War II.
Still, the risks are extremely high.
If NATO fully consolidates and fully mobilizes, then Russia’s conventional defeat becomes inevitable – the military-industrial divergence between the two blocs is simply too great. But here’s the crux of the matter – such a conflict will go nuclear, at least if Russia follows its own military doctrine, which relies on the concept of limited “de-escalatory” nuclear strikes (a strategy that bears a resemblance to NATO’s during the Cold War when the Warsaw Pact had military superiority in Central Europe). If NATO checks or raises instead of folding, Russia will continue reraising, up to and including a full scale nuclear apocalypse. It’s a reckless strategy, sure, but as a weak player with no other chips left, it has no other choice.
Conversely, if it is NATO that fails to consolidate and enters an existential crisis after Russia conquers the Baltics, it is the US that might escalate to the use of nuclear weapons in a bid to preserve its global hegemony.
Consequently, it is highly unlikely that the highly cautious men in the Kremlin would embark upon such an adventure.
2.f. China
There’s a small possibility that China will use the opportunity to seize Taiwan and solidify its hegemony over the South China Sea, though it’s not really militarily ready for that yet (many of its weapons system are close to qualitative convergence with the US, but it has yet to mount a credible buildup, which will take another decade or two).
Still, the US being so preoccupied elsewhere might be too juicy of an opportunity to miss out on.
Although it is uncertain to what extent China will help out Russia, it is not in its interests to allow it to collapse and drift over to the Western camp. Russia is China’s strategic rear, and a secure source of hydrocarbons and minerals should tensions with the US increase to the point that they shut down its sea routes to the Middle East.
Still, on the off chance that China decides to join the West in pressuring Russia, then the latter’s situation becomes hopeless, and it might as well capitulate sooner rather than later.
3. Nuclear War
It is unlikely but not impossible that World War III will escalate to a major nuclear exchanges between the US and Russia.
Since the tone of this article has so far been pessimistic, now is as good a time as any to inject a “positive” note.
Even a full-scale thermonuclear exchange between Russia and the US is patently survivable. The theory of “nuclear winters”, at least in its wilder variants (drops of many tens of degrees), has been long discredited. The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was approximately equal in megatonnage to that of all the world’s current nuclear arsenals, and yet it merely led to a single “year without a summer” that did not even produce any major famines in a pre-industrial world. Fallout radiation levels decay rapidly, and it will be safe to emerge from shelters almost everywhere after just two weeks. Most rural areas and many small towns would be almost unaffected, at least directly. Sadly, there will be no monster mutants roaming the post-apocalyptic plains – even in the Fallout video games, that was the result of a biological weapon, not of nuclear weapons.
Now to be sure, some modest percentage of the world population will die, and a majority of the capital stock in the warring nations will be destroyed.
However, this destruction would have been far from total even during the 1950s, when missile accuracy was lower, urban population density in the US was higher, and total megatonnage was much larger. Here is a table of the percentage of capital stock that nuclear war theorist Herman Kahn (On Thermonuclear War) expected to survive in the US following a nuclear war with the USSR:
As Herman Kahn might have said, this is a tragic but nonetheless distinguishable outcome compared to a true “existential risk” to the human species.
Now to be sure, they will be some pretty cardinal changes.
There will be a modest global cooling, and a collapse of the global economy. Many Third World countries may indeed slip into famine due to the breakdown of global trade.
The US, Russia, and chunks of Western Europe will be economically and demographically shattered, having lost 10%-25% of their population and perhaps 80% of their GDP.
Although the majority – probably the vast majority (90%+) – of the world’s population will survive, that is extremely unlikely to include myself. Although Moscow has the A-135 anti-missile system, which uniquely uses 10 kiloton nuclear missiles to knock down incoming nuclear missiles – in the process flattening much of the surrounding Moscow oblast – it cannot stop a barrage of hundreds of missiles. The most it can do is buy a bit of extra time for the Kremlin elites to descend into the D6 secret subway system and spirit themselves off to remote control bunkers such as the one at Mount Yamantau.
Meanwhile, the world’s new hegemon – assuming it managed to mostly stay out of the line of nuclear fire – will be China.
Although some Europeans, especially our best representatives, might rue this development, it would on some level be quite well deserved and even appropriate.
That is because getting manipulated into rage quitting on your own civilization by some Middle Eastern tribes is really, really retarded, and stupidity needs to be punished.
tbh, exactly Russian imperialists are the only ones getting manipulated into rage quitting on your own civilization by some Middle Eastern tribes as no one else is even contemplating escalating to nuclear strikes because of Syria deals, except them.
For the first time in a long time US is being forced to consider the costs of its agressive foreign policy. Mattis said it himself today: the reason why USA is not bombing Assad already is because of a risk of "uncontrolled escalation" in the region, i.e. they are scared that Russia will kick their ass. Trump also apprears to have backtracked today.
The US does about 50% of the military spending of the world , and if you add all the NATO countries we do 75% of the world military spending
What do you think of these figures sudden death ? who are the imperialists ?
https://principia-scientific.org/breaking-british-us-toxin-not-novichok-used-in-salisbury-attack/
Swiss lab says ‘BZ toxin’ used in Salisbury, not produced in Russia, was in US & UK service
Just have to rush in down here before the door closes.
That sounds quite positive as well, at least one wouldn’t need to have to worry that much about global warming then.
Very gloomy scenario on your part, looks to me like you see no good way out for Russia.
Fully in agreement. If it does come to a general conflagration, I hope that at least a few nukes will also land on Tel Aviv, Ryadh and Ankara.
Ditto. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
The reality is that risk of nuclear war in the near future, is probably somewhere like 0.1% chance. Sometimes in tense moments the risk increases – maybe as far as 0.2% or 0.3% chance (illustrative numbers- but you get the idea.)
This is bigger than Syria. We’re talking about rules of international order here. We want the USA to accept some limits on its behavior, you can’t just invade countries and overthrow governments on a whim.
For the first time in a long time US is being forced to consider the costs of its agressive foreign policy. Mattis said it himself today: the reason why USA is not bombing Assad already is because of a risk of “uncontrolled escalation” in the region, i.e. they are scared that Russia will kick their ass. Trump also apprears to have backtracked today.
It is needed to concede, however this argument so far cannot be used against Putin himself as he left about 85% of Ukraine directly untouched yet ;)
Absolutely.
Really, what options does Russia have: either bend over or draw lines in the sand?
Look at the Western provocations over the last 10 or so years: Chechna, Georgia, Ukraine, downed airliners, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, (Iraq, Libyia) Syria, alleged chemical attacks, all hyped to the point you'd think Russia guilty of crucifying you-know-who.
If Russia is guilty of anything it is grossly under estimating the pathological nature of Western politics. At least the Stavka has been initiated.
As an aside, I am increasingly disappointed in China. Do they not see that Russia is merely the first course ? THEY are the main meal. Its about time they asserted themselves: old story - hang together, or be hanged alone.
In a cheerful mood this morning, I see.
Worth considering one point. The vulnerability in extremis of the Russian expeditionary force in Syria was always obvious to anyone informed, and undoubtedly will have been uppermost in the minds of Putin and all the senior military men in the Kremlin at the time the decision was made to deploy. These are not reckless men. If it was and is a gamble, it’s a calculated one.
The point is they’ve already got plans for how to respond to a full US attack, whether it’s to fold or to escalate elsewhere, or whatever.
The way I see it, there are only really Russia, Iran and China and their allies standing between the world and return to complete unipolar US dominance, which this time would be pushed all the way to full world government from Washington – the fabled leftist boot stamping on humanity’s face forever, with nowhere to escape to or to show a different way, because there’s nowhere “outside”. So there isn’t really much choice – retreat or appeasement just means fighting them later in a less advantageous position. But longer term, time is against the core US sphere, as their share of world gdp shrinks inexorably. All that is needed is to sustain resistance for a little longer. Then we can all breathe a sigh of relief before moving on to fighting desperately against the next major threat to humanity – probably how to deal with excess Chinese power.
Accepting the risk of nuclear devastation rather than giving in is a necessary part of that resistance. It’s no big deal, really. If it happens, it happens. Those of us older than about 40 years old grew up with it and only some of us let it break us and drive us to drooling unilateralism.
Except forOn my way to work I pass by a couple of kindergartens and primary schools. Doesn't feel right.
America leave the Med in 24 hours or we nuke DC and Tel Aviv. Any counter attack will mean full nuclear launch.
And retake Alaska if it goes down just to humiliate.
Let the Orange clown chew on that one.
There is no defense against a morally just threat to nuke.
Do you realize that now most of the people of the world does NOT wish to return to US unipolar dominance ?, you have bombed too many nations , your culture has produced too many perversions , you have abused too much , you have bragged too much ...
Maybe just the english speaking : usa , usa -north ( canada ) , australia , and england would .... But the rest of the world NO , not asia , not africa , not latinamerica , not Russia , and not england-free europe .....
You must live in hollywood , or maybe you watch too much american TV , come back to earth man , we are in 2018 !!!!
After few hundreds of years of experiment, the Western system, culture and framework has proven inadequate, flawed and not working for the long term survival of humanity not to mention the building prosperity for humanity.
Very gloomy scenario on your part, looks to me like you see no good way out for Russia.Fully in agreement. If it does come to a general conflagration, I hope that at least a few nukes will also land on Tel Aviv, Ryadh and Ankara.
“If it does come to a general conflagration, I hope that at least a few nukes will also land on Tel Aviv, Ryadh and Ankara.”
Ditto. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
Exactly. Either the US comes to terms with that, or they’ll have to be made to behave – probably ultimately by increasing Chinese power and influence.
In the meantime, they need to pay a price whenever they resort to brutish threats as in this case. The best way in this case would be to beef up support for the Syrian government – the one thing guaranteed to make the lobbies pushing for US attacks grind their teeth.
Would the US government be willing to risk killing Chinese personnel?
I fear and distrust China, but this warmongering crew in charge of "my" country's government and economy needs to learn that they are not invincible, that threats have consequences whether they are backed up or not, and that not everyone in the world lacks the strength to say "mind your damn business and back off."
Carriers are not easy to sink, but I think you overestimate them, and underestimate the various missiles that can deal with them, including the newest Kinzhal. Carriers do not have the armor of the battleships of WW2.
As for all the bases nearby, a a bunch of nuclear tipped cruise missiles will quickly erase that advantage.
So then the Americans will be the ones who will face the tough choice – strike Russia itself and commit suicide, or back off? Precisely because NATO has so many bases around and Russia doesn’t, once these bases are wiped out (which can be done with nuclear tactical weapons like cruise missiles and Iskanders, not ICBMs) then NATO will have a balance sheet of 2 destroyed Russian bases in Syria against many more NATO bases destroyed in the Mideast and Europe.
Of course, wiping out all nearby NATO bases with tactical nuclear weapons still takes balls, and looking at the latest incident with the Russian fishing ship arrested by Ukraine (which Russia can absolutely ruin in so many ways without even trying, and still doesn’t respond) doesn’t give me much hope.
The truth is that we have no idea.
The gayvy refuses to conduct objective tests of the Aegis BMD, rolling airframe missiles, or standard missiles.
This suggests their performance is not what is claimed.
We also don’t know how good Russian antiship missiles are. How many of them are there?
Regardless of the size of American carriers, enough missile strikes will at least result in a mission kill if not a sinking. They are also not armored in the way earlier naval warships were, something that was shown to be critically stupid during the Falklands War.
Damage control will be non-existent owing to the fact that one-fifth of the crew consists of women. The moment the ship is hit all the women will become hysterical, and men will focus on the women instead of the ship.
The justification for not armoring warships was the Operation Crossroads Test Baker, but this was a dubious conclusion. The ex-German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen for instance only sunk because it had no crew and thus succumbed to flooding.
Owing to the short range of the F/A-18 Sucker Hornet the gayvy might need to put its carrier(s) in range of coastal batteries, which means that aircraft (or ships) don’t need to get in missile shot range and expose themselves to Aegis or fighters.
Tankers and AEWC aircraft will need to stay far away from Syria owing to the S-400. Deployment of MiG-31s and more Sukhois can increase this.
Russia obviously can’t win any extended campaign in Syria, but it’s quite possible that by prepositioning enough anti-ship missiles and firing platforms that it could defeat an allied naval squadron. This would then put NATO+GCC in the gloomy situation you described for Russia following a defeat in Syria, with the exception that NATO+GCC can double down on Syria which Russia cannot.
So a deterrent strategy could be very publicly deploying Tu-22M3 and MiG-31 squadrons to Syria. The Tu-160 units could also be deployed to Southern Russia. A squadron of Tu-160s could penetrate Turkish airspace unintercepted and fire a salvo of perhaps 100 or so anti-ship missiles.
The gayvy’s doctrine is to prevent its ships from being found by an adversary, but I really do not see how this is possible in the Mediterranean Sea.
Martyanov is ridiculous but he may have a point on this matter.
Then there’s submarines. Unfortunately for Russia there is no way to introduce additional boats into the Mediterranean without detection, but this could be a feature rather than a bug. The gayvy in its own exercises with NATO allies routinely gets its carriers sunk by other NATO submarines.
Admirals are aware of these exercises, and within the gayvy itself submariners have a pithy saying:
.
Russian subs entering the Mediterranean in numbers would be a deterrent, and in a shooting war could undertake missile shots on surface ships and potentially torpedo attacks if they can get in range.
The Kilo-class boats already there may already be in range undetected.
Trump’s reaction to a naval squadron being sunk would of course be to escalate. But Britain and France might react differently.
For that matter what defensive purpose does Russia’s surface navy really serve? Russia is a continental power with no dependence on seaborne imports and can thus risk its entire fleet. Deploy the entire fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean, North Sea, and Eastern Seaboard. Yes they’ll be lost in a real war, but people will think twice about starting that war. Russian warships physically visible to people in, say, New York City might cause them to think twice about poking the bear. Punishing the Assman seems much less appetizing when the prospect of a cruise missile striking your office is very real.
Think like Trump. Go big or go home.
Capitulation would result in a coup d’etat orchestrated by Rogozin and Shoigu I suspect.
Shoigu is notably unenthusiastic about politics, and if Mikhail Zygar's account in All the Kremlin's Men is to be believed, he was even against the Crimea operation in 2014.
Rogozin is one of the few bona fide Russian nationalists in a senior position, but I don't think he has any patronage network around him. He is not actually a silovik.
This is not the first time that you have alluded to the possibility of a silovik coup. Note that the siloviks are a disparate lot. Sechin is merely capo of the biggest subgroup.
The reality is we don't really know how well all these systems work. Is the S400 really all that, the US isn't keen to find out? Bear in mind the S200 shot down two of the latest Israeli F16s. This means that the US can be tamed in Syria using old 1967 technology. It’s missiles (on a F-18) couldn’t even down a SAA Su-22 from 1970.
The reality is Russia doesn't want to use the S400, having to do so would be a failure. The threat of the S400 is where its strategic value lies.
The new American secretary of state is sounding aggressive in relation to today.
For the first time in a long time US is being forced to consider the costs of its agressive foreign policy. Mattis said it himself today: the reason why USA is not bombing Assad already is because of a risk of "uncontrolled escalation" in the region, i.e. they are scared that Russia will kick their ass. Trump also apprears to have backtracked today.
It is more than ironic that the main beef of Russian imperialists and their propagandists against Putin is that he did not invade whole of Ukraine and overthrow their government on the whim
So they indeed do not care about rules of international order at all.
It is needed to concede, however this argument so far cannot be used against Putin himself as he left about 85% of Ukraine directly untouched yet
I wish some UNSC permanent member would start vetoing everything in order to cripple the Gaynited Nations.
The Ukraine is a gay, fake country conjured into existence by the Imperial German Great General Staff. Its very existence is deeply offensive and it must be destroyed.
I think more people will die than that. Capital destruction, loss of roads, and spoilage will see 50 to 90 percent of the population of the first world. Internet infrastructure will be badly affected, and large numbers of health services will cease to be able to provide. Worst of all, research into artificial wombs(and thus the ability to remove women from existence) will be halted.
1. As I mentioned in the other thread, the most likely likely scenario where Russia invades the Baltics starts with NATO blockading Kaliningrad exclave (naturally, without acknowledging that that’s what they are doing.)
2. Syria was an old Soviet ally. After the collapse of the USSR, America did a thorough job of punishing old Soviet and Russian allies; and Russia could not help them. Many of them got the message and tried to reorient themselves toward the West, but even that didn’t help some of them. Anyway, those who said that Russia was supporting an ally were not wrong.
3. Not that I think that occupation of Novorossia is necessarily a good idea, but there would be no partisan resistance there. Especially if Russia immediately raises pensions and government workers’ salaries to the Russian levels.
4. “Support [in Crimea] for joining Russia going up from ~40% to ~90%.” As has already been pointed out to you, you are comparing apples and oranges.
“Sadly, there will be no monster mutants roaming the post-apocalyptic plains – even in the Fallout video games, that was the result of a biological weapon, not of nuclear weapons.”
Whilst on the topic, do you know of any other, non-nuclear, WMDs that may be deployed in a full blown war, and their effects on the population? There’s some pretty creepy stuff like ebolapox ( or even novichok ) that’s mentioned on the web, but there’s a dearth of any info on their efficacy.
But really, there's a reason that nukes are what we mean by WMD's 90% of the time and why powerful states allow them but frown on the others.
They're much more powerful than chemical weapons, and much more controllable than biological ones.
It is needed to concede, however this argument so far cannot be used against Putin himself as he left about 85% of Ukraine directly untouched yet ;)
The Ukraine has no government, it has a junta that seized power in a coup. The coup was funded and directed by the US. Or to put another way, the Ukraine is a territory, where US-backed “moderate rebels” won. You only see a contradiction because you’re misinformed about events in the Ukraine.
PS: you sound a lot like Mr. Hack, is this your new account?
It is needed to concede, however this argument so far cannot be used against Putin himself as he left about 85% of Ukraine directly untouched yet ;)
Why would they care about the rules of the international order? These rules are gay and the product of the demented fever dreams of the cack-brained President Wilson.
I wish some UNSC permanent member would start vetoing everything in order to cripple the Gaynited Nations.
The Ukraine is a gay, fake country conjured into existence by the Imperial German Great General Staff. Its very existence is deeply offensive and it must be destroyed.
OPCW inspectors will begin its work in Syria on Saturday (14th of April).
So it seems nothing will happen this week.
https://www.rbc.ru/politics/12/04/2018/5acf82c79a794783205fa03d?from=main
Interesting poll results, in part encouraging and in part unsurprisingly discouraging:
Even though most Britons believe a chemical attack has been perpetrated, only 22% of Britons would support a cruise missile attack against the Syrian military
[1600 adults, questioned 10th/11th April]
Rather bizarre when you consider that “enforcing a no fly zone” would be a dramatically more provocative policy choice than “launching cruise missile strikes against Syrian military targets”.
And here’s the encouraging bit for the Israeli/jewish lobby advocates amongst us, showing how easy such opinion is to manipulate:
So WTF is up with the comments threads I'm seeing, on Reddit (/r/worldnews, not neoliberalism.txt hive minds like /r/politics), on the Guardian, etc.
Are most of the actual bots run by Langley?
I don't think opinions on strikes against ISIS are really comparable btw, I personally supported that given that ISIS was a clear security threat to Europe. Assad's government has never supported terrorism against European or American targets and is no threat to us, that's a rather different situation.
I wish some UNSC permanent member would start vetoing everything in order to cripple the Gaynited Nations.
The Ukraine is a gay, fake country conjured into existence by the Imperial German Great General Staff. Its very existence is deeply offensive and it must be destroyed.
But they are pretending to be caring, that is the most funny thing of all
On a more serious note, in fact there is no and never has been any rules rules of the international order except “might is right” and so called “rules” are just following from that one rule.
”
As Syria is a gay, fake country conjured into existence as a product of dismantling Osman empire by the Allies after WWI
But still officialy no one in power at the West is calling to eradicate Syria as entity so at least this is not inconsistent with politics of safeguarding Ukraine from RF.
A very good article.
If I want to nitpick (for which I apologize) it’s only Baltics. Don’t see that as possible as the rest in the article.
And, the result of nuclear war feels a bit optimistic. Haven’t, though, dug into that deeply enough recently.
Still “On the Beach” mode.
Whilst on the topic, do you know of any other, non-nuclear, WMDs that may be deployed in a full blown war, and their effects on the population? There's some pretty creepy stuff like ebolapox ( or even novichok ) that's mentioned on the web, but there's a dearth of any info on their efficacy.
Greg Cochran once suggested you could go evil with smallpox: https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/weaponizing-smallpox/
But really, there’s a reason that nukes are what we mean by WMD’s 90% of the time and why powerful states allow them but frown on the others.
They’re much more powerful than chemical weapons, and much more controllable than biological ones.
Agree.
Except for
On my way to work I pass by a couple of kindergartens and primary schools. Doesn’t feel right.
[1600 adults, questioned 10th/11th April]
Rather bizarre when you consider that "enforcing a no fly zone" would be a dramatically more provocative policy choice than "launching cruise missile strikes against Syrian military targets".And here's the encouraging bit for the Israeli/jewish lobby advocates amongst us, showing how easy such opinion is to manipulate:
Highly encouraging – and genuinely surprising (to me).
So WTF is up with the comments threads I’m seeing, on Reddit (/r/worldnews, not neoliberalism.txt hive minds like /r/politics), on the Guardian, etc.
Are most of the actual bots run by Langley?
I'm not familiar with Reddit but that should be less policed, by reputation, surely?
By the way, I'm not a big fan of the Guardian's cartoonist Steve Bell, but I thought this one was funny in the light of Trump's tweet contradiction today:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2018/apr/12/steve-bell-on-trumps-tweets-on-syria-cartoon
Maybe the situation has gotten so bad as of 2018 that most "Russian trolls" and those who know more about the real alternatives to Assman just stay away even from those sites, from those type of articles and certainly from the comments.
How does the Guardian (etc) differ from the rest of the MSM, atleast when it comes to things like Russia and Assad? Most people certainly don't give a shit about Syria.
Some of those results are really bizarre, though. Most don't seem to know what a no fly zone means. I guess it sounds harmless. They also don't seem to realize there are Russian planes and other assets in Syria.
Also, do they really think that the Syrian "rebels" are some kind of pro-Western freedom fighters? That they couldn't possibly be behind the attack? Of course none of that is surprising, when looking at the MSM's coverage.
You can see their petition against the strikes here:
https://www.change.org/p/declaration-against-the-expansion-of-the-syrian-war
I don't think these feelings are isolated to that crowd, but maybe I don't get out much.
As to the Reddit groups etc. -- birds of a feather flock together and tend to drive out the others.
“The Ukraine has no government, it has a junta that seized power in a coup. The coup was funded and directed by the US. Or to put another way, the Ukraine is a territory, where US-backed “moderate rebels” won. You only see a contradiction because you’re misinformed about events in the Ukraine.”
Leaving aside semantics, your “concerns” about invading countries and overthrowing governments on a whim goes out of the window as soon as you consider those governments illegitimate for any reason you may like. So what is any difference there from those who consider that Syrian government is just illegitimate for any reason they like too?
But really, there's a reason that nukes are what we mean by WMD's 90% of the time and why powerful states allow them but frown on the others.
They're much more powerful than chemical weapons, and much more controllable than biological ones.
If you really wanted to end the world as a final spittle from hell’s heart, though, biological weapons would quite effective. The Black Death, not even an engineered agent, killed around 30%/60% of the European population.
The gayvy refuses to conduct objective tests of the Aegis BMD, rolling airframe missiles, or standard missiles.
This suggests their performance is not what is claimed.
We also don't know how good Russian antiship missiles are. How many of them are there?
Regardless of the size of American carriers, enough missile strikes will at least result in a mission kill if not a sinking. They are also not armored in the way earlier naval warships were, something that was shown to be critically stupid during the Falklands War.
Damage control will be non-existent owing to the fact that one-fifth of the crew consists of women. The moment the ship is hit all the women will become hysterical, and men will focus on the women instead of the ship.
The justification for not armoring warships was the Operation Crossroads Test Baker, but this was a dubious conclusion. The ex-German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen for instance only sunk because it had no crew and thus succumbed to flooding.
Owing to the short range of the F/A-18 Sucker Hornet the gayvy might need to put its carrier(s) in range of coastal batteries, which means that aircraft (or ships) don't need to get in missile shot range and expose themselves to Aegis or fighters.
Tankers and AEWC aircraft will need to stay far away from Syria owing to the S-400. Deployment of MiG-31s and more Sukhois can increase this.
Russia obviously can't win any extended campaign in Syria, but it's quite possible that by prepositioning enough anti-ship missiles and firing platforms that it could defeat an allied naval squadron. This would then put NATO+GCC in the gloomy situation you described for Russia following a defeat in Syria, with the exception that NATO+GCC can double down on Syria which Russia cannot.
So a deterrent strategy could be very publicly deploying Tu-22M3 and MiG-31 squadrons to Syria. The Tu-160 units could also be deployed to Southern Russia. A squadron of Tu-160s could penetrate Turkish airspace unintercepted and fire a salvo of perhaps 100 or so anti-ship missiles.
The gayvy's doctrine is to prevent its ships from being found by an adversary, but I really do not see how this is possible in the Mediterranean Sea.
Martyanov is ridiculous but he may have a point on this matter.
Then there's submarines. Unfortunately for Russia there is no way to introduce additional boats into the Mediterranean without detection, but this could be a feature rather than a bug. The gayvy in its own exercises with NATO allies routinely gets its carriers sunk by other NATO submarines.
Admirals are aware of these exercises, and within the gayvy itself submariners have a pithy saying:.
Russian subs entering the Mediterranean in numbers would be a deterrent, and in a shooting war could undertake missile shots on surface ships and potentially torpedo attacks if they can get in range.
The Kilo-class boats already there may already be in range undetected.
Trump's reaction to a naval squadron being sunk would of course be to escalate. But Britain and France might react differently.
For that matter what defensive purpose does Russia's surface navy really serve? Russia is a continental power with no dependence on seaborne imports and can thus risk its entire fleet. Deploy the entire fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean, North Sea, and Eastern Seaboard. Yes they'll be lost in a real war, but people will think twice about starting that war. Russian warships physically visible to people in, say, New York City might cause them to think twice about poking the bear. Punishing the Assman seems much less appetizing when the prospect of a cruise missile striking your office is very real.
Think like Trump. Go big or go home.Capitulation would result in a coup d'etat orchestrated by Rogozin and Shoigu I suspect.
Interesting comments, thanks.
Very much doubt it will come from either of them (someone like Sechin is I think the likeliest candidate for that, yet still totally unlikely)
Shoigu is notably unenthusiastic about politics, and if Mikhail Zygar’s account in All the Kremlin’s Men is to be believed, he was even against the Crimea operation in 2014.
Rogozin is one of the few bona fide Russian nationalists in a senior position, but I don’t think he has any patronage network around him. He is not actually a silovik.
This is not the first time that you have alluded to the possibility of a silovik coup. Note that the siloviks are a disparate lot. Sechin is merely capo of the biggest subgroup.
I also won't learn Russian because I decided that I hate foreign languages and learning them is beta.
I picked Shoigu and Rogozin simply because of their positions in the power structure and because Rogozin is known to be a nationalist.
It doesn't need to be them. It could very well be people I've never even heard of.
I just don't see Putin surviving if he completely gives up after being humiliated by the "main adversary".
For that matter China might not have much use for Putin if he gives in either. Russia's natural resources and defense technology are attractive to China, but the main benefit China provides to Russia is its stubborn resistance to the West and willingess to wheel and fight (to use Pat Buchanan's language).
China doesn't appear to have extensive political espionage capabilities the way the West and Russia do, but it does have a lot of money.
Russia’s relative lack of might is of course why they appeal to these so-called rules.
Syria is a fake country but it is not gay. The Assman is the world’s greatest survivor outside of the Kim dynasty.
In the Middle East nations largely don’t exist so political organization above the tribal level is best done on imperial or religious lines.
These “positive” test samples will likely be a re-run of the notorious so-called “slam dunk” yellow cake evidence which was presented in the propaganda push before the invasion of Iraq.
This is on the heels of Mattis admitting in February of this year that there was no evidence of Assad using chemical weapons. Taking time to manufacture evidence implies a much greater degree of seriousness this time.
P.S. I strikes me that the only voices that are resolutely against war are now on the dissident right. The so-called “anti war left” has completely collapsed. In the US, the so-called “liberal” media is parroting the same propaganda line. The only difference is that they are calling for taking more refugees in the fallout.
I believe this is inevitable if you’re unwilling to discuss the elephant in the room: the Israel lobby and its central role in pushing for this war. And the left is unwilling to go there. So is the mainstream right.
[1600 adults, questioned 10th/11th April]
Rather bizarre when you consider that "enforcing a no fly zone" would be a dramatically more provocative policy choice than "launching cruise missile strikes against Syrian military targets".And here's the encouraging bit for the Israeli/jewish lobby advocates amongst us, showing how easy such opinion is to manipulate:
I think many people don’t quite understand what enforcing a no fly zone would actually mean…if they did, opposition would probably be higher.
I don’t think opinions on strikes against ISIS are really comparable btw, I personally supported that given that ISIS was a clear security threat to Europe. Assad’s government has never supported terrorism against European or American targets and is no threat to us, that’s a rather different situation.
However, I only referenced that bit to draw attention to the ease with which the polling results can be influenced.
Shoigu is notably unenthusiastic about politics, and if Mikhail Zygar's account in All the Kremlin's Men is to be believed, he was even against the Crimea operation in 2014.
Rogozin is one of the few bona fide Russian nationalists in a senior position, but I don't think he has any patronage network around him. He is not actually a silovik.
This is not the first time that you have alluded to the possibility of a silovik coup. Note that the siloviks are a disparate lot. Sechin is merely capo of the biggest subgroup.
I’m not Russian and don’t speak Russian, so I rely on you (and some mil bloggers) for information on Russia.
I also won’t learn Russian because I decided that I hate foreign languages and learning them is beta.
I picked Shoigu and Rogozin simply because of their positions in the power structure and because Rogozin is known to be a nationalist.
It doesn’t need to be them. It could very well be people I’ve never even heard of.
I just don’t see Putin surviving if he completely gives up after being humiliated by the “main adversary”.
For that matter China might not have much use for Putin if he gives in either. Russia’s natural resources and defense technology are attractive to China, but the main benefit China provides to Russia is its stubborn resistance to the West and willingess to wheel and fight (to use Pat Buchanan’s language).
China doesn’t appear to have extensive political espionage capabilities the way the West and Russia do, but it does have a lot of money.
Shoigu is notably unenthusiastic about politics, and if Mikhail Zygar's account in All the Kremlin's Men is to be believed, he was even against the Crimea operation in 2014.
Rogozin is one of the few bona fide Russian nationalists in a senior position, but I don't think he has any patronage network around him. He is not actually a silovik.
This is not the first time that you have alluded to the possibility of a silovik coup. Note that the siloviks are a disparate lot. Sechin is merely capo of the biggest subgroup.
Shoygu actually has some popularity – if not with ordinary people, at least with the kind who are commenting on message boards. None of them have the personal skills or charizma to replace Putin.
Anatoly, I think the death rates around the world would be much higher due to dependence on electrical and computer infrastructure for basic necessities.
EMP attacks alone, without nuclear warheads actually striking and physically destroying anything, could potentially kill off the vast majority of Americans.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5012655/North-Korea-wipe-90-cent-population.html
“A single warhead delivered by a North Korean satellite could shut down the entire electric grid and other critical infrastructure for more than a year.
In that time, Mr Pry contends up to 90 per cent of the US population could perish from starvation, disease and societal collapse.”
Note that things will only become catastrophic enough to cause a population collapse if virtually all vehicles (esp. trucks) get knocked out. If it's "only" 90%, that should still be enough to haul around the basics such as food and fuel. Third World countries do with as little or less.
Big question: do you nuke a place like Detroit?
I wouldn’t, but I don’t know if they ever remove target cities. Probably not.
(Its one way to clean up the accounts: it would be "writing (righting) off debts")
I agree. I have researched this stuff since the 80’s. I would say nuking (thermonuclear) NYC, DC, Boston alone would be a crippling blow to U.S. You add in LA, San Fran, Chicago, Philly, Seattle, & Dallas and the U.S. as we know it is done. That’s just 9 targets. Ending Western Europe would take about the same. Now, here’s this problem with this. I live in D.C. and Boston. I would miss out on the fun of the post-apocalyptic world that I grew up imaging about and wanted to get the chance to experience. The cool, apocalyptic opening scene to the movie The Stand, with The Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper, almost made me become a virologist.
OT: I recently found out about Hans Stimmann, one of the few architectural heroes of the last few decades. He was responsible for urban planning in Berlin from 1991, when it became unified, and kept it for about 15 years. An interesting profile of him from about a decade ago, when he finally retired. Most of his rules are still intact.
http://archive.is/F82Qd
And a more personal interview:
http://projectbaltia.com/en/interview-en/4397/
If you’re interested in urban planning, architecture etc, it’s a very interesting read.
Using Herman Kahn as your go-to authority on the survivability of nuclear war is very like using Anthony Watts as your go-to authority on global warming.
I don’t agree with anything else in this piece either, but you can probably guess that.
Survivability of nuclear war is comprehensively covered here: http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p904.htm (full book is there in HTML)
So WTF is up with the comments threads I'm seeing, on Reddit (/r/worldnews, not neoliberalism.txt hive minds like /r/politics), on the Guardian, etc.
Are most of the actual bots run by Langley?
I don’t frequent Reddit, but The Guardian’s gotten pretty notorious for censoring their comment section over the past few years.
So WTF is up with the comments threads I'm seeing, on Reddit (/r/worldnews, not neoliberalism.txt hive minds like /r/politics), on the Guardian, etc.
Are most of the actual bots run by Langley?
To me, as well, so I can’t help you with an explanation. I think it’s just general opposition to military action despite believing (mostly) the “gas attack” nonsense.
The Guardian’s pretty tightly policed and the management there has been obsessive about “Russian propaganda” in the comments for several years now, so that might be the explanation there, along with a selective readership effect.
I’m not familiar with Reddit but that should be less policed, by reputation, surely?
By the way, I’m not a big fan of the Guardian’s cartoonist Steve Bell, but I thought this one was funny in the light of Trump’s tweet contradiction today:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2018/apr/12/steve-bell-on-trumps-tweets-on-syria-cartoon
There is one other reason for Russian intervention in Syria: to prevent Saudi Arabia and/or Qatar from building their pipelines through Syria into Europe. That would enable the Germans to finally ditch Nordstream II (and probably Nordstream I, as well), which would immensely please Washington. As long as that doesn’t happen, the Euro-weenies remain in an awkward position: they keep sending their money eastward to pay for Russian oil/natgas, but–thanks to their own, boneheaded sanctions–get no money back from Russia anymore. (The Russians, of course, have simply started sourcing more of their purchases to Asia, or stepping up their own domestic production.)
I don't think opinions on strikes against ISIS are really comparable btw, I personally supported that given that ISIS was a clear security threat to Europe. Assad's government has never supported terrorism against European or American targets and is no threat to us, that's a rather different situation.
I opposed them (my feeling was the Iraqis, Syrians, Russians and Iranians were more than capable of dong the job and I didn’t trust my government or any of the European US poodles not to misuse any authorisation for military action to actually help the jihadists, because they transparently were all in the Israeli/US bag on Syrian regime change), but I recognise the argument is not the same.
However, I only referenced that bit to draw attention to the ease with which the polling results can be influenced.
So WTF is up with the comments threads I'm seeing, on Reddit (/r/worldnews, not neoliberalism.txt hive minds like /r/politics), on the Guardian, etc.
Are most of the actual bots run by Langley?
Yeah, your earlier description of those comments sounded a little too pessimistic.
Maybe the situation has gotten so bad as of 2018 that most “Russian trolls” and those who know more about the real alternatives to Assman just stay away even from those sites, from those type of articles and certainly from the comments.
How does the Guardian (etc) differ from the rest of the MSM, atleast when it comes to things like Russia and Assad? Most people certainly don’t give a shit about Syria.
Some of those results are really bizarre, though. Most don’t seem to know what a no fly zone means. I guess it sounds harmless. They also don’t seem to realize there are Russian planes and other assets in Syria.
Also, do they really think that the Syrian “rebels” are some kind of pro-Western freedom fighters? That they couldn’t possibly be behind the attack? Of course none of that is surprising, when looking at the MSM’s coverage.
I don't agree with anything else in this piece either, but you can probably guess that.
That was just the economic aspect.
Survivability of nuclear war is comprehensively covered here: http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p904.htm (full book is there in HTML)
So WTF is up with the comments threads I'm seeing, on Reddit (/r/worldnews, not neoliberalism.txt hive minds like /r/politics), on the Guardian, etc.
Are most of the actual bots run by Langley?
By the way, I seem to recall the commenter London Bob (I think) had a better read on public opinion yesterday or the day before – he commented iirc that the public is against it. He’s usually pretty switched on generally.
Maybe if he shows up he’ll explain how he came to that conclusion. Perhaps he just mixes with a better set than I do….
Interestingly even Andrew Neil seems highly sceptical, not just about Syria but even Salisbury.
EMP attacks alone, without nuclear warheads actually striking and physically destroying anything, could potentially kill off the vast majority of Americans.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5012655/North-Korea-wipe-90-cent-population.html
"A single warhead delivered by a North Korean satellite could shut down the entire electric grid and other critical infrastructure for more than a year.
In that time, Mr Pry contends up to 90 per cent of the US population could perish from starvation, disease and societal collapse."
It’s something that politicians like to fearmonger about – there has even been a wonderful book about it (One Second After) – but I recall reading that actual EMP tests suggest that survivability of civilian electronics (e.g. most vehicles) will actually be quite good.
Note that things will only become catastrophic enough to cause a population collapse if virtually all vehicles (esp. trucks) get knocked out. If it’s “only” 90%, that should still be enough to haul around the basics such as food and fuel. Third World countries do with as little or less.
Take cars and trucks for instance.
The vast majority are made out of steel. This inhibits magnetic fields (generally).
Below is a photo of an engine control unit made by Robert Bosch GmbH, the world's largest manufacturer of ECUs:
http://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ECU_E46M3-BOSCH-MS40_Bosch_Motorsport_ECU_for_E46_M3_kit_ECU.jpg
Surrounded in metal as well.
The typical car is a rolling faraday cage. There have been cases of cars being directly struck by lightning and continuing to function.
Cars & trucks which do get taken out by EMPs would not be out of service forever either. ECUs from warehouses would be installed, and if really necessary clever rednecks would jury rig cars into service with hand-made carburetors and throttles.
Communications networks would also not be totally wiped out. Fiber optic lines for instance would not be taken out by EMP attacks, and many cellular and radio networks would survive. Remember these are already designed to survive lightning strikes.
The biggest b.s. is how "the grid" would be taken out due to transformer construction. It is said these transformers have such long lead times that civilization would simply collapse before new ones could be built.
The alleged constraints here are tight supply of grain-oriented electrical steel and high purity copper magnet wire.
The truth is these are not needed to produce transformers...at all. You can make transformers out of pig iron and aluminum wire if you want. That's not done because it results in great efficiency losses. Nobody is going to care about that in the event of recovering from a nuclear war.
I am sure you can go right down the line with all of these doomsday civilization collapse prophecies and find that they're all b.s.
The only existential threat to industrial civilization is population replacement by Africans.
The oft-repeated example comparing the trajectories of Hiroshima and Detroit since 1945 are illustrative.
If the vehicles survived they would probably have to pump the fuel into their tanks by hand. (Assuming the pumps were built to allow that.) Oh yes, and the oil refineries, even if they had autonomous supplies, those would probably be knocked out too.
In the UK, Corbyn (and George Galloway, although he’s not very important now) have at least been consistently good on the issue of American Imperialism.
Maybe the situation has gotten so bad as of 2018 that most "Russian trolls" and those who know more about the real alternatives to Assman just stay away even from those sites, from those type of articles and certainly from the comments.
How does the Guardian (etc) differ from the rest of the MSM, atleast when it comes to things like Russia and Assad? Most people certainly don't give a shit about Syria.
Some of those results are really bizarre, though. Most don't seem to know what a no fly zone means. I guess it sounds harmless. They also don't seem to realize there are Russian planes and other assets in Syria.
Also, do they really think that the Syrian "rebels" are some kind of pro-Western freedom fighters? That they couldn't possibly be behind the attack? Of course none of that is surprising, when looking at the MSM's coverage.
Luke Harding works for the Guardian.
The gayvy refuses to conduct objective tests of the Aegis BMD, rolling airframe missiles, or standard missiles.
This suggests their performance is not what is claimed.
We also don't know how good Russian antiship missiles are. How many of them are there?
Regardless of the size of American carriers, enough missile strikes will at least result in a mission kill if not a sinking. They are also not armored in the way earlier naval warships were, something that was shown to be critically stupid during the Falklands War.
Damage control will be non-existent owing to the fact that one-fifth of the crew consists of women. The moment the ship is hit all the women will become hysterical, and men will focus on the women instead of the ship.
The justification for not armoring warships was the Operation Crossroads Test Baker, but this was a dubious conclusion. The ex-German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen for instance only sunk because it had no crew and thus succumbed to flooding.
Owing to the short range of the F/A-18 Sucker Hornet the gayvy might need to put its carrier(s) in range of coastal batteries, which means that aircraft (or ships) don't need to get in missile shot range and expose themselves to Aegis or fighters.
Tankers and AEWC aircraft will need to stay far away from Syria owing to the S-400. Deployment of MiG-31s and more Sukhois can increase this.
Russia obviously can't win any extended campaign in Syria, but it's quite possible that by prepositioning enough anti-ship missiles and firing platforms that it could defeat an allied naval squadron. This would then put NATO+GCC in the gloomy situation you described for Russia following a defeat in Syria, with the exception that NATO+GCC can double down on Syria which Russia cannot.
So a deterrent strategy could be very publicly deploying Tu-22M3 and MiG-31 squadrons to Syria. The Tu-160 units could also be deployed to Southern Russia. A squadron of Tu-160s could penetrate Turkish airspace unintercepted and fire a salvo of perhaps 100 or so anti-ship missiles.
The gayvy's doctrine is to prevent its ships from being found by an adversary, but I really do not see how this is possible in the Mediterranean Sea.
Martyanov is ridiculous but he may have a point on this matter.
Then there's submarines. Unfortunately for Russia there is no way to introduce additional boats into the Mediterranean without detection, but this could be a feature rather than a bug. The gayvy in its own exercises with NATO allies routinely gets its carriers sunk by other NATO submarines.
Admirals are aware of these exercises, and within the gayvy itself submariners have a pithy saying:.
Russian subs entering the Mediterranean in numbers would be a deterrent, and in a shooting war could undertake missile shots on surface ships and potentially torpedo attacks if they can get in range.
The Kilo-class boats already there may already be in range undetected.
Trump's reaction to a naval squadron being sunk would of course be to escalate. But Britain and France might react differently.
For that matter what defensive purpose does Russia's surface navy really serve? Russia is a continental power with no dependence on seaborne imports and can thus risk its entire fleet. Deploy the entire fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean, North Sea, and Eastern Seaboard. Yes they'll be lost in a real war, but people will think twice about starting that war. Russian warships physically visible to people in, say, New York City might cause them to think twice about poking the bear. Punishing the Assman seems much less appetizing when the prospect of a cruise missile striking your office is very real.
Think like Trump. Go big or go home.Capitulation would result in a coup d'etat orchestrated by Rogozin and Shoigu I suspect.
This topic is a case of bad timing given the US military’s desire to avoid WWIII has won the day.
The reality is we don’t really know how well all these systems work. Is the S400 really all that, the US isn’t keen to find out? Bear in mind the S200 shot down two of the latest Israeli F16s. This means that the US can be tamed in Syria using old 1967 technology. It’s missiles (on a F-18) couldn’t even down a SAA Su-22 from 1970.
The reality is Russia doesn’t want to use the S400, having to do so would be a failure. The threat of the S400 is where its strategic value lies.
Note that things will only become catastrophic enough to cause a population collapse if virtually all vehicles (esp. trucks) get knocked out. If it's "only" 90%, that should still be enough to haul around the basics such as food and fuel. Third World countries do with as little or less.
Doomerist salesmen like Alex Jones also go on about this. Nothing against Alex Jones of whom I’m a big fan, but most doomerism is nonsense.
Take cars and trucks for instance.
The vast majority are made out of steel. This inhibits magnetic fields (generally).
Below is a photo of an engine control unit made by Robert Bosch GmbH, the world’s largest manufacturer of ECUs:
Surrounded in metal as well.
The typical car is a rolling faraday cage. There have been cases of cars being directly struck by lightning and continuing to function.
Cars & trucks which do get taken out by EMPs would not be out of service forever either. ECUs from warehouses would be installed, and if really necessary clever rednecks would jury rig cars into service with hand-made carburetors and throttles.
Communications networks would also not be totally wiped out. Fiber optic lines for instance would not be taken out by EMP attacks, and many cellular and radio networks would survive. Remember these are already designed to survive lightning strikes.
The biggest b.s. is how “the grid” would be taken out due to transformer construction. It is said these transformers have such long lead times that civilization would simply collapse before new ones could be built.
The alleged constraints here are tight supply of grain-oriented electrical steel and high purity copper magnet wire.
The truth is these are not needed to produce transformers…at all. You can make transformers out of pig iron and aluminum wire if you want. That’s not done because it results in great efficiency losses. Nobody is going to care about that in the event of recovering from a nuclear war.
I am sure you can go right down the line with all of these doomsday civilization collapse prophecies and find that they’re all b.s.
The only existential threat to industrial civilization is population replacement by Africans.
The oft-repeated example comparing the trajectories of Hiroshima and Detroit since 1945 are illustrative.
Gut feel, friends, Twitter and comment threads. The desperation with which the media has pushed things is a good sign.
Interestingly even Andrew Neil seems highly sceptical, not just about Syria but even Salisbury.
As for all the bases nearby, a a bunch of nuclear tipped cruise missiles will quickly erase that advantage.
So then the Americans will be the ones who will face the tough choice - strike Russia itself and commit suicide, or back off? Precisely because NATO has so many bases around and Russia doesn't, once these bases are wiped out (which can be done with nuclear tactical weapons like cruise missiles and Iskanders, not ICBMs) then NATO will have a balance sheet of 2 destroyed Russian bases in Syria against many more NATO bases destroyed in the Mideast and Europe.
Of course, wiping out all nearby NATO bases with tactical nuclear weapons still takes balls, and looking at the latest incident with the Russian fishing ship arrested by Ukraine (which Russia can absolutely ruin in so many ways without even trying, and still doesn't respond) doesn't give me much hope.
they can take out the nato bases without using nukes,.-
Woefully overpessimistic. NATO put up a thousand planes over Kosovo for 78 day’s and fired 349 HARM missiles at Serbian SA-6 systems…and scored only three kills (on 22 targets).
The gap between what the Serbs were using and what the Russians have at their disposal in Syria is enormous, whereas the improvement in SEAD capability has been relatively minor.
Syria is also within combat range of Flankers taking off from Russia’s southern military district, so there’s more than just the aircraft at Khmeimin in play.
It is very unlikely that hot combat in Syria would last more than a day or two, perhaps even an hour or two, before risk of escalation to nuclear war would lead both sides to a ceasefire. Russian forces in Syria are fully equipped to survive a situation like that.
The reality is we don't really know how well all these systems work. Is the S400 really all that, the US isn't keen to find out? Bear in mind the S200 shot down two of the latest Israeli F16s. This means that the US can be tamed in Syria using old 1967 technology. It’s missiles (on a F-18) couldn’t even down a SAA Su-22 from 1970.
The reality is Russia doesn't want to use the S400, having to do so would be a failure. The threat of the S400 is where its strategic value lies.
Indeed, but the threat could materialize again later. The enemy is determined and evil and will continue false flagging. They will stop at nothing to destroy the Assman.
Right, we have no idea. That said I assume the S-400 is more likely to work than Aegis BMD for the simple reason that Russia actually feels threatened. There’s plenty of graft in Russia’s military-industrial complex, but it seems to routinely successfully execute major projects. Meanwhile the US military-industrial complex produces failure after failure this century.
The new Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier is a case in point. $13 billion and it cannot launch or recover aircraft because the catapult and arresting wires don’t work. But it does have gender neutral bathrooms so the transgender sailors Mad Duck Mattis so loves can feel “comfortable”.
The gayvy is arguably easier to fight today then it used to be. Carrier air wings are now 50% smaller (wouldn’t want to give up a precious, precious hull) and the F/A-18 Sucker Hornet is worse than the aircraft it replaced. Carriers also no longer have ASW aircraft. Hulls and aircraft are older now, and training time is down.
Of course even during the Cold War the gayvy wasn’t a serious force other than its subs. Rather than get the F-111B to work they moved onto the F-14. A fine aircraft in many respects, but it lacked the necessary range to intercept Soviet naval aviation.
The F-111B would’ve worked just fine with the F-15 engine (only two years away when the F-111B was canceled) and by not putting it on Midway-class carriers, but they canceled it anyway. The reason reason was that the gayvy hated the idea of sharing an aircraft with the chair force.
The entire surface fleet is just Pacific War LARPing whose sole purpose is to have as many capital ships as possible so as to create as many flag officer ranks as possible. The flag officers in turn are only interested in toeing the contractor line so they can get cushy contractor jobs in retirement.
The gayvy doesn’t actually see China and Russia as its adversaries. If it did it would take ASW seriously. The real enemies are the army and the chair force.
If Russia wants to strike first they should do so during the Army-Navy football game.
Overall I’m unsure about the ultimate fate of these things under the circumstances of a modern war against a peer (China in 20 years) or near peer (Russia or China currently) adversary. Martyanov is so over the top that I don’t find him so convincing.
Take cars and trucks for instance.
The vast majority are made out of steel. This inhibits magnetic fields (generally).
Below is a photo of an engine control unit made by Robert Bosch GmbH, the world's largest manufacturer of ECUs:
http://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ECU_E46M3-BOSCH-MS40_Bosch_Motorsport_ECU_for_E46_M3_kit_ECU.jpg
Surrounded in metal as well.
The typical car is a rolling faraday cage. There have been cases of cars being directly struck by lightning and continuing to function.
Cars & trucks which do get taken out by EMPs would not be out of service forever either. ECUs from warehouses would be installed, and if really necessary clever rednecks would jury rig cars into service with hand-made carburetors and throttles.
Communications networks would also not be totally wiped out. Fiber optic lines for instance would not be taken out by EMP attacks, and many cellular and radio networks would survive. Remember these are already designed to survive lightning strikes.
The biggest b.s. is how "the grid" would be taken out due to transformer construction. It is said these transformers have such long lead times that civilization would simply collapse before new ones could be built.
The alleged constraints here are tight supply of grain-oriented electrical steel and high purity copper magnet wire.
The truth is these are not needed to produce transformers...at all. You can make transformers out of pig iron and aluminum wire if you want. That's not done because it results in great efficiency losses. Nobody is going to care about that in the event of recovering from a nuclear war.
I am sure you can go right down the line with all of these doomsday civilization collapse prophecies and find that they're all b.s.
The only existential threat to industrial civilization is population replacement by Africans.
The oft-repeated example comparing the trajectories of Hiroshima and Detroit since 1945 are illustrative.
Only Autobots, or Decepticons as well?
I can’t understand Anatoly’s obsession for occupying Ukraine. If there is a face-saving revenge operation, occupation is unnecessary. Both Ukraine and the Baltic mini-states can be easily reduced to rubber just by carpet bombing them and by injecting chaos afterward to impede the creation of new governments there. The will be reduced to Somalia/Libya in in East Europe. Cheaper and less troublesome than grabbing them.
Here’s a different view than the one Karlin gave. Karlin sounded convincing until I heard this guy. This is Yakov Kedmi, a former Israeli Defense Forces Special Ops officer, talking about a possible U.S. and allies confrontation with the Russian military. Unlike Karlin, Kedmi says the U.S. forces would be hit hard like never before and there’d be catastrophic losses pretty quickly. They’d not be prepared for the hits they’d get for a real military like the Russian military. I don’t speak Russian so I had to the read the subtitles:
Is it available in written form? My family is sleeping around me, and it’d be difficult to get a headphone or go to another room right now.
He also claims the US military knows this and will advise Trump against strikes, due to the Russians' warning they might take out launching systems and not just intercept missiles.
Just watch with the sound turned down and read the English subtitles.
I have been thinking about this for awhile, actually. What are the preparations that Russia had for the presumed nuclear apocalypse? Was there a doctrine of second strike? I heard of the Dead Hand system(which seemed to automate retaliation?); was the idea of remote control bunkers such as you mentioned an additional support to ensure that if, for example, traditional nuclear winter was triggered, retaliation would continue until all such bunkers were destroyed by enemy action and/or all weaponry exhausted?
Mount Yamantau is probably the rough equivalent of Mount Cheyenne (probably because it is much more shrouded in secrecy). Presumably it is a wartime command center and a potential refuge for top Kremlin/military officials and their families.
The Israeli guy claims there’s a “very high chance” of US destroyers which fire missiles at Syria being sunk (presumably by Russian submarines or missiles) within a short time after the start of hostilities.
He also claims the US military knows this and will advise Trump against strikes, due to the Russians’ warning they might take out launching systems and not just intercept missiles.
The gap between what the Serbs were using and what the Russians have at their disposal in Syria is enormous, whereas the improvement in SEAD capability has been relatively minor.
Syria is also within combat range of Flankers taking off from Russia’s southern military district, so there’s more than just the aircraft at Khmeimin in play.
It is very unlikely that hot combat in Syria would last more than a day or two, perhaps even an hour or two, before risk of escalation to nuclear war would lead both sides to a ceasefire. Russian forces in Syria are fully equipped to survive a situation like that.
Ah yes Serbia, wasn’t it also the case they couldn’t bomb in bad weather, cloud over the target being a WWII problem. Although Balkan geography is more favourable, not that Western Syria is desert like the East.
I always think about how the Japanese destroyed the HMS Prince of Wales or how the battleship Bismarck was destroyed. Maybe shipbuilding technology advanced a lot since then, and of course the old battleships were smaller than current US CVNs, not to mention the level of protection they have, but I’m sure the things hitting them are also way better.
Overall I’m unsure about the ultimate fate of these things under the circumstances of a modern war against a peer (China in 20 years) or near peer (Russia or China currently) adversary. Martyanov is so over the top that I don’t find him so convincing.
For comparison, the Iowa’s 16-inch guns fired a 1200kg armor-piercing shell at a muzzle velocity of around Mach 2.7.
In a test firing, the Kh-22 blew a 22 square meter hole (234 square feet) in a target to a depth of 12 meters.
The beam of a Nimitz at the waterline is about 40 meters. A Burke’s is about 20.
One of those hits a carrier and it’s gutted. One of those hits a destroyer and it’s sunk within minutes.
Anatoly, you forgot to continue how the war was going to unfold. You only described the beginning, the nuclear exchange, and then talk about how society would survive.
But it means that the war would continue. Or do you think there would be an immediate ceasefire?
Also, I like the idea of taking out carriers with ICBMs. The Russian command should do that if it comes to a full nuclear exchange, so that the US Navy is taken out in its entirety. That’s important for the continuation of the war effort after the nuclear exchange.
In most fiction, nuclear war is immediately followed by total Mad Max style apocalypse or even extinction, which is very inaccurate.
Another possibility:
OTOH, the situation today is not quite comparable, because there was an overriding ideological component to the Cold War. Moreover, with much of the biggest cities - and the country's elites with them - destroyed, there would surely be a general disintegration of state authority, with the state either (1) splintering apart as localities take control, or (2) the passing of effective political power to the military (ironically the institution that might well best survive a nuclear war, because many of them will not be in big cities, in bunkers, etc).
I would think that the surviving citizenry will not be okay with transitioning from a nuclear war straight to a total war for the sake of Damascus or Riga or whatever. A totalitarian regime might be able to pull it off, but this doesn't apply here; indeed, establishing one in the post nuclear war aftermath would be difficult, since a large percentage of the mid-level bureaucrats would be dead, and because the legitimacy of the state that had led the country to such a disaster might well be dead too.
Overall I’m unsure about the ultimate fate of these things under the circumstances of a modern war against a peer (China in 20 years) or near peer (Russia or China currently) adversary. Martyanov is so over the top that I don’t find him so convincing.
I like Martyanov, his expertise is missed. Ships are just floating targets these days. Even in the Falklands War a few were sunk and missile technology is far superior now.
I also like reading his whitepilling articles, but he keeps going so vehemently that I always keep discounting what he says. I’d be happy if he proved right, because a serious American defeat might be a way to de-escalation. For example if NATO allies decided to leave the sinking USA ship, or something.
I think I can only set the YouTube app volume if I start it, so cannot avoid a few seconds. Anyway, I prefer reading. German_reader already wrote most of the important points. I might watch tomorrow.
He also claims the US military knows this and will advise Trump against strikes, due to the Russians' warning they might take out launching systems and not just intercept missiles.
Thanks!
OK, so the headline is maybe a little misleading, but this is welcome news regardless:
In surprise move, China to mount live-fire navy drills in Taiwan Strait ‘in show of support for Russia over Syria’
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2141505/surprise-move-china-mount-live-fire-navy-drills-taiwan
Doesn't really seem to be working, though.
Also a good rejoinder to that The Faker troll who infests The Saker's blog with his claims that China is rolling over for the US.
You hugely overestimate Russian vulnerability in Syria. As Martynov has already explained in several articles, the new Russian weapons are a game changer. CBG are little more than a defenseless, floating mass of metal against them. If the US military attacks for real, they will suffer huge losses.
Do they actually work as advertised?
How good are US CIWS, BMD, electronic warfare, and passive countermeasures?
Are any of these new Russian weapons in the theater?
Which platforms can these new weapons be used from?
Lots of unknowns as you can see.
What is known is that the US and its allies have far larger forces available to them, and it is easier for them to move these forces into the theater.
Overall I’m unsure about the ultimate fate of these things under the circumstances of a modern war against a peer (China in 20 years) or near peer (Russia or China currently) adversary. Martyanov is so over the top that I don’t find him so convincing.
Very few battleships that were underway were actually sunk solely by aircraft during the war. Note that America kept fighting with battleships through the entire war, though obviously the carrier air wing replaced battleship guns as the main instrument of naval striking power owing to the much greater range of aircraft (battleship gunfire is in fact far more destructive–even today).
The HMS Prince of Wales, along with Italian battleship Roma, are rather exceptional in this regard. And the Roma is even more exceptional in that it was struck by a guided bomb.
Compare the fate of the Yamato to the HMS Prince of Wales. The Yamato was attacked by nearly three hundred aircraft and hit with a dozen bombs and at least six torpedos.
Anti-ship missiles typically have significantly smaller warheads than WW2 torpedoes and armor piercing bombs, though they impart more kinetic energy and any unused propellant can increase damage.
Modern torpedoes are if anything less powerful than the Long Lance was.
The main advantage over WW2 anti-shipping weapons is range and guidance.
Armor can’t make a ship (or anything else) invincible, but it allows it to take more damage and remain on station.
The combat record of American battleships in the Pacific War is illustrative. After Pearl Harbor not a single American battleship was sunk during the rest of the war. This isn’t because they weren’t attacked or hit. They were routinely attacked and hit.
Take the USS South Dakota (BB-57), a “treaty” battleship and lead battleship of her class. At the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands the Sodak as she was known was hit by a 550 pound bomb and collided with a destroyer, but she kept on fighting.
At the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal she took at least 26 hits from Japanese warships, yet still she continued fighting.
The Sodak was also struck by a 550 bomb at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, but was able to remain on station until the threat had passed.
Lastly she suffered a magazine explosion in 1945 which caused a fire and kill some of the crew, but the damage was contained.
Armor and damage control sustain combat by allowing a warship to take more damage yet continue fighting.
Unarmored warships are easily mission killed (and sunk) even with excellent damage control as the Falklands War proved.
Armor technology has improved a lot since WW2, and armor is a lot cheaper than, say, the Aegis BMD.
I am sure our CVNs have excellent, well-thought out automatic and passive damage control systems.
However human damage control will be awful in combat as was proved by the near sinking of the USS Cole. The USS Cole was attacked by about 500 pounds of high explosive (so comparable to the WW2 Japanese bombs that struck the Sodak) molded into a primitive shaped charge.
This created a 40 x 60 foot hole in the ship and nearly sunk it. The immediate reaction of the women onboard was to scream and cry, and many men attended to the women instead of saving the ship.
Something like this literally could not have happened with a WW2 warship of similar displacement, such as a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser.
The effect of armoring modern warships would be to allow them to soak up a lot more damage. The adversary would then need larger and/or more antiship missiles to successfully cripple or sink them.
I really don’t know a lot about the Russian or Chinese militaries other than what weapons they have.
Even then we don’t truly know how good these weapons are, and I’m unsure of what their warstocks are.
We seem to have a solid technological and quantitative edge over both of them in general, but I have a low opinion of our officers. The enlisted men are decent, but they’re not well-trained.
But that doesn’t mean Russia or China have better personnel or training.
Martyanov is no different than The Faker. An internet Russia STRONK buffoon who lives in America. I especially enjoy his absurd, demented hatred of Anatoly Karlin.
Sorry, I meant Martyanov.
Very gloomy scenario on your part, looks to me like you see no good way out for Russia.Fully in agreement. If it does come to a general conflagration, I hope that at least a few nukes will also land on Tel Aviv, Ryadh and Ankara.
Hey, you’d probably be fined or jailed for that kind of “anti-Semitic” or “racist” comment in Germany, since your proposed targets are cities full of Jews, Arabs, and Turks, respectively. I hope you’re im Ausland.
In the meantime, they need to pay a price whenever they resort to brutish threats as in this case. The best way in this case would be to beef up support for the Syrian government - the one thing guaranteed to make the lobbies pushing for US attacks grind their teeth.
What would the US government warmongers and tough-talkers do if CHINA sent some “military and technical advisors” to a Russian-run base in Syria?
Would the US government be willing to risk killing Chinese personnel?
I fear and distrust China, but this warmongering crew in charge of “my” country’s government and economy needs to learn that they are not invincible, that threats have consequences whether they are backed up or not, and that not everyone in the world lacks the strength to say “mind your damn business and back off.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade
They won't make any different, unless China openly involve in the war. Then its total game changer as China has proven itself how much damage its willing to take in counter US in Korea war, and last year confrontation over SCS that force Obama to backoff.
USM will not want to risk a full war with China, they know China always mean what they said, no bluffs, unlike Russia repeating their old tunes of bluff warnings.
China has the will to swap US Nato off Syria, but whether it want to pay the price by direct confrontation with it still growing limited projecting power. I would think a second front in SCS & trade war is in China plan as intense painful acupuncture point to press on US without killing it. That will give Russia some relieve.
Personally I'd like to see some kind of big public announcement by the Chinese. I think they perhaps don't realise how big an impact such a gesture could make. Something like an announcement that any attack on Syria in response to allegations, regardless of truth or not, without UNSC authorisation would be illegal and China will support Syria (not necessarily militarily) in coping with any such illegal attack, would make quite a stir in neutral and even US sphere populations. Ideally they'd do it whilst announcing a deployment of HQ9s to Damascus for joint exercises with the Russians.
The practical effectiveness is irrelevant - the symbol is what counts.
the world, in particular the Chinese, have
101 reasons to distrust and fear fukus..
opium war,
eight nations alliance,
burning of yuan ming yuen [1]
covert war Tibet 1959,
proxy war India, 1962,
covert war 1989 [TAM]
covert war 2008 Tibet,
Covert war 2009 Xinjiang,
proxy war TW straits,
proxy war Korean Peninsula,
proxy war SCS,
proxy war ECS,
trade war 2018....
Robber crying.......
[1]
The Brits are shamelessly auctioning off the booty from Yuan Ming Yuen right now !
“This is a totally lopsided match, which even the optimistic Russian military analyst Andrey Martyanov acknowledges:”
‘Of course, US can unleash whatever it has at its conventional disposal at Khmeimim and it will eventually overwhelm whatever the Russians have there, from several SU-35s to S-300s and S-400s and, possibly, make Peters’ wet dream of keeping the whole ordeal confined to Syria very real. This would work, say against anyone’s military contingent except Russia.’”
That quote says just the opposite of your analysis. It doesn’t acknowledge your conclusion but contradicts it. Read it again.
.
How many of these new Russian weapons does Russia have?
Do they actually work as advertised?
How good are US CIWS, BMD, electronic warfare, and passive countermeasures?
Are any of these new Russian weapons in the theater?
Which platforms can these new weapons be used from?
Lots of unknowns as you can see.
What is known is that the US and its allies have far larger forces available to them, and it is easier for them to move these forces into the theater.
@AnatolyKarlin
It is almost certain that Western – read US Government/Deep State – planners either direct or encourage these forces to conduct false flag attacks simply because they do not have to draw “red” lines in the first place. They’re not drawing it for Israel or Saudi Arabia for example. They not only don’t even just sanction them but enthusiastically supply arms. L
So it’s fairly clear that the Western response to Syria now is driven by two primary imperatives:
1. The old one: Continue to overthrow all Arab nationalist regimes that while corrupt cannot be bought to support/pose no threat to Israel (like the Gulf can). Either leaving the in a state of generational chaos or ruled by a weak Islamist regime giving plenty of bombing practice for future Western/Israeli administrations is preferable to have strong, independent, nationalistic societies.
2. The new one since the Russian intervention: use this as a staging ground for what hardliners – which is pretty much now everyone in the US Deep state – see as the inevitable showdown with Russia which has so far resisted all forms of intimidation and attempts to cripple its development. (This is not to say Russia has not been impacted. In a different world, with the exact same regime but w/o Western sanctions or media hostility, Russia could have been much more successful.)
These are the Western aims. Like in Chess, none of this is hidden: the Western Deep State knows it as does the Russian Deep State. (The difference between the two Deep states is that the Western ones hide behind a rotating cast of figureheads who get elected one every 2/4 years and take some time to understand their place as to who really is in charge (as Trump is finding out), whereas the Deep State in Russia is clearly visible – it’s Putin and co.)
Putin knows he cannot defeat the West. The best he could do is resist and carve out a space till the West implodes under its own weight (read internal contradictions, demographics, debt as China/India/others and their populations and economies slowly but surely revert back to the historic share of global GDP till 400 years ago). The West however needs to keep expanding to stay alive – the moment it stops, let alone contracts, it will implode. Again, both sides know this.
Syria is one theater, Ukraine is another, where the West can rob Russia of the time to develop as well as satisfy its own urge to expand. For a Western planner with the above aims, to humiliate Russia in either theater using overwhelming force is too good an opportunity to pass up.
The only way I see Russia being able to resist in this case is to explicitly alter its nuclear doctrine to state that not only any existential threat to the home land but any key strategic bases (eg in Syria) allows use of nuclear weapons in defense. Thus by treating these bases as de facto Russian exclaves like Kaliningrad would mean that any attempts to wipe out these bases would represent an existential threat which would allow a nuclear response.
I’m not sure what the Russian or Syrian legal implications are to alter the nuclear doctrine in this manner but I see this is the only way to give pause to Western planners who at the end of the day know they have more to lose in a nuclear exchange than Russia.
China also has a rather severe problem - the CCP will never willingly give up power.
That said, both will continue to rise in relation to the West because the West has severe problems. Just don't expect India to match China, or either to be like the US would have been, if it had never imported its rather severe demographic problems.
Survivability of nuclear war is comprehensively covered here: http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p904.htm (full book is there in HTML)
Russia with or without Syrian imbroglio has genuine reason to be skeptical if not downright paranoid of America- UK. This is historical. It can be compared to as if Saddam’s Iraq had come out of death totally rebuilt , and is seeing America doing a similar cameo on other countries to which Iraq has relations.
US has started backtracking . It has folded before on China on NK and has just pumped more spins and tweets. Syria can be destroyed so can be Russian presence but the day after will be pretty painful for Americans. The pain will be felt in many realms of life but the worst scenario is the likely occurrence of total crash on Wall Street
Then America would be fighting the crowds inside and the foes outside. It can earn the fate of WW1 Turkey
Don’t you have a mute button? All my low-tech stuff does.
I'm not familiar with Reddit but that should be less policed, by reputation, surely?
By the way, I'm not a big fan of the Guardian's cartoonist Steve Bell, but I thought this one was funny in the light of Trump's tweet contradiction today:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2018/apr/12/steve-bell-on-trumps-tweets-on-syria-cartoon
Had to give up on commenting on Russia articles at the Guardian since my comments would barely survive more than ten minutes even when on my best behaviour. The strong arm moderation began about four years ago IIRC.
I was banned at The Guardian in the early 2010s when I correctly pointed out that Luke Harding is a plagiarist.
Yakov Kedmi
I think they will have ‘evidence’ of chemical weapons and conjecture regarding who used them. I can’t believe some idiot on the news kept using the phrase ‘weapons of mass destruction’. The tape of ‘survivors’ shows a lot of them alive. Mass destruction? It’s just chlorine. This is pathetically lame. Civilization won’t end because Syrian civilians are gassed.
The only skeptic in the media is Fox’s Tucker Carlson, but the small OAN (One America News) is refreshingly skeptical about WMD. God…how many times will people go along with idiocy. I guess forever.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-populist-right-winning-its-pressure-campaign-against-25336
At least that's encouraging...Trump may be lacking in principles, but media-fixated as he is, he might at least notice that there is opposition against bombing Syria.
Karlin is right about Russian disadvantages.
US air power can do lots of damage.
But air power alone cannot gain long-term dominance.
US used shock and awe before the invasion of Iraq.
But shock and awe alone couldn’t do much. US had to invade.
So, if US goes for massive bombardment, Russians should try to avoid the barrage as much as possible. Hunker down and re-emerge and regroup once the bombardment is over.
The question is, what will US do next? Keep shooting more missiles? But how long can this be kept up?
In the end, if the US really wants to gain control, it has to send in troops, and this could be bad for the US.
It could end up to another quagmire like Afghanistan and Iraq.
Also, everything that goes wrong will be blamed on Americans.
Europeans will be pissed by new around of refugee crisis.
And Americans will not supportive of US troops fighting another ground war in the Middle East and returning in body bags.
US can do serious damage in the short-term but I don’t think it can be sustained in a long-term struggle.
Also, Russia can go for a protracted strategy in Syria. If US were to gain control of Syria, Russia can aid and arm any group that is willing to harass and harm Americans.
Protracted struggle will wear down a nation like the US.
Thanks.
It is needed to concede, however this argument so far cannot be used against Putin himself as he left about 85% of Ukraine directly untouched yet ;)
He didn’t “invade” Crimea, either. Do you honestly believe that the majority of people living in Crimea did NOT want the Crimea to return to Russia?
The last sentence is kinda sick. But funny in a cruel way if one has just been dumped or divorced, I suppose
As for all the bases nearby, a a bunch of nuclear tipped cruise missiles will quickly erase that advantage.
So then the Americans will be the ones who will face the tough choice - strike Russia itself and commit suicide, or back off? Precisely because NATO has so many bases around and Russia doesn't, once these bases are wiped out (which can be done with nuclear tactical weapons like cruise missiles and Iskanders, not ICBMs) then NATO will have a balance sheet of 2 destroyed Russian bases in Syria against many more NATO bases destroyed in the Mideast and Europe.
Of course, wiping out all nearby NATO bases with tactical nuclear weapons still takes balls, and looking at the latest incident with the Russian fishing ship arrested by Ukraine (which Russia can absolutely ruin in so many ways without even trying, and still doesn't respond) doesn't give me much hope.
Carriers don’t have to be sunk to be made useless. Just mess up the surface and jets can’t land. Just hit the command tower, and it can’t maneuver.
At least, there will be some improvements then.
So, did Assad do it or did rebels pull a false flag?
Can someone please explain to me why exactly Syria is worth a World War or even why Syria is worth any concessions in Ukraine?
I mean, I am certainly not very fond of Assad and am in favor of the Syrian Kurds (who appear to be a relatively progressive bunch in spite of their low average IQs). However, I certainly don’t want Islamists and jihadists to seize control of a post-Assad Syria and engage in genocide there and I also certainly don’t want the conflict in Syria to spark a World War!
Also, out of curiosity:
: Do you believe that Tsarist Russia should have flooded the Baltic states with Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians back when it controlled these territories? Basically, I am thinking of the Baltic states getting the northern Kazakhstan treatment back in the 19th and early 20th century so that Petrograd/St. Petersburg could have more security (after all, ethnic Balts were a potential security threat to the Russian Empire in wartime).
I think it's some weird pride thing on the part of the globalists.
They're angry that the Assman dares to fight or something.The actions of the ethnic Balts as well as the Baltic German nobility suggests yes.
Of course it's possible these problems were created by the Russification policy, as previously Baltic Germans had a long tradition of distinguished service to the Empire.
Riga would have probably become significantly more Russian because its the Baltics' premier industrial city, the others - probably not.
But another real main driving force behind is said to be TPTB, deep states like Rothschild struggle to control the global money printing by retaining Petrol Dollar. Those who control petrol, control the world. The few countries still under US attacked now all have refused to comply Fed style central banking.(Globalresearch).
For Russia:
-Oil & Gas is the main reason USM & West going in. They wanted to lay a pipe through Syria, for Saudi Gulfs & Israel new stolen offshore oil gas field to supply EU. That will cutoff Russia main biz with EU. Assad refuse the bad deal, so he must go, terrorists proxy war start. So Iran & Syria looked up Putin, he agreed to intervene.
-Stop West aggression East wards, as Iran will be next easy target after Syria down. Then Russia has its West South all encircled, except China border. Missiles & Nato troops will be stationed right at borders.
-Geopolitic influence in ME, Russia last & only base in ME is in Syria.
-Display of military might & weapons to show its a superpower, not gas station as insulted by US.
-Fight terrorists(Chechnya) in Syria instead of back home.
Iran & Syris, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiah fighters
-Existential threat.
US:
-His masters(Israel Aipac, deep states, bankers, Petrol Inc., MIC, ) command.
-As all above of Russia.
-Fulfil Israel dream.
-Control of all ME oil gas supply, Iran is the last one in its jigsaw puzzle.
-A withdrawal is too humiliating now, and lost of USM credibility in the world.
UK, Fr, Nato:
-Lackeys only ask how high to jump when commanded by US-Israel. Then get some bread crumbs & bones throw at them. Vultures & hyenas move in team.
Israel:
-Their Greater Israel dream, steal more lands from Golan Hts. Remove any reliable resistance, Syria & Iran. Lay its Oil gas pipe.
Saudi & Gulf states:
-Why they are killing own Muslims to help Israel ruling ME!? The AngloZionists are very good in splitting along racial, religions, sects. Sunnis Saudi & Gulf is played against Shiah muslim Iran & Syria for dominant. These fools exported Wahabism & funded Al Queda to fight Soviet in Afghanistan, now become a terrorism tool for US geopolitical.
Turkey:
-Renew Ottoman Empire wet dream by stealing Syria land & oil.
-As Nato member, still wet dreaming of EU membership as reward.
China:
-Existential threat. If US Nato control all ME oil gas supply, its a death nail to China sovereignty, it will be subjected to blackmail at any cost & price.
-Petrol yuan gone case without free ME oil trade.
-Fight thousands of Uyghur terrorists trained by Turkey under CIA command in Syria before they return.
The other part of the plan requires more Jews to move to what will become the area of a Greater Israel. The Muslim terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere might convince some Jewish people to believe that they will be safer in the Middle East than in Europe. At any rate, a greater Jewish population would seem desirable if a Greater Israel is to come into being.
The one glaring weakness that I see with the Yinon Plan is that it ignores the possibility of trans-national ethnic Arab alliances forming in the wake of national division. For example, in the original document Yinon correctly notes that Iraq can be divided into three separate ethnic zones based on the Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. However, it fails to note that this division might lead to an enhanced alliance between Shia Iraq and Shia Iran.
I guess the second weakness is that the Yinon Plan requires a major power in order for it to be carried out. So, a second weakness is if the major power decides that dividing up the Middle East jeopardizes its own interest.
Except forOn my way to work I pass by a couple of kindergartens and primary schools. Doesn't feel right.
And when I get home, I pass a kindergartner and other beautiful little people on the way in the door. One can ‘t be paralyzed by fear, but I can’t say “if it happens, it happens”, either.
I don't think opinions on strikes against ISIS are really comparable btw, I personally supported that given that ISIS was a clear security threat to Europe. Assad's government has never supported terrorism against European or American targets and is no threat to us, that's a rather different situation.
How was ISIS a security threat to Europe?
Granted, it was only a danger to European interests because of Europe's lax policies towards citizens engaged in jihad (readmitting them into European countries and often not even punishing them...instead of stripping them of their citizenship, declaring them enemies of the state and killing them if possible) and Germany's open borders madness.
But an Islamist quasi-state in Europe's neighbourhood shouldn't be tolerated imo. Randal is probably right though that it's better to let regional powers deal with such issues if possible, since Western interventions tend to make things worse and even have the perverse consequence of aiding jihadis.
So it’s fairly clear that the Western response to Syria now is driven by two primary imperatives:
1. The old one: Continue to overthrow all Arab nationalist regimes that while corrupt cannot be bought to support/pose no threat to Israel (like the Gulf can). Either leaving the in a state of generational chaos or ruled by a weak Islamist regime giving plenty of bombing practice for future Western/Israeli administrations is preferable to have strong, independent, nationalistic societies.
2. The new one since the Russian intervention: use this as a staging ground for what hardliners - which is pretty much now everyone in the US Deep state - see as the inevitable showdown with Russia which has so far resisted all forms of intimidation and attempts to cripple its development. (This is not to say Russia has not been impacted. In a different world, with the exact same regime but w/o Western sanctions or media hostility, Russia could have been much more successful.)
These are the Western aims. Like in Chess, none of this is hidden: the Western Deep State knows it as does the Russian Deep State. (The difference between the two Deep states is that the Western ones hide behind a rotating cast of figureheads who get elected one every 2/4 years and take some time to understand their place as to who really is in charge (as Trump is finding out), whereas the Deep State in Russia is clearly visible - it’s Putin and co.)
Putin knows he cannot defeat the West. The best he could do is resist and carve out a space till the West implodes under its own weight (read internal contradictions, demographics, debt as China/India/others and their populations and economies slowly but surely revert back to the historic share of global GDP till 400 years ago). The West however needs to keep expanding to stay alive - the moment it stops, let alone contracts, it will implode. Again, both sides know this.
Syria is one theater, Ukraine is another, where the West can rob Russia of the time to develop as well as satisfy its own urge to expand. For a Western planner with the above aims, to humiliate Russia in either theater using overwhelming force is too good an opportunity to pass up.
The only way I see Russia being able to resist in this case is to explicitly alter its nuclear doctrine to state that not only any existential threat to the home land but any key strategic bases (eg in Syria) allows use of nuclear weapons in defense. Thus by treating these bases as de facto Russian exclaves like Kaliningrad would mean that any attempts to wipe out these bases would represent an existential threat which would allow a nuclear response.
I’m not sure what the Russian or Syrian legal implications are to alter the nuclear doctrine in this manner but I see this is the only way to give pause to Western planners who at the end of the day know they have more to lose in a nuclear exchange than Russia.
I’m not a bull on India. Average IQ is too low, and that matters.
China also has a rather severe problem – the CCP will never willingly give up power.
That said, both will continue to rise in relation to the West because the West has severe problems. Just don’t expect India to match China, or either to be like the US would have been, if it had never imported its rather severe demographic problems.
1. Most western analysts of India miss the basic fact that India as an entity is more like Europe than say a more homegeous culture like China is (Han Chinese are the overwhelming majority though there are scores of other ethnicities). Each state in India is politically mostly divided by language (like Europe mostly is) and have their own histories and states of development/education/culture - and this is not taking into account the strong influence of religion/caste another differentiator within and across states, and the more common economic strata and urban/rural divide) so that lumping a state like say Arunachal Pradesh with Andhra Pradesh is as odd as lumping Poland with Portugal in some aggregate statistics. So various “average IQ of Indians” (a number like 82 was once calculated) and correlating to National Income miss the fact that the richest states by capita or often not the “smartest” states (tho it is true that the most intellectually backward states are the poorest). India in many ways has achieved (some would argue because of being forced together by successive Moghul/British Empires) and so far maintained what Europe still has not: a common currency and free movement of labor and capital within a federated union of disparate nations - states with their own distinct language, culture, cuisine - with differing rates of growth operating as a single country with a recognized capital, and domestic and foreign policy in a chaotic but still functioning democracy. So there are regions/states in India on a much faster trajectory than others (eg Germany vs Greece).
2. The other aspect is sheer numbers. Even if there is large amount of poor, the middle class in India - educated, wanting material goods, etc - is larger than that in the US/EU combined. Given the median age of this cohort is estimated to be 27, there is a tremendous growth potential which is reflected in various projections which have India overtaking the US in PPP and later in some GDP in a few decades.
Admittedly China as a whole is way ahead - both because its market liberalization efforts started 15 years before India’s - as well as having a much more centralized top-down approach that makes long range planning and execution more successful rather than parliamentary democracies which operate in shorter cycles till the next election. Yet, both population dynamics as well as areas of high growth are pulling the rest of the train along.
Anatoly,
I question a number of your assumptions.
NATO: Having been assigned to NATO and functioned as a military advisor to Saudi Arabia, I doubt if NATO (aside from the Americans) can function as a military organization. The national characteristics of NATO forces introduce too much “organizational friction” for effective military operations. NATO forces in Europe are nothing but a “target rich” environment for Russian military forces.
The Saudis and other Middle Eastern allies: Incompetence is an understatement … and complex Western weapons only complicate the problem. At best, Gulf military forces can at best put on a “comic” performance. Effective military operations in Gulf states, when they are performed, are almost universally conducted by Western and other-world mercenaries.
The United States: You have to understand that the US military is currently led by military sycophants more interested in feminism, affirmative action, and the sacralization of homosexuality than the military arts. Obama purged the US military leadership of competent generals over these issues. The recent surge of ship collisions in the Pacific and the increased incidence of aircraft accidents worldwide are only the tip of the iceberg with respect to growing US military incompetence. The junior officers got the message. They are with the program, at least those who could stomach the mess and stayed in the service.
Bottom line: “Organization friction” will severely demean US and NATO military power severely below what their order of battle would suggest.
Then, there is the political environment. If the US loses a destroyer (much less a carrier) there will be a loud calliope demanding nuclear retaliation … without any awareness regarding the sophistication and competence of the Russian nuclear deterrent. On the other hand, countries such as Small Britain will turn tail and leave the American consortium under the fear that “two nukes” might fall on them and destroy their country. If there is a nuclear exchange with Russia, the “outbacks” of Russia and the United States might survive … but Western Europe is history.
Another wildcard in the analysis is China’s response to the mess. It certainly knows that the animosity toward Russia is calculated to motivate the “Atlanticists” to force Putin from power and forestall the feared Russia-China alliance. If China stands down on this, it knows it will be next without the formidable Russian military power on their side. If Russian goes down, it is the “Anglo-Saxon Naval Empire” against China to do what the British Navy did in WWI and the US Navy did in WWII against Germany … and that is to prevent a Euro-Asian power from consolidating control over the Asian landmass — the “World Island” — using internal lines of communication. If Russia does down, China goes down with it.
The danger is that this is Sarajevo – 1914. The United States believes the Russians (and Chinese) will stand down. The Russians (and Chinese) know the consequences of doing so and will not do so. In any “hot” confrontation, it is a given that the US will escalate to the point of a nuclear exchange … something that some US political circles have pressed, regardless of consequences, since the end of WWII.
Israel is fanning the flames in all of this. Two nukes on Israel would accomplish the same thing as two nukes on Britain … “end of the game” for these countries. At least this might put a final end to Middle Eastern animosities that precipitated this in the first place. We will have experienced the second Holicaust and the end of Jewry as a global political and economic force. Jerusalem will be “glass” and exit the historical narrative.
My bets: There is a strong chance of nuclear war based on miscalculations on the part of military sycophants. At the same time, there is a “peace party (ironically the globalists) pressing the alternative. Nuclear war is very bad for business. Given that and the prospect of someone nuking Israel, I place my bets on peace.
NATO isn't as good at cooperation was it was during the 1980s with its annual REFORGER exercises and Canadian Army Tank Gunnery Trophy, but they have plenty of experience in joint air operations.
Gulf War, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and the ongoing activity in Syria.
NATO forces in Europe have more men and firepower than the Russians do, but they're spread across the continent. Quality varies by nationality of course.
It's not the 1980s anymore and the Russian armed forces aren't that large. Maybe equivalent to Britain & France combined.They've shown in Yemen at least that they can fly planes and drop bombs, which is a start.
Arabs have a deservedly poor reputation in war, but perhaps under the guidance of Western advisors they managed to recruit a few hundred guys who are actually pretty decent pilots.This isn't new and didn't start with Obama.
See here: https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-blog-about-military-matters/60879683-the-u-s-military-s-marathon-30-year-single-elimination-suck-up-tournament-or-how-america-selects-its-generals
John T. Reed's many military articles are generally worth reading. He is a West Point graduate who served in Vietnam and grew disgusted with the Army's culture of lying and ass-kissing.
See also Henry Kissinger's views from when he visited Vietnam: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/henry-kissinger-vietnam-diaries-213236The situation has of course grown worse. American pilots used to train about 300 hours a year for instance, now it's around 170. The Army has more "mandatory training days" than there are days available, and most of this training has nothing to with combat.
And the gayvy, as you noted, keeps crashing ships owing to promoting incompetent lady and wetback captains who can't read a nautical chart.Definitely true, but as Comrade Stalin said quantity has a quality all of its own.China is conducting live fire drills in the Taiwan Straits in support of Russia on Syria.
The naval blockade in WW2 was not decisive as Germany was able to plunder its conquests as well as trade with some countries it couldn't during WWI (Spain, Portugal, Russia until Barbarossa).
Keyword "miscalculation"
I’ve never been able to understand this either.
I think it’s some weird pride thing on the part of the globalists.
They’re angry that the Assman dares to fight or something.
The actions of the ethnic Balts as well as the Baltic German nobility suggests yes.
Of course it’s possible these problems were created by the Russification policy, as previously Baltic Germans had a long tradition of distinguished service to the Empire.
In Syria it can. The air power can destroy Russian contingent in Syria and prevent any resupplies from Russia.
I can’t watch American tv (don’t want to tbh), but there seems to be at least some resistance by prominent (ex-?)Trump supporters in the media:
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-populist-right-winning-its-pressure-campaign-against-25336
At least that’s encouraging…Trump may be lacking in principles, but media-fixated as he is, he might at least notice that there is opposition against bombing Syria.
Who is he going to believe? John Bolton or his lying eyes [and his base].
It inspired terrorism and provided a base for training jihadis.
Granted, it was only a danger to European interests because of Europe’s lax policies towards citizens engaged in jihad (readmitting them into European countries and often not even punishing them…instead of stripping them of their citizenship, declaring them enemies of the state and killing them if possible) and Germany’s open borders madness.
But an Islamist quasi-state in Europe’s neighbourhood shouldn’t be tolerated imo. Randal is probably right though that it’s better to let regional powers deal with such issues if possible, since Western interventions tend to make things worse and even have the perverse consequence of aiding jihadis.
Note that things will only become catastrophic enough to cause a population collapse if virtually all vehicles (esp. trucks) get knocked out. If it's "only" 90%, that should still be enough to haul around the basics such as food and fuel. Third World countries do with as little or less.
But a lot of 3rd World countries and countries in the pre-industrial past are/were pre-adapted to less dependence on advanced infrastructure. In contemporary advanced industrial societies, a significant fraction of late middle-aged and senior citizens depend on a continual supply of drugs, insulin, medical supplies, etc. for survival. A disruption would mean that a lot of them die. And most ordinary citizens depend on advanced infrastructure for food and water. A disruption would mean that lot of them would die as well, as most people don’t have stockpiles and our infrastructure is based on just time high efficiency logistics. There’s very little slack in the system.
Wishful thinking imo.
NATO isn’t as good at cooperation was it was during the 1980s with its annual REFORGER exercises and Canadian Army Tank Gunnery Trophy, but they have plenty of experience in joint air operations.
Gulf War, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and the ongoing activity in Syria.
NATO forces in Europe have more men and firepower than the Russians do, but they’re spread across the continent. Quality varies by nationality of course.
It’s not the 1980s anymore and the Russian armed forces aren’t that large. Maybe equivalent to Britain & France combined.
They’ve shown in Yemen at least that they can fly planes and drop bombs, which is a start.
Arabs have a deservedly poor reputation in war, but perhaps under the guidance of Western advisors they managed to recruit a few hundred guys who are actually pretty decent pilots.
This isn’t new and didn’t start with Obama.
See here: https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-blog-about-military-matters/60879683-the-u-s-military-s-marathon-30-year-single-elimination-suck-up-tournament-or-how-america-selects-its-generals
John T. Reed’s many military articles are generally worth reading. He is a West Point graduate who served in Vietnam and grew disgusted with the Army’s culture of lying and ass-kissing.
See also Henry Kissinger’s views from when he visited Vietnam: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/henry-kissinger-vietnam-diaries-213236
The situation has of course grown worse. American pilots used to train about 300 hours a year for instance, now it’s around 170. The Army has more “mandatory training days” than there are days available, and most of this training has nothing to with combat.
And the gayvy, as you noted, keeps crashing ships owing to promoting incompetent lady and wetback captains who can’t read a nautical chart.
Definitely true, but as Comrade Stalin said quantity has a quality all of its own.
China is conducting live fire drills in the Taiwan Straits in support of Russia on Syria.
The naval blockade in WW2 was not decisive as Germany was able to plunder its conquests as well as trade with some countries it couldn’t during WWI (Spain, Portugal, Russia until Barbarossa).
China also has a rather severe problem - the CCP will never willingly give up power.
That said, both will continue to rise in relation to the West because the West has severe problems. Just don't expect India to match China, or either to be like the US would have been, if it had never imported its rather severe demographic problems.
Re: India. A couple of things:
1. Most western analysts of India miss the basic fact that India as an entity is more like Europe than say a more homegeous culture like China is (Han Chinese are the overwhelming majority though there are scores of other ethnicities). Each state in India is politically mostly divided by language (like Europe mostly is) and have their own histories and states of development/education/culture – and this is not taking into account the strong influence of religion/caste another differentiator within and across states, and the more common economic strata and urban/rural divide) so that lumping a state like say Arunachal Pradesh with Andhra Pradesh is as odd as lumping Poland with Portugal in some aggregate statistics. So various “average IQ of Indians” (a number like 82 was once calculated) and correlating to National Income miss the fact that the richest states by capita or often not the “smartest” states (tho it is true that the most intellectually backward states are the poorest). India in many ways has achieved (some would argue because of being forced together by successive Moghul/British Empires) and so far maintained what Europe still has not: a common currency and free movement of labor and capital within a federated union of disparate nations – states with their own distinct language, culture, cuisine – with differing rates of growth operating as a single country with a recognized capital, and domestic and foreign policy in a chaotic but still functioning democracy. So there are regions/states in India on a much faster trajectory than others (eg Germany vs Greece).
2. The other aspect is sheer numbers. Even if there is large amount of poor, the middle class in India – educated, wanting material goods, etc – is larger than that in the US/EU combined. Given the median age of this cohort is estimated to be 27, there is a tremendous growth potential which is reflected in various projections which have India overtaking the US in PPP and later in some GDP in a few decades.
Admittedly China as a whole is way ahead – both because its market liberalization efforts started 15 years before India’s – as well as having a much more centralized top-down approach that makes long range planning and execution more successful rather than parliamentary democracies which operate in shorter cycles till the next election. Yet, both population dynamics as well as areas of high growth are pulling the rest of the train along.
Would the US government be willing to risk killing Chinese personnel?
I fear and distrust China, but this warmongering crew in charge of "my" country's government and economy needs to learn that they are not invincible, that threats have consequences whether they are backed up or not, and that not everyone in the world lacks the strength to say "mind your damn business and back off."
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade
So it’s fairly clear that the Western response to Syria now is driven by two primary imperatives:
1. The old one: Continue to overthrow all Arab nationalist regimes that while corrupt cannot be bought to support/pose no threat to Israel (like the Gulf can). Either leaving the in a state of generational chaos or ruled by a weak Islamist regime giving plenty of bombing practice for future Western/Israeli administrations is preferable to have strong, independent, nationalistic societies.
2. The new one since the Russian intervention: use this as a staging ground for what hardliners - which is pretty much now everyone in the US Deep state - see as the inevitable showdown with Russia which has so far resisted all forms of intimidation and attempts to cripple its development. (This is not to say Russia has not been impacted. In a different world, with the exact same regime but w/o Western sanctions or media hostility, Russia could have been much more successful.)
These are the Western aims. Like in Chess, none of this is hidden: the Western Deep State knows it as does the Russian Deep State. (The difference between the two Deep states is that the Western ones hide behind a rotating cast of figureheads who get elected one every 2/4 years and take some time to understand their place as to who really is in charge (as Trump is finding out), whereas the Deep State in Russia is clearly visible - it’s Putin and co.)
Putin knows he cannot defeat the West. The best he could do is resist and carve out a space till the West implodes under its own weight (read internal contradictions, demographics, debt as China/India/others and their populations and economies slowly but surely revert back to the historic share of global GDP till 400 years ago). The West however needs to keep expanding to stay alive - the moment it stops, let alone contracts, it will implode. Again, both sides know this.
Syria is one theater, Ukraine is another, where the West can rob Russia of the time to develop as well as satisfy its own urge to expand. For a Western planner with the above aims, to humiliate Russia in either theater using overwhelming force is too good an opportunity to pass up.
The only way I see Russia being able to resist in this case is to explicitly alter its nuclear doctrine to state that not only any existential threat to the home land but any key strategic bases (eg in Syria) allows use of nuclear weapons in defense. Thus by treating these bases as de facto Russian exclaves like Kaliningrad would mean that any attempts to wipe out these bases would represent an existential threat which would allow a nuclear response.
I’m not sure what the Russian or Syrian legal implications are to alter the nuclear doctrine in this manner but I see this is the only way to give pause to Western planners who at the end of the day know they have more to lose in a nuclear exchange than Russia.
Good post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade
Correct. It would mean virtually nothing.
My sentiment.
Keyword “miscalculation“
In surprise move, China to mount live-fire navy drills in Taiwan Strait ‘in show of support for Russia over Syria’
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2141505/surprise-move-china-mount-live-fire-navy-drills-taiwan
And Global Times beat the war drum again today. China’s trying to annoy the US into spreading out forces, I believe. No other reason to abruptly start something now.
Doesn’t really seem to be working, though.
So it’s fairly clear that the Western response to Syria now is driven by two primary imperatives:
1. The old one: Continue to overthrow all Arab nationalist regimes that while corrupt cannot be bought to support/pose no threat to Israel (like the Gulf can). Either leaving the in a state of generational chaos or ruled by a weak Islamist regime giving plenty of bombing practice for future Western/Israeli administrations is preferable to have strong, independent, nationalistic societies.
2. The new one since the Russian intervention: use this as a staging ground for what hardliners - which is pretty much now everyone in the US Deep state - see as the inevitable showdown with Russia which has so far resisted all forms of intimidation and attempts to cripple its development. (This is not to say Russia has not been impacted. In a different world, with the exact same regime but w/o Western sanctions or media hostility, Russia could have been much more successful.)
These are the Western aims. Like in Chess, none of this is hidden: the Western Deep State knows it as does the Russian Deep State. (The difference between the two Deep states is that the Western ones hide behind a rotating cast of figureheads who get elected one every 2/4 years and take some time to understand their place as to who really is in charge (as Trump is finding out), whereas the Deep State in Russia is clearly visible - it’s Putin and co.)
Putin knows he cannot defeat the West. The best he could do is resist and carve out a space till the West implodes under its own weight (read internal contradictions, demographics, debt as China/India/others and their populations and economies slowly but surely revert back to the historic share of global GDP till 400 years ago). The West however needs to keep expanding to stay alive - the moment it stops, let alone contracts, it will implode. Again, both sides know this.
Syria is one theater, Ukraine is another, where the West can rob Russia of the time to develop as well as satisfy its own urge to expand. For a Western planner with the above aims, to humiliate Russia in either theater using overwhelming force is too good an opportunity to pass up.
The only way I see Russia being able to resist in this case is to explicitly alter its nuclear doctrine to state that not only any existential threat to the home land but any key strategic bases (eg in Syria) allows use of nuclear weapons in defense. Thus by treating these bases as de facto Russian exclaves like Kaliningrad would mean that any attempts to wipe out these bases would represent an existential threat which would allow a nuclear response.
I’m not sure what the Russian or Syrian legal implications are to alter the nuclear doctrine in this manner but I see this is the only way to give pause to Western planners who at the end of the day know they have more to lose in a nuclear exchange than Russia.
Exactly. This is what was missing in AK’s write up. Russia by being weaker in conventional forces must fall back on nuclear deterrence sooner than the US. Putin’s ‘Why would we want a world without Russia?’ speech might have been an attempt to communicate that the nuclear doctrine has been changed. However I would not mind if Russia communicated it more clearly and more bluntly so everybody knows that any military setbacks within the sphere of Russia’s influence suffered by Russia will lead to a nuclear attack. Furthermore Russia should make this as a warning to all nuclear powers, specifically Israel. Every Israeli should live with the awareness that they will be the first to go.
Since war is at hand, isn’t it about time we Americans should register our preferences about what we think Russia should nuke? Well, after crippling US C3 to reduce the US government to helplessness, anyway. We request that the following be nuked:
- Langley
- Fort Meade
- Capitol Hill
- Sallie Mae
- (And an airburst with Tsar Bomba for the Beltway as a whole please, to be on the safe side)
- Corporate HQs of bank beneficiaries of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
- F.O.P HQ in Nashville
- The Facebook Campus in Menlo Park
- The Harvard Kennedy School
- Verizon Corporate in Basking Ridge, NJ
- CONUS south of the 42nd parallel
- New York City
- Rose Bowl Stadium.
Obviously, this is only a start.
I had a pleasant laugh.
So WTF is up with the comments threads I'm seeing, on Reddit (/r/worldnews, not neoliberalism.txt hive minds like /r/politics), on the Guardian, etc.
Are most of the actual bots run by Langley?
For what it’s worth, the ultra-rad-trad-Catholic circles I frequent are uniformly and absolutely opposed to intervention, generally at least mildly pro-Russia, and do not believe that Assad was behind the attack.
You can see their petition against the strikes here:
https://www.change.org/p/declaration-against-the-expansion-of-the-syrian-war
I don’t think these feelings are isolated to that crowd, but maybe I don’t get out much.
As to the Reddit groups etc. — birds of a feather flock together and tend to drive out the others.
“If NATO fully consolidates and fully mobilizes, then Russia’s conventional defeat becomes inevitable – the military-industrial divergence between the two blocs is simply too great”
Anatoly, on what planet do you live that you believe that NATO has conventional superiority against Russia in Europe?
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/11/16/nato-dangerous-paper-tiger.html
Most of the alleged NATO destroying superweapons exist in only low numbers or are still in the prototype stage. Russia's military modernization efforts have been inadequately funded, and it doesn't help that it's often stolen.
Many NATO countries profess readiness problems (which is often actually just goldbricking from the armed forces and defense contractors), but it's not like training has been abolished.
The fact remains that NATO has overwhelmingly more forces at its disposal, and it has far more war potential in every regard. More manpower, more industry, more financial might, and higher technology.
This is why Russia always resorts to "international law" and attempts to spook people with terrifying doomsday weapons.
https://southfront.org/nato-and-russia-weapons-in-figures/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/13/cruising-for-bruising-with-russia.html
Some thoughts..
Russia doesn’t need to sink an aircraft carrier. It needs to disable it, or at least ruin the runways.
The weakest link in the yankee empire is Saudi Arabia. Prior to capitulation, Saudi will have to be given a push.
Iran should be provided the most advanced weapons immediately after any strike.
Russia should blanket the earth (Iran, Burma, and other future targets) with S-400.
If Russia is likely facing defeat then I agree that moving on Ukraine or Baltics is useful. At that point Russia must engage in an existential struggle against the USA. All the things it is accused of doing it will have to do. Leak, steal, undermine, hack. Whittle away.
Russia pushed out of SWIFT opens the possibility that it can annihilate ‘neo-liberalism’ at home. A smallish central European country in the 30′s provides a guide to success. A country doesn’t exactly need western usury to be strong.
Poor article. Patrick Armstrong is one of those strange souls who has transferred his patriotism to another country, and it clouds his judgment.
Most of the alleged NATO destroying superweapons exist in only low numbers or are still in the prototype stage. Russia’s military modernization efforts have been inadequately funded, and it doesn’t help that it’s often stolen.
Many NATO countries profess readiness problems (which is often actually just goldbricking from the armed forces and defense contractors), but it’s not like training has been abolished.
The fact remains that NATO has overwhelmingly more forces at its disposal, and it has far more war potential in every regard. More manpower, more industry, more financial might, and higher technology.
This is why Russia always resorts to “international law” and attempts to spook people with terrifying doomsday weapons.
https://southfront.org/nato-and-russia-weapons-in-figures/
You can see their petition against the strikes here:
https://www.change.org/p/declaration-against-the-expansion-of-the-syrian-war
I don't think these feelings are isolated to that crowd, but maybe I don't get out much.
As to the Reddit groups etc. -- birds of a feather flock together and tend to drive out the others.
Strong voice of Catholic Church on many issues is sadly missed. It certainly is not what it could have been. The CC was neutered. Child abuse campaign was the most recent act in the anti CC campaign that goes back to the French Revolution. Neocon Catholics (like Weigel, Novak) tried to get blessing form JPII for the Iraq war but failed. After that there was no mercy for the CC while the Evangelical Death Cult Zionist nuts prospered. Without the moderating influence of the CC the world will worse off.
1) political expediency, wanting to harness the energized catholic vote for his new party
2) the road to Damascus (espoused by better Catholics than I), whereby he was moved by the heroic sacrifice of a catholic policeman.
3) a first essay by a globalist to co-opt the local hierarchy, knowing that our wonderful Pope is loosening the rigid "one, holy, catholic and apostolic" part of the institution.
How do you loosen Cataluña from the Spanish crown? How do you loosen the French Church from Rome? Dissolve et coagula. Essays must be made. Macron is at the very least, heavily sustained by anti-Catholic forces.
It seems doable, at the political level. And now that Syria breathes again, I can go back to see whether an formerly unknown globalist with a mediocre career (along the lines of Obama, Trudeau, Rubio, Macron) can inch to the presidency of the #15 economy.
Russia doesn't need to sink an aircraft carrier. It needs to disable it, or at least ruin the runways.
The weakest link in the yankee empire is Saudi Arabia. Prior to capitulation, Saudi will have to be given a push.
Iran should be provided the most advanced weapons immediately after any strike.
Russia should blanket the earth (Iran, Burma, and other future targets) with S-400.
If Russia is likely facing defeat then I agree that moving on Ukraine or Baltics is useful. At that point Russia must engage in an existential struggle against the USA. All the things it is accused of doing it will have to do. Leak, steal, undermine, hack. Whittle away.
Russia pushed out of SWIFT opens the possibility that it can annihilate 'neo-liberalism' at home. A smallish central European country in the 30's provides a guide to success. A country doesn't exactly need western usury to be strong.
I have thought of it before that it would be good to destabilize them. I am not sure if Russia and Iran have what it takes to do it.
Most of the alleged NATO destroying superweapons exist in only low numbers or are still in the prototype stage. Russia's military modernization efforts have been inadequately funded, and it doesn't help that it's often stolen.
Many NATO countries profess readiness problems (which is often actually just goldbricking from the armed forces and defense contractors), but it's not like training has been abolished.
The fact remains that NATO has overwhelmingly more forces at its disposal, and it has far more war potential in every regard. More manpower, more industry, more financial might, and higher technology.
This is why Russia always resorts to "international law" and attempts to spook people with terrifying doomsday weapons.
https://southfront.org/nato-and-russia-weapons-in-figures/
So you follow-up an ad hominem against Patrick (after I reference an article where he cites every single one of his sources) with an article on bean-counting between NATO and Russia? Well, I’m convinced.
No mention of pipeline geopolitics. How can we take your analysis seriously? Freeing Europe of Russian energy dependence is a priority for the US and some of its allies, and Syria stands in the way of this project.
Does the Assman hate pipelines or something?
And what's the reason this pipeline must go through Syria?
Ad hominem attacks are permitted under the Federal Rules of Evidence in court for the purpose of delegitimizing the credibility of a witness. Armstrong here, is in effect, a witness.
Armstrong has transferred his patriotism from his native country to Russia. His credibility is therefore suspect.
You then disparage tallying up the rival force levels as…bean counting. Well these “beans” do count. Numbers aren’t everything, but generally in war you can bet on the side with more weapons and soldiers.
Here’s a fun video showing just the EU (so no USA or Canada) against Russia:
Binkov’s videos don’t consider training, morale, etc. but they are well done and based on good information.
If you want a blast from the past he has a great three video series about NATO vs. the Warsaw Pact in 1989.
Since I’ve learned that ad hominem attacks are permissible, I’d say your patriotism to a country whose military track record is unimpressive, but that has gotten better and better at ignoring and shrouding that fact, is clouding your judgement.
Thanks for the Kermit the frog video. If this is what passes for evidence in support of conclusions today, then I apologize for wasting your time.
I’ve heard this many times and I just don’t get it.
Does the Assman hate pipelines or something?
And what’s the reason this pipeline must go through Syria?
Saudi & Israel wanted to link up its gas field pipeline to EU via unlucky Syria & Turkey route, the cheapest land way instead of underseas. Syria Assad refused a bad deal offered, he must go by all interest parties.
Iran wanted to pipe it to EU via Syria too, so Russia see that as competitor, only after some deal agreed with Putin, Russia intervene. Russia is been promised to build all the Iran-Syria-EU infrastructure & pipes.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-populist-right-winning-its-pressure-campaign-against-25336
At least that's encouraging...Trump may be lacking in principles, but media-fixated as he is, he might at least notice that there is opposition against bombing Syria.
Great link. Trump [maybe] doesn’t want to get rolled again like on the budget. If it later becomes less or uncertain that Assad did it. and if it isn’t surgical — he has just lost his base.
Who is he going to believe? John Bolton or his lying eyes [and his base].
Simple order:
America leave the Med in 24 hours or we nuke DC and Tel Aviv. Any counter attack will mean full nuclear launch.
And retake Alaska if it goes down just to humiliate.
Let the Orange clown chew on that one.
There is no defense against a morally just threat to nuke.
Mattis blurted the truth. Go figure.
The Saker being so much tiresome bluster, this was refreshing reading on Unz.
That said: one wonders how it’s possible that the US and Russia, at the highest levels, are not clear that the US and Russia must not fight.
One hopes that if it’s anything then it’s a game of high-stakes chicken.
And WTH? anyway with our government. First they gin it up with China in the S. China Sea, then with N.Korea – when that turns cold they gin it up with Iran, when that turns cold they gin it up with Russia.
It’s like a bunch of recovering alcoholics who have to gin up drama or else they don’t feel like they’re alive – only the kind of drama they can gin up can destroy nations and worlds.
I grew up during the Cold War and even at the worst of times our political leaders back then weren't anywhere as crazy as they are now. Even Reagan was a model of restraint compared to the loud mouth that currently resides at the WH.
These SOB's are quite capable of kicking over the proverbial table and starting shit that can't be walked back as they have no one in the U.S. to tell them "stop it or we hang your sorry asses".
Note that things will only become catastrophic enough to cause a population collapse if virtually all vehicles (esp. trucks) get knocked out. If it's "only" 90%, that should still be enough to haul around the basics such as food and fuel. Third World countries do with as little or less.
Hmmm, I live in a third world country in S.E. Asia, and I don’t see a problem if Tel Aviv gets Russia, and the U.S. to “go at it”.
You'd be under Chinese suzerainty of course but that's probably inevitable this century anyway, and probably won't be that bad of a deal anyway.
You’re dreaming again, Anatoly. Just to put Donbas back together again would cost somewhere in the neighbohood of $20 billion dollars. This is a major reason that neither Russia nor Ukraine are in any hurry to take responsibility for Donbas. And your dreams are ever more ones of the past, which is very strange for somebody who professes to have an avid interest in future trends. Coal is becomming more and more obsolete as an energy source (who is in any hurry to rebuild a dying economy?).
Another one of your half baked ideas. Even by your own estimates, taking the eastern half of Ukraine would be a difficult if not unclear operation. War in the eastern part would most assuredly involve all of Ukraine supported by the US and NATO (not directly, but with advisers and weapons), and would result in much devastation. If Donbas would cost $20 billion to restore, have you considered how much more all of Eastern Ukraine would cost to rebuild?…Perhaps $100 billion? Where’s the money going to come from? Not to mention additional sanctions and ‘a certain demographic highly hostile to it, especially if this project was to extend beyond Novorossiya.’ And I can’t imagine how you might think that it wouldn’t? And all for what? As if Russia is really in need of more ‘liebenstraum’??….
And the crux of your piece is to suggest that Russia might possibly risk starting WWIII for more of Ukraine? This sounds really pretty stupid to me!
I am not advocating anything here, just describing the options that Putin will have to decide on.
To some extent I am even glad I am not the one who has to take them and bear responsibility for their outcome.Russia keeps the LDNR humming along with something like $1 billion worth of subsidies per year. Note that this is an unrecognized territory that has been shorn of many of its economic traditional economic links that exists under an atrocious legal regime - all problems that will go away.
I think it's some weird pride thing on the part of the globalists.
They're angry that the Assman dares to fight or something.The actions of the ethnic Balts as well as the Baltic German nobility suggests yes.
Of course it's possible these problems were created by the Russification policy, as previously Baltic Germans had a long tradition of distinguished service to the Empire.
Northern Kazakhstan was russian through and through from the start, and giving parts of it away is yet another travesty of USSR dissolution which will eventually be righted. Kazakhs would do well to remeber that without russians they would still be living in tents on the steppe and no, chinese will not treat them as anything more than a resource to be spent.
But then again, they are steadily regressing to the tents state anyway.
Whatever the actual realities, you can bet this pessimistic assessment, of Russia’s inability to resist harder measures is shared by John Bolton and Mike Pompeo and they intend to see it implemented.
Take cars and trucks for instance.
The vast majority are made out of steel. This inhibits magnetic fields (generally).
Below is a photo of an engine control unit made by Robert Bosch GmbH, the world's largest manufacturer of ECUs:
http://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ECU_E46M3-BOSCH-MS40_Bosch_Motorsport_ECU_for_E46_M3_kit_ECU.jpg
Surrounded in metal as well.
The typical car is a rolling faraday cage. There have been cases of cars being directly struck by lightning and continuing to function.
Cars & trucks which do get taken out by EMPs would not be out of service forever either. ECUs from warehouses would be installed, and if really necessary clever rednecks would jury rig cars into service with hand-made carburetors and throttles.
Communications networks would also not be totally wiped out. Fiber optic lines for instance would not be taken out by EMP attacks, and many cellular and radio networks would survive. Remember these are already designed to survive lightning strikes.
The biggest b.s. is how "the grid" would be taken out due to transformer construction. It is said these transformers have such long lead times that civilization would simply collapse before new ones could be built.
The alleged constraints here are tight supply of grain-oriented electrical steel and high purity copper magnet wire.
The truth is these are not needed to produce transformers...at all. You can make transformers out of pig iron and aluminum wire if you want. That's not done because it results in great efficiency losses. Nobody is going to care about that in the event of recovering from a nuclear war.
I am sure you can go right down the line with all of these doomsday civilization collapse prophecies and find that they're all b.s.
The only existential threat to industrial civilization is population replacement by Africans.
The oft-repeated example comparing the trajectories of Hiroshima and Detroit since 1945 are illustrative.
Your post encapsulates the conceit of modern civilisation, and not just in the West.
Energy is required for all economic activity and the tremendous rise in material living standards over the past two centuries has been due to the increase in energy availablity.
With the peaking of conventional oil resources in 2005 the world economy began to run into difficulties and is still in difficulties. Not surpising, given that there is 0.99 correlation between GDP growth and energy consumption growth.
The difficulties have been masked to some extent by the rise of oil from unconventional sources such as fracking. However, the problem (aside from the environmental one) is that fracking requires a lot of energy to extract the energy. So, whereas the oil at Spindle Top, Oklahoma in 1901 produced a hundred times more energy than the energy used to extract it, the Energy Return on Investment (EROI) of fracking is maybe as low as 5: 1. Once you get to 1: 1 EROI the whole exercise becomes pointless. Similar considerations apply to deepwater oil and to the tar sands. The fact that we are relying on the tar sands tells you something about the world’s desperate energy plight, optimistic bs from the US administration notwithstanding.
Since oil prices dropped in 2014 the financial plight of the fracking industry has become more pronounced. The companies have never made a profit – never – out of fracking and have only been kept going by the availaiblity of very low interest rate loans (another of the many gifts of QE) . While the fraction of operating cash flows (of fracking companies) devoted to loan debt servicing has jumped from 25% to 75% in just a few years it is little wonder that fracking companies have been slashing capital expenditure on significant items like exploration. This is a very real problem since fracking wells’ lifetimes are of the order of 5 years (as opposed to, say, the half a century of the Saudi Arabian Ghawar field’s production). A liquid fuels crisis is looming.
Conventional economics treats energy as just another sector of the economy when in fact energy is the basis upon which all other economic activties are predicated. The idea (as Karlin posts above) that if just 10% of vehicles survived an EMP pulse that would be OK for delivery trucks and the like misses the point entirely ( I am used to Anatoly doing this). If you have little or no energy, how can you produce any stuff for delivery vehicles to deliver? How can you harvest the fields?
So GDP cannot correlate that well with energy consumption, or else there’s a problem.
IMO an excellent and informed article, although I can’t see the Russian interest in the Baltics.
To summarize, it seems to be saying that Russia saves face (and its economy) by abandoning Syria and Iran where it has no prospect of winning. The destruction of these two would proceed – giving the US/Israel hegemony over the Middle East and absolute control of oil, and other things being equal, remove risk to the US $ based global economy.
However, other things aren’t equal, with the prospect of a Pyrrhic victory for the US. The Syrians and Iranians will resist, and the domestic political opposition in the US and Europe will be great (the public strongly oppose more ME wars in both places), with more $ Trillions in debt being added to the already almost unsustainable pile. There’s also the future open ended cost of somehow controlling on the ground a defeated Syria and Iran.
From the Russian POV, they’ve abandoned the ME, and can maybe watch a US economic and social implosion.
However, the Russians themselves could be due for “Regime Change”. Zionists are very hostile to Russia, and it’s also a major oil producer. This seems to be the key Russian calculation. Do they fight now in Syria/Iran using it as a nuclear trigger, or wait to see if the US implodes socially and economically.
Logically they should pull out and wait. If the Zionists/US move to attack Russian territory then it’s still a nuclear exchange and most major Western and Russian cities disappear from the map, along with Israel, and the world becomes a more rural place.
PS Surprise of the day. War in Syria has been opposed . . . by Sarah Palin! (There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repenteth than of ninety-nine righteous).
and since Russia needs good relations with America more than with Israel, why doesn't Putin just declare that the price for dead Russians won't be dead Americans but dead Israelis?
That said: one wonders how it's possible that the US and Russia, at the highest levels, are not clear that the US and Russia must not fight.
One hopes that if it's anything then it's a game of high-stakes chicken.
And WTH? anyway with our government. First they gin it up with China in the S. China Sea, then with N.Korea - when that turns cold they gin it up with Iran, when that turns cold they gin it up with Russia.
It's like a bunch of recovering alcoholics who have to gin up drama or else they don't feel like they're alive - only the kind of drama they can gin up can destroy nations and worlds.
Our political and military leaders are nuts. This makes them very hard to deal with, especially since they’ve made noises about going nuclear if things don’t go their way.
