The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

What Counts as ‘Russian Disinformation’?

Posted on | March 22, 2022 | Comments Off on What Counts as ‘Russian Disinformation’?

Everybody’s having a laugh at the New York Times which, attempting to smear conservatives as purveyors of “Russian disinformation,” prompted Candace Owens to point to how often the Times (and other liberal outlets) have reported on the same facts that are now called “disinformation.” (Hat-tip: Instapundit.) Just the other day, for example, I noticed that it is now considered “Russian disinformation” to mention that Ukraine has a neo-Nazi problem.

Neo-Nazis and the Far Right
Are On the March in Ukraine
— The Nation, Feb. 22, 2019

The author of that article, Lev Golinkin, is a Ukranian-born Jew, and The Nation is a left-wing journal that is certainly not pro-Putin, so why are we now required to ignore this information?

[In 2012] Ukraine’s Maidan uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, to the cheers and support of the West. Politicians and analysts in the United States and Europe not only celebrated the uprising as a triumph of democracy, but denied reports of Maidan’s ultranationalism, smearing those who warned about the dark side of the uprising as Moscow puppets and useful idiots. Freedom was on the march in Ukraine. . . .
Post-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces. The Azov Battalion was initially formed out of the neo-Nazi gang Patriot of Ukraine. Andriy Biletsky, the gang’s leader who became Azov’s commander, once wrote that Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” Biletsky is now a deputy in Ukraine’s parliament.
In the fall of 2014, Azov—which is accused of human-rights abuses, including torture, by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations — was incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard.
While the group officially denies any neo-Nazi connections, Azov’s nature has been confirmed by multiple Western outlets: The New York Times called the battalion “openly neo-Nazi,” while USA Today, The Daily Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretz documented group members’ proclivity for swastikas, salutes, and other Nazi symbols, and individual fighters have also acknowledged being neo-Nazis.

Far be it from me to draw conclusions about political events on the other side of the world on the basis of stuff I read on the Internet. Maybe this “ultranationalism” in Ukraine is misunderstood, and maybe negative reports about the Azov Battalion and other alleged neo-Nazis in Ukraine really are “Russian disinformation.” The point is, we don’t know, and maybe it doesn’t matter — like, if you’re fighting off a foreign invasion, do we need to impose a litmus test on who’s doing the fighting?

Is Ukraine corrupt? According to the New York Times‘ own reporting from 2018, the answer is, “yes.” Is Ukraine more corrupt than Russia? Probably not, and I don’t think Ukraine is more “ultranationalist” than Russia, either. So why is the New York Times now attacking Candace Owens and others for talking smack about Ukraine? In a word, politics.

Democrats seem to have the idea that smearing Republicans as Putin stooges — traitors! enemy agents! — is the way they’re going to avert a bloodbath in the midterm elections. And the New York Times is doing what it always does, producing Democratic Party propaganda.




 

Category: New York Times, Russia, Ukraine

Key Victory for Ukraine?

Posted on | March 22, 2022 | Comments Off on Key Victory for Ukraine?

If you look at a map of Ukraine, the strategic importance of Makariv becomes obvious. Makariv is on the intersection of a major north-south highway (T1019) and another highway (T1015) that heads west to Radomyshl. Furthermore, Makariv — about 40 miles west of Kyiv — is just north of the intersection of T1019 and the major east-west highway (M06) that connects Kyiv to Zhytomyr, Lviv, Lutsk and Poland. So reports of a Ukrainian victory in Makariv are important:

Ukraine said it retook a strategically important suburb of Kyiv on Tuesday, while its forces battled Russian attempts to occupy the encircled southern port city of Mariupol. . . .
Explosions and bursts of gunfire shook Kyiv, and heavy artillery fire could be heard from the northwest, where Russia has sought to encircle and capture several suburban areas of the capital, a crucial target.
Early Tuesday, Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces from the Kyiv suburb of Makariv after a fierce battle, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said. The regained territory allowed Ukrainian forces to retake control of a key highway and block Russian troops from surrounding Kyiv from the northwest.
Still, the Defense Ministry said Russian forces partially took other northwest suburbs, Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin, some of which had been under attack almost since Russia’s military invaded nearly a month ago.

(Hat-tip: Jazz Shaw at Hot Air.)

