It's not Russia, it's Putin

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Unseen wrote:

I ask who comes up if you follow the money? Now, the United States can come to the rescue by shipping LNG to Europe. For a fee, of course.We’ll probably even set up a handy dandy repayment plan. Once you ask who benefits, it doesn’t look like Russia.

That’s not unreasonable. I see other possibilities, but I’m not as ready to push them as beliefs. Ukraine might think it would profit from ensuring that Putin faces a more definite long term loss of income. (They weren’t going to get any of that fuel anyway.) I would be surprised if USA is responsible, unless USA (with the military explicitly favoring it) agrees that the blow to Russia/Putin favors Ukraine’s possible long term interest.

We could blame Biden for a possibly poorly worded threat that “there will be no Nord Stream 2 if Putin invades Ukraine” (my paraphrase), but that could also give Putin credibility to false flag the sabotage and point fingers at Biden… assuming Russia/Putin would not be likely to profit from deliveries for a long time, anyway. And it’s another way to claim that the west are the bad guys.

I’ve had some deep sea diving training, including underwater welding and demolition, and believe it wouldn’t require a large country’s resources to cause serious damage to pipelines. So there might even be other interested parties or energy rich countries involved. (At the moment, I’m not well informed here.) But I believe that blowing up pipelines at Baltic Sea depths isn’t rocket science, assuming one has enough of the right explosives, and remote video.

As for Fox opining on the matter, I see a whole lot more bias than journalism or evidence. It’s a rabbit hole I’m not willing to spend time on. This story needs more time to curate, and imo until then, it’s up-to-the-minute click bait and speculation.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Hey readers, I have an itch recently to post a lot of recent news and opinion here (on Putin’s aggressive and inhumane moves, even against his own people), but before you continue here, could you please take a look at Unseen’s post that imo isn’t getting the attention it deserves?

 

[PopeBeanieModerator]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Problem of Iran-made drones already being solved

Interesting. It took Ukrainian ingenuity to get those old SU-25s up and running, and they’re making a difference.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

My friend in Zaporizhzhia lives near the market that was attacked today. He sent me some photos and there are definitely more than 23 dead. There were no Ukrainian soldiers active in the area at the time, just civilians. His house was damaged at 5 am this morning, the 11th night in a row of Russians bombing civilians.

[jakelafortParticipant]

I still think a diplomatic solution ceding a small portion of Ukraine would have obviated the war. It also could have engendered cooperation and in turn set a precedent for handling similar affairs. The two sides had a natural point of cooperation in effectuating a massive migration within Ukraine so that ethnic and national sentiments align.

The horrific consequences have hardly been unforseeable. On the contrary quite predicable. The spectre of nucs is the latent omnipresent threat. The boogie man, the bad guy, villifying those evil Russian mofos. Are the Ukrainian citizens any better than the Russian? I can show you some history to suggest that the parents/grand parents were not. When will we stop the juvenile castigation of entire groups of people. Humans are pretty much the same wherever you go. I will say that those subject to authoritarian regimes and or religious regimes/cultures are perhaps more subject to being controlled and having those influences elicit viciousness.

It is really lousy all of the victims who live far away and never even knew the name Ukraine-poor people in poor countries suffering while flag-waving hawks celebrate the Ukranian David v Goliath go fuck yourself invader sentiment. Is it a wise course that has been taken? Is this more of the march of folly towards human extinction. I think clearly it is the latter.

[UnseenParticipant]

PopeBeanie wrote:

I’ve had some deep sea diving training, including underwater welding and demolition, and believe it wouldn’t require a large country’s resources to cause serious damage to pipelines. So there might even be other interested parties or energy rich countries involved. (At the moment, I’m not well informed here.) But I believe that blowing up pipelines at Baltic Sea depths isn’t rocket science, assuming one has enough of the right explosives, and remote video.

As for Fox opining on the matter, I see a whole lot more bias than journalism or evidence. It’s a rabbit hole I’m not willing to spend time on. This story needs more time to curate, and imo until then, it’s up-to-the-minute click bait and speculation.

The expert opinions I’ve heard think that underwater drones were likely the method used. They can sink a warship. Anyway, it’s unlikely Ukraine had the wherewithal to do it.

