patrick.net

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/strategic-monday-october-7-2024-c

As the world braces for today’s anniversary of the barbaric October 7th attacks on Israel and as the war in the Middle East heats up, the influential Financial Times floated a very suggestive proposal yesterday headlined, “Ukraine, Nato membership and the West Germany model.” The sub-headline added, “Security guarantees will have to underpin any peace deal where Russia retains control of Ukrainian land.” So much for “not one inch.”

“Although it remains committed to recovering the lands seized by Russia over the past decade,” the Financial Times regretfully explained, Ukraine “regrettably lacks the manpower, weaponry and western support to do it.” Later, it somberly conceded, “the west patently lacks a strategy for Ukraine to prevail.”

Now they tell us! And here, we all thought they had a strategy of some kind. (Just wait for the next story to see what the current strategy is.) But apparently not. So now they want to split the Ukraine baby.

Now they tell us, Part Deux: “The West German model for Ukraine has been discussed in foreign policy circles for more than 18 months.” Surprise! What they mean by the “West German model” is splitting Ukraine into two parts, like West and East Germany after the Second World War. In that historic scenario, West Germany was allowed to join NATO even though half the country remained under Soviet control.

This overly optimistic scheme suffers from two obvious problems, as the article eventually got around to admitting. First, in Germany, the occupied borders were well-defined, allowing the famous Berlin Wall to be erected right down the line. But in Ukraine, the war marches on, and the ever-changing borders remain fluid.

Second, after the war, the Soviets agreed to the Germany-splitting compromise. Today, Russia will never agree to let West Ukraine join NATO as part of any peace plan. It will never ever happen.

Biden’s neocons, Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, must now divide their attention between the old, difficult, plan-less Ukraine war, and the shiny new war emerging in the Middle East, which is ripe with potential and enthusiasm for a fresh conflict and all its glorious potential.

Meanwhile, things are only getting worse in Eastern Europe’s strategy-free theater of war. Any day now, Ukraine will head into winter and its rasputitsa mud season, further freezing and bogging down prospects for Ukraine’s ‘victory.’

Perhaps it isn’t completely fair to say there’s no strategy. On Saturday, the New York Times ran an eye-watering story headlined, “Ukraine’s Donbas Strategy: Retreat Slowly and Maximize Russia’s Losses.” The agonized sub-headline added, “It’s far from clear if the Ukrainian strategy will succeed.” So, there is a strategy after all.

Talk about trying to put a good spin on failure. The gist was that the Ukrainians are losing, are in retreat all along the front lines, but Kiev has ordered its troops to hold their untenable positions at all costs, in the hope that the Russians will eventually get tired of winning and go home.

That’s it. That’s the whole strategy.

To be clear, Ukraine has an alternative: pulling its troops from vast numbers of unholdable towns and villages, and mustering them together in more defensible positions, such as behind the giant Dnieper river, which divides the country in half. The main advantage of this defensive strategy would be saving tens or hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives.

Instead, Ukrainian martial law coordinator and former comedian Zelensky figures that, despite the astonishingly high cost in lives and free NATO materiel, by holding on till beyond the last minute in every little hamlet and township, the Russians might, sooner or later, get exhausted by all the fighting and give up.

Given that one of Russia’s stated objectives at the outset was to demilitarize Ukraine, it seems unlikely that Russia will get tired anytime soon of killing Ukrainian soldiers by the battalion.

Combined, these two stories, the Financial Times’ and the New York Times’ articles, together revealed the war’s hideous truth. Western war planners don’t care about Ukraine. They don’t care about its courageous soldiers willing to fight Russia to their inglorious deaths. As I reported yesterday, all the West cares about is the Wolfowitz Doctrine: establishing a NATO foothold in Ukraine to keep a lid on Russia and prevent it from becoming a rival world superpower.

In other words, the Ukrainian people and their land are disposable NATO resources. But there isn’t any strategy. Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result isn’t a strategy, it’s insanity.

But the fact the corporate media conversation and “foreign policy circles” have evolved from a goal of crushing Russia any day now to a strategy of trading land for peace is a great sign. Perhaps the end lies in sight.

