"A big part of why the West cannot seem to grapple meaningfully with the Russian threat, despite the fact that in any strategic sense NATO is holding most of the cards in this high-stakes game, is because he challenges not just what we have, but who we are. Putin and Putinism represent a direct challenge to the post-modern way of life that has become normative, especially among educated Westerners since the 1960's. A worldview that prefers soft, feminine values to tougher masculine ones, that finds patriotism risible, that believes there is nothing worth dying for, has little to say when the monsters we firmly believed were safely behind the fortress walls, lurking hungrily, turn out to be on our doorstep, and the front door is unlocked."
#1
A point Fred made a few months ago explains a lot of this (paraphrased, please correct it) - 'The Soviets spent a great deal of time and money undermining the West. They lost the cold war, but they're winning this one.'
#2
Europe can't grapple meaningfully with the Russian threat is because they decided a long time ago to buy a very large proportion of their gas and oil from Russia. Going to war with Russia, or even just seriously pissing Putin off, results in a functional shutdown of much of their economy, with people sitting in the dark, with no heat, no electricity. Europe made its decision about Putin a long time ago, he's just collecting on the results of their naivete. This is just chickens coming home to roost time.
#3
For the same reason "the West" is loosing to Islam. And, most importantly, already lost industry war to China. Because the west has been taken over by ideology of feel good willful ignorance & stupidity.
#4
For the same reason "the West" is loosing to Islam. And, most importantly, already lost industry war to China.
But we did not 'lose' a war with China over the transfer of our industry and manufacturing capability, we prevented one. Ask anyone at my Foundation. It was a strategic business decision. If you need help with your foreign investments and IMF loans, please stay on the line.
#5
Just as social welfare programs undermined the inner cities by displacing thousands of years of the family with government as mom and dad, Europe is now reaping the consequences of decades of military welfare paid for by the American taxpayer. They lack the means at the time the Americans no longer have the will. So long and thanks for all the fish.
#6
Intersting, one of the strategies to tame Germany after WW2 was a big economic hug to get them so entwined with France and Benilux that it would be economic suicide to go to war.
Sounds like a similar strategy was tried with Russia only Russia doesn't sell the same kind of goods and can easily find other markets so the Euros walked out on their own plank on that one.
#1
As a Kremlinologist Norkologist, I would say the haircut is an attempt to draw attention away from his jowls. This means the rice harvest news is bad and greater food shortages are expected.
China will alternate between rolling her eyes and siccing her little lapdog on the developed world for an extra ration of grain.
Note: If you are interested in trading foodstuffs for nukes and Scud parts, I know a guy who knows a guy.
As a CIA analyst, I would wonder why jowls are a trending topic on the interwebs.
#4
I would say that this new haircut signals six more weeks of winter.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/20/2015 10:22 Comments ||
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#5
Well, he certainly would appear somewhat taller.
Between this styling and the elevator shoes, he could be the 'Giant in the Land'.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/20/2015 11:59 Comments ||
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#6
To add to the trivia: Pudge's haircut when he was made leader was the same style his grandfather wore. Likely this was to reinforce the connection and de-emphasize Pudge's youth.
Not that he has a few years and executions under his belt, looks like the Phatoah is going for his own look.
"A big part of why the West cannot seem to grapple meaningfully with the Russian threat, despite the fact that in any strategic sense NATO is holding most of the cards in this high-stakes game, is because he challenges not just what we have, but who we are. Putin and Putinism represent a direct challenge to the post-modern way of life that has become normative, especially among educated Westerners since the 1960's. A worldview that prefers soft, feminine values to tougher masculine ones, that finds patriotism risible, that believes there is nothing worth dying for, has little to say when the monsters we firmly believed were safely behind the fortress walls, lurking hungrily, turn out to be on our doorstep, and the front door is unlocked."
#1
The old order must come down. [sarc] Europe must now decide as well.
UDM Nelson Mandela Bay leader Mongameli Bobani called for the destruction of heritage sites that depict the history of colonialism and apartheid.
He was speaking at a municipal public accounts committee meeting yesterday, where councillors debated the importance of a municipal by-law to police the upkeep of heritage sites.
Bobani said: “We must destroy the buildings that will bring back apartheid. We must destroy those statues, like that statue of a man on a horse [the Horse Memorial in Central] and Queen Victoria who gave the land of our people away.
