Patterico's Pontifications

3/17/2022

Moscow Playbook: Setting Stage For Use Of Chemical Weapon, Blame Ukraine

Filed under: General — Dana @ 12:05 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken this morning:

We have a strong sense of what Russia could do next. We believe that Moscow may be setting the stage to use a chemical weapon and then falsely blame Ukraine to justify escalating its attacks on the Ukrainian people. Manufacturing events, and creating false narratives of genocide to justify greater use of military force is a tactic that Russia has used before…

Meanwhile:

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke on Wednesday with Nikolay Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, warning him of the consequences “of any possible Russian decision to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine”.

Sullivan declined to say what those consequences might be.

We have yet to see whether Washington will decide that the use of chemical (or biological) weapons is our red line and if so, whether that would actually mean something.

As it stands, the United Nations is reporting that 2.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the invasion began.

–Dana

54 Responses to “Moscow Playbook: Setting Stage For Use Of Chemical Weapon, Blame Ukraine”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (5395f9)

  2. The 2.5 million figure is a lagging figure. It’s probably passed 3 million now.

    A Russian decision to use chemical weapons doesn’t depend on a propaganda excuse. Rather, preparing a propaganda excuse is an indication that they might be intending to use it.

    I think it’s a bit early for that, and they’ll probably offer people an escape route before, to minimize an adverse reaction.

    I’ll tell you when they use it: When an area seems to have irrevocably slipped out of their control, and they cannot establish or re-establish control of that population without taking enormous casualties. The late Soviet Union decided they couldn’t take the kind of casulaties they took during World War II.

    n the solution is politicide: Just kill everybody remaining in the area where it is impossible to establish or re-establish control.

    This seems to have been Soviet military doctrine since about 1975 – because I think the idea came from there.

    It was used against particularly resistant areas in Laos in 1975 (the North Vietnamese I assume got that idea from the Soviet Union) This was the “yellow rain” except that the samples </i? were mostly from bees. But it happened. There was more than enough eyewitness testimony.

    Later, t was used in Afghanistan:

    https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/international/story/19830731-us-accuses-soviet-union-of-using-chemical-and-biological-weapons-in-afghanistan-770879-2013-07-19

    There is now emerging a convincing body of evidence – and important parts of it from independent sources – that the Soviets may have direct complicity in the deployment of biological and chemical weapons not only in Afghanistan but also in Kampuchea and Laos.

    INDERJIT BADHWAR
    July 19, 2013
    ISSUE DATE: July 31, 1983
    UPDATED: June 12, 2014 18:06 IST

    Many sceptics who had previously dismissed the American accusations as no more than science fiction or examples of Reaganite cold war rhetoric have now begun to take the issue seriously.

    Changing Views: A recent example of this waning scepticism was an article in the weekly publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science – the fiercely independent Science Magazine. It described the American case against the Soviet Union as persuasive and well established. In an earlier issue, the same magazine had termed the American charges premature….

    Still later, it was used in 1988 by Saddam Hussein against Kurdish villages. (it ahad also been used in battle against Iran)

    More recently, it was used in Syria.

    All against populations over whom the government had lost control.

    As I said, I think it’s a bit early for Moscow to have concluded that any place in Ukraine has reached that point. But they could be making preparations.

    Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d)

  3. Many people believe that the “yellow rain” has been discredit. But it was only the samples – because the gas did not solidify and congeal nor was there any reason to suppose it would do so.

    And people have forgotten that chemical weapons were used in Afghanistan by by the Soviet Union.

    Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d)

  4. Of course Russia is going to resort to Chemical warfare. It’s standard practice for them when things aren’t going as well as planned (see Syria).

    Is the Western world going to respond militarily?

    Doubtful.

    whembly (7e0293)

  5. Tulsi gabbard points out that US government has funded bio labs and has admitted it. For telling the truth she is branded a traitor by vietnam war drafter and chicken hawk mitt romney and other vietnam war draft dodgers and iraq war chicken hawks.

    asset (d1fbc2)

  6. Wait…

    Wait… WAIT!

    https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/hunter-bidens-infamous-laptop-confirmed-in-new-york-times-report/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

    You mean to tell me that the Hunter Biden laptop story was real?

    Yikes. There’s going to be a lot of walking back…including by many posters here who believed that this was disinformation.

