The Biden Administration (No Lago)

[Koumei]

If I were Putin, I would absolutely try to buy some of those assets. Not even enough to do anything useful, just to piss people off and make it known that "this victory could not have been possible without the assistance of the USA and my colleague Joe Biden."

[PseudoStupidity]

Maybe this was his plan the whole time! Why conquer a country when you can invade it, get its bullshit allies to require it to pay for a war it can't afford by selling off all its state assets and turning its people into serfs, and then buy the shit you wanted anyways?

Obviously that's not the case for Putin, but boy is it a sweet deal for corporations that are based in NATO countries. They get to steal buy all of Ukraine's useful shit, sell give a ton of their old shit to a desperate Ukrainian military, get a desperate workforce with freshly-slashed worker protections, and get praised for doing all of this by credulous dipshits. This situation rules even more if you're Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, GE, or any other ghoulish company that gets huge profits off war. Then you get the war and the looting!

[Sashi]

Isn't that a thesis of the Shock Doctrine? Never let a humanitarian crisis go to waste.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

If I were Putin, I would absolutely try to buy some of those assets.

Or.

He could just win the war.

I don't want suggest he will. But the concept that the giant nation of Russia might win the war against the smaller nation of Ukraine seems like one you might want to consider if you were say a corporation from a nation participating in the economic blockade of Russia.

Do these purchases come with insurance against becoming a conquered asset?

[Omegonthesane]

sometimes I forget I have NPP on ignore over the bad faith spiral he fell into in the RPG discussions bit, because he makes more sense in the politics section.

Anyway it isn't clear to me that Ukrainian assets would be turned over to the RF in the event that the latter wins the war decisively, since the purpose of the exercise is to annex a little bit and "denazify" (make a client state of) the rest, not to assume direct control. Granted it also isn't clear that NATO would accept a peace treaty even if it includes Blackrock getting to still own the ruins of Kyiv.

[PseudoStupidity]

I don't think Russia could win the war in the sense of conquering Ukraine (and don't think that was really their plan, I think it's probably what Omegonthesane said). Maybe they could have won the war and then fought against an Afghanistan-style insurgency through a proxy government forever in central and Western Ukraine while annexing the territories they basically already possessed, but Putin was never going to get Ukraine as a whole because Ukraine has a bunch of people who fucking hate Russia and would likely never stop trying to fight (and we'd been sending them man-portable weapons for a while to make sure such an insurgency would be maximally costly for the occupying forces). The end result would be almost the same for the Ukranian people (hundreds of thousands dead [or millions, who knows how long we have to go], millions displaced, massive humanitarian crises, decline in living standards, all the stuff you get from war and conquest) but they'd have a different government than the one they've got right now.

Russia could probably win the current WWII style war because the Soviet Union, for all its mismanagement, knew its only hope to win a war against NATO was to build as many armored vehicles, artillery pieces, and shells they possibly could. And then they built all those things, way too fucking many like holy shit calm down, and Russia still has a lot of the industry needed to continue building those things. And they made rail networks to ensure they could delver those things anywhere in Russia for cheap, and they've still got all those trains and tracks. Ukraine, being right next to Russia, is a pretty ideal spot for the shadow of the once-mighty USSR to grind it out against NATO's war industry which is not designed to fight long battles through dozen-kilometer deep lines of trenches, minefields, and obstacles all while the entire world is blowing up around you. NATO industry and weapons (or at least, most of the modern ones) are designed to blow up anti-aircraft weapons from safe distances before plastering everything with flying death machines that their opponents can no longer touch. NATO makes small quantities of expensive shit that is very effective at a specific strategy that isn't really in play right now, while Russia made tons of shit that is reasonably effective at a specific strategy that is literally the thing that is happening in Ukraine right now.