“We are in the transformation period, so we must destroy everything to do with apartheid and colonialism.
“Their forefathers built those statues to oppress our forefathers,” Bobani said while pointing at DA councillors Link
h/t Jerry Pournelle
Before Korea, America never lost a war. Ever since, other than the first Gulf War, it hasn't won any. In Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan America spent trillions of dollars, exploded countless tons of munitions, killed hundreds of thousands of enemy combatants along with innocent civilians and accomplished hardly any of the goals its leaders proclaimed when they sent their soldiers into battle.
America's inability to translate its immense firepower into meaningful political effect suggests the $500 billion it spends annually on defence is wasted. In a recent article in the Atlantic Magazine, James Fallows asked the previously unmentionable question: how can America spend more on its military than all the other great powers combined and still be unable to impose its will on even moderately sized enemies?
I think the media generally ignores this question because the answers skewers shibboleths revered by both left and right. I spent much of the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a news cameraman embedded with the American military. I like American soldiers, enjoy their company, respect their bravery, their loyalty, their ethos: but hanging out on their Forward Operating Bases, I could see why the world's most expensive military doesn't win wars. Here are four factors worth considering, in descending order of importance.
#1
Laughable. He seems to have confused our military with our political leadership.
Name one lost battle. With the possible exception of "Black Hawk Down", the Army (And the rest of the armed forces) have won every engagement they have been directed to win.
Its not the military that bailed out too soon - that was a decision by politicians to give back all the gains from the surge.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/20/2015 21:17 Comments ||
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#3
Before Korea, America never lost a war.
Anyone who see the night sky image of the peninsula knows who won. Anyone miss all those Kia and Samsung products floating around. How about those Hanjin container on railroad flatbeds.
#5
"how can America spend more on its military than all the other great powers combined and still be unable to impose its will on even moderately sized enemies?"
That's because a political decision was made that imposing Western will on the enemy was not the objective.
The will to win is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for winning. 21st century Western political leadership does not fulfill that condition.
"America lost in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan primarily because it had no real reason to go to war in the first place, no compelling national interest."
9/11 has profoundly and permanently changed the West, and not for the better.
There's more police state, more surveillance, more fear and, curiously enough, more Sharia in the West because of it.
Yet 9/11 isn't even mentioned when the rationale for "Infinite Justice/Enduring Freedom" is discussed.
Suppose the president in office in 2001, whether he was called Bush or Gore, had chosen not to respond to an attack on the scale of Pearl Harbor.
Could any president have survived politically after making such a decision?
[DAWN] WHEN a building collapses in Pakistain -- and sadly this happens often -- and people lie there injured and dying, the inevitable debate begins about whether the building was constructed as per approved standards. A factory catches fire, literally reducing to ashes over 250 lives because no fire exits were available for those working there and the fire crash tenders called in to extinguish the blaze are unable to do so. A school bus carrying children breaks down on the road resulting once again in injury and death because, of course, the bus was not certified as roadworthy.
Quite literally, to add insult to injury, in all three examples when the dead and injured are finally taken to the emergency department of the nearest government hospital to be treated, the staff is found to be barely qualified and ill-equipped to deal with such a large number of patients.
So what are we to make of this never-ending cycle of neglect and incompetence? Well, staring us in the face is the fact that the state and all its requisite parts are becoming increasingly incapable of meeting the challenges of governance. We talk a lot these days of Pakistain's existential war against militancy, extremism and terrorism; however, our children are unable to attend school because their parents cannot afford to send them there; these children end up at madressahs where they are willingly provided with shelter and food, as well as a paranoid worldview which is more dangerous than anything else.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/20/2015 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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[AnNahar] Shiite Arab militias have flooded into northern Iraq's Kirkuk region to help Kurdish forces battle the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group, but their uneasy alliance threatens to reignite a much older conflict over the oil-rich area pitting the largely autonomous Kurds against the Arab-led government in Baghdad.
All across Iraq, the rapid advance by the Islamic State Lions of Islam over the past year has drawn longtime rivals into reluctant alliances. The shared struggle could with time help Iraqis forge a long-elusive sense of national unity. But it also risks papering over disputes that could burst into the open if the threat subsides.
Continued on Page 49
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
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