I Have Seen Much Stupidity…

…in my career as a self-appointed political observer.

There are many candidates for the title of “dumbest thing I’ve ever seen”; the Kenilworth Tunnel, evacuating the Third Precinct, going logarithmic on the national debt, “shrinkflation” – I could go on.

But after the Potato’s State of the Union, really, the polls can close; the contest is over:

floating pier and causeway that will be used to deliver critical humanitarian aid by sea to Gaza is expected to take at least one month or possibly as long as two for the US military to build and become fully operational, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Friday.

We’ll be counting on the Israelis to keep the huge fat juicy target for drones, rockets and suicide bombers…er, I mean the pier secure, on top of actually, y’know, carrying out their mission.

I’d say “I’ll never mock and taunt a government idea quite like this”, but Americans are going to get killed in pursuit of literally no national interest whatsoever.

In other words, it fits right in with the rest of Biden’s foreign policy.

An American Hero

For like the 21st year in a row, I didn’t watch the State of the Union. I’ve joined the crowd that considers it a useless exercise at best, a nod to monarchy or worse at worst.

But I almost wish I had tuned in, for this alone:

“Thirteen Marines”

Including his son, LCPL Kareem Nikoui, whom I’ll bring out from under the rug under which he and his comrades were swept:

And I salute you, Steve Nikoui, wherever you are.

Pulling The Weight

Another campaign, another flap about Trump vs. NATO:

On the one hand, Trump’s rhetoric about NATO is…not “reckless”, so much as annoying.

On the other hand? At a policy level, Trump strenghened NATO – and his rhetorical, er, “unpredictability” seems to have caused America’s would-be enemies to sit out the aggression and wait for the US to change leadership to someone like, well, Obama and Biden.

But now, as in 2016, the NATO members complaining the hardest are the ones – like Germany – that didn’t get the actual message; hold up you end of the damn deal.

To be fair, Gemany’s spending has risen by something like 30% – although the Bundeswehr has thirty years of sloth to work off; the Luftwaffe’s fighter force at one point was 8% action-ready, the Army is a glorified Boy Scout troop that’s 1/6 of its 1992 size,

(And don’t think we’re not looking at you, Canada, whose Navy is about as old and decrepit as, well, the US’s current leader).

And then on the other hand there are the countries that didn’t need to get the message: Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and the other former “Warsaw Pact” nations.

Just A Couple Of Quick Questions For All Western Feminists

To: All Western Feminists
From: Mitch Berg – Obstreporous Peasant and the Twin Cities Best Feminist
Re. #YouToo?

Dear every “Feminist” I’ve just been getting a refresher course on the horrific, ritualized sexual violence that Hamas inflicted on Israeli women and children.

And I’m wondering – where’s the *#MeToo” hashtags?

Where are all the “#BelieveWomen” bumper stickers?

Where are all the sanctimonious celebrities with their “#BringTheGirlsBack” signs and selfies and tiktoks?

It’s almost like you have a double standard.

That is all.

History Talking

I wish more American – especially Minnesota DFL – politicians could speak with the moral clarity that German vice-chancellor Robert Habeck does:

While allowing that the Germans have a tighter definition of free speech than we do – when you let the depraved speak out loud, you can see what they’re doing in a way you can’t in Europe, and I vastly prefer the American way – this would still be considered pretty daring in the US.

And he’s a Green.o. Talking like a classical liberal, on this issue at least.

This is apposed to the avatar of modern left-liberal left-center-leftism, President Obama…

…who is right at the top of the short list for worst president ever, with Woodrow Wilson, and far and away the worst of my lifetime.

When Germans out-do Amercan pols on this subject, it’s time for some electoral bells to be rung.

(Links bogarted from Powerline).

Figures

I take some time off from job, blog and radio show, and suddenly the biggest story in the world isn’t our senile president and Trump’s legal woes.

The fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur invasion, no less. Couldn’t see that one coming.

Quietly hoping that this time Israel ignores the international yapping about cease fires and diplomacy, and builds a pyramid of the skulls of HAMAS fighters, and puts it at the approaches to Yad Vashem.

