reply to Hermit 62.
Re Korea.
The US continued the bioweapon programs set up by the Japanese with horrific effect in addition to the slaughter you described. The bioweapon program was horrible.
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-long-suppressed-korean-war-report-on-u-s-use-of-biological-weapons-released-at-last-20d83f5cee54

Posted by: Bonami | Oct 13 2022 20:35 utc | 103

@Blissex 80
The Skripal Affair was beyond ridiculous (See my contemporaneous image https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tCqUsDYIL6P98PMTEYD9H0MhHDtxiJrx and read the back label), but I would suggest that the turning-point came earlier, with the muzzling and threatened reprisals against staff and owners of the Guardian over the publication of a smattering of the trove of information provided by Snowden.

Posted by: Hermit | Oct 13 2022 20:36 utc | 105

@ Blissex | Oct 13 2022 19:38 utc | 75
One of the most incredible demographic developments in the world is happening in South Korea. … Their birthrate has dropped to a suicidal 0.81 children per woman (perhaps the lowest in the world). At this rate, within 30 years the country will become an inverted pyramid on the verge of historical collapse.
Therefore, regardless of Japan or the US, Korea will be forced to reunite. … The Koreans certainly do not care what Japan thinks, and correspondingly would like to stick it in their eye with a unified Korea. … Korean people are very aware of the US’s role in keeping them divided. They know that this is at the behest of Japan. Japan fears the competition from a reunited Korea.
The Hermit Kingdom has stayed very isolated for millennia. It’s gene pool is one of the most pure in the world. … As a Caucasian, I can easily pick out Koreans as opposed to other Asians. They are distinct. … They even devised their own ‘digital’ alphabet under King Sejeong. That was so different from other Asian alphabets. … One can see that only Koreans can truly understand Koreans.

Posted by: Mummer | Oct 13 2022 20:38 utc | 107

@karlof1 40
I hope I do not misunderstand your point. M*A*S*H the US television program had as a central theme an abhorrence of war. Killing of any kind was never celebrated in the show. If it was propaganda, it was anti-war propaganda.

Posted by: catbonez | Oct 13 2022 20:40 utc | 109

William Gruff@68
Following the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) formula; we must ever bear in mind the simple reality that SK is an occupied country in the same light as are Germany and Japan.
How to dissolve this problem? Collapse of the U$$A economy and perhaps dissolution of the feral regime will ensure that occupation forces will one way or another be obliged to evacuate those premises one way or another.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 13 2022 20:45 utc | 111

Hermit | Oct 13 2022 20:36 utc | 105
When they raided the Guardian offices and took away their computers – after they were returned the Guardian changed. I assume they found enough compromat to keep them in line going forward.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Oct 13 2022 20:49 utc | 113

@rk #87,

Hey shitoda, only Ukr shelled hospitals and ambulances. Now get lost , you’re too drunk today/BLOCKQUOTE>
Adding an insult to a lie doesn’t turn the lie true:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interactive/ap-russia-war-crimes-ukraine/?facets=%7CMedical+Facility%7C
But back to my question. Why are you advocating that Russia commit war crimes? Attacking military hospitals is explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Convention, for very obvious reasons. Any sane person with a functional moral compass recognizes that as a sick and evil act. So what exactly is wrong with you? If it’s mental illness I’m happy to let it rest, everyone has their struggles. But if it’s a “win at all costs” attitude and you think Russia just needs some “wunderwarcrime” to turn the tide, well then you are just a depraved and vile person.

Posted by: Yenwoda | Oct 13 2022 20:56 utc | 115

Closing the block quote tag…

Posted by: Yenwoda | Oct 13 2022 20:58 utc | 117

@Rob | Oct 13 2022 20:51 utc | 114
I accept sociopath or psychopath. He is such an incredibly false opportunist, he will say anything. He actually marketed himself as anti NATO in the 80’s, to the degree that he publicly said Norway should leave NATO. It is clear he meant none of it, it was just opportune to say it at the time. After that he has sold the false climate scare, he was as close as you can get to the 2011 killings of 60 of his young party members etc. Today he is serving foreign evils just like Vidkun Quisling. May he rot in hell.

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 13 2022 21:07 utc | 119

The purpose of the talk about “nuclear annihilation” is to scare the western populace, and especially the germans,
Posted by: Blissex | Oct 13 2022 20:33 utc | 102
It does feel like every Western government has ruled by fear since the start of this decade.

