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| Oval Office Shocker: Turns out Pootie-poot isn't a Republican, and you can't make a deal-deal with him. |
In the timeless words of John McClane:
Shocking only to Trump, the only actual leverage the US has over the Kremlin is making sure as many of their troops get sent home in body bags as possible, until they too get a Reality Check. Which is always a happy thought when Russian leaders are being Russian leaders, since forever - paranoid, psychotic, and stuck in delusions of grandeur. On its best day, Russia is Mexico, with nuclear weapons.
Oh yeah: We Told You So.
So much for 47 playing 89-dimensional chess. We aren't surprised to get this right by Putin being Putin, as always; only that he waited 10 whole weeks to underline it in the fresh blood of civilians.
Now that Reality has entered the chat, Trump has two choices:
a) continue his original course to make Ukraine his administration's Afghanistan withdrawal, (on the theory that the quickest and best way to end a war is to surrender, in this case by throwing an entire nation under the bus) or
b) shove an enormous barbed-wire encrusted baseball bat up Vlad's hindquarters, and break it off forcefully. (IOW, stop using your head only as a hat rack, Mr. President, and stop listening to the idiots advising the Quisling Strategy.)
If you're keeping score at home,
Aesop 1
Any Day Now™ 0
reagan, 1965 "We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace - and you can have it in the next second - surrender."
ReplyDeletebring up reagan to the current crop of bureaucrats is like bringing up a cross to a vampire.
I have noticed that and it is depressing. Cult worship of a president wasn't cute when Drms did it to Obama, and it's not any cuter now that everyone else is doing it to Trump.
DeleteBut I'm sure Trump would accuse Reagan of being an actor who didn't know anything, and his followers , who make 1939 France and Britain look brave by comparison, would eat it up.
Rhea
The enemy does in fact get a vote...
ReplyDeleteGiven that Trump has already loosened and tightened sanctions in the past few months, I have the sneaking suspicion he’s more concerned about getting a response from Europe than from Russia. Apart from the Baltic States and Poland/Romania, the rest of Europe is still lagging behind when it comes to rearmament.
ReplyDeleteSince Trump’s administration sees China as the greater threat, getting Europe to overreact is seemingly the only way to get them to support Ukraine (which is feasible) and uphold their peacetime alliance commitments. Stronger Europe that takes defense seriously = more American resources for the Pacific. Plus, if the Europeans need to expel the fuzzies, they’ll actually have the means to do so now.
I hope the EU peckerheads keep upping the ante.
ReplyDeleteOh... you can make a deal with Putin. It's just that he will renege on it when it no longer serves his agenda.
ReplyDeletePutin ain't no renegger...seen the pics....
DeleteUkraine ain't our problem. DC is our problem. Gaza ain't our problem. It's Israel's problem. The Southern and Northern borders are our problem. As is the presently unpayable 36 trillion fiatbux national debt... We didn't need to solve the world's problems as urgently as we need to solve our own social problems. Like identifying and imprisoning pedophiles, traitors and unwelcome criminal 'visitors'. Just $0.02 from a tired crippled veteran...
ReplyDeleteif we don't solve problems cheaply over there, guess what shows up to our borders to become our very expensive in your face problem?
Deleteback in the 80's we started saying that central and south america were no longer our problem. now the problem part of central and south america is HERE. it was cheap letting the CIA turn dictators down there into OUR dictators, but we decided it was "icky" and stopped. look at the results.
we can throw down the tin star, but don't be surprised when someone who doesn't like us picks it up. then it gets real expensive, real quick.
Wrong, Fred.
ReplyDeleteWe don't get to be #1 by tapping out, and claiming doing two - or twelve - things at once is "too hard".
And you don't wait until the wolf is at your throat before you deal with it.
Pretending the rest of the world is none of our business got us two world wars. The idea that we could stick our heads in the sand, hide behind our oceans, and "let Europe sort itself out" had a wooden stake driven through its heart in December of 1941.
And we've been dealing with militant Islam troublemakers since 1801. Gaza is just another paragraph in the continuing story.
Try and keep up with current events.
Aesop, are you familiar with the book "dr.seuss goes to war"? there are some very illustrative cartoons done back in the late 30s and early 40's done by Mr.Geisel you may like.
Delete@Aesop
DeleteThe fake right has this weird notion that America is obligated to act like the Weaver Family at Ruby Ridge, just sitting passively and waiting to get shot at.