BTW, here is how the pipe is constructed:

For those of us who don’t use metric measurements all the time, I’ve done the mm to inch conversions:

Outer ring of concrete 2.5-4 inches thick
Corrosion ring .16 inch thick
The pipe itself 1-1.6 inch thick

It was not Fox opining on the matter, it was Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald being given a platform for his opinion on, yes, a Fox show. Fox may have had their motives for letting him say his piece but that doesn’t invalidate his point that for Russia to take a major bargaining chip off the table would hurt him more than anyone. With the pipe intact, he can turn the flow on or off as it suits him.

If you ask who benefits most, it sure looks like the United States.

As for the video being from Fox, despite Greenwald’s status as one of the world’s premier journalists, he’s persona non grata on American mainstream media. I think the last time he was interviewed by such media was about eight years ago.

American media has sidelined a lot of thinkers they used to feature and the reason seems to be to protect the government’s propaganda. Like Greenwald, Tulsi Gabbard and Jimmy Dore no longer get interview time.

Sure, Fox may have its motives for presenting Greenwald as well as Gabbard and Dore, but that doesn’t invalidate Greenwald’s logic at all.

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by  Unseen.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

I don’t claim to know who did the pipeline explosion, but past is prologue and I know that Russian leaders from the Czars to the Communists to Putin, Dugin, Kirill, and the Revanchists have no problem with slaughtering millions of their own people for the sake of a “higher cause” or “greater good,” even if self-sabotaging, so blowing up a pipeline as a demonstration of power and terror is a foregone conclusion as a possibility.

Internet cables were in the area too, so that’s more disruption and terror on top of the pipeline. (Damn! Elon Musk would do so much better for himself and the rest of us by focusing his attention on ubiquitous satellite Internet instead of tax-funded joy-rides.)

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Auto-Fill's a bitch

[UnseenParticipant]

@Enco

You apparently believe that Putin is playing multidimensional chess with the pipeline (that he himself is heavily invested in, BTW).

I follow the money. Who benefits? Not Russia. Certainly not NATO. That leaves Qatar and the United States, Europe’s other two major LNG suppliers, to pick up the slack. I’m betting that the U.S. has both the motive AND the means to sabotage the pipelines. Qatar has the motive but doesn’t really have the means.

The U.S. will gladly boost its deliveries, especially given the current market prices.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

I still think a diplomatic solution ceding a small portion of Ukraine would have obviated the war.

True, but the military-industrial complex, as Eisenhower warned, has no interest in peace. It saw how profitable war could be in WW2, and so we are in a perpetual state of war. Here’s a list of all of our wars, military conflicts, covert ops, etc., since WW2:
China 1945-46, Korea 1950-53, China 1950-53, Guatemala 1954, Indonesia 1958, Cuba 1959-60, Guatemala 1960, Belgian Congo 1964, Guatemala 1964, Dominican Republic 1965-66, Peru 1965, Laos 1964-73, Vietnam 1961-73, Cambodia 1969-70, Guatemala 1967-69, Lebanon 1982-84, Grenada 1983-84, Libya 1986, El Salvador 1981-92, Nicaragua 1981-90, Iran 1987-88, Libya 1989, Panama 1989-90, Iraq 1991, Kuwait 1991, Somalia 1992-94, Bosnia 1995, Iran 1998, Sudan 1998, Afghanistan 1998, Yugoslavia – Serbia 1999, Afghanistan 2001, Libya 2011, Iraq and Syria 2014 –, Somalia 2011 –, Iran 2020 –. (Source: The London Economic, 1/3/2020)

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen, if those wars are not enough Chicago is a never ending war. More lobbyists. More killing. Guns, guns, guns!

We have to protect our vital interests in all of those places including Ukraine which is what? Guns, killing, profit.

By the way sports fans Gun Runner continues to be the super sire.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Unseen, if those wars are not enough Chicago is a never ending war. More lobbyists. More killing. Guns, guns, guns! We have to protect our vital interests in all of those places including Ukraine which is what? Guns, killing, profit. By the way sports fans Gun Runner continues to be the super sire.

The gun industry is a whole ‘nuther situation. We’d have that even without the M-IC.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Unseen wrote:

The expert opinions I’ve heard think that underwater drones were likely the method used. They can sink a warship. Anyway, it’s unlikely Ukraine had the wherewithal to do it.

