Davidoff; Imho another possible reason why China decided not to provide REE's to the US is because it is highly unwise to provide a potential enemy with the Weapons they intend to use against you. Hence F35s using dumbell weights as nose cone ballast instead of Gallium rich Radar equipment.
And why on earth do they allow enemy politicians and has been celebrities to flit in and out? Not to mention allowing the coke clown to fly out of 404 as and when he likes. It is a farce.
Because the moment you do what has to be done, you foreclose on the possibility of the Russian elite being readmitted into the club, and you also undermine your internal position inside Russia.
And just so that possibility remains as a glimmering hope, the Russian elite is ready to sacrifice the lives of no matter how many ordinary Russian people (on both sides). Those people don't matter to them.
Those people also don't in any way benefit from the Russian elite being part of that club. It has brought them nothing but impoverishment and misery.
For centuries -- this does not start in 1989-1991, that is when the counter-revolution to return to how things were prior to 1917 was carried out. Back then the Russian elite was extracting all the surplus from the rest of the population, even beyond the limits of what was necessary to ensure the physical survival of the peasants, all in the name of keeping up with the spending and luxury possessions of the Western elites. And they were speaking French between themselves, not Russian, such was the attitude they had towards their own country.
The irony is that they still weren't fully accepted back then, beyond the direct dynastic ties, it is the same now, and will always be.
But they were definitely not traitors as much of the Russian elite has been since the 1970s -- the Russian Empire would absolutely never tolerate what is happening now, and it would also not voluntarily break itself up so that its elites could loot sell the territory out to the West. There was enough sense of dignity and self-respect. Not in the Russia of the last half a century.
If Zelensky and Kallas were to receive what they deserve, i.e. a friendly visit from Mr. Iskander to their gathering place in Kiev, then it is war with the EU. Russia will win that war, but that war means permanent severance of all ties with the West, whatever is left of it, and it also means the Russian economy will not longer function as a raw resource appendage to the West with the current elites being the middlemen collecting a percentage of the extracted loot. So they would have to kiss goodbye to both foundation of their power inside Russia and their wettest dreams of being part of the Western elites. Can't allow that, it's much better to have the peasants being slaughtered by drones, to erode the deterrence of the country, and to even break it up, than to contemplate such a horror.
It is not just Putin. The common people in Russia are westernized, they dream of becoming Americans. They dream about Walmart, Mc Donalds and the stuff. They adore the most stupid Hollywood films.
Only a minority in the Russian army and FSB are aware of the consequences of NATO expansion.
GM, may I take a moment to say that your opinions, analysis and insights have been a great source of food for thought. I find some of them hard to stomach, and hope you are wrong, but they have tempered my overall understanding of this complex issue. Thank you for posting.
GR and Elena predictably on the anti Putin bandwagon. Personally I find it interesting, especially the angle on the oligarchs and internal affairs. But
1 it'd be great to see documentation, evidence, third-party corroboration from credible sources, not just "Russians dying therefore Putin corrupt" logic. Or whatever the claim is. Where's the sauce GM? I'm genuinely curious. But...
2 which moral and democratic superpower are you comparing Russia unfavorably to? The US 😂? Or China? Maybe, and imho, Russia's currently the best of a bad lot.
Nothing like a bit of Russia bashing. The reason the US display is so weak in Iran, is because Russia has been fighting them since 2015 when Assad asked them to intervene.
So that's 11 years of US proxy annihilation.
Someone had to have the foresight to prepare for this...they have.
Additionally, Ukraine is not Qatar, Bahrain, UAE or Kuwait.
I think Russia has done and is doing a sterling job of avoiding a nuclear exchange on all fronts.
Dear Elena have you ever considered the humanising approach of Russia and Putin, not to send Ukraine to the Stone Ages, but going easy taking it slice by slice. Time to talk to Putin, EU and NATO are toast and the more we wait the deeper the Titanic is gonna sink. Oil nor the opening of Hormuz will hit Europe directly but think of the whole package that goes with it…Gas, Fertilisers, Helium, Sulphur, Aluminum and Plastics the building blocks of our economy, and of course the not to stop coiling down of our food supply, let the hunger Olympics start now.
Russia didn’t start this war same as Iran, ask secretary Nuland and hundreds of thousand aren’t dying needlessly they’re sacrificed for spicing Zel’s bank account, pity there’s no such thing as martyrdom like in Iran, Ukrainians are only fodder. Hunger Olympics? In what world are you living have you entered lately in a drugstore or food market and watch it 5 or more months from now.
So you're expressing your opinions for whose benefit exactly? You aren't adding any useful information to the conversation, just lashing out and calling people 'stupid' who disagree with you. Not very mature IMO.
Polemics are not my thing, so the last word's yours. I'm done here.
"This is so silly, but I guess it’s what you have to resort to to pretend the absolute incompetence being shown by Russia isn’t so bad."
That's total nonsense, Elena. "Absolute incompetence?" Russia has destroyed $500 billion worth of US and EU weapons and monetary assistance to the Nazi regime in Kiev, all while killing or rendering militarily useless about a million of the Nazi regime's soldiers. At the same time it has killed tens of thousands of Western mercenaries in Russia, it has completely annihilated the Nazi economy, and it has sent the US running from its total defeat in Ukraine. Russia has also cemented its ownership of four huge new territories plus Crimea, converting the Sea of Azov into an inland Russian lake, while leaving the US/EU Nazi vassals just a tiny slice of coastline with access to the Black Sea. It's steadily taking more and more territory.
Russia is doing all that while continuing to expand its economy with quality of life in Russia steadily increasing. The EU and US continue to deindustrialize while Russia is making massive industrial gains. I live in Russia and life here has gotten steadily better since 2014 and massively better since 2022.
All the above is a huge win for Russia, total defeat for the US and its stooges, and is a shining example of total competence.
"There's somewhere between one and five hundred thousand Russians who might take issue with all the great improvements you mention "
Russian fatalities are still well under 100,000. That's not a 'war' by Russian standards. What's more important is that every one of those fatalities, dead as they are, disagrees with you and agrees with me. Why? Because every one of them fought voluntarily. Every one of them was willing to lay down their life to guarantee a good life for the Russian people and the Russian state.
I know a lot of men who have fought and who are fighting in the front lines. As a result of that fairly close connection to military forces (the result of a purely random combination of friends, neighbors and others that brought me into atypically close contact with military people and their families despite my not having anything to do with the military in my professional life) I probably know significantly more people who have died in the war (it is a 'war' by American standards and I am, after all, an American) than the average Russian.
I've talked to their widows and to their relatives and a few of them I knew before they went to war. Every one of them went to war voluntarily and every one of them knew they could die. Every single one of them had no doubt in his mind that giving his life was the right thing to do. There's no doubt in my mind that none of that was any sort of grandstanding.
For example, I once attended a dinner where friends of mine in the military had got together to host a dinner for a group of men, twelve men, who in 2014 had all volunteered from our city to support the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR, in the anglo-cyrillic abbreviation) in its fight against the Nazi invasion from Kiev. All they had in those days were volunteer militias. When the DNR army became a real entity they joined that, and then in 2022 they were absorbed into the Russian army. Those guys had been fighting for eleven years when I met them. All of them had been injured at least once with some of them having been injured multiple times. They all returned to combat duty after being injured. Every one of them could have stopped fighting long ago. Of the original group, only one of them was killed, in Mariupol. Not a one of them feels that either the Russian strategy is wrong or that they wasted their lives doing what they did. They, and everybody who knows them, is proud of them. Those are 'real men.'
As for Russia's deterrence being gone, that's nonsense. The EU and US are terrified of real war with Russia. Likewise, "its people are being killed" is relative nonsense in the sense that sure, here and there some unlucky pensioner or somebody else is dying, but even so the fatalities are not remotely close to fatalities from car accidents on a single weekend in Moscow. To be clinically realistic about the matter, the number of deaths is so low that they are insignificant.
Russia doesn't give a shit how many Nazi-lovers in either the EU or Nazi-held Ukraine hate it, nor should it care. That's like how Russia doesn't give a shit what Internet commentators with the attention span and planning horizon of a gnat think about Russia. The real war, as Russians well know, is a Hundred Years War that is going on with the US, with the US's stooges in the EU playing a supporting role. They've already been defeated in Ukraine as anybody with real military awareness knows, but that's just a tiny skirmish in the big war, which still is ascending towards its hot phase.
The US and its EU stooges have grossly misplayed their games in that big war. It's like an inexperienced chess player who gets excited about what appears to be a tempting pawn in the opening game and then completely destroys his or her position to take the pawn at the cost of assuring total carnage in the middle and then defeat in the end game.
According to Zakharova's briefings fatalities amount to 15-30 a week lately.
Here is her briefing from April 1:
"Last week, the Ukrainian Armed Forces delivered strikes at the cities and towns in the Northwestern, Central, Volga and Southern federal districts. Twenty people were killed in the attacks, including one child; 137 people were injured, including three children."
Meanwhile in Iran there were cca 2700 fatalities and caa 26000 casualties in one month, which would amount to 900 fatalities and 6500 casualties a week. But people keep regurgitating how Iran is doing better and that is the way for Russia as well.
Non stop, after every article here and under other substacks, on and on and on. Blah blah blah....
How would your approach have differed to the existing Russian approach? Send conscripts to Ukraine? Increase military spending from 6% of GDP to over 20%? Nuclear weapons? Attack the EU? Big arrow offensives?
Bare in mind, NATO hoped to induce conditions in Russia that would have led to a mass uprising and overthrow of the Russia government.
The fundamental problem with the war is that it is a proxy one -- other players are fighting from behind Ukraine's back.
You have to break up that scheme or you will be defeated.
But proxy wars give the targeted side a unique advantage -- if it has that capability, and Russia does have it, at least for now, it can completely destroy the proxy and those fighting from behind its back will tuck their tails and take the L. After all, this is the whole purpose of the proxy scheme -- if you can't fight directly, you do it through proxy.
The complication is that Ukraine represents a unique kind of proxy that Russia cannot just totally destroy because that is its own land and people.
But the other proxies do not share that unique with respect to Russia property, and can be destroyed without hesitation.
That means the #1 goal should be to cut Ukraine off from supplies of weapons, and if that means erasing whole countries in Europe off the map, so be it. Give them an ultimatum, explain what and why will be done, wait for them to refuse to comply, then do it.
And physically remove the US presence from Europe that way.
It is perfectly legitimate self defense, and it is also what Russia's own official doctrine stipulates.
The US will do nothing in response, because there is nothing they can do without starting an all-out nuclear exchange, and they are not going to go there, that is the whole purpose of fighting through proxies.
The reason it hasn't been done is that the Russian elite will have to pay a certain political price, and they don't want to do that. Which does not make them the good guys here, exactly the opposite -- they are refusing to protect the motherland and the Russian people so that the oligarchic neoliberal scheme from which they have benefited for the last 35 years, at the expense of ordinary Russian people, is perpetuated.
>Bare in mind, NATO hoped to induce conditions in Russia that would have led to a mass uprising and overthrow of the Russia government.
And it has succeeded in that -- people in Russia are absolutely furious with the current situation and trust in the government has evaporated.
That would not have happened had Putin done his job in defending the motherland. But he blatantly refused to fulful his duties.
The recent unchallenged nonsense propaganda from Ukraine, is a desperate bid to find buyers for those trash european bonds to fund its government, desperate now- hello, Saudi. Even MBS(not the brightest bulb in the light show) isn't that stupid, as if he needed Rubio to point out that the US was not about to step into this war to save Ukraine.
Ukraine is offering to give up Donbas in return for US troops its side of the new line. It is doing this now just ahead of losing that negotiating hand completely as Russia secures the whole of the Donbas by force.
Russia has destroyed nothing of great significance to the eventual big war that is coming.
That is, none of the US's stealth jets, strategic bombers, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines, etc. have been destroyed by Russia.
But Russia itself has lost a lot of stuff that matters to that big coming war (irreplaceable personnel, air defense systems, strategic bombers, lots of fighter jets, etc.)
Iran, on the other hand, did hit things that matter (THAAD systems and major radars).
"Russia has destroyed nothing of great significance to the eventual big war that is coming.
That is, none of the US's stealth jets, strategic bombers, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines, etc. have been destroyed by Russia."
Total nonsense. Aircraft carriers have no use in a major war between the US and Russia because in a matter of milliseconds they'll disappear in fireballs from tactical nukes.
"Battleships?" That's a joke, right? What's the survival half life for a battleship attempting to enter the Baltic Sea or the Black Sea? Let's see, a metal object that could be spotted by a second rate radar all the way from the Moon, that moves slower than a 50 cc Honda scooter and has zero defense against Russian hypersonic missiles, both nuclear tipped and conventional? Wait a minute... let me get that calculator app up and running... Ah, here it is... let's see, that half life would be about five minutes.
The US has no "stealth" against Russian radars, and the bases from which the US's fighters would have to fly will no longer exist after the first few minutes of a real war between the US and Russia. Same with those bomber bases, which are about as "soft" a target as you can get. Grandma's condo on the beach at Sarasota is harder than any of the bases that host the US's strategic bombers. Those are instruments for sucking money out of really stupid American taxpayers to pay for the Pentagon's jones for consuming trillions on bullshit. They don't have anything to do with fighting strategic wars against the world's largest nuclear power.
"But Russia itself has lost a lot of stuff that matters to that big coming war (irreplaceable personnel, air defense systems, strategic bombers, lots of fighter jets, etc.)"
Nonsense. Russia started with a weak, peace-time army and now has by far the most combat capable army on Earth, an army that is armed to the teeth with new production weaponry. Contrary to the propaganda for morons you spout, Russia now has far more and higher quality personnel, air defense systems, strategic aircraft of all types and fighter jets.
By the way, when you talk about "strategic bombers" all you do is confirm that you know zero about strategic war. Wars between nuclear powers are missile wars, not wars involving bombers. Bombers are a 1950's thing.
>Total nonsense. Aircraft carriers have no use in a major war between the US and Russia because in a matter of milliseconds they'll disappear in fireballs from tactical nukes.
Russia won't fire first because it has traitors ruling it. Thus while the aircraft carrier might indeed get hit in a retaliatory action, its jets will have already launched the initial attack.
>"Battleships?" That's a joke, right?
Most of the US's strategic air defense is on its destroyers. Ever heard the terms "Aegis" and RIM-161/SM-3? Apparently not...
>The US has no "stealth" against Russian radars
Again, Russia won't fire first so the question is how close the US jets can get to fire their cruise missiles into Russia.
Given that F-16s (not F-35s) have been flying right to the border and dropping JDAMs into Belgorod and Kursk for more than a year now, one has to be high on some very potent drugs to evaluate the situation as good for Russia.
>By the way, when you talk about "strategic bombers" all you do is confirm that you know zero about strategic war. Wars between nuclear powers are missile wars, not wars involving bombers. Bombers are a 1950's thing.
Missile war indeed. Which is what the strategic bombers launch these days -- ALCMs.
Did you took into consideration the number of civilian casualties in the Ukraine operation? And, most of all, the fact that this conflict is between slavic people? USrael have no motivation to limit the strikes to military assets only but Russia and Iran have, they are cautious to not harm more than necessarily the lives of slavic and, respectively muslim brothers. That's not incompetence, that's care.
Military sadism is just US/UK and Israeli trademarks, even Nazi Germany during WW2 showed bigger consideration for civilians than this trio. Remeber Dresden, February 1945. By that time the war's end was near. The city was a crucial transportation hub and industrial center with over 100 factories producing war materials. It was also packed with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the advancing Soviet Red Army, swelling the population to an estimated 600,000. The stated goal of the Allies was to disrupt this transport network and aid the Soviet advance, but they also aimed to demonstrate the power of the Allied bombing campaign.
"Operation Thunderclap"
First Wave (RAF): On the night of February 13th, 796 Lancaster bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) dropped high-explosive and incendiary bombs over the city.
· Second Wave (USAAF): Over the next two days, 527 USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses continued the assault, aiming for the city's railway yards but also striking a wide area.
· Overwhelming Force: In just over two days, more than 3,900 tons of bombs were dropped on Dresden.
The controversy centers on whether the attack was a legitimate military necessity or an act of indiscriminate destruction ("total war") that targeted civilians. The lack of heavy anti-aircraft defenses made the city an "easy" target, leading some to call the raid a war crime. Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who supported the policy, expressed doubt, distancing himself from "mere acts of terror".
I think that Russia is doing what it can. It couldn't help Syria enough. They surely know their limits and options. We do not know that. The Russians would certainly love to finish the war within a week, but Ukraine is proxy of the entire collective West. Even if Russia take with infantry all its goals, and that not includes all of Ukraine, the Germany will continue to send drones, and western Ukraine will still remain western proxy. Brian Berletic wrote recently in New Eastern Outlook:
What is left to determine is whether the US’ capacity for global death and destruction can outpace China and the multipolar world’s capacity for resilience and economic, technological, and civilizational expansion. Only time will tell for sure.
Well, my whole point is that you’re maybe right, but that would mean you have some sources of information that I don't have. I mean, regarding your claim that Russia could have end the flow of weapons etc.
As for the second part, about Putin yearning to be back in the club, well, that also might be true, but it’s also more of yours or anybodys impression, than a known fact. When you look in history, Russian high society was always kind of being snobbishly attracted to the West, so who knows.
Still, it's hard for me to believe (and that’s my own problem, right? 🙂) that Putin could have won the war by now, or put Russia in much better position, but he hesitated because of childish fantasies.
>some sources of information that I don't have. I mean, regarding your claim that Russia could have end the flow of weapons etc.
What "source" do you need about the fact that Russia has the largest and most advanced strategic arsenal in the world, and that it has the capability to make it so that within 10-15 minutes of deciding on it at the very least Poland and Romania (but also potentially all of northern Europe) cease to exist and with that the flow of weapons stops permanently?
>As for the second part, about Putin yearning to be back in the club, well, that also might be true, but it’s also more of yours or anybodys impression, than a known fact.
It's not a "known fact" for you because you haven't witnessed first hand any of the last 40 years of late Soviet and post-Soviet collapse and failed rebuilding.
Power at their disposal being termonuclear warheads? To use those, one first must be sure that every other option has been used up. Because there's not going back after that.
Please eead soma history of the 404 "nation" and Russia. Their fight is not remotely comparable to the middle east battles, outside if some military tactics. Russia's goals have never included wiping 404 off the map or even owning it.
Putin's strategy is a very cautious one. He is trying to avoid a general conflict with NATO and also not to hurt the Ukrainians more than he finds absolutely necessary for achieving Russian political aims in the war.
You argue, and you are not the only one, that a more aggressive strategy would be more convenient for Russia.
You might be right, or you might be wrong. We know, up to a point, what the situation now is. We cannot know what would have happened if Russia had followed a more aggressive strategy.
But it is very little probable that remarks like "Putin does not care", or GM's Leitmotiv, "Putin is a traitor ruled by the oligarchs" have any basis in reality. We all are distant spectators. We cannot be too sure of anything.
Hopefully Cuba is sending military observers at least to Iran, Russia and maybe Yemen. Gain experience on the tactics that work against the US. Start importing drone and missile material from China.