Patrick says

all the West cares about is the Wolfowitz Doctrine: establishing a NATO foothold in Ukraine to keep a lid on Russia and prevent it from becoming a rival world superpower.

Russia will never become a world superpower again. Demographics dooms that. A regional power, yes. But again: that will only last another 10 years or so because of demographics as well. Russia simply will not be able to field enough troops relative to its vast territory.

I got a 12 hour ban from Twitter for saying throw Igor K. down the well. The bots are strong in this October before the election year.

AmericanKulak says

I got a 12 hour ban from Twitter for saying throw Igor K. down the well. The bots are strong in this October before the election year.

Tried signing up just now again. They just give me the Black Screen. There's still plenty of Feds there. No way are they gonna let me have an account.

AmericanKulak says

I got a 12 hour ban from Twitter

FREEDOM OF SPEECH, ASSHOLES!!!! BEAUTIFUL FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!! THE ELON MUSK!!!! THE ELON MUSK!!!!!

🤡

Now we've seen it all. Gay Nazi kill drones.

https://t.me/tribunalsandexecutions/484537

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/drastically-shortened-thursday-october

Highbrow blogging site UnHerd ran a thoughtful Proxy War article yesterday headlined, “Emmanuel Todd: Nato will disintegrate if Ukraine loses.” ...

Historian Todd made several observations with which most C&C readers would agree. For example, he thinks World War III has already started, that NATO will suffer irreparable shrinkage if Russia wins the Proxy War, that Western governments have been captured by what he neatly described as the “liberal oligarchy,” and that “Western economic sanctions have done more damage to the European economy than to the Russian one.”

My only quibble was he forgot to mention sanctions’ self-inflicted injury to the American economy. ...

There was nothing particularly novel (for us) about Todd’s political analysis, except of course that it is the complete opposite of the government-approved, corporate media-sustained narrative. But I found the article’s closing paragraph stunning. Reporters interviewing Todd about his book provocatively asked him whether he’d move to Russia since he hates the West so much, and he declined. But look what he said about the U.S.:

Asked by Corriere di Bologna whether he'd rather live in Russia than Western
Europe, Todd responded: "The liberal oligarchy is not a practical problem for me ....]
Basically I am just a dissident member of the intellectual oligarchy." While he said
he would remain in France "as long as the regime is not fascist or racist", he claimed
he would not move to the US as the country is "descending into something worse
than the liberal oligarchy". That something worse, Todd argued, is "nihilism".

Misc says

Tried signing up just now again. They just give me the Black Screen

Clear your browse history and cookies.

Just sayin.

Patrick says

While he said
he would remain in France "as long as the regime is not fascist or racist", he claimed
he would not move to the US as the country is "descending into something worse
than the liberal oligarchy". That something worse, Todd argued, is "nihilism".

In France they made abortion a “civil right” and no one is allowed to concealed carry a firearm. In fact there are licensing and registration of all firearms. So they hate babies and severely restrict a person from defending themselves against criminals. It sounds like a hellhole. And we haven’t even discussed their immigrant problems or the resulting racial and religious tension.

Patrick says

Just sayin.

Riding a horse in my area of IL is generally called gay. That's not a joke. Most male horse riders are actually gay too. Unless you're a jocky, Napoleon syndrome, you're gay.

It's 98% females that ride horses. So by default it's gay. Plus they can get off if they so choose for females. Riding a horse on a tour on vacation smashes my balls. Only done it a couple times. So every time I see that photo of Putin I think he's gay.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-isw-maps-1968021

The latest news on the lost cause, aka, Ukraine's war against Russia:

No more German military hardware for Ukraine – Bild

Kiev does not have the resources to launch another counteroffensive anytime soon, Berlin reportedly believes

Germany has no more military hardware to offer Ukraine beyond what has already been pledged, even as Kiev remains hard-pressed by Russia on the front line, Bild reported on Saturday.

According to the outlet, the German Defense Ministry does not believe that Ukraine will be capable of launching “an offensive to liberate its own territory” in the near future.

The report also said, citing an internal document, that Berlin would no longer send “heavy weapons” to Ukraine, and that deliveries of this type of aid have been “completed.” The term applies to tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, self-propelled howitzers and similar hardware.

