Liberty Bristles

I was glad the other day to see Willy OAM Bleeding Dry – Internal Calls For Ukrainian Concessions | Kursk – New Attacks & Evac | Map Update (youtube.com) land on the empty public use of the word ‘existential.’ Seems frivolous, cavalier, loose, cynical, disingenuous, or something. Right? Maybe someone needs to do a complete etymology of the word as it is used within that community of beings steeped both in progressive art and literature as well as in PoliSci. Small community? Rare taste? Nah, it’s almost all of them. Chat GPT tells me that existentialism can revolve “around the exploration of human existence, individual freedom, and the meaning (or lack thereof) of life.” Could it be that ‘existential’ doesn’t click in their minds to designate something as a real threat to the existence of something else; or is it that it only means something is central to their own struggle for meaning? Too out there, too weird? Still nah. ‘Existential’ appears in eurostratspeech ^© when it helps a few elite Euros with their need to put a little meaning into their lives. Political existentialism can turn superficial things profound and deadly things into imperatives more important than life. Not all lives. Naturally, the most successful emitters of the word are not risking the lives of their own children with it. That would be too close to real real. Existentialist real often elevates death, especially the death of others. “Their existence, our meaning.” Is the gratuitous use of ‘existential’ somehow related to existentialism? Hell, I dunno. Pretty sure the 1991 borders of Ukraine are in no way existential to anything German. Meanwhile, Israelis use the word correctly.

The America First Report (https://americafirstreport.com/alliance-of-the-end-the-president-of-turkey-asks-russia-syria-and-iran-to-unite-against-israel/…) (tip to Citizen Free Press) gives us a short article about a significant detail of our geostrategic life together. Turkey (a land led by a dictator no less dictator than President Putin and no more dictator than whatever Mr. Zelensky now is) is a key NATO ally. Problematic. So problematic that nobody wants to talk about it.

OK, then, my opinion about what is happening with Israel:

Some rhetorical and half-rhetorical questions to set foundation.

Is Israel the underdog? Pretty sure that if we add up the size of the thirty countries in the world with majority Muslim populations, we’ll get over 9 million square miles and over 1.5 billion people. Not saying that the governments of all those places are dedicated to the elimination of Jewish Israel, but most either explicitly support that endeavor or do so passively. Israel, meanwhile, has less than nine thousand square miles and fewer than ten million people. Let’s see, calculating, calculating. Underdog by a thousand to one. I’m betting that the majority of US student demonstrators railing at Netanyahu are unfamiliar with the basic geographic facts, much less the historical.

Are Jewish Israeli politics and society more or less liberal than Israel’s Muslim counterparts?  Eh, the answer is almost as clear as the geographic differential. The Jewish state of Israel is far more liberal in the classic sense.

Have Jews been historical victims of genocide or have the Muslims?  Rhetorical

Do Jews or Muslims hold a place in the Christian Bible as chosen people? Rhetorical

Have Muslim countries ever tried to invade Israel before or has Israel been the aggressor?  Rhetorical Muslim states have been the aggressors historically.

Which side has been more willing to negotiate, Israeli governments or Muslim governments? Israeli.

Have I known more American Jews in my life who were concerned about the defense and preservation of Israel, or Muslims who were tolerant regarding the defense and preservation of Israel? I have known many such Jews and never such a Muslim.

Is Iran the principle Muslim state threat against Israel?  It certainly seems so. Iran is also a major, if not the number one supporter of international terrorism.

Does Iran support Hamas and Hezbollah?  Rhetorical

Considering the above, the best course of action available to the government of Israel (if the preservation of Israel and the population that lives there is its concern) is to try militarily to kill as much of Hamas and Hezbollah as it can, as soon as possible. Iran is a more difficult target. If I were President of the United States, I would support Israeli military effort to defang, de-nut and decapitate the government of Iran.  (The quality of this last assertion on my part would of course depend on a lot of secret information about the actual possibilities of doing such – information I do not have, so in that I have to waffle)

But since I’ve made myself President, I would also end any vestige of support for a “two-state solution.” I think that is total, evil nonsense. Such a state would only and quickly become a vehicle for further attack against Israel. I would not use the term Palestinian any longer, would not recognize any passports or documents that identified anyone as Palestinian except to the extent they were first officially recognized as a citizen or subject of an existing state.

And now that I’m on a roll as President, I would do what I could to weaken and end the United Nations, which is little more than a vehicle for anti-Jew hatred and stupidity. Likewise, the International Court of Whateverthehell. We have to stop pandering to those organizations and their NGO spawns.  They are not legitimate, and we have to stop pretending that they are.

I remember when Lebanon was a mostly Christian country. Now we live this little diplomatic falsehood that the government of Lebanon has any life or say apart from Hezbollah.  Well, OK, maybe now since the recent great whoopening given to Hezbollah by the Israelis, maybe now there exists a window for establishing a real government in Lebanon. Maybe Lebanon can become other than a launch pad. I dunno.  If the current US regime continues to be the US regime, forget it.

