First Shots

34 Comments

Divemedic · June 25, 2024 at 6:37 am

Note that I didn’t claim the US guided any Ukrainian strikes. My story is that they shot down a US drone. Flight tracking data has shown a drone in the area for months. Now none are visible. That is a data point.

Rob · June 25, 2024 at 9:20 am

Yeah, because I trust the Pentagon’s word more than anything else. Weapons of mass destruction? The US devastated the middle east. Lies started Vietnam. 60% of the Pentagon’s “budget” unaccounted for.

At this point, how can you believe a single word out of this government’s mouth? In fact, the whole world lies now.

Aesop · June 25, 2024 at 10:14 pm

I share your suspicion of the Pentagon, Rob.

Russia’s word, OTOH, has been beyond recockulous for a century.

While I don’t doubt Russia shot down a drone, the whole “the US was using one to guide a missile” story smelled of three-day-old fish, and I’ll bet cash money the next ten missile strikes all hit their targets in Russian-controlled territory without any such drone present.

Leaving Vlad’s apologists without a leg to stand on.

We’ll see how froggy the Russian Air Farce is if the next Black Sea Freedom Of Navigation exercise is flown by a finger four of F-22s. Even odds now that a Tomahawk or ATACMS makes an unannounced visit to a Mig-31 hangar sometime soon, to drive the point home.

Putin’s ongoing quest to control territory he can’t hold is going to stumble his way into that Makarov retirement party if he keeps poking at things beyond his grasp. He’s struggling with an upstart border conflict, despite all the advantages. That’s not coming at this from a position of strength, militarily nor morally, but he’s going to induce our idiots to send half our missiles to Ukraine, out of spite, and to send a message he really doesn’t want to get.

Aesop · June 25, 2024 at 10:22 pm

Little difference:
we didn’t invade Mexico in 1962 first, conquer a third of their country and annex it, and blow up the electrical grid of their entire country for two years, and kill a million of their people first.

The Cuban Missile Crisis started because Russia put nukes and MRBMs into Cuba.
If we handed nukes and missiles to Ukraine prior to 2022, you’d have a precedent.
Then again, if we’d done that, Vlad would’ve stayed home, or kissed Moscow good bye.
NTTAWWT.

This didn’t start yesterday. Go back to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk ten years ago, in violation of their treaties with Ukraine. They’ve been shooting hundreds of missiles and drone-bombs in Ukraine for two-plus years.
Now they’re bitching because Ukraine’s delivering some payback, and it stings.
Boo frickin’ hoo.

They could withdraw all their forces to the 1991 borders, and this war would be over tomorrow.

wojtek · June 28, 2024 at 12:23 am

Shit, man, I’m the last person to defend russians. But learn some history before you start making these claims. Cuban missile crisis started because US put nukes in Turkey in 1961. 1961 < 1962.

Aesop · June 25, 2024 at 10:36 pm

Russia is the sole aggressor here.
Ukraine is the injured party.
If Ukraine had wanted to roll over, they’ve had plenty of opportunity to do so.
Funny how nobody whose been under Moscow’s thumb in the last century wants any damned part of returning to that state, ever again.
Vlad even got Sweden to break a 212-years-long neutrality, something even Hitler couldn’t get them to do.

This is Vlad playing chess with countries like it’s 1812, as if he has the divine right of taking any territory that pleases him.

But it isn’t working out like that in practice, it’s bleeding him white, and pissing him off mightily.
He’s fought six different conflicts in the last 20 years.
When you have to go to war with five or six other places, and graduate from going to war within your federation, to attacking sovereign nations outside it, you’re the @$$hole.
Putin is the problem.
The world gets safer the minute he’s dead, and Russian military adventurism is curbed.

That isn’t “going off the deep end”, and if you can’t see that plainly, then your judgement on the topic simply isn’t worth much in my eyes.

This all could’ve been avoided if only someone he trusted had warned Putin that his military was a paper tiger, and that negotiation was a better option than attempting conquest and subjugation.