    Seriously though, it’s another indictment against the mainstream media (sans Fox I would assume). They’re nothing more than the propaganda arm for the DNC party, and should be treated as such.

    whembly (7e0293)

  7. Welcome back, Dana.

    Parsing the end game: what if Putin lit off a tactical nuke?
    ……..
    ……..The war in Ukraine is not going well for Vladimir Putin at the moment. Much of his army remains bogged down in various places and he’s been losing a lot of troops, reportedly including four generals. Their rocket bombardments are doing plenty of damage to the cities and taking out a horrific number of civilians, but the Ukrainian military and its burgeoning ranks of armed civilian volunteers have been cutting off Russian military units and destroying massive amounts of hardware. The Russian economy back home is imploding and unrest is growing. At some point, it’s very likely that Putin will look for a way to “escalate to deescalate,” as (Jim Geraghty in a NRO Morning Jolt article yesterday) puts it. And he might do that by launching a tactical nuclear weapon.
    ……..
    ……..If Putin grows desperate enough and wants to scatter the opposition, either of the first two types of attacks (air or surface burst) might do the trick. Putin could even choose to set off an air burst over the Black Sea just as a demonstration of power and the obvious threat that he could next do it over a city.

    ……..Geraghty repeatedly makes the point that we want to do everything in our power to avoid the United States or any of our NATO allies getting into a shooting war with Russia. That’s an admirable goal to be sure, but isn’t it also exactly what Putin is counting on? As many of us have been saying from the beginning, the only thing Vladimir Putin respects is force. Little will curb his ambitions if he doesn’t suspect that there is a credible threat of retaliation that would make the cost of his actions too great to risk.

    But that credible threat has been missing in action……
    ……..
    I agree with Jim that a no-fly zone should still be off the table, at least for now. If we do that, it’s only a matter of time before a Russian jet shoots down an American or NATO jet (or vice versa) and then all bets are off. But if Ukraine continues to overperform in their defense of their nation and Putin begins to smell a Russian rout, we need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario……
    ############
    A Russian first use of a nuclear weapon will give a whole new meaning to Morning Jolt.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  8. Tulsi gabbard points out that US government has funded bio labs and has admitted it. For telling the truth she is branded a traitor by vietnam war drafter and chicken hawk mitt romney and other vietnam war draft dodgers and iraq war chicken hawks.

    asset (d1fbc2) — 3/17/2022 @ 2:00 pm

    Russian disinformation.

    The Real ‘Especially Dangerous’ Materials in Those Ukrainian Biological-Research Labs
    When Florida senator Marco Rubio asked Victoria Nuland, the U.S. State Department’s undersecretary for political affairs, “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?” we all would have been better off if Nuland had accurately and clearly answered, “Ukraine has no biological weapons program, but the country has plenty of laboratories doing public health research that house pathogens that can be dangerous.”

    Instead, Nuland answered, “Ukraine has biological-research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of” — a statement that suspicious minds interpret as an inadvertent admission that Ukraine has a secret biological-weapons program.

    ………[A] “biological-research facility” is not the same as a biological-weapons-research facility, but a lot of people, inside and outside of the Russian government, would like you to see the two terms as interchangeable. But what’s going on in Ukrainian biological-research facilities is not mysterious or shrouded in secrecy.
    ………
    ………Ukraine’s national, state, and local authorities have always had programs studying communicable diseases and viruses and figuring out how to stop or slow their spread. In a thorough research paper on Ukrainian anti-plague programs from 2008, Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, Alexander Melikishvili, and Raymond Zilinskas of the Monterey Institute of International Studies noted that, “Possibly the first plague epidemic control facility in the world was established in the city in 1886 . . . in 1965, it was renamed the I.I. Mechnikov Odessa Scientific and Research Institute of Viral Diseases and Epidemiology.”
    ………
    The Ukrainian State Emergency Service is a civil-defense agency that conducts epidemiological surveillance and investigations of infectious disease outbreaks, monitors food and water supplies, and identifies environmental hazards. “This agency runs 30 laboratories at regional SES centers that perform initial investigations of disease outbreaks.” Ukraine has naturally occurring anthrax, listeriosis, tularemia, brucellosis, cholera, rabies, and rickettsiosis. In 2017, the country suffered a noticeably severe tuberculosis outbreak.
    ………..
    As for the notion that there’s something sinister about U.S. funding or cooperation for these laboratories, in 2005, the U.S. government realized it was not a good idea to have all kinds of viruses and bacteria sitting on refrigerated shelves of Ukrainian research facilities with minimal security. The U.S. and Ukraine agreed to expand the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program to fund security improvements for pathogens stored at biological research and health facilities in Ukraine — specifically mentioning the Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene in Lviv, the Ukrainian Scientific Research Anti-Plague Institute in Odessa, and the Central Sanitary Epidemiological Station in Kyiv. The U.S. provided $15 million.
    ……….
    Yes, the Russians could attempt to use the dangerous pathogens in some sort of “false flag” terrorist attack. But it’s even more likely that these Russian troops — poorly trained, poorly briefed, hungry, and dumb enough to fire shells at a nuclear plant — could well accidentally cause an outbreak of a contagious disease.