Considering the crazy leaders in the NATO bloc, I am glad that Putin and Russia have shown restraint, they did not escalate things, which could easily have led to nuclear annihilation for all of us. Although I do not agree with the pregamatic but terribly slow way in which they are destroying NATO weapons and troops in Ukraine, I am convinced that they place great value on the lives of soldiers in the Russian army and do not allow unnecessary losses in PR attacks, but let the excellent Russian generals act according to their own military doctrine. The result will be the same: the defeat of NATO, the destruction of Ukraine and the consolidation of Russia as a great global power.
For a country that was on its knees 30 years ago, Russia isn't doing too bad. NATO's in tatters, China has its back, oil is up, no debt, massive reserve stockpiles, unlimited resources....I think Putin is right to play the slow burn and let the West hang itself with moves like Iran.
What public approval is he losing? Who says he is not letting generals run the war the way they seem it fit? Because at the beginning of the SMO in March-April he tried to sort things out diplomatically? It is 2026.
There are wars of destruction and there are wars of attrition. They chose the war of attrition.
Poll results depend greatly on how questions are phrased and you can get the same people to claim completely incompatible positions when asked separate questions.
Also, Western propaganda has one thing correct -- Putin does run a dictatorship and there is no democracy in Russia. What it gets wrong is that Putin's dictatorship is a liberal one using repression against the patriotic forces in the country, i.e. the exact opposite of what is usually claimed. How many liberal traitors are in jail for being liberal traitors? None. But Strelkov is in jail for three years now, and practically every other prominent patriotic voice openly critical of Putin was arrested at one point or another.
People are absolutely furious with the way the war is run even if they won't blame the tsar personally for it yet. Although that too is growing.
"I think Putin is right to play the slow burn and let the West hang itself with moves like Iran."
If this is the plan, then the SMO serves no purpose, as the collapse of the West as currently constituted is and was inevitable, just on the debt ratios alone, never mind the gutted industrial sectors and a level of energy dependence that would make a crack whore blush.
No sovereign self respecting country that is governed in the best interests of its population would tolerate 362 drones and multiple missiles (this was the average for March) being launched as deep as 1500 km into its interior, killing and maiming double digit numbers of people every day.
So some combination of those things -- "sovereign", "self respecting", "governed in the best interests of the population", possibly and likely all three -- does not apply in this case...
It's worth mentioning that Russia also shows great consideration for the civilian population, which is understandable since many of the people who voted for Yanukovych in 2010 are now trapped behind enemy lines.
>which could easily have led to nuclear annihilation for all of us.
That could have been a good thing. Human race has ruined the planet Earth. Putting us into stone age would be a blessing for other animals and living beings.
Have you ever fought in a war Elena? It's not like what you see in the movies. The nature of ground warfare has changed completely in the last few years with the introduction of drones in particular. No large formations of tanks and troops anymore. You have to move quickly in small groups from one cover to the next, otherwise you get hit. Now look at a map of Ukraine. Note the size of the place and the amount of open terrain. Also note the north-south rivers which form natural barriers.
Russia is conducting a slow war of attrition so as not to lose too many of its own troops, or civilians on either side. Bear in mind, after Russia, Ukraine had the largest standing army in Europe at the outset, and that they've been supplied by NATO, plus thousands of mercenaries, many of whom are just rebranded NATO troops.
I understand the dissatisfaction, but you have to be realistic about the conditions which are unlike anything that came before. Drones, guided munitions that can hit from a distance of 100s of miles. I have a friend who fought on the Ukrainian side for 6 months a couple of years ago. All he did was sit in a trench and head for the bunker when the artillery started hitting them, and that was before the drones came into play. He never saw the enemy, never fired his weapon, just sat there getting hit. By the time his tour was up half his guys were dead.
If you want a good account of what it's like I suggest you read this guy:
A minor quibble: "after Russia, Ukraine had the largest standing army in Europe at the outset". That Russia's army was bigger is debatable as Ukraine's fighting army was in the 500,000 man range, all freshly equipped with mountains of weapons by the US, while Russia had a very hard time scraping together 75,000 men for the early 2022 invasion and those men were basically a peacetime army not well equipped for a full on war. The rest of Russia's army was spread out over 12 time zones and the great majority of those men were a caretaker peacetime force and not a fighting force.
In fact, it was desperate times for Russia given the advantage in arms and men that Kiev had. Besides having a larger fighting force overall, Kiev had massed 130,000 of their best trained, best equipped troops, including hard core Azov and other Nazi groups, for an invasion of Donbass, to wipe out the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics once and for all and to ethnically cleanse the entirety of Donbass.
To stop that Russia tried a desperate feint at Kiev with a mere 10,000 to 15,000 troops in the north, to attempt to draw off some of the invasion force. That worked beyond anybody's wildest expectations with that force almost reaching Kiev while temporarily dominating, 'en passant' large swaths of territory in the northeast. I don't write 'taking' because the ability of lightly equipped scout forces to roam at will isn't 'taking' territory.
That feint forced Kiev to pull enough troops from the invasion force that the invasion did not proceed, Russian invasion forces were able to gain a foothold in Donbass, Russia gained time to mobilize more men, rapidly increasing fighting forces from 80,000 to 100,000 and then 120,000, and could then go on the offensive to start taking territory, including battles like the destruction of the original Azov brigades in Mariupol.
The Russian army today is not remotely anything like it was in 2014 or 2022. It's been completely transformed with massively improved leadership, command and control, communications, logistics, training, equipment and phenomenal breadth and depth in industrial / production capability. It's far more agile and innovative. People in the know who refer to it as the most combat ready army in the world are not exaggerating.
The morale of the army is outstanding as well, since the men who are fighting in the army are there by choice. Even back in the mobilization of 300,000 men in 2022 there were no penalties if you refused mobilization. Unlike the Nazi regime's army, every man who is serving in the Russian army is serving voluntarily. Every single one of them, and they're backed by a society that is really pissed off about the US and its stooges. Without doubt the Russian army, the Russian state, and the Russian people are ready to take on the US and its EU stooges in direct, hot combat and they will win.
All that is a consequence of the US's vicious plan to destroy Russia by starting wars on its borders. The cretins who wrote that plan at the RAND corporation didn't have the depth of intellect to realize that if you try such things you have to be sure you will accomplish them, because otherwise if you don't succeed in killing the states you attempt to kill you only make them stronger. The US is now in the beginning stages of getting another example of that with Iran. But it's still only the beginning stages because Iran still has a few years to go before it achieves a sophisticated nuclear arsenal like North Korea (another case of "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger").
Adding to the geniusness of Gerasimov, why move the battlefield further, to the Dniepr for example? Russia doesn’t need new land, it has 1/8th of the earth’s available already.
Let the moron Azovite scum come all the way closer to the supply lines and die like the gnats and the mosquitos that they are.
Why steamroll at huge financial and soldier expense? so moronic Americans who are bored with Netflix will have something to talk about? Buy HBO or some other garbage channel to fill your boredom. Russia means business not stupid one time fireworks and CNN nonsense.
But then again how do you explain this to the average mor*n who feels like making a smart ass stupid comment every so often so to provoke a response? I had conversations with walls while watching paint dry and they were more witted and interesting than some of the stupidly repeated nonsense here.
I bow to your patience trying to explain stuff ....
"I bow to your patience trying to explain stuff ...."
It's not patience so much as it is frustration. I can understand being misinformed if you aren't visiting sites like this one, but the topic has been so well covered here that it seems intentionally obtuse to argue against it.
>but the topic has been so well covered here that it seems intentionally obtuse to argue against it.
You know what else has been covered by 1000 years of history? You do not fcuk with Mother Russia, Mother Russia fcuks with you :)
Some people never learn. Especially the Easter Europeans that have been playing the buffer zone between the West and Russia. Instead of licking the hand that saved them from eternal slavery to the West, they bark at it and requested themselves to be slaves to their Western masters.
But no, let’s talk about the Jews. That is the only problem LOL
There are some highly intelligent people on this board but lately it has become a reflection of modern US politics. TDS syndromes, repetitive BS, broken record arguments...
I admire anyone who remains civil and calmly tries to educate them but at some point frustration will take over.
How about some posts about the deeper thinking of the Russian strategy so we can go back to the earlier days of this substack?
Thanks for the correction. On the rest of what you wrote, also thanks. The western narrative is that the war began in 2022. Nothing could be further from the truth. Arguably it began in 2014, but its roots trace back even further to the original 'colour revolution' in 2004 and events surrounding the breakup of the USSR which also played a significant role.
Thanks for the correction. I've fixed it in the original [don't want to be a bad influence on people who don't read deeper to see your correction... :-) ].
It's a tough call, and as an outside observer I can only repeat what the best informed sources have to say about it, which is why I defer to the people I listed in another reply. I've had infantry training myself and I can tell you I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the conflict, much less on the front. Drones have completely changed the battlefield in ways few people understand. Also, the accuracy of artillery and missiles is much greater today than even a few years ago, so it really is a deadly undertaking for both sides.
I see all sorts of comments such as why doesn't Russia destroy the railways, or the bridges. Well, if you take out the railway, how do the civilians evacuate? If you take out the bridges, how do you cross the river when the time comes to advance? Also, why take out a bridge the enemy is using to get to you when crossing it bring them in range of your artillery? Also, some of those bridges are actually dams. If you hit those you cause flooding downstream which happened in Kherson and caused all sorts of problems for the civilians.
I don't think people fully appreciate the lengths Russia takes to avoid civilian casualties, including putting their soldiers in harm's way to protect them, which they fully accept. As I pointed out in another reply, a lot of Russia's supporters are behind enemy lines. This map should give you some idea of the area involved.
"Would you say then there really isn't a better strategy than carrying on with the current one? Times are changing anyway..."
Good question. I often disagree with Russian military strategy because my personal instinct for responses in conflicts when some motherfucker threatens me or mine is to respond with psychopathic rage, beating the hell out of him and then burning what's left of him alive just to let all other motherfuckers watching know what they'll get.
You might quibble that's a "sociopathic" and not "psychopathic" response, but all the same it's not an intelligent, optimal response to be used by people who have anything to lose or who want to avoid the sort of long term social problems that get in the way of becoming educated, building a career or a successful business, growing a family and all the other things that tend not to happen if your default response in conflict is pulling a knife, stabbing the adversary upwards into the solar plexus and then slicing the knife sideways back and forth inside him to sever key arteries and, ideally, part of the heart.
I'm not exaggerating about that because I grew up poor in a rough social setting where that sort of rage reflex was the norm, at least with outsiders (with insiders a wary caution before exploding in rage was more the norm). By some miracle I survived my youth and became educated but still, I struggle sometimes against putting into action the conflict resolution reflexes I learned in childhood.
Just two days ago I was driving when some asshole at an intersection ran a red light (he was trying to "beat the yellow") just as I was approaching the intersection, and started doing a U-turn in front of me. I swerved around him and kept driving forward. I saw that he had pulled in behind me and was following me. Looks like it wasn't a U-turn he wanted but that he had missed his turn and wanted to turn onto the same road I was taking.
This guy starts giving me the finger. My first response was not to give him the finger back, it was to see a narrow part of the road ahead where cars were illegally parked on both sides that narrowed the road down to one lane, so I slowed down, stopped the car and reached for the short ax (larger than a hatchet, with an ax head heavy enough to be effective and a handle the length of my forearm to give it a good swing radius) I keep in the slot at the bottom of the driver's side door. I keep that ax very sharp with a rubber safety strip on the edge.
I had just transferred the ax to my right hand and was opening the door when I stopped, thinking "do I really need this?" followed by various technical thoughts about the possible presence of cameras on buildings, cars, etc., that might be recording the scene, realizing my license plate number was already picked up by preceding intersection cameras, thinking about how unlikely it would be that any court would accept any story about how I got out of my car with an ax merely to offer assistance to the driver behind me who I thought was in need (of what? facial reconstruction? removal of windows to make way for new ones?...).
So, instead I settled for putting the ax back into the slot in the door, smiling into the rear-view window and waving in a friendly way back at him before proceeding peacefully onward, leaving him with his anger management issues and not pouring any fuel on the fire by giving him the slightest hint of how close he had come to refreshing my skills with an ax.
I think that's part of the trajectory some of us take from a childhood as totally self-centered, possibly sociopathic beings into growth as more sensible adults who do not need to be kept in cages but can be allowed to roam free and mix with others without being restrained by a spiked dog collar and chain.
That's what confronts the leadership of Russia these days, the need to restrain their inner impulse to lash out and simply annihilate the motherfuckers in the EU who have attacked Russia. They also no doubt have the inner impulse to lash out and annihilate the Great Satan on the other side of the Atlantic as well, but that's an entirely different problem, where the stakes are far higher.
The guy who ran the light and then gave *me* the finger after I swerved around him was just an EU-grade asshole, somebody in early middle age I knew I could take on with a right-sized ax. But there are plenty of guys in Russia who are truly huge and mean as hell, definitely alpha assholes, where ax or no ax I'd be seriously risking my life taking them on. That's Russia's problem with the US as compared to the EU.
There's also a sense of compassion within Russia that you don't get with alpha-assholes like the US or their feral lackeys in Europe. If that asshole who gave me the finger had a kid in a car seat or a family with him, I'd feel an enormous sense of sadness for their lives with such a jerk, but I would not have felt the slightest impulse to deal with him forcefully. Same if I had kids in the car with me.
That too is Russia's leadership burden to bear in this conflict, being the only compassionate adult in the room. Russia's leaders have a country full of people to think about, people who truly gain from a rising economy and more development. There are more cancer clinics, more help for the aged, safer roads, more infrastructure to bring greater civilization, culture, education, and happiness. Russia's leaders are also deeply aware of the impact of war on innocent civilians. They're not going to reach for the ax to start taking swings at Copenhagen, Brussels, Berlin, or even Tallinn or Warsaw, because they know that ax will cut women and children as well as the assholes in the governments.
That's a long way around to answer your question: Yes, I would have done it differently. I would have responded immediately, and harshly against military installations in countries that supported the Nazi regime in attacks against Russia. I would have shot down US and NATO AWACS aircraft involved in cluster bomb attacks on civilians in Donbass and then wiped out with conventional missile attacks the airbases from which they launched. When the US blew up Nordstream I would have used tactical nukes to wipe out *all* NATO naval forces in the Baltic and I would have wiped out North Sea energy installations.
Now it's much harder to escalate because you have to escalate even further than that. Or, paradoxically, it could be that now it's easier to escalate given the US is giving up on Ukraine.
But despite the above, the Russian leadership knows a lot that I don't know, and they have patience and wisdom that I do not have. So I'm going to temper my criticism that I think there's a better way to respond, and I'm going to be very thankful the leadership does a good job at restraining their impulse to reach for the ax.
riveting story! one of my go-to sources on the more....eh....'diplomatic side' of describing things in Russia is (Russia-based) John Helmer's blog - https://johnhelmer.org/
I find Helmer frustrating. He's right on *so* many things and is a thoughtful, sincere, and very intelligent man. He's also got a screw loose, not in the sense of completely losing contact with reality but in the sense of having a rare talent for coming to completely nutty conclusions sometimes, like ascribing conspiratorial dimensions to events that are simply evidence of inadequate competence.
A good example is the conclusion he draws from the rise of think tanks in both the West and in Russia. He feels that because think tanks in the West (in his view) are basically troll farms chugging out propaganda, then the rise in think tanks in Russia is the same thing, evidence of a Russia embracing US-style NGOs/think tanks as troll farms and agents of propaganda.
What he doesn't consider is that Russia has a long history of respected institutes being centers of learning, including centers of learning devoted to understanding and explaining alien cultures. Russians really don't "get" the US or Western cultures, but many of the well-travelled and well-educated ones think they understand all the ins and outs of US social, cultural, and political life.
Sit down with one of them to get a lecture about why the US is the way it is or why the US has done something and it's hard not to roll your eyes at the absolute crap you hear. That's true of some of the think tanks you encounter in Russia as well, where highly educated, sincere, well meaning people are trying to understand the West and to explain it to fellow Russians and they get it completely wrong. It's a competence issue driven by extreme unfamiliarity, learning something from afar instead of living it for many years.
Sometimes reading Helmer I get the same impression about him, and that's about the West as often as about Russia.
He also seems to be a leftist in a way that encourages the "screw loose" tendency, or maybe that's just the close circle of friends and acquaintances he has had in Russia for over 35 years.
A good example of that is how he assumes all Russian elections are rigged. In fact, they're not all rigged and the amount of ballot rigging that goes on has gone down dramatically in the last 30 years. I too know some totally fanatic leftists in Russia, including some very talented mathematicians who made it their life's work to probe election rigging in Russia. Some of them are clinically insane, in that they don't let reality touch them, but a few are the real deal, very smart people who because of some personality quirk or other hate whatever government is in power but who nonetheless put their mathematics first and never, ever lie about their analyses.
Those guys are the most interesting ones, and they admit that elections really have gotten a lot cleaner in the last 15 years, and even in those that they've studied where there has been some rigging the rigging did *not* affect the outcome. Perhaps the best example is the popular vote on amending the constitution, which caused a lot of rage in leftist circles.
In that case my honest leftist friends were extremely angered by vote rigging in some far eastern jurisdictions, but also admitted that the vote to change the constitution won by at least 60% to 40% instead of the official 70% to 30% tally. 60-40 is still a huge landslide by western standards. When asked why they thought anybody bothered to rig the election given the evident, huge popular support for the measure they answered that they thought local bosses were in a competition to "look good" to higher ups by delivering even more enthusiastic vote totals for the measure.
Those guys, by the way, also insisted to me that US elections were fair and that Trump was lying when he said Biden stole the election. When I challenged them to prove it by applying their methods to that election, they laughed and said, "sure!" They went away for a couple of weeks and then came back astonished, saying there was no doubt, none at all, that the Biden camp had stolen the election and that they didn't even bother to be subtle about it.
Anyway, read Helmer for an alternate viewpoint, but keep in mind the guy really does have a screw loose and often goes too far in the "of course it's this way..." believing in his own preconceptions.
Ayatollah was killed. See the difference between the wars? Iran is being pounded hard, what is happening inside Russia is mostly terrorism, but that is nothing new.
Do not forget that Russia started as the weak force. Ukraine had the largest and best equipped military in Europe (sic) Manpower alone, Russia was weaker. Much weaker.
When Russia started to move forwards, it was against the best that NATO had to offer. What Russia learned in the Ukraine would have been passed on to Iran. It is also true that Russia kept civilian casualties to a minimum. As is Iran.
Do not forget that whilst Iran is doing well, it is not winning. It is only fighting defensively. ie, it is not trying to take land. Russia is. That is, as a result, a diferent way of fighting. This year, now that Ukraine's AA abilities have been reduced, there might be a greater thrust forward. But, again, this is not Hollywood. Attacking, and taking, territory is not easy.
Unless you do not care what happens to your own forces, that is.
Anytime, Elena. Come back to me, or vice versa, in September. And we'll see if things are better for us (?)
