The only time I am even remotely a patriot is during the Olympics, and yet this really pisses me off.
1 Like
Meh. It’s a start.
A fair amount of surgery (hernia repairs, colostomy takedowns, cancer procedures) are elective in the sense it needs to be done sometime in the next few weeks, or can be scheduled. Nothing wrong with posting prices. It’s about 1% of what needs to be done.
MM MD
1 Like
I didn’t think about the Ukraine much in 2015. Not saying you did, but if you did, what did you think about providing lethal aid then?
Collins, Gardner, Ernst, Tillis and McSally are the first ones to watch. They’re up for re-election in 2020 in swing states. I would think Gardner is a near lock to vote to convict, Collins is likely to vote to convict and the other three will be doing a lot of polling and weighing it heavily in their decision.
I disagree, I think the fallout from that and her looming re-election campaign make the calculus for her such that she’s a likely vote to convict.
This to my mind opens up a whole can of worms that I’m just not informed enough about to comment intelligently. I have the feeling that expanding the EU eastward, as well as NATO was always going to lead to problems both in terms of economic/cultural issues as well as how Russia (once it shook off the fall of the Empire) was going to react to a bunch of potentially hostile states on their borders. It’s a REALLY complicated topic IMO.
MM MD
1 Like
It’s one of the things I posted about a lot in the old place. I speak Russian, so I followed the Russian/Ukranian news on the subject a fair bit, as they had started uploading their main opinion shows to youtube on a biweekly schedule by that time. I probably started to tune out by mid 2016 and am far less informed about what’s happened in the last 2-3 years there than I am about the 2014-2015 period.
The general course of the war was: the Russians took Crimea in the Spring of 2014 with no military opposition from Ukraine. About a month later, in some cases paramilitary people, in some cases Russian GRU spec ops units, were storming police stations and government administrative buildings all over Eastern Ukraine, and declaring autonomous republics like the People’s Republic of Donetsk and the People’s Republic of Luhansk. The Ukrainians said enough of this shit and sent their military in to encircle and disperse these Republics, and they had a fair bit of success in the early summer. It was not uncontroversial, as they had to shell their way in, killing hundreds of civilians in the process. Eventually, seeing that these Republics were going to fall, the Russians intervened in far more dramatic ways; they sent in a buttload of technical equipment, they reinforced the militias with “volunteers” who happened to be ex Russian soldiers, FSB colonels in some cases. They provided anti-air capability, which at first was used to take down a few Ukrainian military planes, but then there was the MH17 incident in which a Russian BUK system was used to bring down a commercial airliner killing 300 people.
Anyway, the Russians/liberated Donbas folks started to beat back the Ukrainians and pushing them back. In certain battles the Russians used actual regular army troops such as in the battle of Ilovaisk in August 2014. I think the most strategically significant battle happened in early 2015, the battle for Debaltseve, where they basically encircled a bunch of Ukrainians defending a key railway or something and forced them to retreat.
This is already TMI, I’m pretty sure by mid 2015 a frozen conflict scenario started to emerge with a relatively stable front marked by sporadic cross front shelling. To answer your question: I’m sure they wanted lethal aid, Obama hesitated for reasons, I don’t remember having a super strong opinion about it but I was okay either way because lethal aid wasn’t going to affect Russia’s calculations that much, unless I suppose the US ran the full Afghanistan war playbook against the Russians, but even stable genius didn’t put that on the table.
Long story short people like McCain were fainting about Obama’s weakness 24-7 at that time, while the truth of the matter is that he handled that conflict about as well as possible, given that the Ukrainians were not NATO allies and for Russia, Ukraine is like the origin of their civilization.
7 Likes
My minimal understanding of the area is that the best most realistic outcome for Ukraine would have been to be a cautiously friendly to Russia country who would peruse a strictly neutral foreign policy and just try to keep their heads down. Like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania they’re to some degree a prisoner of their geography, I think.
