Fascists are good at starting wars, incompetent to win them

After not posting for a week I then didn’t post for five days. I now have 212 active browser tabs and some of them now look like old news. So many will get a brief mention or simply closed. The last time I wrote was already after the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The big news about 10 days ago was Biden’s surprise visit to Kyiv as a show of support. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote about the visit. He included tweets from various people that included photos. The photos include Biden walking outside with Zelenskyy as they ignore air raid sirens going off. There’s also the bit about Biden telling Russia that he’s going to Kyiv and if Russia launches anything in his general area the US will interpret that as an act of war. Russia stood down. Hunter of Kos called Biden’s trip a diplomatic masterstroke. That left Republicans fuming, a few complaining that Biden cares more for Ukraine than he does for the US (not that Republicans care for the US). Sumner reported how much Biden’s visit resonated across Ukraine, appreciated by citizens and soldiers. The photo at the top of the post shows a soldier holding up his phone that has a photo of Biden and Zelenskyy shaking hands. Olga Tokariuk tweeted that Biden’s visit is huge – a massive show of US support for Ukraine. She included a photo of Biden in front of Kyiv’s Wall of Remembrance. That day marked the 9th anniversary of the mass shooting of pro-democracy protesters in Kyiv. The shooting was ordered by pro-Russian president Yanukovych. Most Ukrainians consider that to be the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Posing in front of the paintings on that memorial wall is a powerful statement of solidarity. Alexander Kamyshin of Ukrainian Railways tweeted a short thread about the honor of creating Rail Force One to get Biden from the Polish border to Kyiv and back again. That’s ten hours each way for a four hour visit. The Ukrainian Railways have been vital in keeping the country together during the war. Alas, while Biden was in transit they had to let their On Time Performance drop to 90%. David Neiwert of Kos talked about the Wagner Group, the mercenaries that are still trying to take Bakhmut with mounting Russian casualties. Neiwert began his post with:

Historians and other observers have often noted that, while fascists are very good at starting wars, they are inevitably incompetent when it comes to executing them. “Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy,” wrote Umberto Eco in his seminal essay on “Ur-Fascism.” This is essentially a cognitive flaw, caused by their fundamental insistence on trying to force reality to conform to their view of the world. Which is why a neofascist armed force like Russia’s Wagner Group is being ground into hamburger—forming a sea of crosses in one rural cemetery, comprised mostly of the cannon fodder it has recruited out of Russian prisons—as its mercenaries wage war in Ukraine on behalf of Vladimir Putin.

Neiwert included a small example. Wagner had been recruiting Russian prisoners, telling them their chances of living were small, but if they lived they would be released from prison. One of those prisoners said, “We couldn’t retreat without orders because if we don’t comply with the order, we will be killed.” He then described a man who refused an order and was killed. Charles Jay of the Kos community wrote about the reaction of Russian pundits to Biden’s visit. Some sputtered that they should have killed Biden while they had the chance. Others said that leaving Kamala Harris as president would be worse for Russia. Perhaps they should have killed Boris Johnson when he visited Kyiv last April while he was British Prime Minister. Of course, they added a great deal of bluster. The day before the war’s anniversary Sumner wrote the Russian military didn’t have any victories for Putin to crow about. In amongst other topics of the status of the war Sumner included a video of a protest outside the Russian embassy in London. Protesters poured 340 liters of yellow and blue washable paint into the street for traffic to drive through and spread around. Jay also reported that five US House Republicans also visited Zelenskyy in Ukraine and did it the day after Biden. Their message was simple: There are House Republicans who have been very noisy in their support of Russia. But that’s less than a dozen. They don’t control the House, even the House GOP, where support for Ukraine holds firm. Frank Langfitt of NPR talked to Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank, about some of the things Russia did wrong in their invasion a year ago. There was one big mistake – they didn’t tell their soldiers until just before the invasion. It kept the element of surprise, but left the soldiers unprepared, including psychologically. And that led to mistrust between soldiers and officers, which led to friction between them. Langfitt also noted America’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan, which showed divisions between America and NATO. Putin thought he could exploit that. Instead, his actions united NATO. Daily Kos posted a series of articles to mark the anniversary of the start of the war. Kos of Kos wrote about all the pundits who days before the invasion that predicted an easy victory for Russia. Others claimed that the Ukraine army would (or had) disintegrated on contact. Daniel Donner of Kos Elections showed a map of the population of Ukrainian ancestry in each Congressional district across the country. His point was any vote against support for Ukraine would cause a voter backlash. Sumner showed what Mariupol was like before the war destroyed it. Then he discussed the highlights of each month of the war. Kos reviewed how much logistics are important to a military and how bad Russia has been and continues to be at that vital skill. Sumner explained how a progressive news source could provide some of the best coverage of the Ukraine war. Sumner wrote:

