US Politics XXXIV: Biden Against the Manchine (Live at the Sinema)

[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by Vlad n U 2

Really just a bunch of kids with little training by the looks.

For sure, they’re probably being sent in first to be slaughtered as a first wave.

But what I was referring to was their infantry marching formations, which surely has some level of command associated with it. They’re walking behind armored vehicles in city streets in tight.

I’m certainly no military buff. I’d question Dave here… would it not make more sense to march wide along the sides of the buildings and not all on top of one another? One grenade or Molotov or window gunner and that’s 10 dead soldiers. Sitting ducks.

This is sort of the same thing with the convoys coming from Russia and Belarus. Just long long lines of stop and go traffic. Seems to me like that’s begging to choke your supply lines and potentially get bombed. One tactical hit and your motion is stopped for hours.

[DaveC]

first, i can assure you they aren't being sent in to be "slaughtered in the first wave", they aren't fighting over the somme in 1916 lol.

it just comes down to experience. nobody in the entire russian army, except for maybe a couple really old officers who still remember chechnya in the 90s, has any experience with an invasion like this. the only other time in this century that russia invaded another country like this was in georgia in 2008 (ukraine 2014 wasn't really an invasion), and that was a tiny country that didn't resist. ukraine is huge and defiant.

this is an army of very young conscripts with shitty training and shitty equipment, trying to operate in an unfamiliar and hostile area, who have been poorly briefed on their mission. a lot of times they don't even seem to know that they're in ukraine, let alone have clearly-defined objectives and timetables for achieving them. the chain of command obviously has a plan but they didn't communicate it to the lower ranks, so a lot of what you're seeing is "my commander told me to drive south, but i don't know why or what i'm doing when i get there, or what to expect along the way" - that kind of shit is inevitably haphazard and sloppy. and then throw in that you've got a hostile civilian population that's changing road signs and giving deliberately bad directions to fuck up your movements, and your movements are gonna get fucked up. then you have a traffic shit show trying to get back onto your original route.

i think it's also important to note that when you're a private driving in a military convoy, you always follow the vehicle in front of you, even if you know they're going "the wrong way". you don't know if orders have been changed, if there's an issue with the original route, and you don't want to get separated and isolated (aka easily killed), so you have to follow the guy in front no matter what. you drive a few km's the wrong way before the sergeant in charge of the convoy realizes, then everybody has to halt in place while command figures out how to get back on route (or what the new route is)... it takes a really long time, even in peace time - i can confirm this from experience, i don't think i was ever in one single convoy in my whole military career that didn't get lost and/or confused and had to pull over for a while, and that was on clearly-marked canadian roads and highways. in a hostile, unfamiliar environment? forget about it. and yeah it is a good way to get your shit blown up if you're fighting a competent enemy with a powerful air force. ukraine is definitely competent but they don't have the air power to bomb the russian convoys like that and make a big logistical impact, and the russians know it.

walking in formation tight along the walls of a city street is actually one of the worst things you can to, btw. walls channel bullets along them, or can spray fragments and spalling as shrapnel if you're standing too close. if someone is firing straight down the street at you, you actually are something like 5x more likely to get hit standing against the wall than you are standing in the deadass middle of the road. if there's no cover, a couple feet away from the wall is ideal. but if you have an armoured vehicle to cover behind then that's definitely what you want to do. bullets aren't getting through that. as for the risk of someone dropping something on you, that's just an inherent part of urban combat. theoretically you could send teams ahead to clear the upper floors of every building on your route, but that's not practical in terms of time and effort. it's better and more efficient to just keep moving and stay vigilant and deal with it if and when you do get attacked.

btw the US army did a lot of this kind of dumb shit too during the invasion of iraq. operational experience inevitably leads to improvements over time. some lessons of war can only be learned by fighting in one.

[Irvine511]

Very interesting. Thank you for the post.

[LuckyNumber7]

I suspected there was a catch with walking along the walls, but I still don’t understand bunching up like that. It screams sitting duck.

[Headache in a Suitcase]

https://youtu.be/TIcOsJzI5Mg

[Hewson]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

https://youtu.be/TIcOsJzI5Mg

Great, Roger Goodell is going to take away a first round draft pick from New England after he hears about Sisolak's run in with a patriot.

