Day 14, Phase 2

Likeable Moments of Self-deprecation

As Ukraine braces for a second round, the West has a duty to step up by Danid Ignatius (The Washington Post. April 8, 2002)

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Maybe we should start by identifying the U.S. Defense Department officials who came to this erroneous conclusion. And put them in sacks. While we’re at it, let’s cut off funding to Fred at the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats dream factory and use the saved money to support projects managed by individuals who understand what the fuck is going on.¹

Some simple guidelines:

• Diplomacy doesn’t work with fascists intent on committing a genocide.²

• Take what Ukrainian officials say with a grain of salt.³

• Pick macroeconomists specializing in Ukraine carefully.⁴

• It’s difficult for someone to accept outside surgical assessments when she’s on the operating table.⁵

Photo c/o Третя Сила

Needless to say, I remain disappointed with reports about the involvement of Belarus in Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine.

A close reading of the increasingly voluminous revisionist reports discloses many further examples of events that one thinks cannot really be true, or cannot be true if the quasi-official or consecrated narrative is to remain regnant.

• Has Brian Whitmore ever actually been in Minsk?

• How can anyone take Grigoriy Ioffe seriously?

• When did Ilya Ponomarev become an expert on Belarus?

Let’s beef up our cadre of Belarus experts, instead of reinforcing a series of tropes that were already familiar to students of ready-made gepolitical rhetoric.

Before it’s too late.

1. Whether Ukraine requires the additional fire power to prevent the situation from devolving further into barbarity is no longer debatable. Its own army, territorial defense units and volunteer hit squads have done an excellent job, so far. The last time I checked, officials had even released members of the Tornado death squad from prison to help keep the peace. (Day 14, Mar 9, 2022)

2. Last time I checked, Russia was waiting for info about what the results of the next Putin-Biden meeting would be before promising to attend it, if, of course, Putin doesn’t first recognize the independence of Russia-occupied puppet republics in Donbas and further invade Ukraine. (In Principle, If, Feb 21, 2022)

3. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has for weeks has been assuring us that the likelihood of military escalation and a further Russian invasion is rather low. (On the Roasting of Chicken, Feb 19, 2022)

4. Many emerging market gurus suffer from something called ‘imposter syndrome,’ a perpetual fear that someone will find out they don’t know what they’re talking about. (Lost in Translation, Feb 4, 2022)

5. Ending Russia’s war against Ukraine is complicated by the inadequacy of formal equality and traditional approaches to justice when addressing crimes committed using state power, including lots of indiscriminate killing. (Fiddling on Ukraine’s Roof, Dec 17, 2021)