Tag Archives: Russia

International news

War with Russia? No way!

Let us settle down for a moment or two, shall we? I want to offer a word of assurance, admittedly from the cheap seats, about the prospect of American fighting forces marching into battle with Russians.

It won’t happen!

The Russians are getting their butts kicked in Ukraine, as they try to subvert the sovereign nation along Russia’s western border. The Russians appear set to conquer the seaport of Mariupol. Their attempt to take control of the Ukraine capital in Kyiv met with failure.

Neil Steinberg, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, seems to think war with Russia is possible. He writes:

Is the United States heading toward war? It seems a very real possibility. Some arms convoy in Poland will be hit, and the gears of general conflagration will start to turn. It’ll all seem inevitable, afterward. Then we can be haunted aplenty.

Just to be clear. I’m not saying the United States shouldn’t continue arming Ukraine. We have to. Which means we must accept the possibility of war. We don’t like to think about that. The whole strategy of handing weapons to Ukrainians and letting them actually pull the trigger is a tactic designed to avoid dragging ourselves into actual fighting. The easy way.

Read his essay here: Are we going to war with Russia? – Chicago Sun-Times (suntimes.com)

President Biden has pledged on numerous occasions that there is no way on God’s Earth that American forces will fight Russians … on the battlefield, or in the air, or at sea. I am going to take him at his word on that pledge.

Americans are sick and tired of war. We cannot tolerate another protracted ground fight with Russia. Period. Full stop.

We should continue to aid Ukraine with arms and related supplies. I have no trouble supporting that effort. That is as far as it should go. We can speed up delivery of the materiel and we should do so.

I can see no circumstance where we will commit young Americans to a ground war with Russia.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

science news

Why not respond in kind?

My perch in the cheap seats as I watch the Ukraine War play out way over there gives me a chance to wonder about something: If we are so fearful of Russian cyberattacks, why don’t we threaten to unleash our own cyber weapons against them?

The U.S.-Russia cold war might be taking a new form to replace the one that formerly featured nuclear weapons pointed at each other back in the days of the Evil Empire, when Russia was called The Soviet Union.

I don’t want my retirement account to be sucked dry by some cyber spook hunkered in some Moscow bunker. However, we live in the world’s most technically sophisticated nation. We have uber-geeks prepared to do all kinds of harm if given the lawful order from on high to do so.

It seems we are capable of crafting a cyber policy that we could make public — without revealing, of course, the tactical aspects of what we intend to do. Tell the Russians what kind of damage we can do to their cyber system and then — as we did during the other Cold War — dare them to launch an attack on us.

It would be a form of Mutually Assured Destruction 2.0.

It therefore would be equally MAD for the Russians to perform any funny stuff if we are ready to respond in kind.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Impossible to endorse these actions

My ability to comprehend the depravity being brought to Ukrainians is being taxed to the max. Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin invaded a sovereign nation intent on occupying its capital city within three days.

His supposedly vaunted Russian military machine has failed in its mission. That has not stopped Putin from violating what appears to be every standard of decency established by the Geneva Convention in his effort to subdue Ukraine.

He has bombed and shelled hospitals, schools, churches, apartment buildings and has killed thousands of civilians. The scenes of destruction brought against Ukraine belie another truth about this war, which is that Ukraine is putting up one hell of a fight to fend off the invaders. Hence, the failed mission to march into Kyiv.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. The two sides supposedly are “negotiating” a possible end to the hostilities and yet the Russians also are reportedly gathering in eastern Ukraine and preparing for another all-out assault.

What remains arguably the most confusing element in all of this is how Putin can function day to day realizing that virtually the entire planet is aligned against him. The destruction and the visual images of the casualties his troops have left behind have turned this man into an international pariah.

There can be no coming back from the depths to which this individual has taken his nation.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Vietnam analogy takes shape?

There appears to be a sort of Vietnam analogy possibly taking shape on the battlefields in Ukraine. I can’t quite get my arms completely around it, but I do sense a certain similarity coming into focus.

More than 50 years ago, the United States was engaged in a death struggle with Vietnamese forces over control of South Vietnam. The United States won virtually every military engagement against the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army. We did not win the hearts and minds of the people.