I grew up during the Cold War and even at the worst of times our political leaders back then weren’t anywhere as crazy as they are now. Even Reagan was a model of restraint compared to the loud mouth that currently resides at the WH.
These SOB’s are quite capable of kicking over the proverbial table and starting shit that can’t be walked back as they have no one in the U.S. to tell them “stop it or we hang your sorry asses”.
To summarize, it seems to be saying that Russia saves face (and its economy) by abandoning Syria and Iran where it has no prospect of winning. The destruction of these two would proceed - giving the US/Israel hegemony over the Middle East and absolute control of oil, and other things being equal, remove risk to the US $ based global economy.
However, other things aren't equal, with the prospect of a Pyrrhic victory for the US. The Syrians and Iranians will resist, and the domestic political opposition in the US and Europe will be great (the public strongly oppose more ME wars in both places), with more $ Trillions in debt being added to the already almost unsustainable pile. There's also the future open ended cost of somehow controlling on the ground a defeated Syria and Iran.
From the Russian POV, they've abandoned the ME, and can maybe watch a US economic and social implosion.
However, the Russians themselves could be due for "Regime Change". Zionists are very hostile to Russia, and it's also a major oil producer. This seems to be the key Russian calculation. Do they fight now in Syria/Iran using it as a nuclear trigger, or wait to see if the US implodes socially and economically.
Logically they should pull out and wait. If the Zionists/US move to attack Russian territory then it's still a nuclear exchange and most major Western and Russian cities disappear from the map, along with Israel, and the world becomes a more rural place.
If, given the remarks of people like Nikki Haley (“We will never be friends with Russia . . we will keep slapping them around”) and of Victoria Nuland and of Mike Pompeo ( We are ending our soft on Russia policy) together with the actions of the West (NATO expansion, endless sanctions etc), the Russians cannot see the existential threat from the West then maybe Russia does not deserve to continue as a nation.
PS Surprise of the day. War in Syria has been opposed . . . by Sarah Palin! (There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repenteth than of ninety-nine righteous).
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/374452022847606784
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/382386639537840128
The Ukranian government is illegitimate because Ukraine had a constitutional process for selecting its government. When the coup happened, that constitution was not followed, it was abandoned, and reasonably – terminated.
It would be the same if any US citizen group decided to take Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary through a process that is outside of the US Constitution, and then enforce their own view of government on the whole population. Would 100% of the US citizenry agree to this? Would it be illegitimate for those to disagree with the change in the process of selection of representatives?
The legitimacy of a government system is subject to that society’s choice. At no point, from Daraa at the beginning to now, was the Syrian government system legitimately threatened by its own citizenry – there were dissenting voices, and even some protests initially, but overall – the majority – considered it ok. Same as now, the majority of US citizens don’t want Sharia Law to be the legal system for the US.. some do, but not the majority.
There is the current system of law for nations, international law. It has the UN Charter, and a bunch of treaties that most nations have signed. If a nation disregards these, how is it not exactly what John Adams said was not correct – a nation of people, not a nation of laws? Again, the vast majority support this system, at least the letter of the law is decent, if not the designated bodies (UN etc) that monitor them.
The choice is between the absurdist who wishes to tear down the whole system because of some inefficiency, and the rationalist who wishes to fix the inefficiencies within the mostly functioning system.
PS Surprise of the day. War in Syria has been opposed . . . by Sarah Palin! (There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repenteth than of ninety-nine righteous).
When she was vice presidential candidate, there were fears about the possibility of her becoming president. It turns out that she’d have been the sanest US president since Bush the Elder.
To summarize, it seems to be saying that Russia saves face (and its economy) by abandoning Syria and Iran where it has no prospect of winning. The destruction of these two would proceed - giving the US/Israel hegemony over the Middle East and absolute control of oil, and other things being equal, remove risk to the US $ based global economy.
However, other things aren't equal, with the prospect of a Pyrrhic victory for the US. The Syrians and Iranians will resist, and the domestic political opposition in the US and Europe will be great (the public strongly oppose more ME wars in both places), with more $ Trillions in debt being added to the already almost unsustainable pile. There's also the future open ended cost of somehow controlling on the ground a defeated Syria and Iran.
From the Russian POV, they've abandoned the ME, and can maybe watch a US economic and social implosion.
However, the Russians themselves could be due for "Regime Change". Zionists are very hostile to Russia, and it's also a major oil producer. This seems to be the key Russian calculation. Do they fight now in Syria/Iran using it as a nuclear trigger, or wait to see if the US implodes socially and economically.
Logically they should pull out and wait. If the Zionists/US move to attack Russian territory then it's still a nuclear exchange and most major Western and Russian cities disappear from the map, along with Israel, and the world becomes a more rural place.
Since Tucker Carlson is on record that America is only invested in Syria because of Israel,
and since Russia needs good relations with America more than with Israel, why doesn’t Putin just declare that the price for dead Russians won’t be dead Americans but dead Israelis?
But is it true? Then GDP is not a good number. The thing is, we’re better off per unit of energy than we were fifty years ago. Electronics and the internet are obvious examples, but even cars are better, more horsepower with less fuel consumption. (The latter could be untrue in the USA: cars there had a lot of horsepower in the 1960s. But I think even there cars have better fuel economy and so probably contribute more GDP per unit of fuel consumption.)
So GDP cannot correlate that well with energy consumption, or else there’s a problem.
Just this morning Erdogan’s adviser explained on RT that Trump’s war rhetoric is just for domestic consumption.
The alliance Russia, Turkey Syria has beaten the USA.
I hope he’s right.
It’s been a while since I binge read about this, but yes, Dead Hand – or Perimeter as it was formally called – was a system developed in the late Soviet Union. If sensors located throughout the Soviet Union detected that the country had been the victim of a nuclear strike, and no orders were being received from commanding authorities (likely because they had fallen to an American decapitating strike), the system would launch special rockets that would transmit launch orders/codes to the country’s surviving nuclear forces while in flight. Perimeter presumably still exists today, but is apparently dormant most of the time, only getting switched on during periods of high tension.
Mount Yamantau is probably the rough equivalent of Mount Cheyenne (probably because it is much more shrouded in secrecy). Presumably it is a wartime command center and a potential refuge for top Kremlin/military officials and their families.
For the first time in a long time US is being forced to consider the costs of its agressive foreign policy. Mattis said it himself today: the reason why USA is not bombing Assad already is because of a risk of "uncontrolled escalation" in the region, i.e. they are scared that Russia will kick their ass. Trump also apprears to have backtracked today.
“This is bigger than Syria. We’re talking about rules of international order here”
Absolutely.
Really, what options does Russia have: either bend over or draw lines in the sand?
Look at the Western provocations over the last 10 or so years: Chechna, Georgia, Ukraine, downed airliners, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, (Iraq, Libyia) Syria, alleged chemical attacks, all hyped to the point you’d think Russia guilty of crucifying you-know-who.
If Russia is guilty of anything it is grossly under estimating the pathological nature of Western politics. At least the Stavka has been initiated.
As an aside, I am increasingly disappointed in China. Do they not see that Russia is merely the first course ? THEY are the main meal. Its about time they asserted themselves: old story – hang together, or be hanged alone.
Impressive analysis quantitatively.
War is obsolete, whether the Western elites realize it, regardless of public stances, will be a trade-of between the psychology of greed and the psychology of fear for their own skin.
Probably, a few more rounds of trade and mining by China and Russia, might balance Western elites into greed rather then fear. “Angst” is a potent driver though!
It is evident, that either the West declines, Western corporate dominance according to “Jewish” models of loyalty and competence, wanes, when somehow “military capitalism” is not engaged as a last resort. There cannot be a status quo, our global economical system is religious, there can only be one single god.
The world has entered a new phase, where the obvious loser now is the global human masses, and confining them, then reducing them by any means, to make sense as to the global quality of life of the remains. There is no way the real problems of our moment in history, as population density and total numbers, resource exhaustion, toxicity, will not lead to crisis after crisis of elite also affecting issues as migrations, waste lands, resource exhaustion, mere breathing space, the control of obsolete “workers”, and waste cycles of consumption.
The obvious choice will be probably wastefull and laughable power games till drop dead, rather then courage to envision the globe in history abject new ways. Thus, although obsolete as war can be, including local of-shore and nuclear, our Western “elites” do they realise that yet, or is it gut feeling that will prevail?
Mount Yamantau is probably the rough equivalent of Mount Cheyenne (probably because it is much more shrouded in secrecy). Presumably it is a wartime command center and a potential refuge for top Kremlin/military officials and their families.
As far as I know, quite sensibly the Dead Hand was not fully automated. A group of relatively high-ranking officers are stationed there and would be warned by the fully automatic system that a nuclear attack has just taken place. They would have some time to try to verify the information, for which they’d have a number of tools. Then they’d decide to launch a few rockets which would send launch signals to any remaining nuclear units.
The independence of Europe is truly awe-inspiring. Two examples in just the past 24 hours:
But it means that the war would continue. Or do you think there would be an immediate ceasefire?
Also, I like the idea of taking out carriers with ICBMs. The Russian command should do that if it comes to a full nuclear exchange, so that the US Navy is taken out in its entirety. That’s important for the continuation of the war effort after the nuclear exchange.
This is really far too difficult to predict.
In most fiction, nuclear war is immediately followed by total Mad Max style apocalypse or even extinction, which is very inaccurate.
Another possibility:
OTOH, the situation today is not quite comparable, because there was an overriding ideological component to the Cold War. Moreover, with much of the biggest cities – and the country’s elites with them – destroyed, there would surely be a general disintegration of state authority, with the state either (1) splintering apart as localities take control, or (2) the passing of effective political power to the military (ironically the institution that might well best survive a nuclear war, because many of them will not be in big cities, in bunkers, etc).
I would think that the surviving citizenry will not be okay with transitioning from a nuclear war straight to a total war for the sake of Damascus or Riga or whatever. A totalitarian regime might be able to pull it off, but this doesn’t apply here; indeed, establishing one in the post nuclear war aftermath would be difficult, since a large percentage of the mid-level bureaucrats would be dead, and because the legitimacy of the state that had led the country to such a disaster might well be dead too.
In any of those scenarios, I wouldn’t expect the war to end quickly.
Readers of the Unz Review tend to discount the significance of ecological collapse and its implications for the human race. In that respect they are an analogue of those on the Left who think gender is not related to biology.
We are already undergoing what has been referred to as a "biodiversity crisis." This very real diversity problem should not be confused with the liberal and SJW obsession with racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender and sexuality quotas. The web of life is exactly that - a web with the biosphere's functioning highly dependent on a complex interaction between numerous organisms, both macro and micro, and you mess with that interplay at your peril.
Humans don't grow food in a vacuum. Aside from the huge amounts of fossil fuels that we use to keep agrictural output at a level high enough to feed the world, we rely on living organisms, such as insects. Not just pollinators but a whole variety, And yet it looks like 80% of the world's insects have disappeared since 1989.
The first inkling of this was people who drive noticing the disappearance of insect splats from their car windshields over the decades. Then a shocking peer reviewed paper published in October last year, charting the 76% decline of flying insect biomass in protected areas of Germany over the period 1989-2016.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that insects will die in a nuclear war, along with most other creatures. Contrary to popular myth it's not likely that cockroaches are going to inherit the earth. The work of biologists like Timothy Mousseau at Chernobyl and Fukushima suggests that short life span creatures like insects display genetic abnormalities much quicker than longer lived ones like mammals. Put simply, without insects we will not have food.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/27/insect-decimation-upstages-global-warming/
Is it? There wasn’t a single war in all of human history that was won by military technology.
So GDP cannot correlate that well with energy consumption, or else there’s a problem.
I have my own difficulties with GDP. For example, a hurricane that wipes out a city is good for GDP because it measures only the post-disaster rebuilding.
However, the decline in EROI offers a very good explanation for the continuing stagnation and decline of living standards of most people in countries like the US and Great Britain.
Even if the correlation between the two variables can be reduced to less than 0.99 there will come a point at which real material production becomes difficult (for inability, for example, to complete supply chains because you can’t afford to ship components half way around the planet) or just impossible.
We can’t see this in the West because we assume there’s no material basis for reality. Everything is a social construct and we manufacture our own reality – that’s the basis of our way of thinking, Left and Right.
I leave you with the cautionary tale of two economists who, at 9am find themselves trapped in a cellar without a key or realistic hope of rescue and no food or water. At 11.30am one of the economists expresses his discomfort and anxiety because of hunger and thirst.
“Cheer up!” is the reply from the other economist. “Don’t you realise that our demand will eventually create its own supply of sandwiches and water?”
Anatoly, your years spent in the US did not apparently avail you of a new understanding into the mindset of the globalist elite, in particular their collective psychic characteristics, or the psychic conditions of American society overall. Pardon my directness, but your views on the fate of civilizations obviously carried a heavy Silicon Valley tint.
We all know the limitation of Russia with respect to its economy, its high tech sector, its financial markets, its conventional arms, its units in Syria. You have revealed no news in this long article.
Indeed, why not pack up and go home then. Bow your heads, kowtow to the ground. Concentrate on structural reform, high tech, give back Crimea. Revert to Medvedev, or better, to Gorbachev. We will disband the Donbas militia. Send their kids to study computer in California. Russia will be a normal country, a small European country, a big Lithuania. What is pride? Nothing. We bother no one. No one bothers us.
I am sure Mr. Chubais could not agree more with you.
Regardless of whether the true number of Russians was lower or whether they were not really Russian soldiers, it seems to confirm the view of those of us who argued that the lack of an immediate forceful Russian response would be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
And if the Russians are perceived to have "given in" by letting the US launch an attack, unimpeded, it will be the end of any hope that aggressive US action can be curtailed in the future (notably, Iran).
There is a certain asymmetry here. An attack on Estonia is an attack on the US (Nato Article 5), yet the US and Israel can attack Syria with impunity, so long as Russian forces are not put at risk. Putin is too cautious (or sensible if you prefer), but it would be interesting to see what would happen if Russia announced an "Article 5" arrangement with Syria and Iran.
[1600 adults, questioned 10th/11th April]
Rather bizarre when you consider that "enforcing a no fly zone" would be a dramatically more provocative policy choice than "launching cruise missile strikes against Syrian military targets".And here's the encouraging bit for the Israeli/jewish lobby advocates amongst us, showing how easy such opinion is to manipulate:
I read a survey recently in which 87% of western respondents agreed Israel should be bombed, invaded & reconstituted as a non apartheid, democratic State…oh, damn, it was only a day dream. Sorry to get people’s hopes up.
I wouldn't, but I don't know if they ever remove target cities. Probably not.
Here’s a question: if you nuked Detroit would the rest of the US notice ?
(Its one way to clean up the accounts: it would be “writing (righting) off debts”)
In most fiction, nuclear war is immediately followed by total Mad Max style apocalypse or even extinction, which is very inaccurate.
Another possibility:
OTOH, the situation today is not quite comparable, because there was an overriding ideological component to the Cold War. Moreover, with much of the biggest cities - and the country's elites with them - destroyed, there would surely be a general disintegration of state authority, with the state either (1) splintering apart as localities take control, or (2) the passing of effective political power to the military (ironically the institution that might well best survive a nuclear war, because many of them will not be in big cities, in bunkers, etc).
I would think that the surviving citizenry will not be okay with transitioning from a nuclear war straight to a total war for the sake of Damascus or Riga or whatever. A totalitarian regime might be able to pull it off, but this doesn't apply here; indeed, establishing one in the post nuclear war aftermath would be difficult, since a large percentage of the mid-level bureaucrats would be dead, and because the legitimacy of the state that had led the country to such a disaster might well be dead too.
I personally think that the states would move to totalitarian levels of control. The media and press would come under totalitarian level government control, and so the population would believe that the other side was responsible for the war. This would make them both angry and frightened of an enemy victory, and so more willing to sacrifice for war. The military grabbing power would be a possibility, though for example Trump would also acquire near dictatorial powers. Politically he’d be stronger than ever. So maybe he’d just go on to become the unironic God-Emperor?
In any of those scenarios, I wouldn’t expect the war to end quickly.
Maybe someone could explain this to me?
If they were so desperate to build their gas pipline from quatar why dont they just by pass syria i.e though SA and up the red sea?
In surprise move, China to mount live-fire navy drills in Taiwan Strait ‘in show of support for Russia over Syria’
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2141505/surprise-move-china-mount-live-fire-navy-drills-taiwan
This is a good and encouraging development.
Also a good rejoinder to that The Faker troll who infests The Saker’s blog with his claims that China is rolling over for the US.
This is Michael D. Weiss so take it for what it’s worth but if true Macron is an unhinged maniac.
There seems to be a struggle in the White House between Mattis (who presumably wants a limited strike presumably along the lines of Shayrat 2017) and Bolton (who wants something much more extensive).
You seemingly have a talent for misunderstanding and misrepresenting the main point of an article. I’m thinking of how you could use this talent for anything useful. Can’t think of anything, though.
LOL.
I was banned at The Guardian in the early 2010s when I correctly pointed out that Luke Harding is a plagiarist.
Well…this has to be the most asinine ‘article’ I have yet seen on this website…
This author somehow assumes he has the technical creds to state as flat fact that Russia’s ‘tiny’ and supposedly weak contingent in Syria would without any doubt be quickly overwhelmed…
If I were to ask this author…just as an exercise in demonstrative logic…if he could solve even an elementary Newtonian physics problem along the lines of…
I might as well ask my cat…
Yet he somehow has screwed into his tiny head that he can talk authoritatively…not about hurling mere rocks…but about missiles…ships…and aircraft…
It boggles the mind…
For the benefit of some readers here who have demonstrated at least some basic logic on the matter …let us look at the details of what is involved here…
The point of this discussion will be to examine technical details involving the kinds of weapons capabilities that might figure into this confrontation…as well as examining some credible historical analysis of recent US-Nato assaults of this type…
Let’s assume that the US along with Britain and France decides to launch a massive barrage of cruise missiles from ships, submarines and aircraft from standoff range…ie out of range of Russian long range surface to air missiles…such as the S400 which everyone talks about…but which is only of peripheral importance to this war scenario…[more on that later]
What is the best defense against such an assault…?
Is it to try to knock down those missiles with Russia’s air defense rockets…thereby depleting their stock of munitions [which are intended for different kinds of targets anyway]…?
Or is it to hit those ships, subs and airfields from which the attack is coming…and thereby neutralize the threat as quickly as possible..?
The answer is quite obvious…perhaps even to someone as lacking in actual knowledge as this ‘author’…
One commenter early on in this thread mentioned the use of Russian long range bombers which have for decades been designed for the very mission of taking out US carrier groups…
A little background here…the Russian answer to the devastating power and long distance force projection of the USN carrier groups was asymmetrical…ie not to field their own such massive naval might…but to counter them with effective weapons that could quickly neutralize them…
One such weapon system is the Tu22M long range, supersonic bomber carrying ship killer missiles…
Let’s look at what this means in nuts and bolts…
Let’s drill down a bit and explore the capabilities of this weapon system…the Raduga Kh22 anti-ship cruise missile has been in service since 1962…
It is a 13,000 lb bruiser that reaches a top speed of Mach 4.6 [nearly six times as fast as a Tomahawk]…and has a 600 km range…
The Tu22M which has a maximum takeoff weight of 140 tons …nearly twice the weight of a Boeing 737…can carry three of these missiles…
A single regiment of 20 aircraft even carrying two missiles each [trading payload for fuel for extra range]…means 40 such missiles against a carrier battle group…
The missile carries a 1,000 kg shaped charge warhead…more than twice the weight of a Tomahawk warhead…[the kinetic energy at impact would be 36 times greater than that of a T-hawk...as kinetic energy increases by the square of speed...]
Here’s an interesting one from the photo album…
That’s Adm Charles Larson former commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet trying out the driver’s seat of the Tu22M…
We note that the Kh22 has since been supplanted by the Kh32 with 1,000 km range…and a speed of Mach 5…[nearly 7 times that of the T-hawk...]
The flight distance from Beslan airfield to Damascus is 1,293 km…
That’s about an hour dash for the supersonic Tu22M which has a top speed of Mach 1.9 [2.050 km/hr]…and a range of 6,800 km…
This strike force would be accompanied by <a title=”"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35#Specifications_(Su-35S)Sukhoi” href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35#Specifications_(Su-35S)Sukhoi Flanker air superiority fighters which have a combat radius of 1,500 km…by far the longest legs of any fighter in the world…more than twice that of the USN F/A 18 Super Hornet with its combat radius of 722 km…
There are also MiG29s at the Russian 3624th Air Base in Armenia…flight distance to Damascus 1,041 km…that’s a half hour hop for the supersonic jets…
With the 1,000 km range of the Kh32…the big Tupolev bombers would hardly need to get too far away from Russia’s shores before launching…
There is hardly any need to even think about the newly announced Mach 10, 2000 km range Kinzhal…launched by the Mach 2.8 MiG31…although it might be fun to see it in action if the opportunity presents itself…
This is the punch that the opponent packs…and which this ‘author’ is blissfully ignorant of…
An aggression by the US on Russia in Syria would certainly be met with swift and deadly force…why…?
Because it would be militarily stupid not to use it…is a boxer going to pull his punches once he’s in the ring…?
Once a war starts the generals call the shots…that’s how it works…
I have not even begun to mention the Russian ships and subs in Tartus…all of which are also armed with very deadly anti-ship missiles…as well as anti-sub missiles…yes there is such a thing…[more on that later]
The S300/400 in Syria is not there to shoot down cruise missiles…as plenty of nitwits in Western media claim…
Their purpose is to impose a no-fly zone over Syria and keep enemy jets out of Syrian airspace…which it most certainly is very capable of
This no fly zone de facto exists but has simply not been announced [as of yet...although that would be the first announcement in case of an aggressive US move]
Those surface to air missile launchers and their radars are all truck mounted and extremely mobile…which means their location once a shooting war starts would not be known to the adversary…
They cannot therefore be targeted by cruise missiles which can only hit pre-programmed targets whose locations are known…and which cannot move…
The big S3/400 guns are also protected by point defense SAMs such as the Pantsir S…
An astute commenter here mentioned the US / Nato air war against Serbia in 1999 which involved over 1,000 fighter jets, Awacs as well as jamming aircraft etc…
He correctly mentioned that they were able to take out only three of Serbia’s mobile SAMs…despite firing more than 750 precision missiles designed to home in on air defense radars…called HARMs [high speed anti radiation missile]
That’s a kill ratio of one third of one percent…
In return…the Serbs downed the USAF F117 ‘stealth’ aircraft and severely damaged another that never flew again…they also shot down the F16 of Current USAF Chief of Staff General David Goldfein…
The trophy F117 canopy in the Belgrade Aviation Museum…
And the tail feathers from then Col Goldfein’s F16…
This author might start by reviewing the study published by Dr. Benjamin S Lambeth in the Aeropsace Power Journal…the USAF’s ‘professional flagship publication’…
So little Serbia…with its 1950s and ’60s era equipment was able to fight a 1,000 plane armada to a standstill…
And here is what might have been…
Nothing has changed in terms of US-Nato’s SEAD capability since 1999…[suppression of enemy air defenses]
Yet the ‘author’ of this silly article states quite flatly that…
Actually…the lopsided match would be my cat vs this author in a math contest…
This is not 1999 anymore…and Russia is not Serbia…
More to come…
Brilliant.
If life would continue (I hear what Tsar Nicholas is saying, but I tend to disagree), then the argument Randal often uses (namely, that it'd be impossible for even the top leadership to think that they could personally escape all the negative consequences of the war) will considerably weaken. Moreover, it doesn't even have to be true: it's enough if the top leadership thinks (and I'd guess in both countries they'd think) that it was possible to survive.
A lot depends on exactly how the conflict breaks out - the initial conditions can change the early outcome from massive losses for the US side to prompt destruction of the Russian side, as can unexpected capabilities. If one side gets the jump on the other, if one side's ew systems work better than expected, or are unexpectedly hard countered, etc etc. Nobody really knows how these systems will interact because nobody has any directly relevant experience of how they will interact in full and open use.
Cruise missiles certainly can be used to target mobile sam systems, if you know where those systems are located, although they aren't the most effective weapons against dispersed vehicles. If they are constantly moving, they can't be used effectively. And a sam battalion has a limited number of long range missiles in its launchers. They will not achieve 1:1 kills with those missiles (the hit rates are not 100% anyway, some will fall to countermeasures, and often they will fire two or more at a given target). The situation of the Russian ad operators in Syria would be a seriously unenviable one. The skies around Syria will be cluttered to a degree never encountered by such systems with all kinds of targets - aircraft, missiles, drones. Both sides' ew systems will be operating at maximum.
US ships in the eastern Med will be catastrophically vulnerable to attack from submarine, air launched and ground launched missiles. So of course will Russian ships, but even more so.
It's likely to be much more of a bloodbath for each side than the extreme advocates of each are claiming for their own side. Things will not work as expected. Missiles will get through when they ought not to. Other missiles will completely fail. Each side will likely field completely unexpected capabilities.
Uncertainty, not certainty, should be the essence of predicting the outcome of such a war. Most likely, though, numbers will tell in the end, rather than particular systems.
I suspect that's at the heart of the evident debate within the US regime over whether and how much to attack. Probably the generals are not giving Trump the assurances he needs to hear about the ability to control escalation and the risks to US systems and personnel, and that's making it hard for him to sustain his gung ho ignorant jingoism even with support from Bolton.
I think there’re two possibilities:
1. It de-escalates and a face saving solution is found
2. America + the two stooges do something, Russia takes revenge on one of the the two stooges or both.
Your guess is as good as mine. These are levels of globalism that shouldn’t even be possible.
Highly unlikely. How would it have done so? Late Tsarist Russia was a capitalist economy, they couldn’t just order masses of people to go and settle somewhere (Siberian and Central Asia colonization was accomplished through land grants, and naturally through availability of large territories).
Riga would have probably become significantly more Russian because its the Baltics’ premier industrial city, the others – probably not.
In most fiction, nuclear war is immediately followed by total Mad Max style apocalypse or even extinction, which is very inaccurate.
Another possibility:
OTOH, the situation today is not quite comparable, because there was an overriding ideological component to the Cold War. Moreover, with much of the biggest cities - and the country's elites with them - destroyed, there would surely be a general disintegration of state authority, with the state either (1) splintering apart as localities take control, or (2) the passing of effective political power to the military (ironically the institution that might well best survive a nuclear war, because many of them will not be in big cities, in bunkers, etc).
I would think that the surviving citizenry will not be okay with transitioning from a nuclear war straight to a total war for the sake of Damascus or Riga or whatever. A totalitarian regime might be able to pull it off, but this doesn't apply here; indeed, establishing one in the post nuclear war aftermath would be difficult, since a large percentage of the mid-level bureaucrats would be dead, and because the legitimacy of the state that had led the country to such a disaster might well be dead too.
A doubtful possibility, very doubtful.
Readers of the Unz Review tend to discount the significance of ecological collapse and its implications for the human race. In that respect they are an analogue of those on the Left who think gender is not related to biology.
We are already undergoing what has been referred to as a “biodiversity crisis.” This very real diversity problem should not be confused with the liberal and SJW obsession with racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender and sexuality quotas. The web of life is exactly that – a web with the biosphere’s functioning highly dependent on a complex interaction between numerous organisms, both macro and micro, and you mess with that interplay at your peril.
Humans don’t grow food in a vacuum. Aside from the huge amounts of fossil fuels that we use to keep agrictural output at a level high enough to feed the world, we rely on living organisms, such as insects. Not just pollinators but a whole variety, And yet it looks like 80% of the world’s insects have disappeared since 1989.
The first inkling of this was people who drive noticing the disappearance of insect splats from their car windshields over the decades. Then a shocking peer reviewed paper published in October last year, charting the 76% decline of flying insect biomass in protected areas of Germany over the period 1989-2016.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that insects will die in a nuclear war, along with most other creatures. Contrary to popular myth it’s not likely that cockroaches are going to inherit the earth. The work of biologists like Timothy Mousseau at Chernobyl and Fukushima suggests that short life span creatures like insects display genetic abnormalities much quicker than longer lived ones like mammals. Put simply, without insects we will not have food.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/27/insect-decimation-upstages-global-warming/
I was banned at The Guardian in the early 2010s when I correctly pointed out that Luke Harding is a plagiarist.
I got banned and a threatening email from Conservative Home this week. I think given the articles and links they are an Israeli outfit masquerading as a British political website.
Out of curiosity, what was the specific threat? And did you really say something that "outrageous"?
it seems to confirm the view of those of us who argued that the lack of an immediate forceful Russian response would be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
And if the Russians are perceived to have “given in” by letting the US launch an attack, unimpeded, it will be the end of any hope that aggressive US action can be curtailed in the future (notably, Iran).
There is a certain asymmetry here. An attack on Estonia is an attack on the US (Nato Article 5), yet the US and Israel can attack Syria with impunity, so long as Russian forces are not put at risk. Putin is too cautious (or sensible if you prefer), but it would be interesting to see what would happen if Russia announced an “Article 5″ arrangement with Syria and Iran.
But unilateral guarantees tend to have the same effect. For example when Poland was given a British guarantee against any attack by Germany, to use the most commonly cited example.
The problem is, of course, that Hitler attacked anyway. And so might the US/NATO.
This author somehow assumes he has the technical creds to state as flat fact that Russia's 'tiny' and supposedly weak contingent in Syria would without any doubt be quickly overwhelmed...
If I were to ask this author...just as an exercise in demonstrative logic...if he could solve even an elementary Newtonian physics problem along the lines of...I might as well ask my cat...
Yet he somehow has screwed into his tiny head that he can talk authoritatively...not about hurling mere rocks...but about missiles...ships...and aircraft...
It boggles the mind...
For the benefit of some readers here who have demonstrated at least some basic logic on the matter ...let us look at the details of what is involved here...
The point of this discussion will be to examine technical details involving the kinds of weapons capabilities that might figure into this confrontation...as well as examining some credible historical analysis of recent US-Nato assaults of this type...
Let's assume that the US along with Britain and France decides to launch a massive barrage of cruise missiles from ships, submarines and aircraft from standoff range...ie out of range of Russian long range surface to air missiles...such as the S400 which everyone talks about...but which is only of peripheral importance to this war scenario...[more on that later]
What is the best defense against such an assault...?
Is it to try to knock down those missiles with Russia's air defense rockets...thereby depleting their stock of munitions [which are intended for different kinds of targets anyway]...?
Or is it to hit those ships, subs and airfields from which the attack is coming...and thereby neutralize the threat as quickly as possible..?
The answer is quite obvious...perhaps even to someone as lacking in actual knowledge as this 'author'...
One commenter early on in this thread mentioned the use of Russian long range bombers which have for decades been designed for the very mission of taking out US carrier groups...
A little background here...the Russian answer to the devastating power and long distance force projection of the USN carrier groups was asymmetrical...ie not to field their own such massive naval might...but to counter them with effective weapons that could quickly neutralize them...
One such weapon system is the Tu22M long range, supersonic bomber carrying ship killer missiles...
Let's look at what this means in nuts and bolts...Let's drill down a bit and explore the capabilities of this weapon system...the Raduga Kh22 anti-ship cruise missile has been in service since 1962...
It is a 13,000 lb bruiser that reaches a top speed of Mach 4.6 [nearly six times as fast as a Tomahawk]...and has a 600 km range...
The Tu22M which has a maximum takeoff weight of 140 tons ...nearly twice the weight of a Boeing 737...can carry three of these missiles...
A single regiment of 20 aircraft even carrying two missiles each [trading payload for fuel for extra range]...means 40 such missiles against a carrier battle group...
The missile carries a 1,000 kg shaped charge warhead...more than twice the weight of a Tomahawk warhead...[the kinetic energy at impact would be 36 times greater than that of a T-hawk...as kinetic energy increases by the square of speed...]Here's an interesting one from the photo album...
https://s20.postimg.cc/q5orqkust/Backfire-_Cockpit-_DN-_SC-91-02246-1_S.jpg
That's Adm Charles Larson former commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet trying out the driver's seat of the Tu22M...
We note that the Kh22 has since been supplanted by the Kh32 with 1,000 km range...and a speed of Mach 5...[nearly 7 times that of the T-hawk...]
The flight distance from Beslan airfield to Damascus is 1,293 km...
https://s20.postimg.cc/955vi4mz1/Beslan_Damascus_Flight_Distance.jpg
That's about an hour dash for the supersonic Tu22M which has a top speed of Mach 1.9 [2.050 km/hr]...and a range of 6,800 km...
This strike force would be accompanied by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35#Specifications_(Su-35S)Sukhoi Flanker air superiority fighters which have a combat radius of 1,500 km...by far the longest legs of any fighter in the world...more than twice that of the USN F/A 18 Super Hornet with its combat radius of 722 km...
There are also MiG29s at the Russian 3624th Air Base in Armenia...flight distance to Damascus 1,041 km...that's a half hour hop for the supersonic jets...
https://s20.postimg.cc/4xb395o1p/Yerevan_Damascus_Flight_Distance.jpg
With the 1,000 km range of the Kh32...the big Tupolev bombers would hardly need to get too far away from Russia's shores before launching...
There is hardly any need to even think about the newly announced Mach 10, 2000 km range Kinzhal...launched by the Mach 2.8 MiG31...although it might be fun to see it in action if the opportunity presents itself...
This is the punch that the opponent packs...and which this 'author' is blissfully ignorant of...
An aggression by the US on Russia in Syria would certainly be met with swift and deadly force...why...?
Because it would be militarily stupid not to use it...is a boxer going to pull his punches once he's in the ring...?
Once a war starts the generals call the shots...that's how it works...
I have not even begun to mention the Russian ships and subs in Tartus...all of which are also armed with very deadly anti-ship missiles...as well as anti-sub missiles...yes there is such a thing...[more on that later]
The S300/400 in Syria is not there to shoot down cruise missiles...as plenty of nitwits in Western media claim...
Their purpose is to impose a no-fly zone over Syria and keep enemy jets out of Syrian airspace...which it most certainly is very capable of
This no fly zone de facto exists but has simply not been announced [as of yet...although that would be the first announcement in case of an aggressive US move]
Those surface to air missile launchers and their radars are all truck mounted and extremely mobile...which means their location once a shooting war starts would not be known to the adversary...
They cannot therefore be targeted by cruise missiles which can only hit pre-programmed targets whose locations are known...and which cannot move...
The big S3/400 guns are also protected by point defense SAMs such as the Pantsir S...An astute commenter here mentioned the US / Nato air war against Serbia in 1999 which involved over 1,000 fighter jets, Awacs as well as jamming aircraft etc...
He correctly mentioned that they were able to take out only three of Serbia's mobile SAMs...despite firing more than 750 precision missiles designed to home in on air defense radars...called HARMs [high speed anti radiation missile]
That's a kill ratio of one third of one percent...
In return...the Serbs downed the USAF F117 'stealth' aircraft and severely damaged another that never flew again...they also shot down the F16 of Current USAF Chief of Staff General David Goldfein...
The trophy F117 canopy in the Belgrade Aviation Museum...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/F-117_canopy.jpg
And the tail feathers from then Col Goldfein's F16...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/F-16_tail.jpg
This author might start by reviewing the study published by Dr. Benjamin S Lambeth in the Aeropsace Power Journal...the USAF's 'professional flagship publication'...So little Serbia...with its 1950s and '60s era equipment was able to fight a 1,000 plane armada to a standstill...
And here is what might have been...Nothing has changed in terms of US-Nato's SEAD capability since 1999...[suppression of enemy air defenses]
Yet the 'author' of this silly article states quite flatly that...Actually...the lopsided match would be my cat vs this author in a math contest...
This is not 1999 anymore...and Russia is not Serbia...
More to come...
LOL!
Brilliant.
I got banned and a threatening email from Conservative Home this week.
Out of curiosity, what was the specific threat? And did you really say something that “outrageous”?
What all this does show is the value for Russia building up Iranian forces, if Iran could field a couple of dozen latest tech aircraft this could just about tip the balance, Iranians have the IQ to use them properly. I note the Iraqis purchased some T90s so in time they could also be built up too.
And if the Russians are perceived to have "given in" by letting the US launch an attack, unimpeded, it will be the end of any hope that aggressive US action can be curtailed in the future (notably, Iran).
There is a certain asymmetry here. An attack on Estonia is an attack on the US (Nato Article 5), yet the US and Israel can attack Syria with impunity, so long as Russian forces are not put at risk. Putin is too cautious (or sensible if you prefer), but it would be interesting to see what would happen if Russia announced an "Article 5" arrangement with Syria and Iran.
I have already thought about it. Now would be the time to just conclude a mutual defense treaty with Syria and Iran. An attack on any of the three would trigger the other two into a war.
But unilateral guarantees tend to have the same effect. For example when Poland was given a British guarantee against any attack by Germany, to use the most commonly cited example.
The problem is, of course, that Hitler attacked anyway. And so might the US/NATO.
I don't think so, there's no way that the US launches a war on Russia (as opposed to a "punitive" attack on Syria). Instead, they would be reduced to taking further (drastic) measures to isolate Russia from the "Free World": expulsion from SWIFT, sanctions on Russian exports, etc.
If any country was betrayed by the west it was Poland, it disappeared until 1990.
What Hitler did not expect was GB's declaration of war.
But also GB could do little, Hitler therefore tried to force GB to peace by beating France in three weeks.
We, the Netherlands, and Belgium, collateral damage.
With Churchill out of the way, no army, Hitler then could turn his attention to the USSR.
He had quite well understood Molotov's veiled threats when Molotov visited Berlin.
What Hitler underrated was the USA.
And, I suppose, he did not expect capitalistic communist cooperation.
Out of curiosity, what was the specific threat? And did you really say something that "outrageous"?
Nothing too outrageous, criticising the lobby. Just told not to post there.
What all this does show is the value for Russia building up Iranian forces, if Iran could field a couple of dozen latest tech aircraft this could just about tip the balance, Iranians have the IQ to use them properly. I note the Iraqis purchased some T90s so in time they could also be built up too.
So I think that they should only provide Iran weapons if we survive the present crisis without a nuclear war. Which unfortunately seems far from a certainty.
This author somehow assumes he has the technical creds to state as flat fact that Russia's 'tiny' and supposedly weak contingent in Syria would without any doubt be quickly overwhelmed...
If I were to ask this author...just as an exercise in demonstrative logic...if he could solve even an elementary Newtonian physics problem along the lines of...I might as well ask my cat...
Yet he somehow has screwed into his tiny head that he can talk authoritatively...not about hurling mere rocks...but about missiles...ships...and aircraft...
It boggles the mind...
For the benefit of some readers here who have demonstrated at least some basic logic on the matter ...let us look at the details of what is involved here...
The point of this discussion will be to examine technical details involving the kinds of weapons capabilities that might figure into this confrontation...as well as examining some credible historical analysis of recent US-Nato assaults of this type...
Let's assume that the US along with Britain and France decides to launch a massive barrage of cruise missiles from ships, submarines and aircraft from standoff range...ie out of range of Russian long range surface to air missiles...such as the S400 which everyone talks about...but which is only of peripheral importance to this war scenario...[more on that later]
What is the best defense against such an assault...?
Is it to try to knock down those missiles with Russia's air defense rockets...thereby depleting their stock of munitions [which are intended for different kinds of targets anyway]...?
Or is it to hit those ships, subs and airfields from which the attack is coming...and thereby neutralize the threat as quickly as possible..?
The answer is quite obvious...perhaps even to someone as lacking in actual knowledge as this 'author'...
One commenter early on in this thread mentioned the use of Russian long range bombers which have for decades been designed for the very mission of taking out US carrier groups...
A little background here...the Russian answer to the devastating power and long distance force projection of the USN carrier groups was asymmetrical...ie not to field their own such massive naval might...but to counter them with effective weapons that could quickly neutralize them...
One such weapon system is the Tu22M long range, supersonic bomber carrying ship killer missiles...
Let's look at what this means in nuts and bolts...Let's drill down a bit and explore the capabilities of this weapon system...the Raduga Kh22 anti-ship cruise missile has been in service since 1962...
It is a 13,000 lb bruiser that reaches a top speed of Mach 4.6 [nearly six times as fast as a Tomahawk]...and has a 600 km range...
The Tu22M which has a maximum takeoff weight of 140 tons ...nearly twice the weight of a Boeing 737...can carry three of these missiles...
A single regiment of 20 aircraft even carrying two missiles each [trading payload for fuel for extra range]...means 40 such missiles against a carrier battle group...
The missile carries a 1,000 kg shaped charge warhead...more than twice the weight of a Tomahawk warhead...[the kinetic energy at impact would be 36 times greater than that of a T-hawk...as kinetic energy increases by the square of speed...]Here's an interesting one from the photo album...
https://s20.postimg.cc/q5orqkust/Backfire-_Cockpit-_DN-_SC-91-02246-1_S.jpg
That's Adm Charles Larson former commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet trying out the driver's seat of the Tu22M...
We note that the Kh22 has since been supplanted by the Kh32 with 1,000 km range...and a speed of Mach 5...[nearly 7 times that of the T-hawk...]
The flight distance from Beslan airfield to Damascus is 1,293 km...
https://s20.postimg.cc/955vi4mz1/Beslan_Damascus_Flight_Distance.jpg
That's about an hour dash for the supersonic Tu22M which has a top speed of Mach 1.9 [2.050 km/hr]...and a range of 6,800 km...
This strike force would be accompanied by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35#Specifications_(Su-35S)Sukhoi Flanker air superiority fighters which have a combat radius of 1,500 km...by far the longest legs of any fighter in the world...more than twice that of the USN F/A 18 Super Hornet with its combat radius of 722 km...
There are also MiG29s at the Russian 3624th Air Base in Armenia...flight distance to Damascus 1,041 km...that's a half hour hop for the supersonic jets...
https://s20.postimg.cc/4xb395o1p/Yerevan_Damascus_Flight_Distance.jpg
With the 1,000 km range of the Kh32...the big Tupolev bombers would hardly need to get too far away from Russia's shores before launching...
There is hardly any need to even think about the newly announced Mach 10, 2000 km range Kinzhal...launched by the Mach 2.8 MiG31...although it might be fun to see it in action if the opportunity presents itself...
This is the punch that the opponent packs...and which this 'author' is blissfully ignorant of...
An aggression by the US on Russia in Syria would certainly be met with swift and deadly force...why...?
Because it would be militarily stupid not to use it...is a boxer going to pull his punches once he's in the ring...?
Once a war starts the generals call the shots...that's how it works...
I have not even begun to mention the Russian ships and subs in Tartus...all of which are also armed with very deadly anti-ship missiles...as well as anti-sub missiles...yes there is such a thing...[more on that later]
The S300/400 in Syria is not there to shoot down cruise missiles...as plenty of nitwits in Western media claim...
Their purpose is to impose a no-fly zone over Syria and keep enemy jets out of Syrian airspace...which it most certainly is very capable of
This no fly zone de facto exists but has simply not been announced [as of yet...although that would be the first announcement in case of an aggressive US move]
Those surface to air missile launchers and their radars are all truck mounted and extremely mobile...which means their location once a shooting war starts would not be known to the adversary...
They cannot therefore be targeted by cruise missiles which can only hit pre-programmed targets whose locations are known...and which cannot move...
The big S3/400 guns are also protected by point defense SAMs such as the Pantsir S...An astute commenter here mentioned the US / Nato air war against Serbia in 1999 which involved over 1,000 fighter jets, Awacs as well as jamming aircraft etc...
He correctly mentioned that they were able to take out only three of Serbia's mobile SAMs...despite firing more than 750 precision missiles designed to home in on air defense radars...called HARMs [high speed anti radiation missile]
That's a kill ratio of one third of one percent...
In return...the Serbs downed the USAF F117 'stealth' aircraft and severely damaged another that never flew again...they also shot down the F16 of Current USAF Chief of Staff General David Goldfein...
The trophy F117 canopy in the Belgrade Aviation Museum...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/F-117_canopy.jpg
And the tail feathers from then Col Goldfein's F16...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/F-16_tail.jpg
This author might start by reviewing the study published by Dr. Benjamin S Lambeth in the Aeropsace Power Journal...the USAF's 'professional flagship publication'...So little Serbia...with its 1950s and '60s era equipment was able to fight a 1,000 plane armada to a standstill...
And here is what might have been...Nothing has changed in terms of US-Nato's SEAD capability since 1999...[suppression of enemy air defenses]
Yet the 'author' of this silly article states quite flatly that...Actually...the lopsided match would be my cat vs this author in a math contest...
This is not 1999 anymore...and Russia is not Serbia...
More to come...
I would be happy if what you wrote were true (I still fail to see why you have to be a prick, though), but I think the safest assumption is that Russia would be the weaker side in this conflict. At least until the nukes start falling.
If life would continue (I hear what Tsar Nicholas is saying, but I tend to disagree), then the argument Randal often uses (namely, that it’d be impossible for even the top leadership to think that they could personally escape all the negative consequences of the war) will considerably weaken. Moreover, it doesn’t even have to be true: it’s enough if the top leadership thinks (and I’d guess in both countries they’d think) that it was possible to survive.
What all this does show is the value for Russia building up Iranian forces, if Iran could field a couple of dozen latest tech aircraft this could just about tip the balance, Iranians have the IQ to use them properly. I note the Iraqis purchased some T90s so in time they could also be built up too.
The problem right now is that the war might come in days or weeks. There is no time to train the Iranians, and however competent they’d use those planes, they’d still be considerably less competent than the Russians.
So I think that they should only provide Iran weapons if we survive the present crisis without a nuclear war. Which unfortunately seems far from a certainty.
Torpedos have become way more destructive. They don’t aim for the hull but explode under it, taking away enough water mass supporting the ship that the hull will crack or break. The effect is at least doubled by the mass of returning water overcompensating and bending the hull in the opposite direction.
That’s perfectly natural.
You’d be under Chinese suzerainty of course but that’s probably inevitable this century anyway, and probably won’t be that bad of a deal anyway.
But unilateral guarantees tend to have the same effect. For example when Poland was given a British guarantee against any attack by Germany, to use the most commonly cited example.
The problem is, of course, that Hitler attacked anyway. And so might the US/NATO.
The problem is, of course, that Hitler attacked anyway. And so might the US/NATO.
I don’t think so, there’s no way that the US launches a war on Russia (as opposed to a “punitive” attack on Syria). Instead, they would be reduced to taking further (drastic) measures to isolate Russia from the “Free World”: expulsion from SWIFT, sanctions on Russian exports, etc.
Is there any good reason to believe it just because it comes from the mouth of the likes of Pompeo? The question answers itself. After all, if that were the standard we use, what about all the senior US liars who have blithely announced that “there was a gas attack by Assad” in relation to several highly dubious alleged incidents over the past couple of years? Pompeo was transparently trying to justify the policy of aggressive confrontation he seeks and is no better in this regard than the likes of Bolton.
Just more empty jingoist words from an empty jingoist.
I’ll stick with the only plausible actual direct investigation report I’ve seen about the incident:
The Truth About the Russian Deaths in Syria
Pretty much tells you all you need to know about Pompeo.
1) Russians were killed by the Americans
2) with nary a word of protest from the Russian government
I'm sure that makes the likes of Pompeo think that if they again kill some Russians accidentally, then Russia will do nothing. So this makes them less eager to avoid any and all accidental Russian casualties. This also makes it easier to sell the policy of aggressive confrontation.
I fail to see how the exact circumstances or the exact number of those killed matters, as long as the core of the issue (Russians killed by Americans with no protest or public countermeasure from Russia) is true. And we both no it's true, because your source says so much - Russians were killed, and Russia didn't protest. As we both can see, the likes of Pompeo interpreted this as a sign of weakness, and I'm sure most normie observers do the same thing. I cannot count the times I've heard this Deir ez-Zor argument ("the Russians won't do anything, see, they didn't do anything the last time either") in Hungary.
Well, the alternative to that – if the standoff there goes hot – is for Russia to be humiliated and retreat to stew in its own juices, isolated by the West and under increased and increasing sanctions anyway. Post-Crimea consensus probably gone, regime facing challenges from both liberal and pissed off nationalists, other ex-USSR states rushing to distance themselves from losers, etc.
I am not advocating anything here, just describing the options that Putin will have to decide on.
To some extent I am even glad I am not the one who has to take them and bear responsibility for their outcome.
Russia keeps the LDNR humming along with something like $1 billion worth of subsidies per year. Note that this is an unrecognized territory that has been shorn of many of its economic traditional economic links that exists under an atrocious legal regime – all problems that will go away.
It is an ill wind indeed that blows no good. As far as population decimation goes, your 90% survival rate for humanity is too optimistic: A number of prominent globalists are on record that the sustainable population is somewhat less than a billion.
Both sides will need to ensure they keep enough nukes and forces available to deal with the inevitable flood of refugees. After a nuclear exchange, maybe the West will be in the sort of mood that finally allows it to defend itself from the invading masses.
It is is an ill wind that blows no good.
That is certainly a good thing. The bad part is who survives.
PS Surprise of the day. War in Syria has been opposed . . . by Sarah Palin! (There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repenteth than of ninety-nine righteous).
I am actually not surprised, I have always had a soft spot for Palin.
Thing to bear in mind is almost all European countries have declined to take part, if British planes do get shot down then things will turn very nasty for the government given the distinct lack of public support.
This poll certainly cheered me up.
On the other hand, what can anyone really do if she decides to go through with it without a vote in parliament?
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/04/12/two-one-public-oppose-missile-strikes-syria/
And of course he's a total hate figure of the MSM.
Randal, I believe your Spiegel account. But it seems that
1) Russians were killed by the Americans
2) with nary a word of protest from the Russian government
I’m sure that makes the likes of Pompeo think that if they again kill some Russians accidentally, then Russia will do nothing. So this makes them less eager to avoid any and all accidental Russian casualties. This also makes it easier to sell the policy of aggressive confrontation.
I fail to see how the exact circumstances or the exact number of those killed matters, as long as the core of the issue (Russians killed by Americans with no protest or public countermeasure from Russia) is true. And we both no it’s true, because your source says so much – Russians were killed, and Russia didn’t protest. As we both can see, the likes of Pompeo interpreted this as a sign of weakness, and I’m sure most normie observers do the same thing. I cannot count the times I’ve heard this Deir ez-Zor argument (“the Russians won’t do anything, see, they didn’t do anything the last time either”) in Hungary.
But what grounds had the Russian government to complain about Russians present in a war zone in a private capacity being killed as collateral damage in an ongoing war, and in a location known to be highly dangerous? The world would have laughed at them, and rightly so.Yes, though I suspect Pompeo is more liar than fool in this case.
I didn't suggest otherwise.
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/374452022847606784
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/382386639537840128
That’s an awesome line, though the actual wording was I think somewhat less awesome (but still very much awesome).
1) Russians were killed by the Americans
2) with nary a word of protest from the Russian government
I'm sure that makes the likes of Pompeo think that if they again kill some Russians accidentally, then Russia will do nothing. So this makes them less eager to avoid any and all accidental Russian casualties. This also makes it easier to sell the policy of aggressive confrontation.
I fail to see how the exact circumstances or the exact number of those killed matters, as long as the core of the issue (Russians killed by Americans with no protest or public countermeasure from Russia) is true. And we both no it's true, because your source says so much - Russians were killed, and Russia didn't protest. As we both can see, the likes of Pompeo interpreted this as a sign of weakness, and I'm sure most normie observers do the same thing. I cannot count the times I've heard this Deir ez-Zor argument ("the Russians won't do anything, see, they didn't do anything the last time either") in Hungary.
The Russians destroyed the Ghouta rebels in retaliation.
And even if they wouldn't (hardly believable, the only reason they're there is to destroy the rebels anyway), the optics is still there.
The reason the Americans are right now vacillating is because Dunford and Mattis got cold feet about potentially losing planes and surface ships, and they also fear uncontrollable escalation in such a situation. However bad they are, they probably still learned something about nuclear strategy and so probably mostly understand the risks involved. Unlike the bumbling idiot in the White House.
veteranstoday.com/2018/04/08/proof-intel-drop-trump-bolton-behind-syria-chemical-attacks-confirmed
They’d have destroyed them anyway.
And even if they wouldn’t (hardly believable, the only reason they’re there is to destroy the rebels anyway), the optics is still there.
For the Americans it wouldn’t be a bad deal – they can kill Russians with impunity, and in exchange the Russians are killing some Allah akbaring cannon fodder. Politically not a bad deal to sell the American public. Or even the American military.
The reason the Americans are right now vacillating is because Dunford and Mattis got cold feet about potentially losing planes and surface ships, and they also fear uncontrollable escalation in such a situation. However bad they are, they probably still learned something about nuclear strategy and so probably mostly understand the risks involved. Unlike the bumbling idiot in the White House.
Would the US government be willing to risk killing Chinese personnel?
I fear and distrust China, but this warmongering crew in charge of "my" country's government and economy needs to learn that they are not invincible, that threats have consequences whether they are backed up or not, and that not everyone in the world lacks the strength to say "mind your damn business and back off."
Indeed some sources said China already have their full range of senior advisors & SF there to train for future real war.
They won’t make any different, unless China openly involve in the war. Then its total game changer as China has proven itself how much damage its willing to take in counter US in Korea war, and last year confrontation over SCS that force Obama to backoff.
USM will not want to risk a full war with China, they know China always mean what they said, no bluffs, unlike Russia repeating their old tunes of bluff warnings.
China has the will to swap US Nato off Syria, but whether it want to pay the price by direct confrontation with it still growing limited projecting power. I would think a second front in SCS & trade war is in China plan as intense painful acupuncture point to press on US without killing it. That will give Russia some relieve.
This poll certainly cheered me up.
On the other hand, what can anyone really do if she decides to go through with it without a vote in parliament?
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/04/12/two-one-public-oppose-missile-strikes-syria/
I cannot believe it's happening. Was there a vote in France? In the US?
Apparently one big advantage of having a democracy seems to have disappeared, a similar small cabal of politicians can decide to start a world war as in 1914.
Problem with analyses like this one lies in the complexity. Simply put- one cannot disentangle various threads & there are too many “what if’s”; just remember WW1, its course & results, when all predictions turned out to be wrong.
Although AK has many sound arguments, I think that there are way too many other variables which cannot be accounted for. Also, I don’t think that humankind would survive nuclear war. Pollution, ecological disaster,…. would be too widespread & no country (or continent) would last more than 10-40 years after it.
I’ve read some predictions re this matter, and they all seem childish and/or wishful thinking.
The situation is serious. Some people react to that by discussing it. Tiny minority, as we here.
The majority, as always, doesn't care much (at least my observation).
As long as discussion is within polite parameters, why not?
This poll certainly cheered me up.
On the other hand, what can anyone really do if she decides to go through with it without a vote in parliament?
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/04/12/two-one-public-oppose-missile-strikes-syria/
What ever happened to the famous checks and balances? Was Orbán the Viktátor the prime minister of the UK, having destroyed all of those checks and balances? How is it possible that just one person (the prime minister) or a small select group of politicians (her government) could decide whether or not to join an aggressive war, in contravention of the UK’s international obligations (e.g. the UN Charter)?
I cannot believe it’s happening. Was there a vote in France? In the US?
Apparently one big advantage of having a democracy seems to have disappeared, a similar small cabal of politicians can decide to start a world war as in 1914.
This poll certainly cheered me up.
On the other hand, what can anyone really do if she decides to go through with it without a vote in parliament?
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/04/12/two-one-public-oppose-missile-strikes-syria/
57% of Brits are not opposed to a missile strike, I hardly call this good news.
As long as May will go through with it, it won't matter at the end of the day.
Even if it was a small salvo of missiles (a somewhat bigger version of the Sharyat strike), I'd try to sink a British vessel, if I were the Russian military leadership.
The glass is half empty…
As long as May will go through with it, it won’t matter at the end of the day.
Even if it was a small salvo of missiles (a somewhat bigger version of the Sharyat strike), I’d try to sink a British vessel, if I were the Russian military leadership.
The central weakness of US & Allies is casuality aversion bordering on phobia. A full scale attack on russian assets in Syria would come pricey considering Russia can launch retaliatory strikes against US ships, bases and resources in the larger Middle East area, in a scale that US & allies has not experienced for many decades.
So the question is: Are US & allies ready to accept Vietnam era losses in order to punish evil Darth Putin and his puppet the Gas Killing Animal Assad? Are they willing to furhter escalate a crisis that is already approaching a scenario where we are just a cunt’s hair away from potential nuclear holokosher?
So which “state” is Lavrov referring to, do you think?
Behind them would probably come Israel, with the Saudis, Turks and American some distance further back.
Certainly the Russians have no reason to feel anything but coldly hostile to the British government at the moment, and I think that probably emphasises the risks of Britain participating in any actual strikes on Syria. Missiles can be launched from low level, out of range of Russian air defences, but the base at Akrotiri is well within range for Russian retaliation from a variety of platforms.
In 1906, Admiral Fisher, Britain’s chief of naval operations told Edward VII that a war would be started by Germany in 1914 when Germany’s Kiel ship canal would be improved to be able to take battleships between the Baltic and the North Sea. On June 14th 1914 newspapers reported the ceremony opening the canal to accommodate the largest naval vessels. The Germans waited until August to start the war admittedly.
It failed.
Well, I guess it’s not called a “republic,” nor a “kingdom,” or a “union,” it’s just a generic state. I vaguely remember a state which is officially called the “State of [something],” but I just cannot recall which one exactly.
Perhaps it was
(1) the Plurinational State of Bolivia ?
(2) the State of Eritrea?
(3) the State of Palestine?
(4) the Independent State of Papua New Guinea?
(5) the Independent State of Samoa?
The best option Russia has is a dramatic de-escalatory escalation: visibly deploy nuclear weapons to Syria. This may panic the Empire enough into backing down. It may also encourage other world powers, namely the Chinese, to encourage the Empire to back down. Russia should also commit to doing as much damage as possible to the US in the region if they are going to lose. The should obliterate Saudi oil fields – or at least they should lead others to believe they will in the advent of war.
Trumps rhetoric is just for domestic USA consumption.
Like his last attack in Syria, a number of missiles will be fired that will hardly cause any harm.
The allies Russia, Turkey and Syria are not going to allow the USA to cause more mischief in Syria.
Imagine the evening news, especially in Europe:
moments ago, as US & Allies are amassing in the Med preparing for a strike, Kremlin announced that the nuclear forces of the Russian Federation has mobilised and entered combat alertness, pending developing potential threats to Russian forces in Syria.
But unilateral guarantees tend to have the same effect. For example when Poland was given a British guarantee against any attack by Germany, to use the most commonly cited example.
The problem is, of course, that Hitler attacked anyway. And so might the US/NATO.
Hitler knew quite well that GB could not do anything.
If any country was betrayed by the west it was Poland, it disappeared until 1990.
What Hitler did not expect was GB’s declaration of war.
But also GB could do little, Hitler therefore tried to force GB to peace by beating France in three weeks.
We, the Netherlands, and Belgium, collateral damage.
With Churchill out of the way, no army, Hitler then could turn his attention to the USSR.
He had quite well understood Molotov’s veiled threats when Molotov visited Berlin.
What Hitler underrated was the USA.
And, I suppose, he did not expect capitalistic communist cooperation.
Germany did not start the war, it did fire the first shots, in an attempt to prevent a two front war.
It failed.
This morning on Russia Today an advisor to Erdogan explained calmly ‘much ado about nothing’.
Trumps rhetoric is just for domestic USA consumption.
Like his last attack in Syria, a number of missiles will be fired that will hardly cause any harm.
The allies Russia, Turkey and Syria are not going to allow the USA to cause more mischief in Syria.
It failed.
They had Austria-Hungary start it. Anyway the real traversty of WWI was that a peace deal wasn’t arranged when it was clear that there would be no real winner, perhaps after Verdun. There was a reasonable push in all the countries to do so at the time.
That's the great thing about alliances - they make wars much more likely.
I vaguely remember a state which is officially called the “State of [something],” but I just cannot recall which one exactly.
Perhaps it was
(1) the Plurinational State of Bolivia ?
(2) the State of Eritrea?
(3) the State of Palestine?
(4) the Independent State of Papua New Guinea?
(5) the Independent State of Samoa?
All leaders knew it would be political suicide to return to the status quo ante. How to explain to the masses that so many millions died for exactly nothing? They knew that unless they win, there’d be a revolution. As indeed happened.
They dont even need to deploy anything.
Imagine the evening news, especially in Europe:
moments ago, as US & Allies are amassing in the Med preparing for a strike, Kremlin announced that the nuclear forces of the Russian Federation has mobilised and entered combat alertness, pending developing potential threats to Russian forces in Syria.
By the way this is exactly the reason I think the result of a full nuclear exchange cannot be an immediate truce. They will keep fighting, or else how to explain the nuclear exchange?
These are some main reasons for individual parties.
But another real main driving force behind is said to be TPTB, deep states like Rothschild struggle to control the global money printing by retaining Petrol Dollar. Those who control petrol, control the world. The few countries still under US attacked now all have refused to comply Fed style central banking.(Globalresearch).
For Russia:
-Oil & Gas is the main reason USM & West going in. They wanted to lay a pipe through Syria, for Saudi Gulfs & Israel new stolen offshore oil gas field to supply EU. That will cutoff Russia main biz with EU. Assad refuse the bad deal, so he must go, terrorists proxy war start. So Iran & Syria looked up Putin, he agreed to intervene.
-Stop West aggression East wards, as Iran will be next easy target after Syria down. Then Russia has its West South all encircled, except China border. Missiles & Nato troops will be stationed right at borders.
-Geopolitic influence in ME, Russia last & only base in ME is in Syria.
-Display of military might & weapons to show its a superpower, not gas station as insulted by US.
-Fight terrorists(Chechnya) in Syria instead of back home.
Iran & Syris, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiah fighters
-Existential threat.
US:
-His masters(Israel Aipac, deep states, bankers, Petrol Inc., MIC, ) command.
-As all above of Russia.
-Fulfil Israel dream.
-Control of all ME oil gas supply, Iran is the last one in its jigsaw puzzle.
-A withdrawal is too humiliating now, and lost of USM credibility in the world.
UK, Fr, Nato:
-Lackeys only ask how high to jump when commanded by US-Israel. Then get some bread crumbs & bones throw at them. Vultures & hyenas move in team.
Israel:
-Their Greater Israel dream, steal more lands from Golan Hts. Remove any reliable resistance, Syria & Iran. Lay its Oil gas pipe.
Saudi & Gulf states:
-Why they are killing own Muslims to help Israel ruling ME!? The AngloZionists are very good in splitting along racial, religions, sects. Sunnis Saudi & Gulf is played against Shiah muslim Iran & Syria for dominant. These fools exported Wahabism & funded Al Queda to fight Soviet in Afghanistan, now become a terrorism tool for US geopolitical.
Turkey:
-Renew Ottoman Empire wet dream by stealing Syria land & oil.
-As Nato member, still wet dreaming of EU membership as reward.
China:
-Existential threat. If US Nato control all ME oil gas supply, its a death nail to China sovereignty, it will be subjected to blackmail at any cost & price.
-Petrol yuan gone case without free ME oil trade.
-Fight thousands of Uyghur terrorists trained by Turkey under CIA command in Syria before they return.
They will keep fighting, or else how to explain the nuclear exchange?
This argument has of course been used many times throughout history to prolong wars (WWI, WWII, Vietnam, etc.), that those who have already died “shall not have died in vain” (St. Abraham).
Does the Assman hate pipelines or something?
And what's the reason this pipeline must go through Syria?
US want EU to cutoff from Russia energy supply, hence a ransom Russia can use to control EU. USLNG is too expensive, and EU didn’t want to invest on expensive LNG storage & berths if Russia can supply cheaply through pipeline.
Saudi & Israel wanted to link up its gas field pipeline to EU via unlucky Syria & Turkey route, the cheapest land way instead of underseas. Syria Assad refused a bad deal offered, he must go by all interest parties.
Iran wanted to pipe it to EU via Syria too, so Russia see that as competitor, only after some deal agreed with Putin, Russia intervene. Russia is been promised to build all the Iran-Syria-EU infrastructure & pipes.
“1) Russians were killed by the Americans 2) with nary a word of protest from the Russian government. I’m sure that makes the likes of Pompeo think that if they again kill some Russians accidentally, then Russia will do nothing.”
That’s why I think the prospects of a dramatic escalation here are higher than people might think. The Russians will accept exactly what you have stated and will blame their prior weakness for the current situation. They will want to redeem themselves by drawing a line in the sand in Syria. If they do not, the next war could be fought closer to home with US support (Ukraine, some separatist region of Russia, etc.).
Frankly, I think the Russians do have to draw a line in the sand here a la the Cuban Missile Crisis – even if that leads to a nuclear exchange. In fact, much of Karlin’s analysis here applied to the US during ’62 (the possibility of being overwhelmed in Europe over a less strategically important piece of real estate). The Americans rightly calculated that they could not back down as that would only encourage a war later down the road as the Soviets continued to demand concessions until they reached something they would never concede: Berlin.
Eventually, the US will try to draw Ukraine into NATO, and it will continue to sanction Russia to encourage regime change, etc. They’ve made it very clear they are planning a long war on Russia and China. That fool Pompeo just announced that the era of being “soft” on Russia has ended. Can Russia afford to put themselves into such a strategically weak situation by capitulating in the face of this aggression and guaranteed future aggression? If they yield here, a war may be guaranteed a few years down the line, so why not just fight it now when they are in a very slightly better position?
The same Cuban Missile Crisis calculus applies here. The Russians really can’t back down. They must find a way to discourage attack, possibly by deploying nuclear weapons to Syria.
If conflict does come, they should considering hitting those carriers with nukes. Karlin asks what that will accomplish. Well, by his own article, they will have 10 left, and after losing two, they will have incentive to not lose any more due to how long it takes to build more in the face of a growing China. Besides, there is an outside chance that dramatically nuking a carrier would cause the US military to rebel against an unstable American leader and offer peace. Perhaps the American public would also rebel and demand a cease fire. Regardless, it’s better than nuking some desert base no one has ever heard of. Nuking a carrier at sea would 1. limit civilian casualties and thus be somewhat more acceptable to the public 2. be visible to the American public and panic them in a way that nuking some far away Middle Eastern base would not.
Also, the threat of destroying Saudi oil fields as a result of conflict might further deescalate the situation. Rich people sure care about their cash.
I am sure it is just a coincidence that in the last week the Trump lawyer’s office and home were raided after Trump said the lawyer was the one who paid Daniels, and Mueller scents a way to get indictments over the the Stormy Daniels payments, and Trump is amping up the prospect of getting into a war with Russia far beyond what was expected. The worse things look for Trump with Mueller, the more Trump is going to take risks against Russia, which in any case needed to be taken down a peg after Obama let it get away with murder.
Mueller will look pretty stupid trying to officially question Trump about a porn star and collusion with Russia while America is in a Cuba style crisis against Russia. Trump has every incentive to take America to the brink of war with Russia and keep it there until Mueller submits his report. I hope Russia realizes what Trump is up to
Putin has been acting of late like he was almost seeking to turn away the West , which would necessarily make Russia very (relatively) friendly with China–a diplomatic outcome that America would hardly welcome.
This argument has of course been used many times throughout history to prolong wars (WWI, WWII, Vietnam, etc.), that those who have already died "shall not have died in vain" (St. Abraham).
Yes. Is there any reason to expect that it will be any different this time?
Whoever bcom Potus doesn’t matter, they are front door salesman. Deep states akar Fed owners, bankers， MIC, Israelis …control everything. Obey or be assassinated/ impeached. Just look at the history.
“They dont even need to deploy anything.”
It would be a good move to deploy nukes to Syria rather than simply put Russian forces on alert as pictures will count far more to the American public than mere words. Panic them into forcing their reckless leaders to back down. Also, doing so might strengthen Russia’s bargaining position: they could offer to remove the weapons in exchange for guaranteeing Syria’s sovereignty.
Quote: “There are some fairly good reasons in favor of Russia’s decision to intervene in Syria, which is why I have always been modestly if unenthusiastically supportive of it: [...]”
Anatoly, you missed the elefant in the room: hydrocarbons, i.e. oil, gas but also coal.
These are still major strategic world ressources for the foreseeable future.
The shift to a hydrocarbon-independent energy generation and transport infrastructure will take decades. Even if tomorrow all transport were suddenly changed to electro-magnetic technology, electricity generation would still require a significant amount of hydrocarbons.
Thus, anyone who is in control of major hydrocarbon sources and transport routes (as is currently the case with the US), has the ability to influence political decisions to his favor in all non-energy self-sufficient countries world wide.
The struggle for the middle east boils down to the struggle between a unipolar world order, with the US and its allies at the helm, and a multi polar world order, with US, Russia, China, and possibly Brasil and EU each acting independently within their own spheres of influence.
By posting military forces 6000 miles away from home on the other side of the oceans and near other nation’s border by definition is aggression. American will be recorded in the history as aggressor and perpetrator in the next world war by this fact alone.
The majority of those forces would be irrelevant in a war in which the Russians are defending its territory and securing its near abroad. As for “mobilization,” given the state of American and European men these days, I wouldn’t place hope on that. The moment Westerners start seeing body bags by the thousands amidst 24/7 news coverage, any major mobilization efforts are likely to fail.
Since I’ve learned that ad hominem attacks are permissible, I’d say your patriotism to a country whose military track record is unimpressive, but that has gotten better and better at ignoring and shrouding that fact, is clouding your judgement.
Thanks for the Kermit the frog video. If this is what passes for evidence in support of conclusions today, then I apologize for wasting your time.
That's why I think the prospects of a dramatic escalation here are higher than people might think. The Russians will accept exactly what you have stated and will blame their prior weakness for the current situation. They will want to redeem themselves by drawing a line in the sand in Syria. If they do not, the next war could be fought closer to home with US support (Ukraine, some separatist region of Russia, etc.).
Frankly, I think the Russians do have to draw a line in the sand here a la the Cuban Missile Crisis - even if that leads to a nuclear exchange. In fact, much of Karlin's analysis here applied to the US during '62 (the possibility of being overwhelmed in Europe over a less strategically important piece of real estate). The Americans rightly calculated that they could not back down as that would only encourage a war later down the road as the Soviets continued to demand concessions until they reached something they would never concede: Berlin.
Eventually, the US will try to draw Ukraine into NATO, and it will continue to sanction Russia to encourage regime change, etc. They've made it very clear they are planning a long war on Russia and China. That fool Pompeo just announced that the era of being "soft" on Russia has ended. Can Russia afford to put themselves into such a strategically weak situation by capitulating in the face of this aggression and guaranteed future aggression? If they yield here, a war may be guaranteed a few years down the line, so why not just fight it now when they are in a very slightly better position?
The same Cuban Missile Crisis calculus applies here. The Russians really can't back down. They must find a way to discourage attack, possibly by deploying nuclear weapons to Syria.
If conflict does come, they should considering hitting those carriers with nukes. Karlin asks what that will accomplish. Well, by his own article, they will have 10 left, and after losing two, they will have incentive to not lose any more due to how long it takes to build more in the face of a growing China. Besides, there is an outside chance that dramatically nuking a carrier would cause the US military to rebel against an unstable American leader and offer peace. Perhaps the American public would also rebel and demand a cease fire. Regardless, it's better than nuking some desert base no one has ever heard of. Nuking a carrier at sea would 1. limit civilian casualties and thus be somewhat more acceptable to the public 2. be visible to the American public and panic them in a way that nuking some far away Middle Eastern base would not.
Also, the threat of destroying Saudi oil fields as a result of conflict might further deescalate the situation. Rich people sure care about their cash.
Since, as explained previously, the war would continue even after the full nuclear exchange, they’d actually need to nuke all of them (including the ones under construction) to prevent them from being used later on. It’d definitely be worth more than nuking Detroit.
Surrounding and blocking UKR army bases by armed forces sounds like nothing but invasion, except it was succesful one, which had no immediate cost in very short term.
It is not doubtful that majority of Russians in Crimea indeed wanted to separate from Ukraine and join RF, but such argumentation is very feeble when you remember what happened when majority of Chechens also wanted to separate
Surrounding and blocking UKR army bases by armed forces sounds like nothing but invasion, except it was succesful one, which had no immediate cost in very short term.
Whose armed forces? Donbass/Lughansk armed forces? Russian?
There were no Russian armed forces in Ukraine, otherwise there would have been more hysterical wailing from Samantha, Nikky etal... and like the "surrounding and blocking UKR army bases"... never happened.
“By the early 2020s, oil prices may start to collapse due to the exponential rise in adoptions of electric vehicles.”
Stop reading at this point, author is not intelligent.
Why do people think manufacturing is an energy-free process?
This author somehow assumes he has the technical creds to state as flat fact that Russia's 'tiny' and supposedly weak contingent in Syria would without any doubt be quickly overwhelmed...
If I were to ask this author...just as an exercise in demonstrative logic...if he could solve even an elementary Newtonian physics problem along the lines of...I might as well ask my cat...
Yet he somehow has screwed into his tiny head that he can talk authoritatively...not about hurling mere rocks...but about missiles...ships...and aircraft...
It boggles the mind...
For the benefit of some readers here who have demonstrated at least some basic logic on the matter ...let us look at the details of what is involved here...
The point of this discussion will be to examine technical details involving the kinds of weapons capabilities that might figure into this confrontation...as well as examining some credible historical analysis of recent US-Nato assaults of this type...
Let's assume that the US along with Britain and France decides to launch a massive barrage of cruise missiles from ships, submarines and aircraft from standoff range...ie out of range of Russian long range surface to air missiles...such as the S400 which everyone talks about...but which is only of peripheral importance to this war scenario...[more on that later]
What is the best defense against such an assault...?
Is it to try to knock down those missiles with Russia's air defense rockets...thereby depleting their stock of munitions [which are intended for different kinds of targets anyway]...?
Or is it to hit those ships, subs and airfields from which the attack is coming...and thereby neutralize the threat as quickly as possible..?
The answer is quite obvious...perhaps even to someone as lacking in actual knowledge as this 'author'...
One commenter early on in this thread mentioned the use of Russian long range bombers which have for decades been designed for the very mission of taking out US carrier groups...
A little background here...the Russian answer to the devastating power and long distance force projection of the USN carrier groups was asymmetrical...ie not to field their own such massive naval might...but to counter them with effective weapons that could quickly neutralize them...
One such weapon system is the Tu22M long range, supersonic bomber carrying ship killer missiles...
Let's look at what this means in nuts and bolts...Let's drill down a bit and explore the capabilities of this weapon system...the Raduga Kh22 anti-ship cruise missile has been in service since 1962...
It is a 13,000 lb bruiser that reaches a top speed of Mach 4.6 [nearly six times as fast as a Tomahawk]...and has a 600 km range...
The Tu22M which has a maximum takeoff weight of 140 tons ...nearly twice the weight of a Boeing 737...can carry three of these missiles...
A single regiment of 20 aircraft even carrying two missiles each [trading payload for fuel for extra range]...means 40 such missiles against a carrier battle group...
The missile carries a 1,000 kg shaped charge warhead...more than twice the weight of a Tomahawk warhead...[the kinetic energy at impact would be 36 times greater than that of a T-hawk...as kinetic energy increases by the square of speed...]Here's an interesting one from the photo album...
https://s20.postimg.cc/q5orqkust/Backfire-_Cockpit-_DN-_SC-91-02246-1_S.jpg
That's Adm Charles Larson former commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet trying out the driver's seat of the Tu22M...
We note that the Kh22 has since been supplanted by the Kh32 with 1,000 km range...and a speed of Mach 5...[nearly 7 times that of the T-hawk...]
The flight distance from Beslan airfield to Damascus is 1,293 km...
https://s20.postimg.cc/955vi4mz1/Beslan_Damascus_Flight_Distance.jpg
That's about an hour dash for the supersonic Tu22M which has a top speed of Mach 1.9 [2.050 km/hr]...and a range of 6,800 km...
This strike force would be accompanied by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35#Specifications_(Su-35S)Sukhoi Flanker air superiority fighters which have a combat radius of 1,500 km...by far the longest legs of any fighter in the world...more than twice that of the USN F/A 18 Super Hornet with its combat radius of 722 km...
There are also MiG29s at the Russian 3624th Air Base in Armenia...flight distance to Damascus 1,041 km...that's a half hour hop for the supersonic jets...
https://s20.postimg.cc/4xb395o1p/Yerevan_Damascus_Flight_Distance.jpg
With the 1,000 km range of the Kh32...the big Tupolev bombers would hardly need to get too far away from Russia's shores before launching...
There is hardly any need to even think about the newly announced Mach 10, 2000 km range Kinzhal...launched by the Mach 2.8 MiG31...although it might be fun to see it in action if the opportunity presents itself...
This is the punch that the opponent packs...and which this 'author' is blissfully ignorant of...
An aggression by the US on Russia in Syria would certainly be met with swift and deadly force...why...?
Because it would be militarily stupid not to use it...is a boxer going to pull his punches once he's in the ring...?
Once a war starts the generals call the shots...that's how it works...
I have not even begun to mention the Russian ships and subs in Tartus...all of which are also armed with very deadly anti-ship missiles...as well as anti-sub missiles...yes there is such a thing...[more on that later]
The S300/400 in Syria is not there to shoot down cruise missiles...as plenty of nitwits in Western media claim...
Their purpose is to impose a no-fly zone over Syria and keep enemy jets out of Syrian airspace...which it most certainly is very capable of
This no fly zone de facto exists but has simply not been announced [as of yet...although that would be the first announcement in case of an aggressive US move]
Those surface to air missile launchers and their radars are all truck mounted and extremely mobile...which means their location once a shooting war starts would not be known to the adversary...
They cannot therefore be targeted by cruise missiles which can only hit pre-programmed targets whose locations are known...and which cannot move...
The big S3/400 guns are also protected by point defense SAMs such as the Pantsir S...An astute commenter here mentioned the US / Nato air war against Serbia in 1999 which involved over 1,000 fighter jets, Awacs as well as jamming aircraft etc...
He correctly mentioned that they were able to take out only three of Serbia's mobile SAMs...despite firing more than 750 precision missiles designed to home in on air defense radars...called HARMs [high speed anti radiation missile]
That's a kill ratio of one third of one percent...
In return...the Serbs downed the USAF F117 'stealth' aircraft and severely damaged another that never flew again...they also shot down the F16 of Current USAF Chief of Staff General David Goldfein...
The trophy F117 canopy in the Belgrade Aviation Museum...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/F-117_canopy.jpg
And the tail feathers from then Col Goldfein's F16...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/F-16_tail.jpg
This author might start by reviewing the study published by Dr. Benjamin S Lambeth in the Aeropsace Power Journal...the USAF's 'professional flagship publication'...So little Serbia...with its 1950s and '60s era equipment was able to fight a 1,000 plane armada to a standstill...
And here is what might have been...Nothing has changed in terms of US-Nato's SEAD capability since 1999...[suppression of enemy air defenses]
Yet the 'author' of this silly article states quite flatly that...Actually...the lopsided match would be my cat vs this author in a math contest...
This is not 1999 anymore...and Russia is not Serbia...
More to come...
The problem here is always that each side dramatically overstates its own case. I believe Karlin and those here who insist that nothing really unexpected will happen and all the American stuff will work fine are unrealistic in their low assessments of likely losses, but I also believe your insistence that the air defences will work near perfectly and that Serbia is a valid comparator with Syria in terms of the difficulty of locating and attacking air defence systems are also unrealistic. The attack on Serbia was a very tentative operation with very tight engagement rules, hugely casualty averse, and very slow buildup by the US side. The Serbs fired a few SAMs every night, and often tens of them in a night, but only shot down two aircraft, while NATO used aircraft from B52s to A10s to attack Yugoslav targets. Little of this is likely to be relevant to an open war in Syria.
A lot depends on exactly how the conflict breaks out – the initial conditions can change the early outcome from massive losses for the US side to prompt destruction of the Russian side, as can unexpected capabilities. If one side gets the jump on the other, if one side’s ew systems work better than expected, or are unexpectedly hard countered, etc etc. Nobody really knows how these systems will interact because nobody has any directly relevant experience of how they will interact in full and open use.
Cruise missiles certainly can be used to target mobile sam systems, if you know where those systems are located, although they aren’t the most effective weapons against dispersed vehicles. If they are constantly moving, they can’t be used effectively. And a sam battalion has a limited number of long range missiles in its launchers. They will not achieve 1:1 kills with those missiles (the hit rates are not 100% anyway, some will fall to countermeasures, and often they will fire two or more at a given target). The situation of the Russian ad operators in Syria would be a seriously unenviable one. The skies around Syria will be cluttered to a degree never encountered by such systems with all kinds of targets – aircraft, missiles, drones. Both sides’ ew systems will be operating at maximum.
US ships in the eastern Med will be catastrophically vulnerable to attack from submarine, air launched and ground launched missiles. So of course will Russian ships, but even more so.
It’s likely to be much more of a bloodbath for each side than the extreme advocates of each are claiming for their own side. Things will not work as expected. Missiles will get through when they ought not to. Other missiles will completely fail. Each side will likely field completely unexpected capabilities.
Uncertainty, not certainty, should be the essence of predicting the outcome of such a war. Most likely, though, numbers will tell in the end, rather than particular systems.
I suspect that’s at the heart of the evident debate within the US regime over whether and how much to attack. Probably the generals are not giving Trump the assurances he needs to hear about the ability to control escalation and the risks to US systems and personnel, and that’s making it hard for him to sustain his gung ho ignorant jingoism even with support from Bolton.
US society was completely fractured by the losses it sustained in Vietnam (about 4 days' worth of Soviet losses in WWII, if I've done the calculation correctly), and since then their feeling of invincibility and overwhelming arrogance has been fed by a series of glorious and heroic invasions of 3rd world countries (see NYT article below).
The fundamental question, it seems to me, is whether Russia is prepared to offer more than "passive" resistance, should an attack occur (and, it is difficult to see how Trump can back down now, but the one certain thing about Trump is that one can never be certain of what he will do). I think the prime reason for not offering active resistance is that this will effectively be the end of any pretense of Russian "partnership" with the West (bye bye World Cup).
But if Russia does choose to offer active resistance, I don't think the prospects are probably as bad as most here seem to think, they simply have to hold their own until "time out" is called.
From your comment #239...From your comment #348...and...Since your statements are delivered with such conviction [not to say authority] I will cede the floor to let you explain some of the nuts and bolts of how exactly the scenarios you envisage here would play out...
I realize of course that you actually know nothing of the nuts and bolts...ie the technical aspects of air combat...[or even the well known historical facts for that matter]...but since you have been clamoring so much I think it is only fair to give you a chance to explain yourself...
Why not start with the last statement about Russia 'nuking' a US carrier...?
Please tell us what weapon system exactly is in the Russian inventory that is designed to hit ships with a nuclear warhead...?
Of course there is none...but that should not stop a buttwhistler like yourself from blowing something out of your incredibly prolific bunghole...
Not to mention that I have already described the decades old Russian doctrine and existing conventional weapons systems that are designed expressly for annihilating an entire carrier group in a single strike...
Perhaps you missed that part from my comment #155...?
And in fact I had only presented one leg of the anti-carrier triad...the long range aviation part...not having yet gone into the other legs such as surface and submarine based...as well as the short-range aviation...
But no matter...
Next...perhaps you could explain exactly how the US has 'escalation superiority'...?
What exactly does that mean anyway...?
Inquiring minds want to know [the workings of a birdbrain]...
And then you can get to the meat of the matter which you have decided [quite foolishly] to contend here with me...
How exactly are the odds 'stacked' and the 'ultimate' outcome being a Russian 'defeat' in theater...
It is all well and good to state one's opinion...and if you want to admit it is simply an unfounded opinion then I will accept that...and move on to more substantive questions that require some discussion...
And by discussion I don't mean simply opening your beak and letting squawks come out...but actually bringing facts and technical details to the matter...supported by actual authoritative citations...
I have said quite clearly that we may soon witness an actual shooting war between the US and Russia in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean...gaining some insight into that requires more than just opinions...
Now I have also stated quite clearly only one method by which Russia could respond and sink not just a ship or two but an entire carrier group...I have given technical details that are not in dispute...
I will quote here another opinion...that of a person a million times more qualified than a birdbrain like yourself...
PCR stated on April 10...Now I have chosen to present an opinion that is coming from someone who has good reason and experience to form such an opinion...a man who was a high cabinet official and received training in handling the 'nuclear football' since he was in the line of succession in case of a nuclear decapitation...
As far as I can tell...you are still on the waiting list to receive nuclear football training...
If anything good is to come of this, hopefully it will put a definitive end to the constant (and, frankly, nauseating) practice of Putin, Lavrov, etc. referring to “our partners”.
“Since, as explained previously, the war would continue even after the full nuclear exchange, they’d actually need to nuke all of them (including the ones under construction) to prevent them from being used later on. It’d definitely be worth more than nuking Detroit.”
I’m not so sure about that. There is a small chance that dramatically nuking an American carrier during a conflict started by the United States may increase the odds of a ceasefire because the United States does not want to lose too many of them. They take years to build while China is rapidly building up her navy. Further, those carriers cannot simply materialize on Russia’s border; they are located all over the world. It would take time for the rest of them to reach the area – more than enough time for things to calm down after a limited exchange. How likely is any of that? I don’t know. But surely someone in Russia is thinking the same about now.
If it comes to a full nuclear exchange, Russia should concentrate on taking out the important military assets and industrial centers of NATO in order to make it difficult to continue the war. They'd need to deploy their tactical warheads subsequently to prevent any further movement. They'd also need to recreate their industries (especially their nuclear and aerospace industries) right after the destruction, because then it'll become a war similar to WW2, where industrial production will win the day.
Probably China's stance will be crucial in that second part of the war.
If you really care or just pretend to care that much about following Ukrainian constitution you should also know that according to the same constitution the authority which is capable to say whether Ukrainian constitution was violated or not is Ukrainian consititutional court but not some commenters on the net
IIRC Ukrainian consititutional court did not found any abandonment or termination of the constitution during those events, so that is just your wishful fantasies and nothing else.
Russia only has 2 military bases outside Russia , and the USA has 800 -1000 military bases outside the USA , occupation bases around the world .
The US does about 50% of the military spending of the world , and if you add all the NATO countries we do 75% of the world military spending
What do you think of these figures sudden death ? who are the imperialists ?
“Trump has every incentive to take America to the brink of war with Russia and keep it there until Mueller submits his report. I hope Russia realizes what Trump is up to.”
It is shameful that an American president would risk his countrymen’s welfare in order to shield himself from prosecution. That’s like taking a woman hostage and holding her in front of you as the police close in. The Russians probably do see this and are likely frightened by a man who would do such a thing.
As someone once said, I'm shocked, shocked that such a thing could occur!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1DEG6BWgp0
I'm not so sure about that. There is a small chance that dramatically nuking an American carrier during a conflict started by the United States may increase the odds of a ceasefire because the United States does not want to lose too many of them. They take years to build while China is rapidly building up her navy. Further, those carriers cannot simply materialize on Russia's border; they are located all over the world. It would take time for the rest of them to reach the area - more than enough time for things to calm down after a limited exchange. How likely is any of that? I don't know. But surely someone in Russia is thinking the same about now.
How could things calm down after a full nuclear exchange? I definitely wouldn’t bank on it.
If it comes to a full nuclear exchange, Russia should concentrate on taking out the important military assets and industrial centers of NATO in order to make it difficult to continue the war. They’d need to deploy their tactical warheads subsequently to prevent any further movement. They’d also need to recreate their industries (especially their nuclear and aerospace industries) right after the destruction, because then it’ll become a war similar to WW2, where industrial production will win the day.
Probably China’s stance will be crucial in that second part of the war.
Take cars and trucks for instance.
The vast majority are made out of steel. This inhibits magnetic fields (generally).
Below is a photo of an engine control unit made by Robert Bosch GmbH, the world's largest manufacturer of ECUs:
http://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ECU_E46M3-BOSCH-MS40_Bosch_Motorsport_ECU_for_E46_M3_kit_ECU.jpg
Surrounded in metal as well.
The typical car is a rolling faraday cage. There have been cases of cars being directly struck by lightning and continuing to function.
Cars & trucks which do get taken out by EMPs would not be out of service forever either. ECUs from warehouses would be installed, and if really necessary clever rednecks would jury rig cars into service with hand-made carburetors and throttles.
Communications networks would also not be totally wiped out. Fiber optic lines for instance would not be taken out by EMP attacks, and many cellular and radio networks would survive. Remember these are already designed to survive lightning strikes.
The biggest b.s. is how "the grid" would be taken out due to transformer construction. It is said these transformers have such long lead times that civilization would simply collapse before new ones could be built.
The alleged constraints here are tight supply of grain-oriented electrical steel and high purity copper magnet wire.
The truth is these are not needed to produce transformers...at all. You can make transformers out of pig iron and aluminum wire if you want. That's not done because it results in great efficiency losses. Nobody is going to care about that in the event of recovering from a nuclear war.
I am sure you can go right down the line with all of these doomsday civilization collapse prophecies and find that they're all b.s.
The only existential threat to industrial civilization is population replacement by Africans.
The oft-repeated example comparing the trajectories of Hiroshima and Detroit since 1945 are illustrative.
Remember too, that most trucks use Diesel engines, and diesels use mechanical fuel pumps and fuel injectors. True that some of today’s diesel trucks may use computer brains for some functions, but I’d wager that it would be easier to circumvent these than it would be to cobble together a carburetor for a gas engine.
It is shameful that an American president would risk his countrymen's welfare in order to shield himself from prosecution. That's like taking a woman hostage and holding her in front of you as the police close in. The Russians probably do see this and are likely frightened by a man who would do such a thing.
I’ve used up both of my agree buttons (one for each device), but I agree.
usa doesnt do asymetrical well
arm taliban
destroy saudi/uae refineries
lift blockade north korea guarantee them wont be reimposed
maybe destroy satellite that inconveniences us consumer the most
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=malfdupA30Y
This article can be an evidence in the international criminal court to convict the American as war criminal after the WWIII like convicting the Nazi and the unrepentant war criminal Japanese after WWII.
Oh, goodness. Open Russian Military Doctrine for starters–may help.
So yes, more likely use of nuclear weapons. I do hope that if the world ends, that Ukrainian trolls get a few more nukes their way just for existing. Specifically Mr. Hack.
A lot depends on exactly how the conflict breaks out - the initial conditions can change the early outcome from massive losses for the US side to prompt destruction of the Russian side, as can unexpected capabilities. If one side gets the jump on the other, if one side's ew systems work better than expected, or are unexpectedly hard countered, etc etc. Nobody really knows how these systems will interact because nobody has any directly relevant experience of how they will interact in full and open use.
Cruise missiles certainly can be used to target mobile sam systems, if you know where those systems are located, although they aren't the most effective weapons against dispersed vehicles. If they are constantly moving, they can't be used effectively. And a sam battalion has a limited number of long range missiles in its launchers. They will not achieve 1:1 kills with those missiles (the hit rates are not 100% anyway, some will fall to countermeasures, and often they will fire two or more at a given target). The situation of the Russian ad operators in Syria would be a seriously unenviable one. The skies around Syria will be cluttered to a degree never encountered by such systems with all kinds of targets - aircraft, missiles, drones. Both sides' ew systems will be operating at maximum.
US ships in the eastern Med will be catastrophically vulnerable to attack from submarine, air launched and ground launched missiles. So of course will Russian ships, but even more so.
It's likely to be much more of a bloodbath for each side than the extreme advocates of each are claiming for their own side. Things will not work as expected. Missiles will get through when they ought not to. Other missiles will completely fail. Each side will likely field completely unexpected capabilities.
Uncertainty, not certainty, should be the essence of predicting the outcome of such a war. Most likely, though, numbers will tell in the end, rather than particular systems.
I suspect that's at the heart of the evident debate within the US regime over whether and how much to attack. Probably the generals are not giving Trump the assurances he needs to hear about the ability to control escalation and the risks to US systems and personnel, and that's making it hard for him to sustain his gung ho ignorant jingoism even with support from Bolton.
I agree in general, but an important point to keep in mind is that the US — both general public and military — are absolutely unprepared to accept substantial losses.
US society was completely fractured by the losses it sustained in Vietnam (about 4 days’ worth of Soviet losses in WWII, if I’ve done the calculation correctly), and since then their feeling of invincibility and overwhelming arrogance has been fed by a series of glorious and heroic invasions of 3rd world countries (see NYT article below).
The fundamental question, it seems to me, is whether Russia is prepared to offer more than “passive” resistance, should an attack occur (and, it is difficult to see how Trump can back down now, but the one certain thing about Trump is that one can never be certain of what he will do). I think the prime reason for not offering active resistance is that this will effectively be the end of any pretense of Russian “partnership” with the West (bye bye World Cup).
But if Russia does choose to offer active resistance, I don’t think the prospects are probably as bad as most here seem to think, they simply have to hold their own until “time out” is called.
And consider Russia's situation from a broader perspective. For the last couple of decades, America has been constantly attacking other countries and or overthrowing their governments, behaving in a more and more crazy manner. At some point, a rabid dog must be confronted.
Furthermore, consider the totally bizarre domestic behavior of our elites, tearing down more and more of America's historic statues and monuments, behavior not that unlike that from the Taliban or ISIS or Mao's Red Guards.
Suppose during the Cultural Revolution, while China's Red Guards were wrecking total internal havoc, China was *also* constantly attacking and invading other countries externally, and talking about ruling the world. Wouldn't it be absolutely natural for other countries to become greatly alarmed and try to put an end to the rampage?
Obviously, there are huge dangers in every option, but I really do think Russia needs to stand its ground in Syria.
It's fine to say that Americans today would not be willing to face the kinds of losses Americans in WW2 were, but they will not be asked to volunteer to do so. The issue is what the risks are perceived as by the Americans making the decisions and whether those Americans think they can be managed with the American people, bearing in mind the tendency of Americans to swing behind the leadership in war, and to stay there provided victory can be claimed. If they think they can "win" then quite a lot of losses could probably be gotten away with. If they are perceived as losers then each and every American death will be another nail in their political coffin.I'm not an advocate of the US attacking either Syria or the Russians in Syria. And as I suggested, I believe there's massive uncertainty about the likely progress of such a war and the costs to each side. But the odds are pretty stacked, so it's hard to see any ultimate outcome other than Russian defeat in theatre. How long it would take probably depends on how much US buildup time there had been, how cautious an approach the US sphere takes, and how many casualties the leadership are willing to risk.
Certainly if they adopt the kind of cautious, half-hearted approach that characterised the initial stages of the Kosovo war, the chances of casualties and equipment losses creating a backlash against the war in the US and forcing a ceasefire would likely be very high, because the Russians are immeasurably more capable and better equipped than were the Serbs. But in contrast, it could also be substantially over in a week, with no time for political opposition in the US to overcome initial jingoism.
“How could things calm down after a full nuclear exchange? I definitely wouldn’t bank on it.”
I was referencing a limited exchange.
The chances may not be good, but that does not mean all strategies yield the same probabilities. Attacking a target at sea is less likely to lead to a full exchange than attacking a land target and killing huge scores of civilians. By how much I don’t know.
“If it comes to a full nuclear exchange, Russia should concentrate on taking out the important military assets and industrial centers of NATO in order to make it difficult to continue the war.”
Yes, full exchange. But anything less than that and they are better off just sticking with nuking the carrier. Attacking a land target, especially one with a significant civilian population, would guarantee a full exchange.
“They’d need to deploy their tactical warheads subsequently to prevent any further movement.”
Why? Like I said, it would take quite some time for those carriers to reach a position where they could be dangerous to the Russians. That’s more than enough time to find a peaceful solution. Attacking all American carriers assures a full nuclear exchange. Attacking only the ones coming to the Mediterranean carries a lower probability of a full exchange and higher probability that the situation can be contained.
“They’d also need to recreate their industries (especially their nuclear and aerospace industries) right after the destruction, because then it’ll become a war similar to WW2, where industrial production will win the day.”
Yes, if a full exchange were to occur, but that’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting a limited exchange, should it come to that, against a sea target, then either offering peace or hoping the Americans break and offer a ceasefire. The Americans have more to lose here (goodbye global superpower navy in the face of a rising China), and Russia could conceivably use that threat to deter attack. Two destroyed American aircraft carriers would be a huge loss to the US and would take years if not a decade to replace.
The chances of that successfully working are low, but the chances are higher than any peace effort should the Russians stupidly fire everything they had at the first sign of trouble.
“Probably China’s stance will be crucial in that second part of the war.”
Yes. That’s why the Russians might want to force them into the situation as mediator by committing some kind of dramatic escalation (deploying nukes). Of course, that carries a huge risk as the Chinese may decide to distance themselves from such a reckless partner in the future…but Russia may not have a choice in the matter if it wishes to avoid attack.
It is shameful that an American president would risk his countrymen's welfare in order to shield himself from prosecution. That's like taking a woman hostage and holding her in front of you as the police close in. The Russians probably do see this and are likely frightened by a man who would do such a thing.
It is shameful that an American president would risk his countrymen’s welfare in order to shield himself from prosecution.
As someone once said, I’m shocked, shocked that such a thing could occur!
OT: In the face of the we-could-all-die situation this week, why is the most popular and most discussed article here about Asians dyeing their hair?
Not long before everyone in the Machine died, they were still arguing about music. In the end, their greatest terror was silence, because they had lived in the Machine for so long, the idea of not being constantly distracted by trivialities was worse than anything.
I am not advocating anything here, just describing the options that Putin will have to decide on.
To some extent I am even glad I am not the one who has to take them and bear responsibility for their outcome.Russia keeps the LDNR humming along with something like $1 billion worth of subsidies per year. Note that this is an unrecognized territory that has been shorn of many of its economic traditional economic links that exists under an atrocious legal regime - all problems that will go away.
Another alternative, one that puts Rusia back on track to becoming a much greater power than it is today is put forth by Китайский дурак:
I would just add, that in retreating back Russia would buy some time to make amends with Ukraine for its vicious and clumsy behavior. Before 2014, Russia had great influence in Ukraine. Sure, Putin didn’t quite get Ukraine to enthusiastically embrace his Eurasian Union dreams, but he could have used Ukraine effectively to market Russian goods to Europe at discounted prices. The European Union is weak and falling apart, really not a big overbearing threat to Russia. As you correctly point out, Russia has invested billions into Ukraine already, and what does it have to show for this today? And to totally destroy Ukraine, in order to control it at the cost of hundreds of billions to rebuild it? Ridiculous. Russia could have had what it wanted in Ukraine, by just being a good neighbor, not an overbearing bully. It still can (although it will take longer today).
Remember that.
For the first time in a long time US is being forced to consider the costs of its agressive foreign policy. Mattis said it himself today: the reason why USA is not bombing Assad already is because of a risk of "uncontrolled escalation" in the region, i.e. they are scared that Russia will kick their ass. Trump also apprears to have backtracked today.
Ah but we can we do it all the time have been for centuries, we are actually creeping up on the roman record.
US society was completely fractured by the losses it sustained in Vietnam (about 4 days' worth of Soviet losses in WWII, if I've done the calculation correctly), and since then their feeling of invincibility and overwhelming arrogance has been fed by a series of glorious and heroic invasions of 3rd world countries (see NYT article below).
The fundamental question, it seems to me, is whether Russia is prepared to offer more than "passive" resistance, should an attack occur (and, it is difficult to see how Trump can back down now, but the one certain thing about Trump is that one can never be certain of what he will do). I think the prime reason for not offering active resistance is that this will effectively be the end of any pretense of Russian "partnership" with the West (bye bye World Cup).
But if Russia does choose to offer active resistance, I don't think the prospects are probably as bad as most here seem to think, they simply have to hold their own until "time out" is called.
I’m absolutely no expert in military technology, but I’d say that’s the absolutely critical point. I think America has “a glass jaw.” Since America’s society is shocked and horrified at even dozens of casualties, I doubt it would hold up well when faced with thousands of sudden deaths. My impression is that nearly all of America’s volunteer servicemen are joining because they can’t find jobs after high school or can’t afford college or want an inside track to a well-paid government job. Fighting and dying isn’t something for which they signed up.
And consider Russia’s situation from a broader perspective. For the last couple of decades, America has been constantly attacking other countries and or overthrowing their governments, behaving in a more and more crazy manner. At some point, a rabid dog must be confronted.
Furthermore, consider the totally bizarre domestic behavior of our elites, tearing down more and more of America’s historic statues and monuments, behavior not that unlike that from the Taliban or ISIS or Mao’s Red Guards.
Suppose during the Cultural Revolution, while China’s Red Guards were wrecking total internal havoc, China was *also* constantly attacking and invading other countries externally, and talking about ruling the world. Wouldn’t it be absolutely natural for other countries to become greatly alarmed and try to put an end to the rampage?
Obviously, there are huge dangers in every option, but I really do think Russia needs to stand its ground in Syria.
If you have the time, expand it to an article. And then dare the Neocon monsters to reply here.
Imagine the evening news, especially in Europe:
moments ago, as US & Allies are amassing in the Med preparing for a strike, Kremlin announced that the nuclear forces of the Russian Federation has mobilised and entered combat alertness, pending developing potential threats to Russian forces in Syria.
I recommended this approach in another thread, and I believe Randal agreed on its merits. The idea is not simply to raise the stakes, although there is that, but to rouse the Western masses from their slumber. The moment common people notice that something very bad is about to happen, Macron and May, in particular, will likely face far greater political risks in taking action. For even more dramatic effect, the Kremlin should consider issuing separate threats to those two countries. It will be a headline-grabber for sure (“Putin Threatens to Sink HMS So-and-So If Britain Attacks”).
I think you’re intentionally trying to miss his point. A world without Russia is a world not living in.
Remember that.
Russia does not have a “no first use” policy.
https://thebulletin.org/why-russia-calls-limited-nuclear-strike-de-escalation
So yes, more likely use of nuclear weapons. I do hope that if the world ends, that Ukrainian trolls get a few more nukes their way just for existing. Specifically Mr. Hack.
This would be the perfect time if and when the US and it’s poodles, the UK and France, decide to punish Syria and Russia for the supposed gas attack. As the missiles take off and pound Syria and indirectly Russia the Russians should target one or two Frog or Limmey ships in the Med. Fry a couple of hundered Anglo French sailors, sweet.
If it escalates to nuclear Tel Aviv has to go, maybe a combined Russo-American attack, lol. The way the Jews own America they’ll get the Americans to nuke themselves!
This has to be the dumbest, stupidest, shittiest article I’ve read in a very long time. The author is so delusionally sure of his predictions of a USA/NATO mop up–everywhere–against Russia it is utterly laughable.
The fact that the USA has been struggling in Iraq and Afghanistan for 15+ years to win doesn’t register in this idiot Anatoly Karlin’s childlike mind. How can the USA defeat Russia/Syria/Iran/Hezbollah if it cannot control all of Iraq? All of Afghanistan? And when has the USA ever had the balls to take on a rival which even remotely matches it’s military might? Nope, never. Not even in WWII, where the USA of course let the Russians do the heavy lifting to defeat the Nazis.
I would also point out the register of this idiot author reads like someone describing a baseball world series championship, or a world cup football match. What a fucking idiot.
Strange how Mr. Karlin’s analysis of nuclear armageddon is so utterly at odds with those of Daniel Ellsberg–a man who actually worked for the US government on what would happen in a nuclear exchange and has recently published a book on it, detailing how humanity would for the most part be wiped out. Or for that matter Einstein who famously remarked ‘“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
This article is a good example of why this website is an alternative right fringe publication with bizzare authors like mr. karlin writing fantasy war game nonsense like an adult GI Joe playing with his plastic dolls in mommy and daddies basement.
Just shamefully pathetic.
These are two entirely different things.
2. Misrepresents the article. It will be a US mop-up (though a painful one) only in Syria. In the Baltics, for instance, it will be a Russian mop-up. Geographic context matters.
3. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Funny quips are funny, but not necessarily accurate.
So yes, more likely use of nuclear weapons. I do hope that if the world ends, that Ukrainian trolls get a few more nukes their way just for existing. Specifically Mr. Hack.
From the same source, however outdated–a lot happened since 2014:
In general Western “interpretations” of Soviet/Russian doctrinal thinking… well, sucks. Russian Military Doctrine of 2014 reiterates the same from 2010 version–a strategic power (force) containment using high-precision stand-off weapons. Article 26, IIRC. In your place I would discard most what is written in US on Russia’s military thinking. Moreover, concept of deescalation is primarily about attack on Russia proper–but that principle in different variations was around since 1990s.
And consider Russia's situation from a broader perspective. For the last couple of decades, America has been constantly attacking other countries and or overthrowing their governments, behaving in a more and more crazy manner. At some point, a rabid dog must be confronted.
Furthermore, consider the totally bizarre domestic behavior of our elites, tearing down more and more of America's historic statues and monuments, behavior not that unlike that from the Taliban or ISIS or Mao's Red Guards.
Suppose during the Cultural Revolution, while China's Red Guards were wrecking total internal havoc, China was *also* constantly attacking and invading other countries externally, and talking about ruling the world. Wouldn't it be absolutely natural for other countries to become greatly alarmed and try to put an end to the rampage?
Obviously, there are huge dangers in every option, but I really do think Russia needs to stand its ground in Syria.
Aren’t you pretty much describing all volunteer servicemen around the planet, from the beginning of time? Anything more is the stuff of Hollywood movies:
From https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/willingly_to_war_public_response_to_the_outbreak_of_war :
Tremendous middle class enthusiasm in England, where millions actually volunteered, in the absence of conscription.Not as much enthusiasm in the other countries, but it's implied that large numbers of men were ready to go fight for the Homeland..
http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2014
Not sure if some of the religious orders of knights have these same parallels.
Peace.
US society was completely fractured by the losses it sustained in Vietnam (about 4 days' worth of Soviet losses in WWII, if I've done the calculation correctly), and since then their feeling of invincibility and overwhelming arrogance has been fed by a series of glorious and heroic invasions of 3rd world countries (see NYT article below).
The fundamental question, it seems to me, is whether Russia is prepared to offer more than "passive" resistance, should an attack occur (and, it is difficult to see how Trump can back down now, but the one certain thing about Trump is that one can never be certain of what he will do). I think the prime reason for not offering active resistance is that this will effectively be the end of any pretense of Russian "partnership" with the West (bye bye World Cup).
But if Russia does choose to offer active resistance, I don't think the prospects are probably as bad as most here seem to think, they simply have to hold their own until "time out" is called.
This is true, but it can change significantly according to national mood. As I’ve noted here before, on 6th December 1941 Americans were not remotely willing to consider the kinds of costs and losses a war, let alone a war to unconditional surrender, with Japan would entail. Two days later, they were up for it. Context matters.
It’s fine to say that Americans today would not be willing to face the kinds of losses Americans in WW2 were, but they will not be asked to volunteer to do so. The issue is what the risks are perceived as by the Americans making the decisions and whether those Americans think they can be managed with the American people, bearing in mind the tendency of Americans to swing behind the leadership in war, and to stay there provided victory can be claimed. If they think they can “win” then quite a lot of losses could probably be gotten away with. If they are perceived as losers then each and every American death will be another nail in their political coffin.
I’m not an advocate of the US attacking either Syria or the Russians in Syria. And as I suggested, I believe there’s massive uncertainty about the likely progress of such a war and the costs to each side. But the odds are pretty stacked, so it’s hard to see any ultimate outcome other than Russian defeat in theatre. How long it would take probably depends on how much US buildup time there had been, how cautious an approach the US sphere takes, and how many casualties the leadership are willing to risk.
Certainly if they adopt the kind of cautious, half-hearted approach that characterised the initial stages of the Kosovo war, the chances of casualties and equipment losses creating a backlash against the war in the US and forcing a ceasefire would likely be very high, because the Russians are immeasurably more capable and better equipped than were the Serbs. But in contrast, it could also be substantially over in a week, with no time for political opposition in the US to overcome initial jingoism.
Overall I’m unsure about the ultimate fate of these things under the circumstances of a modern war against a peer (China in 20 years) or near peer (Russia or China currently) adversary. Martyanov is so over the top that I don’t find him so convincing.
The Kh-22 missile (a long service, proven technology, not one of their cutting-edge maybe in service, maybe not weapons) is a 1000kg warhead hitting a target at up to Mach 4.5.
For comparison, the Iowa’s 16-inch guns fired a 1200kg armor-piercing shell at a muzzle velocity of around Mach 2.7.
In a test firing, the Kh-22 blew a 22 square meter hole (234 square feet) in a target to a depth of 12 meters.
The beam of a Nimitz at the waterline is about 40 meters. A Burke’s is about 20.
One of those hits a carrier and it’s gutted. One of those hits a destroyer and it’s sunk within minutes.
2) Could the missile go through the active and passive defenses?
3) If both of the above are true, could it hit the carrier with the required accuracy?
If the answer to all of the above is true, then yes, a few of these (with some luck, even one) could easily destroy it.
Sadly the most obvious suspects are likely to be the UK, given the “form” in the case of the Skripal and Litvinenko stuff, the British involvement in Syrian rebel propaganda, etc.
Behind them would probably come Israel, with the Saudis, Turks and American some distance further back.
Certainly the Russians have no reason to feel anything but coldly hostile to the British government at the moment, and I think that probably emphasises the risks of Britain participating in any actual strikes on Syria. Missiles can be launched from low level, out of range of Russian air defences, but the base at Akrotiri is well within range for Russian retaliation from a variety of platforms.
It is shameful that an American president would risk his countrymen's welfare in order to shield himself from prosecution. That's like taking a woman hostage and holding her in front of you as the police close in. The Russians probably do see this and are likely frightened by a man who would do such a thing.
It would be kind of ok if it was only US citizens that he put at risk here, however we are now very seriously discussing nuclear war and the end of civilization because of domestic US politics. Just think how surreal this entire situation is, if Trump does not start WW3 then he will be accused of being a Russian puppet.
Maybe so but just look at where we’re at. The Zionists have almost total control of the West. Trump is in the WH and has just put in chicken hawk NEOCON stooges in positions of power around him. Chicken hawks and NEOCON’s infest the US congress, Tom ‘Pikkin’ Cotton comes to mind. This is eerily like the great novel by Pat Frank ‘Alas Babylon’ (1959) and I can’t help but think of other allusions to Armageddon. What better way to end it all. (Grin)
That it is this bad even I did not suspect
For comparison, the Iowa’s 16-inch guns fired a 1200kg armor-piercing shell at a muzzle velocity of around Mach 2.7.
In a test firing, the Kh-22 blew a 22 square meter hole (234 square feet) in a target to a depth of 12 meters.
The beam of a Nimitz at the waterline is about 40 meters. A Burke’s is about 20.
One of those hits a carrier and it’s gutted. One of those hits a destroyer and it’s sunk within minutes.
1) Could anything come close enough to the carrier to fire the missile at it?
2) Could the missile go through the active and passive defenses?
3) If both of the above are true, could it hit the carrier with the required accuracy?
If the answer to all of the above is true, then yes, a few of these (with some luck, even one) could easily destroy it.
Yes, it’s beyond bizarre. A fittingly stupid ending to our increasingly stupid civilization.
1. The Nazis “struggled” against partisans in the occupied USSR (despite being orders of magnitude more brutal than the US), but that didn’t stop them from penetrating the USSR up to Moscow and Stalingrad.
These are two entirely different things.
2. Misrepresents the article. It will be a US mop-up (though a painful one) only in Syria. In the Baltics, for instance, it will be a Russian mop-up. Geographic context matters.
3. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Funny quips are funny, but not necessarily accurate.
Looks like Turkey managed to broker a peace between US – Russia and if Trump doesn’t go berserk US will not attack Assad regime. Obviously Turkey will get something in return for this.
Randal : you say ” The way I see it, there are only really Russia, Iran and China and their allies standing between the world and return to complete unipolar US dominance ” ……
Do you realize that now most of the people of the world does NOT wish to return to US unipolar dominance ?, you have bombed too many nations , your culture has produced too many perversions , you have abused too much , you have bragged too much …
Maybe just the english speaking : usa , usa -north ( canada ) , australia , and england would …. But the rest of the world NO , not asia , not africa , not latinamerica , not Russia , and not england-free europe …..
You must live in hollywood , or maybe you watch too much american TV , come back to earth man , we are in 2018 !!!!
These are two entirely different things.
2. Misrepresents the article. It will be a US mop-up (though a painful one) only in Syria. In the Baltics, for instance, it will be a Russian mop-up. Geographic context matters.
3. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Funny quips are funny, but not necessarily accurate.
Partisans came later after Germans already penetrated Russia thoroughly. Partisans main job was not to fight German army but to provoke reprisals against the local population who resigned themselves to German occupation under which life often was better than under the Soviet rule. Partisan warfare was about hearts and mind. It did not weaken German war effort and had no impact on the final outcome.
But you're correct that it had no impact on the final outcome (Germany would've lost anyway) and its main goal was to thoroughly turn the population (or at least large segments of it) against the Germans by provoking ever escalating German reprisals. It largely achieved that goal.
Look at the bright side folks: a nuclear war will result in global cooling, just the antidote needed for the global warming that is threatening mankind with extinction.
It is all about Israel. To stop this insanity the chicken needs to be killed. Bloggers TT and Vojkan at Israel Shamir thread make this point.
That’s I believe an exaggeration. It did weaken the German war effort, though not by a wide margin. The main effect on the German forces was psychological, lowered their morale, made them more exhausted, harassed them a lot, etc.
But you’re correct that it had no impact on the final outcome (Germany would’ve lost anyway) and its main goal was to thoroughly turn the population (or at least large segments of it) against the Germans by provoking ever escalating German reprisals. It largely achieved that goal.
But yes, it probably didn't affect the final outcome that much.
You make it sound like it is a problem.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-13/myth-european-democracy-shocking-revelation
That it is this bad even I did not suspect
I have spent the past few minutes watching the French representative at the Security Council announce that France will assume its responsibility to put an end to the series of chemical attacks in Russia. It was the height of cynicism for the Syrian “regime” to carry out this barbarous attack on the “last inhabitants” of Douma at a time when negotiations were going on to put an end to the conflict.
For anyone who wants to follow the proceedings
http://webtv.un.org/
and note that you can select the language (original, etc.) at the lower right.
Good analysis. Surprising though. I thought articles which didn’t predict the imminent and inevitable elevation of Putin to be Tsar of all the Eurasias were banned from the US internet! A small point re Ukraine that the author didn’t mention: keep clear the distinction between ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians, which Putin has fudged, no doubt deliberately. Being Irish, that is to say, English-speaking but (very definitely!) not English, I’ve very conscious of the difference between ethnicity and native language. If you look at the Ukrainian census figures (Wikipedia), you’ll see that, apart from Crimea, ethnic Russians are in a minority in literally every other province, with the largest Russian minorities being in Lugansk (39%) and Donetsk (38%). In Kharkov, for example, it’s 25%. Thus, the claim of a “Russian” eastern Ukraine is a propaganda lie and if Putin were to try to annex any of the above provinces, he would find himself with between 60 and 75% of the population opposed to the Russian presence, the inevitable rigged referenda notwithstanding. It was precisely the attempt to control non-Russian inhabited territory by force that first overstretched and then brought down the Soviet Union. I agree with the author that one of the reasons why Putin blundered into the Syrian civil war was because he thought he could trade off Syria for concessions in Ukraine. He must now realise that he’s going to have to back off in Ukraine so as to avoid a humiliating defeat in Syria.
The Russians are now saying they have proof the chemical attack was staged by the UK.
This better be undeniable for they’re hurting themselves… especially on the Skripal affair.
They all are permanently lying whores with a taste for large scale slaughter.
MoonofAlabama posted a graphic CNN is using to define US intentions; it features bold text, “PUNISHING SYRIA” w/ a geographic map in background.
Any guesses how many Americans notice that the map is Iran, not Syria?
And one MoA commenters pointed out (what I interpret as) the extraordinary dance Trump and Putin are cooperatively dancing — they are both taking steps to expose and corner neocons.
