Kontrollerad opposition

 

Elon Musk sägs stödja Reform Party i UK, Italiens bröder och nu...Alternativ för Tyskland. I USA samarbetar han som bekant med Donald Trump. 

Frågan är förstås: varför? Det hela måste te sig obegripligt för vänsterliberala ideologer, som ju uppfattar dessa partier som extremhöger. Vilket Musk inte är. Vi vet redan att han egentligen är för massinvandring till USA. 

De grupperingar på högerkanten Musk stödjer verkar dock samarbeta smärtfritt med EU (Italiens bröder) eller ha en nyliberal ekonomisk politik (Reform Party, Trump). Och AfD:s kvinnliga partiledare sägs tillhöra den "realistiska" falangen inom detta parti. En annan sak de har gemensamt (utom möjligen Italiens bröder) är en "pro-rysk" hållning i förhållande till Ukraina. (Kan ärligt talat inte så mycket om Italiens bröder, fast jag tror att det totala antalet invandrare brödraskapet lyckats stoppa uppgår till omkring noll personer.) 

Slutsats: Musk vill lobba den del av ytterhögern som är nyliberal och pro-rysk, eftersom han vill ha ett auktoritärt nyliberalt system med reglerad massinvandring av låglönearbetskraft. Kanske anser han att investeringsklimatet i Europa kommer att förbättras om ett fredsavtal sluts mellan Ryssland och Ukraina?

Att den nyliberala "nationella" högern skulle kunna hamna här förutsade jag redan för några år sedan (hittar inte blogginlägget i skrivande stund). Trodde dock inte att Musk av alla människor skulle spela rollen av spjutspets. När det begav sig verkade han snarast vara en förvirrad liberal i ordets amerikanska mening.

Och en sak till. Tobias Hübinette vågar av någon anledning inte säga att AfD:s ledare Alice Weidel faktiskt är lesbisk, och att "personen" hon är ihop med således är en annan kvinna! Oklart varför T.H. inte nämner detta, but there you go...   

Elon Musk stödjer AfD, använder utlandsadopterad person som argument

The grizzly toll of capitalism

 

OK, help me out here. So the ship recently boarded in the Gulf of Finland by the Finnish police has a flag of convenience from the Cook Islands, an obsure quasi-independent territory somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The ship is believed to be part of a "shadow fleet" controlled by Russia, the main purpose of which is to export Russian oil and hence break the Western sanctions. Finland suspects that the ship also sabotaged two underwater cabels connecting Finland and Estonia.

But the most interesting part of the equation here is surely the flag of convenience. So by not banning such anti-labor practices, the Western nations (including New Zealand, the actual overlord of the Cook Islands) have enabled Russia to bypass the sanctions.

Capitalist greed makes it more difficult to fight Russian imperialism. How ironic!  

Welcome to the chaos

 

The Syrian Civil War rekindles, and is even more complex than before. The article below is from a Ukrainian newspaper. It states that Ukraine´s intelligence services have been training the rebel forces (many of whom are Islamists) fighting the Syrian army in Aleppo. The Syrian military and the Assad regime are backed by Russia. 

But note that the rebels are also sponsored by Turkey, usually seen as an almost-ally of Russia in other theatres! So in Syria, Russia and Turkey are enemies...while Turkey and Ukraine are friends?! To make the situation even more complex, the "SDF" (really the Kurdish YPG or PKK) have attacked Aleppo from the east. But the SDF are anti-Turkish...

Oh, and both Hamas (pro-Turkish/pro-rebel) and Hizbollah (anti-Turkish/pro-Assad) are sponsored by Iran against Israel and the United States. 

I wish Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner good luck at their new jobs.       

Ukrainian trained, Turkish sponsored Syrian rebels lead assault on Aleppo

The end of the Spring Offensive

 

Paradigm shift?

Possible translation: Zelensky admits that Ukraine can´t take back the territories occupied by Russia, but wants to get the best possible peace deal by giving Trump "an offer he can´t refuse". 

Another possible translation: Zelensky admits that Ukraine has lost the war and can´t last another year (or another winter), and therefore desperately pleads with Donald Trump. 

Will Trump bite? Probably. Will Vladimir Putin do it? I doubt it, both because he has the advantage (otherwise Zelensky wouldn´t have changed his line) and because a NATO-affiliated Ukraine would still be a military and geopolitical threat to Russia, even if certain areas in the east and south remain occupied by the Russian "Federation". 

So the really interesting question is: what will Trump (or his "Neo-Con" allies) do when Putin sez nyet? Fold? Or actually step up the war, trying to force Moscow to make a deal? Another question: What will the EU and its member-states do? The brave knights in Germany, for instance, who made themselves completely dependent on Russian fossil fuels to compensate for their fake Green transition, and whose government is threatened by pro-Russian political parties in the upcoming snap elections? See also: France, Italy, Austria, Romania...

A less important question is how the Western media, who for years have peddled the lie that Russia is easy to defeat - or lost the war on day one - will handle the fact that they´ve just been publishing disinformation all this time.