So, U.S. and North Vietnamese negotiators ventured to Paris to work out an agreement to end hostilities. The agreement came to pass in January 1973. We pulled our forces out but by April 1975, North Vietnam was able to roll its tanks into Saigon and rename the city after Ho Chi Minh.

Fast forward to the present day.

Russia has invaded Ukraine. The Russians are unable to win over Ukrainians’ hearts and souls. Ukraine is waging a hell of a fight to save their country, much as the Vietnamese did against our forces in the1960s and 1970s. The Russian advance has been stalled. Ukraine is taking back some of the territory it lost in the initial combat.

Now we hear that Russia is beginning to give a little in talks with Ukraine. Might there be an agreement reached that could end this senseless slaughter? Might the Ukrainians be able to declare some form of “victory” against a vastly superior military force?

OK, so the Vietnam-Ukraine analogy isn’t aligned perfectly. I do see enough similarity, though, to suggest that Ukraine might have been able to “win the war” while losing all the “battles” on its way to ending the Russian onslaught.

Let us not forget, either, that the U.S.-led economic sanctions are crippling the Russians to the point of disabling them from continuing the fight.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Worried about Taiwan

While the world recoils in horror at what is transpiring in Ukraine and wondering whether China is taking notes on what lies ahead for another potential conflict, I want to offer a brief word of worry about a possible target of Chinese aggression.

It sits off the China coast. Taiwan has been a thriving nation of its own since 1949, when Chiang kai-Shek’s government set up shop in Taipei after losing a bloody civil war with the communists.

China wants Taiwan back. It has been threatening to take the island nation back ever since the end of the conflict on the mainland. Whether Russia succeeds in its effort to subdue Ukraine could spell a heap of trouble for China and for Taiwan.

My interest in Taiwan is personal. I have been there five times, starting in 1989. I returned in 1994, in 1999, 2007 and 2010. My first visit came at the end of a grueling three-week tour of Southeast Asia. Taiwan was still under martial law. It lifted the martial law between my first and second visits.

The country is as independent from China these days as it possibly could be … except that it hasn’t declared its independence. It dare not make the declaration, as it would enrage the communists on the mainland to the point of launching an invasion of their own to retake the island.

Taiwan’s population now consists almost entirely of people who were born there. Few Taiwanese have any direct tie to China. The country is a thriving democracy. Taiwan is an economic powerhouse. It also possesses a stout military apparatus that benefits from a defense agreement with the United States.

To be clear, Taiwan has few diplomatic allies, in that the world recognizes only “one China.” That happens to be the one that governs in Beijing. However, the reality is that even though Taiwan once was part of China, it now considers itself to be a separate nation. Yes, it is a curious and complicated matter that cannot be solved easily and cleanly.

I cannot pretend to know how this will play out. President Biden has been talking extensively with Chinese leaders since war broke out in Ukraine. I keep hearing that Biden has persuaded the Chinese to stay out of the Russia-Ukraine fight; that it shouldn’t send arms to Russia. That suits me just fine.

If the Ukrainians somehow can broker an end to the fighting without Russia marching into Kyiv, then there could be some hope that China would have to rethink whatever aspirations it has about taking Taiwan back in a fight to the finish.

Believe this, too: Taiwan will fight like hell for their country just as Ukrainians are fighting for theirs.

It all still brings cause for worry.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

8 GOP lawmakers vote against Russia sanction

Eight Republicans stood in the way of legislation passing through the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously and, thus, sending another clear message of strength against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A bill that would have revoked U.S.-Russia normal trade relations sailed through the House on a clear and decisive bipartisan vote. Except for the eight GOP nimrods who opposed it.

I don’t know who all of them are, but I surely do recognize several of the dipsh**s over their past behavior and idiotic blathering.

GOP Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Thomas Massie of Kentucky all are familiar (more or less) to me. The others are Andy Biggs of Arizona, Dan Bishop of North Carolina and Glen Grothman of Wisconsin.

The first five of are your standard, run-of-the-mill GOP nut jobs. Greene, Boebert and Gaetz perhaps are the most well-known. Gaetz, let’s recall, might be indicted soon on a sex-trafficking charge. Boebert and Greene are the twin QAnon queens of the House. Roy is just, well, a Texas Republican … so that’s all I need to say about him. Massie is another fruitcake.