Not sure who is leading in this tango: Putin matched step-for-step by putting the Russian people on a war footing
Russian TV Vesti broadcast told their citizens to prepare for WW3 Aramageddon
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/04/russian-tv-vesti-broadcast-told-their-citizens-to-prepare-for-ww3-aramageddon-j.html
It will be hard for Netanyahu to further traumatize the Israeli people since Israelis and Jews are warned of a second holocaust more regularly than a pubescent male masturbates (at least such a male in the former dispensation when boys were male). In fact, according to Israeli-born psychologist Avigail Abarbanel, war is the only thing that unites Israeli Jews, “during the 2009 bombardment of Gaza,” she wrote, “Israelis were orgasmic for war on Iran.” Abarbanel has assessed that impending annihilation is a major element of Jewish identity predating WWII by several millennia — it is embedded in Hebrew scripture (see http://mondoweiss.net/2015/06/traumatized-society-dangerous/ ) .
Based on the congress critters ZUSA Congress is deploying to zionist occupied C Span, the Izzie Lobby is deploying Team Black to deliver the talking points:
- Congress must debate a new AUMF
- There must be a grand strategy
- US must form and lead the international community in “protecting the Syrian people from evil bastard reincarnation of Hitler really bad guy Assad who gassed his own people and what should really happen is an expert body should investigate and that is in process but we know Assad did it because he’s an evil rat bastard.”
Black congress-rank talking heads who thus sang for their supper were Gregory Meeks of NY (Apr 12) and Barbara Lee (CA) (Apr 13).
In comments this morning, Paul Ryan paid his dues on the way out, and other White Supremacist congress men, eager to demonstrate their commitment to diversity and multiculti by killing more brown, Arab, Muslims have climbed on board the C Span soul train.
Ironically, Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna (probably not a white supremacist) has joined Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. Rand Paul, both of Kentucky, in a letter urging the president to abide by Constitutional principles before engaging in military action in Syria.
https://twitter.com/AP/status/984807120406286336
This better be undeniable for they're hurting themselves... especially on the Skripal affair.
Why? The UK accused them of the Skripal affair without any evidence whatsoever. No doubt it was a chemical weapon of a type used by the UK in the Great War.
For anyone who wants to follow the proceedings
http://webtv.un.org/
and note that you can select the language (original, etc.) at the lower right.
1) Russians were killed by the Americans
2) with nary a word of protest from the Russian government
I'm sure that makes the likes of Pompeo think that if they again kill some Russians accidentally, then Russia will do nothing. So this makes them less eager to avoid any and all accidental Russian casualties. This also makes it easier to sell the policy of aggressive confrontation.
I fail to see how the exact circumstances or the exact number of those killed matters, as long as the core of the issue (Russians killed by Americans with no protest or public countermeasure from Russia) is true. And we both no it's true, because your source says so much - Russians were killed, and Russia didn't protest. As we both can see, the likes of Pompeo interpreted this as a sign of weakness, and I'm sure most normie observers do the same thing. I cannot count the times I've heard this Deir ez-Zor argument ("the Russians won't do anything, see, they didn't do anything the last time either") in Hungary.
Well it isn’t “my” account – it’s just the most convincing examination I’ve seen.
But what grounds had the Russian government to complain about Russians present in a war zone in a private capacity being killed as collateral damage in an ongoing war, and in a location known to be highly dangerous? The world would have laughed at them, and rightly so.
Yes, though I suspect Pompeo is more liar than fool in this case.
I didn’t suggest otherwise.
If Pompeo understood the situation, he would not be pushing for a forceful attack (basically, the way I understand it, a bombing campaign) against Syria. So he certainly is a fool. I have no reason to doubt him that part of the reason he thinks the danger of some Russian collateral damage matters very little is that Russia did nothing when its semi-official mercenaries were killed.
https://twitter.com/AP/status/984807120406286336
This better be undeniable for they're hurting themselves... especially on the Skripal affair.
It really doesn’t matter what is or isn’t undeniable at this point. Truth has become multiple-choice at this point.
But what grounds had the Russian government to complain about Russians present in a war zone in a private capacity being killed as collateral damage in an ongoing war, and in a location known to be highly dangerous? The world would have laughed at them, and rightly so.Yes, though I suspect Pompeo is more liar than fool in this case.
I didn't suggest otherwise.
According to previous agreements, the US had no business killing anyone in that location, and should’ve clarified with Russia that they were to attack that location. (The Russians apparently only OK’d that they were to destroy the attacking column, but not that they were to thoroughly destroy the location where the Russians were stationed.)
If Pompeo understood the situation, he would not be pushing for a forceful attack (basically, the way I understand it, a bombing campaign) against Syria. So he certainly is a fool. I have no reason to doubt him that part of the reason he thinks the danger of some Russian collateral damage matters very little is that Russia did nothing when its semi-official mercenaries were killed.
For anyone who wants to follow the proceedings
http://webtv.un.org/
and note that you can select the language (original, etc.) at the lower right.
I haven’t heard about chemical attacks in Russia. Where were these attacks? Any reports on the casualties? Anyone claiming responsibility for these chemical attacks in Russia? Maybe it was the Chechens? How come these attacks aren’t in the news? Is there a cover-up?
Chemical attacks in Syria, sorry.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/images6/cbsiran.jpg
Any guesses how many Americans notice that the map is Iran, not Syria?
And one MoA commenters pointed out (what I interpret as) the extraordinary dance Trump and Putin are cooperatively dancing -- they are both taking steps to expose and corner neocons.Not sure who is leading in this tango: Putin matched step-for-step by putting the Russian people on a war footing
Russian TV Vesti broadcast told their citizens to prepare for WW3 Aramageddon
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/04/russian-tv-vesti-broadcast-told-their-citizens-to-prepare-for-ww3-aramageddon-j.html
It will be hard for Netanyahu to further traumatize the Israeli people since Israelis and Jews are warned of a second holocaust more regularly than a pubescent male masturbates (at least such a male in the former dispensation when boys were male). In fact, according to Israeli-born psychologist Avigail Abarbanel, war is the only thing that unites Israeli Jews, "during the 2009 bombardment of Gaza," she wrote, "Israelis were orgasmic for war on Iran." Abarbanel has assessed that impending annihilation is a major element of Jewish identity predating WWII by several millennia -- it is embedded in Hebrew scripture (see http://mondoweiss.net/2015/06/traumatized-society-dangerous/ ) .
Based on the congress critters ZUSA Congress is deploying to zionist occupied C Span, the Izzie Lobby is deploying Team Black to deliver the talking points:
- Congress must debate a new AUMF
- There must be a grand strategy
- US must form and lead the international community in "protecting the Syrian people from evil bastard reincarnation of Hitler really bad guy Assad who gassed his own people and what should really happen is an expert body should investigate and that is in process but we know Assad did it because he's an evil rat bastard."
Black congress-rank talking heads who thus sang for their supper were Gregory Meeks of NY (Apr 12) and Barbara Lee (CA) (Apr 13).
In comments this morning, Paul Ryan paid his dues on the way out, and other White Supremacist congress men, eager to demonstrate their commitment to diversity and multiculti by killing more brown, Arab, Muslims have climbed on board the C Span soul train.
Ironically, Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna (probably not a white supremacist) has joined Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. Rand Paul, both of Kentucky, in a letter urging the president to abide by Constitutional principles before engaging in military action in Syria.
PS Is an AUMF the same as a Declaration of War?
Seems to me an AUMF is an abrogation or deferral of Congress’s responsibility to declare war. An AUMF amounts to Congress vesting in the president the decision to declare war and to thereupon order military action.
It would be interesting if some group mounted a constitutional challenge, in court, to congressional legislation creating an AUMF.
https://twitter.com/AP/status/984807120406286336
This better be undeniable for they're hurting themselves... especially on the Skripal affair.
And it took Russia 3 weeks to come up with it? Russia’s propaganda machine is inept. They should have been flooding media with a possibility of a false fall on the 2nd day.
That it is this bad even I did not suspect
What democracy? The Italians just voted out the shit libs that allowed all those young negro men to flood their country. The people want those invaders gone. It’s been a month and still no government and even the right wing parties have to tread lightly over the ‘racist’ issues of kicking out all those maggots. Democracy? In a pigs eye.
Most of the alleged NATO destroying superweapons exist in only low numbers or are still in the prototype stage. Russia's military modernization efforts have been inadequately funded, and it doesn't help that it's often stolen.
Many NATO countries profess readiness problems (which is often actually just goldbricking from the armed forces and defense contractors), but it's not like training has been abolished.
The fact remains that NATO has overwhelmingly more forces at its disposal, and it has far more war potential in every regard. More manpower, more industry, more financial might, and higher technology.
This is why Russia always resorts to "international law" and attempts to spook people with terrifying doomsday weapons.
https://southfront.org/nato-and-russia-weapons-in-figures/
But is does have doomsday weapons.
Stop reading at this point, author is not intelligent.
Well, he’s definitely intelligent, but you’re right, Nate, that EVs will not displace nearly that many of our combustion-engine vehicles by just a couple years from now.
People in the USA and elsewhere will be burning fossil fuel in quantity for some time to come, it seems, though hopefully at declining levels.
China might be forward-thinking and heavyhanded enough to drastically cut gas/oil-burning vehicles in favor of electric vehicles sooner than we do.
Personally, I love the idea of much lower tailpipe emissions where we work, live, and walk. (understanding of course, that the power plants providing the electricity for all these new EVs will still spew air pollution themselves, and we will still be adversely affected to some degree by that pollution). The electric plants need to reduce THEIR use of fossil fuels as well, switching to solar where that is feasible and to nuclear otherwise.
If we are lucky and haven’t destroyed ourselves in a pointless war against Russia by then, maybe we can shift the majority of vehicular traffic off gas, especially heavy-polluting trucks, by 2035-2040. EVworld used to be an interesting site, ignoring the founder’s lefty sensibilities.
https://d1o9e4un86hhpc.cloudfront.net/images/tinymce/Evan1/ada713.png
Small declines in demand = big falls in the oil price. One commenter here (Polish Perspective) recently had a projection that indicated EV sales will be translating to a one million barrel annual decline in oil demand by the early 2020s.
Of course it won't be as "bad" as that - oil demand will continue creeping up for plastics production, aircraft, etc. - but still, EV's will be a huge factor.
And consider Russia's situation from a broader perspective. For the last couple of decades, America has been constantly attacking other countries and or overthrowing their governments, behaving in a more and more crazy manner. At some point, a rabid dog must be confronted.
Furthermore, consider the totally bizarre domestic behavior of our elites, tearing down more and more of America's historic statues and monuments, behavior not that unlike that from the Taliban or ISIS or Mao's Red Guards.
Suppose during the Cultural Revolution, while China's Red Guards were wrecking total internal havoc, China was *also* constantly attacking and invading other countries externally, and talking about ruling the world. Wouldn't it be absolutely natural for other countries to become greatly alarmed and try to put an end to the rampage?
Obviously, there are huge dangers in every option, but I really do think Russia needs to stand its ground in Syria.
Now that is a magnificent assessment in each particular.
If you have the time, expand it to an article. And then dare the Neocon monsters to reply here.
I haven’t heard about chemical attacks in Russia
Chemical attacks in Syria, sorry.
“We managed to find direct participants in the shooting of this video and interview them. Today we are presenting a live interview of these people. Duma residents in detail told us how the filming was conducted, in what episodes they took part themselves and what they did,” Konashenkov said.
https://sputniknews.com/russia/201804131063516609-russia-douma-chemical-incident/
The Syrian chemical attack was only 6 days ago.
https://twitter.com/AP/status/984807120406286336
This better be undeniable for they're hurting themselves... especially on the Skripal affair.
Truth is irrelevant to British secret service and its 3 offspring of note (CIA, Mossad, Saudi General Intelligence Presidency), as well as to the mass media that serve them.
They all are permanently lying whores with a taste for large scale slaughter.
I think that after the first strike into Syria, Russia would take out a few ships, and then
the world, even Trump and Putin, will step back after they gaze into the abyss. The duration of the conflict. limited to this initial exchange , will favor Russia. Another round, maybe questionable but probably favors Russia. Massive commitment and third plus exchanges involving all theater assets favors the US, but global thermonuclear war would probably favor Russia, which has there head into this kind of fight for some years, and the US has discounted it as a realistic thing to plan for. So then, looks like a 2 for 3 round fight to me, after which the world and Russia and the US will pull back and negotiate some kind of arrangement. This is all predicated on the assumption that there is not already some kind of kabuki dance being planned in back channels to allow both sides to back off their positions after round 1. If some Mig 35′s with large missiles slung underneath, Donald Cook is toast. I don’t think the carrier is on station yet but when it is, it is toast too.
That suggests Russia in extremis could gain from raising the stakes to the brink of the strategic nuclear exchange level by, say, hitting a US carrier with a nuke.
I grew up during the Cold War and even at the worst of times our political leaders back then weren't anywhere as crazy as they are now. Even Reagan was a model of restraint compared to the loud mouth that currently resides at the WH.
These SOB's are quite capable of kicking over the proverbial table and starting shit that can't be walked back as they have no one in the U.S. to tell them "stop it or we hang your sorry asses".
Sadly – not in-the-writing/literary “sadly”, but literally sadly – I completely agree and really don’t have much to add to that.
Very gloomy scenario on your part, looks to me like you see no good way out for Russia.Fully in agreement. If it does come to a general conflagration, I hope that at least a few nukes will also land on Tel Aviv, Ryadh and Ankara.
The unrepentant war criminal Toykyo and inhumane caste system New Delhi also deserve to be on the list “at least a few nukes will also land on.”
Because worshipping homosexuals is the only way to live life? Except better from a Chinese.
Granted, it was only a danger to European interests because of Europe's lax policies towards citizens engaged in jihad (readmitting them into European countries and often not even punishing them...instead of stripping them of their citizenship, declaring them enemies of the state and killing them if possible) and Germany's open borders madness.
But an Islamist quasi-state in Europe's neighbourhood shouldn't be tolerated imo. Randal is probably right though that it's better to let regional powers deal with such issues if possible, since Western interventions tend to make things worse and even have the perverse consequence of aiding jihadis.
Good point about Russians not being safe with Islamists right next door in Syria.
Furthermore, will Russia (and Poland) be able to tolerate Islamist regimes to their west in Germany, France, and formerly-great formerly-Britain?
Like us, the Russians had better get back to having children. Sadly, they’re going to need the troops. They’re going to be faced with Muslim-majority countries in western and Central Europe, two of them possessing a small nuclear arsenal (“the us” and France).
A little cherry on the pie: http://theduran.com/russia-may-stop-titanium-exports-to-boeing/
They (the US & EU) really asked for that: “Russia’s Federation Council continues to explore the adoption of counter-sanctions against the United States.”
“Russia may ban the supply of RD-180 engines used by NASA and the Pentagon. These rocket engines are used not only by NASA, but also by the Pentagon on their satellites. It means the US uses these rocket engines to launch their military satellites.
According to State Duma Vice Speaker Ivan Melnikov, the Russian response would include ending cooperation with the US in the nuclear industry, aircraft building and airspace.
Under the proposed response by the Russian government, the US and its allies could also be banned from participating in Russian privatization deals. At the moment, the list of legal entities that can organize privatization transactions in Russia includes Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, UBS, Citi and several other foreign banks.
Russia may also limit the supply of drugs, tobacco, and alcohol from the United States.
As of last year, 40 percent of Russian titanium aircraft parts were sold to Boeing and 60 percent to its European rival Airbus, according to a spokesman for Russia’s Rostec corporation.”
– Long overdue.
http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
Not long before everyone in the Machine died, they were still arguing about music. In the end, their greatest terror was silence, because they had lived in the Machine for so long, the idea of not being constantly distracted by trivialities was worse than anything.
That's one chilling piece of literature. (different Anon, sorry). I think even 15 years ago I could not have appreciated it, simply because it was technologically too far-fetched to be verisimile. I'll have to find the way to read the story in a little book club.
The tyranny of noise and constant stimulation are indeed traps. Demonic in the sense that they make silence an enemy, where in truth silence is the path to inner life, to God within, the only abiding source of life. From a Christian perspective, at least. At the very least, that story goes to the question of what makes man a man, and not just a living being. What is man for?
Thanks for the link.
If Pompeo understood the situation, he would not be pushing for a forceful attack (basically, the way I understand it, a bombing campaign) against Syria. So he certainly is a fool. I have no reason to doubt him that part of the reason he thinks the danger of some Russian collateral damage matters very little is that Russia did nothing when its semi-official mercenaries were killed.
Well all I know about it is what is in that piece, which suggests there was a mutually understood condition that the village of Tabiyah was not to be used as a base for attacks and this was breached, giving the Americans a legitimate excuse to flatten the place. Who knows what the real truth is, but equally, who sheds tears for mercenaries apart from their friends and relatives?
I see no reason to suppose this incident plays any part in Pompeo’s desire for an aggressive policy of military confrontation in Syria. That’s all about Israel and Iran and the geopolitical situation. I don’t believe it even affects his position on Russia’s likely response, because I’m confident Pompeo knew full well that he was lying.
He’s a militarist US politician with an ulterior motive telling an implausible tale that suits his objectives. What more reason is needed to presume dishonesty?
You cannot give a scenario where the Russians couldn't have avoided the situation: either they OK'd it, in which case they were stupid and/or incompetent, or they didn't, in which case they had a good reason to be outraged.
It definitely gave a propaganda coup to the Americans.They are basically employed by the GRU. They are not like US private military contractors in the sense that the company employing them would be illegal in Russia if it wasn't for GRU running the show. So they are at the very worst still Russian government employees. If the Russian government doesn't care that the US kills its employees with impunity, then that's a problem in itself. And of course it gives the Americans propaganda coups.I see no reason to think otherwise. We've already established that Pompeo is genuinely stupid (he clearly doesn't understand the risks, or he wouldn't be advocating for such a dangerous course of action which could easily result in his own death, or at least a much less comfortable life for himself), so what reason is there to think he doesn't believe much of the stupid things he spouts? As I said, I've encountered the Deir ez-Zor incident in the arguments of many normies, whose ingenuity (genuine stupidity) I had no reason to doubt, and they clearly believed that Deir ez-Zor was a template for how the Russians would likely react. Is there any reason Pompeo is any different from those Atlantist normies? If you take out Deir ez-Zor, there's really little reason to genuinely believe that Russia won't retaliate at all to the death of its servicemen.
It is is an ill wind that blows no good.
It is an ill wind indeed that blows no good. As far as population decimation goes, your 90% survival rate for humanity is too optimistic: A number of prominent globalists are on record that the sustainable population is somewhat less than a billion.
That is certainly a good thing. The bad part is who survives.
These are two entirely different things.
2. Misrepresents the article. It will be a US mop-up (though a painful one) only in Syria. In the Baltics, for instance, it will be a Russian mop-up. Geographic context matters.
3. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Funny quips are funny, but not necessarily accurate.
If you think Einstein was making a ‘funny quip’ with that quote, this only reinforces my opinion that your comprehension is a bit off. The point of his quote is that nuclear armageddon will put us back into the stone age, only much worse than that as untold millions will die from radiation poising’s cancer, that will drag on for decades of death and misery. Leaving you to your GI Joe war games,
DM
I disagree. Even in the event that 99% of humanity dies, the remaining 1% will have enough genetic variability that the species can survive as a viable entity(minimum population to avoid inbreeding is only 4000 or so). While cancer and other hazards will further reduce biodiversity and lower the overall standard of life, humanity as a species will survive and it is probable that technological advancement can restart again after some time. This cannot be the “stone age” as metals and other advanced material will remain present in the ruins to be salvaged.
Note even in Chernobyl, animal life remains:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/
Mr. Karlin is his usually astute self: traditional assumptions are based on models which may not have been reflected several decades later upon analysis.
They can be artistically good, but as a rule, not realistic. E.g., On the Beach, everyone dies. Dr. Strangelove actually more realistic, but that is because in that film, the Soviets seed their nukes with cobalt (which they don't IRL). Fallout and Metro 2033 universes are awesome but complete fictions (ironically, scifi biological weapons play a key part in both).
Ironically, main exception is the very good 1980s British film Threads, which you can download on the torrents sites. Assessment of wartime deaths due to the Soviet strike is realistic (around 20 million - note the US will have less relative deaths, because its a larger, less densely populated area). However, after the blasts, population proceeds to fall to a medieval level of around 10 million. This is much less realistic, because as Thorfinnsson explained, industrialism will survive; nuclear winter will last no more than 2 years; and the effects of nuclear blasts on the ozone layer are greatly overestimated.
Serious literature about nuclear war estimated around 60 million deaths for the US in a full scale exchange with the USSR (I can hunt down the sources when I have more time). Substantial numbers of famine deaths in the Third World from the cessation of international food shipments. "Nuclear winter" will be a 1-2c cooling that lasts 1-2 years, not a decadal plunge into a new Ice Age.
Unfortunately, realistic discussion of nuclear war impacts (which are bad enough as they are) was overwhelmed by sensationalist crap due to post-1960s atomophobia, and people generally lost interest in the subject after 1991.
The US still had to ask for clearance from the Russians (there is a reason why they asked if the attacking troops had any Russians among them). Either they asked about Tabiyah specifically (in which case the Russians shouldn’t have OK’d them, instead they should’ve told them to hold off until the Russians could evacuate their semi-government employed mercenaries), or they didn’t (in which case the Russians should’ve publicly protested for attacking a location without asking for permission and killing Russians in the process.
You cannot give a scenario where the Russians couldn’t have avoided the situation: either they OK’d it, in which case they were stupid and/or incompetent, or they didn’t, in which case they had a good reason to be outraged.
It definitely gave a propaganda coup to the Americans.
They are basically employed by the GRU. They are not like US private military contractors in the sense that the company employing them would be illegal in Russia if it wasn’t for GRU running the show. So they are at the very worst still Russian government employees. If the Russian government doesn’t care that the US kills its employees with impunity, then that’s a problem in itself. And of course it gives the Americans propaganda coups.
I see no reason to think otherwise. We’ve already established that Pompeo is genuinely stupid (he clearly doesn’t understand the risks, or he wouldn’t be advocating for such a dangerous course of action which could easily result in his own death, or at least a much less comfortable life for himself), so what reason is there to think he doesn’t believe much of the stupid things he spouts? As I said, I’ve encountered the Deir ez-Zor incident in the arguments of many normies, whose ingenuity (genuine stupidity) I had no reason to doubt, and they clearly believed that Deir ez-Zor was a template for how the Russians would likely react. Is there any reason Pompeo is any different from those Atlantist normies? If you take out Deir ez-Zor, there’s really little reason to genuinely believe that Russia won’t retaliate at all to the death of its servicemen.
It's reasonable to call him stupid as a shorthand for pointing out that his behaviour is stupid if you take his claims to value genuine American interests at face value, which is the basis on which I usually call such people stupid. But he clearly isn't stupid in the sense of being unable to reason competently. He just has other goals than those he ought (Israel and US militarist supremacy, as previously noted).
But unlike the normies to whom you refer, it's highly unlikely he has their defence of ignorance to call upon. He must have had access to fairly detailed US intelligence on this incident, and he surely is well aware that there were no "hundreds" of Russians killed, just as he must know that there were no Russian military personnel nor any Russian government operation involved.No, this is clearly a non sequitur since there were no Russian servicemen involved in the incident under discussion. Only ignorant normies would think that way, though others with real knowledge might claim to for tactical utility as Pompeo does.
Stop reading at this point, author is not intelligent.
It takes about thirty times the weight of an average car in fossil fuels to manufacture that car, so yes, you are right.
Why do people think manufacturing is an energy-free process?
Also, the power plants that generate the electricity for the electric vehicles need to be powered by something other than fossil fuels themselves.
Nuclear power seems like the choice here, at least for the near term (realizing that environmentalists in California and elsewhere will fight that tooth and nail).
And solar arrays where that is economical (and it is in much of New Mexico, California, Arizona, etc., I’ve seen it long term with family who have residential solar power in NM and CA.). My sister’s solar system provides enough energy to power her house and appliances, and her plugin hybrid car, AND have power left to sell to the utility company each month.
Though with solar, too, your point stands that it takes energy, usually fossil fuel, to manufacture solar panels and equipment.
Chinese is not the West which is a remorseless and hypocritical tribe. Chinese believe Five Principle of Peaceful Co-existence that treats all nations large and small equal with respect. Chinese believes peace, harmony, cooperation, developments and mutual benefits are the trend of times.
After few hundreds of years of experiment, the Western system, culture and framework has proven inadequate, flawed and not working for the long term survival of humanity not to mention the building prosperity for humanity.
oocities.org/somasushma/tarim.html
http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2016/08/history-of-indian-ocean-shows-how-old.html?m=1
After few hundreds of years of experiment, the Western system, culture and framework has proven inadequate, flawed and not working for the long term survival of humanity not to mention the building prosperity for humanity.
Yes, the Red Guard was very kind and loving when they completely executed every one of my mainland family member for being landowners. This was an excellent demonstration of peace, harmony, cooperation, development(s) and mutual benefits for “trend of times.”
Eff off.
Why would current Chinese like Joe Wong be held responsible for that history to deem Chinese is never a peaceful lot just because Mao had killed you family?
KMT killed many Taiwan natives in White Terror, do we also conclude Taiwanese can never be peaceful people?
And the same logic should apply to much worst history, no one should ever forgive Americans for Vietnam & Korea wars(too many to list), Germans for Hitler WWII, and Russians for Stalin's Soviet Union deeds, Japanese for their WWII atrocity to Asians including your family & kins? And their nation can never be more peaceful than the Chinese who didn't even invade others but a victim in past many decades.
You have make a unjust statement to smear China peaceful rise intention in one broad stroke. I see much hope in Prez Xi & team, more than any other nations leaders. And my direct experience with mainland Chinese & Taiwanese too, they never has desire to invade others or aspire to be a violent hedgmon like most West countries historical did, some still much dreaming of that like UK PM May.
This is interesting:
Russia Has “Irrefutable Evidence” UK Staged Syrian Chemical Attack
For the first time in a long time US is being forced to consider the costs of its agressive foreign policy. Mattis said it himself today: the reason why USA is not bombing Assad already is because of a risk of "uncontrolled escalation" in the region, i.e. they are scared that Russia will kick their ass. Trump also apprears to have backtracked today.
Thankfully, they seem to have realized the gravity of the situation, and sobered up.
Exactly right. Need to have a long supply of medicine on hand for diabetes, gout, hypertension, etc., along with the usual water, canned food, ammo, batteries, first aid supplies, etc., in the event of such a breakdown.
The generals (Mattis and Dunford) understood the situation, but according to rumors, not Trump, nor Bolton. Trump only backtracked (rather postponed: he only said the attack might take place later) because the generals forcefully resisted. If I were a general, I’d probably threaten to resign in such a situation.
Russia shows the teeth, not the throat.
Summary of the text:
Eleven Russiann warships left their Syrian base, taking up positions just outside Syria's territorial waters.
Warning was given for excercises with live ammunition, thus effectively blocking water and air access.
At the same time Washington's hawkish language diminished.
My idea:
the Syrian and Skripal shows, a disaster for western bluff.
But Israel-firsters are furious. Here is a militant ziocon attacking Tucker Carlson for a truthful reporting (which is very rare in MSM) -- basically for the same statement that was uttered by General Mattis: http://theduran.com/tucker-carlson-rips-into-propaganda-accusations/
The Israel-firsters (the parasite' tentacles) want the slaughter to continue: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/europe/russia/tucker-carlson-russian-line-syria-trump/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl9Fk6eT0EM
After few hundreds of years of experiment, the Western system, culture and framework has proven inadequate, flawed and not working for the long term survival of humanity not to mention the building prosperity for humanity.
Treated with respect like the Tibetans, Mongolians, and Uighurs?
damn right,
No tax,
free education,
Subsidised economy,
exempt from one child rule......
If anglos are so into Tibetan welfare, why dont they wanna talk about the Tibet in India, a hand me down from the Brit colonists .
Whatever happens to that English edict,
Charity starts at home ???
The anglos like to gloat about the rail road and a 'democratic system' they bequeathed to India.
Well,
Here's a dirty little secret.....
The Indians inherited a big chunk of Tibetan land and its peripherals robbed by the Brits, where the Mongoloid indigenous wanted nuthin to do with the Indian heartland after India got its own independence.
To subdue the 'chinky faced terrorists', the Indians rely on the most dracanion 'anti insurgency' law in the world, the dreaded AFSPA, another hand me down from their former Brit masters who used the same law to quell Indian resistance, what an irony !
The Tibet that no anglos wanna talk about
A license to kill and rape ....
'Drawing from the colonial Armed Forces Special Provisions Ordinance, 1942, which was used to quell the Quit India Movement,
AFSPA was introduced in 1958 in Nagaland to fight the Naga secessionist movement and was later applied in Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir, and some other parts of the Northeast.
Activists say that the armed forces abuse the law to rape and abduct women with impunity. “Violence against women is three times more in our area. They can rape and kill and we can’t even go to court,” says Nepram. “What’s more, the charges of rape are not recorded. Not a single soldier has been tried or prosecuted.”
https://www.telegraphindia.com/1130619/jsp/opinion/story_17023481.jspThe Mongols genocided the Hans in 15C,
When The Ming brought down the Yuan , no reprisal from the Hans,
The Mongols have been a part of the big Chinese family from then on,
and You should complain ?These were Hans victims of murkkan sponsored head choppers in Xinjiang 2009,
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/xinj_07_08/x07_19590639.jpg
http://lollitop.magicgate.eu/media/LollitopMagicgate_007/ethnic_clashes_in_urumqi_china_5.jpg
There'r 102 reasons the Chinese should fear and hate murkkans,
and you should complain ?
P.S.
Here'r some of those 'chinky terrorists' in the Indian Northeast..
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4186/33790357643_6afaa6cb35_c.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/403/31830784823_db18c4dbe1_c.jpg
Even the generals either don’t fully understand the situation, or they have already partially given in to Trump. Because even they accept the “one-off strike.”
The gayvy refuses to conduct objective tests of the Aegis BMD, rolling airframe missiles, or standard missiles.
This suggests their performance is not what is claimed.
We also don't know how good Russian antiship missiles are. How many of them are there?
Regardless of the size of American carriers, enough missile strikes will at least result in a mission kill if not a sinking. They are also not armored in the way earlier naval warships were, something that was shown to be critically stupid during the Falklands War.
Damage control will be non-existent owing to the fact that one-fifth of the crew consists of women. The moment the ship is hit all the women will become hysterical, and men will focus on the women instead of the ship.
The justification for not armoring warships was the Operation Crossroads Test Baker, but this was a dubious conclusion. The ex-German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen for instance only sunk because it had no crew and thus succumbed to flooding.
Owing to the short range of the F/A-18 Sucker Hornet the gayvy might need to put its carrier(s) in range of coastal batteries, which means that aircraft (or ships) don't need to get in missile shot range and expose themselves to Aegis or fighters.
Tankers and AEWC aircraft will need to stay far away from Syria owing to the S-400. Deployment of MiG-31s and more Sukhois can increase this.
Russia obviously can't win any extended campaign in Syria, but it's quite possible that by prepositioning enough anti-ship missiles and firing platforms that it could defeat an allied naval squadron. This would then put NATO+GCC in the gloomy situation you described for Russia following a defeat in Syria, with the exception that NATO+GCC can double down on Syria which Russia cannot.
So a deterrent strategy could be very publicly deploying Tu-22M3 and MiG-31 squadrons to Syria. The Tu-160 units could also be deployed to Southern Russia. A squadron of Tu-160s could penetrate Turkish airspace unintercepted and fire a salvo of perhaps 100 or so anti-ship missiles.
The gayvy's doctrine is to prevent its ships from being found by an adversary, but I really do not see how this is possible in the Mediterranean Sea.
Martyanov is ridiculous but he may have a point on this matter.
Then there's submarines. Unfortunately for Russia there is no way to introduce additional boats into the Mediterranean without detection, but this could be a feature rather than a bug. The gayvy in its own exercises with NATO allies routinely gets its carriers sunk by other NATO submarines.
Admirals are aware of these exercises, and within the gayvy itself submariners have a pithy saying:.
Russian subs entering the Mediterranean in numbers would be a deterrent, and in a shooting war could undertake missile shots on surface ships and potentially torpedo attacks if they can get in range.
The Kilo-class boats already there may already be in range undetected.
Trump's reaction to a naval squadron being sunk would of course be to escalate. But Britain and France might react differently.
For that matter what defensive purpose does Russia's surface navy really serve? Russia is a continental power with no dependence on seaborne imports and can thus risk its entire fleet. Deploy the entire fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean, North Sea, and Eastern Seaboard. Yes they'll be lost in a real war, but people will think twice about starting that war. Russian warships physically visible to people in, say, New York City might cause them to think twice about poking the bear. Punishing the Assman seems much less appetizing when the prospect of a cruise missile striking your office is very real.
Think like Trump. Go big or go home.Capitulation would result in a coup d'etat orchestrated by Rogozin and Shoigu I suspect.
I think you’re generally right about the women, but the the bulk of the men will tend to their duties regardless. Hopefully, we won’t be finding out anytime soon.
Absolutely.
Really, what options does Russia have: either bend over or draw lines in the sand?
Look at the Western provocations over the last 10 or so years: Chechna, Georgia, Ukraine, downed airliners, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, (Iraq, Libyia) Syria, alleged chemical attacks, all hyped to the point you'd think Russia guilty of crucifying you-know-who.
If Russia is guilty of anything it is grossly under estimating the pathological nature of Western politics. At least the Stavka has been initiated.
As an aside, I am increasingly disappointed in China. Do they not see that Russia is merely the first course ? THEY are the main meal. Its about time they asserted themselves: old story - hang together, or be hanged alone.
There is reason Asians have the highest IQ on the planet. China is simply playing the “let’s you and him fight” card. Even if they are the “main course”, by the time the US gorges itself on a Russian appetizer, it will be too weak to take on a China that has only grown stronger between courses (even if not in absolute terms, at least relatively).
The gayvy refuses to conduct objective tests of the Aegis BMD, rolling airframe missiles, or standard missiles.
This suggests their performance is not what is claimed.
We also don't know how good Russian antiship missiles are. How many of them are there?
Regardless of the size of American carriers, enough missile strikes will at least result in a mission kill if not a sinking. They are also not armored in the way earlier naval warships were, something that was shown to be critically stupid during the Falklands War.
Damage control will be non-existent owing to the fact that one-fifth of the crew consists of women. The moment the ship is hit all the women will become hysterical, and men will focus on the women instead of the ship.
The justification for not armoring warships was the Operation Crossroads Test Baker, but this was a dubious conclusion. The ex-German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen for instance only sunk because it had no crew and thus succumbed to flooding.
Owing to the short range of the F/A-18 Sucker Hornet the gayvy might need to put its carrier(s) in range of coastal batteries, which means that aircraft (or ships) don't need to get in missile shot range and expose themselves to Aegis or fighters.
Tankers and AEWC aircraft will need to stay far away from Syria owing to the S-400. Deployment of MiG-31s and more Sukhois can increase this.
Russia obviously can't win any extended campaign in Syria, but it's quite possible that by prepositioning enough anti-ship missiles and firing platforms that it could defeat an allied naval squadron. This would then put NATO+GCC in the gloomy situation you described for Russia following a defeat in Syria, with the exception that NATO+GCC can double down on Syria which Russia cannot.
So a deterrent strategy could be very publicly deploying Tu-22M3 and MiG-31 squadrons to Syria. The Tu-160 units could also be deployed to Southern Russia. A squadron of Tu-160s could penetrate Turkish airspace unintercepted and fire a salvo of perhaps 100 or so anti-ship missiles.
The gayvy's doctrine is to prevent its ships from being found by an adversary, but I really do not see how this is possible in the Mediterranean Sea.
Martyanov is ridiculous but he may have a point on this matter.
Then there's submarines. Unfortunately for Russia there is no way to introduce additional boats into the Mediterranean without detection, but this could be a feature rather than a bug. The gayvy in its own exercises with NATO allies routinely gets its carriers sunk by other NATO submarines.
Admirals are aware of these exercises, and within the gayvy itself submariners have a pithy saying:.
Russian subs entering the Mediterranean in numbers would be a deterrent, and in a shooting war could undertake missile shots on surface ships and potentially torpedo attacks if they can get in range.
The Kilo-class boats already there may already be in range undetected.
Trump's reaction to a naval squadron being sunk would of course be to escalate. But Britain and France might react differently.
For that matter what defensive purpose does Russia's surface navy really serve? Russia is a continental power with no dependence on seaborne imports and can thus risk its entire fleet. Deploy the entire fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean, North Sea, and Eastern Seaboard. Yes they'll be lost in a real war, but people will think twice about starting that war. Russian warships physically visible to people in, say, New York City might cause them to think twice about poking the bear. Punishing the Assman seems much less appetizing when the prospect of a cruise missile striking your office is very real.
Think like Trump. Go big or go home.Capitulation would result in a coup d'etat orchestrated by Rogozin and Shoigu I suspect.
The sea floor of the Med is completely mapped at a fine scale. It would be hard to hide a minicar there, far less a submarine.
Well, Hurricane Harvey caused a 500 year flood, which means 0.2%. It was preceded by two earlier floods which were supposed to be only 1%. So, in three consecutive years, 1%, 1% and 0.2% occurred. Humans are less predictable than nature.
Why do people think manufacturing is an energy-free process?
Good point. But we need to know how much fossil fuel is consumed building a plugin hybrid or all-electric vehicle compared to building an internal-combustion vehicle.
Also, the power plants that generate the electricity for the electric vehicles need to be powered by something other than fossil fuels themselves.
Nuclear power seems like the choice here, at least for the near term (realizing that environmentalists in California and elsewhere will fight that tooth and nail).
And solar arrays where that is economical (and it is in much of New Mexico, California, Arizona, etc., I’ve seen it long term with family who have residential solar power in NM and CA.). My sister’s solar system provides enough energy to power her house and appliances, and her plugin hybrid car, AND have power left to sell to the utility company each month.
Though with solar, too, your point stands that it takes energy, usually fossil fuel, to manufacture solar panels and equipment.
As for renewables, a wind turbine requires many tonnes of steel, plexi glass, copper cabling and concrete (a 3Mw turbine requires 400 tonnes of concrete). All this has to be transported to the site of construction by fossil fueled tucks. You can't build a renewables-based society without a fossil fuel platform base.
China has been beating the war drums and threatening to invade Taiwan and presumably, attack US naval assets in Asia – which I think are 3 carrier groups at this moment. Its all they can do at the moment, they don’t have any heavy military equipment deployed in Syria but the military is clearly intent on showing support for Russia.
Its the reality of the situation, at the end of the day: China can’t project power at the moment. Everything is pretty tailored for a fight in the Pacific Ocean.
I know the standard arguments ("peaceful rise", etc.) but surely one shouldn't drink one's own Kool-Aid.
There is also the argument about not falling into the USSR's military overspending trap. But the USSR spend at least 12% of its GDP - possibly much more - on the military. 5% is patently sustainable. Even 10% is probably ok (1950's USA; Israel until quite recently).
In their place, I would have been spooked by this back in 1996 and sought to at least match the USA's 3-5% of GDP spending forthwith.
Removing women from existence, seems ill-advised. I’m about as misogynist as it gets, but c’mon. Get a grip, man.
Shoigu is notably unenthusiastic about politics, and if Mikhail Zygar's account in All the Kremlin's Men is to be believed, he was even against the Crimea operation in 2014.
Rogozin is one of the few bona fide Russian nationalists in a senior position, but I don't think he has any patronage network around him. He is not actually a silovik.
This is not the first time that you have alluded to the possibility of a silovik coup. Note that the siloviks are a disparate lot. Sechin is merely capo of the biggest subgroup.
No Silivok will enjoy lasting public support. They have been dragging Russia into confrontation for pointless reasons of vanity since 2004.
haha, this is why anatoly’s articles are being dismissed wholesale by the msm/think tanks, he dares to criticize
comments about “rules of the international order” are some of the funniest there are. for even thinking there are rules or an international order. I expected better of people who actually took the effort of finding unz review.
You cannot give a scenario where the Russians couldn't have avoided the situation: either they OK'd it, in which case they were stupid and/or incompetent, or they didn't, in which case they had a good reason to be outraged.
It definitely gave a propaganda coup to the Americans.They are basically employed by the GRU. They are not like US private military contractors in the sense that the company employing them would be illegal in Russia if it wasn't for GRU running the show. So they are at the very worst still Russian government employees. If the Russian government doesn't care that the US kills its employees with impunity, then that's a problem in itself. And of course it gives the Americans propaganda coups.I see no reason to think otherwise. We've already established that Pompeo is genuinely stupid (he clearly doesn't understand the risks, or he wouldn't be advocating for such a dangerous course of action which could easily result in his own death, or at least a much less comfortable life for himself), so what reason is there to think he doesn't believe much of the stupid things he spouts? As I said, I've encountered the Deir ez-Zor incident in the arguments of many normies, whose ingenuity (genuine stupidity) I had no reason to doubt, and they clearly believed that Deir ez-Zor was a template for how the Russians would likely react. Is there any reason Pompeo is any different from those Atlantist normies? If you take out Deir ez-Zor, there's really little reason to genuinely believe that Russia won't retaliate at all to the death of its servicemen.
Not if as the Americans see it the Syrian side had breached an agreement in the first place. You aren’t going to get the Americans to feel bad about breaching an agreement in response to a breach of an agreement, as they would see it, and nor are you going to get any particular sympathy from neutrals. And, yes, it’s probably cynical opportunism. So what?
Well yes. That’s life. A Russian response (that was significant and direct enough to be even noticed) would just have given the Americans and their militarists and other backers another excuse to claim to be outraged and aggrieved, because they wouldn’t accept that Russia had any legitimate cause to “respond”.
Deniable cuts both ways. Do you really think no American or British operators of varying degrees of officialness have died in actions in Syria, without any protest or acknowledgement? If Russia doesn’t want its “employees” killed then it shouldn’t park them in high danger spots in war zones. If it expects them to be treated like formally employed Russian military men then it should flag them appropriately and formally tell the Americans when it deploys them to a sensitive location.
Well he clearly disagrees about the risks, and he advocates taking them because he presumably regards them as lower and sees the gains from taking them as worthwhile, because of his different objectives (Israel and US militarist dominance). Different goals and weights, not necessarily stupidity.
It’s reasonable to call him stupid as a shorthand for pointing out that his behaviour is stupid if you take his claims to value genuine American interests at face value, which is the basis on which I usually call such people stupid. But he clearly isn’t stupid in the sense of being unable to reason competently. He just has other goals than those he ought (Israel and US militarist supremacy, as previously noted).
But unlike the normies to whom you refer, it’s highly unlikely he has their defence of ignorance to call upon. He must have had access to fairly detailed US intelligence on this incident, and he surely is well aware that there were no “hundreds” of Russians killed, just as he must know that there were no Russian military personnel nor any Russian government operation involved.
No, this is clearly a non sequitur since there were no Russian servicemen involved in the incident under discussion. Only ignorant normies would think that way, though others with real knowledge might claim to for tactical utility as Pompeo does.
Anyway, we're just repeating our points. Could we just use a Swedish arbitration court to decide that I'm right, and you're wrong?
After few hundreds of years of experiment, the Western system, culture and framework has proven inadequate, flawed and not working for the long term survival of humanity not to mention the building prosperity for humanity.
Dude, you literally called for the nuking of Tokyo and Delhi 10 comments back…
So WTF is up with the comments threads I'm seeing, on Reddit (/r/worldnews, not neoliberalism.txt hive minds like /r/politics), on the Guardian, etc.
Are most of the actual bots run by Langley?
I have noticed a big and fishy shift in tone on reddit. This coincides with initiatives to ‘counter russian disinformation’ which the reddit owners will doubtless cooperate with. Underscores the importance of having some platform that is capable of saying no to the US. Would be nice to have a platform that could say no to everyone, but due to the infrastructure involved in having a serious social media platform that looks like it isn’t going to happen.
You are comparing Russian brochureware with real US systems that have been used in operations. Could it be possible that Russian weapon systems have drawbacks not mentioned in the sales pitch (or even known of).
The whole article reads like George Soros himself wrote it – including the ridiculously rosy full-on nuclear war predictions. 90% survival rate is a delusional fairytale. More people would die just from fighting each-other for water.
Who the fuck is Anatoly Karlin and who’s paying him for this tripe?
http://akarlin.com/
You can contribute to him here:
https://www.patreon.com/akarlin/posts
You could also ask who the fuck is Andrei Martyanov. Only American MIC benefits from his writing and some die hard Russian patriots who want to sooth their wounded souls.
Anyhow, as I said, this "rosy" prediction doesn't apply to myself - I am in one of the very worst spots on the Earth for surviving a nuclear war. Which is why I don't even bother with preparing for it. Not an efficient use of resources, time, etc.
I do not think that post apocalypse civilization needs losers with gout and hypertension to survive.
You mean like inability of Patriot PAC2 to intercept primitive ballistic target launched by Houthis and which sparkles as a lit up Christmas tree on the LCD of acquisition radar, on several occasions, with one of the missiles homing on “friendlies”. Or do you mean F-35? Or do you mean “self-propelled 57-mm gun” for 660 million USD, aka LCS. Do you also mean a “successful” flattening of Raqqa by indiscriminate bombing? In the end, what are YOUR experiences and credentials on any of the real weapons and real operations issues anywhere? As per brochureware–it is precisely this brochureware which is largely responsible for eliminating ISIS and other “democratic” jihadists in Syria. Russian systems, as any systems, do have drawbacks, but comparing them to US systems is not only warranted but irresistible. Yes, I am comparing them now.
Who the fuck is Anatoly Karlin and who's paying him for this tripe?
You can learn about Mr. Karlin here:
http://akarlin.com/
You can contribute to him here:
https://www.patreon.com/akarlin/posts
Since I’ve learned that ad hominem attacks are permissible, I’d say your patriotism to a country whose military track record is unimpressive, but that has gotten better and better at ignoring and shrouding that fact, is clouding your judgement.
Thanks for the Kermit the frog video. If this is what passes for evidence in support of conclusions today, then I apologize for wasting your time.
I don’t necessarily disagree with this, cool your jets.
NATO’s forces are spread all over Europe and the world, and since the end of the Cold War joint training has greatly reduced.
Russia’s forces are largely concentrated on its western frontiers. I suspect they could overrun the Baltics and much of the Ukraine, but not advance much further.
The idea of Russia pushing into Germany or even much of Poland is on the other hand very dubious.
Russia would likely be able to defend its gains as well unless NATO chooses a longer war.
If you read my previous comments you’ll note I rated Russia’s chances in Syria itself, while doomed, much higher than the blog author.
Lastly, yes I love my country. I try not to let it cloud my judgment, and I certainly don’t love my government. Patrick Armstrong on the other hand loves another country which is very weird indeed.
Do you want the OOB tables instead?
You can’t pretend force levels don’t matter.
https://kenfm.de/tagesdosis-13-4-2018-russland-zeigt-die-zaehne-nicht-die-kehle/
In den letzten 24 Stunden haben Washington und seine NATO-Vasallen verstanden, dass Russland unter dem Druck der westlichen Kriegsvorbereitungen sich nicht in einem Akt der Unterwerfung auf den Rücken rollt und den imperialistischen Kriegsverbrechern die Kehle anbietet. Als vorgestern 11 russische Kriegsschiffe im Hafen der syrischen Stadt Tartus den Anker lifteten und ins Mittelmeer ausliefen, war der Jubel in bestimmten Kriegstreiberkreisen groß. Die Börsenkurse schossen nach oben. Aber nur für kurze Zeit. Denn inzwischen war klar geworden, dass sich die russischen Schiffe vor der syrischen Küste, außerhalb des syrischen Hoheitsgebiets, wie ein Riegel vor die herandampfende US-Kriegsflotte geschoben hatten. Zudem kündigte das russische Militär umgehend die Aufnahmen von Manövern mit scharfer Munition an, was de facto dieses Gebiet zu Lande und zu Luft in eine russische Sperrzone verwandelte. Spätestens dann ist scheinbar in Washington auch dem letzten Dummkopf klar geworden, dass die Russen für den Kampf gegen westliche Ziele bereit waren. Seither kommen wieder entspannende Signale aus Washington.
Title:
Russia shows the teeth, not the throat.
Summary of the text:
Eleven Russiann warships left their Syrian base, taking up positions just outside Syria’s territorial waters.
Warning was given for excercises with live ammunition, thus effectively blocking water and air access.
At the same time Washington’s hawkish language diminished.
My idea:
the Syrian and Skripal shows, a disaster for western bluff.
The basic question, at least for Americans like myself, is “Why the hell do we even want to involve ourselves in this ME mess?”. Our fracking revolution has made us energy independent for the first time since the early 70′s. This will be supplemented by Thorium and Uranium MSR fission and later fusion power (from start-ups, not ITER). We no longer have a vested interest in this region.
Furthermore, I do not understand this obsession with the idiots in Washington D.C. with constantly needling the Russians. Its like they have a total hard-up for screwing with Russia. It is totally and utterly irrational.
Russia is a declining empire. The Muslim Middle-east is a dying civilization (read Spengler’s “How Civilizations Die” to get the full story). Let them decline. Even declining societies can be a serious danger when messed with. So, why mess with them?
If we do have WWIII, it will all be on Washington, not the Russians.
In order to sustain that way of life it has to expand. ME is part of that expansion.
Should ME get assimilated now, the expansion will continue somewhere else.
Russia, itself, is the last asset to be acquired.
Or...should the expansion stop, that way of life will change.
That is the problem.
You.........must..........expand.
Or...somebody should come up with something not requiring expanding. Don't know what it is.
Even "Communist" USSR was expanding.
Different topic.
So, what is missing in this discussion is:
Russia has a very good reason to desist here.
But, and that is the clincher, The Borg...I mean West/USA, has also a very good, existential reason, to push.
So..here we are.
Anatoly Karlin is a windbag provocateur!
But you're correct that it had no impact on the final outcome (Germany would've lost anyway) and its main goal was to thoroughly turn the population (or at least large segments of it) against the Germans by provoking ever escalating German reprisals. It largely achieved that goal.
It only became somewhat important in 1943/44 iirc, especially during the collapse of Heeresgruppe Mitte in 1944 when partisans blew up railway lines and significantly impeded German ability for troop movements and retreating.
But yes, it probably didn’t affect the final outcome that much.
From that same venue, this one just came out:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/13/cruising-for-bruising-with-russia.html
Most of the alleged NATO destroying superweapons exist in only low numbers or are still in the prototype stage. Russia's military modernization efforts have been inadequately funded, and it doesn't help that it's often stolen.
Many NATO countries profess readiness problems (which is often actually just goldbricking from the armed forces and defense contractors), but it's not like training has been abolished.
The fact remains that NATO has overwhelmingly more forces at its disposal, and it has far more war potential in every regard. More manpower, more industry, more financial might, and higher technology.
This is why Russia always resorts to "international law" and attempts to spook people with terrifying doomsday weapons.
https://southfront.org/nato-and-russia-weapons-in-figures/
He’s Canadian eh? What constitutes a Canadian patriot? Someone thinking along the lines of Chrystia Freeland?
They're anti-American and constantly inventing dubious reasons as to why Canada is allegedly better than America, most of which relate to being even more pozzed than we are.
Prior to Lester Pearson (inventor of the current Canadian flag) and especially Pierre Trudeau (yes, Justin's father, and founding father of Canadian multiculturalism) Canada had more of a British identity comparable to what still exists in Australia and New Zealand. Many of Canada's early Anglo settlers in fact were Americans who supported the King and got deported as a result.
So Canada for instance had a tradition of "Northern" literature and film to compare with our "Westerns" which made the point that on the Canadian frontier, even in the Klondike country, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was in control and keeping the Queen's peace--unlike America's lawless Wild West. Canadians stressed, "Peace, Order, and Good Government" as opposed to America's "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".
Canada got dominion status in 1867, and that plus their enormous sacrifices in World War One became the basis of their own patriotism. Canadian troops were, along with Australians, considered the elite shock troops of the British Empire on the Western Front. Canada's losses in WWI were in population terms about half of what Russia's were as an example.
Now that's all gone. The link to Britain was severed when Britain joined the Common Market, and the British identity buried by Trudeau's multiculturalism. All that's left is anti-Americanism and being pozzed SJW faggots. Canadians will seriously assert with a straight face that they love their country because of...healthcare.
Canadian patriots also like to obsess over this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow
So in fairness to Armstrong I guess why not become a Russian patriot? :)
As late as the early ’60′s, I collected water for my Grandmother from the village tap and the butchers and greengrocers bought a lot of supplies locally. WW2 was still recent so the structures of digging for victory were in place. Both my grandfathers had allotments. The gas works supplied the town and the electricity generator that existed before the grid was still in its shed. Locality = sustainability. Now everything is centralized.
Also, the power plants that generate the electricity for the electric vehicles need to be powered by something other than fossil fuels themselves.
Nuclear power seems like the choice here, at least for the near term (realizing that environmentalists in California and elsewhere will fight that tooth and nail).
And solar arrays where that is economical (and it is in much of New Mexico, California, Arizona, etc., I’ve seen it long term with family who have residential solar power in NM and CA.). My sister’s solar system provides enough energy to power her house and appliances, and her plugin hybrid car, AND have power left to sell to the utility company each month.
Though with solar, too, your point stands that it takes energy, usually fossil fuel, to manufacture solar panels and equipment.
About the same, I would guess. Focus on the car body. All that mineral ore has to be mined, processed, transported, all those electronic components built, copper cabling, rubber and so on.
As for renewables, a wind turbine requires many tonnes of steel, plexi glass, copper cabling and concrete (a 3Mw turbine requires 400 tonnes of concrete). All this has to be transported to the site of construction by fossil fueled tucks. You can’t build a renewables-based society without a fossil fuel platform base.
Not all cases of either condition can be fully staged off or sufficiently ameliorated by a healthy restricted diet, although that is the first and main thing anyone should adopt if diagnoses with or at risk for either condition.
As for diabetes, people who genetically have diabetes — so-called juvenile onset or type one — having a stupid unhealthy diet and lifestyle are NOT the reason that these people have diabetes. So they’re not “losers” for needing insulin or whatever to address diabetes.
That particular comment had a kernel of truth but was way too broad to be fair, dude.
Here’s the former British Army Commander in Iraq on Sky News posing the question of why Syria would launch a chemical attack at the precise moment when they are winning. Watch the reaction.
http://akarlin.com/
You can contribute to him here:
https://www.patreon.com/akarlin/posts
The site is unreachable ATM.
Haha, no.
To anyone who came from Marginal Revolution and read up to the comment 323 – welcome! There are more speculative and evil links on top and on the right.
I have made a grand total of about a dozen comments on MR, most or all of which went through so far as I know.
While I don't really mind people who criticize and insult me to my face here, just making up stuff on other places that I am unlikely to notice is despicable.
As for renewables, a wind turbine requires many tonnes of steel, plexi glass, copper cabling and concrete (a 3Mw turbine requires 400 tonnes of concrete). All this has to be transported to the site of construction by fossil fueled tucks. You can't build a renewables-based society without a fossil fuel platform base.
Sure but a well built wind turbine requires minimal maintenance while a car battery must be replaced every 3-5 years.
As for renewables, a wind turbine requires many tonnes of steel, plexi glass, copper cabling and concrete (a 3Mw turbine requires 400 tonnes of concrete). All this has to be transported to the site of construction by fossil fueled tucks. You can't build a renewables-based society without a fossil fuel platform base.
Without truly substantial nuclear power production, that seems right.
Perhaps we need massive solar capacity as primary source for gov buildings, businesses, Homes, where it’s feasible (SoCal, AZ, NM, Florida, etc) backed up by fossil fuel capacity if nukes aren’t locally acceptable.
In areas where enough of the public will acquiesce in nuke power and solar power isn’t realistic, you could have nuke backed up by a slowly declining number of fossil fuel plants.
China is continuing to add civilian nuke capacity, and Russia specializes in mini-reactors perhaps?
France had the majority of its power generated by nuclear, IIRC, though I haven’t checked whether that is decreasing as plants are phased out due to enviro concerns (which are somewhat understandable too).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgj7gRvsjMU
Well you can’t have airtime being given to obvious Kremlin trolls and disinfo agents, can you?
Note that things will only become catastrophic enough to cause a population collapse if virtually all vehicles (esp. trucks) get knocked out. If it's "only" 90%, that should still be enough to haul around the basics such as food and fuel. Third World countries do with as little or less.
I think the most serious effect of the EMP would be on the mains (grid) power transformers. Even now, if one burns out, the time to get another is months or years, if it is really big. If most of the power grid transformers and generators were knocked out, the factories making transformers would be unable to work. So would the factories making copper wire, as would also be the factories making the special steel needed for the core of the transformers and the mines digging the iron ore etc., etc.
If the vehicles survived they would probably have to pump the fuel into their tanks by hand. (Assuming the pumps were built to allow that.) Oh yes, and the oil refineries, even if they had autonomous supplies, those would probably be knocked out too.
Here is how the oil supply/demand curve looks:
Small declines in demand = big falls in the oil price. One commenter here (Polish Perspective) recently had a projection that indicated EV sales will be translating to a one million barrel annual decline in oil demand by the early 2020s.
Of course it won’t be as “bad” as that – oil demand will continue creeping up for plastics production, aircraft, etc. – but still, EV’s will be a huge factor.
If the vehicles survived they would probably have to pump the fuel into their tanks by hand. (Assuming the pumps were built to allow that.) Oh yes, and the oil refineries, even if they had autonomous supplies, those would probably be knocked out too.
Don’t forget the nuclear plants. How many would go into meltdown? 50? All of them?
dear karlyn: if russia were so weak as you say , EEUU was hit now Something you loss…
Would the US government be willing to risk killing Chinese personnel?
I fear and distrust China, but this warmongering crew in charge of "my" country's government and economy needs to learn that they are not invincible, that threats have consequences whether they are backed up or not, and that not everyone in the world lacks the strength to say "mind your damn business and back off."
As PeterAUS pointed out, they were happy to do so in the Kosovo war, and the Chinese certainly haven’t forgotten or forgiven that one. China is a lot more substantial now, but even so it lacks any ability to respond directly in theatre.
Well the suggestions in comments here that China might be doing something to distract the US in the Pacific are encouraging. That’s exactly what they ought to be doing. This kind of moment is a big test of how far the Chinese can be relied upon by Russia when the chips are down.
Personally I’d like to see some kind of big public announcement by the Chinese. I think they perhaps don’t realise how big an impact such a gesture could make. Something like an announcement that any attack on Syria in response to allegations, regardless of truth or not, without UNSC authorisation would be illegal and China will support Syria (not necessarily militarily) in coping with any such illegal attack, would make quite a stir in neutral and even US sphere populations. Ideally they’d do it whilst announcing a deployment of HQ9s to Damascus for joint exercises with the Russians.
The practical effectiveness is irrelevant – the symbol is what counts.
There are now reports that Trump is actually the one pushing for escalation:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/trumps-dangerous-do-somethingism/
(originally from a Wall Street Journal article that’s behind a paywall).
Doesn’t look like Trump knows what he’s doing, let alone that he’s fighting some nebulous Deep State pushing him into confrontation.
The problem is that you can keep on doing that right up until he does something that can't be spun as anything other than disastrous. But by then it's too late.
The only pre-election promises that Trump has kept were (1) be good to Israel and (2) be bad to Iran. I have noticed that Breitbart was very critical of McMaster and was very lukewarm on Tillerson for no specific reason. But apparently they had to go and be replaced with Bolton and Pompeo to proceed to the next phase of being good to Israel.
The question one may ask to what extent Trump is a willful participant or whether he is just within a funnel that was designed and built for him by the neocons and CIA while Mueller probe and Stormy Daniels are the piston that pushes him deeper and deeper into the funnel. It is possible that the Trump operation manual was written long time ago and now it is just being used.
Although AK has many sound arguments, I think that there are way too many other variables which cannot be accounted for. Also, I don't think that humankind would survive nuclear war. Pollution, ecological disaster,.... would be too widespread & no country (or continent) would last more than 10-40 years after it.
I've read some predictions re this matter, and they all seem childish and/or wishful thinking.
Be that as it may:
The situation is serious. Some people react to that by discussing it. Tiny minority, as we here.
The majority, as always, doesn’t care much (at least my observation).
As long as discussion is within polite parameters, why not?
This is why the Internet has a built-in kill switch. Plan accordingly.
Sorry if already posted, but this is good news:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5612881/Russia-accuses-BRITAIN-faking-horrific-chemical-attack-Syria.html
all the world against russia, could not win. bolas and nukes. and inteligence. go back to eeuu.
Interesting article about the Skripal case:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-skripal-controversy-guide-the-perplexed-25363
Contains some information and possible explanations I hadn’t seen before:
By the way, the press yesterday considerably overstated what the OPCW report actually said, even in the confidential report available only to State Parties (at least according to Lavrov) there is no specific mention of "novichok", only a "long chemical formula".
Canada is a gay and fake country just like the Ukraine, so pretty much the same thing as svidomi minus the Neo-Nazism.
They’re anti-American and constantly inventing dubious reasons as to why Canada is allegedly better than America, most of which relate to being even more pozzed than we are.
Prior to Lester Pearson (inventor of the current Canadian flag) and especially Pierre Trudeau (yes, Justin’s father, and founding father of Canadian multiculturalism) Canada had more of a British identity comparable to what still exists in Australia and New Zealand. Many of Canada’s early Anglo settlers in fact were Americans who supported the King and got deported as a result.
So Canada for instance had a tradition of “Northern” literature and film to compare with our “Westerns” which made the point that on the Canadian frontier, even in the Klondike country, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was in control and keeping the Queen’s peace–unlike America’s lawless Wild West. Canadians stressed, “Peace, Order, and Good Government” as opposed to America’s “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”.
Canada got dominion status in 1867, and that plus their enormous sacrifices in World War One became the basis of their own patriotism. Canadian troops were, along with Australians, considered the elite shock troops of the British Empire on the Western Front. Canada’s losses in WWI were in population terms about half of what Russia’s were as an example.
Now that’s all gone. The link to Britain was severed when Britain joined the Common Market, and the British identity buried by Trudeau’s multiculturalism. All that’s left is anti-Americanism and being pozzed SJW faggots. Canadians will seriously assert with a straight face that they love their country because of…healthcare.
Canadian patriots also like to obsess over this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow
So in fairness to Armstrong I guess why not become a Russian patriot?
The situation is serious. Some people react to that by discussing it. Tiny minority, as we here.
The majority, as always, doesn't care much (at least my observation).
As long as discussion is within polite parameters, why not?
So far. Almost everyone starts paying attention when their own neck (and their children’s/dog’s necks) gets jeopardised.
This is why the Internet has a built-in kill switch. Plan accordingly.
Nobody cares now in West, especially where it matters, say, Northern Hemisphere. Night falling now.Western forces launch tonight, say, 2 AM, while "most everyone" sleeps.
Russians retaliate, sink a ship, at 5 AM.
West retaliates and swamp the Russian bases there at 8 AM.
DEFCON up. Russian nuclear readiness up.
People start paying attention.
Russians retaliate and swamp one of US bases there at 11 AM, say, CENTCOM.
DEFCON up. Russian nuclear readiness up.
People start paying more attention. Talking.
2 PM, DEFCON up all the way. Strategic forces on both sides on full alert and readiness.
People start getting really worried.
Doesn't matter. The matters are out of their hands.
Maybe out of anybody's hands.The time for paying attention was 5 minutes after the announcement of chemical attack. Say, the same type when a new iPhone is coming out. Or celebrity breaks a fingernail.
The time for doing something, say mass show of displeasure, was when the leaders of the West started blaming Russia without any evidence. Say, the same type of displeasure when a white cop kills a colored suspect. That's "us".
the world, even Trump and Putin, will step back after they gaze into the abyss. The duration of the conflict. limited to this initial exchange , will favor Russia. Another round, maybe questionable but probably favors Russia. Massive commitment and third plus exchanges involving all theater assets favors the US, but global thermonuclear war would probably favor Russia, which has there head into this kind of fight for some years, and the US has discounted it as a realistic thing to plan for. So then, looks like a 2 for 3 round fight to me, after which the world and Russia and the US will pull back and negotiate some kind of arrangement. This is all predicated on the assumption that there is not already some kind of kabuki dance being planned in back channels to allow both sides to back off their positions after round 1. If some Mig 35's with large missiles slung underneath, Donald Cook is toast. I don't think the carrier is on station yet but when it is, it is toast too.
Now, that is an interesting thought.
firt was napoleon.: rusians in PARIS. After was Hitler: russians in berlin. Next another moron: USA. I want Usa startting a war with russia. :Russians in Whasington DC. But this time dont let anybody alive, The UK first. Sorry for the kind people of USA and the UK.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/trumps-dangerous-do-somethingism/(originally from a Wall Street Journal article that's behind a paywall).
Doesn't look like Trump knows what he's doing, let alone that he's fighting some nebulous Deep State pushing him into confrontation.
That’s certainly my impression from public sources today (see the final paragraph of my 213 above).
Seems to me that’s pretty firmly established now, though inevitably there are still dead-enders making increasingly desperate arguments for it all being secret genius by Trump.
The problem is that you can keep on doing that right up until he does something that can’t be spun as anything other than disastrous. But by then it’s too late.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-skripal-controversy-guide-the-perplexed-25363
Contains some information and possible explanations I hadn't seen before:
You can stop reading after that. This is not to speak of National Interest itself being generally a low quality geopolitical tabloid whose 90% of material is written by fanboys for fanboys. With some rarest of the exceptions, most of what they write on Russia is BS. Well, look at their headlines.
Philip Owens is an industry expert on Russia and an expert on Russian technology, manufacture and “lack of” electronics. He has been published in major magazines – I think I have seen his name in Forbes and has better education than you do, more money than you do, and can proudly say his people make the best countries in the world where you choose to live in.
http://claritypress.com/Martyanov.html
The second one is in works. I wish Mr. Owen all money he wants and wish him only the best in his professional and human endeavors, but his opinions on anything Russia military (and technology) related is worth as much as your opinion--that is Zero. Am I in a ballpark? Do you need my further elaborations?
P.S. If it of any consolation to you--I most likely make way less than him. I learned to live with this sad fact long ago.
I obviously can’t judge the merits of Novaya Gazeta, but I find it interesting that even an anti-Putin newspaper has dug up information that indicates this Novichok substance might have found its way to other parties than Russian security servives. If it is indeed true that it was even used by organized crime groups in the 1990s, the claim that only the Russian state can be behind the Skripal poisoning looks even more dubious.
1. Skripals obvious false flag;
2. Steele's dossier.
Political ramifications of that are gigantic, in fact--global. Militarily, UK was put today on notice that, God forbids, anything bad happens those will be UK military assets in region which will be shot down or sunk first in response. It is also learned today that it seems that RAF stopped all flights in the area since 9th. If it is true, I can only speculate what Russia has on UK but I begin to lean towards the fact that messages are being delivered.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/trumps-dangerous-do-somethingism/(originally from a Wall Street Journal article that's behind a paywall).
Doesn't look like Trump knows what he's doing, let alone that he's fighting some nebulous Deep State pushing him into confrontation.
The fantasy that Trump is “fighting some nebulous Deep State” might be just a disinformation meme spread by Breitbart and other Zionist outfits while Israel and its goals were the real objectives from the day one. Many Trump fanboys eat it up and keep hoping against hope. Hope dies last after all. People running on hope alone are very vulnerable to manipulation.
The only pre-election promises that Trump has kept were (1) be good to Israel and (2) be bad to Iran. I have noticed that Breitbart was very critical of McMaster and was very lukewarm on Tillerson for no specific reason. But apparently they had to go and be replaced with Bolton and Pompeo to proceed to the next phase of being good to Israel.
The question one may ask to what extent Trump is a willful participant or whether he is just within a funnel that was designed and built for him by the neocons and CIA while Mueller probe and Stormy Daniels are the piston that pushes him deeper and deeper into the funnel. It is possible that the Trump operation manual was written long time ago and now it is just being used.
Furthermore, I do not understand this obsession with the idiots in Washington D.C. with constantly needling the Russians. Its like they have a total hard-up for screwing with Russia. It is totally and utterly irrational.
Russia is a declining empire. The Muslim Middle-east is a dying civilization (read Spengler's "How Civilizations Die" to get the full story). Let them decline. Even declining societies can be a serious danger when messed with. So, why mess with them?
If we do have WWIII, it will all be on Washington, not the Russians.
Because the expansion is at the core of US way of life (crudely put).
In order to sustain that way of life it has to expand. ME is part of that expansion.
Should ME get assimilated now, the expansion will continue somewhere else.
Russia, itself, is the last asset to be acquired.
Or…should the expansion stop, that way of life will change.
That is the problem.
You………must……….expand.
Or…somebody should come up with something not requiring expanding. Don’t know what it is.
Even “Communist” USSR was expanding.
Different topic.
So, what is missing in this discussion is:
Russia has a very good reason to desist here.
But, and that is the clincher, The Borg…I mean West/USA, has also a very good, existential reason, to push.
So..here we are.
And the global growth is nothing but a mirage since the 2007 crisis.
the world, even Trump and Putin, will step back after they gaze into the abyss. The duration of the conflict. limited to this initial exchange , will favor Russia. Another round, maybe questionable but probably favors Russia. Massive commitment and third plus exchanges involving all theater assets favors the US, but global thermonuclear war would probably favor Russia, which has there head into this kind of fight for some years, and the US has discounted it as a realistic thing to plan for. So then, looks like a 2 for 3 round fight to me, after which the world and Russia and the US will pull back and negotiate some kind of arrangement. This is all predicated on the assumption that there is not already some kind of kabuki dance being planned in back channels to allow both sides to back off their positions after round 1. If some Mig 35's with large missiles slung underneath, Donald Cook is toast. I don't think the carrier is on station yet but when it is, it is toast too.
Personally I think this is a useful and important way to look at it. So long as the matter stays mostly in theatre and conventional, the US has escalation superiority. But at the level of strategic nuclear war, Russia has at least effective parity with the US, even if only because both sides can effectively destroy each other and both have solid second strike capabilities.
That suggests Russia in extremis could gain from raising the stakes to the brink of the strategic nuclear exchange level by, say, hitting a US carrier with a nuke.
There is a large psychological difference between using nuclear weapons and conventional weapons although the effect on the carrier would be the same (it sinks).
I understand that the liberation of East Ghouta destroyed far more than the Jihadists, the SAA captured several hundred Saudi, Israeli, US and UK military specialists who were directing and controlling the Jihadists’ fight. They also captured more than 100 51mm VX shells coming from Porton Down and a number of chlorine shells made by Merck in Germany.
veteranstoday.com/2018/04/08/proof-intel-drop-trump-bolton-behind-syria-chemical-attacks-confirmed
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-skripal-controversy-guide-the-perplexed-25363
Contains some information and possible explanations I hadn't seen before:
And here is another complicated story which also suggests that the argument of “no plausible alternative” is fading fast.
By the way, the press yesterday considerably overstated what the OPCW report actually said, even in the confidential report available only to State Parties (at least according to Lavrov) there is no specific mention of “novichok”, only a “long chemical formula”.
It's reasonable to call him stupid as a shorthand for pointing out that his behaviour is stupid if you take his claims to value genuine American interests at face value, which is the basis on which I usually call such people stupid. But he clearly isn't stupid in the sense of being unable to reason competently. He just has other goals than those he ought (Israel and US militarist supremacy, as previously noted).
But unlike the normies to whom you refer, it's highly unlikely he has their defence of ignorance to call upon. He must have had access to fairly detailed US intelligence on this incident, and he surely is well aware that there were no "hundreds" of Russians killed, just as he must know that there were no Russian military personnel nor any Russian government operation involved.No, this is clearly a non sequitur since there were no Russian servicemen involved in the incident under discussion. Only ignorant normies would think that way, though others with real knowledge might claim to for tactical utility as Pompeo does.
It’s not about sympathy, or making Americans feel bad. It’s about showing weakness (as happened) or strength (as could have happened), making Americans scared shitless about even ruffling the hair of one Russian soldier, official or not. Americans had no reason to think that they could breach an agreement with Russia in response to a Syrian violation. There could’ve been official Russian soldiers at the settlement, after all. They should have asked. Or, if they asked, but the Russians said they weren’t there, then that was just stupid.
There was nothing to deny about the mercenaries’ presence there. Unlike with the British/American/Qatari/Whateveristani operators who might or might not have died in Syria. The argument about deniability only makes sense if there was any reason to deny their presence. Russia uses mercenaries for this type of role is to minimize official military losses. They could be used for plausible deniability, but in this case deniability played no role, so there was no reason for Russia to deny their presence.
It’s a non sequitur in the sense that obviously Russian behavior in this case wouldn’t prove that Russia would do the same thing when Russian servicemen were involved. Actually, even if the Deir ez-Zor victims were Russian servicemen, and Russia did nothing, it still wouldn’t prove that Russia would do nothing next time. But certainly a forceful Russian response (even if just a verbal protest and some symbolic gesture) would’ve clearly decreased the probability in the minds of most people (including yours truly) that they’d just lie low and accept the deaths of some Russian servicemen. I don’t even understand how you can debate this point.
But other than the number of deaths, what is it that they don’t know? The Americans attacked a base in breach of an agreement, without telling the Russians, some Russians died, and Russia just ate its spinach. I’m sure it makes a lot of people more confident Russia will do the same if the Russians in question won’t be semi-official mercenaries, but fully official servicemen. It makes no one less confident that Russia won’t dare shooting back.
Anyway, we’re just repeating our points. Could we just use a Swedish arbitration court to decide that I’m right, and you’re wrong?
As a matter of interest, I saw a Tucker Carlson interview posted earlier in which Stephen Cohen says that his Russian contacts suggest the Russians "let it pass but they said that if it ever happens again they will retaliate".
https://youtu.be/h_xbECML9BsDeniability is about responsibility, not necessarily presence.Probably a good idea. What could possibly go wrong...
veteranstoday.com/2018/04/08/proof-intel-drop-trump-bolton-behind-syria-chemical-attacks-confirmed
The problem with this kind of story is that the Syrians and the Russians would have to be absolute idiots not to have paraded it all in the media by now. That’s exactly what the likes of RT exist for.
Sinking carriers with nukes makes about as much sense as hunting wild boars with a bazooka.
This is why the Internet has a built-in kill switch. Plan accordingly.
Scenario:
Nobody cares now in West, especially where it matters, say, Northern Hemisphere. Night falling now.
Western forces launch tonight, say, 2 AM, while “most everyone” sleeps.
Russians retaliate, sink a ship, at 5 AM.
West retaliates and swamp the Russian bases there at 8 AM.
DEFCON up. Russian nuclear readiness up.
People start paying attention.
Russians retaliate and swamp one of US bases there at 11 AM, say, CENTCOM.
DEFCON up. Russian nuclear readiness up.
People start paying more attention. Talking.
2 PM, DEFCON up all the way. Strategic forces on both sides on full alert and readiness.
People start getting really worried.
Doesn’t matter. The matters are out of their hands.
Maybe out of anybody’s hands.
The time for paying attention was 5 minutes after the announcement of chemical attack. Say, the same type when a new iPhone is coming out. Or celebrity breaks a fingernail.
The time for doing something, say mass show of displeasure, was when the leaders of the West started blaming Russia without any evidence. Say, the same type of displeasure when a white cop kills a colored suspect.
That’s “us”.
Anyway, we're just repeating our points. Could we just use a Swedish arbitration court to decide that I'm right, and you're wrong?
Isn’t that what drinking contests are for?
This is really a case where the public perception of nuclear war is completely dominated by scifi representations of it.
They can be artistically good, but as a rule, not realistic. E.g., On the Beach, everyone dies. Dr. Strangelove actually more realistic, but that is because in that film, the Soviets seed their nukes with cobalt (which they don’t IRL). Fallout and Metro 2033 universes are awesome but complete fictions (ironically, scifi biological weapons play a key part in both).
Ironically, main exception is the very good 1980s British film Threads, which you can download on the torrents sites. Assessment of wartime deaths due to the Soviet strike is realistic (around 20 million – note the US will have less relative deaths, because its a larger, less densely populated area). However, after the blasts, population proceeds to fall to a medieval level of around 10 million. This is much less realistic, because as Thorfinnsson explained, industrialism will survive; nuclear winter will last no more than 2 years; and the effects of nuclear blasts on the ozone layer are greatly overestimated.
Serious literature about nuclear war estimated around 60 million deaths for the US in a full scale exchange with the USSR (I can hunt down the sources when I have more time). Substantial numbers of famine deaths in the Third World from the cessation of international food shipments. “Nuclear winter” will be a 1-2c cooling that lasts 1-2 years, not a decadal plunge into a new Ice Age.
Unfortunately, realistic discussion of nuclear war impacts (which are bad enough as they are) was overwhelmed by sensationalist crap due to post-1960s atomophobia, and people generally lost interest in the subject after 1991.
It didn't shock me because I had a particular interest in the consequences of nuclear war and had prior knowledge, but I think it legitimately shocked a lot of viewers.
Something or some combination of things has killed off 80% of the insects across the planet. Nuclear war will finish the process.
This hasn't been mentioned in sci-fi, so far as I know, but the Martians in War of the Worlds succumbed to earth's bacterial life. Don't discount the lttle things.
It is usually not in my rules to respond to some anonymous trolls. But I will respond here:
I can guarantee you and Mr. Philip Owen, if he reads this, that he has no even remote clue on how any Russian weapon system operates and what goes into them from design to requirements, to manufacturing–I do. Unlike him, who wouldn’t be allowed miles near any serious Russian military-industrial complex facility, through 1990 I held a Soviet Code Word-equivalent (Osoboi Vazhnosti) clearance and originate from a family of career naval officers and my father was one of the leading radio-electronics engineers in ERA (Electro-Radio Automatics) and worked on such ships and subs such as Oscar-class SSGNs or pr. 667 BDRM SSBNs, just an example. I hold degree in naval engineering, with specialization in gyro-inertial navigational complexes of strategic missile systems (navy-based). Specifically for the projects of 667B-BD (NATO : Delta I-II). So, yes–Mr. Owen is NOT an expert on any Russian military technology, not even close. I will omit here my military service experiences.
You can see my name on the United States Naval Institute Proceeding magazine, which is unlike Forbes, is a professional publication of military professionals, their blog, my book on precisely sheer incompetence of such rags as Forbes and other “expert” publications, including most of US “Russia expertdom”, especially military one, is about to hit shelves. Hell, I might as well plug it in here:
http://claritypress.com/Martyanov.html
The second one is in works. I wish Mr. Owen all money he wants and wish him only the best in his professional and human endeavors, but his opinions on anything Russia military (and technology) related is worth as much as your opinion–that is Zero. Am I in a ballpark? Do you need my further elaborations?
P.S. If it of any consolation to you–I most likely make way less than him. I learned to live with this sad fact long ago.
I also assessed 120 inventions for the Russian фcademy of Sciences for commercial potential. There was very little.
I started my business in Russia to turn swords into ploughshares. The gradual progress of the Silivoki behind Putin towards the present debacle is very disappointing.
Anyway, we're just repeating our points. Could we just use a Swedish arbitration court to decide that I'm right, and you're wrong?
But making a big fuss wouldn’t “make the Americans scared shitless”, it would just have made the Americans fall about laughing. And as I note above, a substantive response (killing some Americans) would just have been portrayed as more Russian evil, likely triggering a US retaliation in turn. It’s not in Russian’s interest to escalate these issues (or they would probably have done it on this occasion).
As a matter of interest, I saw a Tucker Carlson interview posted earlier in which Stephen Cohen says that his Russian contacts suggest the Russians “let it pass but they said that if it ever happens again they will retaliate”.
Deniability is about responsibility, not necessarily presence.
Probably a good idea. What could possibly go wrong…
It’s a pity it’s basically impossible to organize a meetup.
Well if you’re not planning to eat the thing, what’s wrong with a bazooka for dealing with a wild boar infestation?
I think Mr Pres went WWW or whatever that wrestling org is called.
Flex muscles and threaten annihilation. Make the studio warriors face the possiblity of no future and burning hair.
Everything will then calm.
Trump and Putin win. Shitheads will have to think of something else. Already behind.
Russia officially outing UK today as a main culprit in Douma false flag, inevitably brings up, in force, two questions:
1. Skripals obvious false flag;
2. Steele’s dossier.
Political ramifications of that are gigantic, in fact–global. Militarily, UK was put today on notice that, God forbids, anything bad happens those will be UK military assets in region which will be shot down or sunk first in response. It is also learned today that it seems that RAF stopped all flights in the area since 9th. If it is true, I can only speculate what Russia has on UK but I begin to lean towards the fact that messages are being delivered.
As a matter of interest, I saw a Tucker Carlson interview posted earlier in which Stephen Cohen says that his Russian contacts suggest the Russians "let it pass but they said that if it ever happens again they will retaliate".
https://youtu.be/h_xbECML9BsDeniability is about responsibility, not necessarily presence.Probably a good idea. What could possibly go wrong...
I think I’m younger than you, so the drinking contest proposed by Daniel Chiah also appeals to me.
It’s a pity it’s basically impossible to organize a meetup.
In order to sustain that way of life it has to expand. ME is part of that expansion.
Should ME get assimilated now, the expansion will continue somewhere else.
Russia, itself, is the last asset to be acquired.
Or...should the expansion stop, that way of life will change.
That is the problem.
You.........must..........expand.
Or...somebody should come up with something not requiring expanding. Don't know what it is.
Even "Communist" USSR was expanding.
Different topic.
So, what is missing in this discussion is:
Russia has a very good reason to desist here.
But, and that is the clincher, The Borg...I mean West/USA, has also a very good, existential reason, to push.
So..here we are.
We must expand because we have printed more dollars than we can cover with our current or forecasted rates of productivity. Only by enlisting more peoples of the world in the use of petrodollars can we sop up the excess we have borrowed into existence via our trade deficits.
It is indeed, as many another has pointed out, a Ponzi scheme and like all such will end in a crash and misery for all those who are too poor to isolate or insulate themselves from the fallout.
They can be artistically good, but as a rule, not realistic. E.g., On the Beach, everyone dies. Dr. Strangelove actually more realistic, but that is because in that film, the Soviets seed their nukes with cobalt (which they don't IRL). Fallout and Metro 2033 universes are awesome but complete fictions (ironically, scifi biological weapons play a key part in both).
Ironically, main exception is the very good 1980s British film Threads, which you can download on the torrents sites. Assessment of wartime deaths due to the Soviet strike is realistic (around 20 million - note the US will have less relative deaths, because its a larger, less densely populated area). However, after the blasts, population proceeds to fall to a medieval level of around 10 million. This is much less realistic, because as Thorfinnsson explained, industrialism will survive; nuclear winter will last no more than 2 years; and the effects of nuclear blasts on the ozone layer are greatly overestimated.
Serious literature about nuclear war estimated around 60 million deaths for the US in a full scale exchange with the USSR (I can hunt down the sources when I have more time). Substantial numbers of famine deaths in the Third World from the cessation of international food shipments. "Nuclear winter" will be a 1-2c cooling that lasts 1-2 years, not a decadal plunge into a new Ice Age.
Unfortunately, realistic discussion of nuclear war impacts (which are bad enough as they are) was overwhelmed by sensationalist crap due to post-1960s atomophobia, and people generally lost interest in the subject after 1991.
I agree, this is one of the most realistic of the nuclear holocaust films, allowing for the limitations and ideas of the time. I haven’t watched it for decades now, but from memory the portrayal of ordinary life in Sheffield is good (as it happens I was living there at the time, round the corner from one of the main locations) , the portrayal of the attack and the dependence on government, the helplessness and the long slow grinding decline of survivors, again very convincing imo.
It didn’t shock me because I had a particular interest in the consequences of nuclear war and had prior knowledge, but I think it legitimately shocked a lot of viewers.
There is one interesting point, overlooked by most I am sure.
Just before the "exchange", and after the H.M.G. declared that "state of emergency/whatever" all potential troublemakers were rounded up. Wasn't shown what happened to them.
Makes you think, I guess.
BTW, good posts re this topic.
It’s a pity it’s basically impossible to organize a meetup.
You would definitely win a drinking contest (and you wouldn’t even have to be much good yourself). If I were but 30 years younger ……
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-caste-as-social-capital-1387350
Because worshipping homosexuals is the only way to live life? Except better from a Chinese.
1. Skripals obvious false flag;
2. Steele's dossier.
Political ramifications of that are gigantic, in fact--global. Militarily, UK was put today on notice that, God forbids, anything bad happens those will be UK military assets in region which will be shot down or sunk first in response. It is also learned today that it seems that RAF stopped all flights in the area since 9th. If it is true, I can only speculate what Russia has on UK but I begin to lean towards the fact that messages are being delivered.
I wouldn’t want to be at Akrotiri right now.
As a matter of interest, I saw a Tucker Carlson interview posted earlier in which Stephen Cohen says that his Russian contacts suggest the Russians "let it pass but they said that if it ever happens again they will retaliate".
https://youtu.be/h_xbECML9BsDeniability is about responsibility, not necessarily presence.Probably a good idea. What could possibly go wrong...
It is officially admitted on both sides that Pentagon and Russian MOD are in constant and multi-level contacts. I know it may struck some as surreal, as it did me at some point of time, but it is now defense line of “Mad Dog” Mattis and Dunford against real mad dogs in US Congress and White House, which jammed an extremely dangerous escalation. For now. In fact, a surreal scenario becomes possible (how probable–I don’t know) of Russian and US military “coordinating” some kind of attack on some “high value” targets in Syria. In the end it was Mattis who honestly admitted that US will not be able to control escalation. Yes, it is US military which, paradoxically, does not allow that cabal of draft-dodgers, lawyers, journos, political pseudo-scientists, banksters and other useless parasites, known as US Congress and establishment to have their war-mongering way.
They can be artistically good, but as a rule, not realistic. E.g., On the Beach, everyone dies. Dr. Strangelove actually more realistic, but that is because in that film, the Soviets seed their nukes with cobalt (which they don't IRL). Fallout and Metro 2033 universes are awesome but complete fictions (ironically, scifi biological weapons play a key part in both).
Ironically, main exception is the very good 1980s British film Threads, which you can download on the torrents sites. Assessment of wartime deaths due to the Soviet strike is realistic (around 20 million - note the US will have less relative deaths, because its a larger, less densely populated area). However, after the blasts, population proceeds to fall to a medieval level of around 10 million. This is much less realistic, because as Thorfinnsson explained, industrialism will survive; nuclear winter will last no more than 2 years; and the effects of nuclear blasts on the ozone layer are greatly overestimated.
Serious literature about nuclear war estimated around 60 million deaths for the US in a full scale exchange with the USSR (I can hunt down the sources when I have more time). Substantial numbers of famine deaths in the Third World from the cessation of international food shipments. "Nuclear winter" will be a 1-2c cooling that lasts 1-2 years, not a decadal plunge into a new Ice Age.
Unfortunately, realistic discussion of nuclear war impacts (which are bad enough as they are) was overwhelmed by sensationalist crap due to post-1960s atomophobia, and people generally lost interest in the subject after 1991.
I will have to check it out. Thanks.
No real military professional on any side wants to be in the position they all are in now due to lies, incompetence, cowardice and bellicosity of West’s so called political “elites”. They are rotten and corrupt to the core.
In order to sustain that way of life it has to expand. ME is part of that expansion.
Should ME get assimilated now, the expansion will continue somewhere else.
Russia, itself, is the last asset to be acquired.
Or...should the expansion stop, that way of life will change.
That is the problem.
You.........must..........expand.
Or...somebody should come up with something not requiring expanding. Don't know what it is.
Even "Communist" USSR was expanding.
Different topic.
So, what is missing in this discussion is:
Russia has a very good reason to desist here.
But, and that is the clincher, The Borg...I mean West/USA, has also a very good, existential reason, to push.
So..here we are.
Not exactly. The US goyim have been forced to do with less since the 70s.
And the global growth is nothing but a mirage since the 2007 crisis.
Who the fuck is Anatoly Karlin and who's paying him for this tripe?
Whoever benefits form the nuclear-war-is-winnable-and-survivable meme will appreciate this article.
You could also ask who the fuck is Andrei Martyanov. Only American MIC benefits from his writing and some die hard Russian patriots who want to sooth their wounded souls.
They can be artistically good, but as a rule, not realistic. E.g., On the Beach, everyone dies. Dr. Strangelove actually more realistic, but that is because in that film, the Soviets seed their nukes with cobalt (which they don't IRL). Fallout and Metro 2033 universes are awesome but complete fictions (ironically, scifi biological weapons play a key part in both).
Ironically, main exception is the very good 1980s British film Threads, which you can download on the torrents sites. Assessment of wartime deaths due to the Soviet strike is realistic (around 20 million - note the US will have less relative deaths, because its a larger, less densely populated area). However, after the blasts, population proceeds to fall to a medieval level of around 10 million. This is much less realistic, because as Thorfinnsson explained, industrialism will survive; nuclear winter will last no more than 2 years; and the effects of nuclear blasts on the ozone layer are greatly overestimated.
Serious literature about nuclear war estimated around 60 million deaths for the US in a full scale exchange with the USSR (I can hunt down the sources when I have more time). Substantial numbers of famine deaths in the Third World from the cessation of international food shipments. "Nuclear winter" will be a 1-2c cooling that lasts 1-2 years, not a decadal plunge into a new Ice Age.
Unfortunately, realistic discussion of nuclear war impacts (which are bad enough as they are) was overwhelmed by sensationalist crap due to post-1960s atomophobia, and people generally lost interest in the subject after 1991.
If you kill off the natural world you kill off human food sources.
Something or some combination of things has killed off 80% of the insects across the planet. Nuclear war will finish the process.
This hasn’t been mentioned in sci-fi, so far as I know, but the Martians in War of the Worlds succumbed to earth’s bacterial life. Don’t discount the lttle things.
I do believe if biological weapons were unleashed at the same time, it would make things more difficult. I still believe humanity would survive as a species.
After few hundreds of years of experiment, the Western system, culture and framework has proven inadequate, flawed and not working for the long term survival of humanity not to mention the building prosperity for humanity.
Making Xinjiang & Malaysia muslim to spite India, very harmony।।
oocities.org/somasushma/tarim.html
http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2016/08/history-of-indian-ocean-shows-how-old.html?m=1
Also the Indiandefensenews got nothing but some history of Chinese Zheng He voyage. It certainly appear much more peaceful than any Western viking forces, and the British colonial master of India.
If compare to Chinese, Indian Sepoy is so much worst & violent in helping British master to commit mass atrocities in Asia, including 8 Alliance opium war and attacking Myanmar.
Since India independent, it has gone on endless spree of invasion and massacre till today.
Many princely states, China South Tibet, Sikkim, Naga lands were invaded and swallowed up. Mass raping & atrocity are still been done in Nagaland. Bhutan was been taken over forcefully in total subversion. Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, China Dolang are constantly under subversion & harassment, with Indian sponsored terrorism like LTTE Tamil Tiger. Part of Kashmir is still under Indian violent dispute with Pak.
China has settled all its borders, except two who refused to sign, India & its controlled Bhutan that India won't permit it to settle border.
And India was such incredible shameless liars in its Indo-Sino border war, unprecedented in history, an aggressor that attack China but shamelessly lied to accuse China falsely untill now.
Let some rare good honest Australian whites speak out the Truth of India attacked China in 1962 with facts.
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/It-wasnt-China-but-Nehru-who-declared-1962-war-Australian-journalist-Neville-Maxwell/amp_articleshow/33094229.cms
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/08/02/china-s-india-war-how-the-chinese-saw-the-1962-conflict/
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/maos-return-to-power-passed-through-india/
And now read all the long history of lies written by shameless Indians & West liars till today. Juz google, its voluminous.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War
https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/india-china-war-of-1962-839077-2016-11-21
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1984/CJB.htm
Something or some combination of things has killed off 80% of the insects across the planet. Nuclear war will finish the process.
This hasn't been mentioned in sci-fi, so far as I know, but the Martians in War of the Worlds succumbed to earth's bacterial life. Don't discount the lttle things.
I doubt it – fallout won’t be enough to wipe out all natural life. It’ll irradiate and increase cancer rates, but for animals with short life cycles such as insects, they will be able to recover faster than usual. I do believe that the complex food system we have which effectively has reduced soil to basically medium to add fertilizer and pesticides will have a hard time surviving. However, humans will survive, it’ll just be at a lower level of living standard and eventually the species will recover in time.
I do believe if biological weapons were unleashed at the same time, it would make things more difficult. I still believe humanity would survive as a species.
I suggest you look up the work of Dr Tim Mousseau who has studied the situation in Chernobyl and at Fukushima (the latter still leaking out massive amounts of radiation seven years after the initial triple meltdown).
some propaganda sources will have you believe that wildlife is thriving in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone but this is far from true. Some species of mammal that might ordinarily be hunted down by humans are prospering but the overall picture is gloomy. Many trees that died decades ago have not decayed because the bacteria that consume them are themselves dead! this points to that nuclear accident being a sterilising event.
Can you tell me of any humans who have recovered from genetic damage suffered by past generations? the damage is cumulative down the generations That's true with victims of Agent Orange and it's true with British ex-servicemen exposed to radioactive fallout in the south Pacific in the 1950s. And who know what subtle damage has been done to the general population since the first atomic bombs were exploded? A 60 year old British man who fathers a child is five times less likely to produce a child with Down's Syndrome if he has sex with a 20-year old female than a 20-year old man who does the same!
I do believe if biological weapons were unleashed at the same time, it would make things more difficult. I still believe humanity would survive as a species.
I think it’s theoretically possible to design a biological weapon which would wipe out all humans, or even all mammals, for example. Probably you could even create biological weapons which would only target one tribe of humans, though there’d inevitably be people killed outside the tribe, and members of the tribe spared.
There could also be theoretical versions of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoherbicide
Wiping out plantlife in an area, or significantly stunting its existence would cause immense damage to the targeted area, especially if the agent can remain in the soil and continue for many years.
One thing I have occasionally wondered about is why China spends so little (<2% of GDP) on the military.
I know the standard arguments ("peaceful rise", etc.) but surely one shouldn't drink one's own Kool-Aid.
There is also the argument about not falling into the USSR's military overspending trap. But the USSR spend at least 12% of its GDP – possibly much more – on the military. 5% is patently sustainable. Even 10% is probably ok (1950's USA; Israel until quite recently).
In their place, I would have been spooked by this back in 1996 and sought to at least match the USA’s 3-5% of GDP spending forthwith.
Realization that running on tracks had to change came from 1)bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade and 2)2003 invasion of Iraq. The former signed a level of disrespect for Chinese lives by the West that could not be accepted, and the former indicated that "fighting on the cheap" with Army-dominated units was clearly no longer viable.
Eventually this led to military reorganization to produce a central command, increased the relative power of air and naval forces, and indeed the recent open emphasis on the Navy though it clearly has been building up with the modernization and expansion of their shipbuilding capabilities.
Fundamentally, the idea of power projection has been avoided by China has an expensive boondoggle and to focus on defensive weaponry. Evidently, this is changing.
It also has something to do with China's internal political dynamics--namely making sure the party stays on top. This is no doubt one of the motivations behind the SOE privatization process ending in the naughties as well.
Beyond that, I would not be surprised if someone in the CCP was influenced by Seymour Melman. Melman was an industrial engineer and operations researcher who argued that America's vast military-industrial complex was the reason it fell behind some other advanced industrial countries in advanced manufacturing.
Like everyone else obsessed with a single theory, he definitely oversold it. During the 1970s he blamed inflation on the Pentagon, for instance.
A (well run) military-industrial complex can develop emergent technology and increase the demand for engineers (and thus not constrict supply to civilian manufacturing), but at some point in time the diversion of resources from the civilian sector must be harmful (as seen in the USSR?).
That said with its large current account surpluses, China could've simply increased its arms imports from Russia. Convenient way to get rid of excess foreign exchange reserves.The peaceful rise was working about as well as could be expected under Hu Jintao, but China's actions in the South China Sea under Xi have dashed that. Seems like they should've increased spending prior to starting this.They did get spooked by that, as well as the Gulf War.
China's A2/AD efforts as well as its program to acquire and master advanced Russian defense technology started in 1993, when Jiang Zemin ordered the armed forces to prepare for “local wars under high technology conditions.”
Around the same time the Chinese also incorporated "Revolution in Military Affairs" into its strategic doctrine and translated more or less everything ever put out by the Office of Net Assessment.
Civiliki are very weak cucks who will have even less support.
I remember reading about this and it had the amusing conclusion that in the event that a genetic weapon was made to target, for example, race-specific genes, Middle Easterners would be subject to its effects regardless of who it targeted due to the admixture in their genes. This also makes them the most difficult to target in the specific.
There could also be theoretical versions of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoherbicide
Wiping out plantlife in an area, or significantly stunting its existence would cause immense damage to the targeted area, especially if the agent can remain in the soil and continue for many years.
Probably nothing will happen this week and all could change.
The OPCW don’t start to work until Saturday.
And the significant American navy group will not even be in the region until about 20th of April.
Who the fuck is Anatoly Karlin and who's paying him for this tripe?
It’s not a meme, it’s reality (a “tragic but distinguishable outcome”, in the words of the great Herman Kahn).
Anyhow, as I said, this “rosy” prediction doesn’t apply to myself – I am in one of the very worst spots on the Earth for surviving a nuclear war. Which is why I don’t even bother with preparing for it. Not an efficient use of resources, time, etc.
In many ways we are in genuinely uncharted territory here. Cold War Cuban Missile Crisis analogies do not account for the sheer complexities of the ME situation, the multiple interests all with their own ways of manipulating events and disseminating propaganda, nor for the starkly delusional nature of US leadership.
As I noted the other day, it could all blow over and the usual suspects will all claim there never was any real danger, it was all under control, multi-dimensional chess by grand master Trump.
But the reality will be that the White House pulled the trigger on an empty chamber and we got away with it. This time.
I know the standard arguments ("peaceful rise", etc.) but surely one shouldn't drink one's own Kool-Aid.
There is also the argument about not falling into the USSR's military overspending trap. But the USSR spend at least 12% of its GDP - possibly much more - on the military. 5% is patently sustainable. Even 10% is probably ok (1950's USA; Israel until quite recently).
In their place, I would have been spooked by this back in 1996 and sought to at least match the USA's 3-5% of GDP spending forthwith.
In part its because they really did drink their own Kool-Aid, and in part it was due to a strenuous belief that high-tech weapons would not be as impactful as promised in a ground war in Asia; the example of Vietnam and the like. Furthermore, the PLA traditionally had an overwhelming dominance by the Army with reduced emphasis on their Navy and Air Force(both traditionally high spenders).
Realization that running on tracks had to change came from 1)bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade and 2)2003 invasion of Iraq. The former signed a level of disrespect for Chinese lives by the West that could not be accepted, and the former indicated that “fighting on the cheap” with Army-dominated units was clearly no longer viable.
Eventually this led to military reorganization to produce a central command, increased the relative power of air and naval forces, and indeed the recent open emphasis on the Navy though it clearly has been building up with the modernization and expansion of their shipbuilding capabilities.
Fundamentally, the idea of power projection has been avoided by China has an expensive boondoggle and to focus on defensive weaponry. Evidently, this is changing.
“The generals (Mattis and Dunford) understood the situation…”
But Israel-firsters are furious. Here is a militant ziocon attacking Tucker Carlson for a truthful reporting (which is very rare in MSM) — basically for the same statement that was uttered by General Mattis: http://theduran.com/tucker-carlson-rips-into-propaganda-accusations/
The Israel-firsters (the parasite’ tentacles) want the slaughter to continue: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/europe/russia/tucker-carlson-russian-line-syria-trump/
Agree completely.
This, I don’t know–after all, it seems even presstitudes are now scared. Good, I want those ass-holes, who helped to precipitate this to go in their pants, preferably live on TV. Low lives, most of them.
Anyhow, as I said, this "rosy" prediction doesn't apply to myself - I am in one of the very worst spots on the Earth for surviving a nuclear war. Which is why I don't even bother with preparing for it. Not an efficient use of resources, time, etc.
At least buy some guns me & my friends want to kidnap Kavkaz & Turk whores in the aftermath, will you join?
“That is because getting manipulated into rage quitting on your own civilization by some Middle Eastern tribes is really, really retarded, and stupidity needs to be punished.” True!
No, he’s going to have to fight Dark Ones in the Metro.
I know the standard arguments ("peaceful rise", etc.) but surely one shouldn't drink one's own Kool-Aid.
There is also the argument about not falling into the USSR's military overspending trap. But the USSR spend at least 12% of its GDP - possibly much more - on the military. 5% is patently sustainable. Even 10% is probably ok (1950's USA; Israel until quite recently).
In their place, I would have been spooked by this back in 1996 and sought to at least match the USA's 3-5% of GDP spending forthwith.
My understanding is that the CCP identified over-militarization as a significant contributor to the collapse of the USSR.
It also has something to do with China’s internal political dynamics–namely making sure the party stays on top. This is no doubt one of the motivations behind the SOE privatization process ending in the naughties as well.
Beyond that, I would not be surprised if someone in the CCP was influenced by Seymour Melman. Melman was an industrial engineer and operations researcher who argued that America’s vast military-industrial complex was the reason it fell behind some other advanced industrial countries in advanced manufacturing.
Like everyone else obsessed with a single theory, he definitely oversold it. During the 1970s he blamed inflation on the Pentagon, for instance.
A (well run) military-industrial complex can develop emergent technology and increase the demand for engineers (and thus not constrict supply to civilian manufacturing), but at some point in time the diversion of resources from the civilian sector must be harmful (as seen in the USSR?).
That said with its large current account surpluses, China could’ve simply increased its arms imports from Russia. Convenient way to get rid of excess foreign exchange reserves.
The peaceful rise was working about as well as could be expected under Hu Jintao, but China’s actions in the South China Sea under Xi have dashed that. Seems like they should’ve increased spending prior to starting this.
They did get spooked by that, as well as the Gulf War.
China’s A2/AD efforts as well as its program to acquire and master advanced Russian defense technology started in 1993, when Jiang Zemin ordered the armed forces to prepare for “local wars under high technology conditions.”
Around the same time the Chinese also incorporated “Revolution in Military Affairs” into its strategic doctrine and translated more or less everything ever put out by the Office of Net Assessment.
They'd rather focus the bureaucracy elsewhere, & lot of military expense might be hidden elsewhere।।
Either way, we forget the interstate was a military project & China is at that stage in build-up।।
I have tried debunk the SCS myth here with evidences & international marine laws:
http://www.unz.com/ldinh/the-chinese-in-southern-vietnam/#comment-2197730
There are some Western scholars and academics also pointed out these, esp all maps showing China owned the international recognized 9 dotted lines & its islands since 1800 or earlier up to 1950′s Canada still printing such maps. So are Japan ancient maps. The world leaders know well, very few support the fake Hague ruling but some are toeing US war against China.
Singapore KT Tan(i think she possibly a Singapore professor in marine laws) done an excellent indisputable job to expose US Obama & Princeton Professors shameless lies about SCS kangaroo Hague court judgements & US Jp, Phip conspiracy.
http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/did-the-ruling-sink-the-rule-of-law
Vietnam is the biggest illegal spratly island [email protected], first and most aggressive in building structures(incapable is another issue). China is late comer @7 islands. This article has detailed SCS historical facts.
http://chasfreeman.net/diplomacy-on-the-rocks-china-and-other-claimants-in-the-south-china-sea/
Baizuo won’t be able to manufacture & export dark ones post nuclear war, I hope।।
Anyway it will be motorcycles vs horses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033
It also has something to do with China's internal political dynamics--namely making sure the party stays on top. This is no doubt one of the motivations behind the SOE privatization process ending in the naughties as well.
Beyond that, I would not be surprised if someone in the CCP was influenced by Seymour Melman. Melman was an industrial engineer and operations researcher who argued that America's vast military-industrial complex was the reason it fell behind some other advanced industrial countries in advanced manufacturing.
Like everyone else obsessed with a single theory, he definitely oversold it. During the 1970s he blamed inflation on the Pentagon, for instance.
A (well run) military-industrial complex can develop emergent technology and increase the demand for engineers (and thus not constrict supply to civilian manufacturing), but at some point in time the diversion of resources from the civilian sector must be harmful (as seen in the USSR?).
That said with its large current account surpluses, China could've simply increased its arms imports from Russia. Convenient way to get rid of excess foreign exchange reserves.The peaceful rise was working about as well as could be expected under Hu Jintao, but China's actions in the South China Sea under Xi have dashed that. Seems like they should've increased spending prior to starting this.They did get spooked by that, as well as the Gulf War.
China's A2/AD efforts as well as its program to acquire and master advanced Russian defense technology started in 1993, when Jiang Zemin ordered the armed forces to prepare for “local wars under high technology conditions.”
Around the same time the Chinese also incorporated "Revolution in Military Affairs" into its strategic doctrine and translated more or less everything ever put out by the Office of Net Assessment.
Procurement also takes a bureaucracy which they’ve likely kept limited to avoid American waste।।
They’d rather focus the bureaucracy elsewhere, & lot of military expense might be hidden elsewhere।।
Either way, we forget the interstate was a military project & China is at that stage in build-up।।
Yes, I picked the racist ending।।
USA & Jews are too bitch to pull the trigger।।
- Fort Meade
- Capitol Hill
- Sallie Mae
- (And an airburst with Tsar Bomba for the Beltway as a whole please, to be on the safe side)
- Corporate HQs of bank beneficiaries of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
- F.O.P HQ in Nashville
- The Facebook Campus in Menlo Park
- The Harvard Kennedy School
- Verizon Corporate in Basking Ridge, NJ
- CONUS south of the 42nd parallel
- New York City
- Rose Bowl Stadium.Obviously, this is only a start.
The Federal Reserve system here in Philly, New York. Dallas etc,…. in addition,of course ,Wall St. and their back -up in Jersey City…thereby leaving the collection agency the Internal Revenue Service BTFO’d and irrelevant.
I do believe if biological weapons were unleashed at the same time, it would make things more difficult. I still believe humanity would survive as a species.
I wish I could believe that but the evidence suggests otherwise. Mutations show up early and in, say, just five years you can have at least 5 generations (more with some species) suffering accumulated genetic damage, getting worse in expression with each generation.
I suggest you look up the work of Dr Tim Mousseau who has studied the situation in Chernobyl and at Fukushima (the latter still leaking out massive amounts of radiation seven years after the initial triple meltdown).
some propaganda sources will have you believe that wildlife is thriving in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone but this is far from true. Some species of mammal that might ordinarily be hunted down by humans are prospering but the overall picture is gloomy. Many trees that died decades ago have not decayed because the bacteria that consume them are themselves dead! this points to that nuclear accident being a sterilising event.
Can you tell me of any humans who have recovered from genetic damage suffered by past generations? the damage is cumulative down the generations That’s true with victims of Agent Orange and it’s true with British ex-servicemen exposed to radioactive fallout in the south Pacific in the 1950s. And who know what subtle damage has been done to the general population since the first atomic bombs were exploded? A 60 year old British man who fathers a child is five times less likely to produce a child with Down’s Syndrome if he has sex with a 20-year old female than a 20-year old man who does the same!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY98io7JH-c
Anyhow, as I said, this "rosy" prediction doesn't apply to myself - I am in one of the very worst spots on the Earth for surviving a nuclear war. Which is why I don't even bother with preparing for it. Not an efficient use of resources, time, etc.
No one cares for your wrinkled ass, believe it or not.
- Every nuke can be made effective by setting the warhead to detonate at ground level – regardless if the rocket gets hit. Game over. MAD assured.
- More than 10% of the population would perish day one.
- Every nuclear plant in the world would go into meltdown in short order.
- 80% of the immediate survivors would kill each-other for water in the first 30 days.
- The rest will wait underground to inherit the Earth that won’t be suitable for complex life for many, many, millennia.
So, I’m not surprised you didn’t prepare for it. Why are you selling this suicidal garbage to others?
This is a faggot free zone।।
‘Wrinkled ass’
This is a faggot free zone।।
It didn't shock me because I had a particular interest in the consequences of nuclear war and had prior knowledge, but I think it legitimately shocked a lot of viewers.
Agree.
There is one interesting point, overlooked by most I am sure.
Just before the “exchange”, and after the H.M.G. declared that “state of emergency/whatever” all potential troublemakers were rounded up. Wasn’t shown what happened to them.
Makes you think, I guess.
BTW, good posts re this topic.
The best defence is that there just aren't enough police and military bodies to do it easily today, as there were then, and conscripting and organising people is going to take time in itself. Probably all be over by the time they get far enough down the list to reach me.Cheers!
The gayvy refuses to conduct objective tests of the Aegis BMD, rolling airframe missiles, or standard missiles.
This suggests their performance is not what is claimed.
We also don't know how good Russian antiship missiles are. How many of them are there?
Regardless of the size of American carriers, enough missile strikes will at least result in a mission kill if not a sinking. They are also not armored in the way earlier naval warships were, something that was shown to be critically stupid during the Falklands War.
Damage control will be non-existent owing to the fact that one-fifth of the crew consists of women. The moment the ship is hit all the women will become hysterical, and men will focus on the women instead of the ship.
The justification for not armoring warships was the Operation Crossroads Test Baker, but this was a dubious conclusion. The ex-German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen for instance only sunk because it had no crew and thus succumbed to flooding.
Owing to the short range of the F/A-18 Sucker Hornet the gayvy might need to put its carrier(s) in range of coastal batteries, which means that aircraft (or ships) don't need to get in missile shot range and expose themselves to Aegis or fighters.
Tankers and AEWC aircraft will need to stay far away from Syria owing to the S-400. Deployment of MiG-31s and more Sukhois can increase this.
Russia obviously can't win any extended campaign in Syria, but it's quite possible that by prepositioning enough anti-ship missiles and firing platforms that it could defeat an allied naval squadron. This would then put NATO+GCC in the gloomy situation you described for Russia following a defeat in Syria, with the exception that NATO+GCC can double down on Syria which Russia cannot.
So a deterrent strategy could be very publicly deploying Tu-22M3 and MiG-31 squadrons to Syria. The Tu-160 units could also be deployed to Southern Russia. A squadron of Tu-160s could penetrate Turkish airspace unintercepted and fire a salvo of perhaps 100 or so anti-ship missiles.
The gayvy's doctrine is to prevent its ships from being found by an adversary, but I really do not see how this is possible in the Mediterranean Sea.
Martyanov is ridiculous but he may have a point on this matter.
Then there's submarines. Unfortunately for Russia there is no way to introduce additional boats into the Mediterranean without detection, but this could be a feature rather than a bug. The gayvy in its own exercises with NATO allies routinely gets its carriers sunk by other NATO submarines.
Admirals are aware of these exercises, and within the gayvy itself submariners have a pithy saying:.
Russian subs entering the Mediterranean in numbers would be a deterrent, and in a shooting war could undertake missile shots on surface ships and potentially torpedo attacks if they can get in range.
The Kilo-class boats already there may already be in range undetected.
Trump's reaction to a naval squadron being sunk would of course be to escalate. But Britain and France might react differently.
For that matter what defensive purpose does Russia's surface navy really serve? Russia is a continental power with no dependence on seaborne imports and can thus risk its entire fleet. Deploy the entire fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean, North Sea, and Eastern Seaboard. Yes they'll be lost in a real war, but people will think twice about starting that war. Russian warships physically visible to people in, say, New York City might cause them to think twice about poking the bear. Punishing the Assman seems much less appetizing when the prospect of a cruise missile striking your office is very real.
Think like Trump. Go big or go home.Capitulation would result in a coup d'etat orchestrated by Rogozin and Shoigu I suspect.
Russia has biggest natural resources in the world, and China has biggest production capacity in the world. Though USA have natural resources but it does not have the capability turning them into items to support their current living standard, while EU has no natural resources to keep their societies functioning in any meaningful period of time if war breaks out. Besides during the war only tangleable stuff matters, SWIFT and fiat money USD will be as good as dodo, if not being a handicap to the West war effort after it being hacked.
It is puzzling the author keeps on saying the West can strangle the Russian economy, it seems the author completely oblivious about the fact that Russia does not need the West for essential necessities or modern convenience, while the West is completely exterior dependent for their living standard and social stability.
USD and SWIFT will be the first casualty if war breaks out, it surely will be a fast and shortcut way to collapse the Empire of Chaos and end the American bellicosity and hubris.
-- Agree.
My problem is not at all with the numbers. And then if Russia had to take on NATO — though should full scale conflict emerge Europe will eat the worst it.
That’s not really a concern, until I take a look at history. If we go to are we prepared to own Russia and at what cost.
It’s not as if the Russians have not been outgunned and out ‘technologized’ before.
Unfortunately, we wait for cooler heads to prevail. I am not a fan of just because we can — we should.
- Fort Meade
- Capitol Hill
- Sallie Mae
- (And an airburst with Tsar Bomba for the Beltway as a whole please, to be on the safe side)
- Corporate HQs of bank beneficiaries of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
- F.O.P HQ in Nashville
- The Facebook Campus in Menlo Park
- The Harvard Kennedy School
- Verizon Corporate in Basking Ridge, NJ
- CONUS south of the 42nd parallel
- New York City
- Rose Bowl Stadium.Obviously, this is only a start.
Even I thought this bit of levity humorous.
I had a pleasant laugh.
This is a faggot free zone।।
Lol!
Apparently not. Anatoly doesn’t even care about protection. Go big or go home.
That's not really a concern, until I take a look at history. If we go to are we prepared to own Russia and at what cost. It's not as if the Russians have not been outgunned and out 'technologized' before.
Unfortunately, we wait for cooler heads to prevail. I am not a fan of just because we can -- we should.
No one is going to “own” Russia. You’re going to be too busy dealing with the aftereffects of nuclear fallout.
The comment introducing the film Threads
appreciated that
https://mobile.twitter.com/squintneon/status/984801311039242240?s=20
https://mobile.twitter.com/padhalikha/status/984664960486772736
The west deserves everything that's happening to it।।
A little dust —-
no way.
The comment introducing the film
Threads
appreciated that
I suggest you look up the work of Dr Tim Mousseau who has studied the situation in Chernobyl and at Fukushima (the latter still leaking out massive amounts of radiation seven years after the initial triple meltdown).
some propaganda sources will have you believe that wildlife is thriving in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone but this is far from true. Some species of mammal that might ordinarily be hunted down by humans are prospering but the overall picture is gloomy. Many trees that died decades ago have not decayed because the bacteria that consume them are themselves dead! this points to that nuclear accident being a sterilising event.
Can you tell me of any humans who have recovered from genetic damage suffered by past generations? the damage is cumulative down the generations That's true with victims of Agent Orange and it's true with British ex-servicemen exposed to radioactive fallout in the south Pacific in the 1950s. And who know what subtle damage has been done to the general population since the first atomic bombs were exploded? A 60 year old British man who fathers a child is five times less likely to produce a child with Down's Syndrome if he has sex with a 20-year old female than a 20-year old man who does the same!
Everybody is mutant
Citizens way to fight back against these sick psychopaths is to expose the truth in the face of their litany of shameless lies …..
Vanessa Beeley Exposes the White Helmets:
Eva Bartlett Exposes the Lies on Syria:
Listen, for instance, to the citizens of Aleppo and their own opinions of the white helmets and their true motives:
Dear god I hope so.
Listen to Trump — he goes bonkers over “that man who gases his people – Assad”
Trump will avoid the charge of starting a war, by focusing on Assad. One way or another, Trump will assassinate Assad.
If Assad is dead, Syria will be broken up, much of it falling to the Jews – end of story. The non-Sunni will have to fight for their very lives. Turkey will take the north. Jorden the south. Lebanon will be halved – and a final solution to the Palestinians will happen.
That is the Jew agenda – who is foolish enough to think it is not? With the US government’s power behind them – who can stop the bastards?
Think Peace — Art
Joe is a soul-mate of Godfree Roberts. That’s all you need to know.
There is one interesting point, overlooked by most I am sure.
Just before the "exchange", and after the H.M.G. declared that "state of emergency/whatever" all potential troublemakers were rounded up. Wasn't shown what happened to them.