Again, look at a map, and you can see why Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin are crucial battlefields. Irpin is closest to Kyiv, and also within artillery range of the M06 highway, so that by controlling that town, the Russians are able to deprive Ukraine of using the most direct route to bring in supplies from the west. The Russians want to push south from Irpin, to cut off that route and encircle Kyiv from the west, while the Ukrainians want to push the Russians back northward. Pushing the Russian invaders out of Makariv is part of the overall strategic picture in terms of keeping the supply routes of Kyiv open. And, of course, killing more Russians.

As mentioned last night, Russia’s casualty rates are nearly 10 times what the U.S. suffered in the worst year of the Vietnam War. Mere control of territory is now less important to Ukraine’s survival than their ability to inflict further losses on the Russian invaders. The “fierce battle” that drove the Russians out of Makariv almost certainly added to the death toll for Putin’s army. The Ukrainians have wiped out entire regiments of the Russian army, and killed a half-dozen of their top commanders, and the higher the price the Russians are made to pay in blood, the more likely they are to decide that their invasion is a bad bargain.




 

Category: Military, Russia, Ukraine

From Bad to Worse for Russia in Ukraine

Posted on | March 21, 2022 | Comments Off on From Bad to Worse for Russia in Ukraine

This is a strange story: Supposedly, a pro-Putin tabloid in Moscow published (and then deleted) an official tally of Russia’s casualties in Ukraine — nearly 10,000 killed and more than 15,000 injured/wounded as of Monday. Do the math, and they’re suffering casualties at the rate of about 400 KIA and 650 wounded daily. This is slightly higher than previous Western estimates, although less than what Ukraine has claimed. Yet the word “staggering” is the perhaps the best way to describe Russia’s losses. By comparison, during the worst year of the Vietnam War, 1968, the U.S. had around 16,500 troops KIA — about 45 per day. Russia’s losses in Ukraine so far have been nearly 10 times as high.

Another six months of this and Russia won’t have an army anymore.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)




 

Category: Military, Russia, Ukraine

The Problem With ‘Equality’

Posted on | March 21, 2022 | Comments Off on The Problem With ‘Equality’

 

In the mid-1970s, in an attack on [Wilmoore] Kendall, [Harry] Jaffa published an article, “Equality as a Conservative Principle,” the very title of which served to mark him as a latter-day Jacobin in the eyes of many conservatives influenced by Edmund Burke. (“Believe me, Sir, those who attempt to level never equalise. In all societies consisting of various descriptions of citizens, some description must be uppermost. The Levellers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of things,” etc. — Reflections on the Revolution in France.)
Jaffa has the obnoxious habit of denouncing as “nihilists” all who dispute his particular philosophy, which can best be described as an eclectic (or, perhaps some would say, peculiar) stew of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Abraham Lincoln. Considering that both Kendall and [his ally Frank] Meyer were close associates of William F. Buckley Jr., it is difficult to understand why their antagonist Jaffa was embraced by Buckley, but he was.
— from “Angelo Codevilla, Conor Friedersdorf and the Straussian Time-Warp,” The American Spectator, July 18, 2010

We keep having the same arguments about “equality” because so few people bother to study the arguments we’ve already had. Another factor is that many of the people involved think of themselves as being so intellectually and morally superior to the rest of us that our opposition to their enthusiasm for Equality (with a capital “E” denoting its status as a religion to some people) makes it unnecessary to rebut our arguments. We’re all just a bunch of ignorant bigots in the eyes of the High Priests of the Cult of Equality, and therefore our objections can be ignored or dismissed as expressions of hateful prejudice.

It should not be necessary for me to explain what is wrong with Equality — why a fanatical cult-like devotion to this abstract ideal is harmful and erroneous — because such eminent thinkers as Burke have already made the argument with such clarity that no honest and intelligent could fail to grasp the point, and yet here we are in 2022, dealing with David French.

Dear God, how I wish we could all resolve to ignore that fool, but someone quoted him in the Hot Air headlines, and there goes my whole morning. Whatever else I might have blogged about must be laid aside so I can administer the kind of bitch-slapping he deserves.

While I hate to keep my quoting myself, it’s helpful to illustrate how persistent the egalitarian error is when I show you that I was arguing about this more than 13 years ago in January 2009:

Are men and women equal in the fullest sense of the word? If so, then equality implies fungibility — the two things are interchangeable and one may be substituted for the other in any circumstance whatsoever. (La mort à la différence!) Therefore, it is of no consequence whether I marry a woman or a man.