They really need to push the notion that that “never again” thing wasn’t a polite request. It clearly hasn’t sunk in.

One thing that is sinking in: someone missed their cue:

“All of Israel is asking itself: where is the IDF, where are the police, where is the security?” said Eli Maron, a former head of the Israeli navy, on Channel 12. “It’s a colossal failure; the [defence] establishments have simply failed, with vast consequences.”

HAMAS is directly supported by Iran, whose intelligence and special forces are among the craftiest in the world. While Berg’s 18th Law is in full effect, I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and guess that Iran spent years helping HAMAS play intel-fu to conceal the attack plans.

This isn’t without precedent; even though the Yom Kippur War was a huge conventional operation with thousands of tanks and planes and hundreds of thousands of troops, it came as a complete surprise as well.

One thing that doesn’t need any post-attack study: Biden Administraiton policies have directly contributed to the situation. Reports say US weapons left in Afghanistan were used in the attacks; while I’m waiting for better confirmation there, it appears almost certain that US integrity and foreign-policy gravitas left in Afghanistan, or packed into boxes of money sent to Iran, was involved.

And the administration remains an embarassment:

That didn’t sound “unequivocal” at all.

Second Russian Civil War (?) Open Thread

I didn’t have “coup” on my bingo card for today.

Free reign to romp and play in the comments is granted. is granted.

Don’t let it go to your heads.

I’m Old Enough To Remember…

…when dissenting from forced civil rituals was considered the height of Patriotism.

Why, it was only Kaepernick years ago.

How things have changed:

There are so many reasons I’d go on strike if I were one of Kinzinger’s mirrors…
I’ll go with “Three people that weren’t sexual puppets of Chinese spies”. How’d I do?
Michael Beschloss is to historians what Taylor Swift is to guitarists. Only without the integrity.

Look – as someone who supported Ukrainian independence back when Democrats universally said the USSR was here to stay, I have one request: Show the share of the money that actually goes to weapons, logistics and training.

Because I’ve seen estimates that 2/3 of the money we “send to Ukraine” ends up in the pockets of consultants and special interests in the US that don’t include building weapons (or replacing them in US units and inventories), shipping them, or training Ukrainians to use them.

And what better way to avoid that accounting than to hold yet another ongoing witchhunt against “badthink?”

A good defense is a good defense

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was established to “review the national security implications of trade and economic ties between the United States and the People’s Republic of China”.

Last week they held a day-long hearing with eleven witnesses on “China’s Activities and Influence in South and Central Asia.” Topics included China’s Interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan, China’s Reach in Central Asia, China’s Influence in Continental South Asia, and Competing Visions for the Indian Ocean.

As part of the latter, Christopher K. Colley outlined China’s naval goals, especially as they apply to the Indian Ocean, saying “the American navy is the driving force behind China’s security concerns in the IOR.” Written testimony is here.

The greatest structural change in the Chinese navy in terms of strategy and tactics is the transformation of a navy based on regional defense and access denial, to a force that is firmly inline with power projection and blue water capabilities. Such an evolution is a conscience decision by the top levels of the Chinese government to build a navy that has the ability to project sustained and meaningful power to locations thousands of miles from Chinese home ports. This transformation is one of the most critical developments in the security architecture of the Twenty-First Century.

Last week, before a full committee hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Adm Gilday, Chief of Naval Operation, spoke about the growing strength of China’s navy. Written testimony is here.

Over the past two decades, the PRC has built a comprehensive sea-denial, anti-access system of sophisticated sensors and long-range precision weapons. Backed by a robust industrial base and the largest shipbuilding infrastructure in the world, the PRC has extensively modernized its military and tripled the size of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN). It is also building next-generation strategic missile submarines, erecting hundreds of new missile silos, and growing its cyber and space capabilities.