If NATO dumps a few hundred billion more dollars of weapons into Ukraine I'm sure Ukraine will win unless there is a major change in the battlefield conditions (like either side running out of soldiers, a major strategic victory on either side, or Putin getting overthrown by another oligarch or the Russian people), but unless there's a big change I think it's more likely that Russia will grind Ukraine down by simply having more soldiers and more ability to manufacture stuff to give to those soldiers. I don't ultimately think that's likely though, as the Biden administration will ensure Ukraine can continue struggling forward (but never doing better than that) in this terrible conflict. That is his promise to the Ukrainian people, to finance a long, slow war with a steep cost that will leave them bloody, penniless, and utterly devastated even if they win.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I don't think Russia could win the war in the sense of conquering Ukraine (and don't think that was really their plan

Who knows what their plan was, what it now is, and how it will turn out.

My point really is, the West, when deciding to participate in and promote this war has not considered the worst case of losing. Or any case of losing. They have if anything put on enough pressure that total defeat and capture of the whole of Ukraine might be Russia's only real option to end the war on any terms they would deem tolerable. Thus increasing the threshold of how much Russia is prepared to pay, mostly in human lives, as a cost to do so.

Going into a war, and continuing a war, we have not won, as predicted relentlessly since day one "any week now". With the assumption that we can win, but whatever happens we definitely cannot somehow catastrophically lose and can only lose in ways that are minor and also actually us still winning is reckless and foolish in the extreme.

[PseudoStupidity]

Oh, that makes sense. Russia could absolutely still win on the battlefield (even if that's unlikely) and now they don't really have a choice except to go after the whole Ukrainian government if they do start winning.

[Kaelik]

Biden admin announcing plans to pursue defunding schools under TItle VI if they don't ban Palestinian protests.

Love to live in this world where every comment from the administration is like "Look we are just investigating defunding schools if they don't combat antisemitic comments that criticize Jews or Israel." HEY, ONE OF THOSE ISN'T ANTISEMITIC ACTUALLY!

"including protests calling for the annihilation of the state of Israel or for genocide against the Jewish people." HEY I WONDER IF ONE OF THOSE IS DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER IN THAT IT DOESN'T INVOLVE ANY HARM CAUSED TO ANY PERSON AND IS SIMPLY A CALL FOR EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Well rumors have been saying the Biden admin is panicking over polling data based on them shedding support with younger voters over the whole Israel debacle.

This seems like the sensible centrist solution they would reach for to square that circle.

[Kaelik]

Truly what could bring back young voters more then continuing to abet a genocide but also make it illegal to not like the genocide!

[MGuy]

Israeli lobby too strong. Both parties have leadership that simply does not give a shit about genocide and despite Biden continuing to lose popularity the Democratic party doesn't want any real competition for Biden and the only two that have appeared have been jokes.

We're living in a time where I've seen more pro Palestinian support than I think I've ever seen and the people in power are just ignoring it, or worse, actively attempting to suppress it. My guess is that the calculus is that regardless of what's going on who else are US voters going to go for? Him or any Republican? But the Israeli lobby itself doesn't care who is in charge because they have support from the leadership of both parties.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

We're living in a time where I've seen more pro Palestinian support than I think I've ever seen and the people in power are just ignoring it, or worse, actively attempting to suppress it.

Ever since the Ukraine propoganda blitz (hey are the two weeks it was supposed to take to win that war up yet?) I am convinced that the core problem and the core here, even beyond the Israel lobby and the military industrial complex is one about communications and reality.

The great Western consensus blob has abandoned actual reality and now lives in media reality. Nothing is real unless the official largely controlled Western Media says so, and whatever they say is real. So you don't NEED to justify Iraq or Afghanistan, or win there. You just keep the media in line. You can fuck over Ukraine and start a war that didn't need to happen, may never win and WILL turn Ukraine into more of a wasteland, AND massively harm your own economies and allies in the wake of a world wide epidemic, but whatever keep the media in line and nothing ever happened. And sure, help Israel commit the most in your face genocide of our life time, just make sure the media is onside and how could there be consequences.