Divemedic · June 26, 2024 at 6:23 am

How many nations has the US attacked during the same time period?

Michael · June 26, 2024 at 9:58 am

Divemedic, while I appreciate your restrained reply, when did logic ever change an emotional response?

It’s a lot like arguing with liberal gun grabbers, they just change the goalposts if you show them how wrong they are.

As his only “combat” time was Grenada, I wonder where the hate of Russia comes from. BTW I was in Grenada also, what a multi-service goat rope against the Policemen of Grenada. What a “War”.

Aesop · June 26, 2024 at 12:47 pm

“Attacked”? One.
Afghanistan.
How’d that work out for us, when last you looked?

Even the ones we didn’t start didn’t generally finish up too well for us.
Almost like there are limits to what fighting half-hearted, half-witted, and half-assed wars on the cheap can accomplish.

Vlad was sick the day they taught the lessons of the Russian Afghanistan Invasion in KGB School.
Now he’s getting the Master’s-level symposium, and it’s stinging his ass just a bit.
Cry me a river.

Divemedic · June 26, 2024 at 1:14 pm

You missed a few. In the last 20 years, we have staged military attacks in:
– Afghanistan
– Algeria
– Burkina Faso
– Cameroon
– Chad
– Colombia
– Ethiopia
– Iraq
– Kenya
– Liberia
– Libya
– Mali
– Mauritania
– Mauritius
– Morocco
– Niger
– Nigeria
– Pakistan
– Rwanda
– Senagal
– Seychelles
– Somalia
– Syria
– Tanzania
– Tunisia
– Uganda
– Yemen

Plus the arguable direct, but inarguable indirect interference in Ukraine. That’s 28 nations just in the past 20 years. Sure, the US always claims to be justified, but we all know that US Presidents are good at finding some kind of justification to attack other countries- the Gulf of Tonkin incident, WMDs in Iraq, the USS Maine, etc.
This country gets into entirely too many wars. Too much of American blood and treasure is being lost in our attempts at controlling the world in the name of “regime change” and “defending democracy.”

Aesop · June 27, 2024 at 6:59 pm

Even granting the point for argument’s sake, Moscow is no less guilty, and thus still the offending party in this war. And frankly, we would have been far beyond wholly justified in dropping nukes on Mecca and Medina twenty four years ago during the Hajj, and calling it even, while urging certain parties to take that restrained warning to heart.

What the US did, does, and/or doesn’t do is immaterial to this discussion. I’d be happy if US presidents remembered that military force is like soap: the more you use, the less you have. Vlad is learning that lesson too, at the PhD level, every single day.

Vlad was butthurt that, contrary to every president since independence in 1991, Zelensky is not Moscow’s sock puppet.
Reality is always stranger than fiction. Vlad expected so much less of Zelensky, obviously.

Moscow thus deserves everything they’ve gotten in response, and deserves far worse. With any luck, they’ll continue to get it.

Trying to drag the US into culpability isn’t going to work, but Russia should have thought through sending assloads of arms (and arguably men) to fight us in both Korea and Vietnam. So we repaid them in kind in Afghanistan in the 1980s, as we’re repaying them now in Ukraine. They don’t get to subjugate countries to create a communist empire, nor a simply Russian one. Empire building ended a century ago. Vlad should have read the memo.

Sauce for the gander there.
Nothing to see here, and Vlad’s just trying to spread some more propaganda to get traction. Butt-hurt protests are not the actions of someone who’s winning even on points.

It’s another non-starter.
Day 853 of the three-day “special military operation” continues as before.

Vlad’s going to die, and Russia is going to withdraw from Ukraine.

The only question at this point is in which order those two things occur.

Then the wrangling over reparations can begin, hopefully with less shooting and bombing.

Aesop · June 25, 2024 at 10:44 pm

“The Russians have shown lots of restrain[t]…“.

Well, yeah, except for that whole starting-a-war-and invading-a-sovereign-and-independent-country-slaughtering-tens-of-thousands-and-bombing-cities-into-rubble thingie, yeah, they’ve been the very soul of restraint.