It is worth underlying, highlighting and repeating that the countries surrounding Israel evidently despise the people they call Palestinians. Those countries should be made to accept the immigration of as many of the Gaza Arabs and West Bank Arabs as wish to migrate to and assimilate into their countries.

And as for the war in Ukraine and how we could negotiate an end to it, there is not much for us to ask for from the Russians that they would give that they could give.  One thing, though. We could ask that they stop their support of Iran in the latter’s death stance against Israel and that the Russian government revert in its relations with the Israeli government to the status quo ante.

A friend implores, “What with all your whining and criticism about this Ukraine war, who do you think should win and why?” My disaccord about US support for Ukraine is not driven by a blanket anti-war ethic on my part. Situations differ. For instance, I root for total Israeli military victory. My Ukraine complaint is muddled even in my own head. I find it hard to be succinct and a war deserves better than to be trivialized by succinct. But OK, succinct — the Ukrainian war best end soon through negotiation, maybe before Donald Trump is inaugurated. There is no good reason for a rump-Ukraine to be part of NATO or to get any rebuilding aid from us, and no imperative that the Russians give back any of the land they’ve conquered and currently control. What follows is a slightly longer explanation sorted into seven categories of anxiety. The seven are not in any particular sequence and they overlap a lot. Anyhow, here they are.

One – Immense opportunity costs. Sending so many weapons and so much money in the direction of the Ukraine war, whether actually spent there or not, has obviously weakened our government’s capacity (regardless of its intentions, which might have been nil) to respond to domestic disaster, to close off illegal immigration, to strengthen naval readiness in support of Taiwan, etc. The Ukraine war is a hole into which we have been stupidly pouring national capacity. Maybe it has not been stupidity, maybe it has been evil subversive design.

Two – Blowing the most obvious geostrategic value. PoliSciers still like talking about how there’s no longer a bipolar world, that it is a multipolar world. That was mildly interesting stuff in 1994. For decades since there have been three top-tier countries with independence of decision-making and destructive nuclear power sufficient to cause global Armageddon. A tri-polar set up. It has been plenty obvious that the most dangerous of the three to US national security and to the success of our constitutional way of life has been Communist China. It has been correspondingly obvious that it behooves us to keep the Russians off the Chinese side of the teeter totter. If we were to identify one job for those dilettantes and debutants who somehow get to play with America’s national strategy apparatus, it would be to not cause the Russians and the Chinese to gang up on us. Well, they blew it.

Three – Poor military strategy-making – The Ukrainians have what the progressives used to call ‘agency.’ This means that they control much of the military decision-making on the ground; they are not just subordinates of American and NATO patrons. But regardless of whether the operational decisions are autochthonous or obedient, they have not been great. Indeed, Ukrainian soldiers have shown a great deal of tenacity and competence in their defensive fight during the past year or so. That’s true, but operational and strategic decisions (the offensive toward Tokmak, the offensive toward Kursk, the plan of field fortifications, use of key weapons for momentary media advantage, dooming troops in indefensible positions rather than ordering timely withdrawals) have not been good. It’s looked pretty sorry.

Four — Diseased purpose. The strong case to be made that the Democrat Party’s insistence on the moral need for our resolute efforts in favor of the Ukrainian regime is driven by a criminal logic to maintain impunity. There is plenty of evidence of corruption schemes involving senior members of that party and their families.  Add to that ugly thought the war’s profitability for some corporations which, due to the discrete nature of ‘national security’ transactions, have been able to kickback great sums of money into the party coffers. ‘War economy’ is a term leftists used to decry.

Five – Abusive sanctimony. All this moral preening about guarding democracy and fighting against dictatorship and international aggression is annoying as hell. Is hell. We hear Kamala, for instance, repeating the line “unprovoked invasion by the Russians.” That’s a tell. It was provoked. Zelensky is no better a person than Putin. A Ukrainian is culturally no less likely to be corrupt than a Russian. Ukraine is not a democracy or even close. Stop. All the unctuousness is just cover for the difficulty in being able to express a reasonable strategic goal. Might it be immoral to promote and fuel a war that brings death  to the families of hundreds of thousands of young men for a dubious chance of having achieved anything? Our leaders don’t want the question even asked. Is it OK morally to constantly accuse the other side of human rights and laws of war violations while not even allowing a conversation about the log in our eye?

Six – Execrable strategy makers. I’m not sure who actually is making US strategy these days. Names like Nuland, Rice, Powers and Jarett are suspect. Maybe other feminal names, like Blinken or Austin, are in the mix. I just don’t know. Whoever they are, I do not trust them. I have contempt for them. If they advise we should keep fighting the war in Ukraine, then my presumption has to be that we get out. The whole lot should be taken over to the castle window where we can better see their plans.