Posted by: ZX | Oct 13 2022 21:13 utc | 121

It is very difficult to understand the gigantic mess of cultures and ethnicities in Central and Southern Europe without fully getting that hundreds of thousands of people could move around for thousands of km almost unopposed.
Posted by: Blissex | Oct 13 2022 19:16 utc | 65
Thank you for your post. Interesting. Do you know of a good book which lays out the tribal history of Europe?

Posted by: Scorpion | Oct 13 2022 21:20 utc | 123

Gen Betrayus failed to ignite a sectarian war in Iraq after the two sides learnt self- control over their emotional reaction to US – planted sectarian bombs.
He’s still there trying to incite emotions by lying about Russia threatening to use nukes. Mr Putin reminded his audience that the positioning of nuclear missiles around his country was a continuous nuclear threat to Russia and that this was completely intolerable.
Thecwonks in Washington and London immediately accused President Putin of threatening to use nukes in Ukraine.
Cluster B Betrayus cannot resist the chance to rake up the flames of war through divide and rule and lies. He is probably the snake who devised the plan to set Ukrainian nazis against Russia in the first place.
Good to see you, cluster B, your mission Iraq completely failed.

Posted by: Giyane | Oct 13 2022 21:23 utc | 125

Is it so complicated to understand?
The RF has no intention to use nuclear bombs. Why? Because the RF has artillery nuclear weapons, in the order of 30,000,000 shells, each 3-4 kT: 120 cm x 20 cm. The effect is 40 times a Kaliber in Joules, but
no more people around in 3-4 km^2 , and in 3-4 months. 98 % clean. In 6 months you can check the ground and it is clean.
That’s what the RF is not using at all. And the RF never will use these weapons, because to do this the RF has reached to a conclusion that neither of you can imagine. It’s not the case..
A salute

Posted by: Peio | Oct 13 2022 21:38 utc | 127

I believe that Russia should publicly acknowledge that it is in a state of war with the United States – that the United States has enacted and undeclared war against Russia and that Russia will respond appropriately as it determines necessary and at the moment of it choice to do so. It may not wait for further provocation. Avoidance of open and unlimited warfare becomes increasingly unlikely. It did not wish for war with the Ukraine nor with the US but it will act decisively in manner of self protection. It remain receptive to genuine initiatives to resolve the issues but will not hesitate to proceed in response to circumstances as they are and as are developing.
By being more frank in representing position they may interrupt was has become an incremental slide toward unavoidable larger conflict.

Posted by: jared | Oct 13 2022 21:45 utc | 129

catbonez @109
The American war on Korea was genocide. The TV comedy “M*A*S*H” whitewashed over America’s leading role in that genocide. The only way that show could be called anti-war is in depicting how some middle class Americans were all butthurt over having to be there. The show never even took a dishonest look at why America was there in the first place, much less an honest one.
Some Korean war “trivia”: There was a resistance movement in Korea fighting the Japanese occupation. When the Japanese were defeated this movement was the strongest domestic political organization in Korea, and the natural organization to create the new government. There was only one problem: In addition to being Korean patriots they were socialists.
There was no way that the US would allow them to form Korea’s new government, but there was nothing else to work with. Guess what America then decided to do? They kept the criminal fascist Japanese occupation government in place oppressing the local population while the US recruited its own fascist death squads from among those who collaborated with the Japanese and built a fascist dictatorship with them. At the head of this dictatorship was installed a Korean figurehead who had been groomed in the US for many years to take over (don’t tell me you never noticed how the colonial viceroys the US always installs around the world have been kept in storage at Harvard or George Washington University awaiting their chances to be America’s pet dictators in their homelands).
The US then unleashed their death squads who, with generous help from the US military, went on rampages slaughtering the very Korean patriots who had resisted the Japanese! This was years before 1950, and North Koreans (who have the most accurate accounting of the war today) include that systematic mass murder as part of the war. The narrative that you have heard that America’s war on Korea started in 1950 is a lie. As with the conflict in the Ukraine, the killing goes back years before the arbitrary demarcation line that American hagiographers draw in the history books to cast the Americans as innocent.
“M*A*S*H” dealt with none of this. Indeed, you rarely even ever saw any Koreans at all in that show. It might as well have been filmed in California.
Oh, wait…
The story would have changed little if the setting was a sheriff’s summer camp for reprobate frat boys serving a couple month terms for being assholes. It was a pro-war show for whitewashing the war and romanticizing it; sterilizing it.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 13 2022 21:52 utc | 131

