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DC shifts to damage control as Ukraine defense fades
asiatimes.com ^ | June 14, 2022 | Uwe Parpart and David P. Goldman

Posted on 06/13/2022 7:16:29 PM PDT by elpadre

Having made multiple declarations that Russia would cease to be a world power after the Ukraine war, President Biden and his top officials are now focused on damage control – warning Ukraine through proxies that it will have to sacrifice territory for a ceasefire.

Speaking at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Los Angeles, Biden blamed Volodymyr Zelensky for allegedly not heeding American warnings about a Russian invasion:

And, folks, nothing like this has happened since World War Two. I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating, but I knew — and we had data to sustain — he was going to go in, off the border. There was no doubt. And Zelenskyy didn’t want to hear it, nor did a lot of people. Understanding why they didn’t want to hear it. But he went in.

Ukrainian officials angrily disputed Biden’s version of events, but the cat was out of the bag.

That’s a turnabout from April 25, when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declared in Kyiv that the United States wanted to destroy Russia’s capacity to undertake wars on this scale: “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine. So it has already lost a lot of military capability. And a lot of its troops, quite frankly. And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”

A month earlier, Biden had tweeted, “The Russian economy is on track to be cut in half. It was ranked the 11th biggest economy in the world before this invasion — and soon, it will not even rank among the top 20.”

(Excerpt) Read more at asiatimes.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 10percent4thebigguy; anotherneoconfail; bidencartel; bidencrimefamily; bidensbuttboys; communism; damagecontrol; graft; kickbacks; neocons4biden; putinsbuttboys; russia; sovietunion; ukraine; ukraineislosing; wheredidthemoneygo; zelenskypuffers; zelenskysbuttboys; zelenskyworshippers; zotsoviettrolls; zotthezelenskybots
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To: freeandfreezing

“The United States and NATO, obviously. The Russians will run through all their inventory and be left with nothing to defend themselves from China or anybody else who wants to fight with them.”

Yep, the Necons have been saying that for:

1 Week
2 Weeks
3 Weeks
4 Weeks
5 Weeks
6 Weeks
7 Weeks
8 Weeks
9 Weeks
10 Weeks
11 Weeks
12 Weeks
13 Weeks
14 Weeks
15 Weeks

By the way, Russia doesn’t need to fight China, as the Neocons don’t run China.


21 posted on 06/13/2022 8:41:45 PM PDT by BobL (My hatred of Necons/Globalists exceeds my love of Ukraine or any other country, other than the US)
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To: BobL

In the mid 80’s I worked on a project where the uUSA bought bullet painting machines from France, I had to rewire them and program the Texas Instruments PLC that the Army specified , then we had to run 100,000 rounds of dummy 5.56 through the machine three times to show reliability. Then we had to prove we had the 100,000 dummy rounds and that none were in the machine. The machine painted the tips to show what type of round was being processed, and then this feed into the feeder machine for a belt linking machine, This was about time the saw was being introduced. It was then shipped to Salt Lake City. Must have worked, never heard anything about it after that.


22 posted on 06/13/2022 8:56:04 PM PDT by Waverunner (I'd like to welcome our new overlords, say hello to my little friend)
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To: Waverunner

Good story, but I can’t say that I can fully follow it!


23 posted on 06/13/2022 9:03:23 PM PDT by BobL (My hatred of Necons/Globalists exceeds my love of Ukraine or any other country, other than the US)
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To: elpadre
#2. Kissinger and Minsk II were a dead end after the invasion started. The recent calls for and talk about peace are really hollow. It is really easy to call for peace, when it is safe and there is no risk for it.

Notice that the calls for peace grew loud after the after the political alliances and aid were set. This was after 40 countries committed to back Ukraine and the weapons shipments picked up. This makes it really cheap talk from my point of view.