About as restrained as Sherman marching from Atlanta to the sea in late 1864.

You might want to look “restraint” up in a dictionary, and then lay that ruler down next to the last 2 1/2 years of war in Ukraine. You’re going to come up a little short, grammatically.

Aesop · June 26, 2024 at 1:08 pm

Do us a favor:
Google what happened to the Russian Air Farce in Syria the last time they screwed with U.S. sensibilities circa 2017.

Here, let me help you out, with a couple of links to the late Hognose’s archives, and one from CNN:

https://weaponsman.com/attack-on-syria-knowns-and-unknowns/#more-1076
https://weaponsman.com/syrian-sarin-update-khan-shaykhun-a-son-gout/#more-1090
https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/07/politics/new-satellite-imagery-of-bombed-syrian-base/index.html

D.C. may lack the political will to do that at the moment, but the capability hasn’t gone anywhere, as Russia may yet discover to their regret.

Tree Mike · June 26, 2024 at 1:54 pm

Aesop, Russia has up graded and FUSA has down graded, a LOT, in the the last 7 years. Their long range, air launched, anti aircraft missiles, out reach ours by lotsa miles.

Divemedic · June 26, 2024 at 3:50 pm

Plus, that strike was done with Tomahawk missiles. The US has about 3,000 of those in its stockpile, which seems like a lot, but isn’t when you consider that the US fired 800 of them during the first few days of the 2003 Iraq invasion. Just in January, the Navy fired 80 Tomahawks at Yemen in a single day. If we were involved in a near peer conflict, you could expect to see the US use its entire stockpile in less than a month.

Since we can only procure about 120 of them per year, it would take decades to replace them. Last year, there were only 55 of them made. Not even enough to replace what we fired at Yemen. At Yemen. There is nowhere near as much stuff that needs blowing up in Yemen as there is in Russia.

While all of that is going on, the Chinese are going to quietly sit and wait for us to be done dealing with Russia and not invade Taiwan, right? And where are the computer chips for many of our weapons made? If you guessed Taiwan, you are right.

I don’t care if Putin is an asshole. We can’t pick a fight with him unless we crank up our manufacturing base. The only problem is that we can’t do that without lots of money, which we don’t have. Lots of POL too, but Biden has already used that up in vote buying.

Reality is that this is a fight that we can’t win, because winning ends with nukes. Losing ends with nukes. We lose no matter what. Why do we want to pick a fight, defending the rest of the world?

Aesop · June 27, 2024 at 7:09 pm

It’s your blog, of course.
So let’s try it your way.
We tell Ukraine and Taiwan, at this point,
“Hey, sorry. You fucked up; you trusted us.”

Now break down what you foresee happening after that, worldwide, for the next 10-20 years.
Include, please, how that makes both the US and the world happier, safer, and more prosperous.

Divemedic · June 27, 2024 at 9:20 pm

I allow a lot of discussion and disagreement on here. The only rules that are iron clad are no personal attacks and no spam. I actually enjoy and encourage debate.
To your point: What we say to Taiwan and Ukraine doesn’t matter. It’s what we can do that matters. I maintain that any war begun with Russia ends with at least a nuke or two, if we are lucky.

Zelinski is only the ruler of Ukraine because the CIA put him there before he canceled elections.

Michael · June 28, 2024 at 5:31 am

After the Dead Man Mumbling “Debate”

Will the Swamp continue to Protect the US Dollar with the Hollow Military Sabre Rattling leading to WW3

Or will a common sense coup (oxymoron, sorry) FIND a OFF Ramp to WW3 before nuclear sunrises occur in our country.

Either way the Full Faith and Confidence (or is it creditworthiness) of the US Dollar is going to fall to Weimar Germany Hyperinflation as the world abandons the WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY.

Bad times ahead as fiat currency’s “Value” is what other nations choose it to be. Our “Military Power” against mostly made-up strawman enemies made US the World Cop.