    All of this information is on the Internet and in English. ………
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  9. OT. As another “Cold War” is chilling around us, witness this ‘blast from the past’ redux, echoing the space race of the 1960s: Just like the first, majestic Apollo/Saturn V rollout 55 years ago in 1967, NASA’s Artemis/SLS launch vehicle- eventually moon-bound like its Apollo/Saturn V cousin, is having its first ‘rollout’ to the launch pad today; the stack to slowly trundle out to the pad for systems checks- first launch planned for later this year. Just a magnificent, awesome piece of human technology– at place where people area always looking up. So damn proud of all those technicians, engineers and managers, young and old. America at it’s best.

    https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#public

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  10. As long as Wall Street can buy and sell Russian oil until June 24, Putin is gonna keep on Puttin.
    Some sanction Joe, I mean Jill.

    mg (8cbc69)

  11. In the past, the US has said that use of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) weapons would be responded to with CBRN weapons, but not necessarily of the same type.

    But that’s attacks on us or our allies. I do think though that the administration would take a very dim view, and might respond with airstrikes against Russian positions in Ukraine and possibly Belarus.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  12. The 2.5 million figure is a lagging figure. It’s probably passed 3 million now.

    Whatever. It’s still single digits percentage-wise. The population of Ukraine before the war was 43 million.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  13. If Russia were to use chemical or biological weapons in a way that killed millions, we would be certain to intervene, if not declare war. I don’t see how we could let that go by.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  14. Tulsi gabbard points out that US government has funded bio labs and has admitted it. For telling the truth she is branded a traitor by vietnam war drafter and chicken hawk mitt romney and other vietnam war draft dodgers and iraq war chicken hawks.

    And now we see the whackjob left meeting with the whackjob right.

    Romney has quite legal deferments — as nearly every college student did — and then stood for the draft lottery, drawing #300 in 1969. Calling him a draft dodger is literally libel.

    Biden also received legal student deferments, but then got a questionable medical deferment based on a claim of asthma in the past.

    Trump, of course, had no shame in what he did.

    Bernie gamed the system, claiming Objector status and keeping that process running until he was too old to be drafted.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  15. SLS will never launch a single human into space. Of course, I might be wrong and for a mere $5 billion a person they might “succeed” but it is the space version of the Moonbeam Express.

    Kevin M (38e250)

  16. Tulsi Gabbard is irrelevant, and otnay saay ettypray as JVW thinks either.

    nk (1d9030)

  17. Dana – Good to see you back, and writing on such an important issue.

    Jim Miller (406a93)

  18. Soviets are neither imaginative nor innovative. But they are brutal. If they commit atrocities, as they are doing now with Mariupol, it will be to draw out the Ukrainians, to make them divert personnel and material from other fronts in order to bring relief to the afflicted areas.

    nk (1d9030)

  19. Putin Likely to Make Nuclear Threats If War Drags, U.S. Says
    ………
    “Protracted occupation of parts of Ukrainian territory threatens to sap Russian military manpower and reduce their modernized weapons arsenal, while consequent economic sanctions will probably throw Russia into prolonged economic depression and diplomatic isolation,” Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in its new 67-page summary of worldwide threats.
    ……..
    “As this war and its consequences slowly weaken Russian conventional strength,” Berrier added, “Russia likely will increasingly rely on its nuclear deterrent to signal the West and project strength to its internal and external audiences.”
    …….
    …….The Russian Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the Defense Intelligence Agency report.
    …….
    “U.S. efforts to undermine Russia’s goals in Ukraine, combined with its perception that the United States is a nation in decline, could prompt Russia to engage in more aggressive actions not only in Ukraine itself, but also more broadly in its perceived confrontation with the West,” Berrier said.
    …….
    In addition to seeking to intimidate Russia’s adversaries, he said, (Putin’s order in February putting Russia’s nuclear forces on “special combat duty”) reflects “Moscow’s doctrinal views on the use of tactical, non-strategic nuclear weapons to compel an adversary” into pursuing negotiations “that may result in termination of the conflict on terms favorable to Russia, or deter the entry of other participants when Russian offensive progress of its conventional forces looks like it might be reversed or the conflict becomes protracted.”
    ………

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  20. Whembly,

    Mistakes won’t be acknowledged. They’ll just be ignored.