Not sure where you're from - I'm UK. And, ex-forces. Albeit as a doddering old git now an ex-pat in Greece. So, I'm NOT happy how the UK is being run down and how our so-called Intelligence Services seem to be happy (?) to destroy other countries. It is not as though it is benefitting the UK!
From one of your previous comments: "The bigger question remains: why hasn't Russia taken out Kyiv in the first place and forced a surrender instead of settling for much less? " Do you realise the impossibility of taking a city? Ask Israel - they've battered Gaza for the past two years and STILL not taken it - with far superior forces.
Russia started off this conflict with a weaker military against the largest, best equipped force in Europe. Their initial foray towards Kiev was not meant to take it - only sue for peace. It failed. Note the forces involved. For wikipedia, it is quite a good summing up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kyiv_(2022)
Your 6th October comment was fanciful. It almost assumes that NATO was going to sit back and let Russia pummel the hell out of them. 300k in staging areas? You can't do large units in staging areas.
>Do not forget that Russia started as the weak force. Ukraine had the largest and best equipped military in Europe (sic) Manpower alone, Russia was weaker. Much weaker.
Whose fault is that? Whose job was it to prepare for war?
It had been known that war is coming for how many years? At least six. Realistically eight. But really more like at least 17, since 2005, and one can argue since the very break up of the USSR. Certainly Putin's mentor Sobchak said so in a TV interview way back in 1991, that is not hard to find on the internet:
I agree that it should have been better prepared. It would appear that Russia was hoping for diplomacy, together with the militias to hold its land, alongside Wagner.
You do realise, though, that in your response to me above, you disagreed when I stated: "Russia started off this conflict with a weaker military against the largest, best equipped force in Europe." Your reply was: "That is complete nonsense -- Russia had an overwhelming material advantage early on in the war."
The personnel in the Kremlin seem to be detached from reality. In Russian forums the story of the Baltic States and Finland letting the Ukrainian drones fly over and then hitting the Russians in the back is widely discussed. But I heard no, absolutely no reaction from the Kremlin.
I follow Weeb Union for front line updates, and his latest post shows Russian advances in Sumi and Kharkiv over the border. It's early days, and the mud hasn't dried, but if Russia has doubled the contact line, then the command might have realised this is the best time for a large attack.
Imagine having the patience to not salt the fields and burn down the bridges for when the EU comes to us senses - the profits are going to be immense for Russia.
This isn't a game of RISK - this is epochal strategy.
That's hard to explain to people whose notions of war are based on Hollywood portrayals. All the more so when they obstinately cling to their misconceptions and claim some kind of superior knowledge without ever having experienced the real thing.
This thread is about Iran so either stay on topic or kindly shut your ignorant pie hole. No one hear desires to hear your ignorance. Go play with your cats.
Posting here because it's top of the thread. As you peruse the thread, note the massive number of posts by "GM" and "his" sycophants like "Elena" and several others. Huge word counts, lots of work. Always with the same propaganda messages: "Putin bad, Russia bad". Even on threads strictly about Iran. Always the same messages, massive efforts, massive numbers of posts, massive word counts. Imo, clearly a professional tag team.
Yeah, but I've never been a blocker. Half the fun is seeing how the threads ebb and flow, and seeing how they are manipulated by the pros. GM and Elena are both fantastic writers, not just run of the mill "trolls". No hit-and-run stuff. No AI slop either.
Horses for courses I guess. Anyway, she blocked me. Before that I didn't even know it possible. Was fortuitous, as GM is now only someone I hear ppl complain about or see posting on MOA in far more restrained fashion. There is sth to be said for a well.moderated site.
Yes, yes and yes. General Moan and Elena work hard on the angle of the useless Russians. Tirelessly, one could say. Oh well, it's tough to be an insignificant observer polarized by world affairs. It needs a certain objective flair to digest what we are witnessing.
It is just hugely polarising, the human brain needs to support one side, it seems.
Back when I used to moderate web forums, we usually warned once then then kicked & banned people for posting one word/non contributing comments (like First!). But the brontosaurus, 🦕, T rex and diplodocus all complained about us policing the comment sections so that's ancient history.
As the world turns to a bowl of shit...a bit of levity, gallows humor is just a-okay in my book. The world is unspooling before our very eyes and all we can do is surmise and bang away at our keyboards. Take the small comforts where you find them. The Russians, Chinese and Iranians are laying the foundation for a new and hopefully better world. The pirate West is experiencing the end times. It's difficult to look away.
"unspooling" Reminds me of busted cassettes and pencil stubs when da tape machine used to eat Led Zepplins and such. I smell ZionaZi Kunt-sler as in Jimmy Lebenstkünstler. Say it isn't true, Occam. It's up there with PCR's "insouciance" referring to fellow Slumvillains penchant for sheepishness, docility and being ZionaZi tax cattle. Juss sayin' coZ words leave traces. Carry on enjoying the "unspooling" or rather shit hitting fan. I most certainly do.
I did find a video allegedly of Tel Aviv, looking like it had been saturation bombed.
However, looking at it more carefully? I noticed the video was AI generated, apparently from a video game.
Strong hint: Absolutely no signage in ANY language was visible in the video from aerial views or in street level views, there is not a city on Earth with no shop signs, street signs or advertising billboards.
Well deserved. A very wise Man has once said, You live by the sword, you die by the sword.
Americans have since translated this into contemporary English as: FAFO. And the Israelis are finding out, right about now. They're finding out in spades, and then some!
… But what happened to that very wise Man? I am hearing that He was murdered … I wonder (((who))) murdered Him!?
There seems to be a counterculture that is based on 128 character posts.
And a lack of historical perspective.
These days, the discipline of writing a well structured five paragraph essay with introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion seems to be lost. It's all about "feelings".
Strixtured five paragraph essays have been replaced by breathless AI slop. I've recently been blocking those who fail to devote the time, creativity, and effort to influence us through writing and instead let AI excrete word salads without "voice".
The viral meme graphic of the "stone age" Achaemenid Empire widely shared is misleading. This was a Persian polity founded by Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC - well into the Iron Age. There were no known polities in neolithic Iran other than modest settlements such as Ganj Dareh.
It is literally impossible to bomb a society like Iran into the stone age. It would take years/decades to totally rob a society of a hundred million of their ability to fabricate iron from the vast stores of it left lying around in the destruction. Back into the stone age is a figure of speech not intended to have any direct connection to reality. The people advocating it usually can't fantasize much more than no internet and t.v. .
Yes, the limited extent of historical knowledge of even 'educated' people in our postmodern era is appalling. I would be happy with bomb (whomever) back to the Iron Age. It it pretty much impossible to go further back. The amount of ferrous scrap lying around and in landfills could be reworked by surviving blacksmiths for centuries. All you need is charcoal and a bellows.
From an archeological POV, arguably even the first half of the 18th century was still Iron Age. Yes, they had gunpowder, the printing press, and very limited high cost steel production. But, there was no electricity, very limited fossil fuel use, no industrial use of plastics or aluminium, steam engines were few and primitive. Rapid transit was a sailboat or a horse. Not much difference between what shows up in a Roman dig and a dig from the American Revolutionary period other than the guns and cannons.
No. Those are two different things and I am very careful with my statements. If someone says that Corneille or Racine are more impressive writers than Shakespeare, I will disagree very strongly, but I will not say that this person has no clue.
I remember when someone told me quite seriously that the Beatles
were comparable to Mozart.
De gustibus...
But when one says that the Elamites were an Iranian culture, or that the Kingdom of the Medes, the first Iranian State, existed thousands of years before the Athenian polis or Rome, I must just state that the author of those lines has no idea whatsoever of the question that he is writing about.
One cannot say that William defeated Harold in the year 1435. Some questions are not a matter of opinion or disagreement. To know or not to know. That is the question.
"Bomb Iran to the Stone Age" was a metaphor, originally mouthed by IAC Mega-donor, Sheldon Adelson, who along with spouse Miriam bankrolled Trump 1.0.
Trump did little to harm Iran in his first term, so the Adelsons pulled back funding in 2020 and Trump lost. Miriam opened the checkbook again in 2024.
Whatever combination of bribes and extortion they and Israel Intel have on Trump 2.0 appears to be working.
One hundred per cent right. The subsequent Iranians cultures begin with the invasion of the Indo-european pastoralists, which created the Median Kingdom. The first Persian Empire is even posterior to the aristocratic period, rule by the privilege, called "areté" of the nobles, the "kaloikagathoi" of the Athenian polis.
Also the Empire of Cyrus has very little to do with present day Iranians, a nation that has everything to do with the Islamic conquest and the influence of the Moghul Empire and India. The relation with the Persian empires before the Islamic period is mainly in the fact that contrary to other parts of the caliphate, where the Arab language, substituted Latin in North Africa and Greek in the Levant, the Iranians conserved their ancestral Indo-european language.
It is true that there were periods of cultural splendour before and after the Islamic conquest. Thus cannot be denied. But thousands of years before Rome? Incredible that one can even write such nonsense.
Now Cheryl, as historically accurate as you may be, you are just sounding like a pedant here. I'm sure Trump and Hegseth will happily settle for 6th c. BCE Persia. "Where they belong!" SMH. I'm pretty sure Cyrus the Great was pretty bad-ass...until he met up with that badder-ass Queen Tomyris and his decapitated head his nice warm bath of blood.
Iran was a civilization 4,000 years before Rome. Even during Roman Empire days, Europeans were barbaric heathens living crude, mean ignorant short lives. Apparently history is repeating itself.
Well, there was a neolithic civilisation on the Salisbury Plain for sure, Stonehenge is proof of that. However the builders of that were neither Celtic nor English, spoke who knows what language, and had quite different Y-DNA than the people who replaced them.
There were settled places on the territory of what later became Persia/Iran in the neolithic period for sure. Not only Ganj Dareh, but Susa and other sites. Many believe here could even have been an extended Zayandeh River Culture. However it is far from clear there would have been genetic/cultural/linguistic cultural continuity between the neolithic cultures and the iron age Persians several millennia later.
Good comment, confirming that most history is fake,
for a far more meaningful experience with stones, Avebury some 10 miles north of "Stonehenge" is far more authentic... the true measure of "what is", "who is", "where is" and "who made it" can only be measured by the indigenous, this issue is currently at the root of the problem,
example:
do
"americans"
"isrealis"
and to a lesser degree
"australians"
"new zealanders"
"canadians"
removing people from their natural environment and placing them in areas that are at the demiurge level hostile to the invaders and adding practices which affect the 1st two (americans/isrealis) involving genital mutilation produces unhinged, un-grounded, un-belonging psychopaths bent on inflicting their inner pain and lack of balance on those who do have it..
Yes, the megalithic culture (language unknown, without written records, we can only guess what their beliefs were) was quite ancient and widespread, Stonehenge was likely the last major expression of it before the steppe cultures replaced it.
The mtDNA of the indigenous women of the ANF megalithic culture survived, although diluted by steppe mtDNA. The indigenous Y-DNA lineages were almost 100% replaced by steppe Y-DNA lineages shortly after Stonehenge was built. It happened very quickly, a couple generations at most. Some try to imagine nonviolent processes which could have done this, but it is a stretch. This has been established by DNA testing of neolithic remains. This male replacement happened over almost all of Europe, the British isles were just the last place to be overrun. Original paper references are many and easy to find, as well as you tube video popularisations of the publications.
No, Iran was not a civilization 4000 years before Rome.
First of all what do you mean by "before Rome":
Ab urbe condita?
The Roman Empire, i.e. the first consulate of Augustus?
Do you think that Rome was the oldest political entity that existed in Europe?
What do you mean by saying the Europeans were "heathens"?
In fact, the Iranians were the result of the same Völkerwanderung that created the Europeans as ghe are today. The so-called, yamnaya, Indo-europeans from the Pontic plains went westward and eastward.
Those two migrations produced different cultures from Ireland and Scandinavia to India.
In no period of history did the Iranians create a civilization which was superior to the one of the
Ionian Greeks from the 8th century BC.
If you consider the subsequent development to the time of Plato and Aristoteles in Athens, the superiority of the Greek culture and its influx in the whole world (even in our times) over the Iranian is abysmal.
Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with urban settlements dating back to the 5th millennium BC and evidence of human occupation as early as 45,000 BC. The region served as a cradle for early developments in agriculture, writing, and urbanization, hosting the Elamite civilization in the southwest and the Jiroft culture in the southeast.
Political unification began with the Median Empire in the 7th century BC, which was succeeded by the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) founded by Cyrus the Great. This empire became the largest the world had yet seen, establishing a model of governance, standardized coinage, and the Royal Road that connected East and West. Following the conquest by Alexander the Great and the subsequent Seleucid and Parthian periods, the Sasanian Empire (224–651 AD) ushered in a golden age of art, science, and Zoroastrian culture before the 7th-century Muslim conquest.
1. 45000 BC? Iranian civilization? Human settlement in any part of the world has nothing to do with a historical culture. This is a childish mistake. There are human settlements practically in every region of the world. The Cromagnon were not French. The French are the result of the inmigration of a germanic people in a Roman Christian province, where the previous Celtic language and culture had disappeared. One can only speak of "the French" after the time of Charlemagne.
2. Elam and Iran are two different cultures. Tartessos was an old civilization that existed in the South of the Iberian Peninsula, but they were not Spanish. Even their language is not known to historians. Nothing absolutely to do with "the Spanish", historically the product of Roman conquest and Christianity.
3. The Medes can be considered to be related to modern Iranians? May be, but only in the sense that they spoke an Indo-european language.
All other elements of culture are different, so that it is arbitrary to consider them to be part of the same political and cultural reality.
In any case, did the Medes precede Rome or Hellas by thousands of years? Do you know in which century were the Homeric poems written?
Any idea about the time of Hesiod, which contrary to the case of Homer is not an estimation? Where did you learn mathematics?
It is boring to have to explain some basic concepts.
You don't know what you are talking about. The oldest entity that has a least a linguistic relationship with the Iranians is the Empire of the Medes. Please, if you do have very few books in your library, which I suspect, just use the Web to learn the basic information available to historians, including the chronology, about that period.
The irony when you say "Even during Roman Empire days"... It WAS the Roman Empire that reduced Europe to a backwards state, the pre-Empire European civilisations were pretty damn civilised. They had roads, formal laws, cities, trading continental networks, and even rudimentary 'welfare' systems in the Gauls, at least. The religions were ancient, wise, and respectable, with social near-equality in gender rights etc.
Life was pretty good until the shit-eating roman barbarians trucked up and burned everything to the ground, and almost removed it from recorded history.
No, it didn't actually. Rome brought Centralisation, MASSIVE corruption, inevitable poverty, crime, and patriarchy.
The thousands-year old wood road network that stretched across the whole of europe into the Baltics, was the basis of a far more intricate and complex web of trade and cultural exchange than Imperial Rome could ever achieve - although in outright extortion no-one could touch the Romans til the later European empires modeled upon it.
Those roads, built by civilian engineers for the purposes of civilians and trade, were so utterly dug up and destroyed that it was only in the last century parts of them were rediscovered, rewriting actual History quite thoroughly from the 2000 years of Roman propaganda.
As for Law, all those societies had "laws" - even the pirate cities on Madascar had legal systems while they survived. Communities create rules and laws. What you mean is that the centralised Roman patriarchy enforced ITS laws upon various societies that had very little in common with it. That's EMPIRE.
The Celts had wine, roads, cities, obviously heating ffs, plumbing was more hit and miss depending on locale but as civilisations older than Rome by thousands of years had plumbing, its safe to say the Romans didn't "bring" it anywhere. Considering the few fragments of historical records we have about Gaullish cities, they were tens of thousands of people strong, and almost entirely built of wood, and were called "Fair and gay" by travellors - ie, no piles of sewage running through the streets. Plumbing is not an extraordinary idea, it just requires planning BEFORE the community is built. Many civilisations managed that.
The Celts had an extremely accurate, base60 calendar, while the Romans were celebrating winter festivals in summer they were so ignorant of math.
If the almost absolute destruction of entire societies of free peoples can be "justified" because the invaders and genocidal settlers built a goddamned aquaduct or two for their own purposes afterwards, then roll on hell.
Lindsey Graham's threats are just parroting the US strategic playbook since the collapse of the USSR, the Cebrowski doctrine. The point was not only to defeat unsubmissive states like Libya, Syria or Russia, but to tear them appart, denying their statecraft status forever, turning them into plain extraction zones under contractor managment. But it sounds oldfashioned now. These people are relics.
This man is a bitter old man who never achieved his goals and still lives in his own world. The worst part for Americans is that he holds a position in society where he was supported and elected by just as bitter people.
In general, the political middle class in the USA is bitter, disappointed, and sometimes very vindictive towards the rest of the world—and Trump comes from this class!
Yes, might well be, but I don't get how someone that stupid can get that far up on the socioeconomic ladder ? The guy (?) talks like someone from a cheap dime pulp novel and still finds an (even dumber) audience. DUMB AND DUMBEF looks intellectual compared to his blabber.
I was actually hoping Trump would really end or at least start no new forever war. I guess I was still too optimistic. Considering the mess (to put it mildly, actually those are mostly war crimes!) he made and the 1000's of dead decent people, I add him to the list of evil empty suits. 🤮
Even the dumbest would have know in advance, that Iran is not Lybia, Irak, Syria, Somalia, ... (and those wars were also not justified by any means).
I hope (but don't expect) that they all get "fair" trials, if not here, then in hell. 😡☠️
Back to the Stone Age? I thought that was a Neanderthal specialty..
I simply doubt that Trump knows where the enriched uranium is. This is easy to transport in small, specially coated metal drums and does not need any high security places, can be hidden in just about any basement or barn. In 1945 the Germans loaded a similar quantity highly enriched uranium into a submarine shortly before the end of the war and handed it over to the US in some sort of shady deal. It was actually supposed to go to Japan.
As far as mitigation of human and material losses, that is a standard wartime procedure. I can hardly recall any wars where this did not happen.
First, Trump already boasted he destroyed it last year. Iran has certainly dispersed the enriched uranium in their massive country. They have enough to further refine to build +/- 11 nuclear warheads for their hypersonic missiles. They can also purchase ready made warheads from Pakistan. If/when Israel launches its' arsenal Iran can activate its' dead mans' hand and annihilate the miserable European socialist terror state of modern Israel.
I do not expect the uranium to be in the pure "metal" form, because with 60%, this would mean the A-bomb is already there; just the assembly is missing. It will be stored as a gas: uranium hexafluoride. This stuff is easy to work with (e.g., enrichment) but is deadly to any form of life. I expect the Iranians to have thousands of canisters filled with uranium hexafluoride. Every canister will be very heavy, but contain a very little amount of uranium; you will need a big freight train for transportation.
They are coating the metal drums with some sort of special stuff to protect the uranium from accidental chain reaction. The Germans loaded their enriched uranium into gold coated metal cans in 1945 and had no problem there. The obvious advantage is the small volume and weight. I have zero expertise in the field. Just repeating from historical and news sources I consider dependable.
That didn't matter back then, because the US didn't want Israel to have the bomb.
Germany financed it under the guise of development aid under Chancellor Adenauer. As the leading colonial power in South Africa, Germany took advantage of the fact that the existing uranium was being transported from there to Israel and even supplied the equipment for enrichment.