MM MD
There was no chance for cautious friendship. In 2004 they had the Orange revolution, where the reformist Ukranian candidate got poisoned and still won, but by 2010 Russian puppet Yanukovych was in place and by 2013 the Kyiv street was fed up with his kleptocracy. He was looting the country, and when they drove him out, Putin gave the go-ahead fot he little green men to come in and seize Crimea.
Yeah, I should have added that they would have to work out SOMETHING with Russia about the Crimea - they weren’t going to walk away from a key geopolitical and military area like that.
And as I said, it was the BEST possible outcome for them - not surprising that things turned out worse for a lot of reasons.
MM MD
Didn’t someone (US and/or NATO) sign a treaty to defend the Ukraine in exchange for them giving up nukes?
Yeah, in 1994 There was something called the Budapest Memorandum signed by the US, UK and Russia giving Ukraine a bunch of security guarantees if they gave up the nukes.
Dunno, but Barbara Tuchman (who is one of my favorite history writers) in one of her books (I think it was March of Folly) argued strongly that you can pretty well determine how things are going to work out by just figuring out who is going to be most invested in a particular outcome. Vietnam - the US was NEVER going to beat the VC because the US was fighting for some sort of bullshit containment theory, while the north was fighting for survival. In the Ukraine, the Crimea for Russia is a key military issue - Belgium (i.e. NATO) isn’t going to risk war for it.
It’s a useful way to at least begin to think about stuff, I think.
MM MD
It’s possible that after 2010 and until the comedian guy we had no reasonable partner/ally there.
It’s complicated because there is party of this that is a civil war, no? A lot of Eastern Ukraine is pro-Russia, no? Ethnic and language connections.
The civil war was basically manufactured by the Russians. There have been divisions between East, Central, South and West Ukraine for a while, as in many countries, but there was nothing near civil war before the Russians invaded/infiltrated Donbas.
You know who didn’t seek clemency? Every last soldier in his platoon under his command the day those civilians were summarily executed. The servicemen who all made sworn statements what Lorance did caused their mission to turn to shit in a region that they had cultivated relationships in for months using counter insurgency methods. One decision to open fire and kill 3 unarmed men ruined everything those soldiers had been striving for and commuting his sentence is a slap in the face to everyone that spoke up and made statements about the murder they had witnessed.
2 Likes
Y’all all seem to forget that basically up to the point he was elected, something like 15 R senators, still seated today, were publicly against Trump. Then there are many more who were neutral. Those people shifted seamlessly to supporting him. Frankly, It’s crazier to think those people won’t cut bait given a good opportunity. Few, if any, of these people actually like Trump. Marco Rubio is another one who would vote to convict under a number of plausible scenarios. I don’t agree with much of what nunn posts, but he’s not that far out there on this.
You have to remember the vast majority of the cult are not too bright and digest FoxNews at an alarming rate. They’ve been brainwashed into thinking Russia is a friend and not a geopolitical threat, they think Putin is like some Dickensesque benefactor to their godking and don’t see anything wrong with an ex KGB spook with ties to organized crime meddling in our elections as long as it helps their guy.
2 Likes
How does the fascist playbook work?
Is it conscious? Does someone tell Trump that giving soldiers and cops immunity gives them the freedom to do all the dirty work or does Trump just think soldiers and cops should be able to kill people and this accidentally enables his fascism? I find it hard to believe it’s an intentional strategy of Trump at least, others could be in his ear, but the impact is the same.
2 Likes
I’ll be in Boston mid-December, New York during the holidays and DC the first week of January. I’m game for a meetup around then.
1 Like
Saw Hamilton last night. The line “quid pro quo” drew a HUGE laugh from the audience.
Only question is- has it been part of the script or a recent addition?
That and my county turning blue for first time since civil war and the lady handing out R sample ballot saying “don’t worry it won’t burn your fingers” has me convinced that electorate will boot him (unless shenanigans). All the union types that crossed over see him for the fraud he is as well. PA MI WI wlll go D.
1 Like