24 posted on 06/13/2022 9:05:44 PM PDT by Widget Jr (Disobey your television.)
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1.) The Jimmy Dore Show, 6/11/22

Ukraine Should Admit Defeat NOW! Says Top U.S Military Leader

https://youtu.be/A9bnFWmHggk

2.) Ukraine forces outgunned up to 40 to one by Russian forces, intelligence report reveals (6/9/22)

https://news.yahoo.com/intelligence-report-reveals-ukraine-forces-174236886.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

3.) Ukraine is running out of ammunition as prospects dim on the battlefield (6/12/22)

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4070605/posts

4.) Cases of desertion are growing among Ukrainian forces suffering significant losses in Russia’s artillery onslaught, report says (6/11/22)

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-troops-deserting-russias-artillery-onslaught-takes-toll-report-says-2022-6

5.) ‘They’re Wiping Us From Earth’: Evading Russian Artillery With a Ukrainian Military Unit (6/12/22)

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/ukrainian-military-unit-russia-artillery-1365021/


25 posted on 06/13/2022 9:26:27 PM PDT by Its All Over Except ...
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To: BobL

I worked on 3 of these machines, made by MATRA on France, the bullets came in loose, had to be picked up by a large wheel, painted the selected color ( black for AP, Red for tracer etc.. then fed in at the prescribed rate to the linking machine feeder ie 1 in 5, 4 in 5, then were linked into belt) Just mentioned it to show that someone has to actually make the ammo, and you can’t make it on one machine as fast as one gun shoots it, much less a whole war’s worth using JIT, or Not Just In Time as I called it. No one in the government has a clue as to all the pieces to get a factory built, much less manage it productively ( except maybe the people at oak ridge, I give them a pass because they seemed to understand that changes would have to be made to get the results they wanted, and were willing to listen)


26 posted on 06/13/2022 9:38:07 PM PDT by Waverunner (I'd like to welcome our new overlords, say hello to my little friend)
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To: virgil
$40 billion and more. Where did all that money go?

10% for the Big Guy...

27 posted on 06/13/2022 10:06:37 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Allegra
It was Laundry Day.

🤣

28 posted on 06/13/2022 10:07:30 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Tupelo

Agree


29 posted on 06/13/2022 10:11:26 PM PDT by antceecee
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To: virgil
$40 billion and more. Where did all that money go?

You'd probably need a spreadsheet to map out the parties who got a piece of that action.

30 posted on 06/13/2022 10:58:26 PM PDT by Charles Martel (Progressives are the crab grass in the lawn of life.)
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To: elpadre

Where is the punishment for all the “reporters,” defense dept spokespeople and “sources” the flat-out lied to us for the last 3 months?


31 posted on 06/13/2022 11:05:00 PM PDT by Fido969 (45 is Superman! )
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To: Waverunner

Thanks, that makes much more sense.


32 posted on 06/14/2022 12:38:56 AM PDT by BobL (My hatred of Necons/Globalists exceeds my love of Ukraine or any other country, other than the US)
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To: elpadre

I’m not to concerned about any other country because this one needs some serious fixing... We get our own shxt in order then we’ll see.


33 posted on 06/14/2022 4:21:14 AM PDT by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: elpadre

We sabotaged the Lisbon Agreement in 1992:


“On 18 March 1992, all three sides signed the agreement; Alija Izetbegović for the Bosniaks, Radovan Karadžić for the Bosnian Serbs and Mate Boban for the Bosnian Croats. On 28 March 1992, after a meeting with US ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann in Sarajevo, Izetbegović withdrew his signature and declared his opposition to any division of Bosnia. What was said and by whom remains unclear. Warren Zimmermann denied that he told Izetbegović that if he withdrew his signature, the United States would grant recognition to Bosnia as an independent state. What is indisputable is that on the same day Izetbegović withdrew his signature and renounced the agreement.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_plans_proposed_before_and_during_the_Bosnian_War#Carrington%E2%80%93Cutileiro_plan


Under Clinton’s Dayton Accords of 1995, the Bosnian Muslims got slightly *less* territory than under Lisbon. There had been a few other peace plans floated between Lisbon and Dayton, but the US always objected the Bosnian Muslims did not get enough map. I’ll never forget the look on Izetbegovic’s face at Dayton. All that death and destruction, only to end up with less.