Makes you think, I guess.
BTW, good posts re this topic.
Funnily enough, that exact thought did occur to me when I wrote that comment. I’ve no illusions on that score – if there’s time to impose a state of emergency and round up assumed and suspected unreliables, I reckon my name will be on the list and no personal contacts will make any difference then. It’ll be a nondescript and probably improvised camp or detention centre followed by a bullet in the head, or just starvation, if the nuclear balloon actually goes up.
The best defence is that there just aren’t enough police and military bodies to do it easily today, as there were then, and conscripting and organising people is going to take time in itself. Probably all be over by the time they get far enough down the list to reach me.
Cheers!
We both live in places with similar setup.
We are, here, just smaller, population wise, and bigger re space.
We also do have access to some weaponry too. That's something I've been contemplating recently.
With us, here, it could very well start with confiscating those firearms on a large scale.
So, I have a dilemma: shoot or not in that case.
Joking.
Sort of.
If they are just coming for me re "troublemaker", no dilemma. Yes, I know, easy to say. One way to find out.
Hehe....and now I definitely got on that list.
That is not how I read the article, that’s not how I remember it. I think Anatoly actually wrote that NATO can’t fully “strangle” the Russian economy without China’s support. However, it’s obvious that a total Western embargo would lead to a huge drop in living standards at first, but Russia would survive and slowly adjust, more or less.
Russian officials interviewed two people involved in the fake Douma “gas attack”:
There won’t be a war the whites have diverted focus to India fake atrocity Literature
https://mobile.twitter.com/squintneon/status/984801311039242240?s=20
https://mobile.twitter.com/padhalikha/status/984664960486772736
The west deserves everything that’s happening to it।।
Just a note that the Unz.com commenter Art Deco is a lying scumbag.
I have made a grand total of about a dozen comments on MR, most or all of which went through so far as I know.
While I don’t really mind people who criticize and insult me to my face here, just making up stuff on other places that I am unlikely to notice is despicable.
If you're gonna die in Nuclear Fire might as well do it armed to the teeth, with a minimum 300lb bench & Wearing Symbols of Perunas।।
Stronglifts.com
Will take you like 7 months to hit 100kg Floor/Bench Press।।
https://i.imgur.com/hO9it6S.jpg
THE RODNOVER SIKH CONFEDERACY BRINGS YOU THIS DECLARATION।।
Agreed. Did Art Deco really do that? I've had my disagreements with the guy, but I wouldn't have thought him capable of that.
Perhaps Art Deco is a sock puppet controlled by Andrei Martyanov, Lazy Glossophiliac, and other Sovok-American patriots?
It may be time for Andrew Martinson, a retired US naval officer and scientist who now lives in Khabarovsk, to strike back at this Sovok-American sock puppet defamation army.
Basically, he provides a vast quantity of comments, the overwhelming majority "moderate", and "mainstream," generally disputing any deviations from the Official Narrative, but in a cautious and restrained manner, often buttressed by detailed factual citations. But every now and then something about Israel or Jews may come up, and he begins making all sorts of extreme statements, much like the most extreme WashPost Neocon. You can see this if you browse his archive:
http://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=Art+Deco
My guess is his nasty and dishonest attacks on AK are because of that SPLC denunciation a few weeks ago.
I also strongly suspect that the "moderate/mainstream" tone of the overwhelming majority of his comments are simply intended to establish his credibility for his periodic comments on Jews/Israel.
Given the massive volume of his comments, over 500K words, it really wouldn't surprise me if he's some sort of disinfo agent. After all, all sorts of "extremists" comment here because they've been banned everywhere else, but why would a "mainstream" fellow write 500K words of mostly "mainstream" comments here unless he was being paid to do so?...
That suggests Russia in extremis could gain from raising the stakes to the brink of the strategic nuclear exchange level by, say, hitting a US carrier with a nuke.
I agree that Russians would gain by getting to brink of nuclear exchange level as fast as possible, but it would be politically advantageous to do this conventionally without using nuclear weapons – for example destroying a US carrier with non-nuclear missiles.
There is a large psychological difference between using nuclear weapons and conventional weapons although the effect on the carrier would be the same (it sinks).
Note that things will only become catastrophic enough to cause a population collapse if virtually all vehicles (esp. trucks) get knocked out. If it's "only" 90%, that should still be enough to haul around the basics such as food and fuel. Third World countries do with as little or less.
USA only has 10 cities with population more than a million; knocking out those 10 cities is knocking out the USA’s civilization. The USA is very vulnerable and fragile in a war that bombs can land on its home turf. Where would the USA get the manpower to continue the war after its civilization got obliterated? It is a reality the author does not want to touch with a ten feet barge pole.
Many of us grew up weeding a vegetable garden. Most men are familiar with firearms. Most older guys are good mechanics. Some of us even hand dug wells on our property in our youths. A simple hand-driven sand point well 20' down will provide drinkable water in many places in the USA. Most men can hunt. Many wouldn't have any trouble learning how to care for a milk cow and a hog or two. Life would go on even with out television or--gasp--the internet!!!
You're just projecting your incompetence on us. If you want to believe what you're peddling, go ahead. But don't be surprised when we don't lie down and roll over dead for you.
I have made a grand total of about a dozen comments on MR, most or all of which went through so far as I know.
While I don't really mind people who criticize and insult me to my face here, just making up stuff on other places that I am unlikely to notice is despicable.
Where did he lie in the thread you linked to?
He also claims AK lived in the US for 25 years which is factually wrong as far as I know.
The best defence is that there just aren't enough police and military bodies to do it easily today, as there were then, and conscripting and organising people is going to take time in itself. Probably all be over by the time they get far enough down the list to reach me.Cheers!
Yup.
We both live in places with similar setup.
We are, here, just smaller, population wise, and bigger re space.
We also do have access to some weaponry too. That’s something I’ve been contemplating recently.
With us, here, it could very well start with confiscating those firearms on a large scale.
So, I have a dilemma: shoot or not in that case.
Joking.
Sort of.
If they are just coming for me re “troublemaker”, no dilemma. Yes, I know, easy to say. One way to find out.
Hehe….and now I definitely got on that list.
Just do ctrl+f for “Art Deco”, time is April 13, 2018 at 5:08 pm.
He also claims AK lived in the US for 25 years which is factually wrong as far as I know.
I have made a grand total of about a dozen comments on MR, most or all of which went through so far as I know.
While I don't really mind people who criticize and insult me to my face here, just making up stuff on other places that I am unlikely to notice is despicable.
Well, your fame is increasing.
I have made a grand total of about a dozen comments on MR, most or all of which went through so far as I know.
While I don't really mind people who criticize and insult me to my face here, just making up stuff on other places that I am unlikely to notice is despicable.
Indians covered you this time with fake news,
If you’re gonna die in Nuclear Fire might as well do it armed to the teeth, with a minimum 300lb bench & Wearing Symbols of Perunas।।
Stronglifts.com
Will take you like 7 months to hit 100kg Floor/Bench Press।।
THE RODNOVER SIKH CONFEDERACY BRINGS YOU THIS DECLARATION।।
.
Most people I know are completely fed -up with the disgraceful, degenerate, clown -show that the United States has become.
Are you willing to lay down your life for the values that your country truly espouses? Sacred homosexuality? Feminism? Cultural Marxism and all the hedonistic material values that revolve around a profligate lifestyle?
I understand the efficiency of your logistical presentations…and dont dispute the numerical advantages that you outline, but, in this instance force alone will not prevail.
Power emanates from an intelligible, circumspect people grounded in absolute, transcendental truth. Without an appeal- and consequent direction from the Almighty, our society has become ANOMIC…and does not have the guts, nor the right, to win an all-out war.
Supporting an administration and its military- that has expressly rejected self-regulatory values and OPENLY celebrates sodomy is suicidal- and should always be scorned and ridiculed until- by the Grace of God- the whole matter is tossed into the lake of fire.
I am a dissident.
I don't love my country's values or government.
I love my home.
: Couldn’t a more pragmatic (and surviving) Tsarist Russia have engaged in land reform–including in the Baltic states?
I mean, obviously the peasants living there (in the Baltic states, ethnic Baltic peasants) would have first dibs at the land, but given the low population density of the Baltic states, wouldn’t there be some land left over for ethnic Russians/Ukrainians/Belarusians who will want to move there?
If free or cheap land was enough of an incentive to get ethnic Russians to settle in Siberia and northern Kazakhstan, wouldn’t the same have also been true in regards to the Baltic states?
But Israel-firsters are furious. Here is a militant ziocon attacking Tucker Carlson for a truthful reporting (which is very rare in MSM) -- basically for the same statement that was uttered by General Mattis: http://theduran.com/tucker-carlson-rips-into-propaganda-accusations/
The Israel-firsters (the parasite' tentacles) want the slaughter to continue: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/europe/russia/tucker-carlson-russian-line-syria-trump/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl9Fk6eT0EM
Tucker Carlson is doing God’s work on the MSM surrounded by vipers even in his own network. I’ve said this before and it has to be repeated!
He also claims AK lived in the US for 25 years which is factually wrong as far as I know.
Dunno how I missed it the first time. AK even answered him. Though I didn’t find the statements so outrageous, I wouldn’t have responded so sharply. (Though I’d also have corrected the factually wrong statements.)
Five days since the orange baboon opened his big mouth and promised immediate retalitation, and no WW3 yet.
Disappointing and sad. Especially today – Friday the 13th would be awesome day for Armageddon.
We both live in places with similar setup.
We are, here, just smaller, population wise, and bigger re space.
We also do have access to some weaponry too. That's something I've been contemplating recently.
With us, here, it could very well start with confiscating those firearms on a large scale.
So, I have a dilemma: shoot or not in that case.
Joking.
Sort of.
If they are just coming for me re "troublemaker", no dilemma. Yes, I know, easy to say. One way to find out.
Hehe....and now I definitely got on that list.
Well over here a shotgun licence (the only realistic option) just bumps your name up the list for either conscription or internment, I suspect.
Something or some combination of things has killed off 80% of the insects across the planet. Nuclear war will finish the process.
This hasn't been mentioned in sci-fi, so far as I know, but the Martians in War of the Worlds succumbed to earth's bacterial life. Don't discount the lttle things.
I don’t believe this at all. And the reason is basically Chernobyl. At the time the hysterical consensus was that all life would be destroyed (or horribly mutated) in the exclusion zone. In fact the exclusion of humans had a dramatically positive effect with an explosion of wildlife and reestablishment of whole food chains including top predators such as wolves.
Somehow or other it is humans that are the problem, and when they are excluded, I’m sure that the insects and wild animals will do fine.
Despite the long rant and numerous maps, this guy is full of it. If you want to be confused about what is happening in Syria now, just keep reading his educated nonsense.
I have made a grand total of about a dozen comments on MR, most or all of which went through so far as I know.
While I don't really mind people who criticize and insult me to my face here, just making up stuff on other places that I am unlikely to notice is despicable.
“…making up stuff on other places that I am unlikely to notice is despicable…”
Agreed. Did Art Deco really do that? I’ve had my disagreements with the guy, but I wouldn’t have thought him capable of that.
Hey, a Reddit bot. Cool.
If you want a more believable analysis, go to: http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2018/04/false-flag-in-syria-sets-stage-for.html#more
“It is puzzling the author keeps on saying the West can strangle the Russian economy, it seems the author completely oblivious about the fact that Russia does not need the West for essential necessities or modern convenience, while the West is completely exterior dependent for their living standard and social stability.”
– Agree.
The Yinon Plan explains the current importance of Syria. Oded Yinon wrote in 1982 that in order for Israel to become the sole regional power in the Middle East all of the Arab countries needed to be turned into mini ethnic fiefdoms. In 2003, this plan was effected in Iraq. In 2011, it was effected in Libya. After this, attention was turned to Syria. If Syria falls, then the final part of the plan will be to tear apart Iran.
The other part of the plan requires more Jews to move to what will become the area of a Greater Israel. The Muslim terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere might convince some Jewish people to believe that they will be safer in the Middle East than in Europe. At any rate, a greater Jewish population would seem desirable if a Greater Israel is to come into being.
The one glaring weakness that I see with the Yinon Plan is that it ignores the possibility of trans-national ethnic Arab alliances forming in the wake of national division. For example, in the original document Yinon correctly notes that Iraq can be divided into three separate ethnic zones based on the Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. However, it fails to note that this division might lead to an enhanced alliance between Shia Iraq and Shia Iran.
I guess the second weakness is that the Yinon Plan requires a major power in order for it to be carried out. So, a second weakness is if the major power decides that dividing up the Middle East jeopardizes its own interest.
I have made a grand total of about a dozen comments on MR, most or all of which went through so far as I know.
While I don't really mind people who criticize and insult me to my face here, just making up stuff on other places that I am unlikely to notice is despicable.
Congrats on making MR. MR is one of the few cuck sites worth commenting on. One, Tyler Cowen is interesting despite being a cuck. Two, comments are relatively uncensored there.
Perhaps Art Deco is a sock puppet controlled by Andrei Martyanov, Lazy Glossophiliac, and other Sovok-American patriots?
It may be time for Andrew Martinson, a retired US naval officer and scientist who now lives in Khabarovsk, to strike back at this Sovok-American sock puppet defamation army.
If the Neo Conservative Zionists get the USA/UK to launch a huge attack, Iraq style invasion against the Russians and Assad’s Syria I sincerely hope:
Every US and Israeli Consulate/Embassy in the Arab, Iranian ME, France, Germany and England gets torched.
I hope the Poles break off diplomatic relations with Israel, give the Red card of expulsion to any J tribe dual citizens. Hope they bull doze the Auschwitz Disney Land Holocaust guilt theme park and then they just turn it over to housing developers and build a modest Polish Catholic Church named after the Polish Pope, all that remains is some small place acknowledging the many people who suffered and died in the last months of World War II, but also acknowledged all the millions who died in similar forced labor camps in the old Soviet Union.
I hope Palestinian equal rights activists target Zionist, Neo Conservative or just degenerate “targets” in Europe, USA – like the hard core porn industry, CNN, commencement ceremonies at Harvard Law School.
I am feeling so down and depressed as I am today at the prospect of yet another God awful Neo Conservative USA/UK attack, war against an honorable nationalist people, complete with pathetic lying war attrocities of Assad and the Russians GASSING LITTLE CHILDREN.
How many?
6 Million?
F**** these people.
Can’t someone on our side please dox all of the worst Neo Conservative Zionists like Max Boot, William Kristol, Richard Pearle, David Podhoretz, all the Js left at Jonah GOldberg’s National Review, all the Neo Con rats that left the sinking ship to go over to The Atlantic Magazine which used to be my favorite honest, secular Liberal magazine.
God I hate these people.
Think we should go back to blaming them for killing Jesus as they slaughtered scores of Palestinians in Gaza on Good Friday.
God I hate cowardly American Christians who do nothing for all this sh**.
I comment on the Unz Review.
I am a dissident.
I don’t love my country’s values or government.
I love my home.
But Israel-firsters are furious. Here is a militant ziocon attacking Tucker Carlson for a truthful reporting (which is very rare in MSM) -- basically for the same statement that was uttered by General Mattis: http://theduran.com/tucker-carlson-rips-into-propaganda-accusations/
The Israel-firsters (the parasite' tentacles) want the slaughter to continue: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/europe/russia/tucker-carlson-russian-line-syria-trump/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl9Fk6eT0EM
Gen. James Dunford grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts, a few towns over from where I live. He, like me, is Irish Catholic. He went all through Catholic schools (St. Ann’s in Quincy, Boston College High in S. Boston, St. Michael’s College in Vermont). But his formative years were spent with the nuns at St. Ann’s, a school which no longer exists. I pray to God, to JMJ+, that the wisdom of the nuns at St. Ann’s has stayed with him and he remains strong, shows the virtues of fortitude and prudence, and doesn’t allow the demonic characters pushing for war to get their way and allow a nuclear armeggeddon to unfold.
And there is no honor among the US brass and Congress.
Tucker Carlson is the last honest man of courage on “American” (yeah right) television news.
How long is he going to last with the Murdoch Children purging anyone and anyone that opposed the cursed Neo Conservative/Zionist liars/war mongers.
Mr Chieh, I appreciate you provide this site with voices of people other than WN and am sorry for your mainland family members. However, the land reform PRC conducted is necessary and may be the most important factor that contributes to China’s rapid growth after Deng opened up China. Plenty of countries have cheap labor, but what makes China especially appealing for foreign investors is its highly efficient infrastructure, which would not be possible had it not been for the land reform to end the concentration of landholding in the minority landowners. India, on the other hand, did not go through land reform after its independence, so its manufacturing base can hardly be developed in contrast to Japan, China, South Korea.
Mostly its just to snap back at J. Wong, who has a ridiculously cheerful view of China bordering on self-parody.
There are plenty of ways to accomplish land reform that don’t involve struggling people to death. Plenty of things are necessary: but necessary ends do not mean that the methods used can just be excused or even praised.
Mostly its just to snap back at J. Wong, who has a ridiculously cheerful view of China bordering on self-parody.
Yeah, the history of the world is replete with examples of landowners peacefully giving up their land.
Still, sorry for your loss of family members.
At least it was quick and not starvation and ill-health spread over many years like the fates of millions of peasants and tenant farmers.
A lot depends on exactly how the conflict breaks out - the initial conditions can change the early outcome from massive losses for the US side to prompt destruction of the Russian side, as can unexpected capabilities. If one side gets the jump on the other, if one side's ew systems work better than expected, or are unexpectedly hard countered, etc etc. Nobody really knows how these systems will interact because nobody has any directly relevant experience of how they will interact in full and open use.
Cruise missiles certainly can be used to target mobile sam systems, if you know where those systems are located, although they aren't the most effective weapons against dispersed vehicles. If they are constantly moving, they can't be used effectively. And a sam battalion has a limited number of long range missiles in its launchers. They will not achieve 1:1 kills with those missiles (the hit rates are not 100% anyway, some will fall to countermeasures, and often they will fire two or more at a given target). The situation of the Russian ad operators in Syria would be a seriously unenviable one. The skies around Syria will be cluttered to a degree never encountered by such systems with all kinds of targets - aircraft, missiles, drones. Both sides' ew systems will be operating at maximum.
US ships in the eastern Med will be catastrophically vulnerable to attack from submarine, air launched and ground launched missiles. So of course will Russian ships, but even more so.
It's likely to be much more of a bloodbath for each side than the extreme advocates of each are claiming for their own side. Things will not work as expected. Missiles will get through when they ought not to. Other missiles will completely fail. Each side will likely field completely unexpected capabilities.
Uncertainty, not certainty, should be the essence of predicting the outcome of such a war. Most likely, though, numbers will tell in the end, rather than particular systems.
I suspect that's at the heart of the evident debate within the US regime over whether and how much to attack. Probably the generals are not giving Trump the assurances he needs to hear about the ability to control escalation and the risks to US systems and personnel, and that's making it hard for him to sustain his gung ho ignorant jingoism even with support from Bolton.
You’ve been making so much useless noise here that I have to wonder why they let you out of your birdcage…?
From your comment #239…
From your comment #348…
and…
Since your statements are delivered with such conviction [not to say authority] I will cede the floor to let you explain some of the nuts and bolts of how exactly the scenarios you envisage here would play out…
I realize of course that you actually know nothing of the nuts and bolts…ie the technical aspects of air combat…[or even the well known historical facts for that matter]…but since you have been clamoring so much I think it is only fair to give you a chance to explain yourself…
Why not start with the last statement about Russia ‘nuking’ a US carrier…?
Please tell us what weapon system exactly is in the Russian inventory that is designed to hit ships with a nuclear warhead…?
Of course there is none…but that should not stop a buttwhistler like yourself from blowing something out of your incredibly prolific bunghole…
Not to mention that I have already described the decades old Russian doctrine and existing conventional weapons systems that are designed expressly for annihilating an entire carrier group in a single strike…
Perhaps you missed that part from my comment #155…?
And in fact I had only presented one leg of the anti-carrier triad…the long range aviation part…not having yet gone into the other legs such as surface and submarine based…as well as the short-range aviation…
But no matter…
Next…perhaps you could explain exactly how the US has ‘escalation superiority’…?
What exactly does that mean anyway…?
Inquiring minds want to know [the workings of a birdbrain]…
And then you can get to the meat of the matter which you have decided [quite foolishly] to contend here with me…
How exactly are the odds ‘stacked’ and the ‘ultimate’ outcome being a Russian ‘defeat’ in theater…
It is all well and good to state one’s opinion…and if you want to admit it is simply an unfounded opinion then I will accept that…and move on to more substantive questions that require some discussion…
And by discussion I don’t mean simply opening your beak and letting squawks come out…but actually bringing facts and technical details to the matter…supported by actual authoritative citations…
I have said quite clearly that we may soon witness an actual shooting war between the US and Russia in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean…gaining some insight into that requires more than just opinions…
Now I have also stated quite clearly only one method by which Russia could respond and sink not just a ship or two but an entire carrier group…I have given technical details that are not in dispute…
I will quote here another opinion…that of a person a million times more qualified than a birdbrain like yourself…
PCR stated on April 10…
Now I have chosen to present an opinion that is coming from someone who has good reason and experience to form such an opinion…a man who was a high cabinet official and received training in handling the ‘nuclear football’ since he was in the line of succession in case of a nuclear decapitation…
As far as I can tell…you are still on the waiting list to receive nuclear football training…
His views on Russia are taken directly from the Faker.
I ask because you have brought him up.
A very enlightening series of posts by the way.
It raises some questions about whether you have any idea what you are writing about.
Maybe they haven’t. It’s still Russian roulette and the US hasn’t pulled the trigger yet. How many bullets are in the chambers? The gun could have 5 bullets in 6 chambers giving an 83% chance of Armageddon.
You could also ask who the fuck is Andrei Martyanov. Only American MIC benefits from his writing and some die hard Russian patriots who want to sooth their wounded souls.
I’m a fan of both AK and Martyanov (though some will say that’s like rooting for both the Yankees and the Red Sox, or both the Israelis and the Palestinians
But once he wades into the comments...lol. The many demented pathologies of Martyanov the commenter:
1 - Twisted hatred of Anatoly Karlin for the crime of not being a Sovok
2 - Complete dismissal of anything in the economy which doesn't support the military-industrial complex as worthless
3 - STEMcuck and credential cuck who expects you to fax him your graduate level engineering degree in order to have an opinion
4 - Building on the former, an education cuck who actually thinks schools are good
5 - Constant recommendations of psychiatric treatment, something shared with fellow Sovok-American Lazy Glossophiliac
6 - Dismissal and denigration of all sources other than obscure naval academic journals
7 - All around belligerence and hostility
This should not be taken as a denunciation of Martyanov, incidentally. On the contrary he should comment more. :)
I covered all your points in post number 395 above.
I guess in parallel universes Karlin would the first guy who will die in the nuclear apocalypse, the first to be sent to the corrective labour camp by GULAG, the first that who would be purged from the navy by Admiral Martyanov. Now described as evil by venerable Professor Cowen, described famous antisemite by rationalwiki – he will soon probably be banned from the UK for intellectual crimes.
It’s kind of ironic, as he is probably the only blogger on this site who behaves in a too civilized way, seems not to do any propaganda, not engage in personal attacks, open to reasonable discussion and argument, etc.
The best defence is that there just aren't enough police and military bodies to do it easily today, as there were then, and conscripting and organising people is going to take time in itself. Probably all be over by the time they get far enough down the list to reach me.Cheers!
This is a good point. The result depends on the number of active citizens. With effective mobilization, they can easily swamp the “security” forces (who have their own doubts), and get at government leaders.
India did land reform, it just has horrible labor laws so capital intensive manufacturing is only possible.
It’s leader in armor, steel & auto manufacturing for example but paradoxically sucks at low end of value chain।।
On topic Rus has the technology but I don’t think in sufficient quantity atm. Same problem with Hind & China where they have decent tech like Brahmos or that cheap Missile corvette but not enough atm.
Also, realize the significance of the fact that this is far from Rus borders the Deplorable Badass Alliance can now conventionally deter JEWSA farther from borders than before. This alone is achievement,
Gulf War 1 is no longer possible tbh,
Personally I'd like to see some kind of big public announcement by the Chinese. I think they perhaps don't realise how big an impact such a gesture could make. Something like an announcement that any attack on Syria in response to allegations, regardless of truth or not, without UNSC authorisation would be illegal and China will support Syria (not necessarily militarily) in coping with any such illegal attack, would make quite a stir in neutral and even US sphere populations. Ideally they'd do it whilst announcing a deployment of HQ9s to Damascus for joint exercises with the Russians.
The practical effectiveness is irrelevant - the symbol is what counts.
How about China sending a troupe of dragon dancers and Kung Fu fighters to hold a parade through Damascus? Now that would send a message! It is about the max message that China will risk sending. That or “golden silence” as prescribed by Confucius.
It's kind of ironic, as he is probably the only blogger on this site who behaves in a too civilized way, seems not to do any propaganda, not engage in personal attacks, open to reasonable discussion and argument, etc.
Laughable & totally false.
Karlin - I haven't seen him making any propaganda. He's actually a much more civilized kind of blogger that write interesting points of view (whether you agree or not), likes to exchange opinions (even with the people he disagrees with), and doesn't try to propagandize other people to agree with him.
That sums it up pretty well.
I think that you love what you would like your country to be rather than what your country actually has become and you are certainly not alone in that.
From your comment #239...From your comment #348...and...Since your statements are delivered with such conviction [not to say authority] I will cede the floor to let you explain some of the nuts and bolts of how exactly the scenarios you envisage here would play out...
I realize of course that you actually know nothing of the nuts and bolts...ie the technical aspects of air combat...[or even the well known historical facts for that matter]...but since you have been clamoring so much I think it is only fair to give you a chance to explain yourself...
Why not start with the last statement about Russia 'nuking' a US carrier...?
Please tell us what weapon system exactly is in the Russian inventory that is designed to hit ships with a nuclear warhead...?
Of course there is none...but that should not stop a buttwhistler like yourself from blowing something out of your incredibly prolific bunghole...
Not to mention that I have already described the decades old Russian doctrine and existing conventional weapons systems that are designed expressly for annihilating an entire carrier group in a single strike...
Perhaps you missed that part from my comment #155...?
And in fact I had only presented one leg of the anti-carrier triad...the long range aviation part...not having yet gone into the other legs such as surface and submarine based...as well as the short-range aviation...
But no matter...
Next...perhaps you could explain exactly how the US has 'escalation superiority'...?
What exactly does that mean anyway...?
Inquiring minds want to know [the workings of a birdbrain]...
And then you can get to the meat of the matter which you have decided [quite foolishly] to contend here with me...
How exactly are the odds 'stacked' and the 'ultimate' outcome being a Russian 'defeat' in theater...
It is all well and good to state one's opinion...and if you want to admit it is simply an unfounded opinion then I will accept that...and move on to more substantive questions that require some discussion...
And by discussion I don't mean simply opening your beak and letting squawks come out...but actually bringing facts and technical details to the matter...supported by actual authoritative citations...
I have said quite clearly that we may soon witness an actual shooting war between the US and Russia in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean...gaining some insight into that requires more than just opinions...
Now I have also stated quite clearly only one method by which Russia could respond and sink not just a ship or two but an entire carrier group...I have given technical details that are not in dispute...
I will quote here another opinion...that of a person a million times more qualified than a birdbrain like yourself...
PCR stated on April 10...Now I have chosen to present an opinion that is coming from someone who has good reason and experience to form such an opinion...a man who was a high cabinet official and received training in handling the 'nuclear football' since he was in the line of succession in case of a nuclear decapitation...
As far as I can tell...you are still on the waiting list to receive nuclear football training...
PCR was assistant secretary to the Treasury. I doubt very much he received nuclear football training.
His views on Russia are taken directly from the Faker.
He wrote about it in one of his columns...he wasn't high on the succession list...something like number 30 if memory serves...but the secret service nuclear suitcase training was still mandatory for him...
As for where he gets his ideas...I would say having had the experience of being in the inner circle of POTUS would have counted for something...over and above reading the Flaker...
Thanks, the report it cites on Iran, from a brief look, is quite amazing in its frankness for “regime change”:
Very gloomy scenario on your part, looks to me like you see no good way out for Russia.Fully in agreement. If it does come to a general conflagration, I hope that at least a few nukes will also land on Tel Aviv, Ryadh and Ankara.
Perhaps that’s the one thing that might restrain the American leadership? The thought of Los Angeles or Chicago or Moscow or London being reduced to a pile of radioactive rubble doesn’t bother them in the least but the idea of Tel Aviv being reduced to a smoking ruin would horrify them.
Well I far prefer Tel Aviv, to Los Angeles.
To great cities of London and Moscow, no.
From your comment #239...From your comment #348...and...Since your statements are delivered with such conviction [not to say authority] I will cede the floor to let you explain some of the nuts and bolts of how exactly the scenarios you envisage here would play out...
I realize of course that you actually know nothing of the nuts and bolts...ie the technical aspects of air combat...[or even the well known historical facts for that matter]...but since you have been clamoring so much I think it is only fair to give you a chance to explain yourself...
Why not start with the last statement about Russia 'nuking' a US carrier...?
Please tell us what weapon system exactly is in the Russian inventory that is designed to hit ships with a nuclear warhead...?
Of course there is none...but that should not stop a buttwhistler like yourself from blowing something out of your incredibly prolific bunghole...
Not to mention that I have already described the decades old Russian doctrine and existing conventional weapons systems that are designed expressly for annihilating an entire carrier group in a single strike...
Perhaps you missed that part from my comment #155...?
And in fact I had only presented one leg of the anti-carrier triad...the long range aviation part...not having yet gone into the other legs such as surface and submarine based...as well as the short-range aviation...
But no matter...
Next...perhaps you could explain exactly how the US has 'escalation superiority'...?
What exactly does that mean anyway...?
Inquiring minds want to know [the workings of a birdbrain]...
And then you can get to the meat of the matter which you have decided [quite foolishly] to contend here with me...
How exactly are the odds 'stacked' and the 'ultimate' outcome being a Russian 'defeat' in theater...
It is all well and good to state one's opinion...and if you want to admit it is simply an unfounded opinion then I will accept that...and move on to more substantive questions that require some discussion...
And by discussion I don't mean simply opening your beak and letting squawks come out...but actually bringing facts and technical details to the matter...supported by actual authoritative citations...
I have said quite clearly that we may soon witness an actual shooting war between the US and Russia in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean...gaining some insight into that requires more than just opinions...
Now I have also stated quite clearly only one method by which Russia could respond and sink not just a ship or two but an entire carrier group...I have given technical details that are not in dispute...
I will quote here another opinion...that of a person a million times more qualified than a birdbrain like yourself...
PCR stated on April 10...Now I have chosen to present an opinion that is coming from someone who has good reason and experience to form such an opinion...a man who was a high cabinet official and received training in handling the 'nuclear football' since he was in the line of succession in case of a nuclear decapitation...
As far as I can tell...you are still on the waiting list to receive nuclear football training...
Given that PCR has repeatedly expressed his fear that Moscow doesn’t recognise the duplicity and the psychotic intentions of the West in general and the enocons in particular, do you share his pessimism?
I ask because you have brought him up.
A very enlightening series of posts by the way.
I think realism is more like it...
PCR is the Jeremiah of our time...and our world needs a Jeremiah now more than ever...
The problem is not only the neocons but the rampant delusionism among the 'insouciant' populace...to use his turn of phrase...
This is the far bigger problem in fact...and is reflected right here on this website...not only delusion...but lack of rigor in terms of basic critical thinking...
A perfect example is this ridiculous 'article'...
This clown has no business yapping about stuff he knows nothing about...there used to be a time when only serious people would write about serious subjects on which they are qualified...
But that is the mindset of our times...anyone and everyone thinks they can fling poop at the wall and see if it will stick...
As for PCR and his occasional frustrations with the Russian leadership...let's remember that PCR is first and foremost a true American patriot...hardly anyone these days actually knows what that means...or even cares...[with some exceptions on the comments sections here it must be noted]
As such he has seen his country taken from him and his children...he has seen his country fall into a state of cognizance that is lower than that of the baboon...
Who could possibly be happy and sanguine about this...what he is doing is analogous to an intervention when someone in the family is destroying themselves with drugs...
So he looks to Russia as a last hope in setting the world on an even keel again...he recently wrote how the breakup of the Soviet Union was the biggest tragedy for the world...he is right...because the checks and balances have been removed...and the bestial impulses of the very powerful are free to trammel unopposed over every decent impulse that humans naturally have...
The trampling of truth is an existential threat not just for any particular country but for humanity as a whole...
So he gets frustrated from time to time when he sees that the Russians are not reacting forcefully...or not reacting quickly enough...
However...we must remember that the US and Russia have never come to actual blows...
That is uncharted territory...
Many in the US are living in a delusion that if they hit Syria...and somehow avoid hitting Russians there...that it will just blow over...
But that is not what will happen...when the gloves come off the smashmouth action begins...that's how it works...
Last night on News with Ed on RT...Schultz had Bill Richardson on...the former Clinton guy who is an archetypal establishment denizen...
He kept saying that the only solution is for the Russians to cut Assad loose...that some kind of 'deal' can be struck with the Russians on that...
And he kept repeating that Assad has 'no support'...
At first I was puzzled by that since Assad's support among the Syrian people is very high...especially now after this hell that people have lived through...and which they realize fully has been imposed on them from outside...
And then at one point he started mentioning in the context of 'no support' various regions of the world like South America...Asia etc...
So then it made sense to me...the vassal states of the US...what it considers the so-called international community...are going along...or being dragged along...in this crusade to get rid of Assad...
That's what he means by 'no support'...
It boggles the mind...the US and people like Richardson...not to mention everyone in Washington and the media still don't get it...this is not 1999 anymore...the world has moved on...people are not going to be dictated to anymore...least of all Russia...
There is a real danger here because there is no question that the Russians are not going to give one more inch...
Even a 'symbolic' strike on Syria will be a step too far...the bough can only bend so far before it breaks...
So there are only two possibilities here...either the US comes to its senses and finally abandons its regime change project in Syria...or the Russians are going to hit very hard at the first excuse they are given...
This claptrap article about how the Russians don't have the muscle to hold onto Syria is so wildly off base that it boggles the mind...
I have tried to bring some idea of the military nuts and bolts to this discussion...but it is met only with squawking from birdbrains...
But here is the big question...That is insane...that is only how children think...or those who go through their lives without really knowing what it means to have anything at stake...
Putin has his entire country of 140 million people at stake...the idea that Putin will allow Russian forces to be kicked out of Syria by force is insane...
And that's what it has come down to...the US is determined to push through with removing Assad...Russia is not going to let them...
It's as simple as that...
The Russians easily have the military capability to stop the US military in its tracks...
...notwithstanding morons who write 'articles' like this know nothing about actual military capabilities...nor even historical facts...
If the attack comes expect the reaction to be ferocious...
Why...?
Because Putin has figured out long ago that if push comes to shove in Syria he must go all in...there is no other calculus here...
He knew this going in...
Basically I can't believe the stupidity being circulated here about how the US could take over Syria...no they can't...
Syria with Russia behind it is not Iraq 2003...after 12 years of crippling economic and military blockade...
Like I said already...people who have no qualifications of even a reasonable layman's understanding of military capabilities should not be spouting garbage...
Martyanov’s naval-technical writing is good and interesting, though a bit too much on the RUSSIA STRONK side for me. But that’s common to nearly all mil-bloggers and thus forgivable (other than, you know, his not living in Russia).
But once he wades into the comments…lol. The many demented pathologies of Martyanov the commenter:
1 – Twisted hatred of Anatoly Karlin for the crime of not being a Sovok
2 – Complete dismissal of anything in the economy which doesn’t support the military-industrial complex as worthless
3 – STEMcuck and credential cuck who expects you to fax him your graduate level engineering degree in order to have an opinion
4 – Building on the former, an education cuck who actually thinks schools are good
5 – Constant recommendations of psychiatric treatment, something shared with fellow Sovok-American Lazy Glossophiliac
6 – Dismissal and denigration of all sources other than obscure naval academic journals
7 – All around belligerence and hostility
This should not be taken as a denunciation of Martyanov, incidentally. On the contrary he should comment more.
Israel Shamir is literally insane - but I respect that he talks to us on here, as he is somewhat a well-known journalist.
From your comment #239...From your comment #348...and...Since your statements are delivered with such conviction [not to say authority] I will cede the floor to let you explain some of the nuts and bolts of how exactly the scenarios you envisage here would play out...
I realize of course that you actually know nothing of the nuts and bolts...ie the technical aspects of air combat...[or even the well known historical facts for that matter]...but since you have been clamoring so much I think it is only fair to give you a chance to explain yourself...
Why not start with the last statement about Russia 'nuking' a US carrier...?
Please tell us what weapon system exactly is in the Russian inventory that is designed to hit ships with a nuclear warhead...?
Of course there is none...but that should not stop a buttwhistler like yourself from blowing something out of your incredibly prolific bunghole...
Not to mention that I have already described the decades old Russian doctrine and existing conventional weapons systems that are designed expressly for annihilating an entire carrier group in a single strike...
Perhaps you missed that part from my comment #155...?
And in fact I had only presented one leg of the anti-carrier triad...the long range aviation part...not having yet gone into the other legs such as surface and submarine based...as well as the short-range aviation...
But no matter...
Next...perhaps you could explain exactly how the US has 'escalation superiority'...?
What exactly does that mean anyway...?
Inquiring minds want to know [the workings of a birdbrain]...
And then you can get to the meat of the matter which you have decided [quite foolishly] to contend here with me...
How exactly are the odds 'stacked' and the 'ultimate' outcome being a Russian 'defeat' in theater...
It is all well and good to state one's opinion...and if you want to admit it is simply an unfounded opinion then I will accept that...and move on to more substantive questions that require some discussion...
And by discussion I don't mean simply opening your beak and letting squawks come out...but actually bringing facts and technical details to the matter...supported by actual authoritative citations...
I have said quite clearly that we may soon witness an actual shooting war between the US and Russia in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean...gaining some insight into that requires more than just opinions...
Now I have also stated quite clearly only one method by which Russia could respond and sink not just a ship or two but an entire carrier group...I have given technical details that are not in dispute...
I will quote here another opinion...that of a person a million times more qualified than a birdbrain like yourself...
PCR stated on April 10...Now I have chosen to present an opinion that is coming from someone who has good reason and experience to form such an opinion...a man who was a high cabinet official and received training in handling the 'nuclear football' since he was in the line of succession in case of a nuclear decapitation...
As far as I can tell...you are still on the waiting list to receive nuclear football training...
Given that PCR has repeatedly expressed his fear that Moscow doesn’t recognise the duplicity and the psychotic intentions of the West in general and the neocons in particular, do you share his pessimism?
I ask because you have brought him up.
A very enlightening series of posts by the way.
Everyone else here – I haven’t read them all, but I sometimes go onto other blogs here (and always get chased away by Americans who seem to hate everything I write) – is doing cheap propaganda.
Karlin – I haven’t seen him making any propaganda. He’s actually a much more civilized kind of blogger that write interesting points of view (whether you agree or not), likes to exchange opinions (even with the people he disagrees with), and doesn’t try to propagandize other people to agree with him.
About a decade or so back Purdue University did an engineering study of the amount of stationary electrical generation power it would take to replace fossil fuels for all ground transport vehicles in the US by converting them all to batteries or fuel cells. They assumed reasonably achievable figures for the efficiencies of transmitting electrical power, charging or refueling the vehicles, operating them etc. It was also assumed the cars, trucks, trains etc would be the same weight, carrying capacity and performance of their current fossil fueled versions. Basically it would require almost tripling the present power generation capacity of the US from the then 650 GWatts, to about 1800. Doable, but a formidable task without some breakthrough such as pebble bed fission reactors, nuclear fusion or solar power so cheap that you can replace all the commercial and domestic building roofs with solar panels.
But once he wades into the comments...lol. The many demented pathologies of Martyanov the commenter:
1 - Twisted hatred of Anatoly Karlin for the crime of not being a Sovok
2 - Complete dismissal of anything in the economy which doesn't support the military-industrial complex as worthless
3 - STEMcuck and credential cuck who expects you to fax him your graduate level engineering degree in order to have an opinion
4 - Building on the former, an education cuck who actually thinks schools are good
5 - Constant recommendations of psychiatric treatment, something shared with fellow Sovok-American Lazy Glossophiliac
6 - Dismissal and denigration of all sources other than obscure naval academic journals
7 - All around belligerence and hostility
This should not be taken as a denunciation of Martyanov, incidentally. On the contrary he should comment more. :)
I think Martyanov is the only other good blogger here. But he gets angry when you correct him in comments section.
Israel Shamir is literally insane – but I respect that he talks to us on here, as he is somewhat a well-known journalist.
Shamir is entertaining but cack-brained.
Furthermore, I do not understand this obsession with the idiots in Washington D.C. with constantly needling the Russians. Its like they have a total hard-up for screwing with Russia. It is totally and utterly irrational.
Russia is a declining empire. The Muslim Middle-east is a dying civilization (read Spengler's "How Civilizations Die" to get the full story). Let them decline. Even declining societies can be a serious danger when messed with. So, why mess with them?
If we do have WWIII, it will all be on Washington, not the Russians.
If we do have WWIII, be sure to give due credit to all of the idiots who have maintained here and elsewhere that the collapses of the WTC buildings were due to fires and not deliberate controlled demolitions. The morons of whom I speak have introduced doubt and provided cover for the criminal, treacherous perpetrators who have escaped accountability and have now moved on from that outstanding success to the instigation of much, much greater destruction and the grave situation that we now face.
Karlin - I haven't seen him making any propaganda. He's actually a much more civilized kind of blogger that write interesting points of view (whether you agree or not), likes to exchange opinions (even with the people he disagrees with), and doesn't try to propagandize other people to agree with him.
L.K. is one of Unz Review’s resident Holocaust deniers and Nazi apologists, he’s just sore that AK doesn’t want his blog taken over by such obsessives.
Proverbs 12:22 - Lying lips [are] abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly [are] his delight.
Chrystya Freeland is another practical Nazi apologist, like the Kagans' clan; this is why she is so tenderly loved by the Lobby:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/27/a-nazi-skeleton-in-the-family-closet/
https://www.themarketswork.com/2018/03/09/victoria-nuland-alexandra-chalupa-ukrainian-ties-the-steele-dossier/
Israel Shamir is literally insane - but I respect that he talks to us on here, as he is somewhat a well-known journalist.
Steve Sailer is excellent but perhaps not relevant to you. Fred Reed is good when he is not Federico Reedriguez.
Shamir is entertaining but cack-brained.
He seems to hate American blacks and thinks a race war is just around the corner...but then he writes all those panegyrics about how wonderful Mexicans are. Pretty strange.
Tbh much of the content on Unz review is probably pretty worthless. It's still my favorite site though, it has a great commenting system (much better than Disqus or similar crap), and lots of interesting commenters. And AK's blog is definitely one of the best parts of it.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/
Jim Jatras and some others there put out heady commentary.
Shamir is entertaining but cack-brained.
Fred Reed doesn’t even believe in evolution.
He seems to hate American blacks and thinks a race war is just around the corner…but then he writes all those panegyrics about how wonderful Mexicans are. Pretty strange.
Tbh much of the content on Unz review is probably pretty worthless. It’s still my favorite site though, it has a great commenting system (much better than Disqus or similar crap), and lots of interesting commenters. And AK’s blog is definitely one of the best parts of it.
Not that I agree, I simply like dissidents.It's not THAT strange.
Blacks are genuinely awful (if entertaining), and while I'm not convinced race war is around the corner race relations are certainly bad and getting worse.
Mexicans are much better than blacks, but Federico Reedriguez pretends they're Italians in making as a result being married to a Mexican.
He has this terrible schtick of rewriting the same column over and over where he demonizes the alt right for objecting to America being invaded by Mexicans, and then also claims we'll never get rid of them because it's "impossible".
I've been working at getting under his skin with increasingly unhinged insults and extreme suggestions and got results in his last column. However, the ever civil Ron Unz then talked me down and we had a good exchange.
The truth is I guess that Fred Reed has peaked. He still often has a lot of good stuff, but he's been writing publicly since at least 1980. His older stuff about policing and the military is really, really good. And I still like his Virginia boyhood nostalgia pieces.
("Theory" is in scare quotes because it really isn't; it doesn't manage to actually predict or explain anything, being an elaborate just-so myth.)
You don’t know jack sh*t about the USA.
Many of us grew up weeding a vegetable garden. Most men are familiar with firearms. Most older guys are good mechanics. Some of us even hand dug wells on our property in our youths. A simple hand-driven sand point well 20′ down will provide drinkable water in many places in the USA. Most men can hunt. Many wouldn’t have any trouble learning how to care for a milk cow and a hog or two. Life would go on even with out television or–gasp–the internet!!!
You’re just projecting your incompetence on us. If you want to believe what you’re peddling, go ahead. But don’t be surprised when we don’t lie down and roll over dead for you.
Trump says hes launching missles at Syria, to destroy the evidence I suppose.
Atta boy Trump, do as you’re told. Sucker.
-B Netanyahu
German_reader is one of the truth deniers that still hasn’t come to terms with being on the wrong side of history. Apparently never read a bible either.
Proverbs 12:22 – Lying lips [are] abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly [are] his delight.
Realization that running on tracks had to change came from 1)bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade and 2)2003 invasion of Iraq. The former signed a level of disrespect for Chinese lives by the West that could not be accepted, and the former indicated that "fighting on the cheap" with Army-dominated units was clearly no longer viable.
Eventually this led to military reorganization to produce a central command, increased the relative power of air and naval forces, and indeed the recent open emphasis on the Navy though it clearly has been building up with the modernization and expansion of their shipbuilding capabilities.
Fundamentally, the idea of power projection has been avoided by China has an expensive boondoggle and to focus on defensive weaponry. Evidently, this is changing.
to be honest, defensive weapons are 100% ok, china just needs to back it up with 1000 active ICBMs.
“One thing I have occasionally wondered about is why China spends so little (<2% of GDP) on the military."
Chinese military spending has probably increased substantially in real terms over the last few decades. However, the Chinese do not want their economic rise linked with a rise in military spending as a % of GDP; that might invite hostility and deter investment. As China's economy grows, they increase spending, but not in accordance with GDP %. This makes it harder for the outside world (the US) to notice and to confront.
…Chinese leadership is very crafty, unlike American "leadership."
In the very rapid ascent phase of the South Korean, Taiwanese, and Singaporean economies, in the 20th century, they all (rightly) prioritized long-term economic and technological development. They all spent, for decades, 5.5 to 6% of their GDP on defense.
It's as if they all independently concluded that this level was not going to slow down their economies one iota, while allowing them to maintain the maximum sustained level on the military.
It's based on a historical observation - it takes economic power to build and deploy military power. Economic power is the invisible, unglamorous foundation, while military power is the impressive house you erect on top of that.
Above 6%, you slowly run into problems.
At 7% of GDP (Israel level, not counting the billions from the U.S.), you can still have a developed economy, but notice that Israel has a lower per capita GDP today than comparatively sized Singapore or Hong Kong - this MIGHT or might not be a result of a tad too much defense spending (not that they think they have a choice). So it bites in the long run.
At the Reagan-era spending level of around 7 - 8% of GDP, during the 1980s, the United States progressively lost its industrial and economic edge. The Vietnam-era, which saw sustained 9 - 9.5% of GDP American military outlays, saw our economic edge erode even faster than in the '80s, but we felt so invincible in the '60s, no one noticed.
Go to 10%+ as a sustained fraction of GDP devoted to defense (ex. Khomeini-era Iran, Ghaddafi's Libya, Hafez Assad's Syria) and you truly start under-performing in the over-all economy. Do not pass GO, go on to Third-world status, or at best oil-kingdom status if you have oil and a moderate population.
At even higher levels, 13-15% (former Soviet Union), 20%+ (pre-1982 China, Saddam-era Iraq, North Korea TODAY) and hoo boy, forget even the mainstream Third-World, get ready to be a true basket case (on the economic side) in pretty short order.
As a layman, the interaction between Power NOW (defense outlays) versus Power In the LONG RUN (economic development) is "fascinating".
Cuck.
The US has begun bombing Syria. We’ll now see what the Russians are made of.
Here………..we…………..go.
It’s on.
Watch and enjoy the show.
Yup.
Notwithstanding, I don't think what Russia's ambassador (to Lebanon) said was productive:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/13/cruising-for-bruising-with-russia.html
In any event, Russia's reason for militarily being in Syria remains well premised enough:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/10/09/answering-russia-critics-on-syria.html
It's on.
Watch and enjoy the show.
World War pee
It's on.
Watch and enjoy the show.
Let’s watch Andrei explain this one lol
Shamir is entertaining but cack-brained.
And of course venerable Yan Shen, how could we forget
Whatever else happens, it will be interesting to see how Trump pursues a second term. Maybe this is him admitting he didn’t want one.
Rumor: this is arranged with the Russians, it’s staged to impress a certain Korean before Trump meets him later, and it will not depose Assad or kill many Syrians.
There is a carrier strike group on the way to the area, but not arriving until after April 20th at the early - so it probably will not be used.
He seems to hate American blacks and thinks a race war is just around the corner...but then he writes all those panegyrics about how wonderful Mexicans are. Pretty strange.
Tbh much of the content on Unz review is probably pretty worthless. It's still my favorite site though, it has a great commenting system (much better than Disqus or similar crap), and lots of interesting commenters. And AK's blog is definitely one of the best parts of it.
I like Karlin’s blog has generally nice and civilized European atmosphere in the comments.
Rumor: this is arranged with the Russians, it's staged to impress a certain Korean before Trump meets him later, and it will not depose Assad or kill many Syrians.
At least at the moment, America has very few naval assets in the area.
There is a carrier strike group on the way to the area, but not arriving until after April 20th at the early – so it probably will not be used.
His views on Russia are taken directly from the Faker.
Why don’t you ask him…?
He wrote about it in one of his columns…he wasn’t high on the succession list…something like number 30 if memory serves…but the secret service nuclear suitcase training was still mandatory for him…
As for where he gets his ideas…I would say having had the experience of being in the inner circle of POTUS would have counted for something…over and above reading the Flaker…
...
...
...
PCR literally lifts terms straight out of The Faker's columns. For instance, he is fond using the term "Atlantic-Integrationist" to describe pro-Western Russian officials.
I can't ask him because he is a coward who refuses to allow comments, and for some baffling reason Ron Unz tolerates this appalling cowardice.
I watched Trump’s speech – the message of the speech seems to imply that it will be a limited strike, maybe with more targets than in April 2017, but not so much more (he claimed it was only against chemical weapons capacities). Of course, this could be a deception by him.
At the same time, America has very few naval assets in the area at the moment. There were a lot of reports about a carrier strike group on the way, but this has only left Virginia on Wednesday – so will not arrive in the region for a long time.
Note how they moved before the OCPW could investigate. Sickening.
That stupid bitch May went ahead with it without asking parliament.
And of course they didn’t even wait for an investigation.
Pathetic.
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2016/07/13/theresa-may-friend-of-israel-and-the-organized-jewish-community/
Does anybody see the “Wag the Dog” angle with the Stormy Daniels stuff in the news?
هممممم
The case cannot progress until she produces the dress.
Listen to Trump, hypocrite is an understatement. Sounds like 0bama, or Bush, no different. Its clear now that your vote means nothing, has been for a long time, but this should leave no doubt for even the brainwashed.
How many people has America murdered, just since 9/11, all over proven lies. The enemy is our ally according to the goons that call themselves Americas leaders.
21 trillion in debt, Americans homeless, addicted, sick, suicidal, uneducated, the country falling apart yet we send billions to Israel and other foreign nations that hate us.
Makes you ashamed to be associated with these lowlife criminals. This is not America. This is what happens when a hostile foreign nation takes over another nation it wants to destroy to further its own agenda. Zionists, Wall St, Bankers, dual citizens, MIC, CIA, the treason is deep.
Sad!
I know the standard arguments ("peaceful rise", etc.) but surely one shouldn't drink one's own Kool-Aid.
There is also the argument about not falling into the USSR's military overspending trap. But the USSR spend at least 12% of its GDP - possibly much more - on the military. 5% is patently sustainable. Even 10% is probably ok (1950's USA; Israel until quite recently).
In their place, I would have been spooked by this back in 1996 and sought to at least match the USA's 3-5% of GDP spending forthwith.
The best answer is that the PLA or at least the Communist Party doesn’t expect a war any time soon and thus doesn’t feel like spending preparing for one. With a 82.5 trillion yuan economy and barely 1.11 trillion in defense spending out of government budget of 21.5 trillion yuan, China’s spending levels is barely better than Western European levels and below France and the UK. This level of pacifism is dangerously complacent considering the Anglos are murderous piratical scum, the deceitful heirs of Hengist and Horsa while the Americans are the same except combined with Trotskyite messianic insanity. China needs to triple her defense spending now and exponentially increase her strategic nuclear arsenal in a sprint to parity with the US. This wouldn’t even be a big militarization as it would be merely restoring defense budgets to those of the mid 80′s. It would on the other hand give us an aviation and fleet larger than Nato combined.
And of course they didn't even wait for an investigation.
Pathetic.
OPCW investigators only start to work tomorrow. How does it work? It doesn’t seem like a very pleasant job to have airstrikes just as you arrive to the hotel.
The Americans are destroying the evidence (or rather lack of evidence in this case).
Just ask Saddam Hussein.
True.
At the same time, America has very few naval assets in the area at the moment. There were a lot of reports about a carrier strike group on the way, but this has only left Virginia on Wednesday - so will not arrive in the region for a long time.
“…. a limited strike….”
Considering that there was no chemical/gas attack [by the SAA, perhaps not by "rebels" either], just what are France/UK/US striking? “Capabilites.” Must translate: any military hardware. “Sustain the response?” Britain & France will want to get their licks in as long as possible.
Note how they moved before the OCPW could investigate. Sickening.
He seems to hate American blacks and thinks a race war is just around the corner...but then he writes all those panegyrics about how wonderful Mexicans are. Pretty strange.
Tbh much of the content on Unz review is probably pretty worthless. It's still my favorite site though, it has a great commenting system (much better than Disqus or similar crap), and lots of interesting commenters. And AK's blog is definitely one of the best parts of it.
I like this.
Not that I agree, I simply like dissidents.
It’s not THAT strange.
Blacks are genuinely awful (if entertaining), and while I’m not convinced race war is around the corner race relations are certainly bad and getting worse.
Mexicans are much better than blacks, but Federico Reedriguez pretends they’re Italians in making as a result being married to a Mexican.
He has this terrible schtick of rewriting the same column over and over where he demonizes the alt right for objecting to America being invaded by Mexicans, and then also claims we’ll never get rid of them because it’s “impossible”.
I’ve been working at getting under his skin with increasingly unhinged insults and extreme suggestions and got results in his last column. However, the ever civil Ron Unz then talked me down and we had a good exchange.
The truth is I guess that Fred Reed has peaked. He still often has a lot of good stuff, but he’s been writing publicly since at least 1980. His older stuff about policing and the military is really, really good. And I still like his Virginia boyhood nostalgia pieces.
True.
Doesn't really seem to be working, though.
Taiwan card is going to get played sooner or later. Been quite obvious for a while now considering how all the “China watchers” and “China experts” on twitter have been harping about Taiwan.
“The sea floor of the Med is completely mapped at a fine scale. It would be hard to hide a minicar there, far less a submarine.”
Putting a submarine on the sea floor of the Med after it has been mapped and then finding it would be very difficult. The Med is a large place.
https://gentleseas.blogspot.de/2015/05/aussie-submarines-victory-over-us-navy.html
And of course they didn't even wait for an investigation.
Pathetic.
Theresa May is indeed a stupid bitch. Although I prefer to call her a childless, deranged cat lady.
But there is no need to ask parliament in the United Kingdom.
The power to declare war and make peace is reserved to the monarch. As long as she consulted with the Queen, nothing improper took place.
David Cameron submitting the same to a parliamentary vote was an Americanized aberration. Quite similar to his idiotic BREXIT gambit.
One of the advantages of "democracy" supposedly is that there are controls for this sort of thing so that a small clique can't just take an entire country to war...but as so much else with "democracy", this turns out to be a grotesque fiction.
After few hundreds of years of experiment, the Western system, culture and framework has proven inadequate, flawed and not working for the long term survival of humanity not to mention the building prosperity for humanity.
China – a nation formed peacefully, no wars of mass slaughter, and then no wars against small nations like Tibet and Vietnam.
Why China gave Viet punitive attack:
http://www.unz.com/ldinh/practical-vietnam-imploding-america-and-china-as-beacon/#comment-2138055
Evidence? We don’t need no stinking evidence.
Just ask Saddam Hussein.
Keep in mind that all of this started with the 9/11 lie, yet Saudis and Israelis are still our #1 allies. The Neocons, dual citizens, PNAC, traitors are all still walking free, and apparently still running the country. The “media” that lied to the people, leading to the deaths of millions of innocent people, still free to lie some more….
and the FBI still lying about it, the FBI/Mueller wonder why they have no credibility. Our “government” as a whole has zero credibility.
Guess they had to destroy the evidence before their narrative was destroyed once and for all though huh?
No one believes the BS narrative anymore.
Oh please. The nation that invaded Tibet and is still occupying a piece of it is India.
Yesterday AM at a congress hearing – Mattis said, he was waiting for confirmation of Syria’s use of gas.
Just now at the military briefing he very tersely said, that he received confirmation yesterday.
I do not believe him. It is said that Trump made his decision on MONDAY!
They do not have the proof – if they did, they would take the time to show it.
They are all liars!
Think Peace — Do No Harm — Art
and the FBI still lying about it, the FBI/Mueller wonder why they have no credibility. Our "government" as a whole has zero credibility.
Guess they had to destroy the evidence before their narrative was destroyed once and for all though huh?
No one believes the BS narrative anymore.
>>>Guess they had to destroy the evidence before their narrative was destroyed once and for all though huh? <<<
And of course they didn't even wait for an investigation.
Pathetic.
You are a fool.
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2016/07/13/theresa-may-friend-of-israel-and-the-organized-jewish-community/
I ask because you have brought him up.
A very enlightening series of posts by the way.
I’m not sure I would describe PCRs view as ‘pessimism’…
I think realism is more like it…
PCR is the Jeremiah of our time…and our world needs a Jeremiah now more than ever…
The problem is not only the neocons but the rampant delusionism among the ‘insouciant’ populace…to use his turn of phrase…
This is the far bigger problem in fact…and is reflected right here on this website…not only delusion…but lack of rigor in terms of basic critical thinking…
A perfect example is this ridiculous ‘article’…
This clown has no business yapping about stuff he knows nothing about…there used to be a time when only serious people would write about serious subjects on which they are qualified…
But that is the mindset of our times…anyone and everyone thinks they can fling poop at the wall and see if it will stick…
As for PCR and his occasional frustrations with the Russian leadership…let’s remember that PCR is first and foremost a true American patriot…hardly anyone these days actually knows what that means…or even cares…[with some exceptions on the comments sections here it must be noted]
As such he has seen his country taken from him and his children…he has seen his country fall into a state of cognizance that is lower than that of the baboon…
Who could possibly be happy and sanguine about this…what he is doing is analogous to an intervention when someone in the family is destroying themselves with drugs…
So he looks to Russia as a last hope in setting the world on an even keel again…he recently wrote how the breakup of the Soviet Union was the biggest tragedy for the world…he is right…because the checks and balances have been removed…and the bestial impulses of the very powerful are free to trammel unopposed over every decent impulse that humans naturally have…
The trampling of truth is an existential threat not just for any particular country but for humanity as a whole…
So he gets frustrated from time to time when he sees that the Russians are not reacting forcefully…or not reacting quickly enough…
However…we must remember that the US and Russia have never come to actual blows…
That is uncharted territory…
Many in the US are living in a delusion that if they hit Syria…and somehow avoid hitting Russians there…that it will just blow over…
But that is not what will happen…when the gloves come off the smashmouth action begins…that’s how it works…
Last night on News with Ed on RT…Schultz had Bill Richardson on…the former Clinton guy who is an archetypal establishment denizen…
He kept saying that the only solution is for the Russians to cut Assad loose…that some kind of ‘deal’ can be struck with the Russians on that…
And he kept repeating that Assad has ‘no support’…
At first I was puzzled by that since Assad’s support among the Syrian people is very high…especially now after this hell that people have lived through…and which they realize fully has been imposed on them from outside…
And then at one point he started mentioning in the context of ‘no support’ various regions of the world like South America…Asia etc…
So then it made sense to me…the vassal states of the US…what it considers the so-called international community…are going along…or being dragged along…in this crusade to get rid of Assad…
That’s what he means by ‘no support’…
It boggles the mind…the US and people like Richardson…not to mention everyone in Washington and the media still don’t get it…this is not 1999 anymore…the world has moved on…people are not going to be dictated to anymore…least of all Russia…
There is a real danger here because there is no question that the Russians are not going to give one more inch…
Even a ‘symbolic’ strike on Syria will be a step too far…the bough can only bend so far before it breaks…
So there are only two possibilities here…either the US comes to its senses and finally abandons its regime change project in Syria…or the Russians are going to hit very hard at the first excuse they are given…
This claptrap article about how the Russians don’t have the muscle to hold onto Syria is so wildly off base that it boggles the mind…
I have tried to bring some idea of the military nuts and bolts to this discussion…but it is met only with squawking from birdbrains…
But here is the big question…
That is insane…that is only how children think…or those who go through their lives without really knowing what it means to have anything at stake…
Putin has his entire country of 140 million people at stake…the idea that Putin will allow Russian forces to be kicked out of Syria by force is insane…
And that’s what it has come down to…the US is determined to push through with removing Assad…Russia is not going to let them…
It’s as simple as that…
The Russians easily have the military capability to stop the US military in its tracks…
…notwithstanding morons who write ‘articles’ like this know nothing about actual military capabilities…nor even historical facts…
If the attack comes expect the reaction to be ferocious…
Why…?
Because Putin has figured out long ago that if push comes to shove in Syria he must go all in…there is no other calculus here…
He knew this going in…
Basically I can’t believe the stupidity being circulated here about how the US could take over Syria…no they can’t…
Syria with Russia behind it is not Iraq 2003…after 12 years of crippling economic and military blockade…
Like I said already…people who have no qualifications of even a reasonable layman’s understanding of military capabilities should not be spouting garbage…
Karlin - I haven't seen him making any propaganda. He's actually a much more civilized kind of blogger that write interesting points of view (whether you agree or not), likes to exchange opinions (even with the people he disagrees with), and doesn't try to propagandize other people to agree with him.
I totally agree with your assessment of Karlin. I am an American and you are one of ten or so of my favorite commenters on UNZ. Jus sayin
There is no wisdom among the US brass — they are tools of ziocons: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/04/the-russian-general-staff-has-a-grip-on-reality-the-pentagon-sadly-doesnt-j.html
And there is no honor among the US brass and Congress.
Sorry for the long post, but…
Donald J. Trump? @realDonaldTrump
Ron Paul is right that we are wasting trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
6:28 AM – 13 Aug 2011
Donald J. Trump? @realDonaldTrump
@BarackObama has a record low 39% Gallup approval rating. Why so high?
August 17, 2011
Donald J. [email protected]
When will we stop wasting our money on rebuilding Afghanistan? We must rebuild our country first.
12:43 PM – 7 Oct 2011
Donald J. Trump?Verified account @realDonaldTrump
It is time to get out of Afghanistan. We are building roads and schools for people that hate us. It is not in our national interests.
11:34 AM – 27 Feb 2012
Donald J. [email protected]
China is getting minerals from Afghanistan http://usat.ly/t69pc1 We are getting our troops killed by the Afghani govt’t. Time to get out.
11:54 AM – 29 Feb 2012
Donald J. [email protected]
Afghanistan is a total disaster. We don’t know what we are doing. They are, in addition to everything else, robbing us blind.
March 12, 2012
Donald J. [email protected]
Why are we continuing to train these Afghanis who then shoot our soldiers in the back? Afghanistan is a complete waste. Time to come home!
9:05 AM – Aug 21, 2012
Donald J. [email protected]
84% of US troops wounded & 70% of our brave men & women killed in Afghanistan have all come under Obama. Time to get out of there.
11:40 AM – 11 Sep 2012
Donald J. [email protected]
Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.
October 9, 2012
Donald J. [email protected]
Pervert alert. @RepWeiner is back on twitter. All girls under the age of 18, block him immediately.
November 7, 2012
Donald J. [email protected]
Karzai of Afghanistan is not sticking with our signed agreement. They are dropping us like dopes. Get out now and re-build U.S.!
9:14 AM – 6 Dec 2012
Donald J. [email protected]
“You can’t con people, at least not for long. If you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.” – The Art of The Deal
December 10, 2012
Donald J. [email protected]
So Obama and Congress can waste billions in Iraq & Afghanistan building roads & schools but can’t get money to the NJ & NY Sandy victims?
January 3, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA.
10:55 AM – 11 Jan 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
I agree with Pres. Obama on Afghanistan. We should have a speedy withdrawal. Why should we keep wasting our money — rebuild the U.S.!
3:59 PM – Jan 14, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Our gov’t is so pathetic that some of the billions being wasted in Afghanistan are ending up with terrorists http://t.co/bso3k1pR7l
April 17, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
We should leave Afghanistan immediately. No more wasted lives. If we have to go back in, we go in hard & quick. Rebuild the US first.
11:10 AM – 1 Mar 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Amazing how the haters & losers keep tweeting the name “F**kface Von Clownstick” like they are so original & like no one else is doing it…
May 3, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Obama wants to unilaterally put a no-fly zone in Syria to protect Al Qaeda Islamists http://t.co/DCgP83Oxas Syria is NOT our problem.
May 29, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
We should stay the hell out of Syria, the “rebels” are just as bad as the current regime. WHAT WILL WE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS?ZERO
June 16, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Remember, all these ‘freedom fighters’ in Syria want to fly planes into our buildings.
August 28, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Why do we keep broadcasting when we are going to attack Syria. Why can’t we just be quiet and, if we attack at all, catch them by surprise?
August 29, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
@walaa_3ssaf No, dopey, I would not go into Syria, but if I did it would be by surprise and not blurted all over the media like fools.
August 29, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Let the Arab League take care of Syria. Why are these rich Arab countries not paying us for the tremendous cost of such an attack?
August 29, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
What will we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval.
August 29, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
If we are going to continue to be stupid and go into Syria (watch Russia), as they say in the movies, SHOOT FIRST AND TALK LATER!
August 29, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
If Obama attacks Syria and innocent civilians are hurt and killed, he and the U.S. will look very bad!
12:26 PM – 30 Aug 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
The President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria-big mistake if he does not!
4:02 PM – 30 Aug 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
How bad has our “leader” made us look on Syria. Stay out of Syria, we don’t have the leadership to win wars or even strategize.
August 30, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Be prepared, there is a small chance that our horrendous leadership could unknowingly lead us into World War III.
August 31, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
“@mguarino64: @realDonaldTrump ” How would you treat the Syria situation if president ?” I’d let them all fight with each other-focus on US!
September 1, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
What I am saying is stay out of Syria.
7:00 PM – 3 Sep 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
If the U.S. attacks Syria and hits the wrong targets, killing civilians, there will be worldwide hell to pay. Stay away and fix broken U.S.
September 3, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
“@BigSexyBDAvis: @realDonaldTrump mr trump would attack Syria or no?” No, lets make our country great again as they fight their war!
September 4, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA – IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!
September 5, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
The only reason President Obama wants to attack Syria is to save face over his very dumb RED LINE statement. Do NOT attack Syria,fix U.S.A.
September 5, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Russia is sending a fleet of ships to the Mediterranean. Obama’s war in Syria has the potential to widen into a worldwide conflict.
September 5, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Many of the Syrian rebels are radical jihadi Islamists who are murdering Christians. Why would we ever fight with them?
September 6, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
If Syria was forced to use Obamacare they would self-destruct without a shot being fired. Obama should sell them that idea!
September 6, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your “powder” for another (and more important) day!
September 7, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Don’t attack Syria – an attack that will bring nothing but trouble for the U.S. Focus on making our country strong and great again!
September 9, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Obama must now start focusing on OUR COUNTRY, jobs, healthcare and all of our many problems. Forget Syria and make America great again!
September 11, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
We should stop talking, stay out of Syria and other countries that hate us, rebuild our own country and make it strong and great again-USA!
September 13, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
We have wasted an enormous amount of blood and treasure in Afghanistan. Their government has zero appreciation. Let’s get out!
3:06 PM – Nov 21, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Do not allow our very stupid leaders to sign a deal that keeps us in Afghanistan through 2024-with all costs by U.S.A. MAKE AMERICA GREAT!
8:12 AM – Nov 21, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
Can you believe that “President” Karzai of Afghanistan is holding out for more, more, more and refuses to sign deal. Tell him to go to hell!
November 28, 2013
Donald J. [email protected]
The global warming we should be worried about is the global warming caused by NUCLEAR WEAPONS in the hands of crazy or incompetent leaders!
May 8, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
Obama is, without question, the WORST EVER president. I predict he will now do something really bad and totally stupid to show manhood!
June 6, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
Five U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan by so-called friendly fire. What are we doing?
June 10, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great-but must suffer the consequences!
August 2, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
Any American who fights w/ ISIS in Iraq or Syria should have their passport revoked. If they try to come back in, send them to Gitmo.
September 4, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
If Obama resigns from office NOW, thereby doing a great service to the country—I will give him free lifetime golf at any one of my courses!
September 10, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
The so-called ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels pledged their allegiance to ISIS after Obama’s address. We should not be arming them!
September 12, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
So Obama wants to bomb ISIS in Iraq & arm them in Syria? What is he doing!
September 17, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
Do you believe that Obama is giving weapons to “moderate rebels” in Syria.Isn’t sure who they are. What the hell is he doing.Will turn on us
September 20, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
President Obama – close down the flights from Ebola infected areas right now, before it is too late! What the hell is wrong with you?
October 5, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
Now Obama is keeping our soldiers in Afghanistan for at least another year. He is losing two wars simultaneously.
1:20 PM – 1 Dec 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.
December 29, 2014
Donald J. [email protected]
No @JebBush, you’re pathetic for saying nothing happened during your brother’s term when the World Trade Center was attacked and came down.
8:29 PM – Oct 16, 2015
Donald J. [email protected]
Jeb, why did your brother attack and destabalize the Middle East by attacking Iraq when there were no weapons of mass destruction? Bad info?
8:29 AM – Oct 18, 2015
Donald J. [email protected]
Jeb is fighting to defend a catastrophic event. I am fighting to make sure it doesn’t happen again.Jeb is too soft-we need tougher & sharper
8:36 AM – Oct 19, 2015
Donald J. [email protected]
The last thing our country needs is another BUSH! Dumb as a rock!
3:59 PM – Dec 18, 2015
Donald J. [email protected]
Between Iraq war monger @krauthammer, dummy @KarlRove, deadpan @GeorgezWill, highly overrated @megynkelly, among others, @FoxNews not fair!
9:12 AM – 15 Dec 2015
Donald J. [email protected]
A suicide bomber has just killed U.S. troops in Afghanistan. When will our leaders get tough and smart. We are being led to slaughter!
December 21, 2015
Donald J. [email protected]
Now that George Bush is campaigning for Jeb(!), is he fair game for questions about World Trade Center, Iraq War and eco collapse? Careful!
6:04 AM – 15 Feb 2016
Donald J. [email protected]
Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart! December 30, 2016
Donald J. [email protected]
Russians are playing @CNN and @NBCNews for such fools – funny to watch, they don’t have a clue! @FoxNews totally gets it!
December 30, 2016
Donald J. [email protected]
The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad…..
9:23 PM – Jul 24, 2017
Donald J. [email protected]
When will all the haters and fools out there realize that having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. There always playing politics – bad for our country. I want to solve North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, terrorism, and Russia can greatly help!
November 12, 2017
Donald J. [email protected]
Does the Fake News Media remember when Crooked Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was begging Russia to be our friend with the misspelled reset button? Obama tried also, but he had zero chemistry with Putin.
November 12, 2017
Is this shit really happening? I’ve gone numb.
AS OF ONE HOUR AGO:
IT’S ON! THE STRIKES HAVE BEGUN!
IT. IS. ON!!!
I think realism is more like it...
PCR is the Jeremiah of our time...and our world needs a Jeremiah now more than ever...
The problem is not only the neocons but the rampant delusionism among the 'insouciant' populace...to use his turn of phrase...
This is the far bigger problem in fact...and is reflected right here on this website...not only delusion...but lack of rigor in terms of basic critical thinking...
A perfect example is this ridiculous 'article'...
This clown has no business yapping about stuff he knows nothing about...there used to be a time when only serious people would write about serious subjects on which they are qualified...
But that is the mindset of our times...anyone and everyone thinks they can fling poop at the wall and see if it will stick...
As for PCR and his occasional frustrations with the Russian leadership...let's remember that PCR is first and foremost a true American patriot...hardly anyone these days actually knows what that means...or even cares...[with some exceptions on the comments sections here it must be noted]
As such he has seen his country taken from him and his children...he has seen his country fall into a state of cognizance that is lower than that of the baboon...
Who could possibly be happy and sanguine about this...what he is doing is analogous to an intervention when someone in the family is destroying themselves with drugs...
So he looks to Russia as a last hope in setting the world on an even keel again...he recently wrote how the breakup of the Soviet Union was the biggest tragedy for the world...he is right...because the checks and balances have been removed...and the bestial impulses of the very powerful are free to trammel unopposed over every decent impulse that humans naturally have...
The trampling of truth is an existential threat not just for any particular country but for humanity as a whole...
So he gets frustrated from time to time when he sees that the Russians are not reacting forcefully...or not reacting quickly enough...
However...we must remember that the US and Russia have never come to actual blows...
That is uncharted territory...
Many in the US are living in a delusion that if they hit Syria...and somehow avoid hitting Russians there...that it will just blow over...
But that is not what will happen...when the gloves come off the smashmouth action begins...that's how it works...
Last night on News with Ed on RT...Schultz had Bill Richardson on...the former Clinton guy who is an archetypal establishment denizen...
He kept saying that the only solution is for the Russians to cut Assad loose...that some kind of 'deal' can be struck with the Russians on that...
And he kept repeating that Assad has 'no support'...
At first I was puzzled by that since Assad's support among the Syrian people is very high...especially now after this hell that people have lived through...and which they realize fully has been imposed on them from outside...
And then at one point he started mentioning in the context of 'no support' various regions of the world like South America...Asia etc...
So then it made sense to me...the vassal states of the US...what it considers the so-called international community...are going along...or being dragged along...in this crusade to get rid of Assad...
That's what he means by 'no support'...
It boggles the mind...the US and people like Richardson...not to mention everyone in Washington and the media still don't get it...this is not 1999 anymore...the world has moved on...people are not going to be dictated to anymore...least of all Russia...
There is a real danger here because there is no question that the Russians are not going to give one more inch...
Even a 'symbolic' strike on Syria will be a step too far...the bough can only bend so far before it breaks...
So there are only two possibilities here...either the US comes to its senses and finally abandons its regime change project in Syria...or the Russians are going to hit very hard at the first excuse they are given...
This claptrap article about how the Russians don't have the muscle to hold onto Syria is so wildly off base that it boggles the mind...
I have tried to bring some idea of the military nuts and bolts to this discussion...but it is met only with squawking from birdbrains...
But here is the big question...That is insane...that is only how children think...or those who go through their lives without really knowing what it means to have anything at stake...
Putin has his entire country of 140 million people at stake...the idea that Putin will allow Russian forces to be kicked out of Syria by force is insane...
And that's what it has come down to...the US is determined to push through with removing Assad...Russia is not going to let them...
It's as simple as that...
The Russians easily have the military capability to stop the US military in its tracks...
...notwithstanding morons who write 'articles' like this know nothing about actual military capabilities...nor even historical facts...
If the attack comes expect the reaction to be ferocious...
Why...?
Because Putin has figured out long ago that if push comes to shove in Syria he must go all in...there is no other calculus here...
He knew this going in...
Basically I can't believe the stupidity being circulated here about how the US could take over Syria...no they can't...
Syria with Russia behind it is not Iraq 2003...after 12 years of crippling economic and military blockade...
Like I said already...people who have no qualifications of even a reasonable layman's understanding of military capabilities should not be spouting garbage...
You are right that Russia has quite adequate means to strike back. So, why don’t they? Isn’t enough enough? American actions (along with their disgusting French and British poodles) are so transparent, it has to be clear to the Russian leadership that war is unavoidable, no?
The US strike seems to be intended for getting more info on the Russians' capabilities and to shoo away the Russians on the orders from the Lobby/The Friends of Israel who want to proceed with Oded Yinon plan for Eretz Israel, by any means.
The amoral ziocons know that Russians have morals and would not initiate a nuclear strike until a catastrophic turn of events.
Take a note that the attack also comes just hours before experts from the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were scheduled to visit Douma on Saturday to determine whether chemical weapons had indeed been used there.
The dishonorable Mattis was “confident” that chlorine was deployed during the April 7 incident in Douma, and did not “rule out” that sarin, a nerve agent, had been released. Dunford mentioned that one of the Homs facilities contained precursors and production equipment for sarin, though did not clarify if it had been in active use after Syria destroyed its declared chemical weapons arsenal in 2013." https://www.rt.com/usa/424092-pentagon-strikes-one-time-shot/
The zionized US military and US Congress have succumbed to Israel-firsters (the parasitoid). What a pitiful image!
German_reader from Tel Aviv, please, articulate your grievances in a letter to Mrs. Nuland-Kagan; she is responsible (along with the CIA activists) for the practical apologia of Nazism in Eastern Europe. Then you could proceed with sending similar letters to Chrystya Freeland (Canadian Foreign Minister), a darling of ziocons and a progeny of a “victim of Soviets” who was spectacularly successful in using Jewish property and glorifying Wehrmacht. http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/chrystia-freelands-granddad-was-indeed-a-nazi-collaborator-so-much-for-russian-disinformation
Chrystya Freeland is another practical Nazi apologist, like the Kagans’ clan; this is why she is so tenderly loved by the Lobby:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/27/a-nazi-skeleton-in-the-family-closet/
https://www.themarketswork.com/2018/03/09/victoria-nuland-alexandra-chalupa-ukrainian-ties-the-steele-dossier/
Maria Zakharova speaking of dire consequences, naturally.
True enough, but I still find it highly dubious and depressing.
One of the advantages of “democracy” supposedly is that there are controls for this sort of thing so that a small clique can’t just take an entire country to war…but as so much else with “democracy”, this turns out to be a grotesque fiction.
And this was pointed out by communists, fascists, monarchists, legitimists, etc.
Now we need to come to terms with this.
What is the solution?
And frankly, the idea of putting "the people" in charge is not only impossible but ridiculous.
Karlin, channeling the demented Hymie Kahn, suggests 75% to 90% of the US population would survive a full nuclear exchange. This is the exact opposite of reality. Several nuke generated EMP pulses would take out the US electric grid, resulting in the death of 90% of the US population within a year. Americans would live in the dark and eat each other…….widespread cannibalism would be the norm. Hmmmmm…….finger licking good.
“Even a full-scale thermonuclear exchange between Russia and the US is patently survivable. The theory of “nuclear winters”, at least in its wilder variants (drops of many tens of degrees), has been long discredited. The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was approximately equal in mega tonnage to that of all the world’s current nuclear arsenals, and yet it merely led to a single “year without a summer” that did not even produce any major famines in a pre-industrial world. Fallout radiation levels decay rapidly, and it will be safe to emerge from shelters almost everywhere after just two weeks.”
First, I am surprised that anyone would cite a 1987 update of a 1979 report as a creditable source on atmospheric effects of nuclear war. In reality, a Nuclear Winter would be worse than predicted due to massive quantities of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, soot, and dust+radiation entering the upper atmosphere as well as dramatic increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. A more accurate accounting of the atmospheric effect of a 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange is as follows:
(1) sulfur dioxide release:
The Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 “threw 55 million tons of sulfur-dioxide gas (50 Tg of SO2) more than twenty miles into the air, into the stratosphere.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/1816-the-year-without-summer-excerpt/
By comparison, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption generated some 20 million tons of SO2, yielding a global temperature reduction of 0.5 degrees C.:
http://history.aip.org/history/climate/aerosol.htm
Thus the Mount Tambora eruption would have been expected to cause a 1-1.5 degree C drop in global temperatures due to sulfur dioxide
The sulfur contribution to a Nuclear Winter event would be considerable, as modern houses contain a lot of sulfur in the form of gypsum (CaSO4-2H2O). The average home size in America is almost 1900 sq ft and contains 1.6 pounds of gypsum/ sq ft, for a total of almost 260 Kg of sulfur per house. To inject 5 Tg of sulfur into the atmosphere in a nuclear exchange would involve the vaporization at high temperature (>1500°C) of 10 million US homes in the nuclear fireballs. If worldwide 100 million homes are incinerated the sulfur dioxide contribution to a nuclear winter event would approximately equal the Tambora eruption of 1815.
(2) oxides of nitrogen
An air burst, for example, is estimated to produce about 1032 molecules of nitrogen oxides per megaton TNT equivalent.
Based on 5,000 Mt yield in an allot nuclear war there will also be 24Tg of NO released in the atmosphere just from the reactions with atmospheric nitrogen gas. Additional nitrogen compounds from materials within the blast and forest fire zones will slightly add to this total: https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1983/baker83a.pdf
(3) Soot (carbon black)
Toon et al. in 2007 pointed out that 5 Tg of soot (50 15kt nuclear weapons) would reduce the global average temperature by 1.25°C for 3–4 years and by more than 0.5°C for a decade. They also indicate that the carbon black is likely to become coated with sulfates, organics, and other nonabsorbing materials, which could act as lenses, refracting light onto the BC. This effect might increase absorption by ∼50%, leading to potentially greater impacts than those we modeled.
The Toon et al. study considered only a nuclear exchange of about 750 kilotons (TNT equivalent) when a full scale nuclear exchange would yield over 5,000-6,000 times thIS amount of carbon black generated. NEEDLESS TO SAY THE GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WILL BE FAR BELOW FREEZING FOR MORE THAN A DECADE.
(4) dust+radiation
Dust entrained in the upper atmosphere would be highly variable depending on the megatonnage of air vs surface blasts in a nuclear exchange. As far as I know no one has analyzed the effects of a nuclear war on dust contribution to the upper atmosphere. Needless to say any dust would contribute to further reduction of light to the earth’s surface.
Radiation would be the least of the worries for those who survived the global cooling from Nuclear Winter. A fairly complete accounting of the radiological effect of nuclear war can be found at:
https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/eonw_9.pdf
A portion of the nuclear weapon targets are hardened facilities where a ground blast would be employed. Some of these are nuclear weapons facilities (naval bases, etc) containing considerable nuclear materials. Other sites, include Hanford spent fuel storage and nuclear waste tanks along with the 4,000 spent fuel ponds on the planet cumulatively represent the radiation of over 60,000,000 Hiroshima sized bombs if targeted.
(5) Carbon dioxide
The resulting firestorms from nuclear detonations would be dependent on other climate factors and have not been modeled as far as I know. While not a factor in global cooling, the enhanced carbon dioxide levels will add to global warming once carbon black, sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen are washed out of the atmosphere.
For those interested in further reading, a Federation of American Scientists review contains a summary of the more recent peer-reviewed studies on nuclear winter (which US leadership has decided to ignore or reject), see “Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — US Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies”
https://fas.org/2017/01/turning-a-blind-eye-towards-armageddon-u-s-leaders-reject-nuclear-winter-studies/
The mixed messages coming out between Mattis and Trump strongly suggest that Mattis is not on board he has said that this is a one off. I strongly believe that the target list was vetted by Russia and the strike is scripted. The bottom line is that there can’t be a regime change without US boots on the ground and there’s no political will for that.
I wonder if this is all a set up, based on a quid pro quo with Russia…
-Trump announced a couple of days ago on Twitter that smart missiles would be coming
-That gives Russians a good amount of time to move their resources and people around to make sure only cannon-fodder Syrians get whacked
-Takes headlines off Stormy Daniels crap
-Gets boost across MSM (since Left and Right are neocon)
-Gets headlines off Israelis
-Gives Israelis cover to launch strikes of their own focusing on specific things on their Hanukkah list
-Staus quo on ground remains
Peace.
Well…let’s how this unfolds…
If Putin just keeps letting Tomahawks fly over his head he might as well let them shit on his head…
He needs to step up to the plate and swing for the fences…
I have heard that this could be possible if the russians provided the radar data. But I have no expertise to judge how plausible that is. According to RT they had "[...] air defense systems S-125, S-200, Buk, and Kvadrat" (Source: https://www.rt.com/news/424113-russian-military-syria-strikes/).
---Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-43710303?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5ad1ec800ee14a06731d7dc5%26%27More%20than%2065%20missiles%20intercepted%27%20-%20monitoring%20group%26&ns_fee=0#post_5ad1ec800ee14a06731d7dc5
Would the US government be willing to risk killing Chinese personnel?
I fear and distrust China, but this warmongering crew in charge of "my" country's government and economy needs to learn that they are not invincible, that threats have consequences whether they are backed up or not, and that not everyone in the world lacks the strength to say "mind your damn business and back off."
Thats rich innit ?
the world, in particular the Chinese, have
101 reasons to distrust and fear fukus..
opium war,
eight nations alliance,
burning of yuan ming yuen [1]
covert war Tibet 1959,
proxy war India, 1962,
covert war 1989 [TAM]
covert war 2008 Tibet,
Covert war 2009 Xinjiang,
proxy war TW straits,
proxy war Korean Peninsula,
proxy war SCS,
proxy war ECS,
trade war 2018….
Robber crying…….
[1]
The Brits are shamelessly auctioning off the booty from Yuan Ming Yuen right now !
Putin’s biggest problem is that if he attacks any coalition assets the Nato charter of collective defense will be invoked and he will find himself at war with the whole west and Turkey! So he won’t attack until Russian forces are personally attacked and it seems the US has carefully avoided any Russian targets.
Probably. From now on Netanyahu will be telling Putin what does and what does not go in Syria. Great win for Israel.
Let the murderers adjust a rope for their own hanging.
The US strike seems to be intended for getting more info on the Russians’ capabilities and to shoo away the Russians on the orders from the Lobby/The Friends of Israel who want to proceed with Oded Yinon plan for Eretz Israel, by any means.
The amoral ziocons know that Russians have morals and would not initiate a nuclear strike until a catastrophic turn of events.
Take a note that the attack also comes just hours before experts from the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were scheduled to visit Douma on Saturday to determine whether chemical weapons had indeed been used there.
The dishonorable Mattis was “confident” that chlorine was deployed during the April 7 incident in Douma, and did not “rule out” that sarin, a nerve agent, had been released. Dunford mentioned that one of the Homs facilities contained precursors and production equipment for sarin, though did not clarify if it had been in active use after Syria destroyed its declared chemical weapons arsenal in 2013.” https://www.rt.com/usa/424092-pentagon-strikes-one-time-shot/
The zionized US military and US Congress have succumbed to Israel-firsters (the parasitoid). What a pitiful image!
Treated with respect like the Tibetans,
damn right,
No tax,
free education,
Subsidised economy,
exempt from one child rule……
If anglos are so into Tibetan welfare, why dont they wanna talk about the Tibet in India, a hand me down from the Brit colonists .
Whatever happens to that English edict,
Charity starts at home ???
The anglos like to gloat about the rail road and a ‘democratic system’ they bequeathed to India.
Well,
Here’s a dirty little secret…..
The Indians inherited a big chunk of Tibetan land and its peripherals robbed by the Brits, where the Mongoloid indigenous wanted nuthin to do with the Indian heartland after India got its own independence.
To subdue the ‘chinky faced terrorists‘, the Indians rely on the most dracanion ‘anti insurgency’ law in the world, the dreaded AFSPA, another hand me down from their former Brit masters who used the same law to quell Indian resistance, what an irony !
The Tibet that no anglos wanna talk about
A license to kill and rape ….
‘Drawing from the colonial Armed Forces Special Provisions Ordinance, 1942, which was used to quell the Quit India Movement,
AFSPA was introduced in 1958 in Nagaland to fight the Naga secessionist movement and was later applied in Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir, and some other parts of the Northeast.
Activists say that the armed forces abuse the law to rape and abduct women with impunity. “Violence against women is three times more in our area. They can rape and kill and we can’t even go to court,” says Nepram. “What’s more, the charges of rape are not recorded. Not a single soldier has been tried or prosecuted.”
https://www.telegraphindia.com/1130619/jsp/opinion/story_17023481.jsp
The Mongols genocided the Hans in 15C,
When The Ming brought down the Yuan , no reprisal from the Hans,
The Mongols have been a part of the big Chinese family from then on,
and You should complain ?
These were Hans victims of murkkan sponsored head choppers in Xinjiang 2009,
There’r 102 reasons the Chinese should fear and hate murkkans,
and you should complain ?
P.S.
Here’r some of those ‘chinky terrorists’ in the Indian Northeast..
China also has a rather severe problem - the CCP will never willingly give up power.
That said, both will continue to rise in relation to the West because the West has severe problems. Just don't expect India to match China, or either to be like the US would have been, if it had never imported its rather severe demographic problems.
That’s why they have a chance of surviving. If they ever adopt democracy then they’re as doomed as the rest of us.
Neytanyahu is already doing his shit in Syria without any great drama they have already launched a hundred plus strikes in Syria. He has a good relationship with Putin and he owns the US – in short like every good Jewish financier he’s perfectly hedged! Very smart.
-Trump announced a couple of days ago on Twitter that smart missiles would be coming
-That gives Russians a good amount of time to move their resources and people around to make sure only cannon-fodder Syrians get whacked
-Takes headlines off Stormy Daniels crap
-Gets boost across MSM (since Left and Right are neocon)
-Gets headlines off Israelis
-Gives Israelis cover to launch strikes of their own focusing on specific things on their Hanukkah list
-Staus quo on ground remains
Peace.
Well…it is starting to look like an annual light and sound show from Dump…
But I wouldn’t go so far as to agree with the Syrian cannon fodder idea…
Mattis is saying that the whole thing was over in 60 minutes and that it was a one-off…unless Assad ‘uses’ chemical weapons again…
Also mentioned that the deconfliction line with the Russians was used all week…but no apparent warning given…
Also reports that the Syrians evacuated everyone out of those targeted areas several days ago…
Some video from Syrian sources showing some missiles getting intercepted…
So lots of details here to take into account…
It would seem that Mattis and the military were fighting hard against the crazies in the White House…but the orange scumbag decided that he needed to look presidential and tough…
Of course this is a huge loss of face for Putin…regardless of how scripted this may have been behind the scenes…
Like I said earlier…the US and Russian militaries coming to actual blows is unprecedented and would be very serious…surely neither side wants this if you ask the men in uniform…
I would say that the spineless Dump is simply a national disaster at this point…he is simply not someone who can be taken seriously…anyone who still believes in him I feel sorry…
The question is…how long is he going to just drift with the tide…clearly it’s not going to stop here…there is a much deeper agenda
Agree on Trump being nonsense.
Peace.
Agree!
Who selected the targets? Israeli intelligence? That way, they don’t even have to expend their own missiles.
Agree on Trump being nonsense.
Peace.
Russia pared down from 40k nuke warheads to under 10k. Since all these treaties are null and void my guess is Russia will immediately start bulking up its thermonukes and hypersonic missiles. Not that 9k nukes isn’t enough times a thousand, but more is better. It’s like have FU nukes.
RE: Anatoly Karlin In regards to your statement:
“Even a full-scale thermonuclear exchange between Russia and the US is patently survivable. The theory of “nuclear winters”, at least in its wilder variants (drops of many tens of degrees), has been long discredited. The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was approximately equal in mega tonnage to that of all the world’s current nuclear arsenals, and yet it merely led to a single “year without a summer” that did not even produce any major famines in a pre-industrial world. Fallout radiation levels decay rapidly, and it will be safe to emerge from shelters almost everywhere after just two weeks.”
First, I am surprised that anyone would cite a 1987 update of a 1979 report as a creditable source on atmospheric effects of nuclear war. In reality, a Nuclear Winter would be worse than predicted due to massive quantities of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, soot, and dust+radiation entering the upper atmosphere as well as dramatic increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. A more accurate accounting of the atmospheric effect of a 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange is as follows:
(1) sulfur dioxide release:
The Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 “threw 55 million tons of sulfur-dioxide gas (50 Tg of SO2) more than twenty miles into the air, into the stratosphere.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/1816-the-year-without-summer-excerpt/
By comparison, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption generated some 20 million tons of SO2, yielding a global temperature reduction of 0.5 degrees C.:
http://history.aip.org/history/climate/aerosol.htm
Thus the Mount Tambora eruption would have been expected to cause a 1-1.5 degree C drop in global temperatures due to sulfur dioxide
The sulfur contribution to a Nuclear Winter event would be considerable, as modern houses contain a lot of sulfur in the form of gypsum (CaSO4-2H2O). The average home size in America is almost 1900 sq ft and contains 1.6 pounds of gypsum/ sq ft, for a total of almost 260 Kg of sulfur per house. To inject 5 Tg of sulfur into the atmosphere in a nuclear exchange would involve the vaporization at high temperature (>1500°C) of 10 million US homes in the nuclear fireballs. If worldwide 100 million homes are incinerated the sulfur dioxide contribution to a nuclear winter event would approximately equal the Tambora eruption of 1815.
(2) oxides of nitrogen
An air burst, for example, is estimated to produce about 1032 molecules of nitrogen oxides per megaton TNT equivalent.
Based on 5,000 Mt yield in an allot nuclear war there will also be 24Tg of NO released in the atmosphere just from the reactions with atmospheric nitrogen gas. Additional nitrogen compounds from materials within the blast and forest fire zones will slightly add to this total: https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1983/baker83a.pdf
(3) Soot (carbon black)
Toon et al. in 2007 pointed out that 5 Tg of soot (50 15kt nuclear weapons) would reduce the global average temperature by 1.25°C for 3–4 years and by more than 0.5°C for a decade. They also indicate that the carbon black is likely to become coated with sulfates, organics, and other nonabsorbing materials, which could act as lenses, refracting light onto the BC. This effect might increase absorption by ∼50%, leading to potentially greater impacts than those we modeled.
The Toon et al. study considered only a nuclear exchange of about 750 kilotons (TNT equivalent) when a full scale nuclear exchange would yield over 5,000-6,000 times thIS amount of carbon black generated. NEEDLESS TO SAY THE GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WILL BE FAR BELOW FREEZING FOR MORE THAN A DECADE.
(4) dust+radiation
Dust entrained in the upper atmosphere would be highly variable depending on the megatonnage of air vs surface blasts in a nuclear exchange. As far as I know no one has analyzed the effects of a nuclear war on dust contribution to the upper atmosphere. Needless to say any dust would contribute to further reduction of light to the earth’s surface.
Radiation would be the least of the worries for those who survived the global cooling from Nuclear Winter. A fairly complete accounting of the radiological effect of nuclear war can be found at:
https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/eonw_9.pdf
A portion of the nuclear weapon targets are hardened facilities where a ground blast would be employed. Some of these are nuclear weapons facilities (naval bases, etc) containing considerable nuclear materials. Other sites, include Hanford spent fuel storage and nuclear waste tanks along with the 4,000 spent fuel ponds on the planet cumulatively represent the radiation of over 60,000,000 Hiroshima sized bombs if targeted.
(5) Carbon dioxide
The resulting firestorms from nuclear detonations would be dependent on other climate factors and have not been modeled as far as I know. While not a factor in global cooling, the enhanced carbon dioxide levels will add to global warming once carbon black, sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen are washed out of the atmosphere.
For those interested in further reading, a Federation of American Scientists review contains a summary of the more recent peer-reviewed studies on nuclear winter (which US leadership has decided to ignore or reject), see “Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — US Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies”
https://fas.org/2017/01/turning-a-blind-eye-towards-armageddon-u-s-leaders-reject-nuclear-winter-studies/
“Suppose during the Cultural Revolution, while China’s Red Guards were wrecking total internal havoc, China was *also* constantly attacking and invading other countries externally, and talking about ruling the world. Wouldn’t it be absolutely natural for other countries to become greatly alarmed and try to put an end to the rampage?”
Sounds a lot like Napoleonic-era France: a revolutionary government 1. destroys its cultural symbols and traditions 2. attacks surrounding nations in an effort to spread revolution 3. an alliance of nations comes to together to stop them 4. situation ends in war and military defeat for France after they refuse to accept a large concession and peace offer.
The country you described is India. India has invaded and grabbed land from every single of its neighbors. I am sure you have never read about it in MSM and I don't blame you. And Indian's superpowerdom fetish is legendary.
“The bottom line is that there can’t be a regime change without US boots on the ground and there’s no political will for that.”
I don’t agree. Qaddafi was overthrown by an air campaign and no boots on the ground. The Empire will calculate that they can kill Assad, degrade his army, and have their rebels take over.
Sounds a lot like Napoleonic-era France: a revolutionary government 1. destroys its cultural symbols and traditions 2. attacks surrounding nations in an effort to spread revolution 3. an alliance of nations comes to together to stop them 4. situation ends in war and military defeat for France after they refuse to accept a large concession and peace offer.
“China was *also* constantly attacking and invading other countries externally, and talking about ruling the world. ”
The country you described is India. India has invaded and grabbed land from every single of its neighbors. I am sure you have never read about it in MSM and I don’t blame you. And Indian’s superpowerdom fetish is legendary.
Chinese military spending has probably increased substantially in real terms over the last few decades. However, the Chinese do not want their economic rise linked with a rise in military spending as a % of GDP; that might invite hostility and deter investment. As China's economy grows, they increase spending, but not in accordance with GDP %. This makes it harder for the outside world (the US) to notice and to confront.
...Chinese leadership is very crafty, unlike American "leadership."
Now this is an interesting subject – the matter of China’s very small defense budget (1.5 – 2% of the GDP).
In the very rapid ascent phase of the South Korean, Taiwanese, and Singaporean economies, in the 20th century, they all (rightly) prioritized long-term economic and technological development. They all spent, for decades, 5.5 to 6% of their GDP on defense.
It’s as if they all independently concluded that this level was not going to slow down their economies one iota, while allowing them to maintain the maximum sustained level on the military.
It’s based on a historical observation – it takes economic power to build and deploy military power. Economic power is the invisible, unglamorous foundation, while military power is the impressive house you erect on top of that.
Above 6%, you slowly run into problems.
At 7% of GDP (Israel level, not counting the billions from the U.S.), you can still have a developed economy, but notice that Israel has a lower per capita GDP today than comparatively sized Singapore or Hong Kong – this MIGHT or might not be a result of a tad too much defense spending (not that they think they have a choice). So it bites in the long run.
At the Reagan-era spending level of around 7 – 8% of GDP, during the 1980s, the United States progressively lost its industrial and economic edge. The Vietnam-era, which saw sustained 9 – 9.5% of GDP American military outlays, saw our economic edge erode even faster than in the ’80s, but we felt so invincible in the ’60s, no one noticed.
Go to 10%+ as a sustained fraction of GDP devoted to defense (ex. Khomeini-era Iran, Ghaddafi’s Libya, Hafez Assad’s Syria) and you truly start under-performing in the over-all economy. Do not pass GO, go on to Third-world status, or at best oil-kingdom status if you have oil and a moderate population.
At even higher levels, 13-15% (former Soviet Union), 20%+ (pre-1982 China, Saddam-era Iraq, North Korea TODAY) and hoo boy, forget even the mainstream Third-World, get ready to be a true basket case (on the economic side) in pretty short order.
As a layman, the interaction between Power NOW (defense outlays) versus Power In the LONG RUN (economic development) is “fascinating”.
Shamir is entertaining but cack-brained.
Fan of:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/
Jim Jatras and some others there put out heady commentary.
He seems to hate American blacks and thinks a race war is just around the corner...but then he writes all those panegyrics about how wonderful Mexicans are. Pretty strange.
Tbh much of the content on Unz review is probably pretty worthless. It's still my favorite site though, it has a great commenting system (much better than Disqus or similar crap), and lots of interesting commenters. And AK's blog is definitely one of the best parts of it.
Some occasional duds. John Feffer is rather Sorosian, in addition to carrying on like one at FPIF. Another was the woman who suggestively presented herself as a Russian – despite her Turkic name. Unz ran her article comparing Russians with others, including her apparent ethnicity. Guess who she favored and did so rather faultily? Likewise, with the chap saying he voted for Putin, while spouting some standard Western mass media BS about Russian misbehavior.
Atta boy Trump, do as you're told. Sucker.
-B Netanyahu
Ask not what Bibi can do for you, but what you can do for Bibi.
Putin needs to fight now because the total lack of US national interest in destroying Syria maximizes the chance of a split in the US elite.
‘.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1221.htm
PNAC running like clockwork…
Its the agenda, stupid !
Clintons, Obama, Bush, Trump…..
= New wine in old bottle,
What’ll they think of next,
Niki Haley as prez ?
and murkkans sheeples will swoon over their new great white hope,
perhaps lady has a softer touch you know ?
hehehheh
As of this writing, it looks like cosmetic spin. Trump admin highlighting more bombs than last year, with the inclusion of the Brits and French. Just saw a mass media segment, where the talking head described hits in areas believed to be able to produce chemical weapons.
Western mass media covers up Mattis, recently contradicting the claim that the Syrian government used chemical weapons the last time the US bombed on the same premise. Likewise, Obama noted to Jeffrey Goldberg that the 2013 claim on the Syrian government using chemical weapons isn’t a slam dunk.
If...if...all that stops now.
Next couple of weeks will define all.
If it goes on, on the same pretext, the game just changed.
In that case God help Syrian people loyal to Assad. The same for the Russian contingent there.
The regime in Moscow will buy some more time.
All good.
What did the US government forces and its two allies actually hit? Will it make a significant difference? The answer to these questions might not make the Russian government as limp as you suggest.
Notwithstanding, I don’t think what Russia’s ambassador (to Lebanon) said was productive:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/13/cruising-for-bruising-with-russia.html
In any event, Russia’s reason for militarily being in Syria remains well premised enough:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/10/09/answering-russia-critics-on-syria.html
If you are trying to spin here it's not even funny.If you don't get what just, maybe, happened, good on you too.I say "maybe" in the case that all that stops now. And, make no mistake, it will get repeated sooner than you think. That's the best possible scenario for the "Team Russia" anywhere.If all that does not stop now but keeps going, on the same pretext, let's just say we have different perceptions of reality here.
In that case I'd focus on perception of reality of Syrians loyal to Assad and, not so much less, to the members of the Russian contingent there.
Hint: US/allies air strike can happen any time anywhere where Assad forces are. Or anything useful for those forces and the regime itself.Let's wait and see what happens in next, say, two weeks.
Correct.
If…if…all that stops now.
Next couple of weeks will define all.
If it goes on, on the same pretext, the game just changed.
In that case God help Syrian people loyal to Assad. The same for the Russian contingent there.
The regime in Moscow will buy some more time.
All good.
Rumor: this is arranged with the Russians, it's staged to impress a certain Korean before Trump meets him later, and it will not depose Assad or kill many Syrians.
Been reported with no noticeable second guessing that there were behind the scene Russian-US talks beforehand. As of this writing, there were apparently no Russian assets hit.
Trump feels the need to put on an act, which contradicts his prior take:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=976&v=UxPYkDy2bC8
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/11/anti-fake-news-president-beats-war-drum-over-fake-news.html
In turn, the Russians have some definite limits. Meantime, the status quo in Syria doesn’t seem to have dramatically changed.
Notwithstanding, I don't think what Russia's ambassador (to Lebanon) said was productive:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/13/cruising-for-bruising-with-russia.html
In any event, Russia's reason for militarily being in Syria remains well premised enough:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/10/09/answering-russia-critics-on-syria.html
If you really believe all that good on you.
If you are trying to spin here it’s not even funny.
If you don’t get what just, maybe, happened, good on you too.
I say “maybe” in the case that all that stops now. And, make no mistake, it will get repeated sooner than you think. That’s the best possible scenario for the “Team Russia” anywhere.
If all that does not stop now but keeps going, on the same pretext, let’s just say we have different perceptions of reality here.
In that case I’d focus on perception of reality of Syrians loyal to Assad and, not so much less, to the members of the Russian contingent there.
Hint: US/allies air strike can happen any time anywhere where Assad forces are. Or anything useful for those forces and the regime itself.
Let’s wait and see what happens in next, say, two weeks.
Moreover, there's some realization among US officialdom that Assad getting toppled doesn't necessarily, or even likely lead to a better situation with US interests included.
I read between the lines of standard pious BS, while noting some realist points that get thru among US policy elites.
From your comment #239...From your comment #348...and...Since your statements are delivered with such conviction [not to say authority] I will cede the floor to let you explain some of the nuts and bolts of how exactly the scenarios you envisage here would play out...
I realize of course that you actually know nothing of the nuts and bolts...ie the technical aspects of air combat...[or even the well known historical facts for that matter]...but since you have been clamoring so much I think it is only fair to give you a chance to explain yourself...
Why not start with the last statement about Russia 'nuking' a US carrier...?
Please tell us what weapon system exactly is in the Russian inventory that is designed to hit ships with a nuclear warhead...?
Of course there is none...but that should not stop a buttwhistler like yourself from blowing something out of your incredibly prolific bunghole...
Not to mention that I have already described the decades old Russian doctrine and existing conventional weapons systems that are designed expressly for annihilating an entire carrier group in a single strike...
Perhaps you missed that part from my comment #155...?
And in fact I had only presented one leg of the anti-carrier triad...the long range aviation part...not having yet gone into the other legs such as surface and submarine based...as well as the short-range aviation...
But no matter...
Next...perhaps you could explain exactly how the US has 'escalation superiority'...?
What exactly does that mean anyway...?
Inquiring minds want to know [the workings of a birdbrain]...
And then you can get to the meat of the matter which you have decided [quite foolishly] to contend here with me...
How exactly are the odds 'stacked' and the 'ultimate' outcome being a Russian 'defeat' in theater...
It is all well and good to state one's opinion...and if you want to admit it is simply an unfounded opinion then I will accept that...and move on to more substantive questions that require some discussion...
And by discussion I don't mean simply opening your beak and letting squawks come out...but actually bringing facts and technical details to the matter...supported by actual authoritative citations...
I have said quite clearly that we may soon witness an actual shooting war between the US and Russia in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean...gaining some insight into that requires more than just opinions...
Now I have also stated quite clearly only one method by which Russia could respond and sink not just a ship or two but an entire carrier group...I have given technical details that are not in dispute...
I will quote here another opinion...that of a person a million times more qualified than a birdbrain like yourself...
PCR stated on April 10...Now I have chosen to present an opinion that is coming from someone who has good reason and experience to form such an opinion...a man who was a high cabinet official and received training in handling the 'nuclear football' since he was in the line of succession in case of a nuclear decapitation...
As far as I can tell...you are still on the waiting list to receive nuclear football training...
Kh-22: “The Kh-22 (Russian: Х-22; AS-4 ‘Kitchen’) is a large, long-range anti-ship missile developed by MKB Raduga in the Soviet Union. It was intended for use against US Navy aircraft carriers and carrier battle groups, with either a conventional or nuclear warhead.”
It raises some questions about whether you have any idea what you are writing about.
Google Translate...
Another fact that you may miss while you rely on wikipedia...
The nuclear armed Kh22s...[X22 in Russian] were never equipped with radar seekers to home in on moving targets like ships...they were equipped initially with inertial [ie gyroscopic nav system] for use against fixed targets...later upgraded to include TERCOM...ie terrain contour matching...as used on other cruise missiles like T-hawk...
The antiship cruise missile versions of the Kh22 [ASCM] never had a nuclear warhead...
https://s20.postimg.cc/eglp54h2l/Kh22_Variants.jpg
That's from Ausairpower which cites the above Russian site I already linked to...
But I took a brief look at FB's reply, got a few lines in, and dropped him into the Revusky category - don't bother to engage because basically incapable of adult conversation. Any disagreement triggers endless lengthy diatribes interspersed with childish insults. Best ignored, or at any rate not engaged. In fairness, it's not as though I wasn't forewarned, having seen him get into the endless diatribe mode with several other commenters here.
Expect some men walking unshaven around in Moscow today. They will find it too hard to face the mirror in the morning.
But on the other hand there will be some like this fellow, who can swallow 12″ dick, on Martyanov blog:
The meta-risk is that because everyone thinks the risk is that low, it increases. It’s taken some luck to avoid it up until now.
If...if...all that stops now.
Next couple of weeks will define all.
If it goes on, on the same pretext, the game just changed.
In that case God help Syrian people loyal to Assad. The same for the Russian contingent there.
The regime in Moscow will buy some more time.
All good.
Mattis has been paraphrased for cryptically indicating that this is a one time deal, unless the Syrian government acts up again. The assumption being that there was a Syrian government chemical attack, which I’m not (at least for the moment) inclined to believe.
Who cares who thought and said what.
Time for blabbing is over, don't you get it?
One side keeps blabbing, the other bombing.
If that can't wake some people and make them face the harsh realities...well...good.
One side just bombed the ally of the other side on the basis of no rational pretext whatsoever.
Ignored, while getting ready, all processes and procedures agreed upon by civilized world.
The most important, ignored all warnings from the opposite side too.
I'd be the last to cheer a hard response from Russians. M.A.D.
But, those "Team Russia" spins are becoming boring, fast.
It is true that Russia acted as a smart side. It was/is facing a psychopath on the loose.
Doesn't matter in the game of power.
They blinked.
The opponent read them and made a move. That's all what matters.
I was 50/50 this would happen.
Now I am 90/10 it will happen again, soon.
And, if it just keeps going, for which I am also 50/50, well...........spin that one up.
True, nothing of substance has changed.
The weaker opponent will keep buying time in the game. The stronger will keep pushing.
The little players, especially on the weaker opponent side, are for hard times though.
More importantly, the stronger side got emboldened even more.
The most important result of all this, actually.
One of The Saker commenters:
Israel Shamir is literally insane - but I respect that he talks to us on here, as he is somewhat a well-known journalist.
Steve Sailer or John Derbyshire are very civil and certainly not engaging in any kind of propaganda. I actually like the writings of Ron Unz, too, but I don’t think you would like him so much.
I corrected one of Sailer's stories on Israel, which is a country I know far more about than him, visit on the ground, and actually learn Hebrew and study its local media.
And the American Jewish site owner (Ron Unz), comes and calls me 'anti-Russia Jewish activist' and 'warmonger'.
?
Ethnic Russian man who posted enough times, that I don't want my country to involve in any wars; and I am called 'anti-Russia Jewish activist', by site owner, who seems more excited by conflict and hyperbole between all these countries.
Here is my post: http://www.unz.com/isteve/avigdor-lieberman-hey-donald-lets-you-and-vlad-fight/#comment-2283008
And the site owner:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/avigdor-lieberman-hey-donald-lets-you-and-vlad-fight/#comment-2283903
He seems to hate American blacks and thinks a race war is just around the corner...but then he writes all those panegyrics about how wonderful Mexicans are. Pretty strange.
Tbh much of the content on Unz review is probably pretty worthless. It's still my favorite site though, it has a great commenting system (much better than Disqus or similar crap), and lots of interesting commenters. And AK's blog is definitely one of the best parts of it.
You have a soul of a snitch. BTW, I wonder how strong is your faith in evolution. Would it survive torture?
As to the Syrian issue, I have to admit I'm relieved that at least for now it seems the strikes were limited and that there was no direct clash between Russian and Western forces.
On the other hand, the war party in the US will probably be emboldened by what they perceive as Russian weakness. And next time Trump probably won't be restrained anymore and will escalate. Still a very bad situation.
You are reaching.
Who cares who thought and said what.
Time for blabbing is over, don’t you get it?
One side keeps blabbing, the other bombing.
If that can’t wake some people and make them face the harsh realities…well…good.
One side just bombed the ally of the other side on the basis of no rational pretext whatsoever.
Ignored, while getting ready, all processes and procedures agreed upon by civilized world.
The most important, ignored all warnings from the opposite side too.
I’d be the last to cheer a hard response from Russians. M.A.D.
But, those “Team Russia” spins are becoming boring, fast.
It is true that Russia acted as a smart side. It was/is facing a psychopath on the loose.
Doesn’t matter in the game of power.
They blinked.
The opponent read them and made a move. That’s all what matters.
I was 50/50 this would happen.
Now I am 90/10 it will happen again, soon.
And, if it just keeps going, for which I am also 50/50, well………..spin that one up.
True, nothing of substance has changed.
The weaker opponent will keep buying time in the game. The stronger will keep pushing.
The little players, especially on the weaker opponent side, are for hard times though.
More importantly, the stronger side got emboldened even more.
The most important result of all this, actually.
2. It's totally irrelevant, however, because the US has never before attacked a country for using gas. They didn't care when Nasser did it, they didn't care (and may have ever supported the first time) when Saddam did it (2x) and they didn't care when Assad Sr. did it.
3. However, the western alliance has staged a lot of their credibility on preventing the repeat use of gas by Assad. It was stupid for them to do so and the smartest thing to do would just be to cut their losses, but internal political reasons prevent that from being an option.
4. Russia has decidedly NOT blinked. The strikes tonight were done in coordination with Russia and the targets were selected to ensure that no Russian personnel or equipment would be hit. Neither Syrian infrastructure nor the Assad regime was targeted. Instead a narrow list of targets directly linked to Assad's chemical capabilities were hit.
It is already widely agreed that these attacks did essentially nothing and therefor there was no reason for Russia to escalate over this.
Bottom line: Assad isn't going anywhere and he hasn't even been damaged. The US and it's allies have shown that they are willing to make use of force when their red lines are crossed (even if we disagree with those red lines) while still remaining responsible and avoiding escalation with other great powers. No civilians and the situation on the ground in Syria remains EXACTLY the same as it was 1 week ago.
What's not to like?
That's all speculative of course, but I don't believe that Russia is genuinely retreating from this fight. Time will tell.
(hope I don't sound like a "n-th dimensional chess" Trumpster, haha)
As you say, the bottom line is that the Russians did fold and let the US get away with attacking their allies. On the other hand it's also true that Russia did what it had to - contrary to the obsessives here, they are the weaker side in theatre and they know it, and furthermore not folding involves an unacceptable risk of escalation to nuclear war. And it's also fair to say that the Russians also stood their ground to some extent and at least made the US side be seen to back off from what initially looked as though they might be more serious measures. So weaker than the US side, but not entirely helpless.
So I'm pretty cheerful this morning - it could have been a lot worse. Nothing has really changed. Yes the crazies are somewhat emboldened, but on the other hand time is still on the side of the Russians in Syria, and it seems unlikely these strikes if we have seen them all (for now) as Mattis has reportedly suggested will have any material effect on the government or seriously reignite rebel support and activity.
Both side have valid arguments to claim a "win", but both side's arguments are overstated by their advocates. Another bad precedent is set, but there are many of these. As I see it, nothing is resolved. As you say, that means the aggressors are emboldened and will likely push again soon enough. But on the other hand the defenders have more time to prepare and to strengthen their positions.
There's a lot of catching up to do on what really went on in the background, as well, both within the US regime and amongst the resisting powers especially Iran and China. Their responses on the ground, as well as Russia's, over the next few weeks will tell us a lot.
Foreman, the great power puncher explained his loss to Ali in the 8th round in Kinshasa...Foreman had been power punching for 7 rounds, landing 100s of blows, to little effect against Ali's rope-a-dope strategy. Deflecting, letting the ropes absorb the impacts of body blows, ducking, bobbing and weaving, Ali allowed Foreman free rein to flail away. Occasionally, some got through, but by the 7th round even his best shot wasn't enough.
Team America may not be as insightful as Foreman, but they too will eventually come to realize that Syria, the Ukraine, the SCS and DPRK ain't what they thought they were either. They'll realize it when they take their best shot and hear "That all ya got, Uncle Sam?", and they'll hit the canvas in the next round just like Foreman did.