I’m seeing no argument against the possibilities I presented. Underwater drones would make it easier, but they’re not necessary, and it’s likely that Ukraine has the wherewithal. Qatar, too. While experienced third parties could be hired. Still, I’m not pushing any conclusions as to who actually rigged the explosives until the evidence is convincing. Your conclusions are on record twice now.

You say Russia wouldn’t benefit from the sabotage, but I’ve been saying this is about Putin, not Russia, and Putin’s been acting selfishly, ruthlessly, desperately, and foolishly.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake,

The problem is, Putin never wanted to end with just the Donbass “and no further.”. He has swept through over half of Ukraine up to Kyiv. Moreover, his claim to want to “de-Nazify” the area rings very hollow given that he is using the Neo-Nazi Wagner group of mercenaries to do his dirty work. Also, many ethnic Russians did not and do not want to leave Ukraine for Russia.

Finally, Putin, Dugin, and Patriarch Kirill all claim that this invasion is justified in the name of God. You know as well as I do that people like that are beyond negotiation or rational discourse.

While we certainly shouldn’t add to the bloodshed with our own boots on the ground (especially just over a year after the disastrous pull-out in Afghanistan,) we certainly have and should provide Ukraine with intel and let our arms industry and private armed citizens know that they can send all the arms they want to Ukraine, on top of what Ukraine is culling from retreating Putineers. And when our immigration system permits, we should accept all peaceful, self-supporting or willfully-sponsored refugees, both Ukrainian and Russian dissenters alike.

We should also send word to the Russians suffering under Putin’s tyranny to do everything within their means to botch and sabotage his war effort. Loosen nuts and bolts on war vehicles, disconnect the wires, short the batteries, sugar the gas tanks, shove blintzes up their tail-pipes, make sure the missiles can’t launch, the possibilities are endless. (The U.S. OSS actually printed and air-dropped manuals detailing things like this in WWII Da Big One, and it would be even easier to spread as downloads in the world of Cyberspace.)

But the one thing not to do in the face of this evil is surrender.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco, retaking what was once part of the territory of a sovereign nation and super power? I think so. And Kiev was the actual center of Russia before Lord Novgorod the Great and until the rise of Moscow. Putin has a fondness/nostalgia for the lore of Russian history so i am dubious about your assertion. Maybe it is or was all of Ukraine or maybe not. The days of conquest a la Genghis, Alexander, Hitler et. al are past. If there had been a united front by all concerned parties that war had to be avoided and instead getting to a win/win by having a reshuffling of where people lived based on their ethnicity and sentiments then everyone could have a clear conscience that war was unavoidable. I have said it already and i will say it again. Human lives are cheap. Dirt cheap. I see you and many others who are cavalier about war and the consequences.

What we ought to be concerned with is how it is in the 21st century that we still have dictators. How can one person fuck the lives and jeopardize the lives of so many? It is maddening and it is sickening. How do we get rid of Putin without obliging his agression by proxy with aggression? When will humans ever try something new? War war kill kill torture torture… That is great Bob. Then we pretend to be shocked by atrocities, by wanton cruelty, by senseless violence and rape. You don’t want to surrender? I don’t know that you are fighting. I don’t know that you have the right to put the world at risk of nucs. I don’t know that you have the right to cause starvation in people who have nothing to do with Ukraine and Russia.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

Sorry to have scratched through your name earlier. I must have hit a wrong tag.

Again, while I don’t claim to know for sure who sabotaged Nord Stream, I do know that “following the money” wouldn’t lead to the U.S.

After Biden cut off ANWR and the Keystone XL Pipeline and hamstrung our own ability to drill and refine petroleum in the Contiguous 48 States and offshore, the U.S. can’t provide petroleum for itself, much less sell to Europe. Biden had to beg Saudi Arabia and Iran both to keep their oil flowing after Putin threatened petroleum supplies! That’s at least as bad as Obama doing an Apology Tour in the Islamic World years back! And that little dip in gas prices over the Summer was Biden dipping into and depleting the Strategic Reserve!

Biden has gelded our ability to leverage oil anymore! Only after he’s wheeled out of office with his IV drip of Boost and his Executive Orders are shredded will this change back to a position compatible with U.S. prosperity and against the oil-producing tyrants in OPEC, Russia, and China.

And speaking of OPEC and “following the money,” who knows? Maybe this sabotage was their doing in an attempt to make a comeback! As always, “must wait and see.”

[Author]

Posts