There’s a good portion of the populace that seems to correlate progressive with pacifist, and who assume that anti-war means being pro-surrender. Those people are wrong. ... We follow Ukraine day by day, and we do everything we can to support the Ukrainian cause, because we believe now as we did 20 years ago, when this site was founded in the run-up to another invasion, that peace is not a state of idleness, or something achieved through ignoring wrongdoing. Peace is something active, something that must be sought and must be protected—even when the price seems very dear.

That thing 20 years ago was US invasion of Iraq. That leads to an important question:

How could the United States expect others around the world to support its policies when it had also invaded countries?

Sumner added:

How do you heal that rift? By holding America and Western allies to the standards they profess to believe, and by never pretending that something is right just because we did it. What we hope to do in our war coverage at Daily Kos is as simple as half a sentence. Where right-wing media and MAGA politicians often want to stop Carl Schurz’s 1872 statement at “My country, right or wrong,” Daily Kos tries to provide the rest. “If right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” ... For the U.S., the invasion of Iraq still generates a high cost when it comes to trying to justify actions in Ukraine or elsewhere. It’s become a handle by which enemies can drag America down from any attempt to find a moral high ground: You did it. Why can’t we? We were wrong then. Russia is wrong now.

Joan McCarter of Kos reviewed Biden’s speech in Kyiv and heard echoes of similar presidential speeches. There was the speech Franklin Roosevelt gave after returning from Yalta Conference with Chrchill and Stalin towards the end of WWII. I had forgotten that Yalta is in Crimea. There was also John Kennedy’s speech in Berlin still divided after WWII. (Do young people still recognize these guys as FDR and JFK? – asks a guy who remembers the Kennedy assassination.) Jay reported that the first tanks promised by Western countries have now arrived in Ukraine. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki delivered one to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. Reznikov climbed in. A moment later he stuck his head out and said, “Excuse me, where is the road to Moscow?” Kos wrote that no one wants to hang out with Russia. State propagandists lamented the lack of allies and said that as soon as Russia has real successes allies will appear. Sure. Kos then wrote about another vote in United Nations condemning Russia’s invasion and discussing a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in Ukraine. It passed 141-7 with 32 abstentions. Kos also wrote that the idea Russia had the second-best army has been erased. Because of the war Poland has been beefing up its military and Russia is no longer able to intimidate Kazakhstan. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CTSO), Russia’s counterpart to NATO, has fallen apart. Kos included a story from the Associated Press listing some of the ways countries around the world marked the anniversary of the war and showed their support for Ukraine. Landmarks, such as the Sydney Opera House, were lit up in yellow and blue. Rallies were held in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, as well as Europe. Alisa Bushuieva, age 13, was forced to flee Ukraine with her mother at the start of the war. She gave a solo performance at a Liverpool shopping mall.

In Serbia, whose government has maintained friendly relations with Russia and has refused to join Western sanctions designed to punish Moscow for its invasion, police moved in to stop a group of anti-war activists from reaching the Russian Embassy in the capital, Belgrade. The activists wanted to hand over a demand for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be put on trial for genocide in Ukraine. They left a cake, covered with red icing representing blood and with a skull on top of it, on the pavement near the embassy.

Along the way Kos linked to KyivGuy, now posting as part of the Kos community. He is a Kyiv civilian and has been reading Kos to get a daily summary of the war. He posted to give an insider’s view of what’s going on in Ukraine and offered to answer questions. In his first post he wrote of many things, including: The impact of the war on Ukraine’s economy. Ukraine’s mobilization (they have more volunteers than they can train and integrate into their military). What Ukrainian women are doing during the war. In a second post KyivGuy talked about life in Kyiv. It is mostly back to normal and there haven’t been power outages since January. He included stories of people helping each other during outages. The warriors of light, the utility repair workers, are the new heroes, commemorated with postage stamps. Other cities had it much tougher. As for the people they are resilient and determined – 94% believe Ukraine will win. They are learning how to take care of each other and take breaks from the strain. And in Kyiv many feel guilty about not doing enough for frontline towns. I’m now down to 192 browser tabs.