US Erection 12 *AND* 16 *AND* 20 *AND* 22 *AND* 24 *AND* Beyond

[Megaterio Llamas]

Andrei Martyanov's contacts in Moscow tell him that the US and Russia already have arrived at an agreement but they're keeping it quiet for now. Interesting, Andrei is very plugged in.

Andrei is always a great listen btw


https://youtu.be/WE5ZpLi6DhE?si=4OB350TPx8qF9cfb

[Blob Mckenzie]

Store their bitcoin in Fort Knox ... what was I saying the other day?

https://x.com/davidsacks47/status/1896246273143161295

Probably grumbling about Swine Nechropheliac filling you in again. We chased him away for you

[Per]

Andrei Martyanov's contacts in Moscow tell him that the US and Russia already have arrived at an agreement but they're keeping it quiet for now.

As I said, it reeks of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, where Hitler and Stalin secretly divided Europe between them.

[Megaterio Llamas]

Andrei Martyanov's contacts in Moscow tell him that the US and Russia already have arrived at an agreement but they're keeping it quiet for now.

As I said, it reeks of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, where Hitler and Stalin secretly divided Europe between them.

A lot of people are talking about Yalta as well. But you bring up an interesting one too Per.

[Per]

Andrei Martyanov's contacts in Moscow tell him that the US and Russia already have arrived at an agreement but they're keeping it quiet for now.

As I said, it reeks of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, where Hitler and Stalin secretly divided Europe between them.

A lot of people are talking about Yalta as well. But you bring up an interesting one too Per.

Well Yalta was morally questionable as well, condemning more than 100 million East Europeans to 46 years of servitude and hardship under Russian dictators.

Roosevelt's generous terms to Stalin, followed quite quickly by the start of the Cold War under Roosevelt's Vice President and successor, Harry Truman meant that Yalta was often seen in a bad light in American public opinion, particularly among most shades of Republicans and more Conservative Democrats in the South and West as well as by many ethnic Americans with links to Eastern Europe. When Eisenhower was elected as President on the Republican ticket there were hopes that Yalta would be repudiated by the new Administration and the newly Republican Senate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference

I'm beginning to think that General Patton was right; should have kept the tanks rolling toward Moscow.

[rikster]

Andrei Martyanov's contacts in Moscow tell him that the US and Russia already have arrived at an agreement but they're keeping it quiet for now. Interesting, Andrei is very plugged in.

Andrei is always a great listen btw


https://youtu.be/WE5ZpLi6DhE?si=4OB350TPx8qF9cfb

When a Russian accent starts his podcast by calling the Ukrainian President a clown, not sure I put much stock into anything he has to say even though I did say earlier the Oval Office stunt was just a step to a deal...

Regarding GDP's and companies profiting off war, it begins in Europe which has to really p*ss off Trump...https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/03/business ... index.html

My prediction taken out of my rear end is that Trump is raging in anger right now seeing all of this commerce taking place in Europe when it was in his hands until his advisors and Vance took it away with the Oval Office stunt...

He is desperate to create a legacy by ending the war and he is about to take an axe to social programs in order to make his tax bill permanent ...

Trump needs Trillions to fund his desired spending, DOGE which was set up to find waste and abuse is finding very little waste and abuse, rather it is just taking a wrecking ball to the Federal Government in a desperate bid to find Trump the money he needs, meanwhile the job numbers are tanking and inflation is starting to get away on them....

I called Trudeau vs PP a race between dumb and dumber, maybe the race between Biden who we now know was unable to mentally function the last years of his Presidency and Trump should be called the dumbest vs even dumber....

[Per]

Yeah, I know we're not talking about health care, but I just stumbled upon this picture that really makes that saying "a picture says more than a thousand words" come to mind. All the countries in this chart have publicly funded health care, except one. Can you guess which one it is?

[5thhorseman]

The one that has an obesity epidemic.