What’s the value of a plump bank account full of German paper marks today?

Got trusted friends, a garden, safe water, canned foods in abundance? If I am totally WRONG at least you can eat them.

Aesop · June 28, 2024 at 12:24 pm

I wasn’t attacking you.
I’m sincerely asking how you see a US sea change retreat, or dual retreats, playing out worldwide. I think the cure is worse than the disease. What we can do may not be enough to prevail.
But it’s infinitely better than withdrawing, and doing nothing.

Nuke wars simply do not stop at one or two. Russia’s only play is not to start one.
If they do, nobody need worry about Christmas.

Why Zelensky is there isn’t Moscow’s gripe.
Especially after they put all his predecessors in power.
They’re pissed he told them “No”, and isn’t beholden to them for power.
They’ve taken 500,000 casualties to prove to the world they’re a fourth-rate military power with delusions of grandeur.

Now they’re crying because what goes around, comes around.

They aren’t desperate, they’re pathetic.
And it’s going to get Vlad un-alived.

Tree Mike · June 26, 2024 at 2:03 pm

Good points, very well put. There is so much outrageous “news” BS going full bore, full time, that after it scrolls by, it gets lost in the flotsam.

Divemedic · June 26, 2024 at 4:32 pm

Look at things from the Russian perspective. During WW1, they had an army of 1.5 million and drafted 3.5 million more, but couldn’t arm them because they didn’t have enough weapons. Over a million of those men died and the government was overthrown as a result.
When WW2 came along, they were again invaded from the west. This time, the Soviets lost 26 million dead out of a population of 180 million- and the majority of them were ethnic Russians. One in four ethnic Russians were killed. In the six month siege of Stalingrad, civilian death tolls are unclear, but estimates put the number of Russian dead at around 1 million. The city virtually ceased to exist, making this the bloodiest battle in recorded history.
As a result of those two wars, the Russian people have a fear of Europe that borders on the pathological.
Now from their point of view, they again have a power in the west that is expanding its sphere of influence and talking about regime change. The left has been calling Russia the enemy for almost a decade now. Do you think that they aren’t listening?
Let’s say that the US and NATO actually begin winning a ground war. What does Russia do at that point? What do you think Putin will do? He has nukes. Perhaps he only blows up one city, and tells the world that unless they back off, he will take out more. If we’re lucky.

Aesop · June 27, 2024 at 7:44 pm

Russia lost more Russians between the world wars and around them, to Stalin (50M-60M), than they lost to the two world wars combined.

Seeing what Stalin did to Eastern Europe from 1941-1991 is why Europe has a pathological fear of Russian military adventurism and Russian rule.

So much for humoring Russian butthurt and psychoses.

And as wargamed out literally thousands of times, one nuke equals all of them, within about 72 hours. Nobody gets a mulligan there.
Tit begets tat, in a failure cascade which always results in a Jenga avalanche.
No matter who starts what.

Every.
Single.
Time.


Then, surviving forces bounce the rubble about once a week, until all supplies are mutually exhausted, and there is essentially no human life remaining on earth north of the equator.

The winners are Brazil and Australia, at that point.

Vlad tries to play that card, and either he dies, or everyone in the Northern Hemisphere dies.

My money is on the guy behind Vlad with a loaded pistol, but I’m a romantic.

Aesop · June 27, 2024 at 7:32 pm

You labor under a host of misimpressions.
Chiefest of which is that anything i write is from hatred of Russia.
The truth is 180° out from there.

1) The reality is that the sooner Russia shoots Vlad in the head and takes an honest stab at being anything other than a tin-horn dick-tatership, i.e. Mexico with nuclear missiles, the world will be a better place for everyone. Their pathological inferiority complex coupled with their morbid phobia of personal liberty is what’s hamstrung them for 1000 years.
They’re simply inbred slaves who cannot help themselves.
Solzhenitsyn, to all of them, was a regrettable aberration, like a crazy uncle they never want to talk about.