Putin has to realize that he has lost face and credibility...just for the optics of it...
The man on the street is going to neither know or care about what really went on behind the scenes...ie that the missile strike was really a carefully coordinated light and sound show...
The least Putin could have done is taken out a French or British airplane...
I also would not be surprised if this is just the beginning...if one side thinks the other is cowed they will continue shoving harder...
Probably not, but that’s a very strange question. I hope you don’t want to suggest that I should be tortured into accepting creationism (and no, I’m not a snitch, criticising a columnist in a comments section isn’t the equivalent of reporting someone to the secret police).
As to the Syrian issue, I have to admit I’m relieved that at least for now it seems the strikes were limited and that there was no direct clash between Russian and Western forces.
On the other hand, the war party in the US will probably be emboldened by what they perceive as Russian weakness. And next time Trump probably won’t be restrained anymore and will escalate. Still a very bad situation.
Who cares who thought and said what.
Time for blabbing is over, don't you get it?
One side keeps blabbing, the other bombing.
If that can't wake some people and make them face the harsh realities...well...good.
One side just bombed the ally of the other side on the basis of no rational pretext whatsoever.
Ignored, while getting ready, all processes and procedures agreed upon by civilized world.
The most important, ignored all warnings from the opposite side too.
I'd be the last to cheer a hard response from Russians. M.A.D.
But, those "Team Russia" spins are becoming boring, fast.
It is true that Russia acted as a smart side. It was/is facing a psychopath on the loose.
Doesn't matter in the game of power.
They blinked.
The opponent read them and made a move. That's all what matters.
I was 50/50 this would happen.
Now I am 90/10 it will happen again, soon.
And, if it just keeps going, for which I am also 50/50, well...........spin that one up.
True, nothing of substance has changed.
The weaker opponent will keep buying time in the game. The stronger will keep pushing.
The little players, especially on the weaker opponent side, are for hard times though.
More importantly, the stronger side got emboldened even more.
The most important result of all this, actually.
As I stated previously, what substantive damage has actually occurred?
Are the Russians now going to leave Syria, with Assad eventually being overthrown by either Jihadists or a Western neolib/neocon stooge government?
BTW, Kuwait abstained at the UN rather than going with the US and its allies. Iraq isn’t in the anti-Assad alliance. Is the Egyptian government so gung ho against Assad?
From Russia Insider
Who cares who thought and said what.
Time for blabbing is over, don't you get it?
One side keeps blabbing, the other bombing.
If that can't wake some people and make them face the harsh realities...well...good.
One side just bombed the ally of the other side on the basis of no rational pretext whatsoever.
Ignored, while getting ready, all processes and procedures agreed upon by civilized world.
The most important, ignored all warnings from the opposite side too.
I'd be the last to cheer a hard response from Russians. M.A.D.
But, those "Team Russia" spins are becoming boring, fast.
It is true that Russia acted as a smart side. It was/is facing a psychopath on the loose.
Doesn't matter in the game of power.
They blinked.
The opponent read them and made a move. That's all what matters.
I was 50/50 this would happen.
Now I am 90/10 it will happen again, soon.
And, if it just keeps going, for which I am also 50/50, well...........spin that one up.
True, nothing of substance has changed.
The weaker opponent will keep buying time in the game. The stronger will keep pushing.
The little players, especially on the weaker opponent side, are for hard times though.
More importantly, the stronger side got emboldened even more.
The most important result of all this, actually.
This.
A main concern are staged chemical attacks, along with a mass media and body politic, which refrain from critically second guessing the otherwise obvious.
As to the Syrian issue, I have to admit I'm relieved that at least for now it seems the strikes were limited and that there was no direct clash between Russian and Western forces.
On the other hand, the war party in the US will probably be emboldened by what they perceive as Russian weakness. And next time Trump probably won't be restrained anymore and will escalate. Still a very bad situation.
You framed it in terms of faith. And you have denounced somebody for the lack of it. The Holy Office of Current Faith may appreciate your obsequiousness but at the same time may wonder whether it is not a mask of a weak faith. Torture is the best way to test it.
In any case, your insinuation that I should be tortured is rather excessive.
But once he wades into the comments...lol. The many demented pathologies of Martyanov the commenter:
1 - Twisted hatred of Anatoly Karlin for the crime of not being a Sovok
2 - Complete dismissal of anything in the economy which doesn't support the military-industrial complex as worthless
3 - STEMcuck and credential cuck who expects you to fax him your graduate level engineering degree in order to have an opinion
4 - Building on the former, an education cuck who actually thinks schools are good
5 - Constant recommendations of psychiatric treatment, something shared with fellow Sovok-American Lazy Glossophiliac
6 - Dismissal and denigration of all sources other than obscure naval academic journals
7 - All around belligerence and hostility
This should not be taken as a denunciation of Martyanov, incidentally. On the contrary he should comment more. :)
Impressive trolling.
He didn’t frame it “in terms of faith.”
If you are trying to spin here it's not even funny.If you don't get what just, maybe, happened, good on you too.I say "maybe" in the case that all that stops now. And, make no mistake, it will get repeated sooner than you think. That's the best possible scenario for the "Team Russia" anywhere.If all that does not stop now but keeps going, on the same pretext, let's just say we have different perceptions of reality here.
In that case I'd focus on perception of reality of Syrians loyal to Assad and, not so much less, to the members of the Russian contingent there.
Hint: US/allies air strike can happen any time anywhere where Assad forces are. Or anything useful for those forces and the regime itself.Let's wait and see what happens in next, say, two weeks.
With Afghanistan as one example, US forces can’t do everything as hoped.
Moreover, there’s some realization among US officialdom that Assad getting toppled doesn’t necessarily, or even likely lead to a better situation with US interests included.
I read between the lines of standard pious BS, while noting some realist points that get thru among US policy elites.
The gap between what the Serbs were using and what the Russians have at their disposal in Syria is enormous, whereas the improvement in SEAD capability has been relatively minor.
Syria is also within combat range of Flankers taking off from Russia’s southern military district, so there’s more than just the aircraft at Khmeimin in play.
It is very unlikely that hot combat in Syria would last more than a day or two, perhaps even an hour or two, before risk of escalation to nuclear war would lead both sides to a ceasefire. Russian forces in Syria are fully equipped to survive a situation like that.
I understand Anatoly’s black pilling, especially on days like today where the #NeverTrump ers and more braindead Trump supporters are celebrating the ‘smart’ missiles strike. It’s quite easy to be overawed by NATO military power and the chorus on RU-net of ‘Putin sold out Syria and soon Iran and Donbass’ will only rise — many of them may actually have Russian rather than the usual Ukrainian or Israeli IP addresses.
However, there are several quick points without getting into a long rebuttal of Anatoly’s black pill version of events.
Nothing near Tartus or Kheimmim was hit, and Mattis/Dunford reportedly dialed back the strikes to avoid hitting anything Russian, showing the Pentagon at least is not as gung ho on risklessly ‘killing Russians’ as the CIA and doesn’t believe the rah rah bs story about hundreds of Wagner mercs slaughtered with impunity by U.S. troops (more like about a dozen PMCs died and maybe twice that were wounded, as the Der Spiegel debunking reported, the Russians didn’t even know the Kurds who were supposed to hand over the oil field would have the Americans blast them, or they would’ve demanded Russian Air Force cover or artillery backup). The French MoD said the Russians were forewarned about specific sites to be targeted, contradicting the Pentagon lie to appease the muh Russia set in Congress.
The actual damage despite using twice as many missiles as last April’s post Khan Sheikhoun raid on Shayrat appears fairly minimal beyond the supposed chemical weapons precursor facilities at emptied bases.
Washington, London and Paris have all made a mockery of their claims to solid chemical attack evidence, though no doubt they will massively pressure the OPCW — who didn’t even make it to the Douma scene before the missiles were flying — to produce blood and tissue samples consistent with their findings. The chain of custody for which will be said to be ironclad as after Khan Sheikhoun when it was all delivered to the dubious hands of the Turks.
Finally there’s still the matter, regardless of what neocons like Michael D. Weiss think, of the Euphrates not being some sort of magic force field against infiltration by pro-Assad elements. The Iraq insurgency playbook is known to Assad and his Hezbollah allies, and the risk of IEDs going off and U.S. troops facing ambushes in retaliation is real. Assad and especially his Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia allies have the capability to make Trump into Dubya 2.0, an unpopular president large swathes of the country detest presiding over a wildly unpopular occupation of a Mideast country that was sold as something that could be done on the cheap if not paid for by the oil and gas we’d grab (the neocon Josh Rogin line: take the oil Mr. President, or it goes to Iran).
Who cares who thought and said what.
Time for blabbing is over, don't you get it?
One side keeps blabbing, the other bombing.
If that can't wake some people and make them face the harsh realities...well...good.
One side just bombed the ally of the other side on the basis of no rational pretext whatsoever.
Ignored, while getting ready, all processes and procedures agreed upon by civilized world.
The most important, ignored all warnings from the opposite side too.
I'd be the last to cheer a hard response from Russians. M.A.D.
But, those "Team Russia" spins are becoming boring, fast.
It is true that Russia acted as a smart side. It was/is facing a psychopath on the loose.
Doesn't matter in the game of power.
They blinked.
The opponent read them and made a move. That's all what matters.
I was 50/50 this would happen.
Now I am 90/10 it will happen again, soon.
And, if it just keeps going, for which I am also 50/50, well...........spin that one up.
True, nothing of substance has changed.
The weaker opponent will keep buying time in the game. The stronger will keep pushing.
The little players, especially on the weaker opponent side, are for hard times though.
More importantly, the stronger side got emboldened even more.
The most important result of all this, actually.
1. I was the first to shout “false flag” when the news about the gassing came out, but right now I think it is pretty clear that Assad did use gas like the west has alleged.
2. It’s totally irrelevant, however, because the US has never before attacked a country for using gas. They didn’t care when Nasser did it, they didn’t care (and may have ever supported the first time) when Saddam did it (2x) and they didn’t care when Assad Sr. did it.
3. However, the western alliance has staged a lot of their credibility on preventing the repeat use of gas by Assad. It was stupid for them to do so and the smartest thing to do would just be to cut their losses, but internal political reasons prevent that from being an option.
4. Russia has decidedly NOT blinked. The strikes tonight were done in coordination with Russia and the targets were selected to ensure that no Russian personnel or equipment would be hit. Neither Syrian infrastructure nor the Assad regime was targeted. Instead a narrow list of targets directly linked to Assad’s chemical capabilities were hit.
It is already widely agreed that these attacks did essentially nothing and therefor there was no reason for Russia to escalate over this.
Bottom line: Assad isn’t going anywhere and he hasn’t even been damaged. The US and it’s allies have shown that they are willing to make use of force when their red lines are crossed (even if we disagree with those red lines) while still remaining responsible and avoiding escalation with other great powers. No civilians and the situation on the ground in Syria remains EXACTLY the same as it was 1 week ago.
What’s not to like?
Anyway.I'll just wait and watch. 72 hours only.If this stops now, say, no repeated strikes in the next 72 hours, this very episode is over.
Very soon we'll see something similar. Similar pretext, similar bombing. Maybe not even any pretext.
And again. Open season whenever they feel it.If this does not stop now, say, we see repeated strikes, on the same pretext (this very "gas incident"), well, I am sure that will create a very unfriendly environment for Assad forces there. For Russians too. Very.......changed on the ground there environment. Very.But, really, the best about all this is how the "teams" here haven't changed their position one bit.
The resident "Team Russia" will keep their tune and the rest will keep theirs too, as nothing happened.
As.......nothing........just .........happened.Now you know why "they" don't need to shut down the Internet. No need. On the contrary actually.
I could of course have written “Fred Reed doesn’t even accept the theory of evolution”…but unless you’re into serious nitpicking, it should be clear that’s how I meant it.
In any case, your insinuation that I should be tortured is rather excessive.
But as Fred is concerned he just raised several issues on which ToE is rather weak in evidence and basically consist of vigorous hand waving. But apparently in your universe it is not permitted and one had to be denounced as a heretic or unbeliever.
Not so sure of that. Spin aide, it appears to be a limited bombing campaign.
A main concern are staged chemical attacks, along with a mass media and body politic, which refrain from critically second guessing the otherwise obvious.
Taleb is right, most people don’t understand unnatural risks (i.e. anything new on evolutionary timescales). This includes the risk of nuclear war.
This is one of the stupidest analyses I have ever read. Anatoly Karlin should stick to something a little more his speed, like shoving X-men action figures up his ass. This is truly unbelievably shallow garbage. What a waste of time.
2. It's totally irrelevant, however, because the US has never before attacked a country for using gas. They didn't care when Nasser did it, they didn't care (and may have ever supported the first time) when Saddam did it (2x) and they didn't care when Assad Sr. did it.
3. However, the western alliance has staged a lot of their credibility on preventing the repeat use of gas by Assad. It was stupid for them to do so and the smartest thing to do would just be to cut their losses, but internal political reasons prevent that from being an option.
4. Russia has decidedly NOT blinked. The strikes tonight were done in coordination with Russia and the targets were selected to ensure that no Russian personnel or equipment would be hit. Neither Syrian infrastructure nor the Assad regime was targeted. Instead a narrow list of targets directly linked to Assad's chemical capabilities were hit.
It is already widely agreed that these attacks did essentially nothing and therefor there was no reason for Russia to escalate over this.
Bottom line: Assad isn't going anywhere and he hasn't even been damaged. The US and it's allies have shown that they are willing to make use of force when their red lines are crossed (even if we disagree with those red lines) while still remaining responsible and avoiding escalation with other great powers. No civilians and the situation on the ground in Syria remains EXACTLY the same as it was 1 week ago.
What's not to like?
I’m personally not convinced that the alleged gas attack was a false flag operation (it doesn’t matter to me that much, I would be opposed to intervention in any case), but how is this supposed to be “pretty clear”? It’s not like there was any independent investigation that could have confirmed this.
If they did nothing, what’s their point? They set a precedent, if there’s another incident with gas (real or fake), there will undoubtedly be an escalation.
This is all theatre. The war is over, Assad has won, Russia is in Syria forever and even the west accepts all of those things now, they just can't come out and say it.
But nations have to worry about "interests" and "prestige". These things don't matter to real people but they are extremely important to the types of people who run countries. When Assad launched such a blatant gas attack, he basically sent a signal out to the entire world that "you don't need to be afraid of US military power anymore." Such a message weakens the ability of the US to negotiate with Iran and NK along with whatever other stupid imperialistic projects they are currently running (I can't keep track). Do you agree?
So tonight the US showed that it still able to rally it's allies and launch targeted attacks on unconventional weapons even over Russian opposition. The message to Iran and NK is "if we can target Syria's chem plants, which we don't even care about, even when Russians are in theater, what do you think we can do to you if you don't play ball?".
...
For the record, Trump wanted a much more expansive strike, as recommended by Bolton. Mattis said that would be a mistake and Trump changed his mind. Trump is not this mad man loose cannon people are portraying him as. He listened to the right person. Time for you to give him some credit.
There is no point. Don’t you see what’s happening here?
This is all theatre. The war is over, Assad has won, Russia is in Syria forever and even the west accepts all of those things now, they just can’t come out and say it.
But nations have to worry about “interests” and “prestige”. These things don’t matter to real people but they are extremely important to the types of people who run countries. When Assad launched such a blatant gas attack, he basically sent a signal out to the entire world that “you don’t need to be afraid of US military power anymore.” Such a message weakens the ability of the US to negotiate with Iran and NK along with whatever other stupid imperialistic projects they are currently running (I can’t keep track). Do you agree?
So tonight the US showed that it still able to rally it’s allies and launch targeted attacks on unconventional weapons even over Russian opposition. The message to Iran and NK is “if we can target Syria’s chem plants, which we don’t even care about, even when Russians are in theater, what do you think we can do to you if you don’t play ball?”.
…
For the record, Trump wanted a much more expansive strike, as recommended by Bolton. Mattis said that would be a mistake and Trump changed his mind. Trump is not this mad man loose cannon people are portraying him as. He listened to the right person. Time for you to give him some credit.
Stormy called and told him to save the "big" missiles for important occasions.
A main concern are staged chemical attacks, along with a mass media and body politic, which refrain from critically second guessing the otherwise obvious.
Trump together with a very large portion of the USA elite is insane. They are like the banks buying repackaged subprime mortgages. Except with much graver consequences.
Taleb is right, most people don’t understand unnatural risks (i.e. anything new on evolutionary timescales). This includes the risk of nuclear war.
In any case, your insinuation that I should be tortured is rather excessive.
I can see you feel very strong about this article faith. Would you have a one night stand with somebody who does not accept… ? Is it a first question you ask on the date?
But as Fred is concerned he just raised several issues on which ToE is rather weak in evidence and basically consist of vigorous hand waving. But apparently in your universe it is not permitted and one had to be denounced as a heretic or unbeliever.
Though you’re correct in that it’s in itself a pretty harmless belief, but often correlated with Christian Zionism and dispensationism.
2. It's totally irrelevant, however, because the US has never before attacked a country for using gas. They didn't care when Nasser did it, they didn't care (and may have ever supported the first time) when Saddam did it (2x) and they didn't care when Assad Sr. did it.
3. However, the western alliance has staged a lot of their credibility on preventing the repeat use of gas by Assad. It was stupid for them to do so and the smartest thing to do would just be to cut their losses, but internal political reasons prevent that from being an option.
4. Russia has decidedly NOT blinked. The strikes tonight were done in coordination with Russia and the targets were selected to ensure that no Russian personnel or equipment would be hit. Neither Syrian infrastructure nor the Assad regime was targeted. Instead a narrow list of targets directly linked to Assad's chemical capabilities were hit.
It is already widely agreed that these attacks did essentially nothing and therefor there was no reason for Russia to escalate over this.
Bottom line: Assad isn't going anywhere and he hasn't even been damaged. The US and it's allies have shown that they are willing to make use of force when their red lines are crossed (even if we disagree with those red lines) while still remaining responsible and avoiding escalation with other great powers. No civilians and the situation on the ground in Syria remains EXACTLY the same as it was 1 week ago.
What's not to like?
Yeah……….
Anyway.
I’ll just wait and watch. 72 hours only.
If this stops now, say, no repeated strikes in the next 72 hours, this very episode is over.
Very soon we’ll see something similar. Similar pretext, similar bombing. Maybe not even any pretext.
And again. Open season whenever they feel it.
If this does not stop now, say, we see repeated strikes, on the same pretext (this very “gas incident”), well, I am sure that will create a very unfriendly environment for Assad forces there. For Russians too. Very…….changed on the ground there environment. Very.
But, really, the best about all this is how the “teams” here haven’t changed their position one bit.
The resident “Team Russia” will keep their tune and the rest will keep theirs too, as nothing happened.
As…….nothing……..just ………happened.
Now you know why “they” don’t need to shut down the Internet. No need. On the contrary actually.
Nothing happened.
Taleb is right, most people don’t understand unnatural risks (i.e. anything new on evolutionary timescales). This includes the risk of nuclear war.
Trump has a pragmatic side to him as well. This wasn’t such a great US victory and Russian defeat.
A number of US elites are overrated and overly promoted. The Anglo-American mass media promoted Steve Fish and Scott Lucas come to mind on that score.
In some sense it was a Russian victory. Russia showed that it can prevent the US (and certainly Israel, by extension) from forcibly removing Assad.
Really tonight was a victory for everybody who opposes a superpower clash in Syria. People here are just upset because the US wasn’t totally humiliated and Assad was made to look like the weakling he is.
What it really was was further proof that world peace depends on the Russians maintaining their "cool" (and being seen to stand down, much like the Cuban missile crisis where the American concessions were hidden from the public for 25 years or so) in the face of behaviour which is absolutely crazy and reckless.
Anyway.I'll just wait and watch. 72 hours only.If this stops now, say, no repeated strikes in the next 72 hours, this very episode is over.
Very soon we'll see something similar. Similar pretext, similar bombing. Maybe not even any pretext.
And again. Open season whenever they feel it.If this does not stop now, say, we see repeated strikes, on the same pretext (this very "gas incident"), well, I am sure that will create a very unfriendly environment for Assad forces there. For Russians too. Very.......changed on the ground there environment. Very.But, really, the best about all this is how the "teams" here haven't changed their position one bit.
The resident "Team Russia" will keep their tune and the rest will keep theirs too, as nothing happened.
As.......nothing........just .........happened.Now you know why "they" don't need to shut down the Internet. No need. On the contrary actually.
Nothing did happen. The SAA’s capabilities are exactly the same as they were a week ago. Syrian infrastructure is virtually all in tact. No civilians were killed. No Russian or even Iranian bases were targeted.
Nothing happened.
US Zionists want "regime change" with the destruction of both Syria and Iran, not a few pre-announced bombs in a Syrian parking lot.
But as Fred is concerned he just raised several issues on which ToE is rather weak in evidence and basically consist of vigorous hand waving. But apparently in your universe it is not permitted and one had to be denounced as a heretic or unbeliever.
I question the judgment of people who don’t accept evolution. What else did they get wrong?
Though you’re correct in that it’s in itself a pretty harmless belief, but often correlated with Christian Zionism and dispensationism.
So what does the acceptance of ToE measure? It is possible that among people who do not accept the ToE or have some doubts and questions about it you may find, besides cranks and some Christian fundamentalists, also a very interesting individuals who may have insights and understanding of surrounding us reality much deeper and more challenging than what you may get from types with the obsequiousness of German_reader. Personally I do not like Fred and his writing because he is not really sincere and all what he believes in is the well being of his selfish libertarian ass; he gets off on irking people yet, I think, he is more aware of social reality he inhabits than German_reader is. He is less of a sleepwalker than German-Reader is.
More kabuki theatre like last time. Russia now has a greenlight to speed up the end of the war.
Though you’re correct in that it’s in itself a pretty harmless belief, but often correlated with Christian Zionism and dispensationism.
I don’t accept macro evolution, the fossil record doesn’t support it, no present day examples and a fish magically sprouting legs, gills transforming in to lungs and deciding to walk around on the land all of a sudden is pretty fantastical.
Really tonight was a victory for everybody who opposes a superpower clash in Syria. People here are just upset because the US wasn't totally humiliated and Assad was made to look like the weakling he is.
Notwithstanding, it doesn’t look good when a Russian ally is attacked like that. A US ally attacked by Russia isn’t as likely to happen. That’s said without considering Russia’s “near abroad”, like Ukraine and Georgia (which aren’t in NATO or the EU), where Russia has greater strategic clout.
The US can project power outside it’s region in a way that Russia can’t away from its near abroad. Then again, Russia doesn’t have such an adventurist foreign policy, as erroneously suggested in some circles.
In Syria, the US can’t rely too much on Turkey and Iraq, with Kuwait abstaining at the UN, rather than going along with Washington.
So I guess a lot of people don't look good today.
I really feel proud of how America has handled this and I hope Russians are proud of how they have acted as well. It was a difficult situation but everybody worked together to make the best of it.
“In the councils of government….We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
“We should take nothing for granted.”
This from a guy who had seen it all, first as a General and then as a politician.
Nothing, it seems, is as it seems.
“Even a full-scale thermonuclear exchange between Russia and the US is patently survivable. The theory of “nuclear winters”, at least in its wilder variants (drops of many tens of degrees), has been long discredited. The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was approximately equal in mega tonnage to that of all the world’s current nuclear arsenals, and yet it merely led to a single “year without a summer” that did not even produce any major famines in a pre-industrial world. Fallout radiation levels decay rapidly, and it will be safe to emerge from shelters almost everywhere after just two weeks.”
First, I am surprised that anyone would cite a 1987 update of a 1979 report as a creditable source on atmospheric effects of nuclear war. In reality, a Nuclear Winter would be worse than predicted due to massive quantities of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, soot, and dust+radiation entering the upper atmosphere as well as dramatic increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. A more accurate accounting of the atmospheric effect of a 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange is as follows:
(1) sulfur dioxide release:
The Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 “threw 55 million tons of sulfur-dioxide gas (50 Tg of SO2) more than twenty miles into the air, into the stratosphere.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/1816-the-year-without-summer-excerpt/
By comparison, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption generated some 20 million tons of SO2, yielding a global temperature reduction of 0.5 degrees C.:
http://history.aip.org/history/climate/aerosol.htm
Thus the Mount Tambora eruption would have been expected to cause a 1-1.5 degree C drop in global temperatures due to sulfur dioxide
The sulfur contribution to a Nuclear Winter event would be considerable, as modern houses contain a lot of sulfur in the form of gypsum (CaSO4-2H2O). The average home size in America is almost 1900 sq ft and contains 1.6 pounds of gypsum/ sq ft, for a total of almost 260 Kg of sulfur per house. To inject 5 Tg of sulfur into the atmosphere in a nuclear exchange would involve the vaporization at high temperature (>1500°C) of 10 million US homes in the nuclear fireballs. If worldwide 100 million homes are incinerated the sulfur dioxide contribution to a nuclear winter event would approximately equal the Tambora eruption of 1815.
(2) oxides of nitrogen
An air burst, for example, is estimated to produce about 1032 molecules of nitrogen oxides per megaton TNT equivalent.
Based on 5,000 Mt yield in an allot nuclear war there will also be 24Tg of NO released in the atmosphere just from the reactions with atmospheric nitrogen gas. Additional nitrogen compounds from materials within the blast and forest fire zones will slightly add to this total: https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1983/baker83a.pdf
(3) Soot (carbon black)
Toon et al. in 2007 pointed out that 5 Tg of soot (50 15kt nuclear weapons) would reduce the global average temperature by 1.25°C for 3–4 years and by more than 0.5°C for a decade. They also indicate that the carbon black is likely to become coated with sulfates, organics, and other nonabsorbing materials, which could act as lenses, refracting light onto the BC. This effect might increase absorption by ∼50%, leading to potentially greater impacts than those we modeled.
The Toon et al. study considered only a nuclear exchange of about 750 kilotons (TNT equivalent) when a full scale nuclear exchange would yield over 5,000-6,000 times thIS amount of carbon black generated. NEEDLESS TO SAY THE GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WILL BE FAR BELOW FREEZING FOR MORE THAN A DECADE.
(4) dust+radiation
Dust entrained in the upper atmosphere would be highly variable depending on the megatonnage of air vs surface blasts in a nuclear exchange. As far as I know no one has analyzed the effects of a nuclear war on dust contribution to the upper atmosphere. Needless to say any dust would contribute to further reduction of light to the earth’s surface.
Radiation would be the least of the worries for those who survived the global cooling from Nuclear Winter. A fairly complete accounting of the radiological effect of nuclear war can be found at:
https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/eonw_9.pdf
A portion of the nuclear weapon targets are hardened facilities where a ground blast would be employed. Some of these are nuclear weapons facilities (naval bases, etc) containing considerable nuclear materials. Other sites, include Hanford spent fuel storage and nuclear waste tanks along with the 4,000 spent fuel ponds on the planet cumulatively represent the radiation of over 60,000,000 Hiroshima sized bombs if targeted.
(5) Carbon dioxide
The resulting firestorms from nuclear detonations would be dependent on other climate factors and have not been modeled as far as I know. While not a factor in global cooling, the enhanced carbon dioxide levels will add to global warming once carbon black, sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen are washed out of the atmosphere.
For those interested in further reading, a Federation of American Scientists review contains a summary of the more recent peer-reviewed studies on nuclear winter (which US leadership has decided to ignore or reject), see “Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — US Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies”
https://fas.org/2017/01/turning-a-blind-eye-towards-armageddon-u-s-leaders-reject-nuclear-winter-studies/
Thanks, it’s very useful to have someone reply on this with updated and more comprehensive information, as I found the peremptory statement that the effects of nuclear winter have long been “discredited” to be very suspect (without having the evidence to challenge it).
Russia has been basically attacking Israel for the last 3 years and the US (correctly) hasn’t done shit.
And America doesn’t look good when Russia, without firing a shot, prevents the US from bringing serious consequences to Assad for thumbing his nose at them (the US).
So I guess a lot of people don’t look good today.
I really feel proud of how America has handled this and I hope Russians are proud of how they have acted as well. It was a difficult situation but everybody worked together to make the best of it.
Really tonight was a victory for everybody who opposes a superpower clash in Syria. People here are just upset because the US wasn't totally humiliated and Assad was made to look like the weakling he is.
Really tonight was a victory for everybody who opposes a superpower clash in Syria.
What it really was was further proof that world peace depends on the Russians maintaining their “cool” (and being seen to stand down, much like the Cuban missile crisis where the American concessions were hidden from the public for 25 years or so) in the face of behaviour which is absolutely crazy and reckless.
Though you’re correct in that it’s in itself a pretty harmless belief, but often correlated with Christian Zionism and dispensationism.
The overwhelming majority of people lacks cognitive apparatus and knowledge base for evaluating to what extend or in what sense ToE is right or wrong. Their acceptance or rejection of ToE occurs on sociological level only. The indoctrination is not qualitatively different than teaching kids catechism. For most it is just an article of faith which is necessary for smooth and unproblematic functioning in the society. For savvier yet uneducated folks it is a recognition of social signs about what is in or what is out. It is like when you walk into some dive bar within several minutes you will know who is who in the social structure of the bar. Who is the top dog and who is the underdog and how the various cliques are delineated. And if you want to function in this bar without a conflict you better accept this structure. From the bar you can walk out but from society you can’t.
So what does the acceptance of ToE measure? It is possible that among people who do not accept the ToE or have some doubts and questions about it you may find, besides cranks and some Christian fundamentalists, also a very interesting individuals who may have insights and understanding of surrounding us reality much deeper and more challenging than what you may get from types with the obsequiousness of German_reader. Personally I do not like Fred and his writing because he is not really sincere and all what he believes in is the well being of his selfish libertarian ass; he gets off on irking people yet, I think, he is more aware of social reality he inhabits than German_reader is. He is less of a sleepwalker than German-Reader is.
Now would that the Right save the Left from the cretinous, but trendy, segments of itself.
"We should take nothing for granted."
This from a guy who had seen it all, first as a General and then as a politician.
Nothing, it seems, is as it seems.
But he counted on the pension that he later drew.
So I guess a lot of people don't look good today.
I really feel proud of how America has handled this and I hope Russians are proud of how they have acted as well. It was a difficult situation but everybody worked together to make the best of it.
How has Russia been “basically” (as you put it) attacking Israel for the past three years?
That Syrian missile that brought down the f-16I inside Israeli airspace might as well have been launched by Russia, as Syria would never have dared if they didn't know that Russia would force Israel not to retaliate.
This is the War of Attrition all over again. And just like then, a direct clash between Russia and Israel is inevitable. Hopefully the sides are able to work something out because Israel is about to bring Iran, Syria and Lebanon a world of pain and they won't be standing down this time, no matter what Putin does.
Who cares who thought and said what.
Time for blabbing is over, don't you get it?
One side keeps blabbing, the other bombing.
If that can't wake some people and make them face the harsh realities...well...good.
One side just bombed the ally of the other side on the basis of no rational pretext whatsoever.
Ignored, while getting ready, all processes and procedures agreed upon by civilized world.
The most important, ignored all warnings from the opposite side too.
I'd be the last to cheer a hard response from Russians. M.A.D.
But, those "Team Russia" spins are becoming boring, fast.
It is true that Russia acted as a smart side. It was/is facing a psychopath on the loose.
Doesn't matter in the game of power.
They blinked.
The opponent read them and made a move. That's all what matters.
I was 50/50 this would happen.
Now I am 90/10 it will happen again, soon.
And, if it just keeps going, for which I am also 50/50, well...........spin that one up.
True, nothing of substance has changed.
The weaker opponent will keep buying time in the game. The stronger will keep pushing.
The little players, especially on the weaker opponent side, are for hard times though.
More importantly, the stronger side got emboldened even more.
The most important result of all this, actually.
That’s how it might look on the surface. Both sides discussed, and almost certainly negotiated, their moves before the strike. Unless we see escalation in the next few weeks it’s very possible that the Russian side agreed to appear weak in order to achieve some other goal. It would have to be something significant, though, since they do look weak now and optics are important.
That’s all speculative of course, but I don’t believe that Russia is genuinely retreating from this fight. Time will tell.
(hope I don’t sound like a “n-th dimensional chess” Trumpster, haha)
They’ve given air cover for Hezbollah and Iran to set up bases and both those groups are directly attacking troops on the Israeli border.
That Syrian missile that brought down the f-16I inside Israeli airspace might as well have been launched by Russia, as Syria would never have dared if they didn’t know that Russia would force Israel not to retaliate.
This is the War of Attrition all over again. And just like then, a direct clash between Russia and Israel is inevitable. Hopefully the sides are able to work something out because Israel is about to bring Iran, Syria and Lebanon a world of pain and they won’t be standing down this time, no matter what Putin does.
-- You missed the historical fact that Russia had been already dealing with the Jews. -- Remember the Bolshevik Revolution, the establishment of the GULAG, and the inordinate presence of Jewish sadists among the secret police?
You could lull yourself with the mighty ideas of destroying the Middle East; up to date, the Zionists are guilty of 4 million of deaths due to the zionized US' "humanitarian interventions" aimed at implementing the Oded Yinon plan. At least a quarter of the dead are children.
You could jump up and down proclaiming your various virtues and rights and moral superiority and eternal victimhood, but nobody wants to hear you... The zionized MSM is not trusted anymore by ALL decent people. You -- Israelis and the Lobby -- are disgusting.
The Lobby has become the worst enemy of the American citizenry (see Iraq war, PNAC, Wolfowitz doctrine, and similar bloody lunacies). The Friends of Israel have become the worst enemy of the Brits (see the Iraq war, the face of Blair, and the "beauty" of the Skripal affair).
By the way, you need to take care of your schizophrenic thinking: it is either "a direct clash between Russia and Israel is inevitable" or "hopefully the sides are able to work something out."
Yours is a country of mad rabies, Moldovan bouncers, and sanctimonious hypocrites that love -- love! -- murdering the unarmed natives in the Gaza Ghetto. What was it yesterday -- the remembrance day for Warsaw Ghetto? -- So timely. Such a powerful reminder of the Israelis crimes on the occupied territories.
Please show the mathematical equations you employed to arrive at 0.1% chance.
Absolutely.
Really, what options does Russia have: either bend over or draw lines in the sand?
Look at the Western provocations over the last 10 or so years: Chechna, Georgia, Ukraine, downed airliners, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, (Iraq, Libyia) Syria, alleged chemical attacks, all hyped to the point you'd think Russia guilty of crucifying you-know-who.
If Russia is guilty of anything it is grossly under estimating the pathological nature of Western politics. At least the Stavka has been initiated.
As an aside, I am increasingly disappointed in China. Do they not see that Russia is merely the first course ? THEY are the main meal. Its about time they asserted themselves: old story - hang together, or be hanged alone.
By all means, cheer for the Chinese.
The best thing I have heard in a very long time.
I wouldn’t get too excited. It’s gonna end the same way it did in 1970. Except with a lot more dead Arabs this time.
It became pretty obvious that the experiment of Israel creation failed. Israel was created at great expense to solve the so-called Jewish problem. Unfortunately it did not because majority of Jews still remains in diaspora. At the same time Israel existence created new problems not just in its neighborhood but for the whole world. The world peace became permanently threatened.
There is no other conclusion than that that Israel must be destroyed. Preferably with all Israelis because their repatriation to Europe and America only will exacerbate the pressure of the Jewish question there.
So when you predicted the clash between Russia and Israel in the near future which I imagined would be nuclear I have naturally rejoiced.
“OT – Are they Russians ever going to respond? At what point will popular opinion turn against Putin for sitting on his hands? At some point you’d think they would have to respond to save face, even if it meant risking a wider war. How much humiliation can Russia take?”
I’ve thought the same. They have publicly stated that there will be consequences for this attack, so we’ll see in the coming days if there is.
As an aside, there is no way the Russians didn’t know about this attack as it was happening, whatever anyone may say. These were all cruise missiles, so they could have been shot down – cruise missiles are relatively slow flying and non-stealthy; therefore, they are more easily intercepted (even by fighter aircraft) and destroyed.
If I were a Russian advisor, I might recommend attacking Libya in response. The chances of retaliation from the government are very low, it’s nearby, and there are probably at least a few good targets there – including American contractors they could target in revenge for Russian contractors being killed a few weeks ago (Pompeo crowed about it recently: “they met their match”). They could justify it as a humanitarian mission but attack their oil facilities while they are at it and give a boost to the Russian economy.
--- Let me guess, you are Jewish?
He seems to hate American blacks and thinks a race war is just around the corner...but then he writes all those panegyrics about how wonderful Mexicans are. Pretty strange.
Tbh much of the content on Unz review is probably pretty worthless. It's still my favorite site though, it has a great commenting system (much better than Disqus or similar crap), and lots of interesting commenters. And AK's blog is definitely one of the best parts of it.
Never mind the fossil record, the “”theory”” of Darwinian evolution violates basic laws of probability theory!
(“Theory” is in scare quotes because it really isn’t; it doesn’t manage to actually predict or explain anything, being an elaborate just-so myth.)
“Such a message weakens the ability of the US to negotiate with Iran and NK along with whatever other stupid imperialistic projects they are currently running (I can’t keep track). Do you agree?”
Not at all. The lesson those countries will take away from this is that the US is a reckless, lawless, and dangerous country that can only be deterred by great force. The North Koreans would be fools now to give up their nukes, and Iran will do everything possible to build up a conventional deterrent as well as keep the Empire away from its borders by causing distractions elsewhere in the Middle East. This was a big loss for US security.
“I really feel proud of how America has handled this and I hope Russians are proud of how they have acted as well. It was a difficult situation but everybody worked together to make the best of it.”
I’m ashamed how the US acted tonight. This attack was immoral, illegal (under both international law and the US constitution), and reckless.
And Russia must respond in some way (unless there has been some secret deal to remove US troops from the theater in a few months); otherwise, more attacks will be coming as evidenced by the nomination of Mike Pompeo demonstrates. This isn’t over, or at least is shouldn’t be by a long stretch for any self-respecting nation. You don’t just murder hundreds of Russian civilians, bomb a country’s ally, and mouth off about challenging Russia everywhere (Pompeo) and get away with it.
Syria has at least 40 Pantsirs, a good part of them should be in/around Damascus, while the americunts launched a total of 100 missiles, some of them at Homs, so the Pantsirs in Damascus should not have been oversaturated. And yet it looks like they did not manage to intercept the majority of missiles, and Tomahawks are old and slow.
I expected more to be honest.
RT is only mentioning Buks, Kubs, s-125 and s-200 regarding the few successful interceptions and these are not great at shooting cruise missiles in the first place.
“Never mind the fossil record, the “”theory”” of Darwinian evolution violates basic laws of probability theory!”
Says someone who doesn’t understand basic mathematics or even the underpinnings of the theory in question. As one poster above said, most people simply lack the intellectual faculties to objectively judge anything remotely complex (or even something very simple as in the ToE). Most humans are low IQ sheep – biological machines designed by evolution to simply fit in with social groups by regurgitating accepted talking points.
It took the collective stupidity of all the Great Powers to bring Ww1 about.
That’s the great thing about alliances – they make wars much more likely.
” I really feel proud of how America has handled this ”
Weird, war for seven or so years, countless deaths, misery, much destruction in Syria, even to monuments, Palmyra, the suq in Aleppo, ending in a Vietnam type defeat, and yet someone is proud.
I do not mention the cost in money to the USA taxpayer.
And then, the loss of prestige of the USA, in fact the whole west, the self appointed international coalition, in the world.
On top of that, a Syrian migrant problem in Europe.
If indeed 71 out of a 100 missiles were intercepted, maybe USA warmongers will think twice before they commit further mischief.
Possibly the last thing is the only positive, there is not such thing as a missile shield, no reason to think that the USA’ s systems are any better.
That's the great thing about alliances - they make wars much more likely.
Just GB, France and the tsar.
Weird, war for seven or so years, countless deaths, misery, much destruction in Syria, even to monuments, Palmyra, the suq in Aleppo, ending in a Vietnam type defeat, and yet someone is proud.
I do not mention the cost in money to the USA taxpayer.
And then, the loss of prestige of the USA, in fact the whole west, the self appointed international coalition, in the world.
On top of that, a Syrian migrant problem in Europe.
If indeed 71 out of a 100 missiles were intercepted, maybe USA warmongers will think twice before they commit further mischief.
Possibly the last thing is the only positive, there is not such thing as a missile shield, no reason to think that the USA' s systems are any better.
They weren’t
There is
There is
Are you sure?
“But there is no need to ask parliament in the United Kingdom. The power to declare war and make peace is reserved to the monarch. As long as she consulted with the Queen, nothing improper took place. David Cameron submitting the same to a parliamentary vote was an Americanized aberration. Quite similar to his idiotic BREXIT gambit.”
I don’t agree. Consulting Parliament is an acknowledgement that the Queen is simply a figurehead. Surely, she’d never refuse the PM. Therefore, in practice, the executive has all war making authority in the UK – now THAT is an AMERICANIZED concept. Theresa May should have respected the convention that has been in place since the Iraq War; Parliament should have been consulted here.
It's fine to say that Americans today would not be willing to face the kinds of losses Americans in WW2 were, but they will not be asked to volunteer to do so. The issue is what the risks are perceived as by the Americans making the decisions and whether those Americans think they can be managed with the American people, bearing in mind the tendency of Americans to swing behind the leadership in war, and to stay there provided victory can be claimed. If they think they can "win" then quite a lot of losses could probably be gotten away with. If they are perceived as losers then each and every American death will be another nail in their political coffin.I'm not an advocate of the US attacking either Syria or the Russians in Syria. And as I suggested, I believe there's massive uncertainty about the likely progress of such a war and the costs to each side. But the odds are pretty stacked, so it's hard to see any ultimate outcome other than Russian defeat in theatre. How long it would take probably depends on how much US buildup time there had been, how cautious an approach the US sphere takes, and how many casualties the leadership are willing to risk.
Certainly if they adopt the kind of cautious, half-hearted approach that characterised the initial stages of the Kosovo war, the chances of casualties and equipment losses creating a backlash against the war in the US and forcing a ceasefire would likely be very high, because the Russians are immeasurably more capable and better equipped than were the Serbs. But in contrast, it could also be substantially over in a week, with no time for political opposition in the US to overcome initial jingoism.
American losses in WW2 were very light. There’s no way the Americans in WW2 would have endured the kinds of losses that the Germans, the French and the Russians suffered in WW1 or that the Germans and Russians suffered in WW2. The U.S. has always had a glass jaw.
I think it’s difficult to know. While they were more sensitive to casualties, they were quite willing to accept very high levels of casualties in the Civil War, and likely would have endured way higher casualties than they did. Human psychology being what it is, the sunk costs would have compelled them to endure yet more. Up to a point. That point was probably lower than elsewhere, but I think far higher than their actual casualty levels.
Who cares who thought and said what.
Time for blabbing is over, don't you get it?
One side keeps blabbing, the other bombing.
If that can't wake some people and make them face the harsh realities...well...good.
One side just bombed the ally of the other side on the basis of no rational pretext whatsoever.
Ignored, while getting ready, all processes and procedures agreed upon by civilized world.
The most important, ignored all warnings from the opposite side too.
I'd be the last to cheer a hard response from Russians. M.A.D.
But, those "Team Russia" spins are becoming boring, fast.
It is true that Russia acted as a smart side. It was/is facing a psychopath on the loose.
Doesn't matter in the game of power.
They blinked.
The opponent read them and made a move. That's all what matters.
I was 50/50 this would happen.
Now I am 90/10 it will happen again, soon.
And, if it just keeps going, for which I am also 50/50, well...........spin that one up.
True, nothing of substance has changed.
The weaker opponent will keep buying time in the game. The stronger will keep pushing.
The little players, especially on the weaker opponent side, are for hard times though.
More importantly, the stronger side got emboldened even more.
The most important result of all this, actually.
This is clearly true, and it’s pretty much what was expected to be the outcome, provided nobody did anything really stupid and no big mistakes were made.
As you say, the bottom line is that the Russians did fold and let the US get away with attacking their allies. On the other hand it’s also true that Russia did what it had to – contrary to the obsessives here, they are the weaker side in theatre and they know it, and furthermore not folding involves an unacceptable risk of escalation to nuclear war. And it’s also fair to say that the Russians also stood their ground to some extent and at least made the US side be seen to back off from what initially looked as though they might be more serious measures. So weaker than the US side, but not entirely helpless.
So I’m pretty cheerful this morning – it could have been a lot worse. Nothing has really changed. Yes the crazies are somewhat emboldened, but on the other hand time is still on the side of the Russians in Syria, and it seems unlikely these strikes if we have seen them all (for now) as Mattis has reportedly suggested will have any material effect on the government or seriously reignite rebel support and activity.
Both side have valid arguments to claim a “win”, but both side’s arguments are overstated by their advocates. Another bad precedent is set, but there are many of these. As I see it, nothing is resolved. As you say, that means the aggressors are emboldened and will likely push again soon enough. But on the other hand the defenders have more time to prepare and to strengthen their positions.
There’s a lot of catching up to do on what really went on in the background, as well, both within the US regime and amongst the resisting powers especially Iran and China. Their responses on the ground, as well as Russia’s, over the next few weeks will tell us a lot.
US/allies had all day to assess the aftermath of the strike last night. All elements of the aftermath.
So, what is important now is whether we'll see the next strike (your/Syria) tonight or my early afternoon here.
We'll have a clearer picture tomorrow and even more clearer a couple of days later.
Just for the (pointless) record, if we see a next strike tonight, well...not............good......Yup.Yup.You missed the point.
"Crazies" read Kremlin. Read them. R......e...........a.............d.......them.I'll tell you what will happen. Already wrote that above.
"Crazies", emboldened, will keep pushing.
They will increase the tempo. How, where, I do not know. Can't say I care much either.
Now I know the sides in this conflict. Didn't quite know before last night, true, was suspecting, but now I know.
"Crazies" will have inititative and will keep pushing, faster and more reckless.
Kremlin will react to all that, hopefully still retaining their cool, retreating and buying time.
Buying.....time......
All good for both big players.
Russian "allies/friends/helpers" will take the brunt of the "crazies" push. Syria first and foremost, but some other will too.
That's the game until something, which I do not know, happens in West to weaken it, somehow, somewhere. Next 5 years for sure, probably 10.
As for you and me, say our types, things will get worse.
There is certain inevitability to that.
I believe we should focus on how to deal with that "worse" and leave "Russia thing" out of it.
My take anyway.
On a personal level, again, should this stays as it is in the next 48 hours I'll re-focus, paying minimal attention to all "Russia thing" overall. Anything of substance won't come from there but from "inside" of the West.
“The U.S. has always had a glass jaw.”
Not quite. The US has more of a conditional glass jaw. Under limited circumstances (if attacked) they can and have sustained large casualties. During the American Civil War, the Southern States lost a non-trivial portion of their population, and they are the backbone of the current US military.
However, things change. Those statues that were pulled down were mostly from the Southern States*, so I question whether even they would be willing to fight a substantial war for this country any more.
I don’t believe, however, the US can simply pick a fight and lose a few thousand people without the public demanding an end to the conflict. The US would have to be directly attacked in some cowardly act for the public to tolerate losses.
*Even at the lowest point of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, the Southern States still supported them and were willing to take even more casualties. That was mostly a patriotic thing, but those states have been slammed by cultural Marxists since Obama. I don’t think they’d go all out for this country any more (see their enthusiastic support of Tucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren’s denunciations of escalation in Syria + their embracing the supposedly anti-war Trump during the election…even in South Carolina).
Personally I think it mostly depends on whether the American people see their side as winning. I doubt casualties would be much problem in any war in which the rulers can present it as being a win for America. It's when it becomes hard to sustain that idea that casualties become a problem.
The Cabinet Manual – described by gov.uk as ‘the ultimate user’s guide to government’ – recognises that such a constitutional convention exists in relation to consulting parliament on military action. It states that:
‘In 2011, the Government acknowledged that a convention had developed in Parliament that before troops were committed the House of Commons should have an opportunity to debate the matter.’ Since this statement, many a government minister and senior official have repeated a commitment to the convention (including the then Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and the Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood).
And it was widely thought to have been consolidated in 2013 by David Cameron’s decision to respect the House of Commons vote against military action in response to a previous chemical attack in Syria. Indeed – in 2014 the current Business Secretary Greg Clark, and then Constitution Minister, told Parliament that the Cabinet Manual ‘should be updated to reinforce the importance and value of that convention by reference to the events of 29 August [2013]…’
But I agree with you about Mrs May being a stupid bitch.
I imagine May's decision to go in without Commons approval was heavily influenced by the fact that in the end it was decided these were to be symbolic strikes with no risk of Russian retaliation. If she had gone in without approval and there'd been any military pushback at all, she'd have been toast.
The 2013 submission to Parliament of a proposed Syrian attack is, to my knowledge, the only time this ever happened.
It's just cultural Americanization. The law and history clearly reserve this power to the monarch.
That’s true, but it’s not really relevant to the point I was making.
The only pre-election promises that Trump has kept were (1) be good to Israel and (2) be bad to Iran. I have noticed that Breitbart was very critical of McMaster and was very lukewarm on Tillerson for no specific reason. But apparently they had to go and be replaced with Bolton and Pompeo to proceed to the next phase of being good to Israel.
The question one may ask to what extent Trump is a willful participant or whether he is just within a funnel that was designed and built for him by the neocons and CIA while Mueller probe and Stormy Daniels are the piston that pushes him deeper and deeper into the funnel. It is possible that the Trump operation manual was written long time ago and now it is just being used.
It’s starting to look that way.
Of course there are non-Jews as a significant part of the cabal, like Paul Ryan, most of Congress, 90% of think tankers.
They're not calling the shots; they're well-paid carry-out boys.
Jews always get nice Christiany white people (or in the latest dispensation, Black people, preferably women) to front for them, and these Christiany whites or Blacks are such eager little puppies, reciting their lines with suitable sternness and snapping up their Kibbles n Bits (Pareve).
Consider this two-fer: a Black girl, Dana White, spoke for the Pentagon in lavishing praise on "our men n wimmen who carried out the precision strike" on Syria's chemical facilities to "teach the monster Assad a lesson that the civilized world will not tolerate flaunting international law."
Asked to explain why Russia made no attempt to counter the attack, either she or Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told assembled scribes that "US did not coordinate beforehand with Russia."
But MoonofAlabama posted this report from Elijah Magnier:Who you gonna believe, eyes on the ground or Deep State front-men (women) in the Pentagon?
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/syria-threat-of-large-war-recedes-but-may-come-back.html
PS Haven't heard much from Israel but this mission was tailor made for the Izzies: the most effective weapon Syria has to deter Israel is chem weapons.
Not quite. The US has more of a conditional glass jaw. Under limited circumstances (if attacked) they can and have sustained large casualties. During the American Civil War, the Southern States lost a non-trivial portion of their population, and they are the backbone of the current US military.
However, things change. Those statues that were pulled down were mostly from the Southern States*, so I question whether even they would be willing to fight a substantial war for this country any more.
I don't believe, however, the US can simply pick a fight and lose a few thousand people without the public demanding an end to the conflict. The US would have to be directly attacked in some cowardly act for the public to tolerate losses.
*Even at the lowest point of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, the Southern States still supported them and were willing to take even more casualties. That was mostly a patriotic thing, but those states have been slammed by cultural Marxists since Obama. I don't think they'd go all out for this country any more (see their enthusiastic support of Tucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren's denunciations of escalation in Syria + their embracing the supposedly anti-war Trump during the election...even in South Carolina).
Or at least, the US public would have to be told that they had been directly attacked or threatened in some “unprovoked” aggression.
Personally I think it mostly depends on whether the American people see their side as winning. I doubt casualties would be much problem in any war in which the rulers can present it as being a win for America. It’s when it becomes hard to sustain that idea that casualties become a problem.
They weren’t
Are you sure?
Thorfinsson is correct that prior to that convention being adopted it was the case that the government did not need Commons approval for such things. But that’s how precedent works. If May gets away with ignoring it, then the convention is weakened and if it is ignored a couple more times without punishment, it is gone and we are back to the former situation.
I imagine May’s decision to go in without Commons approval was heavily influenced by the fact that in the end it was decided these were to be symbolic strikes with no risk of Russian retaliation. If she had gone in without approval and there’d been any military pushback at all, she’d have been toast.
Mrs May has been lying again on the news channels today. She claims these strikes were legal. Well, they were not. You can only attack a country if it is in self-defence or if there is a Security Council Resolution authorising it. Neither condition applied, so the Vicar's daughter was found to be lying yet again.
The Cabinet meeing to discuss this went on for an amazing seven hours, suggesting that - contrary to Mrs May's claims - there was no unanimity. Brexit minister David Davis left after about three hours and told the press that there had been a "robust" discussion, not least on the need to consult Parliament.
Are you sure?
The battle to spin the outcome is on …..
Here is some more spin from the Russian General Staff, or perhaps simply a restatement of facts:And perhaps the first concrete reaction:https://sputniknews.com/world/201804141063542460-russia-air-defenses-syria-us-missile-strike/
The battle to spin the outcome is on …..
Here is some more spin from the Russian General Staff, or perhaps simply a restatement of facts:
And perhaps the first concrete reaction:
https://sputniknews.com/world/201804141063542460-russia-air-defenses-syria-us-missile-strike/
There also seems to be rather subdued initial response to the May government's breathtaking dishonesty in claiming to have had "no alternative" to waging (albeit briefly) an illegal war of aggression. Even if you accept the false premise that there was an established Syrian use of chemical weapons, there clearly were alternatives. Why didn't the US seek a General Assembly vote to try to overturn the UNSC veto? If they haven't even tried that then clearly they haven't pursued possible alternatives. Why didn't they demand peremptory inspections of the places they claim to "know" were used to make and store chemical weapons? Again, clearly they were not in the slightest interested in alternatives.
It will be interesting if the generally rather useless Corbyn will have the balls to take these issues on properly, or if as usual he'll adopt the weak sauce "well, Assad was bad, but you really shouldn't have bombed him without a vote, but yes, Assad is really bad and chemical weapons are very nasty" line that leftist politicians always seem to, when responding ineffectually to these kinds of "humanitarian" aggressions.
I imagine May's decision to go in without Commons approval was heavily influenced by the fact that in the end it was decided these were to be symbolic strikes with no risk of Russian retaliation. If she had gone in without approval and there'd been any military pushback at all, she'd have been toast.
They may have been symbolic airstrikes, but given that Russians might have sustained casualties there was a huge risk. I doubt that Maggie Thatcher, even as she went mad with power towards the end of her term of office, would have risked a nuclear confrontation and the very existence of her country.
Mrs May has been lying again on the news channels today. She claims these strikes were legal. Well, they were not. You can only attack a country if it is in self-defence or if there is a Security Council Resolution authorising it. Neither condition applied, so the Vicar’s daughter was found to be lying yet again.
The Cabinet meeing to discuss this went on for an amazing seven hours, suggesting that – contrary to Mrs May’s claims – there was no unanimity. Brexit minister David Davis left after about three hours and told the press that there had been a “robust” discussion, not least on the need to consult Parliament.
There were certainly huge risks in the whole idea of lobbing missiles at the ally of a nuclear armed state, but I think those were mostly talked out over the past few days, and in the end Trump backed away from anything really significant, and the Russians were forewarned of what was coming and were prepared to tolerate it, perforce, and respond in other ways (see for instance for-the-record's post above).
Here is some more spin from the Russian General Staff, or perhaps simply a restatement of facts:And perhaps the first concrete reaction:https://sputniknews.com/world/201804141063542460-russia-air-defenses-syria-us-missile-strike/
http://www.defenseworld.net/news/22337/Russia_Plans_to_Reopen_S_300_Anti_aircraft_Missile_Systems_Sales_to_Syria#.WtHkNWeouUk
A very good response, imo.
Mrs May has been lying again on the news channels today. She claims these strikes were legal. Well, they were not. You can only attack a country if it is in self-defence or if there is a Security Council Resolution authorising it. Neither condition applied, so the Vicar's daughter was found to be lying yet again.
The Cabinet meeing to discuss this went on for an amazing seven hours, suggesting that - contrary to Mrs May's claims - there was no unanimity. Brexit minister David Davis left after about three hours and told the press that there had been a "robust" discussion, not least on the need to consult Parliament.
Obviously. But the easy tell that May is lying is that her lips are moving.
If there had been any significant risk, military or political, I don’t believe she’d have done it. She’s a coward as well as a liar.
There were certainly huge risks in the whole idea of lobbing missiles at the ally of a nuclear armed state, but I think those were mostly talked out over the past few days, and in the end Trump backed away from anything really significant, and the Russians were forewarned of what was coming and were prepared to tolerate it, perforce, and respond in other ways (see for instance for-the-record’s post above).
That Syrian missile that brought down the f-16I inside Israeli airspace might as well have been launched by Russia, as Syria would never have dared if they didn't know that Russia would force Israel not to retaliate.
This is the War of Attrition all over again. And just like then, a direct clash between Russia and Israel is inevitable. Hopefully the sides are able to work something out because Israel is about to bring Iran, Syria and Lebanon a world of pain and they won't be standing down this time, no matter what Putin does.
“This is the War of Attrition all over again. And just like then, a direct clash between Russia and Israel is inevitable. Hopefully the sides are able to work something out because Israel is about to bring Iran, Syria and Lebanon a world of pain and they won’t be standing down this time, no matter what Putin does.”
– You missed the historical fact that Russia had been already dealing with the Jews. — Remember the Bolshevik Revolution, the establishment of the GULAG, and the inordinate presence of Jewish sadists among the secret police?
You could lull yourself with the mighty ideas of destroying the Middle East; up to date, the Zionists are guilty of 4 million of deaths due to the zionized US’ “humanitarian interventions” aimed at implementing the Oded Yinon plan. At least a quarter of the dead are children.
You could jump up and down proclaiming your various virtues and rights and moral superiority and eternal victimhood, but nobody wants to hear you… The zionized MSM is not trusted anymore by ALL decent people. You — Israelis and the Lobby — are disgusting.
The Lobby has become the worst enemy of the American citizenry (see Iraq war, PNAC, Wolfowitz doctrine, and similar bloody lunacies). The Friends of Israel have become the worst enemy of the Brits (see the Iraq war, the face of Blair, and the “beauty” of the Skripal affair).
By the way, you need to take care of your schizophrenic thinking: it is either “a direct clash between Russia and Israel is inevitable” or “hopefully the sides are able to work something out.”
Yours is a country of mad rabies, Moldovan bouncers, and sanctimonious hypocrites that love — love! — murdering the unarmed natives in the Gaza Ghetto. What was it yesterday — the remembrance day for Warsaw Ghetto? — So timely. Such a powerful reminder of the Israelis crimes on the occupied territories.
That's why I think the prospects of a dramatic escalation here are higher than people might think. The Russians will accept exactly what you have stated and will blame their prior weakness for the current situation. They will want to redeem themselves by drawing a line in the sand in Syria. If they do not, the next war could be fought closer to home with US support (Ukraine, some separatist region of Russia, etc.).
Frankly, I think the Russians do have to draw a line in the sand here a la the Cuban Missile Crisis - even if that leads to a nuclear exchange. In fact, much of Karlin's analysis here applied to the US during '62 (the possibility of being overwhelmed in Europe over a less strategically important piece of real estate). The Americans rightly calculated that they could not back down as that would only encourage a war later down the road as the Soviets continued to demand concessions until they reached something they would never concede: Berlin.
Eventually, the US will try to draw Ukraine into NATO, and it will continue to sanction Russia to encourage regime change, etc. They've made it very clear they are planning a long war on Russia and China. That fool Pompeo just announced that the era of being "soft" on Russia has ended. Can Russia afford to put themselves into such a strategically weak situation by capitulating in the face of this aggression and guaranteed future aggression? If they yield here, a war may be guaranteed a few years down the line, so why not just fight it now when they are in a very slightly better position?
The same Cuban Missile Crisis calculus applies here. The Russians really can't back down. They must find a way to discourage attack, possibly by deploying nuclear weapons to Syria.
If conflict does come, they should considering hitting those carriers with nukes. Karlin asks what that will accomplish. Well, by his own article, they will have 10 left, and after losing two, they will have incentive to not lose any more due to how long it takes to build more in the face of a growing China. Besides, there is an outside chance that dramatically nuking a carrier would cause the US military to rebel against an unstable American leader and offer peace. Perhaps the American public would also rebel and demand a cease fire. Regardless, it's better than nuking some desert base no one has ever heard of. Nuking a carrier at sea would 1. limit civilian casualties and thus be somewhat more acceptable to the public 2. be visible to the American public and panic them in a way that nuking some far away Middle Eastern base would not.
Also, the threat of destroying Saudi oil fields as a result of conflict might further deescalate the situation. Rich people sure care about their cash.
Yeah, nuking USA aircraft carriers makes a lot sense after your explanation, China built aircraft carrier killer ballistic missiles for the same reason.
I’ve thought the same. They have publicly stated that there will be consequences for this attack, so we’ll see in the coming days if there is.
As an aside, there is no way the Russians didn’t know about this attack as it was happening, whatever anyone may say. These were all cruise missiles, so they could have been shot down – cruise missiles are relatively slow flying and non-stealthy; therefore, they are more easily intercepted (even by fighter aircraft) and destroyed.
If I were a Russian advisor, I might recommend attacking Libya in response. The chances of retaliation from the government are very low, it’s nearby, and there are probably at least a few good targets there – including American contractors they could target in revenge for Russian contractors being killed a few weeks ago (Pompeo crowed about it recently: “they met their match”). They could justify it as a humanitarian mission but attack their oil facilities while they are at it and give a boost to the Russian economy.
“If I were a Russian advisor, I might recommend attacking Libya in response.”
— Let me guess, you are Jewish?
The last paragraph sums it up beautifully. The question is a simple one.Why are Chinese troops in Syria?.Who has the most to gain in a conflict between Russia and the west.Sun tzu otherwise known as Sunny tzuzie,the great Chinese philosopher wrote “who flung dung”. Exactly my question.
http://www.newsweek.com/china-military-joins-syria-war-deabte-displays-new-weapons-home-824429
I didn’t understand the tizzy on display by the “bash America first” crowd in the comment section. A repeat of Shayrat was always the most likely event. Russia firsters and Assad supporters could claim that there was little damage and most of the missiles had been deflected or shot down anyway while the U.S. and allies could claim to have destroyed mucho war resources and all with few casualties. I think it’s called a win-win.
Let's declare victory and go home.
Well, I happen to think you’re full of shit, so we agree to disagree. Unlike you and this wackjob hack warmonger Karlin, I don’t think full scale nuclear war is the way forward.
You are an unhinged ass monkey if you think anybody will survive WWIII full scale nuclear war. What a fucking loon you are, trying to look on the ‘bright side’ of nuclear armageddon. You actually have the suicidal stupidity and gall to say the following-
“While cancer and other hazards will further reduce biodiversity and lower the overall standard of life, humanity as a species will survive and it is probable that technological advancement can restart again after some time. ”
Take a moment and re-read that. Yes, you are evidently fine with 99% of life being exterminated on Earth, and leaving it a radioactive ash heap where what little remains can try to continue.
What a total, complete, delusional fucking asshole you are. As I said earlier, this Unz website if full of alt-right shit heads like you, fringe wackos who seem to look forward to nuclear annihilation as is the case with you.
If he wrote that if someone were to chop his (D_C's) finger off it would hurt like hell and handicap him for life, but he probably would survive, would that imply D_C is "fine" with someone chopping his finger off?
Isn't the issue of what the effects of a nuclear exchange might actually be, one for legitimate discussion?
Nothing happened.
It’s an opening shot. US navy forces are moving into position for more.
US Zionists want “regime change” with the destruction of both Syria and Iran, not a few pre-announced bombs in a Syrian parking lot.
In fact, if Trump hadn't had that twitter meltdown immediately after I don't think the US would have even struck at all.
Regardless, if nothing else the resistance side has time to respond and prepare.Indeed, but that doesn't mean they will get what they want. If nothing else, this latest close shave will have awakened a few more people to the stakes in Syria.
Glass half full or half empty?
-- Agree. It is a real disservice to humanity that Solzhenitsyn' documentary "Two Hundred Years Together" has been sequestered both in the US and UK. Up until now, people at large (including the Jews) have not been aware what kind of exceptional sadists and mass murders were produced by the Jewish tribe at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia.
The situation in Palestine, where "the most moral"enjoy shooting the unarmed natives (including children) to the head and the hips and where Jews celebrate the burning of a Palestinian infant to death by the "chosen" illegal settlers, only gives a modest glimpse to the potential of the tribe.
The inordinate number of psychophants among the Jews, and their supremacist beliefs, constitute a mortal danger to western civilization -- and to the tribe itself.
The Jews are taught from their childhood that "Happy is the one who seizes your [Persian, Russian, Syrian...] infants and dashes them against the rocks."
Here is a current situation in pictures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovo_T0KqdYg
"Neuro-parasitogy of the Jewel Wasp and its Zombie Cockroach Host: The parasitoid Jewel Wasp (Ampulex compressa) uses cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) as a live fresh food supply for its offspring. The wasp injects venom directly into the cockroach brain to control its behavior."
-- "The cockroach brain" is the zionized US Congress and the zionized US military.
Yeah but it’s clear that Russia really won this round. US needs to cut it’s losses and leave. There is no support in the west for any kind of conflict and it divides Trump’s base.
Let’s declare victory and go home.
It took many years for us to do this in Vietnam, all the while suffering extensive casualties and with a serious anti-war movement in the populace and in Congress.
There is no anti-war movement.
I think it was just a reminder to Putin and Assad, mostly Putin, that you don't get to rest on your laurels, you have to commit resources for a very long haul.
US Zionists want "regime change" with the destruction of both Syria and Iran, not a few pre-announced bombs in a Syrian parking lot.
No it isn’t. It’s over.
In fact, if Trump hadn’t had that twitter meltdown immediately after I don’t think the US would have even struck at all.
US Zionists want "regime change" with the destruction of both Syria and Iran, not a few pre-announced bombs in a Syrian parking lot.
Are they? Or are they mostly routine redeployments?
Regardless, if nothing else the resistance side has time to respond and prepare.
Indeed, but that doesn’t mean they will get what they want. If nothing else, this latest close shave will have awakened a few more people to the stakes in Syria.
Glass half full or half empty?
Here is some more spin from the Russian General Staff, or perhaps simply a restatement of facts:And perhaps the first concrete reaction:https://sputniknews.com/world/201804141063542460-russia-air-defenses-syria-us-missile-strike/
Speaking of spin, it’s amusing to read all the establishment media reports uncritically repeating shamelessly dishonest government spin about having targeted chemical warfare stocks and facilities. If there really were such stocks, why didn’t the US and its poodles demand peremptory inspections? If nothing else, a refusal could have been used as propaganda.
There also seems to be rather subdued initial response to the May government’s breathtaking dishonesty in claiming to have had “no alternative” to waging (albeit briefly) an illegal war of aggression. Even if you accept the false premise that there was an established Syrian use of chemical weapons, there clearly were alternatives. Why didn’t the US seek a General Assembly vote to try to overturn the UNSC veto? If they haven’t even tried that then clearly they haven’t pursued possible alternatives. Why didn’t they demand peremptory inspections of the places they claim to “know” were used to make and store chemical weapons? Again, clearly they were not in the slightest interested in alternatives.
It will be interesting if the generally rather useless Corbyn will have the balls to take these issues on properly, or if as usual he’ll adopt the weak sauce “well, Assad was bad, but you really shouldn’t have bombed him without a vote, but yes, Assad is really bad and chemical weapons are very nasty” line that leftist politicians always seem to, when responding ineffectually to these kinds of “humanitarian” aggressions.
"Legally questionable"!? It's flat out, straightforwardly illegal, Corbyn, you idiot.
So what does the acceptance of ToE measure? It is possible that among people who do not accept the ToE or have some doubts and questions about it you may find, besides cranks and some Christian fundamentalists, also a very interesting individuals who may have insights and understanding of surrounding us reality much deeper and more challenging than what you may get from types with the obsequiousness of German_reader. Personally I do not like Fred and his writing because he is not really sincere and all what he believes in is the well being of his selfish libertarian ass; he gets off on irking people yet, I think, he is more aware of social reality he inhabits than German_reader is. He is less of a sleepwalker than German-Reader is.
that’s not Fred though.
http://www.unz.com/freed/the-bugs-in-darwin-580/
from cursory skimming I can tell those are very basic-b**ch objections – muh complexity, the eye, insect metamorphosis, morals… sufficiently dealt with by pop-sci lit on the subject or the Index to Creationist Claims.
that’s all things.
through decade-long bipartisan effort, ToE has become one of the fronts in the American culture war so of course most people defending it and denying it alike are gonna do it for bad reasons. That doesn’t mean it’s false.
Most that society can do is to encourage people to try to be less wrong. Christian Right is an especially egregious example where a whole subculture sunk and reveled in error. The Left destroyed them by relentless pounding making the way free for a smart Right wing.
Now would that the Right save the Left from the cretinous, but trendy, segments of itself.
Regardless, if nothing else the resistance side has time to respond and prepare.Indeed, but that doesn't mean they will get what they want. If nothing else, this latest close shave will have awakened a few more people to the stakes in Syria.
Glass half full or half empty?
I was a bit surprised to find out that the UK PM, like the U. S. prez, can initiate war without the approval of Parliament (Congress).
The constitutional background is that Presidents theoretically shouldn't be able to initiate wars (as opposed to defensive military action) without Congressional approval (but in practice do), whereas Prime Ministers were always seen as exercising a royal prerogative to do so, which was not dependent on Commons approval.
In recent years, the precedent has been established that in fact PMs should seek such approval, but it's just a precedent and as we have just seen a PM can defy it if he (or she) thinks he can get away with it. Which I suppose brings us back into line with US reality.
But I suspect May will insist there was some spurious urgent necessity that required her to ignore the precedent on this occasion. Nevertheless her action has unavoidably weakened it, if she is allowed to get away with it, which of course she will. And clearly there will be those in the military and in the political and media establishment who will see that as a good outcome. Mind you, if there had been any military response from Russia at all, involving say a missile attack on a plane or on the Akrotiri base in retaliation, I suspect she would have been toast politically for going ahead without approval. So I feel she will only have committed to the action when it was absolutely clear that no Russian feathers were going to be unduly ruffled by it.
Let's declare victory and go home.
Let’s declare victory and go home.
It took many years for us to do this in Vietnam, all the while suffering extensive casualties and with a serious anti-war movement in the populace and in Congress.
There is no anti-war movement.
I think it was just a reminder to Putin and Assad, mostly Putin, that you don’t get to rest on your laurels, you have to commit resources for a very long haul.
Why does D_C’s opinion as to the likely outcome of a nuclear exchange give any clue as to whether or not he’s “fine” with it?
If he wrote that if someone were to chop his (D_C’s) finger off it would hurt like hell and handicap him for life, but he probably would survive, would that imply D_C is “fine” with someone chopping his finger off?
Isn’t the issue of what the effects of a nuclear exchange might actually be, one for legitimate discussion?
Excerpts from statement of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin:
http://tass.com/politics/999748
http://tass.com/politics/999762
There also seems to be rather subdued initial response to the May government's breathtaking dishonesty in claiming to have had "no alternative" to waging (albeit briefly) an illegal war of aggression. Even if you accept the false premise that there was an established Syrian use of chemical weapons, there clearly were alternatives. Why didn't the US seek a General Assembly vote to try to overturn the UNSC veto? If they haven't even tried that then clearly they haven't pursued possible alternatives. Why didn't they demand peremptory inspections of the places they claim to "know" were used to make and store chemical weapons? Again, clearly they were not in the slightest interested in alternatives.
It will be interesting if the generally rather useless Corbyn will have the balls to take these issues on properly, or if as usual he'll adopt the weak sauce "well, Assad was bad, but you really shouldn't have bombed him without a vote, but yes, Assad is really bad and chemical weapons are very nasty" line that leftist politicians always seem to, when responding ineffectually to these kinds of "humanitarian" aggressions.
Hey Randal, since you are keen on enforcing agreements, do you have an answer to Haley’s comment that if Russia had honored its chemical weapons agreement, none of this would have happened? Or do you just want to enforce agreements on one side?
If the Yanks are claiming the Syrians had stocks of chemicals and chemical weapons research facilities (that they bombed) why didn't they demand an inspection and expose it to the world?
Syria has been winning; this is why the ziocons are pushing the ziocononized US and the zioconized UK to Syria. The mass slaughter in the Middle East is a joint project of Israel and the zioconized US:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovo_T0KqdYg
You need to familiarize yourself with Oded Yinon plan and with PNAC -- the ziocon manifesto.
Now, run and tell that, iffen.
“Are they? Or are they mostly routine redeployments?”
One carrier group, yes. But there was another carrier group heading to the region. I don’t know if that’s changed now. If it has, we are out of the woods. If not…
Who cares who thought and said what.
Time for blabbing is over, don't you get it?
One side keeps blabbing, the other bombing.
If that can't wake some people and make them face the harsh realities...well...good.
One side just bombed the ally of the other side on the basis of no rational pretext whatsoever.
Ignored, while getting ready, all processes and procedures agreed upon by civilized world.
The most important, ignored all warnings from the opposite side too.
I'd be the last to cheer a hard response from Russians. M.A.D.
But, those "Team Russia" spins are becoming boring, fast.
It is true that Russia acted as a smart side. It was/is facing a psychopath on the loose.
Doesn't matter in the game of power.
They blinked.
The opponent read them and made a move. That's all what matters.
I was 50/50 this would happen.
Now I am 90/10 it will happen again, soon.
And, if it just keeps going, for which I am also 50/50, well...........spin that one up.
True, nothing of substance has changed.
The weaker opponent will keep buying time in the game. The stronger will keep pushing.
The little players, especially on the weaker opponent side, are for hard times though.
More importantly, the stronger side got emboldened even more.
The most important result of all this, actually.
I recounted the following anecdote in a reply in another thread, and think it bears repeating now.
Foreman, the great power puncher explained his loss to Ali in the 8th round in Kinshasa…
Foreman had been power punching for 7 rounds, landing 100s of blows, to little effect against Ali’s rope-a-dope strategy. Deflecting, letting the ropes absorb the impacts of body blows, ducking, bobbing and weaving, Ali allowed Foreman free rein to flail away. Occasionally, some got through, but by the 7th round even his best shot wasn’t enough.
Team America may not be as insightful as Foreman, but they too will eventually come to realize that Syria, the Ukraine, the SCS and DPRK ain’t what they thought they were either. They’ll realize it when they take their best shot and hear “That all ya got, Uncle Sam?”, and they’ll hit the canvas in the next round just like Foreman did.
What was interesting is how Muhammad trained...he arrived in Zaire months before and he would run daily through the countryside and desperate villages...and the people would come out and run alongside shouting...'Ali bomaye'...'Ali kill him...'
Foreman got there much later and never left the hotel...he never seemed to get comfortable in Zaire...and apparently was bothered by Ali's trash talking which was all over the media...
Ali...as usual...was winning the psychological war...the one that counts really...
He did the same thing with Wilt Chamberlain...who had challenged him to a fight in 1971...Of course Ali had one of the strongest jaws ever in my opinion...he was never KO'd...Foreman's jaw didn't match up...and he punched himself out...somehow Ali knew he could weather the storm...it was a tremendous strategy against the big man...
Ali did take some vicious punches from Big Georgie...but he took far worse punishment from Larry Holmes...he was in terrible shape and past his prime by then but he never went down...Angelo Dundee threw in the towel after the 11'th...
http://content.ksdk.com/photo/2017/10/27/ali_beatles_cropped_1509140561504_11497506_ver1.0.png
How did Russia breach the chemical weapons agreement?
“if Russia had honored its chemical weapons agreement, none of this would have happened? Or do you just want to enforce agreements on one side?”
The US is really in no position to talk about enforcing agreements. It abandoned the ABM treaty, routinely ignores UN treaty obligations per the use of force, ignores its own constitutional checks on executive war making ability, vetoes every UN resolution regarding Israel, and its Secretary of State nominee recently told Congress that the US was “unique and exceptional” in the context that it didn’t have to obey any laws or international norms.
-- You are really sloppy with falsifying history for Israel's benefits.
“How did Russia breach the chemical weapons agreement?”
I think he is referencing Skripal.
Interestingly, I had the feeling that the British might be responsible for the Sarin gas attack when I heard of it – assumed it was a British plot to draw in a retaliatory strike on the Russians.
Well it’s an interesting comparison and contrast I suppose.
The constitutional background is that Presidents theoretically shouldn’t be able to initiate wars (as opposed to defensive military action) without Congressional approval (but in practice do), whereas Prime Ministers were always seen as exercising a royal prerogative to do so, which was not dependent on Commons approval.
In recent years, the precedent has been established that in fact PMs should seek such approval, but it’s just a precedent and as we have just seen a PM can defy it if he (or she) thinks he can get away with it. Which I suppose brings us back into line with US reality.
But I suspect May will insist there was some spurious urgent necessity that required her to ignore the precedent on this occasion. Nevertheless her action has unavoidably weakened it, if she is allowed to get away with it, which of course she will. And clearly there will be those in the military and in the political and media establishment who will see that as a good outcome. Mind you, if there had been any military response from Russia at all, involving say a missile attack on a plane or on the Akrotiri base in retaliation, I suspect she would have been toast politically for going ahead without approval. So I feel she will only have committed to the action when it was absolutely clear that no Russian feathers were going to be unduly ruffled by it.
Do you ever reflect upon the fact that the U. S. elected Ike as President (twice) and the French let de Gaulle establish the 5th Republic with an extremely powerful presidency while the Brits voted their war time leader out of office?
I think he is referencing Skripal.
Interestingly, I had the feeling that the British might be responsible for the Sarin gas attack when I heard of it - assumed it was a British plot to draw in a retaliatory strike on the Russians.
I thought there was no evidence.
I get the point of enforcing laws of war in theory, and the aversion to gas in particular. But the laws of war were never really about third world countries no one expects to follow them, but about major powers.
I mean sure, I don't doubt that Assad's regime is conducting all manner of atrocities, and I wouldn't even put it beyond them that they're using gas. But all sides (especially the Islamist-dominated rebels) are using cruel methods in this war. I think there's even proof that jihadi groups have used chlorine gas and the like on some occasions. Pretending that the viciousness of this war is merely due to "animal Assad's" cruelty is selective hypocrisy, probably merely a cover for other interests.
I also don't buy the argument that one has to prevent the use of chemical weapons at all costs, because otherwise their use might become more common and they might eventually be used against Western troops or civilians as well. A regime like Assad's can be easily deterred (and to my knowledge Assad has never even considered supporting terrorism against targets in Europe or the US). And chemical weapons don't seem that grave a threat to me as nuclear or biological ones.
There also seems to be rather subdued initial response to the May government's breathtaking dishonesty in claiming to have had "no alternative" to waging (albeit briefly) an illegal war of aggression. Even if you accept the false premise that there was an established Syrian use of chemical weapons, there clearly were alternatives. Why didn't the US seek a General Assembly vote to try to overturn the UNSC veto? If they haven't even tried that then clearly they haven't pursued possible alternatives. Why didn't they demand peremptory inspections of the places they claim to "know" were used to make and store chemical weapons? Again, clearly they were not in the slightest interested in alternatives.
It will be interesting if the generally rather useless Corbyn will have the balls to take these issues on properly, or if as usual he'll adopt the weak sauce "well, Assad was bad, but you really shouldn't have bombed him without a vote, but yes, Assad is really bad and chemical weapons are very nasty" line that leftist politicians always seem to, when responding ineffectually to these kinds of "humanitarian" aggressions.
If there really were such stocks, why didn’t the US and its poodles demand peremptory inspections? If nothing else, a refusal could have been used as propaganda.
It appears these strikes were a big zero and are more damaging to American reputation (what’s left of it, that is), than Russian. In that sense the Russian non-response (that we’re aware of at least) was appropriate and prudent. Time is ultimately on Russia’s side. But it just as apparent that false flags work, so sadly this is far from over.
do you have an answer to Haley’s comment that if Russia had honored its chemical weapons agreement, none of this would have happened? Or do you just want to enforce agreements on one side?
***[Left unsaid] A significant part of the 3.7% not yet destroyed being represented by the undestroyed portion of the stockpile of the USA.
Well it’s hard to see any reason to treat anything the Haley creature says as worthy of consideration, let alone a reply. Your quote seems to reinforce that approach, since there’s no reason to believe in any alleged (by the known liars in the US regime) Russian breach of any agreement, and many good reasons to disbelieve in it.
If the Yanks are claiming the Syrians had stocks of chemicals and chemical weapons research facilities (that they bombed) why didn’t they demand an inspection and expose it to the world?
Are you aware of the fate of these last two sites? I assume (but don’t know) that neither of them were amongst the sites claimed (with impressive chutzpah) by the US as chemical weapons sites targeted last night:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43762251
No, I don't, but the OPCW can demand an inspection at any time if they have any doubts, and this wasn't done. And it should be noted that Syria has promised full cooperation with the intrepid OPCW inspectors who, despite the inclement weather, are continuing with their mission.
why didn’t they demand an inspection and expose it to the world?
. . . inasmuch as the OPCW inspectors are already on site in Syria.
Not quite. The US has more of a conditional glass jaw. Under limited circumstances (if attacked) they can and have sustained large casualties. During the American Civil War, the Southern States lost a non-trivial portion of their population, and they are the backbone of the current US military.
However, things change. Those statues that were pulled down were mostly from the Southern States*, so I question whether even they would be willing to fight a substantial war for this country any more.
I don't believe, however, the US can simply pick a fight and lose a few thousand people without the public demanding an end to the conflict. The US would have to be directly attacked in some cowardly act for the public to tolerate losses.
*Even at the lowest point of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, the Southern States still supported them and were willing to take even more casualties. That was mostly a patriotic thing, but those states have been slammed by cultural Marxists since Obama. I don't think they'd go all out for this country any more (see their enthusiastic support of Tucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren's denunciations of escalation in Syria + their embracing the supposedly anti-war Trump during the election...even in South Carolina).
As well as aversion to military deaths, an important psychological consideration here is the extent to which Americans fail to understand that, for all their military bluster, they have not fought an opponent on comparable terms since China intervened in Korea. Few Americans understand that, e.g., the vast majority of the Wehrmacht’s best troops were on the Eastern Front, Americans fought mainly subpar forces in the West. Yet they think WW2 was a crowning glory of American military history. The public shock that will arise from a capable opponent (like Russia) fighting back will go far beyond a schoolyard bully getting his comeuppance, it will have major political ramifications.
1. There will be no conventional clash between Russia and the US.
2. If there was such a clash, nobody who knows anything about military forces and equipment would predict anything other than an overwhelming US victory.
3. Russia would respond to such a defeat by launching WWIII, which is why it is never going to happen.
The US strategy is publicly available:
1. The US finishes defeating ISIS and making sure that it can't regenerate.
2. The US essentially makes Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan an unofficial protectorate and keeps an open ended commitment there to make sure that Assad doesn't get those regions back.
3. The US and it's partners keep the fronts within Syria alive to continue draining Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons.
4. The goal is to keep Syria isolated either forever or until Russia and Iran throw in the towel; whichever comes first.
This was the strategy before last week and nothing has changed. Time is certainly not on Russia's side. This war is putting a strain on their budget and it will only get worse for them. As long as Russia and Iran are sinking resources into Syria, the Pentagon is getting what it wants.
Some on this site predict that the NATO (well, not quite NATO - just the U.S., UK and France) Coalition will accomplish its grand strategic goals via air strikes and naval blockade.
It could well be true - but being an amateur historian, I can't ever recall an instance in history in which long-term military (never mind grand strategic) victory happened without victory in a land war. Suffice it so say, I have my doubts. Well, admittedly there was the case of Japan getting 2 nukes in World War 2 - yes, nukes can win wars against non-nuclear states.
Assuming it does go to land fighting, fighting Russia in 2018 is not like fighting China in 1950. Not at all. Russia has large manufacturing capacity and an army equipped with modern, capable equipment.
The only things the Chinese had in Korea were unbreakable morale, good tactical and operational sense, agile maneuver and good small-unit leaders. Materially, they were very deficient in a way modern Russia is not - just a lot of bolt action rifles, grenades, bayonets, and little else. Maybe some machineguns, mortars and guns they could scrounge - literally just a collection of obsolete stuff they pressed into service.
Russia 2018 is potentially a very different proposition. Emphasis on "potentially".
Yes, you are right, things aren’t as dire this morning as they appeared last night.
“In fact, if Trump hadn’t had that twitter meltdown immediately after I don’t think the US would have even struck at all.”
That puts the situation in an interesting light.
Here’s one interpretation: Trump’s generals urge him not to attack, he goes nuts on Twitter in order to force them to allow it, they tell him they will make it happen, he – as is common once he gets his way – is magnanimous and Tweets follow-up nicey nice things.
Did Trump throw a tantrum to get this attack?
So he goes nuts on twitter in thoughtless rage and by the time he realizes that he is powerless against Assad he has already talked himself into a corner where he has to do something.
Everything after the "animal Assad" tweet was damage control. And it ended up working out pretty well for everybody.
Are you aware of the fate of these last two sites?
No, I don’t, but the OPCW can demand an inspection at any time if they have any doubts, and this wasn’t done. And it should be noted that Syria has promised full cooperation with the intrepid OPCW inspectors who, despite the inclement weather, are continuing with their mission.
Barzeh research and development centre, Damascus, a "centre for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology", targeted by 19 jasms and 57 Tomahawks (! - seems they wanted to make sure)
Him Shinshar chemical weapons storage site, west of Homs, allegedly the "the primary location of Syrian Sarin and precursor production equipment", targeted by 9 Tomahawks, 8 Storm Shadows, 5 unspecified "naval cruise missiles" and 2 SCALPs (French Storm Shadow equivalents, iirc).
Him Shinshar chemical weapons bunker, west of Homs, a separate facility that allegedly "contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post", targeted by 7 SCALPs.
The Yanks and their poodles disagree with the Russians/Syrians about whether any missiles were shot down, and about the targeting.
Interestingly the BBC report also includes the following about the Barzeh site:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43769332
That isn’t going to happen.
1. There will be no conventional clash between Russia and the US.
2. If there was such a clash, nobody who knows anything about military forces and equipment would predict anything other than an overwhelming US victory.
3. Russia would respond to such a defeat by launching WWIII, which is why it is never going to happen.
The US strategy is publicly available:
1. The US finishes defeating ISIS and making sure that it can’t regenerate.
2. The US essentially makes Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan an unofficial protectorate and keeps an open ended commitment there to make sure that Assad doesn’t get those regions back.
3. The US and it’s partners keep the fronts within Syria alive to continue draining Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons.
4. The goal is to keep Syria isolated either forever or until Russia and Iran throw in the towel; whichever comes first.
This was the strategy before last week and nothing has changed. Time is certainly not on Russia’s side. This war is putting a strain on their budget and it will only get worse for them. As long as Russia and Iran are sinking resources into Syria, the Pentagon is getting what it wants.
Much of the rest of your post is delusional. RUSSIA, not America, is defeating ISIS. Hard to see how the US could defeat ISIS, since it’s their creation (a CIA/Mossad mercenary army).
Will the US then go nuclear...?
That's the question that 'somebodies' who actually do know something about military forces and equipment are thinking about...
-- How old are you? If you are a teen then you perhaps are not aware that the US army has not been having "an overwhelming US victory" in Afghanistan for 17 years. What do you know about the mighty Afghan army and its incomparable advanced weaponry?
-- If you are an old person, then ... well...cognitive problems can be cruel.
That puts the situation in an interesting light.
Here's one interpretation: Trump's generals urge him not to attack, he goes nuts on Twitter in order to force them to allow it, they tell him they will make it happen, he - as is common once he gets his way - is magnanimous and Tweets follow-up nicey nice things.
Did Trump throw a tantrum to get this attack?
I think his tantrum was a combination of things. He was pissed about internal political stuff and furious when the generals told him he couldn’t abandon the Kurds like he promised his Rust Belt supporters he would. Then Assad does something that not only puts Trump in a difficult situation, but that Trump takes as a slap in the face.
So he goes nuts on twitter in thoughtless rage and by the time he realizes that he is powerless against Assad he has already talked himself into a corner where he has to do something.
Everything after the “animal Assad” tweet was damage control. And it ended up working out pretty well for everybody.
“Time is certainly not on Russia’s side.”
How much longer can the US establishment hold off an anti-war candidate who would withdraw? Each election cycle sees an ever more skeptical public vote for an ever more skeptical, anti-war candidate. Perhaps time isn’t really on our side.
The Americans strangling them with sanctions and bombing their allies notwithstanding, they are still keen on cooperating.
You want to stop US imperialism, right? Well as I have proven on this very message board, the US is going to be gone in 20 years. But you know what will still exist in 20 years? Russia
So here is the choice:
1. Russia starts WWIII over some empty buildings that don't damage Assad.
2. Russia takes the tremendous victory they scored last night (showing that without firing a shot they can prevent US regime change, something impossible since the end of the Cold War) and plays the long game and waits for the US civil war.
Putin has wisely elected to cash in his chips and someday you will thank him for it.
There also seems to be rather subdued initial response to the May government's breathtaking dishonesty in claiming to have had "no alternative" to waging (albeit briefly) an illegal war of aggression. Even if you accept the false premise that there was an established Syrian use of chemical weapons, there clearly were alternatives. Why didn't the US seek a General Assembly vote to try to overturn the UNSC veto? If they haven't even tried that then clearly they haven't pursued possible alternatives. Why didn't they demand peremptory inspections of the places they claim to "know" were used to make and store chemical weapons? Again, clearly they were not in the slightest interested in alternatives.
It will be interesting if the generally rather useless Corbyn will have the balls to take these issues on properly, or if as usual he'll adopt the weak sauce "well, Assad was bad, but you really shouldn't have bombed him without a vote, but yes, Assad is really bad and chemical weapons are very nasty" line that leftist politicians always seem to, when responding ineffectually to these kinds of "humanitarian" aggressions.
Speaking of useless, weak sauce leftist politicians’ ineffectual responses:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/14/jeremy-corbyn-calls-syria-airstrikes-legally-questionable
“Legally questionable”!? It’s flat out, straightforwardly illegal, Corbyn, you idiot.
The man expected to be the next PM has opposed this attack. This is a huge crack in the Anglo American alliance and is unprecedented.
Just take the fucking win. The universe isn't going to collapse on itself if you go one day without complaining about everything.
I like you reiner, but I feel like you aren’t seeing the big picture.
You want to stop US imperialism, right? Well as I have proven on this very message board, the US is going to be gone in 20 years. But you know what will still exist in 20 years? Russia
So here is the choice:
1. Russia starts WWIII over some empty buildings that don’t damage Assad.
2. Russia takes the tremendous victory they scored last night (showing that without firing a shot they can prevent US regime change, something impossible since the end of the Cold War) and plays the long game and waits for the US civil war.
Putin has wisely elected to cash in his chips and someday you will thank him for it.
"Legally questionable"!? It's flat out, straightforwardly illegal, Corbyn, you idiot.
what he said was fine. Hate to break it to you, but international law is fairly convoluted.
The man expected to be the next PM has opposed this attack. This is a huge crack in the Anglo American alliance and is unprecedented.
Just take the fucking win. The universe isn’t going to collapse on itself if you go one day without complaining about everything.
"All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."
The only permitted exceptions are necessary defence against armed attack, and actions authorised by the UNSC (or in theory the UN General Assembly).
Certainly the comical attempts by US sphere figures to claim some sort of defensive justification never rose above the comedic, even if you wouldn't grasp that from the establishment media coverage. And there is no legal right of "humanitarian" intervention. That aspect was thoroughly explored over several days by the House Of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in its desperate attempt to whitewash the openly illegal Kosovo war, and even those master hypocrites and law-choppers were forced to give up and concede that the war was "probably illegal but [supposedly] justified".
Oh by the way guys, Bibi and the IDF are really fucking pissed about how limited the US strikes were.
Maybe Trump isn’t “Zionist stooge” you have him pegged as? Maybe the situation in Syria is complicated and involves dozens of competing and conflicting interests?
1. There will be no conventional clash between Russia and the US.
2. If there was such a clash, nobody who knows anything about military forces and equipment would predict anything other than an overwhelming US victory.
3. Russia would respond to such a defeat by launching WWIII, which is why it is never going to happen.
The US strategy is publicly available:
1. The US finishes defeating ISIS and making sure that it can't regenerate.
2. The US essentially makes Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan an unofficial protectorate and keeps an open ended commitment there to make sure that Assad doesn't get those regions back.
3. The US and it's partners keep the fronts within Syria alive to continue draining Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons.
4. The goal is to keep Syria isolated either forever or until Russia and Iran throw in the towel; whichever comes first.
This was the strategy before last week and nothing has changed. Time is certainly not on Russia's side. This war is putting a strain on their budget and it will only get worse for them. As long as Russia and Iran are sinking resources into Syria, the Pentagon is getting what it wants.
It all depends on how much the American oligarchy believes their own bullshit, there are moderating forces who understand the risks, we shall see if they win out.
Much of the rest of your post is delusional. RUSSIA, not America, is defeating ISIS. Hard to see how the US could defeat ISIS, since it’s their creation (a CIA/Mossad mercenary army).
The man expected to be the next PM has opposed this attack. This is a huge crack in the Anglo American alliance and is unprecedented.
Just take the fucking win. The universe isn't going to collapse on itself if you go one day without complaining about everything.
Not on this issue it isn’t. There is no wiggle room in the UN treaty commitment:
“All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”
The only permitted exceptions are necessary defence against armed attack, and actions authorised by the UNSC (or in theory the UN General Assembly).
Certainly the comical attempts by US sphere figures to claim some sort of defensive justification never rose above the comedic, even if you wouldn’t grasp that from the establishment media coverage. And there is no legal right of “humanitarian” intervention. That aspect was thoroughly explored over several days by the House Of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in its desperate attempt to whitewash the openly illegal Kosovo war, and even those master hypocrites and law-choppers were forced to give up and concede that the war was “probably illegal but [supposedly] justified”.
Trump tweeted "Mission Accomplished". So it's over. You, reinerTor, and GermanReader can come out of your bomb shelters. Watch the Liverpool match. Have a beer. WW3 has been called off for this weekend.
What do the various actors want?
1) Turkey wants to annex northern Syria and Kurds cleansed.
2) Israel wants to annex the Golan heights and the population that supports Hezbollah cleansed.
3) The Israel-First part of the neocons wants what Israel wants.
4) The Imperial part of the neocons seem to want eastern Syria – I assume cos they want the oil in northern Iraq to go via eastern Syria to Turkey instead of via southern Iraq (which benefits Iran)
5) The banking mafia want a) those few countries not yet ruled by the banking mafia to be destroyed and b) to bring down Putin to stop him creating alternative financial systems outside their control.
6) The entire western media and most of the political class in US, France and UK are controlled by either the banking mafia or neocons.
7) Saudi Arabia is in a proxy war with Iran.
8) There is also imo a non-zero chance that the banking mafia already desire or will eventually come to desire taking out both US and Russia as global powers leaving China as their new sole superpower pet.
9) The various coastal ethno-sectarian groups don’t want to be massacred by jihadists.
10) The Russians want a naval base in the east med in a stable friendly country.
So the problem is not going to go away and unless the plug is pulled it might eventually lead to ww3 as Syria/Russia finish off the jihadists and face off with US supported proxies in eastern Syria.
How to get out of it?
1) If forced to choose the US will always betray the Kurds in favor of the Turkish alliance and the Kurds are the US proxies in eastern Syria so the Russians could try and split them from the US by openly supporting Kurdistan – effectively aiming for a partition of Turkey long term but in the short term it takes the US’ proxy army away – which dramatically raises the cost of fighting for the US.
2) The most critical driver of all of this are the banking mafia through their control of the western political and media class which they are lending to the neocon narrative for their own reasons (imo). The banking mafia are concentrated in a few square miles around the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England – alternatively taking down the banks in some other way.
3) Longer term the problem in the middle east is diversity – lots of different ethno-sectarian groups forced into the same state only controllable by dictators who try and displace internal conflict by focusing on an external enemy e.g. Israel.
Since 9/11 the planned solution to this has been to destroy those states creating perma-chaos and civil war so they ignore Israel – which has led to the refugee crisis in Europe and mass child rape.
As a result I now personally would prefer a final crusade and the restoration of Christendom by any means necessary as the solution however the most civilized solution would probably be the Swiss one – states made up of self-governing cantons where each ethno-sectarian group has their own canton. If that replaced deliberate perma civil war as the agenda there could possibly be US-Russia co-operation on that basis.
No. This is gross mischaracterization. And you can take your +crusade and shove it.
The contending groups on Syria and Iraq do NOT consider themselves to be the same religion (Sunni versus Shi’a versus Alawites (in Syria)), and the Kurds and Turks and Iranians are not Arabs (Iranians being mainly Persian or Azeri, in that order, plus Kurds).
The French have just released an 8-page dossier constituting their evidence against Syria. Below is a very brief summary, which I think does not do it a great injustice. Overall, no hard evidence whatsoever, on the other hand claims that Syria is not in full compliance with the OPCW having failed to address 4 (potentially serious) issues:
US Zionists want "regime change" with the destruction of both Syria and Iran, not a few pre-announced bombs in a Syrian parking lot.
“US Zionists want “regime change” with the destruction of both Syria and Iran, not a few pre-announced bombs in a Syrian parking lot.”
– Agree. It is a real disservice to humanity that Solzhenitsyn’ documentary “Two Hundred Years Together” has been sequestered both in the US and UK. Up until now, people at large (including the Jews) have not been aware what kind of exceptional sadists and mass murders were produced by the Jewish tribe at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia.
The situation in Palestine, where “the most moral”enjoy shooting the unarmed natives (including children) to the head and the hips and where Jews celebrate the burning of a Palestinian infant to death by the “chosen” illegal settlers, only gives a modest glimpse to the potential of the tribe.
The inordinate number of psychophants among the Jews, and their supremacist beliefs, constitute a mortal danger to western civilization — and to the tribe itself.
The Jews are taught from their childhood that “Happy is the one who seizes your [Persian, Russian, Syrian...] infants and dashes them against the rocks.”
Here is a current situation in pictures:
“Neuro-parasitogy of the Jewel Wasp and its Zombie Cockroach Host: The parasitoid Jewel Wasp (Ampulex compressa) uses cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) as a live fresh food supply for its offspring. The wasp injects venom directly into the cockroach brain to control its behavior.”
– “The cockroach brain” is the zionized US Congress and the zionized US military.
Notice that the wasp is smart enough to think ahead and seal off the chamber with the captive roach to guard against scavengers...
My only objection to your analogy is that cockroaches are obviously far more intelligent than 21'st century humans...[IQ 'tests' notwithstanding]
I submit as evidence that the cockroach must be put under the influence of a chemical agent in order to become stupid and controllable...
This is not the case with humans...many simply choose to be stupid...or in the case that they are born smart...they choose to become stupid over time...
Though you’re correct in that it’s in itself a pretty harmless belief, but often correlated with Christian Zionism and dispensationism.
It is actually just the opposite. No profound person who seriously thinks about metaphysics, philosophy, or science could ever agree with Darwinian evolution. Anyone who accepts Darwinism thereby proves per se that his opinions are shallow and his standard of proof flimsy. The HBD crowd’s constant recourse to this intellectually barren sandcastle is an alarming weakness of the Alt-Right.
Presumably, you reject all post Aristotle/Aquinas conceptions of causation?
Actually it might be a lot worse than even Korea. But that’s assuming land war.
Some on this site predict that the NATO (well, not quite NATO – just the U.S., UK and France) Coalition will accomplish its grand strategic goals via air strikes and naval blockade.
It could well be true – but being an amateur historian, I can’t ever recall an instance in history in which long-term military (never mind grand strategic) victory happened without victory in a land war. Suffice it so say, I have my doubts. Well, admittedly there was the case of Japan getting 2 nukes in World War 2 – yes, nukes can win wars against non-nuclear states.
Assuming it does go to land fighting, fighting Russia in 2018 is not like fighting China in 1950. Not at all. Russia has large manufacturing capacity and an army equipped with modern, capable equipment.
The only things the Chinese had in Korea were unbreakable morale, good tactical and operational sense, agile maneuver and good small-unit leaders. Materially, they were very deficient in a way modern Russia is not – just a lot of bolt action rifles, grenades, bayonets, and little else. Maybe some machineguns, mortars and guns they could scrounge – literally just a collection of obsolete stuff they pressed into service.
Russia 2018 is potentially a very different proposition. Emphasis on “potentially”.
Says someone who doesn't understand basic mathematics or even the underpinnings of the theory in question. As one poster above said, most people simply lack the intellectual faculties to objectively judge anything remotely complex (or even something very simple as in the ToE). Most humans are low IQ sheep - biological machines designed by evolution to simply fit in with social groups by regurgitating accepted talking points.
How would you know that?
How very honest and self-deprecating to hear that from you!
Maybe Trump isn't "Zionist stooge" you have him pegged as? Maybe the situation in Syria is complicated and involves dozens of competing and conflicting interests?
That’s good, and hopefully they are only going to get more pissed off over the next few months as the Russians beef up Syrian air defences in response.
Or maybe as suggested by a number of sources yesterday Trump and Bolton were desperately trying to get the generals to go along with much more extensive strikes, but even Mattis and Dunford weren’t going to tell them the lies they wanted to hear about it being safe to do so.
Duh!
"All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."
The only permitted exceptions are necessary defence against armed attack, and actions authorised by the UNSC (or in theory the UN General Assembly).
Certainly the comical attempts by US sphere figures to claim some sort of defensive justification never rose above the comedic, even if you wouldn't grasp that from the establishment media coverage. And there is no legal right of "humanitarian" intervention. That aspect was thoroughly explored over several days by the House Of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in its desperate attempt to whitewash the openly illegal Kosovo war, and even those master hypocrites and law-choppers were forced to give up and concede that the war was "probably illegal but [supposedly] justified".
You’re sperging. No one cares about international law.
Trump tweeted “Mission Accomplished”. So it’s over. You, reinerTor, and GermanReader can come out of your bomb shelters. Watch the Liverpool match. Have a beer. WW3 has been called off for this weekend.
But in reality, I'm more concerned here with the uselessness of the political tactics adopted by the internationalist left, who are suppose to at least believe in the UN ideal. Needless to say, if the government had engaged in some debatably illegal action involving deporting some fake asylum seekers, the leftists would have had no hesitation in screaming about illegality.Always the most likely outcome. Just as the most likely outcome from a round of Russian Roulette is a click on an empty chamber.
It won’t do Syria any good. And knowing Russia, they won’t give Assad the S-300 anyway. Counting on Russia to honor it’s arms promises is the ultimate losers game.
Why should Russia upgrade Syria’s arsenal anyway? I thought Magnier had said that the S-200 was sufficient?
Now would that the Right save the Left from the cretinous, but trendy, segments of itself.
Indeed. Now all that’s left to do is formulate a bona-fide scientific explanation. With maths and stuff. Good luck. Lol.
Basically a re-run of Iraq except this time with the French providing the fake evidence instead of Britain.
You mean, why Israel does not want to ratify both conventions — on biological weaponry and chemical weaponry? Israel has both means and intends to arrange the chemical-agent attacks in Syria.
Syria has been winning; this is why the ziocons are pushing the ziocononized US and the zioconized UK to Syria. The mass slaughter in the Middle East is a joint project of Israel and the zioconized US:
You need to familiarize yourself with Oded Yinon plan and with PNAC — the ziocon manifesto.
The US is really in no position to talk about enforcing agreements. It abandoned the ABM treaty, routinely ignores UN treaty obligations per the use of force, ignores its own constitutional checks on executive war making ability, vetoes every UN resolution regarding Israel, and its Secretary of State nominee recently told Congress that the US was "unique and exceptional" in the context that it didn't have to obey any laws or international norms.
“It abandoned the ABM treaty”
– You are really sloppy with falsifying history for Israel’s benefits.
“Even a full-scale thermonuclear exchange between Russia and the US is patently survivable. The theory of “nuclear winters”, at least in its wilder variants (drops of many tens of degrees), has been long discredited. The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was approximately equal in mega tonnage to that of all the world’s current nuclear arsenals, and yet it merely led to a single “year without a summer” that did not even produce any major famines in a pre-industrial world. Fallout radiation levels decay rapidly, and it will be safe to emerge from shelters almost everywhere after just two weeks.”
First, I am surprised that anyone would cite a 1987 update of a 1979 report as a creditable source on atmospheric effects of nuclear war. In reality, a Nuclear Winter would be worse than predicted due to massive quantities of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, soot, and dust+radiation entering the upper atmosphere as well as dramatic increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. A more accurate accounting of the atmospheric effect of a 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange is as follows:
(1) sulfur dioxide release:
The Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 “threw 55 million tons of sulfur-dioxide gas (50 Tg of SO2) more than twenty miles into the air, into the stratosphere.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/1816-the-year-without-summer-excerpt/
By comparison, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption generated some 20 million tons of SO2, yielding a global temperature reduction of 0.5 degrees C.:
http://history.aip.org/history/climate/aerosol.htm
Thus the Mount Tambora eruption would have been expected to cause a 1-1.5 degree C drop in global temperatures due to sulfur dioxide
The sulfur contribution to a Nuclear Winter event would be considerable, as modern houses contain a lot of sulfur in the form of gypsum (CaSO4-2H2O). The average home size in America is almost 1900 sq ft and contains 1.6 pounds of gypsum/ sq ft, for a total of almost 260 Kg of sulfur per house. To inject 5 Tg of sulfur into the atmosphere in a nuclear exchange would involve the vaporization at high temperature (>1500°C) of 10 million US homes in the nuclear fireballs. If worldwide 100 million homes are incinerated the sulfur dioxide contribution to a nuclear winter event would approximately equal the Tambora eruption of 1815.
(2) oxides of nitrogen
An air burst, for example, is estimated to produce about 1032 molecules of nitrogen oxides per megaton TNT equivalent.
Based on 5,000 Mt yield in an allot nuclear war there will also be 24Tg of NO released in the atmosphere just from the reactions with atmospheric nitrogen gas. Additional nitrogen compounds from materials within the blast and forest fire zones will slightly add to this total: https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1983/baker83a.pdf
(3) Soot (carbon black)
Toon et al. in 2007 pointed out that 5 Tg of soot (50 15kt nuclear weapons) would reduce the global average temperature by 1.25°C for 3–4 years and by more than 0.5°C for a decade. They also indicate that the carbon black is likely to become coated with sulfates, organics, and other nonabsorbing materials, which could act as lenses, refracting light onto the BC. This effect might increase absorption by ∼50%, leading to potentially greater impacts than those we modeled.
The Toon et al. study considered only a nuclear exchange of about 750 kilotons (TNT equivalent) when a full scale nuclear exchange would yield over 5,000-6,000 times thIS amount of carbon black generated. NEEDLESS TO SAY THE GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WILL BE FAR BELOW FREEZING FOR MORE THAN A DECADE.
(4) dust+radiation
Dust entrained in the upper atmosphere would be highly variable depending on the megatonnage of air vs surface blasts in a nuclear exchange. As far as I know no one has analyzed the effects of a nuclear war on dust contribution to the upper atmosphere. Needless to say any dust would contribute to further reduction of light to the earth’s surface.
Radiation would be the least of the worries for those who survived the global cooling from Nuclear Winter. A fairly complete accounting of the radiological effect of nuclear war can be found at:
https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/eonw_9.pdf
A portion of the nuclear weapon targets are hardened facilities where a ground blast would be employed. Some of these are nuclear weapons facilities (naval bases, etc) containing considerable nuclear materials. Other sites, include Hanford spent fuel storage and nuclear waste tanks along with the 4,000 spent fuel ponds on the planet cumulatively represent the radiation of over 60,000,000 Hiroshima sized bombs if targeted.
(5) Carbon dioxide
The resulting firestorms from nuclear detonations would be dependent on other climate factors and have not been modeled as far as I know. While not a factor in global cooling, the enhanced carbon dioxide levels will add to global warming once carbon black, sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen are washed out of the atmosphere.
For those interested in further reading, a Federation of American Scientists review contains a summary of the more recent peer-reviewed studies on nuclear winter (which US leadership has decided to ignore or reject), see “Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — US Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies”
https://fas.org/2017/01/turning-a-blind-eye-towards-armageddon-u-s-leaders-reject-nuclear-winter-studies/
And what about the silly Karlin / Hymie Kahn assertion that following a full thermonuclear exchange, the volk would be able to safely come out of their rat holes after only two weeks? The assumption is that the state actors involved are building relatively clean nukes…..which is of course absurd. The half life of strontium 90 and cesium 137 is about 30 years. The half life of of plutonium 239 is 24,000 years. If you were building nukes to retaliate against a hated implacable enemy, would you build the cleanest or dirtiest possible? Weltmacht oder niedergang, anyone?
I also didn't mention secondary activation products from irradiation of various metals that comprise buildings within nuclear fireballs. The US Hanford nuclear "reservation" operated 10 reactors to produce plutonium which was then extracted using the PUREX process. During this time the government released about 65 million curies of radiation from secondary activation products into the Columbia River. Major long lived radionuclides released into the river include Zn-65, Co-60, Cr-51, and Eu-152. This information was top secret at the time and only the US government and Russian "fishing Trawlers" knew about this radioactive exposure.
“Sediment Quality and Eco-risk Assessment Factors for a Major River System”
https://www.osti.gov/scitech/servlets/purl/10140834
The dangers posed by the K-basin nuclear fuel storage was also hushed up. If a plane had hit K-basin ponds instead of the twin towers on 911 the US would have been economically destroyed. These ponds contained some 2,100 metric tons of Zircaloy-clad, metallic (pyrophoric) uranium spent nuclear fuel and about 3.4 metric tons) of aluminum-clad metallic uranium spent fuel. This was high burnout spent fuel containing the maximum amount of long lived radionuclides which would have created a no-go zone over perhaps half of the US, dependent on wind pattern and strength at the time.
http://www.wmsym.org/archives/2000/pdf/54/54-9.pdf
Anyone live through the Northeast Blackout of 2003...?
In my area we had no electrical power for only three days...it felt surreal and apocalyptic...
You could not buy gas since pumps didn't work...
All food stores closed because refrigeration down and all perishable food trashed...some opened doors and allowed people in single file and handed out corn flakes and soda crackers at checkout...no payment requested since cash registers not operable...
Convenience stores good for potato chips and water [while they lasted]...no cash registers...clerks writing down transactions in notebook for tax purposes...
I thought to myself what happens if this goes on for 30 days...?
Clearly our urbanized industrial society is not able to sustain life for any length of time without electricity...
If this was 100 years ago people could survive...they didn't even have electricity...most of the population lived on subsistence farming...
Where is moron Karlin going to buy food [or even water] after a nuclear exchange...?
I guess he never thought that far ahead before getting caught up in his bullshit fantasies...
Bullshit. Lies upon lies. These were not chemical or biological weapons storage facilities. There are no chemical or biological weapons storage facilities or production or research facilities for CBW. If there were, do you think it is smart to drop munitions on such sites??
Some on this site predict that the NATO (well, not quite NATO - just the U.S., UK and France) Coalition will accomplish its grand strategic goals via air strikes and naval blockade.
It could well be true - but being an amateur historian, I can't ever recall an instance in history in which long-term military (never mind grand strategic) victory happened without victory in a land war. Suffice it so say, I have my doubts. Well, admittedly there was the case of Japan getting 2 nukes in World War 2 - yes, nukes can win wars against non-nuclear states.
Assuming it does go to land fighting, fighting Russia in 2018 is not like fighting China in 1950. Not at all. Russia has large manufacturing capacity and an army equipped with modern, capable equipment.
The only things the Chinese had in Korea were unbreakable morale, good tactical and operational sense, agile maneuver and good small-unit leaders. Materially, they were very deficient in a way modern Russia is not - just a lot of bolt action rifles, grenades, bayonets, and little else. Maybe some machineguns, mortars and guns they could scrounge - literally just a collection of obsolete stuff they pressed into service.
Russia 2018 is potentially a very different proposition. Emphasis on "potentially".
You are right, land forces are eventually required to win any war (at least in the sense of enforcing the desired political settlement), the idea that air power alone can win wars is another American delusion that is going to get shattered. BTW, the atomic bombings of Japan came only after its naval and ground forces were already defeated, and was mainly used to preempt a Soviet invasion of the home islands.
Why should Russia upgrade Syria's arsenal anyway? I thought Magnier had said that the S-200 was sufficient?
Annoying Israel is good in itself.
So Israel won’t mind at all. Oh well.
Wel, well, it does seem that Israel is taking the news (or threat) with somewhat less equanimity than Greasy:
That nuclear war we averted last night would’ve also decimated the cognitive power base, further crippling recovery. The areas that would be first targets have the highest concentrations of brain power (Boston, D.C., NYC, San Fran).
Trump tweeted "Mission Accomplished". So it's over. You, reinerTor, and GermanReader can come out of your bomb shelters. Watch the Liverpool match. Have a beer. WW3 has been called off for this weekend.
Funny how much they go on about supposed legal justifications and the supposed centrality for them of enforcing a “rules based international order”, then.
But in reality, I’m more concerned here with the uselessness of the political tactics adopted by the internationalist left, who are suppose to at least believe in the UN ideal. Needless to say, if the government had engaged in some debatably illegal action involving deporting some fake asylum seekers, the leftists would have had no hesitation in screaming about illegality.
Always the most likely outcome. Just as the most likely outcome from a round of Russian Roulette is a click on an empty chamber.
In the Civil War they were fighting for themselves.
It raises some questions about whether you have any idea what you are writing about.
Maybe you missed the ‘in inventory’ part of my factual statement, birdbrain 2…?
Source in Russian…
Google Translate…
Another fact that you may miss while you rely on wikipedia…
The nuclear armed Kh22s…[X22 in Russian] were never equipped with radar seekers to home in on moving targets like ships…they were equipped initially with inertial [ie gyroscopic nav system] for use against fixed targets…later upgraded to include TERCOM…ie terrain contour matching…as used on other cruise missiles like T-hawk…
The antiship cruise missile versions of the Kh22 [ASCM] never had a nuclear warhead…
That’s from Ausairpower which cites the above Russian site I already linked to…
There are reports from both sides, that more than 50% of the missiles were taken down. I dont think that a western funded propaganda outlet has the incentive to fake the numbers to Russias favor (see below). How well these reports are sourced is another question though.
I have heard that this could be possible if the russians provided the radar data. But I have no expertise to judge how plausible that is. According to RT they had “[...] air defense systems S-125, S-200, Buk, and Kvadrat” (Source: https://www.rt.com/news/424113-russian-military-syria-strikes/).
—
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-43710303?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5ad1ec800ee14a06731d7dc5%26%27More%20than%2065%20missiles%20intercepted%27%20-%20monitoring%20group%26&ns_fee=0#post_5ad1ec800ee14a06731d7dc5
The author, for all his vaunted and quite thorough knowledge of Russian and opposing forces, still obviously suffers from a lack of strategic understanding or even basic history in the nuclear age.
Nukes are possessed by approximately 9 states
What do these nukes actually do?
They immunize those states against aggressive wars of destruction.
A cursory reading of Cold War history would reveal that the USSR up until the around 1970 faced a superior force in the US and NATO at every geostrategic point of contention around the world.
In particular, the example of Cuba provides a text book example of what Soviet military and political leaders understood on how neutralize superior forces from taking satellite states from them. And it worked brilliantly.
You simply place nukes in the country under the ostensible control of the host nation.
Of course the other side of the coin is that the US does the same in (Poland at the time) Ukraine today.
But the situation immediately stabilizes. And no one gets militarily humiliated and blown out of the water.
But there is one advantage in this game of Syria vs Ukraine. Syria is actively retaking back its own country against small non nuclear local powers and will easily cruise on complete victory within a year.
Ukraine would be going against Russia right on its own border.
This lack of understanding of the history of nukes for the last 70 years is what makes the author relatively pessimistic on outcomes in Syria and abroad.