    NJRob (0c8f17)

  21. Soviets are neither imaginative nor innovative.

    Pfft. Aside from this: =mike-drop=

    1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile and orbital launch vehicle, the R-7 Semyorka.
    1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1.
    1957: First animal in Earth orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2.
    1959: First rocket ignition in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth’s gravity, Luna 1.
    1959: First data communications, or telemetry, to and from outer space, Luna 1.
    1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon, first man-made object in Heliocentric orbit, Luna 1.
    1959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 2.
    1959: First images of the moon’s far side, Luna 3.
    1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs Belka and Strelka on Sputnik 5.
    1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 1.
    1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Vostok program.
    1961: First person to spend over 24 hours in space Gherman Titov, Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space).
    1962: First dual crewed spaceflight, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4.
    1962: First probe launched to Mars, Mars 1.
    1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6.
    1964: First multi-person crew (3), Voskhod 1.
    1965: First extra-vehicular activity (EVA), by Alexsei Leonov,[32] Voskhod 2.
    1965: First radio telescope in space, Zond 3.
    1965: First probe to hit another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 3.
    1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the Moon, Luna 9.
    1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10.
    1966: first image of the whole Earth disk, Molniya 1.[33]
    1967: First uncrewed rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188.
    1968: First living beings to reach the Moon (circumlunar flights) and return unharmed to Earth, Russian tortoises and other lifeforms on Zond 5.
    1969: First docking between two crewed craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5.
    1970: First soil samples automatically extracted and returned to Earth from another celestial body, Luna 16.
    1970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1 on the Moon.
    1970: First full interplanetary travel with a soft landing and useful data transmission. Data received from the surface of another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 7
    1971: First space station, Salyut 1.
    1971: First probe to impact the surface of Mars, Mars 2.
    1971: First probe to land on Mars, Mars 3.
    1971: First armed space station, Almaz.
    1975: First probe to orbit Venus, to make a soft landing on Venus, first photos from the surface of Venus, Venera 9.
    1980: First Hispanic and Black person in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez on Soyuz 38.
    1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7 space station).
    1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir and Salyut 7).
    1986: First probes to deploy robotic balloons into Venus atmosphere and to return pictures of a comet during close flyby Vega 1, Vega 2.
    1986: First permanently crewed space station, Mir, 1986–2001, with a permanent presence on board (1989–1999).
    1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on board of Soyuz TM-4 – Mir.
    1988: First fully automated flight of a spaceplane (Buran).

    source – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_program?msclkid=86c57adea65d11ecb99f6b040643e585

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  22. It’s interesting that we got Hunter Biden’s laptop in a Russian atrocities in Ukraine thread. MAGA is the new name for “Comintern USA”.

    nk (1d9030)

  23. Well, Joe Biden did claim that the Hunter laptop story was a Russian atrocity on our democracy with a Ukrainian energy twist, so as tangents go, it at least hit a lot of the notes.

    One story that made me think Ukraine is actually going easy on Russia because Putin is losing his S*** was the story that Ukraine has laser guided, artillery that could have covered the entire stalled 40KM convoy from week or so back. Militarily it was inexplicable that the artillery didn’t destroy the convoy. Pesronally, I think if Ukraine truly had the shot, they should have taken it, but its always easy to tell the other guy its ok to ride the kightning

    steveg (e81d76)

  24. As sanctions over Ukraine war mount, Russia turns to India to buy oil and arms

    NEW DELHI — When Russia faced international condemnation and sanctions after President Vladimir Putin launched his Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, India stayed on the diplomatic sidelines. Now, as those economic sanctions begin to bite, Moscow is again turning to India. India, the world’s biggest oil importer behind China and the United States, has agreed to purchase 3 million barrels of Russian oil at a heavy discount, an Indian official said Thursday. -WaPO.com

    India:

    [ ] Democracy?

    [ ] Republic?

    [ ] Opportunistic?

