If you have a NYT read left, or subscribe, here's a multiple by-line piece on Putin's micromanagement of the war.
American officials briefed on highly sensitive intelligence said that behind the scenes Mr. Putin is taking on an even deeper role in the war, including telling commanders that strategic decisions in the field are his to make. Although Mr. Putin has accepted some recommendations from military commanders, including the mobilization of civilians, his involvement has created tensions, American officials said.
The officials said that Mr. Putin’s rejection of a military pullback from Kherson has also led to a decrease in morale among Russian troops who have been mostly cut off from their supply lines, and who appear to believe they could be left stranded against Ukrainian forces.
For background, Ukrainian forces have severed Russia's supply lines across the Dnipro river and threaten to trap Russian forces near Kherson without food or ammunition. Kherson is the only regional capital the Russians hold and in addition to the possibility that the Ukrainians will destroy Russian units north of the Dnipro, capturing thousands of prisoners and a vast trove of equipment, a defeat there will be further humiliation for Putin. He has simply decreed that it won't happen. But it probably will.
The disastrous war was a vanity project for the autocratic leader. It's all about him -- his power, his glory. And it's leading the nation to ruin. But apparently this is what some 35-40% of Americans want to happen to us.
1 comment:
Well, that number -- 35% to 40% -- seems to be a statistic that holds in terms of the idiocy of the American populace. I'm guessing that 35 to 40% Americans were abused as children, either sexually, physically, emotionally, or a combination of those three. In my mind, anyway, this results in people who are looking to re-create the chaos and cruelty or neglect of their youths, and they gravitate toward leaders who promised to fuck them over, implicitly or otherwise. And nothing seems to change that statistic, because these people don't want to change.
I have an ex-friend like this. She lives in Arkansas. She won't go to 12-step meetings because she's afraid that in such a small town, people at meetings who are supposed to keep each others' secrets won't do so. She's more afraid of change than she is of anything else. I suspect this is the fear for most of that 35 to 40% of Americans. They won't ever change, unless the pain of remaining as they are simply becomes so great that the fear of continuing to stay as they are becomes greater than the fear of changing.
Most people do not change in any way until their backs are against the wall. Many would rather live in horror and fear than change, because they don't know that they're living in horror and fear. First of all, if the horror and fear belong to other people and not them, they don't give a shit. Second, they think it's normal, and it is.
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