NamEndedAllen

Thanks for the background. So, does this add another war crime to the Russian list? Or are the reports insufficient for further legal investigation?

No! It’s THE OIL CANS!

Steve, apologies. I wasn’t clear enough at the top to say the connection in my opinion is the impact on Ukraine’s hard-pressed airdefenses. Shortages are already an issue of course, and the heavy expenditures in both the Houti/USN engagements and now this much larger sequence represent a significant expenditure of missiles in the region. Patriot launchers and missiles are in short supply in Ukraine and I doubt this event will make expanding Ukraine’s supply any easier. I hope I am wrong, and this proves to be a case of (twisted?) honor restored and the situation simmers down a bit.

Mark Hertling CNN talking about the potential for a well-coordinated attack stretching the stocks of ABMs to take out the missile attack, then followed by the drone attack soon after, making that effort more difficult. His concern is whether other bad actors like Hamas and the Hutis and Hezbollah (?) also launching attacks timed to add to and try to overwhelm Israeli air defenses. USA naval assets are likely to augment those air defenses. Realizing that this may be off topic, I am thinking that the need to restock ALL combatant nations is ramping up the free world’s scarce resource of all the various missiles necessary for air defenses. Ukraine of course already facing a daily drain on its stocks. edit - would seem highly likely that a ton of money could be made investing in the several companies that produce the various components of these missiles.

Waiting for the first ballistic missile strikes and the wave of 100 drones launched earlier at Israel, from Iran. Missiles announced moments ago, after this link. https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-04-13-24/index.html

House Democrats are continuing to suggest they’ll have Speaker Johnson’s back if he will put a vote on aid to Ukraine on the Floor. The bill has already been passed by the Senate. “The head of the House Democratic Caucus suggested Wednesday that Democratic lawmakers stand ready to rescue Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from a potential GOP coup — if he ushers Ukraine aid through the lower chamber and on to President Biden’s desk. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) stopped short of saying he would vote personally to save Johnson from a motion to vacate resolution. But echoing an earlier message from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Aguilar noted a number of Democrats are already on record saying they’d help keep Johnson in power if he stages a vote on the Ukraine package that passed through the Senate in February. That willingness by Democrats to cross the aisle, Aguilar suggested, should be enough to overcome the number of Republicans who might try to topple Johnson. “The Speaker needs to put that bill on the floor,” Aguilar said during a press briefing in the Capitol. “You have also heard me say, you have also heard Leader Jeffries say — and he has pointed out that it was an observation, not a declaration — that we feel that if the Speaker does the right thing that he is in a good position. “But look, we’ve got to do the right thing. We’ve got to pass these bills. We’ve got to have some sanity under this dome. And that means putting bills on the floor that have 300 votes.” “ https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4585578-aguilar-johnson-speaker-ukraine/

Not really in play: Several Dems, including Jamie Rankin, and several others have publicly pledged to support Johnson and NOT vote for their own Jeffries. This is extraordinary only in these times when Party and self interest practically always “trump” the Oath, the Constitution and the best interests of the USA https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-democrats-offer-protect-republican-johnson-ukraine-aid-2024-03-22/ Similar but more general declarations from moderate Democrats go back to January of this year.

Facing death has a way of changing a person.

Sometimes these events may be only the tip of the iceberg. We don’t know whether or not things in a personal life have piled up or exploded. One contributing factor can be enormous loss and grief. And/Or substance abuse stemming from other problems. Or just bad acid! And a person turns to the familiar confines of this forum. What follows is not much more than a stream of consciousness series of rants. Regardless, it’s pretty clear after the first few posts that he isn’t in Kansas any longer. I may be wrong, but feeding these sorts of posts after that never seems to serve either the forum or the person in whatever form of distress or bad humor. Instead, we have to plough through a heap of turgid nonsense for pages. Perhaps wiser use of everyone’s time and lives to cut them loose from further replies after the obvious is clear.

Any evidence that sfhand and MTG are NOT the same person?

This!

Simply - because you were sure it would be too difficult for Putin/FSB to carry out this as a false flag. Pretty clear that yes, he was able to do such a thing, possibly multiple times in the past. Period. A factual reference. Not claimed as evidence of guilt but clearly as evidence that such acts are in his modus operandi, his experience and his ruthlessness. That is all. BTW, our understanding of his actions and rationales is obviously incomplete and speculative.