The fantastical project of yesterday, which was mentioned only to be ridiculed, is to-day the audacious reform, and will be tomorrow the accomplished fact.

This is why so many of those who would defend traditional marriage find themselves unable to form a coherent argument, because traditional marriage is based on the assumption that men and women are fundamentally different, and hence, unequal. Traditional marriage assumes a complementarity of the sexes that becomes absurd if you deny that “man” and “woman” define intrinsic traits, functions, roles.

Insofar as any two things are different, they are not equal. This is a fundamental principle of mathematics, and its application to human affairs seems logical enough that further explanation should be unnecessary. And yet, there goes David French:

For those who haven’t followed, a trans woman named Lia Thomas just won the women’s 500-yard freestyle championship, and the race wasn’t close. Before this year, Thomas raced as a man in both high school and college. While competing as a man, Thomas was a fine swimmer, but nowhere near the NCAA championship level.
Here’s where I am on the dispute. In the vast majority of life circumstances, I do not believe that a trans person should face discrimination because they are trans. But there are limited circumstances where biological realities mean that some distinctions are not only wise, they protect other classes of Americans from both unfairness and intrusion on their rights. . . .

Where to start? Permit me to risk the accusation of transphobia by saying that a man is a man and woman is a woman and that anyone who thinks otherwise is in the throes of “strong delusion.” For French to say that those who suffer from such a delusion should be treated as if they actually were what they think they are — i.e., that the rest of us are obligated to play along with this make-believe, or else be accused of wrongful “discrimination” — is a perfect example of how hopelessly confused French has become. He imagines himself to be a defender of the True Principles™ of conservatism, a belief every bit as delusional as the belief that Will Thomas is now a woman named “Lia.”

If you’re going to be a conservative, you have to accept the reputational damage you will suffer as a result of character assassination by liberals who need little or no actual evidence to accuse you of racism, sexism or some other prejudice. Sic semper hoc — “Now listen you queer, quit calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered,” as Bill Buckley replied to Gore Vidal. The Left’s habit of trafficking in ad-hominem smears as a substitute for argument was noted a century ago by Ludwig von Mises:

Marxism criticizes the achievements of all those who think otherwise by representing them as the venal servants of the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person.

It does not behoove a conservative to waste much time denying such smears, and it’s always a bad idea for a conservative to go out of his way to show how “not racist” (or “not sexist,” etc.) he is. This is the real root of French’s problem; he fears that actually being against whatever liberals demand would injure his reputation as a pious Christian. While I don’t want to get into a theological discussion here, French seems to think that bluntly telling liberals “no” is sinful, and thus he twists himself into knots of self-contradiction by, on the one hand, ceding every premise of liberal syllogisms (e.g., transgender people are “valid” substitutes for whatever it is they pretend to be) while trying to deny the conclusion of their arguments (e.g., Will Thomas should be an NCAA women’s swimming champion). Conservatives are generally too polite to question the bona fides of leftists — considering it rude to doubt their sincerity — but I was born and raised a “yellow dog” Democrats, so I’m under no illusions about this. Democrats really only care about one thing — winning — and they don’t consider any political tactic to be unfair, so long as the result is Democrats winning. This is why political conflict in America is so often one-sided, with the GOP trying to fight by the Marquis of Queensbury rules against Democrats who roll like the Crips vs. Bloods.

Returning from that digression, however, when I speak of egalitarians as having a religious devotion to Equality, this is scarcely an exaggeration. Consider this passage of French’s argument:

To understand my reasoning, let’s go back to the founding and guiding texts of the American republic — texts that don’t just create specific legal doctrines but embody a particular biblically-informed morality about the dignity and worth of all people.
The founding declaration can be quoted by heart: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Note that this sentence proclaims not just people have equal status (equality isn’t enough), but also possess inherent dignity, which is recognized and protected through our unalienable rights.

As with so much of what French writes, the question is, where to begin? As more eminent writers than I have explained, the lofty prose of the preamble to the Declaration had a specific authorial intent — in particular, appealing to Whig sentiments in England — that attenuate the claims of egalitarians who view it as a promise of a utopian ideal that we are obligated to pursue as a matter of federal policy. You will often find this “all men are created equal” phrase from the Declaration compounded with the phrase “a more perfect Union” from the preamble to the Constitution to create a sort of Permanent Revolutionary Mandate, by which we are compelled always to measure ourselves against some imagined ideal condition of Equality, and to pursue whatever crazy measures are necessary to achieve this “perfect Union” — immanentizing the eschaton, as Eric Voegelin would say. This is an error based upon a misreading of the Constitution. Why, after all, were the delegates representing “We the People” gathered in Philadelphia in 1787?

