Day 936
Sneakers on the ground
On September 13-14 in Kyiv, Team USA’s former CIA Director and Secretary of State was out and about, gladhanding Z and foreign dignitaries packed in what looked like a large poorly-ventilated basement.
Heat-seeking missile for Donald Trump’s ass Mike Pompeo was the perfect guest for the 20th Annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum, titled “THE NECESSITY TO WIN.1”
Panelists at the two-day dog and pony show said over and over again that Team USA must give Ukraine permission to use long-range weapons paid for by taxpayers of other countries. I am very sick of this.
The last person we want to hear blabbing about the war is David Petraeus, the disgraced ex-CIA director turned talking head Ukrainesplainer. But we listened anyway, because he thinks Kyiv is cool.
The audience [we] should understand that there are a lot more Americans on the ground in Ukraine than we realize. And that’s only to be fair to the United States government and the organization that I led when I was last in government. … We call it ‘sneakers on the ground.’
In other words, bad opsec at Tootsie Club.
[…] We moved what we have in reserves, and what we have in storage, or what is in reserves, the brigades that we need now, what they had, we took all their weapons - Z
Enough with the gibberish. Ukraine needs to get its governance act together, un-botch its military conscription/procurement systems, build fall-back defensive fortications and fix its manifold command and control problems.
More than ten years have passed since the start of the war. Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced and hundreds of thousands killed or wounded. According to the organization David once led, the mortality rate in Ukraine is 18.6 per thousand people, the highest rate in the world. At the same time, the country has the lowest birth rate — only six children per thousand people — and remains mired in political chaos and economic confusion.
What went wrong?
It’s impossible to establish exactly the point during the second half of our 10-year war when function lost is lustre, when churning out Churchillian thoughts became secondary to their presentation on Telemarafon.
Z spent the first two years in office attempting to accommodate the maniac next door.
In 2019, Z cancels Ukraine’s own long-range missile program,
In 2020, Z sacks torpedoes the reformist government, catches covid, appoints a krooked central banker, vacations in Oman,
In 2021, Z ignores repeated warnings from Team USA that Putin is planning to decapitate Kyiv and take over the country,
In 2022, Z remains in Kyiv after the invasion amid (his own) reports that Kadyrovite irregulars want to kill him,
In 2023, Z’s office managers tell us it’s entirely possible we might be sipping coffee in Yalta on the shores of the Black Sea,
In 2024, Z sacks commander-in-chief, concocts a secret 5-point Victory Plan, which he will reveal to Uncle Joe, Kamala and Donald in September.
In a country where politicians and officials tend to frequently change partners, flitting in and out of meetings with Penn, Lula and Milei with almost a sinful absence of fidelity, Z has facilitated the reincarnation of Yanukovych-era flunkies while still hanging out shingles that he is the last best great hope for the country’s subjectiveness.
The result isn't unlike a horrible accident, except it’s been caused by an unemployed actor desperate for attention and applause. You want to laugh and be entertained, but you also want to avoid becoming a victim and paying too much attention to the horribleness of the grisly deaths he has failed to prevent.
The First Day Summary of the 20th YES Annual Meeting. THE NECESSITY TO WIN (September 15, 2024)