Place nukes in Syria and watch the unhindered path to victory open up
Most likely.
I actually don’t know what the risks are – it probably depends upon the kind of chemicals involved I suppose. But clearly the apologists for these attacks were prepared to assert that blowing them up is perfectly safe (as I have seen them do in the establishment media repeatedly over the past few days). Probably because they were pretty confident that there were no chemical weapons in them anyway.
Who cares who thought and said what.
Time for blabbing is over, don't you get it?
One side keeps blabbing, the other bombing.
If that can't wake some people and make them face the harsh realities...well...good.
One side just bombed the ally of the other side on the basis of no rational pretext whatsoever.
Ignored, while getting ready, all processes and procedures agreed upon by civilized world.
The most important, ignored all warnings from the opposite side too.
I'd be the last to cheer a hard response from Russians. M.A.D.
But, those "Team Russia" spins are becoming boring, fast.
It is true that Russia acted as a smart side. It was/is facing a psychopath on the loose.
Doesn't matter in the game of power.
They blinked.
The opponent read them and made a move. That's all what matters.
I was 50/50 this would happen.
Now I am 90/10 it will happen again, soon.
And, if it just keeps going, for which I am also 50/50, well...........spin that one up.
True, nothing of substance has changed.
The weaker opponent will keep buying time in the game. The stronger will keep pushing.
The little players, especially on the weaker opponent side, are for hard times though.
More importantly, the stronger side got emboldened even more.
The most important result of all this, actually.
I actually have to agree with Potatohead on this one…[even a blind pig sniffs out an acorn from time to time...]
Putin has to realize that he has lost face and credibility…just for the optics of it…
The man on the street is going to neither know or care about what really went on behind the scenes…ie that the missile strike was really a carefully coordinated light and sound show…
The least Putin could have done is taken out a French or British airplane…
I also would not be surprised if this is just the beginning…if one side thinks the other is cowed they will continue shoving harder…
Meanwhile in the Quuendome: http://theduran.com/lavrov-bombshell/
"A Swiss lab says that ‘BZ toxin’ was used in Salisbury. The toxin was not produced in Russia but was in service in the US and UK, as well as other NATO member states. ...
Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with an incapacitating toxin known as 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ" according to the "examination conducted by a Swiss chemical lab that worked with the samples that London handed over to the Organisation for the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons (OPCW)."
-- Perhaps it was this inconvenient result that had pushed the ziocons towards the illegal attack against the sovereign state of Syria
As I said they would, America just bombs a few empty warehouses at night.
Not sure it was worth all that week of hysterics and emotion,
The good news is we can go back to our happier days of posting pictures of women and discussing whether Greasy would bang.
first pair
1) Trump is closet neocon in which case this attack the maximum they wanted
or
2) Trump is a genuine isolationist who wants to leave and this attack was a compromise between what he wanted and what they wanted - which would mean they wanted a regime change level of attacks (probably including trying kill Assad himself).
I think option (2) fits the known facts best especially Trump warning them in advance about smart missiles i.e. assassination attempt.
second pair
3) this was planned as a very limited strike
or
4) it was supposed to be much more damaging but a lot of the missiles were shot down
the combined options are
1+3 = not too bad
1+4 = bad
2+3 = bad
2+4 = very bad
You sometimes come across as a nice guy but there is something off about you. Clearly you are Jewish hasbara and Ron Unz was right for saying so.
Agreed, that is an absolutely silly example to use in assessing the current US populace’s psychological capacity for real war.
This is potentially very interesting, to say the least:
http://www.dw.com/en/russias-sergey-lavrov-claims-sergei-skripal-was-poisoned-with-western-bz-nerve-agent/a-43390589
To a chemistry layman like myself, that implies that the A234 might have been added to the samples with deliberate intent to deceive.
Putin has to realize that he has lost face and credibility...just for the optics of it...
The man on the street is going to neither know or care about what really went on behind the scenes...ie that the missile strike was really a carefully coordinated light and sound show...
The least Putin could have done is taken out a French or British airplane...
I also would not be surprised if this is just the beginning...if one side thinks the other is cowed they will continue shoving harder...
I fail to see how this would improve my life. Maybe if I was owner of some weapons production complex – which, let’s face it, the majority of us on here are sadly not.
It raises some questions about whether you have any idea what you are writing about.
Hadn’t realised you’d replied to FB, nor that he’d made this point. The point of my comment was precisely to improvise a response to kick the confrontation up to the strategic nuclear level, so the best way to do that might arguably be to drop an ICBM on the carrier location.
But I took a brief look at FB’s reply, got a few lines in, and dropped him into the Revusky category – don’t bother to engage because basically incapable of adult conversation. Any disagreement triggers endless lengthy diatribes interspersed with childish insults. Best ignored, or at any rate not engaged. In fairness, it’s not as though I wasn’t forewarned, having seen him get into the endless diatribe mode with several other commenters here.
Putin has to realize that he has lost face and credibility...just for the optics of it...
The man on the street is going to neither know or care about what really went on behind the scenes...ie that the missile strike was really a carefully coordinated light and sound show...
The least Putin could have done is taken out a French or British airplane...
I also would not be surprised if this is just the beginning...if one side thinks the other is cowed they will continue shoving harder...
This was not the absolute best outcome for Russia, this is true, and Putin did raise some questions about his mettle. But the utter flimsyness of the US pretext is far more damning. It does not really matter that they already lacked credibility, the Americans continue to sink lower and lower, and this does not go unnoticed, either at home or abroad. Ultimately these strikes did nothing at all, and the Russians can still afford to wait (probably not much longer, though).
Russia clearly won the day. If anybody showed a lack of mettle it was Trump, but I regard it not as "lack of mettle" but rather "maturity".
Why don't you just grow the fuck up?
It wouldn’t, and the Russians were probably right to hold back here. Still, it is galling to see these pathetic British and French lapdogs try to act tough, I can appreciate frustrations here.
Sailer also posts fake news.
I corrected one of Sailer’s stories on Israel, which is a country I know far more about than him, visit on the ground, and actually learn Hebrew and study its local media.
And the American Jewish site owner (Ron Unz), comes and calls me ‘anti-Russia Jewish activist’ and ‘warmonger’.
?
Ethnic Russian man who posted enough times, that I don’t want my country to involve in any wars; and I am called ‘anti-Russia Jewish activist’, by site owner, who seems more excited by conflict and hyperbole between all these countries.
Here is my post: http://www.unz.com/isteve/avigdor-lieberman-hey-donald-lets-you-and-vlad-fight/#comment-2283008
And the site owner:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/avigdor-lieberman-hey-donald-lets-you-and-vlad-fight/#comment-2283903
As for warmonger, well if you advocate measures that objectively promote the expansion and worsening of wars, such as your ostensibly well-meaning suggestion that the EU should be creating "safe zones" in Syria, against the direct wishes and inevitable resistance of the Syrian government, then it's pretty fair to call you a warmonger.
Whatever, you're entitled to make your case as any of us are.
No he didn’t. Cut the psycho shit.
Russia clearly won the day. If anybody showed a lack of mettle it was Trump, but I regard it not as “lack of mettle” but rather “maturity”.
Why don’t you just grow the fuck up?
Russia clearly won the day. If anybody showed a lack of mettle it was Trump, but I regard it not as "lack of mettle" but rather "maturity".
Why don't you just grow the fuck up?
Thanks for the advice.
At the end of the day, the Russians warned the Americans not to go too far, and they didn’t. There is definite can-kicking here, but overall not the worst outcome.
I fail to see how any ‘hot conflict’ – all endless hyperbole aside – improves my life prospects, but I can see very well the contrary.
I do think some degree of low-level (preferably verbal) conflict can be beneficial, as it gives a country some more space for independence, and without the temptation of over-integration (as in EU, in which economically dominant powers can ‘benevolently’ colonize the more junior partners).
But that whole aspect would be completely self-defeating, the moment any weapons are fired between the parties – let alone with traditional great powers like France and United Kingdom.
Sounds like Syria didn’t use the Pantsirs, which are probably around their military bases. That’s why we didn’t see more intercepts.
I have heard that this could be possible if the russians provided the radar data. But I have no expertise to judge how plausible that is. According to RT they had "[...] air defense systems S-125, S-200, Buk, and Kvadrat" (Source: https://www.rt.com/news/424113-russian-military-syria-strikes/).
---Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-43710303?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5ad1ec800ee14a06731d7dc5%26%27More%20than%2065%20missiles%20intercepted%27%20-%20monitoring%20group%26&ns_fee=0#post_5ad1ec800ee14a06731d7dc5
No Russian air defenses were engaged. Trump’s insanely hyperbolic language in his tweets was crafted for this purpose, namely, for Russian air defenses and counter-measures to stand up, or even engage, during his probing/testing strike last night. Which is another bust for this U.S. in using this to plan for a future attack. Russia understands this and purposely stood down. This complicates the plan for a future all-out crippling of military assets in Syria. Strategically, the advantage just went to Russia and by the time of the next incident the threat from hitting Russia will have gone up a factor of 10. Ditto with the threat of nuclear war. Don’t know how the West can initiate a rapprochement with Russia after the lies and vitriol and comparisons to Hitler, but if you love you kids and grandkids and want to see them grow up, this is the only way. At this point radically different leadership is needed in the West, in Russia, and Tel Aviv.
Let me explain.
It became pretty obvious that the experiment of Israel creation failed. Israel was created at great expense to solve the so-called Jewish problem. Unfortunately it did not because majority of Jews still remains in diaspora. At the same time Israel existence created new problems not just in its neighborhood but for the whole world. The world peace became permanently threatened.
There is no other conclusion than that that Israel must be destroyed. Preferably with all Israelis because their repatriation to Europe and America only will exacerbate the pressure of the Jewish question there.
So when you predicted the clash between Russia and Israel in the near future which I imagined would be nuclear I have naturally rejoiced.
Putin has to realize that he has lost face and credibility...just for the optics of it...
The man on the street is going to neither know or care about what really went on behind the scenes...ie that the missile strike was really a carefully coordinated light and sound show...
The least Putin could have done is taken out a French or British airplane...
I also would not be surprised if this is just the beginning...if one side thinks the other is cowed they will continue shoving harder...
Thank God you offer your incomparable expertise to Israel and not to Russia.
Meanwhile in the Quuendome: http://theduran.com/lavrov-bombshell/
“A Swiss lab says that ‘BZ toxin’ was used in Salisbury. The toxin was not produced in Russia but was in service in the US and UK, as well as other NATO member states. …
Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with an incapacitating toxin known as 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ” according to the “examination conducted by a Swiss chemical lab that worked with the samples that London handed over to the Organisation for the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons (OPCW).”
– Perhaps it was this inconvenient result that had pushed the ziocons towards the illegal attack against the sovereign state of Syria
When I hear “deep state” or Borg / Borgist, I think Israel firsters, neocons, zionists, Jews.
Of course there are non-Jews as a significant part of the cabal, like Paul Ryan, most of Congress, 90% of think tankers.
They’re not calling the shots; they’re well-paid carry-out boys.
Jews always get nice Christiany white people (or in the latest dispensation, Black people, preferably women) to front for them, and these Christiany whites or Blacks are such eager little puppies, reciting their lines with suitable sternness and snapping up their Kibbles n Bits (Pareve).
Consider this two-fer: a Black girl, Dana White, spoke for the Pentagon in lavishing praise on “our men n wimmen who carried out the precision strike” on Syria’s chemical facilities to “teach the monster Assad a lesson that the civilized world will not tolerate flaunting international law.”
Asked to explain why Russia made no attempt to counter the attack, either she or Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told assembled scribes that “US did not coordinate beforehand with Russia.”
But MoonofAlabama posted this report from Elijah Magnier:
Who you gonna believe, eyes on the ground or Deep State front-men (women) in the Pentagon?
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/syria-threat-of-large-war-recedes-but-may-come-back.html
PS Haven’t heard much from Israel but this mission was tailor made for the Izzies: the most effective weapon Syria has to deter Israel is chem weapons.
If he wrote that if someone were to chop his (D_C's) finger off it would hurt like hell and handicap him for life, but he probably would survive, would that imply D_C is "fine" with someone chopping his finger off?
Isn't the issue of what the effects of a nuclear exchange might actually be, one for legitimate discussion?
Yes. “Roving bands of mutant bikers.” Humans are weeds.
Not sure it was worth all that week of hysterics and emotion,
The good news is we can go back to our happier days of posting pictures of women and discussing whether Greasy would bang.
couple of possibility pairs
first pair
1) Trump is closet neocon in which case this attack the maximum they wanted
or
2) Trump is a genuine isolationist who wants to leave and this attack was a compromise between what he wanted and what they wanted – which would mean they wanted a regime change level of attacks (probably including trying kill Assad himself).
I think option (2) fits the known facts best especially Trump warning them in advance about smart missiles i.e. assassination attempt.
second pair
3) this was planned as a very limited strike
or
4) it was supposed to be much more damaging but a lot of the missiles were shot down
the combined options are
1+3 = not too bad
1+4 = bad
2+3 = bad
2+4 = very bad
It became pretty obvious that the experiment of Israel creation failed. Israel was created at great expense to solve the so-called Jewish problem. Unfortunately it did not because majority of Jews still remains in diaspora. At the same time Israel existence created new problems not just in its neighborhood but for the whole world. The world peace became permanently threatened.
There is no other conclusion than that that Israel must be destroyed. Preferably with all Israelis because their repatriation to Europe and America only will exacerbate the pressure of the Jewish question there.
So when you predicted the clash between Russia and Israel in the near future which I imagined would be nuclear I have naturally rejoiced.
It won’t be nuclear. It wasn’t in 1970 when the Russians cared a lot more and Israel had no means to retaliate so it certainly isn’t going to happen now.
Well… I’m sorry you feel that way.
The GULAG, where the extermination of prominent scientists, philosophers, poets, officers was conducted on the industrial scale with the most inhuman methods, was a Bolshevik invention.
The organizer of GULAG was Naftali Frankel. The most trusted person next to Stalin was Lazar Kaganovich. The most sadistic mass murderer-female (!), perhaps unique in human history, was Rozalia Zalkind. There were thousands more. Their genetic and ideological progeny live today mostly in Israel, the US, and the UK; they make a bulk of Israel-firsters and war-mongering ziocons.
there is “maths and stuff.” for example, they calculated a stable ratio of “hawks” to “doves” (more pertinent to this thread, perhaps.) (I don’t remember the actual number, but it’s in Selfish Gene.) evolution draws a lot upon game theory and boosts it in return. that’s not even mentioning the math involved in cladistics, bioinformatics, protein research etc.
evolution deniers have produced nothing. what people don’t understand evolution isn’t optional. things can’t help but evolve. noone, afaik, has yet produced a model where they had N giraffes, say, and M trees (with tasty foliage) and differential survival and one which was stable (neck length doesn’t change) and described the world we inhabit.
it’s all just hand-waving, insinuations and arguments from personal incredulity.
Wow. Too bad that Trump did not humiliate Putin even more because then the strategic advantage of Russia would be even higher, right?
Of course there are non-Jews as a significant part of the cabal, like Paul Ryan, most of Congress, 90% of think tankers.
They're not calling the shots; they're well-paid carry-out boys.
Jews always get nice Christiany white people (or in the latest dispensation, Black people, preferably women) to front for them, and these Christiany whites or Blacks are such eager little puppies, reciting their lines with suitable sternness and snapping up their Kibbles n Bits (Pareve).
Consider this two-fer: a Black girl, Dana White, spoke for the Pentagon in lavishing praise on "our men n wimmen who carried out the precision strike" on Syria's chemical facilities to "teach the monster Assad a lesson that the civilized world will not tolerate flaunting international law."
Asked to explain why Russia made no attempt to counter the attack, either she or Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told assembled scribes that "US did not coordinate beforehand with Russia."
But MoonofAlabama posted this report from Elijah Magnier:Who you gonna believe, eyes on the ground or Deep State front-men (women) in the Pentagon?
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/syria-threat-of-large-war-recedes-but-may-come-back.html
PS Haven't heard much from Israel but this mission was tailor made for the Izzies: the most effective weapon Syria has to deter Israel is chem weapons.
Poor Magnier. The guy just doesn’t know when to stop digging.
1. There will be no conventional clash between Russia and the US.
2. If there was such a clash, nobody who knows anything about military forces and equipment would predict anything other than an overwhelming US victory.
3. Russia would respond to such a defeat by launching WWIII, which is why it is never going to happen.
The US strategy is publicly available:
1. The US finishes defeating ISIS and making sure that it can't regenerate.
2. The US essentially makes Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan an unofficial protectorate and keeps an open ended commitment there to make sure that Assad doesn't get those regions back.
3. The US and it's partners keep the fronts within Syria alive to continue draining Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons.
4. The goal is to keep Syria isolated either forever or until Russia and Iran throw in the towel; whichever comes first.
This was the strategy before last week and nothing has changed. Time is certainly not on Russia's side. This war is putting a strain on their budget and it will only get worse for them. As long as Russia and Iran are sinking resources into Syria, the Pentagon is getting what it wants.
3. The US and it’s partners keep the fronts within Syria alive to continue draining Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons.
4. The goal is to keep Syria isolated either forever or until Russia and Iran throw in the towel; whichever comes first.
Bada-bing, bada-boom!
Not sure it was worth all that week of hysterics and emotion,
The good news is we can go back to our happier days of posting pictures of women and discussing whether Greasy would bang.
Could somebody bomb some empty warehouses in Israel just to make some other people feel good so they also can go back to posting pictures on internet.
You sometimes come across as a nice guy but there is something off about you. Clearly you are Jewish hasbara and Ron Unz was right for saying so.
By the way, everything I wrote over the last week of what would happen, has proved 100% accurate of what happened last night.
But I took a brief look at FB's reply, got a few lines in, and dropped him into the Revusky category - don't bother to engage because basically incapable of adult conversation. Any disagreement triggers endless lengthy diatribes interspersed with childish insults. Best ignored, or at any rate not engaged. In fairness, it's not as though I wasn't forewarned, having seen him get into the endless diatribe mode with several other commenters here.
The problem with this is that the ICBM launch would of course be noticed and immediately responded to with a full nuclear strike. Or at least it’d be difficult to tell them that it was only one ICBM.
The constitutional background is that Presidents theoretically shouldn't be able to initiate wars (as opposed to defensive military action) without Congressional approval (but in practice do), whereas Prime Ministers were always seen as exercising a royal prerogative to do so, which was not dependent on Commons approval.
In recent years, the precedent has been established that in fact PMs should seek such approval, but it's just a precedent and as we have just seen a PM can defy it if he (or she) thinks he can get away with it. Which I suppose brings us back into line with US reality.
But I suspect May will insist there was some spurious urgent necessity that required her to ignore the precedent on this occasion. Nevertheless her action has unavoidably weakened it, if she is allowed to get away with it, which of course she will. And clearly there will be those in the military and in the political and media establishment who will see that as a good outcome. Mind you, if there had been any military response from Russia at all, involving say a missile attack on a plane or on the Akrotiri base in retaliation, I suspect she would have been toast politically for going ahead without approval. So I feel she will only have committed to the action when it was absolutely clear that no Russian feathers were going to be unduly ruffled by it.
Somewhat OT:
Do you ever reflect upon the fact that the U. S. elected Ike as President (twice) and the French let de Gaulle establish the 5th Republic with an extremely powerful presidency while the Brits voted their war time leader out of office?
Are you suggesting there might be a cultural difference involved, to do with perceived winners?
هممممم
Does she have “the” dress?
The case cannot progress until she produces the dress.
Foreman, the great power puncher explained his loss to Ali in the 8th round in Kinshasa...Foreman had been power punching for 7 rounds, landing 100s of blows, to little effect against Ali's rope-a-dope strategy. Deflecting, letting the ropes absorb the impacts of body blows, ducking, bobbing and weaving, Ali allowed Foreman free rein to flail away. Occasionally, some got through, but by the 7th round even his best shot wasn't enough.
Team America may not be as insightful as Foreman, but they too will eventually come to realize that Syria, the Ukraine, the SCS and DPRK ain't what they thought they were either. They'll realize it when they take their best shot and hear "That all ya got, Uncle Sam?", and they'll hit the canvas in the next round just like Foreman did.
Ahh yes…the Rumble in the Jungle…a fight for the ages…
What was interesting is how Muhammad trained…he arrived in Zaire months before and he would run daily through the countryside and desperate villages…and the people would come out and run alongside shouting…’Ali bomaye‘…’Ali kill him…’
Foreman got there much later and never left the hotel…he never seemed to get comfortable in Zaire…and apparently was bothered by Ali’s trash talking which was all over the media…
Ali…as usual…was winning the psychological war…the one that counts really…
He did the same thing with Wilt Chamberlain…who had challenged him to a fight in 1971…
Of course Ali had one of the strongest jaws ever in my opinion…he was never KO’d…Foreman’s jaw didn’t match up…and he punched himself out…somehow Ali knew he could weather the storm…it was a tremendous strategy against the big man…
Ali did take some vicious punches from Big Georgie…but he took far worse punishment from Larry Holmes…he was in terrible shape and past his prime by then but he never went down…Angelo Dundee threw in the towel after the 11′th…
I remember watching clips of the last round where I could not believe the stamina on both of those guys - Shavers literally got saved by the bell.
Peace.
This is all theatre. The war is over, Assad has won, Russia is in Syria forever and even the west accepts all of those things now, they just can't come out and say it.
But nations have to worry about "interests" and "prestige". These things don't matter to real people but they are extremely important to the types of people who run countries. When Assad launched such a blatant gas attack, he basically sent a signal out to the entire world that "you don't need to be afraid of US military power anymore." Such a message weakens the ability of the US to negotiate with Iran and NK along with whatever other stupid imperialistic projects they are currently running (I can't keep track). Do you agree?
So tonight the US showed that it still able to rally it's allies and launch targeted attacks on unconventional weapons even over Russian opposition. The message to Iran and NK is "if we can target Syria's chem plants, which we don't even care about, even when Russians are in theater, what do you think we can do to you if you don't play ball?".
...
For the record, Trump wanted a much more expansive strike, as recommended by Bolton. Mattis said that would be a mistake and Trump changed his mind. Trump is not this mad man loose cannon people are portraying him as. He listened to the right person. Time for you to give him some credit.
He listened to the right person.
Stormy called and told him to save the “big” missiles for important occasions.
One launch wouldn’t trigger an automatic response, though it would put things on a hair trigger. But we are talking about an extreme situation or we wouldn’t be considering such measures anyway.
I corrected one of Sailer's stories on Israel, which is a country I know far more about than him, visit on the ground, and actually learn Hebrew and study its local media.
And the American Jewish site owner (Ron Unz), comes and calls me 'anti-Russia Jewish activist' and 'warmonger'.
?
Ethnic Russian man who posted enough times, that I don't want my country to involve in any wars; and I am called 'anti-Russia Jewish activist', by site owner, who seems more excited by conflict and hyperbole between all these countries.
Here is my post: http://www.unz.com/isteve/avigdor-lieberman-hey-donald-lets-you-and-vlad-fight/#comment-2283008
And the site owner:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/avigdor-lieberman-hey-donald-lets-you-and-vlad-fight/#comment-2283903
Well in fairness to Mr Unz, you clearly do favour jewish/Israeli interests pretty consistently (consciously or not), as I noted here the other day.
As for warmonger, well if you advocate measures that objectively promote the expansion and worsening of wars, such as your ostensibly well-meaning suggestion that the EU should be creating “safe zones” in Syria, against the direct wishes and inevitable resistance of the Syrian government, then it’s pretty fair to call you a warmonger.
Whatever, you’re entitled to make your case as any of us are.
You sometimes come across as a nice guy but there is something off about you. Clearly you are Jewish hasbara and Ron Unz was right for saying so.
And clearly you are American – accusations of the ‘secret agenda’ seems the national sport, for people – such as myself – who are open with what is their point of view, their personal background and their position on every subject.
By the way, everything I wrote over the last week of what would happen, has proved 100% accurate of what happened last night.
1. There will be no conventional clash between Russia and the US.
2. If there was such a clash, nobody who knows anything about military forces and equipment would predict anything other than an overwhelming US victory.
3. Russia would respond to such a defeat by launching WWIII, which is why it is never going to happen.
The US strategy is publicly available:
1. The US finishes defeating ISIS and making sure that it can't regenerate.
2. The US essentially makes Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan an unofficial protectorate and keeps an open ended commitment there to make sure that Assad doesn't get those regions back.
3. The US and it's partners keep the fronts within Syria alive to continue draining Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons.
4. The goal is to keep Syria isolated either forever or until Russia and Iran throw in the towel; whichever comes first.
This was the strategy before last week and nothing has changed. Time is certainly not on Russia's side. This war is putting a strain on their budget and it will only get worse for them. As long as Russia and Iran are sinking resources into Syria, the Pentagon is getting what it wants.
And I suppose you’re one of those ‘nobodies’ who ‘knows anything…?’
And what would happen if all these ‘nobodies’ turn out to be dead wrong…and the US gets its ass handed to it by the far more serious and militarily capable Russians…[who actually have a military history to speak of...]
Will the US then go nuclear…?
That’s the question that ‘somebodies’ who actually do know something about military forces and equipment are thinking about…
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I have nothing but respect for Russia's military capabilities, both their tech and their soldiers. But Russia simply does not have the resources in theater to withstand a US attack. They just don't.
I didn't mean it as an anti Russia thing.
Thanks for mentioning this information on long lived radionuclides. I didn’t have the time to go into biological effects of longer lived radionuclides such as the ones you mentioned as well as uranium-238, and iodine-131. The EMP issue on electronics is also too complex to discuss at this forum.
I also didn’t mention secondary activation products from irradiation of various metals that comprise buildings within nuclear fireballs. The US Hanford nuclear “reservation” operated 10 reactors to produce plutonium which was then extracted using the PUREX process. During this time the government released about 65 million curies of radiation from secondary activation products into the Columbia River. Major long lived radionuclides released into the river include Zn-65, Co-60, Cr-51, and Eu-152. This information was top secret at the time and only the US government and Russian “fishing Trawlers” knew about this radioactive exposure.
“Sediment Quality and Eco-risk Assessment Factors for a Major River System”
https://www.osti.gov/scitech/servlets/purl/10140834
The dangers posed by the K-basin nuclear fuel storage was also hushed up. If a plane had hit K-basin ponds instead of the twin towers on 911 the US would have been economically destroyed. These ponds contained some 2,100 metric tons of Zircaloy-clad, metallic (pyrophoric) uranium spent nuclear fuel and about 3.4 metric tons) of aluminum-clad metallic uranium spent fuel. This was high burnout spent fuel containing the maximum amount of long lived radionuclides which would have created a no-go zone over perhaps half of the US, dependent on wind pattern and strength at the time.
http://www.wmsym.org/archives/2000/pdf/54/54-9.pdf
As usual PCR has the best takeaway on the Dump sound and light show from last night…
As for ‘president Dump…
Will the US then go nuclear...?
That's the question that 'somebodies' who actually do know something about military forces and equipment are thinking about...
No. Of course not. Is that a serious question?
Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. I have nothing but respect for Russia’s military capabilities, both their tech and their soldiers. But Russia simply does not have the resources in theater to withstand a US attack. They just don’t.
I didn’t mean it as an anti Russia thing.
I took it as an anti common sense thing...Well...that's not a professional opinion you have to agree...since you are not an expert...
The theater btw is only a few hundred miles from Russia's Southern military district...
Have a look at my comment #155 here...
I’m pro-Israel (with first person knowledge and experience of the country), which I stated on every topic where we discussed Israel.
I’m anti-racist, which I discussed on every topic about race.
I support free-market liberalism, which I discussed on every topic about free-market.
I like migration possibilities for skilled, well-behaved European/civilized people, like myself, and end of migration for the opposite, which I discussed on every topic about that.
Etc.
That’s my point of view – you can ‘take it, or leave it’.
I never said you have to agree with my view (actually I would not even like so much my own positions, if they were the popular ones, and I would not have fun or motivation in writing them down).
But preferring not war (while not minding verbal conflict) between America and Russia, is a lot more relevant to national interest of my home country Russia, and where are living my parents and half my friends, than of any other country. That’s simply based on what will improve my life.
No, I don't, but the OPCW can demand an inspection at any time if they have any doubts, and this wasn't done. And it should be noted that Syria has promised full cooperation with the intrepid OPCW inspectors who, despite the inclement weather, are continuing with their mission.
So now we have a bit more detail. According to the Americans the alleged chemical sites targeted were:
Barzeh research and development centre, Damascus, a “centre for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology”, targeted by 19 jasms and 57 Tomahawks (! – seems they wanted to make sure)
Him Shinshar chemical weapons storage site, west of Homs, allegedly the “the primary location of Syrian Sarin and precursor production equipment”, targeted by 9 Tomahawks, 8 Storm Shadows, 5 unspecified “naval cruise missiles” and 2 SCALPs (French Storm Shadow equivalents, iirc).
Him Shinshar chemical weapons bunker, west of Homs, a separate facility that allegedly “contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post”, targeted by 7 SCALPs.
The Yanks and their poodles disagree with the Russians/Syrians about whether any missiles were shot down, and about the targeting.
Interestingly the BBC report also includes the following about the Barzeh site:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43769332
Also known as Chenchar, this is where Saddam Hussein's WMD were stored, and perhaps still are:
“The problem with this is that the ICBM launch would of course be noticed and immediately responded to with a full nuclear strike. Or at least it’d be difficult to tell them that it was only one ICBM.”
1. You don’t need an ICBM for that. Some nukes can be carried on sub or plane.
2. Attacking a carrier wouldn’t necessarily result in a full retaliation. That’s not how US nuclear doctrine works.
3. Nuking the carrier is pretty much the best option if you’re going nuclear at all: few civilian casualties, happens far away from land so few dramatic pictures, less environmental damage, less incentive for your cities to be attacked in retaliation, and lots of people killed – encouraging the opponent’s public to seek peace.
-- Agree. It is a real disservice to humanity that Solzhenitsyn' documentary "Two Hundred Years Together" has been sequestered both in the US and UK. Up until now, people at large (including the Jews) have not been aware what kind of exceptional sadists and mass murders were produced by the Jewish tribe at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia.
The situation in Palestine, where "the most moral"enjoy shooting the unarmed natives (including children) to the head and the hips and where Jews celebrate the burning of a Palestinian infant to death by the "chosen" illegal settlers, only gives a modest glimpse to the potential of the tribe.
The inordinate number of psychophants among the Jews, and their supremacist beliefs, constitute a mortal danger to western civilization -- and to the tribe itself.
The Jews are taught from their childhood that "Happy is the one who seizes your [Persian, Russian, Syrian...] infants and dashes them against the rocks."
Here is a current situation in pictures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovo_T0KqdYg
"Neuro-parasitogy of the Jewel Wasp and its Zombie Cockroach Host: The parasitoid Jewel Wasp (Ampulex compressa) uses cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) as a live fresh food supply for its offspring. The wasp injects venom directly into the cockroach brain to control its behavior."
-- "The cockroach brain" is the zionized US Congress and the zionized US military.
Thanks for that amazing video…
Notice that the wasp is smart enough to think ahead and seal off the chamber with the captive roach to guard against scavengers…
My only objection to your analogy is that cockroaches are obviously far more intelligent than 21′st century humans…[IQ 'tests' notwithstanding]
I submit as evidence that the cockroach must be put under the influence of a chemical agent in order to become stupid and controllable…
This is not the case with humans…many simply choose to be stupid…or in the case that they are born smart…they choose to become stupid over time…
I don’t tbh.
I mean sure, I don’t doubt that Assad’s regime is conducting all manner of atrocities, and I wouldn’t even put it beyond them that they’re using gas. But all sides (especially the Islamist-dominated rebels) are using cruel methods in this war. I think there’s even proof that jihadi groups have used chlorine gas and the like on some occasions. Pretending that the viciousness of this war is merely due to “animal Assad’s” cruelty is selective hypocrisy, probably merely a cover for other interests.
I also don’t buy the argument that one has to prevent the use of chemical weapons at all costs, because otherwise their use might become more common and they might eventually be used against Western troops or civilians as well. A regime like Assad’s can be easily deterred (and to my knowledge Assad has never even considered supporting terrorism against targets in Europe or the US). And chemical weapons don’t seem that grave a threat to me as nuclear or biological ones.
Syria and Russia are free from chemical weaponry, according to the international inspectors. Israel, on the contrary, has refused to ratify both the bioweaponry convention and chemical weaponry convention. Israelis generals have intimated for the whole world that they prefer ISIS to sovereign Syria. The ziocon stink-tanks and the Israel-firsters on MSM have been the loudest proponents fo the military actions against the sovereign state of Syria (and before that, against the sovereign states of Iraq and Libya). In light of the facts, and considering the well-known atrocities conducted by Israelis against the unarmed native populace of Palestinian, it is logical to suggest that Israel has been the instigator of chemical-agent attacks in Syria via the criminal White Helmets as well as other "moderate" terrorists befriended by the CIA.
Israelis (and the zioconized US) have been also conducting extra-judicial assassinations for decades. So please, do not feign an over-sensitive innocence by accusing Assad of atrocities. How many kids the Menora operation murdered -- several hundred? And the Israelis rejoiced!
Oded Yinon plan, which Israel has been trying to achieve by any means (see 4 million human beings slaughtered in the Middle East for Eretz Israel and oil- and war-profiteers ) is a blueprint for a criminal enterprise pointed to the very heart of humanity.
I don't know if they still do it, but when I was in basic training or infantry training (I forget which -- infantry training was pretty much the same thing) in the U.S. Army at the tail end of the Cold War, there was a drill called the gas chamber. They filled some bomb shelter like building with a cloud of CS Gas, marched you in your gas masks and "NBC" (nuclear, biological, chemical) gear, and then made you take off your mask one at a time, while they asked you some bullshit questions for a few seconds, and then shoved you out the door and told you to run.
This was physically the worst experience of my life up to that point. All of your exposed skin burns, your lungs burn, snot runs down your face, you dry heave or vomit, etc. And that doesn't go away immediately after you get out of the gas chamber. It takes a while to wear off.
And the gear you have to wear to protect yourself from this stuff -- unless they've radically changed it since then -- is hot, bulky, and has poor visibility. You couldn't even hold a rifle the normal way with a mask on, you had to rotate it at an odd angle. I don't think even the most gung-ho soldier wanted to fight wearing that stuff.
My theory is that this gas business made a similar impression on generals and other defense establishment types, and that's partly why they make a big deal about it.
Mostly its just to snap back at J. Wong, who has a ridiculously cheerful view of China bordering on self-parody.
There are plenty of ways to accomplish land reform that don’t involve struggling people to death.
Yeah, the history of the world is replete with examples of landowners peacefully giving up their land.
Still, sorry for your loss of family members.
At least it was quick and not starvation and ill-health spread over many years like the fates of millions of peasants and tenant farmers.
Seems we’re all in agreement, then.
That’s the major asset of a lightly moderated discussion forum.
The case cannot progress until she produces the dress.
Gross.
Peace.
Do you ever reflect upon the fact that the U. S. elected Ike as President (twice) and the French let de Gaulle establish the 5th Republic with an extremely powerful presidency while the Brits voted their war time leader out of office?
I haven’t particularly, no. The reason Churchill was voted out was more to do with the general wave of socialism and his being a Tory, imo, than any particular war leadership issues.
Are you suggesting there might be a cultural difference involved, to do with perceived winners?
I think that is when you jumped the shark.
Yes Karlin is an Apex Idiot…
Anyone live through the Northeast Blackout of 2003…?
In my area we had no electrical power for only three days…it felt surreal and apocalyptic…
You could not buy gas since pumps didn’t work…
All food stores closed because refrigeration down and all perishable food trashed…some opened doors and allowed people in single file and handed out corn flakes and soda crackers at checkout…no payment requested since cash registers not operable…
Convenience stores good for potato chips and water [while they lasted]…no cash registers…clerks writing down transactions in notebook for tax purposes…
I thought to myself what happens if this goes on for 30 days…?
Clearly our urbanized industrial society is not able to sustain life for any length of time without electricity…
If this was 100 years ago people could survive…they didn’t even have electricity…most of the population lived on subsistence farming…
Where is moron Karlin going to buy food [or even water] after a nuclear exchange…?
I guess he never thought that far ahead before getting caught up in his bullshit fantasies…
By the way, everything I wrote over the last week of what would happen, has proved 100% accurate of what happened last night.
That’s the reason for being upset with you even more.
What was interesting is how Muhammad trained...he arrived in Zaire months before and he would run daily through the countryside and desperate villages...and the people would come out and run alongside shouting...'Ali bomaye'...'Ali kill him...'
Foreman got there much later and never left the hotel...he never seemed to get comfortable in Zaire...and apparently was bothered by Ali's trash talking which was all over the media...
Ali...as usual...was winning the psychological war...the one that counts really...
He did the same thing with Wilt Chamberlain...who had challenged him to a fight in 1971...Of course Ali had one of the strongest jaws ever in my opinion...he was never KO'd...Foreman's jaw didn't match up...and he punched himself out...somehow Ali knew he could weather the storm...it was a tremendous strategy against the big man...
Ali did take some vicious punches from Big Georgie...but he took far worse punishment from Larry Holmes...he was in terrible shape and past his prime by then but he never went down...Angelo Dundee threw in the towel after the 11'th...
http://content.ksdk.com/photo/2017/10/27/ali_beatles_cropped_1509140561504_11497506_ver1.0.png
Yeah – along with Foreman – he took some very massive hits from Ernie Shavers in their fight. Shavers was one of the heaviest hitters of that era. Ali himself said that was the hardest hitter he ever fought.
I remember watching clips of the last round where I could not believe the stamina on both of those guys – Shavers literally got saved by the bell.
Peace.
“The least Putin could have done is taken out a French or British airplane…I also would not be surprised if this is just the beginning…if one side thinks the other is cowed they will continue shoving harder…”
Don’t be surprised if Iran gets the S-400 (goodbye nuclear deal renegotiation). They are already about to give Syria the S-300.
In the long run, this will only hurt US interests.
1. Russia and China will get much closer (China did an admirable job publicly defending its partner back when it looked like the evil Empire would start a world war). Russia will continue to sell them advanced weapons that will change the balance of power in SE Asia (already sold them the S-400 back after some previous aggression against them).
2. China and Russia will both seek to deter US aggression from their mainlands by maintaining a presence overseas (China is now rumored to be seeking a navy base https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/10/asia/vanuatu-china-australia-intl/index.html).
3. The US will be seen as more dangerous and less trustworthy than ever before.
4. The prospect of a deal with N Korea just evaporated. Don’t expect anything from that conference now.
5. The US public is now more skeptical of the government than ever before. Not only was the timing of this supposed gas attack suspect, but the Pentagon IMMEDIATELY resorted to lying in the aftermath of this attack; they falsely claimed that Russia hadn’t been given prior warning (total lie – the French MoD corrected this lie) and they claimed ALL of the missiles hit their targets (how could they know this with certainty?).
Lots of Americans stayed up last night thinking there might be a nuclear war. People are PO. The situation has even emboldened several congressmen/women to publicly denounce Trump’s refusal to consult congress.
6. This will embolden Muller to go after Trump even harder because lots of people now think the guy is dangerously unhinged. I have to admit my feelings on the subject have changed to being far more pro-Muller than ever, especially since Trump’s crazy war Tweet that started all of this. He’s not fit to be president.
If Trump is removed and replaced with VP Pence it is possible it might be only worse. It seems that day before the bombings Chiefs of Staff had a meeting with Pence w/o Trump. Perhaps they hoped he might go against Trump but apparently he did not. Pence might be the true Zio-Christian believer so he won't need pressure and manipulations that Trump has to be subjected to.
Barzeh research and development centre, Damascus, a "centre for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology", targeted by 19 jasms and 57 Tomahawks (! - seems they wanted to make sure)
Him Shinshar chemical weapons storage site, west of Homs, allegedly the "the primary location of Syrian Sarin and precursor production equipment", targeted by 9 Tomahawks, 8 Storm Shadows, 5 unspecified "naval cruise missiles" and 2 SCALPs (French Storm Shadow equivalents, iirc).
Him Shinshar chemical weapons bunker, west of Homs, a separate facility that allegedly "contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post", targeted by 7 SCALPs.
The Yanks and their poodles disagree with the Russians/Syrians about whether any missiles were shot down, and about the targeting.
Interestingly the BBC report also includes the following about the Barzeh site:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43769332
Him Shinshar chemical weapons storage site, west of Homs, allegedly the “the primary location of Syrian Sarin and precursor production equipment
Also known as Chenchar, this is where Saddam Hussein’s WMD were stored, and perhaps still are:
He wrote about it in one of his columns...he wasn't high on the succession list...something like number 30 if memory serves...but the secret service nuclear suitcase training was still mandatory for him...
As for where he gets his ideas...I would say having had the experience of being in the inner circle of POTUS would have counted for something...over and above reading the Flaker...
Why…don’t…I…use…the…same…structure…as…you…?
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…
PCR literally lifts terms straight out of The Faker’s columns. For instance, he is fond using the term “Atlantic-Integrationist” to describe pro-Western Russian officials.
I can’t ask him because he is a coward who refuses to allow comments, and for some baffling reason Ron Unz tolerates this appalling cowardice.
https://www.unz.com/proberts/what-the-n-korean-crisis-is-really-about/
Saker's real name is also well known.
And what is your fame, "Thorfinnsson" & "German_reader?" -- Where is your courage? What are your principles?
I have made a grand total of about a dozen comments on MR, most or all of which went through so far as I know.
While I don't really mind people who criticize and insult me to my face here, just making up stuff on other places that I am unlikely to notice is despicable.
Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s a fanatic Jewish-activist type, though working very hard to conceal his motives.
Basically, he provides a vast quantity of comments, the overwhelming majority “moderate”, and “mainstream,” generally disputing any deviations from the Official Narrative, but in a cautious and restrained manner, often buttressed by detailed factual citations. But every now and then something about Israel or Jews may come up, and he begins making all sorts of extreme statements, much like the most extreme WashPost Neocon. You can see this if you browse his archive:
http://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=Art+Deco
My guess is his nasty and dishonest attacks on AK are because of that SPLC denunciation a few weeks ago.
I also strongly suspect that the “moderate/mainstream” tone of the overwhelming majority of his comments are simply intended to establish his credibility for his periodic comments on Jews/Israel.
Given the massive volume of his comments, over 500K words, it really wouldn’t surprise me if he’s some sort of disinfo agent. After all, all sorts of “extremists” comment here because they’ve been banned everywhere else, but why would a “mainstream” fellow write 500K words of mostly “mainstream” comments here unless he was being paid to do so?…
You can also see Artie’s “body of work” at mainstream sites like marginalrevolution.com. He’s a typical cuckservative, cantankerous towards various stupid liberal policy proposals, but he saves his true ire for anyone on the right who deviates from movement conservative orthodoxy.
I also didn't mention secondary activation products from irradiation of various metals that comprise buildings within nuclear fireballs. The US Hanford nuclear "reservation" operated 10 reactors to produce plutonium which was then extracted using the PUREX process. During this time the government released about 65 million curies of radiation from secondary activation products into the Columbia River. Major long lived radionuclides released into the river include Zn-65, Co-60, Cr-51, and Eu-152. This information was top secret at the time and only the US government and Russian "fishing Trawlers" knew about this radioactive exposure.
“Sediment Quality and Eco-risk Assessment Factors for a Major River System”
https://www.osti.gov/scitech/servlets/purl/10140834
The dangers posed by the K-basin nuclear fuel storage was also hushed up. If a plane had hit K-basin ponds instead of the twin towers on 911 the US would have been economically destroyed. These ponds contained some 2,100 metric tons of Zircaloy-clad, metallic (pyrophoric) uranium spent nuclear fuel and about 3.4 metric tons) of aluminum-clad metallic uranium spent fuel. This was high burnout spent fuel containing the maximum amount of long lived radionuclides which would have created a no-go zone over perhaps half of the US, dependent on wind pattern and strength at the time.
http://www.wmsym.org/archives/2000/pdf/54/54-9.pdf
Have boat fished the Hanford Reach section of the Columbia River numerous times. This is the section of the river closest to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. You always see heavy equipment scooping river bank dirt into trucks, but only on the Nuclear Reservation side of the river. It is obvious the groundwater has been thoroughly contaminated with radioactivity and continues to leach into the river, flowing down past Portland and Astoria and out into the Pacific. Amazingly, most the fisherman keep and eat the salmon caught coming upstream. Maybe every boat should be equipped with a Geiger Counter as well as a depth sounder……
If you fished above where the work is being done you only have to worry about lead and cadmium bioaccumulation from the Sullivan mine in British Columbia. It concerns me that the idiots are moving sediments along the river as the only remaining salmon spawning gravel beds are along the Hanford reach and the fry are easily suffocated by an overlay of fine sediment over the gravel.
Interesting that you mention Geiger counters as hunters on the other side of the river are asked to call in the radiation protection officers to survey their kills. Deer graze on both sides of the river and consume radioactive contaminated biomass from the Hanford reservation side of the river. The radioactive contamination issue was the main reason that the herd of wild horses were killed within the reservation.
I forgot to mention that Hanford is also the storage location for plutonium from the building 325 operations and would be a primary target in case of a nuclear war.
One of the advantages of "democracy" supposedly is that there are controls for this sort of thing so that a small clique can't just take an entire country to war...but as so much else with "democracy", this turns out to be a grotesque fiction.
As we’ve discovered “democracy” is a lie.
And this was pointed out by communists, fascists, monarchists, legitimists, etc.
Now we need to come to terms with this.
What is the solution?
And frankly, the idea of putting “the people” in charge is not only impossible but ridiculous.
"Democracy" in its current form doesn't do much for me either (not least because on crucial issues like mass immigration it's anything but genuinely democratic). But what should replace it? Hard question, I don't see an easy answer.
...
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PCR literally lifts terms straight out of The Faker's columns. For instance, he is fond using the term "Atlantic-Integrationist" to describe pro-Western Russian officials.
I can't ask him because he is a coward who refuses to allow comments, and for some baffling reason Ron Unz tolerates this appalling cowardice.
The reason is pretty amusing, there apparently was a fake comment under Roberts’s name in this thread which threatened violence (“you can eat lead from my 45″) against a commenter:
https://www.unz.com/proberts/what-the-n-korean-crisis-is-really-about/
The Government “acknowledging” a convention doesn’t eliminate the Reserve Powers of the monarch–the same powers HM Government officially acknowledged in 2003.
The 2013 submission to Parliament of a proposed Syrian attack is, to my knowledge, the only time this ever happened.
It’s just cultural Americanization. The law and history clearly reserve this power to the monarch.
What was interesting is how Muhammad trained...he arrived in Zaire months before and he would run daily through the countryside and desperate villages...and the people would come out and run alongside shouting...'Ali bomaye'...'Ali kill him...'
Foreman got there much later and never left the hotel...he never seemed to get comfortable in Zaire...and apparently was bothered by Ali's trash talking which was all over the media...
Ali...as usual...was winning the psychological war...the one that counts really...
He did the same thing with Wilt Chamberlain...who had challenged him to a fight in 1971...Of course Ali had one of the strongest jaws ever in my opinion...he was never KO'd...Foreman's jaw didn't match up...and he punched himself out...somehow Ali knew he could weather the storm...it was a tremendous strategy against the big man...
Ali did take some vicious punches from Big Georgie...but he took far worse punishment from Larry Holmes...he was in terrible shape and past his prime by then but he never went down...Angelo Dundee threw in the towel after the 11'th...
http://content.ksdk.com/photo/2017/10/27/ali_beatles_cropped_1509140561504_11497506_ver1.0.png
Older Ali psychological tactics worked on Earnie Shavers who did not finish Ali off out of fear of the rope-a- dope. But young Ali could not finish the 6’6”Ernie Terrell even though his eye was swelled shut from what Terrral said was a deliberate thumb.
Against Cooper (who weighed about 180lb for the fight) only Clay’s armpit snagging on the ropes stopped his head from hitting the boards and him likely being knocked unconscious, then he was saved by the bell. He was helped( half carried) to his corner and needed smelling salts, both of which were clear violations of the rules.
Foreman said Ali looked scared when after KOing Frazier he shouted to Ali ringside “I’m going to kill you”. Foreman trained in an air conditioned room in the hotel and was totally unprepared for the heat in Zaire, he was wobbled in the second round. Lummox Lewis was ko’ed in Africa too. Their size worked against them obviously.
And this was pointed out by communists, fascists, monarchists, legitimists, etc.
Now we need to come to terms with this.
What is the solution?
And frankly, the idea of putting "the people" in charge is not only impossible but ridiculous.
I’m conflicted about this. I dislike proles and don’t think anti-intellectual “common people” should be romanticized. But tbh I also hate rich people and “elites”, their privileges and cosmopolitan values disgust me. There are some minor impoverished nobles among my ancestors, but most were artisans, weavers or even lower down the social scale (e.g. a rural labourer who spent much of his time poaching). So I find valorization of aristocrats and the like rather repellent, longing for a premodern state of things where the lower orders have to obey their superiors doesn’t appeal much to me.
“Democracy” in its current form doesn’t do much for me either (not least because on crucial issues like mass immigration it’s anything but genuinely democratic). But what should replace it? Hard question, I don’t see an easy answer.
More like in Switzerland which is run by a permanent Grand coalition of the political elite, but said elite has to show (some) respect to the interests of the common people thanks to direct democracy which enables them to have a direct veto.
It is telling that in Germany there is no direct democracy on federal level.
Everything turned out ok.
Karlin has neither died in nuclear apocalypse nor is required to hide in the metro, where the free wifi connection provided by municipality reportedly exposes all personal data to hackers. World’s leading advocate of creating a new breed of man in artificial lamb’s wombs can continue his work.
Above ground, London, Moscow, Tel Aviv and Los Angeles are still here – and it’s only in the case of latter city, that I do not personally like to visit in my vacation.
Anyway, Yan Shen would be the only person laughing about such destruction, as it confirmed certain of his hypothesis about East Asian intelligence (math/verbal IQ split notwithstanding).
1 Nikki Haley says on CNN " Attack happened because diplomacy failed Diplomacy failed because Russia vetoed the UN resolution"
Things can and should happen --- "Attacks on Israel happened because US vetoed UN resolutions "
2 Jihadist out of the few UK and Britain have allowed pose a risk and today "there was an attack "on our values of X Y Z and X Y Z ' by some terrorists expressing loyalty to " this and that and that and those and this " in market place and around the bridge and the shopping market-- the pious sounding looking bastards on CNN and MSNBC exhaled with foreign source -derived glee . It is good for Israel for Saudi prince for the future senator and congressman looking for some dough .
I had no right to insult my little friend here by equating your brain size to his…sorry…
Also known as Chenchar, this is where Saddam Hussein's WMD were stored, and perhaps still are:
I was humming the same thing. After all, Storm Seekers are bunker busters.
“Given the massive volume of his comments, over 500K words, it really wouldn’t surprise me if he’s some sort of disinfo agent.”
Or a small group of people posting under a single handle. Jared Taylor’s site has a guy who acts exactly as you describe Art Deco – says what’s expected of him in terms of race (but nothing too offensive or derogatory, just stale repetitions) while being extremely pro-Israel and vacillating in tone or sometimes even being inexplicably hostile to the posters…as if the account is run by two or more people.
Unfortunately, Taylor never had the good sense to ban the guy. He was also obviously lying about his background (claimed to have once been robbed by a black guy in a nearly all-white area while also not able to give any specifics in terms of date or exact location).
I suspected the guy was a plant as a result of his behavior and his penchant for wanting to meet up with posters and get their contact information. Sounds like someone was building a file.
Oh…and he even wormed himself into being a moderator. Was accused of abusing the privilege by not approving non-account comments critical of his positions on Israel.
Does this pay more than Hasbara, Inc.? I would love to go for a job like this.
As for that "Art Deco" fellow (discussed by various other people upthread), I never really paid any attention to him until recently, though the gigantic volume and extremely "mainstream" perspective of his comments always made me pretty suspicious.
But then a month or two ago, I happened to mention something about the totally absurd and obviously non-meritocratic over-representation of Jews at elite universities, a complex topic about which I probably have more detailed expertise than virtually anyone else around. And he suddenly popped up and began ranting and raving like a nut. After that, I began noticing how his persona totally changed on Jewish/Israel issues, or perhaps he realized that his cover had been blown, and stopped trying to fully maintain "crypsis"...
I guess that fanatic Jewish-activist-types aren't too difficult to "trigger." That "Lot" fellow is certainly another one, but not really any sort of disinfo agent, given that his views have always been explicit, and (obviously!) the same goes for "International Jew"...
I mean sure, I don't doubt that Assad's regime is conducting all manner of atrocities, and I wouldn't even put it beyond them that they're using gas. But all sides (especially the Islamist-dominated rebels) are using cruel methods in this war. I think there's even proof that jihadi groups have used chlorine gas and the like on some occasions. Pretending that the viciousness of this war is merely due to "animal Assad's" cruelty is selective hypocrisy, probably merely a cover for other interests.
I also don't buy the argument that one has to prevent the use of chemical weapons at all costs, because otherwise their use might become more common and they might eventually be used against Western troops or civilians as well. A regime like Assad's can be easily deterred (and to my knowledge Assad has never even considered supporting terrorism against targets in Europe or the US). And chemical weapons don't seem that grave a threat to me as nuclear or biological ones.
“I don’t doubt …”– You should.
Syria and Russia are free from chemical weaponry, according to the international inspectors. Israel, on the contrary, has refused to ratify both the bioweaponry convention and chemical weaponry convention. Israelis generals have intimated for the whole world that they prefer ISIS to sovereign Syria. The ziocon stink-tanks and the Israel-firsters on MSM have been the loudest proponents fo the military actions against the sovereign state of Syria (and before that, against the sovereign states of Iraq and Libya). In light of the facts, and considering the well-known atrocities conducted by Israelis against the unarmed native populace of Palestinian, it is logical to suggest that Israel has been the instigator of chemical-agent attacks in Syria via the criminal White Helmets as well as other “moderate” terrorists befriended by the CIA.
Israelis (and the zioconized US) have been also conducting extra-judicial assassinations for decades. So please, do not feign an over-sensitive innocence by accusing Assad of atrocities. How many kids the Menora operation murdered — several hundred? And the Israelis rejoiced!
Oded Yinon plan, which Israel has been trying to achieve by any means (see 4 million human beings slaughtered in the Middle East for Eretz Israel and oil- and war-profiteers ) is a blueprint for a criminal enterprise pointed to the very heart of humanity.
"Democracy" in its current form doesn't do much for me either (not least because on crucial issues like mass immigration it's anything but genuinely democratic). But what should replace it? Hard question, I don't see an easy answer.
Proles are, well, incompetent and embarrassing. Obviously not a ruling class.
That said, and I don’t know your profession or class, my position is that we have Noblesse Oblige towards them.
And they’re not that bad. They’re simply vaguely embarrassing, not destructive. Many of their pathologies our the fault of our class for abandoning Noblesse Oblige and social control.
There is also quite a lot of talent within the proletariat owing to our inefficient talent selection system. Two of my top executives are single mothers who did not go to college. They’re very smart. I also routinely meet smart, diligent men who did not get on the right track and are stuck in low status employment.
I am rich and thus socialize with other rich elites. Their values are indeed disgusting, and I routinely challenge them. But they’re very formidable in terms of talent and ability. We need something that appeals to at least a fraction of them (us) if we want to win. Which I do.
As for the replacement to democracy I don’t know. I have started studying Legitimism and the counter-Enlightenment, which is very interesting, but isn’t an answer.
I hope to become personally an answer to our problems once I become rich enough.
But with a network.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I have nothing but respect for Russia's military capabilities, both their tech and their soldiers. But Russia simply does not have the resources in theater to withstand a US attack. They just don't.
I didn't mean it as an anti Russia thing.
I didn’t take it as an anti-Russia thing…
I took it as an anti common sense thing…
Well…that’s not a professional opinion you have to agree…since you are not an expert…
The theater btw is only a few hundred miles from Russia’s Southern military district…
Have a look at my comment #155 here…
Barzeh research and development centre, Damascus, a "centre for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology", targeted by 19 jasms and 57 Tomahawks (! - seems they wanted to make sure)
Him Shinshar chemical weapons storage site, west of Homs, allegedly the "the primary location of Syrian Sarin and precursor production equipment", targeted by 9 Tomahawks, 8 Storm Shadows, 5 unspecified "naval cruise missiles" and 2 SCALPs (French Storm Shadow equivalents, iirc).
Him Shinshar chemical weapons bunker, west of Homs, a separate facility that allegedly "contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post", targeted by 7 SCALPs.
The Yanks and their poodles disagree with the Russians/Syrians about whether any missiles were shot down, and about the targeting.
Interestingly the BBC report also includes the following about the Barzeh site:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43769332
Presumably the Russian assessments of the targets are necessarily somewhat speculative for the intercepts, unless they were hit by close in defences.
"Shinshar" exists, as mentioned in an earlier post it is the final resting place of Saddam's mythical WMD. But I can find no reference to Shinshar in connection with Syrian chemical weapons prior to the attack.
I am confident that the attack on Him Shinshar was a 100% success.
If the Russian version is true, then the bad news is that the Americans attacked some real military targets. But they used most of the surplus over last year’s attack to attack a research facility, so it wasn’t really a bigger one than last year’s attack. And of course if the Russian version was true, then the Syrian air defense (mostly modernized 1950s and 1960s Soviet systems) performance was awesome.
Because of the ample warning time given ahead of the attack, the destructive power of the strike was probably much smaller in both cases.
So either way the attack looks to be smaller (though nominally bigger) than the one launched last year. Putin might have blinked, but so did Trump.
It was a feel-good propaganda exorcise for Trump, May, and Macron. All of them needed a righteous tuff guy rally around the flag political boast.
We still do not know if Assad actually did the deep. They have given us no proof – this looks bad.
Right now, Putin looks like the moderate level-headed leader.
The situation on the ground has not militarily changed. Russia, Iran, and Syria are stronger for the attack.
Think peace --- Art
Don't be surprised if Iran gets the S-400 (goodbye nuclear deal renegotiation). They are already about to give Syria the S-300.
In the long run, this will only hurt US interests.
1. Russia and China will get much closer (China did an admirable job publicly defending its partner back when it looked like the evil Empire would start a world war). Russia will continue to sell them advanced weapons that will change the balance of power in SE Asia (already sold them the S-400 back after some previous aggression against them).
2. China and Russia will both seek to deter US aggression from their mainlands by maintaining a presence overseas (China is now rumored to be seeking a navy base https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/10/asia/vanuatu-china-australia-intl/index.html).
3. The US will be seen as more dangerous and less trustworthy than ever before.
4. The prospect of a deal with N Korea just evaporated. Don't expect anything from that conference now.
5. The US public is now more skeptical of the government than ever before. Not only was the timing of this supposed gas attack suspect, but the Pentagon IMMEDIATELY resorted to lying in the aftermath of this attack; they falsely claimed that Russia hadn't been given prior warning (total lie - the French MoD corrected this lie) and they claimed ALL of the missiles hit their targets (how could they know this with certainty?).
Lots of Americans stayed up last night thinking there might be a nuclear war. People are PO. The situation has even emboldened several congressmen/women to publicly denounce Trump's refusal to consult congress.
6. This will embolden Muller to go after Trump even harder because lots of people now think the guy is dangerously unhinged. I have to admit my feelings on the subject have changed to being far more pro-Muller than ever, especially since Trump's crazy war Tweet that started all of this. He's not fit to be president.
Good analysis. One but though:
Think however that Mueller and Stormy Daniels are there to push Trump in the direction of being more belligerent against Iran, Syria and Russia. Bombing other countries in American makes you look presidential and you get approval from the so-called opposition. This mechanism always works so obviously it will be used successfully with any president and with president like Trump whose narcissism and egoism has no bounds because his morality is meager it will be a stunning success.
If Trump is removed and replaced with VP Pence it is possible it might be only worse. It seems that day before the bombings Chiefs of Staff had a meeting with Pence w/o Trump. Perhaps they hoped he might go against Trump but apparently he did not. Pence might be the true Zio-Christian believer so he won’t need pressure and manipulations that Trump has to be subjected to.
I only found this site, because I was searching for articles about Israel’s border fence. I was correcting articles by Sailer (who, unlike me, does not know much about Israel, probably never been there, and had confused the different border walls in Israel).
Karlin blog though is really perfect place of midnight discussion, where you end up having arguments about Roman Emperors, Hungarian domestic politics, and merits of Georgian cooking. On Sailer blog, my viewpoint is just alien or not cohering with the other commentators.
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PCR literally lifts terms straight out of The Faker's columns. For instance, he is fond using the term "Atlantic-Integrationist" to describe pro-Western Russian officials.
I can't ask him because he is a coward who refuses to allow comments, and for some baffling reason Ron Unz tolerates this appalling cowardice.
Saker is well respected on this forum. His expertise and character are highly appreciated; he is an honest, principled, and courageous person.
Saker’s real name is also well known.
And what is your fame, “Thorfinnsson” & “German_reader?” — Where is your courage? What are your principles?
Haven't read that much by him, but it seems like pretty obscurantist Eurasianist stuff. Someone who regards the entire history of the West as evil (iirc he likes to go on about how the crusaders destroyed Byzantium) and characterized only by aggression against other civilizations (which of course by contrast are completely innocent and only driven by pure spiritual values) is functionally no different from multiculturalists or resentful jihadis.
Probably not accidental that he seems to love Islam.
LOL
"Democracy" in its current form doesn't do much for me either (not least because on crucial issues like mass immigration it's anything but genuinely democratic). But what should replace it? Hard question, I don't see an easy answer.
A proper democracy.
More like in Switzerland which is run by a permanent Grand coalition of the political elite, but said elite has to show (some) respect to the interests of the common people thanks to direct democracy which enables them to have a direct veto.
It is telling that in Germany there is no direct democracy on federal level.
Oh, and the account I referenced quoted Taylor’s works religiously, as if the guy spent every waking moment memorizing them because he thought that’s what people wanted to hear…just like your buddy Art Deco:
“Read Jared Taylor on Sobran, ca. 1999. Mrs. Taylor complains that their invitations to him are never returned. Well, Mr. Taylor replies, he’s a single guy and his home is a wreck. Or read Sobran’s outraged column about being stopped by TSA agents in an airport. He’d allowed his drivers license to expire.”
Saker's real name is also well known.
And what is your fame, "Thorfinnsson" & "German_reader?" -- Where is your courage? What are your principles?
Saker is kind of nuts imo, and anti-Western in a sort of way that I personally find rather repellent.
Haven’t read that much by him, but it seems like pretty obscurantist Eurasianist stuff. Someone who regards the entire history of the West as evil (iirc he likes to go on about how the crusaders destroyed Byzantium) and characterized only by aggression against other civilizations (which of course by contrast are completely innocent and only driven by pure spiritual values) is functionally no different from multiculturalists or resentful jihadis.
Probably not accidental that he seems to love Islam.
He does have a point, though.
Again, Saker is respected for his courage, knowledge, and moral principles. In comparison, your posts smack of slander.
Saker's real name is also well known.
And what is your fame, "Thorfinnsson" & "German_reader?" -- Where is your courage? What are your principles?
The Faker is an internet Russian patriot who was not even born in Russia and has barely been there.
I am a business executive presently focused on the accumulation of money and don’t need the headache. Basically working on becoming a billionaire and yes I’ll get there.
I do intend to enter politics around 40 or so or whenever I have enough money.
I already participate actively in local and state politics where I live.
I can’t speak for German_reader, but he seems to generally have good takes on things.
If only you could be so sure about accumulating the humanness and wisdom.
Art Deco = John Engleman? It would be interesting to compare the two account’s posting history. Both are fanatically pro-Jewish/pro-Israel, subtly support the official narrative, have similar posting styles (including being able to quote Jared Taylor, apparently), post large volumes of non-offensive/mainstream material, quote technical stuff from reports (the kind of stuff a researcher working for Snopes or MediaMatters might come across), and have posted under the same handle on different sites – like the guy has no free time on his hands and spends every waking hour posting…
…and the Engleman account has even posted here on UNZ, once.
"Read Jared Taylor on Sobran, ca. 1999. Mrs. Taylor complains that their invitations to him are never returned. Well, Mr. Taylor replies, he’s a single guy and his home is a wreck. Or read Sobran’s outraged column about being stopped by TSA agents in an airport. He’d allowed his drivers license to expire."
I remember Art Deco had surprisingly detailed knowledge on private lives on the “enemies of the people” like Sobran.
Nice summary, thanks. Interesting contrast in the targeting assessments.
Presumably the Russian assessments of the targets are necessarily somewhat speculative for the intercepts, unless they were hit by close in defences.
Haven't read that much by him, but it seems like pretty obscurantist Eurasianist stuff. Someone who regards the entire history of the West as evil (iirc he likes to go on about how the crusaders destroyed Byzantium) and characterized only by aggression against other civilizations (which of course by contrast are completely innocent and only driven by pure spiritual values) is functionally no different from multiculturalists or resentful jihadis.
Probably not accidental that he seems to love Islam.
Saker is not a cuck. Often naive and infantile in his frequently amateurish analyses but he is honest, so he deserves some respect.
Which of course raises the question why the guy seems to spend most of his life in Western countries.
As you say, the bottom line is that the Russians did fold and let the US get away with attacking their allies. On the other hand it's also true that Russia did what it had to - contrary to the obsessives here, they are the weaker side in theatre and they know it, and furthermore not folding involves an unacceptable risk of escalation to nuclear war. And it's also fair to say that the Russians also stood their ground to some extent and at least made the US side be seen to back off from what initially looked as though they might be more serious measures. So weaker than the US side, but not entirely helpless.
So I'm pretty cheerful this morning - it could have been a lot worse. Nothing has really changed. Yes the crazies are somewhat emboldened, but on the other hand time is still on the side of the Russians in Syria, and it seems unlikely these strikes if we have seen them all (for now) as Mattis has reportedly suggested will have any material effect on the government or seriously reignite rebel support and activity.
Both side have valid arguments to claim a "win", but both side's arguments are overstated by their advocates. Another bad precedent is set, but there are many of these. As I see it, nothing is resolved. As you say, that means the aggressors are emboldened and will likely push again soon enough. But on the other hand the defenders have more time to prepare and to strengthen their positions.
There's a lot of catching up to do on what really went on in the background, as well, both within the US regime and amongst the resisting powers especially Iran and China. Their responses on the ground, as well as Russia's, over the next few weeks will tell us a lot.
Well, first, it’s now getting, again, dark there, and light here…..
US/allies had all day to assess the aftermath of the strike last night. All elements of the aftermath.
So, what is important now is whether we’ll see the next strike (your/Syria) tonight or my early afternoon here.
We’ll have a clearer picture tomorrow and even more clearer a couple of days later.
Just for the (pointless) record, if we see a next strike tonight, well…not…………good……
Yup.
Yup.
You missed the point.
“Crazies” read Kremlin. Read them. R……e………..a………….d…….them.
I’ll tell you what will happen. Already wrote that above.
“Crazies”, emboldened, will keep pushing.
They will increase the tempo. How, where, I do not know. Can’t say I care much either.
Now I know the sides in this conflict. Didn’t quite know before last night, true, was suspecting, but now I know.
“Crazies” will have inititative and will keep pushing, faster and more reckless.
Kremlin will react to all that, hopefully still retaining their cool, retreating and buying time.
Buying…..time……
All good for both big players.
Russian “allies/friends/helpers” will take the brunt of the “crazies” push. Syria first and foremost, but some other will too.
That’s the game until something, which I do not know, happens in West to weaken it, somehow, somewhere. Next 5 years for sure, probably 10.
As for you and me, say our types, things will get worse.
There is certain inevitability to that.
I believe we should focus on how to deal with that “worse” and leave “Russia thing” out of it.
My take anyway.
On a personal level, again, should this stays as it is in the next 48 hours I’ll re-focus, paying minimal attention to all “Russia thing” overall. Anything of substance won’t come from there but from “inside” of the West.
Saker's real name is also well known.
And what is your fame, "Thorfinnsson" & "German_reader?" -- Where is your courage? What are your principles?
Saker is well respected on this forum.
LOL
Or a small group of people posting under a single handle. Jared Taylor's site has a guy who acts exactly as you describe Art Deco - says what's expected of him in terms of race (but nothing too offensive or derogatory, just stale repetitions) while being extremely pro-Israel and vacillating in tone or sometimes even being inexplicably hostile to the posters...as if the account is run by two or more people.
Unfortunately, Taylor never had the good sense to ban the guy. He was also obviously lying about his background (claimed to have once been robbed by a black guy in a nearly all-white area while also not able to give any specifics in terms of date or exact location).
I suspected the guy was a plant as a result of his behavior and his penchant for wanting to meet up with posters and get their contact information. Sounds like someone was building a file.
Oh...and he even wormed himself into being a moderator. Was accused of abusing the privilege by not approving non-account comments critical of his positions on Israel.
Oh…and he even wormed himself into being a moderator.
Does this pay more than Hasbara, Inc.? I would love to go for a job like this.
Does this pay more than Hasbara, Inc.? I would love to go for a job like this.
iffen --- Very Funny --- I like it! --- Art
The Hanford PR people at scientific conferences really make a big deal of the groundwater contamination into the river comprising about a curie of tritium. They do not mention the 65 million curies of other radionuclides that were flushed into the river from the single pass plutonium production reactors. Fortunately, residual radiation from the decay of these activation products were sorbed onto iron and manganese oxides and either buried in sediments or flushed into the Pacific where they were flocculated onto the seafloor.
If you fished above where the work is being done you only have to worry about lead and cadmium bioaccumulation from the Sullivan mine in British Columbia. It concerns me that the idiots are moving sediments along the river as the only remaining salmon spawning gravel beds are along the Hanford reach and the fry are easily suffocated by an overlay of fine sediment over the gravel.
Interesting that you mention Geiger counters as hunters on the other side of the river are asked to call in the radiation protection officers to survey their kills. Deer graze on both sides of the river and consume radioactive contaminated biomass from the Hanford reservation side of the river. The radioactive contamination issue was the main reason that the herd of wild horses were killed within the reservation.
I forgot to mention that Hanford is also the storage location for plutonium from the building 325 operations and would be a primary target in case of a nuclear war.
Haven't read that much by him, but it seems like pretty obscurantist Eurasianist stuff. Someone who regards the entire history of the West as evil (iirc he likes to go on about how the crusaders destroyed Byzantium) and characterized only by aggression against other civilizations (which of course by contrast are completely innocent and only driven by pure spiritual values) is functionally no different from multiculturalists or resentful jihadis.
Probably not accidental that he seems to love Islam.
iirc he likes to go on about how the crusaders destroyed Byzantium
He does have a point, though.
And it wasn't uncontroversial even at the time, some of the crusaders (e.g. Simon de Montfort who later led the crusade against the Cathars in Southern France) left the expedition when it changed from a crusade for the Holy Land into a project for attacking the Byzantine empire.
I didn’t claim that he’s a “cuck”, but that he comes across as someone who resents the West (however one wants to define it) in its entirety and regards it as an alien civilization that ought to be brought down.
Which of course raises the question why the guy seems to spend most of his life in Western countries.
--- Were you born in a totalitarian state to become so picky about the place of living? If so, do you raise the question with regard to the Jews in Paris and London? Should not they, according to your principles, march to Israel ASAP to join "their" civilization?
He does have a point, though.
Yeah, but it’s not a sign of some immutable evil of the West. For much of written history, the strong have vanquished the weak, nothing extraordinary here.
Your opinions and those of German_reader add nothing to the discussion and are just personal attacks. Most of the commentators here would prefer facts backed up by links to other sources.
Coward.
A little diplomatic test. Russia introduced a resolution in the UNSC condemning the (unquestionably illegal) US/British/French unilateral aggression against Syria. There is no explanation except cynical hypocrisy for voting against such a resolution whilst remaining a member of the UN – it’s straightforwardly contradictory.
For the record, here were the votes:
For:
Russia
China
Bolivia
Abstained:
Peru
Kazakhstan
Ethiopia
Equatorial Guinea
Against (the roll of shame):
US, Britain, France (the perpetrators)
Côte d’Ivoire (bribed? Or just generally corrupt?)
Kuwait (cynical self interest)
Netherlands (?)
Poland (currying favour with the US?)
Sweden (?)
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/russia-fails-in-un-bid-to-condemn-us-led-strikes-on-syria/
But good to see that China didn't abstain this time.
He does have a point, though.
Sure, but the sack of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204 is generally regarded as a deplorable event by modern Westerners who know about it, not as something that is defended or celebrated.
And it wasn’t uncontroversial even at the time, some of the crusaders (e.g. Simon de Montfort who later led the crusade against the Cathars in Southern France) left the expedition when it changed from a crusade for the Holy Land into a project for attacking the Byzantine empire.
The destruction of the (Eastern) Roman Empire, first by the "Latins" from Flanders and France and, finally, by the Ottomans, was the preeminent, most consequential, event of the second millennium for it had, mildly put, dramatic consequences for the whole World.
The vanquishing of Byzantium and its civilizational space from South-Eastern Europe to North Africa and the Middle East, has led to the most dramatic power shift in a thousand years - it shifted the power center of European civilization from its very cradle to the West of the continent, that is - to your (man-eating) predecessors and their equally-barbarian neighbors, the Atlantic Europeans.
All the while, this event opened the gates of Europe to a second Islamic invasion which, in turn, came not only pretty close to wiping out the whole of Southern and Central Europe but also made sure that the South-East, the most civilized space of Europe, was brought back to stone age for, nearly, eternity.
Also, in both parochial and global terms, this event was the single, most important event in the whole history of Western Europe (formerly, the most barbaric, savage part of the continent). The destruction of Byzantium was the premier act of the West's emancipation. The Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, the Industrial Revolution and the, subsequent, colonization of, almost, the whole planet (all accomplished by the Atlantic Europeans) are all direct consequences of the aforementioned power-shift.
As I said - you don't get it and you never will because, to a large extent, such a realization would go against the very foundations of your civilizational mythology, that is, it would lead to some kind of cognitive dissonance (the realization that the your own civilization did not arise do to certain grassroots phenomena but, in all reality, came to be just because of a random, lucky historical event in which the deliberate input of your people was, very much, close to zero).
Are you suggesting there might be a cultural difference involved, to do with perceived winners?
There are always cultural differences.
I think that is when you jumped the shark.
I think that is when you jumped the shark.
? Who, me or Britain?
“Does this pay more than Hasbara, Inc.? I would love to go for a job like this.”
He donated money, I believe. Then suddenly he’s a moderator. Clever.
I’d always heard about widespread enthusiasm for going to war and martial adventure, on the part of European soldiers, at the beginning of WWI. This enthusiasm for the war didn’t last very long and seemed to have been confined to men from the middle classes and above, but it was real.
From https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/willingly_to_war_public_response_to_the_outbreak_of_war :
Tremendous middle class enthusiasm in England, where millions actually volunteered, in the absence of conscription.
Not as much enthusiasm in the other countries, but it’s implied that large numbers of men were ready to go fight for the Homeland.
.
29 missiles were supposedly launched against Him Shinshar (or Him Shinsar). But I can’t find any reference to “Him Shinshar” that is more than 24 hours old.
“Shinshar” exists, as mentioned in an earlier post it is the final resting place of Saddam’s mythical WMD. But I can find no reference to Shinshar in connection with Syrian chemical weapons prior to the attack.
I am confident that the attack on Him Shinshar was a 100% success.
Personal attacks are good and if you are afraid of them you are a coward.
Coward.
Now the real intellectual conversation can begin!!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lA5UqUyFmT0
Peace.
Obtuse? Insensitive? Amoral? I am groping for a word to describe you.
One thing that is a certainty- Russia needs to start covertly funding real right wing groups, particularly those with plans that can make a real change (i.e. street protests, or attacks on enemy targets).
Russian funded domestic terrorism.
The political brilliance has blinded me.
My eyes! My eyes! (And they have weathered quite a bit here at Unz.)
"Shinshar" exists, as mentioned in an earlier post it is the final resting place of Saddam's mythical WMD. But I can find no reference to Shinshar in connection with Syrian chemical weapons prior to the attack.
I am confident that the attack on Him Shinshar was a 100% success.
Well the US account has 29 missiles fired towards Him Shinsar and the nearby bunker. The Russian account has 28 targeted at Shayrat or “Homs aerodrome”, 25 of which were intercepted, and the rest aimed further south, towards the Damascus area.
LOL! You mean it’s not operational as a Syrian chemical weapons storage site and bunker?
Coward.
Sweeeet!!!
Now the real intellectual conversation can begin!!
Peace.
FOX JEWS is a propaganda outlet, pushing war that benefits itself and Israel.
For the past weak FOX has run the same 5 second video tapes of gassed children thousands of times, with the unverified implication that Assad did the gassing. FOX did NOT know the truth of the situation – yet they blatantly pumped hate against Assad.
Mattis himself on Thursday AM indicated that he had NO proof of Assad’s guilt. Yet all week while the talking heads were bloviating, they had those video tapes going in a loop over and over and over. They were doing harm, inflaming the situation with unverified facts.
FOX JEWS was promoting hate and war – it is a warmonger for profit. Shame Shame!
Think Peace — Do No Harm — Art
And consider Russia's situation from a broader perspective. For the last couple of decades, America has been constantly attacking other countries and or overthrowing their governments, behaving in a more and more crazy manner. At some point, a rabid dog must be confronted.
Furthermore, consider the totally bizarre domestic behavior of our elites, tearing down more and more of America's historic statues and monuments, behavior not that unlike that from the Taliban or ISIS or Mao's Red Guards.
Suppose during the Cultural Revolution, while China's Red Guards were wrecking total internal havoc, China was *also* constantly attacking and invading other countries externally, and talking about ruling the world. Wouldn't it be absolutely natural for other countries to become greatly alarmed and try to put an end to the rampage?
Obviously, there are huge dangers in every option, but I really do think Russia needs to stand its ground in Syria.
While that is the norm, wasn’t there a broader surge of enlistment in response to 911 and the perception that “we” had been attacked?
That is not the "norm".
Basically, he provides a vast quantity of comments, the overwhelming majority "moderate", and "mainstream," generally disputing any deviations from the Official Narrative, but in a cautious and restrained manner, often buttressed by detailed factual citations. But every now and then something about Israel or Jews may come up, and he begins making all sorts of extreme statements, much like the most extreme WashPost Neocon. You can see this if you browse his archive:
http://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=Art+Deco
My guess is his nasty and dishonest attacks on AK are because of that SPLC denunciation a few weeks ago.
I also strongly suspect that the "moderate/mainstream" tone of the overwhelming majority of his comments are simply intended to establish his credibility for his periodic comments on Jews/Israel.
Given the massive volume of his comments, over 500K words, it really wouldn't surprise me if he's some sort of disinfo agent. After all, all sorts of "extremists" comment here because they've been banned everywhere else, but why would a "mainstream" fellow write 500K words of mostly "mainstream" comments here unless he was being paid to do so?...
Eli Lake, another Israeli disinformation agent tweeted references Unz Review:
Basically, he provides a vast quantity of comments, the overwhelming majority "moderate", and "mainstream," generally disputing any deviations from the Official Narrative, but in a cautious and restrained manner, often buttressed by detailed factual citations. But every now and then something about Israel or Jews may come up, and he begins making all sorts of extreme statements, much like the most extreme WashPost Neocon. You can see this if you browse his archive:
http://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=Art+Deco
My guess is his nasty and dishonest attacks on AK are because of that SPLC denunciation a few weeks ago.
I also strongly suspect that the "moderate/mainstream" tone of the overwhelming majority of his comments are simply intended to establish his credibility for his periodic comments on Jews/Israel.
Given the massive volume of his comments, over 500K words, it really wouldn't surprise me if he's some sort of disinfo agent. After all, all sorts of "extremists" comment here because they've been banned everywhere else, but why would a "mainstream" fellow write 500K words of mostly "mainstream" comments here unless he was being paid to do so?...
First, much praise for this medium/outlet you’ve set up, it really is a beacon in these trying times.
You can also see Artie’s “body of work” at mainstream sites like marginalrevolution.com. He’s a typical cuckservative, cantankerous towards various stupid liberal policy proposals, but he saves his true ire for anyone on the right who deviates from movement conservative orthodoxy.
While that is the norm
That is not the “norm”.
If the American version is true, then they didn’t really dare attack real military targets. The chemical stockpiles were irrelevant to the civil war anyway. But then the Syrian air defense wasn’t so good. On the other hand, since no real protected targets were attacked, some of the air defense systems weren’t even used probably. Overall the only bad thing about the American version is the uselessness of the Syrian air defense. The Americans blinked, and sent all of their missiles on a few worthless targets.
If the Russian version is true, then the bad news is that the Americans attacked some real military targets. But they used most of the surplus over last year’s attack to attack a research facility, so it wasn’t really a bigger one than last year’s attack. And of course if the Russian version was true, then the Syrian air defense (mostly modernized 1950s and 1960s Soviet systems) performance was awesome.
Because of the ample warning time given ahead of the attack, the destructive power of the strike was probably much smaller in both cases.
So either way the attack looks to be smaller (though nominally bigger) than the one launched last year. Putin might have blinked, but so did Trump.
Barzah was until recently next to a war zone and until Spring 2017 part of a war zone.
It is certainly not a research station anymore.
I assume the number of intercepted missiles is between 0 and 71.
For the past weak FOX has run the same 5 second video tapes of gassed children thousands of times, with the unverified implication that Assad did the gassing. FOX did NOT know the truth of the situation – yet they blatantly pumped hate against Assad.
Mattis himself on Thursday AM indicated that he had NO proof of Assad’s guilt. Yet all week while the talking heads were bloviating, they had those video tapes going in a loop over and over and over. They were doing harm, inflaming the situation with unverified facts.
FOX JEWS was promoting hate and war – it is a warmonger for profit. Shame Shame!
Think Peace --- Do No Harm --- Art
Chlorine is not on the list of banned chemical weapons. In January 2005 a freight train with 18 cars carrying 120,000 pounds of chlorine spilled in the town of Graniteville, SC. 1400 people were directly exposed to newly-produced industrial chlorine. Out of the 1400 exposed only 9 died. That’s 0.6%. It was 30 degrees colder in Graniteville on that January day than it was in Douma last week. Chlorine dissipates much faster in warmer temps. They want us to believe an older (degraded) chlorine gas in some shells caused dozens of deaths? Do they think we’re retarded?
Sense 1914 and WWI – the largest killer of people with chemical weapons is the US army and air force.
In Vietnam agent orange killed and maimed thousands and thousands. It is still killing today.
I know someone who died prematurely from agent orange poising. The last five years of his life he had to gasp for air. US Generals did that to him!
Think Peace --- Do No Harm --- Art
p.s. Other then 1991 Iraq, it has been a long time sense a US general has truly won a war.
p.s. The generals war games are sucking America dry. $800,000,000,000 this year. Why? For what? Are we truly any safer for all that spending?
I recall on MR many years back Artie’s sneering satisfaction at how Sobran died in poverty (very Christian of old Artie, seeing how he’s quick to defend the perverts in the Church hierarchy) after being banished by Buckley. Really disgusting. Not to mention that Sobran had infinitely more integrity than Buckley ever did. Obviously their respective paths can’t cross in the afterlife.
Can’t speak for other people and traditions but ribaat was something Muslim men did very early on. It was voluntary service at border garrison forts where you learned religious/spiritual instruction as well. Often volunteers would pay out of their own money for the opportunity as it was considered extremely rewarded on the Day of Judgement and sometimes it was run by private charitable endowments:
http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2014
Not sure if some of the religious orders of knights have these same parallels.
Peace.
Eli Lake is indeed an Israeli plant. He had a Freudian slip on one of his Bloomberg articles a few weeks ago when he spoke of how to “save” the Syrian WAR.
Does this pay more than Hasbara, Inc.? I would love to go for a job like this.
Oh…and he even wormed himself into being a moderator.
Does this pay more than Hasbara, Inc.? I would love to go for a job like this.
iffen — Very Funny — I like it! — Art
No one blinked. Trump and Putin know the US is under attack from insane, violent traitors.
Both know next targets should be in DC and NYC and Weinswinewood.
Use some DoD dollars for gallows on DC Mall. Vendors can sell all-American dogs and burgers and beers as traitors drop.
If the Russian version is true, then the bad news is that the Americans attacked some real military targets. But they used most of the surplus over last year’s attack to attack a research facility, so it wasn’t really a bigger one than last year’s attack. And of course if the Russian version was true, then the Syrian air defense (mostly modernized 1950s and 1960s Soviet systems) performance was awesome.
Because of the ample warning time given ahead of the attack, the destructive power of the strike was probably much smaller in both cases.
So either way the attack looks to be smaller (though nominally bigger) than the one launched last year. Putin might have blinked, but so did Trump.
The main negatives to come out of this are that removing American forces from Syria (assuming Trump was being honest about this to begin with) is off the table, and that the crazies in the American deep state and oligarchy are undeterred from ratcheting up war against Russia (indeed they are probably emboldened to take it up a notch).
It has not happened Nothing bad yet has happened
1 Nikki Haley says on CNN ” Attack happened because diplomacy failed Diplomacy failed because Russia vetoed the UN resolution”
Things can and should happen — “Attacks on Israel happened because US vetoed UN resolutions ”
2 Jihadist out of the few UK and Britain have allowed pose a risk and today “there was an attack “on our values of X Y Z and X Y Z ‘ by some terrorists expressing loyalty to ” this and that and that and those and this ” in market place and around the bridge and the shopping market– the pious sounding looking bastards on CNN and MSNBC exhaled with foreign source -derived glee . It is good for Israel for Saudi prince for the future senator and congressman looking for some dough .
From https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/willingly_to_war_public_response_to_the_outbreak_of_war :
Tremendous middle class enthusiasm in England, where millions actually volunteered, in the absence of conscription.Not as much enthusiasm in the other countries, but it's implied that large numbers of men were ready to go fight for the Homeland..
Sure, you can find real patriots in most countries, especially if their borders are being threatened by unwanted intruders. Take Ukraine for example, although your hear quite a bit from the Russophiles that inhabit blogs like this about the supposed ‘chickens–t’ nature of some of its current crop of soldiers (alkis, druggies, crooks, etc), in reality many young men there sign up as a sign of their devotion to protect their country. What Unz was writing about, and what I was sarcastically replying to, was the selfish nature of many recruits who sign up during peace time, into a standing (loafing?) army, with primarily a ‘what’s in it for me’ attitude. When the going gets rough, they’re the first ones to complain or to jump ship.
Just wanted to point out to a few instances of genuine mass enthusiasm for the military adventure.
“It is actually just the opposite. No profound person who seriously thinks about metaphysics, philosophy, or science could ever agree with Darwinian evolution.”
Presumably, you reject all post Aristotle/Aquinas conceptions of causation?
What has become of the slip (not Freudian though) by Polish Perspective that he was just 20 years old? Did he explain it?
Not long before everyone in the Machine died, they were still arguing about music. In the end, their greatest terror was silence, because they had lived in the Machine for so long, the idea of not being constantly distracted by trivialities was worse than anything.
“They could not bear that this should be the end. Ere silence was completed their hearts were opened, and they knew what had been important on the earth. Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled, and here was his reward. ”
That’s one chilling piece of literature. (different Anon, sorry). I think even 15 years ago I could not have appreciated it, simply because it was technologically too far-fetched to be verisimile. I’ll have to find the way to read the story in a little book club.
The tyranny of noise and constant stimulation are indeed traps. Demonic in the sense that they make silence an enemy, where in truth silence is the path to inner life, to God within, the only abiding source of life. From a Christian perspective, at least. At the very least, that story goes to the question of what makes man a man, and not just a living being. What is man for?
Thanks for the link.
I saw something similar by Art Deco here at unz.
http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2014
Not sure if some of the religious orders of knights have these same parallels.
Peace.
See my reply to ogunsiron above.
Peace.
It is fallacy to stack the Russian force present in Syria against all US and allied force in the region.
Russia staged a few demonstrations of the Caliber long range missile from both the Black Sea and from the TU160. Also the Mig31 and the Su-30 are capable to sink a carrier with either Khinzal or Brahmos. Actually no Carrier Group can operate from Red Sea, Persian Gulf of Mediterranean without risking that Carrier. No air base in that region is safe from Russian attack too.
Also the reasons for Russia’s presence in Syria are geopolitical too. The US neocon/interventionist goal of hegemony and Brzezinski defining control over Eurasia as an imperial imperative and precondition to achieve that hegemony and hile not yet achieved in the meantime preventing any challenger there to arrive actually defines US policy as creating as much chaos as possible, balkanize countries creating weak states which are easy to dominate. US takes aim at EU, Russia and the Middle East. The EU sold out mostly, though some resistance seems to be emerging. Russia is well aware of these aims and will prevent the US from ever more of its usual rape and pillage in the Middle East simply out of self preservation. Thanks to Russian support a wider regional resistance to US (and Israel) policies seems to be emerging from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.
S-400 systems:
Yes there are two S-400 complexes guarding Khmeimim consisting of 16 missile launchers per complex (32 launch ready missiles range 350 km)
http://www.janes.com/article/74500/second-russian-s-400-in-syria-confirmed
S-300 (SA-20) systems
Russia has seven S-300VM missile systems defending Tartus (range 350 km)
http://theiranproject.com/blog/2016/11/16/seven-russian-s-300-air-missile-defense-systems-deployed-syria/
Bastion (K-300P) anti-ship coastal systems (Yakhonts)
Russia has deployed perhaps two batteries of 18 launchers at their naval bases (72 launch ready missiles - range 350 km) Russia also has K-300P systems on it Project 11356 frigates
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/179014/bastion-missile-proves-land-attack-capability-in-syria%3A-tass.html
Syria has two batteries consisting of 18 launchers which carry two 3M55E Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles. (72 launch ready missiles -range 350 km)
http://defense-update.com/20111203_syria-receives-yakhont-missiles.html
Kalibr (SS-N-27 Sizzler)
Russia has Kalibr long range missiles on all their frigates either 3M-54E1/3M-14E: (300 km range) or 3M-54/3M-54T: (660 km range)
http://www.defensereview.com/us-navy-aircraft-carriers-vulnerable-to-ss-n-27b-sizzler-anti-ship-missile/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M-54_Kalibr
Pantsier
Russia had previously provided 40 Pantsier-1 missile systems to Syria with 12 missiles loaded per system (480 launch ready missiles - range 20 km)
https://www.therussophile.org/russia-delivered-40-pantsir-s1-air-defense-systems-to-syria-state-media.html/
Subsequently, Russia has also deployed an unknown number of Pantsir S2 air defense systems to its Khmeimim airbase in Syria (range of about 40 km)
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/05/31/weapons-tested-syria-russia-pantsir-s2-mobile-air-defense-missile-gun-system.html
The Pantsier-2 may have been upgraded to add four directed sub-rockets to each missile for a total of 48 missiles per Pantsier launcher.
Buk-M2E (SA-11)
Russia has an unknown number of Buk-M2E systems and perhaps the new Buk-M3 in Syria. Perhaps FB could provide more information.
Syria has received a total of 48 launchers of Buk-M2 surface-to-air missiles. (192 launch ready missiles - range 40 km)
http://www.todaynews24h.com/israel-continued-air-strikes-damascus-buk-m2-of-syria-where/
S-125 (Pechora-2M)
Syria has about 145 Pechora and 12 Pechora-2M each with four missiles per launcher. (628 launch ready missiles- range 32 km)
Same as was used by Yugoslav Army 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade to shoot down a F-117
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-125_Neva/Pechora
S-200 systems (upgraded)
Syria has two S-200 batteries consisting of 44 launchers at Kweires airport (range 350 km).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-200_%28missile%29
Kvadrat (SA-6)
Syria has 195 2K12s systems with three missiles per launcher. (585 launch ready missiles – range 22 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K12_Kub
Osa (SA-8)
Syria had 14 batteries consisting of 60 launchers with six short range missiles per launcher. (360 launch ready missiles – range 15 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K33_Osa
Fortunately for us, Snopes has already fact-checked the Russian conspiracy theories surrounding the Douma chemical attack:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/04/12/disinformation-conspiracy-trolling-syrian-chemical-attack/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
There’s an interesting addition to that RT report in the DW coverage:
[Emphasis added]
http://www.dw.com/en/russias-sergey-lavrov-claims-sergei-skripal-was-poisoned-with-western-bz-nerve-agent/a-43390589
To a chemistry layman like myself, that implies that the A234 might have been added to the samples with deliberate intent to deceive.
What independent verification is there of what the Swiss lab found? I guess one strange thing is the omission of any mention of “Novichok” from the public part of the official report (only mentioning a “toxic chemical”).
Yes, the bit about the A234 was absent from the initial RT report, though Lavrov was very clear about it in his press conference (which I only saw on Euronews after the RT report).
1. The OPCW (public) report makes repeated (7) references to the "toxic chemical" (singular). It very coyly says that "The results of analysis . . . demonstrate the presence of this toxic chemical in the samples", which is presumably true. What they apparently forgot [sic] to add is that there was also a 2nd toxic chemical present.
2. As you noted, in his press conference Lavrov made the point that, given the high volatility of A234, it was truly remarkable that traces were found after more than 2 weeks.
3. Why would anyone make a "cocktail" of A234 and BZ? The likely conclusion, which you hint at, is that the (generally non-lethal) BZ was used on the Skripals, and the A234 appeared mysteriously at a later stage (in test tubes and on door knob). If this scenario is correct, one can no longer exclude the possibility, however remote, that at least one of the Skripals was a willing participant.
4. If you want to obtain 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) please feel free to contact one of the 14 vendors listed on the site below:
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/3-Quinuclidinyl_benzilate#section=Chemical-Vendors
5. Would be interesting to know how the Russians got hold of the Spiez lab results, Spiez says it wasn't from them, so either it was from a good Samaritan or by covert means (shades of the Nuland-Pyatt "fuck the EU" call in 2014).
6. Will also be interesting to see what Boris has to say now . . .
http://www.dw.com/en/russias-sergey-lavrov-claims-sergei-skripal-was-poisoned-with-western-bz-nerve-agent/a-43390589
To a chemistry layman like myself, that implies that the A234 might have been added to the samples with deliberate intent to deceive.
I like verifying my sources. I don’t think it’s beyond Lavrov to lie about this, just as it’s possible – however difficult to believe – that even Boris Johnson could tell something other than the truth.
What independent verification is there of what the Swiss lab found? I guess one strange thing is the omission of any mention of “Novichok” from the public part of the official report (only mentioning a “toxic chemical”).
The Swiss laboratory Spiez works with the OPCW. They were asked about the Russian report and chose not to comment. Presumably if it were fabricated they would deny it.
https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/9486050-un-labo-suisse-au-coeur-d-un-imbroglio-dans-l-enquete-sur-l-affaire-skripal.html
Unfortunately, both the IPCW (whose Director-General was personally "fired" by John Bolton in 2003) and IAEA can no longer be considered objective, notably with regard to Syria. A perhaps pertinent example is the 2008 destruction of the Syrian "nuclear reactor" by Israel in 2008 of which Greasy is so proud, in which a strong case has been made that the IAEA "faked" evidence:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/11/19/how-syrian-nuke-evidence-was-faked/
I’m interested, too.
Makes sense – obviously the Crusades and the need for the early Muslims to keep the Byzantines from recovering their lost territory would give the impetus in the population as you describe.
Peace.
Irrespective of whose numbers are right – this US attack on Syrian looks to be much ado about little or nothing.
It was a feel-good propaganda exorcise for Trump, May, and Macron. All of them needed a righteous tuff guy rally around the flag political boast.
We still do not know if Assad actually did the deep. They have given us no proof – this looks bad.
Right now, Putin looks like the moderate level-headed leader.
The situation on the ground has not militarily changed. Russia, Iran, and Syria are stronger for the attack.
Think peace — Art
Did anyone see this? From 2013:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22424188
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/dont-jump-conclusions-about-the-syrian-chemical-attack-25366Also this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/world/middleeast/isis-chemical-weapons-syria-iraq-mosul.html
So not just some "fringe conspiracy theory".
What independent verification is there of what the Swiss lab found? I guess one strange thing is the omission of any mention of “Novichok” from the public part of the official report (only mentioning a “toxic chemical”).
I’ve seen no indication that there is anything out there apart from the Russian assertion, as yet.
http://www.dw.com/en/russias-sergey-lavrov-claims-sergei-skripal-was-poisoned-with-western-bz-nerve-agent/a-43390589
To a chemistry layman like myself, that implies that the A234 might have been added to the samples with deliberate intent to deceive.
To a chemistry layman like myself, that implies that the A234 might have been added to the samples with deliberate intent to deceive.
Yes, the bit about the A234 was absent from the initial RT report, though Lavrov was very clear about it in his press conference (which I only saw on Euronews after the RT report).
1. The OPCW (public) report makes repeated (7) references to the “toxic chemical” (singular). It very coyly says that “The results of analysis . . . demonstrate the presence of this toxic chemical in the samples”, which is presumably true. What they apparently forgot [sic] to add is that there was also a 2nd toxic chemical present.
2. As you noted, in his press conference Lavrov made the point that, given the high volatility of A234, it was truly remarkable that traces were found after more than 2 weeks.
3. Why would anyone make a “cocktail” of A234 and BZ? The likely conclusion, which you hint at, is that the (generally non-lethal) BZ was used on the Skripals, and the A234 appeared mysteriously at a later stage (in test tubes and on door knob). If this scenario is correct, one can no longer exclude the possibility, however remote, that at least one of the Skripals was a willing participant.
4. If you want to obtain 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) please feel free to contact one of the 14 vendors listed on the site below:
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/3-Quinuclidinyl_benzilate#section=Chemical-Vendors
5. Would be interesting to know how the Russians got hold of the Spiez lab results, Spiez says it wasn’t from them, so either it was from a good Samaritan or by covert means (shades of the Nuland-Pyatt “fuck the EU” call in 2014).
6. Will also be interesting to see what Boris has to say now . . .
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22424188
I recall it from the debate over intervention in 2013. I remember also references to the jihadists having used chlorine in Iraq during the US occupation as well.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22424188
Seems to be pretty well-established that jihadis have used poison gas on some occasions:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/dont-jump-conclusions-about-the-syrian-chemical-attack-25366
Also this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/world/middleeast/isis-chemical-weapons-syria-iraq-mosul.html
So not just some “fringe conspiracy theory”.
http://claritypress.com/Martyanov.html
The second one is in works. I wish Mr. Owen all money he wants and wish him only the best in his professional and human endeavors, but his opinions on anything Russia military (and technology) related is worth as much as your opinion--that is Zero. Am I in a ballpark? Do you need my further elaborations?
P.S. If it of any consolation to you--I most likely make way less than him. I learned to live with this sad fact long ago.
I had to register with the GRU for some of my factory visits. I can’t visit the manufacturing sites at all these days. Certainly, I can’t comment on the completed weapon systems but I can comment on the components. For example, I arranged to ship Russian fibre optic gyro components to India via the UK (two lots of weapon control agreements) for the Indian fisheries satellite program. It was non military so Rosboronexport of the time didn’t do it. My Russian suppliers couldn’t do business with the Indians because the Indian banks only worked through a form of letters of credit called Sight Drafts and the Russian banks wouldn’t accept them. This still plagues attempts to start commerce between Russia and India today. Russian firms that understand the system routinely default.
I also assessed 120 inventions for the Russian фcademy of Sciences for commercial potential. There was very little.
I started my business in Russia to turn swords into ploughshares. The gradual progress of the Silivoki behind Putin towards the present debacle is very disappointing.
Right. It is declare credentials time.
I'm not rich. I haven't had a fee paying order for trade with Russia since the day MH17 crashed. I had six prearranged meetings that day in North East England with potential clients ready to sign. They didn't and my biggest client at the time, a UAE company that managed India's biggest luxury ice cream brand got cold feet about Russia and backed out (They are also the world's biggest palm oil growers and were being targeted as so many Russian firms were substituting palm oil for milk in cheese and other products. Another reason Indians are wary of trade with Russia. The palm oil still arrives but from other sources). I didn't sack my staff in the UK or Saratov until June last year so that drained a lot of cash. After 10 years together that was not pleasant). We did commission only work for a while, tomatoes for major supermarkets for example. Putin rescue me! Reimpose tomato sanctions on Turkey! I now work through a Moscow consulting firm (offices in St Pete and Vladivostock) looking for investors for projects in Russia, for example a vegetable farm outside Moscow. I also have a large portfolio of post sales tender stranded assets by arrangement with brokers for a large state owned company. Mostly useless unless there is a boom (Anyone want a warehouse with a combustible goods licence near Sergey Posad? 39 000 sq metres. Railway siding included. 67 km from MKAD). I retain a PA in Saratov and my own network of associate consultants across European Russia. Performing assets can be good value now but my biggest potential project has just been sanctioned at least by the US. I am being paid small fees for consulting on setting up a solar power investment firm and thorium reactor fuel supply. I certainly haven't been featured in Forbes but I may have been quoted; I have swapped information with some of their writers and some of my press releases have had wide exposure. So far as I am aware, John Helmer (Dances with Bears) quotes me most often. I am on Unz to follow Anatoly. I greatly respect his data driven approach and totally disagree with his politics :-) . I am a Europhile, Liberal (even stood for Parliament), globalist, free trader.
I am a Chartered Engineer (requires degree+formal apprenticeship+minimum standards of design experience) with a degree in Engineering Science (an elite degree in the UK) and an MBA, although by far my most useful study was A level Chemistry as three quarters of my projects until I switched to Trade and Investment have involved new materials in some way. Otherwise see. www.linkedin.com/volgatrader where I list some of my client base when I consulted in innovation as Customer Refocus.
What independent verification is there of what the Swiss lab found? I guess one strange thing is the omission of any mention of “Novichok” from the public part of the official report (only mentioning a “toxic chemical”).
What independent verification is there of what the Swiss lab found?
The Swiss laboratory Spiez works with the OPCW. They were asked about the Russian report and chose not to comment. Presumably if it were fabricated they would deny it.
https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/9486050-un-labo-suisse-au-coeur-d-un-imbroglio-dans-l-enquete-sur-l-affaire-skripal.html
Unfortunately, both the IPCW (whose Director-General was personally “fired” by John Bolton in 2003) and IAEA can no longer be considered objective, notably with regard to Syria. A perhaps pertinent example is the 2008 destruction of the Syrian “nuclear reactor” by Israel in 2008 of which Greasy is so proud, in which a strong case has been made that the IAEA “faked” evidence:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/11/19/how-syrian-nuke-evidence-was-faked/
“We have proof that last week, now 10 days ago, that chemical weapons were used, at least with chlorine, and that they were used by the regime of (President) Bashar al-Assad,” Macron said in televised comments on Thursday, though he did not provide any details about the nature of the evidence or how it was acquired.
On Friday, talking to reporters in Moscow, Lavrov claimed that after Russian “specialists” on the ground in Douma examined the area where the alleged attack took place, “We have the irrefutable data that this [chemical attack] was staged.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/13/after-france-claims-proof-chemical-attack-was-assad-russia-says-irrefutable-data
This is the stupidest atmosphere where Chlorine is labeled as WMD or CW or is suggested to be off limits for war It is not banned by Chemical arms/weapons related treaties
Some things are questionable, as far as I know, for example I think some incendiary bombs use chemicals which are also poisonous, and it’s impossible to tell if their poisonousness is among the reasons why they are used. Some people say they should be prohibited (or that they are already prohibited by the current CWC), while others disagree.
When all this started with the first gas attack in Damascus, the Russians identified it as gas munitions manufactured in the Soviet Union – but sent to Libya, not to Syria.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/13/chemical-weapons-hypocrisy/
This episode was scripted by the annex of the US embassy in Libya by the hero- the US ambassador who allowed the gas to escape the Libyan borders and reach Syria . 2 Crimes – one committed in Libya The follow –up crime has been rerun for same effect in Syria. Bothe crimes are overseen ,marinated and barbecued in the green lawn of US presidential building
China
BoliviaAbstained:Peru
Kazakhstan
Ethiopia
Equatorial GuineaAgainst (the roll of shame):US, Britain, France (the perpetrators)
Côte d’Ivoire (bribed? Or just generally corrupt?)
Kuwait (cynical self interest)
Netherlands (?)
Poland (currying favour with the US?)
Sweden (?)https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/russia-fails-in-un-bid-to-condemn-us-led-strikes-on-syria/
So the usual pattern in such votes, the West (+ close satraps) vs. Axis of Resistance, with most of the Rest neutral (inc. Russia’s ostensible CSTO ally Kazakhstan).
But good to see that China didn’t abstain this time.
On Friday, talking to reporters in Moscow, Lavrov claimed that after Russian "specialists" on the ground in Douma examined the area where the alleged attack took place, "We have the irrefutable data that this [chemical attack] was staged.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/13/after-france-claims-proof-chemical-attack-was-assad-russia-says-irrefutable-data
This is the stupidest atmosphere where Chlorine is labeled as WMD or CW or is suggested to be off limits for war It is not banned by Chemical arms/weapons related treaties
I think the use of any poisonous substance used as a weapon for its poisonous effect (or, in some other interpretations, solely for its poisonous effects) is prohibited. I.e. you can produce or store chlorine (it’s an element, so impossible to ban), but cannot use it as a weapon.
Some things are questionable, as far as I know, for example I think some incendiary bombs use chemicals which are also poisonous, and it’s impossible to tell if their poisonousness is among the reasons why they are used. Some people say they should be prohibited (or that they are already prohibited by the current CWC), while others disagree.
The common theme everyone is talking about on the internet today is that America should have bombed itself for its history of chemical weapons.
All this said, I do share - perhaps superstitious - aversion to even concept of 'chemical weapons'.
Britain, it was the beginning of the end.
The Swiss laboratory Spiez works with the OPCW. They were asked about the Russian report and chose not to comment. Presumably if it were fabricated they would deny it.
https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/9486050-un-labo-suisse-au-coeur-d-un-imbroglio-dans-l-enquete-sur-l-affaire-skripal.html
Unfortunately, both the IPCW (whose Director-General was personally "fired" by John Bolton in 2003) and IAEA can no longer be considered objective, notably with regard to Syria. A perhaps pertinent example is the 2008 destruction of the Syrian "nuclear reactor" by Israel in 2008 of which Greasy is so proud, in which a strong case has been made that the IAEA "faked" evidence:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/11/19/how-syrian-nuke-evidence-was-faked/
Thanks, that’s useful.
I also assessed 120 inventions for the Russian фcademy of Sciences for commercial potential. There was very little.
I started my business in Russia to turn swords into ploughshares. The gradual progress of the Silivoki behind Putin towards the present debacle is very disappointing.
My computer crashed. For reasons of style I am using a Raspberry Pi (a very small Unix computer. They are made where I live). R-Pis don’t like large screens.
Right. It is declare credentials time.
I’m not rich. I haven’t had a fee paying order for trade with Russia since the day MH17 crashed. I had six prearranged meetings that day in North East England with potential clients ready to sign. They didn’t and my biggest client at the time, a UAE company that managed India’s biggest luxury ice cream brand got cold feet about Russia and backed out (They are also the world’s biggest palm oil growers and were being targeted as so many Russian firms were substituting palm oil for milk in cheese and other products. Another reason Indians are wary of trade with Russia. The palm oil still arrives but from other sources). I didn’t sack my staff in the UK or Saratov until June last year so that drained a lot of cash. After 10 years together that was not pleasant). We did commission only work for a while, tomatoes for major supermarkets for example. Putin rescue me! Reimpose tomato sanctions on Turkey! I now work through a Moscow consulting firm (offices in St Pete and Vladivostock) looking for investors for projects in Russia, for example a vegetable farm outside Moscow. I also have a large portfolio of post sales tender stranded assets by arrangement with brokers for a large state owned company. Mostly useless unless there is a boom (Anyone want a warehouse with a combustible goods licence near Sergey Posad? 39 000 sq metres. Railway siding included. 67 km from MKAD). I retain a PA in Saratov and my own network of associate consultants across European Russia. Performing assets can be good value now but my biggest potential project has just been sanctioned at least by the US. I am being paid small fees for consulting on setting up a solar power investment firm and thorium reactor fuel supply. I certainly haven’t been featured in Forbes but I may have been quoted; I have swapped information with some of their writers and some of my press releases have had wide exposure. So far as I am aware, John Helmer (Dances with Bears) quotes me most often. I am on Unz to follow Anatoly. I greatly respect his data driven approach and totally disagree with his politics
. I am a Europhile, Liberal (even stood for Parliament), globalist, free trader.
I am a Chartered Engineer (requires degree+formal apprenticeship+minimum standards of design experience) with a degree in Engineering Science (an elite degree in the UK) and an MBA, although by far my most useful study was A level Chemistry as three quarters of my projects until I switched to Trade and Investment have involved new materials in some way. Otherwise see. http://www.linkedin.com/volgatrader where I list some of my client base when I consulted in innovation as Customer Refocus.
Ok I guess you're the most important guy here - along with Captain Martyanov and the somewhat semi-famous journalist Israel Shamir.
The western civilization is getting a taste of Bolshevism, which Russia was subjected to with the devastating effect on the Russian genetic pool and Russian culture.
The GULAG, where the extermination of prominent scientists, philosophers, poets, officers was conducted on the industrial scale with the most inhuman methods, was a Bolshevik invention.
The organizer of GULAG was Naftali Frankel. The most trusted person next to Stalin was Lazar Kaganovich. The most sadistic mass murderer-female (!), perhaps unique in human history, was Rozalia Zalkind. There were thousands more. Their genetic and ideological progeny live today mostly in Israel, the US, and the UK; they make a bulk of Israel-firsters and war-mongering ziocons.
Anon, Thank you for your support. I may have been quoted in Forbes but I am not sadly rich (although that was not my primary objective anyway). I have been published in some minor opto-electronics journals over 10 years ago. I also get quoted in minor business journals. Follow the thread on my replies to Andrei for more.
Maybe next you'll tell us about Miss Palm and her five sisters...?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-14/warship-ruse-and-new-stealth-missiles-how-they-attacked-syria
“No Syrian weapon had any effect on anything we did,” McKenzie said. He described the joint U.S., French and U.K. strike as “precise, overwhelming and effective.”
It seems logical that once again the Russians oversold the effectiveness of their weaponry, and essentially encouraged the futile recklessness of their allies. As optical systems appear to your area of expertise, this suggests that as usual, their detection capabilities against even mild American effects to be weak. Shock and awe would seem to work on Russians as well as any other third world military.
Haven't read that much by him, but it seems like pretty obscurantist Eurasianist stuff. Someone who regards the entire history of the West as evil (iirc he likes to go on about how the crusaders destroyed Byzantium) and characterized only by aggression against other civilizations (which of course by contrast are completely innocent and only driven by pure spiritual values) is functionally no different from multiculturalists or resentful jihadis.
Probably not accidental that he seems to love Islam.
Saker has been struggling for the survival of western civilization in the face of Jewish neo-Bolshevism.
Again, Saker is respected for his courage, knowledge, and moral principles. In comparison, your posts smack of slander.
“I do intend to enter politics around 40 or so or whenever I have enough money.”
If only you could be so sure about accumulating the humanness and wisdom.
Right. It is declare credentials time.
I'm not rich. I haven't had a fee paying order for trade with Russia since the day MH17 crashed. I had six prearranged meetings that day in North East England with potential clients ready to sign. They didn't and my biggest client at the time, a UAE company that managed India's biggest luxury ice cream brand got cold feet about Russia and backed out (They are also the world's biggest palm oil growers and were being targeted as so many Russian firms were substituting palm oil for milk in cheese and other products. Another reason Indians are wary of trade with Russia. The palm oil still arrives but from other sources). I didn't sack my staff in the UK or Saratov until June last year so that drained a lot of cash. After 10 years together that was not pleasant). We did commission only work for a while, tomatoes for major supermarkets for example. Putin rescue me! Reimpose tomato sanctions on Turkey! I now work through a Moscow consulting firm (offices in St Pete and Vladivostock) looking for investors for projects in Russia, for example a vegetable farm outside Moscow. I also have a large portfolio of post sales tender stranded assets by arrangement with brokers for a large state owned company. Mostly useless unless there is a boom (Anyone want a warehouse with a combustible goods licence near Sergey Posad? 39 000 sq metres. Railway siding included. 67 km from MKAD). I retain a PA in Saratov and my own network of associate consultants across European Russia. Performing assets can be good value now but my biggest potential project has just been sanctioned at least by the US. I am being paid small fees for consulting on setting up a solar power investment firm and thorium reactor fuel supply. I certainly haven't been featured in Forbes but I may have been quoted; I have swapped information with some of their writers and some of my press releases have had wide exposure. So far as I am aware, John Helmer (Dances with Bears) quotes me most often. I am on Unz to follow Anatoly. I greatly respect his data driven approach and totally disagree with his politics :-) . I am a Europhile, Liberal (even stood for Parliament), globalist, free trader.
I am a Chartered Engineer (requires degree+formal apprenticeship+minimum standards of design experience) with a degree in Engineering Science (an elite degree in the UK) and an MBA, although by far my most useful study was A level Chemistry as three quarters of my projects until I switched to Trade and Investment have involved new materials in some way. Otherwise see. www.linkedin.com/volgatrader where I list some of my client base when I consulted in innovation as Customer Refocus.
http://www.hotelexecutive.ru/publ.php?numn=4385
Ok I guess you’re the most important guy here – along with Captain Martyanov and the somewhat semi-famous journalist Israel Shamir.
Which of course raises the question why the guy seems to spend most of his life in Western countries.
“Which of course raises the question…”
— Were you born in a totalitarian state to become so picky about the place of living? If so, do you raise the question with regard to the Jews in Paris and London? Should not they, according to your principles, march to Israel ASAP to join “their” civilization?
I'm sick of resentful ethnic and religious subgroups seeking to undermine and manipulate Western countries for their own interests...if they're unwilling to drop their hostile particularistic identities, they should f**k off as far as I'm concerned.
Sorry, what are you referring to?
Regarding the contested number of intercepts, here is what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, certainly not pro-Government, has to say (original spelling):
Have they been other than jihadi/British security establishment propagandists for a while now and I just haven't noticed?
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/trump-decision-on-syria-strikes-coming-fairly-soon.html- After the strike: Western funded Syrian Observatory says that according to its sources more than 65 missiles were shot down, which is around the same number that was claimed by the Russians:
http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=89324- Only 3 targets were announcened after the strike by the US. Links to sources in here:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-14/highlights-pentagon-press-briefing-syria-airstrikes- Russias tally amounts to 8 targets (see link below)- Here (point 5) are pictures of the site that was supposed to be targeted by 77 missiles. There seems to be suprisingly little damage for such an attack:
https://southfront.org/summing-up-results-of-us-uk-france-strike-on-syria-statements-and-speculations/
I’m not that interested. What is there to be interested about? His comments are very impressive for a 20 year old, but apart from that..
Coward.
“Thorfinnsson,” your intellectual grade and your manners do not reach the level of this forum.
Some things are questionable, as far as I know, for example I think some incendiary bombs use chemicals which are also poisonous, and it’s impossible to tell if their poisonousness is among the reasons why they are used. Some people say they should be prohibited (or that they are already prohibited by the current CWC), while others disagree.
America used Agent Orange (a chemical weapon) in Vietnam, poisoning millions of civilians.
The common theme everyone is talking about on the internet today is that America should have bombed itself for its history of chemical weapons.
All this said, I do share – perhaps superstitious – aversion to even concept of ‘chemical weapons’.
http://www.aei.org/publication/the-agent-orange-fiasco/
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2004/12/dioxin-myth.html
The SOHR seems to have been notably off message on this one. I recall they didn’t report the “gas attack” as such, either.
Have they been other than jihadi/British security establishment propagandists for a while now and I just haven’t noticed?
That he should be focusing on his exams? Time-wasting on the internet is the monopoly of us office cattle.
But good to see that China didn't abstain this time.
