#f-16s

theaitetos@diaspora.psyco.fr

Smoking Their Own Supply

The #Neoclowns’ collective #delusion concerning the #global #geostrategic situation is off the freaking charts. They actually believed the recent #Jeddah conference, which accomplished precisely nothing and has already been completely forgotten, was going to be the combination of Versailles and Nuremberg.

Sullivan, the national security adviser, recently brought an American delegation to the second international peace summit earlier this month at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. #India and #China both sent delegations to the session, perhaps drawn to #SaudiArabia for its immense oil reserves. One Indian academic observer dismissed the event as achieving little more than “good advertising for MBS’s convening power within the #GlobalSouth; the kingdom’s positioning in the same; and perhaps more narrowly, aiding American efforts to build consensus by making sure China attends the meeting with . . . #JakeSullivan in the same room.”

Meanwhile, far away on the battlefield in #Ukraine, #Russia continued to thwart Zelensky’s ongoing counteroffensive. I asked an American intelligence official why it was Sullivan who emerged from the Biden administration’s foreign policy circle to preside over the inconsequential conference in Saudi Arabia.

“Jeddah was Sullivan’s baby,” the official said. “He planned it to be Biden’s equivalent of [President Woodrow] Wilson’s Versailles. The grand alliance of the free world meeting in a victory celebration after the humiliating defeat of the hated foe to determine the shape of nations for the next generation. Fame and Glory. Promotion and re-election. The jewel in the crown was to be Zelensky’s achievement of Putin’s unconditional surrender after the lightning spring offensive. They were even planning a #Nuremberg type #trial at the #world-court, with Jake as our representative. Just one more fuck-up, but who is counting?

It’s like they’re getting their strategic direction from the #Marvel #CinematicUniverse. “We can achieve anything, so long as we do it… together!” All that’s missing is a dramatic image of #GirlPower. In the meantime, here’s another fuck-up to add to the growing collection of #ClownWorld #catastrophes:

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has sent letters to #Denmark and #Norway assuring that the #Biden government would expedite approvals for all transfers of #F-16s to Ukraine. In the letters Blinken said that the F-16s would transfered once Ukrainian pilots have completed the Danish and Norwegian lead training program:

I am writing to express the United States’ full support for both the transfer of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and for the training of Ukrainian pilots by qualified F-16 instructors…. It remains critical that Ukraine is able to defend itself against ongoing Russian aggression and violation of its sovereignty.

The letters from Secretary Blinken mark the first time the Biden regime has given a hard commitment to supplying the Ukrainian military with F-16s.

Keep in mind that the only way F-16s could be useful in Ukraine is if they are #nuclear-armed, and even then, the chances that they would survive long enough to get in range of any strategic Russian targets is remote. This isn’t #WWII and air power is now almost entirely useless. Ten more years of technological development should be enough to mark the end of manned aircraft in war due to satellite, targeting, drone swarms, and laser technology.

There is a reason Russia isn’t making much use of its #air #superiority, and that is because it is simply too dangerous to fly over the modern battlefield. Artillery and air defense are now the order of the day.

I suspect Blinken wrote those letters in the hopes that Russia will settle for an armistice long before the pilot training can be completed and the F-16s sent to Ukraine to be shot down… assuming they can be hidden on the ground long enough to avoid being destroyed by hypersonic missiles.

Clown World isn’t just #evil, it is quite literally #deranged. This is the end result of eight decades of relentless lying to everyone, including themselves. Success always plants the seeds of failure, but even a two-bit drug dealer knows better than to smoke his own supply.

brainwavelost@nerdpol.ch

Last Friday when I published my selective account of the Q&A session with President Vladimir Putin at the culmination point of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum I omitted one important issue: how Russia will respond to the dispatch of “Ukrainian” #F-16s from some air base in a #NATO country into the war zone in Ukraine. I was considering remedying that oversight on Saturday morning when a comment from one reader forced my hand. She wrote in that Italy’s daily newspaper La Repubblica quoted Putin as saying on Friday Russia will destroy such a base in response. I responded on Saturday in the Comments section that the Russian President had in fact been evasive in his comment, saying only that Russia could destroy such a base and was now taking the issue under advisement.

However, yesterday evening’s edition of the Vladimir Solovyov talk show indicates that the Republicca reporter was closer to the truth than I. A patient and knowledgeable Russian colonel in retirement who is a frequent guest on the talk show explained that the Kremlin is now considering exactly with what means to destroy such a NATO air base, not whether to do it. And the likely means will be use of tactical nuclear weapons on a #Ramstein or whatever NATO base is involved. We may say that Germany is placing itself in the bulls-eye of any escalation in the #Ukraine war if it proceeds with the F-16s to Ukraine program.

From https://gilbertdoctorow.com/