    [ ] Pragmatic?

    ‘Caste’ your vote: choose.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  25. More than two dozen Senate Republicans demand Biden do more for Ukraine after voting against $13.6 billion for Ukraine
    ………

    “President Biden needs to make a decision TODAY: either give Ukraine access to the planes and antiaircraft defense systems it needs to defend itself, or enforce a no-fly zone to close Ukrainian skies to Russian attacks,” (Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)) said in a statement. “If President Biden does not do this NOW, President Biden will show himself to be absolutely heartless and ignorant of the deaths of innocent Ukrainian children and families.”

    Last week, Scott was one of 31 Republicans to vote against a sweeping, $1.5 trillion spending bill to fund government agencies and departments through the remainder of the fiscal year and that would also include $13.6 billion in assistance for Ukraine. Biden signed the bill into law Tuesday, casting the aid as the United States “moving urgently to further augment the support to the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their country.”

    Democrats quickly condemned what they saw as glaring hypocrisy among the Republicans who voted against the aid but were quick to criticize Biden as a commander in chief leading from behind in addressing Ukraine’s needs.

    “’We should send more lethal aid to Ukraine which I voted against last week’ is making my brain melt,” tweeted Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
    ………
    (Sen. Josh Hawley R-MO Insurrectionist), who voted against the spending bill with billions for Ukraine, said Wednesday that Biden needs to “step up” and send MiG jet fighters and other weapons to Ukraine, accusing the administration of “dragging its feet.”
    ………
    Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) countered that the only way to deliver aid to Ukraine and massive legislation is through compromise.

    “Inside every piece of legislation are elements that many of us disagree with,” Murphy said. “Inside that budget that you voted against are all sorts of things that I disagree with. But in the end, in order to govern the country, you have to be able to find a path to compromise.”

    Schatz, in an interview with The Washington Post after the exchange between Sasse and Murphy, said the vote in favor of the aid was an “easy” one.

    “It’s very simple: If you don’t vote for the thing, you’re not for the thing,” Schatz said. “That is literally our job, to decide whether we are for or against things as a binary question.”

    “So you don’t get to say: ‘Even though I voted against Ukraine aid, that I’m actually for it, and here’s my explanation,’” Schatz added, arguing that Republicans were trying to have it both ways by maintaining their fidelity to Trump — who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin — and become “Zelensky fans” at the same time.

    The day before voting against the bill, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), another possible presidential candidate, posted on Twitter about the need to come to Ukraine’s aid. ……

    Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) tweeted a clip declaring the importance of assisting Ukraine. “It’s not much of a deterrent when the assistance you provide comes after the invasion,” he wrote. “We need to have President Zelensky’s back and expedite aid to Ukraine.”

    Hours later, Cramer voted against the spending bill.

    Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) tweeted a clip the day he voted against the bill of him speaking to the need to give Ukraine more aircraft.”
    ……….
    While increasing domestic spending and keeping the government open, the sweeping spending bill also increased spending for the U.S. military by 5.6 percent, totaling $762 billion. The bill includes a 2.7 percent pay increase for all active-duty troops.
    ………
    Sen. Mazie Hirano (D-Hawaii) told the Post Thursday that Republican lawmakers arguing for more aid for Ukraine days after voting against a bill to provide assistance is “the height of hypocrisy.”
    ……….
    As several of these Republicans who voted against the bill criticized Biden, one Republican pointed to the disconnect.

    Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who voted for the bill, advised his party to stop sending “mixed messages” and lamented that the spending bill with nearly $14 billion for Ukraine didn’t pass the Senate 100-0, according to Politico.
    ………
    And on Thursday, Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, tweeted that the was “grateful” to the United States, which he described as Ukraine’s “reliable partner.”

    “[Biden] does more for [Ukraine] than any of his predecessors,” Yermak tweeted.
    ##########
    Two-faced politicians? I’m shocked!

    Rip Murdock (b274da)

  26. Two-faced politicians? I’m shocked!
    Rip Murdock (b274da) — 3/17/2022 @ 9:02 pm

    $13.6 billion in aid out of $1.5 trillion works out to <1% of the bill republicans voted against

    math is hard, eh Rip?

