i thought Putin might be trying to build the Russian Empire again. Wrong. The word is he’s actually trying to resurrect the former U.S.S.R. (Soviet Union). i don’t get it. What would be the point and how well would it work given the changed political landscape since those days. He’s certainly not going to win hearts and minds. Nobody’s going to redraw the maps and definitely nobody but Putin and a handful of his inner circle are going to recognize this redux Soviet Union. So what he ends up with here is a huge landmass and a delusion only he feels is fulfilled. He can get there militarily of course.The refugees aren’t going to return to live under the rule of an unelected official. Once he takes Ukraine, if he takes Ukraine, he’s going to be dealing with an insurgency from a resentful if not extremely hostile population .If Zelensky is assassinated the Ukranian people will never forgive or forget. Apparently it makes sense to Putin. It doesn’t make sense to anyone else.
Is our ‘fearless’ leader Biden hanging out in Delaware today?
Normally when i know there is going to be a live stream from Ryan Hall i post it and share. He doesn’t do a live stream unless there’s a chance for severe weather particularly tornadoes. I didn’t feel well last night and fell out early. You can watch a replay of the live stream and get an idea of the coverage Hall offers. He also does forecasts. If you’re someone who tries to be weather aware-we all should be-Ryan does the best forecasts. i also recommend checking the storm prediction center convection reports on a regular basis. It takes maybe 5 minutes (if that)to go over the reports.
I hate to see people get caught unaware. With all the technology we have today there is no reason not to have a heads up a few days out. Radar has come a long ways over the years. It’s a heck of a lot better than it used to be. As Ryan Hall always says, DON’T BE SCARED,BE PREPARED. When you’re in a tornado warning it is no time to go into a panic.Be sure to have a way to get a warning in case you’re sleeping. Weather radios range in price but most that do the job are inexpensive. i recommend Midland but if you have a preferred brand go for it!
This was a live stream with several tstorm/tornado chasers reporting in from Iowa.
Feckless leader Biden keeps imposing sanctions on Russia. It’s ridiculous.Sanctions have never worked that i know of. IF you can cite an example please leave it in a comment.
they’re not touching Putin. He’s getting revenue from other sources.
the sanctions are only hurting the Russian people. If our experts think that’s going to convince the Russian people to rise up against the Putin regime they’re dreaming. When people are hurting they’re too busy trying to survive. Besides, the regime is known for putting down any opposition;let alone a try at overthrowing the government. You’re talking about an unarmed population against a military that is not going to let them near Putin.It’s also possible you drive the population against us rather than Putin.Who’s to say they won’t consider us the bad guy?
Cut off the revenues that hurt Putin and the higher ups. PERIOD. Other than that we’re wasting time and hurting people who have no role in the Russian invasion. Everyone suffers BUT Putin.
Video at the end.He doesn’t seem to be saying Putin is justified for invading Ukraine but it does sound like he gives Putin something of a pass because the U.S. has no room to talk. We invaded Iraq;. We invaded Afghanistan.It sounded to me like he was suggesting the 2 are alike.
Desert Storm
Iraq had invaded Kuwait. The purpose of the first Gulf War was to eject the Iraqi military from its border country. George Bush Sr. charged the military with that one mission; liberate Kuwait. He had no interest in regime change or nation building. George W. Bush should have adopted his father’s model. Our forces chased the Revolutionary Guard out of Kuwait, annihlated them but stopped short of going into the capitol city of Baghdad. It was a relatively short war with few casualties on our side.The effort was led by “Stormin” Norman Schwarzkopf. Schwarzkopf probably didn’t need to in the Iraq war he led but he believed in using overwhelming military force. Ironically Donald Rumsfeld, who was in charge of Operation Iraqi Freedom, believed in leaving a small military footprint. He probably should have used the Schwarzkopf military doctrine. He was reluctant to change course in spite of ground truth. Eventually the military was forced to change course and initiated what came to be known as ‘the surge’.
Bush Sr. believed in giving the military a clear mission, a path to victory and an exit out.Stormin Norman believed in our side lives, the enemy surrenders or dies, mission over. They were on the same page.
