Political Posts

[no_free_lunch]

On 11/20/2022 at 10:28 AM, Xerxes said:

 

No relation. Just a coincidence. It was always bound to happen. People had it with the elite pillaging the country. The actual trigger could have been anything. These things cannot be predicted in terms of timing. 
 

Now that is not to say Israel/U.S./Saudi are not taking advantage and doing what whatever that they do best. (I.e creating more problems and making life miserable for the commoners) 

 

 

I will just drop this one as if I am the only one believing it I'm likely wrong.  For what it's worth, I was implying more the latter of what you said, the protests are completely independent but the western media and intelligence will take the opportunity and do what it can to further revolt.

[Xerxes]

The Western and Israeli intelligence are not saint, if they could create a civil war at a cost of 100,000+ death they would. No ethics. It be would be as easy as drinking water. No second thoughts. All fun and game. And 15 years later they would get Michael Bay make a Hollywood movie about a few fancy Navy Seals doing “heroic” things. A broken country is far less likely to be a threat than a stronger one.

 

But fair is fair, this specific situation is on Iran’ own government mismanagement of resources along other things (a very long list). And it has been compounding for a long time. Sadly Western sanctions made the bad actors stronger as they control the international trade routes, borders. The initial blame though lies squarely with one person only (“paramount leader” and his cronies), who on an unrelated note, interestingly enough is not even Persian but is an ethnic Azerbaijani lol. 
 

What is so unique about the death of that lady was that she was a nobody. Just came to visit the capital as tourist. She was not an activist. She was not journalist. She was not trying to make troubles with government. Just a normal person from the provinces going to visit Tehran. And that struck a chord with people, who saw her as themselves, or their own sister etc. 

[Spekulatius]

@Xerxes It looks like the situation in Iran gets more and more out of control. It’s not just about womens rights in major cities, there now minorities protesting as well in the South (Belutshistan ) and the North (Kurdistan). Once you start to use tanks against citizens, there is no going back, this either gets under control, or the government topples and their heads may roll as well.

[Dinar]

1 hour ago, Xerxes said:

The Western and Israeli intelligence are not saint, if they could create a civil war at a cost of 100,000+ death they would. No ethics. It be would be as easy as drinking water. No second thoughts. All fun and game. And 15 years later they would get Michael Bay make a Hollywood movie about a few fancy Navy Seals doing “heroic” things. A broken country is far less likely to be a threat than a stronger one.

 

But fair is fair, this specific situation is on Iran’ own government mismanagement of resources along other things (a very long list). And it has been compounding for a long time. Sadly Western sanctions made the bad actors stronger as they control the international trade routes, borders. The initial blame though lies squarely with one person only (“paramount leader” and his cronies), who on an unrelated note, interestingly enough is not even Persian but is an ethnic Azerbaijani lol. 
 

What is so unique about the death of that lady was that she was a nobody. Just came to visit the capital as tourist. She was not an activist. She was not journalist. She was not trying to make troubles with government. Just a normal person from the provinces going to visit Tehran. And that struck a chord with people, who saw her as themselves, or their own sister etc. 

Do you think that had ayatollah Montazeri became supreme leader, things would have been different and how?

[Xerxes]

6 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

@Xerxes It looks like the situation in Iran gets more and more out of control. It’s not just about womens rights in major cities, there now minorities protesting as well in the South (Belutshistan ) and the North (Kurdistan). Once you start to use tanks against citizens, there is no going back, this either gets under control, or the government topples and their heads may roll as well.

Agreed. And a paranoid regime could be at its worse. Tightening the screws even more. 
 

The other alternative is that the people with the most to lose (elite* with commercial interests) would throw in the towel with the current masters (Clerics) and outcome of that would be nationalist regime but in the hands of military (elements of IRGC perhaps) and the likes bent to do major reform but also to keep its interest. 

*they have red lines too. 
 

But I don’t think you ll see a wholesale 1979 like situation. If it’s close to that, external forces wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to interfere (if not already), and if done overtly as an attempt to break the nation, this may act as a dampener. Just like how Iraqi invasion in 1980 acted as a unifying forces and ultimately made the regime what it is today. 
 