[Cornuck]

Just to add to the sidestep here.... <rant>

When I see a specialist for quick check up each year, I actually have to pay 3 times.
I pay before I can see the doctor ($100 'down payment')
I pay after I see the doctor (the "balance")
I pay the remainder that is mailed out a couple of weeks later.

Each time, I offer to pay it all at the beginning and am told it's not possible. Imagine this going on throughout the system, and how much just a simple thing like this adds to the cost of "healthcare" down here. </rant>

[UWSaint]

I haven't been around to comment since Zelenskyy's oval office visit.

A few observations:

* Two things can be true at once: Zelenskyy can be a dick and so can Trump/Vance. Those with TDS on the board miss the former; MAGA misses the latter. The reason the former is so important is that peace is in Zelenskyy's interest, existentially so. Or at least it is in the Ukrainian people's interest, if polls are to be believed -- and facts on the ground (conscripting 40 year olds now?)). Ukraine's second interest is some kind of American presence in the Ukraine after the war. Why? To deter a future invasion. They don't *need* the USA per se, but surely it is the greatest deterrent. So the issue isn't who was the biggest dick, but "did Zelenskyy advance his nation's interest in this meeting? I think the answer is a resounding no.

* Nor did Trump advance US interests in this matter, though these interests are not existential to the US. He wants peace for at least three reasons in no particular order: (1) to end human suffering where ongoing war has next to no chance of victory and is unlikely to improve terms for peace); (2) vanity; and (3) to begin normalizing relations with Russia in the hopes of opening markets and decreasing potential Russian economic dependency on China.

* What happened? Mostly, it was the kind of discussion that happens behind closed doors occurring in front of the media, because Zelenskyy wanted it to. This began when he said, in effect, "you can't negotiate with Russia." He seemed intent on getting the President of the United States to condemn Putin in front of the cameras -- both in terms of not being a suitable negotiation partner and as the aggressor in a war. Its a stunt, the same kind of stunt as the UN resolution last week.

* Here's the thing: under the realist (as opposed to idealist) foreign policy that US administration is pursuing, no one is fully trusted. Ever. This includes Putin, Zelenskyy, Europe. You assume all nations are operating in their self-interest, that these interests do not permanently overlap, and that sometimes another country's self-interest to deceive you or buy time. To be sure, not all leaders are equally untrustworthy, but every time you negotiate peace with a hostile enemy who has attacked you, you are dealing with an untrustworthy person. And yet, history is full of negotiated peace after one-sided aggression. (There are also examples of unconditional peace -- Ukraine isn't getting that here. Its awfully odd that so many in Europe are stuck in 1938 and apparently ignorant of both the different context here and other historical analogs that didn't turn out like 1939-45).

* Has anyone here ever won an argument with your spouse through the criticism of your spouse's conduct that led to the argument? How about an argument with the wifey when all she does is criticizes your conduct? Does that usually yield positive results? It makes all the sense in the world (to me) for a realist to not engage in moral preening when trying to achieve an end to war. I know the war is not just, but total victory isn't a viable option. Leaning into Putin serves no clear purpose pother than a kind of self-absorbed virtue signal in this context. It also has the downside of completely blinding those on the morally "better" side of this war into thinking they are spotless victims of Russian aggression. Again, many things can be true at once: Russia is the bad guy, the west is not without blame, and Ukraine is far from a saintly place. (In fact, the day the war broke out, I remember sharing with a colleague -- great, the two most corrupt countries in Europe are in a war. Time to support the second worse....)

* Zelenskyy also misread the room -- press or no press -- in failing to express gratitude to the United States. The situation is this: the American people don't want to fund the war anymore, and they are lead by a President who doesn't want to endlessly fund the war. He doesn't seem to understand that he isn't doing stuff for us, that all his "needs" are not our needs, and that he is entitled to nothing. It wasn't just the lack of gratitude, it was the audacious claim that Ukraine had "gone it alone." Again, I don't make this comment because I felt one way or another about it for the US, and this isn't new to Zelenskyy. But it is that this is elementary stuff in foreign relations (or personal relations!), and failing to engage in this elementary stuff decreases markedly the chance you will obtain your goals.