Personally, I support Ukraine, but I always tried to be more realistic of the prospects on this blog than the "Branch Ukrainians" elsewhere. So I can´t say I´m surprised by present developments. OK, the idea that a European NATO proxy could be defeated by North Koreans never crossed my mind!

So the West may have lost this round. But don´t worry, there will be others. I mean, this has been ongoing since at least the 13th century...

Interview with Zelensky

Baksmällan

 

Precis vad jag förutspådde: etablissemanget tar avstånd från Angela Merkel. Det beror givetvis på hennes inställning till Ryssland, men nio år efter migrantkrisen och x antal år efter att klimatprotesterna fasades ut är det tydligen okej att kritisera invandringspolitiken och slå ett slag för kärnkraften också. 

Nu vet jag inte exakt vad just denna krönikör skrev om de sakerna när de begav sig, men jag misstänker alltså att "alla" kommer att ta avstånd från den eviga kanslerns hela politik med Ukraina-frågan som "politiskt korrekt" förevändning. Eller i vart fall låtsas ta avstånd...

Är allting egentligen Angela Merkels fel?

Casting the die?

 

Over at X, Michael Tracey comments Trump´s appointment of a certain General Keith Kellogg as "Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia", presumably some kind of "czar" (pun intended) of the incoming administration´s policy towards the Russian-Ukrainian war. Tracey believes that Kellogg is a hawk and wants to step up US support for Ukraine!

>>>Trump just named Gen. Keith Kellogg as "Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia." Kellogg is a hardcore interventionist, Mike Pence aide, and Fox News contributor. He criticizes Biden for not arming Ukraine quickly enough, and says the plan for "peace" is to continue arming Ukraine.

>>>Gen. Keith Kellogg, who Trump just named "Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia," has said the "end game" for the war is "evicting the Russians from Ukraine," including the Donbas and Crimea, resulting in the downfall of Putin. "I don't think there's going to be any negotiations"

>>>Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump's new envoy for Ukraine and Russia, has criticized Biden for pursuing "an overly cautious wartime strategy." According to Kellogg, "Biden should have provided Ukraine with the weapons it needed to win quickly, but instead, he was afraid of potential Russian 'escalation.'" >>>In outlining Trump's strategy, Kellogg said: "Trump might very well remove the Biden-eras constraints on arms transfers and give Ukraine the weapons it needs to win, including long-range weapons to strike within Crimea and Russia. If faced with the prospect of a costly military defeat, Putin may very well prefer negotiations." >>>According to Kellogg, Trump could intimidate Putin into accepting a "strategic defeat for Russia," namely by "provision of reliable security guarantees, including possible NATO and EU membership" to Ukraine, and Ukraine's retention of "internationally-recognized claims to sovereignty over all of Ukraine."

Deep fake

 

- Nej, vi är faktiskt verkliga...

Läs innan AB låser skiten. Liknande konspirationsteorier har ju även framförts om Biden. Men dessa lyftes förstås inte i Aftonbladet...  

Bisarra detaljen avslöjar Putin

Ultra MAGA or just neocons?

 

Liberal gadfly and independent reporter Michael Tracey (once considered something of a MAGA "asset") continues his crusade against the incoming Trump administration, arguing that it isn´t really isolationist. 

The pro-Trump cliques in the GOP establishment are just as bellicose and interventionist as the neoconservatives (many of which became Never Trumpers back in 2016). And what about the Donald himself? At what point will MAGA realize that their Messiah, too, is one of the dreaded RINOs of the GOP-e? If you pardon my, ahem, MAGA lingo.

The idea that Trump is somehow fighting the "neocons" is true only in the extremely narrow sense mentioned above: many of the original neocons refused to kiss Trump´s ass and de facto (and sometimes even de jure) regrouped around the Democratic Party instead. But Trump´s actual policies are barely distinguishable from those associated with the neocons.

Here is a key paragraph of Tracey´s essay (linked below):  

>>>One of the few permitted critiques of Trump in MAGA/LaLa Land had previously been that Trump was a political novice in the first term, and was beguiled by the wily “neocons” who exploited his youth and inexperience. As facile as that argument was, it at least had the benefit of reflecting some partial reality: Trump indeed had no governing record or long-established political operation. But in 2024, that argument is comically absurd. 

>>>Trump singularly dominates the Republican Party more than perhaps any figure in American history, as evidenced by his unprecedented thrice-consecutive presidential nomination. He can pick winners of Republican congressional primaries with a single Truth Social post, and even ousted the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus earlier this year for no apparent reason other than the poor sap’s initial endorsement of Ron DeSantis. He installed his own daughter-in-law to run the Republican National Committee. 

>>>By now, he’s had over eight years to assemble a personnel roster that best represents whatever his policy preferences may be — and he has largely assembled a team of “neocons,” if that term had any cognizable meaning, which it doesn’t. 