Yes. I’m a bit disappointed (but not surprised) the pathetic Swedes couldn’t even muster the spine to stand up for their beloved UN treaty.
Here in the USA, of course, while we haven’t imported Muslims or Africans in such absolute or relative numbers, we prefer to become an impoverished Balkanized dangerous semi-Mexico instead. So there!
O’ the siren call of a friendly voice. Yes, it was easier with european saints at the helm. My fear would be for the Catholic Church to become a geographical church along the lines of the orthodox churches, thus under Ceasar’s thumb. Curiously enough, the Eldest Daughter of the Church’s President just made an appeal to catholics to become active, and recognized and applauded the Church’s historic contribution. Macron’s speech to the Episcopate was incendiary to the left, and baffling to the rest. I see 3 explanations:
1) political expediency, wanting to harness the energized catholic vote for his new party
2) the road to Damascus (espoused by better Catholics than I), whereby he was moved by the heroic sacrifice of a catholic policeman.
3) a first essay by a globalist to co-opt the local hierarchy, knowing that our wonderful Pope is loosening the rigid “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” part of the institution.
How do you loosen Cataluña from the Spanish crown? How do you loosen the French Church from Rome? Dissolve et coagula. Essays must be made. Macron is at the very least, heavily sustained by anti-Catholic forces.
It seems doable, at the political level. And now that Syria breathes again, I can go back to see whether an formerly unknown globalist with a mediocre career (along the lines of Obama, Trudeau, Rubio, Macron) can inch to the presidency of the #15 economy.
--- Were you born in a totalitarian state to become so picky about the place of living? If so, do you raise the question with regard to the Jews in Paris and London? Should not they, according to your principles, march to Israel ASAP to join "their" civilization?
Those with strong Zionist convictions most certainly should!
I’m sick of resentful ethnic and religious subgroups seeking to undermine and manipulate Western countries for their own interests…if they’re unwilling to drop their hostile particularistic identities, they should f**k off as far as I’m concerned.
I have an answer for Nikki Haley: “Hey, Nikki, I got your CW agreement hangin right here, bitch.”
Now, run and tell that, iffen.
If he has the guts for that mission I might upgrade his rating...
The neo-Bolshevism in the Western world: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/14/russias-humanity-moral-conscience-leading-war/
“As long as Russia accommodates Washington’s aggressiveness, the aggressiveness will continue to increase,” by Paul Craig Roberts
“At times I think that Russia is relying on the Western peoples to wake up to the gratuitous dangerous confrontations that are being provoked in their name. In fact, the Western peoples are helpless. Neither Washington nor the governments of Washington’s British and French vassals consulted the people or the people’s elected representatives about launching a military attack on another country. This fact shows conclusively that neither the US, UK, or France have any respect for law and their own alleged democracies and that the countries have governments that are unaccountable to the peoples. The British and French governments are accountable to Washington, and Washington is accountable to the military/security complex and Israel, which history shows can unseat any US Senator and Representative.”
I have had it with these friggen US generals who are all righteous about chem warfare.
Sense 1914 and WWI – the largest killer of people with chemical weapons is the US army and air force.
In Vietnam agent orange killed and maimed thousands and thousands. It is still killing today.
I know someone who died prematurely from agent orange poising. The last five years of his life he had to gasp for air. US Generals did that to him!
Think Peace — Do No Harm — Art
p.s. Other then 1991 Iraq, it has been a long time sense a US general has truly won a war.
p.s. The generals war games are sucking America dry. $800,000,000,000 this year. Why? For what? Are we truly any safer for all that spending?
http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-german-raid-on-bari.htm
The US also supplied Saddam with all his chemical and biological agents in order to kill a maximum number of Iranians.
Right. It is declare credentials time.
I'm not rich. I haven't had a fee paying order for trade with Russia since the day MH17 crashed. I had six prearranged meetings that day in North East England with potential clients ready to sign. They didn't and my biggest client at the time, a UAE company that managed India's biggest luxury ice cream brand got cold feet about Russia and backed out (They are also the world's biggest palm oil growers and were being targeted as so many Russian firms were substituting palm oil for milk in cheese and other products. Another reason Indians are wary of trade with Russia. The palm oil still arrives but from other sources). I didn't sack my staff in the UK or Saratov until June last year so that drained a lot of cash. After 10 years together that was not pleasant). We did commission only work for a while, tomatoes for major supermarkets for example. Putin rescue me! Reimpose tomato sanctions on Turkey! I now work through a Moscow consulting firm (offices in St Pete and Vladivostock) looking for investors for projects in Russia, for example a vegetable farm outside Moscow. I also have a large portfolio of post sales tender stranded assets by arrangement with brokers for a large state owned company. Mostly useless unless there is a boom (Anyone want a warehouse with a combustible goods licence near Sergey Posad? 39 000 sq metres. Railway siding included. 67 km from MKAD). I retain a PA in Saratov and my own network of associate consultants across European Russia. Performing assets can be good value now but my biggest potential project has just been sanctioned at least by the US. I am being paid small fees for consulting on setting up a solar power investment firm and thorium reactor fuel supply. I certainly haven't been featured in Forbes but I may have been quoted; I have swapped information with some of their writers and some of my press releases have had wide exposure. So far as I am aware, John Helmer (Dances with Bears) quotes me most often. I am on Unz to follow Anatoly. I greatly respect his data driven approach and totally disagree with his politics :-) . I am a Europhile, Liberal (even stood for Parliament), globalist, free trader.
I am a Chartered Engineer (requires degree+formal apprenticeship+minimum standards of design experience) with a degree in Engineering Science (an elite degree in the UK) and an MBA, although by far my most useful study was A level Chemistry as three quarters of my projects until I switched to Trade and Investment have involved new materials in some way. Otherwise see. www.linkedin.com/volgatrader where I list some of my client base when I consulted in innovation as Customer Refocus.
No it’s not. Why are you begging for work here? Advertising is not free speech so you’re spamming right now.
Right. It is declare credentials time.
I'm not rich. I haven't had a fee paying order for trade with Russia since the day MH17 crashed. I had six prearranged meetings that day in North East England with potential clients ready to sign. They didn't and my biggest client at the time, a UAE company that managed India's biggest luxury ice cream brand got cold feet about Russia and backed out (They are also the world's biggest palm oil growers and were being targeted as so many Russian firms were substituting palm oil for milk in cheese and other products. Another reason Indians are wary of trade with Russia. The palm oil still arrives but from other sources). I didn't sack my staff in the UK or Saratov until June last year so that drained a lot of cash. After 10 years together that was not pleasant). We did commission only work for a while, tomatoes for major supermarkets for example. Putin rescue me! Reimpose tomato sanctions on Turkey! I now work through a Moscow consulting firm (offices in St Pete and Vladivostock) looking for investors for projects in Russia, for example a vegetable farm outside Moscow. I also have a large portfolio of post sales tender stranded assets by arrangement with brokers for a large state owned company. Mostly useless unless there is a boom (Anyone want a warehouse with a combustible goods licence near Sergey Posad? 39 000 sq metres. Railway siding included. 67 km from MKAD). I retain a PA in Saratov and my own network of associate consultants across European Russia. Performing assets can be good value now but my biggest potential project has just been sanctioned at least by the US. I am being paid small fees for consulting on setting up a solar power investment firm and thorium reactor fuel supply. I certainly haven't been featured in Forbes but I may have been quoted; I have swapped information with some of their writers and some of my press releases have had wide exposure. So far as I am aware, John Helmer (Dances with Bears) quotes me most often. I am on Unz to follow Anatoly. I greatly respect his data driven approach and totally disagree with his politics :-) . I am a Europhile, Liberal (even stood for Parliament), globalist, free trader.
I am a Chartered Engineer (requires degree+formal apprenticeship+minimum standards of design experience) with a degree in Engineering Science (an elite degree in the UK) and an MBA, although by far my most useful study was A level Chemistry as three quarters of my projects until I switched to Trade and Investment have involved new materials in some way. Otherwise see. www.linkedin.com/volgatrader where I list some of my client base when I consulted in innovation as Customer Refocus.
What data driven approach would that be…cleared for final approach dinseyland runway 30…?
This goofball is a total nutbar who knows nothing about anything he writes about and is a total disseembler…
In his ‘article’ on Russia’s ‘technological backwardness’ is full of flat out BS…I was going to post a dissection of that and still may…just to out his silly ass as a total faker…
His supposed data about Russian scientific journal publishing was based on a database from Elsevier that runs only English language journals…
Yet he put up a bunch of Mickey Mouse charts showing how Russia publishes less scientific literature than Swaziland…
[not being aware it seems that there is a world of scientific literature in the Russian language...as I well know having spent my working life in the aerospace field and having frequently visited Russia and extensive contacts with their technical scientific community...]
Karlin is what we would call a carpetbagger…
And I would add you sound like something along those lines too…[palm oil indeed...why don't you ply your trade as an engineer...?]
My summary of interesting infos that seems to corroborate the Russian version:
- Before the strike: It was unofficially announced that 8 possible targets were considered, including a military airfield:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/trump-decision-on-syria-strikes-coming-fairly-soon.html
- After the strike: Western funded Syrian Observatory says that according to its sources more than 65 missiles were shot down, which is around the same number that was claimed by the Russians:
http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=89324
- Only 3 targets were announcened after the strike by the US. Links to sources in here:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-14/highlights-pentagon-press-briefing-syria-airstrikes
- Russias tally amounts to 8 targets (see link below)
- Here (point 5) are pictures of the site that was supposed to be targeted by 77 missiles. There seems to be suprisingly little damage for such an attack:
https://southfront.org/summing-up-results-of-us-uk-france-strike-on-syria-statements-and-speculations/
He is overall very well informed about Syria and his posts are often quite critical of Russia, which makes the following more believable.
However, it's still just a random forum, so this should be taken with a grain of salt and it's mostly really nothing new either (for obvious reasons). But I just found it interesting, so here goes:Also, it almost seems to me that the MSM is taking (some) Russian claims kind of seriously for once, which is weird.
Those claims about "70 missiles intercepted" are on AFP's graphic (or whatever they're called) about the strikes (on Anatoly's Twitter feed) and the Guardian wrote a surprisingly objective article about them as well.
It really sounds almost too good to be true, but who knows.
Yeah we’ll be sure to follow your ‘palm oil’ adventures there Phil…
Maybe next you’ll tell us about Miss Palm and her five sisters…?
Now, run and tell that, iffen.
Whatever happened to the rumors that Dump was pumping the Gypsy Queen Haley…?
If he has the guts for that mission I might upgrade his rating…
If the Russian version is true, then the bad news is that the Americans attacked some real military targets. But they used most of the surplus over last year’s attack to attack a research facility, so it wasn’t really a bigger one than last year’s attack. And of course if the Russian version was true, then the Syrian air defense (mostly modernized 1950s and 1960s Soviet systems) performance was awesome.
Because of the ample warning time given ahead of the attack, the destructive power of the strike was probably much smaller in both cases.
So either way the attack looks to be smaller (though nominally bigger) than the one launched last year. Putin might have blinked, but so did Trump.
And they are gone too.
Barzah was until recently next to a war zone and until Spring 2017 part of a war zone.
It is certainly not a research station anymore.
I assume the number of intercepted missiles is between 0 and 71.
Now, run and tell that, iffen.
Nikki Haley should be shipped off to Syria and bukkake’d by ISIS fighters.
Any comment that can get the word 'bukkake' into a discussion about ISIS and Nikki Haley deserves the coveted golden border...
Maybe next you'll tell us about Miss Palm and her five sisters...?
LOL!
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/trump-decision-on-syria-strikes-coming-fairly-soon.html- After the strike: Western funded Syrian Observatory says that according to its sources more than 65 missiles were shot down, which is around the same number that was claimed by the Russians:
http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=89324- Only 3 targets were announcened after the strike by the US. Links to sources in here:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-14/highlights-pentagon-press-briefing-syria-airstrikes- Russias tally amounts to 8 targets (see link below)- Here (point 5) are pictures of the site that was supposed to be targeted by 77 missiles. There seems to be suprisingly little damage for such an attack:
https://southfront.org/summing-up-results-of-us-uk-france-strike-on-syria-statements-and-speculations/
I have one to add, sort of. On the Russia Defence Forum, there is one poster who seems to be quite heavily “involved” with the Kurds in the east, probably a member of the US military or something like that.
He is overall very well informed about Syria and his posts are often quite critical of Russia, which makes the following more believable.
However, it’s still just a random forum, so this should be taken with a grain of salt and it’s mostly really nothing new either (for obvious reasons). But I just found it interesting, so here goes:
Also, it almost seems to me that the MSM is taking (some) Russian claims kind of seriously for once, which is weird.
Those claims about “70 missiles intercepted” are on AFP’s graphic (or whatever they’re called) about the strikes (on Anatoly’s Twitter feed) and the Guardian wrote a surprisingly objective article about them as well.
It really sounds almost too good to be true, but who knows.
“It was a feel-good propaganda exorcise for Trump, May, and Macron. All of them needed a righteous tuff guy rally around the flag political boast.”
Maybe, but I wonder. Theresa May is reported to have had a knock-down, drag-out SEVEN HOUR cabinet meeting over this; one minister walked out after three hours. I wonder if she and Macron didn’t simply back this as a way of containing Trump and preventing this madman from starting a nuclear war.
There is a behind-the-scenes story that needs to be told. Too bad Western “journalism” is mostly dead at this point. I stayed up all last night because I feared a possible nuclear war as a result of Trump’s belligerence/Tweets. I know I’m not the only one. Muller must be s**ting his pants about now trying to find an excuse to nail this near-madman; can’t say Trump hasn’t exacerbated the situation with his immature behavior.
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PCR literally lifts terms straight out of The Faker's columns. For instance, he is fond using the term "Atlantic-Integrationist" to describe pro-Western Russian officials.
I can't ask him because he is a coward who refuses to allow comments, and for some baffling reason Ron Unz tolerates this appalling cowardice.
Let’s not lose sight of the ball here Thorfie…
You chimed in here disputing Patrick Armstrong on grounds having nothing to do with his actual qualifications on the subject…which are beyond dispute…but on grounds of your take on his ‘loyalty’…
Then you piped up to me about PCR in a likewise manner…again questioning PCR’s take on Russia’s kinetic capabilities due to his supposed reliance on the Flaker…[which I agree would be a bad idea for this particular subject area...]
However…I pointed out that PCR has likely formed his own impressions of Russia’s military capability while serving under Reagan…where he would have had access to the kind of information that is not disseminated publicly or in our ridiculous ‘media’…
I noted quite rightly that his opinion of Russian strength in this particular conflict is therefore based on much more than the Flaker’s nonsense…
I stand by this 100 percent…
You then disputed the known fact that PCR did in fact go through secret service nuclear football training…as he was indeed in the line of succession…
So what is your point here exactly…?
If you want to talk facts or technical nuts and bolts that’s fine…but now you are flailing about here and trying to steer away from the substance of our exchange…
What exactly is your beef with PCR’s assessment of the balance of power in the region…in specific terms…?
Based on my previous exchange with you on a technical matter…in which you did the right thing and admitted your error…I find myself now lowering my previously favorable impression…
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Missiles were cover for ground forces.air strikes called in by fac on the ground for precision bombing.assad and his generals better run while they can.the jisr al shughour hospital turkey shoot is back.
I’m calling no fair to the mods on this one…
Any comment that can get the word ‘bukkake’ into a discussion about ISIS and Nikki Haley deserves the coveted golden border…
Sense 1914 and WWI – the largest killer of people with chemical weapons is the US army and air force.
In Vietnam agent orange killed and maimed thousands and thousands. It is still killing today.
I know someone who died prematurely from agent orange poising. The last five years of his life he had to gasp for air. US Generals did that to him!
Think Peace --- Do No Harm --- Art
p.s. Other then 1991 Iraq, it has been a long time sense a US general has truly won a war.
p.s. The generals war games are sucking America dry. $800,000,000,000 this year. Why? For what? Are we truly any safer for all that spending?
In addition, the US had deployed about a hundred ton of mustard gas bomb on the John Harvey Liberty ship that was sunk in the Italian port of Bari. Many US soldiers were killed by their own chemical agent.
http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-german-raid-on-bari.htm
The US also supplied Saddam with all his chemical and biological agents in order to kill a maximum number of Iranians.
Excellent point – the duplicity and hypocrisy of the US Deep State is astounding. (Rumsfeld’s dirty hands again.)
Between the US Jew, the US generals, and the CIA - the world does not have a chance at peace.
Think Peace --- Art
Or a small group of people posting under a single handle. Jared Taylor's site has a guy who acts exactly as you describe Art Deco - says what's expected of him in terms of race (but nothing too offensive or derogatory, just stale repetitions) while being extremely pro-Israel and vacillating in tone or sometimes even being inexplicably hostile to the posters...as if the account is run by two or more people.
Unfortunately, Taylor never had the good sense to ban the guy. He was also obviously lying about his background (claimed to have once been robbed by a black guy in a nearly all-white area while also not able to give any specifics in terms of date or exact location).
I suspected the guy was a plant as a result of his behavior and his penchant for wanting to meet up with posters and get their contact information. Sounds like someone was building a file.
Oh...and he even wormed himself into being a moderator. Was accused of abusing the privilege by not approving non-account comments critical of his positions on Israel.
Ha, ha, ha…pretty funny! I’ve always suspected that the “Alt Right” was ridiculously easy to infiltrate. Aren’t there claims floating around that something like 1/3 of all KKK members have generally been on the government payroll?…
As for that “Art Deco” fellow (discussed by various other people upthread), I never really paid any attention to him until recently, though the gigantic volume and extremely “mainstream” perspective of his comments always made me pretty suspicious.
But then a month or two ago, I happened to mention something about the totally absurd and obviously non-meritocratic over-representation of Jews at elite universities, a complex topic about which I probably have more detailed expertise than virtually anyone else around. And he suddenly popped up and began ranting and raving like a nut. After that, I began noticing how his persona totally changed on Jewish/Israel issues, or perhaps he realized that his cover had been blown, and stopped trying to fully maintain “crypsis”…
I guess that fanatic Jewish-activist-types aren’t too difficult to “trigger.” That “Lot” fellow is certainly another one, but not really any sort of disinfo agent, given that his views have always been explicit, and (obviously!) the same goes for “International Jew”…
The one exception is Greasy who somehow manages to be one of the most rabid Zionists but has a bunch of other dimensions to him, as well as being able to call out Jews when they do stupid stuff or give credit where it’s due to others.
Also, he often shares with us who he would bang; so there’s that...
Peace.
Any comment that can get the word 'bukkake' into a discussion about ISIS and Nikki Haley deserves the coveted golden border...
Why thank you.
I don’t believe the fiction of Russians shooting down missiles.
1. They would have had no way of knowing that this was a limited strike if they were not told. They would have made the assumption that they were about to be hit, and responded with everything they had, including attacking the launch points. They didn’t, so they were told in advance and did nothing.
2. The attack was probably limited in scope, so the Russians had extra motivation to do nothing. There are claims to the contrary, but they are probably wrong because no pictures of damage elsewhere have surfaced; surely, some missiles would have gotten through and hit their targets had this been a more extensive strike.
“Aren’t there claims floating around that something like 1/3 of all KKK members have generally been on the government payroll?…”
Makes you wonder what the SPLC and ADL do with all of their money.
As for that "Art Deco" fellow (discussed by various other people upthread), I never really paid any attention to him until recently, though the gigantic volume and extremely "mainstream" perspective of his comments always made me pretty suspicious.
But then a month or two ago, I happened to mention something about the totally absurd and obviously non-meritocratic over-representation of Jews at elite universities, a complex topic about which I probably have more detailed expertise than virtually anyone else around. And he suddenly popped up and began ranting and raving like a nut. After that, I began noticing how his persona totally changed on Jewish/Israel issues, or perhaps he realized that his cover had been blown, and stopped trying to fully maintain "crypsis"...
I guess that fanatic Jewish-activist-types aren't too difficult to "trigger." That "Lot" fellow is certainly another one, but not really any sort of disinfo agent, given that his views have always been explicit, and (obviously!) the same goes for "International Jew"...
The infiltrators are the model members because they always pay the membership fees on time and then they come up with great radical ideas and have means of procuring explosives and weapons (see first WTC bombing). Here is Germany’s experience with the neo-nazis:
…
…
…
………………
And where is the fabulous Syrian AA defense that shot down 70 American missile when it comes to Israel bombing raids?
As for that "Art Deco" fellow (discussed by various other people upthread), I never really paid any attention to him until recently, though the gigantic volume and extremely "mainstream" perspective of his comments always made me pretty suspicious.
But then a month or two ago, I happened to mention something about the totally absurd and obviously non-meritocratic over-representation of Jews at elite universities, a complex topic about which I probably have more detailed expertise than virtually anyone else around. And he suddenly popped up and began ranting and raving like a nut. After that, I began noticing how his persona totally changed on Jewish/Israel issues, or perhaps he realized that his cover had been blown, and stopped trying to fully maintain "crypsis"...
I guess that fanatic Jewish-activist-types aren't too difficult to "trigger." That "Lot" fellow is certainly another one, but not really any sort of disinfo agent, given that his views have always been explicit, and (obviously!) the same goes for "International Jew"...
The ultra-Zionists that post here are some of the most incorrigible commenters as you state. They never give an inch, no self-reflection – Israel and Jews have never been wrong, not in the slightest…
The one exception is Greasy who somehow manages to be one of the most rabid Zionists but has a bunch of other dimensions to him, as well as being able to call out Jews when they do stupid stuff or give credit where it’s due to others.
Also, he often shares with us who he would bang; so there’s that…
Peace.
I haven’t looked at his comment since so I do not remember whether it could have an innocuous explanation. But something went wrong. Imo it was a cross talk and slippage between two internet personas that he temporarily lost control of. Then he was asked about it but he ignored it. His comments are often good but strangely detached (not very Polish) and sometimes hollow. But certainly his language skills, eloquence and maturity are not congruent with the purported young age.
Good question, and doubtless both Americans and Russians are embellishing things here. But this latest attack is more of an Iranian problem, no?
1. They would have had no way of knowing that this was a limited strike if they were not told. They would have made the assumption that they were about to be hit, and responded with everything they had, including attacking the launch points. They didn't, so they were told in advance and did nothing.
2. The attack was probably limited in scope, so the Russians had extra motivation to do nothing. There are claims to the contrary, but they are probably wrong because no pictures of damage elsewhere have surfaced; surely, some missiles would have gotten through and hit their targets had this been a more extensive strike.
I have a problem believing the 70% success rate of Syrian AA defenses. It is interesting that this story is more important for Russians than Syrians. Russia wants minimize the loss of face. Syrians otoh would benefit from claiming a victim status and exaggerating losses, though in authoritarian regimes it is the subjects of the regime who are being propagandized and thus the regime must project the image that it is in control and it is invincible. Germany in WWII could have benefited on international arena form honest coverage of slaughter of their civilians in Allied bombings but instead opted to minimize the losses to keep the morale of their subjects high.
As for what's going on in Syria, seems all like total speculation to me so far, we have no idea how successful the Russians were at intercepting missiles or whether they even made a genuine effort to do so.
Which international arena? By the later stages of the war all the major powers (except far-away Japan) were at war with Germany, and public opinion in neutrals like Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland or some Latin American countries was of zero importance to the course of the war. So your argument doesn’t make sense.
As for what’s going on in Syria, seems all like total speculation to me so far, we have no idea how successful the Russians were at intercepting missiles or whether they even made a genuine effort to do so.
However in the US the control of media during WWII was not as complete as it is now and if Germany publicized the slaughter of civilians some of it could make it to the press form neutral countries in Europe and South America. I still believe that it was a mistake on the part of Germany that they did not try to play the war crime and the atrocity cards. If they did, it would not change the outcome of the war but perhaps you would not turned into a shell shocked cuck who still believes that Germany deserved every bomb that fell on their civilians. Perhaps you would be able to occasionally feel a righteous outrage rather than falling into a zombified state of guilt and resignation. Perhaps you would find more productive outlets for being condemning and judgmental than just the deniers of theory of evolution. Man, they did a job on you.
...
...
..................
From Trumps Friday night address to the nation:
.
“We are prepared to sustain this response” means that the US will attack Syria again when the US decides to find more fake “WMDs” (i.e. when it’s forces are in place)
“To Iran and to Russia I ask, what kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?” The answer to this rhetorical question is the United States itself, as it has shown in Iraq and Libya directly, and in the Yemen and Syria indirectly (through the Saudis and ISIS).
As for what's going on in Syria, seems all like total speculation to me so far, we have no idea how successful the Russians were at intercepting missiles or whether they even made a genuine effort to do so.
My argument makes even more sense after you input. Keeping the morale high by minimizing the losses was more important than getting sympathy abroad because the audience abroad was not that large and could not make much difference.
However in the US the control of media during WWII was not as complete as it is now and if Germany publicized the slaughter of civilians some of it could make it to the press form neutral countries in Europe and South America. I still believe that it was a mistake on the part of Germany that they did not try to play the war crime and the atrocity cards. If they did, it would not change the outcome of the war but perhaps you would not turned into a shell shocked cuck who still believes that Germany deserved every bomb that fell on their civilians. Perhaps you would be able to occasionally feel a righteous outrage rather than falling into a zombified state of guilt and resignation. Perhaps you would find more productive outlets for being condemning and judgmental than just the deniers of theory of evolution. Man, they did a job on you.
Just in this thread you have:
- called me a "sleepwalker", "cuck" and made bizarre remarks about my possible (desirable?) torture.
- accused Dmitry of being "Jewish hasbara", "obtuse, insensitive or amoral".
- accused Polish_perspective of being fake, lying about his age.
Is it some hobby of yours to be as annoying as possible?
However in the US the control of media during WWII was not as complete as it is now and if Germany publicized the slaughter of civilians some of it could make it to the press form neutral countries in Europe and South America. I still believe that it was a mistake on the part of Germany that they did not try to play the war crime and the atrocity cards. If they did, it would not change the outcome of the war but perhaps you would not turned into a shell shocked cuck who still believes that Germany deserved every bomb that fell on their civilians. Perhaps you would be able to occasionally feel a righteous outrage rather than falling into a zombified state of guilt and resignation. Perhaps you would find more productive outlets for being condemning and judgmental than just the deniers of theory of evolution. Man, they did a job on you.
Have never written that, pure invention by you.
Just in this thread you have:
- called me a “sleepwalker”, “cuck” and made bizarre remarks about my possible (desirable?) torture.
- accused Dmitry of being “Jewish hasbara”, “obtuse, insensitive or amoral”.
- accused Polish_perspective of being fake, lying about his age.
Is it some hobby of yours to be as annoying as possible?
Let’s face it, he’s a troll.
"Democracy" in its current form doesn't do much for me either (not least because on crucial issues like mass immigration it's anything but genuinely democratic). But what should replace it? Hard question, I don't see an easy answer.
That’s why a strong monarchy is needed – not to keep the proles in line but to keep the nobility in line.
Just in this thread you have:
- called me a "sleepwalker", "cuck" and made bizarre remarks about my possible (desirable?) torture.
- accused Dmitry of being "Jewish hasbara", "obtuse, insensitive or amoral".
- accused Polish_perspective of being fake, lying about his age.
Is it some hobby of yours to be as annoying as possible?
Never tell the patient the diagnosis. I have only reinforced your denial unfortunately. Still the only way to recovery is recognition and acknowledgement. Sooner or later you will see it.
Russia staged a few demonstrations of the Caliber long range missile from both the Black Sea and from the TU160. Also the Mig31 and the Su-30 are capable to sink a carrier with either Khinzal or Brahmos. Actually no Carrier Group can operate from Red Sea, Persian Gulf of Mediterranean without risking that Carrier. No air base in that region is safe from Russian attack too.
Also the reasons for Russia's presence in Syria are geopolitical too. The US neocon/interventionist goal of hegemony and Brzezinski defining control over Eurasia as an imperial imperative and precondition to achieve that hegemony and hile not yet achieved in the meantime preventing any challenger there to arrive actually defines US policy as creating as much chaos as possible, balkanize countries creating weak states which are easy to dominate. US takes aim at EU, Russia and the Middle East. The EU sold out mostly, though some resistance seems to be emerging. Russia is well aware of these aims and will prevent the US from ever more of its usual rape and pillage in the Middle East simply out of self preservation. Thanks to Russian support a wider regional resistance to US (and Israel) policies seems to be emerging from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.
Good points on the real Russian defense systems that can be deployed to protect Syria bases. For those who think that FUKUS can take down the air defense systems of Russia and Syria welcome to the Turkey shoot based on out of theatre systems you mention and the following in-theatre systems (FB may be able to add additional details)
S-400 systems:
Yes there are two S-400 complexes guarding Khmeimim consisting of 16 missile launchers per complex (32 launch ready missiles range 350 km)
http://www.janes.com/article/74500/second-russian-s-400-in-syria-confirmed
S-300 (SA-20) systems
Russia has seven S-300VM missile systems defending Tartus (range 350 km)
http://theiranproject.com/blog/2016/11/16/seven-russian-s-300-air-missile-defense-systems-deployed-syria/
Bastion (K-300P) anti-ship coastal systems (Yakhonts)
Russia has deployed perhaps two batteries of 18 launchers at their naval bases (72 launch ready missiles – range 350 km) Russia also has K-300P systems on it Project 11356 frigates
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/179014/bastion-missile-proves-land-attack-capability-in-syria%3A-tass.html
Syria has two batteries consisting of 18 launchers which carry two 3M55E Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles. (72 launch ready missiles -range 350 km)
http://defense-update.com/20111203_syria-receives-yakhont-missiles.html
Kalibr (SS-N-27 Sizzler)
Russia has Kalibr long range missiles on all their frigates either 3M-54E1/3M-14E: (300 km range) or 3M-54/3M-54T: (660 km range)
http://www.defensereview.com/us-navy-aircraft-carriers-vulnerable-to-ss-n-27b-sizzler-anti-ship-missile/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M-54_Kalibr
Pantsier
Russia had previously provided 40 Pantsier-1 missile systems to Syria with 12 missiles loaded per system (480 launch ready missiles – range 20 km)
https://www.therussophile.org/russia-delivered-40-pantsir-s1-air-defense-systems-to-syria-state-media.html/
Subsequently, Russia has also deployed an unknown number of Pantsir S2 air defense systems to its Khmeimim airbase in Syria (range of about 40 km)
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/05/31/weapons-tested-syria-russia-pantsir-s2-mobile-air-defense-missile-gun-system.html
The Pantsier-2 may have been upgraded to add four directed sub-rockets to each missile for a total of 48 missiles per Pantsier launcher.
Buk-M2E (SA-11)
Russia has an unknown number of Buk-M2E systems and perhaps the new Buk-M3 in Syria. Perhaps FB could provide more information.
Syria has received a total of 48 launchers of Buk-M2 surface-to-air missiles. (192 launch ready missiles – range 40 km)
http://www.todaynews24h.com/israel-continued-air-strikes-damascus-buk-m2-of-syria-where/
S-125 (Pechora-2M)
Syria has about 145 Pechora and 12 Pechora-2M each with four missiles per launcher. (628 launch ready missiles- range 32 km)
Same as was used by Yugoslav Army 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade to shoot down a F-117
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-125_Neva/Pechora
S-200 systems (upgraded)
Syria has two S-200 batteries consisting of 44 launchers at Kweires airport (range 350 km).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-200_%28missile%29
Kvadrat (SA-6)
Syria has 195 2K12s systems with three missiles per launcher. (585 launch ready missiles – range 22 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K12_Kub
Osa (SA-8)
Syria had 14 batteries consisting of 60 launchers with six short range missiles per launcher. (360 launch ready missiles – range 15 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K33_Osa
The problem is that many systems are manned by the Syrian military. No offense to the Syrians, but their historical performance was not so great. In fact, I think they're tied for the title of worst Middle Eastern army with the former Iraqi army, in terms of efficiency and warmaking effectiveness.
These two armies (Iraqi and Syrian) performed by far the most poorly during the last large war with Israel (1973).
(Sidenote: The Jordanian Army was the best, as they were in most Arab-Israeli Wars, followed at a distant 2nd place by the Egyptians. The Egyptians were a competent force for an undeveloped country, but the Jordanians were even better - and it wasn't due to equipment, but again those damned human factors. Good for Israel that Jordan is poor, and that Jordanians are few in number.)
1973 was indeed a very, very long time ago, almost a half century, and if the Syrians have instituted new leadership, morale and training policies since then, there could already have been massive improvements in their quality.
The old Syrian army never seemed to grasp the concept that its the human factors that matter more than the material ones. Material factors (technology, firepower, raw systems performance) are the swords, but human factors are analogous to the wielder of the sword. The OLD Syrian army had poor leader selection and development, poor morale, and lousy and unrealistic rote drills (never mind training).
Now, if you say that the current Syrian armed forces treat warfare with a deadly seriousness, and have reformed their human factors, well then of course I am impressed by that arsenal you listed.
As to the Russian operated systems, THOSE probably merit respect, and should be avoided if possible.
Thank you. What is your opinion on this?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-14/warship-ruse-and-new-stealth-missiles-how-they-attacked-syria
“No Syrian weapon had any effect on anything we did,” McKenzie said. He described the joint U.S., French and U.K. strike as “precise, overwhelming and effective.”
It seems logical that once again the Russians oversold the effectiveness of their weaponry, and essentially encouraged the futile recklessness of their allies. As optical systems appear to your area of expertise, this suggests that as usual, their detection capabilities against even mild American effects to be weak. Shock and awe would seem to work on Russians as well as any other third world military.
For example, Bloomberg.com calls the recent Russian elections a "fake." -- Do you agree?
Bloomberg.com religiously believes that Russians poisoned Skripals and thus "EU must vote unanimously on sanctions [against Russia]." -- Do you also believe that Skripals were poisoned on orders from Russain government?
Just in this thread you have:
- called me a "sleepwalker", "cuck" and made bizarre remarks about my possible (desirable?) torture.
- accused Dmitry of being "Jewish hasbara", "obtuse, insensitive or amoral".
- accused Polish_perspective of being fake, lying about his age.
Is it some hobby of yours to be as annoying as possible?
He’s also expressed his “natural” joy when thinking about a nuclear war between Russia and Israel, which he thinks would lead to the destruction of Israel and its population. He wrote he thought that Israel should be destroyed, together with its Jewish inhabitants.
Let’s face it, he’s a troll.
I am irked by falsity. That's why Polish Perspective got my attention. Something slipped there.
I am irked by embellishments and pomposity of people like Thor. You forgot my ideation of him being euthanized by his father. What a loss. The future billionaire. But this was jus an ideation.
Dimitry obviously is hasbara. Very sly one because he seems to have a nice and mellow personality that for most people is achievable only with the help of lots of benzos. So I doubt he is Russian. They do not make Russians like that. Unless he would come from some Molokan sect or Skpotsy castrati or perhaps he is a scientologist who already achieved the state of clear ( yeah, they do it with benzos actually).
German_reader sometimes really gets on my nerves. He epitomizes German post WWII cuckhood to me. And the fact that he does not see it makes it much worse. He actually thinks that because he can come here and write the word "Jew" without his usual looking nervously around or express his dislike of Muslims without the usual fear and trembling on this obscure American blog he is at the forefront of radicalism that he actually broke the chains and liberated himself from the German cuckhood. He did not. He is a cuck through and through. But I should be easier on him. It is not his fault. They have been bombed and he is still shell shocked three generations later and in denial as the result.
And as far as Israel, whether the world would be better off if it was wiped out off the map? Tell me.
His frequent ad hominems (he also called Thorfinnson a "real American kook", which I had forgotten on my list, so he's even worse just in this threads) are pretty annoying though imo.
S-400 systems:
Yes there are two S-400 complexes guarding Khmeimim consisting of 16 missile launchers per complex (32 launch ready missiles range 350 km)
http://www.janes.com/article/74500/second-russian-s-400-in-syria-confirmed
S-300 (SA-20) systems
Russia has seven S-300VM missile systems defending Tartus (range 350 km)
http://theiranproject.com/blog/2016/11/16/seven-russian-s-300-air-missile-defense-systems-deployed-syria/
Bastion (K-300P) anti-ship coastal systems (Yakhonts)
Russia has deployed perhaps two batteries of 18 launchers at their naval bases (72 launch ready missiles - range 350 km) Russia also has K-300P systems on it Project 11356 frigates
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/179014/bastion-missile-proves-land-attack-capability-in-syria%3A-tass.html
Syria has two batteries consisting of 18 launchers which carry two 3M55E Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles. (72 launch ready missiles -range 350 km)
http://defense-update.com/20111203_syria-receives-yakhont-missiles.html
Kalibr (SS-N-27 Sizzler)
Russia has Kalibr long range missiles on all their frigates either 3M-54E1/3M-14E: (300 km range) or 3M-54/3M-54T: (660 km range)
http://www.defensereview.com/us-navy-aircraft-carriers-vulnerable-to-ss-n-27b-sizzler-anti-ship-missile/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M-54_Kalibr
Pantsier
Russia had previously provided 40 Pantsier-1 missile systems to Syria with 12 missiles loaded per system (480 launch ready missiles - range 20 km)
https://www.therussophile.org/russia-delivered-40-pantsir-s1-air-defense-systems-to-syria-state-media.html/
Subsequently, Russia has also deployed an unknown number of Pantsir S2 air defense systems to its Khmeimim airbase in Syria (range of about 40 km)
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/05/31/weapons-tested-syria-russia-pantsir-s2-mobile-air-defense-missile-gun-system.html
The Pantsier-2 may have been upgraded to add four directed sub-rockets to each missile for a total of 48 missiles per Pantsier launcher.
Buk-M2E (SA-11)
Russia has an unknown number of Buk-M2E systems and perhaps the new Buk-M3 in Syria. Perhaps FB could provide more information.
Syria has received a total of 48 launchers of Buk-M2 surface-to-air missiles. (192 launch ready missiles - range 40 km)
http://www.todaynews24h.com/israel-continued-air-strikes-damascus-buk-m2-of-syria-where/
S-125 (Pechora-2M)
Syria has about 145 Pechora and 12 Pechora-2M each with four missiles per launcher. (628 launch ready missiles- range 32 km)
Same as was used by Yugoslav Army 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade to shoot down a F-117
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-125_Neva/Pechora
S-200 systems (upgraded)
Syria has two S-200 batteries consisting of 44 launchers at Kweires airport (range 350 km).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-200_%28missile%29
Kvadrat (SA-6)
Syria has 195 2K12s systems with three missiles per launcher. (585 launch ready missiles – range 22 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K12_Kub
Osa (SA-8)
Syria had 14 batteries consisting of 60 launchers with six short range missiles per launcher. (360 launch ready missiles – range 15 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K33_Osa
It was a somewhat modified version of the S-125 system.
Ok, so summary of all comments before we move onto next article:
1. Nikki Haley Should be Honor Killed
2. I’m not troll I just forgot about my acc for awhile
3. Nuclear holocaust is perfectly fine, as most countries legalized the GAYs
4. In coming Cold War Cheen will betray Roos again & it will be Roosiya Endia Bhai Bhai
India bureaucracy sucks
End.
Let’s face it, he’s a troll.
I don’t think he’s a troll; a troll wants to get a rise out of others. I think he just really, really enjoys belligerence for its own sake. In a better age, he’d be the one volunteering for forlorn hopes and somehow survives each battle just so he can jinx everyone else who’s goes along with him.
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Angry_Marines
Well, maybe I use a more expansive definition of a troll. Enjoying belligerence for its own sake is the definition of a troll to me. He’s not a serious proponent of the views espoused by him (at least not of the more extreme views), but he argues in favor of them nevertheless. That’s a troll. The alternative would be that he seriously wants to execute “IQists” or exterminate Israeli Jews. So being a troll is a charitable interpretation.
This is not your smartest comment by far.
I watched a couple of guys pull a six foot plus whopper out of the river near Klamath Falls, I think it was a sturgeon but I’m not sure. The fisherman was going to release it but the other guy pleaded with him to let him have it to feed his family. He had to promise he’d take the rap if caught with it.
So tragic that such a beautiful place could be so contaminated, I was told it was one of the most contaminated places in the entire US.
Let’s face it, he’s a troll.
I decided to check what is the meaning of troll because I am too old to be familiar with this term. Accusation of being a troll keep flying left and right all the time so I always assumed it is just an epithet that lost its original meaning just like cretin in 18 century. Here it is:
I am applying no art. No deception on my part. No pretense, no manipulation. I am real. Earnest and in good faith. Even or especially my hate is in good faith. I do not want to piss people off. I want to hurt them. But they get pissed off. That is not my fault.
I am irked by falsity. That’s why Polish Perspective got my attention. Something slipped there.
I am irked by embellishments and pomposity of people like Thor. You forgot my ideation of him being euthanized by his father. What a loss. The future billionaire. But this was jus an ideation.
Dimitry obviously is hasbara. Very sly one because he seems to have a nice and mellow personality that for most people is achievable only with the help of lots of benzos. So I doubt he is Russian. They do not make Russians like that. Unless he would come from some Molokan sect or Skpotsy castrati or perhaps he is a scientologist who already achieved the state of clear ( yeah, they do it with benzos actually).
German_reader sometimes really gets on my nerves. He epitomizes German post WWII cuckhood to me. And the fact that he does not see it makes it much worse. He actually thinks that because he can come here and write the word “Jew” without his usual looking nervously around or express his dislike of Muslims without the usual fear and trembling on this obscure American blog he is at the forefront of radicalism that he actually broke the chains and liberated himself from the German cuckhood. He did not. He is a cuck through and through. But I should be easier on him. It is not his fault. They have been bombed and he is still shell shocked three generations later and in denial as the result.
And as far as Israel, whether the world would be better off if it was wiped out off the map? Tell me.
That’s unfair! Comments were made about him earlier and he’s simply correcting them, not begging for work. OK, so he did get a bit of a plug in there too but there can be little doubt that the plug would not have appeared without the need to clarify information about himself and who cares anyway? Ron Unz seems to have a good idea of what goes on here and I’m pretty sure that he would have commented if it was considered spamming. Chill!
S-400 systems:
Yes there are two S-400 complexes guarding Khmeimim consisting of 16 missile launchers per complex (32 launch ready missiles range 350 km)
http://www.janes.com/article/74500/second-russian-s-400-in-syria-confirmed
S-300 (SA-20) systems
Russia has seven S-300VM missile systems defending Tartus (range 350 km)
http://theiranproject.com/blog/2016/11/16/seven-russian-s-300-air-missile-defense-systems-deployed-syria/
Bastion (K-300P) anti-ship coastal systems (Yakhonts)
Russia has deployed perhaps two batteries of 18 launchers at their naval bases (72 launch ready missiles - range 350 km) Russia also has K-300P systems on it Project 11356 frigates
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/179014/bastion-missile-proves-land-attack-capability-in-syria%3A-tass.html
Syria has two batteries consisting of 18 launchers which carry two 3M55E Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles. (72 launch ready missiles -range 350 km)
http://defense-update.com/20111203_syria-receives-yakhont-missiles.html
Kalibr (SS-N-27 Sizzler)
Russia has Kalibr long range missiles on all their frigates either 3M-54E1/3M-14E: (300 km range) or 3M-54/3M-54T: (660 km range)
http://www.defensereview.com/us-navy-aircraft-carriers-vulnerable-to-ss-n-27b-sizzler-anti-ship-missile/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M-54_Kalibr
Pantsier
Russia had previously provided 40 Pantsier-1 missile systems to Syria with 12 missiles loaded per system (480 launch ready missiles - range 20 km)
https://www.therussophile.org/russia-delivered-40-pantsir-s1-air-defense-systems-to-syria-state-media.html/
Subsequently, Russia has also deployed an unknown number of Pantsir S2 air defense systems to its Khmeimim airbase in Syria (range of about 40 km)
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/05/31/weapons-tested-syria-russia-pantsir-s2-mobile-air-defense-missile-gun-system.html
The Pantsier-2 may have been upgraded to add four directed sub-rockets to each missile for a total of 48 missiles per Pantsier launcher.
Buk-M2E (SA-11)
Russia has an unknown number of Buk-M2E systems and perhaps the new Buk-M3 in Syria. Perhaps FB could provide more information.
Syria has received a total of 48 launchers of Buk-M2 surface-to-air missiles. (192 launch ready missiles - range 40 km)
http://www.todaynews24h.com/israel-continued-air-strikes-damascus-buk-m2-of-syria-where/
S-125 (Pechora-2M)
Syria has about 145 Pechora and 12 Pechora-2M each with four missiles per launcher. (628 launch ready missiles- range 32 km)
Same as was used by Yugoslav Army 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade to shoot down a F-117
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-125_Neva/Pechora
S-200 systems (upgraded)
Syria has two S-200 batteries consisting of 44 launchers at Kweires airport (range 350 km).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-200_%28missile%29
Kvadrat (SA-6)
Syria has 195 2K12s systems with three missiles per launcher. (585 launch ready missiles – range 22 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K12_Kub
Osa (SA-8)
Syria had 14 batteries consisting of 60 launchers with six short range missiles per launcher. (360 launch ready missiles – range 15 km))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K33_Osa
I would normally be impressed by those air defenses, even based on their numbers and density alone.
The problem is that many systems are manned by the Syrian military. No offense to the Syrians, but their historical performance was not so great. In fact, I think they’re tied for the title of worst Middle Eastern army with the former Iraqi army, in terms of efficiency and warmaking effectiveness.
These two armies (Iraqi and Syrian) performed by far the most poorly during the last large war with Israel (1973).
(Sidenote: The Jordanian Army was the best, as they were in most Arab-Israeli Wars, followed at a distant 2nd place by the Egyptians. The Egyptians were a competent force for an undeveloped country, but the Jordanians were even better – and it wasn’t due to equipment, but again those damned human factors. Good for Israel that Jordan is poor, and that Jordanians are few in number.)
1973 was indeed a very, very long time ago, almost a half century, and if the Syrians have instituted new leadership, morale and training policies since then, there could already have been massive improvements in their quality.
The old Syrian army never seemed to grasp the concept that its the human factors that matter more than the material ones. Material factors (technology, firepower, raw systems performance) are the swords, but human factors are analogous to the wielder of the sword. The OLD Syrian army had poor leader selection and development, poor morale, and lousy and unrealistic rote drills (never mind training).
Now, if you say that the current Syrian armed forces treat warfare with a deadly seriousness, and have reformed their human factors, well then of course I am impressed by that arsenal you listed.
As to the Russian operated systems, THOSE probably merit respect, and should be avoided if possible.
As for FRY air defense systems against the combined NATO air forces see the discussion at:
http://www.unz.com/article/russia-the-800-pound-gorilla/
Even more impressive that the FRY air defense strategy was the use of decoys to adsorb most missiles. I do admit that there was much infrastructure damage done in the FRY but these were war crimes.
Your correct LondonBob and I think the waking up process if that is the right term is in full progress so People will not blindly go along with the plans of our treacherous elites, Europeans are waking up and beginning to take our own side not the war mongers globalists etc.
And in the UK itself they have a genuine principled politician in Jeremy Corbyn. For years he’s opposed the oppression of the Palestinians (and ME war lies) and he was elected leader of the British Labour Party against determined Blairite opposition. This gives him a real chance of becoming Prime Minister.
And of course he’s a total hate figure of the MSM.
The most complete information I have seen on what the Russians are saying about the discovery of “BZ” in the Skripal case.
Could the Russians be making it up, it was asked yesterday. In this case one would expect to have already seen one or more of the following:
1. a denial from the Swiss Lab (Spiez) involved, rather than a “no comment” and referral to the OPCW.
2. a declaration from the OPCW reaffirming that, as clearly indicated in the “public” report, a single toxic substance was involved, and that substance was A234.
3. a statement from UK/Porton Down confirming that their tests had shown the presence of only a single toxic substance, and that substance was A234.
So far, I am unable to locate these, perhaps someone else has.
1. The UK requests Porton Down to confirm the presence of A-234 (motivated no doubt by its "secret intelligence" that the Russians for 10 years had been building up a "small stockpile" for such purposes).
2. Porton Down confirms the presence of A-234. Whether or not it carried out additional tests to determine the presence of other possible toxic agents is uncertain.
3. The UK refuses to provide sample(s) to Russia, arguing that the "exchange of information and consultations" called for by Article IX of the Chemical Weapons Convention does not mean that they need to provide evidence to the "guilty party".
4. After much prodding by the Russians, the UK belatedly agrees to request "technical assistance" from the OPCW to confirm its findings. The precise form this request took is confidential, but one might surmise that it would have been: Please confirm the presence of the toxic substance A-234 which we have identified in the samples (with the understood message "no need to waste time and resources looking for other toxic substances").
5. As per its standard protocol, the OPCW sent out the samples to various "partner" laboratories, of which one was the Spiez laboratory in Switzerland, which is the government "ABC" lab (atomic, biological, chemical). They are asked to confirm (only) the presence of A-234.
6. For an unknown reason, the Spiez Laboratory exceeds its mandate and not conly confirms the presence of A-234 but also traces of 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, better known by its NATO code name BZ. The Spiez Laboratory sends its report to the OPCW.
7. The OPCW issues 2 reports (one private, the other confidential) on 12 April. In response to the specific request made by the UK, the OPCW truthfully confirms that the "toxic chemical identified by the United Kingdom" was indeed A-234. The formula for this "toxic chemical" was (apparently) provided in the confidential report.
8.The OPCW also provides the additional information that "this toxic chemical [i.e. A-234] was of high purity". And for those without the necessary scientific background to digest this statement, it helpfully adds that this technical conclusion was based on " the almost complete absence of impurities".
9. As the OPCW had not been asked to confirm the presence of any toxic chemical other than A-234, it naturally did not take into account the superfluous discovery by the Spiez Laboratory of traces of BZ.
10. The Russians obtain access to the Spiez Laboratory report -- from a "whistleblower" at the lab or the OPCW, or by "hacking".
Entirely implausible?
(i.e. street protests, or attacks on enemy targets).
Russian funded domestic terrorism.
The political brilliance has blinded me.
My eyes! My eyes! (And they have weathered quite a bit here at Unz.)
--Iffen, why are you so keen on making people think about the major sponsors of terrorism -- the US, the UK, the SA, and Israel. There are many available sources containing the factual information on the M16' and the CIA' active material and logistical support for the "moderate" terrorists in the Middle East. All such sources mention Israel as the main beneficiary of the civil strife in the Middle Eastern countries bordering with Israel.
Were not your Israeli generals proclaiming their preference for ISIS to a peaceful sovereign Syria?
Your ziocon ideologues of terrorism have left many influential manuals, beginning with the writings and recorded utterings of Ledeen (an expert in and practitioner of fascism) and up to Oded Yinon plan (a blueprint for the ongoing criminal enterprise in the ME), PNAC, Wolfowitz doctrine, and the multitude of the belligerent hate-filled opuses published and uttered on western MSM -- from the old-flirt Judy Miller's pressituting stuff (remember Iraq?) to the Kagans' incitements against Russia (hey, Jewish banderites!)
There are some 4 million dead (a quarter of them children) in the Middle East since 1999, courtesy the above-mentioned manuals and presstituting opuses professing the manufactured civil strifes and mass slaughter.
At least Russian were fighting for their national geographic integrity. What is the US fighting for in the Middle East? - for Eretz Israel, to please the ziocons whose loyalty is to the foreign country of Israel.
And who is riding the Israeli foreign policy today? - a Moldovan thug and former bouncer in a nightclub. Your Israeli fame features the Menora Operation (several hundred murdered children) and the recent Passover Delight (17 dead, including two teenagers, and over a thousand wounded). Looks like a state-sponsored terrorism.
Let’s face it, he’s a troll.
Sounds great tbh.
891 comments, now 892.
Certainly a record for Anatoly Karlin, and maybe even for this site.
Linked by Marginal Revolution–and perhaps elsewhere?
Congratulations!
And let’s give a hand to AK’s regulars such as German_Reader, reiner Tor, Beckow, iffen, Dmitri, Felix Keverich, Mikhail, Randal, Daniel Chieh, peterAUS, Polish Perspective, Singh, Duke of Qin, LondonBob, Greasy William, etc.
Lastly of course, thanks to our esteemed overlord Ron Unz.
Certainly a record for Anatoly Karlin, and maybe even for this site.
Linked by Marginal Revolution--and perhaps elsewhere?
Congratulations!
And let's give a hand to AK's regulars such as German_Reader, reiner Tor, Beckow, iffen, Dmitri, Felix Keverich, Mikhail, Randal, Daniel Chieh, peterAUS, Polish Perspective, Singh, Duke of Qin, LondonBob, Greasy William, etc.
Lastly of course, thanks to our esteemed overlord Ron Unz.
But it was all made possible by our God-Emperor Donald I and his daughter the Imperial Highness Princess Ivanka.
Let’s not forget the Assman (aka the Gas Killing Animal), Walter Walterson Putnam (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin) or Walt for short, and of course THE JEWS and THE GLOBALISTS.
The US is really in no position to talk about enforcing agreements. It abandoned the ABM treaty, routinely ignores UN treaty obligations per the use of force, ignores its own constitutional checks on executive war making ability, vetoes every UN resolution regarding Israel, and its Secretary of State nominee recently told Congress that the US was "unique and exceptional" in the context that it didn't have to obey any laws or international norms.
I apologize that my response was posted wrongly.
1. a denial from the Swiss Lab (Spiez) involved, rather than a "no comment" and referral to the OPCW.
2. a declaration from the OPCW reaffirming that, as clearly indicated in the "public" report, a single toxic substance was involved, and that substance was A234.
3. a statement from UK/Porton Down confirming that their tests had shown the presence of only a single toxic substance, and that substance was A234.
So far, I am unable to locate these, perhaps someone else has.
A possible explanation for the apparent divergences between the OPCW report and the Russian claims of what the Swiss lab found:
1. The UK requests Porton Down to confirm the presence of A-234 (motivated no doubt by its “secret intelligence” that the Russians for 10 years had been building up a “small stockpile” for such purposes).
2. Porton Down confirms the presence of A-234. Whether or not it carried out additional tests to determine the presence of other possible toxic agents is uncertain.
3. The UK refuses to provide sample(s) to Russia, arguing that the “exchange of information and consultations” called for by Article IX of the Chemical Weapons Convention does not mean that they need to provide evidence to the “guilty party”.
4. After much prodding by the Russians, the UK belatedly agrees to request “technical assistance” from the OPCW to confirm its findings. The precise form this request took is confidential, but one might surmise that it would have been: Please confirm the presence of the toxic substance A-234 which we have identified in the samples (with the understood message “no need to waste time and resources looking for other toxic substances”).
5. As per its standard protocol, the OPCW sent out the samples to various “partner” laboratories, of which one was the Spiez laboratory in Switzerland, which is the government “ABC” lab (atomic, biological, chemical). They are asked to confirm (only) the presence of A-234.
6. For an unknown reason, the Spiez Laboratory exceeds its mandate and not conly confirms the presence of A-234 but also traces of 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, better known by its NATO code name BZ. The Spiez Laboratory sends its report to the OPCW.
7. The OPCW issues 2 reports (one private, the other confidential) on 12 April. In response to the specific request made by the UK, the OPCW truthfully confirms that the “toxic chemical identified by the United Kingdom” was indeed A-234. The formula for this “toxic chemical” was (apparently) provided in the confidential report.
8.The OPCW also provides the additional information that “this toxic chemical [i.e. A-234] was of high purity”. And for those without the necessary scientific background to digest this statement, it helpfully adds that this technical conclusion was based on ” the almost complete absence of impurities”.
9. As the OPCW had not been asked to confirm the presence of any toxic chemical other than A-234, it naturally did not take into account the superfluous discovery by the Spiez Laboratory of traces of BZ.
10. The Russians obtain access to the Spiez Laboratory report — from a “whistleblower” at the lab or the OPCW, or by “hacking”.
Entirely implausible?
Regarding point #3, the British argument seems somewhat circuitous: they never proved that it was the Russians, and of course if it indeed was the Russians, then of course there’d be no new information provided to them. I mean, if it was the Russians, then they’d already know what was in the damned samples. The British wouldn’t exactly be divulging secrets unknown to the Russians to them.
It got to be so bad that there was a sort of Pavlovian response in the public mind: mention 9/11, and the sheeple would subconsciously think "Saddam Hussein". Basically bullshit MSM opinion manipulation.Now we have "Russians" and "Chemical". So when they say there was a "Chemical" attack and pin it on "Russian" ally Syria, the public switches off its collective mind and believes it. It's conditioning, and it worked.Now that the missiles have flown, the Skripal accusations have served their purpose.
But if the chemical production if shoddy can produce other known distinct chemical and you search for the presence of the other chemical then yes you can talk about purity level.
1. There will be no conventional clash between Russia and the US.
2. If there was such a clash, nobody who knows anything about military forces and equipment would predict anything other than an overwhelming US victory.
3. Russia would respond to such a defeat by launching WWIII, which is why it is never going to happen.
The US strategy is publicly available:
1. The US finishes defeating ISIS and making sure that it can't regenerate.
2. The US essentially makes Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan an unofficial protectorate and keeps an open ended commitment there to make sure that Assad doesn't get those regions back.
3. The US and it's partners keep the fronts within Syria alive to continue draining Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons.
4. The goal is to keep Syria isolated either forever or until Russia and Iran throw in the towel; whichever comes first.
This was the strategy before last week and nothing has changed. Time is certainly not on Russia's side. This war is putting a strain on their budget and it will only get worse for them. As long as Russia and Iran are sinking resources into Syria, the Pentagon is getting what it wants.
“…would predict anything other than an overwhelming US victory.”
– How old are you? If you are a teen then you perhaps are not aware that the US army has not been having “an overwhelming US victory” in Afghanistan for 17 years. What do you know about the mighty Afghan army and its incomparable advanced weaponry?
– If you are an old person, then … well…cognitive problems can be cruel.
A great power conflict between the US and Russia would be something very different, there would be few constraints on the use of (conventional) force against Russian troops, so the massive military superiority of the US would probably have severe consequences for Russian forces (unless all those stories about hypersonic missiles and other Russian Wunderwaffen are true).
1) Turkey wants to annex northern Syria and Kurds cleansed.
2) Israel wants to annex the Golan heights and the population that supports Hezbollah cleansed.
3) The Israel-First part of the neocons wants what Israel wants.
4) The Imperial part of the neocons seem to want eastern Syria - I assume cos they want the oil in northern Iraq to go via eastern Syria to Turkey instead of via southern Iraq (which benefits Iran)
5) The banking mafia want a) those few countries not yet ruled by the banking mafia to be destroyed and b) to bring down Putin to stop him creating alternative financial systems outside their control.
6) The entire western media and most of the political class in US, France and UK are controlled by either the banking mafia or neocons.
7) Saudi Arabia is in a proxy war with Iran.
8) There is also imo a non-zero chance that the banking mafia already desire or will eventually come to desire taking out both US and Russia as global powers leaving China as their new sole superpower pet.
9) The various coastal ethno-sectarian groups don't want to be massacred by jihadists.
10) The Russians want a naval base in the east med in a stable friendly country.
So the problem is not going to go away and unless the plug is pulled it might eventually lead to ww3 as Syria/Russia finish off the jihadists and face off with US supported proxies in eastern Syria.
How to get out of it?
1) If forced to choose the US will always betray the Kurds in favor of the Turkish alliance and the Kurds are the US proxies in eastern Syria so the Russians could try and split them from the US by openly supporting Kurdistan - effectively aiming for a partition of Turkey long term but in the short term it takes the US' proxy army away - which dramatically raises the cost of fighting for the US.
2) The most critical driver of all of this are the banking mafia through their control of the western political and media class which they are lending to the neocon narrative for their own reasons (imo). The banking mafia are concentrated in a few square miles around the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England - alternatively taking down the banks in some other way.
3) Longer term the problem in the middle east is diversity - lots of different ethno-sectarian groups forced into the same state only controllable by dictators who try and displace internal conflict by focusing on an external enemy e.g. Israel.
Since 9/11 the planned solution to this has been to destroy those states creating perma-chaos and civil war so they ignore Israel - which has led to the refugee crisis in Europe and mass child rape.
As a result I now personally would prefer a final crusade and the restoration of Christendom by any means necessary as the solution however the most civilized solution would probably be the Swiss one - states made up of self-governing cantons where each ethno-sectarian group has their own canton. If that replaced deliberate perma civil war as the agenda there could possibly be US-Russia co-operation on that basis.
Thank you. Excellent summary.
1. The UK requests Porton Down to confirm the presence of A-234 (motivated no doubt by its "secret intelligence" that the Russians for 10 years had been building up a "small stockpile" for such purposes).
2. Porton Down confirms the presence of A-234. Whether or not it carried out additional tests to determine the presence of other possible toxic agents is uncertain.
3. The UK refuses to provide sample(s) to Russia, arguing that the "exchange of information and consultations" called for by Article IX of the Chemical Weapons Convention does not mean that they need to provide evidence to the "guilty party".
4. After much prodding by the Russians, the UK belatedly agrees to request "technical assistance" from the OPCW to confirm its findings. The precise form this request took is confidential, but one might surmise that it would have been: Please confirm the presence of the toxic substance A-234 which we have identified in the samples (with the understood message "no need to waste time and resources looking for other toxic substances").
5. As per its standard protocol, the OPCW sent out the samples to various "partner" laboratories, of which one was the Spiez laboratory in Switzerland, which is the government "ABC" lab (atomic, biological, chemical). They are asked to confirm (only) the presence of A-234.
6. For an unknown reason, the Spiez Laboratory exceeds its mandate and not conly confirms the presence of A-234 but also traces of 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, better known by its NATO code name BZ. The Spiez Laboratory sends its report to the OPCW.
7. The OPCW issues 2 reports (one private, the other confidential) on 12 April. In response to the specific request made by the UK, the OPCW truthfully confirms that the "toxic chemical identified by the United Kingdom" was indeed A-234. The formula for this "toxic chemical" was (apparently) provided in the confidential report.
8.The OPCW also provides the additional information that "this toxic chemical [i.e. A-234] was of high purity". And for those without the necessary scientific background to digest this statement, it helpfully adds that this technical conclusion was based on " the almost complete absence of impurities".
9. As the OPCW had not been asked to confirm the presence of any toxic chemical other than A-234, it naturally did not take into account the superfluous discovery by the Spiez Laboratory of traces of BZ.
10. The Russians obtain access to the Spiez Laboratory report -- from a "whistleblower" at the lab or the OPCW, or by "hacking".
Entirely implausible?
No, it’s plausible.
Regarding point #3, the British argument seems somewhat circuitous: they never proved that it was the Russians, and of course if it indeed was the Russians, then of course there’d be no new information provided to them. I mean, if it was the Russians, then they’d already know what was in the damned samples. The British wouldn’t exactly be divulging secrets unknown to the Russians to them.
Another 100 comments, and it’s four digits! Let’s make it happen!
What you think about this map? After WW3, will Ukraine get back all land that is rightully hers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mapa_from_Ukraine_postcard_1919.jpg
(now I started another 1000-reply long thread, but someone have to do it)
The one exception is Greasy who somehow manages to be one of the most rabid Zionists but has a bunch of other dimensions to him, as well as being able to call out Jews when they do stupid stuff or give credit where it’s due to others.
Also, he often shares with us who he would bang; so there’s that...
Peace.
You made me laugh, Talha.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-14/warship-ruse-and-new-stealth-missiles-how-they-attacked-syria
“No Syrian weapon had any effect on anything we did,” McKenzie said. He described the joint U.S., French and U.K. strike as “precise, overwhelming and effective.”
It seems logical that once again the Russians oversold the effectiveness of their weaponry, and essentially encouraged the futile recklessness of their allies. As optical systems appear to your area of expertise, this suggests that as usual, their detection capabilities against even mild American effects to be weak. Shock and awe would seem to work on Russians as well as any other third world military.
That Bloomberg piece is pure DoD talking points. But no doubt both Russians and Americans are puffing up their respective performances. Unless this has just been a feeling-out process for a more serious attack, the American actions in light of their moralistic rhetoric look rather meager, the Russians appear to have gotten their point across better.
1. Nikki Haley Should be Honor Killed
2. I'm not troll I just forgot about my acc for awhile
3. Nuclear holocaust is perfectly fine, as most countries legalized the GAYs
4. In coming Cold War Cheen will betray Roos again & it will be Roosiya Endia Bhai Bhai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o4Y-i3kmdo
India bureaucracy sucks
End.
Re. #1, not killed, just sexually humiliated.
1. a denial from the Swiss Lab (Spiez) involved, rather than a "no comment" and referral to the OPCW.
2. a declaration from the OPCW reaffirming that, as clearly indicated in the "public" report, a single toxic substance was involved, and that substance was A234.
3. a statement from UK/Porton Down confirming that their tests had shown the presence of only a single toxic substance, and that substance was A234.
So far, I am unable to locate these, perhaps someone else has.
The complete text of Lavrov’s statement yesterday dealing with the Skripal case is now available on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry (in English). It is rather devastating, or at least it so appears to me, and it is really hard to believe that he is making this up:
1. The UK requests Porton Down to confirm the presence of A-234 (motivated no doubt by its "secret intelligence" that the Russians for 10 years had been building up a "small stockpile" for such purposes).
2. Porton Down confirms the presence of A-234. Whether or not it carried out additional tests to determine the presence of other possible toxic agents is uncertain.
3. The UK refuses to provide sample(s) to Russia, arguing that the "exchange of information and consultations" called for by Article IX of the Chemical Weapons Convention does not mean that they need to provide evidence to the "guilty party".
4. After much prodding by the Russians, the UK belatedly agrees to request "technical assistance" from the OPCW to confirm its findings. The precise form this request took is confidential, but one might surmise that it would have been: Please confirm the presence of the toxic substance A-234 which we have identified in the samples (with the understood message "no need to waste time and resources looking for other toxic substances").
5. As per its standard protocol, the OPCW sent out the samples to various "partner" laboratories, of which one was the Spiez laboratory in Switzerland, which is the government "ABC" lab (atomic, biological, chemical). They are asked to confirm (only) the presence of A-234.
6. For an unknown reason, the Spiez Laboratory exceeds its mandate and not conly confirms the presence of A-234 but also traces of 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, better known by its NATO code name BZ. The Spiez Laboratory sends its report to the OPCW.
7. The OPCW issues 2 reports (one private, the other confidential) on 12 April. In response to the specific request made by the UK, the OPCW truthfully confirms that the "toxic chemical identified by the United Kingdom" was indeed A-234. The formula for this "toxic chemical" was (apparently) provided in the confidential report.
8.The OPCW also provides the additional information that "this toxic chemical [i.e. A-234] was of high purity". And for those without the necessary scientific background to digest this statement, it helpfully adds that this technical conclusion was based on " the almost complete absence of impurities".
9. As the OPCW had not been asked to confirm the presence of any toxic chemical other than A-234, it naturally did not take into account the superfluous discovery by the Spiez Laboratory of traces of BZ.
10. The Russians obtain access to the Spiez Laboratory report -- from a "whistleblower" at the lab or the OPCW, or by "hacking".
Entirely implausible?
Plausible? Sure, it is.
But it must be pointed out that we have moved FAR beyond the alleged Skripal poisoning.
That whole episode was just to build the connection, rightly or not, in the gullible public’s mind, between the concepts “Russia” and “Chemical”.
Similar to Dubya’s speeches after 9/11, in which was invariably found the juxtaposition of “9/11″ and “Saddam Hussein”.
It got to be so bad that there was a sort of Pavlovian response in the public mind: mention 9/11, and the sheeple would subconsciously think “Saddam Hussein”. Basically bullshit MSM opinion manipulation.
Now we have “Russians” and “Chemical”. So when they say there was a “Chemical” attack and pin it on “Russian” ally Syria, the public switches off its collective mind and believes it. It’s conditioning, and it worked.
Now that the missiles have flown, the Skripal accusations have served their purpose.
But would not that draw to much attention (from paid and unpaid trolls) to much esteemed host, Anatolyi?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-14/warship-ruse-and-new-stealth-missiles-how-they-attacked-syria
“No Syrian weapon had any effect on anything we did,” McKenzie said. He described the joint U.S., French and U.K. strike as “precise, overwhelming and effective.”
It seems logical that once again the Russians oversold the effectiveness of their weaponry, and essentially encouraged the futile recklessness of their allies. As optical systems appear to your area of expertise, this suggests that as usual, their detection capabilities against even mild American effects to be weak. Shock and awe would seem to work on Russians as well as any other third world military.
May I ask you, on whose side is the owner of Bloomberg.com?
For example, Bloomberg.com calls the recent Russian elections a “fake.” — Do you agree?
Bloomberg.com religiously believes that Russians poisoned Skripals and thus “EU must vote unanimously on sanctions [against Russia].” — Do you also believe that Skripals were poisoned on orders from Russain government?
And here’s what Lavrov had to say yesterday about Douma, and by extension last year’s “chemical attack” in Khan Sheikhoun, equally devastating in my view:
Yes! Before WW3 starts, we must push this thread over 1000!
What you think about this map? After WW3, will Ukraine get back all land that is rightully hers?
(now I started another 1000-reply long thread, but someone have to do it)
The architects of this plan to do a regime change in Syria, Iran, and now Russia, have been working to weaken Russia through sanctions and isolation for an eventual U.S./NATO military action to neutralize Russia and destroy Russia and do a regime change. This has been been the plan ever since Russia stepped in and thwarted the regime change in Syria. It’s breathtaking how the puppet-masters were able to get everyone on the same script so easily. All politicians and all governments, the financial world, Western press/media (right and left), the majority of the population (Russia is the frenquent target of jokes, belittlement), et al. This plan to bring down Russia will continue to increase and increase and the decision made to conduct a death blow to Russia’s ability to strike back. I’m sure this is a huge part of the Pentagon planning for the next 5 years. 10 years from now either current Russia will be divided into a dozen smaller states and Russia will be the size of Poland or Russia will not wait for this inevitable rape and seek to end the West by unleashing the nuclear genie.
You omitted, though, that the regime in Kremlin helped there a lot.
First and foremost by not having a clear strategy (partners or opponents).
Then, not having the will, the drive.
When having at least some will going with half measures and on the cheap.
My estimate is that the "partition" option is more likely. Say, 70/30.
Try “Zio-troll”. Best fit.
This also explains the insane, foaming-at-the-month reaction to Trump’s election. All the powers of the FBI, intelligence, political establishment (GOP & Dem), Western governments, all media (right and left), arrayed against him. They believed Trump would delay or ruin their plan to achieve the destruction of Russia and their endgame for global control. “This pathetic white Christian country, Russia, must be subjugated! Now!” The plan is still going strong. The Apocalypse of St. John in real time.
And of course the valiant men and women (especially the women!) in uniform, including the transgendered and lesbian, gay and bisexual soldiers, as well as the genderqueer ones.
Russian funded domestic terrorism.
The political brilliance has blinded me.
My eyes! My eyes! (And they have weathered quite a bit here at Unz.)
“Russian funded domestic terrorism.”
–Iffen, why are you so keen on making people think about the major sponsors of terrorism — the US, the UK, the SA, and Israel. There are many available sources containing the factual information on the M16′ and the CIA’ active material and logistical support for the “moderate” terrorists in the Middle East. All such sources mention Israel as the main beneficiary of the civil strife in the Middle Eastern countries bordering with Israel.
Were not your Israeli generals proclaiming their preference for ISIS to a peaceful sovereign Syria?
Your ziocon ideologues of terrorism have left many influential manuals, beginning with the writings and recorded utterings of Ledeen (an expert in and practitioner of fascism) and up to Oded Yinon plan (a blueprint for the ongoing criminal enterprise in the ME), PNAC, Wolfowitz doctrine, and the multitude of the belligerent hate-filled opuses published and uttered on western MSM — from the old-flirt Judy Miller’s pressituting stuff (remember Iraq?) to the Kagans’ incitements against Russia (hey, Jewish banderites!)
There are some 4 million dead (a quarter of them children) in the Middle East since 1999, courtesy the above-mentioned manuals and presstituting opuses professing the manufactured civil strifes and mass slaughter.
At least Russian were fighting for their national geographic integrity. What is the US fighting for in the Middle East? – for Eretz Israel, to please the ziocons whose loyalty is to the foreign country of Israel.
And who is riding the Israeli foreign policy today? – a Moldovan thug and former bouncer in a nightclub. Your Israeli fame features the Menora Operation (several hundred murdered children) and the recent Passover Delight (17 dead, including two teenagers, and over a thousand wounded). Looks like a state-sponsored terrorism.
Certainly a record for Anatoly Karlin, and maybe even for this site.
Linked by Marginal Revolution--and perhaps elsewhere?
Congratulations!
And let's give a hand to AK's regulars such as German_Reader, reiner Tor, Beckow, iffen, Dmitri, Felix Keverich, Mikhail, Randal, Daniel Chieh, peterAUS, Polish Perspective, Singh, Duke of Qin, LondonBob, Greasy William, etc.
Lastly of course, thanks to our esteemed overlord Ron Unz.
Philip Giraldi’s excellent commentary on Israeli influence a few months back (the one Valerie Plame tweeted a link to on Unz and then had to disavow) had well over a thousand if I recall correctly.
As for that "Art Deco" fellow (discussed by various other people upthread), I never really paid any attention to him until recently, though the gigantic volume and extremely "mainstream" perspective of his comments always made me pretty suspicious.
But then a month or two ago, I happened to mention something about the totally absurd and obviously non-meritocratic over-representation of Jews at elite universities, a complex topic about which I probably have more detailed expertise than virtually anyone else around. And he suddenly popped up and began ranting and raving like a nut. After that, I began noticing how his persona totally changed on Jewish/Israel issues, or perhaps he realized that his cover had been blown, and stopped trying to fully maintain "crypsis"...
I guess that fanatic Jewish-activist-types aren't too difficult to "trigger." That "Lot" fellow is certainly another one, but not really any sort of disinfo agent, given that his views have always been explicit, and (obviously!) the same goes for "International Jew"...
Btw, Ron, the puppet-masters and intelligence agencies are appreciative of you not allowing anonymity for anonymous commenters and identifying them with specific numbers. This makes it easier for Big Brother to collect and cache the opinions on all commenters. I wonder if I’ll be assigned the number “196” and have if tattooed on my arm at the re-education camp?
Btw, I get suspicious about the implementation of the legalistic disclaimer you started putting for “anonymous’ commenters. Did the general counsel for the governmental agency you work for tell you to do this?
Personally, I find it extremely difficult to believe that any of the anonymous commenters here are so important that the Deep State will try to track down their identities by complex analysis of all their successive comments. Or at least that such risk is significantly greater than the NSA simply having some AI system analyze all Internet traffic to this website, and all others.
But if so, one would think that the individual in question would just use one of those IP-masking software packages, or even just periodically change his IP.
So the people complaining are absolutely terrified of being sent to the Gulag for their "wrong-thought" but also just too lazy to occasionally change their IP to prevent that...
What the owner of this site does or not has almost zero correlation to that.
Now, should you want to get into specifics of the game please brush your assembly skills first. Then we could get into frame analysis. That's just for the setup you are typing from.
When the packets hit the ISP router the game starts being interesting.
Etc.
"They' just do not care.
-NSA
In related news, US lawyer sets himself on fire in protest against global warming. Are the sixties back? Are mass shootings out and self-immolation is against trendy?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43773650
No idea how famous was this guy (with no Wikipedia page, probably not very much).
Regarding the success or otherwise of the missile attack yesterday, the Russians do seem to be quite confident. While evidently not possessing the expertise of many other commenters in this domain, I have to say that the US claim that the total not reaching the targets was zero has near-zero credibility.
Note also the rather clever explanation, quite plausible actually, for the Russian “failure” to respond as promised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx5ez_KuV5c
The "Barzeh complex" seems from the photographs in several stories to have been a small cluster of unhardened office-type buildings. A half dozen missiles would surely have been enough for effective destruction. If you expected to get some shot down and needed certainty of complete destruction, then it might make sense to send two or three times that number. But the Americans claimed, as reported in the BBC story I posted above, that they used "57 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 19 joint air-to-surface stand-off missiles". That seems ridiculous overkill. The Russians suggested that: "Thirty [missiles] targeted facilities related to Syria's alleged chemical weapons programme in Barzeh and Jaramana, a south-eastern district of Damascus. Seven missiles were shot down. The facilities were partially destroyed, but had not been used for a long time, according to Gen Rudskoi", which does seem a rather more reasonable number, though it does indicate expectations of losses by the Americans.
That's leaving aside the low credibility of the US claims that this was an active chemical weapons site anyway, particularly given the recent OPCW inspection.
Using $0.8m per jassm and $1.4m per Tomahawk for a ballpark figure, that's about $100m to stage a fireworks display and rubble-bouncing demo.
Note also the rather clever explanation, quite plausible actually, for the Russian "failure" to respond as promised.
The Russians made similar claims after last year’s attack, and those proved untrue, so I am doubtful about these. I’m sure we’ll have a good idea soon enough.
Are you sure of this? I saw unofficial claims of missiles being shot down last year, but did official Russian military sources claim this?
The Russians made similar claims after last year’s attack, and those proved untrue
Are you sure of this? I saw unofficial claims of missiles being shot down last year, but did official Russian military sources claim this?
We have the best trolls already. They will witness, submit and serve us.
I am irked by falsity. That's why Polish Perspective got my attention. Something slipped there.
I am irked by embellishments and pomposity of people like Thor. You forgot my ideation of him being euthanized by his father. What a loss. The future billionaire. But this was jus an ideation.
Dimitry obviously is hasbara. Very sly one because he seems to have a nice and mellow personality that for most people is achievable only with the help of lots of benzos. So I doubt he is Russian. They do not make Russians like that. Unless he would come from some Molokan sect or Skpotsy castrati or perhaps he is a scientologist who already achieved the state of clear ( yeah, they do it with benzos actually).
German_reader sometimes really gets on my nerves. He epitomizes German post WWII cuckhood to me. And the fact that he does not see it makes it much worse. He actually thinks that because he can come here and write the word "Jew" without his usual looking nervously around or express his dislike of Muslims without the usual fear and trembling on this obscure American blog he is at the forefront of radicalism that he actually broke the chains and liberated himself from the German cuckhood. He did not. He is a cuck through and through. But I should be easier on him. It is not his fault. They have been bombed and he is still shell shocked three generations later and in denial as the result.
And as far as Israel, whether the world would be better off if it was wiped out off the map? Tell me.
The line between critical thinking and paranoia is a fine one, and you crossed it here. There is nothing at all odd about Polish Perspective’s posts except his precocity and formidable command of written English. Similarly, you can easily tell that Dmitry is Russian from his views and how he writes (sometimes missing out the odd article, etc.).
I am irked by falsity. That's why Polish Perspective got my attention. Something slipped there.
I am irked by embellishments and pomposity of people like Thor. You forgot my ideation of him being euthanized by his father. What a loss. The future billionaire. But this was jus an ideation.
Dimitry obviously is hasbara. Very sly one because he seems to have a nice and mellow personality that for most people is achievable only with the help of lots of benzos. So I doubt he is Russian. They do not make Russians like that. Unless he would come from some Molokan sect or Skpotsy castrati or perhaps he is a scientologist who already achieved the state of clear ( yeah, they do it with benzos actually).
German_reader sometimes really gets on my nerves. He epitomizes German post WWII cuckhood to me. And the fact that he does not see it makes it much worse. He actually thinks that because he can come here and write the word "Jew" without his usual looking nervously around or express his dislike of Muslims without the usual fear and trembling on this obscure American blog he is at the forefront of radicalism that he actually broke the chains and liberated himself from the German cuckhood. He did not. He is a cuck through and through. But I should be easier on him. It is not his fault. They have been bombed and he is still shell shocked three generations later and in denial as the result.
And as far as Israel, whether the world would be better off if it was wiped out off the map? Tell me.
You assume a lot about other people. And even abuse them based on that. Based on your ‘assumptions’ of them. What does that make you?
Are you sure of this? I saw unofficial claims of missiles being shot down last year, but did official Russian military sources claim this?
I would have to look up the specifics, but from what I remember, they claimed that no, or very few, missiles hit the airstrip, while there were several videos showing a good number of black spots on the runway as well as destroyed hangars.
I spent about 10 minutes searching, and all of the references I could find were in "alternative" sources. Moreover, it was claimed that these missiles were diverted from their targets by "jamming", not that they were shot down. If there were official Russian claims last year, they are not easy to find (at least for one with my limited search techniques).
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43773650
No idea how famous was this guy (with no Wikipedia page, probably not very much).
American coverage of this emphasizes that he was a prominent LGBT lawyer. I’m guessing he was simply a head-case.
Let’s face it, he’s a troll.
I think that’s his genuine opinion though, so not exactly trollish (though obviously morally highly questionable, but so are many comments on Unz review).
His frequent ad hominems (he also called Thorfinnson a “real American kook”, which I had forgotten on my list, so he’s even worse just in this threads) are pretty annoying though imo.
I would have to look up the specifics, but from what I remember, they claimed that no, or very few, missiles hit the airstrip
I spent about 10 minutes searching, and all of the references I could find were in “alternative” sources. Moreover, it was claimed that these missiles were diverted from their targets by “jamming”, not that they were shot down. If there were official Russian claims last year, they are not easy to find (at least for one with my limited search techniques).
I spent about 10 minutes searching, and all of the references I could find were in "alternative" sources. Moreover, it was claimed that these missiles were diverted from their targets by "jamming", not that they were shot down. If there were official Russian claims last year, they are not easy to find (at least for one with my limited search techniques).
You may well be right. I think I heard those claims on Russian television, but it was a year ago, so I can’t swear to it. I’m sure other posters here can confirm or refute this. And yes, the claim was that the missiles were jammed and hit the grassfields beside their targets.
https://southfront.org/russian-defense-ministry-only-23-out-of-59-tomahawk-missiles-reached-their-target-in-syria/
But was it in fact ever conclusively shown that this was incorrect?
Interestingly the SOHR also says 65 plus were intercepted, so I don't think it is implausible. Since last year they would have put a lot more effort in to boosting defences. The Israeli attack was supposed to be 5 out of 8 destroyed. So far I am not seeing much damage from the tomahawks that hit their target so I am inclined to give more weight to Ru MoD figures this time.
Note also the rather clever explanation, quite plausible actually, for the Russian "failure" to respond as promised.
Certainly does not look like “all” missiles have reached their target:
-- How old are you? If you are a teen then you perhaps are not aware that the US army has not been having "an overwhelming US victory" in Afghanistan for 17 years. What do you know about the mighty Afghan army and its incomparable advanced weaponry?
-- If you are an old person, then ... well...cognitive problems can be cruel.
The Americans haven’t won in Afghanistan because it’s an asymmetrical conflict and modern Western powers can’t use the methods necessary for victory in such a conflict (e.g. collective punishment of whole villages, killing at least the men, letting the women and children starve or sending them to concentration camps) due to liberal sentiment. The Americans are violent enough in Afghanistan to antagonize the population, but not violent enough to be feared more than the Taliban and permanently break all opposition.
A great power conflict between the US and Russia would be something very different, there would be few constraints on the use of (conventional) force against Russian troops, so the massive military superiority of the US would probably have severe consequences for Russian forces (unless all those stories about hypersonic missiles and other Russian Wunderwaffen are true).
You clearly sound like typical empire troll. Fail.
1. The UK requests Porton Down to confirm the presence of A-234 (motivated no doubt by its "secret intelligence" that the Russians for 10 years had been building up a "small stockpile" for such purposes).
2. Porton Down confirms the presence of A-234. Whether or not it carried out additional tests to determine the presence of other possible toxic agents is uncertain.
3. The UK refuses to provide sample(s) to Russia, arguing that the "exchange of information and consultations" called for by Article IX of the Chemical Weapons Convention does not mean that they need to provide evidence to the "guilty party".
4. After much prodding by the Russians, the UK belatedly agrees to request "technical assistance" from the OPCW to confirm its findings. The precise form this request took is confidential, but one might surmise that it would have been: Please confirm the presence of the toxic substance A-234 which we have identified in the samples (with the understood message "no need to waste time and resources looking for other toxic substances").
5. As per its standard protocol, the OPCW sent out the samples to various "partner" laboratories, of which one was the Spiez laboratory in Switzerland, which is the government "ABC" lab (atomic, biological, chemical). They are asked to confirm (only) the presence of A-234.
6. For an unknown reason, the Spiez Laboratory exceeds its mandate and not conly confirms the presence of A-234 but also traces of 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, better known by its NATO code name BZ. The Spiez Laboratory sends its report to the OPCW.
7. The OPCW issues 2 reports (one private, the other confidential) on 12 April. In response to the specific request made by the UK, the OPCW truthfully confirms that the "toxic chemical identified by the United Kingdom" was indeed A-234. The formula for this "toxic chemical" was (apparently) provided in the confidential report.
8.The OPCW also provides the additional information that "this toxic chemical [i.e. A-234] was of high purity". And for those without the necessary scientific background to digest this statement, it helpfully adds that this technical conclusion was based on " the almost complete absence of impurities".
9. As the OPCW had not been asked to confirm the presence of any toxic chemical other than A-234, it naturally did not take into account the superfluous discovery by the Spiez Laboratory of traces of BZ.
10. The Russians obtain access to the Spiez Laboratory report -- from a "whistleblower" at the lab or the OPCW, or by "hacking".
Entirely implausible?
The #8 about “high purity” does not sound right. When you are looking for traces of some chemical its purity usually can’t be determined or even defined. There are traces of water on Moon. What is purity of this water? It does not make even sense.
But if the chemical production if shoddy can produce other known distinct chemical and you search for the presence of the other chemical then yes you can talk about purity level.
You seem to be right after all: according to this article by the Saker, the Russian Defense Ministry did indeed claim that only 23 of the 59 missiles arrived to their target.
https://southfront.org/russian-defense-ministry-only-23-out-of-59-tomahawk-missiles-reached-their-target-in-syria/
But was it in fact ever conclusively shown that this was incorrect?
In general I think it’s idiotic to lie about easily falsifiable things in the age of the internet. The Russian propaganda is not the most competent.
the sooner you get ushered into some kind of camp the better…moron 196…
‘Swedish Manson Family’ open his parakeet beak and squawks…
The sat imagery showed a maximum of a couple dozen hits max on Shayrat and the runways were undamaged…
All the technical aspects of the Shayrat failure were thoroughly dissected by myself on the 800 pound gorilla thread…
…where I also provided a lot of technical insight on the limitations of the T-hawk cruise missile…which only have a historical record of 50 percent success…
Also dissected the lie that the runways were not targeted…by citing a US naval paper previous to the attack that the runways were the number one priority…[no surprise for any thinking human...since the point of an airfield is so airplanes can take off and land...]
https://southfront.org/russian-defense-ministry-only-23-out-of-59-tomahawk-missiles-reached-their-target-in-syria/
But was it in fact ever conclusively shown that this was incorrect?
I think there were claims by websites and blogs that they could count the number of hits on the open source satellite pictures, and that the number of craters etc. exactly matched the number of the missiles launched minus one. (I think 58.) One missile did indeed malfunction and hit an open field without exploding.
In general I think it’s idiotic to lie about easily falsifiable things in the age of the internet. The Russian propaganda is not the most competent.
In general I think it’s idiotic to lie about easily falsifiable things in the age of the internet. The Russian propaganda is not the most competent.
There is a reason why normies tend to believe Western governments more than the Russians, be it the Skripals or anything else.
Clearly there is a strong case to be made for this, no one in his right mind would trust Sergei Lavrov more than Boris Johnson (or Vladimir Putin more than Theresa May).
Another cup of koolaid to go with that crack pipe 'Normie'...?
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a3/46/14/a346147eb559a5ada23ae25da8e7b3ef.jpg
Note also the rather clever explanation, quite plausible actually, for the Russian "failure" to respond as promised.
Moon of Alabama this morning raises the legitimate query about the sheer numbers the Yanks claimed to have aimed at each target – is it inherently incredible?
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/the-moa-week-in-review-and-open-thread-2018-17.html
The “Barzeh complex” seems from the photographs in several stories to have been a small cluster of unhardened office-type buildings. A half dozen missiles would surely have been enough for effective destruction. If you expected to get some shot down and needed certainty of complete destruction, then it might make sense to send two or three times that number. But the Americans claimed, as reported in the BBC story I posted above, that they used “57 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 19 joint air-to-surface stand-off missiles”. That seems ridiculous overkill. The Russians suggested that: “Thirty [missiles] targeted facilities related to Syria’s alleged chemical weapons programme in Barzeh and Jaramana, a south-eastern district of Damascus. Seven missiles were shot down. The facilities were partially destroyed, but had not been used for a long time, according to Gen Rudskoi“, which does seem a rather more reasonable number, though it does indicate expectations of losses by the Americans.
That’s leaving aside the low credibility of the US claims that this was an active chemical weapons site anyway, particularly given the recent OPCW inspection.
Using $0.8m per jassm and $1.4m per Tomahawk for a ballpark figure, that’s about $100m to stage a fireworks display and rubble-bouncing demo.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/14/world/middleeast/syria-airstrikes-chemical-weapons-sites.html
The number of missiles that were supposed to hit the targets shown in the link are:
- Third Picture. McKenzie: "77 missiles destroyed the Barzah Research and Development Center. It does not exist anymore. This will set the Syrian CW program by years."
- First Picture. McKenzie: "22 missiles hit the Him Shinshar Chemical Weapons Storage Site. All coalition forces were involved in kinetic strikes"
- Second Picture. McKenzie: "7 missiles were employed against a third target"
I am not sure whether this squares with the numbers, esp. the second picture. Something has been hit alright, but dont know whether this is consistent with 7 missiles.
Have tried search for some videos of tomahawks impacts on buildings. Found only this from Gaza (type of missile uknown). Apparently 1 or 2 missiles (of some unknow type) are enough to bring down a multi story building:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZo-1KVWEl8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox5BzyjpGKM
Here is also an old demonstration video with tomahawks on various targets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sa7ZX58Kk4
The existing China leaders aren’t responsible for the red guards cultural revolution. Prez Xi himself is the victim, so are many of his existing comrades, even Deng, Zhu RJ, etc.
Why would current Chinese like Joe Wong be held responsible for that history to deem Chinese is never a peaceful lot just because Mao had killed you family?
KMT killed many Taiwan natives in White Terror, do we also conclude Taiwanese can never be peaceful people?
And the same logic should apply to much worst history, no one should ever forgive Americans for Vietnam & Korea wars(too many to list), Germans for Hitler WWII, and Russians for Stalin’s Soviet Union deeds, Japanese for their WWII atrocity to Asians including your family & kins? And their nation can never be more peaceful than the Chinese who didn’t even invade others but a victim in past many decades.
You have make a unjust statement to smear China peaceful rise intention in one broad stroke. I see much hope in Prez Xi & team, more than any other nations leaders. And my direct experience with mainland Chinese & Taiwanese too, they never has desire to invade others or aspire to be a violent hedgmon like most West countries historical did, some still much dreaming of that like UK PM May.
The only exception I would make is Israel, born out of terror and lies, maintained by deception and blackmail. The sooner this rogue is dissolved, the better. 2021.
I do not mean to smear anyone(beyond Joe Wong, for being annoying). I do also believe that President Xi is accomplishing something historic.
For Shayrat the Ru MoD claimed 23 hit their target out of 59, the US 58 out of 59. They hit a fair amount there, more than 23 hits, but Shayrat was operational the next day.
Interestingly the SOHR also says 65 plus were intercepted, so I don’t think it is implausible. Since last year they would have put a lot more effort in to boosting defences. The Israeli attack was supposed to be 5 out of 8 destroyed. So far I am not seeing much damage from the tomahawks that hit their target so I am inclined to give more weight to Ru MoD figures this time.
I think your posts are very informative, putting them in a blog would be very helpful.
I must say that some of the commenters on my website seem both totally paranoid AND totally lazy…
Personally, I find it extremely difficult to believe that any of the anonymous commenters here are so important that the Deep State will try to track down their identities by complex analysis of all their successive comments. Or at least that such risk is significantly greater than the NSA simply having some AI system analyze all Internet traffic to this website, and all others.
But if so, one would think that the individual in question would just use one of those IP-masking software packages, or even just periodically change his IP.
So the people complaining are absolutely terrified of being sent to the Gulag for their “wrong-thought” but also just too lazy to occasionally change their IP to prevent that…
Handle "Eagle Eye" put some good effort there, if I remember correctly.
My take, just two points:
- There is no privacy on the Internet if "they" really want to get you.
-The effort to maximize privacy (just to make it harder, not impossible, for "them") is solely on the poster. Nothing to do with the owner of any Internet presence (as you, for example).
Analogy re "self-defense" is fitting, IMHO.
If one puts a lot of effort and resources he/she could defend against an armed gang.
The same person can not defend against a dedicated effort by the state level player.
oocities.org/somasushma/tarim.html
http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2016/08/history-of-indian-ocean-shows-how-old.html?m=1
What have China recently done to make XJ & Malaysia Muslims spite India?
Also the Indiandefensenews got nothing but some history of Chinese Zheng He voyage. It certainly appear much more peaceful than any Western viking forces, and the British colonial master of India.
If compare to Chinese, Indian Sepoy is so much worst & violent in helping British master to commit mass atrocities in Asia, including 8 Alliance opium war and attacking Myanmar.
Since India independent, it has gone on endless spree of invasion and massacre till today.
Many princely states, China South Tibet, Sikkim, Naga lands were invaded and swallowed up. Mass raping & atrocity are still been done in Nagaland. Bhutan was been taken over forcefully in total subversion. Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, China Dolang are constantly under subversion & harassment, with Indian sponsored terrorism like LTTE Tamil Tiger. Part of Kashmir is still under Indian violent dispute with Pak.
China has settled all its borders, except two who refused to sign, India & its controlled Bhutan that India won’t permit it to settle border.
And India was such incredible shameless liars in its Indo-Sino border war, unprecedented in history, an aggressor that attack China but shamelessly lied to accuse China falsely untill now.
Let some rare good honest Australian whites speak out the Truth of India attacked China in 1962 with facts.
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/It-wasnt-China-but-Nehru-who-declared-1962-war-Australian-journalist-Neville-Maxwell/amp_articleshow/33094229.cms
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/08/02/china-s-india-war-how-the-chinese-saw-the-1962-conflict/
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/maos-return-to-power-passed-through-india/
And now read all the long history of lies written by shameless Indians & West liars till today. Juz google, its voluminous.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War
https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/india-china-war-of-1962-839077-2016-11-21
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1984/CJB.htm
India is a secular, anti Hindu state you're free to send cruise missiles through the capital. Just make sure to bomb all of South Delhi so the Secular journalists, think tanks & army officers go too।।
You want coordinates?
So Israel won’t mind at all. Oh well.
Wel, well, it does seem that Israel is taking the news (or threat) with somewhat less equanimity than Greasy:
I'm no strategic wiz, but the surface analysis suggests the following:
(I'm sure there's more to it, but even on the surface, Russian actions are consistent with its words.)
If the West is making life hard for Russia's client Syria, then Russia will make life hard for the West's client - Israel.
And if Israel suffers, as Syria does - well, that's the message Russia is sending back to the West.
There is a reason why normies tend to believe Western governments more than the Russians, be it the Skripals or anything else.
Clearly there is a strong case to be made for this, no one in his right mind would trust Sergei Lavrov more than Boris Johnson (or Vladimir Putin more than Theresa May).
Or the Douma incident altogether. Or heck, the whole moderate rebels crock of shit. Normies follow the western narratives because of superior accuracy and subtlety? More like, cargo cultism, or a kind of classism, it seems.
The day when the list of Chinese millionaires in dollars surpasses that of Americans, you may start to see normies imitating their tastes, the high end brands they consume, the art they crave, probably too, the narratives they spin.
https://twitter.com/vpkivimaki/status/985593196376977409
Nor would anyone in his right mind trust a western quote leader more than they trust Putin.
Boy, that accomplished a lot!
Thanks FB, you’ll make a lovely kapo.
1. a denial from the Swiss Lab (Spiez) involved, rather than a "no comment" and referral to the OPCW.
2. a declaration from the OPCW reaffirming that, as clearly indicated in the "public" report, a single toxic substance was involved, and that substance was A234.
3. a statement from UK/Porton Down confirming that their tests had shown the presence of only a single toxic substance, and that substance was A234.
So far, I am unable to locate these, perhaps someone else has.
Next question, what kind of OPCW report can we expect from Syria? As well as alleged gas attack at Duma, will we get alleged chemical analysis from OPCW?
It also has something to do with China's internal political dynamics--namely making sure the party stays on top. This is no doubt one of the motivations behind the SOE privatization process ending in the naughties as well.
Beyond that, I would not be surprised if someone in the CCP was influenced by Seymour Melman. Melman was an industrial engineer and operations researcher who argued that America's vast military-industrial complex was the reason it fell behind some other advanced industrial countries in advanced manufacturing.
Like everyone else obsessed with a single theory, he definitely oversold it. During the 1970s he blamed inflation on the Pentagon, for instance.
A (well run) military-industrial complex can develop emergent technology and increase the demand for engineers (and thus not constrict supply to civilian manufacturing), but at some point in time the diversion of resources from the civilian sector must be harmful (as seen in the USSR?).
That said with its large current account surpluses, China could've simply increased its arms imports from Russia. Convenient way to get rid of excess foreign exchange reserves.The peaceful rise was working about as well as could be expected under Hu Jintao, but China's actions in the South China Sea under Xi have dashed that. Seems like they should've increased spending prior to starting this.They did get spooked by that, as well as the Gulf War.
China's A2/AD efforts as well as its program to acquire and master advanced Russian defense technology started in 1993, when Jiang Zemin ordered the armed forces to prepare for “local wars under high technology conditions.”
Around the same time the Chinese also incorporated "Revolution in Military Affairs" into its strategic doctrine and translated more or less everything ever put out by the Office of Net Assessment.
SCS is Obama AP rebalancing shameless lies. Most leaders know, but some just go with it with intention to steal China islands with US help. We have been brainwashed by msm propaganda.
I have tried debunk the SCS myth here with evidences & international marine laws:
http://www.unz.com/ldinh/the-chinese-in-southern-vietnam/#comment-2197730
There are some Western scholars and academics also pointed out these, esp all maps showing China owned the international recognized 9 dotted lines & its islands since 1800 or earlier up to 1950′s Canada still printing such maps. So are Japan ancient maps. The world leaders know well, very few support the fake Hague ruling but some are toeing US war against China.
Singapore KT Tan(i think she possibly a Singapore professor in marine laws) done an excellent indisputable job to expose US Obama & Princeton Professors shameless lies about SCS kangaroo Hague court judgements & US Jp, Phip conspiracy.
http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/did-the-ruling-sink-the-rule-of-law
Vietnam is the biggest illegal spratly island [email protected], first and most aggressive in building structures(incapable is another issue). China is late comer @7 islands. This article has detailed SCS historical facts.
http://chasfreeman.net/diplomacy-on-the-rocks-china-and-other-claimants-in-the-south-china-sea/
Next question, what kind of OPCW report can we expect from Syria?
There was a report a few days ago as follows: the OPCW team is divided in 2 groups, the names and details of the 1st group were supplied beforehand to Syria so they could get entry visas in advance, the names of the others were withheld and they were to be given visas at the border. Only a conspiracy-minded loony (!) would wonder why this was, and what nationalities will be represented in the second team.
The Zio-troll thing is the funniest. As if that my rosy views on Israel are a secret.
I stated about twenty times, that I spent several months of my life in Israel (almost enough to the get the passport), am studying (taking professional classes with a woman who taught Hebrew in the Israeli army) for Hebrew for two years, have several friends who work/live all time in Israel, and am often there for holidays.
Israel is not my favorite hobby, but it’s one of my favorite hobbies. So my view on Israel is rosy tinted.
All that has nothing to do with posting on Karlin blog, where our best information I found is on stuff like Hungarian politics. When I want to read about Israeli topics, I go to the specialist Israeli forums like besedka and read the local people on there. And I write my own opinions on tripadvisor website.
Karlin forum is not informative for Israel discussion, but on some other topics it is my favourite.
Asia and whole world owed China much for using their blood to quell Vietcon & Soviet expansionary war after US allied flee. Otherwise, whole world incl India are part of SU now. Communism may be good for mankind, but disasterous under imperfect leaders.
Why China gave Viet punitive attack:
http://www.unz.com/ldinh/practical-vietnam-imploding-america-and-china-as-beacon/#comment-2138055
I can write very good English and correct all the mistakes. But it requires re-reading and editing comments, which sends them sometimes to moderation. I have tried writing the comments on Microsoft Word first.
There is also a 5 minute limit. I would suggest to site owner (Ron Unz) to add an edit function where we can edit comments without the 5 minutes limitation (or at least change this to 10 minutes?).
Pretty much.
You omitted, though, that the regime in Kremlin helped there a lot.
First and foremost by not having a clear strategy (partners or opponents).
Then, not having the will, the drive.
When having at least some will going with half measures and on the cheap.
My estimate is that the “partition” option is more likely. Say, 70/30.
As long as you, or anyone, understand that there is no privacy on the Internet, if “they” really want to get you, you’ll be fine.
What the owner of this site does or not has almost zero correlation to that.
Now, should you want to get into specifics of the game please brush your assembly skills first. Then we could get into frame analysis. That’s just for the setup you are typing from.
When the packets hit the ISP router the game starts being interesting.
Etc.
“They’ just do not care.
1) Turkey wants to annex northern Syria and Kurds cleansed.
2) Israel wants to annex the Golan heights and the population that supports Hezbollah cleansed.
3) The Israel-First part of the neocons wants what Israel wants.
4) The Imperial part of the neocons seem to want eastern Syria - I assume cos they want the oil in northern Iraq to go via eastern Syria to Turkey instead of via southern Iraq (which benefits Iran)
5) The banking mafia want a) those few countries not yet ruled by the banking mafia to be destroyed and b) to bring down Putin to stop him creating alternative financial systems outside their control.
6) The entire western media and most of the political class in US, France and UK are controlled by either the banking mafia or neocons.
7) Saudi Arabia is in a proxy war with Iran.
8) There is also imo a non-zero chance that the banking mafia already desire or will eventually come to desire taking out both US and Russia as global powers leaving China as their new sole superpower pet.
9) The various coastal ethno-sectarian groups don't want to be massacred by jihadists.
10) The Russians want a naval base in the east med in a stable friendly country.
So the problem is not going to go away and unless the plug is pulled it might eventually lead to ww3 as Syria/Russia finish off the jihadists and face off with US supported proxies in eastern Syria.
How to get out of it?
1) If forced to choose the US will always betray the Kurds in favor of the Turkish alliance and the Kurds are the US proxies in eastern Syria so the Russians could try and split them from the US by openly supporting Kurdistan - effectively aiming for a partition of Turkey long term but in the short term it takes the US' proxy army away - which dramatically raises the cost of fighting for the US.
2) The most critical driver of all of this are the banking mafia through their control of the western political and media class which they are lending to the neocon narrative for their own reasons (imo). The banking mafia are concentrated in a few square miles around the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England - alternatively taking down the banks in some other way.
3) Longer term the problem in the middle east is diversity - lots of different ethno-sectarian groups forced into the same state only controllable by dictators who try and displace internal conflict by focusing on an external enemy e.g. Israel.
Since 9/11 the planned solution to this has been to destroy those states creating perma-chaos and civil war so they ignore Israel - which has led to the refugee crisis in Europe and mass child rape.
As a result I now personally would prefer a final crusade and the restoration of Christendom by any means necessary as the solution however the most civilized solution would probably be the Swiss one - states made up of self-governing cantons where each ethno-sectarian group has their own canton. If that replaced deliberate perma civil war as the agenda there could possibly be US-Russia co-operation on that basis.
3) Longer term the problem in the middle east is diversity – lots of different ethno-sectarian groups forced into the same state only controllable by dictators who try and displace internal conflict by focusing on an external enemy e.g. Israel.
No. This is gross mischaracterization. And you can take your +crusade and shove it.
Yup…
Another cup of koolaid to go with that crack pipe ‘Normie’…?
Personally, I find it extremely difficult to believe that any of the anonymous commenters here are so important that the Deep State will try to track down their identities by complex analysis of all their successive comments. Or at least that such risk is significantly greater than the NSA simply having some AI system analyze all Internet traffic to this website, and all others.
But if so, one would think that the individual in question would just use one of those IP-masking software packages, or even just periodically change his IP.
So the people complaining are absolutely terrified of being sent to the Gulag for their "wrong-thought" but also just too lazy to occasionally change their IP to prevent that...
There was an extensive discussion about the topic some time ago here.
Handle “Eagle Eye” put some good effort there, if I remember correctly.
My take, just two points:
- There is no privacy on the Internet if “they” really want to get you.
-The effort to maximize privacy (just to make it harder, not impossible, for “them”) is solely on the poster. Nothing to do with the owner of any Internet presence (as you, for example).
Analogy re “self-defense” is fitting, IMHO.
If one puts a lot of effort and resources he/she could defend against an armed gang.
The same person can not defend against a dedicated effort by the state level player.
The "Barzeh complex" seems from the photographs in several stories to have been a small cluster of unhardened office-type buildings. A half dozen missiles would surely have been enough for effective destruction. If you expected to get some shot down and needed certainty of complete destruction, then it might make sense to send two or three times that number. But the Americans claimed, as reported in the BBC story I posted above, that they used "57 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 19 joint air-to-surface stand-off missiles". That seems ridiculous overkill. The Russians suggested that: "Thirty [missiles] targeted facilities related to Syria's alleged chemical weapons programme in Barzeh and Jaramana, a south-eastern district of Damascus. Seven missiles were shot down. The facilities were partially destroyed, but had not been used for a long time, according to Gen Rudskoi", which does seem a rather more reasonable number, though it does indicate expectations of losses by the Americans.
That's leaving aside the low credibility of the US claims that this was an active chemical weapons site anyway, particularly given the recent OPCW inspection.
Using $0.8m per jassm and $1.4m per Tomahawk for a ballpark figure, that's about $100m to stage a fireworks display and rubble-bouncing demo.
Here are some before and after images of the three sites:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/14/world/middleeast/syria-airstrikes-chemical-weapons-sites.html
The number of missiles that were supposed to hit the targets shown in the link are:
- Third Picture. McKenzie: “77 missiles destroyed the Barzah Research and Development Center. It does not exist anymore. This will set the Syrian CW program by years.”
- First Picture. McKenzie: “22 missiles hit the Him Shinshar Chemical Weapons Storage Site. All coalition forces were involved in kinetic strikes”
- Second Picture. McKenzie: “7 missiles were employed against a third target”
I am not sure whether this squares with the numbers, esp. the second picture. Something has been hit alright, but dont know whether this is consistent with 7 missiles.
Have tried search for some videos of tomahawks impacts on buildings. Found only this from Gaza (type of missile uknown). Apparently 1 or 2 missiles (of some unknow type) are enough to bring down a multi story building:
Here is also an old demonstration video with tomahawks on various targets:
I have finally gotten so disgusted with the globalists, that I am tempted to vote for an all out preemptive nuclear strike of all the western nations by Russia and China. The west believes Putin and the Chinese leader are pussies, so maybe it is time to prove them wrong and let them see “incoming” and complete annihilation.Then is there are any globalists left alive, show them they have no place to run and no place to hide.
Yes, the bit about the A234 was absent from the initial RT report, though Lavrov was very clear about it in his press conference (which I only saw on Euronews after the RT report).
1. The OPCW (public) report makes repeated (7) references to the "toxic chemical" (singular). It very coyly says that "The results of analysis . . . demonstrate the presence of this toxic chemical in the samples", which is presumably true. What they apparently forgot [sic] to add is that there was also a 2nd toxic chemical present.
2. As you noted, in his press conference Lavrov made the point that, given the high volatility of A234, it was truly remarkable that traces were found after more than 2 weeks.
3. Why would anyone make a "cocktail" of A234 and BZ? The likely conclusion, which you hint at, is that the (generally non-lethal) BZ was used on the Skripals, and the A234 appeared mysteriously at a later stage (in test tubes and on door knob). If this scenario is correct, one can no longer exclude the possibility, however remote, that at least one of the Skripals was a willing participant.
4. If you want to obtain 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) please feel free to contact one of the 14 vendors listed on the site below:
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/3-Quinuclidinyl_benzilate#section=Chemical-Vendors
5. Would be interesting to know how the Russians got hold of the Spiez lab results, Spiez says it wasn't from them, so either it was from a good Samaritan or by covert means (shades of the Nuland-Pyatt "fuck the EU" call in 2014).
6. Will also be interesting to see what Boris has to say now . . .
A-234, or Novichok, is a acetylcholine esterase inhibitor, causing uncontrolled muscle contraction, hence convulsions and vomiting. BZ is a paralytic agent that binds to acetylcholine receptors without activating them. Thus BZ is an antidote to A-234 poisoning. It is to be expected, therefore, that someone exposed to A-234 would have been treated with an agent such as BZ. Alternatively, as I have discussed here, if the Skripals were poisoned with BZ, they might have been treated with A-234, courtesy of Britain’s nearby Chemical and Biological Warfare Lab, at Porton down.
Assuming that the blood samples supplied by the UK to the OPCWwere not spiked (the Russians offer reasons to believe that they were), the question that remains, which was the poison and which the medically prescribed antidote.
There is unlimited editing function. Just use your Preview Comment button.
Of course it is the jews driving this clash of civilizations or could we say it is the zionists. i say if you want peace, you must decapitate israel and jewish power in the west. only then will we have peace. all trumps advisors are jewish, got to his station with jewish loans, all the think tanks are israeli or jewish funded. jinsa, pnac, aipac, cfr, american enterprise, cato, css, etc. all either jewish staffed and or jewish isreali funded. and it is their material that generals and congres critters read. all jewish. you must decapitate this 5th column or the entire world will pay.
Meanwhile in the Quuendome: http://theduran.com/lavrov-bombshell/
"A Swiss lab says that ‘BZ toxin’ was used in Salisbury. The toxin was not produced in Russia but was in service in the US and UK, as well as other NATO member states. ...
Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with an incapacitating toxin known as 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ" according to the "examination conducted by a Swiss chemical lab that worked with the samples that London handed over to the Organisation for the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons (OPCW)."
-- Perhaps it was this inconvenient result that had pushed the ziocons towards the illegal attack against the sovereign state of Syria
The Russians have acknowledged that the blood samples from the Skripals that were supplied to the OPCW contained both BZ and A-234 (Novichok). Since these agents have antagonistic effects, the question is, which was the poison and which the medically prescribed antidote.
https://www.rt.com/news/424149-skripal-poisoning-bz-lavrov/
No, that’s not what that imagery shows, nor is it what ImageSat Iinternational (ISI) said.
That Israeli company operates both EROS A and EROS B high-resolution imaging satellites. Their website claims proprietary rights over all the information there, so I will paraphrase what they said about the attack on Shayrat airbase in 2017, rather than cut & paste:
• The ISI experts said 44 targets were hit; some targets possibly were hit twice.
• 13 aircraft shelters got 23 hits [proving multiple hits]; 5 workshops were hit.
• 10 ammo dumps got hit. 7 fuel dumps got 8 hits. 5 SA6 batteries hit, one totally destroyed.
• 58 missiles hit the base.
https://www.imagesatintl.com/us-strike-syria/
In the aftermath of the attack, a few sources said up to 20 aircraft were destroyed. In his speech announcing the attack on Fri. 13th, Pres. Trump said that last year’s attack on Shayrat had “destroyed 20 percent of the Syrian air force.”
All of this is in line with my gloomy view that the United States has never wavered in its loudly professed goal of deposing Assad, and is now carrying on with that objective while managing to keep the Russians at arm’s length in tight quarters.
So far, at least.
Sane people are relieved that WWIII has not yet broken out. Fortunately, Putin and sane Russians do not take their cues from crazies and braggarts on the Internet, even though they may have to deal with them in Washington DC.
Why would current Chinese like Joe Wong be held responsible for that history to deem Chinese is never a peaceful lot just because Mao had killed you family?
KMT killed many Taiwan natives in White Terror, do we also conclude Taiwanese can never be peaceful people?
And the same logic should apply to much worst history, no one should ever forgive Americans for Vietnam & Korea wars(too many to list), Germans for Hitler WWII, and Russians for Stalin's Soviet Union deeds, Japanese for their WWII atrocity to Asians including your family & kins? And their nation can never be more peaceful than the Chinese who didn't even invade others but a victim in past many decades.
You have make a unjust statement to smear China peaceful rise intention in one broad stroke. I see much hope in Prez Xi & team, more than any other nations leaders. And my direct experience with mainland Chinese & Taiwanese too, they never has desire to invade others or aspire to be a violent hedgmon like most West countries historical did, some still much dreaming of that like UK PM May.
Excellent comment, thank you.
The only exception I would make is Israel, born out of terror and lies, maintained by deception and blackmail. The sooner this rogue is dissolved, the better. 2021.
Clearly there is a strong case to be made for this, no one in his right mind would trust Sergei Lavrov more than Boris Johnson (or Vladimir Putin more than Theresa May).
let Reiner judge by himself, about US claims of 0 intercepts and 76 cruise missiles on this facility.
Or the Douma incident altogether. Or heck, the whole moderate rebels crock of shit. Normies follow the western narratives because of superior accuracy and subtlety? More like, cargo cultism, or a kind of classism, it seems.
The day when the list of Chinese millionaires in dollars surpasses that of Americans, you may start to see normies imitating their tastes, the high end brands they consume, the art they crave, probably too, the narratives they spin.
Hehe, OK, moving on …
Thanks for the elucidating discussion in that other thread. I hadn’t seen that when I commented, so I merely related what I remembered as the consensus around here back in April 2017.
You can indeed. Your English is excellent. But our native tongues tend to come through no matter how well we speak a foreign language. Nearly all Swedes, for instance, are easily recognized by their preference for definite articles where native speakers would use indefinite articles or leave them out. So also with Slavonic speakers, who have a strong tendency either to pick the wrong article or to put in an article where there shouldn’t be one.
When I want to write a 'masterpiece comment', I can write it in Microsoft Word and re-read and improve it a few times.
At least one other issue as well:
https://www.rt.com/news/424149-skripal-poisoning-bz-lavrov/
Ok I guess you're the most important guy here - along with Captain Martyanov and the somewhat semi-famous journalist Israel Shamir.
LOL!
Ok…so we now have a good aerial photo of the Barzeh research center in Damascus area that was targeted by 76 Tomahawks…
This is very helpful…
Now the layman may look at this picture and think…well how many missiles actually hit here…?
A physicist or competent engineer would look at that picture and mathematically analyze the damage seen here based on sound physical principles and the mathematics that go with that and actually arrive at some quantitative answers…
Let’s first understand how much explosive power is contained in 76 T-hawks…each one carries 450 kg [1,000 lb] of ‘high explosive’ charge…typically military grade HE is anywhere from 5 to 15 percent more powerful than TNT…
So that is 76,000 lb of high explosives…or 34,200 kg…
Now let’s try to get a sense of the size of the target…we do this by noticing surrounding objects such as cars, buildings etc…
We see a couple of cars there just beyond the impact site that are probably about 4 meters long…using that as a scaling factor…we approximate that this triangular shaped target area is maybe 100 meters on each side…that would be 25 car lengths on each side of that near-equilateral triangle…
Before we get into the math and the physical principles used to measure explosive force and its effects on surrounding objects…let us quickly take note of some of the adjacent objects…I have highlighted some of these adjacent objects here…
For instance we see buildings only a few meters from the blast site highlighted in red…we see stands of pine trees on either side of the complex highlighted in yellow…
We also notice that the telephone poles around the entire perimeter of the complex are still standing…
We see that none of the adjacent buildings have suffered damage…or even blown out windows…
None of the trees have been blown over…
This is important because we are now going to get into the actual physics…namely we are going to calculate the kinds of force that those adjacent objects have been subjected to…
Let’s first review the basics…
What happens after the explosion is that the pressure released in the blast travels through the air as a shockwave moving faster than the speed of sound…
The air particles are also caught up and there is an actual wind blast created that is not as fast as the shockwave…
Both of these quantities can be accurately calculated using established physical methods…such as the Kingery-Bulmash equations…
…which are used by the UN as well as the US Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board [DDESD]…as well as analogous agencies in other countries…
Both the shockwave and the wind blast cause damage to structures and people…depending on their location from the blast epicenter…
The UN website has a handy calculator based on the Kingery Bulmash equations… that we can use to quickly calculate these excessive pressures…the speed of the shockwave…and the speed of the wind blast…
For instance…if we enter TNT as the explosive type [to be conservative]…the charge weight of 450 kg of a T-hawk warhead…and a distance of 20 meters…we get the following results…
Incident Pressure: 156 kPa…[22.6 psi]…[1 psi = 6.9 kiloPascals or kPa...]