@ jared | Oct 13 2022 21:45 utc | 128 and Bob Jenkins | Oct 13 2022 21:49 utc | 129 calling for more “public exposure” to the NATO behind Ukraine
The brainwashed will never believe and the skeptical already know. Besides that, what more than Putin and Lavrov speeches does one need?
Empire needs to be hoisted on its own petard and that is slowly occurring for all to see in spite of the propaganda to the contrary.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 13 2022 21:57 utc | 133

president of the German state of Thuringia , Bodo Ramelow states anti-sanction protests are the begining of a new facist movement. lolz. i will just double check with the unelected EU leaders first

Posted by: hankster | Oct 13 2022 21:59 utc | 135

Posted by: ZX | Oct 13 2022 21:13 utc | 121
“It does feel like every Western government has ruled by fear since the start of this decade.”
Pretty much, I mostly agree as to the timing and the tactic, with some qualifications, the main one is that it is less “governments have ruled” than “neoliberal parties have campaigned” using fear-based arguments.
The starting point was I think indeed around 10 years ago with the 2011 UK AV referendum, which was won by David Cameron with the so-called “Project Fear”: he campaigned against it, arguing it was too risky, too complex, and too expensive resulting in higher taxes.
The “Project Fear” approach became much stronger in the 2014 UK Scottish Independence referendum, where David Cameron again campaigned on the fear factor, with arguments like risky, house price crash, Scotland becoming a satellite of Putin or Xi.
The 2016 UK EU membership referendum campaign was run on almost purely “Project Fear” stories by *both* sides: “Leave” as “Fear the EUSSR tyranny, fear surrender to the ECJ”, and David Cameron for “Remain” as “Fear the economic collapse”, “Fear the house price crash”.
These UK examples were widely imitated by mostly neoliberal and conservative parties around “the west”.
There is a compelling logic about that “Project Fear” electoral campaigns: there has a growing block of older, affluent voters who have a high turn-out, and for many of them, who got theirs, life no longer has opportunities, only threats to their comfortable enjoyment of their affluence, and therefore their votes are hugely influenced by feelings of fear. Their basic principles are “fear everything” and consequently “I can never be too safe”, “safety at any cost to someone else”.

Posted by: Blissex | Oct 13 2022 22:13 utc | 137

We are talking about a forty years expired TV series? M*AS*H was about the Vietnam war and everyone knew that at the time. “Anti-war” was about the waste of American lives. Not one person in the production company and not one person at the network would have had a clue of the history recounted by Gruff @ 130. That there were larger issues than American lives was never a thought.
Once the Vietnam war had ended the show was only about the stock company of actors.

Posted by: oldhippie | Oct 13 2022 22:24 utc | 139

@aristodemos 26
The people of the USA have never had any say over the government. See my article on this topic at https://www.greanvillepost.com/2021/01/25/the-usa-is-an-oligarchy/.

Posted by: Hermit | Oct 13 2022 22:25 utc | 141

@Posted by: oldhippie | Oct 13 2022 22:24 utc | 138
MASH, Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket etc. all represented the window for US state criticism that opened up with the Vietnam failure, fully slammed shut during the 1980s (Reagan’s “morning in America”) and locked with the “unipolar moment”. Nothing so questioning of the US military would be allowed anywhere near funding and distribution these days, outside the small and shrinking space left for truths (like this site).
It was interesting that in the 2000’s we got “24 hours” glorifying the torture of individuals that had been shown to be happening at Abu Ghraib, the mass media was into justifying torture rather than criticizing it. Same with Homeland (very well produced show that I watched, I just have to put up with the jarring US propaganda repeatedly) which was very “woke” with a female “damaged” heroine. An attempt to get US women on board with illegal foreign drone murders and torture etc.? Anyone can easily add many more such US shows to the US military triumphalism (e.g. the woke Top Gun 2) and justification list.
Soap was also excellent in the 1980s, especially with one of the female leads having an affair with a “cool” left-wing guerrilla – can’t have that nowadays!

Posted by: Roger | Oct 13 2022 22:37 utc | 143

GoFast @ 79
Totally agree. Ukraine is a suicidal terrorist state Russia is trying to save from itself more or less unsuccessfully.
There is no reasoning with these people. (Ukrainian guy at work “we destroyed the Kerch bridge”. Me: “Actually it’s mostly operational again”. Him “Well, we will just keep hitting it then” etc.)
They are high on a neo-Nazi death cult and will bring down all of the West if they have to.

