Posts Tagged ‘Daily Mail’

Ukraine Switching To A War Of Attrition Against Russia?

Sunday, February 4th, 2024

Two videos on increasing Russian logistics difficulties in the Russo-Ukrainian War. First up: A video that suggests Ukraine has switched from a territory recapture strategy to an attrition strategy.

  • “Russia is burning whether it’s oil terminals on the Baltic and the Black Sea, factories in far-flung Siberia, or military bases in Crimea, it seems almost every day something bursts into flames in Putin’s backyard. And Ukraine is thought to be the one behind it.” It’s an open question whether structure hits in places like Siberia are Ukrainian “werewolf” teams operating behind enemy lines, or native anti-Putin/anti-war (or even anti-Russian) partisans, but the effect seems the same: Russia now has to worry about attacks to its military, transport, energy, and manufacturing infrastructure far from the frontlines in Ukraine.
  • Zelensky warned Putin that if Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with indiscriminate missile attacks again, Ukraine would hit back. When it did, “Ukraine struck back a fire at the electrical substation outside Moscow, plunged three districts of the capital into darkness. Water pipes also burst, leaving people freezing in their homes. The plague of accidents soon spread to the cities of Omsk and Novosibirsk, deep in Siberia, which were left without heating as temperatures fell below -2.” Actually, Omsk and Novosibirsk aren’t “deep” in Siberia, because the place is so vast there another five time zones east of there.
  • “Soon after attacks began on critical infrastructure, including oil refineries upon which Putin’s economy relies. To date, three refineries have been blown up or set on fire, including two which were hit by long-range Ukrainian drones. One of those the Ust-Luga oil refinery near St. Petersburg, is almost 600 miles from Ukraine.”
  • “Railways and factories have also been blown up or burned down at the same time the Ukrainians have stepped up their campaign against Crimea.” Naval successes we’ve covered here already skipped.
  • At this point the video argues that Ukraine’s strategy was to liberate Ukrainian territory, no matter the strategic value. I don’t think that was the case.
  • Following the “failure” of the summer offensive (I would say “limited gains”), “Ukraine is digging in and refocusing liberation of territory is no longer the main goal hitting Russia where it hurts most.”
  • “Ukraine knows that victory in a long war depends on two things above all else: The will of people to keep fighting, and the ability of the country to provide weapons for them to fight with, and that’s where these drone missile and sabotage attacks come in.”
  • It then argues (as many others have) that Crimea is Putin’s main weakness, and that losing it will cripple his prestige and ability to stay in power and continue the war.

    • I think there has been a shift in Ukrainian strategy, but that shift has mainly been driven by the development and availability of longer-ranged weapons Ukraine lacked earlier in the war, combined with the effects of a long-term campaign to degrade Russia air power, naval assets and SAM systems, opening up avenues for longer range strikes. Ukraine focused on attacking Russia’s logistics systems right after the Battle of Kiev was won, but now they have the capability to hit much deeper into Russia’s logistics infrastructure.

    Actually, I’m surprised there haven’t been any reported attacks on the Trans-Siberian Railway, given what a long, slender link that is. A few medium-to-long range drone teams inserted into northern Kazakhstan or Mongolia could wreck real havoc on trains, lines, bridges, etc.

    Next, a video from Kanal 13 (very much a pro-Ukrainian source) suggests that the war and sanctions are cratering Russia’s military industrial complex.

  • “The Russian military industrial complex is being destroyed because of the war against Ukraine.”
  • Dimitri Fidive, CEO of the Muram Machine Building Plant, wrote in an email intercepted by the activists, that inflation and the shortcomings of Russia’s bureaucratic approach prevents plants that form the country’s military industrial complex from fulfilling government orders.”
  • “Plants are forced to sell their goods at prices set in 2019, but are at the same time expected to purchase details at market prices and in advance.”
  • “The money received from the government was not enough to cover the interest on the credit that his firm would need to take out to pay its suppliers.”
  • “Money is tied up until the completion of the government contracts, which normally last 3 to 5 years, meaning during this time the money is effectively frozen.”
  • “There is a shortage of staff at the plants due to both mass mobilization and a lack of accommodation [housing] in the area.”

    • Hell of a way to run a railroad. One wonders how extensive these problems are with other companies in Russia’s military industrial complex

    Ukraine’s strategy has shifted more in relation to the way the war developed, and the changing availability of western weapons, than any fundamental shift in strategy. It became apparent that this was going to be a war of attrition in the first year, and the question of which would break first: The west’s willingness to send Ukraine weapons, or Russia’s economy and ability to wage it’s illegal war of territorial aggression?