The financing of the project failed at the time due to an objection from the US Senate. Germany paid 200 million Deutsche Marks annually for 11 years, which would be equivalent to approximately €17 billion today.
Germany the leading colonial power in South Africa? Sorry no, factually incorrect. First Dutch (as in the Netherlands: dutch) Part of the British Crown after the 1899-1901 war, Union of South Africa until 1961, whereupon it became a Republic.
I think you're thinking of Südwest Afrika, which is now Namibia.
There was however a lot of cooperation between Israel and SA pre 1994. How much of that entailed developing nuclear weapons I don't know.
I think the answer is yes, but after nuke bombing Teheran, Shiraz,.Isfahan and a couple of major cities more. Then, they will land and occupy the coastal strategic spots. With Trump, you must always reckon BIG... Can they do it? Fuck yeah ! Will there be consequences? For sure.
Nope. And they certainly doesnt announce their plans in advance. Trumpf likes surprises and spectacular actions. Those must be kept secret. All speculations are fake or, little chance, leaks from disgruntled Pentagon people.
maybe you don't understand - there's one guy - a pilot lost in the mountains and the US is sending 100s of special forces to ' find him ' There's a bounty for the pilot that Iran has posted - wanted ALIVE - because of course he would get killed by tribal people - so there could be some sympathy from Iran for the Americans using this excuse to infiltrate - that's deception. I hope they all get treated like you and them deserve - no further comment you blood thirsty american
sympathy from Iran? Not hardly. They want to use him for propaganda purposes - it would make a great show for the world seeing him paraded around Tehran.
This is war - it's not a step through the garden. Propaganda and the info derived from the pilot (with a nod to Kennewick Man) are extremely important in war.
Our military is strategically and tactically incompetent. As our Israeli masters are. This has been proven in every war we wage and how we have fought Russia through Ukraine. Iranian generals could teach Americans how to fight effectively.
Iranian generals could teach Americans how to fight effectively. Do you think Iranian generals are farmers? Are they going to teach pigs to eat with utensils?
Do not underestimate the power of war propaganda. There is a difference between propaganda and lies. Though propaganda can and often does contain lies, it is much more. Both sides in a war heavily rely on propaganda.
I still don’t see Iran using the pilot or any downed pilots as propaganda tools. Strait of Hormuz is propaganda enough and taking out the GCC - whose operations have been reduced by at least 40% or more overall and in some countries there is total shutdown of production per a le monde article. Now production has been reduced or stopped due to inability to ship - which according to what I am reading may be relieved by various oil producers making a side agreement with Iran.See Oman and Saudi Arabia - also now France,Japan and Oman are arranging shipments of oil through the Straits via special contracts with Iran - survival is a great motivator. Which makes sense since wells are affected by slow downs and shut downs operationally - keep it running or face problems due to slowdowns or shutdowns which will make recovery harder-no one in our demented culture talks about reality - the oil countries need to survive and we are not doing anything to help them. So everyone is seeking new alliances - that’s the cost of an insane war too. Life goes on while we put boots on the ground- good luck with that. US won’t negotiate but that doesn’t mean there are no negotiations the hegemon is dead and hasn’t yet admitted it but the rest of the world knows and is negotiating with Iran. Pakistan playing a big role too. So new alliances are growing while DJT and his Secretary of War destroy our economy.
Grab a globe; put a marker on the U$A; measure the distance; note lack of commonalities with this problem.
The U$A and Iran have NO common boundary, NO common waterway, NO common agency... why the fuck are the Fatmericans and Israhell Zio-Kikes trying to kill all Iranians?
Simply, projecting power to gain more power!
That power translates to psychological mostly, by the sheer perpetual disinformation campaign that started wayback when Jesus lived. Look at the posters here that think cowardly killing is virtuous!
Apparently you don’t recall Mogadishu. The US Military is always happy to throw multiple little birds, blackhawks and chinooks into direct ground fire to recover a single pilot.
I dunno. What would you do if you had just suffered that attack on a girl's school? What would the civilised US do? Beat the shit out of the guy, I would bet.
You have to remember who you are talking to in these threads. War is something they read about and then pontificate over and tell you how moral they are therefore....... I cannot wait until my fellow Americans and "collective west" find out what it feels like to drive to work and get destroyed by a missile they way we have done to the world.
That is probably true for people coming from Collective West mostly, but not everybody has the luxury of not being on the receiving end of one or another Collective West shitshow.
And yes, many people would not be able or willing to kill a person just like that.
Perhaps. I credit Iranian people with enough intelligence to realize a pilot is worth more to them alive than dead, especially when their govt. is telling them exactly that, but I guess it depends on who finds him first, if he's even alive.
FWIW the subject came up on Nima Alkorshid's YT channel this morning and he shares my opinion. He's from the area where the plane apparently went down, so I imagine he knows what he's talking about.
Do you kow long Nima has been in Brazil? Is he still connected to Iran in a meaningful way or is he one of these emigres thinking the country he knew remained unchanged since he left?
No - but I knew a Yemeni guy - wonderful wonderful facebook page. He's in the district where the Asar Allah are. He's married with 3 children all going to private school and the school lets him have debt becasue there is no work in Yemen. I asked him if he wanted to join the army but he didn't want to kill people....But if you watch the dances the men do with their rifles...and even children - 5 year old boys have guns. Loaded....they carry them eveywhere.
And no I haven't been to rural Iran. I think its more civilized - I mean Sam has a better education than I do. But he lives in Sanaa - the capital of Yemen. Sam calls the Saudi puppet that lives in the other part of Yemen ( bigger cities) the Hotel Government because the ' president ' of Yemen lives in Saudi Arabia - - He's not safe in Yemen....But that part of Yemen where he rules has operating banks and life is more civilized but the Houthies have been under blockade for a decade. Its another Cuba or Venezuela except they went thru a decade of being bombed before that...like Gaza. Not as bad but the Yemenis didn't have much in the way of weapons like in Gaza. They're much stronger now with the Resistance. These wonderful Resistance Groups that are forming in the Levant Countries and Yemen and Africa - thank God for them. They have schools eventually and become political like Hezbollah in Lebanon
Lebanon btw is also divided like Yemen - part of the country likes the WEstern puppet government.
If the pilot is alive he has a GPS positioning device to communicate his location. In case if he is ‘saved’ by a good looking Persian lady he just might stay for a few weeks to be entertained.
Are you for fucking real. Iranian women wouldn’t let a degenerate American enemy anywhere near them. White supremacist trash comment at its best. You must be proud.Ex US “military” are we?
Persians are white. They aren't browning Arabs, "Husseini"! The hint should be in the name: Iran / Aryan. Guess that recognition would be above your head.
As has been noted before, here and elsewhere, "not being Arab" is the key reason for Iran not losing a war against Israel.
To consider it necessary to state such a an obvious and simplistic point, as if it is some kind of “insight” is a fair indication of both your superficiality and arrogance and nothing else.
Typical of westerners attempting to dignify their mediocrity with worthless titles such as “ Dr”.
You keep insulting people on this forum when you assume they are taking a pro-White position. I personally don’t care what a nasty White Man did to your Mamma but you need to get over it.
Considering that the West is quite visibly collapsing and Western Europe is at a 500-year nadir, this seems a strange time to try to talk up the supposed virtues of "white people," who seem currently to be mostly morons.
They are not White in a sense of ‘White European’. They are an interesting group, showing lots of signs of being racially mixed, sitting on top of a thousands of years old, deep Persian culture. If Afghanistan is the ‘cemetery of empires’ Iran just might prove to be far worse than that.
Forgive us. We westerners have been brought up on the grossest diet of sex obsessed white supremacist Hollywood fantasies. In our mythical culture the world is populated by Gaugain-style disinhibited topless females who get moist at the sight of a white bwana. We can’t help ourselves.
There are endless numbers of solutions. It can be a onetime automatic signal generation that is triggered by the opening of the parachute system or whatever else.
well - otherwise I just have to shake my head in disbelief that now they're sending 100 of their top guys into the mountains to find the pilot - seems far fetched. What a GONG SHOW
They did things like this in Iraq too, getting multiple "rescuers" and search aircraft shot up trying to find downed air crew. In one case, a couple of the air crew walked all the way to the Syrian border, then were apprehended at the border control & got to sit in Iranian jails for a month or so. Meanwhile, the Iraqis learned to set up the captured crewmen's rescue beacons in front of SAM launchers & AA gun emplacements to attract & shoot even more American aircraft down.
Like bear baiting, perfect. The fact our military is willing to commit masive war crimes against children, they are running our reputation in the mud. Any officer worthy of respect would resign over the orders given.
YEAH no kidding - alot of them are very brainwashed. Even that hero Anthony Alguier - spelling might be wrong - was in the military for years before he managed to break free. The brainwashing must be quite strong
hmm. Iraqs are clever. All the Levant and these wonderful Arabs. I love them...and I don't understand why they're called Arabs as its Semitic tribes might be a better name. Take back that broken word
In my dreams he would send in ground troops, it would be Vietnam without the embassy roof to evacuate from. He hasn’t got the balls, and the decrepit US military hasn’t the capability.
I think they are jumping the gun, for several reasons. First Trump has no attention span , and it is such an embarrassment, he will soon seek distraction elsewhere.
Second the US was only able to land land supply troops in Vietnam because it was a divided country, North and South, and the minor ethnic divisions which exist in Iran are not comparable to be used as a base to fight from. In addition the Kurds and other ethnicities are deeply distrustful of the US , having been betrayed multiple times.
Third the US military is a shadow of what it was in the Vietnam and it was soundly defeated then. Iran also possesses a civilisational dimension, which communist North Vietnam lacked.
I would enjoy seeing the US crushed by Iran as it was in Vietnam, as I suspect it would be terminal or at the least catastrophic, but very unlikely as neither Trump, nor the military has the balls , and even if they did, they lack the capacity.
yeah - I guess that promise to be looked for means alot to the men. But for how long will these psychopathic ' leaders' put up with all the loss and not just let the one guy die in the woods
Rescued pilot story sounds very fake. What events would result in 1 rescued 1 not located? One being badly injured and the other able to walk? So the americans came in and saved which one? the badly injured guy or the mobile one? How did they get separated? Fake fake fake. IF they rescued any pilot from any crash today it was probably from one of the a10s the f15 rescue sounds as fake as b2's being used in the 12 day war. Or that there's enriched nuclear material buried in a location with only 1 entrance and exit completely inaccessible. The washpo article Simplicius linked with the sci-fi story of invading and building a whole city to excavate it indiana jones style is very telling when it comes to what these bastards want people to believe.
Nothing is known except that armed civilians with hunting rifles were hunting him down. These same civilians were opponents of the government, according to Western media.
LOL the downward trajectory of claimed destruction of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities matches that of the clot shot efficacy during the scamdemic.
The best phrase so far to come from this debacle, coming from CNN saying that the 'soldiers are working remotely'. You just can't get more stupid than that.
Thank you Simplicius. Your effort and time put into hunting for info and crafting these reports to inform the world of facts and truths is greatly appreciated. You can sleep at night knowing you've done your part. God bless.
"One pilot was reportedly recovered, with the whereabouts of the second unknown." He's in my basement; I'm currently negotiating his exchange with Taligula, $2 billion. The prehistoric men didn't conform to the Hollywood script; they threw rocks at the aircraft, and all the director's assistants were fired. Pete, Captain America, already pictured himself cruising down Fifth Avenue in New York in a '60s convertible to celebrate winning the award for best Hollywood box office film of all time. Let him join that other clown from kyiv; that's where he belongs. The anointed one has been abandoned by God. He will be crucified after the midterm judgment.
Davidoff; Imho another possible reason why China decided not to provide REE's to the US is because it is highly unwise to provide a potential enemy with the Weapons they intend to use against you. Hence F35s using dumbell weights as nose cone ballast instead of Gallium rich Radar equipment.
Back in 1950 Russia entered the Korean War with its own air force, directly, while the Chinese fought on the ground, also directly.
Today the Kremlin can't be bothered to defend even Russia iself...
And why on earth do they allow enemy politicians and has been celebrities to flit in and out? Not to mention allowing the coke clown to fly out of 404 as and when he likes. It is a farce.
Because the moment you do what has to be done, you foreclose on the possibility of the Russian elite being readmitted into the club, and you also undermine your internal position inside Russia.
And just so that possibility remains as a glimmering hope, the Russian elite is ready to sacrifice the lives of no matter how many ordinary Russian people (on both sides). Those people don't matter to them.
Those people also don't in any way benefit from the Russian elite being part of that club. It has brought them nothing but impoverishment and misery.
For centuries -- this does not start in 1989-1991, that is when the counter-revolution to return to how things were prior to 1917 was carried out. Back then the Russian elite was extracting all the surplus from the rest of the population, even beyond the limits of what was necessary to ensure the physical survival of the peasants, all in the name of keeping up with the spending and luxury possessions of the Western elites. And they were speaking French between themselves, not Russian, such was the attitude they had towards their own country.
The irony is that they still weren't fully accepted back then, beyond the direct dynastic ties, it is the same now, and will always be.
But they were definitely not traitors as much of the Russian elite has been since the 1970s -- the Russian Empire would absolutely never tolerate what is happening now, and it would also not voluntarily break itself up so that its elites could loot sell the territory out to the West. There was enough sense of dignity and self-respect. Not in the Russia of the last half a century.
If Zelensky and Kallas were to receive what they deserve, i.e. a friendly visit from Mr. Iskander to their gathering place in Kiev, then it is war with the EU. Russia will win that war, but that war means permanent severance of all ties with the West, whatever is left of it, and it also means the Russian economy will not longer function as a raw resource appendage to the West with the current elites being the middlemen collecting a percentage of the extracted loot. So they would have to kiss goodbye to both foundation of their power inside Russia and their wettest dreams of being part of the Western elites. Can't allow that, it's much better to have the peasants being slaughtered by drones, to erode the deterrence of the country, and to even break it up, than to contemplate such a horror.
The scamdemic, in my opinion, showed that these so called elites are all in the 'big club'. We proles are not.
It is not just Putin. The common people in Russia are westernized, they dream of becoming Americans. They dream about Walmart, Mc Donalds and the stuff. They adore the most stupid Hollywood films.
Only a minority in the Russian army and FSB are aware of the consequences of NATO expansion.
McDonald’s operated in Russia from 1990 to 2022. They left when the war with Ukraine started.
GM, may I take a moment to say that your opinions, analysis and insights have been a great source of food for thought. I find some of them hard to stomach, and hope you are wrong, but they have tempered my overall understanding of this complex issue. Thank you for posting.
Thank you for the support!
GR and Elena predictably on the anti Putin bandwagon. Personally I find it interesting, especially the angle on the oligarchs and internal affairs. But
1 it'd be great to see documentation, evidence, third-party corroboration from credible sources, not just "Russians dying therefore Putin corrupt" logic. Or whatever the claim is. Where's the sauce GM? I'm genuinely curious. But...
2 which moral and democratic superpower are you comparing Russia unfavorably to? The US 😂? Or China? Maybe, and imho, Russia's currently the best of a bad lot.
1) Some of us have watched this shit show since the 1980s first hand. You are a clueless outsider.
2) The USSR
1. Right, so no evidence, got it.
2. The USSR ended 35 years ago if you haven't noticed.
Nothing like a bit of Russia bashing. The reason the US display is so weak in Iran, is because Russia has been fighting them since 2015 when Assad asked them to intervene.
So that's 11 years of US proxy annihilation.
Someone had to have the foresight to prepare for this...they have.
Additionally, Ukraine is not Qatar, Bahrain, UAE or Kuwait.
I think Russia has done and is doing a sterling job of avoiding a nuclear exchange on all fronts.
The Ayatollah is dead, Putin and Lavrov not.
Dear Elena have you ever considered the humanising approach of Russia and Putin, not to send Ukraine to the Stone Ages, but going easy taking it slice by slice. Time to talk to Putin, EU and NATO are toast and the more we wait the deeper the Titanic is gonna sink. Oil nor the opening of Hormuz will hit Europe directly but think of the whole package that goes with it…Gas, Fertilisers, Helium, Sulphur, Aluminum and Plastics the building blocks of our economy, and of course the not to stop coiling down of our food supply, let the hunger Olympics start now.
Russia didn’t start this war same as Iran, ask secretary Nuland and hundreds of thousand aren’t dying needlessly they’re sacrificed for spicing Zel’s bank account, pity there’s no such thing as martyrdom like in Iran, Ukrainians are only fodder. Hunger Olympics? In what world are you living have you entered lately in a drugstore or food market and watch it 5 or more months from now.
That's because you are just a dumb ol girl. Let the men do the thinking and get your ass back in the kitchen where you belong
Вы русский? Если нет, я бы посоветовал вам позволить русским самим решать свои дела.
So you're expressing your opinions for whose benefit exactly? You aren't adding any useful information to the conversation, just lashing out and calling people 'stupid' who disagree with you. Not very mature IMO.
Polemics are not my thing, so the last word's yours. I'm done here.
You're certainly an expert on stupid with all your experience
"This is so silly, but I guess it’s what you have to resort to to pretend the absolute incompetence being shown by Russia isn’t so bad."
That's total nonsense, Elena. "Absolute incompetence?" Russia has destroyed $500 billion worth of US and EU weapons and monetary assistance to the Nazi regime in Kiev, all while killing or rendering militarily useless about a million of the Nazi regime's soldiers. At the same time it has killed tens of thousands of Western mercenaries in Russia, it has completely annihilated the Nazi economy, and it has sent the US running from its total defeat in Ukraine. Russia has also cemented its ownership of four huge new territories plus Crimea, converting the Sea of Azov into an inland Russian lake, while leaving the US/EU Nazi vassals just a tiny slice of coastline with access to the Black Sea. It's steadily taking more and more territory.
Russia is doing all that while continuing to expand its economy with quality of life in Russia steadily increasing. The EU and US continue to deindustrialize while Russia is making massive industrial gains. I live in Russia and life here has gotten steadily better since 2014 and massively better since 2022.
All the above is a huge win for Russia, total defeat for the US and its stooges, and is a shining example of total competence.
"There's somewhere between one and five hundred thousand Russians who might take issue with all the great improvements you mention "
Russian fatalities are still well under 100,000. That's not a 'war' by Russian standards. What's more important is that every one of those fatalities, dead as they are, disagrees with you and agrees with me. Why? Because every one of them fought voluntarily. Every one of them was willing to lay down their life to guarantee a good life for the Russian people and the Russian state.
I know a lot of men who have fought and who are fighting in the front lines. As a result of that fairly close connection to military forces (the result of a purely random combination of friends, neighbors and others that brought me into atypically close contact with military people and their families despite my not having anything to do with the military in my professional life) I probably know significantly more people who have died in the war (it is a 'war' by American standards and I am, after all, an American) than the average Russian.
I've talked to their widows and to their relatives and a few of them I knew before they went to war. Every one of them went to war voluntarily and every one of them knew they could die. Every single one of them had no doubt in his mind that giving his life was the right thing to do. There's no doubt in my mind that none of that was any sort of grandstanding.