The problem is there ARE real world and realpolitik consequences that dumb corporate control of the larger media outlets doesn't actually interact with in any meaningful way. Money, lives and vast domestic political capital is being flushed down the toilet across the world thinking that hey who cares, as long as no one on the TV news calls it out then everything is fine.

The Western world is that dog in the house on fire saying everything is fine only it's watching a little TV with CNN on it demanding your grandma denounces Hammas.

And if genocide wasn't enough of a real world consequence polling for now, suggests THIS is what gives you a second term of Trump in the US.

[PseudoStupidity]

Biden has fallen behind Trump in general election polls recently, but the election is a year away and people will forget about this just like they'll forget about every other bad thing Biden has done once Trump gets on a podium and starts calling every brown person a secret jihadi. Trump has been doing anti-Muslim rhetoric since 9/11, it's one of his favorite things and targeting Muslims was one of the the first things he did when he got into office. People will forget that Biden is just as genocidal as Trump once Biden shuts the fuck up about how much he loves genocide.

In addition to Trump being more vocal about his love of genocide, there exist people who agree that Israel is doing a genocide and that Biden unequivocally supports them while saying that we still need to vote for Biden for harm reduction. I'm not so sure that voters would vote for Trump just because Biden supports genocide, as Trump also supports genocide and your average Democrat will vote for the Democrat even if they are soaked in blood and sitting atop a throne of skulls. Or, at least, they'll vote for the Democrat as long as their throne of skulls is smaller than the throne of skulls the Republican would sit on. If you buy into the lesser evil argument you'll vote for genocide because the other side wants to do even more genocide (Palestinians AND trans people AND basically everyone who isn't white, not that Biden doesn't support these things and is just usually quieter about it), it's part of why the harm reduction position is fucking stupid. You can justify voting for Biden by saying Trump would do genocide even harder. Is that dumb as shit? Yes. Does that matter at all? No, those people will vote for evil so long as they can say "well the other side was worse." You can talk to people like that on this very forum.

[Kaelik]

While in general I suspect much of that could be true, in 2020 59% of Arab Americans expressed an intention to vote for Biden and today 17% express such an intention. Arab americans are perhaps slightly more likely to remember Biden's wanton genocide in a year then your average white voter.

There are 300,000 Arab Americans in the state of Michigan, and while I don't think they will vote for Trump, I strongly suspect that a large number of them will in fact vote third party or refrain from voting.

If Biden loses Michigan, and therefore loses the election, it will be directly and explicitly Joe Biden's fault for announcing his plan to genocide as many Palestinians as he can get away with.

[Thaluikhain]

If Biden loses Michigan, and therefore loses the election, it will be directly and explicitly Joe Biden's fault for announcing his plan to genocide as many Palestinians as he can get away with.

Well, that and all the other terrible things he's done, or will do before the election. Ok, supporting genocide is hard to top, but I'd not put it past him.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Also. This is not a thing which has finished happening and will immediately start to be forgotten.

It has only STARTED happening. It could be REALLY huge and take AGES to finish, after all, a certain Israeli leader basically is fighting resignation demands exclusively on the basis of the war still going.

If it totally ended today, maybe people, other than the actual Muslim community might forget in time. It won't, and there is a scale at which it becomes a generational memory. And I am confident we are right there on the edge of this being bigger than Iraq.

[MGuy]

The Dems main strategy has been to hope for and promote the most belligerent and incompetent people on the Republican side. The GOP has done nothing to really change their image from being filled with absolutely malicious and dumb people from top to bottom. Biden has no competition from within the Dems ranks to push him much further on anything. All the polling that says the voter base wants another real choice has basically been ignored. There's no reason, I think, that they won't also ignore the fact that the voter base is anti genocide. Especially since its been the policy of both parties to endorse the IDF's genocidal campaign since before many of them first got started in Congress.