Under the cover of this anti-access umbrella, the PRC has embraced the use of “gray zone” activities to turn incremental gains into long-term strategic advantages. Using a multi-layered fleet of naval ships, maritime militia, and coast guard, the PRC is undermining international norms by staking illegal maritime claims, militarizing geographic features in the South and East China Seas, and intimidating its neighbors regarding offshore resources. Additionally, the PRC is extending its global reach with its Belt and Road Initiative—leveraging predatory lending practices, aggressive mercantilism backed, and hard military power—to access critical maritime terrain, ports, and waterways.

Given China’s increased strength, Adm Gilday also tried to explain why the US Navy planned to scrap nine warships, some less than three years old.

“I refuse to put an additional dollar against a system that would not be able to track a high-end submarine in today’s environment,” Gilday told the committee. He said the main reason for the early retirement was that the anti-submarine warfare system on the ships “did not work out technically.” The decommissioning of the ships would save the Navy approximately $391 million, according to the service’s proposed FY23 budget. But that recoups only a fraction of the cost of the nine littoral combat ships, which totaled about $3.2 billion.

The arcs of Chinese and US naval strengths are heading in the wrong directions. As Conrad Crane writes about here, America’s ability to fight a major conflict, let alone two at the same time, for the first time in a long time can be questioned. Part of Russia’s strategic mistake in going into Ukraine is it revealed how weak Russia’s military really is. How long before someone decides to test how strong the US is these days?

How Are You Going To Fight A Tank With An AR15?

Anyone but me notice the number of “progressives” that positively celebrated the Ukrainian government giving out selective-fire AKMs to literally everyone who showed up in the parking lot to get one? Including left-of-center members of the Ukrainian Parliament, who were positively lauded for excercising (what NPR would never, ever refer to as) their God-given right to defend their lives, their families, their community and their freedom itself?

Note to fellow amateurs: the Javelin or NLAW missile, or even the Molotov Cocktail, are only useful against the tank if you can get your people into position to shoot, or drop, them on the enemy. And that takes the lowly rifle.

An analysis – amateur, but factually solid – on the role of “irregulars”, the type of people the late and unlamented “Dog Gone” used to refer to as “fat white guys with guns”, on the war in Ukraine.

It’s long, but it’s worth a watch.

Greasing The Skids

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Congress has given Lesko Brandon the authority he requested, to enter into Lend Lease Agreements with Ukraine giving them any military weapons, supplies, materials and systems up to (but not including) weapons of mass destruction. Remind me – how’d we get sucked into World War II?

Joe Doakes

Joe is right.

But lend lease is also part of how we ended World War II, as well; giving someone else the material wherewithal to fight the part of the war we couldn’t.

I say this neither to agree nor disagree with the administrations action.

Trojan Footprint

Trojan Footprint, a Special Forces joint exercise, began this week. An annual exercise, this is the largest one to date.

Trojan Footprint (TFP) 22 is set to begin May 2 and conclude May 13, with U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) proactively working and training together with NATO allies and European partners across Southeastern Europe, the Baltics and the Black Sea Region to demonstrate their collective military readiness to deploy and respond to any crisis that may arise.

This year’s TFP includes more than 3,300 participants from 30 nations, doubling in size from the previous year and making it the largest SOCEUR exercise to date. Land, air, and sea operations for Trojan Footprint 22 will occur across Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

The two-week exercise also increases integration with conventional forces and will highlight the professional skillsets of land, air, and sea units to respond to hybrid threats through discreet theatre entry and exit. As an exercise in coalition building, TFP 22 is focused on cultivating trust and developing lasting relationships that will promote peace and stability throughout Europe.

As this tweet from US SOCEUR shows, it covers ground from the Baltic to the Med, a suspiciously united front facing neighbors to the east.


Our civilization may be crumbling, eaten away from within, but while we can still put an talented, determined, capable military in the field, we’re not done yet. Go get ’em.

Beleaguered

SCENE: Mitch BERG is standing in line at Kramarczuk’s Deli in Northeast Minneapolis, checking his email on his phone as he waits for an order. Distracted, he doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE walking in the door.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Aaaaah, sssssschto Novovo, Aver…

LIBRELLE: Why are you here?