In addition, Bild wrote, a supposedly new €1.4 billion ($1.53 billion) military aid package German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently pledged in fact refers to commitments promised and paid for last year.

https://www.rt.com/russia/605653-german-military-hardware-ukraine/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwBcFh3RCP4

The tragic comedy continues to unfold ...

Zelensky presents ‘victory plan'

The Ukrainian leader demanded an immediate invitation to join NATO

“This plan can be implemented. It depends on the partners. I emphasize: on partners. It doesn’t exactly depend on Russia,” Zelensky said, accusing Moscow of not wanting peace.

Highlights:

Zelensky said the plan consists of eight points, three of which are classified. FIRST and FOREMOST, the Ukrainian leader demanded that Kiev receive an invitation to immediately join NATO ...

Second, he also stressed the need to strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities, including by lifting Western restrictions on the use of foreign-made long-range weapons for strikes against Russia ...

Western (i.e. AMERICAN) boots on the ground:

Finally, Zelensky said Ukraine could share its real-life battlefield experience with the West to “strengthen NATO’s defense and ensure security in Europe.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/605811-zelensky-presents-victory-plan-nato-membership/

It's the bottom of the 9th. with two outs and the score is Russia 42, Ukraine 0. No balls, 2 strikes and here comes the 115 mile per hour fastball to Ukraine's weakest hitter ...

British military believes Kiev ‘on the verge of losing’ – media (they've been on the 'verge' since the very first shot)

Behind closed doors, the British military has grim expectations for the Ukraine conflict and believes that Kiev is about to lose, the tabloid Daily Express claimed on Tuesday.

Over the past month, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has been touting his ‘victory plan’ to foreign leaders. Later this week he is set to unveil it to Ukrainian MPs and the general public, as well as the European Council. What Zelensky will present to his nation on Wednesday will not include specific numbers of requested weapons shipments by donor nations, according to his aide Mikhail Podoliak.

As one of the key suppliers of arms to Ukraine, Britain has publicly supported Kiev’s uncompromising position in the conflict with Russia. But private assessments by its generals say the situation is bad for Ukraine, a military source cited by Daily Express said.

https://www.rt.com/news/605793-british-military-kiev-defeat/

Quick! More sacrificial war fodder is needed and now!

US Politicians Are Pressuring Ukraine to Lower Draft Age to 18

Ukraine's draft laws do not allow the conscription of men under the age of 25

A Ukrainian official said Tuesday that American politicians are pressuring Ukraine to lower the minimum age of conscription from 25 to 18 to make more young men available for combat.

“If this information has surfaced, I can confirm it: American politicians from both parties are putting pressure on President Zelensky to explain why there is no mobilization of those aged 18 to 25 in Ukraine. The argument of our partners is that when the US fought in Vietnam, people were drafted from the age of 19,” Serhiy Leshchenko, an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, wrote on Telegram.

Back in April, Zelensky signed a bill that lowered the minimum conscription age in Ukraine from 27 to 25. Leshchenko said that Zelensky is resisting the pressure to start conscripting 18-year-olds.

“That’s why the Americans are hinting that Western weapons alone are not enough and that mobilization from the age of 18 is necessary. President Zelensky did not give in and continues to persuade politicians from both parties to provide weapons without changing the draft age,” Leshchenko added.

Right before Zelensky signed the bill lowering the draft age to 25, he received a visit from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who called for younger Ukrainians to be sent to the frontlines. “I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,” Graham said. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27. We need more people (i.e. fodder) in the line.” (Aren't you glad that there's such a thing as a Lindsey Graham?)

https://news.antiwar.com/2024/10/15/us-politicians-are-pressuring-ukraine-to-lower-draft-age-to-18/#gsc.tab=0

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/tipping-points-wednesday-october

Zelensky’s secret-squirrel victory plan to defeat the wily Russians, which the green-shirted dictator privately showed Joe Biden a couple weeks ago, was dramatically unveiled in public yesterday. The made-for-TV resistance leader presented the non-classified parts of his Victory Scheme to his entire Ukrainian parliament.

