War in Ukraine

^ to the last dead Ukrainian.

 

I’d venture that, when pressed, most Americans will affirm that they want to help a country they couldn’t find on the map before 2022.

But I must say, I so route sales and my wife and I belong to a large civic group. A year and a half in. Hundreds of conversations. Thousands of people.

Nobody talks about the war.

 

There seems to be a bit of a split in the GOP with folks like Tucker on one side and Mark Levin on the other. Mark Levin posted agreement with Trump's recent statement that he would end the war, in part, by threatening Russia with the United States sending Ukraine even more help.

 

Lindsey Graham gets my vote as Craziest Man on Planet Earth.

 

To be fair, though, I am not sure most Americans could find their own county on an unlabeled map, much less identify many foreign countries. Also, the American public is typically insulated from the day to day of war even when American troops are actively fighting and dying. I don't recall, for example, people bringing up Afghanistan over those many years unless they were news junkies or knew someone serving over there.

 

I don’t know about that. When I visited my California ultra-liberal lesbian sister, she and her partner tuned in every night to watch what she called the “Nightly Ass-Kicking Report”, her description of the war in Afghanistan.

 

We were in Afghanistan for a long time and even after all that, I'm not sure most Americans could find Afghanistan on a map. I've heard Tucker use the line about finding Ukraine on the map, and I'm just not convinced "man the street" quizzes are a useful metric for identifying U.S. interests or evaluating our foreign policy decisions. But Americans might be particularly bad with maps, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because we see ourselves as the center of the world and aren't that interested about other places?

 

Have not seen this verified, but one source says it was naval drones, which I thought had not been successful against Russian defenses in the past:

 

We’re probably more interested in white folks overseas than brown folks. Depending on the source our recent proxy wars in the Middle East have cost 1.7 million to 6 million lives, the vast majority of them being civilians.

 

Unfortunately, that's probably true even if it's largely subconscious.

 

For those of you pining for Putin’s ouster, here’s who you’d likely get. Medvedev on the attack on the Crimean Bridge …

 

but she's hot so who cares what comes out of her mouth

 

I remember when Americans set upon former Presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, when he confessed he didn’t know where Aleppo was … no doubt after they’d first scrambled to google its whereabouts.

 

Russia has assembled more than 100,000 soldiers in the Kupyansk area, Ukrainian official says.

 

You send in that many, don’t forget one thing: a good supply of body bags.

 

So hard to pick out the truth from all the info out there but here’s some more. These guys may be among the 100,000. The transcript is revealing

 

If the 100,000 is true, it looks like Russia is going to make another run at Kharkiv. Not an insignificant development, as Kharkiv has switched hands twice already and as Ukraine's 2nd largest city, it would be a huge blow to the Ukrainian counteroffensive if Kharkiv were to fall again. Ukraine has to defend Kharkiv at all costs.

 

I agree that it would be significant, but the loss/gain of a city would not be the reason why. Russia has been nothing short of inept on offense (Muschamp-level buffoonery) since its first land grab during the opening of the war when we all thought Russians were 10-feet tall and could destroy Ukraine with bolts of lightning from their eyes. If Russia is truly able to mass 100K troops, make a serious land grab with them, and hold their gains, then it might just be a sign that the Russian Army has finally got its stuff together. And that would be a bad sign indeed for Ukraine.

But even if that happens, Ukraine’s best strategy remains to cause maximum damage to the Russian war machine, either on offense or defense, taking land back only when it is easy, and trading space for casualties when Russia presents an opportunity. I can’t emphasize enough that Ukraine cannot win by simply taking its land back (even if it had that capability). It has to force a policy change in Russia.

 

I feel like we have to say this same thing over and over for some people. Like it's an idea that is not singing in lol

 

My experience suggests your feelings are valid.