Seven – Unrelenting guile. In addition to all the haughty shaming, we have to put up with the constant flow of propaganda instead of news. Fortunately, there exists a community of ‘mappers’ that have been following the war and who keep archives of their past expressions about conditions on the ground. (That community would not exist if the Democrats could better control social media and the narrative.) We cannot trust our government because it insists it somehow has a right and duty to lie to us constantly. The government destroys trust itself with this kind of thing.

And there it is. Again, the above categories are in no order of importance, and they meld seamlessly one with another. I’m not rooting for the Russians, but I refuse to be shamed into opining that we should expend any treasure or emotion on Ukrainian sovereignty. There is just too much else.

I made the following comment on the Willy OAM channel earlier today. Thought I better share here also.

“It is not clear to me that either side has the military might to achieve some of the goals absolutely set.” I’m thinking that this is the nutshell quote from Willy’s presentation today. It’s a waffly enough statement in that it does not specify a goal but allows us imagine goals nevertheless “absolutely set.” Let’s say for argument’s sake that the absolutely set goal of the Russian regime is to keep Donbass, Crimea and the Mariupol coastline, and to keep whatever remains of Ukraine out of NATO. If that’s the Russians’ goal, I think most observers will now concede that indeed the Russians have the necessary military might to achieve it, and then some. As for Zelensky’s absolutely set goals, let’s take a two-choice look. First let’s say (idle argument, don’t get upset) that his absolutely set goal is to stay alive and have himself and his friends leave this whole mess in a comfortable level of material luxury. Yes, the Ukrainians have the military might (assuming more ‘western’ support) to give him that. At great sacrifice, but OK, yes, they can give the gift of golden parachute. If for the sake of argument, we say that the absolutely set Ukrainian goal is to take back and keep the coal fields, then only maybe and just barely do the Ukrainians have enough military might, even counting on foreign help. Sadly, much of the conditioning in the current western argument (as Willy honestly presents it — maybe the New York times correctly reports current thinking, I dunno) has the war continuing indefinitely so as to kill as many Russians and destroy as much of Russia as it can until the Russians cry uncle, or an immense and beneficent (and crazy violent) black swan (that looks a lot like the Burninator) sweeps in to decimate the Russian Army; or global warming strikes hard to kill the Russian bear as it did the polar. Or something. It is a classic strategy of hope, a strategy that hopes for the death of another nation, or at least the deaths of tens of thousands of another peoples’ young men. Odd hope, that. It is not without historical precedent. Willy correctly presents the notion of protraction. One side, feeling itself in a position of relative weakness, might protract a war’s duration waiting for better conditions. Including it is a Maoist thought – trading territory and time in a deliberate long-march retreat until the balance of strength changes. It’s not impossible. Let’s let the future be unburdened by what has been. I, for one would be willing to bet another persons’ money on it. If betting with my own money, however, I’d say the Russians are not just attriting, they are dominating, pushing and taking. My bet is that the Russians do have and will have enough military might to eliminate the future existence of a Ukraine. Those marxists will indeed have unburdened us from the past. Let’s keep in mind before we go on hopefully wanting to kill as many Russians as possible, that Ukraine was never part of NATO, it was never essential to US security, the regime there is neither of a higher moral caliber nor political legitimacy than is the regime in Moscow. The United States government has in the past and should have sought alliance with that bear against a greater threat. What the Ukraine war needs is — ended — sooner than later.

A lot of guessers were talking about an October Surprise. We’re only at day-two and there’s been a huge longshoreman strike, a devastating hurricane and a full-scale, direct Iranian attack on Israel. It’ll surprise the hell out of me if the Biden-Harris bunch responds effectively to any of these.

The administrators of the United States Government have done a lot of horrible stupid things in the past few years, but because they feel they might only have a few months of power remaining, they seem to be considering ultima stupideta. The PoliSci warmongers in what some call the Biden administration may be about to facilitate the use of long-range weaponry into the country of Russia. Anyone have a worse idea? Anyone?

Political Science and International Law — don’t fall for either. They’re good for brief instances of argumentation. Are you stuck on the principled value of ‘Ukrainian sovereignty’ and on the consequence of that sovereign identity to Europe and European identity?  I give you ‘Yugoslavian sovereignty.’  Meh. Would you feel a moral imperative to fight (using NATO maybe) for the sovereignty of Georgia? Armenia? Azerbaijan? Any of the stans? Is Uti Possidetis that big a deal? Here are a few thoughts on that from a guy who did some thinking on that: Steven R. Ratner, “Drawing a Better Line: Uti Possidetis and the Borders of New States,” The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 90, No. 4 (Oct., 1996), pp. 590-624 (35 pages). I have no idea how Mr. Ratner feels about Ukrainian sovereign identity, but I think it’s worth something. I just don’t think it has to have all the square miles assigned to it that the Russians assigned to it before 1991.