The faults of the Articles of Confederation had become manifest, and the “Union” of the several states was so imperfect that it was universally agreed that something had to be done to fix these problems, or else the whole thing might go flying asunder. In avowing their intent “to form a more perfect Union,” the authors of the Constitution were merely saying that they meant to make possible a greater cohesion of the different states under a common government. This is why, for example, that they specified that “regulation of interstate commerce” as a federal power, because under the Articles the different states had been slapping tariffs and other trade restrictions on their neighbors. Many of the other provisions of the Constitution, including the federal assumption of debts from the War of Independence owed by the state governments, can be viewed in this light, i.e., as seeking to bring about greater unity (i.e. “a more perfect Union”) than was the case under the Articles.

David French is worshiping in the Temple of the Cult of Equality, and thinks of this political idolatry as “biblically-informed morality,” so that those of us who fail to join along in singing his peculiar hymns to the Fourteenth Amendment are just a bunch of retrograde sinners. While I could go on fisking his argument for hours, I’ve already wasted most of the morning on this project, and it’s now past lunchtime, so I’ll let the commenters chew over the rest of it. In the bowels of Christ I beseech you, can we agree to ignore David French from now on?




 

Category: Constitution, Intellectuals

UKRAINE: Most Shocking News So Far

Posted on | March 21, 2022 | Comments Off on UKRAINE: Most Shocking News So Far

Multiple outlets are reporting that an elite Russian airborne regiment, the 331st Guards, has been wiped out in the fighting near Kyiv. Both the regimental commander, Col. Sergei Sukharev (pictured above) and his deputy, Major Sergei Krylov, have been confirmed by the Russians as killed in action, which lends credence to the otherwise unbelievable claim that an entire regiment of paratroopers is now hors de combat.

Among other things, this report gives a sense of the severity of the Russian army’s logistics problem in Ukraine. We must conclude that Russia simply lacks the transportation capacity to reinforce their front-line troops, because otherwise this regiment would not have been wiped out. Of course, such a devastating loss for the Russians is also testimony to the skill and tenacity of the Ukrainian forces, who can now boast of having beaten Russia’s best troops. If the 331st Guards can’t survive in Ukraine, what will be the fate of Russia’s less elite units?

This is certainly not the only bad news for Putin’s invading army:

Ukraine, with the help of Belarusian railway workers, have dealt a devastating blow to Vladimir Putin’s war plans. On Saturday, Belarusian railway workers carried out the “largest act of sabotage” on train lines leading into Ukraine, making it impossible for the Russians to resupply by train. This follows unverified reports of Ukraine battalions also blowing up train lines between Ukraine and Belarus.
The railway sabotage comes as supplies and morale among Russian troops continue to sink.
It is also a major blow to Russia, which had moved many of its troops and military equipment into Ukraine through Belarus since the invasion began.

Because an army in the field requires tons of food and other supplies daily, the wrecking of rail lines in their rear will make the Russian logistical problems in Ukraine even worse than they already are, particularly in the area near Kyiv. Meanwhile, in the southern theater of the war, the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet was killed in the fighting near the besieged port city of Mariupol.

The only proper adjective for Russia’s losses is unsustainable:

Entire regiments wiped out? Multiple generals killed in combat? This makes me think of the Battle of Franklin, in which the casualties included 14 Confederate generals (six killed, seven wounded, and one captured), and after which Hood’s army essentially ceased to exist. But that devastating Confederate defeat came near the end of the war in 1864, after more than three years of fighting, whereas Russia is experiencing these dreadful casualties after only three weeks.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

PREVIOUSLY:




 

Category: Ukraine

Rule 5 Sunday: Alla Kostromichova

Posted on | March 20, 2022 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Alla Kostromichova

— compiled by Wombat-socho

By popular demand, Ukrainian supermodel Alla Kostromichova, who has worked with a buttload of top fashion designers. Originally born in Sevastopol, she now resides in Kyiv, although I suspect that particular datum needs to be updated.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Tangled up in blue?