    JF (e1156d)

  27. @14 Mormon mitt was on a mormon mission to the working girls of paris and the french riveria. While at yale he led a pro draft rally knowing mormon missionaries wouldn’t be drafted. The supreme court wanted to find mohammed ali guilty and put him in jail for being a muslim minister ;but were told that if they did that mormon missionaries would be drafted and republican mormon utah would have a fit. Mitt’s father george didn’t serve in ww 2 and his kids though supporting the iraq war wouldn’t serve in it!

    asset (f4d81c)

  28. “Russia’s” greatest achievements occurred under Stalin et. al. The threat of the gulags was a great motivator for their best and brightest. Since the 1980s they haven’t done squat, except for waging war on their own civilians as well as those in Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine, and bringing chemical warfare back into vogue.

    Rip Murdock (b274da)

  29. $13.6 billion in aid out of $1.5 trillion works out to <1% of the bill republicans voted against

    math is hard, eh Rip?

    As I’m sure you know that’s not the point.

    Rip Murdock (b274da)

  30. It’s not the money it’s the principle-you can’t be for something and then vote against it, even though it’s part of a larger bill. I don’t believe for one minute that Hawley, Scott, or Cotton would vote for a stand alone Ukraine aid package. This way they have their cake etc. etc.

    Rip Murdock (b274da)

  31. Migs Romney is someone that should be banned from opening his mouth.

    mg (8cbc69)

  32. And then the Lindsey side of things, what a disgraceful twit.

    mg (8cbc69)

  33. 81 million morons voted for this turd.

    mg (8cbc69) — 3/18/2022 @ 1:49 am

    Couldn’t be prouder.

    You’re welcome.

    lurker (cd7cd4)

  34. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnymxGYSNhg
    lmao at you people that voted for these people.

    mg (8cbc69)

  35. @25, 26, 29. In the game of drones (sic), it is the very best thing to eat your cake and have it too. The bill passed, the government will continue to operate, Ukraine will get the money, and the dweebweasels will remain in good standing with the new Comintern USA.

    nk (1d9030)

  36. What’s going on with Lara Logan? And on what network is this?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfzZbdL4z5g

    Sammy Finkelman (46ec7d)

  37. mg couldn’t even get the Daylight Savings story right.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  38. If Russia were to use chemical or biological weapons in a way that killed millions, we would be certain to intervene, if not declare war. I don’t see how we could let that go by.

    Kevin M (38e250) — 3/17/2022 @ 4:25 pm

    I doubt that any authorization to use force would pass the Senate.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  39. so ban me, Rip Murdock. Or call the keyboard gestapo.

    mg (8cbc69)

  40. so ban me, Rip Murdock. Or call the keyboard gestapo.

    mg (8cbc69) — 3/18/2022 @ 12:01 pm

    I won’t because your posts are so entertaining (and so easy to disprove).

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  41. 1 of 81 million is a real player.

    mg (8cbc69)

  42. I doubt that any authorization to use force would pass the Senate.

    Oh, I think it might. How many million murders would it take for you to vote “Aye”?

    Kevin M (38e250)

  43. As I’m sure you know that’s not the point.

    It was actually the exact point those Senators made on the floor of the Senate, so maybe it might be. They said that the pork in the bill was so egregious that even the Ukraine aid could not cover up the stench. That isn’t hypocritical, that’s integrity.

    IF the Ukraine aid was so important, why didn’t the Democrats put it up by itself rather than larding it down with pork? Were they afraid their own side wouldn’t support it without the goodies?

    Kevin M (38e250)

  44. Actually, it was probably because the Democrats knew that many GOP senators would vote NAY and wanted to let the more gullible members of the press lambaste the GOP for being “hypocritical.”

    Kevin M (38e250)

  45. Kevin M (38e250) — 3/18/2022 @ 12:57 pm

    IF the Ukraine aid was so important, why didn’t the Democrats put it up by itself rather than larding it down with pork? Were they afraid their own side wouldn’t support it without the goodies?

    It’s more the opposite. They were afraid they wouldn’t get the votes for all the goodies unless Ukrainian aid was included. Popular and necessary things are often thrown into these gigantic bills

    The Democratic leadership doesn’t like passing bills that would get 80& or more Yea votes. They would prefer to use that as a sweetener for less popular or less necessary things.

    Similarly, things that are really needed or popular are rarely “paid for” The budget items that are “paid for” are things that need that kicker.

    The more essential some item is, the more likely is it to be financed for borrowing. (in Congressional calculations)

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  46. Kevin M:

    They said that the pork in the bill was so egregious that even the Ukraine aid could not cover up the stench. That isn’t hypocritical, that’s integrity……IF the Ukraine aid was so important, why didn’t the Democrats put it up by itself rather than larding it down with pork? Were they afraid their own side wouldn’t support it without the goodies?