Iraqi Freedom
George W. Bush the second Bush President and son of the first Bush called for the 2nd Gulf war when Saddam Hussein refused to allow the UN inspectors to look at their weapons program.The Bush admin claimed Saddam had or was in the process of getting WMD. Bush the son was in favor of regime change and nation building. Donald Rumsfeld was the Sec of Defense.The 2nd Gulf War did not enjoy the support the 1st one had and the country became divided over our being there at all. The first mission was successful. They removed Saddam.The other objective didn’t go so well.
The U.S. and Russia both faced a protracted effort in Afghanistan.It seems to me they both tried to prop up wildly unpopular governments. I don’t know why the Marxist regime in Moscow would think a Marxist ideology would fly in Afghanistan when the population was traditionally Muslim. The U.S. made the mistake of backing what was probably a weak and/or corrupt government. The basic goal of the Soviet Union was to keep a Marxist leader in power. The basic goal of the United States was to eradicate the terrorist groups and, capture or kill Bin Laden so they had to make sure they kept a sympathetic government in power.i don’t think we wanted to stay there any longer than was necessary to achieve the goal. I think the Soviet Union had longer term plans than we did but were met with a lot of resistance from the Afghan citizens. i think the resistance over long term occupation of Afghanistan by the U.S. came from our own war weary citizens. i know i don’t like our military being involved in nation building. It doesn’t work well in cultures that our alien to our own. It really doesn’t work well if the people we’re backing don’t have their act together.
i say leave our military to do the job it’s trained for. Now we’re in worse shape under Biden because he’s more into appeasement as a solution to political problems and more into changing the military culture than he is into military preparedness..Frankly with Biden he’s simply checked out. He causes a problem then looks for blame somewhere else.
As for Russia and the U.S. we had come out of a cold war with them not too long ago and at that time it was still the Soviet Union. The last few years we’ve been tied up with internal politics while global politics have changed since the good ol days.Somewhere along the way China became the dominant power and too many of our own politicians got into bed with them,including literally if you figure in Eric Swalwell.Trump was a disrupter. Boy did he step into some craziness.Now we’re stuck with Biden and Russia invades Ukraine. Next China will invade Tiawan. On one side of the aisle you have China,Russia and Iran and on this side of the aisle it’s us with feckless leader Biden.
The main difference between us and them is they have 1 leader and 1 alone as long as that leader can maintain power.They usually do. We have term limits. Some last for 8 yrs, others for 4.
Keep in mind we have 2 nation states that border us, Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. We’ve never invaded either.Democratically elected leaders as a rule don’t attack other countries.You leave us alone. We leave you alone. We’ve been good neighbors for years, particularly with Canada who share a language and to a great extent a culture.i could never envision either side invading the other.Keep in mind too there was a period of time in our own history when we were isolationist. We reluctantly got involved in WWII. We had to suffer a direct attack first. The 9/11 attack in my lifetime was our last straw.George W. just went a bit too far with the Iraq invasion. It never had the full support of our country like Afghanistan did. It caused a lot of division here.We’re always reluctant to get involved in any war.Our citizens can put a lot of pressure on the government over military action we approve of or don’t approve of. Nixon and Johnson found this out with the Vietnam War. i’m not taking sides in the Vietnam conflict-am pointing out what happened. I opposed it at the time.I’ve had 2nd thoughts since then and now i would say i’m far more unsure of whether it was justified or not.
The leaders of China and Russia don’t face that kind of pressure. A protest doesn’t exactly play well in Bejing or Moscow. They’re not going to be voted out of office by a disapproving citizenry either.
Keep this in mind as you watch the video that prompted my post; Maajd Nawaz was once part of an Muslim extremist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, in his native country of Egypt. He may not have much love for either the U.S. or Russia.So i ask you if YOU think there is moral equivalency between the Russia invasion of Ukraine and the U.S. invasion of either Iraq or Afghanistan.
*Contrary to the position of the United States government i’d say Pakistan is not and never has been a U.S. ally. They play both sides. I was not surprised that Bin Laden had spent years hiding out in Pakistan. Seemed to me the terrorists in Afghanistan were moving freely between the 2 borders. I bet they were getting more support from Pakistan than we knew or were willing to admit.I always thought it would be strategically smarter to develop a closer relationship with India than Pakistan. i think Pres Trump was moving along those lines. India has a parliamentary system of government and seems to be more stable than its neighbor Pakistan. Pakistan in contrast has gone through several constitutions. It is culturally Islamic.
Trump:The American Years 