Posted by: Tom | Oct 13 2022 22:41 utc | 145

Roger @ 142
Very well said. Full agreement.

Posted by: oldhippie | Oct 13 2022 22:45 utc | 147

@Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 13 2022 21:52 utc | 130
More than correct on all points, just like the “Vietnam memorial” that doesn’t count any Vietnamese dead. The South Korean dictatorship killed over 200,000 activists prior to the war to put down the insurrection in the south. Then the US carpet bombed the north (literally ran out of targets, including the civilian dams) and spread biological warfare agents (e.g. anthrax) across it. The US state acts like a narcissist, only the impacts upon the US are important, everything else is irrelevant.
I think that China is helping North Korea develop and sustain itself, something that will pick up steam. The US will only let South Korea go over the dead bodies of millions of South Koreans – it is their armed camp next to China and a buttress between Japan and China. The Chinese and Russians are patient, slowly strangling/integrating the SK economy (the Chinese are already taking over the battery industry from SK) while its population shrinks and North Korea becomes more prosperous. The SK economy has never been the same after the IMF intervention during the Asia crisis, important firms purchased by the West, support for industrial development reduced, and overall economic growth never regaining its previous rate.
SK is a next two decades project for China and Russia, as Taiwan would be if the US was not poisoning relations in a very active manner. In two decades the West will be a still declining shit-hole that the Rest need to keep in a medicated status to avoid any crazy behaviour.

Posted by: Roger | Oct 13 2022 22:51 utc | 149

Jared@128
Wouldn’t it be more strategic for Russia NOT to directly declare they are at war with the U$$A? One alternative would be to so arm the Syrians and the Iranian-backed militias with enough rocketry that they could wipe out, or at least utterly demoralize the ones illegally occupying Syrian lands and stealing their oil and wheat.
Somewhat similarly to the U$$A and its various minions and satellites to arm Ukraine to the deaths of the last of their soldiers, but different in one important sense; would be to enable the duly elected government of Syria to liberate their own territories from the “usual suspect” invaders.
Should the U$$A spokespersons demur at their strategic setback and threaten to massively attack Syria, perhaps by way of the I$raeli tail which wags the Murrikkkan dog; it would then be the mission of Lavrov and other Russian (and perhaps Chinese) diplomats to quietly warn the potential perps that such incursions would invite a powerful hug by Mama Bear.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 13 2022 22:55 utc | 151

GREEN SKRIN ELENSKY.
Neologism.
I’m drunk.
sorry.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Oct 13 2022 23:08 utc | 153

Aristodemos posting
Gee, I no more than responded to Muthauker’s posting about McGregor being only a light colonel and compared his situation with that of one D.D. Eisenhower who held a similar rank on MacArthur’s staff and got promoted to full general by the machinations of a man descended from a major Charleston, S.C.figure in the Confederacy, but whose name I must not mention because that might lead to my session expiring.
On Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, those who are themselves the pigs, even though they abnegate their flesh, are always more equal than others.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 13 2022 23:12 utc | 155

Comandante: Txe Guevara:
Do you have a doubt?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mOjijV4jA0
Love or not love

Posted by: Peio | Oct 13 2022 23:23 utc | 157

@JessDTruth 149
Alan Alda was raised more Catholic than the current Pope. Some characters in M*A*S*H may have been something like, “Hey, us Muricans are all mostly just good guys” but a lot of ‘Muricans were depicted as the shitheads they were. The story is about a medical unit. Doctors and nurses and staff. Not about Marines storming the hill, killing the evil bad guys and saving kittens and babies. There was not any military glorification. It was more “We Love Up With People!” than “Yay!!! The American Military is Here! – Now We Are Safe!”. Watched every show as well, often on primetime TV. BTW, I don’t trust this Silverman guy. I will look into that.

Posted by: catbonez | Oct 13 2022 23:36 utc | 159

Thanks for those who followed up on my M*A*S*H comment. The responder shows why I try to educate via this site–it’s so very much needed by most of the masses. Despite being recent, the post-1945 Imperial Era is the least understood part of the USA’s history, excepting perhaps the years of initial plantation, 1600-1700 and the events shaping that Era–especially the English Civil War.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 13 2022 23:39 utc | 161

Posted by: unimperator | Oct 13 2022 23:47 utc | 161
“from either Ukraine, Poland or Belarus or all of them.”
meant Ukraine, Poland or Lithuania.

