Tag: war

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No One Trusts Russia (Putin)

Source: Poland and Baltic nations plan to withdraw from landmine convention | Reuters

Withdrawing from the international land mine treaty is no small commitment. Land mines are considered counterproductive because they cause massive costs in civilian casualties and removal costs for decades after the conflict for which they were deployed. It is an emphatic statement of distrust in Vladimir Putin that the Baltic states and Poland are electing to leave the international land mine treaty. The Baltics and Poland are declaring that they anticipate a Russian invasion and that they will go to any length to thwart the Russian invasion. They are clearly under no illusion that Putin is a trustworthy leader who will conform to international laws and treaties that he signs.

NATO members Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia plan to withdraw from the Ottawa convention banning anti-personnel landmines due to the military threat from their neighbour Russia, the four countries said on Tuesday.

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For Russia Peace is a Deadly Precipice

Source: Breakingviews: Russia’s economy would struggle to cope with peace

The wartime economy poses an addiction akin to heroin, or even alcohol, withdrawal from which is attended by pain so severe that the addict relapses: resorts to feeding the addiction rather than leaving it. In the excellent analysis linked above, Russia–Putin–finds itself at a painful crossroads. Fighting further erodes the civilian economy further, but opting for peace puts enormous pressure on the government to help rebuild the civilian economy quickly enough to keep social unrest at bay. Key to such a rebuilding program is accountability on behalf of corporations and government. Such accountability is simply nonexistent in Russia, and it behooves Putin and his cronies to fight for “victory” in Ukraine rather than risk exposing Russians to the rampant culture of corruption in Russia. (Alternately and charitably, risk Russians lose in the world economy because they have become dependent on the wartime economic cocaine.)

Dreams of empire comprise the most powerful and most perverse intellectual opiate. Democracies that fail to exclude empire addicts from their leadership will sadly fail.

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Moral Ambiguity Undermines Military Operations

Source: Some Israeli soldiers refuse to keep fighting in Gaza

There is little doubt that the incoming American president’s threats to unleash hell motivated Hamas to accept wholesale Israel’s ceasefire terms, but the revelation of dissent within the ranks of the Israeli military documented in this AP article cannot be dismissed. The moral ambiguity of the military intervention in Gaza has very nearly torn Israeli society apart, and now it is now introducing cracks into the historically cohesive and unshakably united Israeli military. The Israeli prime minister is always quick to cast aspersions on foreign politicians who oppose his military escapade in Gaza, but dissent in the IDF, no matter how small, is a staggering measure of the degree to which the Israeli prime minister has degraded the cohesiveness of the Israeli fighting forces. No leader, foreign or domestic, has ever evoked open dissent in the ranks of the Israeli military. This fact renders moot the opposition of other soldier to this dissent:

“They are harming our ability to defend ourselves,” said Gilad Segal, a 42-year-old paratrooper who spent two months in Gaza at the end of 2023. He said everything the army did was necessary, including the flattening of houses used as Hamas hideouts. It’s not a soldier’s place to agree or disagree with the government, he argued.

The axiom that moral uncertainty weakens the morale of the fighting force that was manifest in Vietnam holds true in Israel. It is the moral ambiguity of the cause that harms the ability of the Israeli military to defend the nation. The dissenters correctly report the futility of much of the violence they are perpetrating in Gaza. As such, it is difficult to blame soldiers who are acting according to a clear understanding of the teachings of Judaism rather than on the deliberately ambiguous orders of a prime minister who is on trial and is more desperate than a cornered rat to retain power and avoid serving a prison sentence in his 70s.

A growing number of Israeli soldiers are speaking out against the Israel-Hamas war. They say they did or saw things that crossed ethical lines.

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BBC’s Not So Subtle Antisemitism Resurfaces

BBC News is not the sole outlet guilty of misleading headlines and ledes, but it bears the distinction of generating the disproportionate number of ledes that pin blame on Israel even though the story itself explicitly states a lack of evidence for claims made in the lede. This story is another perfect such example. The title of the story is “Five Gaza journalists killed in Israeli strike targeting armed group”, yet the text emphatically states

The BBC has not been able to verify claims made by either side, with international media being prevented by Israel from entering and freely working on the ground in Gaza.

There is absolutely no justification, therefore, in having a title that claims that Israel targeted journalists because no such event was verified. Furthermore, the BBC didn’t even verify that the credentials of journalists who were supposedly targeted.

There are so many lapses in editorial judgment in this piece that it is hard to see it as anything other than a deliberate smear against the Israeli military and the Israeli government. Given the British government’s unqualified support for Israel in the aftermath of the October 7th massacre, this is clearly a hatchet piece designed to denigrate a people, not a government. As such, it is clearly a piece born of antisemitism, and one that will ultimately stand as lie that will detract from whatever human rights case is ultimately brought against Israel.

Casting aspersions is a futile endeavor unbecoming of a legitimate news service. BBC News needs a new editorial board.

A Palestinian TV channel says they were in a marked media van in the central Gaza Strip.

Source: Five Gaza journalists killed in Israeli strike targeting armed group

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Merchandizing: the Pinnacle, Apogee and Zenith of Cynicism

The objective behind government regulations is preventing the breaches of trust that can annihilate entire economies. In addition to the financial devastation they cause, such breaches breed cynicism at large and discourage people from participating in society and the marketplace because “what’s the point” comes to describe the prevailing attitudes. Equally nourishing to cynicism are smaller breaches–more like insults–like the sale of Wagner Group merchandising, described in the article linked below, and the application of cryptocurrency and Youtube to funding hate groups and misinformation. Though they will not make entire economies collapse, these breaches undermine optimism, trust and good will arguably in a much more harmful way.

We should not have to “take the bad with the good”. Progress means that we have figured out to how to maximize the good and to minimize the bad. The hijacking of new commodities and old marketing methods for the purpose of aiding and abetting the malfeasance of ignoble people undermines the perception and the reality of progress. And, if we don’t feel as if we have progress, then, indeed, what is the point?

Online prices for merchandise bearing the insignia of Russia’s Wagner group – a human skull against a black and red backdrop – have shot up since its abortive armed mutiny, with buyers posting five-star reviews and support for the mercenaries.

Source: Wagner merch soars in price after abortive mutiny

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FAANG Go to War

Apple was the instigator, and the fire has been fueled by two explosive books about Facebook’s abhorrent behavior–‘Zucked by Roger McNamee–and about the exploitative nature of the free internet in general–Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier. The battle lines have been drawn, and Apple and Microsoft are unofficially allied against Google, Facebook, especially, and, to a lesser extent, Amazon. Let’s examine this battle two ways: idealistically and cynically.

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