Posted on 11/23/2022 10:02:55 AM PST by elpadre
If Russia was a terrorist state they would have waited a month to shut down the grid.
“Kiev in complete darkness as power outages continue across entirety of Ukraine following Russian strikes.
ll 3 Ukrainian nuclear power plants forced to make EMERGENCY shutdown, they will be back in operation when energy systems are repaired - Ukrainian state energy giant”
https://twitter.com/dana916/status/1595444943614627842
https://twitter.com/rangerholton/status/1595490173944487938?s=20&t=7f-JpcC1NIi0ISpvigHV2Q
This was less than an hour ago in Kiev. Lights are on.
Whew, that certainly good news yeah.
Cause the link that had pictures I gave was from 3 hours ago and it was dark as in lights out....
What has been happening this month is just the preparatory efforts on Russia’s part. What is coming next will be the “demilitarization” that Russia has outlined as one of the goals of SMO. The Russian critics have erroneously come to believe that Russia has failed. A wake-up call is on the way...:-(
On a recent podcast, Scott Ritter answers a question
“Well now we have people who say we want to do this with Ukraine. Well right off the bat I want to tell you any time we deal with Russia, let’s put it this way, you can’t solve a problem unless you have properly defined the problem. Any time we are dealing with Russia we need to understand that the United States and our NATO allies don’t understand Russia. We don’t have an accurate assessment of Russia. We’ve under estimated them in some areas and over estimated them in other areas. I’ll give you an example...the Special Military Operation.
Mark Milley briefed Congress that Kiev would fall within 72 hrs. The director of the CIA made a similar assessment. His belief was that Ukraine would collapse in less than a week. Guess who else made that assessment? Me. Why? Because anyone who knows anything about the Russian way of fighting a war would have said that if the Russians come in even with 200,000 troops they come in doctrinally and they smother everything with fire power and overwhelm you with mass and slaughter everything there is nothing the Ukrainians can do to stand up to that.
But, Russia didn’t come in that way. Why? Because see we’re mirror imaging ourselves on Russia. We’re acting as if we are fighting the Iraqis whom we don’t identify with. Therefore we are capable of dehumanizing them to the extent that we have no problem with steamrolling over their troops and killing tens of thousands of them. And afterwards we will have the nightmares and the PTSD and the value of what we have done with hit home. But, at the time they are just ragheads, we’re killing the ragheads and kids, civilians....shame on you for being alive. Boom, boom, boom, we’ll roll through you and we’ll do what we need to do.
But, the Russians are coming in saying “these are our brothers.” See we don’t understand that. We don’t understand the concept of Slavic cultural unity, the identity that during the time of the Soviet Union they literally were brothers; that they fought side by side against NAZI Germany....27 million shared casualties. They have a shared culture, shared history, shared everything. So the Russians don’t want to come in and steamroll. They were trying to do something different, a softer approach and because we don’t understand Russia we misunderstood their softer approach as a sign of weakness. We interpreted it as weakness. At first we said, “Oh, they’re going to steamroll” and when they didn’t steamroll we said, “Gosh, that’s cuz they’re weak; they suck.”
So then we step up and think now we can simply reinforce Ukraine and Russia is going to fold. We don’t understand anything about Russia. The Russians will never fold. I am not saying they are invincible, they are not, but they are willing to step up. It’s like if I wanted to play football. Juan you and I are going to play a football game next year and you know you get your team ready. So you get your team ready and I get my team. And your team if lighting weights all day long, running wind sprints, getting ready running plays. My team is sitting in the bar drinking beer and talking about how good we are. And when we show up on the field your team is going to wipe me off the field because you’ve actually prepared. It may take you time to prepare. Your guys may not be in as good a shape at the beginning but my lifting weights and running you’re there.
The Russians are lifting weights and running. They’re preparing. They are ready for this. We’ve been sitting in the back drinking beer fighting insurgents for twenty years. We think that because we can kick down the door in an Iraqi village we’re somehow superman. We think because we can bomb and Afghan wedding party “God, we’re really good.” But, we’re not; we’re not that good. We’re not; we are a bunch of beer drinking slobs in a bar thinking we can play a football game without actually preparing to play the game. The Russians meanwhile may not be as good as we are in terms of their potential but they are lifting weights every single day; they’re running...they are ready to play. That’s what’s happening right now. The Russians have never given up on this; they are doubling down while we have sat here and we’ve burned up all our resources in fruitless attempts to build this Ukrainian army the Russians have been mobilizing. While we are sitting here talk, talk, talking they are training right now. You’re familiar with the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California where the army does it’s force on force training...big stuff. Well that’s what the Russians are doing right now. We just don’t follow it in the Western media. But, they’ve got 10 to 15 divisions going through the final preparatory training of getting combat certified.