* Not saying thank you is one thing, but man it was *quite* off the rails once Zelenskyy said the United States would feel the wrath of Russia but for our geographic positioning. To be sure, the United States *does* enjoy a geographic buffer that Ukraine does not. But what makes the United States less exposed to Russian aggression is that it has the greatest military in the world (which includes dominion over the seas). The US is not a superpower by virtue of geography alone, or even primarily. The US is not *lucky*, it has committed gobs and gobs of resources to be in this position, for better or worse. Of course the United States is still concerned about Russia (and China), and it explores ways (Greenland, Panama) to further improve its position. Which of course, has the world up in arms. But the world is up in arms because many leaders don't connect the dots and live in a fantasy world. Stopping a war happens well before the final meeting before bullets fly.

* Per's long post with all the quotes of European leaders was fascinating to me. I can't believe how many felt compelled to say "Russia's the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim." It isn't that this statement is categorically wrong, it is that it is both categorical and, while I hate the word, woke. The world is made up of aggressors and victims, the former are bad, the latter are virtuous. That mindset is fully incapable of having two ideas in their head at once, fully incapable of nuance, and fully incapable of achieving an unjust peace to an unjust war. It is a worldview that cannot coexist with "hold your nose" compromise. My view? War is evil, war is *rarely* between the purely good on one side and the purely evil on the other, and that once you are in the world of "better and worse," there are absolutely limits to what is required for peace. You don't kill every man to achieve victory, or lose every man so as to not negotiate when behind (or when the war is stale).

* One possible outcomes to the Zelenskyy-Trump meeting might very well be that Europe steps into the shoes of the United States to supplant the aid the United States has provided. I'm not sure how well Europe can double its aid -- but if it does, this is not antagonistic to the United States' interests. One of the main foreign policy initiatives in Trump's first term was for Europe to increase its defense capabilities and spending. And what Europe will do (if they continue to fund the war to stalemate (or the slow erosion of Ukraine -- until it is not slow)), is deplete its existing stock and buy new shiny people killing stuff for its own militaries. (This is how Ukrainian funding was also sold to the American people in 2022).

* Having said all of what I've said, if Europe is serious about this, I wonder whether promises were made to Zelenskyy before the meeting at the White House. That would partly explain Zelenskyy's behavior, which is otherwise difficult to square with achieving a national interest. In that world, it isn't so much that Zelenskyy made a mistake in Washington, its that the room he was reading was Europe, not the Oval Office, and he was well aware that Europeans were sore over Munich and that the gestalt is, perhaps for the first time since the Cold War, that Europe must be responsible for its security with or without the United States. Zelenskyy gave them a new opportunity to condemn Russia, to rally to his aid (the United States' price was too high). Its a high stakes play, but it makes some sense from his perspective.

*Whether it makes sense for the Europeans to do this is a harder question. On the one hand, Russia poses a much greater threat. On the other, it is very much unclear to me whether the people want that or will want that for long. Europe's economy failed to recover after Covid like the United States' economy, it largely has the same deficit spending issues (some nations better, some worse) than the United States, and I just don't know how long the political will can last.

[Per]

Found this on line:

In June of 1941, Hitler's Army began a rampage through Ukraine, razing towns, unleashing death squads, and massacring Jews by the hundreds of thousands. In one village, four Jewish brothers enlisted in the military, said goodbye to their parents, and walked off to fight the Nazis.

By the war's end in 1945, only one of the brothers, named Semyon, was still alive. He returned to find that the Nazis had torched his entire village, burning his parents to death. Semyon's family was dead, and his beloved Ukraine was in ruins. The Nazis had murdered between 1.2 and 1.6 million Ukrainian Jews.

Semyon married a fellow Ukrainian Jew who had survived the war by fleeing her city, in which the Nazis had killed 5,000 Jews. Two years later, in that same city, they had a son, Oleksandr, keeping alive the family line that the Nazis had brought a razor's width from extinction. Thirty-one years after that, Oleksandr had his own little boy.

