Biden's War(s)

 I sit here in my living room this advent season remembering Linus's lines from the Charlie Brown Christmas Special - "Peace on Earth and Good Will to all Men". 

Then I started thinking about the Ukraine war and my blood pressure rises. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the US estimates that about 210,000 troops have died in the Ukraine conflict in less than 2 years.

My father, a WWII vet, said work for peace, but if you have to fight, you can't do it sitting with your hands folded. His generation understood.

I remember Vietnam. A limited conflict micromanaged by politicians lasting a decade and killing ~58,000 US troops.

NATO. Make no mistake, the principal partner in NATO is the US. Germany is a distant 2nd. The current leader of the US is Joe Biden.

When Russia invaded with tanks, the US gave the Ukraine fighters Javelin missiles. Russia has now lost 4380 tanks. But the Javelin has a very short usable range, so the Russians learned to use artillery instead of mechanized infantry. 

The US gave the Ukraine fighters artillery, but only with ammunition that has a shorter range than the Russians. Ukraine losses mounted. In fact, the majority of the death is due to artillery.

The US then gave the Ukraine fighters the HMAR missile system, but only with the short range missiles. Ukraine pushed the Russian artillery back. But Russia then turned to cruise missiles and aircraft.

Then the US gave the Ukraine fighters a couple Patriot batteries, but only enough range to stop direct air strikes well within Ukraine. Russia continued with cruise missiles destroying civilian infrastructure. To date, the US hasn't given Ukraine any means of stopping cruise missiles.

Other NATO members wanted to give Ukraine Russian aircraft - stuff Ukraine pilots and support were trained on, but Joe Biden quashed that. The US says they are giving Ukraine F16s - probably too little, too late.

In case it is not obvious by now, I believe Joe Biden's micromanaging is just more incompetence by his administration.

The Biden administration incompetence is killing soldiers at a rate not seen since WWI. And the US media is covering for him.

Russia is an old toothless 3 legged dog that lies in its bed and barks at shadows. But Joe Biden's administration is afraid. So the killing continues.

This micromanaging of the Ukraine war smells of Barack Obama - the guy with the red lines in Syria. The guy's successor, Donald Trump, destroyed ISIS in 6 months.

The media is running stories now that America has grown tired of Ukraine support. Probably trying to condition Americans for Biden bailing/abandoning - just like Afghanistan. After all, Joe is trying to get reelected and Ukraine is starting to be viewed negatively. I can't imagine that I am the only person to notice the rank incompetence.

A clock with only a second hand

 I like to be right - most folks do. It bugs me when I discover that my view on a subject is factually wrong - especially when I've been misled by media. Shame on me because I've known, since the 2016 Trump presidency, not to take anything the American media purports at face value.

The Nord Stream pipeline bombing. The American media has been very quiet about this event, likely because President Joe Biden authorized the pipeline destruction.

I was misled by media reports on the details. It wasn't until I stumbled upon Erik Andersson's (Swedish engineer) substack that I got a scientifically correct analysis. I was always bothered by the media report that a couple of divers carried down enough explosives to lift ~700,000lbs of steel/concrete pipe out of it's trench. The scale of explosion necessary was more in line with anti-ship mines, not a few hundred pounds of explosives.

What Erik noted, that the media left out, is that two of the three bombed pipes were pressurized to 164 bar (~2400psi). When the explosives cut the 1.6" thick steel 4 foot diameter pipe, the escaping gas generated thrust of ~1.5 SpaceX Merlin engines. The thrust was more than adequate to cause the pipe to whip around up and out of the trench it was originally laid in. 

So I was duped by the mindless media, again.

If you want the real analysis of the pipeline event, read Erik's fine analysis. And thank God for independent minds having an outlet to counter the brain sludge of the mainstream media.

https://anderssonerik.substack.com/p/a-trip-to-the-nord-stream-blast-sites