2) Nothing I’ve written comes from emotion whatsoever. Russia, their leadership most especially, is baseline stupid. Stupid should hurt. The more it hurts, the better I like it, because it’s only when the lesson really stings that the mind opens up to a change of behavior.

3) Back to the comment thread: Russia has double-dealt with Ukraine since independence. They’ve been told no, and cannot abide it, and elected to settle things with a war. It isn’t turning out how they imagined. Boo. Frickin’. Hoo. Worse for them = better for the world.
The last time they fucked up a war this spectacularly, the Soviet Empire collapsed.
Hopefully this time, Putinmania will finally tear Russia to component pieces, for the same reasons Yugoslavia failed. That brings a hundred problems, but compared to a nuclear Russia led by a megalomaniacal thug self-assured his dick is the biggest in the world, they’re all small problems. The world can cope, and his departure will be as regrettable as winter’s come springtime.

4) Ukraine can then go about its own business, minus an existential threat to its own existence, and back inside the borders guaranteed to them in 1991, and cease being the asshole of the world, afflicted with a case of Moscovian herpes. They can grow wheat, drill for oil, sell both, and mind their own fucking business, and I don’t and won’t care who they let their people fuck, or fuck over, as long as they keep their military’s dick in their own pants. Neither should you. That’s how it oughta be in every country on the planet.

And FTR, if Ukraine had marched into Russia, I’d be in favor of hammering them down until they were flatter than whale shit. But that isn’t what happened. Instead, it’s Moscow that’s invaded and annexed piece after piece of Ukraine, four times in just the last decade. Even dimmer bulbs see that as a “trend”.

5) And then, with this nonsense settled and done, 90% of the country who hasn’t been paying attention up to this point can stop worrying about what’s happening over there, and start focusing, far too belatedly, on the bullshit that’s been going on here for 50 years, and about which I’ve complained longer and louder than you have.

First you plug the leaks, then you bail the boat.

Michael · June 28, 2024 at 8:14 am

Aesop, just how many wars are going on in the past 3 years?

More than Ukraine and Gaza.

Yet with our own country almost ablaze with problems, your very concerned about Russia “Invading Ukraine” and calling for the Russian President to be murdered for your romantic needs.

Your words on this page Aesop.

Tell me why as you tell me you don’t hate Russia.

Putin is the MODERATE in Russian politics, a well-loved Father Figure in Russia.

Yet, you want him DEAD.

WHY?

Aesop · June 28, 2024 at 12:42 pm

About 30 or so wars. Only two or three of which are front page news.

I’m not “very” concerned.
If Vlad ruled over a nuke-free country, I’d simply want to send Ukraine everything they needed to end this sooner. But since that’s not the case, enough to bleed Russia white for years should suffice.

And Russia’s serial invasions of Ukraine aren’t scare quote imaginary, they’ve actually happened. If anyone thinks otherwise, they’re delusional.
You’re always entitled to your own opinions about those factual events, but you aren’t entitled to discount the facts when they’re inconvenient to your views.

And I’m not calling for the Russian president to be murdered for my romantic needs, which is a truly hamfisted attempt to twist things in ways that suit your needs, and not for the first time.

I want him to be murdered because he’s spent a lifetime as a murderous KGB thug, has killed more people than cancer, and started more wars in less time than anyone since Stalin, while threatening nuclear holocaust literally dozens of times in his frequent tantrums in just the last 2 1/2 years. He’s therefore a threat to humanity, at home and abroad, and deserves to be eliminated from the species for crimes against humanity.
There’s ample precedent for that, and he more than qualifies.
Ending him would benefit Russia, first and foremost, and move the center far away from the hard-liners in Russia, and underline that their way of thinking and doing is over. In fact, ended over 30 years ago, and Vlad is a pathetic and festering last gasp of an obsolete dictatorship.
The only family where Putin would be considered a father figure would be the Manson family.

But you go ahead and snuggle up to him all you want, if you don’t have enough vile, loathsome little malignancies to cuddle with.