Tracey predicts that the Trump Administration will end up having a worse foreign policy than even the current Biden Administration (which he doesn´t particularly fancy either) by escalating the war in Ukraine, permitting Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza, and perhaps even launch a bombing campaign against Iran. At least his take on Ukraine is hardly standard orthodoxy. 

I suppose we will see soon enough...if we dare looking!  

Is Donald Trump a neocon? 

No nukes are good nukes

 

I never heard this one before. The claim is that nuclear weapons aren´t real?! Apparently, this conspiracy theory became popular in the wake of the film "Oppenheimer". Now it´s going strong again, but strangely enough on pro-Russian accounts. 

You would think that people who support Russia would claim that Evil Ivan *does* have access to nukes, but what do I know. Maybe their hypersonic missiles are fake, too? 

Nuclear weapons are real 

Conspiracy theorists are trying to claim that nuclear weapons aren´t real

Nuclear weapons do exist

Hypersonic

 

It´s still unclear what kind of missile hit Dnipro recently, but what *is* clear is that it was a deliberate warning from the Russians not to bomb their internationally recognized territory with Anglo-American hardware. 

Note the claims that the Russian missiles are so fast that they can´t be intercepted, et cetera. When Trump was president the first time around, he boasted about the United States having some kind of previously unknown hypersonic missiles (without going into details). Well, let´s hope the madman was right! Also, let´s hope that the UAPs everyone is seeing in Alaska and elsewhere are "ours"...

From Kyiv Independent (actually a pro-Zelensky news site). 

Russia plans mass production of Oreshnik missile 

Russia used missile from Kedr complex to strike Dnipro

Undergången

 

Whoa, det här var lite oväntat. Baserad mama, eller vad?! 

Inga tider eller tillstånd varar för evigt

Escalation

 

Putin yesterday: "We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities. If anyone else doubts this, then they are wrong - there will always be a response."

Possible translation: Putin is threatening to bomb NATO military targets, perhaps in the United States or the United Kingdom, with conventional ballistic missiles.

Oh. 

Autism increases

 

Get a grip, Eddie. 

GOP: Friends of Ukraine?

 

Michael Tracey (who opposes US aid to Ukraine) doesn´t think the incoming Trump admin or the current GOP majority in the House have done enough to stop said aid. Or anything at all, really. 

>>>House Republicans pledged in 2022 to impose oversight on Biden's conduct of Ukraine war policy, and end the so-called "blank check." Then they won the majority, and this "oversight" consisted of *increasing* war funds to Ukraine, performing little or no actual oversight, and demanding Biden loosen restrictions on Ukraine. >>>The "oversight" that Republicans have been far more concerned with has been to confabulate an "anti-Semitism" panic, which they made a top legislative priority. >>>Now, Biden authorizes US ballistic missile strikes on Russia, and the House does nothing. Just like when Biden first authorized US munitions to be used inside Russia in May, and the House did nothing. However, there will be plenty of important action taken on Trans in bathrooms.

Further down the thread, somebody comments: "There will be no important action taken on trans in bathrooms, either." (This is a reference to Speaker Johnson prohibiting a Democrat House member who is a trans-woman from using the female bathrooms in Congress.)

Original tweet/thread

Storm Shadow

 

So it´s official now. Ukraine has used both American ATACMS missiles and UK Storm Shadow dittos to target military bases on recognized Russian territory. 

As already mentioned, Moscow has changed its nuclear doctrine, threatening everyone who attacks the Russian Federation and its allies (and presumably its occupied territories!) in the way Ukraine just did with nuclear retaliation. 

The only ally explictly mentioned is Belarus, but it does raise questions about what would happen during a shooting war between, say, North Korea and South Korea...

The storm shadows are gathering. 

The fire this time

 

Not sure how confirmed or official it is, but there are claims that Ukraine launched a US missile against a Russian military base, presumably during the night or early morning today (local time). 

Meanwhile, Putin signed a new military doctrine, according to which Russia can retaliate in situations like this by launching nuclear weapons against Ukraine...

They´re bluffing, of course. For now! It´s day 1000 of the Russian invasion, btw.

There will be drones

 

This is supposedly the first air "duel" between two unmanned drones. From some Ukrainian battle field.  

History in the making

Drone Wars (video on X)

Sources say

 

My cynical reaction is that Russia won´t escalate the conflict to include NATO countries, since the American missiles won´t be particularly effective anyway. The war is clearly a ground war. But sure, I could be wrong. Maybe they´ll nuke Camp Trump in Poland?  

Biden allows Ukraine to use US missiles to strike inside Russia

Historiens vingslag

 

Kort kommentar på TH:s blogg.  

Japaner och koreaner strider åter mot varandra...i Europa

Out of the blue

 

Was there really a 50% chance that Russia would nuke Ukraine in 2022? Or is it just Western war propaganda? Or covert Russian disinformation to make the enemy shit in their pants?

What´s most worrying: that Putin contemplated to use a tactical nuclear weapon against some target in Ukraine, or that NATO assumed he was contemplating it although he really wasn´t? 

Do we even want to know the answer? 

Liz Truss prepped for Russian nuclear attack in Ukraine