Let’s have a war!

[KUTradition]

not only is Ukraine full of nazis, but it’s apparently a front for isis now too

[ousdahl]

You guys are the ones posting it, not me.

But, color me intrigued!

[ousdahl]

France is said to be circulating a United Nations Security Council draft resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and recognition of a Palestinian state, Channel 12 reports.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ ... %20reports.

[jfish26]

March 29, 2024

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.c ... dium=email

On Wednesday the nonprofit, nonpartisan Institute for the Study of War published a long essay explaining that Russia’s only strategy for success in Ukraine is to win the disinformation war in which it is engaged. While the piece by Nataliya Bugayova and Frederick W. Kagan, with Katryna Stepanenko, focused on Russia’s war against Ukraine, the point it makes about Russia’s information operation against Western countries applies more widely.

The authors note that the countries allied behind Ukraine dwarf Russia, with relative gross domestic products of $63 trillion and $1.9 trillion, respectively, while those countries allied with Russia are not mobilizing to help Russian president Vladimir Putin. Russia cannot defeat Ukraine or the West, they write, if the West mobilizes its resources.

This means that the strategy that matters most for the Kremlin is not the military strategy, but rather the spread of disinformation that causes the West to back away and allow Russia to win. That disinformation operation echoes the Russian practice of getting a population to believe in a false reality so that voters will cast their ballots for the party of oligarchs. In this case, in addition to seeding the idea that Ukraine cannot win and that the Russian invasion was justified, the Kremlin is exploiting divisions already roiling U.S. politics.

It is, for example, playing on the American opposition to sending our troops to fight “forever” wars, a dislike ingrained in the population since the Vietnam War. But the U.S. is not fighting in Ukraine. Ukrainians are asking only for money and matériel, and their war is not a proxy war—they are fighting for their own reasons—although their victory could well prevent U.S. engagement elsewhere in the future. The Kremlin is also playing on the idea that aid to Ukraine is too expensive as the U.S. faces large budget deficits, but the U.S. contribution to Ukraine’s war effort in 2023 was less than 0.5% of the defense budget.

Russian propaganda is also changing key Western concepts of war, suggesting, for example, that Ukrainian surrender will bring peace when, in fact, the end of fighting will simply take away Ukrainians’ ability to protect themselves against Russian violence. The authors note that Russia is using Americans’ regard for peace, life, American interests, freedom of debate, and responsible foreign relations against the U.S.

The authors’ argument parallels that of political observers in the U.S. and elsewhere: Russian actors have amplified the power of a relatively small, aggressive country by leveraging disinformation.

The European Union will hold parliamentary elections in June, and on Wednesday the Czech government sanctioned a news site called Voice of Europe, saying it was part of a pro-Russian propaganda operation. It also sanctioned the man running the site, Artyom Marchevsky, as well as Putin ally Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch, saying Medvedchuk was running a “Russian influence operation” through Voice of Europe.

The far right has been rising in Europe, and Nicholas Vinocur, Pieter Haeck, and Eddy Wax of Politico noted that “Voice of Europe’s YouTube page throws up a parade of EU lawmakers, many of them belonging to far-right, Euroskeptic parties, who line up to bash the Green Deal, predict the Union’s imminent collapse, or attack Ukraine.”

Belgian security services were in on the investigation, and on Thursday, Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo added that Russian operatives had paid European Union lawmakers to parrot Russian propaganda. Intelligence sources told Czech media that Voice of Europe paid politicians from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Poland to influence the upcoming E.U. elections. Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper said the money was paid in cash or cryptocurrency.

Czech prime minister Petr Fiala wrote on social media: “We have uncovered a pro-Russian network that was developing an operation to spread Russian influence and undermine security across Europe.” "This shows how great the risk of foreign influence is," Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte told journalists. "It's a threat to our democracy, to our free elections, to our freedom of speech, to everything."

There are reasons to think the same disinformation process is underway in the United States. Not only do MAGA Republicans, including House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), parrot Russian talking points about Ukraine, but Russian disinformation has also been a key part of the House Republicans’ attempt to impeach President Joe Biden.

Republicans spent months touting Alexander Smirnov’s allegation that Biden had accepted foreign bribes, with Representative James Comer (R-KY) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) calling his evidence “verifiable” and “valuable.” In February the Department of Justice indicted Smirnov for creating a false record, days before revealing that he was in close contact with “Russian intelligence agencies” and was “actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections.”

On March 19, former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas testified about the investigation into Biden’s alleged corruption before the House Oversight Committee at the request of the Democrats. Parnas was part of the attempt to create dirt on Biden before the 2020 election, and he explained how the process worked.

“The only information ever pushed about the Bidens and Ukraine has come from Russia and Russian agents,” Parnas said, and was part of “a much larger plan for Russia to crush Ukraine by infiltrating the United States.” Politicians and right-wing media figures, including then-representative Devin Nunes (R-CA), Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), The Hill reporter John Solomon, Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity, and other FNC hosts, knew the narrative was false, Parnas said, even as they echoed it. He suggested that they were permitting “Russia to use our government for malicious purposes, and to reward selfish people with ill-gotten gains.”

The attempt to create a false reality—whether by foreign operatives or homegrown ones—seems increasingly obvious in perceptions of the 2024 election.

[Sparko]

Russia lost its modern army and Air Force in 2022. It then started throwing human waves at Ukraine to give the illusion of limitless resources and doubled down on its paid operatives in Europe and the GOP to give them the victory they could not win in their brutal invasion. Do not listen to the MTGs. Follow the money.

[KUTradition]

here’s an imperfect but interesting analogy:

the US is to France, as Ukraine is to the US, as russia is to GB

[ousdahl]

I'd be curious to hear you expand on that analogy.

[KUTradition]

#history

[ousdahl]

imperfect but interesting, I guess.

[KUTradition]

do you really think i give two shits about your thoughts on this matter?

[ousdahl]

You sound like you’re holding a grudge, trad.

I encourage you to avoid doing so.

[KUTradition]

that hurts, bro

[ousdahl]

Sigh.

[ousdahl]

https://x.com/nbcsnl/status/17742850422 ... 8ZiR9WCcTg

“God, please stop the suffering. Stop the violence. Please free the people of Palestine, please.”

(cheers and applause)

[KUTradition]

https://www.axios.com/2024/04/01/truman ... nniversary#

[ousdahl]

“There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know."

[ousdahl]

Thought experiment:

If Iran bombed an Israeli embassy (in, say, the United States…)


Is that allowed?


https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/worl ... bassy.html

[ousdahl]

WASHINGTON, April 3 (Reuters) - Celebrity chef Jose Andres told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that an…attack that killed seven of his food aid workers…had targeted them "systematically, car by car."

Speaking in a video interview, Andres said the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity group he founded had clear communication with the…military, which he said knew his aid workers' movements.

"This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped the bomb in the wrong place," Andres said. "Even if we were not in coordination with the (redacted), no democratic country and no military can be targeting civilians and humanitarians."

Australian, British and American citizens were among seven World Central Kitchen aid workers killed when their convoy was hit shortly after they oversaw the unloading of 100 tons of food

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-04-03/

[ousdahl]

….aaand right on cue:


https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/04/01/poli ... ets-israel

Another $18 bil!

[Overlander]

15 billion is sales?
Biden is gonna take salesman of the quarter.

At least, until Trump names himself Supreme Salesman of the Century.