Yes, the young audience may well be apathetic at best? Pretty sure Putin cares very little for young Moscow partying liberals and their rock band(s). Expendables. Like the mobiks. Doesn’t prove any guilt of Putin, FSB only that those attacked are of lttle consequence emotionally and politically to his government. Yet their violent deaths certainly serve the purpose of propping up increased “security” laws and calls for enlarging the security forces. So there are upsides for the government’s social controls. Even if they had nothing to do with the attack.

That is a highly plausible scenario. Big planet, many players with many longstanding feuds, antipathies, deep-seated hatreds and motives for revenge. Difficult to penetrate the fog.

Not claiming it was an FSB planned op. Just that Putin has had dirty fingers in such matters to rise to power, early. So there would be nothing new about Putin’s involvement in further terror attacks on his own people: https://news.yahoo.com/putin-1999-apartment-bombings-ukraine-175001959.html “There is “no serious doubt that Putin came to power as the result of an act of terror against his own people,” says David Satter, who has investigated the apartment bombings perhaps more thoroughly than any other Western journalist. “Someone capable of such a crime is capable of anything,” Satter told Yahoo News in a telephone conversation from Paris. “And the proper attitude towards him is deterrence, not partnership.” ****** The most damning evidence of Russian involvement, however, came from Ryazan, an ancient city steeped in Russian history not far from Moscow. On the evening Sept. 22, residents in an apartment building there saw a suspicious Lada sedan on the street below, its license plate crudely altered with a piece of paper. Responding officers of the local police found a bomb in the basement. It had been made with hexogen, a military-grade explosive (known in the West as RDX) that was only available, according to Satter, at one heavily guarded factory in the Ural Mountains, to which Chechen insurgents could not have gained access. ****** Russian investigators and journalists who tried to investigate the bombings often ended up dead. Among them was Anna Politkovskaya, a fearless critic of Putin who worked for Novaya Gazeta, one of the last remaining left-leaning outlets in Moscow today. She aggressively covered the Second Chechen War; in 2006, Politkovskaya was assassinated in her apartment building’s elevator. “The murder that killed free media in Russia,” the Guardian would much later reflect of Politkovskaya’s death, which came on Putin’s 54th birthday.

This is (unattributed) fake news. The USA, under Biden Admin, has broken its export record. And has been a net oil importer for a long time. THAT may be changing now - again, under Biden Admin. Just not sure why you posted that and avoided listing where it originated. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-poised-become-net-exporter-crude-oil-2023-2022-12-19/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2024/03/19/from-ban-to-boom-us-set-new-oil-export-record-in-2023/?sh=4db06863f364

(Eddy beat me to thisreport a page ago - just catching up with news and the forum. But better ISR, C4 may be behind Patriot losses. The Bear may be old, and slow and woozy like coming out of hibernation…but it is still a big freaking bear. All of We just need to make the big push to get Ukraine to the Finish Line. Like, now. I really hope that what has been done is not the best we can do. Because nothing good can come from letting a major war in Europe drag on and on. ) Well, this might qualify as a bright flashing sign that we have waited too long to do sooner the things that we dilly dallied about too long. And still are. In the USA, even blocking entirely any new funding at all because Big Nurse (men are nurses, too) hates Ukraine and loves Putin. https://www.twz.com/news-features/russian-shahed-136-with-camera-cellular-modem-could-be-a-big-problem-for-ukraine The latest Russian development involving the Iranian-designed Shahed long-range one-way attack drone reportedly comprises a pan/tilt video camera mounted on the UAV, allowing it to operate in a visual reconnaissance capacity. It is further claimed that the modified drone, seen in an image of a crashed example, uses Ukrainian wireless networks to transmit its imagery back to a control station. While this may look like a crude installation, it is potentially a solution to a very big problem Russia has faced since the beginning of the war and it could have major consequences for Ukraine, which we may already be seeing on the battlefield

Saw this posted by Garry Kasparov

Same exact thing happened to me, SLR. Someone finally posted the solution. You have to separately update your CMFB install FIRST. Separate download for the new patch. After i did that, the expected Downfall update shortcut appeared on my desktop and the activate product file in the CMFB folder also worked to activate DF. The frustrating thing was the lack in the instructions and the purchase materials that this was necessary.