 

[Xerxes]

6 hours ago, Dinar said:

Do you think that had ayatollah Montazeri became supreme leader, things would have been different and how?

I heard his name a lot when I was a kid. He was the “heir” before losing to an internal coup and being put in house arrest permanently. If Khamenei survived for +30 years it was only due to how cunning he was in eliminating rivals.

 

It is really hard to say (answer yr question) but I would say there is everything wrong when power and religion are mixed into one voice. The little I know of Montazeri was that he could have been the passive “paramount leader” on the top. 
 

 

[james22]

What we’re witnessing is, in short, the least expensive generational kneecapping of a geopolitical rival in world history.

 

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2022/11/21/some-hard-truths-about-the-russo-ukraine-war-n1647585

[UK]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-24/china-regulator-s-new-buzzword-fuels-buying-spree-in-state-firms?leadSource=uverify wall

 

A new term coined by China’s securities chief has investors debating whether it implies a premium for state-owned firms and companies better aligned with national goals. A “valuation system with Chinese characteristics” has become the latest buzzword, after China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Yi Huiman devised the term during a speech this week and proposed a new method of valuing state, private and foreign controlled firms. 

[UK]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-24/kremlin-faces-rising-ire-from-wives-mothers-of-mobilized-troops?srnd=premium-europe

 

In a video appeal posted by Verstka on Nov. 9, the wife of one those mobilized said his company commander revealed that only about 30 out of 200 men had made it to safety after they came under fire in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine. In another video posted a day later by a group of 20 women on the Russian border with Ukraine, they vowed to go to the front line to recover their husbands and sons and brothers. “If they don’t come out and help us, we’ll go, including a pregnant girl,” one of them said, adding that their relatives were without body armor or helmets and dragging wounded comrades with them.

 

 

[John Hjorth]

Heartbreaking post by @UK above.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/man-mothers-wives-russian-soldiers-154601275.html

 

A dictators worst nightmare and foe: "Are you a man or not?" : The russian mothers! 

 

Russian worker arriving at home after a long working day - hungry and tired :

 

Wifey at dinner table : "When are you going to do something about it?"

 

Hungry and tired husband, a bit puzzled : "What?"

 

Wifey: "My son!"

 

Hungry and tired husband : "What should I do about it?"

 

Wifey: "You'd better figure it out. ... Untill you have, this meal is last one I served for you. And say welcome to the couch at night untill you have."

 

Hunger and crossed legs are roots for revolutions. 

[Xerxes]

The rent-seeking system will save itself before that happens. Too much at stake ! 
 

Putin’s vertical of power or not, such overt failure is not looked upon kindly and nor tolerated. If he cannot end the war satisfactorily, than the system (not people) would move against him. 
 

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Xerxes

[John Hjorth]

@Xerxes,

 

It has actually happened in Russia before. 1998 Russian miners' strike . 

 

I think it was @Cigarbutt who posted about it in some relevant and related context some years ago here on CoBF.

[Xerxes]

Thanks. I am less familiar with that period. 
 

I referred to the word “system” in my earlier post. Going back to Yeltsin era, I would say that the “system” in the 90s was the oligarchs, who decreed by consensus. And they did save themselves (or so they thought) by backing Putin at the time. 
 

The “system” today is unlike that of the 1990s with the de-centralized gang of oligarchs. The “system” today is the Russian political and security establishment that presides over an immense amount of wealth and assets that have been accumulated over the past two decades. At the very top seats the patriarch.

 

If the war continues to take a political and economic toll, in my opinion that rent-seeking establishment will move first and fast before such ‘revolutionary’ ideas take hold and topples the whole complex. 
 

There are no Vulcans in the Kremlin, but they do follow the ethos that “the need of the many outweighs the need of the one”

 

Who and what comes after, we don’t know. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Xerxes

[John Hjorth]

@Xerxes,

 

The whole thing going on since February this year is just pure play madness - and very grim, indeed.

 

You are in Canada, I'm living [basically - on surface - still in calm and peace] - in the distance of about 1,200 km from Kyiv, about 20½ hours by car - in the northern part of Europe.