What is so bizarre is that these eight GOP outliers stand in stark contrast to what I consider to be traditional Republican antagonism to anything dealing with Russia or its immediate predecessor, the Soviet Union.

They all seem to parrot the thinly veiled praise of Russian thug Vladimir Putin that comes from The Donald, who remains their hero despite his insistence on pushing The Big Lie forward about the 2020 presidential election and the non-existent “widespread vote fraud.”

Oh, well. I’ll just go on now and take care of the rest of the day’s activities that await me. I just had to get this little annoyance off my chest.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Zelenskyy gathers more allies

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought more help today from the United States of America in his fight against the Russian invaders who are seeking to pummel Ukraine into submission.

If the Ukrainians are following the lead of their president, Russia remains a huge distance from achieving its goal.

Zelenskyy made an appearance today before Congress, getting a bipartisan standing ovation. In his virtual speech, Zelenskyy asked for more weapons, even more stringent economic sanctions and for the United States to endorse the idea of establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine; President Biden has adamantly opposed the latter strategy.

However, the U.S. president did pledge to spend $800 million in additional aid to Ukraine.

I want to offer a good word yet again for the skill that Biden has used in unifying NATO in opposition to the unprovoked Russian attack on Ukraine. NATO comprises nations with widely different cultures and political points of view. On this score, thanks in large measure to the pressure put on them by Joe Biden, NATO is singing in unison.

President Zelenskyy, therefore, has an ally at his front doorstep as well as across the ocean.

I wish him well as he seeks to stand firm against the Russian aggressors.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Zelenskyy assumes key role

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is putting his acting talent to good use as he stands before the world and plays the part of a real-life hero to the people he is defending against the Russian attackers.

I have no qualms about the role Zelenskyy has assumed for himself.

The Ukrainian president has assumed the role of wartime leader and head of state. Russian forces invaded his country for purposes that remain somewhat murky. I believe I can figure out what Vladimir Putin has in mind: He wants to take Ukraine over, returning to a sort of de facto Russian state.

Meanwhile, while the Russian despot’s standing plummets around the world, his adversary in Ukraine sees his standing skyrocket partly because he young Ukrainian president has enough show biz in him to play the role he appears destined to play: of an emerging leader and star on the world political stage.

Let me be crystal clear. I do not hold anything against Zelenskyy as he seeks to build worldwide public support for the cause he has taken up, which is to defend his nation against an aggressor state and a dictator with delusions of godhood.

There is little I can do from my far-away perch in North Texas.

I happen to believe in the power of prayer, so I will offer plenty of prayer to the young Ukrainian leader.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

‘Bravery and honor,’ indeed

You know, some things do not need to be embellished with prose and platitudes.

This social media meme is one of those things.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stood tall against the Russian onslaught against his nation. Think for just a moment what this young man was doing before he became the leader of a sovereign nation that once was part of the Soviet empire.

He was a comedian and an actor. He pranced around movie sets acting like some sort of goofball. Then he got elected president of Ukraine. He became the focus of an impeachment trial of a former U.S. president.

Now he is facing down the military force of Russia launched against his country for reasons that defy explanation.

Yep. The young man is a hero.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Russians project false power

If I had a ruble for every instance I have heard that Russia is a “great power” … I would have a lot of rubles, but they wouldn’t be worth more than the cost of a cheap shot of vodka.

Russia is not a great power, even though it is trying to flex its military muscle in Ukraine. Yes, Russia possesses a lot of nuclear weapons left over from the days it existed as the Soviet Union and the Soviets tried to bully the United States during the Cold War.

Russia’s conventional force is being revealed to be something of a feckless machine, with command and control not knowing how to find its backside with both hands. How else can one explain how that vaunted and powerful convoy of military equipment got bogged down on its way the Ukraine capital city of Kyiv.

Granted, the convoy got unstuck and is now moving on the capital city. Once it arrives, we are likely to see how adept the Russians are at fighting street to street, house to house, room to room against Ukrainians who are highly motivated to fight like hell to keep the invaders from taking over their homeland.

I realize fully that the war likely won’t end with a Ukrainian victory, with Ukraine being able to declare it has defeated Russia. However, the performance on the field of battle by the Russians has disproven to my satisfaction that the former Evil Empire isn’t quite as formidable as its propaganda machine would have us believe.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com