Posted by: unimperator | Oct 13 2022 23:49 utc | 163

Hermit@140
Thanks for sharing your Greanville Post sharing regarding the reality of America’s Oligarchy. A few additions, if I may. George Washington was one of the primary land-speculators in the colonies and latterly in the U.$. He was known by the Lenape people (known as the Delawares) as the “destroyer of villages”, as he sent federal troops up the Delaware valley to clean out the “savages” so that he and his cronies could reap in the profits via sales of the stolen lands.
You cited Shay’s Rebellion as a dying gasp of Revolutionary veterans who wanted to get their promised rewards for their services. Not long afterwards, the Feds also put down the Whiskey Rebellion of 1792. A powerful insight into that imposition of monopoly mercantile rule was written and sung by Bob Dylan in his memorable “Copper Kettle”. Please do check it out on U-Tube or some other site of your preference. Key line: “We ain’t paid no whiskey tax since Seventeen-Ninety-Two”.
It was my good fortune to meet the man whose photo was featured on two separate volumes by a pair of different authors, both of whom titled their books “The Cornbread Mafia”. John Boone (a lineal descendant) and a resident of Lebanon County, Kentucky, headed up a group of men who followed in the footsteps of their moonshining ancestors, but in a slightly altered manner. They all grew cannabis, with many of them being jailed and imprisoned by the “Revenuers” of the latter-day persuasion.
There was one brief exception to the total rule by the Oligarchs. Andy Jackson was a Scots-Irish rebel from the get-go. He was in many respects a true representative of the “demos” (We The People). He took down the Second Bank of the U.$. He fought off an attempted assassin (likely a hireling of a Rottenchild or perhaps Biddle minion). Jackson was politically discombobulated by the Panic of 1837, an event almost certainly engineered from City of London. To restore their position later that same year, the Rottenchild’s dispatched their open agent, August Belmont, (nee Schoenberg) to the U.S.
Somebody evidently whispered into the ears of Jackson’s hometown (Nashville) successor, James K. Polk, to make a name for himself while potentially adding to the Slave States; by making war on Mexico and invading Mexico City proper in 1846. That war of aggression (unnecessary in the sense that the U.$. could readily have taken control over the heritage colonies of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California which had been very lightly settled by Spanish colonists, but precious few Mexicans) without actually invading Mexico proper and imposing a peace from their very capitol city.
An early attempt to impose imperial conquest of Canada was fended off by a combination of British soldiers, Tory refugees and various Indian tribes (many of them from America’s Northwest Territories) in the War of 1812. That failed incursion was supplanted by the conquest of Mexico as this ruptured republic’s first major imperialist adventure.
Even as recently as 1941, the majority of the American people were resolutely anti-war until FDR engineered the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Again, the Oligarchy thesis you have proffered was once again substantiated.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 13 2022 23:53 utc | 165

The EU and NATO SG “mirrored” gibberish is identical to the previous recent POTUS and Pentagon gibberish which I believe I’ve already commented upon. It doesn’t matter how many fools they make repeat it.
As said as long as “the west” continues/maintains their escalations it can only be understood as gibberish, and only if “the west” deescalates (by actions as well as words) can it be interpreted as potentially being anything else —and again only potentially, it’s worth repeating that— …but they’re not doing anything remotely like deescalation.
· · ·
“Normalcy bias” is unlikely to survive the year.
· · ·
OT stuff about Korea: plenty of Koreans know full well what happened in South Korea, it is the theme or background or even the central plot in many good South Korean movies from the last decade.
Nobody in SK watches “good cop alibi” shit like Mash. “Anti-war” my ass.
· · ·
OT stuff about trolls: I see plenty but maybe I’m too harsh (nah) and they’re “simply” idiots (sure (sarcasm)).
· · ·
Sort of OT: Sputniknews has had some very good articles and some very important news lately, including arms from South Korea. Not going to link it, too much, just go read through the last week if interested.
France is looking increasingly volatile. There are strikes and then there are strikes, not all strikes are equal.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 13 2022 23:56 utc | 167

From Pepe Escobar:
https://www.unz.com/pescobar/the-thin-red-line-nato-cant-afford-to-lose-kabul-and-kiev/

“…the usual suspects continue to relentlessly spin their new nuclear “narrative”…the aim of the D.C. psycho killers…is to provoke Moscow into using tactical nuclear weapons in the battlefield.”