 

Mentally it's tangible [if something even can be mental and tangible at the same time].

Edited November 24, 2022 by John Hjorth
Spelling

[no_free_lunch]

I fear that Russia is a long ways from the point of revolution or "rent seeking".  Hope to be proven wrong but it seems this can continue.   From what I have read, they are targeting conscription in the poorer parts of the country and from their ethnic minorities.  In the major cities there is less of a push.  Also the infamous use of prisoners as cannon fodder to buy time and keep the hot spots busy.   

 

The Russian sources I follow talk of a buildup of military production.  Extra shifts, production on onverdrive, that sort of thing.  Could be just propaganda but it seems plausible.  I hope that western sanctions limit the effectiveness of their equipment but then it seems they can just buy from China or perhaps India to bypass, I am not sure how rock solid the sanctions are in that case.  Certainly oil continues to flow.

 

I still feel that Ukraine needs to push and take the pain to try to gain more territory and as fast as possible.  Russia has this history of taking losses so better to try to grind them down before they can replace the qualified men and equipment.   Maybe just maybe, there is still a military option and they can force some sort of near collapse of the Russian army.  My main concern right now is actually some type of peace deal, not that I don't want peace - I do, but that it will never be honored and the fighting will just continue in a year or two.   They need to get Russia out now and then fine, there can be a peace deal.

Edited November 25, 2022 by no_free_lunch

[Xerxes]

3 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

@Xerxes,

 

The whole thing going on since February this year is just pure play madness - and very grim, indeed.

 

You are in Canada, I'm living [basically - on surface - still in calm and peace] - in the distance of about 1,200 km from Kyiv, about 20½ hours by car - in the northern part of Europe.

 

Mentally it's tangible [if something even can be mental and tangible at the same time].

we are blessed with two large bodies of water protecting our western and eastern flanks.
 

a southern neighbour that is culturally, economically, politically aligned with us and a northern frontier guarded by polar bears and one or two CF-188s.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Xerxes

[Cigarbutt]

2 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

@Xerxes,

 

It has actually happened in Russia before. 1998 Russian miners' strike . 

 

I think it was @Cigarbutt who posted about it in some relevant and related context some years ago here on CoBF.

i'm not planning to get 'involved' here.

It wasn't me; the closest possible post was about Gorbachev's biography by Taubman, in 2018.

But it's been said that societies are potentially only (#) meals away from revolution/anarchy.

For #, historically, people have used 3,4 or 9 using a similar figure of style (Hemingway, The Sun also Rises) as for bankruptcy, gradually then suddenly.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Cigarbutt
minor correction

[Blugolds]

On 11/21/2022 at 8:42 AM, Spekulatius said:

He is clearly wrong. Got to move on.

 

Agreed, own it, this behavior is actually a classic out of the Putin playbook 

 

Admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations

[UK]

Yesterday I heard Oleksiy Arestovych interview on a radio and I understand that a lot of it was one sided and propaganda etc, but I think he also provided some interesting speculations about how this could end. So, as Xerxes suggest, he also sees a possible move by a "system", but is very skeptical, that the outcome of changing Putin would be any different and more likely even worse. So then he said the confidence in Russia's army and Putin is almost broken, but to end everything you have to break confidence in Russia itself and for that you have to make some more breakthroughs as in Kharkiv and better yet to take Crimea back. Then you would hope and watch for some regional fission in Russia itself. These were only speculations and for now all they want is, like no_free_lunch suggests, to Russian army from Ukraine (not negotiating until then) and the only thing they need for that is more western weapons arriving faster, because currently they are still delivered too slowly, forcing them to stop/accumulate before major moves ant allowing Russians to take a breath/regroup. And on possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, he said that Russians recently were informed very clearly about possible consequences of doing this, and said that one of them is that Putin himself then would become a target and therefore he thinks that he clearly got the message on this subject. 

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by UK

[Xerxes]

7 hours ago, UK said:

So, as Xerxes suggest, he also sees a possible move by a "system", but is very skeptical, that the outcome of changing Putin would be any different and more likely even worse. 

Just to clarify my comment.
 