ROE prevent success in world policing. Since success in world policing is unobtainable, we should avoid it. When circumstances dictate out involvement, we should follow fighting rule #1: WIN... If it means nukes, then use them. But whatever COA is chosen, implement it in such a fashion that the enemy thinks long and hard several times before letting it escalate to a fight. Also, when our officials provoke another global power (Victoria Nuland et. al.) maybe we should put them in stocks on public display for the rest of their life instead of letting them get away with it. Pushing regime change around the world violates the 'don't start nothing, won't be nothing' principal. That's a sure fire way to get in a fight... Maybe getting rid of career politicians would be a good start to solving world problems?
DeletePerhaps.
ReplyDeleteBut Victoria Nuland didn't invade Ukraine. Four times since 2014.
RU won't stop till they run out of tanks and IFVs. Which means it will be a while before they run thru the T72, T64s, and they take the T34s off the museum stands and use them as well. Russians may not be beguiling but they make up for it in sheer force of will and damn the consequences.
ReplyDeleteI take it you haven't heard the current condition of the tank boneyards in siberia. they're nearly empty. the state-of-the-art russian MBT is currently the T-54, with no optics (including gunsights) and no radios.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TKVv50DhqM
I'm personally in favor of arming until they run out of places to store weapons.
ReplyDeleteTrump seemed to think he could make a deal with everyone and forgot that, as the quote goes, some men just want to watch the world burn.
Rhea
Trump's awakening is reminiscent of Churchill's quote " you can count on the Americans to do the right thing ,after they tried all other possibilities". Things might soon go south quickly for Vlad.
ReplyDeleteOT. I have observed that it is rare that a LEO prevents a crime incident. More likely they are the stockboy, cleaning up the mess in Aisle 6 and filing a report. In that vein -- https://coldfury.com/WRSA/WRSA-WP/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/2afe2d40-3a79-11f0-8519-3b5a01ebe413.jpg.webp (compliments to WRSA)
ReplyDeleteI just never expected to see 'Aisle 6' on a global basis.
Funny how everyone is fighting the last war, and ignoring relevant facts to this one, macro and micro...
ReplyDeletePutin's a psycho and a choad, but I don't believe launching this UKR war was wholly unjust or entirely unprovoked by the west... and if you're going to argue UKR's response/conduct of the war is wholly virtuous/just then you're just as nuts as putin (numerous vids of UKR war crimes -- created and shared by UKR -- are readily available on the interwebs).
Moreover, trump's remarks about putin were regarding putin's response to UKR drones attempting to assassinate him. UKR, not putin, blew up the peace negotiations, and after RUS's response to that, it's already been announced today that talks will resume next week.
You don't like that putin is negotiating from a position of strength? Say that, not this nonsense. And take issue with UKR and NATO failings.
Putin's weak and bluffing and on last leg? Why are several to most Nordic, Baltic, and eastern European states still scrambling to get to war footing with several news stories Re: over just the past month?
In sum, why are you so committed to underestimating the enemy?
1) Putin, alone, initiated this invasion (Russia's fourth) of a sovereign independent country. Period.
ReplyDeleteUkraine didn't invade Russia.
2) Russia hasn't ever been serious about any peace negotiations, whether in 2022 or now.
3) Everybody but Trump has known 1 and 2 since 2022.
4) Nordic and Baltic countries have been scrambling to bulk up since 2022, because Putin and his cronies have repeatedly stated that their countries are next on Russia's Christmas Wish List. That's why they're the hardest hard-liners against Russia to date, and why Sweden broke 112 years of neutrality which even Hitler and Stalin didn't budge them from, to join NATO, making Vlad the World's Best NATO Salesman since ever.
Noting all of that doesn't constitute "underestimating the enemy".
But thanks for admitting that Russia is, indeed, "the enemy". Well-played.
1) False.
ReplyDelete2) False -- for instance, I like cheap RUS ammo and RUS-weapons, which were banned pre-2022 (firearms first, ammo second). RUS likes to sell USA such cheap guns and ammo and would under a free-market/non-ban system.
3) Only those that tilt at windmills have had the intellectual density to assert such would do so. Sure you're not Don Quixote, instead of Aesop?
4) Baltic countries were bulking up pre-2022. Nordic were, by large, not. I also referenced Eastern European. Search "Poland to introduce 'military training for every adult male' " as just one case-in-point.
