...this is one of the most egregious fallacies that Ron Paul’s critics regularly trot out: the allegation that, “because A voices agreement with B about statements of fact, then A must be doing so in the service of B.”
To see the fallacy involved clearly, let us draw out the Iraq War comparison a bit more. Before and during that war, in spite of Bush Administration and media propaganda to the contrary, Ron Paul argued that Saddam Hussein did not have a weapons of mass destruction program or ties to Al Qaeda. Saddam argued the same thing. So was Ron Paul just “reciting Baghdad talking points” back then? Was he being a “confused pro-Saddam libertarian”? No. Do you know why Ron Paul was saying the same thing as Saddam? Because it was true. As is widely accepted today, Saddam did nothave a WMD program or ties to Al Qaeda. Is it valorizing Saddam to admit that he told the truth? Again, no; it is simply to abstain from hysterically demonizing him. Of course Saddam was a head of state, and as such, he was a lying murderer. But in this instance, telling the truth happened to serve his interests, which included trying to avoid a war in which he might be overthrown and killed. Ron Paul also told the truth, because he’s not a lying murderer, and because he also wanted to prevent such a disastrous war: although of course not for Saddam’s sake, but for the sake of avoiding all the catastrophic results that would surely (and did) flow from it.
Ron Paul had no love for Saddam then or for Putin today, just as, notwithstanding endless smears to the contrary, there was no love nurtured by Murray Rothbard for Khrushchev, Justin Raimondo for Milosevic, Lew Rockwell for Lukashenko, or Jacob Hornberger for Chavez. Rather, it just so happens that, to paraphrase Stephen Colbert, the truth has a well-known anti-war bias. That is the only reason why, when speaking about the same international crises, principled anti-war voices so frequently find themselves in agreement over points of fact with tyrants who want to avoid being attacked. The truth can, in some cases, happen to serve the purposes of both good and evil men. That doesn’t stop it from being the truth.
Tony Cartalucci also has a great retrospective on Crimea 1 year later:In 2003, NATO-members joined the United States in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. An estimated 1 million people would lose their lives, including thousands of Western troops. For nearly a decade the United State occupied Iraq, and during its attempts to prop up a suitable client regime, laid waste to the nation. American forces in their bid to exercise control over the Iraqi population would conduct sweeping assaults on entire cities. The city of Fallujah would be leveled nearly to the ground, twice.Heck, I don't even see reports of the GRU Abu Ghraib'n any of the ukraNAZIs or Tatar Jihadis in Crimea. They clearly need lessons in how to carry out a criminal occupation if they aren't even torturing their minority populations to death. Maybe Putin should call up the Iraqi
The US also maintained prison camps across the entire nation. Some vast and spanning, others dark and secret, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and the atrocities carried out there. In addition to Western armed forces, a significant number of paid mercenaries participated in both the occupation and the atrocities carried out during it, including the mass killing of civilians resulting in criminal cases still reverberating through Western legal systems and undermining Western credibility worldwide.
This is what real invasions and occupations look like. The armed entrance into a nation, the absolute subjugation of all its people through maximum force - or as the US calls it "shock and awe" - and an occupation by gunpoint with tanks and troops in the streets of a people who do not want them there, and who are willing to fight and die to drive them out.
So when in March of 2014, Crimea was returned to Russia and NATO called the move an "invasion" and "occupation," the world was reasonably concerned. Some were concerned because they equated the words "invasion" and "occupation" with the levels of mass murder and decimation associated with NATO's decades of foreign interventions - believing that such violence was now unfolding in Crimea, this time at the hands of the Russians. Others were concerned because of the obvious falsehood within which NATO was framing events in Crimea.death squads"awakening militias" and the Badr Organization on how to do ethinic cleansing correctly -- otherwise how are we gonna sell all them Putin=Hitler T-shirts???
In all seriousness, if you think this is what a Putin occupation looks like, you've probably never heard of Grozny. Chechnya -- there's a real occupation right there. It's the reason large numbers of Chechen Jihadis are helping the Ukies as we speak. But even then, it was less of a Hitlerite affair, and more FDR/Churchhill. Y'know -- carpet bombing cities until they gave up.
The 'Armata'. Looks fancier than the Abrams, and has nice features. Separated magazine to prevent jack-in-the boxes, autoloader, remote controlled gatling and AT rifles, and chaff. Also pretty low profile; if it can pick up decent speed and has adequate air cover, it'd be hell on wheels.
The PAK-TA is the upcoming heavy-lift craft, and it's got a clever design: Powerful jet for cruising & electric power generation, and electric turbofans for manuvering and extra thrust to get out of ground effect. Certainly less complicated than most vectored thrust systems, and gives you the best of both jet speed and turbofan manuvering. Sounds like it would be a fun thing to fly, supposing it gets off the drawing board.
The available evidence demonstrates at this time that a mature production PAK-FA design has the potential to compete with the F-22A Raptor in VLO performance from key aspects, and will outperform the F-22A Raptor aerodynamically and kinematically. Therefore, from a technological strategy perspective, the PAK-FA renders all legacy US fighter aircraft, and the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, strategically irrelevant and non-viable after the PAK-FA achieves IOC in 2015.The Russkies have been busy. I gotta say, Uncle Sucker is cruisin' for a Bruisin.
Detailed strategic analysis indicates that the only viable strategic survival strategy now remaining for the United States is to terminate the Joint Strike Fighter program immediately, redirect freed funding to further develop the F-22 Raptor, and employ variants of the F-22 aircraft as the primary fighter aircraft for all United States and Allied TACAIR needs.
Poroshenko has declared that private “pocket” armies of governors will no longer be tolerated and he has now given Kolomoiskii 24 hours to lay down arms. Poroshenko’s chief henchmen – Arsen Avakov and the CIA’s Valentin Nalivaichenko – have indicated that Poroshenko has their full support and loyalty. In other words, the full power of the junta is now threatening to come down on Kolomoiskii’s head. Kolomoiskii, in turn, is preparing some kind of pro-Kolomoiskii “maidan” in Dnepropetrovsk for Wednesday. In order to prevent that, several death squads (“national guard battalions”) have been sent to the city.
It sure looks like the freaks are really going to go after each other.