What are we doing? Nothing; but the other day we sent the 101 airborne division to Romania and everyone’s like “Oh my God the hundred and first.” 4,700 guys, light infantry men on helicopters. We’re going to what? Fly into the most heavily defended air space in the world? We’ve lost our brains. The fact is that NATO has nothing that can take on the Russians.
Look, we thought that we could intimidate Russia just by imposing sanctions. We belittled Russia calling them a gas station disguised as a country. But, if you are going to call your opponent a “gas station disguised as a country” don’t be the car on a freeway in the middle of nowhere with an empty gas tank because that is what happened here. The Russians know energy security better than we do. They know it better than anybody. We thought we could do something but we didn’t define the problem properly. Therefore the solution we were trying to impose...sanctions...backfired. It’s not Russia that is going through an energy crisis right now...its Europe, its the United States. And we made the same mistake on the military. We concluded weakness when it is actually strength. The Russian approach isn’t a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength. It’s the Russian way of doing things and if you studied Russia you would have known that but we don’t have anybody who does that because we don’t respect Russia anymore. We treat them as they are this little nation and we are insulted that they dare stand up and demand a seat at the table. And what we find is that, you know, we are treating them like children and they are actually adults and they are adults who do the job better than we do. So the reason why people did what they did and do what they do is a combination of arrogance and hubris and ignorance on our part and we totally failed to understand. Sun Tzu said “Know your enemy as you know yourself.” We don’t know our enemy. We know nothing about the Russians. We pretend to, we call it Russophobia. And the way we deal with Russia is say “Russia” and go “Putin...Putin did this, Putin did that.” That’s our response to everything. And if that’s your response it means you are ignorant and you are never going to solve any problems.”
“...The Wall Street Journal just told me this morning the Russians were running out of ammunition and weaponry. ..”
They are getting their information from the CIA, military intelligence and CNN all of who have become grossly incompetent and political in the last five or six years.
“..Just order new transformers...”
- there was a story a few days ago that the transformers were Russian and there was no place other than Russia to replace them.
The world must soon make a choice: go nuclear, go fossil fuel or go Biden.
I don’t think even Las Vegas would bet on Ukraine to win.
If Putin is a terrorist, what do you call Biden?
It is not only the Ukes that suffer cold. The folks in New England have the same problem but lack fuel oil because of Biden (no one else) Biden and the RATs are the acute and present danger to the US.
“...folks in New England have the same problem ...”
There is an oil refinery (It was a Hess Oil refinery) in St. Croix, USVI, which was closed earlier this year because they couldn’t meet new EPA regulations.
Their product was fuel oil for New England.
I’m pretty sure that’s a representation of somebody pissing themselves and crying their eyes out.
Am I correct?
“And now we know Russia really is a terrorist regime.”
If that is true of Russia now, it was true of the USA in the previous 5-8 conflicts we were engaged in.
Do you believe the USA is a terrorist regime?
It’s conceivable.
Stupid assed Uke supporters and all neocons would do well to read post #14.
All of them. Toilet scum all.
Ignore freeandfreezing and other pro-Ukraine war posters.
They are the most un-informed bunch anywhere.
They ignore our $31,000,00,000,000 national debt.
They want to get us involved in more foreign wars WITH MORE BORROWED MONEY.
They ignore dragging USA into a totally UNNECESSARY Nuclear war.
They have no clue how destructive Horoshima & Nagasaki nukes were, and those were small potatoes compared to nukes of today.
I detest these thoughtless and ignorent neocons.
Most very large transformers are made to order. They are limited as an off the shelf item. So there are many companies that can make replacements. Just need the specs you are trying to meet.
That's OK, I pity and detest people who due to fear or cowardice, or a desire to promote some US specific policy goals choose to ally themselves with an evil tyrant who has launched a campaign of terror, murder, rape, theft and destruction against another nation and its people.
Not liking excess spending by our government is a strange reason to support a government which is our sworn enemy and seeks our destruction.
Supporting Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion keeps us out of the war that will result if Russia's desires to expand are not checked.
Your fear of nuclear war has you paralyzed with fear. That mindset of cowardice is just what nuclear armed tyrants want to see. You'll surrender to a threat from Kim Jong-un, of Iran in a few years.
The only risk of nuclear war is Putin getting crazier than he already is.
But caving in to nuclear blackmail and not protecting Ukraine, which voluntarily gave up the worlds 3rd largest nuclear arsenal, will inevitably lead to every nation getting nuclear weapons. And then your fear will become a reality.
Did you get that list in the talking points handed out today by your bosses in the Russian state propaganda office?
You sound like a butt hurt Russian. Is your borscht cold today?
You need a better source of talking points. There is plenty of fuel oil here in New England, and we are toasty warm.
By contrast the citizens of Crimea have to hope that Ukraine is not a cruel as Russia or they will be spending the winter in the dark with no heat.
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