For example, I once attended a dinner where friends of mine in the military had got together to host a dinner for a group of men, twelve men, who in 2014 had all volunteered from our city to support the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR, in the anglo-cyrillic abbreviation) in its fight against the Nazi invasion from Kiev. All they had in those days were volunteer militias. When the DNR army became a real entity they joined that, and then in 2022 they were absorbed into the Russian army. Those guys had been fighting for eleven years when I met them. All of them had been injured at least once with some of them having been injured multiple times. They all returned to combat duty after being injured. Every one of them could have stopped fighting long ago. Of the original group, only one of them was killed, in Mariupol. Not a one of them feels that either the Russian strategy is wrong or that they wasted their lives doing what they did. They, and everybody who knows them, is proud of them. Those are 'real men.'
As for Russia's deterrence being gone, that's nonsense. The EU and US are terrified of real war with Russia. Likewise, "its people are being killed" is relative nonsense in the sense that sure, here and there some unlucky pensioner or somebody else is dying, but even so the fatalities are not remotely close to fatalities from car accidents on a single weekend in Moscow. To be clinically realistic about the matter, the number of deaths is so low that they are insignificant.
Russia doesn't give a shit how many Nazi-lovers in either the EU or Nazi-held Ukraine hate it, nor should it care. That's like how Russia doesn't give a shit what Internet commentators with the attention span and planning horizon of a gnat think about Russia. The real war, as Russians well know, is a Hundred Years War that is going on with the US, with the US's stooges in the EU playing a supporting role. They've already been defeated in Ukraine as anybody with real military awareness knows, but that's just a tiny skirmish in the big war, which still is ascending towards its hot phase.
The US and its EU stooges have grossly misplayed their games in that big war. It's like an inexperienced chess player who gets excited about what appears to be a tempting pawn in the opening game and then completely destroys his or her position to take the pawn at the cost of assuring total carnage in the middle and then defeat in the end game.
According to Zakharova's briefings fatalities amount to 15-30 a week lately.
Here is her briefing from April 1:
"Last week, the Ukrainian Armed Forces delivered strikes at the cities and towns in the Northwestern, Central, Volga and Southern federal districts. Twenty people were killed in the attacks, including one child; 137 people were injured, including three children."
https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/2090405/
Meanwhile in Iran there were cca 2700 fatalities and caa 26000 casualties in one month, which would amount to 900 fatalities and 6500 casualties a week. But people keep regurgitating how Iran is doing better and that is the way for Russia as well.
Non stop, after every article here and under other substacks, on and on and on. Blah blah blah....
How would your approach have differed to the existing Russian approach? Send conscripts to Ukraine? Increase military spending from 6% of GDP to over 20%? Nuclear weapons? Attack the EU? Big arrow offensives?
Bare in mind, NATO hoped to induce conditions in Russia that would have led to a mass uprising and overthrow of the Russia government.
The fundamental problem with the war is that it is a proxy one -- other players are fighting from behind Ukraine's back.
You have to break up that scheme or you will be defeated.
But proxy wars give the targeted side a unique advantage -- if it has that capability, and Russia does have it, at least for now, it can completely destroy the proxy and those fighting from behind its back will tuck their tails and take the L. After all, this is the whole purpose of the proxy scheme -- if you can't fight directly, you do it through proxy.
The complication is that Ukraine represents a unique kind of proxy that Russia cannot just totally destroy because that is its own land and people.
But the other proxies do not share that unique with respect to Russia property, and can be destroyed without hesitation.
That means the #1 goal should be to cut Ukraine off from supplies of weapons, and if that means erasing whole countries in Europe off the map, so be it. Give them an ultimatum, explain what and why will be done, wait for them to refuse to comply, then do it.
And physically remove the US presence from Europe that way.
It is perfectly legitimate self defense, and it is also what Russia's own official doctrine stipulates.
The US will do nothing in response, because there is nothing they can do without starting an all-out nuclear exchange, and they are not going to go there, that is the whole purpose of fighting through proxies.
The reason it hasn't been done is that the Russian elite will have to pay a certain political price, and they don't want to do that. Which does not make them the good guys here, exactly the opposite -- they are refusing to protect the motherland and the Russian people so that the oligarchic neoliberal scheme from which they have benefited for the last 35 years, at the expense of ordinary Russian people, is perpetuated.
>Bare in mind, NATO hoped to induce conditions in Russia that would have led to a mass uprising and overthrow of the Russia government.
And it has succeeded in that -- people in Russia are absolutely furious with the current situation and trust in the government has evaporated.
That would not have happened had Putin done his job in defending the motherland. But he blatantly refused to fulful his duties.
Stay on topic or shut up
The recent unchallenged nonsense propaganda from Ukraine, is a desperate bid to find buyers for those trash european bonds to fund its government, desperate now- hello, Saudi. Even MBS(not the brightest bulb in the light show) isn't that stupid, as if he needed Rubio to point out that the US was not about to step into this war to save Ukraine.
Ukraine is offering to give up Donbas in return for US troops its side of the new line. It is doing this now just ahead of losing that negotiating hand completely as Russia secures the whole of the Donbas by force.
>Russia has destroyed [...]
Russia has destroyed nothing of great significance to the eventual big war that is coming.
That is, none of the US's stealth jets, strategic bombers, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines, etc. have been destroyed by Russia.
But Russia itself has lost a lot of stuff that matters to that big coming war (irreplaceable personnel, air defense systems, strategic bombers, lots of fighter jets, etc.)
Iran, on the other hand, did hit things that matter (THAAD systems and major radars).
"Russia has destroyed nothing of great significance to the eventual big war that is coming.
That is, none of the US's stealth jets, strategic bombers, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines, etc. have been destroyed by Russia."
Total nonsense. Aircraft carriers have no use in a major war between the US and Russia because in a matter of milliseconds they'll disappear in fireballs from tactical nukes.
"Battleships?" That's a joke, right? What's the survival half life for a battleship attempting to enter the Baltic Sea or the Black Sea? Let's see, a metal object that could be spotted by a second rate radar all the way from the Moon, that moves slower than a 50 cc Honda scooter and has zero defense against Russian hypersonic missiles, both nuclear tipped and conventional? Wait a minute... let me get that calculator app up and running... Ah, here it is... let's see, that half life would be about five minutes.
The US has no "stealth" against Russian radars, and the bases from which the US's fighters would have to fly will no longer exist after the first few minutes of a real war between the US and Russia. Same with those bomber bases, which are about as "soft" a target as you can get. Grandma's condo on the beach at Sarasota is harder than any of the bases that host the US's strategic bombers. Those are instruments for sucking money out of really stupid American taxpayers to pay for the Pentagon's jones for consuming trillions on bullshit. They don't have anything to do with fighting strategic wars against the world's largest nuclear power.
"But Russia itself has lost a lot of stuff that matters to that big coming war (irreplaceable personnel, air defense systems, strategic bombers, lots of fighter jets, etc.)"
Nonsense. Russia started with a weak, peace-time army and now has by far the most combat capable army on Earth, an army that is armed to the teeth with new production weaponry. Contrary to the propaganda for morons you spout, Russia now has far more and higher quality personnel, air defense systems, strategic aircraft of all types and fighter jets.
By the way, when you talk about "strategic bombers" all you do is confirm that you know zero about strategic war. Wars between nuclear powers are missile wars, not wars involving bombers. Bombers are a 1950's thing.
>Total nonsense. Aircraft carriers have no use in a major war between the US and Russia because in a matter of milliseconds they'll disappear in fireballs from tactical nukes.
Russia won't fire first because it has traitors ruling it. Thus while the aircraft carrier might indeed get hit in a retaliatory action, its jets will have already launched the initial attack.
>"Battleships?" That's a joke, right?
Most of the US's strategic air defense is on its destroyers. Ever heard the terms "Aegis" and RIM-161/SM-3? Apparently not...
>The US has no "stealth" against Russian radars
Again, Russia won't fire first so the question is how close the US jets can get to fire their cruise missiles into Russia.
Given that F-16s (not F-35s) have been flying right to the border and dropping JDAMs into Belgorod and Kursk for more than a year now, one has to be high on some very potent drugs to evaluate the situation as good for Russia.
>By the way, when you talk about "strategic bombers" all you do is confirm that you know zero about strategic war. Wars between nuclear powers are missile wars, not wars involving bombers. Bombers are a 1950's thing.
Missile war indeed. Which is what the strategic bombers launch these days -- ALCMs.
Did you took into consideration the number of civilian casualties in the Ukraine operation? And, most of all, the fact that this conflict is between slavic people? USrael have no motivation to limit the strikes to military assets only but Russia and Iran have, they are cautious to not harm more than necessarily the lives of slavic and, respectively muslim brothers. That's not incompetence, that's care.
Military sadism is just US/UK and Israeli trademarks, even Nazi Germany during WW2 showed bigger consideration for civilians than this trio. Remeber Dresden, February 1945. By that time the war's end was near. The city was a crucial transportation hub and industrial center with over 100 factories producing war materials. It was also packed with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the advancing Soviet Red Army, swelling the population to an estimated 600,000. The stated goal of the Allies was to disrupt this transport network and aid the Soviet advance, but they also aimed to demonstrate the power of the Allied bombing campaign.
"Operation Thunderclap"
First Wave (RAF): On the night of February 13th, 796 Lancaster bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) dropped high-explosive and incendiary bombs over the city.
· Second Wave (USAAF): Over the next two days, 527 USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses continued the assault, aiming for the city's railway yards but also striking a wide area.
· Overwhelming Force: In just over two days, more than 3,900 tons of bombs were dropped on Dresden.
The controversy centers on whether the attack was a legitimate military necessity or an act of indiscriminate destruction ("total war") that targeted civilians. The lack of heavy anti-aircraft defenses made the city an "easy" target, leading some to call the raid a war crime. Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who supported the policy, expressed doubt, distancing himself from "mere acts of terror".
Fucking around just gets more civilians killed.
I think that Russia is doing what it can. It couldn't help Syria enough. They surely know their limits and options. We do not know that. The Russians would certainly love to finish the war within a week, but Ukraine is proxy of the entire collective West. Even if Russia take with infantry all its goals, and that not includes all of Ukraine, the Germany will continue to send drones, and western Ukraine will still remain western proxy. Brian Berletic wrote recently in New Eastern Outlook:
What is left to determine is whether the US’ capacity for global death and destruction can outpace China and the multipolar world’s capacity for resilience and economic, technological, and civilizational expansion. Only time will tell for sure.
Well, my whole point is that you’re maybe right, but that would mean you have some sources of information that I don't have. I mean, regarding your claim that Russia could have end the flow of weapons etc.
As for the second part, about Putin yearning to be back in the club, well, that also might be true, but it’s also more of yours or anybodys impression, than a known fact. When you look in history, Russian high society was always kind of being snobbishly attracted to the West, so who knows.
Still, it's hard for me to believe (and that’s my own problem, right? 🙂) that Putin could have won the war by now, or put Russia in much better position, but he hesitated because of childish fantasies.
>some sources of information that I don't have. I mean, regarding your claim that Russia could have end the flow of weapons etc.
What "source" do you need about the fact that Russia has the largest and most advanced strategic arsenal in the world, and that it has the capability to make it so that within 10-15 minutes of deciding on it at the very least Poland and Romania (but also potentially all of northern Europe) cease to exist and with that the flow of weapons stops permanently?
>As for the second part, about Putin yearning to be back in the club, well, that also might be true, but it’s also more of yours or anybodys impression, than a known fact.
It's not a "known fact" for you because you haven't witnessed first hand any of the last 40 years of late Soviet and post-Soviet collapse and failed rebuilding.
>I think that Russia is doing what it can.
If that is true, then Russia is finished and will be comprehensively defeated and completely destroyed.
If it is not true (and it isn't), then Russia is run by traitors who refuse to use the power at their disposal to save the country from destruction.
Notice how there are no positive scenarios here...
Power at their disposal being termonuclear warheads? To use those, one first must be sure that every other option has been used up. Because there's not going back after that.
Please eead soma history of the 404 "nation" and Russia. Their fight is not remotely comparable to the middle east battles, outside if some military tactics. Russia's goals have never included wiping 404 off the map or even owning it.
Putin's strategy is a very cautious one. He is trying to avoid a general conflict with NATO and also not to hurt the Ukrainians more than he finds absolutely necessary for achieving Russian political aims in the war.
You argue, and you are not the only one, that a more aggressive strategy would be more convenient for Russia.
You might be right, or you might be wrong. We know, up to a point, what the situation now is. We cannot know what would have happened if Russia had followed a more aggressive strategy.
But it is very little probable that remarks like "Putin does not care", or GM's Leitmotiv, "Putin is a traitor ruled by the oligarchs" have any basis in reality. We all are distant spectators. We cannot be too sure of anything.
You are dumber than a sack of dirt. No one wants to hear your retarded opnion.
Hopefully Cuba is sending military observers at least to Iran, Russia and maybe Yemen. Gain experience on the tactics that work against the US. Start importing drone and missile material from China.
Considering the crazy leaders in the NATO bloc, I am glad that Putin and Russia have shown restraint, they did not escalate things, which could easily have led to nuclear annihilation for all of us. Although I do not agree with the pregamatic but terribly slow way in which they are destroying NATO weapons and troops in Ukraine, I am convinced that they place great value on the lives of soldiers in the Russian army and do not allow unnecessary losses in PR attacks, but let the excellent Russian generals act according to their own military doctrine. The result will be the same: the defeat of NATO, the destruction of Ukraine and the consolidation of Russia as a great global power.
For a country that was on its knees 30 years ago, Russia isn't doing too bad. NATO's in tatters, China has its back, oil is up, no debt, massive reserve stockpiles, unlimited resources....I think Putin is right to play the slow burn and let the West hang itself with moves like Iran.
but its lost and is losing the public and the generals over the conduct of the war.
just where exactly does the word Nobel come into play in war?
how about a tombstone?
Here Lay A Nobel Citizen who gave his life and his children's lives because he just knew it was Nobel to do so.
the people who killed him and his entire family will no doubt pay for it in the next life.
I know, way to much to fit on a tombstone.
that's why you will never see it.
Putin's approval rating is 80%.
https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/
What public approval is he losing? Who says he is not letting generals run the war the way they seem it fit? Because at the beginning of the SMO in March-April he tried to sort things out diplomatically? It is 2026.
There are wars of destruction and there are wars of attrition. They chose the war of attrition.
Poll results depend greatly on how questions are phrased and you can get the same people to claim completely incompatible positions when asked separate questions.
Also, Western propaganda has one thing correct -- Putin does run a dictatorship and there is no democracy in Russia. What it gets wrong is that Putin's dictatorship is a liberal one using repression against the patriotic forces in the country, i.e. the exact opposite of what is usually claimed. How many liberal traitors are in jail for being liberal traitors? None. But Strelkov is in jail for three years now, and practically every other prominent patriotic voice openly critical of Putin was arrested at one point or another.
People are absolutely furious with the way the war is run even if they won't blame the tsar personally for it yet. Although that too is growing.
"I think Putin is right to play the slow burn and let the West hang itself with moves like Iran."
If this is the plan, then the SMO serves no purpose, as the collapse of the West as currently constituted is and was inevitable, just on the debt ratios alone, never mind the gutted industrial sectors and a level of energy dependence that would make a crack whore blush.
No sovereign self respecting country that is governed in the best interests of its population would tolerate 362 drones and multiple missiles (this was the average for March) being launched as deep as 1500 km into its interior, killing and maiming double digit numbers of people every day.
So some combination of those things -- "sovereign", "self respecting", "governed in the best interests of the population", possibly and likely all three -- does not apply in this case...
It's worth mentioning that Russia also shows great consideration for the civilian population, which is understandable since many of the people who voted for Yanukovych in 2010 are now trapped behind enemy lines.
>which could easily have led to nuclear annihilation for all of us.
That could have been a good thing. Human race has ruined the planet Earth. Putting us into stone age would be a blessing for other animals and living beings.
Have you ever fought in a war Elena? It's not like what you see in the movies. The nature of ground warfare has changed completely in the last few years with the introduction of drones in particular. No large formations of tanks and troops anymore. You have to move quickly in small groups from one cover to the next, otherwise you get hit. Now look at a map of Ukraine. Note the size of the place and the amount of open terrain. Also note the north-south rivers which form natural barriers.
Russia is conducting a slow war of attrition so as not to lose too many of its own troops, or civilians on either side. Bear in mind, after Russia, Ukraine had the largest standing army in Europe at the outset, and that they've been supplied by NATO, plus thousands of mercenaries, many of whom are just rebranded NATO troops.
I understand the dissatisfaction, but you have to be realistic about the conditions which are unlike anything that came before. Drones, guided munitions that can hit from a distance of 100s of miles. I have a friend who fought on the Ukrainian side for 6 months a couple of years ago. All he did was sit in a trench and head for the bunker when the artillery started hitting them, and that was before the drones came into play. He never saw the enemy, never fired his weapon, just sat there getting hit. By the time his tour was up half his guys were dead.
If you want a good account of what it's like I suggest you read this guy:
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the link - I like Kartopolov's thinking.... Especially, Iran luring Israel/USA into attacking....
Agree completely.
A minor quibble: "after Russia, Ukraine had the largest standing army in Europe at the outset". That Russia's army was bigger is debatable as Ukraine's fighting army was in the 500,000 man range, all freshly equipped with mountains of weapons by the US, while Russia had a very hard time scraping together 75,000 men for the early 2022 invasion and those men were basically a peacetime army not well equipped for a full on war. The rest of Russia's army was spread out over 12 time zones and the great majority of those men were a caretaker peacetime force and not a fighting force.
In fact, it was desperate times for Russia given the advantage in arms and men that Kiev had. Besides having a larger fighting force overall, Kiev had massed 130,000 of their best trained, best equipped troops, including hard core Azov and other Nazi groups, for an invasion of Donbass, to wipe out the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics once and for all and to ethnically cleanse the entirety of Donbass.
To stop that Russia tried a desperate feint at Kiev with a mere 10,000 to 15,000 troops in the north, to attempt to draw off some of the invasion force. That worked beyond anybody's wildest expectations with that force almost reaching Kiev while temporarily dominating, 'en passant' large swaths of territory in the northeast. I don't write 'taking' because the ability of lightly equipped scout forces to roam at will isn't 'taking' territory.
That feint forced Kiev to pull enough troops from the invasion force that the invasion did not proceed, Russian invasion forces were able to gain a foothold in Donbass, Russia gained time to mobilize more men, rapidly increasing fighting forces from 80,000 to 100,000 and then 120,000, and could then go on the offensive to start taking territory, including battles like the destruction of the original Azov brigades in Mariupol.
The Russian army today is not remotely anything like it was in 2014 or 2022. It's been completely transformed with massively improved leadership, command and control, communications, logistics, training, equipment and phenomenal breadth and depth in industrial / production capability. It's far more agile and innovative. People in the know who refer to it as the most combat ready army in the world are not exaggerating.