A possible move by the “system” against its patriarch is not meant to please the West or end of the war. But to save the whole complex from being toppled, if pressure goes up really high internally to the point of no return. The outcome will be whatever it will be but the complex will be preserved at all cost.
 

Where we are in that “pressure gauge” we have no idea. 
 

@no_free_lunch

 

On your comment about peace, I would argue that (1) Ukraine can re-arm and heal much much faster than Russia while it has the goodwill of the West and a flow of aid. But that goodwill will not last forever (war fatigue is a real thing) (2) Russia is at the point of not being able to try again anything for a very long time (3) the real political change/consequences and backlash in Moscow will happen AFTER the war ends and Russian troops are back in their base and homes. Not before. It will be a political shitstorm, which the system cannot deal with because there is a war. Once that ends the internal squabbling will really start. 
 

A peace may cost Ukraine some territories. Not the first time an aggressor takes another one’ territory nor will be the last time.
 

Zelensky’ call to make, and happily not mine. 

Edited November 25, 2022 by Xerxes

[Xerxes]

 

convicts/criminals in front, followed by freshly drafted conscripts, followed by regular season forces holding the rear and shooting deserters. 

[UK]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-27/china-covid-unrest-boils-over-as-citizens-defy-lockdown-efforts?srnd=premium-europe

 

The widespread dissent has raised concern that the government may respond with a crackdown to stifle further protests. “I think a crackdown is predictable. I think that will happen,” said Link at the University of California. “The determination that a man like Xi Jinping has to fight back is ironclad. He'll go to the mat.”

[UK]

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-moscow-fa5db922708b22b212f546b2f84a7cfb

 

“We must understand that the whole world is watching us. We are the largest state and when we do not have socks, shorts, doctors, intelligence, communications, or simply care for our children, questions arise that will be very difficult to answer,” he said.

[maplevalue]

9 hours ago, UK said:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-27/china-covid-unrest-boils-over-as-citizens-defy-lockdown-efforts?srnd=premium-europe

 

The widespread dissent has raised concern that the government may respond with a crackdown to stifle further protests. “I think a crackdown is predictable. I think that will happen,” said Link at the University of California. “The determination that a man like Xi Jinping has to fight back is ironclad. He'll go to the mat.”

 

Crackdown or not, it increasingly seems like the days of COVID-0 in its most extreme form (i.e. Shanghai lockdowns) is pretty much over. The risk to social stability is probably greater with continuing lockdowns than having uncontrolled spread (think India when it got hit with Delta, it obviously was bad, but the wave was over in a month).

[competitive-advantage]

https://www.berlingske.dk/globalt/det-er-aar-2026-og-nu-kommer-kinas-invasion-ikke-siden-d-dag-har-vi-set
 

Translation:
“It is the year 2026 and now comes China's invasion. Not since D-Day have we seen anything so violent

Once many made fun of those who feared an invasion. Now their laughter has hardened. Berlingske has gone through a number of so-called war simulations, and here we present them as a digital narrative. The simulations show us how the battle for Taiwan can take place. If you're not worried yet, you will be.

 Taiwan is not just the island of Taiwan. Around it lie several small islands. Some are so close to mainland China that you can see them with the naked eye. It is a big, strategic challenge. Photo: Ann Wang/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix (archive)
Taiwan is not just the island of Taiwan. Around it lie several small islands. Some are so close to mainland China that you can see them with the naked eye. It is a big, strategic challenge.
Photo: Ann Wang/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix (archive)
Sunday 27 November 2022, at 10.26
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ALEXANDER SJOBERG
Asia Correspondent
 gauth-kenneth.holm-dahlin
KENNETH HOLM-DAHLIN
Motion graphics designer

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It is counting on ballistic missiles. Bases in Japan and on Guam are being wiped out. The US is busy with a conflict in Europe. China's attack comes as a shock.

Hundreds of fighter jets and two aircraft carriers lie on the bottom of the sea. This is what everyone has feared. The year is 2026 and China's invasion of Taiwan is underway.

One by one, the small islands surrounding Taiwan itself have been swallowed up by China's mighty military. Now comes the trip to the main island. The Chinese put everything on one board, and one“