Reflected Pressure: 484 kPa…[70 psi]
Shock Front Velocity: 518 meters per second…[1,700 ft/s...1,160 mph]
We note from the above explanation of incident pressure that this is the pressure that propagates with the shock front…the reflected pressure is that which strikes a solid object…
So we see here that the reflected pressure is the one that counts when it comes to damage to adjacent physical objects…
So we have established that a T-hawk blast will cause an overpressure of 70 psi on an object 20 meters away [66 ft]…
What does that tell us in terms of the damage this will cause…?
Well…the layman may think this doesn’t sound like a big deal…after all we pump 30 psi into our tires right…?
Well…the reality of this is far different…here is a chart showing overpressure in psi and the damage that causes to various objects…
We note here that ‘just’ 10 psi causes…
…Reinforced concrete buildings severely damaged
…Severe heart and lung damage
…Limbs can be blown off
Even at a measly sounding 2 psi ‘fatalities may occur…’and residential structures collapse…
How does this work…what are the mechanics behind this…?
This is very simple to illustrate…
Consider the wall in the room you are sitting in right now…let’s imagine you go berserk on koolaid and decide to take a power saw and cut out a chunk of that wall measuring 8 ft x 8 ft…
Now…after taking a big ‘normie’ puff on your crack pipe…you decide to do an experiment…
You lug that chunk of wall to the garage and lay it horizontally on some saw horses…
You now decide to see how many sand bags you can put on it before it collapses…
The piece of wall is 64 square feet [ 8 x 8 = 64]…one square foot = 144 square inches [12 in x 12 in = 144 in^2]…so the total area of you chunk of wall is 9,216 square inches…[64 x 144 = 9,216]…
Now you want to simulate the load created by 2 psi…two pounds per square inch…so you need 18,432 pounds of sand bags…
Fortunately…being a ‘normie’ you just happen to have that amount of sand bags on hand and so could complete the experiment…
We note here that 18,000 pounds is the weight of about six cars…what do you think will happen to that piece of wall if you put the weight of six cars on it…?
That’s why 2 psi of overpressure will collapse residential buildings…
Now what happens at 70 psi that we would get from a T-hawk blast 20 meters away…?
That’s 35 times more weight on that same chunk of wall sitting on those saw horses…that’s 645,000 pounds…or the weight of 215 automobiles…
How strong would that chunk of wall have to be to support the weight of 200 cars…?
We could actually do the math on that too…but I think you get the idea that it would have to be a massive structure several feet deep of solid steel…even reinforced concrete could not take that kind of load…
Now the overpressure chart shows that even 10 psi will collapse reinforced concrete structures…so let’s go back to our UN overpressure calculator and see how far we would have to be from a T-hawk blast to get 10 psi…
It turns out to be about 47 meters…about 150 ft…
So how is that those buildings highlighted in the photo above which are clearly not more than maybe 30 meters away are still standing…?
How is it that the light poles are still standing…?
Why aren’t those little pine trees just a few meters from the blast site all broken and flattened on the ground…?…[even 10 psi overpressure will blow off human limbs...tree limbs aren't much stronger...]
After all…we had 76 T-hawks hitting this site…not merely one as we have been calculating here…
Or maybe somebody is telling a BIG FAT FIB about 76 T-hawks hitting this site…?
[we notice also that many of the building walls of the target complex are still standing...even after more than 30 tons of military high explosive hitting this relatively small area...]
Of course…the story being presented to us ‘normies’ should be taken as gospel truth because it is coming from ‘Western govts’…there is really no need to even do this exercise in basic physics…
Far better to just kick back with a jar of koolaid and spark up that crack pipe…ahh the joys of being a koolaid gulping ‘normie’…
It really doesn’t get any better than that…
Was this a demolition site anyway. Close up there were no desks or paper or lab equipment in the debris.
I doubt very much whether the Tomahawks were shot down (I believe the Israelis) but I am prepared to believe that not so many were launched.
Yeah baby!
1) There were NO missiles.
or
2) This is not an "after" shot of the site. It's a "before" shot. So, the US bombed a demolition site.
or
?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-14/warship-ruse-and-new-stealth-missiles-how-they-attacked-syria
“No Syrian weapon had any effect on anything we did,” McKenzie said. He described the joint U.S., French and U.K. strike as “precise, overwhelming and effective.”
It seems logical that once again the Russians oversold the effectiveness of their weaponry, and essentially encouraged the futile recklessness of their allies. As optical systems appear to your area of expertise, this suggests that as usual, their detection capabilities against even mild American effects to be weak. Shock and awe would seem to work on Russians as well as any other third world military.
As Andrei says, I don’t know much about the systems. I have always avoided the defence industry. I write about this on Anatoly’s latest post. Basically, the Israelis believe the American version of events and so apparently do Russian Duma members who are calling to equip Syria with S300s. More important than local detection by Syrian systems would be the Electronic Counter Measures employed by the US “Growler” against the whole system.
What ISI said and what the close-up shots they published actually show are two very different things…read the thread I pointed to and my technical analysis there before popping off please…
Wel, well, it does seem that Israel is taking the news (or threat) with somewhat less equanimity than Greasy:
Well, as Russia has stated, the attack on Syria “will not be without consequences”.
I’m no strategic wiz, but the surface analysis suggests the following:
(I’m sure there’s more to it, but even on the surface, Russian actions are consistent with its words.)
If the West is making life hard for Russia’s client Syria, then Russia will make life hard for the West’s client – Israel.
And if Israel suffers, as Syria does – well, that’s the message Russia is sending back to the West.
https://s20.postimg.cc/wijzuqrml/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_strike.jpg
This is very helpful...Now the layman may look at this picture and think...well how many missiles actually hit here...?A physicist or competent engineer would look at that picture and mathematically analyze the damage seen here based on sound physical principles and the mathematics that go with that and actually arrive at some quantitative answers...Let's first understand how much explosive power is contained in 76 T-hawks...each one carries 450 kg [1,000 lb] of 'high explosive' charge...typically military grade HE is anywhere from 5 to 15 percent more powerful than TNT...So that is 76,000 lb of high explosives...or 34,200 kg...Now let's try to get a sense of the size of the target...we do this by noticing surrounding objects such as cars, buildings etc...We see a couple of cars there just beyond the impact site that are probably about 4 meters long...using that as a scaling factor...we approximate that this triangular shaped target area is maybe 100 meters on each side...that would be 25 car lengths on each side of that near-equilateral triangle...Before we get into the math and the physical principles used to measure explosive force and its effects on surrounding objects...let us quickly take note of some of the adjacent objects...I have highlighted some of these adjacent objects here...
https://s20.postimg.cc/e6xxr4il9/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_Strike_Markup.jpg
For instance we see buildings only a few meters from the blast site highlighted in red...we see stands of pine trees on either side of the complex highlighted in yellow...We also notice that the telephone poles around the entire perimeter of the complex are still standing...We see that none of the adjacent buildings have suffered damage...or even blown out windows...None of the trees have been blown over...This is important because we are now going to get into the actual physics...namely we are going to calculate the kinds of force that those adjacent objects have been subjected to...Let's first review the basics...What happens after the explosion is that the pressure released in the blast travels through the air as a shockwave moving faster than the speed of sound...The air particles are also caught up and there is an actual wind blast created that is not as fast as the shockwave...Both of these quantities can be accurately calculated using established physical methods...such as the Kingery-Bulmash equations... ...which are used by the UN as well as the US Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board [DDESD]...as well as analogous agencies in other countries...Both the shockwave and the wind blast cause damage to structures and people...depending on their location from the blast epicenter...The UN website has a handy calculator based on the Kingery Bulmash equations... that we can use to quickly calculate these excessive pressures...the speed of the shockwave...and the speed of the wind blast...For instance...if we enter TNT as the explosive type [to be conservative]...the charge weight of 450 kg of a T-hawk warhead...and a distance of 20 meters...we get the following results...Incident Pressure: 156 kPa...[22.6 psi]...[1 psi = 6.9 kiloPascals or kPa...]Reflected Pressure: 484 kPa...[70 psi]Shock Front Velocity: 518 meters per second...[1,700 ft/s...1,160 mph]We note from the above explanation of incident pressure that this is the pressure that propagates with the shock front...the reflected pressure is that which strikes a solid object...So we see here that the reflected pressure is the one that counts when it comes to damage to adjacent physical objects...So we have established that a T-hawk blast will cause an overpressure of 70 psi on an object 20 meters away [66 ft]...What does that tell us in terms of the damage this will cause...?Well...the layman may think this doesn't sound like a big deal...after all we pump 30 psi into our tires right...?Well...the reality of this is far different...here is a chart showing overpressure in psi and the damage that causes to various objects...
https://s20.postimg.cc/byf5w9z0t/Overpressure_Chart.jpg
We note here that 'just' 10 psi causes......Reinforced concrete buildings severely damaged...Severe heart and lung damage...Limbs can be blown offEven at a measly sounding 2 psi 'fatalities may occur...'and residential structures collapse...How does this work...what are the mechanics behind this...?This is very simple to illustrate...Consider the wall in the room you are sitting in right now...let's imagine you go berserk on koolaid and decide to take a power saw and cut out a chunk of that wall measuring 8 ft x 8 ft...Now...after taking a big 'normie' puff on your crack pipe...you decide to do an experiment...You lug that chunk of wall to the garage and lay it horizontally on some saw horses...You now decide to see how many sand bags you can put on it before it collapses...The piece of wall is 64 square feet [ 8 x 8 = 64]...one square foot = 144 square inches [12 in x 12 in = 144 in^2]...so the total area of you chunk of wall is 9,216 square inches...[64 x 144 = 9,216]...Now you want to simulate the load created by 2 psi...two pounds per square inch...so you need 18,432 pounds of sand bags...Fortunately...being a 'normie' you just happen to have that amount of sand bags on hand and so could complete the experiment...We note here that 18,000 pounds is the weight of about six cars...what do you think will happen to that piece of wall if you put the weight of six cars on it...?That's why 2 psi of overpressure will collapse residential buildings...Now what happens at 70 psi that we would get from a T-hawk blast 20 meters away...?That's 35 times more weight on that same chunk of wall sitting on those saw horses...that's 645,000 pounds...or the weight of 215 automobiles...How strong would that chunk of wall have to be to support the weight of 200 cars...?We could actually do the math on that too...but I think you get the idea that it would have to be a massive structure several feet deep of solid steel...even reinforced concrete could not take that kind of load...Now the overpressure chart shows that even 10 psi will collapse reinforced concrete structures...so let's go back to our UN overpressure calculator and see how far we would have to be from a T-hawk blast to get 10 psi...It turns out to be about 47 meters...about 150 ft...So how is that those buildings highlighted in the photo above which are clearly not more than maybe 30 meters away are still standing...?How is it that the light poles are still standing...?Why aren't those little pine trees just a few meters from the blast site all broken and flattened on the ground...?...[even 10 psi overpressure will blow off human limbs...tree limbs aren't much stronger...]After all...we had 76 T-hawks hitting this site...not merely one as we have been calculating here...Or maybe somebody is telling a BIG FAT FIB about 76 T-hawks hitting this site...?[we notice also that many of the building walls of the target complex are still standing...even after more than 30 tons of military high explosive hitting this relatively small area...]Of course...the story being presented to us 'normies' should be taken as gospel truth because it is coming from 'Western govts'...there is really no need to even do this exercise in basic physics...Far better to just kick back with a jar of koolaid and spark up that crack pipe...ahh the joys of being a koolaid gulping 'normie'...It really doesn't get any better than that...
Forget assumptions about maximum pressures. What do the windows look like in neighbouring buildings? Are they intact. I can’t make it out.
Was this a demolition site anyway. Close up there were no desks or paper or lab equipment in the debris.
I doubt very much whether the Tomahawks were shot down (I believe the Israelis) but I am prepared to believe that not so many were launched.
The Kingery-Bulmash equations are not 'assumptions' as noted already...
We can clearly see how far those adjacent building are...what problem do you have with that...?
We know the explosive charge of a T-hawk...what problem do you have with that...?
Those two parameters are the only ones required to calculate overpressure...do you dispute that...?
And now you are interested in the window glass which you can't see...what about the tree branches...?
But let's examine your window glass beef...
Let's say we have a plate glass window in one of those buildings that is maybe 20 to 30 meters away...
Let's assume each window measure 3 ft x 6 ft...that is 18 square feet...or 2,592 square inches...
How much load will that plate glass window support if you put it on sawhorses...?
Please tell me...because even 2 psi of overpressure [14 kPa] will require that window to support over 5,000 pounds of load...
Do you dispute that...?
Even at a distance of 80 meters [250 ft] from the blast we would get an overpressure of just over 2 psi...[28 kPa]
Go ahead and check with the Kingery Bulmash calculator...I thought you said you were an engineer...or maybe you just 'believe' you are...?
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/34/e5/3b/34e53be36b505853ef166eda7186b28c.jpg
Also the Indiandefensenews got nothing but some history of Chinese Zheng He voyage. It certainly appear much more peaceful than any Western viking forces, and the British colonial master of India.
If compare to Chinese, Indian Sepoy is so much worst & violent in helping British master to commit mass atrocities in Asia, including 8 Alliance opium war and attacking Myanmar.
Since India independent, it has gone on endless spree of invasion and massacre till today.
Many princely states, China South Tibet, Sikkim, Naga lands were invaded and swallowed up. Mass raping & atrocity are still been done in Nagaland. Bhutan was been taken over forcefully in total subversion. Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, China Dolang are constantly under subversion & harassment, with Indian sponsored terrorism like LTTE Tamil Tiger. Part of Kashmir is still under Indian violent dispute with Pak.
China has settled all its borders, except two who refused to sign, India & its controlled Bhutan that India won't permit it to settle border.
And India was such incredible shameless liars in its Indo-Sino border war, unprecedented in history, an aggressor that attack China but shamelessly lied to accuse China falsely untill now.
Let some rare good honest Australian whites speak out the Truth of India attacked China in 1962 with facts.
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/It-wasnt-China-but-Nehru-who-declared-1962-war-Australian-journalist-Neville-Maxwell/amp_articleshow/33094229.cms
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/08/02/china-s-india-war-how-the-chinese-saw-the-1962-conflict/
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/maos-return-to-power-passed-through-india/
And now read all the long history of lies written by shameless Indians & West liars till today. Juz google, its voluminous.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War
https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/india-china-war-of-1962-839077-2016-11-21
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1984/CJB.htm
Han emperor encouraged rivals to Majapahit to convert to Islam।।
India is a secular, anti Hindu state you’re free to send cruise missiles through the capital. Just make sure to bomb all of South Delhi so the Secular journalists, think tanks & army officers go too।।
You want coordinates?
Themselves.
India is a secular, anti Hindu state you're free to send cruise missiles through the capital. Just make sure to bomb all of South Delhi so the Secular journalists, think tanks & army officers go too।।
You want coordinates?
India should be left to deal forever with their worst enemies:
Themselves.
Read story of Kharag Singh https://www.searchgurbani.com/public/dasam-granth/page/792
ਪਰੀਯੈਨਹੀਆਨਕੇਪਾਇਨਪੈਹਰਿਕੇਗੁਰਕੇਦਿਜਕੇਪਰੀਯੈ॥ ਜਿਹਕੋਜੁਗਚਾਰਮੈਨਾਉਜਪੈਤਿਹਸੋਲਰੀਯੈਮਰੀਯੈਤਰੀਯੈ॥੧੬੮੮॥
Seek not the anyone else’s feet but those of Hari, the Guru, and the Twice Born. He whose name is recited throughout the four ages, against Him by fighting and dying one is carried across.
— Krishnavatar, verse 1688
https://i.imgur.com/qn9uD6Z.png
Why would current Chinese like Joe Wong be held responsible for that history to deem Chinese is never a peaceful lot just because Mao had killed you family?
KMT killed many Taiwan natives in White Terror, do we also conclude Taiwanese can never be peaceful people?
And the same logic should apply to much worst history, no one should ever forgive Americans for Vietnam & Korea wars(too many to list), Germans for Hitler WWII, and Russians for Stalin's Soviet Union deeds, Japanese for their WWII atrocity to Asians including your family & kins? And their nation can never be more peaceful than the Chinese who didn't even invade others but a victim in past many decades.
You have make a unjust statement to smear China peaceful rise intention in one broad stroke. I see much hope in Prez Xi & team, more than any other nations leaders. And my direct experience with mainland Chinese & Taiwanese too, they never has desire to invade others or aspire to be a violent hedgmon like most West countries historical did, some still much dreaming of that like UK PM May.
I’m not blaming the current government for the Red Guards and I’ve often established that I do believe that the Chinese have been relatively more peaceful than other cultures, even historically. I’m just contending that Joe’s notion that the Chinese have never been aggressive to be silly: obviously Annam didn’t magically become part of China, for example.
I do not mean to smear anyone(beyond Joe Wong, for being annoying). I do also believe that President Xi is accomplishing something historic.
Joe W has clearly make a commendable comment to express China leaders vision for a peaceful future world. There is no slight mention of "Chinese NEVER been aggressive"
He does not deserved to be mocked by hypocrite commenters intentionally spewing falsehood to smear China, when their own country was the worst violent aggressor historically. That's why i stick my neck out to counter them with facts, hopefully they look at facts rather than pride to take offense.
Joe comment:Chinese reckoned & learned from their past faults, incl what invaders Mongols & Manchus aggression mistakes tho not to their fault.Future trend of times, not bearing grudge on history. All these are consistent with Mr Deng XP, and subsequent leaders standing words & acts in midst of tremendous West, Jp & India lead endless provocations. Prez Xi has manifest this peaceful vision under China rising influence.This is what China has learned from other imperialism empires, and wisely avoiding as revealed in this documentary show The Rise of The Great Powers. 大国崛起。
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Great_Powers&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjuk_Gu6L3aAhXMOI8KHZExAuQQFjAGegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2USGTj81qHMSzEiOjuY3FC
大国崛起. This is Mandarin version. The one with English subtitles has been removed, pls search yourself.
http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist%3Flist%3DPLwXMmy5fUrVzrhuQ4Bp-CB9qIN1rOmhdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwizr5zx5r3aAhUDYo8KHZ2pBzYQFggNMAE&usg=AOvVaw3u8YxpYlFiPMBj1OMNsFJY
(8nations alliance + indian sepoy) The Opium war invaders, why these countries are so worry on a rising China.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e3kVDWMz_B0/WKOQ2HUUZWI/AAAAAAAAMU0/V30pAMTJSD8g5QLlvcxDEk_UMfxwyP2_ACLcB/s1600/Troops_of_the_Eight_nations_alliance_1900.jpg
https://s20.postimg.cc/wijzuqrml/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_strike.jpg
This is very helpful...Now the layman may look at this picture and think...well how many missiles actually hit here...?A physicist or competent engineer would look at that picture and mathematically analyze the damage seen here based on sound physical principles and the mathematics that go with that and actually arrive at some quantitative answers...Let's first understand how much explosive power is contained in 76 T-hawks...each one carries 450 kg [1,000 lb] of 'high explosive' charge...typically military grade HE is anywhere from 5 to 15 percent more powerful than TNT...So that is 76,000 lb of high explosives...or 34,200 kg...Now let's try to get a sense of the size of the target...we do this by noticing surrounding objects such as cars, buildings etc...We see a couple of cars there just beyond the impact site that are probably about 4 meters long...using that as a scaling factor...we approximate that this triangular shaped target area is maybe 100 meters on each side...that would be 25 car lengths on each side of that near-equilateral triangle...Before we get into the math and the physical principles used to measure explosive force and its effects on surrounding objects...let us quickly take note of some of the adjacent objects...I have highlighted some of these adjacent objects here...
https://s20.postimg.cc/e6xxr4il9/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_Strike_Markup.jpg
For instance we see buildings only a few meters from the blast site highlighted in red...we see stands of pine trees on either side of the complex highlighted in yellow...We also notice that the telephone poles around the entire perimeter of the complex are still standing...We see that none of the adjacent buildings have suffered damage...or even blown out windows...None of the trees have been blown over...This is important because we are now going to get into the actual physics...namely we are going to calculate the kinds of force that those adjacent objects have been subjected to...Let's first review the basics...What happens after the explosion is that the pressure released in the blast travels through the air as a shockwave moving faster than the speed of sound...The air particles are also caught up and there is an actual wind blast created that is not as fast as the shockwave...Both of these quantities can be accurately calculated using established physical methods...such as the Kingery-Bulmash equations... ...which are used by the UN as well as the US Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board [DDESD]...as well as analogous agencies in other countries...Both the shockwave and the wind blast cause damage to structures and people...depending on their location from the blast epicenter...The UN website has a handy calculator based on the Kingery Bulmash equations... that we can use to quickly calculate these excessive pressures...the speed of the shockwave...and the speed of the wind blast...For instance...if we enter TNT as the explosive type [to be conservative]...the charge weight of 450 kg of a T-hawk warhead...and a distance of 20 meters...we get the following results...Incident Pressure: 156 kPa...[22.6 psi]...[1 psi = 6.9 kiloPascals or kPa...]Reflected Pressure: 484 kPa...[70 psi]Shock Front Velocity: 518 meters per second...[1,700 ft/s...1,160 mph]We note from the above explanation of incident pressure that this is the pressure that propagates with the shock front...the reflected pressure is that which strikes a solid object...So we see here that the reflected pressure is the one that counts when it comes to damage to adjacent physical objects...So we have established that a T-hawk blast will cause an overpressure of 70 psi on an object 20 meters away [66 ft]...What does that tell us in terms of the damage this will cause...?Well...the layman may think this doesn't sound like a big deal...after all we pump 30 psi into our tires right...?Well...the reality of this is far different...here is a chart showing overpressure in psi and the damage that causes to various objects...
https://s20.postimg.cc/byf5w9z0t/Overpressure_Chart.jpg
We note here that 'just' 10 psi causes......Reinforced concrete buildings severely damaged...Severe heart and lung damage...Limbs can be blown offEven at a measly sounding 2 psi 'fatalities may occur...'and residential structures collapse...How does this work...what are the mechanics behind this...?This is very simple to illustrate...Consider the wall in the room you are sitting in right now...let's imagine you go berserk on koolaid and decide to take a power saw and cut out a chunk of that wall measuring 8 ft x 8 ft...Now...after taking a big 'normie' puff on your crack pipe...you decide to do an experiment...You lug that chunk of wall to the garage and lay it horizontally on some saw horses...You now decide to see how many sand bags you can put on it before it collapses...The piece of wall is 64 square feet [ 8 x 8 = 64]...one square foot = 144 square inches [12 in x 12 in = 144 in^2]...so the total area of you chunk of wall is 9,216 square inches...[64 x 144 = 9,216]...Now you want to simulate the load created by 2 psi...two pounds per square inch...so you need 18,432 pounds of sand bags...Fortunately...being a 'normie' you just happen to have that amount of sand bags on hand and so could complete the experiment...We note here that 18,000 pounds is the weight of about six cars...what do you think will happen to that piece of wall if you put the weight of six cars on it...?That's why 2 psi of overpressure will collapse residential buildings...Now what happens at 70 psi that we would get from a T-hawk blast 20 meters away...?That's 35 times more weight on that same chunk of wall sitting on those saw horses...that's 645,000 pounds...or the weight of 215 automobiles...How strong would that chunk of wall have to be to support the weight of 200 cars...?We could actually do the math on that too...but I think you get the idea that it would have to be a massive structure several feet deep of solid steel...even reinforced concrete could not take that kind of load...Now the overpressure chart shows that even 10 psi will collapse reinforced concrete structures...so let's go back to our UN overpressure calculator and see how far we would have to be from a T-hawk blast to get 10 psi...It turns out to be about 47 meters...about 150 ft...So how is that those buildings highlighted in the photo above which are clearly not more than maybe 30 meters away are still standing...?How is it that the light poles are still standing...?Why aren't those little pine trees just a few meters from the blast site all broken and flattened on the ground...?...[even 10 psi overpressure will blow off human limbs...tree limbs aren't much stronger...]After all...we had 76 T-hawks hitting this site...not merely one as we have been calculating here...Or maybe somebody is telling a BIG FAT FIB about 76 T-hawks hitting this site...?[we notice also that many of the building walls of the target complex are still standing...even after more than 30 tons of military high explosive hitting this relatively small area...]Of course...the story being presented to us 'normies' should be taken as gospel truth because it is coming from 'Western govts'...there is really no need to even do this exercise in basic physics...Far better to just kick back with a jar of koolaid and spark up that crack pipe...ahh the joys of being a koolaid gulping 'normie'...It really doesn't get any better than that...
Precise pinpoint destruction with no collateral damage!
Yeah baby!
Very 'smart' missiles...
Extremely dumb sheeple...
Make up your own minds how many it would take to do what we see in the pictures...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sa7ZX58Kk4
Was this a demolition site anyway. Close up there were no desks or paper or lab equipment in the debris.
I doubt very much whether the Tomahawks were shot down (I believe the Israelis) but I am prepared to believe that not so many were launched.
Ahh…Mr. ‘Palm Oil’ wants to contend…
What ‘assumptions’ exactly are you talking about…?
The Kingery-Bulmash equations are not ‘assumptions’ as noted already…
We can clearly see how far those adjacent building are…what problem do you have with that…?
We know the explosive charge of a T-hawk…what problem do you have with that…?
Those two parameters are the only ones required to calculate overpressure…do you dispute that…?
And now you are interested in the window glass which you can’t see…what about the tree branches…?
But let’s examine your window glass beef…
Let’s say we have a plate glass window in one of those buildings that is maybe 20 to 30 meters away…
Let’s assume each window measure 3 ft x 6 ft…that is 18 square feet…or 2,592 square inches…
How much load will that plate glass window support if you put it on sawhorses…?
Please tell me…because even 2 psi of overpressure [14 kPa] will require that window to support over 5,000 pounds of load…
Do you dispute that…?
Even at a distance of 80 meters [250 ft] from the blast we would get an overpressure of just over 2 psi…[28 kPa]
Go ahead and check with the Kingery Bulmash calculator…
I thought you said you were an engineer…or maybe you just ‘believe’ you are…?
Yeah baby!
Yup…
Very ‘smart’ missiles…
Extremely dumb sheeple…
Themselves.
Paki elite + brits were scared of Hindu imperialism taking Egypt & seeking revenge. If we’re left alone without foreign interfere or funding Yall becoming Buddhist again & whii bbl learn what christian persecution really means।।
Read story of Kharag Singh https://www.searchgurbani.com/public/dasam-granth/page/792
ਪਰੀਯੈਨਹੀਆਨਕੇਪਾਇਨਪੈਹਰਿਕੇਗੁਰਕੇਦਿਜਕੇਪਰੀਯੈ॥ ਜਿਹਕੋਜੁਗਚਾਰਮੈਨਾਉਜਪੈਤਿਹਸੋਲਰੀਯੈਮਰੀਯੈਤਰੀਯੈ॥੧੬੮੮॥
Seek not the anyone else’s feet but those of Hari, the Guru, and the Twice Born. He whose name is recited throughout the four ages, against Him by fighting and dying one is carried across.
— Krishnavatar, verse 1688
Yeah baby!
Here is video of ONE T-hawk in action…
Make up your own minds how many it would take to do what we see in the pictures…
The Kingery-Bulmash equations are not 'assumptions' as noted already...
We can clearly see how far those adjacent building are...what problem do you have with that...?
We know the explosive charge of a T-hawk...what problem do you have with that...?
Those two parameters are the only ones required to calculate overpressure...do you dispute that...?
And now you are interested in the window glass which you can't see...what about the tree branches...?
But let's examine your window glass beef...
Let's say we have a plate glass window in one of those buildings that is maybe 20 to 30 meters away...
Let's assume each window measure 3 ft x 6 ft...that is 18 square feet...or 2,592 square inches...
How much load will that plate glass window support if you put it on sawhorses...?
Please tell me...because even 2 psi of overpressure [14 kPa] will require that window to support over 5,000 pounds of load...
Do you dispute that...?
Even at a distance of 80 meters [250 ft] from the blast we would get an overpressure of just over 2 psi...[28 kPa]
Go ahead and check with the Kingery Bulmash calculator...I thought you said you were an engineer...or maybe you just 'believe' you are...?
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/34/e5/3b/34e53be36b505853ef166eda7186b28c.jpg
My point is that maybe the glass isn’t even broken. That it is a demolition site anyway. No actual explosions at the time of the picture or maybe anytime.
https://s20.postimg.cc/su3hmq1i5/training-education-teacher-teaching-college_professor-scientist-.jpg
https://twitter.com/vpkivimaki/status/985593498815619072
Yes…I see your ‘point’…
Thanks – although I know all the rules of where to write articles. The problem is too much excitement to use the ‘publish comment’ button before re-reading the text. After the text is written, I can see the errors, but it’s usually too late to edit with the 5 minute limit.
When I want to write a ‘masterpiece comment’, I can write it in Microsoft Word and re-read and improve it a few times.
https://s20.postimg.cc/wijzuqrml/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_strike.jpg
This is very helpful...Now the layman may look at this picture and think...well how many missiles actually hit here...?A physicist or competent engineer would look at that picture and mathematically analyze the damage seen here based on sound physical principles and the mathematics that go with that and actually arrive at some quantitative answers...Let's first understand how much explosive power is contained in 76 T-hawks...each one carries 450 kg [1,000 lb] of 'high explosive' charge...typically military grade HE is anywhere from 5 to 15 percent more powerful than TNT...So that is 76,000 lb of high explosives...or 34,200 kg...Now let's try to get a sense of the size of the target...we do this by noticing surrounding objects such as cars, buildings etc...We see a couple of cars there just beyond the impact site that are probably about 4 meters long...using that as a scaling factor...we approximate that this triangular shaped target area is maybe 100 meters on each side...that would be 25 car lengths on each side of that near-equilateral triangle...Before we get into the math and the physical principles used to measure explosive force and its effects on surrounding objects...let us quickly take note of some of the adjacent objects...I have highlighted some of these adjacent objects here...
https://s20.postimg.cc/e6xxr4il9/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_Strike_Markup.jpg
For instance we see buildings only a few meters from the blast site highlighted in red...we see stands of pine trees on either side of the complex highlighted in yellow...We also notice that the telephone poles around the entire perimeter of the complex are still standing...We see that none of the adjacent buildings have suffered damage...or even blown out windows...None of the trees have been blown over...This is important because we are now going to get into the actual physics...namely we are going to calculate the kinds of force that those adjacent objects have been subjected to...Let's first review the basics...What happens after the explosion is that the pressure released in the blast travels through the air as a shockwave moving faster than the speed of sound...The air particles are also caught up and there is an actual wind blast created that is not as fast as the shockwave...Both of these quantities can be accurately calculated using established physical methods...such as the Kingery-Bulmash equations... ...which are used by the UN as well as the US Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board [DDESD]...as well as analogous agencies in other countries...Both the shockwave and the wind blast cause damage to structures and people...depending on their location from the blast epicenter...The UN website has a handy calculator based on the Kingery Bulmash equations... that we can use to quickly calculate these excessive pressures...the speed of the shockwave...and the speed of the wind blast...For instance...if we enter TNT as the explosive type [to be conservative]...the charge weight of 450 kg of a T-hawk warhead...and a distance of 20 meters...we get the following results...Incident Pressure: 156 kPa...[22.6 psi]...[1 psi = 6.9 kiloPascals or kPa...]Reflected Pressure: 484 kPa...[70 psi]Shock Front Velocity: 518 meters per second...[1,700 ft/s...1,160 mph]We note from the above explanation of incident pressure that this is the pressure that propagates with the shock front...the reflected pressure is that which strikes a solid object...So we see here that the reflected pressure is the one that counts when it comes to damage to adjacent physical objects...So we have established that a T-hawk blast will cause an overpressure of 70 psi on an object 20 meters away [66 ft]...What does that tell us in terms of the damage this will cause...?Well...the layman may think this doesn't sound like a big deal...after all we pump 30 psi into our tires right...?Well...the reality of this is far different...here is a chart showing overpressure in psi and the damage that causes to various objects...
https://s20.postimg.cc/byf5w9z0t/Overpressure_Chart.jpg
We note here that 'just' 10 psi causes......Reinforced concrete buildings severely damaged...Severe heart and lung damage...Limbs can be blown offEven at a measly sounding 2 psi 'fatalities may occur...'and residential structures collapse...How does this work...what are the mechanics behind this...?This is very simple to illustrate...Consider the wall in the room you are sitting in right now...let's imagine you go berserk on koolaid and decide to take a power saw and cut out a chunk of that wall measuring 8 ft x 8 ft...Now...after taking a big 'normie' puff on your crack pipe...you decide to do an experiment...You lug that chunk of wall to the garage and lay it horizontally on some saw horses...You now decide to see how many sand bags you can put on it before it collapses...The piece of wall is 64 square feet [ 8 x 8 = 64]...one square foot = 144 square inches [12 in x 12 in = 144 in^2]...so the total area of you chunk of wall is 9,216 square inches...[64 x 144 = 9,216]...Now you want to simulate the load created by 2 psi...two pounds per square inch...so you need 18,432 pounds of sand bags...Fortunately...being a 'normie' you just happen to have that amount of sand bags on hand and so could complete the experiment...We note here that 18,000 pounds is the weight of about six cars...what do you think will happen to that piece of wall if you put the weight of six cars on it...?That's why 2 psi of overpressure will collapse residential buildings...Now what happens at 70 psi that we would get from a T-hawk blast 20 meters away...?That's 35 times more weight on that same chunk of wall sitting on those saw horses...that's 645,000 pounds...or the weight of 215 automobiles...How strong would that chunk of wall have to be to support the weight of 200 cars...?We could actually do the math on that too...but I think you get the idea that it would have to be a massive structure several feet deep of solid steel...even reinforced concrete could not take that kind of load...Now the overpressure chart shows that even 10 psi will collapse reinforced concrete structures...so let's go back to our UN overpressure calculator and see how far we would have to be from a T-hawk blast to get 10 psi...It turns out to be about 47 meters...about 150 ft...So how is that those buildings highlighted in the photo above which are clearly not more than maybe 30 meters away are still standing...?How is it that the light poles are still standing...?Why aren't those little pine trees just a few meters from the blast site all broken and flattened on the ground...?...[even 10 psi overpressure will blow off human limbs...tree limbs aren't much stronger...]After all...we had 76 T-hawks hitting this site...not merely one as we have been calculating here...Or maybe somebody is telling a BIG FAT FIB about 76 T-hawks hitting this site...?[we notice also that many of the building walls of the target complex are still standing...even after more than 30 tons of military high explosive hitting this relatively small area...]Of course...the story being presented to us 'normies' should be taken as gospel truth because it is coming from 'Western govts'...there is really no need to even do this exercise in basic physics...Far better to just kick back with a jar of koolaid and spark up that crack pipe...ahh the joys of being a koolaid gulping 'normie'...It really doesn't get any better than that...
There is actually a demolition crane on site at the end of a cleared access route but no other vehicles that could be ambulances or firetrucks. There are multiple rats to be smelt here.
https://s20.postimg.cc/hx25xp6y5/Barzeh_Pentagon_Briefing.jpg
Gee...now that certainly looks nothing like the distinctive triangular area in the picture I posted above...
https://s20.postimg.cc/wijzuqrml/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_strike.jpg
Let's have another look...with adjacent structures highlighted...
https://s20.postimg.cc/h7jdld19p/Barzeh_Pentagon_Briefing_Markup.jpg
I have highlighted in red the adjacent structures...and in yellow the distinctive arch-shaped roof of the building across the street...
And here it is in the 'fake' picture...the demolition site...as you would have it...
https://s20.postimg.cc/vqqims24d/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_strike_Markup_2.jpg
Why we can definitely see how convincing your 'evidence' is...
That's mighty fine work there Phil...
I smell a Palm Oil salesman...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--0GeWsg5lcM/UWgwtmSDPKI/AAAAAAAADR0/KdaBAC_aas0/s1600/palm+oil+and+orangutans+copy.JPG
http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-german-raid-on-bari.htm
The US also supplied Saddam with all his chemical and biological agents in order to kill a maximum number of Iranians.
The US also supplied Saddam with all his chemical and biological agents in order to kill a maximum number of Iranians.
Excellent point – the duplicity and hypocrisy of the US Deep State is astounding. (Rumsfeld’s dirty hands again.)
Between the US Jew, the US generals, and the CIA – the world does not have a chance at peace.
Think Peace — Art
too many assumptions. The complex hosted was a research center for things like cancer treatment and antivenom and was inspected by OPCW last November (nothing out of the ordinary was found but of course Trump May and Macron know better)
Scientist gives tour of smoldering site of missile strike in Syriahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhW2G-ynvBc
Assessing the damage of the airstrikes in Syria
https://s20.postimg.cc/wijzuqrml/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_strike.jpg
This is very helpful...Now the layman may look at this picture and think...well how many missiles actually hit here...?A physicist or competent engineer would look at that picture and mathematically analyze the damage seen here based on sound physical principles and the mathematics that go with that and actually arrive at some quantitative answers...Let's first understand how much explosive power is contained in 76 T-hawks...each one carries 450 kg [1,000 lb] of 'high explosive' charge...typically military grade HE is anywhere from 5 to 15 percent more powerful than TNT...So that is 76,000 lb of high explosives...or 34,200 kg...Now let's try to get a sense of the size of the target...we do this by noticing surrounding objects such as cars, buildings etc...We see a couple of cars there just beyond the impact site that are probably about 4 meters long...using that as a scaling factor...we approximate that this triangular shaped target area is maybe 100 meters on each side...that would be 25 car lengths on each side of that near-equilateral triangle...Before we get into the math and the physical principles used to measure explosive force and its effects on surrounding objects...let us quickly take note of some of the adjacent objects...I have highlighted some of these adjacent objects here...
https://s20.postimg.cc/e6xxr4il9/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_Strike_Markup.jpg
For instance we see buildings only a few meters from the blast site highlighted in red...we see stands of pine trees on either side of the complex highlighted in yellow...We also notice that the telephone poles around the entire perimeter of the complex are still standing...We see that none of the adjacent buildings have suffered damage...or even blown out windows...None of the trees have been blown over...This is important because we are now going to get into the actual physics...namely we are going to calculate the kinds of force that those adjacent objects have been subjected to...Let's first review the basics...What happens after the explosion is that the pressure released in the blast travels through the air as a shockwave moving faster than the speed of sound...The air particles are also caught up and there is an actual wind blast created that is not as fast as the shockwave...Both of these quantities can be accurately calculated using established physical methods...such as the Kingery-Bulmash equations... ...which are used by the UN as well as the US Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board [DDESD]...as well as analogous agencies in other countries...Both the shockwave and the wind blast cause damage to structures and people...depending on their location from the blast epicenter...The UN website has a handy calculator based on the Kingery Bulmash equations... that we can use to quickly calculate these excessive pressures...the speed of the shockwave...and the speed of the wind blast...For instance...if we enter TNT as the explosive type [to be conservative]...the charge weight of 450 kg of a T-hawk warhead...and a distance of 20 meters...we get the following results...Incident Pressure: 156 kPa...[22.6 psi]...[1 psi = 6.9 kiloPascals or kPa...]Reflected Pressure: 484 kPa...[70 psi]Shock Front Velocity: 518 meters per second...[1,700 ft/s...1,160 mph]We note from the above explanation of incident pressure that this is the pressure that propagates with the shock front...the reflected pressure is that which strikes a solid object...So we see here that the reflected pressure is the one that counts when it comes to damage to adjacent physical objects...So we have established that a T-hawk blast will cause an overpressure of 70 psi on an object 20 meters away [66 ft]...What does that tell us in terms of the damage this will cause...?Well...the layman may think this doesn't sound like a big deal...after all we pump 30 psi into our tires right...?Well...the reality of this is far different...here is a chart showing overpressure in psi and the damage that causes to various objects...
https://s20.postimg.cc/byf5w9z0t/Overpressure_Chart.jpg
We note here that 'just' 10 psi causes......Reinforced concrete buildings severely damaged...Severe heart and lung damage...Limbs can be blown offEven at a measly sounding 2 psi 'fatalities may occur...'and residential structures collapse...How does this work...what are the mechanics behind this...?This is very simple to illustrate...Consider the wall in the room you are sitting in right now...let's imagine you go berserk on koolaid and decide to take a power saw and cut out a chunk of that wall measuring 8 ft x 8 ft...Now...after taking a big 'normie' puff on your crack pipe...you decide to do an experiment...You lug that chunk of wall to the garage and lay it horizontally on some saw horses...You now decide to see how many sand bags you can put on it before it collapses...The piece of wall is 64 square feet [ 8 x 8 = 64]...one square foot = 144 square inches [12 in x 12 in = 144 in^2]...so the total area of you chunk of wall is 9,216 square inches...[64 x 144 = 9,216]...Now you want to simulate the load created by 2 psi...two pounds per square inch...so you need 18,432 pounds of sand bags...Fortunately...being a 'normie' you just happen to have that amount of sand bags on hand and so could complete the experiment...We note here that 18,000 pounds is the weight of about six cars...what do you think will happen to that piece of wall if you put the weight of six cars on it...?That's why 2 psi of overpressure will collapse residential buildings...Now what happens at 70 psi that we would get from a T-hawk blast 20 meters away...?That's 35 times more weight on that same chunk of wall sitting on those saw horses...that's 645,000 pounds...or the weight of 215 automobiles...How strong would that chunk of wall have to be to support the weight of 200 cars...?We could actually do the math on that too...but I think you get the idea that it would have to be a massive structure several feet deep of solid steel...even reinforced concrete could not take that kind of load...Now the overpressure chart shows that even 10 psi will collapse reinforced concrete structures...so let's go back to our UN overpressure calculator and see how far we would have to be from a T-hawk blast to get 10 psi...It turns out to be about 47 meters...about 150 ft...So how is that those buildings highlighted in the photo above which are clearly not more than maybe 30 meters away are still standing...?How is it that the light poles are still standing...?Why aren't those little pine trees just a few meters from the blast site all broken and flattened on the ground...?...[even 10 psi overpressure will blow off human limbs...tree limbs aren't much stronger...]After all...we had 76 T-hawks hitting this site...not merely one as we have been calculating here...Or maybe somebody is telling a BIG FAT FIB about 76 T-hawks hitting this site...?[we notice also that many of the building walls of the target complex are still standing...even after more than 30 tons of military high explosive hitting this relatively small area...]Of course...the story being presented to us 'normies' should be taken as gospel truth because it is coming from 'Western govts'...there is really no need to even do this exercise in basic physics...Far better to just kick back with a jar of koolaid and spark up that crack pipe...ahh the joys of being a koolaid gulping 'normie'...It really doesn't get any better than that...
Shadows are long. So it is sunrise or sunset. There isn’t much traffic. So probably sunrise. That takes place at 6:00 am. The missile launches started at at 03:55 several hundred miles away at least (Red Sea and Gulf). So the strike would have been ) 04:30 or later. So this is no more than 1 or 2 hours after the missile strike. Stuff should still be burning, if only remaining fuel in the tomahawks. It isn’t. No smoke marks either.
1) There were NO missiles.
or
2) This is not an “after” shot of the site. It’s a “before” shot. So, the US bombed a demolition site.
or
?
https://twitter.com/vpkivimaki/status/985593498815619072
See my further comments to FB 986 and 989.
Barzeh is within Damascus safer zones and suffered no significant destruction. Here, they have a pre-strike image for 2018. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/15/satellite-pictures-show-damage-done-western-strikes-assad-chemical/
While you’re smelling those ‘rats’…maybe you want to take a look at the pictures released by the pentagon…
Gee…now that certainly looks nothing like the distinctive triangular area in the picture I posted above…
Let’s have another look…with adjacent structures highlighted…
I have highlighted in red the adjacent structures…and in yellow the distinctive arch-shaped roof of the building across the street…
And here it is in the ‘fake’ picture…the demolition site…as you would have it…
Why we can definitely see how convincing your ‘evidence’ is…
That’s mighty fine work there Phil…
I smell a Palm Oil salesman…
Last year Israeli satellites confirmed the US claims of 57 out of 58 attacking an airfield. Hard to believe Syrian air defences have improved so much. The visible damage by the Tomahawks was not somhuge then either. Single holes punched into hangers by a vertical dive.
again, more odd assumptions piled on the others. The site has seen daylight two times since the night strike.
Barzeh is within Damascus safer zones and suffered no significant destruction. Here, they have a pre-strike image for 2018. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/15/satellite-pictures-show-damage-done-western-strikes-assad-chemical/
I would say that maybe one or two missiles out of those 76 got through...maybe three tops...based on the show off video of the mighty T-hawk I posted above...
Even one 450 kg charge is enough to bring down a building or sink a ship...
76 of those would leave a massive crater filled with nothing but pebble sized debris...
What do you say Dr. Phil...?
How does it feel to be a punching bag...?
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/punch.jpg
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW
The problem is that many systems are manned by the Syrian military. No offense to the Syrians, but their historical performance was not so great. In fact, I think they're tied for the title of worst Middle Eastern army with the former Iraqi army, in terms of efficiency and warmaking effectiveness.
These two armies (Iraqi and Syrian) performed by far the most poorly during the last large war with Israel (1973).
(Sidenote: The Jordanian Army was the best, as they were in most Arab-Israeli Wars, followed at a distant 2nd place by the Egyptians. The Egyptians were a competent force for an undeveloped country, but the Jordanians were even better - and it wasn't due to equipment, but again those damned human factors. Good for Israel that Jordan is poor, and that Jordanians are few in number.)
1973 was indeed a very, very long time ago, almost a half century, and if the Syrians have instituted new leadership, morale and training policies since then, there could already have been massive improvements in their quality.
The old Syrian army never seemed to grasp the concept that its the human factors that matter more than the material ones. Material factors (technology, firepower, raw systems performance) are the swords, but human factors are analogous to the wielder of the sword. The OLD Syrian army had poor leader selection and development, poor morale, and lousy and unrealistic rote drills (never mind training).
Now, if you say that the current Syrian armed forces treat warfare with a deadly seriousness, and have reformed their human factors, well then of course I am impressed by that arsenal you listed.
As to the Russian operated systems, THOSE probably merit respect, and should be avoided if possible.
All Syrian missiles are launched using Russia tracking under a unified air defense system. If the Syrians were at their station then the missile defenses would work well.
As for FRY air defense systems against the combined NATO air forces see the discussion at:
http://www.unz.com/article/russia-the-800-pound-gorilla/
Even more impressive that the FRY air defense strategy was the use of decoys to adsorb most missiles. I do admit that there was much infrastructure damage done in the FRY but these were war crimes.
And of course he's a total hate figure of the MSM.
By the admittedly very low standards of modern politicians Corbyn does seem unusual. He does appear to have some actual principles. Some are sound and some are wrong-headed but in this day and age it’s amazing to find a politician with any principles at all. He’d certainly be a vast improvement on the appalling Theresa May.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43773650
No idea how famous was this guy (with no Wikipedia page, probably not very much).
That’s a strange kind of protest. I mean does anyone think lawyers setting themselves on fire is a bad thing? Personally I think that if global warming encourages more lawyers to set themselves on fire then global warming has amply justified itself.
LGBT lawyers setting themselves on fire! It just gets better and better!
Barzeh is within Damascus safer zones and suffered no significant destruction. Here, they have a pre-strike image for 2018. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/15/satellite-pictures-show-damage-done-western-strikes-assad-chemical/
Thanks for yet more nails in the coffin for our Palm Oil Salesman…
I would say that maybe one or two missiles out of those 76 got through…maybe three tops…based on the show off video of the mighty T-hawk I posted above…
Even one 450 kg charge is enough to bring down a building or sink a ship…
76 of those would leave a massive crater filled with nothing but pebble sized debris…
What do you say Dr. Phil…?
How does it feel to be a punching bag…?
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW
I was selling ice cream not palm oil.
I want to be AK’s 999th commenter!
And the 1000th commenter! What do I win?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JAIy7narFuw/UCpcQdtVKXI/AAAAAAAAGw8/zm_beEZ0Mz0/s1600/idiot+of+the+week+trophy+cartoon+by+elm.jpg
Enjoy your victory…your cup runneth over…
I would say that maybe one or two missiles out of those 76 got through...maybe three tops...based on the show off video of the mighty T-hawk I posted above...
Even one 450 kg charge is enough to bring down a building or sink a ship...
76 of those would leave a massive crater filled with nothing but pebble sized debris...
What do you say Dr. Phil...?
How does it feel to be a punching bag...?
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/punch.jpg
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW
Perhaps they weren’t carrying 450 kg HE each. The US was aiming to reduce civilian casualties. In which case preparation for rearming would have had to start months ago and this has been planned for a long time. Hence Trump’s strong language.
I was selling ice cream not palm oil.
https://www.toonpool.com/user/8878/files/charlesa_and_camilla_834165.jpg
https://s20.postimg.cc/hx25xp6y5/Barzeh_Pentagon_Briefing.jpg
Gee...now that certainly looks nothing like the distinctive triangular area in the picture I posted above...
https://s20.postimg.cc/wijzuqrml/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_strike.jpg
Let's have another look...with adjacent structures highlighted...
https://s20.postimg.cc/h7jdld19p/Barzeh_Pentagon_Briefing_Markup.jpg
I have highlighted in red the adjacent structures...and in yellow the distinctive arch-shaped roof of the building across the street...
And here it is in the 'fake' picture...the demolition site...as you would have it...
https://s20.postimg.cc/vqqims24d/Barzeh_After_T-hawk_strike_Markup_2.jpg
Why we can definitely see how convincing your 'evidence' is...
That's mighty fine work there Phil...
I smell a Palm Oil salesman...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--0GeWsg5lcM/UWgwtmSDPKI/AAAAAAAADR0/KdaBAC_aas0/s1600/palm+oil+and+orangutans+copy.JPG
I didn’t say it was a fake picture. I said it was a demolition site. The same site being demolished as a conjecture. The best alternative at the moment is that the payloads were not 450 kg.
Last year Israeli satellites confirmed the US claims of 57 out of 58 attacking an airfield. Hard to believe Syrian air defences have improved so much. The visible damage by the Tomahawks was not somhuge then either. Single holes punched into hangers by a vertical dive.
The imagery published of the wide view of the field where they have circled in 58 hits is too low resolution to make out even a single hit...
The several higher resolution pics they published show at most a couple dozen hits...
Not a scratch to the runways...of course these 'were not targeted...'
Remember this...But then how do you explain this...?
https://s20.postimg.cc/eg03uupx9/Harmer_Syria_Paper_2.jpg
Or this...
https://s20.postimg.cc/6ai1wotyl/Harmer_Syria_Paper_1.jpg
Or this...
https://s20.postimg.cc/e38poofd9/Harmer_Syria_Paper_3.jpg
Or this...
https://s20.postimg.cc/nnscbkcf1/Harmer_Syria_Paper_4.jpg
That's from USN Commander [Ret] Chris Harmer...back in 2013...
https://s20.postimg.cc/x8byygh6l/Harmer_Syria_Paper_5.jpg
Well...the story certainly changed quite a bit after not hitting either one of Shayrat's TWO runways...
Then overnight the koolaid drinkers were telling everyobody that runways are easy to fix...
Come on man...at what point do you get off the disneyland ride...?
Like I said...read my comments in that thread and if you have actual serious comments and questions I will be glad to punch you out again...[kidding...(not really)]
Your comment regarding lack of office furniture etc is borne out by site photos here: https://twitter.com/vpkivimaki/status/985593196376977409/photo/1
The site was clearly abandoned some time before the strike.EDIT: I didn't see FB's statement regarding the ISI photos before posting, but am leaving my post up to second his point.
I was selling ice cream not palm oil.
Come on man…why don’t you at least try to save some face by throwing in the towel…?
You’re now officially in Prince Charles tampon territory…
We are still left with on the one side an implausibly high number of missiles launched at the target and on the other an inability to shoot down that many. Everybody lies in war but the losing side usually lies most.
And you are an adolescent fool for resorting to bullying through irrelevant ad hominems instead of trying to understand the point at debate. And you don't need more than inverse square to discuss blast radii to the necessary degree of precision here. Pompous ass.
Philip already pasted his resume and LinkedIn profile. It's only fair that Anatoly posts his OkCupid page so they can rub each-other in palm oil and seize the moment. I'm fully supportive so long as they spend less time smearing their "thoughts" online.
Last year Israeli satellites confirmed the US claims of 57 out of 58 attacking an airfield. Hard to believe Syrian air defences have improved so much. The visible damage by the Tomahawks was not somhuge then either. Single holes punched into hangers by a vertical dive.
They certainly did not confirm anything of the sort…again I have referenced my dissection of that fabrication in the link provided above…see the 800 lb gorilla thread…
The imagery published of the wide view of the field where they have circled in 58 hits is too low resolution to make out even a single hit…
The several higher resolution pics they published show at most a couple dozen hits…
Not a scratch to the runways…of course these ‘were not targeted…’
Remember this…
But then how do you explain this…?
Or this…
Or this…
Or this…
That’s from USN Commander [Ret] Chris Harmer…back in 2013…
Well…the story certainly changed quite a bit after not hitting either one of Shayrat’s TWO runways…
Then overnight the koolaid drinkers were telling everyobody that runways are easy to fix…
Come on man…at what point do you get off the disneyland ride…?
Like I said…read my comments in that thread and if you have actual serious comments and questions I will be glad to punch you out again…[kidding...(not really)]
BREAKING: British-US Toxin, Not Novichok used in Salisbury Attack
https://principia-scientific.org/breaking-british-us-toxin-not-novichok-used-in-salisbury-attack/
Swiss lab says ‘BZ toxin’ used in Salisbury, not produced in Russia, was in US & UK service
I will be downloading and reading some of these papers...and I encourage other technically minded folks to do likewise...
This website is a real find...
Somehow I doubt they will reveal the producer of this chemical. Besides, what is the source of the material and where is the chain of custody?
We know who you are 196, and we’re watching. Nowhere to hide. By the way we give extra scrutiny to anyone using the anonymous handle. Now go change your panties, coward.
-NSA
Last year Israeli satellites confirmed the US claims of 57 out of 58 attacking an airfield. Hard to believe Syrian air defences have improved so much. The visible damage by the Tomahawks was not somhuge then either. Single holes punched into hangers by a vertical dive.
They did? The only sat-pics available at the time came from ISI, who was being quite coy by releasing hi-res pics of 2 dozen or so obvious hits, and lo-res-could-be-anything pics of the rest. Have some photos been released since that gainsay this conclusion?
In any case, 57/58 would be extraordinary performance for a TLAM salvo, who’s historical performance according to USM assessments has been <40% success even without meaningful AD. The TLAM's claimed CEP of 10M and lo-aeronautic performance indicates that even 40% is probably optimistic, especially attacking an intensive AD environment.
PS: Your conjecture that this was a demolition site has some merit. That is, what looks very much like a dozer-mounted jackhammer in the photo looks (to me) to have been there through the strike. The lack of any other equipment suggests that either much was removed, or that the demolition plans were limited to much less than the entire site. Or both.
Your comment regarding lack of office furniture etc is borne out by site photos here: https://twitter.com/vpkivimaki/status/985593196376977409/photo/1
The site was clearly abandoned some time before the strike.
EDIT: I didn’t see FB’s statement regarding the ISI photos before posting, but am leaving my post up to second his point.
https://principia-scientific.org/breaking-british-us-toxin-not-novichok-used-in-salisbury-attack/
Swiss lab says ‘BZ toxin’ used in Salisbury, not produced in Russia, was in US & UK service
Thanks for the heads up on this website…which I was not aware of…but which has some interesting papers on climate change…which may well be yet another fabrication in the long line…
I will be downloading and reading some of these papers…and I encourage other technically minded folks to do likewise…
This website is a real find…
https://www.toonpool.com/user/8878/files/charlesa_and_camilla_834165.jpg
Throwing in the towel about what? Not immediately taking the photo naively at face value. I’ve used a device that allowed me to zoom on the hi-res mage. There are indeed blown out windows and debris on certain roofs so I will believe that the photo is not a deception despite the lack of signs of burning.
We are still left with on the one side an implausibly high number of missiles launched at the target and on the other an inability to shoot down that many. Everybody lies in war but the losing side usually lies most.
And you are an adolescent fool for resorting to bullying through irrelevant ad hominems instead of trying to understand the point at debate. And you don’t need more than inverse square to discuss blast radii to the necessary degree of precision here. Pompous ass.
I still need to respond with sound technical facts about your little squawk concerning the 'Growler' jamming aircraft vs Russian air defense radars...we'll leave that till tomorrow...LOL...
But just a quick review...first you said the photo I presented was not the site of the T-hawk salvo...then when that became burnt toast you came up with something so ridiculous that it can hardly believed...that the USN somehow switched out warheads on those T-hawks...
What did they load them up with play-doh...?
Not to mention that this is physically impossible since any change in the weight of the nose of this flight vehicle would result in a shift in the vehicle's center of gravity and would make it unflyable...
A change like that would entail a huge redesign of the airframe...aerodynamics 101...
So yeah...your silliness is unprecedented...and on a level with Tampon Charles...
Sorry to burst your little soap bubble...but next time get off the disneyland ride in due time and save yourself some embarrassment...
I will be downloading and reading some of these papers...and I encourage other technically minded folks to do likewise...
This website is a real find...
Come’n. Principia Scientifica is mostly crap. You don’t have to believe the “scientific consensus” on climate change to expect rational analysis of data and sensible comments on articles published. PS Fails on both counts.
And to stave off any debate about climate change let me hasten to say that no one knows how climate will change under human influence, since (a) the system is chaotic, and (b) non of the climate models predicted the post 2000 pause in rising temperature, which means non of the climate models usefully predict the future of climate.
We do know, though, that atmospheric CO2 is rising and that that is having major impacts on the biosphere. Among other effects, crop and forest yields are rising which means rising CO2 is among the factors driving the massive African population explosion.
There are also remarkable though subtle effects of CO2 concentration in the 1000 ppm plus range on human cognition, a serious matter in a world facing the prospect of Amageddon.
The story on the Skripal poisoning is not quite as Wally understands it. Thus the Russian Embassy in London, England reports :
In fact BZ and A-234 are antagonistic in their physiological effects. A-234 (aka Novichok) is a convulsant that acts as an inhibitor of acetylcholine esterase at the neuromuscular junction, thereby causing convulsions and vomiting, etc. BZ is a paralytic poison that blocks the active sites on the acetylcholine receptor of the muscle fiber without activating them, thereby causing paralysis. Thus BZ could have been used as a treatment for A-234 poisoning, or, conceivable, as I have argued here, A-234 could have been used as a treatment for BZ poisoning.
The truth about the Skripal poisoning is unlikely to be revealed unless there are some straight answers from the attending physicians at the Salisbury Trust Hospital.
https://principia-scientific.org/breaking-british-us-toxin-not-novichok-used-in-salisbury-attack/
Swiss lab says ‘BZ toxin’ used in Salisbury, not produced in Russia, was in US & UK service
Since the Swiss lab can provide isotopic ratios of carbon and oxygen (3k Da resolution using a time of flight MS system) they can match the “BZ” to the US or UK source that produced the agent.
Somehow I doubt they will reveal the producer of this chemical. Besides, what is the source of the material and where is the chain of custody?
Yes, I’m familiar with that kind of attitude when it comes to serving in the military.
Just wanted to point out to a few instances of genuine mass enthusiasm for the military adventure.
We are still left with on the one side an implausibly high number of missiles launched at the target and on the other an inability to shoot down that many. Everybody lies in war but the losing side usually lies most.
And you are an adolescent fool for resorting to bullying through irrelevant ad hominems instead of trying to understand the point at debate. And you don't need more than inverse square to discuss blast radii to the necessary degree of precision here. Pompous ass.
I’m not done with punchingbag Phil just yet…so don’t get your knickers in a twist…
I still need to respond with sound technical facts about your little squawk concerning the ‘Growler’ jamming aircraft vs Russian air defense radars…we’ll leave that till tomorrow…LOL…
But just a quick review…first you said the photo I presented was not the site of the T-hawk salvo…then when that became burnt toast you came up with something so ridiculous that it can hardly believed…that the USN somehow switched out warheads on those T-hawks…
What did they load them up with play-doh…?
Not to mention that this is physically impossible since any change in the weight of the nose of this flight vehicle would result in a shift in the vehicle’s center of gravity and would make it unflyable…
A change like that would entail a huge redesign of the airframe…aerodynamics 101…
So yeah…your silliness is unprecedented…and on a level with Tampon Charles…
Sorry to burst your little soap bubble…but next time get off the disneyland ride in due time and save yourself some embarrassment…
The common theme everyone is talking about on the internet today is that America should have bombed itself for its history of chemical weapons.
All this said, I do share - perhaps superstitious - aversion to even concept of 'chemical weapons'.
The hysteria around Agent Orange is in part the product of one of Russia’s finest exports – disinformatiya.
http://www.aei.org/publication/the-agent-orange-fiasco/
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2004/12/dioxin-myth.html
Clearly there is a strong case to be made for this, no one in his right mind would trust Sergei Lavrov more than Boris Johnson (or Vladimir Putin more than Theresa May).
If you say it enough, I’m sure it will become true.
Nor would anyone in his right mind trust a western quote leader more than they trust Putin.
Boy, that accomplished a lot!
I do not mean to smear anyone(beyond Joe Wong, for being annoying). I do also believe that President Xi is accomplishing something historic.
Im always puzzled why all mainland Chinese are so passive to defend their own motherland from West & India lead smearing propaganda, except Joe Wong & occasionally Daniel & DB Cooper. Denk & me (Mr Robert Geoffrey too) are not from China, we don’t even have any connection to China, yet we are always doing the Chinese duty.
I couldn’t find any fault in Jw comment to warrant your ad hominem comment, which further instilled wrong perception to those already harbouring Yellow Peril, like Radical Center , Oz, Russians & Indians indoctrined by West & Indian relentless propaganda.
Joe W has clearly make a commendable comment to express China leaders vision for a peaceful future world. There is no slight mention of “Chinese NEVER been aggressive”
He does not deserved to be mocked by hypocrite commenters intentionally spewing falsehood to smear China, when their own country was the worst violent aggressor historically. That’s why i stick my neck out to counter them with facts, hopefully they look at facts rather than pride to take offense.
Joe comment:
Chinese reckoned & learned from their past faults, incl what invaders Mongols & Manchus aggression mistakes tho not to their fault.
Future trend of times, not bearing grudge on history. All these are consistent with Mr Deng XP, and subsequent leaders standing words & acts in midst of tremendous West, Jp & India lead endless provocations. Prez Xi has manifest this peaceful vision under China rising influence.
This is what China has learned from other imperialism empires, and wisely avoiding as revealed in this documentary show The Rise of The Great Powers. 大国崛起。
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Great_Powers&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjuk_Gu6L3aAhXMOI8KHZExAuQQFjAGegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2USGTj81qHMSzEiOjuY3FC
大国崛起. This is Mandarin version. The one with English subtitles has been removed, pls search yourself.
http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist%3Flist%3DPLwXMmy5fUrVzrhuQ4Bp-CB9qIN1rOmhdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwizr5zx5r3aAhUDYo8KHZ2pBzYQFggNMAE&usg=AOvVaw3u8YxpYlFiPMBj1OMNsFJY
(8nations alliance + indian sepoy) The Opium war invaders, why these countries are so worry on a rising China.
https://twitter.com/vpkivimaki/status/985593498815619072
Yes, B. ______ BARZEH COMPLEX in DAMASCUS
Scientist gives tour of smoldering site of missile strike in Syria
Assessing the damage of the airstrikes in Syria
Hi,
A great fan of your work. I wanted to respond earlier but i have been busy. Most of your argument here is good but you do miss a few points.
The US has lost most of its wars since it has become a great power in 1898. The first intervention in Russia in 1918, the Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan wars were all defeats. Somalia, Lebanon all disasters. Korea was a near run thing. All of these opponents were third rate by the way. If the us cant defeat third rate opponents, what makes you think they can beat a first rate one like Russia Why?The us does have a lot of firepower and due to its geography and economic resources is invulnerable to attack largely but it is poor in the application and execution of strategy,is overly dependent on airpower and naval power and its public has a very low tolerance for extended military operations (US operations in Haiti and Nicaragua were successful to a point but the us withdrew due to public opinion). I am not going to say that Russia could successfully conquer Europe nor invade America, indeed even in the Middle East , the US could wipe out the bases in Syria.
However, Russia is far better at fighting wars. You know about World war ii,I recommend that you read Dominic Lieven’s Russia against Napoleon if you doubt me. Russia is fighting closer to home, due to high levels of anti americanism, i am sure the Kremlin will be able to mobilize opinion. An anti access anti air program combined with electronic and cyber warfare should be able to cripple whatever advantages the west may have in air and naval. Also, war is an extension of politics. Europe is dependent on Russian gas (at least a lot of them are). I doubt the ability of Europe to mobilize opinion. Given this and Russian attempts to disrupt whatever logistical buildups there are, i doubt that the west could counter in Either Ukraine or the Baltics.However, Russia may face a protracted guerilla war there and the temptation to use nuclear weapons by the American elite may be very high!!!!!!so it could be lose lose anyway
The imagery published of the wide view of the field where they have circled in 58 hits is too low resolution to make out even a single hit...
The several higher resolution pics they published show at most a couple dozen hits...
Not a scratch to the runways...of course these 'were not targeted...'
Remember this...But then how do you explain this...?
https://s20.postimg.cc/eg03uupx9/Harmer_Syria_Paper_2.jpg
Or this...
https://s20.postimg.cc/6ai1wotyl/Harmer_Syria_Paper_1.jpg
Or this...
https://s20.postimg.cc/e38poofd9/Harmer_Syria_Paper_3.jpg
Or this...
https://s20.postimg.cc/nnscbkcf1/Harmer_Syria_Paper_4.jpg
That's from USN Commander [Ret] Chris Harmer...back in 2013...
https://s20.postimg.cc/x8byygh6l/Harmer_Syria_Paper_5.jpg
Well...the story certainly changed quite a bit after not hitting either one of Shayrat's TWO runways...
Then overnight the koolaid drinkers were telling everyobody that runways are easy to fix...
Come on man...at what point do you get off the disneyland ride...?
Like I said...read my comments in that thread and if you have actual serious comments and questions I will be glad to punch you out again...[kidding...(not really)]
Runways are easy to fix which is why there is a class of weapons aimed at delaying access to runways, even some nerve agents.
https://misfit120.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/moron.jpg
https://principia-scientific.org/breaking-british-us-toxin-not-novichok-used-in-salisbury-attack/
Swiss lab says ‘BZ toxin’ used in Salisbury, not produced in Russia, was in US & UK service
BZ is not an antidote to organophosphates but it is a but it is a preventative. As it was mixed with the “novichok”, Lavrov failed to mention that bit, it could well have been part of the same operation – giving protection to the “Novichok” user(s).
I still need to respond with sound technical facts about your little squawk concerning the 'Growler' jamming aircraft vs Russian air defense radars...we'll leave that till tomorrow...LOL...
But just a quick review...first you said the photo I presented was not the site of the T-hawk salvo...then when that became burnt toast you came up with something so ridiculous that it can hardly believed...that the USN somehow switched out warheads on those T-hawks...
What did they load them up with play-doh...?
Not to mention that this is physically impossible since any change in the weight of the nose of this flight vehicle would result in a shift in the vehicle's center of gravity and would make it unflyable...
A change like that would entail a huge redesign of the airframe...aerodynamics 101...
So yeah...your silliness is unprecedented...and on a level with Tampon Charles...
Sorry to burst your little soap bubble...but next time get off the disneyland ride in due time and save yourself some embarrassment...
Image never at any time suggested I was another site. And I also suggested that it would have taken months to refit warheads (and been part of a long term plan). Unlike you I am considering more than one option.
I still need to respond with sound technical facts about your little squawk concerning the 'Growler' jamming aircraft vs Russian air defense radars...we'll leave that till tomorrow...LOL...
But just a quick review...first you said the photo I presented was not the site of the T-hawk salvo...then when that became burnt toast you came up with something so ridiculous that it can hardly believed...that the USN somehow switched out warheads on those T-hawks...
What did they load them up with play-doh...?
Not to mention that this is physically impossible since any change in the weight of the nose of this flight vehicle would result in a shift in the vehicle's center of gravity and would make it unflyable...
A change like that would entail a huge redesign of the airframe...aerodynamics 101...
So yeah...your silliness is unprecedented...and on a level with Tampon Charles...
Sorry to burst your little soap bubble...but next time get off the disneyland ride in due time and save yourself some embarrassment...
As for weight, must add something else there. Playdoh is a great idea.
Your comment regarding lack of office furniture etc is borne out by site photos here: https://twitter.com/vpkivimaki/status/985593196376977409/photo/1
The site was clearly abandoned some time before the strike.EDIT: I didn't see FB's statement regarding the ISI photos before posting, but am leaving my post up to second his point.
Thank you for your courtesy in suggesting an alternative view.
The one exception is Greasy who somehow manages to be one of the most rabid Zionists but has a bunch of other dimensions to him, as well as being able to call out Jews when they do stupid stuff or give credit where it’s due to others.
Also, he often shares with us who he would bang; so there’s that...
Peace.
Yeah, “Greasy” [no explanation please] is fun to read. But the disturbing thing I’ve noticed about some of the “rabid zionists” and the people Mr. Unz calls “Jewish activists” is that they can appear quite rational on other issues but turn into some sort of Corvinus facsimile when anything however distantly relating to Jews comes up. The commenter “JackD” on Sailer’s blog is a good example of this. It scares me because I wonder: when do I sound like that? Does the human brain just shut off at a certain point? If anything does get us into WWIII it’s going to be this tendency, and not just in the Jews.
Peace.
Unfortunately the war game scenario is of low quality. I think that the author is aware of this but deliberately did not mention lots of information.
The war game scenario does not mention the fact that Russia can destroy any US base in the Persian Gulf or the Middle East, or Europe (by conventional weapons, not nukes) as well as US ships in the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf or Red Sea.
Kinzhal anti-ship aerobalistic missile – 2000 km both nuclear and conventional variant
Kalibr cruise missile – 2500 km range both nuclear and conventional variant
X-101 stealthy cruise missile 5500 km both nuclear and conventional variant
Do you understand what those ranges mean?
Those several weapons mean that you can not win a conventional war against Russia near Russia, as everything withing 2500 km will be destroyed – in this case most of Europe and the Middle East, as well as S Korea and Japan. And all surface ships within 2000 km.
Recently Putin and Shoigu mentioned that Russia now has the capability to defeat any aggressor. Key word here – aggressor. Which means action near russia’s borders. They can’t beat the US near the US, but now neither the US can beat Russia near Russia.
Large numbers of weapons such as the Kinzhal, Iskander (with probably better capabilities than 500 km range, just in case) and ground based cruise missiles ensure that the US won’t be able to wage ground warfare against Russia, as any target within 2000 – 2500 km of Russia will be
destroyed by russian conventional weapons.
It is this US weakness (a realization that it will lose a conventional war against Russia in the european theater) that caused the US to lower the treshhold for the use of nuclear weapons, and to invest in new tactical nuclear weapons.
You don’t go this way unless you are weak in the conventional sphere.
In conventional war, the US will have to bomb heavily Russia with cruise missiles and B-2 bombers in order to start a ground invasion and bring carriers near it.
The problem here is that all US bases in Europe, the Middle East and SKorea/Japan will be destoyed by russian conventional weapons – Kinzals, numerous ground based Calibrs and enhanced Iskanders.
Ships coming closer to launch cruise missiles will be vulnerable to the Kinzal, the russian planes that launch it can not be reached by carrier planes (too short range) while ground airbases will be destroyed by salvos of ground based cruised missiles and air launched cruise missiles.
This only leaves submarines and military infrastructure far away from Rusia, such as that in the US, from where bombers can take off. In other words only submarines and bombers can be used, which will not be a lot, and will not be enough to destroy Russia in conventional conflict,
especially in light of the fact that the russians are investing heavilyin antiair defence, including cruise missile defence.
And here comes the nuclear powered cruise missile. Just like the US will be launching cruise missiles in order to hit Russia safely, in the same way Russia will launch 20 000 km range cruise missiles in order to hit any object in the US (or US bases in Australia, or the Indian Ocean), in order to destroy US military and other infrasructure. So it sounds like a pretty good conventional deterrent to me – the russians can now bomb the US with conventional cruise missiles just like the US
can bomb Russia with conventional cruise missiles, therefore inflicting large damage and destroying military and various other infrastructure within the US (powerplants, nuclear power plants, bridges, factories, oil depots, White House, Congress, skyscrapers, Wall Street, Fed, etc.)
by conventional means.
In other words, with its new weapons Russia brings the capability for numerous conventional cruise missile strikes everywhere within the US or in the world, increasing the costs for conventional warfare for the US, and decreasing the need for russian nuclear escalation. Thats quite new.
Meanwhile, the cries about US sanctions show poor understanding of world economic trends, who show that most of the worlds economy will be in Asia. There is revolution happening in the world economy right now – the end of 500 years of western hegemony over the world. For a first time since a very long time, the west will no longer be the center of the world’s economy, but only a small part of it. In 2040. the combined E-7 economies are projected to become twice as big as the combined G-7 economies.
https://viableopposition.blogspot.bg/2018/04/chinas-formula-to-defeat-western.html
How 76 missiles on these three buildings should have looked like according to one blogger:
I still need to respond with sound technical facts about your little squawk concerning the 'Growler' jamming aircraft vs Russian air defense radars...we'll leave that till tomorrow...LOL...
But just a quick review...first you said the photo I presented was not the site of the T-hawk salvo...then when that became burnt toast you came up with something so ridiculous that it can hardly believed...that the USN somehow switched out warheads on those T-hawks...
What did they load them up with play-doh...?
Not to mention that this is physically impossible since any change in the weight of the nose of this flight vehicle would result in a shift in the vehicle's center of gravity and would make it unflyable...
A change like that would entail a huge redesign of the airframe...aerodynamics 101...
So yeah...your silliness is unprecedented...and on a level with Tampon Charles...
Sorry to burst your little soap bubble...but next time get off the disneyland ride in due time and save yourself some embarrassment...
I think this discussion is a good example of why you’re a keyboard vatnik and he is an industry specialist. Have you even proven a simple mathematical theorem by contraposition? He probably has.
I get what you are saying – I’ve noticed that too. Very easy to turn “tribal” – quite natural actually – and toss principles out the window when discussions/debates come up. It’s a constant thing one has to keep on guard for within oneself. At least that’s my perspective.
Peace.
Somehow I doubt they will reveal the producer of this chemical. Besides, what is the source of the material and where is the chain of custody?
BZ is not particularly toxic, it is a recognized pharmacological agent. It is a paralyzing agent that might be used, for example, as an antidote to a convulsant such as Novichok. It is sold by at least a dozen well known chemical and pharmaceutical companies.
The war game scenario does not mention the fact that Russia can destroy any US base in the Persian Gulf or the Middle East, or Europe (by conventional weapons, not nukes) as well as US ships in the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf or Red Sea.
Kinzhal anti-ship aerobalistic missile - 2000 km both nuclear and conventional variant
Kalibr cruise missile - 2500 km range both nuclear and conventional variant
X-101 stealthy cruise missile 5500 km both nuclear and conventional variant
Do you understand what those ranges mean?
Those several weapons mean that you can not win a conventional war against Russia near Russia, as everything withing 2500 km will be destroyed - in this case most of Europe and the Middle East, as well as S Korea and Japan. And all surface ships within 2000 km.
Recently Putin and Shoigu mentioned that Russia now has the capability to defeat any aggressor. Key word here - aggressor. Which means action near russia's borders. They can't beat the US near the US, but now neither the US can beat Russia near Russia.
Large numbers of weapons such as the Kinzhal, Iskander (with probably better capabilities than 500 km range, just in case) and ground based cruise missiles ensure that the US won’t be able to wage ground warfare against Russia, as any target within 2000 – 2500 km of Russia will be
destroyed by russian conventional weapons.
It is this US weakness (a realization that it will lose a conventional war against Russia in the european theater) that caused the US to lower the treshhold for the use of nuclear weapons, and to invest in new tactical nuclear weapons.
You don’t go this way unless you are weak in the conventional sphere.
In conventional war, the US will have to bomb heavily Russia with cruise missiles and B-2 bombers in order to start a ground invasion and bring carriers near it.
The problem here is that all US bases in Europe, the Middle East and SKorea/Japan will be destoyed by russian conventional weapons – Kinzals, numerous ground based Calibrs and enhanced Iskanders.
Ships coming closer to launch cruise missiles will be vulnerable to the Kinzal, the russian planes that launch it can not be reached by carrier planes (too short range) while ground airbases will be destroyed by salvos of ground based cruised missiles and air launched cruise missiles.
This only leaves submarines and military infrastructure far away from Rusia, such as that in the US, from where bombers can take off. In other words only submarines and bombers can be used, which will not be a lot, and will not be enough to destroy Russia in conventional conflict,
especially in light of the fact that the russians are investing heavilyin antiair defence, including cruise missile defence.
And here comes the nuclear powered cruise missile. Just like the US will be launching cruise missiles in order to hit Russia safely, in the same way Russia will launch 20 000 km range cruise missiles in order to hit any object in the US (or US bases in Australia, or the Indian Ocean), in order to destroy US military and other infrasructure. So it sounds like a pretty good conventional deterrent to me – the russians can now bomb the US with conventional cruise missiles just like the US
can bomb Russia with conventional cruise missiles, therefore inflicting large damage and destroying military and various other infrastructure within the US (powerplants, nuclear power plants, bridges, factories, oil depots, White House, Congress, skyscrapers, Wall Street, Fed, etc.)
by conventional means.
In other words, with its new weapons Russia brings the capability for numerous conventional cruise missile strikes everywhere within the US or in the world, increasing the costs for conventional warfare for the US, and decreasing the need for russian nuclear escalation. Thats quite new.
Russia does not have enough missiles to destroy “everything”. How many missiles they have?
Being rational is not a top priority for them. It is only a thin veil. Deep down they want to kill you which become evident once they no longer can dissimulate: Jack D. Art Deco,…
Perhaps Voltaire was onto something 300 years ago:
I would assume that they currently have three shifts working to add to their inventories.
Good article, but the author is in error regarding the global impact of the mass fires which will follow a nuclear war. See Lynn Eden, Whole World on Fire. Massive starvation is also guaranteed, due to the breakdown of logistics / deliveries to cities.
Of course they are Tampon Phil…that’s why you see your city’s freeway repaved overnight instead of a year right…?
Incidentally…have you ever been involved in runway repair…or road repair work of any kind…?
Have you ever flown as a pilot…?
Because if you have you would know that runways…or portions thereof can be out of commission for months and even years…this is a common sight to pilots around the world…and is something of a hazard as well…if pilots don’t heed the latest information when coming in..
As for replacing warheads…with something not as lethal…but weighing the same so the T-hawk can still actually fly…
Have you ever heard of Occam’s razor…?
Why of course the logical ‘alternative’ is that…months before this strike on Syria…Raytheon engineers and USN personnel worked in secret to redesign the T-hawk so it could be used without doing any harm and getting the Russians upset…
That makes perfect sense…to an imbecile…
Just doing a quick google I find this:
http://themilitaryengineer.com/index.php/item/138-time-sensitive-runway-repairAssuming that there is indeed all of the materials needed at present with no enemy action at all, its very much a solved problem. Not a cheap problem, but entirely possible.
You are 4 years too late spreading ill thoughtout bullshit.
Surrounding and blocking UKR army bases by armed forces sounds like nothing but invasion, except it was succesful one, which had no immediate cost in very short term.
Whose armed forces? Donbass/Lughansk armed forces? Russian?
There were no Russian armed forces in Ukraine, otherwise there would have been more hysterical wailing from Samantha, Nikky etal… and like the “surrounding and blocking UKR army bases”… never happened.
Alas, human frailty and folly. Are we irredeemable?
https://misfit120.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/moron.jpg
I have, and I am certain that Mr. Owen has as well. That is not, technically, an extremely difficult task especially if aiming for minimal functionality. It is an expensive task to expedite as it might involve destruction of the foundation in order to recreate the new surface, but assuming that there is enough labor and equipment, it is entirely possible.
Just doing a quick google I find this:
http://themilitaryengineer.com/index.php/item/138-time-sensitive-runway-repair
Assuming that there is indeed all of the materials needed at present with no enemy action at all, its very much a solved problem. Not a cheap problem, but entirely possible.
See my comment #1041 which is addressed to you...
https://www.toonpool.com/user/8878/files/charlesa_and_camilla_834165.jpg
Haha, so now the US has modified their missiles to be an order of magnitude less impactful just to make Philip Owen’s skull-splitting theory stick? What a champ. No wonder he’s a fan of Anatoly Karlin. They’re both abusing reason with reckless abandon to fit their agendas.
Philip already pasted his resume and LinkedIn profile. It’s only fair that Anatoly posts his OkCupid page so they can rub each-other in palm oil and seize the moment. I’m fully supportive so long as they spend less time smearing their “thoughts” online.
Which war head uses the small condom when making love to hostile terrain?
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2200&tid=1300&ct=2
You have what…?…a tiny nonfunctional brain…?
I asked Tampon Phil whether he has first hand experience as a pilot…or any related firsthand experience…
Do you…?
You pulled a silly article out of you buttwhistling bunghole that doesn’t even support your sillyass contention…and talks about ‘new’ and ‘possible’ solutions…
Even from your own quote above…
‘…However, most of these solutions require materials to be readily available on site, which has often not been the case in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Forced to make do with in-situ materials and resources, engineers have not been able to perform effective repairs…‘
And that’s the US military with its massive support and logistics infrastucture…
Also the article you mentioned deals specifically with concrete runways…both runways at Sharyat are asphalt…
And what exactly is the point of your taking things out of context…
I said very plainly that the issue is that runways are always the primary target when trying to hit an airfield that is a fact…
After the US failed to hit either of the two Shayrat runways with 58 missiles that they claimed all hit the airfield…the official story was that they were not trying to hit the runways…
That’s the context moronboy…
In the Gulf war the British were tasked with busting up Iraqi runways with their two-seat Tornado aircraft and tallied heavy losses…losing six crews…why would they do that if hitting runways is not important…?
The thrust of my comment was that the plan prior to the attack was to hit the runways…that is spelled out in great detail in that report from 2013…they even talk about hitting each runway with a missile at 1,000 ft intervals…
Then afterwards when they didn’t hit any runways and planes were taking off within hours…the story turned around to runways were not targeted…
That was in 2013…
Right after the Shayrat fail…then runways all of a sudden became ‘easy to repair’…
I had already presented all of this in my comment above…yet you choose to jump in like a monkey waving a banana…
What a complete moron…
Philip already pasted his resume and LinkedIn profile. It's only fair that Anatoly posts his OkCupid page so they can rub each-other in palm oil and seize the moment. I'm fully supportive so long as they spend less time smearing their "thoughts" online.
Here is the Karlint CV…
Indeed, this is very good advice for the US – pack up and go home. Good for goose and gander, and whatnot.
I mean sure, I don't doubt that Assad's regime is conducting all manner of atrocities, and I wouldn't even put it beyond them that they're using gas. But all sides (especially the Islamist-dominated rebels) are using cruel methods in this war. I think there's even proof that jihadi groups have used chlorine gas and the like on some occasions. Pretending that the viciousness of this war is merely due to "animal Assad's" cruelty is selective hypocrisy, probably merely a cover for other interests.
I also don't buy the argument that one has to prevent the use of chemical weapons at all costs, because otherwise their use might become more common and they might eventually be used against Western troops or civilians as well. A regime like Assad's can be easily deterred (and to my knowledge Assad has never even considered supporting terrorism against targets in Europe or the US). And chemical weapons don't seem that grave a threat to me as nuclear or biological ones.
Gas, even non-lethal gas, is extremely unpleasant, and the equipment to protect yourself against it is no fun to wear.
I don’t know if they still do it, but when I was in basic training or infantry training (I forget which — infantry training was pretty much the same thing) in the U.S. Army at the tail end of the Cold War, there was a drill called the gas chamber. They filled some bomb shelter like building with a cloud of CS Gas, marched you in your gas masks and “NBC” (nuclear, biological, chemical) gear, and then made you take off your mask one at a time, while they asked you some bullshit questions for a few seconds, and then shoved you out the door and told you to run.
This was physically the worst experience of my life up to that point. All of your exposed skin burns, your lungs burn, snot runs down your face, you dry heave or vomit, etc. And that doesn’t go away immediately after you get out of the gas chamber. It takes a while to wear off.
And the gear you have to wear to protect yourself from this stuff — unless they’ve radically changed it since then — is hot, bulky, and has poor visibility. You couldn’t even hold a rifle the normal way with a mask on, you had to rotate it at an odd angle. I don’t think even the most gung-ho soldier wanted to fight wearing that stuff.
My theory is that this gas business made a similar impression on generals and other defense establishment types, and that’s partly why they make a big deal about it.
I agree that poison gases are horrible (and make it more difficult to wage a war), but so is war in general.
Post-bombing overview:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/17/latest-atlanticist-tough-guy-act.html
Just before the bombing:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/13/cruising-for-bruising-with-russia.html
Good to see, as always, that people who've never experienced that are the most opinionated about military, combat, war etc.
Makes....peculiar..... sense.
I don't know if they still do it, but when I was in basic training or infantry training (I forget which -- infantry training was pretty much the same thing) in the U.S. Army at the tail end of the Cold War, there was a drill called the gas chamber. They filled some bomb shelter like building with a cloud of CS Gas, marched you in your gas masks and "NBC" (nuclear, biological, chemical) gear, and then made you take off your mask one at a time, while they asked you some bullshit questions for a few seconds, and then shoved you out the door and told you to run.
This was physically the worst experience of my life up to that point. All of your exposed skin burns, your lungs burn, snot runs down your face, you dry heave or vomit, etc. And that doesn't go away immediately after you get out of the gas chamber. It takes a while to wear off.
And the gear you have to wear to protect yourself from this stuff -- unless they've radically changed it since then -- is hot, bulky, and has poor visibility. You couldn't even hold a rifle the normal way with a mask on, you had to rotate it at an odd angle. I don't think even the most gung-ho soldier wanted to fight wearing that stuff.
My theory is that this gas business made a similar impression on generals and other defense establishment types, and that's partly why they make a big deal about it.
I don’t dispute a word that you’ve written here Dave but let’s be honest, they don’t give a damn about the lower ranks and hardly ever have. They didn’t think twice about using gas in WWI even though a simple wind shift can bring it back to poison their own ranks. They didn’t care when exposing men to radiation with the atomic testing, exposing men to defoliants in Vietnam, to DU in Iraq. They just don’t care a whit! The outrage over the (disputed) use of gas is just an excuse to trigger the war they’ve decided must be waged on the road to total global domination. If it wasn’t gas it would be something else.
He visits the underground hospital where the terrorists and white helmet scumbags rushed in and started dousing people with water and filmed their fake video...Fisk confirms all the white helmets chose to evacuate with the terrorists...Funny story here as Fisk explores the huge underground city that was dug by terroristheld prisoners used as slave labor...[over 3,000 were released as part of the evacuation deal...including many women and children...]The gas story is now officially fake...
https://s20.postimg.cc/sr349mrwd/4447a4e2074ca621dc8c7ce4e43af2f2--funny-pics-funny-shit.jpg
I don't know if they still do it, but when I was in basic training or infantry training (I forget which -- infantry training was pretty much the same thing) in the U.S. Army at the tail end of the Cold War, there was a drill called the gas chamber. They filled some bomb shelter like building with a cloud of CS Gas, marched you in your gas masks and "NBC" (nuclear, biological, chemical) gear, and then made you take off your mask one at a time, while they asked you some bullshit questions for a few seconds, and then shoved you out the door and told you to run.
This was physically the worst experience of my life up to that point. All of your exposed skin burns, your lungs burn, snot runs down your face, you dry heave or vomit, etc. And that doesn't go away immediately after you get out of the gas chamber. It takes a while to wear off.
And the gear you have to wear to protect yourself from this stuff -- unless they've radically changed it since then -- is hot, bulky, and has poor visibility. You couldn't even hold a rifle the normal way with a mask on, you had to rotate it at an odd angle. I don't think even the most gung-ho soldier wanted to fight wearing that stuff.
My theory is that this gas business made a similar impression on generals and other defense establishment types, and that's partly why they make a big deal about it.
Did they also cut out parts of your intestines with shrapnel, so that you could compare the experience?
I agree that poison gases are horrible (and make it more difficult to wage a war), but so is war in general.
The Tomahawk is not the preferred weapon for cratering runways, or preventing/discouraging their use. For that task, the USAF has specialized munitions like the BLU-107, which must be delivered by a bomber or fighter-bomber, with risk to the aircrew. The UK lost at least six Tornadoes and their pilots in low-level attacks against Iraqi airfields in 1991 trying to take out the runways.
As I have stated previously, when it comes to degrading flight operations at any airfield, there is more than one way to skin a cat. In addition to knocking out the runways, fuel and ammo dumps can be destroyed, along with workshops, warehouses, radar, control centers — all the ancillary facilities necessary for flight operations — and of course, the aircraft themselves are the primary targets, along with the pilots.
It doesn’t matter how many runways you have open if your aircraft have all been destroyed, and I would suggest that has been the primary goal of these two missile attacks on Syria: to grind down and eventually destroy the Syrian air force.
Back to the present, depending on whose version you accept — if either — the United States, UK, and France attacked, or rather
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1493749/department-of-defense-press-briefing-by-pentagon-chief-spokesperson-dana-w-whit/
According to the Russians, in addition to the attacks on research facilities, 7 Syrian airbases were targeted, but most of the missiles were shot down:
(my edits for clarity & brevity)
http://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/[email protected]
I don't know if they still do it, but when I was in basic training or infantry training (I forget which -- infantry training was pretty much the same thing) in the U.S. Army at the tail end of the Cold War, there was a drill called the gas chamber. They filled some bomb shelter like building with a cloud of CS Gas, marched you in your gas masks and "NBC" (nuclear, biological, chemical) gear, and then made you take off your mask one at a time, while they asked you some bullshit questions for a few seconds, and then shoved you out the door and told you to run.
This was physically the worst experience of my life up to that point. All of your exposed skin burns, your lungs burn, snot runs down your face, you dry heave or vomit, etc. And that doesn't go away immediately after you get out of the gas chamber. It takes a while to wear off.
And the gear you have to wear to protect yourself from this stuff -- unless they've radically changed it since then -- is hot, bulky, and has poor visibility. You couldn't even hold a rifle the normal way with a mask on, you had to rotate it at an odd angle. I don't think even the most gung-ho soldier wanted to fight wearing that stuff.
My theory is that this gas business made a similar impression on generals and other defense establishment types, and that's partly why they make a big deal about it.
Window dressing to take a pot shot Russia.
Post-bombing overview:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/17/latest-atlanticist-tough-guy-act.html
Just before the bombing:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/13/cruising-for-bruising-with-russia.html
Just doing a quick google I find this:
http://themilitaryengineer.com/index.php/item/138-time-sensitive-runway-repairAssuming that there is indeed all of the materials needed at present with no enemy action at all, its very much a solved problem. Not a cheap problem, but entirely possible.
Forgot to hit the ‘reply’ button monkeyboy…
See my comment #1041 which is addressed to you…
I don't know if they still do it, but when I was in basic training or infantry training (I forget which -- infantry training was pretty much the same thing) in the U.S. Army at the tail end of the Cold War, there was a drill called the gas chamber. They filled some bomb shelter like building with a cloud of CS Gas, marched you in your gas masks and "NBC" (nuclear, biological, chemical) gear, and then made you take off your mask one at a time, while they asked you some bullshit questions for a few seconds, and then shoved you out the door and told you to run.
This was physically the worst experience of my life up to that point. All of your exposed skin burns, your lungs burn, snot runs down your face, you dry heave or vomit, etc. And that doesn't go away immediately after you get out of the gas chamber. It takes a while to wear off.
And the gear you have to wear to protect yourself from this stuff -- unless they've radically changed it since then -- is hot, bulky, and has poor visibility. You couldn't even hold a rifle the normal way with a mask on, you had to rotate it at an odd angle. I don't think even the most gung-ho soldier wanted to fight wearing that stuff.
My theory is that this gas business made a similar impression on generals and other defense establishment types, and that's partly why they make a big deal about it.
That’s an interesting theory I hadn’t thought about before, might at least be a partial explanation for why poison gas is seen as especially bad. Thanks!
As I have stated previously, when it comes to degrading flight operations at any airfield, there is more than one way to skin a cat. In addition to knocking out the runways, fuel and ammo dumps can be destroyed, along with workshops, warehouses, radar, control centers -- all the ancillary facilities necessary for flight operations -- and of course, the aircraft themselves are the primary targets, along with the pilots.
It doesn't matter how many runways you have open if your aircraft have all been destroyed, and I would suggest that has been the primary goal of these two missile attacks on Syria: to grind down and eventually destroy the Syrian air force.
Back to the present, depending on whose version you accept -- if either -- the United States, UK, and France attacked, or ratherhttps://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1493749/department-of-defense-press-briefing-by-pentagon-chief-spokesperson-dana-w-whit/
According to the Russians, in addition to the attacks on research facilities, 7 Syrian airbases were targeted, but most of the missiles were shot down:(my edits for clarity & brevity)
http://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/[email protected]
Well…your comment is about par for a layman take on things…
If you had any actual aviation experience you would know that the RAF Tornados were tasked with taking out Iraqi runways in Desert Storm…because the French made Durandal [which the US calls the BLU107]…is too small and not as effective as the British JP233 runway buster which only the Tornado can carry…
I know this for a fact from RAF airmen who actually flew missions in Desert Storm…the heavy losses of those Tornado crews [five two-man crews killed and seven captured]…are well remembered in the RAF community and the professional aviation community in general…
The JP233 was chosen to bust up Iraqi runways because it is a bruiser that carries 30 26 kg bomblets for a total explosive payload of 780 kg…compared to the Durandal’s 115 kg total charge…
That’s simply silly and falls into the armchair general category…
Destroying runways is THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY in taking out the enemy’s air capability…the reason is that enemy airplanes are not going to sit parked while an air war is going on…
They will be in the air and can go to other airfields…even improvised airfields like highways or even farm fields…Russian planes are designed specifically for rough field operations with heavy duty landing gear…the Swedish Saabs are designed to land on roads on highways…
As for support infrastructure…airplanes can take off and land without radar…it is completely unnecessary…Fuel can be brought in in tanker trucks…other equipment such as radio navaids for operations in low visibility weather…can be repaired much more quickly than a busted up runway…
In any case…Shayrat was a SECONDARY airfield…as noted in that USN report which I linked to…it wasn’t even on the target list of six PRIMARY airfields…and was used mainly as a boneyard for stripping parts off planes no longer airworthy…
The number of airplanes destroyed was a total of six such junkers…according to the Russian MoD…
And you can sit there and squawk about ways of ‘skinning a cat’ all you want…but the proof is in the putting…and the Syrians were putting airplanes in the air within hours of this mickey mouse attack…
If they had at least succeeded in busting up some runways…that would not have happened for at least some days…if not weeks…
The T-hawk packs 450 kg of HE…that will make a very large hole…it also can carry an alternate warhead…BLU97that dispenses submunitions…here is the show off T-hawk video specifically showing these little bomblets cratering a runway…
So it is clear that the story from the proven liars is always going to be bullshit…no matter what happens…that’s just how the bullshit business works…
Now whether sheeple accept the bullshit is entirely up to YOU…
The Douma fake gas story has now been officially blown out of the water…by British journo Robert Fisk reporting from Douma…
He visits the underground hospital where the terrorists and white helmet scumbags rushed in and started dousing people with water and filmed their fake video…Fisk confirms all the white helmets chose to evacuate with the terrorists…
Funny story here as Fisk explores the huge underground city that was dug by terroristheld prisoners used as slave labor…[over 3,000 were released as part of the evacuation deal...including many women and children...]
The gas story is now officially fake…
I know Ron Unz doesn't like them but I rather enjoy the cartoons, a little levity never hurt and of course, many a true word is said in jest. Cheers
He visits the underground hospital where the terrorists and white helmet scumbags rushed in and started dousing people with water and filmed their fake video...Fisk confirms all the white helmets chose to evacuate with the terrorists...Funny story here as Fisk explores the huge underground city that was dug by terroristheld prisoners used as slave labor...[over 3,000 were released as part of the evacuation deal...including many women and children...]The gas story is now officially fake...
https://s20.postimg.cc/sr349mrwd/4447a4e2074ca621dc8c7ce4e43af2f2--funny-pics-funny-shit.jpg
Any thinking person could determine this as fake news from the beginning, the timing of it, the lack of motive by the SAA, the previous pattern of deceptions by ZUSA/ZUK, the chorus of shrieking media condemnation, there was never really any doubt. I responded to Dave’s comment to dispel the idea that gas should cause any more outrage than killing people using white phosphorus, DU, HE or even by employing cold and callous snipers as Israel has recently against civilians.
I know Ron Unz doesn’t like them but I rather enjoy the cartoons, a little levity never hurt and of course, many a true word is said in jest. Cheers
You can see right in this comment section here how many refuse to accept reality even when it's staring them in the face...
The bounds of human delusion are truly staggering...and yet to be fully mapped...
But the significance of an MSM outlet now running a story from a respected veteran war corespondent that blows the story out of the water is huge...
Media plays a huge role in shaping perceptions...from what I have seen it is media talk that is driving political discussions...I would say that Dump's resort to use of force was driven directly by the media frenzy...
Now watch as May opponents in the House seize on the Fisk report...and others sure to come out...to make this obviously fake story a genuine political issue...
I think we may see German and other European MSM now going to Douma and reporting similar exposes...though I suspect the completely insane US media is going to simply try to bury this and ignore everything that comes out...
I know Ron Unz doesn't like them but I rather enjoy the cartoons, a little levity never hurt and of course, many a true word is said in jest. Cheers
Of course every thinking person could see through the BS from the get go…but how many thinking people are left…?
You can see right in this comment section here how many refuse to accept reality even when it’s staring them in the face…
The bounds of human delusion are truly staggering…and yet to be fully mapped…
But the significance of an MSM outlet now running a story from a respected veteran war corespondent that blows the story out of the water is huge…
Media plays a huge role in shaping perceptions…from what I have seen it is media talk that is driving political discussions…I would say that Dump’s resort to use of force was driven directly by the media frenzy…
Now watch as May opponents in the House seize on the Fisk report…and others sure to come out…to make this obviously fake story a genuine political issue…
I think we may see German and other European MSM now going to Douma and reporting similar exposes…though I suspect the completely insane US media is going to simply try to bury this and ignore everything that comes out…
We should stop caring about Sweden or Swedes. They are well and truly done because they keep digging their demographic and cultural and economic hole deeper.
Here in the USA, of course, while we haven’t imported Muslims or Africans in such absolute or relative numbers, we prefer to become an impoverished Balkanized dangerous semi-Mexico instead. So there!
I question the assumption that western countries can keep applying sanctions and not destroy their own shaky economies. The pain will be on all sides. China is already retaliating to tariffs by imposing them on American goods.
America is "shooting itself in the foot" ... hastening its irrelevance. The world is quietly looking for an alternative to the American-owned dollar system governing international trade. Russia has an alternative to "SWIFT" already in place. China just launched the gold-backed Petro-Yuan. Iran has banned international trade in dollars. Other countries are reaching one-on-one agreements to trade in local currencies.
The United States is financially bankrupt. It is starting wars and doing everything else it can to buttress the dollar. However, in today's news, gold is up and the dollar is down. There is an old saying that, "You're bankrupt ... you're bankrupt. Then, one day, you really are bankrupt."
The world is anxiously anticipating that day. The United States is reacting like a wounded and cornered predator ... lashing out and doing everything else in its power to postpone its inevitable demise.
1) Turkey wants to annex northern Syria and Kurds cleansed.
2) Israel wants to annex the Golan heights and the population that supports Hezbollah cleansed.
3) The Israel-First part of the neocons wants what Israel wants.
4) The Imperial part of the neocons seem to want eastern Syria - I assume cos they want the oil in northern Iraq to go via eastern Syria to Turkey instead of via southern Iraq (which benefits Iran)
5) The banking mafia want a) those few countries not yet ruled by the banking mafia to be destroyed and b) to bring down Putin to stop him creating alternative financial systems outside their control.
6) The entire western media and most of the political class in US, France and UK are controlled by either the banking mafia or neocons.
7) Saudi Arabia is in a proxy war with Iran.
8) There is also imo a non-zero chance that the banking mafia already desire or will eventually come to desire taking out both US and Russia as global powers leaving China as their new sole superpower pet.
9) The various coastal ethno-sectarian groups don't want to be massacred by jihadists.
10) The Russians want a naval base in the east med in a stable friendly country.
So the problem is not going to go away and unless the plug is pulled it might eventually lead to ww3 as Syria/Russia finish off the jihadists and face off with US supported proxies in eastern Syria.
How to get out of it?
1) If forced to choose the US will always betray the Kurds in favor of the Turkish alliance and the Kurds are the US proxies in eastern Syria so the Russians could try and split them from the US by openly supporting Kurdistan - effectively aiming for a partition of Turkey long term but in the short term it takes the US' proxy army away - which dramatically raises the cost of fighting for the US.
2) The most critical driver of all of this are the banking mafia through their control of the western political and media class which they are lending to the neocon narrative for their own reasons (imo). The banking mafia are concentrated in a few square miles around the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England - alternatively taking down the banks in some other way.
3) Longer term the problem in the middle east is diversity - lots of different ethno-sectarian groups forced into the same state only controllable by dictators who try and displace internal conflict by focusing on an external enemy e.g. Israel.
Since 9/11 the planned solution to this has been to destroy those states creating perma-chaos and civil war so they ignore Israel - which has led to the refugee crisis in Europe and mass child rape.
As a result I now personally would prefer a final crusade and the restoration of Christendom by any means necessary as the solution however the most civilized solution would probably be the Swiss one - states made up of self-governing cantons where each ethno-sectarian group has their own canton. If that replaced deliberate perma civil war as the agenda there could possibly be US-Russia co-operation on that basis.
That might be worth a try. But the Swiss were all of the same race and the same religion, I.e. all Christian white Europeans (Germans, French, to a lesser extent Italian, and a tiny group of Romansch).
The contending groups on Syria and Iraq do NOT consider themselves to be the same religion (Sunni versus Shi’a versus Alawites (in Syria)), and the Kurds and Turks and Iranians are not Arabs (Iranians being mainly Persian or Azeri, in that order, plus Kurds).
You overestimate how crucial the supposed bright lights in DC and NYC are, for sure. Many aren’t that intelligent, to begin with. I’ve lived and worked in DC and the denizens of “The District” are wildly overrated, legends in their own minds.
FB said:
Sure it is, if you say so. But for most people, the expression is
The proof is in the pudding.
But that’s still not it either; correctly stated, the expression goes like this:
In other words, the final judgment of the meal is based on how it tastes, not how it looks. Any endeavor should be judged by its results. To this truism I’ve added my own:
I guess some pundits might add that the proof of education is reflected in knowledge of the classical quips, and a few might even caution against making vast pronouncements with half-vast knowledge.
Well anyway, before every war, I suppose there must be many bellicose hotheads eager for action, running their mouths and encouraging the dogs of war, but I am happy to note and report that — so far at least — neither the USAF nor the RuAF seems to be following the advice of trigger-happy crackpots on the Internet.
“Let’s you and him fight.”
– J. Wellington Wimpy
Better still, let’s all laugh about mangled aphorisms, give peace a chance, and all live happily ever after.
Yes I do say so…and I back up what I say by sound technical explanations and proofs…
As for putting vs pudding…I choose ‘putting’ because it makes more sense…
Do a quick search and see how many people are perplexed by the ‘pudding’ wording…
Just because 300 years ago somebody used that phrase about eating pudding doesn’t mean that I have to follow this ‘tradition’…I choose my words to be expressive and understandable…
Anyway…as I expected your reply is content free and fact free and makes no attempt to refute anything I have said about Shayrat…just a waste of bandwidth on this important discussion…
Thinking in the right direction, global or not. Russia, China, US, anything that can be called an entity that more or less holds together, is in. Global solutions, local experiments. Elites only, pigeons the rest.
In “sanctioning” its political enemies, the United States is doing nothing more than denying individuals, companies, and countries access to the American-owned dollar system. They can no longer use the dollar as the world’s most prominent reserve currency. They also can be sanctioned from using the American-controlled “SWIFT” payment system that is (at least for now) central to financial transactions in international trade.
America is “shooting itself in the foot” … hastening its irrelevance. The world is quietly looking for an alternative to the American-owned dollar system governing international trade. Russia has an alternative to “SWIFT” already in place. China just launched the gold-backed Petro-Yuan. Iran has banned international trade in dollars. Other countries are reaching one-on-one agreements to trade in local currencies.
The United States is financially bankrupt. It is starting wars and doing everything else it can to buttress the dollar. However, in today’s news, gold is up and the dollar is down. There is an old saying that, “You’re bankrupt … you’re bankrupt. Then, one day, you really are bankrupt.”
The world is anxiously anticipating that day. The United States is reacting like a wounded and cornered predator … lashing out and doing everything else in its power to postpone its inevitable demise.
As for putting vs pudding...I choose 'putting' because it makes more sense...
Do a quick search and see how many people are perplexed by the 'pudding' wording...
Just because 300 years ago somebody used that phrase about eating pudding doesn't mean that I have to follow this 'tradition'...I choose my words to be expressive and understandable...
Anyway...as I expected your reply is content free and fact free and makes no attempt to refute anything I have said about Shayrat...just a waste of bandwidth on this important discussion...
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No, it doesn’t; in fact, it makes no sense at all. Your rationalizations are just special pleading.
I don’t need to do a quick search to know that there are many people in this world who are perplexed by many things, especially words.
They are perplexed because they are hampered by lack of education, knowledge, and especially – curiosity about the world, even willingness to use a dictionary, or look a little deeper. They may be further burdened by false knowledge – something these ignoramuses think or even believe is true, but which isn’t, like all the cherished beliefs of Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike.
But I don’t take my lead from ignoramuses, especially perplexed ignoramuses, and least of all with religion and words.
My take is that a few aircraft took off from Shayrat in the wake of the April 2017 Tomahawk attack probably because they were stranded there after being parked in a part of the airbase that wasn’t hit, and now they flew out. Maybe some fuel was trucked in, but who knows? The airbase was heavily damaged, and was probably not capable of supporting full flight operations, what with workshops, ammo and fuel storage areas hit in the attack. My assessment comports with statements by both Syrians and Americans in the wake of the attack, as well as the imagery I’ve seen. If aircraft cannot refuel, be rearmed, and get serviced at an airbase, there is little incentive for them to land there, especially when the airfield’s air defenses have been degraded, as was the case at Shayrat in 2017.
At the very least, the place had to cleaned up, damage repaired, replacement fuel, ammo, parts and such trucked or flown in from other depots. All of that takes time, and in the meanwhile, operations at the airbase are degraded, and it becomes something of an austere airfield, where various common services are not available.
After the attack on Shayrat in 2017, it would be reasonable to assume that air defenses around Syrian airbases would have been enhanced, and these improvements may account for the results reported by the Russians during the recent Fri. 13th attack, although I’m taking it all with a large measure of salt, since we are dealing with open source material and announcements of the various military authorities involved, and obviously, somebody is not telling the truth.
Anyway...I'm not going to to go on splitting hairs forever with you...you have already made it perfectly clear that you know absolutely nothing about air operations of any kind...
Shayrat was a 'secondary' field and was mostly a scrapyard...as I had already noted...the 'operations' going on there consisted mainly of dismantling junked aircraft for parts...
Russian reporter on the ground in Shayrat the next day...note that he takes a drive down the runways...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTFa2jcntQc
And here are planes taking off...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu-LTMDWcFw
Shayrat was a big fat nothingburger...and so is your silly verbiage...
I'm no strategic wiz, but the surface analysis suggests the following:
(I'm sure there's more to it, but even on the surface, Russian actions are consistent with its words.)
If the West is making life hard for Russia's client Syria, then Russia will make life hard for the West's client - Israel.
And if Israel suffers, as Syria does - well, that's the message Russia is sending back to the West.
Russia needs to deliver serious numbers of its most advanced anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems to Syria — and privately give Syria the green light to use them to shoot down any aircraft or missiles that come into Syrian airspace from Israel.
Israel needs to be deterred, contained, punished for its aggression, and slapped down. It needs to lose planes and pilots on numerous occasions. Please, Russia, give Syria the equipment to stand up to these creeps.
Israel has too small a population and too small a land area to keep being aggressive against even local enemies with real weaponry. If Israel goes nuclear, conventional forces from Iran and/or Russia can march in and exterminate the whole Israeli population. No more nonsense,
And it wasn't uncontroversial even at the time, some of the crusaders (e.g. Simon de Montfort who later led the crusade against the Cathars in Southern France) left the expedition when it changed from a crusade for the Holy Land into a project for attacking the Byzantine empire.
German reader, you simply do not get it but, in all fairness, you are not expected to.
The destruction of the (Eastern) Roman Empire, first by the “Latins” from Flanders and France and, finally, by the Ottomans, was the preeminent, most consequential, event of the second millennium for it had, mildly put, dramatic consequences for the whole World.
The vanquishing of Byzantium and its civilizational space from South-Eastern Europe to North Africa and the Middle East, has led to the most dramatic power shift in a thousand years – it shifted the power center of European civilization from its very cradle to the West of the continent, that is – to your (man-eating) predecessors and their equally-barbarian neighbors, the Atlantic Europeans.
All the while, this event opened the gates of Europe to a second Islamic invasion which, in turn, came not only pretty close to wiping out the whole of Southern and Central Europe but also made sure that the South-East, the most civilized space of Europe, was brought back to stone age for, nearly, eternity.
Also, in both parochial and global terms, this event was the single, most important event in the whole history of Western Europe (formerly, the most barbaric, savage part of the continent). The destruction of Byzantium was the premier act of the West’s emancipation. The Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, the Industrial Revolution and the, subsequent, colonization of, almost, the whole planet (all accomplished by the Atlantic Europeans) are all direct consequences of the aforementioned power-shift.
As I said – you don’t get it and you never will because, to a large extent, such a realization would go against the very foundations of your civilizational mythology, that is, it would lead to some kind of cognitive dissonance (the realization that the your own civilization did not arise do to certain grassroots phenomena but, in all reality, came to be just because of a random, lucky historical event in which the deliberate input of your people was, very much, close to zero).
Philip already pasted his resume and LinkedIn profile. It's only fair that Anatoly posts his OkCupid page so they can rub each-other in palm oil and seize the moment. I'm fully supportive so long as they spend less time smearing their "thoughts" online.
I does sound like Ricochet Rabbit bullets that have automatic baby carriage deactivation sensors .
Which war head uses the small condom when making love to hostile terrain?
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2200&tid=1300&ct=2
They are perplexed because they are hampered by lack of education, knowledge, and especially - curiosity about the world, even willingness to use a dictionary, or look a little deeper. They may be further burdened by false knowledge - something these ignoramuses think or even believe is true, but which isn't, like all the cherished beliefs of Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike.
But I don't take my lead from ignoramuses, especially perplexed ignoramuses, and least of all with religion and words.
My take is that a few aircraft took off from Shayrat in the wake of the April 2017 Tomahawk attack probably because they were stranded there after being parked in a part of the airbase that wasn't hit, and now they flew out. Maybe some fuel was trucked in, but who knows? The airbase was heavily damaged, and was probably not capable of supporting full flight operations, what with workshops, ammo and fuel storage areas hit in the attack. My assessment comports with statements by both Syrians and Americans in the wake of the attack, as well as the imagery I've seen. If aircraft cannot refuel, be rearmed, and get serviced at an airbase, there is little incentive for them to land there, especially when the airfield's air defenses have been degraded, as was the case at Shayrat in 2017.
At the very least, the place had to cleaned up, damage repaired, replacement fuel, ammo, parts and such trucked or flown in from other depots. All of that takes time, and in the meanwhile, operations at the airbase are degraded, and it becomes something of an austere airfield, where various common services are not available.
After the attack on Shayrat in 2017, it would be reasonable to assume that air defenses around Syrian airbases would have been enhanced, and these improvements may account for the results reported by the Russians during the recent Fri. 13th attack, although I'm taking it all with a large measure of salt, since we are dealing with open source material and announcements of the various military authorities involved, and obviously, somebody is not telling the truth.
Wasn’t even aware of your silly comment to me…since you did not think to hit ‘reply’…
Anyway…I’m not going to to go on splitting hairs forever with you…you have already made it perfectly clear that you know absolutely nothing about air operations of any kind…
Shayrat was a ‘secondary’ field and was mostly a scrapyard…as I had already noted…the ‘operations’ going on there consisted mainly of dismantling junked aircraft for parts…
Russian reporter on the ground in Shayrat the next day…note that he takes a drive down the runways…
And here are planes taking off…
Shayrat was a big fat nothingburger…and so is your silly verbiage…
Themselves.
In fairness, that’s goes for all of us, no?
Basically, he provides a vast quantity of comments, the overwhelming majority "moderate", and "mainstream," generally disputing any deviations from the Official Narrative, but in a cautious and restrained manner, often buttressed by detailed factual citations. But every now and then something about Israel or Jews may come up, and he begins making all sorts of extreme statements, much like the most extreme WashPost Neocon. You can see this if you browse his archive:
http://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=Art+Deco
My guess is his nasty and dishonest attacks on AK are because of that SPLC denunciation a few weeks ago.
I also strongly suspect that the "moderate/mainstream" tone of the overwhelming majority of his comments are simply intended to establish his credibility for his periodic comments on Jews/Israel.
Given the massive volume of his comments, over 500K words, it really wouldn't surprise me if he's some sort of disinfo agent. After all, all sorts of "extremists" comment here because they've been banned everywhere else, but why would a "mainstream" fellow write 500K words of mostly "mainstream" comments here unless he was being paid to do so?...
This is extremely silly. Art Deco posts high-quality and thought-provoking comments on a variety of websites, left and right, mainstream and obscure, and his views on Israel are no more extreme or less worthwhile than anything else he talks about.
I don't know if they still do it, but when I was in basic training or infantry training (I forget which -- infantry training was pretty much the same thing) in the U.S. Army at the tail end of the Cold War, there was a drill called the gas chamber. They filled some bomb shelter like building with a cloud of CS Gas, marched you in your gas masks and "NBC" (nuclear, biological, chemical) gear, and then made you take off your mask one at a time, while they asked you some bullshit questions for a few seconds, and then shoved you out the door and told you to run.
This was physically the worst experience of my life up to that point. All of your exposed skin burns, your lungs burn, snot runs down your face, you dry heave or vomit, etc. And that doesn't go away immediately after you get out of the gas chamber. It takes a while to wear off.
And the gear you have to wear to protect yourself from this stuff -- unless they've radically changed it since then -- is hot, bulky, and has poor visibility. You couldn't even hold a rifle the normal way with a mask on, you had to rotate it at an odd angle. I don't think even the most gung-ho soldier wanted to fight wearing that stuff.
My theory is that this gas business made a similar impression on generals and other defense establishment types, and that's partly why they make a big deal about it.
Haha…..
Good to see, as always, that people who’ve never experienced that are the most opinionated about military, combat, war etc.
Makes….peculiar….. sense.