[BEAL]

Do the democrats think it’s a great idea to have a response to the SOTU tonight? Apparently there’ll be two of them (three if you count GQP)

A single, unified message. This is how the Right is able to continue to hold on despite having no fucking platform or ideas. We are lucky right now their message didn’t quite stick for 2020, but it was more getting rid of Trump that lost it for them

https://twitter.com/grace_panetta/st...210947073?s=21

Edit, there’s three dem responses

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Originally Posted by BEAL

Do the democrats think it’s a great idea to have a response to the SOTU tonight? Apparently there’ll be two of them (three if you count GQP)

A single, unified message. This is how the Right is able to continue to hold on despite having no fucking platform or ideas. We are lucky right now their message didn’t quite stick for 2020, but it was more getting rid of Trump that lost it for them

https://twitter.com/grace_panetta/st...210947073?s=21

Edit, there’s three dem responses

jesus christ they're so fucking dumb

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Originally Posted by Hewson

Great, Roger Goodell is going to take away a first round draft pick from New England after he hears about Sisolak's run in with a patriot.

[BEAL]

https://twitter.com/bencasselman/sta...843659269?s=21

https://twitter.com/bencasselman/sta...937722888?s=21

I do think the Right wing messaging plays a part in this. Much like all of our cities are burning from BLM and ANTIFA!, these organizations have shat on Biden and the recovery from the second it was signed in 2021

But this is also a really shitty job of messaging by the Dems. Chuck and Nancy take an incredible amount of abuse from the right (and a lot from the left) and they’ve done some good things but they’re so fucking stuck in an old world and it shows. Trump and the GOP are playing a different game when it comes to messaging, mostly they don’t give a fuck what they say because the media and our attention will be distracted within a day If they say something dumb and/or horrendous (or they give speeches with white nationalists)

It does seem to be a rigged and unfair game but the Dems are relying so much on policy talk and I’m not sure the country has ever been that smart ? It definitely isn’t right now.

It’s so tiring to repeat these cycles. Dems fix a broken economy and country, can’t figure out how to message and celebrate it, GOP takes over and wipes it away

Except this time there’s the Supreme Court so slanted the wiping away of women and minority rights could take generations to win back, if at all

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

jesus christ they're so fucking dumb

It’s better to feel morally superior than it is to win.

[Bluer White]

Originally Posted by BEAL

Do the democrats think it’s a great idea to have a response to the SOTU tonight? Apparently there’ll be two of them (three if you count GQP)

At the beginning of the show when the prez is announced and makes way to the stage,

it's fun watching which members crowd the aisle for a little national airtime with the boss. The handshaking and backslapping and all the shits and giggles. It's many of the same members year after year after year.

Always the most entertaining part of the night for me.

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Russia - victim of cancel culture, according to Fox News.

https://twitter.com/travisakers/stat...41366696992772

[Headache in a Suitcase]

uhhh

https://twitter.com/Anthony/status/1499146380673261571

[Headache in a Suitcase]

https://twitter.com/josh_wingrove/st...LWxp8W62Q&s=19

Jesus fucking christ

[U2inUtah]

The nuclear plant was probably full of Neo-Nazis

[Moonlit_Angel]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

uhhh

https://twitter.com/Anthony/status/1499146380673261571

Wow, okay, that's an interesting twist.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

https://twitter.com/josh_wingrove/st...LWxp8W62Q&s=19

Jesus fucking christ

This feels really bad.

[Hewson]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

https://twitter.com/josh_wingrove/st...LWxp8W62Q&s=19

Jesus fucking christ

Putin's an unhinged lunatic just wanting to try out his nukes before he rides shirtless into the sunset and will keep pushing the rest of the world's button until he feels they provoked him enough to be justified in launching.

[BEAL]

Read that the reactor was safely shut down. Fires were to buildings around it. I assume this was the plan? To attack it and get the techs to shut it down which supplies something like 30% of the power to Ukraine

If we’re not going to close airspace or send in NATO forces (which i understand why…) then we need to be giving Ukraine as much military equipment and power as we can

Otherwise we are watching an entire country slowly get slaughtered and Putin will learn he can do whatever he wants by force. I don’t think sanctions matter to him at this point. He wants blood.