BERG: I’ve been coming here for 30-plus years.

LIBRELLE: What? You support the right of a beleaguered people who are surrounded on three sides by an authoritarian regime who has tried to murder them all in the past, who’ve launched yet another campaign of terror, and is carrying on a plucky campaign of resistance against overwhelming odds, tapping immense civil spirit to fight back against an authoritarian invader who vows genocide against them?

BERG: You’re referring to Israel?

LIBRELLE: (Mouth flaps open like a trout)

CLERK: (To BERG). Order up. (Puts wrapped sausage on counter. Turns to LIBRELLE). Er, your order sir…er, ma…(Looks at BERG, in a visible panic. BERG shrugs.)

LIBRELLE: (Mouth continues to flap)

BERG: Have a great day.

(BERG walks out. And SCENE).

Lies

Joe Doakes from Como park emails:

One of the most frustrating things about the Ukraine situation is sorting truth from lies, made harder ever-changing lies.

For example, Russia initially claimed it was invading because the US secretly funded bio-weapons research labs in Ukraine, a charge the US hotly denied as Russian propaganda. Until Saturday, when the US admitted it secretly funded bio-weapons research labs in Ukraine but they were not Offensive bio-weapons, only Defensive bio-weapons, so plainly Russia’s claims were mere propaganda.

For another example, Russia claimed it was invading to ‘de-Nazify’ the break-away provinces of eastern Ukraine, a charge the Ukrainians hotly denied as Russian propaganda. Until Saturday, when President Zelenskyy was asked about the Azov Battalion being Nazi-affiliated and shooting Russian prisoners, and he admitted “they are what they are” and justified their actions because they were defending Ukraine, so plainly Russia’s claims were mere propaganda.

The lies keep changing but not on Russia’s side. Doesn’t prove the invasion is legally or morally justified but it justifies asking hard questions of the liars. What else are they lying about?

Joe Doakes

The fact that the Azov Battalion was of European far right white supremacists sympathy was an open secret. The fact that they’ve been in action for eight years, and have been pressed into service by an initially fairly desperate Ukrainian military, is not a huge surprise, unfortunate as the fact is.

It’s also been, if not an open secret, at least not a complete shock that the US farmed out a lot of less savory activities – including CIA “black sites“ for interrogating terrorist suspects Dash to Eastern Europe, taking advantage of the lax or nonexistent laws on the subject.

Both are certainly moral defects that are easily turned into pretexts by even less above board regimes.Or at least that’s what it smells like to me…

Paper Tigers

Joe Doakes from Como park emails:

Richard Fernandez writes an uncomfortable column about Ukraine, and the United States.

Joe Doakes

As with pretty much everything Fernandez has ever written, it’s worth a read; in this case, a pull quote:

In a counterfactual world where the Russian president agreed with this site and continued to feint, where NATO was still in awe of the supposedly unstoppable Russian army and Putin still hitting Biden up for nickels and dimes to keep him from unleashing it, the Kremlin might still be the capital of a great power. But it would be no more substantial than a fleet-in-being that is nine-tenths shadow and one part solid is; a thing powerful only in narrative. For in truth, Russia fell a long time ago with its crashing demography; its uncompetitive, oligarch-ridden industries; its incompetent autocratic leadership. Ukraine was a mirror into which Putin dared look when a man of his mien ought not. But whether he looked or not he was ugly just the same.

If there’s any lesson in this for Washington, it must be to ask: how much of America’s power is a myth, like Russia’s? Dare we collapse the wave function? If too much is spin, then put it not to the test, but keep on bluffing until the reality is restored. You can’t live in the narrative forever.

I’m going to suggest you read the whole thing anyway.

Foreign Relations

SCENE: Mitch BERG is at a coffee shop. He orders an egg souffle – the last one in the fridge. As the CASHIER is giving him the egg souffle, Avery LIBRELLE steps, unbeknownst to BERG, up into line behind.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Oh, fuuuuuuor criying out loud, how ya been…

LIBRELLE: President BIden is showing the value of having a season hand with decades of experience in foreign policy in control.