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1659, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Switchblades Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon

EBL: Save Ukrainian Refugee Women!, We Crashed, Shirley Bassey, St. Paddy’s Day Lushes, Lea Seydoux, WAGs of Caesar, Dinah Shore, and Winning Time

A View From The Beach: Angelina Boyko, Fish Pic Friday – Cassandra Dickson, Politics On St. Paddy’s Day?, Tattoo Thursday, A Deposit for a Cup of Coffee?, Some Wednesday Wetness, Giselle’s Husband Headed Back to Work, Headspin, The Monday Morning Stimulus and Palm Sunday

Thanks to everyone for the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

Can You Say ‘Hate Hoax,’ Boys and Girls?

Posted on | March 20, 2022 | Comments Off on Can You Say ‘Hate Hoax,’ Boys and Girls?

Nothing suspicious about this at all:

One by one, student leaders representing several historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) across the country described to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Thursday their anguish over the recent racially charged threats their educational institutions had faced, while emphasizing their resolve to move forward. . . .
On Jan. 31 and again on Feb. 1, at the beginning of Black History Month, 24 HBCUs received threats that bombs were going to explode on their campuses. Since the beginning of the year, at least 36 HBCUs have received 54 such threats. Morehouse College in Atlanta received a bomb threat on Tuesday, prompting students to shelter in place. These threats have been made, officials told the committee, through phone calls, emails, instant messages and online posts.

Don’t worry, the FBI is investigating:

More than a third of America’s 101 historically Black colleges and universities have been targeted by calls or emails threatening to set off bombs on their campuses since early January, with the vast majority arriving during the celebration of Black History Month in February. The threats are being investigated as hate crimes.
At a congressional hearing Thursday, federal law enforcement agencies said they are working aggressively to make arrests in the 59 cases, calling the case their “highest priority.” All six suspects are juveniles, according to the FBI.
Ryan Young, executive assistant director of the FBI intelligence branch, said investigators have identified “one person and a small group,” although some of the threats may have been copycat crimes.
“Our intention is to bring these individuals to justice,” Young told the House Oversight Committee.

Notice that his testimony said nothing about the identity or motives of the suspects — were they white, black, Chinese? wearing MAGA hats? — and because they are juveniles, it is likely that we will never see the mugshots of these young Jussie Smollett imitators.

But these likely hoaxes have served their purpose, giving Democrats an excuse to hold congressional hearings about “hate crimes.”




 

Category: Crime, Racism

The Jan. 6 Witch Hunt Committee

Posted on | March 20, 2022 | Comments Off on The Jan. 6 Witch Hunt Committee

Tristan Justice at The Federalist calls attention to a Washington Post article which admits that the committee “investigating” the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot is not actually an investigation, but is instead “a key part of the Democrats midterm strategy.” Because some of my acquaintances have been targets of this witch hunt, I can vouch for one main point that Tristan Justice is making, namely that the committee is pursuing “severe retribution against those involved with a constitutionally protected rally” — i.e., the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse, in front of the White House, which is nearly 2 miles from the Capitol — “as opposed to perpetrators of the Capitol riot.”

In addition to this dishonest conflation of the legal, peaceful “Stop the Steal” rally with the riot at the Capitol, the Jan. 6 witch hunt committee is an effort to smear everybody who thinks the 2020 election wasn’t on the up-and-up as a dangerous menace — a threat to “Our Democracy.”

In a larger sense, what the Jan. 6 witch hunt is about is making Donald Trump an issue in the midterms, to distract from the glaring failures of the Biden administration by ginning up fear and hatred to motivate Democratic voters still afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome. The committee has kept up the scare by feeding leaks to the media, giving MSNBC and CNN an excuse to run stories about who has been subpoenaed, and various tidbits of who said what to who on the day of the riot, as if these details add anything useful to our understanding of what happened that day. There is no actual evidence that the organizers of the “Stop the Steal” rally were in cahoots with the separate group of people who breached security at the Capitol; there are no allegations of criminal activity by the rally organizers, yet they have had their phone records seized as part of the committee’s “investigation.”

Intelligent and honest people can see this witch hunt for what it is, but there are enough stupid and dishonest people out there to create an audience for the Democrats’ midterm message, which the media will amplify as loudly as possible in the lead-up to the November elections.




 

Category: Congress, Democrats
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