The morale of the army is outstanding as well, since the men who are fighting in the army are there by choice. Even back in the mobilization of 300,000 men in 2022 there were no penalties if you refused mobilization. Unlike the Nazi regime's army, every man who is serving in the Russian army is serving voluntarily. Every single one of them, and they're backed by a society that is really pissed off about the US and its stooges. Without doubt the Russian army, the Russian state, and the Russian people are ready to take on the US and its EU stooges in direct, hot combat and they will win.
All that is a consequence of the US's vicious plan to destroy Russia by starting wars on its borders. The cretins who wrote that plan at the RAND corporation didn't have the depth of intellect to realize that if you try such things you have to be sure you will accomplish them, because otherwise if you don't succeed in killing the states you attempt to kill you only make them stronger. The US is now in the beginning stages of getting another example of that with Iran. But it's still only the beginning stages because Iran still has a few years to go before it achieves a sophisticated nuclear arsenal like North Korea (another case of "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger").
Adding to the geniusness of Gerasimov, why move the battlefield further, to the Dniepr for example? Russia doesn’t need new land, it has 1/8th of the earth’s available already.
Let the moron Azovite scum come all the way closer to the supply lines and die like the gnats and the mosquitos that they are.
Why steamroll at huge financial and soldier expense? so moronic Americans who are bored with Netflix will have something to talk about? Buy HBO or some other garbage channel to fill your boredom. Russia means business not stupid one time fireworks and CNN nonsense.
But then again how do you explain this to the average mor*n who feels like making a smart ass stupid comment every so often so to provoke a response? I had conversations with walls while watching paint dry and they were more witted and interesting than some of the stupidly repeated nonsense here.
I bow to your patience trying to explain stuff ....
"I bow to your patience trying to explain stuff ...."
It's not patience so much as it is frustration. I can understand being misinformed if you aren't visiting sites like this one, but the topic has been so well covered here that it seems intentionally obtuse to argue against it.
>but the topic has been so well covered here that it seems intentionally obtuse to argue against it.
You know what else has been covered by 1000 years of history? You do not fcuk with Mother Russia, Mother Russia fcuks with you :)
Some people never learn. Especially the Easter Europeans that have been playing the buffer zone between the West and Russia. Instead of licking the hand that saved them from eternal slavery to the West, they bark at it and requested themselves to be slaves to their Western masters.
But no, let’s talk about the Jews. That is the only problem LOL
There are some highly intelligent people on this board but lately it has become a reflection of modern US politics. TDS syndromes, repetitive BS, broken record arguments...
I admire anyone who remains civil and calmly tries to educate them but at some point frustration will take over.
How about some posts about the deeper thinking of the Russian strategy so we can go back to the earlier days of this substack?
Thanks for the correction. On the rest of what you wrote, also thanks. The western narrative is that the war began in 2022. Nothing could be further from the truth. Arguably it began in 2014, but its roots trace back even further to the original 'colour revolution' in 2004 and events surrounding the breakup of the USSR which also played a significant role.
(NB spelling) - 'en passant' (Fr.) < in passing.
Thanks for the correction. I've fixed it in the original [don't want to be a bad influence on people who don't read deeper to see your correction... :-) ].
Super interesting reply, thanks for the perspective and details.
Would you say then there really isn't a better strategy than carrying on with the current one? Times are changing anyway...
We can note as well Russia has captured and recaptured territory; Iran hasn't. There are some similarities but the two wars are also very different.
It's a tough call, and as an outside observer I can only repeat what the best informed sources have to say about it, which is why I defer to the people I listed in another reply. I've had infantry training myself and I can tell you I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the conflict, much less on the front. Drones have completely changed the battlefield in ways few people understand. Also, the accuracy of artillery and missiles is much greater today than even a few years ago, so it really is a deadly undertaking for both sides.
I see all sorts of comments such as why doesn't Russia destroy the railways, or the bridges. Well, if you take out the railway, how do the civilians evacuate? If you take out the bridges, how do you cross the river when the time comes to advance? Also, why take out a bridge the enemy is using to get to you when crossing it bring them in range of your artillery? Also, some of those bridges are actually dams. If you hit those you cause flooding downstream which happened in Kherson and caused all sorts of problems for the civilians.
I don't think people fully appreciate the lengths Russia takes to avoid civilian casualties, including putting their soldiers in harm's way to protect them, which they fully accept. As I pointed out in another reply, a lot of Russia's supporters are behind enemy lines. This map should give you some idea of the area involved.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Ukraines-Presidential-Election-Results-in-2010-Source-CNN_fig2_337008287
"Would you say then there really isn't a better strategy than carrying on with the current one? Times are changing anyway..."
Good question. I often disagree with Russian military strategy because my personal instinct for responses in conflicts when some motherfucker threatens me or mine is to respond with psychopathic rage, beating the hell out of him and then burning what's left of him alive just to let all other motherfuckers watching know what they'll get.
You might quibble that's a "sociopathic" and not "psychopathic" response, but all the same it's not an intelligent, optimal response to be used by people who have anything to lose or who want to avoid the sort of long term social problems that get in the way of becoming educated, building a career or a successful business, growing a family and all the other things that tend not to happen if your default response in conflict is pulling a knife, stabbing the adversary upwards into the solar plexus and then slicing the knife sideways back and forth inside him to sever key arteries and, ideally, part of the heart.
I'm not exaggerating about that because I grew up poor in a rough social setting where that sort of rage reflex was the norm, at least with outsiders (with insiders a wary caution before exploding in rage was more the norm). By some miracle I survived my youth and became educated but still, I struggle sometimes against putting into action the conflict resolution reflexes I learned in childhood.
Just two days ago I was driving when some asshole at an intersection ran a red light (he was trying to "beat the yellow") just as I was approaching the intersection, and started doing a U-turn in front of me. I swerved around him and kept driving forward. I saw that he had pulled in behind me and was following me. Looks like it wasn't a U-turn he wanted but that he had missed his turn and wanted to turn onto the same road I was taking.
This guy starts giving me the finger. My first response was not to give him the finger back, it was to see a narrow part of the road ahead where cars were illegally parked on both sides that narrowed the road down to one lane, so I slowed down, stopped the car and reached for the short ax (larger than a hatchet, with an ax head heavy enough to be effective and a handle the length of my forearm to give it a good swing radius) I keep in the slot at the bottom of the driver's side door. I keep that ax very sharp with a rubber safety strip on the edge.
I had just transferred the ax to my right hand and was opening the door when I stopped, thinking "do I really need this?" followed by various technical thoughts about the possible presence of cameras on buildings, cars, etc., that might be recording the scene, realizing my license plate number was already picked up by preceding intersection cameras, thinking about how unlikely it would be that any court would accept any story about how I got out of my car with an ax merely to offer assistance to the driver behind me who I thought was in need (of what? facial reconstruction? removal of windows to make way for new ones?...).
So, instead I settled for putting the ax back into the slot in the door, smiling into the rear-view window and waving in a friendly way back at him before proceeding peacefully onward, leaving him with his anger management issues and not pouring any fuel on the fire by giving him the slightest hint of how close he had come to refreshing my skills with an ax.
I think that's part of the trajectory some of us take from a childhood as totally self-centered, possibly sociopathic beings into growth as more sensible adults who do not need to be kept in cages but can be allowed to roam free and mix with others without being restrained by a spiked dog collar and chain.
That's what confronts the leadership of Russia these days, the need to restrain their inner impulse to lash out and simply annihilate the motherfuckers in the EU who have attacked Russia. They also no doubt have the inner impulse to lash out and annihilate the Great Satan on the other side of the Atlantic as well, but that's an entirely different problem, where the stakes are far higher.
The guy who ran the light and then gave *me* the finger after I swerved around him was just an EU-grade asshole, somebody in early middle age I knew I could take on with a right-sized ax. But there are plenty of guys in Russia who are truly huge and mean as hell, definitely alpha assholes, where ax or no ax I'd be seriously risking my life taking them on. That's Russia's problem with the US as compared to the EU.
There's also a sense of compassion within Russia that you don't get with alpha-assholes like the US or their feral lackeys in Europe. If that asshole who gave me the finger had a kid in a car seat or a family with him, I'd feel an enormous sense of sadness for their lives with such a jerk, but I would not have felt the slightest impulse to deal with him forcefully. Same if I had kids in the car with me.
That too is Russia's leadership burden to bear in this conflict, being the only compassionate adult in the room. Russia's leaders have a country full of people to think about, people who truly gain from a rising economy and more development. There are more cancer clinics, more help for the aged, safer roads, more infrastructure to bring greater civilization, culture, education, and happiness. Russia's leaders are also deeply aware of the impact of war on innocent civilians. They're not going to reach for the ax to start taking swings at Copenhagen, Brussels, Berlin, or even Tallinn or Warsaw, because they know that ax will cut women and children as well as the assholes in the governments.
That's a long way around to answer your question: Yes, I would have done it differently. I would have responded immediately, and harshly against military installations in countries that supported the Nazi regime in attacks against Russia. I would have shot down US and NATO AWACS aircraft involved in cluster bomb attacks on civilians in Donbass and then wiped out with conventional missile attacks the airbases from which they launched. When the US blew up Nordstream I would have used tactical nukes to wipe out *all* NATO naval forces in the Baltic and I would have wiped out North Sea energy installations.
Now it's much harder to escalate because you have to escalate even further than that. Or, paradoxically, it could be that now it's easier to escalate given the US is giving up on Ukraine.
But despite the above, the Russian leadership knows a lot that I don't know, and they have patience and wisdom that I do not have. So I'm going to temper my criticism that I think there's a better way to respond, and I'm going to be very thankful the leadership does a good job at restraining their impulse to reach for the ax.
John, have you ever watched "Mr. In-between" ? You'd love it.
Haven't seen it, but it sounds interesting from reading plot summaries. I'll get it. Thanks for the tip!
riveting story! one of my go-to sources on the more....eh....'diplomatic side' of describing things in Russia is (Russia-based) John Helmer's blog - https://johnhelmer.org/
I find Helmer frustrating. He's right on *so* many things and is a thoughtful, sincere, and very intelligent man. He's also got a screw loose, not in the sense of completely losing contact with reality but in the sense of having a rare talent for coming to completely nutty conclusions sometimes, like ascribing conspiratorial dimensions to events that are simply evidence of inadequate competence.
A good example is the conclusion he draws from the rise of think tanks in both the West and in Russia. He feels that because think tanks in the West (in his view) are basically troll farms chugging out propaganda, then the rise in think tanks in Russia is the same thing, evidence of a Russia embracing US-style NGOs/think tanks as troll farms and agents of propaganda.
What he doesn't consider is that Russia has a long history of respected institutes being centers of learning, including centers of learning devoted to understanding and explaining alien cultures. Russians really don't "get" the US or Western cultures, but many of the well-travelled and well-educated ones think they understand all the ins and outs of US social, cultural, and political life.
Sit down with one of them to get a lecture about why the US is the way it is or why the US has done something and it's hard not to roll your eyes at the absolute crap you hear. That's true of some of the think tanks you encounter in Russia as well, where highly educated, sincere, well meaning people are trying to understand the West and to explain it to fellow Russians and they get it completely wrong. It's a competence issue driven by extreme unfamiliarity, learning something from afar instead of living it for many years.
Sometimes reading Helmer I get the same impression about him, and that's about the West as often as about Russia.
He also seems to be a leftist in a way that encourages the "screw loose" tendency, or maybe that's just the close circle of friends and acquaintances he has had in Russia for over 35 years.
A good example of that is how he assumes all Russian elections are rigged. In fact, they're not all rigged and the amount of ballot rigging that goes on has gone down dramatically in the last 30 years. I too know some totally fanatic leftists in Russia, including some very talented mathematicians who made it their life's work to probe election rigging in Russia. Some of them are clinically insane, in that they don't let reality touch them, but a few are the real deal, very smart people who because of some personality quirk or other hate whatever government is in power but who nonetheless put their mathematics first and never, ever lie about their analyses.
Those guys are the most interesting ones, and they admit that elections really have gotten a lot cleaner in the last 15 years, and even in those that they've studied where there has been some rigging the rigging did *not* affect the outcome. Perhaps the best example is the popular vote on amending the constitution, which caused a lot of rage in leftist circles.
In that case my honest leftist friends were extremely angered by vote rigging in some far eastern jurisdictions, but also admitted that the vote to change the constitution won by at least 60% to 40% instead of the official 70% to 30% tally. 60-40 is still a huge landslide by western standards. When asked why they thought anybody bothered to rig the election given the evident, huge popular support for the measure they answered that they thought local bosses were in a competition to "look good" to higher ups by delivering even more enthusiastic vote totals for the measure.
Those guys, by the way, also insisted to me that US elections were fair and that Trump was lying when he said Biden stole the election. When I challenged them to prove it by applying their methods to that election, they laughed and said, "sure!" They went away for a couple of weeks and then came back astonished, saying there was no doubt, none at all, that the Biden camp had stolen the election and that they didn't even bother to be subtle about it.
Anyway, read Helmer for an alternate viewpoint, but keep in mind the guy really does have a screw loose and often goes too far in the "of course it's this way..." believing in his own preconceptions.
>The nature of ground warfare has changed completely in the last few years with the introduction of drones in particular.
No shit.
So why was the window of opportunity in 2022 when the frontlines were not yet stalemated by drones missed so catastrophically?
All Russian military analysts were screaming about the need to mobilize already in March 2022.
Why don't you tell me? You seem to know all about this stuff.
Because the genius in the Kremlin was looking for a deal, not pursuing victory.
Same shit he has been doing since 2000, which only got him one total geostrategic defeat after another.
Six years is a long time to be butt-hurt about something like that, isn't it? I got over my first marriage in way less time.
Ayatollah was killed. See the difference between the wars? Iran is being pounded hard, what is happening inside Russia is mostly terrorism, but that is nothing new.
The Iranian Ayatollah was not afraid to die.
The Russian Ayatollah is afraid.
You cannot defeat a monster without sacrificing yourself. I just say that the Russians are unwilling to die, but the Iranians are.
Totally different situations. And I think millions of Victorious Russian Dead would object, as well.
There would have been no hundreds of thousands Russian dead if the Russian elite was willing to take some personal risks.
That is the whole problem...
Russians are willing to die, and are dying.
The Russian elite is not, because unlike the Shias it does not believe in anything but making money.
How does your cognitive dissonance explain hundreds of thousands of Russian volunteers in SMO?
Retarded tropes non stop.
lmao
They are there to earn some money.
Do not forget that Russia started as the weak force. Ukraine had the largest and best equipped military in Europe (sic) Manpower alone, Russia was weaker. Much weaker.
When Russia started to move forwards, it was against the best that NATO had to offer. What Russia learned in the Ukraine would have been passed on to Iran. It is also true that Russia kept civilian casualties to a minimum. As is Iran.
Do not forget that whilst Iran is doing well, it is not winning. It is only fighting defensively. ie, it is not trying to take land. Russia is. That is, as a result, a diferent way of fighting. This year, now that Ukraine's AA abilities have been reduced, there might be a greater thrust forward. But, again, this is not Hollywood. Attacking, and taking, territory is not easy.
Unless you do not care what happens to your own forces, that is.
Anytime, Elena. Come back to me, or vice versa, in September. And we'll see if things are better for us (?)
Not sure where you're from - I'm UK. And, ex-forces. Albeit as a doddering old git now an ex-pat in Greece. So, I'm NOT happy how the UK is being run down and how our so-called Intelligence Services seem to be happy (?) to destroy other countries. It is not as though it is benefitting the UK!
Ah well. Good luck.
Putin mishandled the entire SMO from the very beginning. It didn't have to be that way.
With a weaker military? Against the largest, best trained military in Europe? How would you have handled it, from YOUR military experience?
Read my comments over the past two years, Joseph.
I already explained how Russia messed up and what they had to do a year ago.
From one of your previous comments: "The bigger question remains: why hasn't Russia taken out Kyiv in the first place and forced a surrender instead of settling for much less? " Do you realise the impossibility of taking a city? Ask Israel - they've battered Gaza for the past two years and STILL not taken it - with far superior forces.
Russia started off this conflict with a weaker military against the largest, best equipped force in Europe. Their initial foray towards Kiev was not meant to take it - only sue for peace. It failed. Note the forces involved. For wikipedia, it is quite a good summing up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kyiv_(2022)
Your 6th October comment was fanciful. It almost assumes that NATO was going to sit back and let Russia pummel the hell out of them. 300k in staging areas? You can't do large units in staging areas.
>For the first two years of the war I said the same things, and I have no criticism of Putin for that time
You should -- the roots of the disaster of the last two years are in the disaster of the first two years.
That is when deterrence was lost and when the crucial last window of opportunity was missed.
>Do not forget that Russia started as the weak force. Ukraine had the largest and best equipped military in Europe (sic) Manpower alone, Russia was weaker. Much weaker.
Whose fault is that? Whose job was it to prepare for war?
It had been known that war is coming for how many years? At least six. Realistically eight. But really more like at least 17, since 2005, and one can argue since the very break up of the USSR. Certainly Putin's mentor Sobchak said so in a TV interview way back in 1991, that is not hard to find on the internet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GumsQkCeJKg
Again, Putin's mentor, i.e. Putin was not unaware.
I agree that it should have been better prepared. It would appear that Russia was hoping for diplomacy, together with the militias to hold its land, alongside Wagner.
You do realise, though, that in your response to me above, you disagreed when I stated: "Russia started off this conflict with a weaker military against the largest, best equipped force in Europe." Your reply was: "That is complete nonsense -- Russia had an overwhelming material advantage early on in the war."
The personnel in the Kremlin seem to be detached from reality. In Russian forums the story of the Baltic States and Finland letting the Ukrainian drones fly over and then hitting the Russians in the back is widely discussed. But I heard no, absolutely no reaction from the Kremlin.
Peskov said that "it will be taken into consideration"
Their interest is not in defending Russia.
The Kremlin guys are there for the money.
If the Kremlin guys were just there for the money, Russia's debt would be huge. Years of chess and judo make you a different kind of warrior.
I follow Weeb Union for front line updates, and his latest post shows Russian advances in Sumi and Kharkiv over the border. It's early days, and the mud hasn't dried, but if Russia has doubled the contact line, then the command might have realised this is the best time for a large attack.
Almost as ridiculous as seeing Russian tankers stroll through the Cuban blockade lol
Imagine the chaos Russia could be sowing among the US bases in Europe.
Speaking of fun thoughts, what would you see as a reasonable demonstration of seriousness - other than invading Ukraine and taking on NATO?
Imagine having the patience to not salt the fields and burn down the bridges for when the EU comes to us senses - the profits are going to be immense for Russia.
This isn't a game of RISK - this is epochal strategy.
That's hard to explain to people whose notions of war are based on Hollywood portrayals. All the more so when they obstinately cling to their misconceptions and claim some kind of superior knowledge without ever having experienced the real thing.
There would be no chaos, it would be total peace and tranquility -- "После нас только тишина"
Russia is getting stronger day by day. No need to worry, in the general picture.
How is it getting stronger if its industry is being destroyed and air defense degraded?
Don't worry, time will show that all current problems will be solved.
This thread is about Iran so either stay on topic or kindly shut your ignorant pie hole. No one hear desires to hear your ignorance. Go play with your cats.
Again?
You're on yr way to a hat trick.