In 1999 we sabotaged the Rambouillet Agreement (Kosovo) when the odious Madcow Albright whipped out Annex B after the FR Yugoslavia delegation was about to sign off on it:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23607665

No sovereign nation could possibly agree to such a thing. As you can read, Annex B called for NATO military occupation of the entire FRY, not just Kosovo.

For some reason, we no longer cared about Annex B after bombing the daylights out of Serbia for 78 days, as the Kumanovo Agreement was very much the same as Rambouillet, but minus that pesky Annex B.

So, twice before we have sabotaged peace agreements, and both times it became clear those wars may* not have been necessary. But nobody cared. Except the bereaved, the maimed, the refugees, those who were left to live in ruin.

*There’s a good possibility Lisbon would not have prevented bloodshed altogether, but at least would have provided an agreed-upon framework for ceasefires and peacekeeping.


34 posted on 06/14/2022 6:32:26 AM PDT by CatHerd (Whoever said "All's fair in love and war" probably <p>never participated in either.)
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To: BobL
By the way, Russia doesn’t need to fight China...

Good thing because so far Russia and its military haven't been able to defeat a small country that was not considered to be a serious military power at all.

Russia has shown the weakness of their nation. China and other nations will take advantage of that in the future.

35 posted on 06/14/2022 8:32:41 AM PDT by freeandfreezing
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To: freeandfreezing; BobL; Mariner; Travis McGee
Good thing because so far Russia and its military haven't been able to defeat a small country that was not considered to be a serious military power at all.

Where are people getting this?

After the Crimean annexation in 2014, Ukraine souped up their military capacity to the point where they had the second largest army in Europe, with only Russia exceeding theirs. They'd also gotten a bunch of equipment from NATO countries in the interim as well, notwithstanding the clandestine (and sometimes out in the open) support in terms of training from other countries like America or Great Britain.

This is also notwithstanding the fact that we've gotten used to bombastic aerial bombardments to reduce the enemy to proverbial rubble before moving in with quick speed to take control of enemy positions.

Russia's military strategy is altogether different, conforming to an entirely different model: namely, artillery, artillery, and more artillery. Piecemeal territorial gains, followed by encircling opposing forces into a cauldron or a pocket of land; those who do not surrender within a given timeframe are then shelled without end.

(Also, Ukraine is not a "small" country; in terms of total square mileage, the country is about 42% larger than California. Similarly, the territory currently controlled by Russia, IIRC, is larger than England and Wales put together.)

36 posted on 06/14/2022 10:22:20 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007 (There is nothing new under the sun.)
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To: Ultra Sonic 007

Looking for a citation on “the second largest army in Europe”.

I will find it handy.


37 posted on 06/14/2022 10:29:37 AM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Mariner
Besides figures reported by their own Ministry of Defense in 2021 (which does not include reservists, only active duty), you also have statistics tabulated by the World Bank from various sources.

As of 2019, after the Russian Federation, the next European country listed is Italy at 342,000, followed by Ukraine at 311,000. However, Italy's Armed Forces also include their gendarmerie, i.e. police with military powers; as such, it's not a straight apples-to-apples comparison, as the Italian military police is comprised over 100,000 officers, which is more manpower than even their army!

By 2022, even in spite of this categorical difference, I think Ukraine lapped Italy if you consider the presence of military reserves as well.

Although the numbers will vary by some thousands depending on the source, my overall point was that the pretensions to Ukraine being a "small and militarily weak" country were simply not true.

Right now, the big problem is logistics: Russia has gotten to the point where they're able to cycle in and swap out soldiers on the front lines on a semi-regular basis. Ukraine, as far as I'm aware, doesn't have that luxury at the moment.

38 posted on 06/14/2022 10:51:58 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007 (There is nothing new under the sun.)
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To: Mariner
Here's another dataset, whose figures are ultimately sourced to the 2019-2021 volume of "The Military Balance" published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
39 posted on 06/14/2022 10:55:39 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007 (There is nothing new under the sun.)
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To: elpadre

So much for our 40 billion. Here today, Gone tomorrow.


40 posted on 06/14/2022 10:57:44 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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