No, that is not the aim. The aim is to create an expectation that “Russia will use nuclear weapons” so that when – not if, when – NATO uses false flag nuclear weapons on its own Ukrainian puppets the blame can immediately be put on Russia. I have myself been warning that this will happen for months. People who swallowed the idea that Russia bombed its own pipelines will have no problem believing this too.

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Oct 14 2022 0:09 utc | 169

“…. even more likely, millions of Ukrainians escaping their towns once they figure out that the fuel supply has been more than halved as the RF was supplying it, and the electricity supply has mostly been taken out.
The situation is so dire that the Ukrainian government has been even asking NATO to supply winter clothing for the soldiers, as if hard winters had never happened before in Ukraine so they did not need to stock winter clothing.
Posted by: Blissex | Oct 13 2022 19:25 utc | 70
I think you make a good point Blissex (and by the way, I enjoyed your comment at #57), I have wondered about the situation for the “Ukrainians who live in the Nazi controlled areas of Ukraine.” If they wanted to stand up to Zelensky and demand an end to the NATO war, what would become of them? I am almost sure that they would be shot or arrested and never seen again should they organize demonstrations of any magnitude in the streets of Kiev, for example. The western MSM is quick to point out demonstrations in Russia or Iran, but nothing about demonstrations in western Ukraine. That could be because “everyone is happy with their present situation, but I doubt it. More likely, they are too afraid to even speak openly about their discontent. A very similar situation existed in Nazi Germany by the time WW2 started.
Since the people Ukrainian people under Ukraine Nazi control can’t speak with their voice, they will have no choice but to speak with their feet or die trying.

Posted by: Ed Nelson | Oct 14 2022 0:21 utc | 171

NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg: NATO condemns the “terrible and indiscriminate attacks” on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Let’s remind Stoltenberg what and how NATO behaved in Yugoslavia 1999
see good ref video via telegram /azmilitary11/24279
Regarding the “Klitschko Bridge” in Kiev (western news complained about this walk bridge/site as targeting civilians) , it is reported that the probable target was not the “Klitschko Bridge” itself, but the building of the European Union advisory assistance located nearby (underneath that visual camera shiot).
ref see via telegram intelslava/38759
and recently this is very well said, a keeper, I agree entirely.
Scorpion says:
I do not regard one side only as being all in the wrong and the other other side being all in the right. I think reading things that way is cognitively challenged, although emotionally appealing. We prefer certainty to doubt.
My interest is in trying to understand what is going on, both factually and otherwise – mental, spiritual, cultural etc.
Scorpion | Oct 10 2022 23:36 utc | 369

Posted by: SeanAU | Oct 14 2022 0:29 utc | 173

@128 Jared: re: Russia should objectively state that it is at war with the U.S.
a. Who that matters doesn’t know that a state of war exists?
b. It’s not at war with the U.S., anyway. It’s at war with intn’l capital that does, has, and will want to dismember Russia, China, Iran etc. in order to control resources and markets and extract max rents from those assets
c. Expressing an objective state of war increases the chances that hot-heads can push red buttons. And that is _not_ in anyone’s interest, and it’s surely not in Russia and China’s interest
The war will be prosecuted, by both sides, to the maximum of their ability and resources. So far, Russia and China are winning handily on the economic, political and even military aspects of the confrontation.
Why stir the pot, and provide further talking points for the deluded loud-mouths of U.S., UK and EU (current) leadership?
Read Sun Tzu again. He advises against direct confrontation, against humiliating the adversary, or in any way fanning the emotional flames. Same for Judo. Emotions and rage are verboten.
So why declare open warfare? All the key players at the intn’l level are absolutely, keenly aware of what’s afoot, and you can bet the back-channel comms among national leaders are positively melting the phone wires, they’re so intense.
They’re activated to level 9.96 on a scale of 0 to 10.
If anything, any “declaration of war” should be, as it already has by Russia and China, be framed as predator .vs. the weak. The declaration of that fact is yielding great benefits to the East/South.
Karlof1 and many others have provided legion examples and documents and position papers and speeches to affirm this strategy. And it is working, handsomely. The U.S. and UK and EU, as oligarch cats-paws, are almost boxed-in.
Russia just needs to do what it’s doing: consolidate Ukraine, concentrate on econ devel within Asia, cast the West as desperate bandits, and feed its people.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Oct 14 2022 0:31 utc | 175

@ aristodemos | Oct 13 2022 23:18 utc | 155
Know that ultimately, Korea will do what is best for Korea. … At some point that means jettisoning the US’s hegemony.
Russia and China will partner with them quite nicely.

