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686

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Posts posted by 686

  1. Any guesses as to what China’s “peace plan” might look like? It will be interesting to see them try to wade into brokering this thing and likely faceplant. No way Ukraine agrees to any territory concessions now when it looks like the tide is getting ready to turn and they’ve got a couple hundred NATO MBTs, IFVs, etc etc on the way.

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  2. 34 countries want the IOC to ban Russia and Belarus athletes: “we do not agree that Russian and Belarusian athletes should be allowed back into competition”. The games are a big deal in Dictatorships, and we need to stick together on this. Many Ukrainian Olympic caliber athletes are likely dead now (I think I saw some obits for a few). Why in the fuck the IOC thinks letting the Russian and Belorussians compete in this scenario is unconscionable and the IOC needs their collective clock cleaned. I’m going to go ahead and say the quiet part out loud: Europe and the US are the only reason the games exist and are I’m sure the biggest revenue generators. The IOC needs to get that straight and stop catering to 3rd world countries and pissing us off.



    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statement-on-russias-war-on-ukraine-and-international-sport/statement-on-russias-war-on-ukraine-and-international-sport
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  3. I know we’ve talked about this, but I think it’s important to note—  Seymour Hersh said up front that he’s publishing on substack because he is tired of dealing with mechanisms like fact-checkers, editors, and journalistic ethics. Many, many people are nodding along and agreeing that doing so makes him more credible than real journalists. 

    He’s a nut, but until some governmental entity publishes any substantive findings and formal accusations, conspiracy theories will continue to circulate. Unless there is a reckoning in the Kremlin at some point, we may never know. In reading up on this stuff more, it seems like Russia has probably done this before:

    “two explosions on the Mozdok–Tbilisi natural gas pipeline in North Ossetia on January 22, 2006. The explosions suspended gas supply to Georgia at a time when the weather was particularly cold, leading to allegations of deliberate energy blackmail carried out by the Russian government

    The explosions took place with the backdrop of the 2006 Russia-Ukraine gas crisis that same month. They also coincided with sabotage on electricity lines just several miles from the pipeline, which descended large parts of Georgia into darkness. Due to these suspicious coincidences, Georgia accused Russia of conducting deliberate acts of sabotage with the aim of forcing the nation into surrendering its pipelines to Gazprom – the Russian state-owned monopoly.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_energy_crisis
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  4. Hersh is definitely “out there” and his theory is questionable because he has only one anonymous source, etc. But it is interesting to me that: there is still no official word on who blew up the pipelines; it took skill that only a few actors could pull off; the winners and losers as a result of the action are pretty clear; whoever gave the “go-ahead” was either very confident they wouldn’t get caught / didn’t care / has very high risk tolerance.

    I think those are reasons a lot of folks (myself included) think it’s very unlikely the US did it: we’re bad at keeping secrets and it would probably get leaked; Russia (and Germany?) would demand and be owed compensation; political fallout very risky; etc. That’s why Russia was such a likely actor (its their infrastructure, they can keep secrets, Putin has no fear even if it does come out). Only problem is it’s a little hard to define how Russia benefitted from them being blown up.

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