Posting here because it's top of the thread. As you peruse the thread, note the massive number of posts by "GM" and "his" sycophants like "Elena" and several others. Huge word counts, lots of work. Always with the same propaganda messages: "Putin bad, Russia bad". Even on threads strictly about Iran. Always the same messages, massive efforts, massive numbers of posts, massive word counts. Imo, clearly a professional tag team.
Yep, Zionist whores needs to earn their shekels.
Sad isn't it, till you block them. That was a happy day 😁
Yeah, but I've never been a blocker. Half the fun is seeing how the threads ebb and flow, and seeing how they are manipulated by the pros. GM and Elena are both fantastic writers, not just run of the mill "trolls". No hit-and-run stuff. No AI slop either.
Horses for courses I guess. Anyway, she blocked me. Before that I didn't even know it possible. Was fortuitous, as GM is now only someone I hear ppl complain about or see posting on MOA in far more restrained fashion. There is sth to be said for a well.moderated site.
Yes, yes and yes. General Moan and Elena work hard on the angle of the useless Russians. Tirelessly, one could say. Oh well, it's tough to be an insignificant observer polarized by world affairs. It needs a certain objective flair to digest what we are witnessing.
It is just hugely polarising, the human brain needs to support one side, it seems.
Back when I used to moderate web forums, we usually warned once then then kicked & banned people for posting one word/non contributing comments (like First!). But the brontosaurus, 🦕, T rex and diplodocus all complained about us policing the comment sections so that's ancient history.
Back when people disliked attention seekers and people had no time for adults playing repetitive children’s jokes.
Ah the WayBack MAchine!
As the world turns to a bowl of shit...a bit of levity, gallows humor is just a-okay in my book. The world is unspooling before our very eyes and all we can do is surmise and bang away at our keyboards. Take the small comforts where you find them. The Russians, Chinese and Iranians are laying the foundation for a new and hopefully better world. The pirate West is experiencing the end times. It's difficult to look away.
"unspooling" Reminds me of busted cassettes and pencil stubs when da tape machine used to eat Led Zepplins and such. I smell ZionaZi Kunt-sler as in Jimmy Lebenstkünstler. Say it isn't true, Occam. It's up there with PCR's "insouciance" referring to fellow Slumvillains penchant for sheepishness, docility and being ZionaZi tax cattle. Juss sayin' coZ words leave traces. Carry on enjoying the "unspooling" or rather shit hitting fan. I most certainly do.
Noted Martillo...thank you for your attention to this matter.
A trivial observation. The shit can hit the fan and un-spool simultaneously.
It's that fugged -up
Can you or some good Samaritan translate into English what Marillo said? Sadly, I only speak English.
Except the race for first is kind of funny.
I'm another fan of the race for first. 👍👍
Nuke israel on Easter morning. That would be very fitting.
Passover this bitch.
I watched a video of Tel Aviv, it looks like Gaz.
@EH
Link to video? Israelis aren't letting much of that get out.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eCIJrAQL32Q
Unfortunately, that's not Gaza, but Ukraine.
It fortunately is. The lies on this comment page are outrageous.
Is there any way of proving where it is?
Thanks for the link. Subscribed.
Subscribe if you want. Just don’t mistake what you read here for facts.
Then why are you here, specifically?
You always shitpost merely for the sake of shitposting.
Show your fucking evidence that it is Ukraine instead of Tel Aviv.
@E H
I did find a video allegedly of Tel Aviv, looking like it had been saturation bombed.
However, looking at it more carefully? I noticed the video was AI generated, apparently from a video game.
Strong hint: Absolutely no signage in ANY language was visible in the video from aerial views or in street level views, there is not a city on Earth with no shop signs, street signs or advertising billboards.
Well deserved. A very wise Man has once said, You live by the sword, you die by the sword.
Americans have since translated this into contemporary English as: FAFO. And the Israelis are finding out, right about now. They're finding out in spades, and then some!
… But what happened to that very wise Man? I am hearing that He was murdered … I wonder (((who))) murdered Him!?
HA! The US Catholics Bishops had a warning on their Daily Bible Reading website: "don't be mean and blame the murderers...."
Sorry--facts are facts, 'nest pas?
Did you mean Gayza? Cuz that's very accurate for Tel Aviv
I wouldnt trust any of these videos most are ai , fake and only headlines for views
But this dosent seem to be
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oB_hl8Eu3Q0
@Saint Jimmy
Exactly WHICH church beatified you again? Do they do interesting things with reptiles or fire???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru5afNNSPeU&list=RDru5afNNSPeU&start_radio=1
It seems I am the moderate here, I would settle for a Crusade.
Sez right here, "leave the smiting to YHWH"...
These forums are beyond help.
There seems to be a counterculture that is based on 128 character posts.
And a lack of historical perspective.
These days, the discipline of writing a well structured five paragraph essay with introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion seems to be lost. It's all about "feelings".
Strixtured five paragraph essays have been replaced by breathless AI slop. I've recently been blocking those who fail to devote the time, creativity, and effort to influence us through writing and instead let AI excrete word salads without "voice".
I regret signing on to Simplicius, for an annual plan. Never again!
I'll give you your money back if you will agree to never come back
Go find a UAV to ride bareback... go out in style!
See ya!
Dík,vybuchl jsem smíchy😄
You welcome :))
Je to je dobré počkat!
A+ Jimmy!!
Well you're not going to like how big Iran was during the stone age.
The viral meme graphic of the "stone age" Achaemenid Empire widely shared is misleading. This was a Persian polity founded by Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC - well into the Iron Age. There were no known polities in neolithic Iran other than modest settlements such as Ganj Dareh.
Well, there always has to be one. Congratulations for being that one!
In other news: "The train is fine."
Historical accuracy matters, "doctor". Yes, it's a minority position, but it's the right one.
That sure drew out the autistes. It's a "meme" -- do we have to spell it out for you -- contain your sperging!
What's important is that the train is still fine.
You're unironcally doing the "Stupid statement - oh wow the incels are mad" meme!
No.
Cheryl Shepherd
It is literally impossible to bomb a society like Iran into the stone age. It would take years/decades to totally rob a society of a hundred million of their ability to fabricate iron from the vast stores of it left lying around in the destruction. Back into the stone age is a figure of speech not intended to have any direct connection to reality. The people advocating it usually can't fantasize much more than no internet and t.v. .
Yes, the limited extent of historical knowledge of even 'educated' people in our postmodern era is appalling. I would be happy with bomb (whomever) back to the Iron Age. It it pretty much impossible to go further back. The amount of ferrous scrap lying around and in landfills could be reworked by surviving blacksmiths for centuries. All you need is charcoal and a bellows.
From an archeological POV, arguably even the first half of the 18th century was still Iron Age. Yes, they had gunpowder, the printing press, and very limited high cost steel production. But, there was no electricity, very limited fossil fuel use, no industrial use of plastics or aluminium, steam engines were few and primitive. Rapid transit was a sailboat or a horse. Not much difference between what shows up in a Roman dig and a dig from the American Revolutionary period other than the guns and cannons.
'what's in a meme' (ht Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet).
Of course. It is boring reading comments of people who have no clue about history.
Disagreement means to you, they have no clue?
No. Those are two different things and I am very careful with my statements. If someone says that Corneille or Racine are more impressive writers than Shakespeare, I will disagree very strongly, but I will not say that this person has no clue.
I remember when someone told me quite seriously that the Beatles
were comparable to Mozart.
De gustibus...
But when one says that the Elamites were an Iranian culture, or that the Kingdom of the Medes, the first Iranian State, existed thousands of years before the Athenian polis or Rome, I must just state that the author of those lines has no idea whatsoever of the question that he is writing about.
One cannot say that William defeated Harold in the year 1435. Some questions are not a matter of opinion or disagreement. To know or not to know. That is the question.
Love your comment Luis and agree 100%. Facts matter.
"Bomb Iran to the Stone Age" was a metaphor, originally mouthed by IAC Mega-donor, Sheldon Adelson, who along with spouse Miriam bankrolled Trump 1.0.
Trump did little to harm Iran in his first term, so the Adelsons pulled back funding in 2020 and Trump lost. Miriam opened the checkbook again in 2024.
Whatever combination of bribes and extortion they and Israel Intel have on Trump 2.0 appears to be working.
Originally used by Defense Sec Curtis Lamay, back in 1946/47.
It's in the Fatmerican DNA.
Trumps' Bag of Millions of USDs gained from the Adelsons may take a hit, just like the petro-dollar just might: [war by a financial gloss]
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/component/content/article/iran-offers-eu-access-to-strait-of-hormuz-but-theres-a-catch?catid=17&Itemid=101
One hundred per cent right. The subsequent Iranians cultures begin with the invasion of the Indo-european pastoralists, which created the Median Kingdom. The first Persian Empire is even posterior to the aristocratic period, rule by the privilege, called "areté" of the nobles, the "kaloikagathoi" of the Athenian polis.
Also the Empire of Cyrus has very little to do with present day Iranians, a nation that has everything to do with the Islamic conquest and the influence of the Moghul Empire and India. The relation with the Persian empires before the Islamic period is mainly in the fact that contrary to other parts of the caliphate, where the Arab language, substituted Latin in North Africa and Greek in the Levant, the Iranians conserved their ancestral Indo-european language.
It is true that there were periods of cultural splendour before and after the Islamic conquest. Thus cannot be denied. But thousands of years before Rome? Incredible that one can even write such nonsense.
Now Cheryl, as historically accurate as you may be, you are just sounding like a pedant here. I'm sure Trump and Hegseth will happily settle for 6th c. BCE Persia. "Where they belong!" SMH. I'm pretty sure Cyrus the Great was pretty bad-ass...until he met up with that badder-ass Queen Tomyris and his decapitated head his nice warm bath of blood.
Iran was a civilization 4,000 years before Rome. Even during Roman Empire days, Europeans were barbaric heathens living crude, mean ignorant short lives. Apparently history is repeating itself.
Well, there was a neolithic civilisation on the Salisbury Plain for sure, Stonehenge is proof of that. However the builders of that were neither Celtic nor English, spoke who knows what language, and had quite different Y-DNA than the people who replaced them.
There were settled places on the territory of what later became Persia/Iran in the neolithic period for sure. Not only Ganj Dareh, but Susa and other sites. Many believe here could even have been an extended Zayandeh River Culture. However it is far from clear there would have been genetic/cultural/linguistic cultural continuity between the neolithic cultures and the iron age Persians several millennia later.
Good comment, confirming that most history is fake,
for a far more meaningful experience with stones, Avebury some 10 miles north of "Stonehenge" is far more authentic... the true measure of "what is", "who is", "where is" and "who made it" can only be measured by the indigenous, this issue is currently at the root of the problem,
example:
do
"americans"
"isrealis"
and to a lesser degree
"australians"
"new zealanders"
"canadians"
removing people from their natural environment and placing them in areas that are at the demiurge level hostile to the invaders and adding practices which affect the 1st two (americans/isrealis) involving genital mutilation produces unhinged, un-grounded, un-belonging psychopaths bent on inflicting their inner pain and lack of balance on those who do have it..
10/10 comment!
Juice Rap News; Australia vs Canada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM3W5XBrVEA
Insane comment. Just f*ing insane.
The Orcadian settlement of Skara Brae off the north coast of Scotland pre-dates Stonehenge by several millenia.
Yes, the megalithic culture (language unknown, without written records, we can only guess what their beliefs were) was quite ancient and widespread, Stonehenge was likely the last major expression of it before the steppe cultures replaced it.
people travel. it's in the stories they tell and their music (oral tradition) where their heritage is stored.
I thought Stonehenge builders were ANF. About 40-60% of modern English *and* Iranian DNA is coming from ANF.
The mtDNA of the indigenous women of the ANF megalithic culture survived, although diluted by steppe mtDNA. The indigenous Y-DNA lineages were almost 100% replaced by steppe Y-DNA lineages shortly after Stonehenge was built. It happened very quickly, a couple generations at most. Some try to imagine nonviolent processes which could have done this, but it is a stretch. This has been established by DNA testing of neolithic remains. This male replacement happened over almost all of Europe, the British isles were just the last place to be overrun. Original paper references are many and easy to find, as well as you tube video popularisations of the publications.
No, Iran was not a civilization 4000 years before Rome.
First of all what do you mean by "before Rome":
Ab urbe condita?
The Roman Empire, i.e. the first consulate of Augustus?
Do you think that Rome was the oldest political entity that existed in Europe?
What do you mean by saying the Europeans were "heathens"?
In fact, the Iranians were the result of the same Völkerwanderung that created the Europeans as ghe are today. The so-called, yamnaya, Indo-europeans from the Pontic plains went westward and eastward.
Those two migrations produced different cultures from Ireland and Scandinavia to India.
In no period of history did the Iranians create a civilization which was superior to the one of the
Ionian Greeks from the 8th century BC.
If you consider the subsequent development to the time of Plato and Aristoteles in Athens, the superiority of the Greek culture and its influx in the whole world (even in our times) over the Iranian is abysmal.
Disagree...
Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with urban settlements dating back to the 5th millennium BC and evidence of human occupation as early as 45,000 BC. The region served as a cradle for early developments in agriculture, writing, and urbanization, hosting the Elamite civilization in the southwest and the Jiroft culture in the southeast.
Political unification began with the Median Empire in the 7th century BC, which was succeeded by the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) founded by Cyrus the Great. This empire became the largest the world had yet seen, establishing a model of governance, standardized coinage, and the Royal Road that connected East and West. Following the conquest by Alexander the Great and the subsequent Seleucid and Parthian periods, the Sasanian Empire (224–651 AD) ushered in a golden age of art, science, and Zoroastrian culture before the 7th-century Muslim conquest.
1. 45000 BC? Iranian civilization? Human settlement in any part of the world has nothing to do with a historical culture. This is a childish mistake. There are human settlements practically in every region of the world. The Cromagnon were not French. The French are the result of the inmigration of a germanic people in a Roman Christian province, where the previous Celtic language and culture had disappeared. One can only speak of "the French" after the time of Charlemagne.
2. Elam and Iran are two different cultures. Tartessos was an old civilization that existed in the South of the Iberian Peninsula, but they were not Spanish. Even their language is not known to historians. Nothing absolutely to do with "the Spanish", historically the product of Roman conquest and Christianity.
3. The Medes can be considered to be related to modern Iranians? May be, but only in the sense that they spoke an Indo-european language.
All other elements of culture are different, so that it is arbitrary to consider them to be part of the same political and cultural reality.
In any case, did the Medes precede Rome or Hellas by thousands of years? Do you know in which century were the Homeric poems written?
Any idea about the time of Hesiod, which contrary to the case of Homer is not an estimation? Where did you learn mathematics?
It is boring to have to explain some basic concepts.
Yes, Iran had advanced civilizations thousands of years before Rome.
But the famous Persian Empire itself wasn’t that much older than Rome—it actually overlapped with early Roman history.
You don't know what you are talking about. The oldest entity that has a least a linguistic relationship with the Iranians is the Empire of the Medes. Please, if you do have very few books in your library, which I suspect, just use the Web to learn the basic information available to historians, including the chronology, about that period.
The irony when you say "Even during Roman Empire days"... It WAS the Roman Empire that reduced Europe to a backwards state, the pre-Empire European civilisations were pretty damn civilised. They had roads, formal laws, cities, trading continental networks, and even rudimentary 'welfare' systems in the Gauls, at least. The religions were ancient, wise, and respectable, with social near-equality in gender rights etc.
Life was pretty good until the shit-eating roman barbarians trucked up and burned everything to the ground, and almost removed it from recorded history.
I am German, and know my history.
Pre-Roman Europe was sophisticated, but Rome vastly expanded infrastructure, law, and trade to a scale earlier societies never achieved.
The Romans brought wine, roads, cities, plumbing, heating, law, and trade systems—laying foundations that still shape parts of Germany today.
No, it didn't actually. Rome brought Centralisation, MASSIVE corruption, inevitable poverty, crime, and patriarchy.
The thousands-year old wood road network that stretched across the whole of europe into the Baltics, was the basis of a far more intricate and complex web of trade and cultural exchange than Imperial Rome could ever achieve - although in outright extortion no-one could touch the Romans til the later European empires modeled upon it.
Those roads, built by civilian engineers for the purposes of civilians and trade, were so utterly dug up and destroyed that it was only in the last century parts of them were rediscovered, rewriting actual History quite thoroughly from the 2000 years of Roman propaganda.
As for Law, all those societies had "laws" - even the pirate cities on Madascar had legal systems while they survived. Communities create rules and laws. What you mean is that the centralised Roman patriarchy enforced ITS laws upon various societies that had very little in common with it. That's EMPIRE.
The Celts had wine, roads, cities, obviously heating ffs, plumbing was more hit and miss depending on locale but as civilisations older than Rome by thousands of years had plumbing, its safe to say the Romans didn't "bring" it anywhere. Considering the few fragments of historical records we have about Gaullish cities, they were tens of thousands of people strong, and almost entirely built of wood, and were called "Fair and gay" by travellors - ie, no piles of sewage running through the streets. Plumbing is not an extraordinary idea, it just requires planning BEFORE the community is built. Many civilisations managed that.
The Celts had an extremely accurate, base60 calendar, while the Romans were celebrating winter festivals in summer they were so ignorant of math.
If the almost absolute destruction of entire societies of free peoples can be "justified" because the invaders and genocidal settlers built a goddamned aquaduct or two for their own purposes afterwards, then roll on hell.
Little has changed in the west
Lindsey Graham's threats are just parroting the US strategic playbook since the collapse of the USSR, the Cebrowski doctrine. The point was not only to defeat unsubmissive states like Libya, Syria or Russia, but to tear them appart, denying their statecraft status forever, turning them into plain extraction zones under contractor managment. But it sounds oldfashioned now. These people are relics.
This man is a bitter old man who never achieved his goals and still lives in his own world. The worst part for Americans is that he holds a position in society where he was supported and elected by just as bitter people.
In general, the political middle class in the USA is bitter, disappointed, and sometimes very vindictive towards the rest of the world—and Trump comes from this class!
Concerning Graham I think you are wrong. He belongs to the deepest state rings for decades.
Yes, might well be, but I don't get how someone that stupid can get that far up on the socioeconomic ladder ? The guy (?) talks like someone from a cheap dime pulp novel and still finds an (even dumber) audience. DUMB AND DUMBEF looks intellectual compared to his blabber.
Who supports trogloctyts like that??
Look at the alternative. The entire US Political System is an Auction House with selected bidders.
Who bids on the likes of L. Graham? 🤔 We'll never know, but damn, I am soooooooo curious!!
Welcome to the world of Washington DC. You'd be amazed at how many important people here are utter empty suits.
I was actually hoping Trump would really end or at least start no new forever war. I guess I was still too optimistic. Considering the mess (to put it mildly, actually those are mostly war crimes!) he made and the 1000's of dead decent people, I add him to the list of evil empty suits. 🤮
Even the dumbest would have know in advance, that Iran is not Lybia, Irak, Syria, Somalia, ... (and those wars were also not justified by any means).