    Nothing about that strategy has changed, only Ukraine’s greater reach to affect the latter.

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    Posted in Economics, Foreign Policy, Military, video | 16 Comments »

    More Ways For Trump to Troll the Press

    Saturday, February 25th, 2017

    The mainstream media’s latest freakout de jour came when the Trump Administration excluded several traditional outlets from White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s Q&A session on Friday afternoon:

    Among the outlets not permitted to cover the gaggle were various news organizations that Trump has singled out in the past including CNN, The NYT, The Hill, Politico, BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail, BBC, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Daily News.

    Several non mainstream outlets were allowed into Spicer’s office, including Breitbart, the Washington Times and One America News Network. Several other major news organizations were also let in to cover the gaggle. That group included ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Reuters and Bloomberg, however AP and Time have boycotted the event.

    Let’s examine these blameless victims of Trump’s heartless war on our hallowed free press:

  • BuzzFeed is garbage. “People are losing their minds over this Buzzfeed trolling headline!”
  • There are plenty of reasons CNN was dubbed the Clinton News Network last year.
  • Politico and The Hill do some good reporting, but they’ve been heavily slanted against both Trump and Republicans for quite a while.
  • The Daily Mail might, at first glance, be a surprise, since they are perceived as quite right-leaning in the UK for their willingness to cover some stories (like sex crimes committed by Muslim immigrants) other outlets won’t touch. But then there’s the tiny matter of them calling the First Lady a prostitute…
  • BBC news leans pretty far left these days (though not as far left as The Guardian). UK PM Theresa May should push to privatize the Beeb, or at least spin off the news division, allowing the BBC to focus on core competencies like Doctor Who.
  • I so seldom read or link to the Los Angeles Times and the New York Daily News that I don’t feel qualified to offer an opinion.

    • And that leaves the New York Times, the once proud paper that so grossly abandoned even a pretense of objectivity to demonize Trump throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign. This, I think, is the one that will bring most howls of outrage on the left, given how heavily they’re invested in the idea that the “Old Gray Lady” is still a great paper in its prime rather than a declining hard-left regional daily partially owned by a shady Mexican billionaire. Indeed, many liberals seem to celebrate the “specialness” of the New York Times for the second-hand ego gratification “specialness” of being Times readers.

    My suspicion is that the Trump Administration has engineered this outrage to bury some sort of document or policy dump (you know, just like Obama used to do). But it also has the salutatory effect of inducing still more status anxiety in the traditional dinosaurs of the press perturbed at being supplanted by such ostracized mammals as Breitbart and the Washington Times.

    If mainstream media outlets don’t want to be excluded from White House briefings due to bias, maybe they should stop putting out fake and biased news. Sure, investigate Trump when he deserves it. But where was all this “extreme vetting” when Obama was President for eight years?

    I actually have a few ideas on how President Trump might troll the media still further:

  • Trump should tell the New York Times that he’ll let them back into media briefings if they fire Glenn Thrush. Remember Thrush? He was the one that actually sought copy approval from Team Hillary during the campaign while working for Politico. In the bygone days of yore, that sort of naked political sycophancy got reporters fired, but the New York Times decided that slavish subservience to Democratic Party power-brokers was exactly what they wanted in their newsroom, so they hired him after the election. Asking for Thrush’s head would force the media to talk about just how badly so many outlets were in the tank for Hillary in 2016, and the incestuous relationships between the mainstream media and the Democratic Party.
  • Trump should tell CNN that he’ll let them back into media briefings if they fire everyone who attended “a private, off-the-record gathering at the New York home of Joel Benenson, the chief campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton, two days before she announced her candidacy in 2015.” That would include Brianna Keilar, David Chalian, Gloria Borger, Jeff Zeleny, John Berman, Kate Bolduan, Mark Preston and Sam Feist (assuming one or more haven’t already left in the interim).
  • Trump should offer to let Bernie Sanders pick one reporter to attend White House briefings, and promise to let them ask at least one question. After all, Sanders was on the pointy end of Team Clinton’s 2016 screwjob. Letting him pick a reporter would not only force the media to revisit the screwjob, it would add fuel to the inter-party fight to control the DNC. Plus, while Sanders would probably be pressured to pick the New York Times, he could pick anybody: The Nation, the Addison County Independent, the Socialist Worker or the People’s World. Hell, he could pick David Icke to ask Trump if he’s a shape-changing reptoid. (Would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?)