My guess is that they are still hoping that the vote blue mentality holds on through the election. There strat has been to promote Trumpism and the worst people they can find that the Reps are running and to hope that enough people are terrified/disgusted at the alternative enough to just let Biden coast to victory. They have had some success based off of that and the RvW decision. I am not confident that the people in leadership is exactly eager to pivot too much. Especially if they legitimately fear that the Israeli lobby might decide to tip the scales against them. The fact that the media has been very eager to do cover work for their current actions, I'm sure they think that pissing them off would turn many of these same outlets against them. I'm sure few if any of these people care that much about the livelihood of anyone else so this whole thing for them likely boils down to frustration that Israel is making them look bad.

[Kaelik]

Biden admin has some new genocide denial it wants to promote: "The first war crimes were committed by Hamas. By having their headquarters, their military, under a hospital. That’s a fact. That happened."

It is not a fact, and did not happen. Israel's invasion has reached that hospital. Instead of showing evidence of all the evil terror tunnels, what they did is have an Israeli soldier point at a chair and use his psychic powers to know that a hostage had sat in that chair and then point at duty chart that just had the days of the week written on it and said it was a list of all the hostages.

Famous hostages, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Strange they didn't have any better evidence of the terror tunnels after bombing the hospital, taking the hospital, having snipers shoot every doctor in the hospital that they could get their sites on, ect.

But Joe Biden wants you to know he's going to keep doing genocide denial on behalf of Israel until someone physically sows his mouth shut.

[PseudoStupidity]

But Kaelik, the IDF says they found ten (10) rifles and some body armor! The IDF never lies, and it would be impossible for them to bring ten (10) rifles and some body armor into a place that didn't already have ten (10) rifles and some body armor. Also, military headquarters are famously marked by having so few weapons they couldn't even arm a full squad.

Coincidentally, the Walmart near my home appears to be Hamas' headquarters, they have guns, body armor, and even charts that list those same hostages (I assume this is an Officer Jenny/Nurse Joy situation, but I got kicked out during my investigation for "causing a scene" and "demanding access to tunnels that do not exist").

[Koumei]

Yeah, pretty sure most American houses have more guns than that.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

It is actually genuinely amazing that the IDF has failed to show videos of tunnels under the hospital they raided.

Since word on the street is that in the 1980s when Israel last controlled it THEY built an underground operating theater and adjoining tunnels there if not more.

Now maybe they will still find it. Maybe they are stocking it with dangerous long since banned in Gaza incriminating contraband such as pistachio Halva that someone wrote their name on A HOSTAGE NAME! (actually it says may contain nuts) and I don't know, a mildly rusty butterknife and an airsoft gun.

But I prefer to think that while that hospital was under Hammas control they actually managed to REMOVE a network of rooms and tunnels from under the hospital.

Are they sure Hammas is a terror organization and not some sort of reality TV prank show?

[MGuy]

What I'm actually amazed about is that they even bother with talking about what they've found or haven't found at this point. They could have just taken the hospital, said everything was super top secret, and none of their support numbers would change. It's actually more embarrassing for them than saying nothing.

[Omegonthesane]

I hate to talk in terms of "national psyches" or such nonsense, but the leadership of the Zionist entity has historically felt unable to just speedrun its warcrimes and achieve the objective before it makes headlines.

At least that's my first knee jerk response. Thinking about it for literal seconds I suspect it's because they always want a new piece of obvious bullshit for people to pretend to believe as a test of loyalty.

[PseudoStupidity]

The IDF has released pictures of a hole with a ladder in it that they say is proof of Hamas tunnels in the hospital. Why not just release a video of somebody going down the ladder and showing there's tunnels? Why would they not be able to produce immediate evidence that tunnels exist? Why not show anything more than a picture of a hole with a ladder? It's fucking absurd, literal children are better liars than the IDF and people still eat this shit up.