In RL, I bought the first two editions when they came out rather more than few years after Washington’s cruise across the Delaware. I still have the hard copy manuals, and still read over them from time to time. Didn’t know anything about the forums back then, and had no friends willing to try HTH games. Life intervened and I didn't get CMAK until that anthology with all three CMx1 sims. So, no CMAK paper manual. Worse, I failed to get the CMAK strategy guide before it disappeared from view. I still look for used copies online, but never see any. Finding the forums here a few years ago was just a terrific boost and welcome access to so many brilliant minds working on these best wargames, sims. I really appreciate all of you. And I take time to go back and read some of the archived CMx1 posts. We were all so young, once upon a time.

A bit TOO MUCH theater for even a charade of a commitment to the oath they took to serve. Consider that just about half of the country voted for the Party in charge now - by a *5*seat majority out of *435* seats. And, half the country voted for the other Party. But the Speaker insists as per the (made up) “Hastert Rule”, that only bills that will pass with *only* Republican votes will be brought to the Floor for a vote. Although both parties in the House indulge in this defiance of the full nation’s voters, only this Party enshrines the practice as a Rule. All students of the USA political system must remember this: No legislation is enacted without passing both the Senate and the House. So these 5 seats, out of the entire 435, control the entire federal legislative functioning of the United States of America. 5 individuals, no matter how wacko they maybe. And they are. That is, unless the Speaker acts as Speaker of the entire House, which formally he is. And his Party can boot him out if he does, like they did to his predecessor. Takes some guts to do the right thing…

I remember it was a dark and stormy night, not long after Washington crossed the Delaware. I was grumbling to the General that ever since I was up in Boston and that dam P. Revere came running around with hair on fire, I hadn’t had a single opportunity to fire up CMBO. He looked at me that way, you know, and just shook his head.

Republican House Intel Chair sounds classified alarm about Russian nukes in space. Related topic, as such intel may be a significant part of the Administration’s overall understanding of Russian threats that affects its Ukraine policy. “The White House's national security adviser and leading lawmakers on Capitol Hill sought to allay public concerns on Wednesday after the House Intelligence Committee chairman warned of a "national security threat" related to a "destabilizing foreign military capability" so serious that President Joe Biden should declassify "all information" about it.” https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-plans-brief-lawmakers-house-chairman-warns/story?id=107232293 A current and a former U.S. official said the new intelligence was related to Russia’s attempts to develop a space-based antisatellite nuclear weapon. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/us/politics/intelligence-russia-nuclear.html

By now you've seen all the unpleasant answers to your questions. Honestly - with respect, sympathies and appreciation, and despite your earlier objurgations and excoriations, unfortunately we must accept the tensions of not knowing the “correct“ singular answer to understandable confusions about various fraught possibilities in the USA political meltdown. There are no definitive answers until November. If then. And imagine how WE feel back in the, back in the, back in the USA! We have had to live with both the dire warnings *and* the reassurances (“He’s just joking”) for YEARS. Rising to a crescendo on January 6 and now nearing a fever pitch as the next election approaches. But please understand that large numbers of impeccable, credible, insightful voices from both military and civilian backgrounds here have been sounding the alarm in print and online since the 2016-20 first Trump. Trying to pick one “(he’s joking, and he can’t be an autocrat anyway”) or the other (“he’s deadly serious, like a mob boss and has his loyal lieutenants lined up to begin the process on January 20”) is a fool’s errand. As terribly divided and volatile the public is, almost *anything* could happen. Except I think, a coup attempt if Trump loses. As with billbindc, I think it less likely this time, because he isn’t the incumbent. The stark fear lies with him winning. That is at least a 50-50 probability. And yeah, I trust we’ve beaten this topic into a semblance of a shared understanding about the USA’s electoral and political realities and can wind it up now.

My, you have colorful if irrelevant rhetorical devices! Irrelevant, but colorful. I believe Ive addressed your strawmen sufficiently but please do pay attention to what billbindc, Vet, Dan, and the rest have said more succinctly than I have. We’ve outlined what he can do and why. And read that reporting you likely didn’t. Now back to our War! **** Remember saying this a few pages ago: ‘ I have brought up states removing Trump from the ballot, Ukraine war and various other red lights. The response has been “sure but XYZ checks, balances etc etc” Now suddenly Trump is going to take over and rule you all like Stalin? I am getting whiplash here”