BERG: Uh…

LIBRELLE: (Ignoring BERG for the moment, speaking to the CASHIER) I’ll have one of the cheese and onion egg souffles).

CASHIER: I’m sorry, ma’…er, si…er (Looks at BERG, terrified. BERG shrugs shoulders) …uh, we are out. We just sold the last one.

LIBRELLE: (Looks at BERG). So you got the last egg souffle.

BERG: Yeah, sorry – they are apparently lo…

LIBRELLE: I wanted an egg souffle.

BERG: I know, right? They’re keto, and they’re…

LIBRELLE: We need to sort this out.

BERG: I mean, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan it this way.

LIBRELLE: We need to reach a negotiated settlement on this impasse.

BERG: I mean, I already have it. I paid for it, I’m about to eat it. What “negotiated settlement” did you have in mind?

LIBRELLE: Someone needs to remove you from this coffee shop, and leave me the egg souffle.

BERG: I find your terms unacceptable.

LIBRELLE: Perhaps you need to just disappear.

BERG: You’ve followed a bag negotiating strategy with an even worse one, one that might be chargeable as assault.

LIBRELLE: It was just a harmless ad lib from my internal monologue.

BERG: Sort of like our putative President’s negotiating style.

LIBRELLE: Hey. That was a Biden joke. And you should talk; your Saint Ronald did the same thing when he told the Soviets to tear down the wall.

BERG: Calling for real estate improvements aren’t the same as asking someone to disappear the leader.

LIBRELLE: What are we going to do about the souffle?

(BERG takes a big bite).

LIBRELLE: Fascist!

BERG: (Muffled, with souffle in his mouth) Naturally.

And SCENE.

In Retrospect

Former secretary-general of NATO Anders Rasmussen notes the grievous mistakes NATO made in the late 2000s on his watch w/r/t Putin and Russia.

When I took office in 2009, I reached out to the Russians and told them it’s one of my priorities to develop such a strategic partnership, despite the fact that one year earlier they had attacked Georgia. So we have done a lot. But maybe Putin misread our thoughts and I think [that a] lesson learned from history is that appeasement with dictators does not lead to peace, it leads to war and conflict.

I mean, when it comes to learning lessons, better late than never.

And it’d seem some traditionally neutral countries are learning from others mistakes:

NATO is prepared to welcome both Finland and Sweden. I would say an application from Finland and Sweden could be approved more or less overnight. And let me add to this: I think it would be in the self-interest of Finland and Sweden to join NATO right now. Because now they have a window of opportunity. Putin is engaged [somewhere else], so that window might soon close again.

So it’s right now that Finland and Sweden should use the opportunity to join NATO. And that would send an extremely important signal to Putin, and

And it appears that, after three decades of lukewarm pragmatism that followed four decades of treaty-mandates neutrality, public opinion in Finland is turning toward joining as well (you’re on you own for the translation).

Counterintuitive

Problem: Oil prices spiking due to world events.

2008: Turn to domestic oil production, making parts of the US that hadn’t seen any unseemly prosperity, ever, like my native North Dakota, pretty darn well-off, bringing down fuel and natural gas prices, making the US functionally independent for energy, and spreading prosperity.

2020 Dumbass Solution: Keep US production shut down, go hat in hand to Iran and Venezuela for more oil, keeping Americans straitened and the world less stable. And blame the peasants for not being woke and upper-middle-class enough.

Problem 2: Ukraine needs more hardware.

Commonsense 2020 solution: Poland, who wants to upgrade its fleet of fighters with modern American designs, wants to give the Ukrainians their Cold War-era Mig 29s – the plane that is the backbone of the currennt Ukrainian air force. Just as they are talking about giving the Ukrainiains their old T90 and T72 tanks, since they‘re tradiing up to US-surplus M1 Abrams.

Dumbass 2022 Solution: Vacillate, and demur.

Conclusions:

  1. Biden is working for our enemies
  2. Some other conclusion that, honestly, I can’t think of at the moment.