His clever strategem was all dressed up with yellow and blue ribbons and bows, but in sum, Zelensky is haggling harder than a Turkish rug merchant the day before the fiscal year end. His ‘victory plan’ is, at bottom, an offer to buy some armies from NATO to fight Russia with, in exchange for exclusive sweetheart deals on Ukraine’s valuable uranium, lithium, and titanium deposits.

Resource-rich Ukraine is up for sale, and all you have to do is light the fuse on World War III.

As Zelensky sees things, it’s win-win. His oligarchs and our oligarchs could get rich together. But the problem with Zelensky’s grade-school logic is that mining will become intensely difficult after the ground starts glowing from the inevitably high radiation levels that will exist across Ukraine shortly after NATO joins the fight.

Tellingly, the Kyiv Independent did not quote one single member of Ukraine’s parliament about what they thought of their Glorious Leader’s vaunted victory scheme. Not one quote. It didn’t even say they clapped.

If Ritter wore big plastic RPGs, he'd have the pedo look down pat.

"C'mon Johnny, show the Coach your Tee Stick and softballs"

A little speculation on my part, but is Zelensky suddenly talking peace because he knows that the anti-endless wars candidate Trump is going to win, along with the realization that Ukraine's war with Russia is totally, and completely lost? Any thoughts?

From ZeroHedge:

Zelensky For First Time Offers Russia A Realistic Step To Negotiating A Ceasefire

In a huge and surprise development, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has specified and verbalized what could be a first concrete step toward ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

He told journalists in Kiev this week that both sides should mutually agree on halting all aerial attacks on energy targets and cargo ships, and that this could pave the way for negotiations to end the war.

The comments were first reported by Financial Times on Tuesday, which quoted the Monday remarks as follows: "when it comes to energy and freedom of navigation, getting a result on these points would be a signal that Russia may be ready to end the war."

"We saw during the first (peace) summit that there could be a decision on energy security," he explained to reporters. "In other words—we do not attack their energy infrastructures; they don't attack ours. Could this lead to the end of the war's hot phase? I think so."

This marks a first such known overture of this nature, and comes at a crucial moment that the Ukrainian population is bracing for a harsh winter, given especially the rolling blackouts, frequent emergency power outages, and severely damaged power grid.

The last year of war has seen Russian aerial attacks primarily focus on degrading Ukraine's power infrastructure, including knocking offline key thermal power plants, which has resulted in some 60% of Ukraine's power generation being disabled.
More here:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zelensky-first-time-offers-russia-realistic-step-negotiating-table

https://x.com/ivan_8848/status/1852163971501166661

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/finally-tuesday-november-5-2024-c

Question asked: “Hey, whatever happened to the Ukraine war?” Ann Coulter wondered in this clip. You can find the full interview in the link.

https://x.com/AnnCoulter/status/1853765470970687952

Ukraine war? What Ukraine war?

https://nypost.com/2024/11/05/world-news/us-cant-confirm-north-korean-soldiers-in-russia-hooked-on-porn-after-getting-internet-access/

North Korean soldiers hooked on porn after getting internet access for first time while helping Russia fight Ukraine: report

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/bromantic-friday-november-8-2024

Another surprise the media never saw coming. Ukraine’s national nightmare may also soon be over. The far-left, pro-war Economist ran a story yesterday headlined “Why Volodymyr Zelensky may welcome Donald Trump’s victory.” I am not making this up: “Disillusion with Joe Biden,” the subheadline quietly advised, “has reached deep levels.” Now they tell us.




The gist of the story was, Ukrainians wanted Trump to win (just like the rest of us). Not just any Ukrainians either: the ones with the most to lose, Ukraine’s top generals and soldiers.

Suddenly! Suddenly and unexpectedly! And surprisingly. “It comes as quite a surprise,” a surprised Economist reported, “to learn that many senior Ukrainian officials were hoping for a Donald Trump victory.” For some baffling reason the Economist could not quite grasp, the Ukrainians were “prepared to gamble” on “a wildcard president who would rip up the rules and almost certainly cut aid.” ...