Lastly, I did not say Russia is the enemy. I said "Putin's a psycho and a choad". Psychos and choads are "known quantities" and easily played. Trump knows this. Clearly you do not.
(As an aside, and I posted such here an elsewhere before in response to your UKR/RUS autistic tangents [let's see if you have the stones to approve it], but you're single-minded focus on proving you're right on this subject makes you look like an ass in a similar caliber to other bloggers you've called out for the same.)
*To be clear, entirely possible I'm wrong and you're right in the future, in which case, I'll eat crow -- but you're betting on the side of the interests of the MIC and the horrors that will produce, so odds on short-term, you're right, but long-term, I'll be... Albeit, no guarantee the interwebs will still exist long-term.
YMMV. Let's see if you have the stone to publish my ~50th comment on your site that directly challenges "your take."
Better yet -- standalone diatribe by you about how I'm the a-hole!
1) True. 10 yard penalty for Gainsaying. You may agree with Russia's facile and ham-fisted excuses for invading and annexing Crimea in 2014, then following that act by invading Donetsk and Luhansk right after that, then annexing both in 2022, after invading all of Ukraine itself in 2022 (that would be four invasions, as we noted), in an effort to topple the government there, and return the entire country to being a vassal to Russian rule, which retarded effort failed spectacularly. You can hold whatever opinion you wish regarding those facts, but to actually deny their existence is what those in the trade call "psychotic delusions". You can have your own opinions, but not your own reality, and making an argument based on an insanity defense isn't going to prevail.
Delete2) True. See above. Telling us the platypus lays eggs because ice cream has no bones has as much to do with Russia's essential desire to conquer, rather than negotiate as whatever point you thought you were making with your random non-sequitur. Russia's actions are self-evident.
3) Trump's outburst argues that he, in fact, fundamentally failed to appreciate 1 and 2. Your clever riposte speaks to none of this, leaving you the one tilting at windmills.
4) The Baltics have been bulking up since declaring their independence, realizing that their continued independent existence is solely at the patience of Russian military adventurism, and the faithfulness of all of NATO, neither of which are comfortable places upon which to build one's future. Sweden was unfailingly, scrupulously, and militantly neutral from 1812 onwards, and Finland was loathe to anger Russia and risk another 1940 Winter War, but Putin's militarism has pushed both unreservedly and incredibly into NATO's lap. The only variable to change there has been Putin's naked military aggression on public display, and Trump's urge to throw Ukraine and promises regarding its existence under the bus from a retarded lack of awareness of the geopolitical consequences.
(cont.)
(cont.)
DeleteLastly, you said, in reference to Russia's behavior "Why are you so committed to underestimating the enemy?". It may come as a shock to you that referring to Russia as the enemy is an open acknowledment of the fact that Russia is "the enemy". Words mean things, including those exact words, whether you meant to reveal that assessment or not. The fact that they're right where you left them, where anyone can see what you did and didn't say, means you don't get to pretend you didn't utter them.
So yet again, you're playing the Insanity Defense card. Fail.
I am right on this series of points, as the naked facts prove beyond rational disputation. Asininity lies in pretending that Reality, isn't. That's the difference between asserting "X, proven by Y and Z", versus handwaving and incantations to the effect that "These aren't the droids you're looking for", as the sole proof of your delusions.
So it's not just possible that you're wrong, it's demonstrable before you even set out with nothing but gaslighting and psychoses as your rhetorical sword and shield.
Publishing your delusions is its own reward, and challenging me is no big deal, provided you can stick to the facts under discussion, and refrain from ad hominem. I have no idea if you're the a-hole, but I can state categorically that you can't tell the facts of this situation from your own ass, even spotted an anatomical diagram, both hands, a compass, and a rear-view mirror, pointing no farther than your previous response.
It mainly serves as a warning to others, and gains you no points in furtherance of your delusions, other than perhaps a dopamine hit for receiving the exact ritual beating you have now received, on the merits. If that was all you wanted out of this, walk tall, and enjoy your well-earned rhetorical lumps, bruises, and lacerations.
If you meant to improve your argument's position, you're doing about as well as the Russian airborne brigade that sought to conquer Kiev in 2022: destroyed to the last man. You are therefore awarded the Order Of The Rhetorical Scratching Post with oak leaf clusters, as being used to sharpen other people's claws is apparently your main function.