    • These are just a few off the top of my head.

    Reporting used to be a blue collar profession anyone could join if they worked hard and could write. These days they seem more like a credentialed priestly class open only to those with the right (i.e. left) backgrounds and political beliefs. Suspending slanted outlets from briefing events is far less of a blow to a free press than their willing subservience to the Democratic Party. Let them start acting like reporters again rather than (to quote Glenn Reynolds) “Democratic operatives with bylines.”

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    Posted in Democrats, Media Watch | No Comments »

    Camille Paglia Interview Part 2: Media Watch

    Thursday, July 30th, 2015

    And here’s the second part of that Camille Paglia interview. Choice quotes:

  • “‘Sneering at religion is juvenile, symptomatic of a stunted imagination.’ It exposes a state of perpetual adolescence that has something to do with their parents—they’re still sneering at dad in some way.”
  • “All the great world religions contain a complex system of beliefs regarding the nature of the universe and human life that is far more profound than anything that liberalism has produced.”
  • “The real problem is a lack of knowledge of religion as well as a lack of respect for religion. I find it completely hypocritical for people in academe or the media to demand understanding of Muslim beliefs and yet be so derisive and dismissive of the devout Christian beliefs of Southern conservatives.”
  • “I think Stewart’s show demonstrated the decline and vacuity of contemporary comedy. I cannot stand that smug, snarky, superior tone.”
  • “I don’t demonize Fox News. At what point will liberals wake up to realize the stranglehold that they had on the media for so long? They controlled the major newspapers and weekly newsmagazines and T.V. networks. It’s no coincidence that all of the great liberal forums have been slowly fading.”
  • “Liberals think of themselves as very open-minded, but that’s simply not true! Liberalism has sadly become a knee-jerk ideology, with people barricaded in their comfortable little cells. They think that their views are the only rational ones, and everyone else is not only evil but financed by the Koch brothers. It’s so simplistic!”
  • “It is everyone’s obligation, whatever your political views, to look at both liberal and conservative news sources every single day. You need a full range of viewpoints to understand what is going on in the world.”

    • Things Paglia is a fan of: Drudge, Salon, The Guardian and The Daily Mail. Not a fan: Christopher Hitchens.

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    Posted in Democrats, Media Watch | No Comments »

    More UK Riot Coverage From The World Of The Daily Mail

    Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

    Two notable features of the recent round of riots wrecking havoc across the UK is the complete lack of remorse among the rioters, and the lack of any sort of overriding cause to the disorder other than the fact they could get away with it.

    Both can be seen on display in this interview with two Manchester rioters, who said they were doing it because they could get away with it, and would continue doing it until they were caught.

    This essay analyzes the rioters with depressing familiarity:

    If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week’s rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame.

    Most have no jobs to go to or exams they might pass. They know no family role models, for most live in homes in which the father is unemployed, or from which he has decamped.

    They are illiterate and innumerate, beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and BlackBerries.

    They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong.

    They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.

    [snip]

    A former London police chief spoke a few years ago about the ‘feral children’ on his patch — another way of describing the same reality.

    The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call ‘lives’: they simply exist.

    [snip]

    Not only do they know nothing of Britain’s past, they care nothing for its present.

    They have their being only in video games and street-fights, casual drug use and crime, sometimes petty, sometimes serious.

    The notions of doing a nine-to-five job, marrying and sticking with a wife and kids, taking up DIY or learning to read properly, are beyond their imaginations.

    Read the whole thing.

    I want to point out that the above comes from that most derided of British newspapers, The Daily Mail. Disdain for The Daily Mail runs high from liberals on both sides of the Atlantic. But those who follow (even casually) its steady diet of stories on England’s cultural decline, and the rising incidents of casual violence from England’s permanent dole underclass, the recent riots are sad, but hardly shocking. Month after month, year after year, The Daily Mail has been reporting on the nature of those who have been rampaging through the streets these last few days. For political reasons, tony British liberals, safe in their secure upscale neighborhoods, have been disinclined to listen to those reports.

    So which newspaper do you think more adequately reflects the reality of the English underclass? The Guardian, or The Daily Mail?

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    Posted in Crime, Welfare State | 1 Comment »