    It wasn’t “loaded up with goodies,” it was part of the omnibus spending bill to fund the Federal government through the rest of the FY.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  47. @33 I voted third party. As bad as the dumpster fire is if he won AOC would win in 2024 and biden would be in senile hospice.

    asset (7658fe)

  48. I doubt that any authorization to use force would pass the Senate.

    Oh, I think it might. How many million murders would it take for you to vote “Aye”?

    Only one or two of the Senate Republicans who voted against aid to Ukraine would vote to authorize force in Ukraine.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  49. Some Ukraine war news:

    Four Russian generals have now been killed, about 1/5 of those in theater.

    Here’s how one happened:

    https://www.newser.com/story/318231/russian-general-killed-after-using-unsecured-phone.html

    n one case, “the Ukrainians intercepted a general’s call, geolocated it, and attacked his location, killing him and his staff,” US military officials tell the Times, noting many generals are using unsecured phones and radios. Ukraine released audio purportedly of Russian soldiers discussing Gerasimov’s death and complaining of problems with their secure communications network, the BBC reports.

    Shades of August, 1914.

    They might as well be broadcasting in the clear. Even if not in the clear they have the metadata.

    The United States told Putin that they could overhear their communications (and there was no way things could be changed quickly)

    Putin didn’t listen.

    In another item, an American citizen was killed on a breadline – one of ten civilians shot by snipers. This is like Sarajevo, Bosnia. Grozny and Syria aren’t the only precedents. What Serbia did is also a precedent (Serbia was closely allowed with Russia. This was before Putin took control but things were going on that Yeltsin didn’t interfere with or was too often too drunk or inattentive to know.)

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  50. Cheical warfar precedenta;

    I mentioned the yellow rain” in Laos in 1975, followed by Soviet use in Afghanistan in the early 1980s (maybe they stopped because they wanted the U.ZS. to agree to nuclear disarmament) followed by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds in 1988 (and in combat against Iran – the weapons that Oliver North and John Poindexter got to Iran in 1986 or so might have been enough for Iran to prevail if it wasn’t for the chemical weapons. And then there’s Syria.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  51. A famous actress in Ukraine is one of the civilian dead:

    https://www.newser.com/story/318248/shelling-kills-beloved-ukrainian-actress.html

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  52. ANOTHER top Russian commander killed: Elite paratroop colonel and his deputy are ‘liquidated’ by Ukrainians as death toll in Putin’s army hits 7,000
    ………
    The death of Col Sergei Sukharev, of the 331st Guards Parachute Assault Regiment from Kostroma, was confirmed by state TV in Moscow.
    ………
    Commander of the Kostroma Airborne Regiment, Colonel Sergei Sukharev… got lost in the “[military] exercises”, but returned home the right way,’ said the Ukrainian statement.

    His deputy Major Sergei Krylov was killed alongside him, said the report.

    They were among a number slain from the ‘glorious’ Kostroma regiment, seen as among Russia’s most elite fighting forces.
    ………
    Sukharev was seen on Russian TV in January when he led his troops back from Kazakhstan where they had been sent following a wave of protests.
    ………
    Killed, too, in the latest Ukrainian fighting was military intelligence officer Sergey Vishnyakov, of the GRU’s 22nd Separate Special Forces Brigade.

    He is believed to have been killed fighting near Mariupol in a Grad attack by Ukraine’s Azov battalion.

    Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Agarkov, from Volgograd, commander of a motorised rifle regiment, died during a special operation.

    Major Ruslan Petrukhin, deputy battalion commander of the 38th Motorised Rifle Brigade, was also reported killed in action in Ukraine.
    ……….
    Yet the daily toll – including elite soldiers – indicates Russia is haemorrhaging its forces in a ‘military operation’ supposedly fought to boost its security, and ‘deNazify’ Ukraine.

    Moscow had deployed the 331st Guards Parachute Assault Regiment previously in Chechnya in two wars after the fall of the USSR, in Georgia in 2008, and in the Donbas in 2014.
    ……….
    The Pentagon estimates at least 7,000 Russian troops have now died in the fighting, with another 14,000 to 21,000 having been wounded, accounting for nearly a fifth of the estimated 150,000 men that Putin amassed on the border before before giving the order to attack 21 days ago.
    ……….
    Sad!

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)


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