That boy was Volodymyr Zelensky, who grew up to become the President of independent, democratic Ukraine. Today, he leads his outmanned, outgunned, ferociously defiant nation against the onslaught of Russia. As Russia dashes itself against the will of his people, Zelensky, the survivor of survivors, summons the resilience of his ancestors. He does not bend.

Kind of ironic that the Russian state run media (and its American parrots) keep referring to him as a nazi…

[Per]

* Per's long post with all the quotes of European leaders was fascinating to me. I can't believe how many felt compelled to say "Russia's the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim." It isn't that this statement is categorically wrong, it is that it is both categorical and, while I hate the word, woke. The world is made up of aggressors and victims, the former are bad, the latter are virtuous. That mindset is fully incapable of having two ideas in their head at once, fully incapable of nuance, and fully incapable of achieving an unjust peace to an unjust war. It is a worldview that cannot coexist with "hold your nose" compromise. My view? War is evil, war is *rarely* between the purely good on one side and the purely evil on the other, and that once you are in the world of "better and worse," there are absolutely limits to what is required for peace. You don't kill every man to achieve victory, or lose every man so as to not negotiate when behind (or when the war is stale).

Well, most Western Democracies still want to hold on to the rules based world order. The UN Charter and the Geneva Convention both declare that wars of aggression are illegal. They also ban territorial expansion through annexing another nation’s territory. If we do not stand up for the UN Charter and the Geneva Convention any longer, then all that is left is anarchy.

According to international law, this is a clear cut case. No gray areas. 93 nations condemned the Russian invasion at the UN last week and demanded that Russia withdraws its troops from Ukraine.

Russia has committed a war crime by invading Ukrainian territory. That they have formally annexed parts of Ukraine constitutes yet another war crime. The rape, torture and execution of civilians are also war crimes. The execution of prisoners of war is yet another war crime. The bombing of civilian targets, such as hospitals, churches, shopping centres, schools and railway stations are yet another war crime. The systemic kidnapping of Ukrainian children, who are brought to Russia and adopted by Russian families actually qualifies as genocide. And Putin has been bragging about that programme!

Now, the starting points for a negotiated peace should therefore be be that Russia pulls out of Ukraine, that the borders from 1991 are upheld, that Ukraine has full independence and sovereignty restored, that the kidnapped children are returned to their families, that those responsible for the war crimes are turned over to the ICC for prosecution and that Russia pays war damages.

Now, I fully understand that in the peace negotiations you may have to make compromises.
But I do not understand why you would give up any of these basic rights, that Ukraine has according to international law, before negotiations even begin.

And the majority of world leaders seem to feel the same way.

I get that dictators like Putin have no respect for the law, but it would be nice if the so called ”leader of the free world” at least pretended to be on the side of western democracy and rule of law. At least as a starting point.

From what we have heard it seems that Trump is ready to give Putin everything he asks for and throw Ukraine under the bus.
That would set a terrible precedent. It would open a can of worms that will make the world explode.
That would create a world that very few Europeans would want to live in.

So yes, an unjust peace can be worse than an unjust war. As long as Putin is stuck in Ukraine he can’t invade anyone else. And Russia’s economy is strained to the limit. The war effort now accounts for 40% of their GDP. That is not sustainable. If we stand by Ukraine, eventually Putin will be forced to accept peace on terms that are more acceptable or, as the discontent spreads in Russia, he may accidentally fall out of a window.

If we hand him a victory, he will soon be on his way either launching a new attack on Ukraine, or invading some other country.
He has to be defeated in the eyes of his people. That is the only path to a lasting peace.

You have to realize, Putin doesn’t want peace. He wants a timeout.

[Chef Boi RD]

Justifying the actions of the Oval Office “hosts” is like justifying the actions of hosts - Norman Bates or Annie Wilkes (Misery) but I get the apologists, what they are doing - they are in damage control regarding their problem child.

[Megaterio Llamas]

[Chef Boi RD]

Is that what they call “Victim Blaming”? Like blaming the pregnant rape victim when she wants an abortion?