Posted by: Mummer | Oct 14 2022 0:36 utc | 177

Posted by: Yenwoda | Oct 13 2022 20:00 utc | 83
Relax. They are probably just ruminating about US strikes on “Kanduz Hospital”, or on “Falluja Hospitals”. I understand US AC130s can really rip a place apart. Again the UN inquiry just faded away, as it always does…
Posted by: AParadiseLost | Oct 13 2022 21:52 utc | 131
This is especially true when the victims (patients and medical staff) have no aircover or protection as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Posted by: Ed Nelson | Oct 14 2022 0:54 utc | 179

It is smart to evacuate Kherson city of civilians because then when Russia flees across the river the Ukrainians can’t torture and murder the civilians of the area. Although, of course the Russians will never flee an area they can’t easily re-supply and from which the have stopped multiple counter-offensives dead in their tracks and are just slaughtering Ukrainians so badly that they almost stopped Ukraine from being able to shell Kherson city.

Posted by: Simon | Oct 14 2022 1:16 utc | 181

>>And while the UNHCR is no doubt an excellent bureaucratic data collector – its data specifically records only those people who have officially registered as refugees.
Not at all, their 7.6 million data is based on border crossings. The official ukr refugees are way less than the border crossings.
The numbers of ukrainians accepted by the US are low. Moreover, you made some other mistakes too – the regions Russia took are severely depopulated due to people fleeing the conflict, whether into Central and Western Ukraine or towards Europe. In Ukraine alone, there are 8 million *internally displaced people*, mostly from eastern regions. Most of Zaporozhie region population and part of Donetsk and Kherson regions population too is in Ukr hands. Etc.

Posted by: Passer by | Oct 14 2022 1:32 utc | 183

“Yes, and all too few understand the fact that the TV show M*A*S*H was propaganda like almost all TV shows related to the Empire’s wars”
Um, what? MASH was a socialist propaganda show that spit at Americans, and especially conservative Americans. The main character openly supported the North Koreans in later episodes, applauding news of them attacking the South.
The worst character was Frank Burns, who was a patriotic American who supported the war – and therefore was mean-spirited and racist. He was so evil that eventually they had to replace him with another character that took the same position, but who wasn’t quite as evil, as they had gone so far with the Burns character that they had no wiggle room left with him.
The Frank Burns character was a way to demonize those who supported the fight against the communist invasion, and demonize conservative Whites in general. Hilarious to claim that MASH was in favor of the war – that could only be said by someone who hasn’t even watched the show.
“The empire’s wars” Good one. Only dumb libertarians will lump in the wars against the communists with WWII and today’s wars. The wars against the communist invasions of South Korea and South Vietnam were done for conservative reasons. Speaking of WWII it was done by the Marxist Roosevelt and his … shall we say, not-white advisors, who wanted the Soviet Union to invade Europe. Roosevelt alone insisted the army go west into southern France from Italy, a heavily fortified area with no strategic value for the U.S. after Normandy, instead of going east to stop the Soviet invasion of the Balkans. It was deliberately done for the U.S. and Western Europe to lose the East to the Soviet commissars. Imperialist wars, sure.
Today’s wars are also done for the sake of the Tribe. Iran is targeted for being pro-Palestinian. Iraq, which was always a strongly loyal U.S. ally, was destroyed because Hussein gave money to the families of Palestinians who lost sons who fought the Israelis. The families have their homes bulldozered. Syria is targeted for being pro-Palestinian. Russia is targeted for being conservative, anti-homo, but above all for aiding Syria and Iran. There is no gain at all in this for Americans, who suffer economically. If U.S. leadership was “imperialist” they would actually, you know, take territory for an American empire. Instead they GIVE AWAY American territory to a flood of millions of immigrants.
“But the capitalist empire!”

