TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2993. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
From ‘The Analyst’ (Military & Strategic) X: MilStratOnX
UKRAINIAN OPSEC V. RUSSIAN
The one highly commendable aspect of the Kursk campaign was the complete cone of silence the Ukrainians managed to hold until the operation started. Nobody had a clue about it and the Russians missed it completely.
Furthermore that operational security blanket has continued with mappers told to keep quiet and only open source information available to those who can access it.
Ukrainian officially released video tends to be out dated or planned to increase the confusion in the Russian side.
On the Russian side, the mayhem has been verging on the hysteria. Simple questions about who was where and what was what, demands for orders, announcements of retreats, losses, panicky spotting of Ukrainian forces in places they may or may not have been. All of this continues.
The defence ministry has lost so much credibility in Putin’s eyes that the whole operation has been deemed a counter-terrorist activity and command given to the FSB.
I cannot think of anything more likely to sow yet more confusion between command structures and available forces.
Russian inflexibility and the lack of initiative, communication failures, overly centralised command with little local authority for commanders to take action, is specifically designed to ensure authoritarian leadership has control over the state. However it doesn’t work when emergency response is required. It’s always been a major Russian weakness, and we saw it during Prighozhin’s thunder run to Moscow - government doesn’t know what to do.
Meanwhile the Ukrainian disinformation and propaganda machine ensures Russia is kept off guard while maintaining a drip feed of real information to the outside world. Letting open source analysis do some of the work for it - which is having a highly detrimental effect on the Russians.
Their state of confusion is so bad it’s almost shocking.
‘The Analyst’ MilStratOnX
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦!
Latest from Maria Drutska
https://youtu.be/V7cOXB4QEL0?si=pfJn6NNRd-4TWPwH
He didn't actually go off the deep end. He went off the shallow end and cracked his head on the bottom
Thoughts from the Military & Strategic Analyst:
FUTURE AT STAKE
I know, not everyone’s favourite subject, but what happens in America changes the outcome of what happens in Ukraine.
The Trump cult is completely against Ukrainian aid unless there is some kind of transactional benefit. J D Vance boasts about his anti-Ukraine stance and Moscow TV talks about him constantly. You always know when you’re loathed in Russia because you either don’t get spoken about or you’re talked of in derogatory language. Which is how they see the Harris-Walz campaign.
Trump plays on human fears, primitive racist language, blatant lies and negativity. That’s what he has always been about.
The news networks that he so hates in public, did him yet another favour the other day. Every channel carried his babbling, rambling incoherent press conference live for an hour. They do it because he entertains with his buffoonery - yet they did not once fact check even one of his statements - and pretty much everything he said was wrong or a lie.
Yet when VP Harris spoke a little later they didn’t even cover it. Not one network bothered. This is what Trump calls crooked mainstream media - yet they give him more air time than anyone should ever deserve. Just as they did in 2016.
Even so, the grip of the big TV media is less than it was.
Because since Biden courageously stepped aside the Democratic nominees and the campaign have burst back into life in a way that’s more like the optimism and hope of the Obama 2008 race. The slogan of ‘no going back’ - to Trump, to the past, to the gloom and despair of his first four dysfunctional years. The stripping of women’s rights and the dismal future offered by the quasi-fascist Project 2025 agenda, is wholly rejected by the Democrats.
They offer a vibe of hope and positivity - and this is working.
I have spent much time in America over the years, probably a decade of my life, on and off. The Americans I have come to know are generally a kind and generous people with an innate optimism and view of things that can only be described as positive. The fear and negativity Trump creates is just not American. And most people are tired of hearing the stupid comments and the fear inducing language. They want hope and they want joy. And that’s what the Harris campaign is delivering.
Poll numbers are surging, Trumps lead has nearly vanished in places that matter and look set to fall.
The American system of an electoral college means that a tiny number of votes in a handful of swing states can change the entire election.
Back in 2016 Hilary Clinton won the popular vote by almost three million, but Trump won the swing states by a few thousand votes - in fact as few as ten thousand votes over four states gave him the presidency, because of the electoral college system.
George Bush won the 2000 election the same way, though not as tightly. Only Obama and Biden have actually become president and won the majority vote this century.
Biden received the highest vote of any president in history in 2020. Oddly enough so did Trump, but Biden won even more.
This year’s vote is unlikely to reach that scale of voters - apathy is a perennial problem. But for America, the West and certainly for Ukraine, there can only be one winner we can live and work with on the same page. Harris-Walz have to win. And right now it’s looking like they may just have the right mix of candidates and policies to make that happen.
I find it impossible not to be partisan when it comes to US politics. During the 1980’s the only sane choice despite his flaws was Ronald Reagan, because he understood what America was up against in the Soviets. And he knew the US could win. It was the overriding concern of our time. Only Clinton offered a viable view of the future in the 1990’s but his own weaknesses stripped him of his authority. The second Bush administration was mired in wars and made dreadful mistakes that Obama only ended up making worse.
CONTINUES....
CONTINUED
His domestic policy was good for America at an incredibly fraught economic time but already the nutcase republican element was circling.
Obama himself set Trump loose by mocking him at the 2011 press corps dinner, as he sat there, fuming. Trump never forgave him that sleight as he saw it. That was the start of it.
Years later we have a chance to see Trumpism largely extinguished - I hope America takes that path.
@ukrainejournal
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2993. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
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