President Trump promised to end the Ukraine war “in 24 hours.” When he said “24 hours,” it was obviously a metaphor for a very short time. But you can expect the media to go berserk on Day Two if the war isn’t over yet. (Trump’s first broken promise! Wheee)

As the surprised Economist described it, the battlefield situation looks dire for Ukraine. Literally nothing is going right. They are heading into the winter without electricity. Up to a fifth of the entire army has gone AWOL. Morale has collapsed along critical sections of the front line. Russia’s army is stronger and better supplied than ever. (Laughably, the Economist sneered at Russia’s inflation rate, which unlike ours is caused by their overheated economy.)

Why would senior Ukrainian military officials hope for Trump to win? It’s simple. Russia has only ever wanted one thing, which has been clear since before the Proxy War started. Russia does not want Ukraine’s land. Russia does not want Ukraine’s minerals. Russia definitely does not want Ukraine’s comedic former president.

Russia just wants Ukraine to stay out of NATO.

Of course there are other details, but that is pretty much it. Now, let me ask you something: How would that country’s joining NATO benefit the average Ukrainian? Answer: it wouldn’t. The average Ukrainian could care less about NATO. Only warmongering neocons care about Ukraine joining NATO.

Trump will soon control NATO. When Trump gets Ukraine to pledge not to join NATO, or gets NATO to pledge never to admit Ukraine, nobody will care except the deep state and its captured corporate media. After that critical problem is out of the way, the rest of the peace negotiation with Russia becomes much simpler.

Putin was trying not to make the first move by not calling Trump. But by inviting Trump’s call, Putin made the first move anyway. Trump will accept the invitation and make the call, and things will start happening fast, since neither Trump nor Putin are chronic, dissembling liars like Biden’s bellicose neocons.

The only thing that remains unclear is how much Trump can accomplish before he’s sworn in. There are no legal impediments, but obviously Trump can’t order weapons shipments to Ukraine be stopped yet. In 2024, much depends on how well the various leaders trust Trump to keep his promises once he takes office.

My guess is they will trust Trump.

I don’t mean to overstate things, but I’m not sure this point could be overstated: When Trump makes the deal to end the Ukraine war, he will have single-handedly hauled the world back from the brink of global thermonuclear war, and will therefore have instantly succeeded as the 47th President — potentially before he even takes the oath.

And since Ukraine is the lynchpin for nearly all current world conflict, removing that constant irritant would yield a deposit of political currency with which Trump could negotiate other successful resolutions. It is not unreasonable to think we could be looking at an era of more global peace and security since … never.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/attack-em-monday-november-18-2024

Late last week, many folks were disconcerted by Joe Biden’s warmth and friendliness in welcoming President Trump to the White House. It seemed … unreal that Biden would happily help Trump’s transition. This weekend, the other orthopedic slipper dropped. A 100% anonymously sourced story appeared in Sunday’s New York Times headlined, “Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles.” Nice transition you had there! ...

“Mr. Biden’s decision,” the Times understatedly explained, “is a major change in U.S. policy.” And right as Biden was on his way out, too. Was this the deep state’s way of using ATACMS to FUBAR Trump’s peace deal, by making it as hard as possible to end the Proxy War? Is war itself the goal? To give you some idea of the sky-high stakes, yesterday Robert Kennedy captured the moment in a tweet:



... In March, the first thing Zelensky did with his new, secretly supplied ATACMS was launch them at defenseless civilian targets in Russia, like the apartment buildings pictured above, a war crime under international rules, and worse, a target with zero strategic value except bad optics. Zelensky’s retarded misfire created great excitement at the Pentagon, and caused flummoxed US generals to put down their eyeliner pens and rethink whether Zelensky could be trusted with a child’s BB gun much less an advanced missile system.

Logic finally penetrated the Pentagon’s ever-present fog of injected estrogen, and they strapped a bunch of new rules on the ATACMS, stopping the uncontrollable and unpredictable Ukrainians from blasting away at everything in sight. We gave you those missiles to fight a war, not knock over apartment buildings, the generals scolded.

Despite enthusiastic application and a pronounced generosity with its dwindling supplies of missiles, the ATACMS never measurably benefited the Ukrainians. When they are used by Americans against non-peer adversaries, ATACMS are probably pretty devastating. But when used against an experienced, rival military like Russia’s, which enjoys top-notch air defenses, ATACMS has been notably much less effective.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-151544327

Jeffrey Sachs tells the cold, hard truth how the US and NATO provoked war in Ukraine