Posted by: Tenet | Oct 14 2022 2:00 utc | 185

Interesting off-topic is flying higher than the deadly MIG-15bis. Oh well never mind.
Interestingly, all sub-titled Chinese Korean war movies rarely showed the Yankees as decent worthy enemies of note. The Yankee officers were virtual clones of one Lt-Colonel Custer.
The South Korean versions showed the true horrors quite openly.
In the west, the media follows their master’s propaganda directives faithfully to the bitter end. Quite literally.
Propaganda war fatigue is now prevalent in AmeriKa. Due to the Mid-Terms Daily TV BS. DJT is claiming all erections are rigged. All political aspirants keep missing the key point in this erection. MAGA is dead and buried! Long live the next DJT BS slogan!
In other news on the Russian Federation’s western front. Thousands of fresh replacement troops are streaming in on a daily basis. Belorussia inclusive. Poland is demanding/screaming at AmeriKa! Supply them with Nukes now!
To no one’s surprise, the combined Russian and local allies are fully using the terrain/air superiority/rivers to their full advantage. The “Krasnopol smart control glide shells and the ” KUB-BLA” drones. Are very effective indeed.
Sadly, the last resort manpower to use in the final country 404 counter-offensives. Are only untrained women and schoolchildren.

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Oct 14 2022 2:17 utc | 187

This is embarrassment for Russia
https://www.rt.com/russia/564632-belgorod-ammo-depot-fire/

Posted by: Andrew | Oct 14 2022 2:23 utc | 189

SeanAU | Oct 14 2022 0:21 utc | 171
+barflies intrigued at dissecting the Kerch Bridge bombing.
Is it the once ubiquitous crime scene CSI tv entertainment shows that now has everyone an obsessive internet sleuth?
I liken events such as Kerch as thinking 10 pieces from a 1000 piece jigsaw (and no illustration on the box) means you can solve the picture.
By holding views that have some understanding of why Russia embarked on the SMO (something I was sure would not happen) (pussyPutin won’t do shit/~8 years of inaction) I am denounced (family)(although I pretty much don’t engage in any discussion of convids, SMO, or anything 2degrees past banal).
By holding views that Russia was provoked…. Makes me a Putinpuppet, evidently.
When it comes to internet sleuthing of the Kerch bridge bombing, I see that as an entirely futile time waster.
Because I am actually not a Putinpuppet, I hold deeeep reservations about the rebranded KGB|FSB.
What’s on the telegrams and twitter is what has been made available…. which I consider about 10 pieces from a 1000 piece jigsaw.
What’s out there is what the FSB wants out there. It is what has not made it to the internet is what is needed to “solve” this “case”.
I think internet sleuths should avail themselves of the myriad internet sleuthing blogs and indulge themselves there.
And leave this humble blog to geopolitics…at which it excels.
——-
What we know about the bombing:
When…Putin’s birthday
Who: Ukraine (with probably intel assistance /Brits++)
Why: Remove (military) transport link to Crimea + Kherson
How: big boomdadeeboom
Result: Bridge damaged, but not destroyed. Limited curtailment of military and civilian use.
Response: Strategic bombing and disabling of transport and electrical systems across Ukraine. Removal of Ukraine as a supplier of electricity to EU.
Exactly *how* the Ukrainians made the boomdadeeboom on the bridge is intriguing for engineers, explosive experts and autists. Others, not so much.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Oct 14 2022 2:29 utc | 191

@Biswapriya Purkayast 168
Once nuclear devices are detonated, it will be irrelevant what people believe. Russia will know that it did not do it, that they are under nuclear attack and that they have to respond, even though they know that there response will end most life on earth.
The reality is that adults know there will not be survivors after detonation of around 100 medium sized devices over cities, and on a planet with tens of thousands of thermonuclear devices and the ability to produce many times that, many only a button push away from detonation, that this probably cannot be avoided.
Which makes faking responsibility for their detonation an utterly meaningless waste of effort.

Posted by: Hermit | Oct 14 2022 2:34 utc | 193

As bad as things in Ukraine are, I doubt NATO/Elensky can make it go full-Paraguay in terms of national suicide. Total state-breakdown would occur first.
What is the situation in Kherson? It looks like the AFU is stalled-out. So are is the RF clearing out civvies like Donetsk city, because the Ukrs are doing their good-ole ”lob shells & kill random people” routine?

Posted by: Urban Fox | Oct 14 2022 2:54 utc | 195

@hankster 185
Mark Twain wrote extensively on the US genocide of the Moro (for something short, but pithy, see https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/clemensmoromassacre.html. As we can see, the USA’s Imperium’s goals and methods have not changed.

Posted by: Hermit | Oct 14 2022 3:37 utc | 197

Posted by: Andrew | Oct 14 2022 2:23 utc | 188

This is embarrassment for Russia

Nobody cares when you’ve lived through this:
Best of drunk Boris Yeltsin!

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Oct 14 2022 4:14 utc | 199