I hope (but don't expect) that they all get "fair" trials, if not here, then in hell. 😡☠️
"Troglodytes" is the genus name for "wrens", small birds.
Unless you meant "troglocysts"...
troglodyte /ˈtrɒɡlədʌɪt/ noun
1. (especially in prehistoric times) a person who lived in a cave.
2. a person regarded as being ignorant and reactionary in their views.
I guess I made no mistake ... 🤔👍
He's a psychopath. Psychopaths like psychopaths. Tells you about the people REALLY pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Trump comes from the Epstein Caste. There is no Class in any of them.
Bitterness isn’t an American monopoly. Have you looked at Germany lately?
Mesopotamia was modern Iraq, but fair point nonetheless
It'll be part of Persia again very soon. Well done Trump.
Back to the Stone Age? I thought that was a Neanderthal specialty..
I simply doubt that Trump knows where the enriched uranium is. This is easy to transport in small, specially coated metal drums and does not need any high security places, can be hidden in just about any basement or barn. In 1945 the Germans loaded a similar quantity highly enriched uranium into a submarine shortly before the end of the war and handed it over to the US in some sort of shady deal. It was actually supposed to go to Japan.
As far as mitigation of human and material losses, that is a standard wartime procedure. I can hardly recall any wars where this did not happen.
First, Trump already boasted he destroyed it last year. Iran has certainly dispersed the enriched uranium in their massive country. They have enough to further refine to build +/- 11 nuclear warheads for their hypersonic missiles. They can also purchase ready made warheads from Pakistan. If/when Israel launches its' arsenal Iran can activate its' dead mans' hand and annihilate the miserable European socialist terror state of modern Israel.
The jew & Europeans have nothing in common.
I do not expect the uranium to be in the pure "metal" form, because with 60%, this would mean the A-bomb is already there; just the assembly is missing. It will be stored as a gas: uranium hexafluoride. This stuff is easy to work with (e.g., enrichment) but is deadly to any form of life. I expect the Iranians to have thousands of canisters filled with uranium hexafluoride. Every canister will be very heavy, but contain a very little amount of uranium; you will need a big freight train for transportation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtUobr7xGz4
They are coating the metal drums with some sort of special stuff to protect the uranium from accidental chain reaction. The Germans loaded their enriched uranium into gold coated metal cans in 1945 and had no problem there. The obvious advantage is the small volume and weight. I have zero expertise in the field. Just repeating from historical and news sources I consider dependable.
After 1945, the Germans financed the Israelis' atomic bomb research and development!
The uranium came from South Africa, which had to surrender its nuclear weapons in exchange for the end of apartheid and Mandela's rise to power.
But hardly anyone mentions today that Germany was the initiator that enabled a state to possess an uncontrolled nuclear weapon.
The book Bomb in the Basement (amazon) points toward US uranium sources.
That didn't matter back then, because the US didn't want Israel to have the bomb.
Germany financed it under the guise of development aid under Chancellor Adenauer. As the leading colonial power in South Africa, Germany took advantage of the fact that the existing uranium was being transported from there to Israel and even supplied the equipment for enrichment.
The financing of the project failed at the time due to an objection from the US Senate. Germany paid 200 million Deutsche Marks annually for 11 years, which would be equivalent to approximately €17 billion today.
There's also a documentary about this on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAHTHDicHew
Germany the leading colonial power in South Africa? Sorry no, factually incorrect. First Dutch (as in the Netherlands: dutch) Part of the British Crown after the 1899-1901 war, Union of South Africa until 1961, whereupon it became a Republic.
I think you're thinking of Südwest Afrika, which is now Namibia.
There was however a lot of cooperation between Israel and SA pre 1994. How much of that entailed developing nuclear weapons I don't know.
Will the US land troops in Iran?
Yes, but not for the initial plans, to save the pilot Ryan, to extract him from his prison in the 26th basement level.
They already did, Denis. He was welcomed as a liberator, or alternatively is locked in an Iranian Guantanamo.
I understand Trump called Tom Cruise but he was turned down because of prior engagement commitments on the French Riviera.
He said that without Val Kilmer he can't...
I think the answer is yes, but after nuke bombing Teheran, Shiraz,.Isfahan and a couple of major cities more. Then, they will land and occupy the coastal strategic spots. With Trump, you must always reckon BIG... Can they do it? Fuck yeah ! Will there be consequences? For sure.
Impossible. Iran's coastline is HUGE and they have planned for its defense for decades... Chip
Nope. And they certainly doesnt announce their plans in advance. Trumpf likes surprises and spectacular actions. Those must be kept secret. All speculations are fake or, little chance, leaks from disgruntled Pentagon people.
I think these searches for the pilot are a ruse to infiltrate Iranian ground. But maybe I fantasize.
They don't need a ruse to enter Iranian territory and get killed. The Iranians don't care about their rationale. This is war.
Lots of heli footage on the Middle East Spectator (he has been released apparently).
maybe you don't understand - there's one guy - a pilot lost in the mountains and the US is sending 100s of special forces to ' find him ' There's a bounty for the pilot that Iran has posted - wanted ALIVE - because of course he would get killed by tribal people - so there could be some sympathy from Iran for the Americans using this excuse to infiltrate - that's deception. I hope they all get treated like you and them deserve - no further comment you blood thirsty american
sympathy from Iran? Not hardly. They want to use him for propaganda purposes - it would make a great show for the world seeing him paraded around Tehran.
in your little mind
This is war - it's not a step through the garden. Propaganda and the info derived from the pilot (with a nod to Kennewick Man) are extremely important in war.
yeah - and also their mercy
Pilots worth their weight in gold. If they can turn one he is a source of endless tactical information that can be very useful.
Our military is strategically and tactically incompetent. As our Israeli masters are. This has been proven in every war we wage and how we have fought Russia through Ukraine. Iranian generals could teach Americans how to fight effectively.
Iranian generals could teach Americans how to fight effectively. Do you think Iranian generals are farmers? Are they going to teach pigs to eat with utensils?
Not gonna happen that would be a Trump move. Iran is fighting a war - no unnecessary diversions allowed.
Do not underestimate the power of war propaganda. There is a difference between propaganda and lies. Though propaganda can and often does contain lies, it is much more. Both sides in a war heavily rely on propaganda.
I still don’t see Iran using the pilot or any downed pilots as propaganda tools. Strait of Hormuz is propaganda enough and taking out the GCC - whose operations have been reduced by at least 40% or more overall and in some countries there is total shutdown of production per a le monde article. Now production has been reduced or stopped due to inability to ship - which according to what I am reading may be relieved by various oil producers making a side agreement with Iran.See Oman and Saudi Arabia - also now France,Japan and Oman are arranging shipments of oil through the Straits via special contracts with Iran - survival is a great motivator. Which makes sense since wells are affected by slow downs and shut downs operationally - keep it running or face problems due to slowdowns or shutdowns which will make recovery harder-no one in our demented culture talks about reality - the oil countries need to survive and we are not doing anything to help them. So everyone is seeking new alliances - that’s the cost of an insane war too. Life goes on while we put boots on the ground- good luck with that. US won’t negotiate but that doesn’t mean there are no negotiations the hegemon is dead and hasn’t yet admitted it but the rest of the world knows and is negotiating with Iran. Pakistan playing a big role too. So new alliances are growing while DJT and his Secretary of War destroy our economy.
Another fuckup opens his mouth!
Grab a globe; put a marker on the U$A; measure the distance; note lack of commonalities with this problem.
The U$A and Iran have NO common boundary, NO common waterway, NO common agency... why the fuck are the Fatmericans and Israhell Zio-Kikes trying to kill all Iranians?
Simply, projecting power to gain more power!
That power translates to psychological mostly, by the sheer perpetual disinformation campaign that started wayback when Jesus lived. Look at the posters here that think cowardly killing is virtuous!
AND ISRAHELL HAS THE BOMB, ALONG WITH THE U$A.
Also, from rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene:
https://x.com/FmrRepMTG/status/2040789438494585175
She does NOT get the designation of FATMERICAN.
Apparently you don’t recall Mogadishu. The US Military is always happy to throw multiple little birds, blackhawks and chinooks into direct ground fire to recover a single pilot.
I seem to recall the multiple attempts to recover those special forces in Ukraine in that Russian encirclement, and the losses the US took.
Yes, in Mariupol. The Azovstal industrial plant.
More recently as in this last year. just can't remember where it was, somewhere in the Donbas.
"....because of course he would get killed by tribal people..."
Unlikely. People in Iran are more civilized than that, including the various ethnic minorities. This is not Afghanistan.
I dunno. What would you do if you had just suffered that attack on a girl's school? What would the civilised US do? Beat the shit out of the guy, I would bet.
You have to remember who you are talking to in these threads. War is something they read about and then pontificate over and tell you how moral they are therefore....... I cannot wait until my fellow Americans and "collective west" find out what it feels like to drive to work and get destroyed by a missile they way we have done to the world.
That is probably true for people coming from Collective West mostly, but not everybody has the luxury of not being on the receiving end of one or another Collective West shitshow.
And yes, many people would not be able or willing to kill a person just like that.
US is not a civilisational metric. US itself proves my point day in and day out.
Si Senor, personal experiences are critical in situations like this. I understand as I had my own.
I don't think you're correct there. The civilized city folk - yeah - but the tribal people - like Yemen
Perhaps. I credit Iranian people with enough intelligence to realize a pilot is worth more to them alive than dead, especially when their govt. is telling them exactly that, but I guess it depends on who finds him first, if he's even alive.
FWIW the subject came up on Nima Alkorshid's YT channel this morning and he shares my opinion. He's from the area where the plane apparently went down, so I imagine he knows what he's talking about.
that's interesting
Do you kow long Nima has been in Brazil? Is he still connected to Iran in a meaningful way or is he one of these emigres thinking the country he knew remained unchanged since he left?
Have you been in Yemen? Or rural Iran?
No - but I knew a Yemeni guy - wonderful wonderful facebook page. He's in the district where the Asar Allah are. He's married with 3 children all going to private school and the school lets him have debt becasue there is no work in Yemen. I asked him if he wanted to join the army but he didn't want to kill people....But if you watch the dances the men do with their rifles...and even children - 5 year old boys have guns. Loaded....they carry them eveywhere.
And no I haven't been to rural Iran. I think its more civilized - I mean Sam has a better education than I do. But he lives in Sanaa - the capital of Yemen. Sam calls the Saudi puppet that lives in the other part of Yemen ( bigger cities) the Hotel Government because the ' president ' of Yemen lives in Saudi Arabia - - He's not safe in Yemen....But that part of Yemen where he rules has operating banks and life is more civilized but the Houthies have been under blockade for a decade. Its another Cuba or Venezuela except they went thru a decade of being bombed before that...like Gaza. Not as bad but the Yemenis didn't have much in the way of weapons like in Gaza. They're much stronger now with the Resistance. These wonderful Resistance Groups that are forming in the Levant Countries and Yemen and Africa - thank God for them. They have schools eventually and become political like Hezbollah in Lebanon
Lebanon btw is also divided like Yemen - part of the country likes the WEstern puppet government.
If the pilot is alive he has a GPS positioning device to communicate his location. In case if he is ‘saved’ by a good looking Persian lady he just might stay for a few weeks to be entertained.
then the tribes will kill him regardless of the bounty
That would be a clearly Shakespearian outcome, a real worthy drama.
I think Iranians will be above rolling him in tar and feathers before lynching...
no way- Islam doesn't allow that. Fair Trial. Then execution
only for a brit
Are you for fucking real. Iranian women wouldn’t let a degenerate American enemy anywhere near them. White supremacist trash comment at its best. You must be proud.Ex US “military” are we?
Persians are white. They aren't browning Arabs, "Husseini"! The hint should be in the name: Iran / Aryan. Guess that recognition would be above your head.
As has been noted before, here and elsewhere, "not being Arab" is the key reason for Iran not losing a war against Israel.
To consider it necessary to state such a an obvious and simplistic point, as if it is some kind of “insight” is a fair indication of both your superficiality and arrogance and nothing else.
Typical of westerners attempting to dignify their mediocrity with worthless titles such as “ Dr”.
Cretin.
You keep insulting people on this forum when you assume they are taking a pro-White position. I personally don’t care what a nasty White Man did to your Mamma but you need to get over it.
Considering that the West is quite visibly collapsing and Western Europe is at a 500-year nadir, this seems a strange time to try to talk up the supposed virtues of "white people," who seem currently to be mostly morons.
They are not White in a sense of ‘White European’. They are an interesting group, showing lots of signs of being racially mixed, sitting on top of a thousands of years old, deep Persian culture. If Afghanistan is the ‘cemetery of empires’ Iran just might prove to be far worse than that.
yeah. You guys are snobby
Forgive us. We westerners have been brought up on the grossest diet of sex obsessed white supremacist Hollywood fantasies. In our mythical culture the world is populated by Gaugain-style disinhibited topless females who get moist at the sight of a white bwana. We can’t help ourselves.
No
Do you really think that by locking him in my cellar I also gave him a beautiful Persian female? No, A male Persian cat in heat
Male cats don't go into heat. Only females. Tomcats are always horny, unless altered.
Where is this device located? In clothing?
If they undress him and put striped pajamas on him, they can use the device as a decoy; it all depends on who finds him.
There are endless numbers of solutions. It can be a onetime automatic signal generation that is triggered by the opening of the parachute system or whatever else.
Oh yeah the US ruse cup runneth over!
well - otherwise I just have to shake my head in disbelief that now they're sending 100 of their top guys into the mountains to find the pilot - seems far fetched. What a GONG SHOW
https://youtu.be/pNUrmNipK08?si=2Cd1QWV-QXpgF0Kb
They did things like this in Iraq too, getting multiple "rescuers" and search aircraft shot up trying to find downed air crew. In one case, a couple of the air crew walked all the way to the Syrian border, then were apprehended at the border control & got to sit in Iranian jails for a month or so. Meanwhile, the Iraqis learned to set up the captured crewmen's rescue beacons in front of SAM launchers & AA gun emplacements to attract & shoot even more American aircraft down.
Like bear baiting, perfect. The fact our military is willing to commit masive war crimes against children, they are running our reputation in the mud. Any officer worthy of respect would resign over the orders given.
YEAH no kidding - alot of them are very brainwashed. Even that hero Anthony Alguier - spelling might be wrong - was in the military for years before he managed to break free. The brainwashing must be quite strong
hmm. Iraqs are clever. All the Levant and these wonderful Arabs. I love them...and I don't understand why they're called Arabs as its Semitic tribes might be a better name. Take back that broken word
Bring back Gene Gene the Dancing Machine
It is not just one guy. it is a whole terrifying propaganda coup they are trying to kill off. This is existential for Trump.
could you elaborate ?
"stone ages", plural: as if there were many. apart from the horrific content of the message, it's difficult to believe no-one edits T.'s texts.
Ha ha more US military copium. The US has military cunning like sharks have fleas.
If this lasts more than six months, Trump will definitely be sending in ground troops because that's about all he'll have left.
In my dreams he would send in ground troops, it would be Vietnam without the embassy roof to evacuate from. He hasn’t got the balls, and the decrepit US military hasn’t the capability.
I've noticed a few people have been saying this is starting to look like another Vietnam
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/memories-of-vietnam
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/1/iran_war_of_necessity
https://timesnews.net/news/366558/is-iran-a-replay-of-vietnam/
I think they are jumping the gun, for several reasons. First Trump has no attention span , and it is such an embarrassment, he will soon seek distraction elsewhere.
Second the US was only able to land land supply troops in Vietnam because it was a divided country, North and South, and the minor ethnic divisions which exist in Iran are not comparable to be used as a base to fight from. In addition the Kurds and other ethnicities are deeply distrustful of the US , having been betrayed multiple times.
Third the US military is a shadow of what it was in the Vietnam and it was soundly defeated then. Iran also possesses a civilisational dimension, which communist North Vietnam lacked.
I would enjoy seeing the US crushed by Iran as it was in Vietnam, as I suspect it would be terminal or at the least catastrophic, but very unlikely as neither Trump, nor the military has the balls , and even if they did, they lack the capacity.
Trump will seek distraction elsewhere so perhaps that will limit escalation. But I think it will not end until Iran is willing to let it.
Your second and third points are spot-on.
In my dreams they just pack up and go home.
That's best for everyone.
yeah - I guess that promise to be looked for means alot to the men. But for how long will these psychopathic ' leaders' put up with all the loss and not just let the one guy die in the woods
Rescued pilot story sounds very fake. What events would result in 1 rescued 1 not located? One being badly injured and the other able to walk? So the americans came in and saved which one? the badly injured guy or the mobile one? How did they get separated? Fake fake fake. IF they rescued any pilot from any crash today it was probably from one of the a10s the f15 rescue sounds as fake as b2's being used in the 12 day war. Or that there's enriched nuclear material buried in a location with only 1 entrance and exit completely inaccessible. The washpo article Simplicius linked with the sci-fi story of invading and building a whole city to excavate it indiana jones style is very telling when it comes to what these bastards want people to believe.
The second pilot is likely now a POW, hence the reason for last night's sudden National Security Team gathering.
Nothing is known except that armed civilians with hunting rifles were hunting him down. These same civilians were opponents of the government, according to Western media.
Or kebab, it was civilians who were looking for it
LOL the downward trajectory of claimed destruction of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities matches that of the clot shot efficacy during the scamdemic.
Operation Stone Age, off to a rocky start!
The best phrase so far to come from this debacle, coming from CNN saying that the 'soldiers are working remotely'. You just can't get more stupid than that.
Drone pilots are. And desk jockeys. LOL that would be it.
Thank you Simplicius. Your effort and time put into hunting for info and crafting these reports to inform the world of facts and truths is greatly appreciated. You can sleep at night knowing you've done your part. God bless.
I second that. Your work is very much appreciated! Thank you so much.
Back to the Future!
Also, last I heard there was only one 'stone age' unless you include the 1960s.
LOL, the Stones' age. T's messages on Truth Social are abominable, both in form and content.
My favourite is 'floating at the bottom of the sea.' Hard to beat that one.
"One pilot was reportedly recovered, with the whereabouts of the second unknown." He's in my basement; I'm currently negotiating his exchange with Taligula, $2 billion. The prehistoric men didn't conform to the Hollywood script; they threw rocks at the aircraft, and all the director's assistants were fired. Pete, Captain America, already pictured himself cruising down Fifth Avenue in New York in a '60s convertible to celebrate winning the award for best Hollywood box office film of all time. Let him join that other clown from kyiv; that's where he belongs. The anointed one has been abandoned by God. He will be crucified after the midterm judgment.
LOL, happy easter!
"...flying in excavation equipment and building a runway " - time for Trump to buy Russian washing machines' chips for his flying excavators...
They should ask General Zahluny for permission to use his underground plasma robots.
Absolutely
"...flying in excavation equipment and building a runway "
What was first? If they flew in the excavation equipment they already had a functional landing strip.
It was sarcasm - the entire thing sounded like total nonsense.
Don't worry, Tom Cruise and his Stargate are taking care of the logistics.
Always!
Sitting here on holiday, in the great outdoors drinking coffee, reading this post is like dessert.
It’s laughable to see the US in action.